| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| PJK |
Posted - 02/08/2005 : 11:18:23 PM
I am writing this here just to inform. I am personally against this piece of legislation which will be voted on this Thursday, but regardless if you are for or against it, it's worth knowing about IMO.
Are the terrorists winning? When al-Qaeda attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, they made it clear they hate America and want to terrorize us into changing America.
If they could, the terrorists would destroy the unique American way of life. But they can't. Only we can do that.
Tragically, too much of the legislation enacted by Congress in a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11 does al-Qaeda's job for them. The Patriot Act took the first, disastrous step toward fundamentally changing our way of life. Then came the homeland security bill, followed by the 9/11 intelligence reorganization bill. And now the Real ID Act of 2005 (H.R. 418) will be voted on Thursday, February 10th.
What's wrong with H.R. 418 -- a bill we are told will stem the flow of illegal aliens through our porous borders? For starters, it does NOTHING to stem the flow of illegal aliens. Instead, H.R. 418 will:
1. Establish a national ID card.
2. Establish a federally-coordinated database of personal information on American citizens with Canada and Mexico.
3. Use the new national ID to track American citizens when traveling outside the U.S. -- and within the U.S.
4. Re-define "terrorism" in broad new terms that could include members of firearms rights and anti-abortion groups or other such groups as determined by whoever is in power at the time.
5. Authorize the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to unilaterally expand the information included in driver's licenses, including such biometric information as retina scans and DNA information -- and even radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking technology. Carry a driver’s license with RFID and governmental officials will know your whereabouts 24/7.
Incredibly, H.R. 418 does nothing to solve the growing threat to national security posed by people who are already in the U.S. illegally. Instead, H.R. 418 states what we already know: that certain people here illegally are "deportable." But it does nothing to mandate deportation. H.R. 418 fails miserably on this most critical issue.
The Real ID Act or Real National ID Act will impose a Soviet-style internal passport on law-abiding American citizens. Proponents of H.R. 418 say we must "make sacrifices" like this to control our borders and fight illegal immigration. But H.R. 418 is a Trojan horse -- it pretends to offer desperately needed border control in order to stampede Americans into sacrificing what is uniquely American: more of our constitutionally protected liberty. H.R. 418 does what al-Qaeda could never do without our help.
H.R. 418 does what legislation restricting firearm ownership does. It punishes law-abiding citizens. Criminals will ignore it. H.R. 418 offers us a false sense of greater security at the cost of taking a gigantic step toward making America a police state. The terrorists will have won.
Urge your U.S. representative to vote "no" on H.R. 418. Go to http://capwiz.com/liberty/issues/alert/?alertid=6938731&type=CO
Kent Snyder
The Liberty Committee
http://www.thelibertycommittee.org
My thoughts:
You all have a voice, whether or not anyone listens to you when you speak up is another story. The only thing I know for certain is that silence is never heard. |
| 20 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Zachmozach |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 9:01:42 PM
Yeah guilty till proven innocent has been the theme of this administration. Iraq has weapons and it has to prove it doesn't because although we have no proof the burden of proof rests on them. The prisoners of war in Cuba and Iraq being held without charges, refused legal council, tortured, and they will be held indefinitely all against the geneva convetion rules. Don't get me started on their unarmed combatants laws. Why wouldn't they implement the same strategy in the airport?
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| Fleabass76 |
Posted - 02/14/2005 : 6:37:10 PM
Speaking of rights, freedoms, and the terrorists winning..
This past week I went on vacation to Mexico with my family (Dad, Mom, 10 yr old brother). We departed from Mitchel International Airport in Milwaukee to Denver and from there to Mexico. At the relatively dead security checkpoint in the Milwaukee airport there were two lines. One to the left and one to the right. At the entrance to these lines was a securty officer with a 2-way radio. He looked at my dad and brother's boarding pass and told them to go right, then spoke into the radio "2 males." My mom showed him her boarding pass and he told her to go left. I showed him mine and he directed me to the right, stating into his radio once again "1 male."
