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Exclusive: Does Government Hide Behind the Privacy Act for Illegal Aliens?
Mike Cutler
Author: Mike Cutler
Source: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.
Date: October 19, 2006



It may seem difficult to believe, but as FSM Contributing Editor Mike Cutler informs us, illegal aliens may be receiving more protection under the auspices of America’s Privacy Act than they deserve, and more than actual American citizens are awarded as well. Read how.


Does Government Hide Behind the Privacy Act for Illegal Aliens?
Mike Cutler
October 19, 2006


The Privacy Act is a law that protects the privacy of United States citizens, and resident aliens as well, from having their personal information disclosed under certain circumstances. The law does not protect any alien who is not a resident alien.

Notwithstanding the Privacy Act, when police arrest people, irrespective of their immigration status, the fact that they have been arrested is public knowledge. In fact, we often see something we refer to in New York as the "Perp Walk" on the evening news. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) refers to criminal suspects as "perpetrators" or "perps" for short. When citizens of the of the United States or aliens are arrested, the arrests are public knowledge, even though there is a "presumption of innocence" mandated by our Constitution and strictly followed by law enforcement on all levels of our government ranging from the federal government all the way down to the smallest towns across our nation.

The Presumption of Innocence simply means that no matter how damning the evidence may be, no matter how heinous the crime, every defendant is presumed to be innocent until he/she is convicted by a judge or jury after all the relevant facts are known, or the defendant has pled "guilty" to a crime. Even after conviction by trial, a convicted felon has various avenues of appeal to help insure his rights and the integrity of the system. Yet, even with this rich tradition of the presumption of innocence, reporters often photograph people who have just been arrested, even before they are arraigned. The entire process is open to public scrutiny, in part to make certain that the criminal justice system possesses transparency.

It is therefore impossible to understand how the courts can rule that somehow the disclosure of arrest information concerning aliens who have no protection under the privacy laws would violate a right with which the law does not provide them. It is also interesting to note that while you can find all sorts of statistics concerning the race of people who are arrested for criminal activities, and you can find out about age groups and the gender of defendants, it is virtually impossible to learn the immigration status of aliens who are arrested by law enforcement officials at all levels of government.

It would appear that the only privacy protected is the privacy of our government. If the government is supposed to be a government of the people and by the people, this sort of secrecy is absolutely wrong. In this secrecy, our citizens lose the ability to know what their own government is doing and not doing to protect them. Finally, when people are convicted, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status, the fact that they are convicted is supposed to be public knowledge. When predatory child molesters and sex offenders are convicted, even if they are United States citizens, the public in the community where these convicts live upon release from prison is provided with a list of such predatory miscreants to help them protect their children. On balance, there is no right to privacy for criminals where the safety of the community is on the line.

Yet, even though the request for information concerning illegal aliens who have been convicted of crimes is reasonable, especially given the supposed transparency of our criminal justice system, the government hides behind the privacy laws to keep the citizens of the country in the dark. We the people are being treated like mushrooms: we are being kept in the dark and fed a lot of fertilizer, and that is not acceptable!

I was just on the radio this morning with Debbie Schlussel, a commentator on a number of issues, one of which is the illegal immigration crisis. We discussed the fact that the government estimates that as of today, the population of the United States will reach 300 million people including millions of illegal aliens. The true number of illegal aliens is unknowable, but estimates range from 12 million to 20 million. According to various statistics, some 30% of the federal inmate population is comprised of convicts who are described as "foreign born." That means that some of them may well be naturalized citizens. (The naturalization process is terribly flawed, as I have often stated, but I will not dwell on that issue here.) What is worth considering is the fact that fewer than 10% of the population is responsible for 30% of the federal crimes in the United States, or three times more likely to get arrested than are native-born American citizens. If the government's primary responsibility is to protect its citizens, all too many members of our government are imperiling our safety. This does not even include the threat of terrorism confronting the United States today.

Perhaps our politicians have seen the movie, "A Few Good Men" and have adopted the Jack Nicholson character's perspective who famously stated in that film, "You can't handle the truth!" That courtroom scene was riveting, but it is not how democracy can function. We have the right to demand the truth. Our nation's Founding Fathers certainly believed that. This is why the First Amendment of the Constitution deals with freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

I wonder if anyone in our government has checked out the Constitution lately?