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Millions of Mexicans entering U.S. will be exempted from fingerprinting, photographs
SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, March 4, 2004
(C)2004 Associated Press

URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/a/2004/0 3/04/national1326EST0615.DTL

(03-04) 10:44 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --

The Bush administration backed off plans to require that millions of visa-carrying Mexicans who make short visits to America and stay close to the border be fingerprinted and photographed to get into the country.

Asa Hutchinson, the Homeland Security department's undersecretary for border and transportation, was to publicly announce the policy change at a Capitol Hill hearing Thursday, a congressional official who was briefed on the plan told The Associated Press.

The move, a concession to Mexican President Vicente Fox, comes on the eve of his visit to President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

The Homeland Security Department's announcement "represents a friendly and positive gesture toward Mexico," said Agustin Gutierrez Canet, a spokesman for Fox.

Mexicans who have so-called laser visas currently are allowed to stay in the country three days provided they stay close to the border. Such visas are issued to people who have undergone background checks and consulate interviews where they are fingerprinted and photographed. The visas generally are held by workers and people who need to make frequent quick trips across the border.

But as part of the new US-VISIT program, before the end of the year those people were to be fingerprinted and photographed before crossing the border. The plan being announced by Hutchinson rescinds that requirement.

US-VISIT was developed in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to ensure that people on terrorist watch lists and other criminals don't get into the country. The first part of it took effect in January and requires that visitors from certain countries traveling on visas and entering at 115 major airports and 14 seaports be fingerprinted and photographed.

The program will be added to the 50 busiest land ports later this year. Fox was upset that under the expanded plan, Mexicans would have been photographed and fingerprinted before entering the United States, while Canadians would not.

Mexican border officials and officials in U.S. border communities feared the program could lead to long delays or prompt fewer people to enter the country. Either scenario would hurt local economies that rely on a steady flow of visitors.

As part of the revised plan, the government will install machines that can read the electronic information in the laser visas at the 50 busiest land ports. The machines are at only a handful of border points as of now.

Nearly 360 million travelers entered the United States at all the nation's land ports of entry in 2002.

A program to log foreigners' departures also is being developed.

(C)2004 Associated Press

Whoops, wrong URL.

Lol, well, there goes that effect.

Here's the real wine.

Barry Bonds is a dirty negro steroid user! With the current trend of drug-using baseball players, including Mark McGwire (andro), and Sammy Sosa (steroids), I say we return the single season home run record back to its rightful owner: Roger Maris.

Barry Bonds is a dirty negro steroid user! With the current trend of drug-using baseball players, including Mark McGwire (andro), and Sammy Sosa (steroids), I say we return the single season home run record back to its rightful owner: Roger Maris.

try again after having some Lucas Skywalker Ranch Wines. That should help a lot.

It's pretty typical journalism. Not much in the way of facts and undisputed, third-party claims from well-known people.
Most "newspapers" in the USA are a collection of press releases separated by the occasional column about a person's cats.

... I was going to make a comment on how ironic it would be to...

Actually, the real irony of this story is that the guy who photographed Kerry is a professor of journalism ethics at a likely target for conservatives.

The IPO is not necessarily delayed. The CEO's statements that were taken to mean there was a delay were actually consistent with his previous statements. Google has never publicly stated that they would be doing an IPO.

Edwards is mega-rich, influenced by special interests, and voted for the DMCA. Why didn't we vote for Dean again?

The biggest "Doh!" is that the photographer who took the pic of Kerry is a "professor of journalism ethics" at UC Berkeley, and I doubt he's too pleased that his photo was stolen and used in a forgery.

You could go one step further and make some assumptions - that a UC Berkley professor who photographed an anti-war rally might possibly be slightly leftward leaning and have a political motive in pursing this... =)

Original Article

RTFA, it mentions one such case: that of Jose Padilla. It also links this article which discusses the Padilla case as well as several others.

Keep in mind the timeline:

1. Comcast talks to Eisner and proposes a "merger".
2. Eisner, without consulting with the board or mentioning it to shareholders, declines.
3. Comcast goes to the press in order to be sure that the Disney board and shareholders are aware of Eisner's refusal

While Roy has been noticabley quiet over his support of the Comcast deal (other than noting that it jibes with his own comments on Eisner), Pixar has said that if Comcast were to pull the deal off that they would be more than happy to reopen negotiations.

