WashingtonPost: U.S. Plans to Screen All Who Enter, Leave Country

[ryanus]

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; Page A18

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.

<snip>

While long known to scrutinize air travelers, the Department of Homeland Security is seeking to apply new technology to perform similar checks on people who enter or leave the country "by automobile or on foot," the notice said.

The department intends to use a program called the Automated Targeting System, originally designed to screen shipping cargo, to store and analyze the data.

"We have been doing risk assessments of cargo and passengers coming into and out of the U.S.," DHS spokesman Jarrod Agen said. "We have the authority and the ability to do it for passengers coming by land and sea."

<snip>

full article is at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/02/AR2006110201810.html?nav=hcmoduletmv

I don't like the idea of not being able to leave the country because of a "Risk Assessment."

[Neecy]

1. more and more...

We're approaching a Soviet-style closing of our borders. How many people won't leave the country because they don't want a Republican dossier compiled on them?

January 2009 can't come soon enough.

[LakeSamish706]

2. And more importantly, how many won't enter the country for the same reason? n/t

[bdamomma]

26. why should they, to get hasseled, soviet style reputation is right.

[NashVegas]

7. How's That Texaco Fence Coming Along?

I wonder ...

[info being]

10. I live abroad and am terrified every time I return

How fucked up is that? To be scared to enter your home country? I am treated like a criminal every time. I have no problem crossing any border in the world. I'm always treated with basic human respect. But at JFK it is assumed that we are all criminals. To watch these innocent young women get taken away and searched makes my skin crawl.

[marmar]

13. I know, I live across the river from Canada....

... Windsor, Ontario, is like a suburb of Detroit that people come and go from at will, but I dread returning to the border every time on the fear that I'll get the rogue border agent that day.

[shadowknows69]

19. Ditto that

I crossed the border in NY in my taxi with fares a few times and they almost didn't let me back into the US because I didn't have my birth certificate on me. It made little difference that I had a Fort Drum taxi license that had to be approved by the department of defense. I might be one of those millions of canadian illegal immigrants we get every year. :eyes:

[bdamomma]

28. are they keeping US citizens inside or under arrest in their own

country while the people on the outside are being treated like criminals who want to come in, who needs this shit, this disgusting regime we have keeps on destroying this country.

[Bill McBlueState]

18. you're more optimistic than I am

I think it's unlikely that any new President will have the courage to start cleaning up after Bush as fast as we'd like. I'm worried we'll be stuck with a lot of this crap for the long term.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

3. K&R

http://www.venusproject.com/ethics_in_action/Police_State_USA.html">Big Brother's Most Cool Tool

[Gormy Cuss]

4. And the charming part is one can't even find out what the profile says

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."

[LakeSamish706]

5. What I don't understand is how they will control those that leave the country....

The people leaving via car would do so either thru Mexico or Canada.... So how would the US be able to check these people out?

[uppityperson]

15. Make you go through a checkpoint on the US side.

Of course they'd have to have a whole lot of staff to do this. Easiest to just seal all the borders and let no one out without special permission, staff them with guards.

I'd rather they use this technology to screen cargo coming in and going out of the country. More from article:

DHS officials said that by publishing the notice, they are simply providing "expanded notice and transparency" about an existing program disclosed in October 2001, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System.

But others said Congress has been unaware of the potential of the Automated Targeting System to assess non-aviation travelers.

"ATS started as a tool to prevent the entry of drugs with cargo into the U.S.," said one aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "We are not aware of Congress specifically legislating to make this expansion possible."

[LakeSamish706]

16. I thought I read on DU not to long ago that they were going to use BlackWater to...

man all borders! That would make sense with this new developement.... Won't catch me crossing the border when this begins...

[warren pease]

30. "said one aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject."

So the idea of imprisoning US citizens in their own country, while harassing the hell out of anyone who dares to breach our borders via the potentially seditious act of landing at a US airport and openly going through customs using a legal passport, is now so sensitive that it can't be spoken of on the record.

So thuggish border control is now in the same category as zippers unzipped, farting in public, BO, halitosis and Bush's brain. Off limits in polite conversation. Inappropriate for the dinner table.

Hush! We self-censor so you don't have to bother. Don't ask, don't tell. Loose lips sink ships.