Now these two lines were divided by a large wall, which had opaque white plastic for the first 4 feet from the ground, and clear plastic the rest of the way up to the ceiling or at least close to it. The line on the left which my mom was chosen for had the usual belt you put your luggage on, etc and the metal detector arch. The left line travelled past the equipment on the left and it became a very confined, almost clausterphobic area. I imagine it is designed this way so that anyone thinking about bringing any weapons on the plane will turn around, and my suspicion is that once you do that, you're a suspect and are taken into custody since after we passed the guard, he turned around and made sure we kept walking. He didn't seem to like the fact that I kept looking back at him, but if you're going to stare me down I'm going to stare back at you.
I get to the normal x-ray machine and metal detector arch. My dad and brother are already through and I notice they are going through what I am about to. After put all my stuff on the belt, and take off my shoes and keys and stuff, I am allowed to walk through the arch. After I get through, they ask me to stand on this mat which has feet painted on them, basically showing where to place your feet. I sit in this chair and this guy waves a metal detecting wand around my legs. Then I stand up and he waves it completely around my upper body. Then he does a physical pat down of my torso.
While this is happening, some other dudes are opening our carry-ons and rummaging through everything hap-hazardly and basically messing everything up. The whole thing probably took 20 minutes, my mom was standing waiting for us for 19 of those minutes.
In my opinion, this is ridiculous. Why send anything through the x-ray machine if you're just going to open the bags anyway. Also, if someone really wants to smuggle a weapon on board, they're going to do it because they're not going to leave it in plain sight. My briefcase has 3 hidden pockets, the guy didn't check or even notice ONE of those pockets. Not to mention the fact that any weapon not detected by the x-ray and the metal detector would probably be about as useful as the stuff they already allow through like oh I don't know...belts, pens, disposable razors, lighters, etc.
In my opinion, this country is starting to adopt a policy of guilty until proven innocent which is the antithesis to liberty and freedom. The Department of Homeland Security is not only ominous in its name but also its actions. FDR was right when he said "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself." Fear has destroyed our ideals and has been allowed to run policies which in no way reflect common decency, much less common sense.
/steps off soapbox. |
| PJK |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 7:35:09 PM
Don't even get me started on NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND! Working in a middle school, I could take that law and shove it right where the sun don't shine on old Georgie boy! |
| Zachmozach |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 6:04:40 PM
Here they just threaten to cut school days and programs so they can get an increase in taxes. Threaten things like schools that we really need so people will pass a law so we can all pay an extra $600 a year to the county. So yeah no child left behind, and parents who can't spend time with their kids because their so busy working and then get even more money cut from their check. |
| Jiyra |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 4:58:54 PM
dan reminded me of a somewhat relevant question, why is the guy who made this no child left behind thing such a big deal, CUTTING school subsidies in his new budget? it's some sort of wonky double standard or something! but I don't get it. |
| dan p. |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 4:23:57 PM
no child left behind. except, you know, the ones without a decent amount of money. |
| tericee |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 11:12:51 AM
quote:
Originally posted by PJK
There was mention also of a fence to be built on the boarder of San Diego. I didn't remember that being in the original bill, although it might have been and I just missed it. I think it was added on. I have no idea what that is about. Maybe someone from that area knows.
I'm not from that area anymore, but I had heard the Congressman Duncan Hunter from San Diego was supporting HR 418 due to a fence issue. I did some searching on the Internet and found this article that tells where the fence came from and how much more they're trying to build:
"Build Triple Border Fence To Protect America
San Diego Union-Tribune ^ | March 5, 2004 | JOSEPH PERKINS
'The aliens gathered by an imaginary line between two cities, two countries, two economies, and when the sun was about to set they moved.
"In the old Border Patrol days a few dozen might try it on a given night. Now, in a zone of few square miles, in effect a no man's land between the cities of Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, USA, they came. Sometimes ten thousand per week.
"And in those canyons lurked Tijuana bandits and cutthroats who fed off the pollos as they crossed the frontier in the night. ... Aliens were ambushed, robbed, raped, murdered, occasionally within screaming distance of United States officers at the land port of entry."
