An internal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) memorandum concluded that the agency can successfully audit its screening practices to guard against racial and religious profiling.

The Sikh Coalition has complained for many years that they are being profiled by the TSA and are subject to more secondary screenings than they should be. A TSA memorandum was released this week stating that such a study into profiling can be done. The Sikh Coalition continues to push for such an audit.

For a million young Dominicians with Haitian parents, a new law could strip them of not only their identity but also their rights to education, travel and even marriage. Many young Dominicans of Haitian descent lacking birth certificates say they are facing discrimination by officials in efforts to obain the document. Without it, they are unable to go apply for university, marriage or a passport. Though Haiti has said it will offer citizenship to anyone with Haitian parents, many of the one million young Dominicans have never been to neighbouring Haiti and feel no allegiance to a nation mere miles away on the other side of the border of the same island. Al Jazeera’s Ross Velton reports from the Dominican Republic.

“As we mark the end of America’s combat mission in Iraq,” President Barack Obama said this week, “a grateful America must pay tribute to all who served there.” He should have added “unless you’re gay,” because, despite his rhetoric, weeks earlier the commander-in-chief fired one of those Iraq vets: Lt. Dan Choi. Choi is a West Point graduate, an Arabic linguist and an Iraq war veteran. He was fired under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. We talk to him about his life, his coming out and his military service.

In a letter to members of the city council, the ACLU requested information relating to the immigration resolutions and the hiring of prominent illegal immigration attorney Kris Kobach, who recently visited the city.

Albertville Mayor Lindsey Lyons said the request will be done, but he feels it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars and a city employee’s time.
“I laugh at these people. I’ll be honest with you. As far as I’m concerned, you can put a “U” in front of the “A”, Unamerican Civil Liberties Union. I think they ought to devote their efforts to real world problems,” said Mayor Lyons.

ACLU officials said they’re looking to see if there are any violations of citizen’s rights. 

It’s pretty sad that an elected mayor thinks that violations of people’s basic rights are so funny and such a waste of time. Despite what Mayor Lindsey Lyons thinks, even illegal immigrants have rights. Without basic rights, you might as well return to slavery, which is what some people claim Mr. Kobach and some of his associates would like.

It doesn’t matter if the judge ignores any of the smiley faces or not. It’s the public perception that matters. It is corruption because a police officer is intending on influencing a judge’s decision, which affects whether a person is guilty or innocent and whether the city’s coffers get filled just a little bit more.

If the process is opened to everyone who applies and meets the minimum education and residency requirements, Chicago would be virtually alone among major cities. Most cities have police entrance exams — and for good reason, experts say.

“A background check and a psych [exam] alone will not eliminate some people who should not be there,” said Brad Woods, who ran the Personnel Division under former Chicago Police Superintendents Phil Cline and Terry Hillard.

Calling an application-only process a “step backward” and the “wrong way to go,” Woods said, “When you lower your quality, you will get poor police service and more complaints. … Whenever you make it easier to be the police, you’re doing the citizens and the Police Department a disservice.”

By lowering the bar, you are eliminating most of the eleven tracks a person must currently pass in order to be a police officer in Chicago. If candidates cannot pass even the most basic literacy tests, you are setting them up for failure, and increased costs for new officers, later on.

“We were getting people with 60 hours of college credit who were reading at a third-grade level. What do you think you’ll get if you have no screening process?”

You will get low quality, poorly educated officers. You will also get officers who don’t understand the law because they cannot read and reason. You will end up with hired thugs to placate minorities.

This also doesn’t take into account that, after you pass the academy, you are required to take a state exam. You are given a couple of tries to pass, but, if you don’t pass, you don’t become a police officer. So, dropping the entrance exam does little to save the department money. You will have wasted money and man hours training someone who still cannot pass the final exam.

“Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue said the idea “sounds too stupid to be true.”

Indeed, it is.

The Georgia law bans the state’s 16,000 sex offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, child-care facilities and other areas where children gather.

Ahmed Holt, manager of the state’s sex offender administration unit, told The Associated Press that the camp is a “last resort” for homeless offenders who can’t find another place to live that complies with the law.

He said probation officers direct them to the outpost if other options fail, such as transferring to another county or state or sending them to a relative’s place that meets the requirements. Homeless shelters and halfway houses are often not an option, he said, because of the restrictions that bar them from being near children.

Since the story broke, the sex offenders have been evicted from the woods.  Is it any wonder that some of these men might re-offend or commit other offenses as the state of Georgia has left them little other choice?  Normal people would think forcing sex offenders to live in the woods is far scarier than providing free half-way houses for them to live in.