Activist Group Sues US Border Agency Over New, Vast Intelligence System

An anonymous reader writes with news about one of the latest unanswered FOIA requests made to the Department of Homeland Security and the associated lawsuit the department's silence has brought. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has sued the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in an attempt to compel the government agency to hand over documents relating to a relatively new comprehensive intelligence database of people and cargo crossing the US border. EPIC's lawsuit, which was filed last Friday, seeks a trove of documents concerning the 'Analytical Framework for Intelligence' (AFI) as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. EPIC's April 2014 FOIA request went unanswered after the 20 days that the law requires, and the group waited an additional 49 days before filing suit. The AFI, which was formally announced in June 2012 by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), consists of "a single platform for research, analysis, and visualization of large amounts of data from disparate sources and maintaining the final analysis or products in a single, searchable location for later use as well as appropriate dissemination."

Comments

Ingsoc

[Bodhammer]

"The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." George Orwell - "1984"

Re:Ingsoc

[Anonymous Coward]

How come the guy who wrote beta's lock himself out of his account and has to post AC/

TIA

[Afty0r]

The AFI, which was formally announced in June 2012 by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), consists of "a single platform for research, analysis, and visualization of large amounts of data from disparate sources and maintaining the final analysis or products in a single, searchable location for later use as well as appropriate dissemination."

Sooo errr.... Total Information Awareness then?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[Anonymous Coward]

If we're talking about the southern boarder, just cross with everyone else. Illegally.

Re:Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[CanHasDIY]

If we're talking about the southern boarder, just cross with everyone else. Illegally.

No shit.

Besides, if they want to fuck with you, they won't do it at the border, they'll wait until you're deep inside the Constitution-Free Zone. Because that's how the New America works.

Re:Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[jbmartin6]

If you cross your boarders they may not pay the rent, then where will you be?

Re:Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[Mashiki]

According to the Obama administration, there's nothing wrong with the southern border. In fact, the borders are even more secure today then a decade ago. I wish I made that up, even though they were warned 2 years ago about it.

Re:Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[CaptainDork]

Did you know that undocumented people who come to America are not "illegals?"

At least for the first crossing.

A clue is to look at the punishment: A free ride back to point of origin.

A person who crosses the border again AFTER deportation is:

1.) Doing so illegally
2.) Documented (else how do we know?)

Re: Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[mattwarden]

Crossing the border without permission from the federal government is a violation of federal law. I am not sure what definition of "illegal" you are using...

Re:Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[Entrope]

Bless your heart, CaptainEuphemism: I know you are not the sharpest tool in the shed, so I will spell out why clueful people still call them illegal immigrants rather than "undocumented" immigrants and reserve "unaccompanied minor" for kids who fly on planes without their parents.

Entering the US other than in a time and place authorized by immigration officers is punishable by up to six months in jail under 8 USC 1325, as is using forged paperwork to enter. However, in most cases, it does not make sense to lock someone up -- and have US taxpayers pay their room and board -- for any longer than necessary, so we deport them quickly rather than sending them to prison and *then* deporting them.

Illegal immigrants (or unauthorized aliens, if you prefer the statutory term) get a "free ride" home if the executive branch thinks they are likely to break the law further by trying to stay after the final order of removal. The Immigration and Nationality Act is written as if Congress assumed illegal immigrants would -- for some unfathomable reason -- pay their own way out of the country after getting that final order of removal.

Re: Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[CaptainDork]

This one, in my post:

"At least for the first crossing."

Re:Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[CaptainDork]

As you mature in your effort to become a credible member of the debate team, you will learn the maxim, "Attack the post and not the poster."

I wish you godspeed in that regard.

Re: Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[Entrope]

And I wish you luck in learning to read more than the first sentence of a comment before you fire off an utterly wrong response to it, you moron.

Re:Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[gmhowell]

The rent is too damned high!

Re: Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[mattwarden]

Got some source to back this up, other than inferring based on the punishment? Because I'm pretty sure you have no idea what you're talking about.

