Undercover TSA Agents To Ride Houston Texas Buses, Conduct Warrantless Searches, Interrogate Passengers, And Look For “Suspicious Activity”

HOUSTON, TEXAS – A new program in Houston will place undercover TSA agents and police officers on buses whose job it will be to perform bag searches, watch for “suspicious activity” and interrogate passengers in order to ‘curb crime and terrorism’.

Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee unveiled the program, labeled Bus Safe, during a press conference on Friday. According to a Metropolitan Transit Authority of Houston (METRO) press release, agencies involved in the scheme will, “ride buses, perform random bag checks, and conduct K-9 sweeps, as well as place uniformed and plainclothes officers at Transit Centers and rail platforms to detect, prevent and address latent criminal activity or behavior.”

“While local law enforcement agencies focus on overall safety measures noted above, representatives with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will also be on hand, lending their counter-terrorism expertise and support during the exercise,” states the press release.

“If you think you’re going to be a bad actor on buses, get ready. You are going to have a short-lived time frame,” Jackson Lee said during the press conference. The Congresswoman is a staunch advocate of the TSA, having recently chastised the passage of a new law that allows airports to evict TSA agents and replace them with private screeners by claiming it would lead to a new 9/11-style attack.

According to KPRC 2 News, METRO refused to disclose on what dates or bus routes the program would be operational. As well as TSA agents, police officers from the Harris County Constable’s Office Precinct 7 will be involved.

According to Phillip Levine of the Houston Free Thinkers blog, shortly after Lee gave her press conference the operation went straight into effect, with DHS and Metro Police officers questioning passengers who were exiting buses about their destinations and their reasons for riding the bus.

“When I arrived at Wheeler I got off the stage and instantly noticed the massive police presence. The police presence consisted of DHS, metro police, HPD, TSA, and Harris county police officers. They were going on to buses searching and stopping people for questions. Apparently Sheila Jackson Lee was there pushing for more security like what I was viewing. I asked the TSA agent if there was gonna be a bigger presence of metro or TSA. He said both,” Levine said in an email.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

This is a wake-up call for Americans who had hoped to avoid being harassed by TSA agents by not using airports.

TSA agents are now being used to literally occupy America with an expansion of the 9,000 plus checkpoints that were already operational last year. 12 more TSA VIPR teams (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) will be added to the 25 who are already present at transportation hubs throughout the country.

Back in October we reported on how Tennessee’s Homeland Security Commissioner announced that a raft of new “security checkpoints” would be in place over the Halloween period to “keep roadways safe for trick-or-treaters”. Earlier that same month it was announced that Transportation Security Administration officials would be manning highway checkpoints in Tennessee targeting truck drivers.

TSA agents have been deployed to shake down Americans at everywhere from bus depots, to ferry terminals, to train stations, in one instance conducting pat downs of passengers, including children, who had already completed their journey when arriving in Savannah.

If the mass rollout of the TSA’s occupying army of minimum wage morons is not abated, Americans will have to get used to being interrogated, frisked and treated like criminals by TSA goons on a regular basis, meaning the United States’ transformation into a Soviet-style police state festooned with internal checkpoints will be complete.

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Michigan State Police Conducting Illegal Warrantless Searches Of Cellphones After Motorists Are Stopped For Minor Traffic Violations – Demand $544,000 To Tell ACLU Why And How

MICHIGAN – The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program.

ACLU learned that the police had acquired the cell phone scanning devices and in August 2008 filed an official request for records on the program, including logs of how the devices were used. The state police responded by saying they would provide the information only in return for a payment of $544,680. The ACLU found the charge outrageous.

“Law enforcement officers are known, on occasion, to encourage citizens to cooperate if they have nothing to hide,” ACLU staff attorney Mark P. Fancher wrote. “No less should be expected of law enforcement, and the Michigan State Police should be willing to assuage concerns that these powerful extraction devices are being used illegally by honoring our requests for cooperation and disclosure.”

A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.

“Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags,” a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device’s capabilities. “The Physical Analyzer allows visualization of both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth. In addition, location information from GPS devices and image geotags can be mapped on Google Maps.”

The ACLU is concerned that these powerful capabilities are being quietly used to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

“With certain exceptions that do not apply here, a search cannot occur without a warrant in which a judicial officer determines that there is probable cause to believe that the search will yield evidence of criminal activity,” Fancher wrote. “A device that allows immediate, surreptitious intrusion into private data creates enormous risks that troopers will ignore these requirements to the detriment of the constitutional rights of persons whose cell phones are searched.”

The national ACLU is currently suing the Department of Homeland Security for its policy of warrantless electronic searches of laptops and cell phones belonging to people entering the country who are not suspected of committing any crime.

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