More interesting is SFGate's article about Pixar's interest in the deal:

Pixar Animation Studios may consider forming a consortium of investors to submit a counteroffer to Comcast Corp.'s $54 billion bid for the Walt Disney Co., according to the Times of London.

John Negle aka Animats is the Slashdot's most prolific poster.

Just think of the hospital in Florida that outsourced medical transcription to someone, who outsourced it again, until eventually, some Pakistani woman was upset that that she was not getting paid, and threatened to release all of the info onto the web.

Even though I agree with what you said, getting the details wrong does little to advance the case with others.

It was the UCSF Medical Center (University of California at San Francisco) not a hospital in Florida - unless someone else did the exact same thing...

Original article at San Francisco Cronicle

Penguins are gay.

Last time i linked to an article from the left and now I'll link to an article from the right.

OK, maybe those heartless American multinationals don't care about the American worker, but at least our patriotic state and federal governments should. You might think at least they'd be hiring Americans and not outsourcing overseas, yet many of them do just that. The state of Washington gets much of its programming done by programmers in -- you guessed it -- India. The U.S. military is now getting its cruise-missile parts from our comrades in China. It's all one big, happy global party. Unfortunately American workers are both catering the festivities and picking up the tab.

We are bleeding both manufacturing and skilled-knowledge service jobs. What will the few remaining employed Americans be doing 10 years from now? Over the past decade, textile employment nationally has fallen from about 850,000 jobs in 1994 to about 300,000 recently. What electronic product is still made in the United States? Forget that. What product of any kind is still made here? Give up? So do I.

Last time i linked to an article from the left and now I'll link to an article from the right.

OK, maybe those heartless American multinationals don't care about the American worker, but at least our patriotic state and federal governments should. You might think at least they'd be hiring Americans and not outsourcing overseas, yet many of them do just that. The state of Washington gets much of its programming done by programmers in -- you guessed it -- India. The U.S. military is now getting its cruise-missile parts from our comrades in China. It's all one big, happy global party. Unfortunately American workers are both catering the festivities and picking up the tab.

We are bleeding both manufacturing and skilled-knowledge service jobs. What will the few remaining employed Americans be doing 10 years from now? Over the past decade, textile employment nationally has fallen from about 850,000 jobs in 1994 to about 300,000 recently. What electronic product is still made in the United States? Forget that. What product of any kind is still made here? Give up? So do I.

These rich and powerful people are doing whatever they can to ensure they stay rich and powerful as long as possible. They're professional politicians, not humanitarian altruists.

This is exactly why John Kerry scares the hell out of most people who bother to look into what he's been up to. He's been taking money, in exchange for nominations for a long, long time now.

(Note: I have sent emails to Senators that were responded to via snail mail, I'm pretty sure they treat it all the same).

Yep, they treat it all the same. E-mail gets ignored just as efficiently as snail mail and faxes.

From this article

Lange said CBS' policy is inconsistent, because she's seen ads condemning smoking and drunken driving on past Super Bowl telecasts.

"If you can find a respectable group that is for drug abuse or kids starting to smoke, then I would find that to be an intellectually rigorous argument," Franks said.

Now watch this post get marked down as a troll because somebody with mod points eats meat, and thinks information like this shouldn't receive attention.

This article brings up many interesting points on outsourcing. Its history. Its effects in the past. The consequences.

Discuss.

I know of many US companies who make a living teaching companies in other countries like India about quality control and the way that US Businesses do business. If Indian companies had good quality, these companies would be out of business and not have business booming. I shall cite some examples of the quality of offshoring below.

Thing is, most IT workers, such as me, do not blame the people taking our jobs, but the companies making the move to other countries and cutting us loose. This is a global trend that is not going to stop unless there is some law passed against it, which I doubt will happen.

First it was a Labor Shortage which was a big lie by the Corporations to get rid of US workers and replace them with H1B Visa workers or outsource to India. Now that there is a surplus of IT Workers, they still claim there is an IT shortage and need to move more jobs overseas.

Where is the beef? Where is the quality that Indian companies are supposed to have? Apparently they did not have Quality at Dell when they moved a Help Desk over to India. Where is the quality in programs written? Security issues are a big risk and we are supposed to trust someone we cannot even watch from half a world away that they will not harm source code or be a risk to security?

Of course there is always hidden Malware to consider. Really nice of them to put in a back door or virus or trojan to access the corp system after the Indian programmers are let go when the project is over.

