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All US Border Crossings Now Require A 'Terrorist Risk Profile'
conlaw writes with a somewhat intimidating Washington Post article. "The federal government disclosed details yesterday of a border-security program to screen all people who enter and leave the United States, create a terrorism risk profile of each individual and retain that information for up to 40 years ... The risk assessment is created by analysts at the National Targeting Center, a high-tech facility opened in November 2001 and now run by Customs and Border Protection. In a round-the-clock operation, targeters match names against terrorist watch lists and a host of other data to determine whether a person's background or behavior indicates a terrorist threat, a risk to border security or the potential for illegal activity. They also assess cargo."
All US Border Crossings Now Require A 'Terrorist Risk Profile'
Not if you leave the right way. If you know what I mean.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Obviously this only applies to people crossing the border LEGALLY. People who for whatever reason cross the border illegally will never get a "terrorist profile". Well done, America, well done. Who advised you on this, the RIAA/MPAA/copy protection industry?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Good job, slashdot.
Also, one would presume there is SOME level of checking at the borders, else there isn't really any need for borders or the concept of a nation-state, is there?
In a round-the-clock operation, targeters match names against terrorist watch lists and a host of other data to determine whether a person's background or behavior indicates a terrorist threat, a risk to border security or the potential for illegal activity.
So what they're saying is that they are going to use a high-tech facility to match names to a list of people known to cause false positives and is based on poor information at best so that a list of names can be created for the next half century for the government to track the travel habits of its citizens.
Now, the vast majority of people coming in and out of this country are legitimate and yet our freedoms are being restricted for a handful of people worldwide that would most likely not appear on that list as there are new "freedom haters" popping up every second -- especially when news, like this, keep coming to light.
I'm ashamed that my future tax dollars and my children's future tax contributions will be going to pay for this fucking horseshit and no one is doing anything to stop it. Hey, politicians listen up... Want my vote? Put a fucking stop to this waste of time, energy and money. Thanks.
I was trying to think up some kind of response to this but, honestly, it's so infuriating and, more importantly, so stupid that I simply can't.
I own itburns.net. What should I put there?
They will keep records of the fact that some collage kids took a trip up to Montreal to go drinking for 40 years... But they will do nothing about the drug smugglers and millions of illegals pouring over the southern boarders.
If some terrorist wants to do harm here he isnt going to give a crap that he is being logged in some database. Heck he will just cross over from mexico with out being checked at all.
I have to return some videotapes...
This was posted by the Washington, er, Post on November 3, 2006. Whoops.
I own itburns.net. What should I put there?
"We gather, collect information that is needed to protect the borders," Agen said. "We store the information we see as pertinent to keeping Americans safe."
It's sad but there are people that think this will result in tangible safety. They don't stop to think that just maybe people coming into the US through the proper means aren't the major threats. I've talked about this is in other posts, but this takes the cake. Every one is to be viewed as a threat. The government is forcing a paranoid world of survivalism on us. I hate being alarmist, and I hate ragging on the government for nothing, but this is serious. This a fundamental challenge to the idea of personal liberty, innocence until proven guilty, and pretty much every other tenet of the philosophical basis for our nation. This is a gross, paranoid, unrealistic power grab. After reading the article I don't have a whole lot of hope. It was a calm rational piece, which is normally what I would want, but this needs to be shown for what it is.
So to all newcomers... welcome to America where we aim to alienate and tread over any and everyone!
I got a catholic block.
It's only a matter of time until the number of people leaving the US exceeds those who enter, legally or otherwise. Oops, guess I just upped my terrorist profile index threat level color orange whatever.
Uh, what? Do you have any idea what you're talking about? No? I thought not.
Still, it's an anti-American post so I'm going to guess it'll end up +5 Insightful in spite of its incoherence.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Great, I can see it now:
Agent: It says here you have a truck full of... "baklava"?
Trucker: That's right.
Agent: Hold on, let me just run it through the ole' computer here...
(interminable wait)
Agent (to the crate of deserts): OK Mr. Bahklever, lay on the ground or we'll shoot!
Trucker: Dude... you're yelling at a pastry...
Agent: ON THE GROUND!!!
Trucker: I don't think it can hear you, man.
Agent: (incinerates truck)
Taken individually all the measures that are being enacted in the USA over the last few years are almost laughable. But together, I just can't believe that more organizations like the ACLU or even the EFF aren't screaming from the rooftops about the encroachment on liberties! I mean really, it's the USA not the USSA: what happened to the land of the free? It seems to be going down the proverbial tubes, when will the madness stop? Will the US go fully down the road to facism?? Just buy guns, lots of them. Just in case.
Shh.
Jesus Christ on a moped. What is wrong with you people? The emperor truly has no clothes and nobody dares to point it out.
Wow, I wonder if even Zonk read the article, or does he really think posting a month old story without qualifications is ok.
In any event, I'm not sure what the big deal is. Do people really expect that no check of any kind wouldn't be run on people coming into the country? I'm not sure what century some people live in, but its not the world we live in today.
It's sad how slashdot has degenerated into a indymedia, rabid anti-authority site. This used to be news for nerds. Now it's left-wing rabble rousing for like-minded wackjobs.
.. to not step foot in the US.
Lets make legal immigration more time consuming and difficult (wouldn't want smart people entering the country, now would we?) and continue ignoring the illegal variety. I'm sure that terrorists who want to destroy america will go out of their way to obey laws.
In a case like this, with so many people and so few terrorists, a profile is not going to accomplish much. If as many as one in ten thousand people crossing the borders were terrorists, it would make a bit more sense.
Of course, if this program were worthwhile in the first place, it wouldn't be if Canada didn't do something similar. There is absolutely no way to stop anybody from crossing the northern border. It's thousands of miles long, unpatrolled, unfenced, and passes through some pretty wild territory.
So, it's another pointless exercise. All it will do is hassle assorted people, many of them innocent, and do nothing to prevent terrorism.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I ship out as a reservist next year. /Would love to see my profile......
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Ok, if they track so much information could they inform the airline what happened to my luggage? I was flying from Winnipeg, Canada to Chicago, Il; and on to Norfolk.
Somewhere in here United lost my luggage. They don't have a clue what they did with it.
...and if you happen to show up as a high terrorist risk because your name matches someone else's or you recently received a phone call from a business acquaintance in the middle east, then they whisk you off to a foreign country, remove all trace that you even attempted to enter, and you get tortured until you tell them what they want to hear.
Sounds like the collapse of the US to me.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
And any idiot terrorist could cross the northern border.
It will be interesting to see how the figures change in the coming years, as border security gets worse (ie, more restrictive), whilst the yankee dinar gets lower and lower, thus making it more appealing to holiday makers.
There's already some revealing figures for 2006 and 2007. Something to keep an eye on for sure.
Who won the Cold War? Because I'm really having a hard time telling the difference anymore.
yet another reason for me not to travel to the US, you guys enjoy whatever it is you have there while yuo sink in your quagmire of fear and loathing.
Well, I have been reluctant to want to visit the US given the rampant paranoia and siege state that seems to be prevalent down there recently, but this pretty much guarantees I won't ever visit again. Its not that I am a terrorist, its not that I am any sort of threat to anyone, and its not that I have anything to hide in fact, its that I don't want to have a profile that will be retained for 40-years, that will undoubtedly end up being incorrect in some aspect, which I can't update, correct, or most likely even view at any point during that period. Its that I don't want to risk having some mistake result in my being whisked away to some foreign country for a torture session that will produce whatever they want me to say (as erroneous as it will be) because I recognize I wouldn't stand up to sustained torture for very long. The chances are admittedly very very small, but why take any chances. When the mad dog in the junkyard is unpredictable, its better to just stay away from it.
