Slashdot Mirror
US Citizens To Require ''Clearance'' To Leave?
jo7hs2 writes "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has proposed a system which will in essence make it mandatory for you to have permission before leaving or entering the country, effectively putting everyone on a no-fly list unless the government says otherwise. Interestingly, the proposal does not seem to cover personal travel, only that on some sort of carrier like an airline or cruise vessel. While this certainly is concerning, it isn't exactly new, as a passport is already required for circumstances covered under the proposal."
Over here in Europe I am increasingly hearing people who say they don't want to travel to the USA at the moment, whether for tourism or business. The effect of this kind of thing on tourism would be fairly easy to measure, however the effect on business generally - if businessmen outside of the USA don't want to travel there - is impossible to know.
I thought the Republicans were supposed to be "pro-business" - surely they can understand the potential negative consequences of this kind of thing? Having said that, they don't seem to be worried about the negative effects of their neanderthal foreign policies, so perhaps not.
Okay, so we have a story on a political website ("Friends of Liberty") with a link only to published comments by another political website ("PapersPlease.org") concerning a proposal where the original RFP was posted July 14 of this year. Where was the outrage then, where was the irate Slashdot article then?
Could it possibly be that this regulation would not have the effect that the far left claims that it would have?
If you read the regulation proposal, what this regulation change would actually do is require manifests to be transmitted to US Customs before the aircraft pushes back from the gate, rather than 15 minutes after takeoff (which is the current regulation), so that DHS can have do-not-fly list passengers removed from the flight before it takes off rather than causing a possible situation in the air.
This attempt at political chicanery on Slashdot's part is so transparent it's laughable.
this happened to me. my passport expired and i needed to travel out of the country asap. i was warned that reentry would be a bitch. it was.
i work in film as a risk assessment consultant. i was detained for 6 hours upon return from filming in st. lucia. this was on a large film that exhibited this past year. a full background check was performed and I was interrogated by marshals at JFK under the watch of two national guardsmen with m-16s at the ready. i was told that as an "unemployed single multi-ethnic male under 30 without documents" that I essentially triggered all of their flags. I clearly wasn't unemployed - and a significant part of my time was spent explaining "consultant" to them. I was interrogated (pardon my ignorance in this) using a technique whereby I was asked the same question several times - basic questions like my date of birth and the names of my parents and the schools i went to, etc. They also asked questions like: "So how long did you spend in Brazil?" when it had already been established that I'd gone to st. lucia. many other questions were asked in this manner in rapid succession with several men staring intently at me, with another comparing my answers to something onscreen. Their voices were raised and stern; weapons were casually brandished. my frustration at being asked the same thing over and over without recourse was considered an act of "aggression" which according to them justified the brandishing of weapons.
My laptop and pda were turned on and I presume given a thorough looking over. my cell phone was turned on and call lists were duplicated. apparently, they confirmed my information to grade school, apologized for the intrusion and sent me on my way, at which point the airline said they didn't know where my luggage was. another hour later, my luggage was "found" - with my bags clearly rifled through.
There are some legal proceedings under way in regards to this action. the funny thing about this incident is that one of the international sales agents on this film was actually illegal here in the US at the time and he shares the last name of a famous currently incarcerated former mid-east leader. he expressed having a strong case of nerves whenever reentering, and was less than cool about it when we hit the arrival gates. we both hit the gates at the same time - i was stopped, and he breezed through without a second look. So in this instance, while I was apparently profiled in some way, the most obvious guy to profile in this situation was not.
un burrito me trampeó.
At every turn a good republican should ask if what they are doing helps the people and minimizes the control the government has over the people. They are clearly not doing the latter, and the former [is] arguable.
No, not really.
Your party has historically been for many things, but "small government" was never really one of them. It was just a way to say they were "anti-socialist" or "anti-welfare" without being negative. The party you describe would be against drug laws or outlawing abortion as much as it's against gun control.
The left/right divide comes down to the division of Right and Proper -- the Right-wing desires the government to do that which is morally correct, while the left desires the government do that which is legally proper. there are, of course, other metrics you might use to divide the two, but "big government / small government" isn't one of them.