Photo Pilot Certificates

"KayInPA" wrote

The pros/cons of the measure notwithstanding, wouldn't it make sense
to work with state driver's licensing centers? I mean, aren't they
already in the business of issuing (semi) secure identification
cards... in somewhat convenient locations nationwide?

---
Kay

State photos and identification standards are not secure enough, IMHO.

There have been cases where the machines that make the pictures, and blank
ID stock have been stolen. Anyone can make an ID, then.
--
Jim in NC


---
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Why not stop these terrorist people from getting into the country in the
first place?


Because it won't work.

This is not a battle against =people=, most especially not a battle against
people who come from any specific country, apperances to the contrary
notwithstanding. This is a battle aginst =ideas=. The people are already
here.

We need to stop certain =ideas= from getting into the country. Sometimes the
ideas come packaged in people, but sometimes they come packaged as music, radio
transmissions, books, internet postings, and correspondence. The people are
already here. Ideas spread faster than people.

However, stopping the spread of ideas runs up against the very freedoms that
make our country what it is. So we are stuck making believe that stopping
people will solve the problem. It won't, but motion looks like action if you
are far enough away.

Photo IDs don't stop people =or= ideas. They are pretty, and everyone has an
ego, but they accomplish nothing, any more than photo IDs stop the drug trade
or deadbeat dads.

Jose

--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

you already have terrorists in the country.. and they are US citizens...
remember Oklahoma City

BT

"Shiver Me Timbers" wrote in message
...
kontiki wrote:

Why not stop these terrorist people from getting into
the country in the first place?

The above comment you made is so vague and generic as to defy
description.

So why don't you come back to the group and specifically tell us all
just exactly you would do to stop any terrorist from getting into
your country in the first place.

Seems like what we are doing now is hiring a bunch of government
employees to plug holes in the dike.

Who is "we"..... All your doing is mouthing off in a newsgroup about a
problem your government is well aware of, and you are not giving any
specific examples of just what should be or could be done to plug all
the holes in that dike.

Rhetoric is one thing that everyone in a newsgroup is good at.

Specific and viable solutions to the problem are a different matter
altogether.

So hop to it kontiki, hoist that sail, grab your oar, and tell us
exactly how you would solve the problem..... and leave your
rhetoric behind.

So are you suggesting that we pull the troops out of Iraq and station them
on the US borders? That makes perfectly good sense, the news media love it.
They can drastically cut their costs of covering the terrorist attacks. They
won't have to go overseas for the daily "car bombing at a border crossing"
report, they can go to our Southern border during the winter and our
Northern border during the summer. Nice scenery and decent weather -- not
bad working conditions for the news crews.

I agree with SMT that almost everything you wrote is rhetoric. I could find
only the one tangible suggestion in your whole post. So how about a few
more?

1. Implement RFID tagging of identity documents. We already have magnetic
strips on most driver licenses, but they are too easy to defeat. RFID would
add another layer of security and can be scanned from as far away as 25'
when properly configured.

2. Establish a single, central repository of the identity records. It is way
too difficult for the states and feds to share documentation in the current
environment and in today's technological world, it is ridiculous that our
officials don't implement something from this century.

3. Divert the ridiculous funding allocations from the GA security
initiatives and put them into bolstering our border defenses. I don't mean
gun emplacements, but how about some much more efficient ID verification
systems, more control points, more airborne surveillance, and a system that
identifies welcome visitors rather than forcing them to swim a river to get
in.

4. Stop trying to win hearts and minds until the battle is over and the
field is secured. With the press documenting every step a soldier takes, our
peacekeepers are having to watch their backs as much as anything. We need to
understand that war is messy, brutal, and not politically correct. Find the
*******s, kill the *******s, secure the field, and then rebuild the country.
(Can you imagine trying to use the same strategy on Japan in WW2 as we are
using on Iraq now?)

5. We are dealing with a small group of people (I use that term liberally)
that place no value whatsoever on human life. They demonstrate that fact on
a daily basis, yet we are reluctant to brutally use their own methods in
retaliation. We need to selectively kill (not capture) this vermin because
they are a threat to the entire human, civilized race. Let's quit playing
nice and quit talking about a kinder, gentler war. How asinine!

6. Pull the civilian and government contractors out of areas where security
can't be guaranteed. Let the military finish the job of dealing with the
insurgents, and let the contractors work in other parts of Iraq. Let
elections go forward in secure areas and let the other areas continue to
live under martial law until they are secured.

