Sunday, July 06, 2008

Mercenaries to Lose Immunity

The days of treating Iraq like a first person shooter may be numbered. Seems that the Iraqi people were getting tired of being shot by trigger happy psychopaths for little to no reason.

from the BBC:

The US embassy in Baghdad has not confirmed the announcement, which comes as the US and Iraq are negotiating a controversial security pact.

Foreign firms employing thousands of guards won huge contracts in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion, but were not subject to Iraqi or US military law.

Iraqi frustration became fury last year when guards killed 17 people in a day.

Racial Profiling May Be Okay for FBI

The FBI might be allowed to investigate Americans without any evidence of any kind or even the smallest legal infraction. In lieu of evidence, a terrorist profile could be used. Not surprisingly, it's based on racial and ethnic characteristics.

The natural target for this policy are Muslims and Arabs, but the weapons of the domestic war on terrorism have not only erred, but have been blatantly misused. With new, racially motivated weapons like these, anybody with a darker then beige skin tone can be conceivably smacked with a terrorism investigation.

from the Los Angeles Times:

Law enforcement officials say the proposed policy would help them do exactly what Congress demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: Root out terrorists before they strike.

Although President Bush has disavowed targeting suspects based on race or ethnicity, the new rules would allow the FBI to consider those factors among a number of traits that could trigger a national security investigation.

Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons -- such as evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated -- to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials told the Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.

About Me

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I'm Troy Doney. I'm on the internet. I'm the writer of the blog "Off the Reservation" at New West. I also write a blog at Reznet. My personal blog is Man Bites Dog. I post my pictures at Flickr and I write short sentences at Twitter.