In the wake of the Arab Spring, the Obama administration is grappling with how to handle Islamists, radical adherents to Islam. Particularly, the issue has come to the fore in regards to Egypt, which, as Reuel Marc Gerecht notes, “is now certain” to elect “an Islamist” as its leaders the next time the Egyptian people go to the polls.

But some in the Obama administration are now seeing things differently.

“The war on terror is over,” a senior official in the State Department official tells the National Journal. “Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.”

So assisting the creation of the Caliphate, which could be seen as the ultimate act of dhimmi submission, was the key to victory this whole time? Who knew? We could have avoided 2 wars and numberless secret support missions with just a couple dozen bullets. Take out all the oppressive dictators and let the pizzlamic rabble set up their “Sharia Democracies” and they’ll be happy. And with gains like that coming in all across the world in so short a time, they’ll be happy and content and never try to push their agenda on any other nation, right? Awesome. Glad that’s sorted out. Too bad it took 11 years and 5500 military lives to figure out. And tens of trillions of dollars, but WTF, it’s only China’s money anyway. At 15% interest.

But if it’s over, and all the big bad threat is gone, then why is the TSA becoming the New Gestapo? Why not just reset the worldview clock to 1999 so we can party down with our new “legitimate Islam” buddies? Surely you can’t be trying to tell me that a handful of kooks in the mountains of Idaho are the new national threat? Really?

TSA goon squads at the bus station: police state, here we come

Paul Joseph Watson writes for Prison Planet that Big Sis has started a program with the TSA and police officers to search and interrogate passengers on Houston buses. This practice isn’t new. As we’ve written several times at TSA News, this program of warrantless searches on buses, trains, boats, and highways, is part of VIPR, and has been going on all over the country. Houston is just the latest stop. Watson writes:

Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee unveiled the program, labeled Bus Safe, at a Friday press conference. 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.

TSA expands beyond airport screening

The TSA has its hands all over the country’s transportation systems, from trains to buses to subways to ferries to trucks. Its VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) program has been in operation since 2005.

VIPR teams periodically descend on transportation hubs to conduct “random” searches, as they did in Tennessee; in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky; in Des Moines, Iowa; in Tampa, Florida; in Sacramento, California; and perhaps most notoriously, in Savannah, Georgia, where train passengers were separated from their luggage and body-searched after they got off the train.
...
VIPR teams also operate in the New York City subway and in other cities, where, according to the TSA, they “surge into a transit agency.”

They can also show up at “special events,” such as football games. TSA head John Pistole recently testified before Congress that the TSA “conducted more than 8,000 VIPR operations in the past 12 months, including more than 3,700 operations in mass-transit and passenger-railroad venues.”

And where the goons aren’t, their drones already are, or soon will be. With or without junior versions of Hellfire missiles aboard; you’ll never know one way or the other.

Rise of spy planes exposed after FAA is forced to reveal 63 launch sites across U.S.

There are at least 63 active drone sites around the U.S, federal authorities have been forced to reveal following a landmark Freedom of Information lawsuit.

The unmanned planes – some of which may have been designed to kill terror suspects – are being launched from locations in 20 states.

Most of the active drones are deployed from military installations, enforcement agencies and border patrol teams, according to the Federal Aviation Authority.

And if the drones aren’t flying, the security cameras are. They’re everywhere, and getting denser by the hour. Every store you shop in, every ATM machine, every parking lot, many urban and suburban streets. Hell, we’ve got 2 of them down here at the intersection. Oh, that’s just to run the stop lights. Uh huh. Sure it is. And every cop car in the state - in the country? - has a Wifi PC on the front seat connected to the national databases, and the up-armored patrolman with the fully automatic weapons in the trunk can run your picture or your plates whenever the F he wants to. And they do. Not to mention the Easy Pass transponder or your car’s built in OnStar, both of which report your whereabouts to the government. As does your cellphone, which the FBI can turn on remotely and listen in to everything it can pick up. That is, until they finish building their massive new data mining storage facility to hold a copy of every email and telephone conversation across the country. Across the world. And probably all your bank accounts and spending habits too. But don’t worry, it’s for your own good. As long as you’re a good citizen. Right, Winston Smith? Nothing to fear at all. It’s not that you have nothing to hide. It’s that you have nothing that you CAN hide. But good citizens don’t, so why worry?

Freedom? Liberty? Constitution? Like “limited government” and “sound currency” these are now meaningless terms. “No search without a warrant” & “probable cause” - soon to be Leno’s favorite punchlines.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/25/2012 at 08:25 AM   
Filed Under: • Jack Booted Thugs • Tyrants and Dictators • War On Terror •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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