Keeping those Peace Activists Out

recently posted by Silber, op ed:

"The FBI's placing of peace activists on an international criminal database is blatant political intimidation of US citizens opposed to Bush administration policies," says Colonel Wright, who was also Deputy US Ambassador in four countries. "The Canadian government should certainly not accept this FBI database as the criteria for entering the country." Both Wright and Benjamin plan to request their files from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act and demand that arrests for peaceful, non-violent actions be expunged from international records. "It's outrageous that Canada is turning away peacemakers protesting a war that does not have the support of either US or Canadian citizens," says Benjamin.

"In the past, Canada has always welcomed peace activists with open arms. This new policy, obviously a creature of the Bush administration, is shocking and we in the US and Canada must insist that it be overturned. Four members of the Canadian Parliament--Peggy Nash, Libby Davies, Paul Dewar and Peter Julian-- expressed outrage that the peace activists were barred from Canada and vow to change this policy.

I love the idea that in our nation, where all of us are supposedly 'endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights', where we value freedom, liberty and justice, that the above can be so typical. We are supposedly a nation founded on Christian principles, which so far as I see involve the "golden rule" which I think is a pretty peaceful concept, but we add the people who advocate this to the same group that we put people who threaten the wellbeing and safety of the greater population.
We see that we are being grouped, and identified, defined as.. criminals by virtue. There ought not to be so much opposition to people who risk their own material wellbeing to try to benefit others. I think this is another reflection of our new-american sensibilities. That is, a lack of. Looking at Axiom and similar profiling systems, categorization of your tendencies and destiny, I see a great danger in who holds the pen, if you could call it that. This grouping of threats by the FBI and Interpol type organizations is not responsible, it can't be, because no matter how well you define a threat, I see no way to effectively categorize people. Humans are too dynamic to define as 1/70, and the social implications of criminality are too complex to define any type of person as having criminal motivation. That's claiming authority of judgment, and that to me seems a stretch of our power even in our narcissistic sub-reality.

The Freedom of Information Act is an interesting thing, especially when considering its powers throughout the time since its development in 1966. As is a common theme, the requirements on government transparency have been limited by the Bush administration, in response to threats upon our national security (or whatever else could justify it) since 2001. One document of the limitations set by the Present administration is Executive Order 13233 (EO13233) which is part of the larger Presidential Records Act, as briefed here:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 13233

FURTHER IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS ACT

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to establish policies and procedures implementing section 2204 of title 44 of the United States Code with respect to constitutionally based privileges, including those that apply to Presidential records reflecting military, diplomatic, or national security secrets, Presidential communications, legal advice, legal work, or the deliberative processes of the President and the President's advisors, and to do so in a manner consistent with the Supreme Court's decisions in Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425 (1977)

This is important, not just as an example of expansion of powers in the administration, it shows the method in changing policies based on any grounds possible, without drawing the attention and action on the part of the public, or politicians.. this idea, clearly bolstered by the imperial nature of our leaders, is part of what I believe to be a great threat to our integrity as a society and as a nation. Among things that confuse me,
1) how Canada can consent to this, who chose to follow our guidelines and list
2) where the balance is, who controls what gets included or expunged
3) who pays for this McCarthy style list making service