There are 5 choices, 8 votes for looking4realtruth's debate

America's "freedoms" are no longer free.

We're All Prisoners, Now: US Citizens to be Required ''Clearance'' to Leave USA International Politics October 26, 2006

Forget no-fly lists. If Uncle Sam gets its way, beginning on Jan. 14, 2007, we'll all be on no-fly lists, unless the government gives us permission to leave-or re-enter-the United States.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (HSA) has proposed that all airlines, cruise lines-even fishing boats-be required to obtain clearance for each passenger they propose taking into or out of the United States.

It doesn't matter if you have a U.S. Passport - a "travel document" that now, absent a court order to the contrary, gives you a virtually unqualified right to enter or leave the United States, any time you want. When the DHS system comes into effect next January, if the agency says "no" to a clearance request, or doesn't answer the request at all, you won't be permitted to enter-or leave-the United States.

Consider what might happen if you're a U.S. passport holder on assignment in a country like Saudi Arabia. Your visa is about to expire, so you board your flight back to the United States. But wait! You can't get on, because you don't have permission from the HSA. Saudi immigration officials are on hand to escort you to a squalid detention center, where you and others who are now effectively "stateless persons" are detained, potentially indefinitely, until their immigration status is sorted out.

Why might the HSA deny you permission to leave-or enter-the United States? No one knows, because the entire clearance procedure would be an administrative determination made secretly, with no right of appeal. Naturally, the decision would be made without a warrant, without probable cause and without even any particular degree of suspicion. Basically, if the HSA decides it doesn't like you, you're a prisoner - either outside, or inside, the United States, whether or not you hold a U.S. passport.

The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized there is a constitutional right to travel internationally. Indeed, it has declared that the right to travel is "a virtually unconditional personal right." The United States has also signed treaties guaranteeing "freedom of travel." So if these regulations do go into effect, you can expect a lengthy court battle, both nationally and internationally.

Think this can't happen? Think again. It's ALREADY happening. Earlier this year, HSA forbade airlines from transporting an 18-year-old a native-born U.S. citizen, back to the United States. The prohibition lasted nearly six months until it was finally lifted a few weeks ago. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are two countries in recent history that didn't allow their citizens to travel abroad without permission. If these regulations go into effect, you can add the United States to this list.

>>>Can anyone verify this through another site besides the one where it was found? (http://sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3023)


  • I hope this isnt true

    But it does not come as a surprise, In the begining I suported (nominaly) this so called war on terror, but I began to have my doubts about the real motivations behind it from around the time the patriot act was signed into law. The more I hear, the more the conspiracy theories that I scoffed at seem to be justifyed if not entirely accurate. I now have the same suspecions that I have read others stating that our own government may have had an active part in the planning of events leading us to the place in which we now appear to be, And would be neither shocked or surprised if I am sometime in the near future arrested for publicly stating these ideas

    37%  Voted for by Dwn, looking4realtruth, allonetribe.
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  • Freedom was never free.

    We had to fight to get it from Europe and establish ourselves. We have to fight and/or reason and trade with other countries every day to stay the way we are. As we evolve our technologies and our thinking, and more controversy emerges from media (the controversy always existed, we just didn't hear as much of it as we used to), the freedom prices change. In reality, we're the same as we've always been. Morals and controlled thinking is no longer the vast majority of opinions.

    25%  Voted for by Oral Fixation, bulletformel.
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  • Freedom of Action?

    They always say that we have freedom of speech but how about freedom of action? Yes, we can speak aloud for our rights, but does the government actually lets it people to change anything on their own? There answer to that is dependable. We don't have complete freedom. Hard work and warfare is what we came here for. There's always a limit to things and restrictions. Nobody is free as the way we perceive freedom to be.

    Voted for by Paradoxx.
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  • Thats scary
    Thats pretty scary. Period.
    And as to what people are saying about getting arrested for what they say, I wouldn't be suprised, its happened here before.
    Alien And Sedition Acts, and the Espinoge and Sedition Acts, have done such things to us in the past.
    By the way, we base our ideas of government from our forefathers, according the some benjamin franklin quotes, The Patriot act is unconstitunial. So yah doesn't seem to matter anymore does it?
    ♥Kate
    Voted for by me alone.
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  • Wow
    But tell me this...when were America's freedoms....ever really free?
    Voted for by sexieblacc.
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