DHS Will Now Vet UK Air Passengers To Mexico, Canada, Cuba

[ElNono]

"From April, UK passengers flying to Mexico, Eastern Canada or Cuba will have to submit their details at least 72 hours before boarding to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for pre-flight vetting (as all passengers to the U.S. itself have had to do for a while). If they find against you, you're not getting on the plane, even though you're not going to the U.S. The Independent (UK quality newspaper) has the story (http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/planning-a-trip-to-canada-or-the-caribbean-us-immigration-may-have-other-ideas-7584912.html)."

[Winehole23]

Very high handed, but it appears the airlines are going along with it.

I see no official reaction from the affected countries in the OP -- have you seen/heard anything about that, ElNono?

[GSH]

Sounds like policy under George W. Good thing this Pres is a Democrat, or there would be a real shitstorm over it.

[ElNono]

Very high handed, but it appears the airlines are going along with it.

I see no official reaction from the affected countries in the OP -- have you seen/heard anything about that, ElNono?

Well, apparently this is for Brits traveling to other countries, so it would need to be Cameron bitching, but I obviously don't think you'll hear that.

The question I have is where does it end? Are we officially the worldwide civilian cops too now?

[GSH]

Well, apparently this is for Brits traveling to other countries, so it would need to be Cameron bitching, but I obviously don't think you'll hear that.

The question I have is where does it end? Are we officially the worldwide civilian cops too now?



Admit it, Nono - it sounds like something that would have happened under Dubya.

There's more to this one that meets the eye. I've got a friend with El Al who'll know the rest of the story.

[Winehole23]

I've been bitching the whole way. So has ElNono.

Search function is your friend dude, or just navigate from the profile page of your target.

[ElNono]

Admit it, Nono - it sounds like something that would have happened under Dubya.

There's more to this one that meets the eye. I've got a friend with El Al who'll know the rest of the story.

No doubt. As far as security theater/civil liberties is concerned, this is dubya 3rd term. Said so many times.

[Winehole23]

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3199693&postcount=4http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3507179

[GSH]

No doubt. As far as security theater/civil liberties is concerned, this is dubya 3rd term. Said so many times.


It's the equivalent of Monday morning there. I'll try again in an hour or two to get in touch. I'd really like to know what this is about.

You're right. It's more like dubya's 3rd term than most Obama fans can/would ever admit. I scraped a little light reading up on the subject. It's one of those things that the media SHOULD have been all over. I'm sure people will draw their own conclusions as to why they didn't.

It's old news now - but it never really became news at all:
---------

Consider the recent revelation that the Obama administration has been making very large, undisclosed payments to MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber to provide consultation on the President’s health care plan. With this lucrative arrangement in place, Gruber spent the entire year offering public justifications for Obama’s health care plan, typically without disclosing these payments, and far worse, was repeatedly held out by the White House — falsely — as an “independent” or “objective” authority. Obama allies in the media constantly cited Gruber’s analysis to support their defenses of the President’s plan, and the White House, in turn, then cited those media reports as proof that their plan would succeed. This created an infinite “feedback loop” in favor of Obama’s health care plan which — unbeknownst to the public — was all being generated by someone who was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in secret from the administration (read this to see exactly how it worked).

In other words, this arrangement was quite similar to the Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher scandals which Democrats, in virtual lockstep, condemned. Paul Krugman, for instance, in 2005 angrily lambasted right-wing pundits and policy analysts who received secret, undisclosed payments, and said they lack “intellectual integrity”; he specifically cited the Armstrong Williams case. Yet the very same Paul Krugman last week attacked Marcy Wheeler for helping to uncover the Gruber payments by accusing her of being “just like the right-wingers with their endless supply of fake scandals.” What is one key difference? Unlike Williams and Gallagher, Jonathan Gruber is a Good, Well-Intentioned Person with Good Views — he favors health care — and so massive, undisclosed payments from the same administration he’s defending are dismissed as a “fake scandal.”