Re: Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[CaptainDork]

" ... you moron."

By way of example.

Re: Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[CaptainDork]

You've as much as admitted you don't know. I do. Do your homework. I am not your home-schooler.

Re: Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[Entrope]

If you like looking like a whiny, hypocritical moron, be my guest. I take it that you concede that illegal immigration is in fact a crime, and that you didn't read far enough into my earlier comment to see where I explained that, because you haven't done a thing to rebut either of those. I'm not going to use soft words to save the feelings of someone who is a lazy, useful idiot or worse.

Re: Privacy while crossing the boarder?

[mattwarden]

that's what i figured

So

[Anonymous Coward]

The US government can't collect data on illegals because of privacy concerns, but anything goes with US citizens?

That makes perfect sense.

Re:So

[davester666]

illegals aren't a threat to the US gov't.

In Soviet USA

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't sue the government. They will find you place in landfill.

will it tell us

[Anonymous Coward]

..what kids were sent where to whom in this latest fiasco in Texas??

Re:will it tell us

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy, Texas sent them to all the people from the registered sex offender list. That'll teach them!

No Decent Solution

[JimSadler]

There is simply no easy solution for the border issue. No matter what is done or not done human suffering will take place. Families are split apart. Nations must have borders or the nation ceases to exist. America has never had a working economic system that provides justice for workers, owners, and those unable to be either. Yet, even if we have a border guard stop an immigrant one foot shy of entry it may be a death sentence for the immigrant. With 75 miles of desert behind them and all kinds of hazards to turn someone back may be murder and that someone could include infants or elders. A strong nation ID card would help such that even casual employment was not possible without prior approval by local police would go a long way towards stopping illegals from having the desire to get here. Yet businesses love lowering the wage pool by flooding illegal immigrants into the nation. I wonder just how much the price of groceries would jump if illegal farm labor was shut down. And the absolute bottom line is that reproduction as well as immigration degrades the quality of life for all of us. We need strict population size control.

Re:No Decent Solution

[NotSanguine]

A strong nation ID card would help such that even casual employment was not possible without prior approval by local police would go a long way towards stopping illegals from having the desire to get here. Yet businesses love lowering the wage pool by flooding illegal immigrants into the nation. I wonder just how much the price of groceries would jump if illegal farm labor was shut down. And the absolute bottom line is that reproduction as well as immigration degrades the quality of life for all of us. We need strict population size control.

You're absolutely right. Those people don't deserve to live here, thinking they can come to this country and have their descendants live here too! And all those wetback children using our diapers are a disgrace! We Americans have been here since the beginning of the American continent, formed as the super-continent Pangaea broke up starting about 175 million years ago. Immigrants must be stopped. They never gave us anything but trouble. But why stop with just keeping out the immigrants and limiting procreation (that's worked out really well in China, no?)? Let's get Swiftian on their asses! MMMM babies!

Re:No Decent Solution

[kogut]

"I wonder just how much the price of groceries would jump if illegal farm labor was shut down. And the absolute bottom line is that reproduction as well as immigration degrades the quality of life for all of us."

Those two sentences are contradictory. Because low-cost consumer staples are certainly included a part of the quality of life that the U.S. enjoys. In terms of economic benefit to effectively the entire population. And there are also indirect benefits in having large economic sectors (agriculture being one) remaining competitive in global markets - that almost certainly provides economic beneifts beyond just the low-wage illegal jobs. (e.g. there's a whole chain of empoyment from domestic agriculture - finance, construction, transportation, research, etc.)

Re:No Decent Solution

[UnknownSoldier]

> Nations must have borders or the nation ceases to exist.

I question that basic assumption: All that does is divide people into an "us vs them" mentality.

Why must there even BE _artificial_ human inventions such as borders?

The earth doesn't have borders, only men do.

