Thread: Looky what I found

was trying to find a phone number for the workplace verification program and stumbled onto this. Typical of the anti-american civil liberties union.

http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/2477 ... 60327.html

Coalition Sign-On Letter to the Senate Urging Opposition of Expansion of the Basic Pilot Employment Verification System (3/27/2006)



Oppose Expansion of the Basic Pilot Employment Verification System as a Threat to American’s Privacy

Dear Senator:

The undersigned organizations and individuals urge you to oppose Section 301 of both Chairman Specter’s Immigration Mark and S. 2454, the Securing America’s Border Act, introduced by Senator Frist. This legislation mandates the use of the Basic Pilot employment verification database by all United States employers to verify the work-eligibility of all current employees and all future hires. The Chairman’s Mark, S. 2454, and other similar proposals to expand the Basic Pilot program present a grave threat to the privacy of all Americans. This expansion will lay the groundwork for a national ID system, increase the threat of identity theft and identity fraud, and it will encounter significant technical problems that will cost many Americans their jobs.

Expanding the Basic Pilot program lays the groundwork for a national ID system. This government database will contain extensive information about every American and work-authorized non-citizen in the country. Allowing the government to maintain these kind of files on all Americans and requiring each person to obtain an employment eligibility card is but a short step from implementing a national identification system. Congress has consistently renounced efforts to institute a national ID in the past because of its incompatibility with the core principles of a free society. Do not allow this legislation to slip it in through the back door.

Expanding the employment verification system will not stop unscrupulous individuals from obtaining employment. Instead, it will lead to an increase in identity theft and identity fraud. Any person who wants to sidestep the system can easily steal the identity of a work-authorized individual or purchase fraudulent documents. This will create a whole new market for stolen identities and put Americans at an increased risk. Additionally, the employment verification database itself would be at risk of being hacked, which would expose huge segments of the population to the theft of their identities and the exposure of other private information contained in the database.

The Basic Pilot program is currently used by 3,600 employers. Expanding it to all 8.4 million U.S. employers will pose serious technical obstacles. The system will need to verify the work eligibility of all 146 million people currently employed in the United States, plus 54 million new hires each year. We have already seen, in its current limited usage, the widespread inaccuracies in the data used by Basic Pilot. One in every ten employees must be manually verified by Department of Homeland Security staff after the automatic system fails to match the individual to the necessary data. This rate of failure, multiplied to all employers and all employees in the U.S., will have real consequences for hundreds of thousands of Americans. People could lose their jobs and others will be needlessly denied employment every year.

The Government Accountability Office estimates that this employment verification system will cost $11.7 billion annually. In exchange for this huge investment, the American people will get a system that limits their freedom, exposes them to heightened risk of identity theft, and could unfairly deny them the right to earn a living and support their families. Additionally, it will not prevent determined individuals from circumventing the system and continuing to work illegally. For these reasons, we urge you to oppose Section 301 of both Chairman Specter’s Immigration Mark and S. 2454, and similar Senate proposals to expand the flawed Basic Pilot program.

Sincerely,

American Civil Liberties Union
American Library Association
American Policy Center
Center for Democracy and Technology
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
Consumer Action
Fairfax County Privacy Council
Liberty Coalition
Multiracial Activist
National Center for Transgender Equality
Privacy Journal
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
Privacy Times
Republican Liberty Caucus
Rutherford Institute
U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation
Remar Sutton, Founder, Privacy Rights Now Coalition

Nice find...it stinks, but nice find.

on December 18, 1914 communist and socialist founded the American League to Limit Armaments, they changed their name to the American Union Against Militarism, establishing a Civil Liberties Bureau. Roger Nash Baldwin, reorganized it into the National Civil Liberties Bureau.

in 1920 Roger Nash Baldwin was deeply involved in the communist movement and during the 1940s he participated in the purging of communists from 'top leadership' because they were being scrutinized by American security agencies. The original National Committee of the ACLU included Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and William Z. Foster, who both later became Chairmen of the Communist Party, communist Scott Nearing, and Norman Thomas, Socialist Party Chairman

in 1920, a Joint Committee of the New York State Legislature reported that the ACLU "...in the last analysis is a supporter of all subversive movements; and its propaganda is detrimental to the interests of the State. It attempts not only to protect crime, but to encourage attacks upon our institutions in every form."

in 1925, the Communist Party U.S.A. told its members "The aim of our Party in our work among the Negro masses is to create a powerful proletarian movement which will fight and lead the struggle of the Negro race against the exploitation and oppression in every form and which will be a militant part of the revolutionary movement of the whole American working class ... and connect them with the struggles of national minorities and colonial peoples of all the world and thereby the cause of world revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat."

in a January 1931 report by the Special House Committee to Investigate Communist Activities in the United States, the committee found "The American Civil Liberties Union is closely affiliated with the Communist movement in the United States ... it is quite apparent that the main function of the ACLU is to attempt to protect Communists in their advocacy of force and violence to overthrow the government..."

in 1935, Roger Nash Baldwin said "I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the State itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class and social control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal."

Our Senators will likely be scratching their heads over that letter as well.