These are not the databases you are looking for, Joe Public.

BTC - The following is filed under Op-Ed, comments not published at a Seattle Times story: Lawmakers take aim at CIA's use of fake licenses from state.

At the moment, local lawmakers are trying to legalise a secret State drivers license program so that local officials can regulate it and keep the license divisions in federal business. If its regulated then the CIA and the Dept of Defense can continue to purchase fake licenses from Washington State.  Due to press and lawmaking efforts, this is no longer a secret program. This would put Washington State's fake police licenses in a rather illegal class of unofficiated spending. Drivers license divisions are prone to corruption and internal fraud from time to time.

This type of black budgeting at the use and sole discretion of local police officials might be part of a larger trend to militarize police resources, allowing them secretive federal national security powers.  It may even explain more about the recent rash of database adoption for Real ID use, post-NDAA FY2012.

When municipalities or State governments are given federal money for secret programs, perhaps for things like Real ID, you might suddenly witness a jedi mind trick or two.  This might sound similar to Missouri Senator Nixon's "These-are-not-the-databases-you-are-looking-for," type of statements made recently.  If a secret program suddenly becomes outed the public can reasonably call a halt to it because it is an unofficial tax.  This leaves a lot of room open for legal debate towards State budgets when they "go black".

In the case of Washington State, the only way for DOL to keep their formerly-secret federal funding is to legitimise it with lawmaking, rule provisions or regulation.

"Can we please not legalize secret programs?"

Dear Editor, 

 
People around the country are noticing there is a separate local culture of overpriviledged secret government officials. They [like to] pay themselves as much as federal [lawkeepers] and the federal government gets to borrow, use from local or regional resources and keep shadow governance simpatico. The bad news is that most of the rest of the country doesn't want to pay for Washington State's black budget programs. 

It’s not a surprise that the CIA and Defense agencies just helped themselves to a clandestine police program at Washington’s DOL, for years on end. 

This isn’t a good standard. While we have to work somewhere, it’s time to forge a moment of conscience. Irons of courage only emerge from the flames of fear.

This is a scary precedent, but it only gets scarier for everyone the more you allow clandestine favoritism to prevail. Do you want Washington State to be America’s utility closet for secret programs? Then please raise some substantial objection on legalizing corrupt governance in Olympia.  

Sheila Dean 
Eastside of Puget Sound

Federal biometrics program, NextGen Identity, gets served in an EPIC way

  c/o PC World

A privacy watchdog has filed a lawsuit contending the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has failed to provide requested technical information about a biometric identification database expected to be the largest in the world.

"Through the date of this pleading, the FBI has not contacted EPIC again regarding the status of either of EPIC's two FOIA requests," EPIC said in its suit.

The torture of Brad Manning

BTC - We deserve better.  The armed service members in this country deserve better.  However- the sad truth is that Pvt. Bradley Manning is experiencing the US institution of torture and rendition consistent with being classified as a "terrorist".

This is what the United States military has been reduced to: extorting us towards crushing debt to pay for torture and incarceration of our own citizens when THEY TELL THE TRUTH.

Be reminded, we may demand a different standard than, "shut up, lay down and take it without making any noise".

Daniel Ellsberg, a pioneer in the art of the leak led a revolution in public awareness.  This was before news organizations were infiltrated by cold war era military plants.

It's all we can do to to just stay dedicated to blowing the whistle; until The People come down like rain on the worst form of  governance in our name in US history.

Without further ado, Mr. Daniel Ellsberg, says it again.





Try to stay sane.  DO SOMETHING!

RELATED NEWS:

Assange out on bail, stayed in London with limited freedoms

CSPAN Coverage of Wikileaks, The Espionage Act & The Constitution 

A Data Bill and a Transparency Caucus

A Data Bill and a Transparency ... - GovTrack Insider

The second big change this month is the formation of a House transparency caucus, as NextGov is reporting. The formation of a bipartisan caucus signals the commitment of these congress­men to the issue. Though we will have to wait and see if the caucus ever meets and recommends any changes.

