Missouri Senate Takes Steps to Ban Red Light Cameras, SF pays camera tickets

KOMU.com JEFFERSON CITY - Yesterday the Missouri Senate added a statewide ban on red light traffic cameras to a broad bill on transportation.


That bill now is under review and still awaits the final votes from the Senate. While this bill will be enforced statewide, the Missouri Supreme Court has already banned the use of red light cameras in Springfield, Mo.


Senate leaders have voiced skepticism about the chances of the portion banning red light cameras staying in final version of the bill.

IN OTHER NEWS : South San Francisco to pay for errant tickets

South San Francisco officials will refund $237,000 in revenue from voided red-light camera tickets and to pay up to $250,000 to the San Mateo County Superior Court to cover costs of issuing refunds to nearly 7,000 drivers.

American citizenship, Arizona & SB 1070

Arizona now becomes the U.S. cultural experiment for police state practices.  While due process attempts to self-manage are scorned by the Obama Administration, it does not mean Washington will deliver a better standard by moral comparison.

In a cruel twist of irony, Arizona opted out of Real ID by way of SB 1070



A BTC Exclusive

Today is a very treacherous time for the identified person in America. The identified person navigates a world which seems to take advantage of our preoccupation with basic survival. It takes an impossibly sharp individual or someone who has a uniquely comprehensive vantage point to catch all of the lines being tossed over the American giant by a ubiquitous 1%. The little cowards of Lilliput on Wall Street have somehow put bits in the mouths of the Congressional oxen and the rest is political theater. They coerce and dangle this carrot and that carrot: Immigration or Climate reform, now or later. As if it depends completely on them to do anything at all.

We look at Arizona as a bad example. For many painful years Arizona tried its best, waiting on Godot, for federal lawmakers to deal with Immigration. Meanwhile, death and deprivations prevailed in the name of business as usual. Criminal migration translated daily to modern indentured servitude, human slavery and black market trafficking. Arizonans lost patience with federal can-kicking. They were overburdened with the pains of economic and cultural imbalances. The answers were elusive over whether or not to seal the border with the National Guard currently deployed to Iraq. Washington, and it’s two-team football politics, could not be trusted any longer to address desperate, everyday needs of Arizona’s citizens and its migrants. Arizona took matters into their own hands.

Arizona has seemingly opted out of recognizing citizens rights over their new immigration law. The unfortunate truth is the practice of questioning citizenship, screening travellers and those in businesses has been in practice for years in ICE's LEAR program. SB 1070 is simply redundant to many local law enforcement agencies. The Arizona Sheriffs Association opposed SB 1070 because local complaintants may file lawsuits against local police departments with claims federal immigration laws are not being enforced. Protections were factored in the bill late for vindictive and frivolous lawsuits.

Laws like SB 1070 alter the role of the federal immigration enforcement officer on the ground. The range of their job description is swiftly changing due to programs like Secure Communities and E-Verify. These multiplying laws, policies and programs sustain a chorus of practices to randomly demand citizenship and identity for anyone police may approach in the line of duty.

A strange irony is that an amendment to reject national ID policies was written into SB 1070 before its passage through the Arizona Senate.

The calculations of this desperate State failed reason as they reached for a bill creating a dragnet for all citizens. Regardless of the desperation felt, no State has the right to overreach the basic rights of the American citizen. SB 1070 is a miserable excuse for economic and social justice to the residents and citizens of Arizona. It is now prime for the misfortune of American travellers to be ensnared in this dragnet. There was a moderate path. There was a Constitutional path. It was just not the path the State of Arizona chose for those present within its borders.

Arizona now becomes the U.S. cultural experiment for police state practices.  While due process attempts to self-manage are scorned by the Obama Administration, it does not mean Washington will deliver a better standard by moral comparison. The football field length differences between saying and doing in Washington strike fear into those who want careful attention paid to a horrifically complicated issue. Immigration taken up now is risky business. If Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) becomes a botched political science experiment it could blow apart the nation. There are recognizable merits to the proposed CIR legislation. The mandate for a biometric ID card as a condition to work in America is not one of those merits.

