Homeland Security
Jan. 8th, 2004 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fabrisseAs of January 5, 2004 the Department of Homeland Security is fingerprinting anyone who comes into the United States from a foreign country. The exceptions, for those who are on a tourist visa and remaining 90 days or less are:
Andorra, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Isles, and the Isle of Man).
Notice that our NAFTA buddies, Canada and Mexico, are not included. Admittedly, most entrance into this country from those are via land, but the omission is glaring. Not a single African country is exempt. Not a single South or Central American country is exempt. Only two Asian countries are permitted free entry.
Brazil started fingerprinting and photographing all US citizens visiting its fair shores on the same day -- Yea, Brazil! As a nation you've made it extremely clear that the US policy is racist. We're not even excepting every member of the European Union. Greece is conspicuous by it's absence. Turkey, our long time NATO ally, is missing from the role call.
Had these procedures been in place on April 19, 1995 the Oklahoma City bombing would still have taken place. Terrorism belongs to no race or culture. All are using it freely.
But let's look at that list. Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Liechtenstein. The only one I haven't been to is San Marino and that's because it has no train station and the nearest town is too far away to walk to it. They're all tiny. They're duty free ports in a storm. And Liechtenstein has financial laws that make the Swiss look like a bunch of blabbermouths. In other words, prime territory for robber barons and terrorist financiers alike.
In my 13 years living in Europe, I have:
been denied access to Rhein Main airbase because a German terrorist cell had set off a bomb at the commissary within the hour.
felt the earth move under my feet as I was crossing Tottenham Court Road because the IRA had just begun its most recent wave of terror (6 months of having my bags inspected anytime I entered a store, a theater, or a public building). A few days later I wandered into Covent Garden to find it deserted. A very nice policeman came up to me, asked me some pointed questions about how I'd gotten in and explained that they were defusing the bomb in situ and would I be a very nice little American and get outside the blast radius. I wasn't arrested. He didn't even speak harshly. No wonder the old joke has the British as the policemen in heaven.
gone to work at the NATO Suport Activity building the day after a group of Flemish separatists had aimed a car carrying explosives at the building. No one was killed.
left Harrods department store at Christmas time without making a purchase because I overheard to salesgirls talking about the fifth bomb threat that week. As I was apologizing to my family in Berlin the next day (Mom and Dad were living there) for not having any stocking stuffers, AFN came on with a report about the Harrods bombing. The IRA had called in a threat until they were positive it wouldn't be taken seriously. Then they'd planted the real bomb.
met my girlfriend at the bombed out shell of a terminal in Frankfurt. She'd called me the day before to tell me that she was going to be on the same flight one day later as there'd been some problems in her office. Had I met her the day before, I might have been one of the six killed or 20+ injured in the blast.
been told by my boss that I couldn't leave a day early for my Christmas vacation and had to change my flight to the exact same one the following day. $75.00 and a mean boss meant that I wasn't on the Lockerbie flight.
had a phone message from my parents explaining that the bomb had only fractured some glass in their apartment, they'd been at the movies when it happened. When I finally got ahold of them and the whole story it seemed that a house a block or two away from them on the same street had been bombed because it had once belonged to the Minister for Northern Ireland.
There were several other close calls for me and members of my family. With the exception of the Lockerbie flight, none of them was caused by a Middle Eastern or non-European group.
My indirect experiences with terrorism have included the same Christmas in Berlin watching a group of terrorists machine gun crowds at two airports in Italy. The Berlin disco bombing occurred while my father was living there. A friend of my father's was killed in Iran just before the hostage crisis. A marine with whom I'd worked at the US Embassy in Brussels was killed by terrorists on his next assignment in Lebanon.
I take terrorism seriously. I don't want to be its victim. I don't want anyone I've ever known or cared about to be its victim. I don't even want my enemies to be its victim.
Nothing that Homeland Security is doing will protect us against terrorists. All it will do is make us enemies abroad. Rather than holding out a beacon of hope by saying, as we do in our Constitution, that all are innocent until proven guilty, the United States is saying that everyone's a suspect. And you're more a suspect if your accent is a little funny or you're not a blue-eyed redhead. Were I to extrapolate from my own experiences, I'd be more worried about the blue-eyed redhead.