That was a true-to-life horror story at the U.S.-Mexico border two decades ago, as the celebrated author Joseph Wambaugh documented in his 1984 bestseller, "Lines and Shadows."
And it continued unabated until 1994, when Operation Gatekeeper was launched.
That campaign to bring law and order to the Tijuana-San Diego border entailed the construction of solid steel fencing as well as stadium-style lighting along a 14-mile corridor, from the mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
Since the border fence was completed, the number of illegal aliens apprehended along that 14-mile stretch – which, during the 1980s and early 1990s accounted for fully half of unlawful entries into the United States from Mexico – has fallen more than 80 percent. The ambushes and robberies and rapes and murders that were nightly occurrences in the lawless no man's land of which Wambaugh wrote were reduced nearly to nil.
Yet, Gatekeeper has not staunched the tide of unlawful crossings onto this side of the border. In fact, the Border Patrol apprehended more than 100,000 illegal aliens last year here in the southwest corner of the United States.
Most of those trying to steal into the United States were Mexican. But more than a few hailed from countries of concern, including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan.
That's why it is so vital to national security that the Border Patrol complete a project to triple the fencing along the 14-mile corridor, to further fortify the U.S.-Mexico border against foreign infiltrators who mean this nation harm.
The agency, which was folded into the Department of Homeland Security following the Sept. 11 terror attacks, has finished much of the $58 million border security project.
But the California Coastal Commission, beholden to environmental activist groups that couldn't care less about national security, has rejected the Border Patrol's plan to complete the project's final 3.5 miles.
The groups, which filed a federal lawsuit last month to block the fence, claim that the Border Patrol's plan to fill in a half-mile canyon – Smuggler's Gulch, a passage of choice for Mexican drug traffickers – will destroy sensitive habitat for the coastal sage scrub bird and other species.
Of course, the enviros play the "sensitive habitat" card any and every time they aim to prevent a construction project, no matter, even if that project is vital to protecting the homeland.
That's why San Diego Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who played an instrumental role in getting the original border security fence built, has taken on the Coastal Commission. He has written to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge urging him to exercise his federal authority to overrule the "obstructionist" state agency.
Indeed, it is no secret to anyone – save maybe for Coastal Commission members – that San Diego is the biggest Navy port on the West Coast, with several major installations, with nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines.
Navy Secretary Gordon England attests, "The porous nature of the border area poses an unnecessary security risk to these installations," to that nuclear fleet.
That's not to say that the Border Patrol should have no concern whatsoever about the environment along the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, says Hunter, the triple fence will probably be good for the sensitive habitat in the area. For, as it is now, he says, "The illegal aliens have just hammered" the habitat for which the Coastal Commission professes such concern, creating unnatural trails that won't go away for the next hundred years without intervention.
"If you build the fence, you save the ecosystem," he said. Not to mention the environmental benefits to be gained by the Border Patrol's plan to restore vegetation to 85 miles of dirt roads – 185 acres worth – to mitigate the environmental impact of completing the triple border fence.
If the Coastal Commission had its way, there probably wouldn't be even a single border fence, much less the three necessary to fortify border security.
The westernmost stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border today would be pretty much the way Wambaugh described it two decades ago. Except that the no man's land between the two countries would provide easy passage into the United States not only to illegal aliens and drug smugglers, but also to terrorists.
Perkins can be reached via e-mail at joseph.perkins@uniontrib.com."
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| Evergreen |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 08:55:00 AM
Zach saidquote:
people who realize just how much of an ass GW is and the republican congress. Or at least people who realize how fucked up the government is in general.