I want a world where:

* People can freely live and work they may without another man giving them permission
* Personal Rights and Freedoms are respected and placed at a higher value then artificial government granted privileges,
* Governments to acknowledge that they are created BY the people to SERVE the people, not the other way around where people are brainwashed into believing they need artificial government granted privileges.
* Governments are Accountable for their actions
* Governments are Open about their actions

If people, and government which are an extension of people, would spend less time living in FEAR and profiting off making machines to kill other men we wouldn't even need borders.

Eventually a unified world government is more efficient but since that scares the hell out of a lot of people that will never happen until we remove money (corruption) from politics.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever been to Wyoming? This place is not crowded by any stretch of the imagination.
Get out of Calcutta, or Manhattan, or whatever.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Not necessarily, as the price goes up, the value goes up, and (assuming this is not a welfare state) then the motivation (pay) for "white people" to go work on a farm increases. Supply and Demand both apply here.

the challenge with farm labor is very much a chicken and egg problem. It doesn't pay enough to be competitive (in marginal value for the significant manual effort required) with "welfare". Therefore, it doesn't cause a demand in the legal labor pool. Since illegals are explicitly removed from the labor pool, and have a cost of living low enough to survive on farm labor, there is a partition there, where farm labor is on the low end of a separate labor pool, with construction trades on the higher end of that partitioned pool. The partitioning isn't just in the illegal side, though, as there's also a geographic and cultural partition between the bottom end of the "welfare economy" (another bullshit term, but creates a useable mental image) and the farm labor demand.

This really becomes an intractable problem, as we're culturally unwilling to force people off welfare in order to make them work on farms, doing jobs they're unaware, unable to commute to, and don't pay a living wage for urban areas. Similarly, we're unwilling to increase the price of food by effective immigration enforcement, and therefore can't create the demand. As the concurrent cultural gap widens, we see citizens pushed away from other manual trades during periods of high unemployment, as those here on the grey are willing to take construction jobs, and then stay when the hourly rate comes back up, pushing out people who are stuck now on unemployment.

Our kids will have to figure out how to fix this, though, as our politicians are stuck in their canards, and the continued deadlock will keep them employed by their groups of voters. It's not a "republican" issue or a "democrat" issue; it's a structural issue that ossifies the current political structure. Ironically, amnesty will make this even worse, as we saw from Reagan's failed experiment.

Re:No Decent Solution

[blue9steel]

Eventually a unified world government is more efficient but since that scares the hell out of a lot of people that will never happen until we remove money (corruption) from politics.

So never then? The solution isn't to assume that corruption can be ever fully eradicated. The solution is to design systems that minimize and compartmentalize it.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Kazoo the Clown]

This really becomes an intractable problem, as we're culturally unwilling to force people off welfare in order to make them work on farms, doing jobs they're unaware, unable to commute to, and don't pay a living wage for urban areas.

Many people on welfare already have jobs, they qualify for welfare because their resultant pay is too low compared with the cost of living. "Forcing people off welfare" isn't going to fix the problem there.

Re:No Decent Solution

[digsbo]

You might be interested in Michael Rozeff's explanations of "Panarchism", which is, basically, universal government through subscription. It would tend to be geographically oriented, but wouldn't actually need specific borders.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport#History

Prior to WWI passports were generally not required for travel.

Did that cause WWI? No it didn't.

Was the world prior to WWI crazy and dangerous and all fucked up because we didn't have *massive* and *strict* border enforcement?

Re:No Decent Solution

[tomhath]

In 2013 almost a million people immigrated to the US legally.

Re:No Decent Solution

[VikingNation]

Look around. There are differences between countries. Legal frameworks and governance matters. Just compare Mexico and the United States. Be honest with yourself and ask what country would you rather live in?

Re:No Decent Solution

[smaddox]

Borders are barriers to trade and migration. If government by the people for the people were really the aim, we would have small, local governments that the average individual could actually influence, and that people could easily migrate away from if they felt compelled to. Instead, we have the exact opposite.

Re:No Decent Solution

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> The earth doesn't have borders, only men do.

