Thursday, June 07, 2007

Well Then

Is there even any point anymore?

The federal government disclosed details yesterday of a border-security program to screen all people who enter and leave the United States, create a terrorism risk profile of each individual and retain that information for up to 40 years.

I, for one, will not panic. Everyone knows mistakes are never made in bureaucracies, so obviously, obviously, if you were to wind up locked in or out of the United States, it would be because you did something bad and you deserved it.

And even if mistakes were to be made it would be no problem, because then you would just--

According to yesterday's notice, the program is exempt from certain requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974 that allow, for instance, people to access records to determine "if the system contains a record pertaining to a particular individual" and "for the purpose of contesting the content of the record."

--be up shit creek without a paddle. Okay! Sounds good!

Man, I sure wish the terrorists would quit hating our bitchin' freedom so we could have some of it back.

3 comments:

Chris Clarke said...

On the other hand, if they kept a record of whether each traveler ever used deadpan writing as a way of expressing a different sentiment, then when the Democrats get the keys to the whole apparatus in 2008, "progressive" bloggers could use it to see whether they should laugh or get angry.

This could work.

Anonymous said...

You know, a number of times over the past, er, five and a half years, I've said to myself that if the US government implements *one more* far-reaching-yet-ineffective terrorist screening program for border-crossers, I'm not entering the US again. This one does it; if my American friends and relatives want to stay me, they're welcome to crash at my place.

Canadians who look like me have been deported to Syria for torture. And, being cleared of any wrongdoing is apparently insufficient cause for the US government to remove them from the terrorist watch list.

Anonymous said...

er, if my American friends and relatives want to *see* me. I can read! And spell! Really!