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A Peek At DHS's Files On You
kenblakely writes "We've known for a while that the Department of Homeland Security was collecting travel records on those who cross US borders, but now you can see it for yourself. A Freedom of Information Act request got this blogger a look at DHS's file on his travels. Pretty comprehensive — all the way down to the IP address of the host he used to make a reservation."
DHS are the gestapo. They have been explicitly referred to as the Gestapo by two lawmakers, Luis V. Gutierrez(D-ill) and Sam Farr(D-CA).
They have been placed in charge of thoughtcrime and IP enforcement among others.
Are these the guys you want banging at your door at random for the inevitable(give it a few more years) state-sponsored "health and wellness" checks?
I was curious to see what was in my file, as I've had a devil of a time trying to come up with my travel via stamps in the passport. The airlines were not helpful past 2005. I sent in for mine, based on the notes in that article, like this...
and addressed to
Freedom of Information Act Request
U.S. Customs Service
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Washington DC 20229
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Let's say the traveler cancels at the last minute, and the plane blows up. They go check it out, because maybe he/she was tipped off by a friend not to get on the plane.
I knew a guy who was supposed to be on flight 800 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800) but that morning he fell down carrying his metal trash down the stairs and injured himself. He went to the hospital and was OK but he had missed the flight. The next day the FBI came over and wanted to know why he had not been on the plane. He had to convince them that he had gone to the hospital. They went and checked out his story.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Does the DHS have even one documented case of this information preventing said activity?
I doubt it. I drive through one of these about once a month and I always chuckle at the sign which reads "Terrorist threat level -- yellow".
I've ranted about them before so I'll just quickly say that they're there to catch low-hanging fruit like personal drug use and DUI to scare other citizens and fatten the county's coffers through citation. But I have a recent, true story to add:
A VERY law-abiding acquaintance(we'll call him "Jack") who is a retired State government worker was stopped at one of the checkpoints. They ran a dog around the car and the dog went apeshit. The CBP officers asked if they could search the car, even going so far as to say, "look, if you have something small like a joint, maybe we can make a deal". Of course, there were no drugs in "Jack"'s car so Jack told them to fuck off and get another dog. They did, and whaddya know, the other dog didn't smell shit and so they sent "Jack" on his merry way.
[tinfoil hat]They probably train a dog to scratch at every fifth car to instill fear among the others who have to watch and to see if they can generate an excuse to tear the car apart looking for bad stuff.[/tinfoil hat] And why not? It worked for FISA and all the retroactive "probable cause" bullshit associated with its gutting of our privacy.