BTC - Next week members of the House and the Senate will be hearing from broad based coalitions about the effort to stop the continuance of national ID card programs.
THE STATUS QUO
The Real ID law is still in place. E-Verify has been adopted in whole or in part by some states. The TWIC card is considered a success with the regulated transport industry by some lawmakers. The American public has been asked to support a milder version of a Real ID in the PASS ID legislation; which also did not pass the 4th Amendment test. Sides for and against it are in a stalemate due to State laws passed against the Real ID Act, privacy and national security concerns. And finally we are now asked to give up our privacy and produce yet another form of national identity mandated in Comprehensive Immigration Reform: a biometric worker card.
There have been many strong attempts to repeal Real ID and ban national identity. There is the perennial HR 220 - a comprehensive ban on all forms of national ID introduced every session since 2003, authored by Representative Ron Paul. In 2009 Rep. Cohen introduced HR 3471, which would effectively repeal the Real ID Act and replace it with a negotiated rulemaking process.
The passage of SB 1070 in Arizona opened a pandora's box of problems associated with racial profiling, nativist identity and forsaking common sense American Constitutional values for "Your Papers Please!" It snapped the knob off at high volume for border security concerns and anti-Mexican frustrations began to boil over. The law burns gun owners and other American citizens now risk running into escalated problems with law enforcement. The law also muddles lines positioning local police to enforce federal immigration laws, leaving the police departments vulnerable to financial bankruptcy from successive lawsuits based on enforcing immigration law.
Constituents living in States who passed laws or resolutions opposing national ID card programs are considered "the silent majority" by friendly lawmakers. This is why it is important to speak up now and make yourself heard.
Don't fail America's future by staying silent now. Please take time now to find your congressional leaders @ Congress.org . Unless you speak up, you will live with some version of "Your Papers Please!"
To follow is a variety of different action alerts produced and supported by a broad coaltion effort.
Here’s a window onto the upside-down way government spending works. The Department of Homeland Security has sent a letter to states begging them to spend federally provided money on implementing REAL ID, the national ID law.
“DHS is regularly asked by members of Congress, as well as the Office of Management and Budget, if these funds are needed by the states, and whether these funds should be reallocated to other efforts,” writes Juliette Kayyam of DHS’ Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. “As both the states and the Federal government face increasingly tough budgeting decisions, it is more important than ever that these available funds be utilized.”
That’s right: Tough budget times make it imperative to spend more money.
States don’t want to implement REAL ID, and the American people don’t want a national ID, but the DHS bureaucracy is rattling cages to try to get money spent purely for the sake of spending. It’s flabbergasting.
BTC - Two activists from the Fully Informed Jury Association or FIJA were assaulted and unlawfully detained by federal agents agents while video taping an outreach effort on public property in Allentown, PA. Their video equipment was aggressively seized by the agents as bystanders witnessed the altercation. According to the Libertarian Examiner, the interaction escalated as one FIJA member "chose to argue" with a female US Marshall.
As 911 report followed, dispatched as a "robbery in progress". The camera operator, George Donnely, has been detained since the incident. The charges to continue to hold him in a local Federal Detention Center are obscured.
DENVER - Web cameras make it easy to keep in touch with far away friends and family. If you have a web cam on your home computer, laptop or even your cell phone, a hacker can be lurking, just waiting for a chance to gain control.
Right now, hackers are spying on innocent users via their web cam and microphones. It starts with a simple email, link or program sent to you.
"The bad guys go out there and find vulnerabilities in different applications and programs," says Michael Gregg, COO of Superior Solutions Inc.
Once you click on it, your computer is overrun by the hacker's program.
"When the hackers find a problem before its fixed, its called a Zero-Day or IE-Exploit," says Gregg.
The exploit programs can remotely turn on your web cam, watch what you're looking at online; even listen to what you are saying. Even worse, the longer these programs are available to hackers, the easier they are to use. :::MORE HERE:::
There was no time budget to produce a radio program this week. HOWEVER, we do have details on an important digest of topics we would have slated for the program. We liken it to leaving you the place to yourself with an elaborate feast in the fridge and an apology for having to duck out this week.
