4nsicdoc

The TSA would agree with you that it is not good for the "fares" to know their rights. They might get all uppity and stuff and might push back. Knowing your rights doesn't necessarily mean advocating their exercise. It can also be helpful for the TSA perverts to know what the fares rights are, and to know that the fare knows them too. They pick on the disabled who can't exercise their right to resist illegal force with deadly force and the elderly, who might not even know of that right even if they were able to exercise it. Now put those sniveling tin badge wearing cowards up against a group of educated vets who know their rights and won't hesitate to use them. I want the criminal class, including TSOs, to wonder, when they leave the house every morning, "Is this the day I get my throat cut for hassling people at the train station?"
"Why would you want people kept in the dark about their rights, unless you are one of those who depend on their ignorance?

NotaCriminal

Sent the link with a quick message to ask the TSA about this in March to Chaffetz's Twitter. As we might have guess, he's not a happy camper and would like to speak to the person who filmed this or the family videoed. Sent a message via YouTube to the poster. Hope he or she will contact him.

Frankly, after seeing this and reading the description, I think I'm done with public transportation. They are at my local bus stop, the Greyhound station, the train station, the Metro. And now they are searching AFTER travel? Yep, I'm officially done.

Off to write even more letters to my unresponsive reps...

FliesWay2Much

You're right -- most people have no idea, or don't care, that a system like On-Star is actually "Big Brother." If you have it and use it, anyone can know where your vehicle is located within 10 meters any time of the day or night.

Many cell phones also contain a GPS receiver with the same capability. You can do one of three things: either set the GPS receiver to activate only after you dial 911; or, completely disable it; or, do either one of these suggestions AND completely turn off your phone except when making a call.

polonius

Wrong. I already tested that and proved it is not so. If you are trying to depart, they can give you the DY...T? routine. If you have arrived, all you need to do is refuse the search and there is nothing they can do. You most certainly DO have an alternative, and had I been in Savannah, that's the option I would have taken.

mahohmei

If you're on an Amtrak train at your destination, and you realize that the TSA is "forcing" all arriving passengers to be screened for weapons, contraband, valuables they can steal, and breasts on attractive women...

What would happen if you approached a crewmember on board the train, explained your refusal to put up with that, and asked if you could "extend" your ticket to the next station with a Greyhound station?

A quick check with the Amtrak timetable reveals what you'd have to do:

Southbound on the Silver Star: go to Jacksonville for an extra 2:26
Southbound on the Silver Meteor: go to Jacksonville for an extra 2:39
Southbound on the Palmetto: end of line; you're screwed

Northbound on the Silver Star: go to Columbia for an extra 2:44
Northbound on the Silver Meteor: go to Charleston for an extra 1:51

saulblum

What would happen is that you shouldn't be surprised to be met by TSOs and police as you get off at that station down the line.

See, for example --

http://www.universalhub.com/2011/mbt...r-bag-searches

(The TSA is involved with the MBTA bag search operations.)

Cartoon Peril

In this particular case, you had a mother with two boys, aged maybe 9 and 11. She really was not in any position to defy the pretense of authority. The situation must have been extremely intimidating and she would have felt she had no choice but to comply. I'm sure her main goal was to get out of that station with her boys.

Caradoc

And that's the TSAs goal - to get everyone to comply, no matter how stupid and/or ridiculous their demands may be.

There's not one TSA employee left with any intelligence and/or empathy. All of those left before November. The ones remaining are either so deluded that they believe they're making a difference in the name of "security," or they have absolutely no problem with groping people to get a paycheck.

mahohmei

For better or worse, Amtrak is not an option where I live (Tallahassee). We used to have the 3/wk Sunset Limited, but that disappeared with Hurricane Katrina--and never came back.

So you really think the TSA and Savannah police would be able/willing to coordinate with another police department somewhere else to meet you as you get off the train, simply because of a last-minute decision to visit another city?

Maybe we should start a sticky of US train and bus stations where you can expect to find TSA and CBP waiting for you.

saulblum

Five years ago, did you think passengers would be frisked getting off an Amtrak train?

Cartoon Peril

TSA sets the pattern. Already Homeland Security has been making grants to regional bus lines based on the condition that they adopt TSA-approved security rules. TSA can't itself cover all buses, trains etc., but soon the time will come when TSA-approved security regimes will be implemented by local governments as a condition of federal Homeland Security funds.

Even that would not give the resources to search all travellers but it would insert random government harassment as a possible factor into all travel other than by private vehicle, but as noted above, there already exists sufficient technology to track every vehicle in the nation 24/7/365.

TSA could readily make a Chertoff-style "grant" to On Star, on the requirement that data be shared with TSA. Combine that with a requirement that only On-Star (or similarly tracked) vehicles be allowed to enter the airport perimeter, perhaps with registration on line linked to boarding passes.

Since there has been at least one vehicle attack at an airport (Glasgow) and maybe others that I can't think of right now, the legal and political justification for this already exists, at least if one accepts the idea that fear should run our lives.

ElizabethConley

There is no justification. The whole scope n' grope campaign is nothing more or less than a giant Milgram experiment gone horribly unconstitutional, illegal, unethical and depraved.

Caradoc

That seems to be the way of it.

I note that Bloghdad Bob hasn't even attempted to justify this one.

chollie

TSA starts with 'freebies' (the same thing they offer to agencies around the country to 'help' with stadium security, for example - which has nothing to do with transportation.

'Freebies' like manpower and $ grants. Greedy local agencies get sucked in, and eventually, as TSA increases its budget, it will expand and displace these short-sighted local agencies, using language like 'streamllined processes', 'common management', 'unified vision', etc.

FriendlySkies

Seems like Bob is on an extended holiday. Nothing has been posted since 2/7.