The TSA is hitting the Tennessee interstate highways to search for terrorists under the auspices of the Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) program.
According to Nashville NewsChannel5, the TSA personnel will be divided into “viper” teams. Personally, I think it’s a rather fitting name.
Also – and this is just conjecture – I think it’s easier to convince the prototypical goon to actively violate people’s Constitutional rights when the team they’re on sounds cool.
“Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane – more likely on the interstate,” claimed Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.
On Tuesday, Tennessee was more than happy to deploy VIPR at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state. Hell, they’re even asking truck drivers to keep an eye out for terrorists or strange behavior by joining the First Observer Highway Security Program. Because why not, right?
The whole operation is geared toward getting drivers to call the authorities if they see something “suspicious.”
“Somebody sees something somewhere and we want them to be responsible citizens, report that and let us work it through our processes to abet the concern that they had when they saw something suspicious,” said Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director for Nashville International Airport.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol looked at trucks using drug and bomb sniffing dogs during random inspections. Because apparently keeping the Volunteer State safe from terrorists also means making sure that random non-terrorist people don’t have any drugs on them.
Keep in mind these are random inspections that people aren’t allowed to decline. Not without making things worse for themselves and probably being thrown in jail and beaten up for good measure.
I’m not really sure what’s going in Tennessee, but it’s safe to say that the 16th state is now a police state. Tennessee has criminalized sharing Netflix logins recently, and they’ve banned posting images online that “cause emotional distress.”
I have no idea why anyone would want to live in Tennessee anymore. I mean you can only bury your head in the sand for so long, right?
Maybe the state government is so broke that they can’t pay for anything anymore.
The only way any government has to pay for itself is to use its citizen’s money, but this goes way beyond paying for fire trucks and trash pickup. It seems like Tennessee is openly creating more ways to arrest people and put them in the blood sucking machine known as the legal system.
I used to think that there was a certain rebelliousness about the South that was admirable. But now I’m not so sure. Is Tennessee really that afraid of terrorists?
I think most Tennessee mountain people would win in a fight against any of the terrorists we’ve seen on TV. These random shakedowns and harsh laws don’t seem necessary to me.
