4 ms·

Unfortunately, VIPR does not seem to be going away. Your article was from March of this year in Savannah. As is common practice at most federal agencies, TSA pa

by temphn 15y ago

Unfortunately, VIPR does not seem to be going away. Your article was from March of this year in Savannah. As is common practice at most federal agencies, TSA paused the program for a bit till the outcry blew over. Then they started it up again. Take a look at this clip from October. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/like-tsa-youll-love-vipr/247221/ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/like-tsa... "Today's VIPR searches did not come from any particular threat" "Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate," said Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons. http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/28/1921254/tsas-vipr-bites-rail-bus-and-ferry-passengers http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/28/1921254/tsas-vipr-bi... According to TSA Administrator John Pistole's testimony before the Senate last June, 'TSA conducted more than 8,000 VIPR operations in the [previous] 12 months, including more than 3,700 operations in mass-transit and passenger-railroad venues.' He wants a 50% budget increase for VIPR for 2012. Imagine what TSA would do with the extra funding." The TSA Administrator himself says 3700 operations were done "in mass-transit and passenger-railroad venues". One of them got blogged, which is why there was an outcry and temporary pullback. But major news stations have just ignored this or bent over (see the Tennessee report above), though even the VIPR name is like a parody from a bad movie. Any train that costs $XX billion dollars is going to be deemed a terrorist target, so you can expect insane TSA/VIPR searches. This will further erode any purported time/convenience advantages.

Anechoic 15y ago
VIPR also operates on roadways (highway rest stops, truck weigh stations, etc) so in comparing car vs train delays, at best it's a push. >Any train that costs $XX billion dollars is going to be deemed a terrorist target, so you can expect insane TSA/VIPR searches. If that was true, we'd have insane VIPR searches right now on the Northeast Corridor, not to mention we would be seeing terrorists targeting HSR in Europe and Asia.
- temphn 15y ago
  VIPR is ramping up now, and their budget will be increased next year. Here's one more link to an Amtrak/VIPR search from earlier this month, indicating that the Amtrak head of police only succeeded in slowing rather than stopping the program. http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2011/11/tsa-conducts-vipr-operation-at-amtrak.html http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2011/11/tsa-conducts-... November 4, 2011 TSA agents search Amtrak trains in Sacramento Transportation Security Administration agents boarded Amtrak trains in Sacramento today to conduct one of their periodic VIPR operations, officials said. Our priors appear to be different on (a) whether the TSA's VIPR is likely to gain power and (b) whether they will start with centralized arteries like trains. From a practical standpoint, they can't set up checkpoints at every traffic intersection in the country, but they can set up checkpoints at every train station. Thus I don't agree that the two situations are equivalent in expected VIPR delay, and I do believe that we are going to see sharply increasing searches of Amtrak/train passengers, as nothing else TSA has done has been seriously resisted, let alone rolled back. But opinions may differ, so I'll leave it at that.

by temphn 15y ago

Anechoic 15y ago

VIPR also operates on roadways (highway rest stops, truck weigh stations, etc) so in comparing car vs train delays, at best it's a push. >Any train that costs $XX billion dollars is going to be deemed a terrorist target, so you can expect insane TSA/VIPR searches. If that was true, we'd have insane VIPR searches right now on the Northeast Corridor, not to mention we would be seeing terrorists targeting HSR in Europe and Asia.

temphn 15y ago
VIPR is ramping up now, and their budget will be increased next year. Here's one more link to an Amtrak/VIPR search from earlier this month, indicating that the Amtrak head of police only succeeded in slowing rather than stopping the program. http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2011/11/tsa-conducts-vipr-operation-at-amtrak.html http://blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2011/11/tsa-conducts-... November 4, 2011 TSA agents search Amtrak trains in Sacramento Transportation Security Administration agents boarded Amtrak trains in Sacramento today to conduct one of their periodic VIPR operations, officials said. Our priors appear to be different on (a) whether the TSA's VIPR is likely to gain power and (b) whether they will start with centralized arteries like trains. From a practical standpoint, they can't set up checkpoints at every traffic intersection in the country, but they can set up checkpoints at every train station. Thus I don't agree that the two situations are equivalent in expected VIPR delay, and I do believe that we are going to see sharply increasing searches of Amtrak/train passengers, as nothing else TSA has done has been seriously resisted, let alone rolled back. But opinions may differ, so I'll leave it at that.