Teams With Air Marshals to Watch Ground Transit

Federal air marshals will expand their work beyond airplanes, launching counter-terrorism surveillance at train stations and other mass transit facilities in a test program this week, according to a published report.

Teams of undercover air marshals and uniformed law enforcement officers will fan out to bus and train stations, ferries and mass transit facilities across the country to “counter potential criminal terrorist activity in all modes of transportation,” the Washington Post reported on its website Tuesday night, quoting internal documents from the Transportation Security Administration.

The Post said documents showed the teams would take positions in public areas along Amtrak’s Northeast corridor and Los Angeles rail lines; the Washington Metro system; ferries in Washington state; and mass transit systems in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

Teams will consist of two air marshals, one TSA bomb-sniffing canine team, one or two transportation security inspectors, one local law enforcement officer and one other TSA employee.

Federal officials said there was no new intelligence indicating that terrorists were interested in targeting transportation modes, the Post said.

Rather, the Transportation Security Administration is trying to expand the role of air marshals, who have been eager to conduct surveillance activities beyond aircraft, and provide a beefed-up law enforcement presence at bus, train and other public transit stations over the holiday period.

“We think this is a very good approach to test our tools and quickly deploy resources in the event of a situation or a threat,” the Post quoted Federal Air Marshal Service spokesman David Adams as saying. “It shows we could be at any of these places.”

Some members of the team will be obvious to the traveling public and will wear jackets bearing the TSA name on the back. Others will be plainclothes air marshals scanning the crowds for suspicious people. It is unclear how many teams will be on patrol through the New Year’s holiday.