:(
Weighed against the benefits of visiting the USA, I would rather go to just about any other country in the world right now. I sincerely hope you folks manage to straighten things out, find your constitution again, resurrect Habeas Corpus and the rights of the individual, and perhaps find your sanity. As it stands the Terrorists out there are winning the so-called war, because they have convinced your government to turn the US into exactly what the Terrorists claimed it was in the first place.
Its so sad to see all this coming to pass. You folks down in the US have my sincere sympathy
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
This is just what we need, as long as the boxes with all that paperwork is stacked along the southern border.
The US won't be able to keep the data for 40 years, it won't exist by then!
I doubt that anybody, even the instigators of this program, believes that it will work as purported. It will fail its official mission, but will succeed in its unofficial and true purpose, which is to feed and grow a vast new security industry -- and slowly accustom Americans to being maltreated. One day you will wake up and notice that uniformed thugs demanding "Papers, please" are almost everywhere -- and that will be the day you will realize that you have become the Nazis that you used to despise.
We have better shopping. And big cars. And Jesus.
Then our duty is clear. Even though it will cause a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of names suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced, we must all change our names to "Richard Bruce Cheney".
Can you say it?
I know you can!
We make the DDR look like Sweden!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
From the article:
"According to yesterday's notice, the program is exempt from certain requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974 that allow, for instance, people to access records to determine "if the system contains a record pertaining to a particular individual" and "for the purpose of contesting the content of the record."
Who is going to rein back those idiots?
America has no dream - only a nightmare.
>All it will do is hassle assorted people, many of them innocent, and do nothing to prevent terrorism.
"...they were detained, questioned and denied entry...The women were questioned at Canadian customs about their participation in anti-war efforts and informed that they had an FBI file indicating they had been arrested in acts of non-violent civil disobedience."
If our current government would have spent some time in between debating pointless things such as the question of when a fetus is considered a baby, and when it's ethical to end the pointless suffering and grotesque indignity of a human puppet show by disconnecting a feeding tube, maybe they could have found some time to fit in a discussion of the abomination of the PATRIOT act, or the legislation that mandated we track the travel habits of normal law abiding Americans in an effort to stop some vague threat they call terrorism. I'm not one bit afraid of terrorists! Stop trying to protect me from them by taking away the rights that I value.
Every day it seems I get more confirmation that I was right in deciding I should leave this country as soon as I can. A few generations ago my family came to America to escape communism in East Germany after the war, and now I'll be leaving the USA to escape the encroachment of my rights. Things aren't that bad here yet compared to many places in the world, but my family already made the mistake of waiting too long to leave once, I'm not going to make that mistake too. Better to get out early than not at all.
The Republicans are authoritarians and religious zealots, the sane ones either left their party or are such a small voice that they're completely drowned out by the chorus of insanity from the party at large. Ron Paul, who is a real Rep. and not a Neocon, doesn't look like he will be popular enough among the wealthy, the war-hawks, and the religious--or as they call it "the Republican base"--to win. The Democrats are too spineless to stand up for their core values, favoring a centrist stance to garner support from the left leaning Republicans, Independents, and various minorities and they end up acting like Republican-Light(TM). There is virtually no minority party voice in this country that anyone takes seriously. Both sides spend outrageous amount of money, although one actually attempts to pay for it by increasing taxes where the other just spends and passes the debt off to their kids and grandkids. Meanwhile no one is willing to put a stop to America's current adventure in the desert even though we're spending enough money on the war to fund what could be the best health care system in the world, even after you account for typical government waste and inefficiency. The soldiers that come back maimed, crippled, or psychologically scarred are given a standard of care that we should all be ashamed of. And then there are the ones who only come back draped in an American flag.
I would recommend everyone take a serious look at the idea of leaving the US. Figure out what it would take to leave, and how fast you could do it in. There may be a time soon when you have to put that plan into action.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
My family left our native Saudi Arabia because our life was made intolerable by fundamentalists. As an American, I felt personally attacked when terrorists hit. I was assaulted and my house was vandalized during the backlash. And now, I'm always under suspicion of being a terrorist; suspect of being the very type of person who victimized me in the first place. Curse Saudi Arabia and the backward Voodoo belief it was built on. There is just no escaping the crime of being born there.
You and I both know the number of people migrating illegally south to north is at least 1000% greater than north to south across rio bravo. I mean who wakes up in the morning (other than a convicted felon) and thinks to themselves, I think I'm going to swim south today?
I do think that they only intend to create a terror profile for the legal crossings, which seem kind a basakward to me. I don't know... I guess I'm just a north swimming wetback.
They are also profiling those who be
and after 40 years, they recheck to see if they still are
The purpose of these laws is not to stop terrorism. They are to restrict the law-abiding so the government can become progressively more authoritarian and the instruments will be in place to quickly eliminate those who pose a threat.
Furthermore, this is the purpose of pretty much all recent anti-terror laws. Across the pond, extension of detention without trial, anti-free-speech laws, compulsory biometric identity cards, these are all designed so that, come the need to stand up against an increasingly oppressive government, resistance will be impossible.
In case it's not absolutely obvious, the whole "war on terror" - which is like a "war on guns", since terrorism is a strategy, not an identifiable enemy - is engineered to create the kind of fear that makes these laws appear legitimate.
(That's not to say there aren't some groups which pose a threat to American security which need to be dealt with. Germany and Italy overran most of Europe and were dealt with in 6 years. The sixth year anniversary of 9/11 has come and gone.)
Humanity has never faced a greater threat to its continuing freedom. We've had governments oppress with hands, with ears, with guns; but never with the sort of technology we have today to monitor, to track, to profile, in my home county and across the world. And every technologist is to blame who does not vigorously oppose government use of his creations beyond government's mandate, who will not quickly abandon any project so co-opted. That's includes you, reader. For it is better to halt the technology's progress entirely than to build a weapon that will ultimately point at you.
This reminds me of encryption key escrow, where some bright guy thought we'd all be safer if there was just a big list of passwords all in one place so that the guy with the master root password could get anything he wanted when he wanted. It's the superficially appealing but should-be-scary notion that government would be better if more efficient.
It's as if we think the entire world is scary but the one thing we know is a universal constant is that whoever holds the keys will not be compromised. And yet, to listen to radio DJ's, if Hillary takes office it will be as if a coup had taken place. Whatever you think of that claim--legitimate or ridiculous--the one thing that should not be in dispute is that whatever information is amassed against The People is available for use by anyone who has the keys even if a hostile regime change happens. Some people think electing the other party is such a thing, and others don't. But even if you believe an election is benign, there are potential events in the world that are not neutral and that would be bad. We all draw lines in different places, but we all draw lines. I have my own political biases but they are not relevant here--people on both sides of the present political divides should be equally concerned on this one.
What if someone manipulated an election? What if the value of the dollar fell so low that the only people who could fund an electable candidate were foreigners? What if someone successfully attacked the center of government? What if someone bribed a politician? What if a hacker or a worm/virus/whatever snuck in and found all this data? Surely everyone has some scenario they can think of in which the person sitting in the White House might not be someone they wanted to trust with the kind of data being collected here.
Although many people are made nervous about abuse of information, the scenarios discussed usually seem to focus on an isolated individual doing a little inappropriate peeking or a bit of overzealous prosecution or menacing. But that's not the worst case. The worst case is someone getting past the safeguards of the nation and getting to the seat of power and then having at their fingertips the knowledge of who is a threat and who is not, so they can't be re-taken because they have defensive knowledge on everyone who might oppose them.