And fascists never tell the truth, so when they mutter something like "...they are simply providing 'expanded notice and transparency' about an existing program..." -- and that program is called the "Treasury Enforcement Communications System," which nobody seems to have ever heard of -- why in hell would anyone take what they say at face value?


wp

[Gregorian]

6. "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of Democratic Underground?"

Sorry. I just couldn't help myself.

[bdamomma]

29. hey you never know, these people are out of control.

[ThomWV]

8. Under what circumstance does it pose a risk for a citizen to leave his country?

[Cerridwen]

17. Debt.

If someone is in debt and the collection agencies, the IRS, lending companies, school loan collectors, etc. have a report saying you owe them money, will you be allowed to leave and possibly "skip out" on the debt?

With the current financial and housing crisis, that was my first thought. You owe someone money, you ain't leavin' the country.

[peacetalksforall]

The dollar stinks, but is great for incoming tourists from certain countries..

U.S. citizens are cutting back on everything.

The foreign tourist is essential to the tourist economy.

And now this?

If the librarians and Amazon won on not letting Republicans see the reading habits of citizens ... why should all travellers lose on this?

Does anyone really think that they would put this data in a database different from the one Poindexter designed - the one that the ATT, Verizon, etc data went into - the so called Homeland Security database?

The airlines don't mind giving the data - pretty soon you can get a physical check-up at the airport just so they can feed the results in to the database - and bye-bye job or insurance, (or worse - hello ovens), once they really get going.

Is the INS database one and the same with Homeland Security, AT&T?

How many are there?

Shouldn't there be a hearing to determine if they are handling INTELLIGENCE ON CITIZENS expediently. Don't we need to prevent another INTELLIGENCE DISASTER such as the one we are told caused the hole that let Usama bin Laden's people to get through?
With all due sarcasm. It is absolutely ridiculous.

THERE IS NO FREEDOM IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - NO ONE HATES US FOR OUR FREEDOM!

[JHB]

31. It's the War on Tourism n/t

[Hydra]

9. For those of us who wanted to emigrate out of this madness

they have just declared that we will be unable to do so.

That REALLY sucks!

[tavalon]

11. Not likely, not yet

You'll probably still be able to leave, but not come back.

[Hydra]

14. Screw coming back

I'm not returning until the Bigwigs and the corps are out. The problem is that I don't have enough money to leave yet...and the net gets tighter day by day...

[KG]

12. but, ya know, we don't live in a police state.

nope. :eyes:

[Snarkturian Clone]

20. Shit I hate this!

I REALLY REALLY hate it when something Alex Jones predicted comes true. Fuck. I remember him talking about this years ago and saying to myself "That'll never happen... he's nuts.". Now, yet again, he was right. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I don't like it that something considered totally insane years ago can become normal now.

Darn.

[Hydra]

25. Alex often hits the nail on the head

I've often said that his obnoxiousness is getting in the way of his message. If he would just report the news as an alternative source, he'd get so much more accomplished.

[file83]

37. Do you think his latest "Endgame" is accurate?

I mean, if he's even remotely near the truth in that documentary, we're fucking screwed.

[provis99]

21. let me get this straight

So the US would screen a Canadian leaving the US, before he goes back to his own country? And detain him from leaving the US?:crazy:

[momster]

22. Good News Is

since Bush broke the dollar, nobody can afford to go to another country. Aha! So he did have a plan all along.

[OzarkDem]

23. Except for those who enter illegally?

What's the point in security - on - steroids (other than big contracts for campaign donors and spying with no legal oversight) if you're letting millions of people enter the US illegally?

[rockybelt]

24. Now just wait

until they start checking your papers to cross state borders.

[Karenina]

27. All females over the age of 10

will be required to submit to a pregnancy test...

[Elspeth]

32. That's coming, rockybelt

We'll be told that it is about limiting illegal immigration.

[ryanus]

34. Im just worried that its going to be about illegal emigration

:(

[Elspeth]

35. Underneath it all? Yes.

We seem to share the same set of fears.

[Orsino]

33. We are so intent on keeping what we have secure...

...that we haven't noticed it dwindling away.

But every empire obsesses over immigration, class and race.

[defendandprotect]

36. Starting to feel like I'm living in one of those Hollywood Nazi films . . ..

and my sympathy for ordinary Germans is growing ---