Oh yeah, the myth that it is cheaper. Consider the Hidden costs of Ofshoring nothing like a project going over budget and full of bugs and needing US developers to fit it. Once again, where is the beef? That quality is just not there once again.

It seems that India is America's silent partner. We may not even hear about it during the election year. When a government is more interested in rewriting copyright laws so that the RIAA can sue 13 year-old girls and fair use is out of the picture, I wonder who our politicians really work for? Certainly not the US Citizens, only Corporations. So of course they support the wholesale slaughter of US IT Workers and the export of IT jobs overseas.

Ah but there is a big risk involved in Offshoring. Sort of like taking all the company stock to Las Vegas and betting it all on number 35 on the Roulette Wheel. :) Just ask those who craft the contracts about the risks involved.

Nice to meet the people that are taking the jobs moved to India. Also nice to know they are not concerned that US Workers are losing their jobs to keep the Indian workers employed. I'd think if I was given a job at someone else's expense that I would quote my religious or culutral references instead as well when asked to respond to that. :)

Maybe we should personalize the US IT Workers too. Here is Bob, he worked for a Fortune 500 company for the past 15 years developing award winning programs and his work gained the company many patents. Bob holds a Masters in Information Systems. Management decided that he earns too much, so he was terminated and his job was sent with many others over to an IT sweatshop i

I had no problem getting offers from many companies with many different cultures when I graduated. Screening methods varied from heavy HR screening to email directly to the branch manager. The companies may well have had problems, but I had no difficulty working around them... *NO* difficulty. If you do have difficulty, then you are also a problem. I find it probable that despite your belief to the contrary, you suck.

I don't know if I would agree with that, but you do imply that there are civil rights abuses happening. With that, I agree wholeheartedly. That should change, and repealing many parts of the Patriot Act would be a good start.

Just last year, there were 3 million smartphones sold

Just this morning I read an Associated Press article in the local paper talking about consumer backlash against overly complicated personal technology devices. A 180-page manual for a point-and-shoot digital camera. A DVD remote with so many buttons on it that there was no room for a decent-sized Pause button. Etc.

Among the research facts cited in that article, a Yankee Group study shows that 50 percent of consumers postpone purchases on new gadgets because they think the new ones will be too hard to use. Also, 25 percent of consumers thought they had a high-definition television when they didn't. (I can personally count my own mother among these; more accurately, the store sold her an HDTV-ready digital TV, but without any hardware to receive HDTV signals. She thinks the picture looks great.)

Personally, I have absolutely no use for a digital camera built into my cell phone. I have little, if any, use for a color screen on same. I don't play games. Custom ring tones have limited utility. I think, like most people, I find PDA features useful mostly insofar as I can keep all my phone numbers -- where? Why, in my phone, so I can dial them. And then back them up to my computer. That's about it. That's about all most people want.

To switch to Devil's Advocate mode: to be perfectly honest, I do actually own a Smartphone. It's a Kyocera QCP-6035. Among other things, I keep the BART (light rail) schedule on it, and an application that has the addresses and phone numbers of local businesses, and movie listings. I check my email on it occasionally. It's very handy, and I'll probably replace it with another Smartphone when it dies.

But most people who see it think it's a goof. Even when I can pull up the movie schedules so we can catch a show that same afternoon, right on time, the thought never ever crosses their minds to get a similar gadget. They'll just pick up the local free weekly to get their movie listings, like always.

Can I blame them? This thing's a big, honkin' piece of plastic! They see it, they think it's an embarrassment, and they ain't wrong. There's plenty of times when I've wished I just had a plain old regular phone that dialed numbers and had a little screen for caller ID, and that's it. Especially if it was the size of a stubby fountain pen.

In sum: I'm not one of these people who thinks Linux is going to dominate Smartphones. I do not think it will. But even if it did -- is dominating yet another niche geek market really that big of an achievement?

Cole declared the ruling "a victory for everyone who believes the war on terrorism ought to be fought consistent with constitutional principles."

It's great that this is the first blow towards stamping out parts of the Patriot Act, but it's not winning the whole war.

I hope that Maher Arar sues the pants off of the US Government. To quote the article:

The Syrians locked Arar in an underground cell the size of a grave: 3 feet wide, 6 feet long, 7 feet high. Then they questioned him, under torture, repeatedly, for 10 months.

