Subject:
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"Homeland Security Advanced Reseach Projects Administration"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 12 Jan 2004 11:52:32 GMT
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Viewed:
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316 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
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The Transportation Security Adminstration may be misnamed... there’s an “in”
missing, as in “INsecurity”
http://tzaddik.us/lilpoh/archives/000789.html
http://reason.com/0308/fe.bd.suspected.shtml
http://www.nationalreview.com/dunphy/dunphy200401070913.asp
http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/003874.shtml#003874
and there’s a great article in the Feb issue of Reason as well.
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There was a good piece in yesterday’s Telegraph (UK rightwing paper) which
covered some of this ground:
These measures are tiresome, expensive - and won’t work
“The new measure is like too many of the laws and initiatives introduced since
al-Qaeda crashed passenger jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: a
transparently ill-thought-out reaction whose principal effect will be to soak
up taxpayers’ money and increase government bureaucracy. Visas do not provide
protection against terrorists. All of the September 11 hijackers were given US
visas. Mohammed Atta, their leader, had been granted one even though he had been
caught violating the terms of his earlier visa. Biometric data would have made
no difference: the hijackers would have been allowed into America whether or not
they had been required to produce passports with digital images and
fingerprints. A biometric search would have yielded precisely nothing of value
on any of them - unlike the fact that (for instance) a number of them were
learning how to fly jet airliners, but not how to land them. This was something
which the FBI knew at the time, but regrettably decided to ignore.”
...and later on the Homeland Security Bill:
“Take the Act itself. The original Bill was just 35 pages long. By the time it
had finished going through Congress, it had increased to 485 pages. A lot of
the new material had nothing whatever to do with security. Consider, for
instance, Section 601, which deals with the “Treatment of Charitable Trusts for
Members of the Armed Forces and Other Government Agencies”. Reading this
section, you quickly realise that it deals with a new way in which rich people
can set up trusts so as to generate income and minimise their tax bills. A new
tax dodge for the rich may be a perfectly good idea - but what on earth does it
have to do with Homeland Security? A similar question could be asked of the
section of the Homeland Security budget which provides for increased funding for
animal and plant health inspections. Then there is the fact that the Act
directs the $500 million in funding for “Homeland Security Advanced Reseach
Projects Administration” towards universities in George W Bush’s home state of
Texas.”
To read the whole text one has to register with the site (a 30 second task); it
is well worth the effort.
Scott A
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