Dude, put down the clip and go upstairs. What's a river? What's an ocean? What's a mountain range?

Re:No Decent Solution

[Rockoon]

There is simply no easy solution for the border issue.

Landmines...

Re:No Decent Solution

[CaptainDork]

Precisely.

Apparently, some people prefer not to think things through.

If we kicked people off of welfare, they would have fewer resources than they have now.

Those people would then qualify for ... wait for it ... welfare.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

This will be unpopular, but...

Maybe Christians would like to worship without fear of being beheaded by religious fundamentalists from other religions? That might be one reason for a border.
If people behaved responsibly, you might have a point. Until then, I think the borders are a good thing.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

They are referring to places like California and the NorthEast, which could use a good purging.

Re:No Decent Solution

[UnknownSoldier]

I'm not denying there is are natural physical boundaries but political boundaries are purely conceptual boundaries -- witness how many times the border of Poland moved in the 20th century!

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course countries need borders. Countries are defined by their laws. Since you don't want, presumably, to be governed by the laws of the one true glorious leader Kim Jong Un (sp?), you need a border between you and North Korea. Other countries' differences are not as stark, but there would be plenty you would find not to your liking regardless - even with close cultural neighbors like Canada (You like your hand guns? Don't like the government running beer/booze sales? You think your telecom monopolies are bad - lol, you haven't seen anything yet?)

At the same time consider it a badge of of honor you're trying to figure out how to build walls on your border to keep people out.
As someone who was born in the Soviet side of Europe, those walls were made to keep people in.

Word of warning to all of you though. The walls are always erected for other reasons than advertised. In Eastern Europe, it was officially to "keep back western imperialist aggression". The inward aiming turrets were of course to stop western spies stealing secrets.
If you guys ever witness start building walls on your Northern border against the "impending Canadian Menace" or some similarly labeled farce, be scared. Your walls will be able to serve a dual purpose too. And once the borders are sealed to prevent people from leaving, that's when really bad things start happening.
Eternal Vigilance.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Such as what?
Nuclear war?
CBW in the cities?
Shoot every male person?

Re:No Decent Solution

[aeschinesthesocratic]

I question that basic assumption: All that does is divide people into an "us vs them" mentality.

Why is this wrong? I don't indentify with many people across the globe and often our values conflict. How do we resolve these issues with less violence? Good fences make good neighbors.

Why must there even BE _artificial_ human inventions such as borders?

The earth doesn't have borders, only men do.

There's these things called "oceans", "mountains", "rivers" and "lakes" that do a pretty good job of isolating certain parts of the world from each other.

I want a world where:

* People can freely live and work they may without another man giving them permission * Personal Rights and Freedoms are respected and placed at a higher value then artificial government granted privileges,

Would you be alright with prostitution, drug use, pedophilia and human slavery being practiced in your neighborhood? Because those are legal in countries around the world. Imagine you're got a perfect world in your town that you built through hard work - it's not corrupt, violent or poor - but what happens when some nogoodnicks show up and trash the joint? Wouldn't you want to preserve the slice of heaven you've worked so hard for? Fight them on the streets? There goes the neighborhood... but what if you could stop them from being there in the first place?

* Governments to acknowledge that they are created BY the people to SERVE the people, not the other way around where people are brainwashed into believing they need artificial government granted privileges. * Governments are Accountable for their actions * Governments are Open about their actions

How do you make them accountable for their actions? I have a hard enough time trying to get responses from my state representatives, why do you think a global government would care about me any more? I don't think at a global level, a government COULD really ask people what they wanted.

If people, and government which are an extension of people, would spend less time living in FEAR and profiting off making machines to kill other men we wouldn't even need borders.

Sure, we can start doing away with borders when you give me your house keys, car keys, and any other access control you have. Oh wait you won't do that? Well you're part of the problem, not the solution.

Eventually a unified world government is more efficient but since that scares the hell out of a lot of people that will never happen until we remove money (corruption) from politics.