Okay, here are my first 6 suggestions. I'm sure others will find more; some
will disagree (violently probably) while yet others will nod knowingly. But
hey, let's talk specific solutions and quit just complaining about the
problem.


--
Jim Carter
"kontiki" wrote in message
...

Okay.. thank you for allowing me to elaborate. Every single day hundreds
of unknown, undocumented individuals enter this country across our
borders.
The Border Patrol makes but a dent in this number. Who these people are,
where
they come from and their exact intentions are totally unknown. Yes, many
of them
come from Mexico and countries in South America looking for a better life.
An unknown quantity of other individuals, however, are coming here for
other
purposes. These are the ones that would do us harm and they know they have
a 50/50
chance of getting in here *totally* undetected. No paperwork... no way to
determine their motives... their intentions or their criminal or political
history.

There is also a northern border that is just as porus. I submit that a
reasonable
person would conclude that a good use of a percentage of US forces might
be to
assist the Border Patrol monitor and secure these borders to a greater
extent than
they are today. I bet if you took a poll of all troops in Iraq and asked
them if
they would rather serve their tours assisting the border patrol HERE in
the US or
in the deserts of Iraq would find a lot of volunteers for the program.

In fact.... I one might also conclude that critical monitoring of who GOT
a Visa
and who didn't and just what these visa holders where actually DOING in
this country
might have prevented 9-11. It was, after all, the responsibility of the
INS to do
this very thing, which they utterly failed to do. The result was that the
INS was
dissolved... I don't know about you but I feel better already.

... clipped for brevity

"WE" are American citizens and LEGAL immigrants/visitors. I just one
specific
examples above, please read. If you desire more I will gladly oblige.

http://www.cis.org/topics/terrorism.html Offers a good overview of the
subject and a ton of links to specific details. The Center for Immigration
Studies is definitely a partisan organization but their director is a solid
guy who's motivated to seek the truth.

"Jim Carter" wrote in message
. ..

1. Implement RFID tagging of identity documents. We already have magnetic
strips on most driver licenses, but they are too easy to defeat. RFID
would
add another layer of security and can be scanned from as far away as 25'
when properly configured.

This is fine, but the bigger issue is, are we being careful enough with who
we give papers to? IIRC a number of the 9/11 guys should never have been
allowed in, according to the rules as they were written at the time. It
doesn't matter how secure the document is if someone who shouldn't have one
gets it.

2. Establish a single, central repository of the identity records. It is
way
too difficult for the states and feds to share documentation in the
current
environment and in today's technological world, it is ridiculous that our
officials don't implement something from this century.

Just out of curiosity, do you know what the feds work with today? If the FBI
wants to pull up all known records on person XYZ, what do they have to do,
and what do they risk missing? I'm not sure the system is quite as bad as
you make it; then again maybe it is worse. I just don't know.

3. Divert the ridiculous funding allocations from the GA security
initiatives

To the degree that the TSA is involved in GA, it seems to me like a teeny
tiny piece of their gargantuan budget. I suspect they spend more on
janitorial supplies per year.

and put them into bolstering our border defenses. I don't mean
gun emplacements, but how about some much more efficient ID verification
systems, more control points, more airborne surveillance, and a system
that
identifies welcome visitors rather than forcing them to swim a river to
get
in.

Two words: Shipping Containers. I live a mile and a half from the Conley
Terminal in South Boston, and every day watch ships twenty times the size of
airliners drop hundreds of truck-sized packages on the dock. Most enter the
country with only a cursory once-over, if that.

(Can you imagine trying to use the same strategy on Japan in WW2 as we are
using on Iraq now?)

In WWII everyone agreed (after 1941) that we needed to fight the Axis powers
to the point of unconditional surrender. Other than the first 3 days after
9/11 we haven't anything like that kind of unanimity about what to do. It's
not just that the rest of the world doesn't support us, it's that even we
aren't united in this.

5. We are dealing with a small group of people (I use that term liberally)
that place no value whatsoever on human life. They demonstrate that fact
on
a daily basis, yet we are reluctant to brutally use their own methods in
retaliation.

