Dec 22 2006
No More Terrorist Watch List
Thanks to some privacy groups who more concerned with our government knowing anything about them – as opposed to knowing enough about people travelling here to protect us from attack – it appears the terrorist watch list has been removed from our national defenses:
A counter-terrorism measure by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration violated the 1974 Privacy Act, The Washington Post reported.
Secure Flight, the program to screen domestic air passengers for names on terrorism watch lists violated the law by not notifying the public of its measures, according to a report released Friday by the Department of Homeland Security.
…
TSA also reportedly improperly stored more than 100 million records after saying that their data would not be mixed with commercial data and that no such storage would happen.
The U.S. Congress has halted secure Flight and officials at TSA are promising to work in a more “transparent” way while planning to re-implement the program in 2008, the newspaper reported.
And now not only are we not screening passengers to see if they are known terrorists – we have the Washington Post announcing the news to the world, and the terrorists. There is a saying that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you have to. For example, anyone is capable of picking their nose in the middle of a busy highway at night, it is not advised to do so. One has to wonder at the thought processes (or lack of them) which went into this entire debacle. And now we have completely opened up air transportation inside this country to anyone with a credit card and a desire to fly.
For Enforcement
Have you corrected Barbara’s misspelling of Al Qaeda
as al Quaeda yet?
Ken
Thank you for correcting my spelling of Al Quaeda (oops, wrong again). Since you are so up on the spelling of this admirable -in -your- eyes organization could it possibly be that you are a member -in -good -standing and are given instructions on the latest spelling of their name among other things of a serious nature. I say admirable -in -your- eyes because you evidently feel they deserve to win this war in Iraq and the GWOT. This must be because you have called for the defeat of the US on practically every post or at the least say the US deserves to lose.
You never did answer my question. Did you find the other eight people to join your party? You know, if you should go to some mosque I’m sure you will find your American Firsters there but then again they might just be saying they were to get into your party. It’s amazing the lengths some people will go to get on the anti-American bandwagon.
Golly, it must be hard to separate all the anti-American factions prevalent in this country but I take my hat off to you because you’ve perservered until you got most of them. Your problem is that the people on this site recognize your agenda. Well, of course they have since you’ve been blatant as hell about it. In other words (just a little hint) dear, your reputation as an intellectual is shot.
Barbee dearest:
Please list the factions to which you refer. I have no clue what you are talking about. Is Iraq Vets Against the War one of them?
http://www.ivaw.org/
I’ll help you decide.
http://www.vaiw.org/vet/index.php
How about this “faction?”
http://www.aipac.org/
Now this faction has been accused of spying on America, but most believe it’s just fine.
Since many of their agents helped drive America into the unwinnable
war based on the premise the Iraqis would love us once we got there
and co-operate with us overwhelmingly in allowing us to instruct them in how to create a pro-American “democracy,” I suppose you still consider their faction “pro-American” despite the results, in your abysmal ignorance.
Gotta know is right. Ignore Ken and let him rant in a vacumn.
Amen Barbara. Happy holidays, I’ve enjoyed your comments.
Ken, thanks for your clear and concise definition of you fromjust above:
“I have no clue”
We get it.
For Enforcement
“Sounds like a version of Crap.”
Thanks for synopsizing your comments writ large.
Wow, I must be coming in after a major flame war..
It seems to me that while the list is a good idea, the government broke its promise not to mix data and violated the law, too. It’s a perennial problem of incompetent bureaucracies, but we should expect more during war time. If they need a new law to do this correctly, well, the GOP had the house and senate since 2001 – 2006, they should have fixed these issues. (or did it just come down now that it was in violation?)
We need to do things right: pass the laws we need to combat terrorism and hold government agencies to be be competent and effective.
After some thought, I think maybe the GOP was lulled by the unity after 9/11 into thinking we would not need so many new laws passed by the both parties to “force” the Democrats to be on the record in support of these policies.