The government seems obsessed with the notion that centralization is the key to success, but it doesn't realize that the designers of the original republic did a brilliant job of coming up with a distributed structure that made us all safe--the notion of each state having its own way of doing things, and having all of those states be relatively autonomous. Even to the point of allowing state militias, which as I understand it had the potential duty to protect the state from the federal government if it got uppity. In effect, what they implemented was genetic diversity, which makes it harder to attack the US because there are a variety of defenses in play unevenly and it's hard to devise a uniform plan of attack that will take down every state at the same time. But one by one, we're turning our states into clones of one another, so that a single plan of attack will be more likely to succeed on everything at once. That won't make us safer.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
So how hard is it for people will ill-intent to just legally change their names to something a little more obscure (AKA not likely to be on the list)??
It all seems really crazy to me. I mean they haven't been any attacks on US soil since 2001 right? So whats with the rise in security? I thought it was quite clear to everyone with even 1/2 a brain that terrorists can easily get around these lame security methods, either by recruiting local US terrorists who are already in the country or using one of a thousand terrorists that aren't on any terror list. I am almost wishing(God forbid) that another terrorist attack occur just so that everyone can see just how useless the whole thing is.
What is the problem? I am on a J-1 visa in the states and go in and out regularly. Why shouldn't they keep a profile of me? At least someone who cares... ;)
I think USA would be a much better country if people learned that coffee should be drank from a porcelain cup rather than a paper one and that beer should be drunk from a glass rather than a bottle. Next you should fix the medical insurance or at least regulate it more seriously if you don't think universal insurance is not good enough. Then you should do something about taking mentally ill people off the streets, this is really quite bad. There are real things that need to be fixed in this country, rather than worry about privacy!
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
Move? Russia, China? Each sounds so promising, if you're a fucking commie !!
Considering this is a year old (feel ashamed that I overlooked the date when I read the article), I apologize for overreacting. Age or no age, I'm still not happy about this policy, but the date of the article does certainly take some of the sting out. I don't buy into the whole idea of editors trolling, so I'm just going to attribute this to a mistake. I wish I could tone my earlier comment down, but I can't. I apologize and I hope Zonk feels sorry, too considering he also postedthis.
However, just as an update to the situation, the Automated Targeting System is still operating. I disagree with it, and I think it is a bad idea. It's just it's already had it's place on slashdot.
I got a catholic block.
Tourism is down in the US and the tourist industry and US cities that depend on it are hurting badly already. People are having bad experiences to such an extent that despite there being a 2 or 1.5 to 1 exchange rate the UK and europe are avoiding the US.
This IS the absolute best time to visit the US economically, and yet people aren't coming. Press about rendition, detention, being sent back on another plane after crossing the atlantic, having to deal with extensive entry requirements all contribute to people going elsewhere. I seriously doubt all of our missing tourists are anti-american.
Hell, the israeli's have more sensible airport security than we do--and they have a much larger threat per-capita.
Now that I'm about to travel between Mexico and the USA more frequently because I'm going to be taking my child to see its grandmother. I do NOT want to be on any list just because I go see my family members. I do NOT want my child or my wife to be on any lists either. I don't think that we need to match our names to any lists other than the ones that have already been established for many years in order to prove that we are not terrorists. Also, since it is stated in the article that they do not need any new means of collecting information, but rather the use of existing systems then why do you need to keep our records for 40 years after you determine that we are not a threat? You already have all the tools necessary to determine a person's threat level. Can't you use your tools to find the information again if you need it? This is bogus and vulnerable to large degrees of abuse and does not even reflect basic security standards. This doesn't have anything to do with security at all, no matter how much it gets dressed it up as a measure of protection. It's not hard to know where the vulnerable parts of the border are and there are simple, proven ways to defend them without having to scan every individual that come through them. That doesn't even make sens when you think about it: you don't need to scan everything, just scan what needs to be scanned.
This reminds me of the first time I got malware on my PC and I knew nothing about security. I tried to scrutinize every bit of data that came through my internet connection, to make a firewall rule specifically for every possible scenario that could come about. what i didn't realize however, was that I was doing more work that I needed to do, needlessly exhausting my free time, and slowing down my system in my frantic effort to protect my system. I didn't know what I was doing. Now that I know better, I have a few simple rules that protect me and I don't immediately worry when I see a little unexpected port activity. Freaking out and going overboard is NEVER a good security policy.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Yes, I protested at three NYC protests prior to the iraq debacle.
Wrote letters to the congresscritters, and the editors.
I watched national news totally ignore huge demonstrations full of mostly very normal people, many with children with them. No bombers, pot smoking hippies or "radicals".
OK, no Gulag for me, but the poster who opined that protest is diluted is correct.
Who decides what is news each day, and how do I get to hear that conference call.
Well, it was a little rabid, but it's really important to understand that this is increasingly how the US is seen by the rest of the world. Other people aren't calling it the 'land of the free,' they're seeing it as the land of violence; and to Europeans, they're seeing what they think of as its traditional arrogant isolationism as being replaced by arrogant interventionism. You need to remember that (unlike what they teach in schools) the traditional American respect for civil rights was adopted from British tradition, and that in Europe it has in many ways grown stronger than in America. You need to remember that Iraq is in Europe's back yard. You need to remember that the US' PR is being handled by Hollywood and the Army.
There's a reason that posts you perceive as 'anti-American' get modded +5 Insightful. It may not be insight that is deep, but it is insight that is needed.
This enormous expenditure of resources in such an unreliable defense is ridiculous. I was hoping to visit the US sometime, but what I heard of the security checks at the borders makes me scary, even though I've got nothing to hide.
or it seems that George Bush is rushing to make the US as totalitarian as possible before leaving the chair?
If Walmart can track everything I buy and create a profile, I would assume the gov't could as well. I would think controlling our border includes knowing who comes in and out, and if we have info on that person we should use it. A rating is the easiest way to standardize information like this across thousands of workers. Would you rather a small summary be written and each guard makes their own decision?
There is a lot of tourism very close to the US/Canada border - Vancouver, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal come to mind immediately. I enjoy going to Niagara, but I'm not going through this crap. Maybe if enough people stop hopping the border, Canada will complain about the loss of tourism dollars & things will change.
There are real things that need to be fixed in this country, rather than worry about privacy!
I do agree that our medical system needs overhauled. And while I respect President Jimmy Carter more than any President we've had in the last 35 years, I think he made a big mistake when he shut down our mental institutes as he did. (Yes, there were problems, but they could've been solved without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.)
But, I worry about privacy as well. I don't think I should have to choose. Privacy does not run counter to *any* legitimate goal the federal government might have.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
As a commenter on slashdot, a site known to harbor people of a resistant mindset to american anti-terrorism tactics, your score is increased by a factor of 1.41421356.
All scores and calculations are provided directly by miniluv.
You will be baked, and there will be cake.
OOXML ?
ODF ?
ASCII ?
I wonder if the format will even exist?
Another example of being judged secretly, by unknown standards, and classified by an unknown scale, for unseen reasons.
I really don't know what to say
Cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
A fucking commie? On Slashdot? Unlikely. How would a slashdotter get to fuck?
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
What one will do is to simply walk across the border just like those illegal aliens do. I am afraid my president appears to be looking for something to be remembered for as a legacy. For him, I do not see anything positive he's done for this country and his [presidential] term is quickly closing in on 8 years.
