What do you mean by engaged in something far more insidious? Can you expand a bit more?

I don't really know, at the moment, what TSA HQ would like. TSA has much more to their operations than what you see at the airport security checkpoint. They have law enforcement of their own. They have regulatory inspectors. There are plenty of people in the organization who wield real authority, and have the training and background to use it appropriately and effectively. (Insert various comments from the peanut gallery...)

It doesn't make sense for HQ to try to create a false sense of the scope of a uniformed TSO's authority. There is no "power grab" benefit for them. There are other segments of the organization that legitimately have the authority HQ supposedly seeks. Also, any attempt to expand power held by the uniformed TSO without additional training is asking for all kinds of trouble.

With all due respect, this exchange highlights some of the concerns I brought up earlier. There is, to my knowledge, no current or future attempt to "deputize" screeners or turn us into any variety of law enforcement. Law enforcement is brought along in VIPR operations, in part, because screeners are not law enforcement. (Our AFSD-LE has also made some comments about FAMS doing anything to stay off airplanes. :D )

This is also my biggest concern. TSA does not, to my knowledge, have any authority to do immigration enforcement activities. I think (hope?) the reporting on this event has shown a gross misunderstanding of the actual operation in question. To my knowledge, TSA simply doesn't do immigration raids.

Have a chat with your counterparts in California and Arizona then because their position is these are international border inspections and the rules don't apply. They have been pulling this crap in the Southwest for years it has just taken a slightly higher profile over the past few years as harassment has been extended to those not obviously Hispanic.

I posted over on the "Random Roadside Stop" thread about a comprehensive website all about internal border checkpoints. The site is: www.checkpointusa.org. I'm with LawDawg. If this was classified as a "roving checkpoint" the BP and TSA violated about every legal constraint in the book. If it was classified as a "fixed checkpoint," they could have pulled it off. But, I doubt anyone with a straight face could classify the trolley stop as a "fixed checkpoint." As I said in the other post, if the TSA and BP did this on their own, they rubbed our noses, once again, in our precious Constitution.

This wouldn't be a roving checkpoint, but a roving traffic stop. Different things.

A trolley check would be the equivalent of a public conveyance/transportation check.

This place, the Old Town Transit Center, is without a doubt the kind of High Value Intermodal Transportation System Target that will shake OBL out of that there Third Cave From the End to travel 10,000 miles to attack. :eek:

Where is the security threat to the transportation system? Does TSA really think the illegal aliens would plan to hijack a trolly and take themselves back to Mexico, or be stupid enough to blow it up so they would have to walk to work? :rolleyes:

Please don't try "the fact that they are illegals means criminals are riding the trolly." Every day people on bond or parole for murder ride planes, trains, buses, automobiles and trollys and their ridership does not seem to present a problem with the security of the national transportation system.

Breaking a law does not auto= Transportation Security Safety Risk. Like cash, diamond and drug smugglers on airplanes. They do NOT want to hijack the plane and fly it into a building. The want the plane to deliver them to their destination safely and on time so they can deliver their trade. Smugglers do not present a security threat to airplanes unless they are smugglng weapons.

Hmmm, you're making a lot of arguments from me that I'm not making. I'm talking about USBP authorities only.

I'm just speculating you understand, and such specualtion may well be fuelled by my personal outrage at the TSA specifically and DHS in general.

Remember the formation, an entirely new department was thrown together in a few weeks. Although there was a ready supply of ex-private screeners, where do you think the upper echelons came from ? Other government agencies and departments and I don't think the brightest and best would either have wanted to or been allowed to leave their current posts. So the DHS got the bottom of the barrel, the misfits and the discards.

Ever since those people have being trying to "prove" how much better and smarter they are than was thought. We have seen the results. The more they fall flat on their collective faces, the greater the need to compensate.

I suppose there are some cool heads at HQ, but I'm betting they are outnumbered by the zealots despite spotnik's "inside scoop". I just see a continual, ongoing power grab and what worries me is DHS becoming the most powerful and influential department all the while run by these missionaries. You know, those who can do no wrong becuase they just know they are always right.

Now, where's my hat ?