Part of me wants to hear W. on the floor of the Senate yelling, "Fallujah
delenda est!" Unfortunately, as the Russians' experience in Chechnya
demonstrates, an assymetrical conflict just doesn't work like that. Perhaps
the one moment that might have worked was the evening of 9/11. Launch B-2s
with 2000lb JDAMs and make an announcement on CNN that over the next four
hours, we will blow up the Ministry of Baksheesh building in each of
Damascus, Tehran, Tripoli, Baghdad, Karachi, etc, unless they cough up
everything they know about the following organizations, people, WMD, etc.
Tell them the next 3 nights we go after their airbases, then their military
facilities, then the powerplants, and then on the fifth night we will have
the ICBMs retargeted and we just start taking cities out. Who knows what
that might have shaken out?

OTOH, part of me thinks that's exactly what OBL thought we would do: lash
out madly and just destabilize the whole region and world so badly that he
could ride in like Saladin and restore the Caliphate. By responding in a
careful, measured fashion we screwed up the whole plan. But we may yet come
to such a reckoning. All I know is that the Iranian parliament (or whatever
it is) regularly opens sessions with cheers of "Death to America!" and they
are building nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles. This is not a good thing.
And then there's the Norks. Talk about a bunch of insane mother#$%&!s. After
the Cold War ended we thought the world was going to finally start being a
nice place. Instead we end up with a bunch of villains who make Dr. No and
Goldfinger look like pikers.

-cwk.

Very thoughtful and very nicely put CK. I enjoy reading this kind of work.

As regards the centralized system, I have reason to believe it is bad enough
to cause significant concern because the company I work for is working with
some federal agencies to resolve the issue. It isn't necessarily bad at the
top level, but when we realize that terrorists may be smart enough to
frequent smaller towns and the local systems aren't all interfaced I think
we can see a part of the problem. As an earlier responder noted, the
federal - state - local interface still lacks a lot, especially in the
information exchange world. Many local authorities don't really understand
the finer points of security. Many still think that means locks and guns. A
while back I was in a car traveling late at night with my VHF radio on. I
share some frequencies with some of the local authorities and I listened as
a radio operator discussed the access procedures to the NCIC system in the
clear. She was told the password was in the top drawer of the desk, but when
she reported the desk was locked, the password was broadcast in the clear
because the trooper couldn't get back to the office soon enough. Guns and
locks, but no real security understanding.

--
Jim Carter
"C Kingsbury" wrote in message
nk.net...

http://www.cis.org/topics/terrorism.html Offers a good overview of the
subject and a ton of links to specific details. The Center for Immigration
Studies is definitely a partisan organization but their director is a
solid
guy who's motivated to seek the truth.

"Jim Carter" wrote in message
. ..

1. Implement RFID tagging of identity documents. We already have
magnetic
strips on most driver licenses, but they are too easy to defeat. RFID
would
add another layer of security and can be scanned from as far away as 25'
when properly configured.

This is fine, but the bigger issue is, are we being careful enough with
who
we give papers to? IIRC a number of the 9/11 guys should never have been
allowed in, according to the rules as they were written at the time. It
doesn't matter how secure the document is if someone who shouldn't have
one
gets it.

2. Establish a single, central repository of the identity records. It is
way
too difficult for the states and feds to share documentation in the
current
environment and in today's technological world, it is ridiculous that
our
officials don't implement something from this century.

Just out of curiosity, do you know what the feds work with today? If the
FBI
wants to pull up all known records on person XYZ, what do they have to do,
and what do they risk missing? I'm not sure the system is quite as bad as
you make it; then again maybe it is worse. I just don't know.

3. Divert the ridiculous funding allocations from the GA security
initiatives

To the degree that the TSA is involved in GA, it seems to me like a teeny
tiny piece of their gargantuan budget. I suspect they spend more on
janitorial supplies per year.

and put them into bolstering our border defenses. I don't mean
gun emplacements, but how about some much more efficient ID verification
systems, more control points, more airborne surveillance, and a system
that
identifies welcome visitors rather than forcing them to swim a river to
get
in.

Two words: Shipping Containers. I live a mile and a half from the Conley
Terminal in South Boston, and every day watch ships twenty times the size
of
airliners drop hundreds of truck-sized packages on the dock. Most enter
the
country with only a cursory once-over, if that.

(Can you imagine trying to use the same strategy on Japan in WW2 as we
are
using on Iraq now?)

In WWII everyone agreed (after 1941) that we needed to fight the Axis
powers
to the point of unconditional surrender. Other than the first 3 days after
9/11 we haven't anything like that kind of unanimity about what to do.
It's
not just that the rest of the world doesn't support us, it's that even we
aren't united in this.