Well, as a terrorist, I am completely appalled. It used to be that if I wanted pilfer a plane and knock over a building or two I could just mosey on in and do it. Now look at the trouble I have to go through! I tell you now, if you USAsians don't change your policies I am going to seriously consider taking my business elsewhere. In fact, if the US didn't have a monopoly on the world market of infidels, you would've lost my business long ago. But that's capitalism for you, it only hurts the little guy. By the way, whatever happened to equal opportunity? What happened to giving everyone a fair go? At the end of the day, terrorists are just people too, and isn't it in your constitution that everyone has certain inalienable rights?
I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.
I always assumed this was already done. And even before 9/11.
Who watches the people in the Government who abuse their - so called - powers? This plan of action that the US Government is taking is akin to 1983 - the year before 1984. Where will it end? Manditory implanted GPS units?
When they collect information on people on that scale they are the terrorists.
IF "WE THE PEOPLE" has any meaning you'll tell your elected officials to abort this plan which makes the government the terrorists even more than they are. If they refuse TELL them that they must comply with the people.
I just wonder how long before the U.S. decides to add on the S.R.
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
although it seems we're adopting all the things we used to make fun of the Soviet Union for.
right down to the gulag system and the locked down paranoid checkpoints.
so, we won?
What the initial law and this one just reinforces it is.......wait for it..... DEAD BEAT DADS and other non-conformants who have not *paid their dues*. Parking tickets you have not paid? Welcome to the UCCA [United Corperations and Churches of America]. Did you notice how the *lobbying* is doing ahead of the elections?
this administration is the perfect example of why those lazy motherfuckers with the "my vote doesn't count anyway" placard adhered to their rear-ends are wrong. That this can happen today can only be explained, in part, with our well-meaning apathy. We vote, even if we vote poorly, so the politicians will fear us at least enough to listen. Even if we have to be inconvenienced once in a while.
The road to oppression is paved with indifference.
Quack, quack.
just like DRM
"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States?"
If we ratified a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget every year, I doubt this kind of stuff would even be considered. This isn't security. this is pork.
Parents give you money for computer parts and you get a hooker instead? Unlikely, but maybe one of us would be deluded enough to think the hooker will provide more love than a nice Sun box...
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
Paul will do everything he can to put a stop to it. While he supports tight border control, he strongly opposes any governmental infringement upon the civil liberties of the people. He espouses the founder's sentiment that one who would sacrifice his privacy for security deserves neither. This article describes just the sort of governmental bad behavior that is powering the grassroots of Paul's campaign.
Don't sit back and watch as our freedom is transformed into fascism! Support the Ron Paul campaign today!
www.ronpaul2008.com
. . . State Religion?
Depends on who wins in 2008.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Will we have access to our scores?
:D
Can I brag about scoring high on the Terrorist Aptitude Test?
Can I sell the results on eBay for profit?
I don't need to repeat the Ben Franklin bit about trading freedom for a little temporary security again, do I?
Guns? Perhaps, but how about voting and writing your representatives and raising an unholy loud stink? Fifty respectable-looking middle-class people waving signs in front of fifty Federal Buildings and a hundred senators' offices would send a rather definitive message. Yeah, every one of those protestors would be on a List, but in a country where there are Lists being on a list could be a sign your morality and principles are intact.
I wonder how much a high level of dissatisfaction with the U.S. government adds to your terrorist rating?
The best way to get rid of a stupid rule is to enforce it to the letter. "I'm sorry Senator, we have to check you against a watch list. Oh dear, your profile says that you have access to significant resources including military connections and have made anti-government statements." I'd have less problems if everybody was treated equally. Nobody bypasses the system. Air Force One comes home and everybody gets checked. It's not going to happen, but I can dream.
I'm surprised some of the states don't do this. Add a processing fee for anyone crossing the line and you've got a revenue raiser on people who can't vote you out. (At least those only passing through.)
Microsoft Access.
There. *Now* you're scared!
They'll even put in a web frontend (Access generates these *so* easily and well) and an advanced system to page data in/out to get around the 2GB limit.
All the tables will have a local key field called "ID" and the other fields will be named "Field1", "Field2", "Field3" and so on. The tables will be named "Table1", "Table2", "Table3" (etc) as well.
And worst of all... Every output query will be based on other queries, which will draw data from yet other queries, and on and on and on.
The horror! Even writing this brief description leaves me with a feeling that something evil is rising from the depths of Hell, and... what's that at the window!
Argh! So many tentacles and eyes! Arrrghhghhhghhhhhh
It's the time. I live in El Paso and it already takes forever to cross the border. You can see cars lined up on miles either side. Most people I know refuse to go simply because of the time it takes, and I would imagine that the enormous inconvenience of crossing the border at a checkpoint will further encourage illegal crossings. Jeep Grand Cherokee through Montana, anyone?
In United States only terrorist suspects cross the border.
A magot line is the line of dead, magot filled bodies you see along the border from those DYING to get in to this great country
It sure seems that as of lately, all these measures they are taking to protect us from terrorists are really measures to turn the USA into a police state. Exit controls? Not in a free country.
I could not agree with you more QuickFox, however you lose me when you say "Americans". I am an American, but I had nothing to do with this law. (I'm only hearing about it on /. just now) I place the blame on our government, but I admit I lack the knowledge to do anything about it. Could you suggest a few inboxes that I could blow up... er.. send nice letters to?
What are the correct paths of a true American if they want to "fix" issues such as these? Have we already given up too much of the power that used to reside with the people?
Some URLs would be nice.
As a person that holds my integrity quite high I'm now contemplating on refusing to travel to USA when requested by my company.
As a software engineer for mission critical communications equipment (read: telephones for hospitals) this means that the US hospitals will not get the support they might need. I grant you that the chances that my contribution to a bug-hunt or similar will save lives, but I can say this much: US terror policies will cause more deaths than save. Just think of the elevated blood pressure everyone gets by a overzealous security guard at the airport...
Break the sound barrier - bring the noise.
That jackass general at the very beginning of this crap who just had to say, [our god is better than yours], completely justified the actions of these martyrs. What an ass, I'd like to think there would be a element over there just as concerned about nutty extremists pissing off the 'civilized' Americans but now were just as bad as they are - not to mention that all those crazy republicans, the president, all his sycophants ..act just like our retarded military leaders.
google Ron Paul, you may see why the media calls him unelectable. He is the choice for free thinking Americans, but if you believe the lies and slander you wouldn't look into his policies further. With him as president, the draconian policies would be stopped and the agencies in charge of implementing them would be immediately disbanded. There is a reason he is gaining support. Google his name, watch his videos on youtube, read his book. And when you realize that he is the guy you've been looking for, join the revolution. We need every free thinking citizen to join and give their vote and support.
I'm just a guy who heard about Dr Paul and I really think he is the answer to the problems we are dealing with.
Actually, more than a year ago. TFA is dated November 3, 2006!
So, to paraphrase William Wallace: They may take away our liberties, but they'll never take our Karma!
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The 40 years part isn't even true. It's just there so people can THINK their information would be destroyed. I highly doubt it. Secondly, 40 years would be way too long anyway. How about 1 year (much more reasonable)? More reasonable would be to get rid of the whole government and restart this fucking country.
especially given the recent statement that the USA will go anywhere in the world and kidnap people who they think might have committed a crime in the USA or against US Interests. The range for the pseudo legit US Bounty Hunters now included ALL of their NATO Allies (inc the UK).
If they start kidnapping people who are certainly not terrorists (say fraudsters) then it will soon be the rest of the world that puts the US on 'no-fly' lists.
IMHO, it seems that not only have they shut the door long after the horse has bolted, they are now trying to weld it shut. 1930's US Isolationism rules again.
