Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

June 22, 2011

Sometimes an acronym says it all. This is certainly true of the Transportation Security Authority?s so-called VIPER teams, which are deployed with increasing frequency everywhere Americans seek to exercise our innate freedom of travel.

VIPER stands for Visible Intermodal Protection and Response ? sure, it?s a sloppy fit, but it makes a snappy logo ? and the term refers to multi-agency gangs of armed functionaries under the supervision of the TSA.

The TSA started out by groping and irradiating airline passengers and stealing their property without improving the security of air travel in any measurable way. The VIPER teams initially focused their unwanted and counterproductive attention on Amtrak and Metro stations. More recently, however, the VIPER teams have given themselves the assignment of pestering their betters at practically every significant node of commerce and travel. They have even started to conduct warrantless searches of private automobiles.

The program?s original purpose, explains the Washington Post, was to ?provide a beefed-up law enforcement presence at ? public transit stations over the busy holiday period. ? Now it is simply another way the Regime can harass people in search of prosecutable activity ? or for property that can be confiscated in the name of asset forfeiture.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.