The officious little twerp would then lord his 'power' over you at every opportunity. Always insisting upon you following 'the rules', even if he couldn't articulate what those were or explain the reason behind them. But he wasn't any better than you...except at rolling over and wetting himself for authority figures.

IMHO, that's what we have running the Homeland Security apparatus now...grown up crossing guards who want to be bad-asses but who would fold up or s**t themselves in a firefight. I've seen too many of that type wearing badges and sidearms, lately.

In today's brave new travel world, buying an airline ticket or crossing an international border is tantamount to signing away civil liberties.

Steven S is an American who tried to cross the Canadian-US border. He drove to the border, but Canadian officials told him he could not enter Canada because he had a marijuana misdemeanor. He argued that he had only been arrested for marijuana, not convicted – the charges had been thrown out. Canadian officials permanently banned him from Canada.

When he turned around and drove back through the US border crossing, he was yanked out of his vehicle by a Homeland Security agent, who said his behavior (turning around to head south after being denied entry into Canada), was indicative of terrorist activities.

"The Homeland Security guy wouldn't give us his name, but he wanted to look up our asses," Steve said in an interview with Cannabis Culture. "They stole my computer from me and copied everything on it. The questions they asked indicated they have the capability to track people in the US. We were held prisoner for most of the day. Then they told Canada to ban us permanently from entering Canada. It was terrifying."

The US instituted a spy program called US-VISIT that requires visitors from most countries to be fingerprinted and photographed when entering and leaving the US at land, air and seaports. The $700 million system does instant background checks using international commercial and governmental databases. Photographs and fingerprints are stored and shared with domestic and international law enforcement agents.

The government plans to include "biometric" identification techniques in US-VISIT; such techniques involve iris scans, DNA fingerprinting, and other intrusive tactics. The Pentagon is creating surveillance programs that monitor virtually every aspect of Americans' lives. One program would use a radar-like device that identifies people based on the way they walk. The device would use "biometric" data analysis to identify people from 500 feet away.

A spokesman for a biometrics company said surveillance and tracking is becoming a huge industry.

"The biggest problem we've had as a company is that police departments lack funding," the executive explained. "But now, with Department of Homeland Security spending, local police are getting bigger budgets for these sorts of things and we have seen our revenue increase accordingly."

Famed Italian philosopher and Holocaust scholar Giorgio Agamben decided not to accept teaching assignments at New York University and UCLA because the US wants to photograph and fingerprint foreign visitors.

Agamben told the press that the US resembles a "concentration camp." He says US-VISIT is similar to the system that branded and tattooed Jews in Nazi Germany.

Another monitoring and tracking system, this one operated by the US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is officially abbreviated as "TIA." The acronym used to mean Total Information Awareness; it now means "Terrorism" Information Awareness. The name change was one of many cosmetic and budgetary alterations made to the program after it was widely criticized by conservatives, liberals and the media after it started in 2002.

TIA links police and spy agencies with massive worldwide computers and databases. It is part of a Pentagon-CIA-FBI net that uses "data mining" to track individuals around the world. Data mining consists of gathering and storing massive amounts of private and public information, analyzing information, and categorizing millions of people as possible terrorists.

US officials say such systems are designed to catch "terrorists," but in the first months of operation, the program did not catch terrorists – it caught people wanted for drug crimes and immigration violations. Critics of the program also question the definition of "terrorist," noting that US Attorney General John Ashcroft designates radical environmentalists, civil libertarians, anti-war protesters, pot advocates, and other non-violent Americans as terrorists. A Bush administration official recently characterized the National Education Association – a teachers' labor union – as a terrorist group!

(snip)

- - -

Something like this happened to me. I went to videotape Jack Cole and Alyson Myrden in Ottowa for LEAP.cc

All the signs in Canadian Customs stated I had to tell the truth about why I was visiting, so I explained I am shooting a documentary called Drug War IS Crime.

