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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (4433)	2/11/2005 2:54:06 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 7936

ID Card Proposal Denounced from Left and Right by Jim Lobe WASHINGTON -- Civil and immigrant rights groups are denouncing a Republican-backed immigration bill introduced Wednesday in the House of Representatives as a major threat to the ability of bona fide refugees to gain asylum in the United States and of legal immigrants to remain here. The Real ID Act, introduced by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, is aimed at preventing another attack such as those that took place on September 11, 2001. Immigrants with few exceptions are not terrorists, Sensenbrenner said Wednesday as the House began debate. However, we have to be able to make sure that the documentation that is used by the people in the United States accurately states who they are and why they are here." But a number of groups spanning the political spectrum from left to right charged that bills provisions, most of which were tacked onto and then deleted from the mammoth fiscal 2006 appropriations bill approved late last year, go much too far and even violate treaty provisions ratified by the U.S. The House has made one of its first must-pass bills a measure that would do little to enhance our security while severely undermining our national commitment to freedom and liberty, said Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Washington. This bill takes ideas rejected by Congress last session and seeks to create significant hurdles to the persecuted seeking safe haven here, he added. In particular, according to Edgar, the bill would make it easier to send asylum-seekers back to the countries they are fleeing. The bill places the burden of proof on the asylum-seeker to produce corroborative evidence that they were the subject of persecution and to show the central intent of the persecutor. Persecutors rarely leave a paper trail of their actions, much less their intentions, said Lavinia Limon, president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI). These standards would create insurmountable barriers for many deserving asylum seekers, thwarting core American values and our tradition of providing refuge to the oppressed. Rightwing members of the coalition opposing the bill also objected to the requirement of corroborative evidence in asylum cases. Such a requirement, according to a recent Washington Times article by former Republican Rep. Bob Barr and Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, would (force) Christians and others fleeing persecution to provide written corroboration from the very officials they are fleeing. As with provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the Real ID Act is opposed by an exceptionally diverse coalition that, in addition to the ACLU and refugee rights groups, includes Amnesty International; the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the oldest and largest Irish-American group; the American Conservative Union; the Free Congress Foundation; the Republican Liberty Caucus; Episcopal Migration Ministries; the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Human Rights First; and the September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, among others. The evidentiary hurdles in asylum cases are not the only problems with the bill, according to the groups. While one amendment is designed to expedite the receipt of green cards by refugees who have been granted asylum, it would also reduce the power of the courts to review unlawful actions by the government in many deportation cases, according to the ACLU. The group said the provision constituted a direct attack on a recent Supreme Court decision that held that immigrants convicted of crimes committed many years before may appeal deportation orders by the immigration service to the courts. Yet another provision of the Real ID Act would make it possible to deport long-term, lawful permanent residents for providing humanitarian support to organizations that the government labels terrorist, even when such support was completely legal at the time it was provided. Similarly, the bill would also retroactively make legal donations to terrorist groups grounds for deportation of green-card holders, regardless of how long they have lived in the United States. The new bill also would force states to deny drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants. That provision would not only make state motor vehicle agencies agents of the federal immigration service, but it would also take a giant step toward the creation of a de facto national identification card, which has long been a major source of alarm to progressives and conservatives alike. That provision could also become a major road hazard in and of itself, the ACLU said, because it would lead to an increase in unlicensed drivers, undermining public safety and increasing insurance rates. Imagine what would happen if the hundreds of thousands of undocumented persons in this country began to drive without passing a drivers test, without getting a license, without insurance, noted USCRIs Limon. Americans are more likely to be killed in car accidents than in terrorist attacks, yet this legislation erodes some of the basic protections that states put in place to ensure everyone behind the wheel knows what they're doing. us.oneworld.net

To: tejek who wrote (4433)	2/11/2005 10:24:39 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7936

Political influence (both outside politics, and politics internal to science and academia) is nothing new. It isn't limited to environmental causes (or to the so called "anti-environmental" side). The internal politics within science often result in pressure to not move awy from accepted scientific ideas. The politics from academia in general often push support to liberal ideas, most particularly in the "soft sciences" (Conservative and Liberal in terms of the general political debate don't mean much in particle physics). External politics push at science from all directions. Science projected in to the political realm, science used as the basis for political decisions does get particularly opened up to political pressures. But the pressure should not be to alter data directly for political reasons, rexamining or overturning the conclusions either in light of differening scientific opinion or for other reasons outside of the specific area the scientists study or experiment was concerned with is one thing, as is challenging the data if there is any reason to suspect it, but the raw data from the older studies shouldn't be hidden or altered even if it does turn out to be wrong. (and of course in the opinion of the people the writer of the Times article interviewed the data isn't wrong) Of course science should be subject to revision and reinterpretations and challenge. That's the nature of science we don't have a perfect undersating of the universe and probably never will. But new studies or rexamining old conclusions are the same as repressing old studies or censoring conclusions. The article only presents one side of the story but if it is 100% correct than what it portrays isn't a good thing. Tim