Umm, I wouldn't be too sure about that. Walmart's operation rivals that of a small country. If they can lock their own employees in overnight...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
How would a slashdotter get to fuck?
Ummm, get a sex change and post that fact in your sig here looking for someone equally desperate?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Although I might be deadly wrong , I think the fall of the American empire will be caused by the reverse effect which caused its rise : it is closing on itself whereas it was its openness which gave it an edge over everybody (that and the WW2 effect where the US was spared the brunt of the war & destructions). The tightening of the fist will result in [foreign] people trusting less the US. First it started on diplomatic level, then it went to the academic level (I don't know many of us which would want to do a conference in the US due to all privacy issue) we are now at the level where joe blows start being conscientious of it, and if it continue that way, it will reach the economical level (why do business with the US when other country will have less restriction and allow more profits?).
At that final step what will be left of the US will be the hulk of its former self. Mind you it would still be a super power (most probably) but it would be not "the dream of liberty" anymore, just a country like any other.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I would propose to remove the quota system from Slashdot. Zonk is obviously overworked and submitted news from 2006.
Here's a simple question for all you pro-Bush wankers...
Where are all the terrorists? Do you really believe that since 9/11 one single Bush tactic has prevented a single event of terrorism in the USA?
Face it simpletons -- there ain't any terrorists in the homeland, and they aren't coming in any significant number.
(Study history -- the first steps of the dictator is to create a 'false enemy' for the people to rally aginst -- while giving up all their civil liberties in the process. Before WW2, Germany was also a democracy -- with even more freedoms than Americans have left.)
If terrorists wanted in -- they'd use the same methods as the other illegals -- through the southern border. One should assume that highly-trained, physically fit terrorists would have just as good a chance as some mexican grandmother?
And what would they do once they are IN the USA? You may think that they'd buy guns (as anyone with a hundred dollar bill can do walking into a biker bar), and start having some sniper fun. (Remember how much terror a single pair of snipers can invoke on an entire city?)
There are a MILLION acts of mischief, vandalism and 'terror' they could indulge in. All it takes is a cutting torch and about half an hour to take out a section of track large enough to derail any commuter train. Or a piece of chain, a stolen (or rented) truck and about 2 minutes.
C'mon -- if there WERE any terrorists do you think they wouldn't have DONE SOMETHING in the past 7 years? You figure they're maybe 'saving it up' sitting on their hineys for 'something BIG'?
This whole terrorist scare is a Bush invention -- just like the weapons of mass destruction -- nothing more than an excuse to put into force whatever measures are on the 'agenda' -- like getting free Iraq oil, or sealing off the borders.
One wonders how long the monkeys are going to be running the circus.
And don't think that you're all comfy-cozy in the USA by sealing your borders to the rest of the world -- it just so happens that the rest of the world is putting very specific measures in place AGAINST AMERICANS in a tit-for-tat fashion. For example, when the US required anyone from Russia to fill out a big questionaire about everything from where you went to high school, to what organizations you are a member of -- the Russians did EXACTLY THE SAME for the Americans.
So, unless you are content to stay in Butfloss Alabama for the rest of your life and never leave the country -- you're going to be seeing up close and personal just how the world is responding to what your commander-in-chief is having done to them.
As for me, a Canadian, I see no reason to go to the USA anymore. With cheap flights to Europe and no hassles (thanks to NOT being an American), the world is open. Cuba is a really nice place to take a vacation too!
Germany when you visit them don't mugshot you, take your fingerprint , and ask you if you are a drug dealer, terrorist and whatnot.
I did not mean all Americans as an individuals, I meant the collective which together made Bush's second term possible, despite his catastrophic effect on the influence and safety of the US and on the overall situation in the world.
One reason we Europeans sometimes react strongly toward the policies of the US (which all too often gets misinterpreted as anti-Americanism) is that there are many things we love and admire about the US, and that makes the disappointment painful. You'll castigate your brother much more than a total stranger. Europe and the US are in many ways brothers. We react to a brother.
As to what to do, I don't know anything one can do to effect quick significant change in situations like this. When my country does things I disagree with strongly, I usually don't know what it's best to do. I do write to politicians occasionally, but the influence one gets that way is limited, even though they often do send an answer.
One thing that is much more important and valuable than many people realize is to discuss and debate with friends and acquaintances. That's because good thoughts and ideas will take root and spread. Ideas that are compelling enough will get a very big audience by spreading from your friends to their friends, and so on. With only a few such leaps you can get a huge audience.
But of course discussing persuasively is a difficult art, and takes much practice. Not everyone can do this easily.
Writing letters to newspapers and magazines can also be very valuable, as it may spread to a large audience.
One very important thing is to buy and read good newspapers that defend democracy by questioning authority and checking politicians almost suspiciously. This is crucial, because the newspapers are the answer to the classical question about who guards the guardians.
I don't think the balance of power that is ensured by your Constitution is sufficient by itself, because the people at the top of all three branches are entrenched at the top. You also need the people of the nation to carefully watch all three branches through the media. And for this to work you need better media. And so you need to buy and sponsor good media that take this duty seriously.
And this notion of the role of the media needs to spread, from friend to friend, and on to their friends...
It wouldn't hurt if people persuaded the media to take their guardian role seriously and use it a selling argument. In a country that is so proud of its democracy, and at the same time so worried about it, this should be a very good selling argument for a newspaper.
I don't think there are any solutions that will give one person the power to make a revolutionary change, at least not any healthy solutions. But I do think that if many people make serious efforts, there will be significant change for the better.
That's because good ideas really do take root and spread. It takes lots of patience and persistence, but in the long run it does work.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
WTF?!
is a year old. did i miss something, like a time change?
I thought only Soviet Russia closed their borders. In any case the US is starting to look more and more like the former USSR.
I actually still wanted to visit the US at some point, but it is getting less and less attractive to do so. If I pass the US border legally, I'm a potential terrorist, and I'm treated like a criminal before I've done anything wrong- even if I didn't plan on misbehaving. But if I'm going to be treated as a criminal, I might as well start acting like one.
There, that little comment should have been enough to put me on the blacklist. I guess I won't be visiting the US for the next 40 years then.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
>"one would presume there is SOME level of checking at the borders,
> else there isn't really any need for borders or the concept of a
> nation-state, is there?"
Sure...."some".
All this fingerprinting, body cavity searches and file creation is a bit much though...don't you think? The old "have quick look in the luggage to see what's there" system seemed good enough to me.
Given that there's thousands of miles of unguarded coastline, with no plans to guard it anytime soon, one has to suspect ulterior motives for all this intrusion.
No sig today...
"You'd better watch out,
You'd better not cry,
You'd better not pout,
I'm telling you why.
Fascism is coming, to town.
They're making a list,
They're checking it twice,
They're going to find out who's naughty and nice,
Fascism is coming, to town.
They see you when you're sleeping,
They know when you're awake.
You'll be water-boarded if you're bad,
So be good, for goodness' sake!
The demons in the Beltway,
Will have a jubilee,
They'll build a network of death camps,
That from orbit you could see.
With concrete warehouses,
Big chlorine drums,
Blackwater mercs,
Wielding all kinds of guns,
Fascism is coming, to town.
So you'd better get out,
While you still can fly,
You'd better leave fast,
I'm telling you why.
Fascism is coming, to town.
I mean the goose-stepping man,
With the clipped moustache,
He's coming to town!"
