Everyone's a suspect

TheStar.com - Passport required to enter U.S. within two years

Everyone's a suspect in America. With each passing day we become more and more simply prisoners in the Land of the Free. By 2007, US citizens will not simply be able to show their driver's license - a State form of acceptable ID to cross our own borders and enter our own country - we'll need a Federally Approved documents, soon to include biometric data. The no-man's land between borders just got a lot scarier. You are neither here nor there, you know. You have no power. You are, after all, a suspect - and you are guilty, never innocent. Don't believe that lie for a moment.

Why? Because America is afraid - deeply afraid. We're still afraid of 9/11. William Burroughs wrote of walking backwards into the future. This statement is an accurate description of this nation. We are looking back in fear, doing now what we think should have been done before then to change what can't be changed and to prevent what can't be prevented - walking backwards.

The destroyers in the world are like mice in the house - they come in through the little holes we can't see in the foundation - not through the front door. But protecting the front door makes for good political capital. Looks like we're doing something, eh? Hey - that's nice big deadbolt you have there!

But all these measures really do is create a database somewhere in Fortress America where we and all of our neighbors in North America will have our every intercontinental movement tracked. That's all - don't be fooled.

One in Four Americans has a passport - pushing this burden and expense to the other three is a nice way to raise some Federal Government revenues too. Now, how many of you are going to take that vacation to Canada now? You have to fork over another $100+ a head - oh and it might take 6-months to get the passport - so be sure and plan ahead (and that's NOW - before the forced demand...)

Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) - You'll be able to thank this acrynom in the next few years for the drop in tourism between nations, as well as continuing the new tradition of straining relations with Canada and Mexico. Hi Canada - we don't trust you. Hi Mexico - unless we can exploit your labor, we're really not interested in you.

It's times like these when I long for home on Lake Ontario. Reason is in short supply here.