If we do remove corruption and money from the earth, why would we need a government, let alone a world government?

Re:No Decent Solution

[NotSanguine]

In 2013 almost a million people immigrated to the US legally.

I know. Recognizing sarcasm isn't your strong suit, eh?

Re:No Decent Solution

[Entrope]

With no borders, when you break the laws of the City of Entrope, the City of Entrope Police will hunt you down to the end of the earth if the mayor tells them to. There is no reason for them to stop short of that. Does that sound good to you?

With no political borders, the only possibly stable equilibria are anarchy and uniform world government, and I am deeply skeptical that either would actually be stable. Which one of those do you prefer?

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder just how much the price of groceries would jump if illegal farm labor was shut down.

I wonder how much the government could offset that increase by NOT enabling millions of "anchor" babies to qualify for US-taxpayer fed welfare programs.

You know, because free food, free housing, and eventually a free college education sits so well with the average American taxpayer, especially those who are saddled with $50,000 worth of college loans struggling to find a job. Yes, tell me again how our fucking problem is worrying about the price of fresh tomatoes.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you be alright with prostitution, drug use, pedophilia and human slavery being practiced in your neighborhood? Because those are legal in countries around the world.

There are certainly places in the world where enforcement of labor laws (and often the laws themselves) are clearly inadequate. But is there actually anywhere in the world where slavery is fully legal? And likewise for laws protecting children?

But it's interesting that you should mention prostitution and drug use. Because local laws within the USA vary widely among states and cities. So, should we conclude that someone who was born in a part of the USA where prostitution is legal should be restricted for life from entering parts of the USA where prostitution is illegal?

Wouldn't you want to preserve the slice of heaven you've worked so hard for?

Maybe if you and a small group of friends had founded the USA and built it up to it's current state over the last centuries - maybe if you had personally discovered and invented all the modern technology that makes up your little "slice of heaven" - then you could truly call it your own. But being a US citizen, or not, is fundamentally an accident of birth. And many US citizens these days devote themselves to taking as much for themselves and possible while giving as little back as possible: their net effect on the USA is almost certainly negative.

I'm not saying you shouldn't work to make your community safe and prosperous. But the way to get there isn't to be mean to people who happened to be born on different side of some arbitrary boundary.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the key word there was *legally*. If people want to come to the US like my ancestors did then that's fine. They should just do it *legally*.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

...millions of "anchor" babies ... US-taxpayer fed welfare programs ... the average American taxpayer ... struggling to find a job.

It's actually rich people (i.e. not the average Americans struggling to find jobs) who pay most of the taxes in the USA. If the USA were to use rich peoples' tax dollars to provide welfare for anchor babies then it would almost certainly improve the jobs situation - i.e. poor Americans could get jobs providing welfare to anchor babies. :)

But, more seriously, despite the "lump of labor" fallacy that is so common in these discussions, there are serious credible studies examining the relationship between immigration rates and unemployment. And they actually show that increased immigration improves the jobs situation (decreases unemployment).

Of course, there are those who feel that life is a competition between races to see who can have the most children. But the more informed view is that having children in order to be "evolutionarily successful" is like throwing yourself down a flight of stairs in order to be "gravitationally successful" - that evolution, like gravity, is a natural law. It's not what should happen: it's what does happen.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

There is simply no easy solution for the border issue.

1) End the war on drugs. 100% unconditional surrender.

As to this bullshit:

Yet businesses love lowering the wage pool by flooding illegal immigrants into the nation. I wonder just how much the price of groceries would jump if illegal farm labor was shut down. And the absolute bottom line is that reproduction as well as immigration degrades the quality of life for all of us. We need strict population size control.

Stop subsidizing education (stop the single people from having to pay via real estate taxes). E-verify the effing public-school students and jail the teachers if they have non-e-verify students (if it is good enough for employers... why not the unions who benefit financially as well?).