...because the sooner the mask really comes off, the dictatorship becomes official, and the government starts rounding up by the thousands people it doesn't like, to be carted off for "processing," the sooner a sufficiently large majority will finally mobilise and attempt to start fighting back. The sheep currently living in America aren't going to do that until it's completely undeniable that they will die if they don't; right now, there's still sufficient room for denial, debate about whether it's really happening, and to sit down and watch really important things like what Paris Hilton is doing this week.
Another bright side to look at in all of this is that while he might not have signed the Kyoto agreement, starting next year, Bush is finally going to start doing something to ease the amount of pressure America is putting on the environment. Once he's imprisoned and/or gassed half the population, the country's ecological footprint will shrink considerably.
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
Please remind me as to why all this work is being done? If the goal is to save lives it would be money much better spent on road and vehicle safety or gun control. Terrorists kill less people in 30 years than roads does in a couple of months in the US. My impression is that the "terrorist threat" is really very small and just used as an excuse to implement draconian surveiliance on American citizens and also as a nice spying tool against any allies and their populations. If American lives would be important there would be much else to do long before concentrating on terrorists.
HTTP/1.1 400
Perhaps it would be almost bearable, all these restrictions and prying and groping, if it was clear that it actually worked, but all I can see is that it never has and never will - it simply can't. It's like stemming the tide with legislation alone - it's an exercise in futility.
They are trying to apply a bad solution to something that isn't the real problem. First of all, if somebody, especially a desperado who is willing to kill himself in an act of terrorism, wants to get into the US, s/he will - there are uncounted holes in the American border and people have always and will always just walk in. The border control is not going to catch them - or not all of them.
And then, of course, terrorism is only a symptom of the real, underlying problem of a few countries being obscenely rich and most of the rest being poor or desperately poor.
I just don't understand the human race one bit. From all I can tell, it does seem like most governments, especially ours as of late, tend to progress toward the authoritarian. Is this hunger for power just insatiable to those running our government? Does seeking power at all costs convey some evolutionary advantage? It must, in order to be such a common trait among humans. Or is it simply that those in power got there because of that self-same lust? Is power-seeking a positive feedback loop?
It seems to me that the only way to combat obsessive power-seeking is to create a system that imposes limits on that loop. I guess the founding fathers realized that when they created the system of checks and balances, but it seems like the insulation in that wiring has been gradually eroding over the past 100 years. My only hope is that, sooner or later, something's gonna hit that switch on the sense amp, and the balance of power is going to slide back down to Vm.
Honestly, maybe that's the key to a successful government. Written into the constitution: every 20 years, the entire government will be randomly chosen from the country's educated populace. After that, elections will be held every 2 or 4 years as necessary until the next 20-year reset. Or maybe I just wish I could get in there and shake things up a bit.
Did you see the pool? They flipped the bitch!
Because foreigners might want to, um, drive cars, too ? And not get scalped by insurance companies for not having a domestic drivers license ? (The international license thingie makes you a big blinking target for ripoff. Forget about it if you want to stay in a foreign country for more than a few weeks).
The question you need to ask is "Why is a drivers license treated as an ID document in my country ?". In the rest of the civilized world, that's not the case. You have documents that are an ID and you have documents that allow you to drive a vehicle on public roads. And you cannot use one type for the purpose of the other.
Now all wwe need is for the rest of the world to do a terrorist profile on anyone leaving America (questions like are you leaving to invade a foreign country?) and we'd be sweet. Eventually no one would leave it and no one would enter it and everyone would be happy.
When the communists realized they couldn't defeat the west militarily, they perfected a way to make us destroy ourselves. They unleashed on us the viral religion of political correctness, knowing that once we were addicted to it, we would enslave ourselves without a shot being fired.
The "rest" of the civilized world?
Wouldn't "the civilized world " be correct?
Cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I.e. you could check it and dispute any ridiculous/erroneous parts.
But I know, rule #1 is that you can't let the terrorists know what you are doing, and it is only a convenient side effect that the public won't know either, including the mistakes and false positives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc
Watch the youtube video. It's a very enlightening talk by Naomi Wolf about her new book. C'mon americans, get off your arses and save your own damn country!
This is how the loudness war is killing music.
Gestapo collected files like these on people. Steady march to a fascist dictatorship. Now all USA needs is a third Pearl Harbor to happen, which Anonymous sources on 4chan say, is due next year.
... I decided not to go to the USA any time soon right after GWB came into office. Fortunately, I haven't had to break my principles (I'm in Europe, of course).
The funny thing about these profiling things is that they can be used for so much more. For example one of my treehugging hippie political activist friends is on some kind of a terrorist watchlist to the US, and the funny thing is she wouldn't resort to violence to defend her own life, not to mention she's a small woman in a wheelchair... Another activist friend of hers always gets his book shipments from Amazon crudely opened along the way and then resealed. Mine always arrive untouched.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
Implementing a "stop and hassle" database of US citizens to keep the country safe from foreigners?
Who makes these laws, anyway? Unless, of course, this new program is really designed to tighten the noose around a domestic population, under the pretext of "fighting an unseen foreign enemy". Things are getting worse by the day.
If only they applied one tenth of the zeal to keep "moral persons" (read: corporations) as they do "physical persons" (read: individuals) in check, this might be a much better world. But who the hell's gonna do that?
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
"U.S. Plans to Screen All Who Enter, Leave Country Personal Data Will Be Cross-Checked With Terrorism Watch Lists; Risk Profiles to Be Stored for Years By Ellen Nakashima and Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, November 3, 2006" Year old news, the world has not come to an end. Everyone who says they won't come here wasn't coming here to begin with. My friends from Canada have no trouble crossing the border.
So now I must get PERMISSION to LEAVE the country??? Even on foot? Thats new....Stalin would be so proud.
* To be fair, much of the rubble was created by the USA in the first place; think Dresden.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
If everyone is a terrorist suspect, then nobody has to worry much. All everyone now needs to do is rouse suspicions of that. And rat on their neighbors until everyone ends up on the terrorist watch lists.
It's the only real way to guarantee democracy.
Recognizing that people make mistakes and that we also make mistakes, that perhaps we should forgive, or even trying to understand what led to the act...all of these have been caricatured and stigmatized as "liberal" soft-headedness. Even pointing out that someone's childhood may have an effect on their actions as an adult elicits scorn and contempt. No doubt there are some "liberals" out there who wouldn't even punish a serial child rapist/axe murderer, but instead of arguing against specific bad arguments, our entire capacity to understand, forgive, and move on has been thrown out like a baby with the bathwater. To understand and forgive wrongdoing you have to have humility, which is not only lacking in our culture but which is actively discouraged.
I've been faulted multiple times for trying to have humility. You aren't supposed to admit that you could be wrong, or that that person in the dock could, by the grace of God and bit of luck, be you as well. Everything is black and white, all the time. Well, unless we're talking about Rush Limbaugh's drug conviction or something like that--people seem to have no trouble handling nuanced arguments about blame and addiction when it comes to Rush. Anyway, I can't tell you how surreal it is for me, an atheist, to be lectured by an evangelical Christian I work with that I shouldn't be so humble, that I should be more proud of what I've done, and so on. Humility and forgiveness go hand in hand, and right now forgiveness, and that whole "don't judge a person till you've walked a mile in their shoes" thing, has been caricatured and shunned almost out of existence, or at least out of influence, in the USA.
Here's one example where US Airways lost http://www.nbc10.com/news/14590188/detail.html?rss=phi&psp=news/ a former police officers packed and paperworked handgun ... and then tried to avoid reporting it.
'The TSA told NBC 10 that "gun theft from checked baggage is an issue TSA is tackling head-on".'
Losing guns from checked baggage happens often enough that TSA considers at an "issue"!
