by Ron Paul
If you thought the “Transportation Security Administration” would limit itself to conducting unconstitutional searches at airports, think again. The agency intends to assert jurisdiction over our nation’s highways, waterways, and railroads as well. TSA launched a new campaign of random checkpoints on Tennessee highways last week, complete with a sinister military-style acronym–VIP(E)R—as a name for the program.
As with TSA’s random searches at airports, these roadside searches are not based on any actual suspicion of criminal activity or any factual evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever by those detained. They are, in effect, completely random. So first we are told by the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens have no 4th amendment protections at border crossings, even when standing on U.S. soil. Now TSA takes the next logical step and simply detains and searches U.S. citizens at wholly internal checkpoints.
The slippery slope is here. When does it end? How many more infringements on our liberties, our property, and our basic human rights to travel freely will it take before people become fed up enough to demand respect from their government? When will we demand that the government heed obvious constitutional limitations, and stop treating ordinary Americans as criminal suspects in the absence of probable cause?
The real tragedy occurs when Americans incrementally become accustomed to this treatment on the roads just as they have become accustomed to it in the airports. We already accept arriving at the airport 2 or more hours before a flight to get through security; will we soon have to build in an extra 2 or 3 hours into our road trips to allow for checkpoint traffic?
Worse, some people are lulled into a false sense of security and are actually grateful for this added police presence! Should we really hail the expansion of the police state as an enhancement to safety? I submit that an attitude of acquiescence to TSA authority is thoroughly dangerous, un-American, and insulting to earlier freedom-loving generations who built this country.
I am certain people will complain about this, once they have to sit in stopped traffic for a few extra hours to allow for random searches of cars. However, I am also certain it merely will take another “foiled” plot to silence many people into gladly accepting more government mismanagement of safety.
Vigilant, observant, law-abiding, gun-owning citizens defend themselves and stop crimes every day before police can respond. That is the source of real security in America: the 2nd Amendment right to defend oneself. The answer is for people to be empowered to protect themselves. Yet how many weapons might these checkpoints confiscate? Even when individual go through all the legal hoops of licensing and permits, the chances of harassment or outright confiscation of weapons and detention of citizens when those weapons are found at a TSA checkpoint is extremely high.
Disarming the highways and filling them full of jack-booted thugs demanding to see our papers is no way to make them safer. Instead, it is a great way to expand government surveillance powers and tighten the noose around our liberties.
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bullshit! what are they trying to secure?
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I wonder how they’ll like a gun stuck in their face.
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Please Ron, get on the Adam Carolla show.
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How are all these bad administration actions going to be undone?
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This is absolutely atrocious I for one am sick of this out of control Government.It is time for an end, these liberty stealing so called defenders of security gotta go along with the majority of Washington’s politicians. RON PAUL 2012!!!
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You know, I think the Terrorists have accomplished their goal.
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Ron Paul is the best man for the job thats running for president of the U.S. of America.
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HEY!!! Who needs “freedom”? It’s ok America. Just keep your faces in your TV watching X-Factor or whatever bs brainwashing crap they have you on now. WAAAAAAAAAAAKEEE UUUUUUUUUUUUP!! OMFG!!!!!’
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This way they can grope and probe us anywhere and everywhere. All in the name of safety!
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It’s another example of the on going out of control government agencies. ATF and their gun running. EPA shutting down a family dairy over spilt milk. Pick any 3 letter agency and I bet you can find something of outrage they have pulled in the last year.TSA is just the is just the flavor of the month.
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Homeland Police State is having a good ol’ time
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What other agencies are in the works to take away more of civil rights? If it can’t be passed through Congress than they use their agencies to continually erode at our Constitutional Amendments. We need judges at the local, state, and Federal levels to uphold the laws of the Constitution in which they took a solemn oath to do. Lets start with the repeal of the Patriot Act. The adjective Patriot should be changed to the most Unpatriotic destruction of our civil liberites.
Ron Paul was right to want to eliminate the TSA. Let the airlines provide their own security. Have your ever been pulled out of line and searched? It’s demeanig and embarrassing. I saw a elderly person in a wheel chair being searched. Eroding of our liberties must stop.
ELECT RON PAUL FOR 2012!!!!
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it’s just lovely how Ron Paul is the ONLY one addressing this heinous problem right now…
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Ron Paul Address this PLEASE!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tgS6CzBoEYs#!
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Because of the way the TSA is set up, at some airports like Atlanta you have to pass through security to EXIT the airport after an international arrival in the US (i.e. They can’t distinguish between those exiting and those connecting). That’s right, you have to put your tiny bottles in a baggy and walk through an xray machine or take a patdown to LEAVE the airport. I was incensed; couldn’t believe most people just accepted this.
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TSA is the modern day Brown shirts that lead to Nazi Germany dangerous and scary times ahead.
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Take back America without having to set up a tent in your city like a hippie. Vote Ron Paul and stop the insanity!
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Were building a new wall. Welcome to the New world order!
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where can I buy Heckler & Koch MP5 ??
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and the government is getting BIGGER!!
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I’ve been noticing them for a while ,,, they’re always after me !!! SHEEESH!!
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Scary times ahead. !! But my heart goes out to Obama who’s side lined for Hilary to take the Center stage while he’s left sulking, someone stole his TelePrompTer !! When you sell your soul to evil that’s what happens Oba boi ! Your no longer needed !!!!
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I remember hearing a really funny idea somewhere. One day, like 20 people should take some Viagra, put on some sweatpants, and go down to the airport or one of these checkpoints, and demand to be thoroughly searched. That way, they’ll have to awkwardly pat down some guy with a boner, lol
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If Americans are so terrified they allow this invasion by the TSA, then the terrorist have won correct?
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I’d love to see them try that shit with me, I’d beat their ass. If I’m on the street I aint stoppin for shit.
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I also think a TSA agent should walk through the scanners with EVERY passenger.
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I would be fine with the TSA searching me if I got to search them in return, exactly how they searched me.
Search the TSA!!!
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Sounds like a lawsuit that’s agianst the constitution.They think they can just do whatever they want to us and they can as long as people don’t wake up and vote Ron Paul and put a stop to these crooks ounce and for all……
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Complete bs. Don’t be afraid to assert your 4th amendment rights!
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This is how Hitler got to power as well. We look at the Germans & think hopw could they let a man like that get to power but his control gains were incidious, people acqiuesced many rights in the name of public safety & economic security. Indeed it is a slippery slope that we’re going to pay for w/ our lives. TSA agents are now at NFL football games zapping people w/ nuclear device “to check for weapons & bombs” if they ride shuttle bus to the stadium from parking lot. (I know b/c I work security)
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http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h112-3011
Make sure to vote against this if it ever comes to a vote. See sec. 295.
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what the?
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They’re not “Licensed” to do so…!
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The Police State is happening.. next is Marshall Law.
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We know they are a fundamental problem – the thing is Nobody in America want these NAZIs but people have lost their way – they dont know how to organize and fight this on a street level – provide some guidance on what steps to take to combat these people
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@MikeConlin I totally agree.
We need to shut down the government Fire everyone & start it over the way it was meant to be.
TSA is a joke. Everytime I have left the country & come back I get all my luggage searched & sometimes they pat me down. Why? Who knows cause I am young? They don’t like my hair cut or my look?
If I had weapons I would have been arrested in the other country.
While standing in line I watch many go thru without being checked. Met a girl on the plane and she had stuff that she wasn’t suppose to bring into the country But she was not checked. Nor was any of the other dozen or so people in front of me or behind me.
If TSA has control of the roads I will be packing up all my belongings & taking a ship over to another country for true freedom.
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