E-verify hospital patients before getting in. E-verify the arrested before getting out. Releasing someone without confirming legal residence ought to excuse anybody from hiring that same person for twenty years. That's right, catch-and-release = green card.

As regards the population, end retirement ponzi schemes which require a growing population (regardless if that requirement is due to theft of the funds or not). Benefits should be defined, never pensions (unless 100% voluntary, non-coercive financing, no public backing). All retirement accounts should be held by the retiree. Take the SS trust fund from Uncle Sam and give it to the people.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Wootery]

Err, what? If we adjusted the welfare laws such that they would no longer qualify for welfare, then they'd end up qualifying for welfare?

Re:No Decent Solution

[Wootery]

Eventually a unified world government is more efficient but since that scares the hell out of a lot of people

And for damn good reason. Dilution of democracy for one, instability another. Huge empires don't tend to last.

Re:No Decent Solution

[CaptainDork]

Let's do a thought experiment, OK?

Let's look at the criteria that qualifies a person for welfare.

Are you imagining the list with me?

Further, let's imagine an individual who has met that criteria and is on welfare.

Continuing, let's mentally disqualify that person for some reason or other.

So now, the individual is in worse shape than before.

They were on welfare because they qualified, right?

Don't they qualify MORE now?

The only sensible reason to deny welfare or to reduce benefits is if the individual no longer meets some or all the criteria for being on welfare.

Re:No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not necessarily, as the price goes up, the value goes up, and (assuming this is not a welfare state) then the motivation (pay) for "white people" to go work on a farm increases. Supply and Demand both apply here."

I think it'd only play like that in econ 101 widget world. Most agricultural products are global commodities. If we strongly enforced labor law in the U.S., I suspect global arbitrage would take place long before a significant wage increase. I could be wrong. But it's easy and relatively cheap to ship goods these days.

Re:No Decent Solution

[currently_awake]

So long as there are ungoverned places in this world we will need borders to keep the lawless bad men from such places out. So long as governments need taxes to exist we will need borders to keep the money inside their reach. You don't believe in borders? Then you won't mind if I build a house in your front yard, since property borders are just holding humanity back. A national border is the limit of a government's power. The only way to eliminate borders is to eliminate government. And we can't eliminate government because most people don't want to deal with all those pesky details outside of their own lives, so they let others handle the details for them.

No Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

we need a strict REDUCTION in population size....

Primal Instict

[Anonymous Coward]

Borders must exist because at a fundamental level, we are tribal creatures. "Us v.s. them" has been a necessary part of our survival for the complete existence of human beings. Only now are we getting close to being capable, culturally, of identifying ourselves as human, instead of our specific tribe.

Why oppose this?

[VikingNation]

The government has every right to determine whom and what is coming into the United States. International visitors are asked to file paper work with the government to report a number of items (large sums of money, plant/food products, money making equipment, etc.).

Re:Why oppose this?

[DoofusOfDeath]

The government has every right to determine whom and what is coming into the United States. International visitors are asked to file paper work with the government to report a number of items (large sums of money, plant/food products, money making equipment, etc.).

The problem is that Obama (and some past presidents to a lesser degree) are willingly not enforcing border security. For known illegal immigrants already in their custody.

Which raises serious suspicions about any claims they make about their intentions for a highly invasive monitoring system.

Re:Why oppose this?

[AHuxley]

The US tried that for a very short time under Nixon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... A massive movement of staff to secure the border was in place and worked very well.
The flow of drugs, drug money laundering in US banks and illegal labor was at risk. Over time the US returned to a policy that can be seen today.
A free flow of people, goods and the need for expensive financial instruments ensures wonderful regional profit.
The UK was a great example too with its visa "expires" database. The UK forgot how/why to count visa in and visa out (was International Passenger Survey).
The main reason seems to be a super cheap flow of workers and the UK will try and bring back "exit checks" in a year or so :)
As for US policy - cheap workers with no on site wage or health laws was always the big win to keep wide open boarders for decades.

