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."
"Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are two countries in recent history
that didn't allow their citizens to travel abroad without permission."
"Friends of Liberty" loses!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Not only that, but this provision requires you to request clearance upon every entrance/exit from the country. With a passport, you just need the passport. You don't have to get your 'papers in order' first.
I call BS on jo7hs2.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Look on the bright side... Can't think of one right now, but i'm sure someone thinks there is one...
How can these laws pass at all? So, is it a matter of time before they pass a law against some religion, and invade alternative of Poland?
Oh wait, the invasion happened already. Nevermind...
there is no issue with my network
...that, of course, is the day you go to the polls and let these people know that all this stuff is A-OK with you.
(credit to Jim Schutze for phrasing)
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Another aspect in which this would "help" the Americans is in limiting the number of American youth would would be at risk of exposure to foreign ideals through studies abroad. Today, any American who can afford it could be exposed to all sorts of crazy ideas, just by enrolling in a foreign school. If they also had to ask permission before leaving the country, then many of them would probably not risk their souls in this way.
Military tribunals and secret decision-making like this are horrible ideas because there's no accountability involved. But what about hard-core terrorists like Osama, those responsible for WTC I and WTC II among other things? If anything, this applies more. I want to see the bastards on trial in a New York courtroom, in public, accountable to the very populace whom they injured and whose families they murdered. Then, since New York has no death penalty, a nice long term in Sing Sing in the same cellblock with the Aryan Brotherhood. Justice doesn't have to be meted out by military courts to be tough or fair.
-b.
I'm afraid I don't take these "Friends of Liberty" folks at face value. Their assertions are backed up by a volume of evidence found in similar conspiracy theories. NONE WHATSOEVER.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
This is nothing like the fact that we already are required to use a passport for a number of these same reasons.
A passport is documentation to foreign countries that you are a documented U.S. citizen.
Being required to "check out" of the country with DHS, despite all the calls of "Godwin rule" invocations, is exactly like Soviet Russia, Communist Cuba and China, and Nazi Germany, in recent history.
Seriously, if you people don't get out and vote these facists out of office, you're going to be just like the guy from WWII who wrote the poem about how, when there was no one else left, they came for him, and there was no one left to stop them. Enough with the "But I don't have anything to hide". When are you going to realize it's not about, and never has been about, "hunting the terrorists" and "making us safe", it's about "controlling the people", through fear, and travel restrictions, and spying? The more people say "But I dont have anything to hide, let them go ahead", the more they win.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
One day, older American will weep and younger Americans will be confused by lines like:
Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck... maybe even a "recreational vehicle." And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?
Captain Ramius: I suppose.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers?
Captain Ramius: No papers, state to state.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Well then, in winter I will live in... Arizona. Actually, I think I will need two wives.
Captain Ramius: Oh, at least.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
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.
What the fuck is wrong with people who will go out and vote more power to Bush and his fucking fascist government this Tuesday?
Torture, shredded Habeas Corpus, thousands of kidnapped people in CIA prisons around the world, "signing statements" vowing to break the law he just signed, martial law powers, leaving the country only by his permission... Bush has turned himself into the king of a fascist kingdom,
If you know one of these monsters voting for the Republican Congress in collusion with Bush, do everything you can to get them to vote people into Congress on Tuesday who will stop this destruction of America.
--
make install -not war
While this certainly is concerning, it isn't exactly new, as a passport is already required for circumstances covered under the proposal."
This is ratcheting up the control of the citizenry - and it is exactly like the Soviet system. Anyone who disagrees with this assessment is both ignorant and uneducated - there is no middle ground on this, period!
I am once again struck by the 2004 presidential election. At that time I lived in Seattle, and the young, seemingly educated women I spoke with amazed me in that they were going to vote for Bushski. After extolling them with all the negative legislation he had signed into law (that is, stuff that was negative against American workers' rights, women's rights, unions' right to exist, etc.) they were still adamant to vote for him. Likewise, the incredible stupid number of union workers I spoke with.
