Big Sky Cairn

Wulfgar forwards the suggestion that Republicans consider the 9/11 attacks to be in their favor.

My God.

My God.

Even for Wulfgar, this crosses the line. What a completely insulting thing to say. Insulting to Republicans, sure (that’s par for the course), but more insulting to the victims and their families. 9/11 - and the resulting pictures of destruction and death wrought on the United States and the very act itself - doesn’t favor any party or person. It was a heinous act of evil that is not a symbol for any party. Remembering that horrible day is not a rallying cry for a political party.

Perhaps what Wulfgar is noticing is that the American people trust conservatives more then gut-the-military Democrats when it comes to national security. Maybe he’s noticing that conservatives are more likely to remember that the world has evil in it - the evil that was demonstrated in September 11, 2001 - while liberals have forgotten that such evil exists outside of the Bush Administration.

But since the warrant for his point is a timeline, let me suggest that Wulfgar go find a clue and read the 9/11 Commission Report. I read it. It’s free, right there on the internet.

And if that has too many words for Mr. Bookstore, here’s an convenient time-line provided by the United States Army. And while you’re looking at it, try to remember Bill Clinton was inaugurated January 20, 1993 and left office January 20, 2001.

Update: If you love blog pissing contests, keep reading past the page break.

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As mentioned, due to the efforts of Attorney General McGrath, Montana will be exempted from REAL ID. Governor Schweitzer seeing an opportunity to get his name in the paper, shot a letter off to DHS today saying, yeah I agree with what he said.

Initially I thought that maybe this was a conciliatory effort on behalf of the Governor, sort of a way to clear the air and let bygones be bygones. That was quickly clarified;

The governor’s staff said the letter was not a conciliatory gesture

Now that we have that out of the way, what exactly did the Governor have to say? Well on Friday, Homeland Security asked for clarification that the Governor supports the increased security protocols laid out in Attorney General McGrath’s letter that, while not being undertaken in the name of REAL ID, meet the requirements of REAL ID. Today the Governor responded with;

I recognize the question that some recent press coverage might have raised, but I can assure you I stand behind the Attorney General’s letter in its entirety.

Included in the Attorney General’s letter was the outlining of a plan to enhance security of the Montana drivers license including a new data management system. Of course, none of this information will be shared with the Feds, it is for state use only. Because as the Guv so eloquently stated last year;

“Montanans don’t want the federal agents listening to their phone conversations, rifling through their papers, checking on what books they read and monitoring where they go and when. We think they ought to mind their own business,” Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer said in a written statement.

When reached for comment today, Governor Schweitzer said he believes Montanans will be proud to be spied upon by state agents.

It seems odd that a law that has become as controversial as Real ID (at least in Montana) passed with such popular margins in Congress (100-0 in the Senate, 368-58 in the House). Why?

Our borders and immigration system, including law enforcement, ought to send a message of welcome, tolerance, and justice to members of immigrant communities in the United States and in their countries of origin. We should reach out to immigrant communities. Good immigration services are one way of doing so that is valuable in every way-including intelligence.

It is elemental to border security to know who is coming into the country. Today more than 9 million people are in the United States outside the legal immigration system. We must also be able to monitor and respond to entrances between our ports of entry, working with Canada and Mexico as much as possible.

There is a growing role for state and local law enforcement agencies. They need more training and work with federal agencies so that they can cooperate more effectively with those federal authorities in identifying terrorist suspects.

All but one of the 9/11 hijackers acquired some form of U.S. identification document, some by fraud. Acquisition of these forms of identification would have assisted them in boarding commercial flights, renting cars, and other necessary activities.

Recommendation: Secure identification should begin in the United States. The federal government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as drivers licenses. Fraud in identification documents is no longer just a problem of theft. At many entry points to vulnerable facilities, including gates for boarding aircraft, sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists.

And this one too:

For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons. Terrorists must travel clandestinely to meet, train, plan, case targets, and gain access to attack. To them, international travel presents great danger, because they must surface to pass through regulated channels, present themselves to border security officials, or attempt to circumvent inspection points.

In their travels, terrorists use evasive methods, such as altered and counterfeit passports and visas, specific travel methods and routes, liaisons with corrupt government officials, human smuggling networks, supportive travel agencies, and immigration and identity fraud. These can sometimes be detected.

Before 9/11, no agency of the U.S. government systematically analyzed terrorists’ travel strategies. Had they done so, they could have discovered the ways in which the terrorist predecessors to al Qaeda had been systematically but detectably exploiting weaknesses in our border security since the early 1990s.

We found that as many as 15 of the 19 hijackers were potentially vulnerable to interception by border authorities. Analyzing their characteristic travel documents and travel patterns could have allowed authorities to intercept 4 to 15 hijackers and more effective use of information available in U.S. government databases could have identified up to 3 hijackers.32

Looking back, we can also see that the routine operations of our immigration laws-that is, aspects of those laws not specifically aimed at protecting against terrorism-inevitably shaped al Qaeda’s planning and opportunities. Because they were deemed not to be bona fide tourists or students as they claimed, five conspirators that we know of tried to get visas and failed, and one was denied entry by an inspector. We also found that had the immigration system set a higher bar for determining whether individuals are who or what they claim to be-and ensuring routine consequences for violations-it could potentially have excluded, removed, or come into further contact with several hijackers who did not appear to meet the terms for admitting short-term visitors.33

Our investigation showed that two systemic weaknesses came together in our border system’s inability to contribute to an effective defense against the 9/11 attacks: a lack of well-developed counterterrorism measures as a part of border security and an immigration system not able to deliver on its basic commitments, much less support counterterrorism. These weaknesses have been reduced but are far from being overcome.

