Targeting White Folks

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried ...

But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.

The Automated Targeting System has been used to screen passengers since the mid-1990s, but the collection of data for it has been greatly expanded and automated since 2002, according to former DHS officials.

"In spite of broad public outcry, the substance and most of the details of the program remain the same – including its most objectionable elements," said the ACLU in its comments to DHS. "The Department of Homeland Security must curb the excesses of ATS and end its continuing and illegal efforts to categorize innocent travelers as security risks based on computer analysis. If DHS is unwilling to act Congress should take further action to end ATS and protect the privacy of travelers."

------Basically, this is "profiling", however, it's profiling predominantly white folks who drive, fly, and cruise abroad. As someone once commented on KAB though – there are times we have to look beyond Black issues, oh wait – profiling innocent folks is a white issue now …

The ATS program is not new, just improved. I've been flagged for decades crossing borders. The feds may not have known the book in my bag, athough sometimes they did, but they knew pretty much everything else. Sometimes they waved me through customs, sometimes they took notes and checked every crack and cranny. I know in the 1980s other countries forwarded information to the US government and vice versa.

I suppose whites, most whom have never understood racial injustice, will fully understand social class injustice. Innocent traveler? Not unless your class, connections, and affluence purchase a proper number on the security risk-o-meter. Remember, the #1 motive behind government is REVENUE, and those privileged traveler cards will cost you.

While government pretends to be concerned with protecting you and activists act as if the government targets innocents – in truth it's the ruling class preparing to collect more revenue through sorting the sheep by social class - and to catch lower class intruders who venture into the ruling class markets of illegal drugs, money laundering, arms dealing, sex trade, etc.

In a quirk sort of way, the road the US is on could eventually find a more equitable society. As automation information is somewhat colorblind, the day may come when Black America will not have to think about race on a daily basis, will not have bestselling exspurts questioning Black IQ, will not feel out of place in certain stores, neighborhoods, or businesses - in my own lifetime I've witnessed the slow and steady move to categorize all Americans by economic class more than race.

I taught my children the most important color in America i$ green, for regardless of skin pigment, people will fawn and flatter if they perceive you as having a little money, a name, or connections. Usually, a little affluence buys rank, rights, and respect, whether deserved or not.

I feel sympathy for white folks - simply being white doesn't get you as far as it used to. And, not only profiling, but other social injustices are going to whiten up, i.e. the prison industry.