This is an especially sore point with me as an ancestor of mine gave his life on behalf of the union movement. When I was back in Seattle for several weeks awhile ago, I did a amateur survey and found that 10 out of 10 union members didn't know jack about the NAFTA Super Highway, nor about the DHS-Maritime Infrastructure Recovery Program, nor about the union-busting regs set forth by the US Labor Relations Board! This populace is truly screwed.....
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.
I'm afraid I don't take these "Friends of Liberty" folks at face value. Their assertions are backed up by a volume of evidence found in similar conspiracy theories. NONE WHATSOEVER.
Read the PDF listed at the bottom of the press release. The very first paragraph explains the source of their concerns:
The Identity Project submits these comments in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) published at 71 Federal Register 40035-40048 (July 14, 2006), docket number USCBP-2005-0003-0003, and the associated "Regulatory Assessment" published July 18, 2006 on the Web site at http://www.regulations.gov/ and docketed as USCBP-2005-0003-0005.
In the guise of an NPRM alleged to propose a change only in the required timing of transmission of information already required to be provided to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the CBP has actually proposed a fundamental regulatory change with far-reaching (literally and figuratively) legal, policy, and logistical implications: The NPRM would replace a requirement for ex post facto notice to the CBP of information about who is on each vessel (ship or plane) with an unconstitutional system of prior restraint of international travel, entirely unauthorized by statute and inconsistent with the U.S. obligations embodied in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Here is the full docket in PDF format (took me a while to find it until I came across a Reddit comment that said to make sure you allow the search engine to search closed-for-comment documents...and when I did, it took the search engine a minute or more to find the document.)
Please help metamoderate.
There would be support for it. At a 1987 news conference, the 41st President had this exchange with a reporter:
Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?
Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.
That's why nobody checks passports as you depart.
Not true. Airlines check your passport before you depart. They can be fined for delivering passengers that don't have the required documentation to enter the country of their destination. They check when you get your boarding pass and they check again as you board the plane.
I suppose I should expect this from the ever-ready-to do its research Slashdot, but where are the sources for this article?
If you look at this "news site's" front page, you'll see a lot of the traditional conspiracy rantings and, when you look particularly at the traditional Kennedy conspiracy nonsense so typical of sites that have completely fallen off their rocker.
This isn't a news site. There's no good sourcing (yes, I followed the URL at the end, see below). The reference stated to this document mentions no such restrictions as those found in the Slashdot summary or the article.
There are certainly privacy issues at stake, but nothing near what this ridiculous article or the Slashdot summary make it out to be.
This is just piss poor. I know Slashdot isn't a news site, so I don't expect it to research things as thoroughly as a journalist would (granted, I expect little of journalists as well).
The most pertinent part of the executive summary of the regulation proposal in question reads as follows:
The primary purpose of this proposed rule is to prevent passengers that have been
identified as high-risk on government watchlists from boarding aircraft bound for or
departing from the United States and to prevent passengers and crew so identified
from departing on vessels leaving the Unites States. On April 7, 2005, the Bureau of
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published requirements for the transmission of
passenger and crew manifests for aircraft and vessels arriving from foreign
destinations or departing to foreign destinations (70 FR 17820). Implementation of the
"2005 APIS Rule" (named for the Advance Passenger Information System, the CBP
electronic system used to obtain electronic manifest information from carriers)
required that information on passengers and crew to be transmitted: no later than 15
minutes after departure for arriving aircraft passengers; no later than 15 minutes prior
to departure for departing aircraft passengers; at least 60 minutes prior to departure
for arriving and departing aircraft crew; at least 24 hours and as much as 96 hours
prior to a vessel's entry at a US port for arriving passengers and crew, depending on
the length of the voyage; and 15 minutes prior to departure for departing vessel
passengers and crew.
Are there privacy issues here? You betcha. And they've been discussed here at length. Do they approach what the article and its summary here state they approach? Not at all. Read the rest of the proposed regulation.
Come on, slashdot. Treat us like adults. Give us primary source materials and avoid the conspiracy mumbo-jumbo.
I will say this, though - If I'm wrong, and you find some nuance in the document I missed, please post and inform me.