After watching the movie Judgment at Nuremburg for the last movie night, the group of us got into a discussion about the word "Homeland." The United States is no one's homeland. It was never meant to be. We are a nation because we share underlying values -- the chief of which is freedom.
There are some who think that skin color, religion, or sex should be a hindrance to some forms of freedom. We don't. We fought a war among ourselves to stop the skin color ban. We fled other countries and fought on our own soil to keep us all free to worship or not as we choose. Our foremothers fought for the right to vote.
God didn't promise us this land. We claimed it. I don't care if the ink on your citizenship papers is still wet. You are part of the "we" that claimed it. It isn't the soil or the minerals under it that we claimed. We came here to breathe free air. We came here to have the freedom to thrive, and even if we've only found the freedom to fail, we have still found a way to breathe free.
Homeland as an idea undercuts the unity of the Constitution. Over the years we have extended our rights to any who came under our jurisdiction. Now we have a Department of Homeland Security. It has subsumed the INS, and we are denying constitutional rights to those whom we think are not "like us."
Military tribunals for civilians? Holding people with out public arraignment? Potential to use torture? These are all clear violations of amendments V and VI of The Bill of Rights.
Fingerprinting tourists? It seems small. It's a safety measure. I hesitate to use the slippery slope analogy, but I must admit to being worried that this is another little step that keeps "furriners" as a them instead of a potential part of us.
Andorra, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Isles, and the Isle of Man).
Notice that our NAFTA buddies, Canada and Mexico, are not included. Admittedly, most entrance into this country from those are via land, but the omission is glaring. Not a single African country is exempt. Not a single South or Central American country is exempt. Only two Asian countries are permitted free entry.
Brazil started fingerprinting and photographing all US citizens visiting its fair shores on the same day -- Yea, Brazil! As a nation you've made it extremely clear that the US policy is racist. We're not even excepting every member of the European Union. Greece is conspicuous by it's absence. Turkey, our long time NATO ally, is missing from the role call.
Had these procedures been in place on April 19, 1995 the Oklahoma City bombing would still have taken place. Terrorism belongs to no race or culture. All are using it freely.
But let's look at that list. Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Liechtenstein. The only one I haven't been to is San Marino and that's because it has no train station and the nearest town is too far away to walk to it. They're all tiny. They're duty free ports in a storm. And Liechtenstein has financial laws that make the Swiss look like a bunch of blabbermouths. In other words, prime territory for robber barons and terrorist financiers alike.
In my 13 years living in Europe, I have:
been denied access to Rhein Main airbase because a German terrorist cell had set off a bomb at the commissary within the hour.
felt the earth move under my feet as I was crossing Tottenham Court Road because the IRA had just begun its most recent wave of terror (6 months of having my bags inspected anytime I entered a store, a theater, or a public building). A few days later I wandered into Covent Garden to find it deserted. A very nice policeman came up to me, asked me some pointed questions about how I'd gotten in and explained that they were defusing the bomb in situ and would I be a very nice little American and get outside the blast radius. I wasn't arrested. He didn't even speak harshly. No wonder the old joke has the British as the policemen in heaven.
gone to work at the NATO Suport Activity building the day after a group of Flemish separatists had aimed a car carrying explosives at the building. No one was killed.
left Harrods department store at Christmas time without making a purchase because I overheard to salesgirls talking about the fifth bomb threat that week. As I was apologizing to my family in Berlin the next day (Mom and Dad were living there) for not having any stocking stuffers, AFN came on with a report about the Harrods bombing. The IRA had called in a threat until they were positive it wouldn't be taken seriously. Then they'd planted the real bomb.
met my girlfriend at the bombed out shell of a terminal in Frankfurt. She'd called me the day before to tell me that she was going to be on the same flight one day later as there'd been some problems in her office. Had I met her the day before, I might have been one of the six killed or 20+ injured in the blast.
been told by my boss that I couldn't leave a day early for my Christmas vacation and had to change my flight to the exact same one the following day. $75.00 and a mean boss meant that I wasn't on the Lockerbie flight.
had a phone message from my parents explaining that the bomb had only fractured some glass in their apartment, they'd been at the movies when it happened. When I finally got ahold of them and the whole story it seemed that a house a block or two away from them on the same street had been bombed because it had once belonged to the Minister for Northern Ireland.