5. We are dealing with a small group of people (I use that term
liberally)
that place no value whatsoever on human life. They demonstrate that fact
on
a daily basis, yet we are reluctant to brutally use their own methods in
retaliation.

Part of me wants to hear W. on the floor of the Senate yelling, "Fallujah
delenda est!" Unfortunately, as the Russians' experience in Chechnya
demonstrates, an assymetrical conflict just doesn't work like that.
Perhaps
the one moment that might have worked was the evening of 9/11. Launch B-2s
with 2000lb JDAMs and make an announcement on CNN that over the next four
hours, we will blow up the Ministry of Baksheesh building in each of
Damascus, Tehran, Tripoli, Baghdad, Karachi, etc, unless they cough up
everything they know about the following organizations, people, WMD, etc.
Tell them the next 3 nights we go after their airbases, then their
military
facilities, then the powerplants, and then on the fifth night we will have
the ICBMs retargeted and we just start taking cities out. Who knows what
that might have shaken out?

OTOH, part of me thinks that's exactly what OBL thought we would do: lash
out madly and just destabilize the whole region and world so badly that he
could ride in like Saladin and restore the Caliphate. By responding in a
careful, measured fashion we screwed up the whole plan. But we may yet
come
to such a reckoning. All I know is that the Iranian parliament (or
whatever
it is) regularly opens sessions with cheers of "Death to America!" and
they
are building nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles. This is not a good
thing.
And then there's the Norks. Talk about a bunch of insane mother#$%&!s.
After
the Cold War ended we thought the world was going to finally start being a
nice place. Instead we end up with a bunch of villains who make Dr. No and
Goldfinger look like pikers.

-cwk.

"kontiki" wrote in message
...
Really. Why not stop these terrorist people from getting into the country
in the
first place? Seems like what we are doing now is hiring a bunch of
government
employees to plug holes in the dike. When they run out of fingers they
start
looking for civilian "volunteers".

Unfortunately, people don't wear signs saying "terrorist," "illegal alien,"
or "I'm stupid." It would be nice if they did. People who complain about
illegal immigration forget a few things:

Most of the 9/11 terrorists were here legally.

The border of the United States is enormously long. Those who think that you
can stop people from crossing it suffer from a severe lack of imagination.
Even if we had enough population to put soldiers shoulder to shoulder along
the Rio Grande and the Canadian border, it would destroy the economy and
probably would not stop a single illegal from crossing.

It boggles the mind that anyone can think it would be possible monitor what
people do once they are in the country. Heck, we can't even track our own
criminals, let alone those from other countries.

The ability to monitor what an alien is doing 24 hours a day, seven days a
week is also the ability to monitor what you are doing 24 hours a day, seven
days a week.

C J Campbell wrote:

The border of the United States is enormously long.

What..... About 3500 miles on the Canada US border.

Those who think that you can stop people from crossing it
suffer from a severe lack of imagination.

Oh heck... We can't even stop those feisty maritimers from scarfing
some lobsters offshore in dories.

Nor can we stop those smuggling Mohawks who carry cartons of
non taxed ciggies into New York state by the ton in fourteen
foot open boats across the St. Lawrence.

And BC BUD..... Oh boy now theres a hot topic of discussion for you.

Even if we had enough population to put soldiers shoulder to shoulder along
the Rio Grande and the Canadian border, it would destroy the economy and
probably would not stop a single illegal from crossing.

If there was a soldier every hundred feet ..... that would make what.

Feeble math time. One mile.... lets say five thousand feet, one
soldier every one hundred feet - why that's fifty soldiers per mile.

Hmmmm 3500 mile border times fifty soldiers equals one hundred
and seventy five thousand soldiers.

And Mr. Kontiki..... that's for the day shift, now when you add in the
night shift you would need at least three hundred and fifty thousand
soldiers every twenty four hours just to patrol that one border.

And that's just for the Canadian American border.

By the way Kontiki just how many US soldiers are on the ground
in IRAQ these days........ I forget. Anybody care to refresh his memory.

Now folks...... If a soldier gets paid 1500 bucks a month, and you need
a minimum of 350,000 per day..... why thats about 560 million dollars a
month. And of course that's not including, food, shelter,
transportation, and absolutely everything else that a soldier would
require in the way of support and infrastructure to maintain that level
of security. It would take an awful lot of buses and boats to move
175,000 soldiers into position and back to base every twelve hours.

