Today we’re all prisoners in the USA

Today we’re all prisoners in the USA
As of today, June 1, 2009, even U.S. citizens are officially prisoners in the USA, or exiles barred from entering our own country without the government’s permission.

We are now forbidden by Federal regulations from leaving or entering the USA, anywhere, by any means — by air, by sea, or by land, to or from any other country or international waters or airspace — unless the government chooses to issue us a passport, passport card, or “enhanced” drivers license (any of which “travel documents” are now issued only with secretly and remotely-readable uniquely-numbered radio tracking beacons in the form of RFID transponder chips), or unless the Department of Homeland Security chooses to to exercise its standardless “discretion” to decide — in secret, with no way for us to know who is making the decision or on what basis — to issue a (one-time case-by-case) “waiver” of the new travel document requirements.

If you’re in the USA without such documents — even if you were born here, or are a foreigner who entered the USA legally without such documents (a Canadian, for example, who entered the USA by land yesterday when no such documents were yet required), or your document(s) have expired or have been lost or stolen — you are forbidden to leave the country unless and until you procure such a document, or unless and until the DHS gives you an exit permit in the form of a discretionary one-time waiver to leave the country — but not necessarily to come home, unless they again exercise their discretion to “grant” you another waiver.

If you are a U.S. citizen abroad without such a document (for example, if you entered Canada legally without it yesterday by land, when it wasn’t required, or again if your document(s) are expired, lost, or stolen) you are forbidden to come home unless and until you can procure a new document acceptable to the DHS, or unless and until the DHS gives you permission to come home in the form of a discretionary one-time waiver.

The DHS admits, at the top of its GetYouHome.gov propapganda website, that it might take “several weeks” to obtain such a document if you don’t have one already or if it expires or is lost or stolen. A temporary paper drivers license without a photo, or even a standard photo licnese or state ID, won’t suffice — only an extra-fee EDL with an RFID chip, which also takes several weeks to obtain in those few states that issue them at all. Backlogs for even “rush” passport issuance can be even longer, as we pointed out in our comments to the DHS. It doesn’t matter if your next-of-kin is dying in Canada or Mexico. (Suppose a relative gets sick or injured, and needs you there to make medical decisons or escort them home, but you were’t going on the trip with them, and don’t have a passport.) You can’t go unless the U.S. government approves your papers or approves a standardless discretionary “waiver” for you to leave the U.S. — which won’t guarantee that they’ll let you come back.


Rest of article:
http://papersplease.org/wp/2009/06/01/today-were-all-prisoners-in-the-usa/

Just when I think it can't get any worst!