There were several other close calls for me and members of my family. With the exception of the Lockerbie flight, none of them was caused by a Middle Eastern or non-European group.
My indirect experiences with terrorism have included the same Christmas in Berlin watching a group of terrorists machine gun crowds at two airports in Italy. The Berlin disco bombing occurred while my father was living there. A friend of my father's was killed in Iran just before the hostage crisis. A marine with whom I'd worked at the US Embassy in Brussels was killed by terrorists on his next assignment in Lebanon.
I take terrorism seriously. I don't want to be its victim. I don't want anyone I've ever known or cared about to be its victim. I don't even want my enemies to be its victim.
Nothing that Homeland Security is doing will protect us against terrorists. All it will do is make us enemies abroad. Rather than holding out a beacon of hope by saying, as we do in our Constitution, that all are innocent until proven guilty, the United States is saying that everyone's a suspect. And you're more a suspect if your accent is a little funny or you're not a blue-eyed redhead. Were I to extrapolate from my own experiences, I'd be more worried about the blue-eyed redhead.
After watching the movie Judgment at Nuremburg for the last movie night, the group of us got into a discussion about the word "Homeland." The United States is no one's homeland. It was never meant to be. We are a nation because we share underlying values -- the chief of which is freedom.
There are some who think that skin color, religion, or sex should be a hindrance to some forms of freedom. We don't. We fought a war among ourselves to stop the skin color ban. We fled other countries and fought on our own soil to keep us all free to worship or not as we choose. Our foremothers fought for the right to vote.
God didn't promise us this land. We claimed it. I don't care if the ink on your citizenship papers is still wet. You are part of the "we" that claimed it. It isn't the soil or the minerals under it that we claimed. We came here to breathe free air. We came here to have the freedom to thrive, and even if we've only found the freedom to fail, we have still found a way to breathe free.
Homeland as an idea undercuts the unity of the Constitution. Over the years we have extended our rights to any who came under our jurisdiction. Now we have a Department of Homeland Security. It has subsumed the INS, and we are denying constitutional rights to those whom we think are not "like us."
Military tribunals for civilians? Holding people with out public arraignment? Potential to use torture? These are all clear violations of amendments V and VI of The Bill of Rights.
Fingerprinting tourists? It seems small. It's a safety measure. I hesitate to use the slippery slope analogy, but I must admit to being worried that this is another little step that keeps "furriners" as a them instead of a potential part of us.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-08 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-08 01:21 pm (UTC)It was good to have you at my table at New Year.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-08 01:27 pm (UTC)you are comign to Carolingian University yes? will hoefully se eyou before then... Birkah?
no subject
Date: 2004-01-08 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-08 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-08 02:49 pm (UTC)I love you.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-08 04:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-08 07:58 pm (UTC)But good lord, you've had more than your share of dangerous situations and close calls. I'm really hoping you've used up your quota of them at this point.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 08:47 am (UTC)Having said that, I was afraid that if I didn't mention some of my close calls, those reading this journal would think that I was soft on terrorism/terrorists or didn't grasp the problem.
I agree with you. My quota has been filled.*g*
no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-09 08:56 am (UTC)In The Once and Future King, T.H. White has Merlin say that there are two antithetical desires in human beings towards their neighbors and both can be perceived as normal. The one is to kill him; the other is to join with him. Merlin makes the case very forcefully that if we follow the first desire, we'll be back to hides and skins pretty quickly. Therefore we must find our way to the second desire.
To me this has been the great success of the American experiment. People come to us of their own free will to join our Constitution.
The most frightening thing that I personally witnessed on 9/11 was a bunch of men in my neighborhood threatening the only Muslim household on the block. I knew better than to try and interfere -- brittle bones shouldn't fight -- but I sat out on the porch and made certain that they knew they were being watched. Thank heaven they dispersed.