Sunstein himself — as part of his 2008 paper — explicitly advocates that the Government should pay what he calls “credible independent experts” to advocate on the Government’s behalf, a policy he says would be more effective because people don’t trust the Government itself and would only listen to people they believe are “independent.” In so arguing, Sunstein cites the Armstrong Williams scandal not as something that is wrong in itself, but as a potential risk of this tactic (i.e., that it might leak out), and thus suggests that “government can supply these independent experts with information and perhaps prod them into action from behind the scenes,” but warns that “too close a connection will be self-defeating if it is exposed.” In other words, Sunstein wants the Government to replicate the Armstrong Williams arrangement as a means of more credibly disseminating propaganda — i.e., pretending that someone is an “independent” expert when they’re actually being “prodded” and even paid “behind the scenes” by the Government — but he wants to be more careful about how the arrangement is described (don’t make the control explicit) so that embarrassment can be avoided if it ends up being exposed.

In this 2008 paper, then, Sunstein advocated, in essence, exactly what the Obama administration has been doing all year with Gruber: covertly paying people who can be falsely held up as “independent” analysts in order to more credibly promote the Government line. Most Democrats agreed this was a deceitful and dangerous act when Bush did it, but with Obama and some of his supporters, undisclosed arrangements of this sort seem to be different. Why? Because, as Sunstein puts it: we have “a well-motivated government” doing this so that “social welfare is improved.” Thus, just like state secrets, indefinite detention, military commissions and covert, unauthorized wars, what was once deemed so pernicious during the Bush years — coordinated government/media propaganda — is instantaneously transformed into something Good.

[Winehole23]

I could go on, but you get the idea...

[GSH]

I've been bitching the whole way. So has ElNono.

Search function is your friend dude, or just navigate from the profile page of your target.

I know that Nono is a standup guy, Winehole. I may not agree with him on everything, but he's a reasonable guy. I had no reason to search his history. If he didn't agree about the similarities to Dubya, I'd listen to his logic.

I'm as likely to contest the far right here, as the far left. I really believe that most people are pretty reasonable, but the fringe on both sides is just really loud.

I can't believe how many people here say that they aren't even a little bit troubled by DHS ordering up almost half a billion bullets. I don't have to know exactly what they have in mind to think that seems a bit excessive. Like I said in that thread - if they ordered up a half billion paper clips, people would at least wonder why. But bullets they immediately jump to defend? To me, that's as troubling as the half billion bullets.

[GSH]

I could go on, but you get the idea...

You don't need to go on. That one post is more than enough. And I'm glad you can see and admit that everything is far from perfect. It gives me some hope. And I mean that sincerely. There are too many people who are locked into one person, one party, one ideology, etc. and just respond by rote.

I may owe you an apology, and I will try even harder just to have a discussion with you. I hate the schoolyard sniping stuff.

[ElNono]

It's old news now - but it never really became news at all

See, this stuff I don't agree with you on. The conspiracy stuff on opinion, be it paid or not. Tons of "think tank" baloney shapes policy these days, and a lot of it has very specific interests paying the bills behind the back. It happens on both teams.

It sucks, but it's part of politics today.

That said, you can trace the origins of the healthcare law to a single-payor system that had no chance in hell in passing. Then they started to cave to all the special interests: Insurance Co, Big Pharma, the states getting more money, and by the time you rolled all that shit together, we ended up with a turd that was going to pass, regardless of the opinion of some paid up individual.

I'm a guy that thought the previous system (status quo back then) was terrible. Obamacare is a turd on it's own because it doesn't address the fact that people still can't afford insurance, and without tackling costs, it's not happening. Whatever happens with the law, I just hope it keeps on stirring the issue, because the previous system was terrible for a nation like the US. This system is also terrible. But if it forces more change down the line, then it did something right.

[GSH]

See, this stuff I don't agree with you on. The conspiracy stuff on opinion, be it paid or not. Tons of "think tank" baloney shapes policy these days, and a lot of it has very specific interests paying the bills behind the back. It happens on both teams.

It sucks, but it's part of politics today.

That said, you can trace the origins of the healthcare law to a single-payor system that had no chance in hell in passing. Then they started to cave to all the special interests: Insurance Co, Big Pharma, the states getting more money, and by the time you rolled all that shit together, we ended up with a turd that was going to pass, regardless of the opinion of some paid up individual.