Real ID/PASS ID regulations were beaten back by 25 States, including Arizona, who refused a national identity mandate. It is clear the 111th Congress is not hearing America: no national ID. Whether it’s Arizona or Washington, an arbitrary ask for citizenship papers still violates the 4th Amendment and abuses identity.


IMMIGRATION, POPULATION AND ENUMERATION


Working Americans are taxed to finance government shops and operations.  Reasonably enough, we should become acquainted with the constituency who wants to mandate a National ID card for use at every transaction in civil society.  Not just one card, but several national ID card programs. What is their compelling argument to justify a "stop and frisk" for every American? Why should we annul our 4th Amendment rights as Americans for this minority? First, we get the words of our government’s corporate sponsors.

In a militarized society, identity may be a life and death matter. However, there is no such justification in peace-time for national identity. Unfortunately, the exceptionalism of the Bush-Cheney years continues to push National Security as Homeland Security. If a legislation like the federal budget or a bill thick with security technology mandates doesn’t pass for appropriations, public-private contractors lose their place in Washington’s entitlement line. In order for the purchase orders to continue rolling out, there must be an imminent threat to the security of the Continental U.S. Next, no bid contractor-cronies, like Xe and the Chertoff Firm, fulfill orders to provide one-sided service to the American taxpayers. Somehow purging “border-invaders” from our midst was found convenient enough for special interests to sell a more safe and secure nation to Conservative America and to justify an appropriations push in D.C.

A few lobbies supplanting anti-immigrant policy closely associated with the Conservative Right are the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Numbers U.S.A and FAIR. All three organizations are treated as one of the gang during CPAC conventions. What most Conservatives don’t know is that all three have also been funded, in part or entirely, by global green depopulists (malthusians), John Tanton and the Pioneer Fund. These funders are directly linked to the White Supremacy movement and modern eugenics. The same constituency calls for depopulation of two-thirds of the world’s humanity. Groups like Californians for Population Stabilization claim immigrants are responsible for overpopulating North America. They advocate very tough criminal penalties for being present in America without legal immigration status, exemplified by Arizona’s SB 1070. The United Nation’s Agenda 21 is another example of globalized work groups attempting to legislate who migrates and reproduces in the North American continent in context of ecological conservation.



The very same propeller heads [CIS, FAIR and Numbers U.S.A.] lobby every variety of National ID: TWIC, E-Verify, Real ID/PASS ID, and the proposed biometric worker card mandate in CIR. Senators Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer seem to refuse the prospect of decoupling immigration reform from a National ID card. If we look at recent world history, the national ID card was a very effective tool for population control in fascist Europe during war time and civil unrest. ID cards and arbitrary demand for “papers” start the criminalization of the identified person based on systemic categorization. Enumerated categorization of races and ethnicities are an effective tactic in singling out individuals for genocide. The 2010 Census seems like a much different prospect in light of who is trying to systemically “thin the herds” of North America’s human populaces.


WARDS OF THE STATE

Washington’s current direction for national identity is at odds with civil libertarians holding ground over their 4th Amendment. National identification, such as the social security number, is abused daily for commercial purposes. So much so, the individual becomes confused, careless and sometimes even defeated in evaluating which information is actually private. Maintaining privacy and personal boundaries is a constant battle for the identified American.

Examples of persons currently at the mercy of government agencies to manage their citizenship articles are wards of the state: foster care recipients, residents of State hospitals, prisoners, and some military personnel. A fully functional adult who is required to ask the State whether or not they can buy groceries, go to the doctor, operate a vehicle or open a bank account temporarily experiences what it might be like to be a ward of the State. In this situation, complicity is a currency for resources required to survive. Mandates for State recognized identity create a loophole some will abuse by failing to recognize an individual's basic humanity.  In an increasingly dystopian society, inadequately identified human beings become disposable assets to the State. That’s a pretty hefty penalty for those labeled incorrectly.