.. attacking other country's, and other country's "terrorist" - the term your government invented via hollywood to have a excuse for public masses - would not have interest in attacking you. You are hated country, and the reason is simple. You grant your self all rights to decide what's right and what's not, and if someone doesn't comply, you attack them (and take their natural resources if they have any in the process). I always propagated that someone needs to be a 'world policeman' but this is going too far. Other country's have their issues, which they need to deal with, not you. If they go to war, so what ? Your country is almost always in war with someone, and they are thievs... covered by 'good media work'. For god sake ... you have a dumbass for a leader..of course, he's not the one who runs your country, hes just a puppet, but anyway... you have a stupid puppet, choose some other puppet next year. :)
P.S. -- This is not a troll or a flamebait, this is my opinion(and everybody else i know) on your country. I'm from Bosnia(Republic of Srpska), and I have more objective view, then you have, since you are in a mud, and I watch you drown in it.
That's a very interesting perspective. I'll keep a link to your post, and try to remember to link to it when Americans turn aggressive about "anti-Americanism". Maybe it can help them understand better how we really feel this side of the pond.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Do you agree to: GIVE UNLIMITED POWER TO THE PRESIDENT _AND_ REDUCE THE WEEKLY WORKLOAD BY SIX HOURS? [ ] YES [ ] NO
And I was thought that was pretty lame, and a miracle it wasn't approved, now I see the same tactic in this US visa form. Picture this. Someone applies for a visa, and fails (Believe me, it happens all the time, and it's seemingly random). He/She tries again, and is forced to answer YES to "Have you ever been refused admission to the U.S., or been the subject of a deportation hearing or sought to obtain or assist others to obtain a visa, entry into the U.S., or any other U.S. immigration benefit by fraud or willful misrepresentation or other unlawful means? Have you attended a U.S. public elementary school on student (F) status or a public secondary school after November 30, 1996 without reimbursing the school? [ ] Yes [ ] No ". So, they can deny his visa again and again, after all, he *could* be a beneficiary of fraud...
How do you american people feel with such a form? Do you feel that it is just, since foreigners have obviously no business in your country? Or do most people in US simply have no knowledge of this? How would you feel if you had to fill a form similar to this one to enjoy your vacations abroad?
Sorry for the ranting, but it is so stupid it really pissed me off.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
Stop paying taxes.
With all the negative spin floating around these days, I never really gave a thought to people actually still liking the US on any level. I appreciate you input.
I guess the best I can do is write my congressman and continue to vote for the lesser of the evils.
I'd probably help if I wasn't such a cynic.
Thanks for that. I know I feel so much better knowing that any debate about my freedoms or lack thereof is being done with an eye towards what the mods think, or how much karma one has left. Jesus Christ, somebody's got to get a better sense of perspective.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
I run a website with a blog in which months ago I wrote a post against the use of taser in the USA. So I came up thinking, should I be aware of this when I'll go the US?
CTRL + F Funny ---> I had you!!!
There's a whole interesting discussion on ethics, rights, freedoms and responsibility that we could spin off to here, but I suspect it would be drifting too far off-topic.
Instead, as food for thought, I simply offer you these two questions:
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
that has signs something like this (or anything that violates the constitution) should be considered terrorists and traitors to the country .
If i was to be elected president I would make the "war on war" campaign .
Anyone who was in office during the Bush Regime would be labeled domestic and foreign terrorists and stuck in guantanemo for an undetermined amount of time, until their beheading .
I've recently been watching the DVDs of V with my 7-year old son... you remember, the sci-fi television miniseries from the early 80's. I've been teaching him about Hitler, WW2 and all that stuff from it because I think that's important stuff to know about, and he's genuinely interested in both the entertainment of the movie and the historical perspective.
But it occurs to me that this movie might very well foretell what's going to come in the frighteningly not too-distant future. I suggest anyone concerned with where the U.S. government has been going lately buy these DVDs and watch it again. Forget we're talking about aliens and eating people and all that and instead just think about the parallels between the story told and what we're seeing today. It's incredibly depressing to say the very least.
I hope my son learns from it and recognizes the signs... I hope he gets the message that to be brave in the face of opression and to fight those trying to destroy our way of life have to be fought at all costs. I hope he gets that to let it happen and not speak up, not take up arms if it comes to that, is tantamount to OK'ing it. He'll certainly see me fight, and die if necessary, if that what it takes to defend him and my family. I hope he gets that no matter how bleak the situation you always have to believe there's hope.
I hope he continues to enjoy the movie too (we're about half-way through), it's entertainment after all, but it's entertainment with an increasingly important message given the events in the modern day, and I hope that's not all lost on him.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
This is yet another case of the Conservative "Guilty until proven innocent" mindset.
How much longer til GWB burns down the Reichstag? You just know all the conservatives will cheer. Heck, they have already begun returning to domestic terrorism. It's won't be much longer now before they go back to bombing women's health clinics and blowing up federal buildings.
If I want to go to Mexico, I'll just travel in and out with the illegal aliens, because the same federal government that wants to subject law abiding citizens (doing their traveling all above board) to microscopic scrutiny is also doing fuck all about undocumented border crossings.
How wonderful that all the law abiding people of this country will be profiled now, simply because they dare to fly outside the us. Meanwhile the spineless idiots refuse to secure our southern or northern borders for "lack of money"
more than 100,000 people come across our southern border, and I would guess every single one of them is un-profiled. Meanwhile they will keep records on ME for 40 years.
idiots.
And the real reason the southern border remains unprotected? Because the fat-cats of the united states love the cheap labor. Plain and simple. It's a matter of economics. If the large corporate farmers were required to pay a living wage to human harvesters, then they would make less money. So, they allow hundreds of thousands to pass un-checked through our border.
How safe are we when anyone can walk across our south border? But heaven forbid I take some Orange Juice on the plane with me.
Morons... Both dems and repubs spout security UNTIL it would cost their rich benefactors any inconvenience.
82,188 were murdered in the United States in the years ranging from 2001-2006. 2,883 have been kill on US soil since on 2001. Because those 2,883 got more media attention than those 82,188, we have to surrender our privacy to overreacting government. The irony is that none of this will work actually stop terrorists. If they can't keep 3.7 million illegal aliens out of this country entering since 2000, they certainly can't keep a hand full of terrorists from crossing illegally and not reporting a thing. Statistics tell a different story. I question my government's priorities and their methods.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Have always been more scrutinized. I don't see a problem here really, as long as it stays at the fedreal borders and doesn't start creeping inwards to include state to state travel. ( as i suspect it will )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
All this is is a cheap and easy pretext to collect a set of records, and key them to a field (like SSN or passport), of people who "might have been influenced by foreigners."
Combined with the databases our government surely receives from corporate commerce and communications companies, they could have a Nixon-era "dissident" file at their fingertips for any of these people. Just for leaving the country. All they need is the pretext. This is that pretext.
There are no limitations on the data mining that could take place afterward. We need legal limitations on data mining. We need to stop taking names down for no reason.
Are you making international calls? Are you *leaving* the country? If this is put in place, you are affected.
Those who would implement such a program are building an invisible prison of data. It's as bad as the "iron curtain." Anyone who cares to broaden their mind, or look to the horizon will be tracked. This must not be allowed to continue. It is not paranoia to demand stringent privacy legislation and limitations on database merging, with severe penalties to discourage malfeasance, to protect our essential liberties.
--
Toro
Well, at least one Christian out there agrees with you and thinks that it seems like you're behaving in this respect in a more Christian manner than some who identify themselves as Christians.
I am a Christian and on this matter I feel the same way you do and I have the same worry over what this is doing to our society.
