Yet another entry in the WIBDI file, this one coming from Wired.
Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told [America's Most Wanted host John] Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.
The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.
A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.
Note that this is upon arrest, not upon conviction. Setting aside for a moment the question of civil liberties, this would be a hideously expensive proposition. As noted over at Ace's place, there are around 38,000 arrests per day nationwide not counting traffic violations, so this would require massive infrastructure.
A Washington Post editorial today notes what bloggers on the right have grumbled about since Barack Obama took office; that the left's most despised policies under George Bush are suddenly not so bad when continued by Obama.
Like President George W. Bush, President Obama now asserts that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force gives him the right to hold some terrorism suspects indefinitely without trial. At Guantanamo, this is expected to affect 50 or so prisoners who, the administration has determined, can be tried neither in federal court nor before a military commission but are too dangerous to release.
[ ... ]
If the administration's abdication is irresponsible, the reaction of the civil liberties community has been breathtakingly hypocritical. The American Civil Liberties Union has consistently opposed any indefinite detention regime and pushed for detainees to be charged in federal or military courts or released. So we wouldn't expect them to join us in criticizing Mr. Obama for failing to seek a new legal regime. But it is odd that the same policy which, when pursued by the Bush administration, constituted "thumbing its nose at the Constitution" and putting a "stain on America's name at home and abroad" now elicits nothing but a few measured tsk-tsks.
Kudos to the Post's editors for calling them out on this. This goes hand-in-hand with the "what if Bush did it?" complaint. For eight years, every misstep or perceived overreach on the part of the Bush administration was blared to us in BOLD FACE ITALICIZED CAPITAL LETTERS but Obama gets a pass.
Hey! Did you hear that when George Bush was president he flew a pizza guy 860 miles to Washington just to make pizza for him? Oh, wait...sorry. That was Barack Obama. Just yesterday.
Chris Sommers, 33, jetted into Washington from St Louis, Missouri, on Thursday with a suitcase of dough, cheese and pans to to prepare food for the Obamas and their staff.
Yes, the same president who's so in tune with the suffering of Americans in these uncertain economic times and who's so concerned about carbon emissions and their impact on the climate flew a guy 1,710 miles round trip to come to the White House to make fucking pizza.
A Yahoo News search on this only turns up amusing articles about how a guy from Chicago prefers pizza from St. Louis.
Update: Apparently, Sommers flew to Washington at his own (restaurant's) expense, is a poster child for environmental consciousness, yada-yada. That's not the point. Or at least it's not mine, which is why this is filed under "What if Bush did it?".
A cybersecurity bill introduced today in the Senate would give the federal government extraordinary power over private sector Internet services, applications and software. The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 would, for example, give the President unfettered power to shut down Internet traffic in emergencies or disconnect any critical infrastructure system or network on national security grounds. The bill would grant the Commerce Department the ability to override all privacy laws to access any information about Internet usage in connection with a new role in tracking cybersecurity threats. The bill, introduced by Sens. John Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe, would also give the government unprecedented control over computer software and Internet services, threatening innovation, freedom and privacy. CDT President and CEO Leslie Harris said, "The cybersecurity threat is real, but such a drastic federal intervention in private communications technology and networks could harm both security and privacy."
Of course, I couldn't resist including the graphic from American Thinker, which comes from iOwnTheWorld.com.
When I first heard that Barack Obama bowed to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, I thought, "nah...no way". I'd seen a video of his meeting with Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, and during that encounter Obama rendered the barely perceptible head nod, which is an appropriate show of respect by a US president to a reigning monarch of a friendly nation.
But when I saw the video of his meeting with Abdullah, there was no mistaking it. Obama bowed - deeply - to one monarch during the same trip in which he barely nodded to another. But why does this matter? Because in the foreign relations and diplomacy world, symbolic gestures matter, and they matter greatly. What will King Carl Gustav of Sweden, for example, think if Obama fails to render the same bow to him? From here on out anything short of a waist-deep bow to a reigning foreign monarch can be taken as a snub.
The Anchoress reminds us that in 1994, the New York Times chided then-President Bill Clinton for much less in an encounter with the Emperor of Japan.
It wasn't a bow, exactly. But Mr. Clinton came close. He inclined his head and shoulders forward, he pressed his hands together. It lasted no longer than a snapshot, but the image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent President, and the Emperor of Japan.
Yet so far, not one single major news outlet has said word one about Obama's obsequiousness to the Saudi monarch. It's almost as if...I don't know...the White House press pool has been warned not to ask questions about it.
The Anchoress also suggests there may be something revealing in the way Obama seemed to have checked his bow, as if he started the bow as an automatic reflex before catching himself.
Let me say right off the bat, I have never thought, as apparently many still do, that Barack Obama was a Muslim. Obama said he was a Christian, and - although it is difficult to believe he sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years and never heard him utter racist or anti-American sentiments - I tend to take people at their word, until their behavior informs me otherwise.
Such is the case, here. President Obama’s own behavior has me wondering.
I don’t like this video. Spin it any way you like, Obama’s knee is bending, and the head is going very low, almost low enough to kiss a ring, but then Obama’s smooth movements become awkward and stilted, reflecting interrupted momentum - like a batter checking his swing. This looks very much like a man catching himself in mid-bow and suddenly remembering that he should not.
I don't think this reveals anything more than a bias favoring a representative of a more "exotic" foreign culture, over the representative of a boring, old Western culture.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air put together this video for you to compare and contrast.
When Barack Obama heads to the G20 summit in London this week, he'll be accompanied by an entourage of 500 of his minions. Yes...500. Now to be fair, I have no idea how many staffers and secret service agents previous presidents brought along on such trips, but I'm pretty sure that if that number was typical, we'd have heard about it long ago. There's no way the media would have let Bush get away with it.
Anyway, the Evening Standard couldn't resist this little bit of snark:
Accompanying the party will be a total of 500 officials including kitchen staff, 35 vehicles in all, four speech writers and 12 teleprompters.
"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed." -- Michelle Obama
A bill pending in the House, HR 1444, will establish a Congressional Commission to study ways to fulfill Ms. Obama's prophecy if it's passed.
Some of the things the commission will "address and analyze":
(2) The issues that deter volunteerism and national service, particularly among young people, and how the identified issues can be overcome.
(3) Whether there is an appropriate role for Federal, State, and local governments in overcoming the issues that deter volunteerism and national service and, if appropriate, how to expand the relationships and partnerships between different levels of government in promoting volunteerism and national service.
(5) The effect on the Nation, on those who serve, and on the families of those who serve, if all individuals in the United States were expected to perform national service or were required to perform a certain amount of national service.
(6) Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.
(7) The need for a public service academy, a 4-year institution that offers a federally funded undergraduate education with a focus on training future public sector leaders.
(8) The means to develop awareness of national service and volunteer opportunities at a young age by creating, expanding, and promoting service options for primary and secondary school students and by raising awareness of existing incentives.
(9) The effectiveness of establishing a training program on college campuses to recruit and educate college students for national service.
Note the repeated emphasis on "get 'em while they're young". If that doesn't creep you out I don't know what will.
Yes, I do understand that this bill only proposes to create a commission to study these things. I also understand that the 13th amendment to the Constitution reads as follows:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Note that section 2 does not authorize Congress to ignore this part of the Constitution.
Kill this piece of shit legislation right fucking now.
Update: From what I can gather, the provisions of this bill may have been included as section VI of HR 1388, the GIVE Act. A version of that bill with section VI deleted has since passed both the House and the Senate. It would appear this bill is dead, or at least terminally ill.
