"What happens if you don't submit to the search? They put you back on the train?"

Certain ... disfunctional ... moments in the life of a VIPR do not go unnoticed...

A high-profile example of VIPR's growing pains, transit officials say, is a VIPR-assisted passenger screening a year ago at Amtrak's station in Savannah, Georgia.

Instead of screening passengers as they boarded trains -- which is standard security procedure -- officers were screening passengers as they were getting off trains.

Note to whatever government replaces this one, after the collapse: If you really must use the government payroll as a jobs program for the unemployable, maybe you should find something for them to do other than just being high-profile assholes.