ABBA
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
I think that we are now suffering the labor pains signaling the birth of a new form of government. Since many years ago, we have begun to lean further and further towards a state which condones the notion that the 'people' are to be 'handled' with deception in mind. Secret dealings which empower corporate entities versus private citizens. Consolidation of means of communication, criminalization of activities which threaten private economic activities basely exploiting the human condition. Threat of 'disappearance' and 'torture'. Adamant 'leaders' thrust into our lives which we are taught to love or hate - most of them telling us to go back to our little lives and consume. Dissenters humiliated or scandalized. Facts obtained by publicly funded means hidden for all time. Laws which now make you guilty until proven innocent. Federal law enforcement serving corporate interests full-time. Wholesale restructuring of formerly public agencies with new mission statements changing the focus to serve 'security' concerns. FEMA building 'holding camps' all over the country while privately held prison contractors drool over the prospect of more wealth. Money issuance by fiat, our country using ALL income taxes to cover interest on the debt incurred for expenses NO CITIZEN voted for. We slip closer and closer to losing national sovereignty as moneylenders construct new profit schemes made available by economic manipulation on an international scale. No one seems to want the citizens to be educated anymore, only entertained. We are rife with a kind of proto-fascism here now. Freedom is shrinking - even within our own homes. And still the owners are not content. Still, they pursue absolute control. We need help, badly.
"maybe we shouldn't judge too much, since we don't really know the story." A co-worker responded, "you must be a liberal."
It is saddening to me.
Jesus spoke of love and compassion. He told us to pull not the splinter from anothers eye but the plank from our own regarding the judgement of others. I often wonder if this distinction was made for treading upon judgement is the realm God directly resides over, so you best tread lightly.
Jesus died upon the cross to save all of mankind. He suffered so all would have a chance not to suffer. That isnt to say he claimed all would not suffer though. But all had a chance regardless. Even the most vile. Gods method of choice to focus his sons death as a means to bring about this says, to me, that God held this greatly important. So when we judge and rejudge without end another person such as a murderer, we do more harm to ourselves in the eyes of God than the one we judge. Since God choose to suffer on the cross for that wicked person, so to must we suffer to help them be a better person while here on earth.
Somewhere in there is why I think rehabilitation should be our focus when dealing with the wicked. For if God gave me a chance upon that cross, I can at least give another a chance. And in the case where someone refuses or is unable to change with societies help, we can humanely remove them from society. But we must try. For failure to try is to not attempt to emulate God as he suffered upon the cross.
All our sinners. Not just the wicked who got caught. So til someone produces the Utilitarian Calculus Method God uses for sin, I know all sin is the same.
The federal government disclosed details yesterday
The TFA is from Nov 3, 2006! Someone missed a whole year?
I've read that they don't even put real terrorists on the "terrorist watch lists" because the list is widely disseminated and might alert the real terrorists. So who exactly is on these "terrorist watch lists"?
This could have been written by Joseph Heller.
Yes, I believe there have been several terrorist actions that have been stopped. Maybe a few real ones that have been prevented.
Unfortunately, nobody wants to say anything about those. Instead we get the absurd stuff in Boston and guys with big ideas and no way to implement them in the news. It makes everyone in the US look stupid.
It wouldn't surprise me that major media outlets know and have details about 9/11-scale terrorist actions that have been stopped and are sitting on it. It would make Bush look better. Maybe not much, but some. And we can't have that. The news folks are trying to sit on what today constitutes progress in Iraq, but that would screw up the election plans so nobody is talking about it.
We aren't going to hear anything until the classified documents rule puts stuff into the public's hands. In about 75 years or so. Kinda late, I'd say.
Welcome the the "Communist States of the United States of America". The constitution of the United States of America is officially dead. America the Republic is dead! The terrorist have accomplished thier goal to destroy free America! They have won the war! Free America has been destroyed! It was so easy to accomplish. Goodbye Free America!
Just like we won the war on drugs. And a big (economic) constituency will be built up around the conflict. Come, my darlings, and feed at the trough. ...Lorenzo
. ...Back when I was a kid, the ATMs had telephone handsets!
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
...look like the average honky. Sound a lot like 'em, too. I've known a couple. ...Lorenzo
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
Sorry, but you need to parse it like this:
"Have you ever been refused admission to the U.S., or been the subject of a deportation hearing or (sought to obtain or assist others to obtain a visa, entry into the U.S., or any other U.S. immigration benefit by fraud or willful misrepresentation or other unlawful means) ?"
Yes, this means that if you've ever been refused admission to the U.S., for whatever reason, then you will need to go and try to get a visa each and every time you travel over there.
Here's an explanation:
http://germany.usembassy.gov/visa/who_must_apply.html
Once again US citizens allow fear mongers to turn the "most free country in the world" into an Orwellian dystopia in the name of "safety and security." First they came... The version inscribed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. reads: First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me. - Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)
I'd like to see some proof. Got some links to back those up?
Again, it would not surprise me to discover that you are, indeed, telling the truth... but I want to see proof.
Citation and substantiation, or it's all hearsay.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Aren't they?
2 Held in Curbside Sales of Automatic Weapons
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7DC1F39F931A35757C0A965958260
Police Seize Mach 11 Machine Pistol From Teen (with silencer!)
http://www.channel3000.com/news/4607540/detail.html
Middletown Police Confiscate Machine Guns, Grenade Launchers
http://www.wtic.com/pages/1083618.php?
"Police obtained a search warrant and say they found automatic and semiautomatic weapons, grenades, bulletproof vests, swords, cross bows and bomb-making instructions."
These are just a few of the results from the first page of a quick googling of police confiscate automatic weapons machine pistols
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
In other countries with strict gun controls law abiding people normally have little to fear about gun crime, so the law does not really affect them in general terms.
So yes, gun laws in the US are actually killing law abiding people.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Your tourism industry is in the ropes, foreign students no longer want to go to US universities, Arab investors prefer to buy into companies that will open offices locally in the Gulf region instead of the US, a lot of countries are stacking reserves in both euros and dollars instead of dollars only and many high caliber CEOs must be thinking twice before working with US companies (google for Natwest 3 for further illumination).
Honestly, your country should give a fuck, the rest of the world has many options to shun the US in many ways that will be prejudicial to your interests.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
But if you don't question how it comes the US government treats foreigners worst than countries like China, Vietnam or Iran (at least on arrival) then you are not thinking straight.
You are been conned by your political class, you live in the perfect dictatorship, where now noble families fight for power while giving you the illusion you have any input in the matter.
Cunning. Very cunning.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The EU has the strictest privacy laws in the world.
Nobody checks your passport while traveling in the EU (even if you are foreigner) and on arrival to the EU you are not fingerprinted and no mugshots are taken.
Citizens of many countries get generous visas (3 to 6 months) on arrival and you are not subjected to the indignities of going to a an embassy for hours to get a visa that may be denied at the whim of a petty bureaucrat stationed there, as happens when you want to go to the US (which I don't).
Some family of mine could not go to the US to claim the remains of a relative because the US embassy denied a visa in the flimsy grounds that the person could abscond (heck, to be unemployed is a crime in the US's eyes) no matter that this person has gone multiple times before and even worked legally there before, always respecting the limits of previous visas. That same person was allowed to visit Europe, no questions asked, thank you for visiting.
The only EU country going contrary to all this is unfortunately the UK, but even here the paranoid attitudes of the current government are being quickly disproved by simple facts, and the opposition parties have promised to dismantle many ot the repressive measures instated by the current US lackey of a government we have here.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Some of them are even executed.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.