Re:Why oppose this?

[Anonymous Coward]

The government has every right to determine whom and what is coming into the United States.

The notion of governments having rights is doubly complex. Not only do you have define the notion of "rights". But you also have to define the notion of "governments". Should Obama determine, based solely on his own personal preferences, who and what comes into the USA? Or perhaps border agents should make that determination solely at their own personal discretion? Perhaps a certain border agent needs some money and is willing to let in anyone or anything for the right price?

Maybe you really meant "the people" rather than "the government"? But what if an American with a foriegn wife wants her to come and go as she pleases but some other American doesn't - e.g. maybe she's Jewish and that American happens to thinks that Jews are ruining America? Or maybe there should be a democratic process: if enough Americans happen to believe that Jews are destroying America then Jews are no longer allowed to come into the United States?

International visitors are asked to file paper work with the government to report a number of items (large sums of money, plant/food products, money making equipment, etc.).

Ha ha ha - that's funny! Do you really honestly have no idea how bad it is for most people in the world wanting to come to the USA even just as tourists?

Even just for tourists, for most people in the world there's a whole visa application process that takes many months, is very expensive, and involves all kinds of intrusive personal questions such as personal bank account details. And then people are herded like cattle into holding pens outside the embassy for the in-person interview and then most of them are arbitrarily rejected. For example, a short while back one of my friends was rejected for a tourist visa because she didn't have close relatives living in the USA. Imagine if Americans were only allowed to visit Japan as tourists is they had close relatives who were Japanese.

Of course, even getting the visa doesn't guarantee entry. If the border agent just doesn't happen to like you then you can be arbitrarily sent back without any due process - no matter that you've planned the trip years and spent thousands of dollars and had to travel over 24 without rest to get to the USA. The US immigration is strangely reminiscent of a 3rd world dictatorship where any notion of due process or rule of law is completely absent.

Re:Why oppose this?

[Intron]

You are just SO wrong

http://news.medill.northwester...

Re:Why oppose this?

[Entrope]

EPIC is not trying to stop the government from using this system -- they are trying to get information about the system, presumably so that they can decide whether to try to rein in the system (via political or judicial means) to protect civil rights. Why oppose that, indeed?

DoofusOfDeath and AHuxley make good points as well. Some modern advocacy groups (like the Cato Institute) claim that open immigration can coexist with a welfare state, but even the studies they write admit that low-skilled immigrants consume more social spending than they pay in taxes, that welfare spending does not go down due to higher levels of immigration[1], and that working-class citizens are the hardest hit due to open immigration policies.

[1]- Unsurprisingly, political leanings explain most of the differences in welfare spending between US states, and Cato's study this year did not try to control for that at all. Illegal immigrants and non-permanent aliens are barred from collecting almost any kind of welfare. Even permanent residents are barred from collecting most welfare for five years. Naturalized citizens, of course, can collect the same kinds of welfare that other citizens can collect -- but these are typically the most motivated and skilled immigrants, and have less need of wealth transfers.

Re:Why oppose this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apples to Oranges.
Now they count someone being turned at the border before entering the USA a deportation. This wasn't the case 10 years ago.

NYT just reported over 300,000 illegals have entered the USA since April 2014. Not a misprint there.

Re:Why oppose this?

[Intron]

I wonder why there's no sudden jump in the data then?
Sorry for confusing you with the facts. Carry on with your beliefs.

Re:Why oppose this?

[Anonymous Coward]

story
I don't know what no sudden jump in the numbers you are expecting. Here is the story I was talking about. I guess you assume offical government numbers are the truth. Here are some other truths from them... The NSA isn't spying on you. You can keep your healthcare.

Not sure why people are taking government talking points as fact anymore. Not that I trust the NYT number, but at least I stated where I got that from so you can judge it yourself.

Re:Why oppose this?

