[Marxism] Air marshals get ready for judgement-call executions of suspicious pedestrians, subway users nationwide

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Air marshals to patrol land, sea transport
TSA test includes surveillance teams on D.C.'s Metro system

By Sara Kehaulani Goo
The Washington  <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/front.htm> Post
Updated: 11:37 p.m. ET Dec. 13, 2005


Teams of undercover air marshals and uniformed law enforcement officers
will fan out to bus and train stations, ferries, and mass transit
facilities across the country this week in a new test program to conduct
surveillance and "counter potential criminal terrorist activity in all
modes of transportation," according to internal federal documents.

According to internal Transportation Security Administration documents,
the program calls for newly created "Visible Intermodal Protection and
Response" teams -- called "viper" teams -- to take positions in public
areas along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and Los Angeles rail lines;
ferries in Washington state; and mass transit systems in Atlanta,
Philadelphia and Baltimore. Viper teams will patrol the Washington Metro
system, as well.

A viper team will consist of two air marshals, one TSA
bomb-sniffing-canine team, one or two transportation security
inspectors, one local law enforcement officer, and one other TSA
employee. Some members of the team will be obvious to the traveling
public and wear jackets bearing the TSA name on the back. Others will be
plainclothes air marshals scanning the crowds for suspicious
individuals. It is unclear how many viper teams will be on patrol
through the New Year's holiday, but air marshal officials confirm that
they will be at seven locations across the country.

"TSA is going to extend its outreach into other modes of
transportation," said David Adams, spokesman for the Federal Air Marshal
Service. "We think this is a very good approach to test our tools and
quickly deploy resources in the event of a situation or a threat. It
shows we could be at any of these places."

Air marshals will remain on flights this holiday season, while at
several airports -- including Dulles International -- TSA is training
dozens of screeners in behavior recognition techniques to identify
suspicious passengers. Such training had, for the most part, been
limited to air marshals. In addition, travelers will be able to take
some sharp items previously prohibited, such as small scissors and
tools, in carry-on luggage.

TSA officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the agency is
expanding training for a limited group of screeners at other airports in
preparation for the holiday travel season. Those airports serve Los
Angeles, Miami, Dallas-Fort Worth, Cincinnati, New York, Houston,
Detroit and Chicago. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark said the techniques
include taking notice of high levels of stress, anxiety or deception.
"This is a part of a larger effort to add more complex layers of
security that cannot be manipulated by those seeking to do us harm,"
Clark said.

Looking for unusual behavior
Federal officials said there is no new intelligence indicating that
terrorists are interested in targeting transportation modes. Rather, the
Transportation Security Administration is trying to expand the role of
air marshals, who have been eager to conduct surveillance activities
beyond the aircraft, and provide a beefed-up law enforcement presence at
bus, train and public transit stations over the busy holiday period.

Air marshals "are trained to covertly detect potential criminal
terrorist pre-attack surveillance and other suspicious activity," states
a TSA memo written by Patrick F. Sullivan, deputy assistant director of
TSA's Federal Air Marshal Service flight operations office. Air marshals
"assigned to support the VIPR team will also be looking for individuals
attempting to avoid or depart areas upon visual observation of the VIPR
teams."

The concept of employing more surveillance techniques to identify
unusual behavior -- typically, signs of nervousness, such as sweating
and avoiding eye contact -- has been around for some time. In London,
police used the tactic after the terrorist bombings on the Underground
to track and then shoot a young man wearing a backpack who was running
from police. The man was later determined to be unconnected to the
suspected bombers.

Some security officials question whether air marshals should be
conducting surveillance or any operations outside of an aircraft cabin.
The marshals spend hours training in such tactics as shooting a gun in
the close confines of an aircraft cabin. Officials say that marshals
have been trained to notice and report suspicious activity and that they
do so regularly, even though it has not resulted in netting a suspected
terrorist. Air marshal training was called into question last week,
after two marshals shot and killed an American Airlines passenger in
Miami who allegedly claimed to have a bomb in his backpack.

'This is absurd'
"In one word, this is absurd," to put air marshals in bus and train
stations, said Doug Laird, a security consultant and former head of
security for Northwest Airlines. "This is clearly a responsibility of
the local jurisdictions. They don't have enough air marshals to carry
out the mission they are supposed to do. To spread them even thinner
dilutes the reason they are there in the first place."

Adams, of the air marshals service, however, said marshals are the law
enforcement arm of the TSA, which is charged with overseeing all modes
of transportation -- not just aviation. "This is part of our
responsibility to assist in the non-aviation domain," he said. "The
whole purpose is that people will not know when we're going to be there
or if we are going to be there. It's a preventative approach."

News researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.

C 2005 The Washington Post Company

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C 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10456738/

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