Beard Of Wisdom.com

There are so many things wrong with this I don’t know where to begin:

Lawmakers from both parties also called on the Bush administration to apologize to Maher Arar, a Syrian-born software engineer still barred from entering the United States even though the Canadian government has cleared him of any links to terrorist groups…

Arar was arrested during a stopover in New York in 2002 on his way home to Canada from a holiday and was deported to Syria. He says he was tortured during the year he spent in Damascus jails.

U.S. officials deported him after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said he was a suspected Islamic extremist, but an official Canadian inquiry last year cleared him of any links to militant groups…

The Canadian government apologized and in January paid Arar compensation of C$10.5 million, equivalent to $8.9 million at the time and $10.2 million now. The U.S. government has sought to dismiss his case in the United States on the grounds that it would violate state secrets…

The United States acknowledges it has conducted “renditions” — secret international transfers of terrorist suspects, often to countries with dubious human-rights records. The government says the program has prevented further attacks.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said Arar was deported to Syria because he maintained dual citizenship there. The United States received assurances from Syria that he would not be tortured, Boyd said.

Arar told the committees he was beaten with electric cables, kept in a cell measuring 6 feet by 3 feet and did not see sunlight for six months.

He said Syria would not let him renounce his citizenship when he emigrated to Canada as a teenager.

“The most fundamental question that has not been answered yet is: Why did the U.S. government decide to send me to Syria and not to Canada?” he said.

We’re told that programs like this make us more safe. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel any safer.

Update: More information available here.

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From the Washington Post:

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials…

But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf…

The DHS database generally includes “passenger name record” (PNR) information, as well as notes taken during secondary screenings of travelers. PNR data — often provided to airlines and other companies when reservations are made — routinely include names, addresses and credit-card information, as well as telephone and e-mail contact details, itineraries, hotel and rental car reservations, and even the type of bed requested in a hotel…

Ann Harrison, the communications director for a technology firm in Silicon Valley who was among those who obtained their personal files and provided them to The Post, said she was taken aback to see that her dossier contained data on her race and on a European flight that did not begin or end in the United States or connect to a U.S.-bound flight…

Zakariya Reed, a Toledo firefighter, said in an interview that he has been detained at least seven times at the Michigan border since fall 2006. Twice, he said, he was questioned by border officials about “politically charged” opinion pieces he had published in his local newspaper. The essays were critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East, he said. Once, during a secondary interview, he said, “they had them printed out on the table in front of me.”

Not only is it invasive, you’re being forced to pay for it.

Also, I think it’s great when security notices that passengers are carrying “small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf”, but can’t find fake bombs. Don’t you?

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This is both horrific and entertaining. Enjoy.

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The folks over at Daily Kos seem to have a problem with the items mentioned in a recent issue of the Federal Register.

I don’t blame them. To be honest with you, some of this stuff looks a little scary… Here’s a nice tidbit from the “Summary of Requirements”:

• Requirements of Covered Aircraft operators. This proposed rule would require aircraft operators that conduct certain scheduled and public charterflights to:

…

• When necessary, submit information from the verifying identity document to TSA to resolve potential watch list matches. In some cases, TSA may also request that the covered aircraft operator communicate a physical description of the individual.
• Not issue to an individual a boarding pass or authorization to enter a sterile area or permit an individual to board an aircraft or enter a sterile area if the individual does not provide a verifying identity document when requested under circumstances described above, unless otherwise authorized by TSA.
• Prohibit issuance of boarding passes or authorizations to enter a sterile area to individuals whom TSA has placed on inhibited status. Prohibit these individuals from boarding an aircraft.
• Comply with instructions from TSA to designate identified individuals for enhanced screening before boarding a flight or accessing a sterile area.
• Place separate codes on boarding passes in accordance with TSA instructions.

Curse the myopic people who think this will make them safe. Curse them all!

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It was Rocio Palacios who first noticed the woman who appeared to need help.

It was 8 a.m. when she and her husband, Erasmo, dropped their 6-year-old daughter off at school and had picked up their 22-year-old daughter to go out for breakfast when they saw the woman waving her arms at 53rd Street and Kedzie Avenue last November.

The Palacioses, of Chicago, claim the woman approached their car, parked outside Manolo’s restaurant, leaned in to the passenger side where Rocio was sitting and asked Erasmo if he wanted oral sex for $20 or sex for $25.

The couple laughed, realizing this wasn’t a woman in distress after all.

(Read the Full Story)

It wasn’t so funny when Erasmo was arrested and handcuffed by the police in front of his family. He was charged with solicitation of prostitution, and it took two weeks before the charges were dropped.

Erasmo is now suing the city of Chicago and the police officers involved in the arrest. So, either way, taxpayers lose. The city can only pay Erasmo with money it’s taken from his fellow citizens.

Now, we’ll never really “know” what was said to the disguised police officer who propositioned Erasmo. The police report says one thing while his family says another. What we do know is that the city impounded the family’s vehicle and refuses to return it to them until they pony up $4700 in “towing and storage” fees. Remember, this is AFTER the charges against Erasmo were dropped. Now, I’m not no fancy city lawyer, but that just doesn’t seem right.

Thanks to Radley Balko who posted this story on both his blog and for Reason Magazine.

“OK, towing ~$100. Storage $4600? What did they do, get the car an apartment in the Loop?” — Comment from the story posted at Reason’s Hit & Run.

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