[TubeSteak]

A few States tried it too. And they succeeded

Georgia: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-georgias-immigration-law-backfires/
Arizona: http://business.time.com/2012/06/14/the-fiscal-fallout-of-state-immigration-laws/
Alabama: http://business.time.com/2012/06/14/the-fiscal-fallout-of-state-immigration-laws/
Indiana: I couldn't find a decent article specifically about Indiana, but it's the same story.

The good news is that by shooting themselves in the foot, Georgia, Arizona, Alabama, and Indiana provided a wonderful example of what not to do. All the other States that were thinking about passing similar laws... didn't. Or they exempted farm and maid labor, which more or less undercuts the core purpose of such laws.

Re:Why oppose this?

[BlueStrat]

The government has every right to determine whom and what is coming into the United States.

The notion of governments having rights is doubly complex.

The Federal government in the case of the US has no rights, it has duties & obligations, and powers granted by the governed specifically to carry out those duties & obligations, and only those duties & obligations included specifically in the US Constitution.

It also includes a list of specific restrictions upon what powers the government may or may not exercise and how in areas that were felt to be particularly critical to creating and maintaining a society designed for maximum individual freedom, general order & prosperity, personal responsibility, and the protection of private property rights.

In my nearly 6 decades of experiencing firsthand the changes and the impact they had at the time that many younger people here only read about in wikipedia, I've seen and continue to see more than a correlative relationship between the trend away from the restrictions on government power from the early 1900s up to current times and it's resultant explosion of government spending/debt, abuse/abridgment of civil rights, the surveillance state, and the overall general trend of decline of the US domestically, socially, and internationally in nearly every way.

Government is in some ways similar to a nuclear fission reactor-based national power grid. You only place enough fissionable material in each reaction vessel of a number of reactors to achieve critical-but-stable output to power a limited area, you don't try to place all the fissionable material in one reactor at once to avoid the costs of building multiple reactors. Well, you'd only do it once, and very, very briefly at any rate, heh!

Once government power exceeds "critical mass" and the chain reaction of growth of power cascades, an authoritarian government is the inevitable outcome. I believe there's still time to at least avert the worst scenarios, but not much time. And the longer we delay, the worse things will become and the more people that will suffer.

Strat

Capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Just ask any Capitalist what he / she is doing working so many people to death for so much smaller incremental profit.

Here's what's wrong (again... still)

[fyngyrz]

These laws are toothless. "Must answer within 20 days"... or what? With no one held immediately culpable, the law is precisely meaningless.

Heard of anyone going to jail for this?

Heard of anyone paying a fine for this?

Even heard of anyone losing their job for this?

Compare: If you don't do something the government desires you to do, there will be consequences.

This is just like the constitution: "Highest law in the land" -- violate it -- as SCOTUS and congress have done over and over -- and the consequences? Nothing.

Just so you taxpayers know your place. The laws aren't for the government. Those are just laws "for show." The real laws are just for you. Because, you know, they care about you.

Re:Here's what's wrong (again... still)

[flyneye]

Yep, they might as well sue on one hand and shit on the other, then observe which hand fills up faster. Lol, kids are funny.

Last 300 years?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sooo, how much is that for last 300 years, exactly?

Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in Amerika does one have to privately fund an organization to force the government (who taxes us for their funding), to reveal that, despite repeatedly lying about it, they aren't violating our Constitutionally enumerated rights?

We're paying one group of people, to catch the other group of people we're paying, breaking the laws (who break additional laws to try to avoid being caught breaking said laws) that we're paying to create and enforce, said laws. ..

Let that one sink in for a minute .
(before you run off to the hardware store for a length of Rope and a Pitchfork)

Now, do you REALLY think every November really amounts to anything?
Really?
Are you that Naive, or is it just more comfortable to keep your head in the sand?

Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when will these morons realize that you don't have privacy in public?

A Decent Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a very easy solution to the border issue. Admit that Ronald Reagan was wrong and return to
promulgating birth control in the 3rd world. Reduce the pressure to leave home, and bang. Fixed.