Loss of Privacy

Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman recently introduced a bill to Congress entitled, “Enemy, Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010.” Every American needs to read this bill.

A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity.

…the bill sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.

The current bill makes no distinction between US citizens and non-citizens, indicating that, if deemed a “belligerent” even a non-military US citizen could be held by the military. Once labeled belligerent and a high-value detainee, an American citizen would be subject to military style interrogation and no Miranda warnings.

The bill asks the President to determine criteria for designating an individual as a “high-value detainee” if he/she: (1) poses a threat of an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the U.S. or U.S. facilities abroad; (2) poses a threat to U.S. military personnel or U.S. military facilities; (3) potential intelligence value; (4) is a member of al Qaeda or a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda or (5) such other matters as the President considers appropriate. The President must submit the regulations and guidance to the appropriate committees of Congress no later than 60 days after enactment.

To the extent possible, the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must make a preliminary determination whether the detainee is an unprivileged enemy belligerent within 48 hours of taking detainee into custody.

The High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must submit its determination to the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General after consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  The Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General make a final determination and report the determination to the President and the appropriate committees of Congress.  In the case of any disagreement between the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General, the President will make the determination.

While it is hoped that this bill will die in committee, it is mind-boggling that such an unconstitutional provision would have been proposed to begin with. The only rational explanation is to enable the government to use the military to suppress dissent.

If this bill is passed and becomes a law, it would effectively be a step towards silencing those who would think differently than those in positions of power. The United States saw this type of hysteria before with McCarthyism.

The greater fear as well is that the US military could also employ the services of XE (Blackwater) to assist in the oppression of Americans who believe they still have rights under the constitution.

E-Verify is the government’s program that is meant to catch illegal immigrants in the workforce. The problem is that it only detects 54% of illegals. The program is not working as designed or planned as it lets half the immigrants screened pass as legal workers. Tens of thousands of US companies use the ineffective E-Verify in the United States as a means of complying with US law.

The Internet-based program checks information provided by new hires against Social Security Administration and Homeland Security databases to confirm they are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents of the country.

An evaluation of E-Verify carried out for DHS by research group Westat found the program couldn’t confirm whether information workers were presenting was their own, and, as a result, “many unauthorized workers obtain employment by committing identity fraud that cannot be detected by E-Verify,” Westat told the department. Westat put the “inaccuracy rate for unauthorized workers” at about 54%.

All federal contractors are required to enroll in E-Verify within 30 days of being awarded a government contract. At least 10 states use the system to check the work-eligibility of state workers. Some states, like Arizona and Mississippi, require all employers to use E-Verify, regardless of whether they are state contractors.

While catching 54% of illegals is a huge improvement over the old system, it’s still a dismal result. If you have a 54% graduation rate in high school, it may be an improvement over your 27% graduation rate, but it’s still not good enough. If you lose in a baseball game 2-1 as opposed to losing 2-0, you’ve still lost the game.