Watch out America, because you may be seeing more of the Transportation Security Administration from here on out.
The controversial government agency created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack to protect American airports, has decided that it will dispatch its Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) officers to patrol other transportation hubs and other highly attended events including sporting games and concerts. The TSA hopes that the increased coverage will help thwart potential terrorist attacks in transportation portals other than airports.
“Our mandate is to provide security and counterterrorism operations for all high-risk transportation targets, not just airports and aviation,” TSA Administrator John Pistole told The New York Times.
The TSA also plans to have VIPR teams accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs and dressed in plainclothes to search for any “suspicious behavior” while on duty at transportation terminals nationwide.
Those critical of TSA expanding beyond airports are worried that without any legal precedents, the agency could subject countless people to warrantless searches thus violating their fourth amendment rights.
“The problem with TSA stopping and searching people in public places outside the airport is that there are no real legal standards, or probably cause,” Khaliah Barnes, administrative law counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the Times. “It’s something that is easily abused because the reason that they are conducting the stops is shrouded in secrecy.”
The TSA experimented with this concept in Houston last year, where a joint operation between VIPR officers, the local police and local transit officers led to complaints of stops and searches of bags. The deployment even managed to yield a few arrests, including passengers with existing warrants for prostitution and minor drug possession, according to the Times.
“It was an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money,” Robert Fickman, a local defense lawyer who attended a subsequent meeting in the city packed with angry residents, told the Times. “Did we need to have TSA in here for a couple of minor busts?”
The TSA faces more scrutiny than simply being an inconvenience or lacking legal precedents for searches, however. A recent Government Accountability Office report found 9,622 cases of misconduct among TSA employees between 2010 and 2012, a 26 percent increase during that time. The report also found that the agency did not have enough programs in place for reviewing and recording the cases of misconduct.
