Amtrak Joins the Police State
Oct 15, 2012 18:53:30 GMT -5
Post by PrisonerOfHope on Oct 15, 2012 18:53:30 GMT -5
Amtrak Joins the Police State
October 15, 2012
By Wendy McElroy, October 11, 2012
According to Homeland Security Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has forged “a new partnership” with “the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Amtrak to battle the trafficking of humans.”
DHS will train “over 8,000 frontline transportation employees and Amtrak Police Department officers” on how to recognize and report trafficking indicators and suspected traffickers. Those frontline employees include anyone who comes into regular contact with the public, including ticket sellers. If Wikipedia can be trusted, there are currently about 450 Amtrak police who handle law enforcement and security for the government-owned passenger train system.
Soon, over 8,000 Amtrak employees will overtly or covertly examine passengers for the validity of their identification, their level of stress, how they interact, and their conversations. It is so necessary to treat Amtrak customers as criminal suspects because, according to HS Today, an “estimated 100,000 children are trafficked in the sex trade in the United States each year,” with the average age being 11 to 14, and some being as young as 9. This means that passengers — and especially men — traveling with children will be subject to enhanced scrutiny. Perhaps the trained employees will engage children in conversation or demand a statement of their relationship status with the accompanying adults.
The total police state that operates at airports is spreading to train stations — and beyond. HS Today states that the Department of Transportation “is currently training its more than 55,000 employees to identify and report human trafficking.” Even traveling in a car does not exempt people from being treated as criminal suspects. Last year, Tennessee became the first state to partner with DHS to conduct an exercise in which trucks were randomly inspected, complete with drug- and bomb-sniffing dogs. The exercise was part of the Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response program (VIPR), which has a mandate “to augment the security of any mode of transportation at any location within the United States.”
In theory, people may still be free to exercise their constitutional right against unreasonable searches and refuse to comply. In practice, as happens at airports, those who resist will almost certainly be denied the ability to travel and will perhaps be detained for questioning by the police.
Amtrak Joins the Police State [continued at link]
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