Recommendation: Targeting travel is at least as powerful a weapon against terrorists as targeting their money. The United States should combine terrorist travel intelligence, operations, and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists, find terrorist travel facilitators, and constrain terrorist mobility.

Remember that 9/11 Commission Report? Turns out that among the central recommendations of this report was something like Real ID. That’s where those excerpts are taken from.

Look, liberals love to set their standards way above federal minimums. Except, apparently, when it’s a matter of national security.

Governor Brian Schweitzer is playing a political game with Real ID, but it’s the time and convenience of the people of Montana that are at risk. We’re the ones who are going to be stuck in lines, unable to open bank accounts and generally inconvenienced so that BS can score some political points.

From this article.

Jim’s expecting it to slow down the process so much that several Montanans could end up missing their flights in the process. “We’ve got 2 flights a day. We’ve got one at 6:25 right now and one at 2:00 in the afternoon.” Reporter Aaron Flint asks, “And the first person they see is gonna be you?” Hassler replies, “It’s gonna be me and they’re gonna be screaming at TSA too. There’s gonna be a lot of ‘you’re causin me to miss my flight.”

So it seems Governor Schweitzer would like to continue his quixotic crusade against REAL ID.

I will save my thoughts on why REAL ID is good for the country for a later date. The more pressing question is why is our state government asleep at the wheel on this issue? Come May 11, Montanans will be treated like second class citizens because of our Governor’s actions.

On May 11, the initial security provisions under the REAL ID act come into effect. Unless a citizen presents a federally approved driver’s license or other approved state or tribal card that individual will be subject to secondary screening when trying to board a plan. The only other option is to spend $100 on a passport to fly domestically.

No state, not even those who have not publicly objected to REAL ID, will be able to meet the May 11 deadline. That is why 45 states have applied for waivers to delay the security hassles on their residents until January 1, 2009. At least 12 of those states have said that ultimately they have no intention of complying with REAL ID. So the question becomes, why hasn’t Montana applied for a waiver? Well, I give you the Bloviator in Chief from Montana to answer that:

“We’re not going to buckle under here,” said Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. “My guess is the people of Montana would be proud to walk through that line.”

Well Governor, count me as one Montanan who won’t be proud. In fact, while I am being subjected to an intrusive wanding by some fine TSA employee touching me like only my girlfriend should, I will be downright embarrassed.

The right thing to do here would be to join the other 45 states and grant Montanans a reprieve from unnecessary screenings at the airport. This does not need to be a game of chicken, apply for a damn waiver and then get back to your little crusade.

You do not have to support the Act to do what is responsible for the people of Montana.

Finally, it should be noted, despite having the sixth most powerful Senator and a Senator who made repealing REAL ID a central issue to his campaign, the Act is still there. Maybe we need new representation in that body who can get things done.

In the same way that Conservatives fear the unchecked power of government, Liberals tend to hate the perceived unchecked power of the evil Corporation. For a Conservative, this vitriol toward a key byproduct of capitalism can be hard to pinpoint, but generally I think it’s the pursuit of profit that is the source of this mistrust. Profit is the cause and means for the rape of the environment, the exploitation of the working class and the failure of mankind to achieve their altruistic communal utopia. It’s simplistic but then so is the reflexive distrust of all things government from the right.

Sometimes the anti-corporate reflex sort of misses the big picture though. Liberals are set on suing the pants off major telecommunication companies for perceived violations of Constitutional Rights. They are so determined to give their trial lawyers a shot at evil multi-million corporate devils that they have allowed important intelligence modernizations expire putting all Americans at risk. Never mind that the Constitution restricts government action, not private. Never mind that the act of suing preemptively renders a guilty verdict by cost of defense, regardless of a court verdict. Never mind that the evil corporation is also the source of the payrolls and benefits of the very people the Liberals purport to defend.

What is ultimately baffling though is that the action the telecommunications companies are being raked over the coals for is precisely the sort of action that Liberals would like to encourage. It is action driven by motives other than profit. It is action driven by a deeper sense of community - of social consciousness. The telecoms didn’t stand to profit from helping the federal government spy on terrorists, but by doing so they did stand to make America safer.

The irony then is that the liberals are helping to create the single-minded profit-driven companies that they fear the most. If you want a company to abdicate social responsibility, the best way to accomplish that is to attack them when they are socially responsible.

House Democrats, folding to one of their most important and powerful special interest groups, have allowed our intelligence gathering laws to revert back to the way they were before September 11, 2001 - you know, when the colossal failure of these laws cost nearly 3000 Americans their lives.

Why?  Part pressure from their lawyer buddies, part political miscalculation, part inept leadership.  Whatever the reason, the fact is that you are less safe today than you were two weeks ago.