The got this brilliant idea from a french engineer. Maginot or wotshisname...
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
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.
I have to tell you that I agree with a lot of what you are saying. I'm a 2nd generation immigrant who was raised on lectures about how wonderful America was and anecdotes outlining the superiority of American government and culture. Honestly I found the changes in America so repellent I moved and in doing so I learned a few interesting things.
Americans have no idea what communism or socialism is... or if they do they do not use this knowledge when exhorting the evils of these systems. Nor do they have an tangible idea about what police states or totalitarian states are.
The failure of unions is that they are abused by those people who profit by people being in them, if everyone was in a union of some sort (or none at all) this would not be possible or at least more difficult to pull off.
The US dollar sucks.
The US by many metrics isn't the best place in the world to live. A notable exception is making buckets of cash.
US Foreign policy is nothing short of evil.
Racism is more of a problem in America than people want to admit.
Xenophobia is a significant problem in America.
The American system of government is broken and given the behavior of Americans it appears altogether beyond their capacity to fix it.
You can not live in a "nice" society without paying for it... via taxes.
It's in all of our interests to do what we can to raise everyone we can to a certain level (I mean a level above Henry Ford's auto assemblers and Ray Kroc's fast food workers). This means public schooling, accessible health care, &tc...
You cannot create a better society by legislating morality but you sure as hell can make it worse.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
He did, you idiot.
There are those of us who would leave, too, were it not for family and friends. Those connections keep people in even far more repellent places.
God, I hope this rubbish starts ending on Tuesday.
It won't. There aren't enough Libertarians on the ballots to
make that happen, even if they all won; which won't happen
either.
I just hope you aren't counting on either branch of the
Demopublican Party to end this madness... if you are, you're
going to be sadly disappointed.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
The primary purpose of this proposed rule is to prevent passengers that have been
identified as high-risk on government watchlists from boarding aircraft bound for or
departing from the United States
I think the problem is that getting onto one of these "watchlists" is not particularly hard. Who decides who gets on the list? If you are on such a list, would you know it? Would you have any opportunity to challenge your presence on the list? How hard would it be to declare someone on such a list to be an "unlawful enemy combatant," and thus make them eligible for torture, a military court trial, etc.?
I am not sure how we are going to repeal all of these laws once the current administration is out of power. It's going to be nearly impossible.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
And you propose to have women prove that they used a contraceptive how? I don't think that state sponsered CCTV cameras in everyone's bedroom would go over too well. (although... if you've got nothing to hide...)
:)
Without some way to prove/disprove the contraceptive use, you've effectively set up a meaningless system where anyone that's willing to lie under oath (in a lie that they can't be caught at) will be able to get an abortion.
Now, for a solution that makes noone happy, but might actually work. Let the anti-abortionites sign up for an "I'm willing to adopt list". If a woman goes for an abortion, and there's a name on that list, then she carriest he baby to term and the name on the list gets the kid and is taken off. If there isn't a name on that list, then, well, the public obviously doesn't care enough, and the abortion is allowed to happen.
The best part is that it makes absolutely noone happy, so it must be a good compromise!
As far as voting Libertarian, if everyone feels that way about a less-known but optimal candidate or party, then we're bound to get stuck with suboptimal representatives! Ultimately, the solution to this problem is election reform. Give each voter more than one vote in a given election, allow them to rank candidates in order of preference, or go with approval voting. With approval voting, voters can say that the either "approve" "disapprove" or "abstain" on a given candidate. Then points are assigned to each rating. Approved is +1 point, abstention counts for 0, and disapproval counts for -1. In the end, the candidate with the most points wins (or maybe there can be a runoff if there isn't a clear margin of victory).
Approval voting avoids the problem of the wasted vote - voters can vote for *both* Gore and the Libertarian (say) and not run into the problem of wasting their single votes.
-b.
I recently came across this quote about exploiting nationalism, and it disturbed me for two reasons. First, it is a very accurate description of the post 9/11 political situation, which has resulted in the loss of civil liberties, the disastrous occupation of Iraq, secret prisons, torture, and the dismantling of the government's system of checks and balances. Second, the author is Hermann Goering.