The caucus members are co-chairs Reps. Darrell Issa [R-CA], andMike Quigley [D-IL] and members Melissa Bean [D-IL], Jason Chaffetz [R-UT], Lloyd Doggett [D-TX], Bill Foster [D-IL], Steve Is rael [D-NY], Walter B. Jones [R-NC], Jim Jordan [R-OH], Mark Steven Kirk [R-IL], Doug Lamborn [R-CO], Blaine Luetkemeyer [R-MO], Patrick T. McHen ry [R-NC], Walt Minnick [D-ID], Jared Polis [D-CO], Tim Ryan [D-OH], Aaron Schock [R-IL], Mark Souder [R-IN], and Jackie Speier [D-CA]

Again, if any of these are your congress man/woman, you might consider giving them some support.

Transparency challenges new DHS "Secure Communities" program

BTC- If they can challenge your citizenship, they can challenge your human rights as a U.S. citizen. If they can take away your rights, they can throw you in jail indefinitely without legal representation, counsel or due process or even deport you without contacting your family.

Think this scenario isn't real?

"This program is designed to fail because it relies on information from infamously inaccurate databases. We've already seen an increase in racial profiling, pre-textual arrests and mistaken identity of US citizens," she said, adding, "Combined with the lack of regulation and publicly available information on Secure Communities, ICE will be essentially immune to accountability or transparency. With a budget reaching the billions, taxpayers should be very concerned."

It could be you.

c/o Truthout

A little-known program run by the Department of Homeland Security is using inaccurate databases and functioning "as little more than a dragnet to funnel even more people into the already overburdened" detention and deportation system of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, according to three civil rights organizations that have filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

ICE claims that the program, called "Secure Communities," targets "dangerous criminal aliens."

The "Secure Communities" initiative furthers the ever-worsening trend of involving local and state law enforcement agencies in federal immigration enforcement. The three groups say that since the inception of the program, there has been a marked increase in racial profiling, excessive costs to state and local government and due-process violations.

The groups are the National Day Laborer Organization Network (NDLON), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. They filed their FOIA request in January.

Sunita Patel, a CCR staff attorney, told Truthout, "Our principal concern is that this is a very secretive program about which there is little public information. It is being implemented in communities, but the lack of transparency makes it impossible for community groups to determine whether abuses are being committed. We hope our FOIA suit will shed some light on the issue.

"This program is designed to fail because it relies on information from infamously inaccurate databases. We've already seen an increase in racial profiling, pre-textual arrests and mistaken identity of US citizens," she said, adding, "Combined with the lack of regulation and publicly available information on Secure Communities, ICE will be essentially immune to accountability or transparency. With a budget reaching the billions, taxpayers should be very concerned."

:::MORE HERE:::

Presidential e-mail privacy vs. Your e-mail privacy

BTC News Mashup

The Obama administration is looking into a 2 tiered systemic treatment for electronic mail privacy.

The first tier comes proposed by Sen. Rockerfeller as a lavish, no holds barred National Security power trip to commandeer private computer systems network in the United States by executive order. All Obama would have to say is, "Federal Disaster". The second tier is a deep redacting E-scrub to cleanse and conceal the dirt of the Bush Administration followed by a sunblock of SPF 800 to protect from exposures to open records requests and subpoenas.

OBAMA & TRANSPARENCY DOUBLE STANDARDS

Today, RawStory reported that millions of Bush Jr. Presidential mails are mired in obscurity as the Obama Adminsitration seems to be hiding the skeletons of the Bush Administration. Not a good track record for a President who has an ideal to create a transparency towards the American public about the internal day-to-day dealings.

LegitGov.org reported updates on a legislative draft for the CyberSecurity Act, authored by Senator Jay Rockerfeller. The legislation might expand Presidential powers during federal disasters to include seizures of entire private computer networks.