NFL and the TSA: VIPR Agents Spotted Working at Vikings vs Packers Game

The Transportation Security Administration has become one of the most reviled bureaucratic agencies in the US. Created in the chaotic weeks following 911, this hastily-assembled law enforcement body employs unskilled workers, unsuccessful and dangerous radioactive body scanners, and intimately humiliating “enhanced pat downs” to create an environment of security theater at airports. These techniques have yet to catch a single terrorist, but have managed to unleash a host of abuses on American citizens, ranging from allegations of sexual abuse to theft.

To make matters worse, the TSA is now beginning to expand its coverage to places outside of the airport. First, the agency started by conducting random checkpoints on highways in Tennessee. It also has been known to deploy agents at Amtrak stations. Just recently, a TSA VIPR squad was seen working the Vikings-Packers NFL game over the holidays. Will we soon begin experiencing grope-downs and radioactive scans on our way into NFL football games?

TSA’s Alarming VIPR Program

The TSA recently launched a new program called VIPR, which stands for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response. Essentially, this program sends field agents out into areas not traditionally covered by the TSA to conduct random searches. Such searches violate the privacy rights of American citizens.

The program has been active for a while in Tennessee, with agents searching trucks and other vehicles at weigh-in stations. In some cases, TSA officers have searched people as they get off of Greyhound buses, despite the fact that this would not protect passengers from anything, as such security checks typically occur when people are boarding, rather than exiting, a vehicle.

The NFL and the TSA

Prior to the incident at the Vikings-Packers game, the TSA limited its intrusions to areas that at least have some vague connection to transportation. Now that VIPR agents are roaming around NFL games, it’s unclear as to what the agency’s purpose is. What do NFL games have to do with transportation? Will the TSA begin conducting enhanced pat downs and body scans at NFL games next?

Also, do TSA administrators believe that there is no limit to their authority? Could there be TSA checkpoints on residential streets? Could officers come onto private property and begin conducting pat downs? Given that the NFL has nothing to do with the Transportation Security Administration’s purpose, this remains unclear.

The TSA is one of countless other law enforcement and intelligence agencies created by the federal government. Many of them have overlapping purposes. Now that the TSA is beginning to expand beyond airports, it adds to the already problematic maze of red tape in the law enforcement community. Who can actually keep track of all this information they are collecting in random searches?

Ultimately, there is little law enforcement value in unconstitutional searches. These types of encounters rarely catch violent criminals, but sometimes cause decent people to go to jail for victimless crimes. The TSA is also uniquely unqualified to enforce laws, as the agency’s success rate at catching terrorists is zero percent. By searching citizens in violation of the law, blasting travelers with radiation, and groping thousands of strangers with abandon, the Transportation Security Administration commits far more violence than it will ever prevent.

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