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Your Papers And Password Please From The Bat Cave

Just in case anyone missed the story in the Washington Post, and featured on MSNBC's web site, I'll run it down for you in quick step. The story deals with the issue of security personnel at airport security checkpoints here in the United States, demanding access to personal laptop computers, passwords and all, before allowing people to board their flight. The searches included the downloading of all web sites visited by the computer. No warrant. No suspicion of a crime being committed. Just, your papers and your password please. Included in these unconstitutional searches are children who have MP3 players, whose songs are downloaded for some reason, and people's cell phones being taken so that phone numbers to and from it can be copied and stored.

On top of this story, we also read yesterday (or you should have) about the F.B.I.'s newest billion dollar grant to start a program that will biometrically store information on people, such as facial features, retinal scans, medical records, and much more.

Somehow I don't recall any of this being passed in front of the People to get their input on any of this stuff, it was just done. Of what possible use is any of this to fighting the war of terror? Are terrorists flying in and out of the U.S. on such a regular basis that the Bush administration feels the need to further violate the Constitution's protections against unreasonable search and seizure? Or is this all just more of the far right's plans to complete hold up to scrutiny every single aspect of our lives?

Because if these measures were truly about preventing terrorism, they would have started on our southern border first. They would be doing something about the area in South America known as the Three Corners, that borders Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, where they know that terror suspects wander the streets with impunity. In Ciudad del Este, on the Paraguayan side of the Parana River, Dark skinned Arab men regularly buy Paraguayan passports, which they use to enter Mexico.

From Mexico, where everyone is on the take, they obtain Mexican identification, passports, etc. and cross the U.S. border. If caught, they can claim to be Mexican, and get sent back to Mexico, only to try to cross the border again.

But this danger doesn't seem to worry this administration at all. They're more concerned with what's on your cell phone, your computer, and your child's MP3 player than any actual threat. They're more interested

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