"Citizen, Can I See Your ID"
Al Martin Raw - "Citizen, Can I See Your ID." - a look at ID checkpoints of the near future as carried out by soldiers of the gestapo, er... homeland security agency. I don't know if this is satire or a hoax or what. If it's true, it will very soon be time to shoot the bastards. Sierra Times comments here. [sierra grabbe]
There was a barrier that went across the road. To the right was an elevated shed like structure, elevated perhaps fifteen feet in the air. It had a small second story that was open. On it was a sign that read "Homeland Security Internal Checkpoint." There were sandbags and the wooden arm that crossed the road read "100% ID Checked." Then there was a small shed to the right with a small barbed wire area behind that. On this structure was a sign, which read, "All citizens not having proper identification will be detained. All foreign nationals will be detained. All citizens who are deemed to be acting in a suspicious manner will be detained." At each of these posts there will be six armed Army or National Guard reservists with M-16's with full field kit. On top of the structure to the rear, the open structure on top, there's a man with a machine gun emplacement.
Wolf DeVoon at Laissez Faire City Times - Escape from the Apocalypse - Mr. DeVoon recommends getting out of big Amerikan cities while you still can. His suggestions: Costa Rica (where he lives), Grand Duchy of Luxemborg, particular small towns in Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Michigan.
On and off, during the past three years, I've urged you to pack up and scram, before it becomes impossible to get an "essential travel" permit from your local Homeland Defense Committee and Draft Board.
You still have time, I suppose, to diddle and fret a while longer — but soon enough, the common sense imperative of saving your own skin (and those belonging to your libertarian loved ones) will inspire personal mobilization. Here's a list of destinations that I recommend:
...
Advice from an Elko attorney to his client on telephone, regarding trespass: "Don't you shoot him. Call the deputy sheriff, and have him shoot him."
Chico Science at Slashdot - Unreasonable Searches When Going to Work? - A National Institutes of Health employee is sick of being searched whenever he enters/leaves the campus. He asks for advice. Bottom line: he can refuse searches, but they can fire him for it, and ask a lawyer. [/.]
W. James Antle III - Is There an Inalienable Right to Immigrate? - "No," says Mr. Antle.
Consider the most libertarian regime imaginable, a society living under a system of anarcho-capitalism. As Austrian school economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe observed in an essay recommended to me by Lew Rockwell, if all property is privately owned there is no case for free immigration. Instead, property owners may admit or exclude whomever they choose to that which they own. Any "immigration" so-called would require the consent of some property owner, who would either sell his property to the entering immigrant or allow the immigrant to reside on his property, unless the immigrant was to settle in some unowned open space. This means immigration is reduced to a question of whom independent property owners would admit on their property; any right to immigration implies a limit to the right of people over their private property. Those who are not allowed on anyone in the anarcho-capitalist society's private property would thus only be able to immigrate via a form of forced integration, a coercive violation of negative rights.
Libertarian Party Press Release - Federalizing airport security: Will air travelers be less safe? - One sure way to make us all less safe and less free: federalize airport security. But you knew that. [lp]
Guardian Unlimited via Cannbis News - Cannabis Laws Eased in Drug Policy Shakeup - Great Britain is going to downgrade the criminality of cannabis. Possession used to get you arrested. Soon it will get you a ticket. A small step in the right direction.
The police will no longer have the power to arrest anyone in the street for cannabis possession and prosecutions will be carried out by court summons. This is likely to mean that prosecution will prove the exception rather than the rule for simple possession.
John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review - Carded: Support for an ID system grows - Monsiers Miller and Ponnuru argue against the National ID. I won't be getting one. I invite you to join me in this protest should a National ID be implemented. [zero mind]
When people promote national IDs, "there is always an asserted benefit to be obtained, a plausible cover story," writes Twight. But they're really chipping away at freedom. As Albert Jay Nock once wrote, "whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you."
AfroCubaWeb - American defeat in Kandahar raid on 10/18/01? - of course you can't trust anything you hear from either side in wartime, but anyone who thinks that U.S. ground troops are somehow going to avoid casualties is living in a fantasy world. [unknown]
bob lonsberry - There Is a Way to Stop Anthrax Dead in Its Tracks - irradiate the mail. Simple. Cheap. Effective. Works for sanitary napkins. I like it.
Sierra Times - Easy Access to .50 Cal Rifles Due to New Initiaive - Concealed Carry is offerring to serve as the transfer agent at no charge to anyone wishing to bring a .50 caliber rifle into Illinois. This in response to the threat to ban them by US Congressman Rod Blagojevich.
When asked if .50 Caliber rifles represented a threat to society, [Concealed Carry, Inc. President, John] Birch simply scoffed. "If Blagojevich thinks a .50 Caliber can stop a tank, I'll loan him one and he can stand in front of an M1 Abrams and see what happens. It won't be pretty when that tank turns him into a grease spot. Blagojevich is simply using the deaths of innocents on 9-11 as an excuse to further his radical gun control agenda."
Jay Winik at the Wall Street Journal via freedomofpress.tripod.com - Security Comes Before Liberty - Mr. Winik reminds us that previous presidents have eroded civil liberties more than anyone is proposing today, and the republic rebounded after the crisis was over. I disagree. Each of these emergencies was one more step to the Amerikan police state. It's time for it to stop. If America needs more security, it can get it with a local, distributed force, the militia. [lew]
John Borland at ZDNet News - Techs broadside anti-piracy plan - The SSSCA has come under fire from the tech companies that would have to implement it. Good. Slashdot comments here. [/.]
Dan Berkes at NewsForge - Tech groups oppose SSSCA, hearings canceled - the senate is saying that they cancelled the hearings due to the anthrax scare, but: [newsforge]
According to the Senate's schedule, however, all members still plan to convene this Thursday to pass Senate Resolution 168 "congratulating Cal Ripken on his stellar career as a Baltimore Oriole."
ThinkGeek - Archos Jukebox Studio 20 MP3 Player - 20 gig USB hard drive. Plays MP3's. $349. Looks to me like it beats Apple's new iPod hands down, unless you like paying an extra $150 for a pretty face, a quarter the storage, and Mac-only functionality. But I haven't played with either machine. [script]
Weblogs.Com - Flippin the switch - Dave Winer has flipped the switch. Weblogs.com will no longer query for changes. If your blog changes, and you want Weblogs.com to know about it, you've got to send it an XML-RPC or SOAP message. I'll work this in to BlogMax eventually, but I'm not in a hurry. Weblogs.com steers very little traffic my way. [script]
