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Air Marshals Get Bus, Train Postings

Posted on: Sunday, 18 December 2005, 12:00 CST

By AP Wire Service

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal air marshals are expanding their work beyond aircraft, beginning counterterror surveillance at bus and train stations and mass transit facilities in a three-day test.

As of Wednesday, the Transportation Security Administration said, teams of undercover air marshals and uniformed law enforcement officers were arriving at the new posts.

"We just want to develop the capability to enhance security outside of aviation," said an air marshal spokesman, David Adams.

Air marshals stepped outside of their usual role of flying undercover on airliners after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. They were sent to keep order at the city's Louis Armstrong International Airport, where thousands of evacuees converged after the levees were breached.

The so-called "Visible Intermodal Protection and Response" teams - - or VIPER teams -- will patrol mass transit and rail systems in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington and Los Angeles; mass transit in Atlanta and bus stations in Houston, according to a TSA spokesman, Darrin Kayser.

Dennis Breslin, an American Airlines pilot who is the spokesman for the airline's pilots' union, said air marshals ought to stick to airplanes.

"I don't think there's enough air marshals to cover commercial aviation as it is," Breslin said. "That's what transit police are for."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, speaking in New York, said that aviation would continue to be a prime concern.

Federal officials said they had no indication of a heightened threat toward other forms of transportation.

"There is no increased level of chatter through intelligence channels. Due to the time of the year, we intend to remain vigilant for any change in this posture," FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko said.

Source: Tulsa World

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