The TSA's unwelcome expansion

An editorial in a small North Carolina newspaper says the Transportation Safety Administration goes too far with the program it calls VIPR.

VIPR stands for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response teams, and the expanding program now operates random security screenings at transit stations as well as checkpoints along U.S. highways. The VIPR program also encourages truck drivers to be eyes and ears for Homeland Security.

The recent editorial in the Burlington Times-News says enough is enough:

To us, this sounds like something more like the Stasi secret police in the former East Germany, in which citizens spy on one another. “Your papers, please!” should not be a command Americans hear, and fear.

The Times-News calls on Congress to eliminate the VIPR program, and closes with a quote from Ben Franklin: 

 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Bravo for the Times-News taking a stand against further intrusion into our lives via Homeland Security and its TSA. I continue to be disappointed larger media outlets have, best I can tell, chosen to remain silent.