I wonder how many port a potties you would need and how far apart would
you put them. Any ex soldiers here who could tell the group how far a
soldier would normally be expected to walk when it came time to take a
poop.

Isn't this just fascinating.

It boggles the mind that anyone can think it would be possible
to monitor what people do once they are in the country.

Indeed it does.... but Kontiki thinks that it is possible but can give
no specifics as to how it could be done.

Heck, we can't even track our own criminals, let alone
those from other countries.

It's the same on this side of the border also.

But hey folks..... All is not lost.

You have managed to stop live cows from entering the US from Canada.

As far as I know - Not one has made it across in a year and a half.

But if you want to see what could happen when a radically new terrorist
group hits the US of A then click here to see a new and very real
threat on the horizon.

http://tinyurl.com/6gccu

Where did I suggest pulling troops pout of Iraq??? What I am saying is
that fighting despots and terrorists around the world is excellent
but doing little to nothing about thousands of potential terrorists
entering this country undetected is a bit counter productive. I believe
that a legitimate use of our military forces (and their associated technology)
would be to help safeguard our borders. A number of other respectable
people happen to agree with me on that, I would not consider it rhetoric.

You have listed more things that we can do, some are workable, others are
merely pie-in-the-sky and can easily be defeated/worked around. The problem
you are dealing with is that it only takes ONE sophisticated terroist
to circumvent our security to ruin it for a lot of inoocent people and
cause us to go fight wars all over the world.

To focus so much security and attention on airports and ports of call while
leaving the borders wide open is not logical. If I were a terrorist wanting
to enter this country undetected I would choose to come accross with the
masses at the border.


Jim Carter wrote:
So are you suggesting that we pull the troops out of Iraq and station them
on the US borders? That makes perfectly good sense, the news media love it.
They can drastically cut their costs of covering the terrorist attacks. They
won't have to go overseas for the daily "car bombing at a border crossing"
report, they can go to our Southern border during the winter and our
Northern border during the summer. Nice scenery and decent weather -- not
bad working conditions for the news crews.

I agree with SMT that almost everything you wrote is rhetoric. I could find
only the one tangible suggestion in your whole post. So how about a few
more?

1. Implement RFID tagging of identity documents. We already have magnetic
strips on most driver licenses, but they are too easy to defeat. RFID would
add another layer of security and can be scanned from as far away as 25'
when properly configured.

2. Establish a single, central repository of the identity records. It is way
too difficult for the states and feds to share documentation in the current
environment and in today's technological world, it is ridiculous that our
officials don't implement something from this century.

3. Divert the ridiculous funding allocations from the GA security
initiatives and put them into bolstering our border defenses. I don't mean
gun emplacements, but how about some much more efficient ID verification
systems, more control points, more airborne surveillance, and a system that
identifies welcome visitors rather than forcing them to swim a river to get
in.

4. Stop trying to win hearts and minds until the battle is over and the
field is secured. With the press documenting every step a soldier takes, our
peacekeepers are having to watch their backs as much as anything. We need to
understand that war is messy, brutal, and not politically correct. Find the
*******s, kill the *******s, secure the field, and then rebuild the country.
(Can you imagine trying to use the same strategy on Japan in WW2 as we are
using on Iraq now?)

5. We are dealing with a small group of people (I use that term liberally)
that place no value whatsoever on human life. They demonstrate that fact on
a daily basis, yet we are reluctant to brutally use their own methods in
retaliation. We need to selectively kill (not capture) this vermin because
they are a threat to the entire human, civilized race. Let's quit playing
nice and quit talking about a kinder, gentler war. How asinine!

6. Pull the civilian and government contractors out of areas where security
can't be guaranteed. Let the military finish the job of dealing with the
insurgents, and let the contractors work in other parts of Iraq. Let
elections go forward in secure areas and let the other areas continue to
live under martial law until they are secured.

Okay, here are my first 6 suggestions. I'm sure others will find more; some
will disagree (violently probably) while yet others will nod knowingly. But
hey, let's talk specific solutions and quit just complaining about the
problem.

"Jim Carter" wrote in message
. ..
5. We are dealing with a small group of people (I use that term liberally)
that place no value whatsoever on human life. They demonstrate that fact
on
a daily basis, yet we are reluctant to brutally use their own methods in
retaliation. We need to selectively kill (not capture) this vermin because
they are a threat to the entire human, civilized race.

This was what Saddam did. But we removed him.

Paul