Police Question N.J. Amtrak Passengers

[Renew Deal]

NEWARK, N.J. July 22, 2004 — A Washington-to-New York Amtrak train was detained for more than an hour Thursday morning while police questioned passengers, checked identifications and searched overhead luggage racks.

Dan Stessel, a spokesman for Amtrak, said there was "an active police investigation. Until it's wrapped up, we can't comment on it."

AP Sports Editor Terry Taylor, who boarded the train in Philadelphia, said the train was held in Newark Penn Station shortly after 8 a.m. and departed at 9:30 a.m. Taylor said no explanation was given, but an announcement thanked passengers for their patience.

Taylor said transit police officers came down the aisle of each car, asking to see the identification of each passenger and checking the information with small hand-held computer devices.
<snip>

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20040722_736.html

Sounds like they are practicing for the convention. I bet this is what they will pull on the LIRR.

[tom_paine]

1. I'm afraid you ain't seen NOTHING yet

The lockdown on Manhattan as the Imperials strike deep into the heart of Enemy Territory to rub our noses in their Great Confederate Totalitarian Victory, will be unheard of outside of Totalitarian Nation.

Of course, now that Imperial Amerika IS this new Totaliitarianism, this Managed Democracy, such measure are wholly unremarkable and would have been the same (adjusted for technological progress) in the Old Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

ANY nation like Imperial Amerika, that doesn;t allow it's citizens to participate in the choosing of national leaders, or like Amerika, Syria, and Egypt, has sham "elections" to pacify the Subjects, need that level of secutrity.

Because to rulers like the Busheviks, their own nation is the Enemy.

[grasswire]

2. your papers please??

If this doesn't sound like Gestapo tactics, nothing ever will.

Checking the ID with a hand-held computer means looking at your total history, thanks to government databases that include banking and health histories now.

Now that dissent is criminalized, when you have an arrest record for wearing a an anti-government T-shirt or standing outside the purported Free Speech Zone, you'll never dare ride a train again. Travel will be restricted via just this kind of harassment. Dissenters will be immobilized.

That recent Supreme Court decision denying the right of the citizen to refuse to give his/her name was just the frosting on the cake.

3. Being a contrarian here

When I took the Eurail from Paris to Amsterdam 10 years ago at one point agents came on board and went through the train asking everyone who seemed to fit a certain profile for their passports. (mostly white men between the ages of 20-35-- probably drug-related)
I didn't think anything of it.
Didn't seem to bother anyone else either.

Europe has civil liberties also.

How is this different than this Amtrak incident?

[leftynyc]

4. Our company CFO was on that train

He assumed (as he was talking to me on his cell) that it was a dry run for the convention - found out later that somebody left a threatening letter in one of the bathrooms that a passenger found.

[BiggJawn]

5. "Ausweiss, Bitte...."

It's coming...

Oh, to be a "Blank"...