Travelers will have 6 ID options to return to U.S.

[DogPoundPup]

"It's a new way of doing business on the borders," said Thomas Winkowski, an assistant commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. "We've already seen a willingness of the public to go along with the new requirements."

In addition to a traditional passport, travelers can choose from a passport card — and in Washington state, an enhanced driver's license — as well as from three types of cards available in the Trusted Traveler Program for frequent border crossers. One exception was made for cruise ship-goers on trips that begin and end at the same port, such as Miami; travelers can provide a birth certificate and photo ID.

MORE: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/51668.html

[MetaTrope]

1. So now you need to have a passport...and...another passport?

[melm00se]

3. no

you can use:
1) a traditional passport (good for all travel)
2) a passport card (cheaper, lighter but no good for air travel)
3) an enhanced drivers license (on WA has one of them with the super deluxe chip built in)
4) a TTP card, there are a few of them (you submit to a federal check - great if you cross the border a lot)

the job of the Federal Government is to secure the borders, this is what they are doing.

[gateley]

2. And from the government site linked to --

A cheery color-coded map of the soon-to-be North American Union. :tinfoilhat:

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. the gov't has RFID/Tracking chips in passports

and in so-called "enhanced" driver's licenses.

That was the whole point of all the new ID requirements, which they have been trying to put into place before 2009.

No ID, no entry to Fed. courthouses, airlines, out of country travel.

Unless you know the backroads into Canada real well, as some do.

[warren pease]

5. "We've already seen a willingness of the public to go along with the new requirements."

Ihre Papiere, bitte. Aside from the fact that nobody's asked my opinion, what a load of bogus propagandist horseshit.

For one thing, this latest little scrap of paper tossed into the pile of debris that used to be the Constitution -- and the case law that's grown up around it -- isn't scheduled to go into effect until next June, so how in hell does this shill know what the public's willing or not willing to put up with?

For another, it's a safe bet that the "... willingness of the public" is much easier to produce when the border guards numbers are all out of proportion to the situation, they're armed and wearing camo uniforms with robocop body armor, and a helicopter circles overhead in case some "domestic terrorist" decides to make a run for it.

Different agency; same fascist bastards running the show.

Does anybody really think the Bushies are just going to pack up and leave next January? With all the power they've glommed for themselves possibly falling into democratic hands? With the possibility of federal indictments for treason and ICC extradition demands for war crimes?

For a look at my ever-expanding list of programs and pieces of physical infrastructure the Bushies have put in place under the guise of "the global war on (some kinds of) terror"(tm), read on. Longish but perfectly punctuated:

Thanks to the madness of King George, the snarling cyborg and a compliant congress, we now live in a country that has all the trappings of a national security state. Each of these legal or physical pieces of a totalitarian infrastructure is an important link in the chain.

Taken together, and when placed in context of a government completely in thrall to the power and influence of mega-business, and that exists solely to perpetuate and enrich itself, along with reward those who put them in power, what else could it be?

Here are some of the worst pieces of the puzzle that they've either brazened out or sneaked through when they thought nobody was watching.

We now have the Orwellian "thought crime bill" (HR 1955/S 1959) still awaiting passage in the Senate and Bushie's big red illiterate X; executive orders allowing to steal everything you have if you express disagreement with their Middle East "policy," which they say would "undermine efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people." (So that's what it's called: economic reconstruction, political reform and humanitarian assistance. You just can't make this stuff up.)

Here's another one just like it for those who object to their policy re Lebanon and Syria (should anyone actually know what that is), a sin so apparently repugnant that our Czar feared that it would "...constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat."

Presidential directives like NSPD 51/HSPD-20 that blather on about "continuity of government" and how government agencies and private sector organizations will work together (only those named Blackwater need apply) "to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency."

Such an emergency might well be a presidential hangnail, since the catastrophes that trigger these directives include "… any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions." Vague enough for you?

Then come the federal invasions of privacy regarding medical and http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/washington/23intel.html?ex=1308715200&en=168d69d26685c26c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">financial records; monitoring US citizens' electronic communications; re-targeting spy satellites for domestic surveillance; the TSA cavity search specialists (for attractive young women only; the rest are presumed to pose no threat to the state); InfraGard, the new national system of vigilantes with the FBI's permission to "shoot to kill;" no-fly and terrorist watch lists; Halliburton/KBR's detention camps; RFIDs in all new passports and new national ID cards that may still be issued this year; new TSA "behavior detection officers" to spot those who don't "look quite right;" all this wonderful new stuff coming this year and next from the DHS; private armies featuring mercenaries from companies like Blackwater and DynCorp springing up like mushrooms after a light rain... All that and the Patriot Act, the http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/commissions.html">Military Commissions Act, http://www.aclu.org/safefree/extraordinaryrendition/22203res20051206.html">extraordinary rendition (whatever the hell that means) and torture, too. (Note: the torture link is graphic and disgusting, as it should be.)

No need to revisit FISA; we all know how our brave opposition party stood up for us against further interception of our private communications and slapped the Bushies down hard, repeatedly blistering the airwaves with devastating attacks on this pack of vile fascists and… What? Oh… They didn't? Hmmmmm. Must be time for a strongly worded letter then.

Also, see the blockquote in this post, which is a small part of H.R. 1585, the fiscal year 2008 National Defense Authorization Act. Note the orders to prepare to use regular troops -- as opposed to the Guard or Reserves -- to respond to "natural disasters and terrorist events." In other words, martial law.

Can anyone think of a reason that the Bushies would go through all this trouble to build a new version of the Third Reich using bleeding-edge technology if they planned on leaving next January anyway?

You look at the destructive power the executive branch has acquired for itself since 2001 and it's hard not to come to the conclusion that all these pieces are there to lock this country down like a bank vault. They just haven't flipped the switch yet.

And maybe they never will. Maybe the implied threat is enough, although the Cheneys of the world don't strike me as the type to do stuff like this just for fun.

Rather, fun to them is shooting animals and, occasionally, each other. We need a lot more of the latter and far less of the former.

And that's today's reality check, brought to you by the good folks at the TSA, who have finally made air travel the complete hell it was always supposed to be.


wp