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Spending Bill 'Guts' Border Fence, Critics Say The House passed a large omnibus spending bill late Monday that included a provision which some conservatives say would "gut" plans to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The provision would eliminate requirements for a double fence and would give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) more discretion on where and how the fence can be built. "By eliminating the double-fence requirement, the Democratic Congress is going to make it easier for drug and human smugglers to cross our Southern land border," said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) in a statement. "This goes against the interests of any family that has been touched by illegal drugs or any American who has seen their job taken by an illegal alien....
The Incredible Disappearing Border Fence Do you know the story of the Incredible Disappearing Border Fence? It's an object lesson in gesture politics and homeland insecurity. It's a tale of hollow rhetoric, meaningless legislation and bipartisan betrayal. And in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, it's a helpful learning tool as you assess the promises of immigration enforcement converts now running for president. Last fall, Democrats and Republicans in Washington responded to continued public outrage over border chaos by passing the "Secure Fence Act." Did you question the timing? You should have. It's no coincidence they finally got off their duffs to respond just before the 2006 midterm elections. Lawmakers vowed grandiosely to keep America safe. The law specifically called for "at least 2 layers of reinforced fencing, the installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras and sensors" at five specific stretches of border totaling approximately 700 miles. Six months after passage of the Secure Fence Act -- now interpreted by Washington as the Flexible Non-Fence Act or, as I call it, the FINO (Fence in Name Only) Act -- 700 miles shrunk to "somewhere in the ballpark" of 370 miles. A 14-mile fence-building project in San Diego was stalled for years by environmental legal challenges and budget shortfalls. The first deadline -- a May 30, 2007 requirement for installation of an "interlocking surveillance camera system" along the border in California and Arizona-passed unmet. GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, one of the few Republican presidential candidates to walk the talk on border security, blasted the Bush administration for suffering from "a case of 'the slows' on border enforcement." More than a year after the law's passage, the citizen watchdog group Grassfire reports that just five miles of double-layer fencing has been built in the first 12 months of implementation of the act. Five lousy miles. The Government Accountability Office claims 70 miles were erected -- but most of that fencing failed to meet the specifications of the law....
Border Patrol Agents Face Massive Increase in Assaults The U.S. Border Patrol says its agents have been assaulted 250 times along the Mexican border since Oct. 1, a number that represents a 38 percent increase from the same period last year. Officials say the rising violence indicates smugglers are frustrated and more desperate as it has become more difficult to cross the border illegally. Agents have been attacked with rocks, vehicles and Molotov cocktails. The agency's San Diego sector, which encompasses western California, reported the steepest increase. Assaults more than quadrupled to 110 from Oct. 1 through Sunday, up from 24 in the same period last year. The agency recently equipped agents in California and Arizona with a powerful, pepper-spray launcher that has a range of more than 200 feet. It has also fired tear gas into Tijuana, Mexico, several times in response to attacks. Overall, the Border Patrol said agents were attacked 987 times during the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, the highest since it began keeping track in the late 1990s....
Government Power Grabs: 'Predicting' 2008 As the end of the year approaches, it's time for another column of government overreach predictions for the New Year. What outrageous, beyond-parody grabs at power and erosions of civil liberties will transpire in 2008? My predictions: — The Bush administration will claim it has the power to kidnap citizens of foreign countries for violating U.S. law, and extradite them to the U.S. for trial and imprisonment—even for white collar crimes unrelated to terrorism, and even for acts that aren't illegal in the countries where the target is a citizen. — Police will take enforcement of prostitution laws to a new level, by arresting and seizing the cars of anyone who merely talks to an undercover cop posing as a sex worker. Good samaratans, beware. — The war on prescription painkillers will also reach new absurdities, as people will begin to be arrested and convicted of possessing painkillers for which they have a prescription . Prosecutors will weirdly argue that there is no "prescription defense" to possessing prescribed medication. — While it continues to federalize crime and find new reasons to toss people in prison, members of Congress will simultaneously continue to attempt to put themselves above the law. I predict that the House of Representatives will attempt to prevent police from searching the computers of one of its members, even if that member is being investigated for soliciting sex with minors....
Surveillance Bill Stalls in Senate Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled legislation from the floor that would overhaul electronic surveillance rules, leaving Congress little time to act early next year before provisions in the current law expire. Reid, D-Nev., faced with a backed-up agenda and numerous procedural obstacles on legislation (S 2248) that would rewrite the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA (PL 95-511), decided late Monday to delay consideration of the bill until January. Reid’s move dimmed prospects that Democrats would be able to pass new FISA legislation before Feb. 1, the expiration date for a temporary law (PL 110-55) that gave President Bush broad surveillance authority. That measure cleared Congress in the final moments before the August recess when Democrats, under intense pressure from Bush not to leave without authorizing the new surveillance powers, bowed to the president’s demands....
How many more will die in 'gun-free' zones before the media start asking why? Police have identified Robert A. Hawkins, 19, as the assailant who killed eight people with a semi-automatic rifle (not an assault rifle) at the Westroads Mall in Omaha Dec. 5. Chalk up eight more deaths to "gun control." The shooting was at least the fourth at an American mall or shopping center so far this year, including one in February in Salt Lake City. Once again, the killer chose a "gun-free" zone. Nebraska issues permits "allowing" qualified individuals to carry concealed handguns. (The Second and 14th amendments reaffirm that carrying a weapon is a right, not a privilege -- states have no more legitimate power to require a "permit" for weapons carrying than they have to require a "permit" to attend church or publish a newspaper.)....
The Lawless Surveillance State There are several vital points raised by the new revelations in The New York Times that "the N.S.A.'s reliance on telecommunications companies is broader and deeper than ever before" and includes both pre-9/11 efforts to tap without warrants into the nation's domestic communications network as well as the collection of vast telephone records of American citizens in the name of the War on Drugs. The Executive Branch and the largest telecommunications companies work in virtually complete secrecy -- with no oversight and no notion of legal limits -- to spy on Americans, on our own soil, at will. More than anything else, what these revelations highlight -- yet again -- is that the U.S. has become precisely the kind of surveillance state that we were always told was the hallmark of tyrannical societies, with literally no limits on the government's ability or willingness to spy on its own citizens and to maintain vast dossiers on those activities. The vast bulk of those on whom the Government spies have never been accused, let alone convicted, of having done anything wrong....