Predictably, they turned me away, and having noted that videotaping the buildings is forbidden, I stopped on the bridge halfway between the U.S. and Canada, and shot a pretty scene of the water, smiled for my video camera and shrugged my shoulders, explaining I was turned away.

Sure enough, U.S. Customs wanted to know why I was shooting video, and proceeded to search my car. Now, at this point I had already been inside and noted an eighth of an ounce or so of some excellent smelling green bud on a scale, inches away from my face on the other side of the counter.

I had resisted the urge to confiscate and eat said green bud as evidence that Drug War IS Crime, but decided against that action, since I knew that I'd probably be harrassed, and I did not want anything to happen to my dog Blue, who was waiting patiently in the car.

So anyway, later when the U.S. Customs Agent asked if I had any drugs in the car, having none, I said no. Them he looked me in the eye and said he was going to rephrase the question. "Were there any MORE drugs in the car?"

Now, I knew for a fact there were none, and said so. Now the officer was claiming he had found "crumbs" in the console. I looked him in the eye and, since it looked like he really believed what he was saying, I smiled and reminded him that first, I obviously had just bought the car.

Second, with the exception of my cameras and computer, everything else was bought second hand, at yard sales. Then I stated that if he really wanted to press charges against me for crumbs when HE had pot in the building within inches of my fingers, I reminded him I was filming a documentary, and repeated that the title is Drug War IS Crime, and would gladly pursue every opportunity to prove that I am correct.

So, here we had a bunch of Customs agents wanting to waste my time, and we went back inside. I sat down next to the 20 something kid who had been caught with (presumably) the weed I saw earlier, and asked what he was facing. "A fine," he replied.

That's when I laughed, knowing that now I was wasting THEIR time. A short time later, Customs informs me I can go. Not wanting to let them off so easy, I pressed the agent further, questioning him about the crumbs. He claimed there was not enough evidence to press charges, and at that moment, about ten or twelve U.S. tourists filed in for processing.

I stood up tall, looked the officer in the eye and took a deep breath, preparing in my most patriotic tone to announce for all to hear what had just transpired and denounce such actions as a fraudulent, unconstitutional and antitrust violations of U.S. laws, as I noticed the agent was hanging his head, realizing this was just about to be a very long day for him.

So I exhaled, and let him go, after which I spent the next fifteen to twenty minutes cleaning up my car after the mess they left searching it. Notably, no more agents wanted to hang around, even though I publicly opened and drank an O'Douls or two and spoke to several passing and curious U.S. citizens about what had just happened.

(grin) If it were not for the dog, I'd probably have pushed this much further, and I'm very tempted to go back with hidden microphones and cameras embedded in the car.

Screw their drug war.

Actually, the Patriot Act was passed as a way to thwart freedom and dissent here at home, as those who created and passed it are the real terrorists. This has been their goal from it's inception...

Ashcroft targets protesters to pad antiterror record: http://tinyurl.com/58lex

Des Moines, Iowa

Tumwater, Washington

Those are the latest of the four states,338 cities and counties that have passed resolutions critical of the Patriot Act...

The arm of Osama bin Laden was held high in the air while being declared the winner of the Al-Quada vs. United States match. Osama was declared the winner shortly after the announcement that Bush had won the presidential election.

“The people of America will now never see the freedoms and rights they once had before Bush. Bush will make sure of that. He will enact Patriot Act II enabling LEO to search and seize anyone and anything at will. That destroys America’s 4th Amendment.” He also said that the 1st Amendment is virtually dead too.

“People are being caged for speaking out against the Bush. This is a wonderful result of our war on America. Bush has also pulled the plug on the 2nd Amendment which gives Americans the right to bear arms.

The 3rd. Amendment was disbanded in order to supply adequate housing for military troops spread throughout America.

The 5th. was destroyed when sections in the Patriot Act enabled LEO to force information out of suspects. There are numerous accounts of LEO’s inflicting great pain on suspects who allegedly knew the location of indoor marijuana gardens but would not tell where.

Spike Lee joins anti-Bush forces with 'She Hate Me'

BY MIKE SZYMANSKI Zap2it.com