I'm glad this story finally made it to CNN.
Friday, February 28, 2003

Not U.S. CNN mind you, what possible interest would American citizens have in this story? No, CNN International - which I might add is now just one web site instead of CNN Asia and CNN Europe. I guess the marketing guys in Atlanta wanted to start consolidating the "message," or something.

Anyway, I won't harp too much on this case. It's already extremely evident that the U.S. government, and the Department of Justice in particular, is far from infallible. I posted this story only so it might become even more clear to everyone that every government agency - and I do mean EVERY agency - is at the end of the day nothing more than an over-funded Department of Motor Vehicles.

Any of you who've ever had to rely on the DMV for anything understands exactly what I'm saying here. Would you allow your local DMV broad new powers of investigation and enforcement? Of course not. Why would you trust such authority to incompetents? Well, that's exactly what's happened here - except instead of the DMV it's the FBI.

I'm not criticizing anyone for wanting to pull Mr. Bond aside, and ask him a few questions (Although, I'm sure at least one FBI moron asked for an autograph). If his identity was stolen, and FBI suspected something was wrong - good on them for checking it out. But what isn't noted in this article is the fact that Mr. Bond was detained for 10 days before anyone so much as asked him his name.

I don't have many people in my family who've been able to manage to live to Mr. Bond's age - and of those none were ever so privileged as to be able to go on a wine tasting tour in South Africa - but to imagine any of them spending three weeks in prison because of a bureaucratic error makes me sick.

Will heads roll for this? No. And it's that much more of a disgrace to our country because of it.

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Expedited Removal
Monday, February 24, 2003

From the Toronto Star:

“A Toronto woman coming home from India says she was pulled aside at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, accused of using a fake Canadian passport, denied consular assistance and threatened with jail…Instead of jailing her on Jan. 27, an INS officer cut the front page of Cruz's passport and filled each page with "expedited removal" stamps, rendering it useless…She was photographed, fingerprinted, barred from re-entering the U.S. for five years and immediately "removed"…Not to Toronto, but to India, where she had just spent several weeks visiting her parents.”

Yes! Finally the United States is safe from this despicable loan officer. Who can say what horrors she would have unleashed upon an unwitting America had she been allowed to return to her home.

I’d like to personally thank whichever coffee swilling, chromosome-deficient, fuck stick bureaucrat who so astutely observed that this women was not white, and thereby deemed her claims of Canadian citizenship to be highly suspect. Your incompetence and bigotry – which I know is not unique amongst your peers – has earned the United States the continued ridicule and ire of the international community. At a time when we are pleading with our peers to support our policies, you have successfully highlighted their shortcomings with an act of astounding stupidity. You should be commended.

My only regret is that this story will not be reported in the United States. Our media is no longer allowed to critique the policies of our government. If they were, perhaps the citizens of America would be made aware of this shameful incident, and could extend their most sincere regrets and apologies to Berna Cruz.

After that, we might even endeavor to begin an honest public dialogue concerning the shortcomings of the new national security measures protecting our borders.

It’s unlikely that any of this will occur, however. And sadly it is equally unlikely that Berna will be the last person to have to endure this type of treatment at the hands of our government.

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Barack Obama for President Tom Allen for U.S. Senate

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