war on civil liberties

[Note: This article was co-written with my wife who helped both with the research and the writing]

In Part One of my Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12 coverage I discussed the implementation of this Bush decree, how intrusive it is, and how refusal to give the government a blanket waiver to investigate your life could prevent you from receiving an ID card that will allow you to get into your place of work. In it I introduced the two possible forms that a person would have to fill out to get their ID: Form 85 (intrusive) and Form 85p (even more intrusive). In Part One I focused on statements made by Professor Robert Nelson, Senior Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). But I also pointed out that this is not academic. It affects my wife.

I have discussed this more with my wife to get her personal view. At first I was a little relieved: she would probably only have to fill out Form 85. That still means she has to sign a blanket waiver that would allow the government to investigate her if they want for whatever reason, but at least it isn’t Form 85p which requires even more waivers of one’s rights.

But my wife then drew my particular attention to one aspect of the implementation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12. It is something called the Suitability Matrix, which all NASA employees (and probably all government employees) from janitor to student to professor have to undergo. In Part One, all discussion of Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12 involved a “voluntary” signing away of one’s rights in order to get an ID card. But the Suitability Matrix goes much, much further. And it is already in place.

The problem with Bush's crusade on all Islam, as his policies seem to be, is that innocent Americans get their rights trampled both by the government and by other citizens who have been stirred into a frenzy of paranoia by Bush's fear mongering.

Salon.com reports the latest in nearly 5 years of innocent Muslim-Americans (and, occasionally, Sikhs mistaken for Muslims) being hassled and profiled as terrorists.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Monday and questioned by police for several hours before being released, a leader of the group said.

The six were among passengers who boarded Flight 300, bound for Phoenix, around 6:30 p.m., airport spokesman Pat Hogan said.

A passenger initially raised concerns about the group through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for US Airways. She said police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused.

"They took us off the plane, humiliated us in a very disrespectful way," said Omar Shahin, of Phoenix.

The six Muslim scholars were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, said Shahin, president of the group. Five of them were from the Phoenix-Tempe area, while one was from Bakersfield, Calif., he said.