I hope that this man gets compensation for what he had to endure. I'm crossing my fingers that in the process of him doing so that most of these police-state laws that have gone into effect go the way of the dinosaur.

This isn't 1943, and this isn't 1984. The law should reflect that.

And to a Slashbot, it's hysterical

Like At no time did the US lend support to him, or his organization is hysterical?

Like this picture of Saddam Hussein shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld.

Or maybe this article in the Dallas Morning News of all places: Saddam Hussein: former ally, future defendant

Or this story printed in California, Mossouri, Oklahoma, and Conneticut.

I know this is offtopic but the other discussion is archived.

PS: I can prove Clinton never cheated with Monica. A google search for "Clinton cheated on his wife by getting a bj" turns up zilch.

....Not to mention forcing their customers to listen to Fox News Lies in their stores and censoring music (but not movies or violent video games.

Um, I think the issue is that the four who spoke out against SERVE were the only ones to speak. It's not like the other six came out in favor of the project -- they simply refused to comment. Not exactly what I'd call a ringing endorsement.

From TFA:
The four security experts are among 10 the Pentagon asked to study the SERVE system and look for vulnerabilities. The other six experts decided not to issue a report, Flood said.

--------
If I can own an idea, does that mean I can legally claim some portion of your soul once I tell you that idea? Or even if you just come up with it on your own? Heck, who needs contracts written in blood...

Before anyone wastes their time pointing things out to our "servants" in congress, be sure to read this article first. They don't care about your opinon. And note that SCO is now doing the lobbying dirty work for Microsoft. Such a surprise. Not. I'll say it one more time: better burn cd-roms of your favorite Open Source products, because the end of their legality in the US is coming soon and there's nothing you can do to stop it. The resources of IBM, Red Hat, and the OSDL are nothing compared to Microsoft's >$9 billion cash reserves, and they will continue to manage to slip it to SCO and our government "servants" as needed.

I nominate These Losers

I have no problem with the government running passenger lists against an FBI list of known terrorists and felons

You mean like this guy? Perhaps if Herr Ashcroft and his cronies find some tenuous connection between you and some terrorist and ships you overseas for 10 months of torture and interrogation you'll be a little less rah-rah about the idea.

Environmentalists are suing power companies because a windmill kills a bird every other year. here Imagine their flaming at a bit of nuclear power.

And Apple, for all their ills as far as co-opting technology in ways distressingly similar to Microsoft, has never been known to utterly decimate the competition or actively belittle or disparage them.

Ask independent dealers.

Since the opening of the company-owned stores, the smaller distributers of Apple products have slowly been squeezed out of the market. Required minimum orders have increased, margins have decreased, and many small shops have either closed or consolidated.

I cannot find the article, but Apple has used the Macintosh registration process to harvest e-mail addresses in order to lure customers who bought their Macintosh from a distributer/dealer to purchase accessories from the Apple store at a discount to the dealer price.

As an Apple dealer, I wouldn't wait too long to sell the business. Apple will continue to squeeze all of the dealers out of the market, concentrating on locations where an Apple store is already present.

In the site's frontpage they quoted a guy from Microsoft:

"But Microsoft's Drake said Lindows.com's online process makes it too easy to make a claim".

But they omitted the rest of his comment (also here): "[comma] making it more likely that people without legitimate claims will file.".

Heh, that reminds me of some movie ads, where they show quotes from magazines like "Brilliant!", but they omit the rest that goes "It was brilliant the way the director blew it with this piece of crap. Just brilliant!".

Frankly, I find the lines between the two becoming a bit blurry, hence my "just" linking.

Were you aware that the US is placing customs officials in European ports? Requiring all airlines flying to the US to submit passenger data within x minutes of taking off? Is mandating (at least on Qantas flights to .au) that you're not allowed to stand in line in front of airline toilets? Is attempting to prosecute foreign nationals for breaking (insipid) US laws by proxy? Is sending foreign travellers suspected (incorrectly) of terrorist affiliations to be tortured by third world secret police?

Seemingly unrelated, right?

I'm an American citizen living abroad, who is proud of the values that my country stands for, at least in theory. I want to be able to stand up and use "us" as a shining example to others--I actually believe all that "poor, huddled unwashed bell-bottom-clad masses crap", and bits about freedom of speech and assembly and religion and and and.

