New TSA Policy: Ordering Travelers To ?Freeze? On Command?

[Lumi]

New TSA Policy: Ordering Travelers To ?Freeze? On Command?

<!-- | http://madjacksports.com/forum/#comments_controls
-->Bizarre power trip behavior of federal agency reaches new level of craziness

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Friday, July 6, 2012

If you thought the bizarre power trip behavior of the TSA couldn?t get any crazier ? think again. According to a friend of political commentator Lew Rockwell, the federal agency is now ordering travelers passing through security to ?freeze? on command.
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Explaining how he had arranged with his family to split up as they were passing through airport security, the correspondent, whose story is posted at LewRockwell.com, explains how he heard a commotion from a different security lane.​

We heard a ?freeze, freeze? or something like this coming from the output side of (false) security (where my wife was), followed by further barking of commands. From where I was, I couldn?t see much.?
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?It turns out they were doing a new drill. They want all passengers to freeze on command. My wife told me later that she didn?t follow this order fast enough, so the subsequent barks I heard were directed at her.?

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TSA supervisors expressed little other than disinterest when the man?s wife complained at being ordered around in such an overbearing manner.

?I think back to when I was a child, playing and wrestling in the back of the station wagon on long trips ? no seatbelts or child seats. Now we get yelled at in the airport. I don?t feel safer,? the post concludes.

If accurate, the new policy represents yet another pointless exercise of power that seems designed to achieve little else than harassing travelers and treating them like prisoners by aggressively demanding immediate subservience.

As we reported yesterday, the TSA is now demanding the right to test drinks purchased by passengers after they have already passed through airport security. The new policy serves only to further inconvenience travelers who have already gone through humiliating grope downs and body scanners.​

In a subsequent response, the federal agency argued that the bizarre measuse was important because ?unpredictable measure(s)? are neccessary to snare would be criminals and terrorists.

Presumably, these ?unpredictable measures? now also include barking degrading orders at travelers as if they were misbehaving middle school children on a class trip.

As a TSA whistleblower told Infowars last month, far from just performing the role of screeners at the security gate, the TSA is now empowering its employees to fulfil all manner of invasive tasks.
?We?re doing patrols in the parking lot with dogs, we?re even going as far out to the train station because the train station is connected to the airport here and we have guys walking around the train station, walking around the rental cars, we?re inspecting cars coming into the parking garage, I mean we?ve fully expanded ? we?re no longer just at the gate and just at the security checkpoint,? the whistleblower said.

We have contacted the TSA to ascertain whether the order for travelers to ?freeze? on command was a one off incident, what its purpose was, and whether such behavior will now form part of the TSA?s security procedures.

 

[Lumi]

Confirmed: The TSA Is Ordering Travelers to ?Freeze? On Command

Confirmed: The TSA Is Ordering Travelers to ?Freeze? On Command

Confirmed: The TSA Is Ordering Travelers to ?Freeze? On Command

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-->?Obedience training? is part of TSA?s Code Bravo security drill

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, July 9, 2012

The TSA has failed to respond to the now confirmed fact that the federal agency has introduced a bizarre new policy in which travelers are ordered to ?freeze? on command by TSA screeners while passing through security, a policy described as ?obedience training? by critics.​

In our article on Friday, we featured the story of a man who was passing through airport security when he heard a commotion.

?We heard a ?freeze, freeze? or something like this coming from the output side of (false) security (where my wife was), followed by further barking of commands. From where I was, I couldn?t see much.?​

?It turns out they were doing a new drill. They want all passengers to freeze on command. My wife told me later that she didn?t follow this order fast enough, so the subsequent barks I heard were directed at her.?​

We have since received numerous emails and other correspondence from other people traveling through U.S. airports who have experienced the same situation where they were commanded to ?freeze? by TSA workers.

?This happened to me last year in Atlanta,? one traveler told us via email.​

?It?s not new. They?ve been playing ?freeze tag? with naive sheeple for at least a year. They call it a ?Code Bravo.? People who have experienced it call it a ?Code Bravo Sierra,? added another.
The story was also covered by Gather.com?s Jim Kane, who asked, ?This anecdote has not been confirmed by the safety agency, so it should remain in the rumor zone at this point. But, considering all the crazy TSA rules, would anyone be surprised if it were true??​

However, the policy is no mere anecdote, it?s a confirmed fact. The TSA is ordering travelers to ?freeze? on command as part of a security drill named ?Code Bravo?. This is documented in a New York Times article written by Joe Sharkey in which Sharkey explains how he was caught up in the fiasco on two separate occasions in both Atlanta and Los Angeles.​

When Sharkey failed to obey a TSA screener who shouted ?freeze,? he was assailed by another traveler who ?growled? at him, ?You?re supposed to freeze!? as other passengers complied with the bizarre demand.​

Sharkey later discovered that the TSA had no power to force travelers to comply with the command.​

?Passengers are not required to ?freeze? in place like statues,? TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee admitted.​

However, in every case where the ?freeze? command has been witnessed, the behavior of TSA agents has made it clear to travelers that if they don?t do precisely that, they will face the consequences.​

