Your rights "backscattered" and the Mexican rape threat.

Two stories here of note on the continuing saga of the demise of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

NYT reports:

"The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected.

The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents."

For this sweeping new government power we can thank Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas. Their concerns, naturally, are mainly for the welfare of women and the victims of rape, bless their bleeding hearts. Of course, the largest danger to women these days is the brown hordes overflowing our borders.

Speaking to the threat posed by Montezuma's immigration revenge, Kyl said: "Some of these are very bad people. The number of sexual assaults committed by illegal immigrants is astonishing. Right now there is a fingerprint system in use, but it is not as thorough as it could be."

Yes, the number is truly astonishing compared to the small number domestic assaults perpetrated on woman by their hubbies and boyfriends and rapes in general committed by good red-blooded American males. This law couldn't have come a moment too soon.

And -- win,win -- the addition of millions more DNA samples of anyone arrested by federal authorities (just arrested, not convicted) ought to really narrow down the list of rapists and put them away.

NYT:

"Under the new law, DNA samples would be taken from any illegal immigrants who are detained and would normally be fingerprinted, justice officials said. Last year federal customs, Border Patrol and immigration agents detained more than 1.2 million immigrants, the majority of them at the border with Mexico. About 238,000 of those immigrants were detained in immigration enforcement investigations. A great majority of all immigration detainees were fingerprinted, immigration officials said. About 102,000 people were arrested on federal charges not related to immigration in 2005."

So, somehow the same federal government which has brought you the astonishing law enforcement triumph of 9/11, Katrina and the amazing exploding Space Shuttle is now going to be able to add about a million DNA samples a year to its databases, share it with all the state police agencies as well, and track down those bad Mexicans before they can get their grubby hands on our white woman.

And, not stated here, but the threat of terrorism will be reduced too. If any of these dirty Mexicans streaming over our unprotected border should happened to have Islamo-facsist leanings it will be so much simpler to round them all up and put them away in all those shiny new detention centers being built by KBR for their comfort.

[Feb. 2006, globalresearch: KBR awarded $385 million contract to build new detention facilities for "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs," new programs like Operation Endgame.]

As Bush's former Civil Rights commissioner, Peter Kirsanow, said shortly after 9/11, "If there's another terrorist attack, and if it's from a certain ethnic community or certain ethnicities that the terrorists are from, you can forget civil rights in this country. Not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops and more profiling." [SF Gate]

Or more DNA sweeps, especially if we're profiling Mexicans.

Kirsanow added, apparently, without any sense of irony, "I think we will have a return to Korematsu"

(Korematsu, referring to the detention of 120,000 Neisi during WWII)

Looks like he wasn't the crackpot everyone thought he was, after all. Can you say "Reichstag fire?"

In any case . . .

The TSA says: "Get naked!"

CNN reports:

"Some travelers at key airports in New York and Los Angeles may be put through machines that see through clothing and provide a detailed image of a person's body beginning later this week. . . The 'whole body imaging' machines have sparked complaints from privacy advocates [but who listens to them!] . . . The millimeter wave machines will be rolled out at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Los Angeles International Airport in California later this week, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley told Congress on Tuesday."

These "millimeter machines" can see right through your clothing, so add that to the already long list already of indignities heaped upon Americans trying to get from point A to point B. You thought being bumped from a flight was hassle! If you're guy with a "millimeter" peter, or a woman having "lady problems," perhaps, you might want to think about going Greyhound.

Passengers will have a choice, though, if you don't want random strangers making about $10 an hour checking out your stuff (or posting your naked body on the Internet for fun and profit) you can get a pat-down instead.

CNN:

"The Transportation Security Administration says that it has taken steps to protect individuals' privacy and that 90 percent of the travelers in Phoenix preferred the imaging machine to a pat-down."

Gosh, that's reassuring. Given the choice between an invasive physical inspection or walking though a machine, which many of these folks may or may not have understood fully was looking at them naked, preferred the flashy new technology? Well, praise the TSA! This truly is a brave new world.

Here's some food for thought, but not a concern because you can trust the TSA to get everything right . . .

Technewsworld reported recently:

" . . . [the] TSA is quick to point to the safeguards it has in place to ensure that the technology is not abused. Privacy advocates at Electronic Privacy Information Center are unimpressed with TSA's promises, however, and are calling for a law forbidding the storage or transmittal of these images. 'We are not against the scanning technology per se,' Marc Rotenberg, EPIC's executive director, told TechNewsWorld. 'However, a law needs to codify the rights of passengers with this technology.' EPIC has raised this point with the Homeland Security committees in both the House and the Senate, Rotenberg said. 'Such a measure could be tacked onto the next appropriate bill.' Without a legal backstop, he added, 'this will become a giant system to collect and store naked pictures of American travelers.'"

Hey, if the government needs naked pictures of every American to guard against terrorists attacks from crazed Mexicans, then so be it. This whole thing just brings new meaning to the term "fear of flying" doesn't it?