Myth Buster: TSA Not Setting Up Checkpoints On Tennessee Highways

Depending on what inaccurate blog post you may have read, you would think that TSA has checkpoints set up all across Tennessee’s highways.  That’s just simply not the case. In fact, it’s really startling to see how off base some of the claims have been.

As part of an ongoing terrorism prevention and response program, the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security hosted a statewide exercise on October 18-20, 2011.  TSA participated through its Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response program. The exercise focused on improving the communications and operating relationships of state, local, and federal agencies when responding to any type of homeland security situation.

TSA VIPR personnel participated at multiple locations in the Tennessee exercise, supporting state and local personnel as they inspected vehicles to identify potential security threats.

In addition, Transportation Security Officers were in attendance to provide information including a leaflet to truck drivers at weigh stations about TSA’s First Observer program that encourages drivers to report potentially suspicious activity or items they see on the road.

TSA officers did not physically screen drivers during this exercise as erroneously reported.  The actual vehicle inspections were conducted by the Tennessee State Highway Patrol just the same as they are done every day.

Blogger Bob

TSA Blog Team 

If you’d like to comment on an unrelated topic you can do so in our Off Topic Comments post. You can also view our blog post archives or search our blog to find a related topic to comment in. If you have a travel related issue or question that needs an immediate answer, you can contact a Customer Support Manager at the airport you traveled, or will be traveling through by using Talk to TSA.

 

Screening of Passengers at Savannah Amtrak Station

A video of Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) screening passengers at a Savannah, Georgia Amtrak station has been gaining quite a bit of attention and many are wondering why we were screening passengers who had just disembarked from a train.

We were wondering the same thing.

The screening shown in the video was done in conjunction with a VIPR operation. During VIPR operations, any person entering the impacted area has to be screened. In this case, the Amtrak station was the subject of the VIPR operation so people entering the station were being screened for items on the Amtrak prohibited items list as seen in the video.

It should be noted that disembarking passengers did not need to enter the station to claim luggage or get to their car.

Signs such as the one shown here are posted at the entrance to the impacted area. 

However, after looking into it further, we learned that this particular VIPR operation should have ended by the time these folks were coming through the station since no more trains were leaving the station. We apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused for those passengers.

So by now, you're probably wondering what a VIPR is? Is it a type of snake that we misspelled? A really cool car... Nope. It's a team that's made up of Federal Air Marshals, Surface Transportation Security Inspectors, Transportation Security Officers, Behavior Detection Officers and Explosive Detection Canine teams. The teams provide a random high-visibility surge into a transit system and work with state and local security, and law enforcement officials to expand the unpredictability of security measures to detect, deter, disrupt or defeat potential criminal and/or terrorist operations.

Blogger Bob
TSA Blog Team

If you’d like to comment on an unrelated topic you can do so in our Off Topic Comments post. You can also view our blog post archives or search our blog to find a related topic to comment in. If you have a travel related issue or question that needs an immediate answer, you can contact a Customer Support Manager at the airport you traveled, or will be traveling through by using Talk to TSA.