Godwin's Law, I know, but there are some eerie parallels, and that's scary as hell. I am truly afraid for my country's future. These are dark times; it's the worst I've ever seen the United States of America. We've got the monkeys running the zoo... these are small, foolish, and dangerous little men- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. And they are tearing the country apart. They've got the left hating the right and the right hating the left. They've got us caught up in an eternal war against terror (as if you can wage war on a military tactic, that's as nonsensical as a "war against flanking maneuvers"). In their war, in order to save our freedoms from the terrorists, they've got to take our freedoms away. Meanwhile, our executive branch is obsessed with using torture to the point that it starts to seem creepily sadistic, running secret prisons and shipping people off to be tortured in foreign countries. Finally, we've got to keep fighting endlessly in Iraq as it spirals into civil war, and I still haven't heard something that even vaguely resembles a strategy for success, or a convincing explanation of why we even went in, and killed thousands of our own men and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
I've always criticized America, not because I hate her, but because I love her and want her to be better. I thought there was a lot wrong with the country, but I believed it was basically a good country, and that other nations had a lot to learn from us. But now, when I travel through foreign countries, I am ashamed to show my American passport. I actually tell people I'm "coming from Canada" (misleading but true, because that's where I study). Living abroad, I now realize that deep down, I still do love America. But not the America of George Bush. That America is an America of constant fear, divisive hate, endless war, domestic spying, and torture. And we can do better than George Bush's America.
Another interesting article to read on the current state of affairs is on "Ur Fascism" (PDF warning, page 5 is where the defining 14 features start) by Umberto Eco. A very interesting description on the current state of affairs.
The exact original quote (note a poem) is lost, but here's a page with a very thorough review of the various known versions: Martin Niemöller's famous quotation: "First they came for the Communists".
You have to get permission from the State to leave.
I know, its not even the slightest bit funny anymore...
When the country falls into chaos, politicians talk about 'patriotism'. Lao-Tzu
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.
Not on fire. Mr Bush just wiped his ass on that "God damn sheet of paper" that is our Constitution. This is probably a stunt puled before the elections to make the people feel like their government is protecting them. Well, if in sometime in the future I find when we are all locked up or living in ghettos (the real ones, not what modern urban blacks call "ghettos" because they don't understand the concept) then I know I shall be in good company. What ever happened to "Live free or die."
Pagan? Geek? Check out #paganism on Freenode IRC
Unfortunately, it takes a turning event to make significant change.
I doubt voting will be the solution. I'm still hopeful, but......
Fortunately, the armed forces are made up of humans (for now), and those humans have family and friends in the civilian sector. When they're ordered to turn on American civilians, it won't be the revolutionaries against the military, it will be the revolutionaries AND a good portion of the military against the remainder of the government's military.
It won't be a good day in American history, but it will definitely make the history books. But remember, history is written by the victors. If the revolutionaries win, it will be the birth of a new America, taken from the tyranny. If the government stops the uprising, it will be the strong government stopping a disillusioned band of malcontents.
The military is already planning for such an event to occur.
http://www.google.com/search?q=domestic+civil+dis
Without significant planning and organization, any civilian unrest will not go over well. Sure, there are plenty of guns in the hands of Joe-Citizen, but in a situation of a single individual versus a squad who have the tactical advantage, the individual will never win. There will never be enough order without a random figure inside that organization realizing the potential for failure, and reporting to the government, and without a driving factor to encourage it, there will never be an organized group.
This administration is running on it's own agenda, and not listening to the people that they represent. The majority are very unhappy with their actions. An armed revolution could happen, but like I said, it won't be pretty, and in the first days (or years?) of it, the majority of losses will be on the revolutionaries side.
At very best, the administration will make a significant series of choices which drive the military to a coup. There, an organized and trained group will have the tactical advantage.
I feel this administration WILL continue it's tradition of making bad choices, and something will come of that. I'm not much of a fortune teller, so I'll continue pretending that voting does count, and voicing my opinion means something.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Of course they do. Good thing the Bible didn't have a commandment saying "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours oil" or something.