I'm a guy that thought the previous system (status quo back then) was terrible. Obamacare is a turd on it's own because it doesn't address the fact that people still can't afford insurance, and without tackling costs, it's not happening. Whatever happens with the law, I just hope it keeps on stirring the issue, because the previous system was terrible for a nation like the US. This system is also terrible. But if it forces more change down the line, then it did something right.


It's not conspiracy theory, Nono. I only have a couple of minutes, but I'll try:

You do know that it is now illegal to provide a product review, if you take any sort of compensation from the company that makes the product, or anyone who sells the product, unless you disclose your financial interest? That went into effect under Obama, and it was actually a good thing. I think it runs significantly contrary to the public interest to have paid shills posing as unbiased experts.

When the government itself does it, it's even worse. And, just as the article describes, when the Bush administration did the exact same thing, they were (rightfully) crucified.

I could go on a bit more. But if you really don't think that it's a bad thing to have the government pawning off people as independent experts, while they get paid for a specific opinion. Or to have university professors selling their credentials under the table. Or to have the press uniformly castigate one party for a specific activity, and then give the other party a pass for the exact same activity. I don't know... maybe we really couldn't find as much common ground on things as I thought.

These are the kinds of things that tear down the public's confidence in the government, the press, and institutions of higher learning. I think that's pretty harmful to the overall fabric of our society. I get the impression you believe that the only reason I'm making an issue of it is because Obama is involved. That's totally off base. But I guess that's better than thinking you really don't object, or don't see any problem with it.

[GSH]

But before I forget, Nono, thank you. For just having a discussion - stating opinions. (I really do take some time to question my own opinions after someone does that. And I still am over this one.) I don't think anyone is ever happy about the "conspiracy theory" label, and I think it gets overused as a short-cut to argument. But it really is nice to just be able to exchange thoughts about a subject without the other garbage. And it's one of the reasons your comments carry more weight that a lot of others'.

I feel pretty passionately about professors selling their reputation and objectivity - my dad was a university professor, and he sort of instilled that in me. And I do feel strongly about the press being conscripted. I guess I still have this idea that they are the ones that reveal problems. But I'm glad you understand that a passionate response isn't the same thing as an attack.

[boutons_deux]

DHS is Repug Frankenstein monster.

No President would dare try to limit it, esp not a Dem president since the Repug would slander him as soft on terrorism. DHS, like all the "security, intelligence" forces, is unstoppable.

[ElNono]

It's not conspiracy theory, Nono. I only have a couple of minutes, but I'll try:

You do know that it is now illegal to provide a product review, if you take any sort of compensation from the company that makes the product, or anyone who sells the product, unless you disclose your financial interest? That went into effect under Obama, and it was actually a good thing. I think it runs significantly contrary to the public interest to have paid shills posing as unbiased experts.

There's a long history of hiding such connections in politics, and short of completely destroying the lobbying system, it's not going away.


When the government itself does it, it's even worse. And, just as the article describes, when the Bush administration did the exact same thing, they were (rightfully) crucified.

I'm crucifying this administration for it. That's exactly why I posted the article, to make people aware this hasn't stopped, but expanded.


I could go on a bit more. But if you really don't think that it's a bad thing to have the government pawning off people as independent experts, while they get paid for a specific opinion. Or to have university professors selling their credentials under the table. Or to have the press uniformly castigate one party for a specific activity, and then give the other party a pass for the exact same activity. I don't know... maybe we really couldn't find as much common ground on things as I thought.

I simply think people largely know when they're being duped. Maybe it's just wishful thinking.

And media gave a pass all the time (ie:when telecom immunity went through), so "giving a pass" on party bias is, at best, very debatable. Ultimately, there's media that caters to every taste. If people select media to strengthen their confirmation bias instead of actually getting informed, then I put the blame directly at the individual.


These are the kinds of things that tear down the public's confidence in the government, the press, and institutions of higher learning. I think that's pretty harmful to the overall fabric of our society. I get the impression you believe that the only reason I'm making an issue of it is because Obama is involved. That's totally off base. But I guess that's better than thinking you really don't object, or don't see any problem with it.

You would be wrong. I don't recall you being around during the dubya's days, so I could hardly compare your reasoning (IMO, sound, as far as the quoted part is concerned) vs those days.

The constant erosion of civil rights has been pointed out fairly often here. Regardless of the administration.