Blunt Federal Letters Tell Students They’re Security Threats

Source: NYT




Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/washington/13tsa.html?ref=us

“I have determined that you pose a security threat.”


All things considered, I'd read that as - Get out. GTMO is in your future. We will torture you. Get out. Leave.

but then I don't have the highest opinion of my government...

Next up, gas ovens?

environmentally friendly.

"Alkaline hydrolysis is legal in Minnesota and in New Hampshire, where a Manchester funeral director is pushing to offer it. But he has yet to line up the necessary regulatory approvals, and some New Hampshire lawmakers want to repeal the little-noticed 2006 state law legalizing it.

"We believe this process, which enables a portion of human remains to be flushed down a drain...

Psychopaths and dictators have used acid or lye to torture or erase their victims, and legislation to make alkaline hydrolysis available to the public in New York state was branded "Hannibal Lecter's bill" in a play on the movie character's sadism.

Manchester funeral director Chad Corbin wants to operate a $300,000 cylinder in New Hampshire. He said that an alkaline hydrolysis operation is more expensive to set up than a crematorium but that he would charge customers about as much as he would for cremation."


Wonder what he'd charge Homeland Security for a Fed.gov contract.

about securing our nuclear plants, or even monitoring our truckers all that much-and we all know what a truckload of explosive materials could do if placed in the right location, like in front of a government building in Oklahoma City. I see this mainly as a way to hassle people.

I'll bet he doesn't even watch American Idol.

And you have been determined persona non grata in the eyes of the Party of the Corporations.

welcome to the new Stasi, same as the old Stasi

But we're "hated for our freedoms". :eyes:

it can't end too soon for me.

reagan's campaign was about it being "morning in america again"...obama's will have to be that it's the "morning after in america again".

One person's opinion, and it becomes the official policy of the U.S. government. No appeal. No right to due process. No alternative. Yeah, getting out seems like the best choice here.

Who here didn't see this one coming?

Flunky inserts applicant data into software which generates a threat assessment. It require no intellectual input from the operator. They would be better off hiring a shaman to throw bones or cut open a chicken and divine the intestines.

:scared:

Go figure...

spot-on.

threat -- politics is everything to these kooks


either for'em or again'em mentality

I want my country back. :cry:

We sure know how to create enemies.. Republicans are quite good at that..

Yeah, the letter sounds like some egomaniacal bureaucrat run amuck, with its "I" have determined language - and there are many valid criticisms of the damage such kind of bureaucratic actions do to US standing with other countries/individuals.

However, this story raises another issue. I wonder if the National Science Foundation should be funding lavish research grants ($65,000 per year) for foreign graduate students with our taxes.

"Mr. von Appen, 23, one of at least four oceanography students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who received identical letters, said he was stunned by its language.

“I was pretty much speechless and quite intimidated,” said Mr. von Appen, whose research is supported by a $65,000-a-year grant from the National Science Foundation.

If there's a quid pro quo within the scientific/academic community, whereby other countries are funding US students at a similar level and at similarly prestigious universities as MIT, fine.
But the excuse I have heard made at schools like Carnegie-Mellon, is that "well, we can't find US students who are interested in our doctoral programs." To me that is eerily similar to the old, "Well, we'd love to hire/promote minorities/women if we could find any qualified ones."
Once a school gives tenure to a foreign professor (who may well be quite brilliant, I admit), that professor wants to bring over more of his/her countrymen/women. Given the dumbing down of the American student body, most lately increased by the No Child Left Behind fiasco - I'd like to see a lot more effort going into increasing the number of US students among the graduate student body.

the grants cover the cost of the research, equipment must be purchased, ships must be rented. Costs are paid. Get a clue.