… and it’s sinking its fangs into Americans’ civil liberties.


Here’s a story about a “VIPR” team performing a “sting” operation on innocent Americans at a bus terminal in Florida, searching their persons and bags and discovering their petty crimes.


It’s almost a certainty that whoever named this sub‐​unit of the Department of Homeland Security thought it was a clever way to convey machismo and give a sense of mission to members of VIPR teams. But it also illustrates how the 9/11 terrorist attacks have caused the United States to lose its grip and behave like a cornered snake rather than a strong, free country.


The natural illogic of VIPR stings is that terrorism can strike anywhere, so VIPR teams should search anywhere. It’s the undoing of the Fourth Amendment, and it’s unwarranted counterterrorism because it expends resources on things that won’t catch or deter terrorists. Indeed, VIPR “stings” may encourage terrorism because they show that terrorism successfully undermines the American way of life.