January 27, 2004
Throwing Away Your Civil Rights is the New Black (List)
Posted by nerdling | January 27, 2004 05:15 PM
I can't decide if the increasing "security" currently being used to hassle people at the airports is really supposed to help us or if it's just a really big, elaborate scheme to keep Americans so timid and frightened that we stay in our country and watch our news and buy things we see on our TVs rather than going out and realizing we didn't need most of this shit in the first place. Forgive my derisiveness if you must but most of the avenues being explored in the name of security generally seem to have many more far-reaching applications (and implications) than simply those we are supposed to believe they are for.
The Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, or CAPPS II, would screen all passengers by checking that information against commercial and government databases. Each passenger would be given one of three color-coded ratings.
Suspected terrorists or violent criminals would be designated "red" and forbidden to fly. Passengers who raised questions would be classified "yellow" and would receive extra security screening. Most would be "green" and simply go through routine screening.
Screening some foreigners after fingerprinting and photographing them already has resulted in 70 people being stopped from entering the country, although the foreigners-only program is only three weeks old, Hutchinson said.
Though none was a terrorist suspect, Hutchinson said the program, called US-VISIT, proved its ability to spot people trying to use fraudulent immigration documents to gain entry, he said.
And in general weirdness, I found an article that, had I not found it in the "real" press, I would have expected from the nimble minds over at The Onion. It seems that Al Franken, irritated over the behavior of some folks at a Dean rally, body slammed them in support of free speech and Greco-Roman wrestlers everywhere.