It just pains me right now to see the US setting such a shitty example to the rest of the world, both by childish, idiotic policies at home, and ham-handed attempts to bring a lot of aspects of international politics in line with the government's way of thinking; it sets a bad precedent, and doesn't present my country in the enlightened manner in which I think it could.

That's all.

I however don't think it's fine that preferential treatment be given to any one because of their ethnicity, as is being done. It's also wrong that anyone who questions such a system (a system that is discrimination by definition) is accused of being hateful and racist. Don't think it happens? I attended a Prop 209 protest march (another time, another place). I know it happens.

I also don't think it's fine that any time a white person tries to obtain any kind of cultural identity, they are denounced and villified (as you have done, by suggesting that wanting such makes one insensitive to others plights). For a recent example, see This Story from the San Francisco Chronicle about a girl who, attending a school where only 8% of the students were white, attempted to start a Caucasian Club, and was subject to so much hostility and hatred for her efforts, ended up dropping out. It is a common attitude, even amongst whites, that any white person who attempts to find racial identity is a racist, and that needs to change. Especially as whites continue to become a smaller percentage of the population.

And I know that someone will think me a racist for saying all this, though nothing could be further from the truth. Funny how people who question discrimination are now labeled the racists.

...

The FBI took a shotgun approach toward protesters partly because of the FBI's "belief that dissident speech and association should be prevented because they were incipient steps toward the possible ultimate commission of act which might be criminal," according to a Senate report.

On Nov. 23 news broke that the FBI is actively conducting surveillance of antiwar demonstrators, supposedly to "blunt potential violence by extremist elements," according to a Reuters interview with a federal law enforcement official.

Given the FBI's expansive definition of "potential violence" in the past, this is a net that could catch almost any group or individual who falls into official disfavor.

A minor correction, speaking from a CA district near Yee's - Yee is a no-name nationally, sure, but that doesn't mean that he can't do bad-for-your-freedom stuff that sets a precedent. He got a column into the San Francisco Chronicle recently, hyping his bill and peddling the same disgusting "Videogames turn children into copycat killers!" tripe that's been going on for years. Bloody idiots. The paper published a couple of follow-ups - one gamer defending the right to imagine, and one sort of half-and-half agreeing with Yee in principle, but waffling about the bill. Bloody idiots. I thought we were supposed to be the smart area of the country here, but apparently we've got the same problem finding qualified officials as everyone else.

Check out this news report from SFGate -

Mission officials said that means that if time permitted before the Martian dusk, the rover could start snapping pitchers of Mars late Saturday night.

I hope them pitchers look perty!

Surely drivers would never or glance over at images, pictures, video clips or tv on a cel phone in hands free console or dash mount prudently installed for one's safety in acorrd with recent laws, ordinances.

If you don't trust that website, how about CBS Marketwatch or San Francisco Gate? They are both speculating, but they are larger press than MacRumors and ThinkSecret.

As the FBI has warned us, so the Martians must have thought it was hijacked and about to crash into something.

The cost of the hardware is less than $500, the MRC is about $50 for a high speed line. There is very mimal effort to keep it going and it does encourage customers to stay and drink more coffee. There was an article in the S.F. Chronicle a few months ago about this here. It is a pretty good money maker for a cage with good traffic and some net users but I don't think it will necessarily work for every little mom and pop. The tip jar will help close the gap if there is one, because most people will indeed tip for a service offered - not everyone is a cheapskate.

...the Dildo Pigs!!!

In connection with the above, I wonder to what extent corporations deliberately release personal data to third parties via third countries, usually "partnership corporations," where this would be illegal in the home country.

And of course, the data subjects don't have a clue as to what is going on. Until they get screwed over in whatever way.

If any of you out there has any concrete information about this subject, please let me know (links, books, whatever).

In connection with the above, I wonder to what extent corporations deliberately release personal data to third parties via third countries, usually "partnership corporations," where this would be illegal in the home country.

And of course, the data subjects don't have a clue as to what is going on. Until they get screwed over in whatever way.

If any of you out there has any concrete information about this subject, please let me know (links, books, whatever).

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-walmart23nov 23.story

There is also an opinion piece on the San Francisco Chronicle that discusses Wal-Mart and the company's business practices.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/a rchive/2003/12/08/hsorensen.DTL

How does he enforce this?

I dunno. Ask this poor bastard.

-Waldo Jaquith