The most basic of human rights are access to food, clean water, clothing, shelter and a way to earn a living or means to procure these things in order to survive. Ratcheting up the bar, American citizens  wake up every day with the right to be secure in their personal effects, their papers and their property. We are protected by the 4th Amendment.

The State of Arizona enacts SB 1070 law in August. The policy for citizens will be the same then as it has been for years. Police question travellers at Arizona checkpoints and ask “Sir/Ma’am, are you a citizen?”

If the answer is “Yes” that’s where Arizona stops and American rights start.

RAGBLOG: Unsustainable contradictions in immigration law

Mormon's for Racial Profiling?
c/o Greg Moses for The Rag Blog (Austin)

What’s up with the Mormons? Orem, Utah legislator Stephen Eric Sandstrom last week pledged to follow the lead of “my friend” Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce and expand the number of states with show-me-your-papers bills aiming to criminalize, jail, and deport irregular migrants.

Rep. Sandstrom, who is a graduate of Brigham Young University and a former Mormon missionary to Venezuela, takes credit for co-founding a state’s rights organization called the Patrick Henry Caucus.

Sandstrom’s “friend” Sen. Pearce of Arizona, sponsor of the recently signed SB-1070, hails from the Mormon stronghold of Mesa and claims to be the mastermind behind Maricopa County’s infamous Tent City Jail.

For Pearce and Sandstrom, the crucial issue of liberty in the 21st Century would appear to involve the rights of states in relation to the federal government of the USA -- never mind the rights of individual people who reside in those states.

What’s curious about this particular Pearce-Sandstrom movement for state’s rights over individual rights is how it seems to contradict the interests of the Mormon family itself, which has been witnessing an increase in Spanish-speaking congregations.

Last summer, Salt Lake Tribune writer Peggy Fletcher Stack reported increasing fears among Spanish-speaking members of the Mormon Church of Latter- day Saints (LDS) who were concerned about travel restrictions they were facing for missionary work and then-impending implementation of Utah’s anti-migrant law, SB-81. “People are very scared,” said one woman via translator.

“Other than for its missionaries, the LDS Church takes a ‘don't ask, don't tell’ approach toward the immigration status of its members,” reported Fletcher Stack. “But some estimate between 50 percent and 75 percent of members in Utah's 104 Spanish-speaking congregations are undocumented. That includes many bishops, branch presidents, even stake presidents.”

Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank declared that Utah’s SB-81 would require illegal racial profiling, so he openly refused to enforce the self-contradictory statute. Last week Chief Burbank “blasted” Arizona’s SB-1070, telling KSL NewsRadio talk-show host Doug Wright: “This sets law enforcement back 30 to 40 years.”

Mormon Times columnist Jerry Earl Johnston shook his head last year in dismay over the unwisdom of the Utah anti-migrant legislation:

“I can only speak from my own LDS experience here, but I hold Utah lawmakers responsible for breaking up good LDS families and forcing young American citizens out of their native land,” wrote Johnston, predicting that victory would not reward the shortsighted anti-migrant forces.

“I could see these Hispanic brethren were going to win,” wrote Johnston. “I could see their faith, resilience and strength. They wanted to be in Utah more than Utah lawmakers wanted them out. They had weathered tribulations with good humor and without malice toward those who persecuted them.”

Meanwhile, in the Mormon stronghold of Mesa, Arizona, represented by SB-1070 sponsor Sen. Pearce, the number of Spanish-speaking LDS congregations had grown from five to 13 between 2002 and 2007 according to East Valley Tribune reporter Sarah N. Lynch.

Last fall, official LDS printing presses in Salt Lake City ran off an approved Spanish-language edition of the Mormon Bible -- The Santa Biblia: Reina-Valera 2009 (Publicada por La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días, Salt Lake City, Utah, E.U.A.) -- with an initial press run of 800,000 copies.

