p2pnet - rss feed: US Terror Ratings may be illegal
p2pnet.net News:- “There is growing concern in Congress that this program invites abuse, and that the administration is plowing ahead with it in apparent violation of the law,” according to Patrick Leahy, incoming chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee.
Quoted by The Associated Press, Leahy was talking about the outgoing Bush government’s ‘terror score‘ system under which anyone from anywhere who enters or leaves the US is rated.
But it seems the “growing concern” Leahy mentions isn’t so much down to outrage as expenditure.
“Officials are debating whether the Homeland Security Department’s computerized risk assessments of international travelers violate a specific ban that Congress imposed on the agency’s spending for the past three years,” says the story, going on:
“Members of Congress and privacy advocates questioned the legality of the Automated Targeting System, or ATS, risk assessments that have been assigned to millions of Americans and foreigners who entered or left the United States over the past four years. ‘It clearly goes contrary to what we have in law,’ Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., said in an interview Thursday. He said ATS is the kind of computerized risk assessment ‘we have been trying to prohibit’.”
But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told AP, “I don’t think it (the prohibition) can be read as applying to this program. The statute doesn’t bar the use of funds for the purpose of analyzing the risks for people entering the country.”
ATS ‘terror scores’ have been around since 2002, “with little public notice or understanding until a description was published last month in the Federal Register, a fine print compendium of federal rules,” says AP, adding:
“The Homeland Security Department’s notice said people could not see their assessments or directly challenge them. It plans to keep the assessments for 40 years and share data with state, local and foreign governments for hiring, contracting, licensing and other decisions. In some instances, data could be shared with courts and private contractors.”
Meanwhile, the DoHS, “might violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, which bars government officials from spending money not appropriated by Congress,” according to several critics, says AP, adding:
“That act carries administrative penalties that include firing. It also has criminal penalties for willful violations up to two years in prison, although no one ever has been prosecuted.”
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Also See:
The Associated Press - Traveler terror ratings may have violated congressional ban, December 8, 2006
terror score - Bush targets, well, everyone, December 2, 2006
December 11th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
Let’s not forget how the “homeland security” officials thought noted peace activist (and former folk music superstar) Cat Stevens was planning an imminent suicide terrorist attack as his flight arrived in the US.
http://p2pnet.net/story/2529
Thousands of innocent people are routinely pulled off airline flights and treated like criminals - over and over - just because their name somehow got entered on a no-fly list, a list that apparently has no way for names to ever be deleted.
These bozos in “Homeland Security” have proven time and again that they are nothing but complete idiots when it comes to supposedly protecting the country.
December 11th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Illegal or not, the ratings are immoral.
Allow this and we shall allow too a “value to society” ratings. Then the low rated shall go to the gas chambers.
December 12th, 2006 at 12:29 am
The Bush administration has shown over and over again that it is not interested in operating legally. At every turn it is too inconvenient for their purposes to apply legal requirements to what they wish to be standard operations. It gets in the way of the purposes they wish to do. This smacks of exactly the mentality that was used during HPs investigations.
The main difference here is that this isn’t a corporation that is ruthlessly applying these tactics. This is the leadership of the country and even more importantly, the commander of all armed forces. Just as willingly as he would ignore the legal requirements for actions, he would also do the same at the drop of a hat for the public at large. One only needs to look at the lack of consideration for the Geneva Conventions when dealing with prisoners to see this in action. With the mere changing of terms for the classification of combatants to read terrorists somehow means they are no longer human and don’t need the standard conditions awarded any other human beings.
Do understand, I have no love for terrorists. I think their methods deplorable. Still one has to look at which side one sets at in the terms legality. If we trash our standards “just because it is not convenient”, we are worse than the world’s worst dictators or well on the way to becoming one and the same.
December 12th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
” These bozos in “Homeland Security” have proven time and again that they are nothing but complete idiots when it comes to supposedly protecting the country. ”
That’s true, but protecting the country isn’t really their job.
Protecting our leaders from scrutiny or questioning IS.