Statistics
Aug
14
H.R. 2401: “No Fly, No Buy!” “Big Brother loves you,”but isn’t good with names.
August 14, 2009 | Tagged H.R. 2159, H.R. 2401 | 2 Comments
The title rhymes. The bill is short. It’s the “No Fly, No Buy Act of 2009.” The bill is simple. It’s allegedly supposed to fight terrorism. If H.R. 2401 passes, if your name is on a “No Fly” List for any reason, your name will also be flagged in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. This means, you can’t legally buy a firearm and, as I understand the regulations, can not legally possess any firearm, until your name is cleared.
The problem with the bill is that the “No Fly” Lists are notoriously inaccurate to the point that the bold print comment on Page 8B of The Denver Post on 05-31-09 reads, “Security: Mistaken IDs of fliers on watch lists happen ‘daily.” According to the Post article starting on Page 1B, “Name’s not same? That just won’t fly,” there are about 400,000 people on the watch lists. 95% of these folks are not U.S. citizens, according to the story. Let’s see. That means there are about 20,000 chances that your name could match the name of a citizen on a watch list.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a little different view on the watch lists. The ACLU staff believes that there are over a million names on the lists and that the lists are growing by leaps and bounds. You do the math!
Of course, your name could be Edward Kennedy, whose name actually did show up on a watch list. I imagine that the Senator had an easier time getting off the list than would you or I. You see the government doesn’t have to tell you how you got on the list and there is an unholy amount of bureaucratic red tape involved in trying to get off the list, if you are a “common” citizen. Did I mention that until you get off the list, you probably are not legally eligible to own a gun?
But was Kennedy flagged because his name matched the name of a suspected terrorist who happened to be a citizen, or is there an Irishman named Kennedy who is associated with a faction of the Irish Republican Army. Think about all the old and new terrorist organizations in various countries around the world. MS 13, FALN (Puerto Rico), the Mexican Mafia, PLF, HAMAS, the Animal Liberation Front (US) the Earth Liberation Front (US), Al Qaeda, the Japanese Red Army, the Aryan Nations (US), Hezbollah, the Shining Path, and the Basque Fatherland and Liberty organization, to name a few. What are the odds that your name matches somebody, somewhere on a watch list?
As far as we know, the Obama Administration hasn’t started putting Tea Party members on the lists, but who knows? If you are against Obamacare, your neighbors may have snitched you out to the White House Web Site on “misinformation” or “disinformation” on the socialized medicine issue.
Returning veterans, opponents of abortion, and certainly advocates for the right to armed self-defense against crime, tyranny, and genocide are probably candidates for a spot on the “No Fly” Lists. (Remember the Homeland Security Report?) George Orwell got it right in 1984. “Big Brother” really is watching.
Keep an eye on this bill. It fits in “nicely” with H.R. 2159, which allows you to be stripped of your legal right to own a gun if the Attorney General “suspects” you of being a terrorist. See my post, ” As we were saying…,” dated 05-21-09, tagged ” H.R. 2159.”
“Eternal vigilance…”
Def Mech
Comments
2 Comments so far
It’s a very tough question. On the one hand I can see why they want to pass a bill to help make the country safer but they shouldn’t do anything to complicate the lives of innocent civilians either.
This is in response to the above comment. The presumption that they want to pass a bill to make the country safer may be without foundation. Safer for whom? Common citizens by rendering them helpless and without their constitutionally guaranteed rights? Or safer for corporate bandits hell bent on milking every last dollar of real wealth they can get before they abandon it to the Chinese, or simply start rounding everyone up and putting them into detention camps Black Water style?