?It was clear to me that travelers believed they were required to stop and stand motionless ? even those who had cleared security and were merely within shouting distance of the checkpoint. Officers seemed to reinforce that impression, too,? writes Sharkey.​

?As we were going through the security checkpoint, one of the supervisors suddenly yelled ?freeze!? Everyone was forced to just stand there for about a minute. We were not allowed to move, fidget, look around, speak, nothing,? commented another woman who had traveled through Atlanta Airport.​

Treating passengers like naughty children or prisoners on a whim as part of a ?drill? that has no purpose whatsoever is par for the course when it comes to the TSA?s twilight zone approach to airport security.​

As WeWontFly.com?s James Babb describes, this is nothing more than ?obedience training.? The American people and travelers in general are being ?broken in? to accept their subservience in what represents the human equivalent of horse training.​

Just last week the TSA admitted that it had introduced the equally ludicrous new policy of testing travelers? drinks purchased in the airport after they had already passed through security.​

Infowars contacted the TSA on Friday morning regarding the ?freeze on command? policy but has not received a response. In addition, no explanation or denial of the policy appears on the TSA Blog website. The federal agency presumably doesn?t want to draw media attention to the insane policy in order to protect its already savaged public image.​

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[Lumi]

Playing Simon Says at Airport Security

Playing Simon Says at Airport Security

Playing Simon Says at Airport Security


<nyt_byline>By JOE SHARKEY

</nyt_byline><nyt_text><nyt_correction_top></nyt_correction_top>IN general, I don?t take orders from anyone except (as a matter of prudence) my wife. So the last time I was in an airport and security agents started bellowing, ?Freeze!? I simply carried on with my business of buying a box of chocolates at a pushcart a few dozen feet away from the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint area.

I was immediately upbraided, not by a security officer, but by a fellow passenger. Like dozens of other travelers near the checkpoint, he had abruptly halted in place, on command, as if playing a children?s game.

?You?re supposed to freeze!? the guy growled at me as he stood motionless in the frozen tableau of the reflexively compliant.

But wait a minute: Am I really supposed to freeze? At many airports, T.S.A. officers conduct occasional drills in which the agents suddenly start screaming things like ?Code Bravo! Freeze!? The drills, which the T.S.A. tells me happen only once or twice a year at any given airport, are intended to give the officers experience in what happens if there is a security breach. The goal is to train them in how to quickly shut down a checkpoint and, once the potential threat is resolved, get it up and running again in a timely manner.

?These drills are generally conducted during off-peak hours to minimize disruption, and generally last a minute,? said Kristin Lee, a spokeswoman for the agency. The agency conducts a range of security exercises, not all of them in public, to train checkpoint officers, she said.

Understood, I said. But still, am I, a citizen, required to stop motionless when the T.S.A. officers yell ?freeze??

Actually, no. The agency has ?wide-ranging legal authority to carry out security-related responsibilities,? Ms Lee said. But in these specific drills, she added, ?passengers are not required to ?freeze? in place like statues.? But if they are within the checkpoint security area, they may be required to remain there until the drill has ended, she said.

Sounds reasonable enough to me. But, as we all know, T.S.A. policies, as enunciated in Washington, are not always followed precisely to the letter. After all, there are security checkpoints at some 450 airports, where nearly two million passengers go through screening every day.

On the two occasions that I have experienced the freeze drill ? once at the Los Angeles airport and, more recently, at Atlanta ? it was clear to me that travelers believed they were required to stop and stand motionless ? even those who had cleared security and were merely within shouting distance of the checkpoint. Officers seemed to reinforce that impression, too.

The freeze issue has been getting more attention lately. On Wewontfly.com, a Web site started last year in opposition to certain T.S.A. procedures, including the more aggressive body pat-downs, a woman commented that she was recently involved in a freeze drill at the Atlanta airport.

?As we were going through the security checkpoint, one of the supervisors suddenly yelled ?freeze!? ? she wrote. ?Everyone was forced to just stand there for about a minute.

We were not allowed to move, fidget, look around, speak, nothing.?

George Donnelly, who co-founded the Web site, described the drills as ?like they?re playing a game of freeze tag.? His site calls on people unable to find alternatives to flying to ?opt out? of the so-called full-body scanners, and object loudly if the resulting body pat-down seems inappropriate.

Anyone who regularly reads this column knows that I am not shy about criticizing the T.S.A. for capricious overreach, and for unnecessarily heavy-handed hassling of the flying public. On the other hand, I realize that the agency is often pushed and pulled publicly, in ways that can distract from its real missions: intelligent risk assessment and vigilance about threats from liquid explosives.

But can we at least chill, as it were, over the issue of freezing? The security agency can certainly make it more clear to the public and to its screeners what the drill entails. Basically, a drill to freeze the checkpoint means that movement through and in the checkpoint stops. We travelers are not really required to freeze in place.

?I kind of scratch my head on this,? said James Babb, the other co-founder of Wewontfly.com. ?All I can think of is obedience training. I kind of know what to expect from the T.S.A., but really on this, my frustration is with the public that says, ?Oh, an authority figure said freeze, so I?d better freeze,? and not ask reasonable questions.?