(OT) Orwellian Nightmare

According to the article, it sounds like Amtrak is demanding "identification" these days also.

-dave w

Don't laugh. They already force many American safety regulation on ships and planes calling at our ports. The number of security regulations similarly passed along is not fully known - for security reasons.

they ought to extend this to greyhound buses.....especially those coming from the pacific coast and the southwest... just think how many illegal aliens you could nab....

hush!... you'll give Them ideas...

-dave w

They do.

Border Patrol boards and randomly verifies passengers on busses that come near the border... like in El Paso. I experienced this firsthand BEFORE

They took someone off the bus that day... he was not latino... he was Italian! He had misplaced his Visa. We resumed our journey without him.

~ Duane Phillips.

I think they should require Valid ID to drive your own car.

think about it ?

too many don't have it and just drive anyway

yea, the border patrol checks the buses going to casinos in Canada by asking questions like,

"who is the accordion player for Lawrence Welk ?"

So how did you answer?

~ Duane Phillips.

I answered "lawrence who ?"

I did see a border patrol van on I-75 south of detroit today in fact.

compared to local police vans , it looked beat, with no money spent on it.

Historically, some states were very particular about that insisting that their drivers' licenses were evidence of nothing except demonstrated ability to drive a car - "we're the DMV, not the INS: we don't maintain immigration records; we give driving tests!" Alabama, for instance, had the policy that a drivers license meant that the person who looked like the picture, and claimed to go by the name, shown on the license had shown up and passed the test, and wan't "Proof of Identity" in any other sort of official sense.

Now the feds are demanding that the states conform the licensing process to federal requirements for "proof of legitimate presence in the US" - residents of noncompliant states would need to present something like a passport for air travel and other "Federal purposes". (I wonder if a state could be sued by its residents, claiming that they had a right to be provided with 'Federally-Acceptable Identification' by their state government...)

Maybe we should just do what they do in a lot of countries in Europe, South America, and other places: everyone in the country is issued a Citizen Card by the government; anyone not able to produce, on demand, either such a card or a passport, properly stamped with proof of Lawful Entry, is presumptively suspected to be an Undesirable Alien or worse, and as such, is subject to immediate detention.

We all know that sort of thing is what the New Securitarians really, really _want_ these days: unfortunately they're up against the awkward (from their point of view) little tradition that the USA was supposed to be the country where one could come to get _away_ from such things!

-dave w

Myron Floren : )

In a house with only 1 black & white tv, Saturday night was a constant struggle between me and my grandmother. I wanted to watch Bat Man and she wanted to see Welk. Try and imagine a 10 yearold boy having to sit and watch a solid hour of Welk instead of Bat Man. Let's see ... bubbles or the Bat mobile... hmmm that's a toughie.

Yes, that's right, I won! I won! I WON!!!!!

HA! HA ! HA!

Randy

I'd miss that one, the only accordion player I can remember is Weird Al...

David Erbas-White

Yes, both those points are true.

Yes, but the joke was they were trying to prove the old folks home was indeed going for a casino bus run, and no liberials in blue wigs were trying to sneek into canada to avoid the reprogramming ;-)

Lou Berryman.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!