One of the reasons i like the www.sorryeverybody.com website so much. Its not just people from this country who are aware, but worldwide. It helps to know many of the "outsiders" separate the citizens from bush and the koolaid gang. It's really important that we continue to pay attention, keep talking, and stay active. The strategy of the bush admin has been to keep people preoccupied and struggling with things like survival, trying to pay bills, terrorism, bad healthcare, removal of school breakfast and lunch programs, and Headstart funding (no child left behind my ass), a war gone terribly wrong, ETC. Then they slip in these bills like HR418 to congress. But people are definitely watching and paying attention. I have some hope in the little things like Barak Obama being elected as a senator in Illinois, Barbara Boxer speaking out(forcefully) in congress about the voting process and the "actual" election results (not that it went anywhere, but at least she said it) Dean as DNC chair, Kucinich (who's still heavy in the scene) having the major upper hand in recent conversations/interviews with people like Hannity, O'Reilly, and Matthews, state senators like Patrick Leahy of VT proposing and convincing state legislatiors to require the exploration and use of renewable energies. And then there is the internet which enables people to have these conversations. Silence is dangerous. Now if i could just get a handle on my need for instant gratification and wanting all this fixed by tomorrow, i'd be all set. |
| dan p. |
Posted - 02/12/2005 : 12:07:17 AM
this is just a hunch, i don't have much travel experience myself, but i think you'll find that ignorance is pretty much rampant everywhere. if you're looking for some kind of a place where people are fair and intellegent, my guess is it's not there. although i do understand that there's a lot of countries where people in general (there's that word again) don't see eye to eye with us. i also don't know how welcomed you, an american, will be in many places. |
| Zachmozach |
Posted - 02/11/2005 : 9:02:15 PM
This is such Bullshit! I really begin to hate living in this country more everyday. I might not have had the travel experience to say it's really going to be better anywhere else, and I know that we probably have it better the most places. It's just I think sometimes I would rather live in a country where people don't think it's cool to be completely ignorant, and where I can find people who realize just how much of an ass GW is and the republican congress. Or at least people who realize how fucked up the government is in general. |
| Evergreen |
Posted - 02/11/2005 : 2:22:53 PM
CRAP! more sucky news on an already sucky day!
thanks for letting us know the results, i wasn't sure where to look. |
| PJK |
Posted - 02/11/2005 : 07:03:16 AM
Here are the results from yesterday's vote.
Unfortunately it passed with a vote of 261-161
There was mention also of a fence to be built on the boarder of San Diego. I didn't remember that being in the original bill, although it might have been and I just missed it. I think it was added on. I have no idea what that is about. Maybe someone from that area knows.
Thanks everyone for trying to make a difference. Don't get discouraged. Like I said, Silence is never heard! |
| Dickey500 |
Posted - 02/10/2005 : 12:09:32 PM
National ID? I liked it better the first time when they called it a PASSPORT. |
| tericee |
Posted - 02/10/2005 : 11:01:35 AM
Thanks! I hope I got my note in on time. I don't know what time the vote is/was... |
| Zachmozach |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 9:45:46 PM
Thanks Pam. Since schools been going it's been harder and harder to keep tabs on the government. If it does pass I think it will be much harder for me to evade a draft in the future. |
| Arthen |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 3:09:48 PM
Mmm...strychnine... |
| dan p. |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 1:50:55 PM
i don't understand why any of this would make america any safer. isn't this one big expensive placebo pill to make idiots feel safer, all while stripping away our liberties and privacy a little more. it is. it's like a placebo pill. except instead of sugar it's fucking strychnine. |
| Robin |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 12:18:42 PM
Thanks! I for one am always happy to see action taken. Too many Americans sit idly by while decisions are being made that affect all of us. Peace, Robin |
| Saint Jude |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 10:12:13 AM
i for one welcome our new opressive government.
makes me feel wanted.
/sarchasm
/sent email to my rep
/doubt it will affect his decision
/but thats ok, WI is a democratic state
/finegold voted against the patriot act
/hes not the rep but still, he rules.
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| Evergreen |
Posted - 02/09/2005 : 08:37:41 AM
Thanx for posting this. It took approx 30 seconds to send an email to my reps. I knew about this but didn't know they were voting on it TOMORROW. I'm simply horrified at this recent attempt to strip away our civil rights. Hurry scurry, off to spread the word. Before we're all forced to drink the "kool aid" and get branded with a bar code. TIMe is running out!
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