“It is one of the most significant scripture projects ever undertaken by the Church,” proclaimed a notice of Sept. 14, 2009, posted at lds.org. “The volume contains new chapter headings, footnotes and cross-references to all scriptures used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Announcement of the volume was reportedly shared among “thousands of Spanish-speaking Latter-day Saints congregations.”

Mormon political leaders, like everyone else in today’s global economy, are confronting a real crisis in human welfare. Maricopa County in particular is a frontline disaster zone for the crisis in real estate values, mortgage defaults, unemployment, and revenue shortfalls.

“In Maricopa,” according to an April report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Q3 2009 unemployment, “every private industry group except education and health services experienced an employment decline, with construction experiencing the largest decline (-32.2 percent).”

Crisis reveals character. So when Mormon political leaders campaign for agendas of states’ rights according to Patrick Henry rhetorics of “liberty or death,” perhaps their Spanish-speaking LDS brethren can remind them that there are millions of people of goodwill in need of actual freedom-loving legislators in whatever state they have freely chosen to congregate and build up.

[Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence. He can be reached at gmosesx@gmail.com.]

The Rag Blog

Police seize tech gear from Gizmodo iPhone blogger

FOLLOW UP STORY:: Gizmodo considers suing police after iPhone raid

c/o AP >> The Daily Journal 

Authorities seized computers, digital cameras, a cell phone and other items from a technology blog editor who posted pictures and details of a lost iPhone prototype.

A computer-crime task force made up of multiple law enforcement agencies searched Gizmodo editor and blogger Jason Chen’s house and car in Fremont on Friday, according to a statement and search warrant documents provided by Gizmodo.

The warrant, issued by a Superior Court judge in San Mateo County, said the computers and other devices may have been used to commit a felony. Steve Wagstaffe, San Mateo County chief deputy district attorney, confirmed the warrant’s authenticity.

Members of the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team took several computers, hard drives, digital cameras, cell phones and other gadgets, plus Chen’s American Express bill and copies of his checks.

Last week Gizmodo had one of the Web’s hottest scoops when it posted photos of an Apple device that appeared to be a next-generation iPhone. It had been found in a bar in Redwood City, which is in San Mateo County, and sold for $5,000 by an unknown person to Gizmodo, a gadget blog owned by Gawker Media Inc.

After Chen, 29, posted photos and details about the phone, Apple acknowledged the device belonged to the company, and Gizmodo returned it.

Gawker Media said California law, which protects journalists from having to turn over anonymous sources or unpublished material to law enforcement during a search, should apply to Chen’s property.

“Are bloggers journalists? I guess we’ll find out,” Nick Denton, who runs Gawker Media, wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Wagstaffe said the district attorney’s office is examining that issue.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling declined to comment.

Citizen detained for not providing papers in AZ

c/o 4409

MESSAGE FROM 4409:

Do NOT be fooled by the... SB1070 Fact Sheet. It does not list all the details. You have to read the entire legislation.

This bill is NOT about immigration. If you think it is, they fooled you good. This is about expanding police powers to that of little dictators in police uniforms.

Now everyone who is stopped gets their information and data transmitted to [DHS] via your drivers license number or your social security number or your name. This was not allowed until this bill was passed. Now they can arrest and detain you for any public offense and run all you data through Homeland security.

Soon every state will be doing this under the guise of stopping illegals which it will not stop [undocumented aliens]. All that data will now be used to track you by the federal government. If you get a ticket in Maine, they know. If you get stopped and let go in Texas, they know. If they run your plates in Georgia, they know. This is the beginning of, "papers, please!".

National ID proposed in Immigration Reform disturbs the natives

c/o Washington Independent

No one is going to be excited by a proposal that involves “finger printing the entire U.S. working population,” said [ACLU counsel, Chris] Calabrese at a Cato Institute Capitol Hill briefing today. The proposed regulations are “costly, they’re ineffective, they’re bureaucratic. They’ll start with immigrants, but they’re a tool for social control.”