Speaking of protest arrests, Amy Goodman is now suing the city of St. Paul Minnesota over her arrest at the RNC. That was an obstruction of real journalism. I recall over 130 accredited journalists were arrested during the 2008 RNC . Many citizen journalists were also arrested and had to deal with bail and charges out of pocket. TruthOut found gaps in the journalism shield laws which didn’t protect their rights. Bloggers, like Gizmodo editor Jason Chen, aren’t covered. Chen’s home was raided last month over the search for an iPhone prototype. A hearing is scheduled this Friday to sort out what is legal or illegal search and siezure of a blogger’s workplace - which, typically, is their home. We are talking a batched violation here of both 1st and 4th Amendments if Apple and the Redwood City PD are wrong about this.
Along with journalists, the numbers of regular citizens engaged in the political process were arrested en masse along with the dispatch of sonic weaponry during the RNC protests. The Center for Investigative Reporting cites a new book revealing a troubling amount of pre-emptive spying, specifically targeting activists. COPBOOK, authored by retired policeman Richard Greelis delves more into, the now infamous, Minnesota police “Welcoming Committee” for the RNC and a charachter dubbed Chicken Little.
IF YOU MISSED IT: A Miami TSA employee lost a lot more than his personal privacy due to an airport body scanner. The TSA agent became angry over a derisive comment made about the size of his "junk" as he passed through a body scanner. He then assaulted his co-worker and went to jail.
As always please share the information you find on BeatTheChip.org with others on the net. It’s just a very sad sad reality that Facebook has gone from friend to Facecrook. Stolen and bogus webprofiles are being sold now on the black market. The depth and breadth of the privacy violations caused me to cut short our 20 day evaluation period of their webservice. This years Privacy Camp in San Francisco was little more than a succession of support group circles given tasks on how to deal with the betrayal of our basic trusts as consumers using what I will call now Facecrook. Even if I do have to pay for Ning - I’m already feeling the pains of separation. One condolence coming out of the Center for Democracy & Technology camp is a step by step method to put Facecrook on a privacy lockdown. It’s about 33 steps. Please take them if your not strong enough to leave Mark Zukerberg’s technology.
I’m not sure he should get custody of our friends in the divorce. There were long discussions about portability earning terms of refugee status. Social networks numbered in the thousands who would move to temporary another social network or disperse and reconvene at a different time and place.
Our decision became crystalline to delete our profile as it was carefully explained to me that we are "paying" for free services by allowing them - knowingly or unknowingly - to sell the transactional information we give them while using their service. Since I'm almost violently against surveillance I'm not going to volunteer up for it for free, when I know better.
I've seen a lot of hit pieces on FB but I think what really did it in for me was when I saw vitaminWater's :::connect flavor, a smart beverage partner with Facebook with the the image of a fingerprint on it. The first words on the bottle's product description were accusatorial and predatory: "We caught you. Your fingerprints are all over this bottle." It was then I decided with finality I would delete ALL of my Facebook accounts.
There is a window open right now to state how much you really oppose another national ID card program. If you are opposed to the digital use of your fingerprints or any future biometrics in a social security card or any other form of identification required to work. You should be heard and heard clearly. Watch the following video if you fall into the "silent majority" of people who don't relish a national ID card. (Pssst! Everyone has power. Especially you!)
Special effort award: San Bruno for counting the cost ahead of time and heading off Redflex at the pass. They won’t be signing up for the radar any time soon due to expenses. They performed a preliminary audit - a strategy which is working very very well for the Bay area to opt out of more undue surveillance.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Announcement of a new segment titled: "HEY CITIZEN!Prove You're Not A Terrorist " Because every week it's something else...
BTC - Does the following statement sound like some version of you? If so, it's time to recognize there's not a separate chip for immigrants or American citizens. The government does not discriminate who gets a chip, even if you do.
"But even as the biometric Social Security card proposal was kicked up and down the political football field, a Republican Congressional candidate in Iowa was quoted by The Cedar Rapids Gazette as calling for the use of micro-chips to track illegal immigrants. At a Tama County Republican forum, physician Pat Bertroche said, "I think we should catch 'em, we should document 'em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going... I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I micro-chip an illegal?" :::MORE HERE:::
