Sunday, September 28, 2008
A Criminal Offense
As Tom Burghardt notes, crossing borders is now considered a criminal offense. At least that's the way the Department of Homeland Security views it, if you're a critic of the war on terror or its corollary criminal enterprise known as Homeland Security.
For activist scholars, and for journalists or whistleblowers, voicing your objections to organized crime posing as government will get your cell phone, laptop, and personal papers confiscated by Customs agents if attempting to visit Canada or Mexico, or to fly out of the country for international conferences. The information extracted by Customs will then be shared with the National Security Agency, the CIA, and the FBI.
With illegal wiretaps of phones and e-mail already in practice, the seizure of personal papers, without any suspicion of crime, rounds out the sanctions against peace and pro-democracy writers and activists. These constitutional violations, combined with the use of paid informers to close down dissent, should suffice to instill public paranoia across our land.
For activist scholars, and for journalists or whistleblowers, voicing your objections to organized crime posing as government will get your cell phone, laptop, and personal papers confiscated by Customs agents if attempting to visit Canada or Mexico, or to fly out of the country for international conferences. The information extracted by Customs will then be shared with the National Security Agency, the CIA, and the FBI.
With illegal wiretaps of phones and e-mail already in practice, the seizure of personal papers, without any suspicion of crime, rounds out the sanctions against peace and pro-democracy writers and activists. These constitutional violations, combined with the use of paid informers to close down dissent, should suffice to instill public paranoia across our land.