What Calabrese is referring to is a proposal for a national biometric ID card, laid out by Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in a Washington Post op-ed in mid-March as part of the comprehensive immigration reform bill they’re drafting. The two senators essentially plan on requiring “all U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who want jobs to obtain a high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security card,” they wrote.

But according to Calabrese and [Jim] Harper [Cato Instititute], the nationally uniform ID would create a long list of problems — and it wouldn’t help solve the problem of illegal immigration.

Perhaps the most significant issue Calabrese addressed is that the problem targeted by the proposal won’t be affected at all. The card would require all U.S. citizens and permanent residents to get a card, but illegal immigrants who already ignore current laws can still just ignore the national ID. “You’re saying, ‘Let’s pass a law to target people who are already ignoring the existing law,’” Calabrese said. Employers could still hire people who do not have a card or have a falsified card, or they could simply pay their workers under the table.

This isn’t just an immigration issue, Harper noted. “We’re talking about native-born Americans” who would be affected by this.

Harper and Calabrese addressed some of the issues with the national ID:

• Anyone could still present false documents, either by creating a manufactured identity or stealing an identity, to obtain a national ID.

• The actual ID could also be illegally reproduced.

• Biometrics are untested. There is no good standard for biometrics. Harper pointed out that, for example, some people who work in manual labor don’t have easily distinguishable fingerprints.

• The ID system could cost at least $100 billion, based on cost figures for a similar identification program, “the Real ID,” a voluntary state-issued national ID program implemented in 2005.

•  The system would create privacy issues, including a possible government database of information that could be easily corrupted.

• It eliminates the choice of documents someone can use when applying for a job or for government benefits.

• A nationwide system could create long delays for correcting errors.

• It could encourage discrimination in the workforce, because employers might not want to deal with longer delays for immigrants (legal residents or naturalized citizens) who have more documents that need to be added into the system.

“These problems have never been addressed,” said Calabrese, “and the problems are going to fall on the backs of workers.” He said it would invert the relationship between citizens and the state and it would mean certain rights are conditional upon approval by the government. A national ID would be “sort of like the note you needed to get to go to the bathroom in school.” Calabrese said the Arizona immigration bill is a step in that direction. [SB 1070 was signed by Governor Brewer today].

The ACLU and more than 40 other organizations have publicly opposed the national ID proposal within Schumer and Graham’s immigration reform plan. But the entire proposal is still cloudy — the Post op-ed is the only concrete “plan” the senators have so far, and until the bill is actually introduced, no one really knows what to expect. It’s also unclear whether a national ID could face opposition from right-leaning anti-immigration groups.

TODAY: Nevada hearing on Real ID, D.C. biometric worker card briefing

Video c/o KTNV


Nevada hearing on Real ID licensing
c/o McClatchy-Tribune, TMC.net  

The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles will hold a hearing Friday on a proposal to make a new high-security driver's license optional.

The hearing will be held at 9 a.m. in Room 4412 of the Sawyer Building in Las Vegas, and will be teleconferenced to Room 3137 of the Legislative Building in Carson City.

To prevent a legislative committee from killing the Real ID licensing system entirely, DMV Director Edgar Roberts announced Monday that he would issue a new regulation to make the licenses optional.

Deploying High-Density Zones in a Low-Density Data Center Learn more, download free white paper.

Under the proposal, which would return to the Legislative Committee on Licensing for final approval, motorists would decide whether to get a regular license or the new license, which requires a birth certificate, Social Security card, proof of address and other identification.


Discussion: National ID & Immigration Reform in D.C. 


Capitol Hill - A briefing sponsored by the Cato Institute discusses whether or not National ID should be a part of Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  Special guest speaker is Chris Calabrese, special counsel to ACLU on the national ID issue and  Cato's Jim Harper.