Ya think?
Posted on 05/04/2008 4:23:01 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
All Wisconsin boaters may be required to carry photo identification as federal officials consider tighter security of the nation's more than 17 million small vessels.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued a report calling for stepped-up security of all boats, including the nearly 600,000 registered in Wisconsin, noting that terrorists have used small vessels elsewhere in the world for attacks.
Homeland Security's effort to regulate boats represents one of its furthest-reaching security efforts that touch Americans' lives, perhaps only surpassed by airline passenger screening.
Boating has long been a largely unregulated activity in some states. In Wisconsin, boaters must register their boats, but they don't have to carry identification and most don't need any safety training.
"This group was not looked at as a threat, and they have for many years been able to operate on the open seas in a non-regulated way. We are now regulating them so we know who they are," said Robert Gauvin of the U.S. Coast Guard. "We want to find out if there are threats. Right now we can't tell what's a threat and what's not."
The federal government's final plan is still months away, but officials already have faced a backlash from some boaters concerned about the possibility of a federal boating license.
Coast Guard officials said no such license is in the works. Instead, they said they want to piggyback on existing state licensing and safety programs and tap into local boat registration databases, rather than creating their own.
While nothing is final, it appears that federal authorities will at least call for boaters to carry photo identification.
"You can't get behind the wheel of a car without a driver's license," said Jeff Hieb of the Coast Guard. "When you are operating a boat, you are operating a vehicle. All the other things that go into operating a vehicle are there. It is just common sense that the operator of a vessel be identifiable by a government ID."
If identification is required, it's unclear who would enforce that and what would happen to a boater who doesn't have an ID.
In addition, the Coast Guard wants access to all states' boat registration databases. Wisconsin - currently sixth nationwide in its number of boats - has agreed.
But Minnesota, another top boating state, is one of three states that have refused. Minnesota officials on Friday were not available for comment.
Dan Thomas, president of the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council, said he doesn't have a problem with federal authorities tapping into boat registrations, but he doesn't see a need for forcing all boaters to carry ID.
"We are losing our right to privacy," he said. "We are just out there fishing, and they want a right to stop us and ask for an ID. I have a problem with that big time."
Wayne Happel, spokesman for Lake Michigan Yachting Association, said he thinks many boaters in his group already carry a driver's license on board, but he is concerned that might not be enough. Any new requirement would be a burden, he said.
"We see this as another layer of bureaucracy that ultimately will cost boaters an additional fee," Happel said.
In a new report, the Coast Guard says it is exploring new technology to screen boats and is teaming up with state and local law enforcement. It also is suggesting boaters receive safety training and learn how to watch for suspicious activity, sort of like a neighborhood watch program. It's unclear yet if any of the training will be mandatory.
The watch training already is being encouraged as part of boater safety classes in states. In Wisconsin, everyone born after 1989 must take a safety class to drive a boat, said Bill Engfer, homeland security coordinator for the state Department of Natural Resources.
Engfer said boaters should express their views before the federal plan is final. They can e-mail their comments to Kathryn.c.dunbar@uscg.dhs.gov.
In the end, he said, ideally the changes will to be invisible to most boaters.
"We are fortunate we enjoy our freedom. You just jump in the boat and go," he said. "We are going to be working with (federal authorities) to make sure people can go out and enjoy themselves with least intrusion as possible."
The stupidity is endless! Build the fence. Kick out the criminal invaders. Maybe not an end to all of our problems, but it sure makes more sense than frisking Grandpa when he and Little Johnny are out catching a few Walleye!
Grrrrrr!
Close the damn borders.....then worry about the puddles.
Too bad this didn't come up before the primary in Wisconsin. Then you could have found out if Hilary or Barack can tie a lure and cast.
I believe in a national photo ID card. Singling out boaters does seem silly, but I do support the idea that you should be able to prove who you are — for one thing, it would make the Voter ID issue go away.
That's racist!
Oh, don’t worry. They’re just targeting White Guys & Gals, so it’s not a problem.
Yeesh!
Frustrating beyond belief isn’t it?
You would think so. But you know someone is waiting to claim the requirement for picture IDs would disparately impact some group or another (poor, women, children, people of color, GLBTs, etc) and they would therefore be 'disenfranchised from boating'.
Ridiculous? Yes. Would this type of nonsense actually happen? You know it would.
Ding, ding, ding: we have a winner!
♫ ♫ ♫
This will not even be an issue here in Alabama. In order to operate a boat, you must have registration on board and your driver’s license. The license must show that you’ve had a boaters safety course.
The dumb thing here was requiring all operators to have the special code indicating attendence. Those born before a certain date were ‘grandfathered’ and did not have to have completed the course. Still had to go to the license bureau and get a new license with the code. You also had to pay a fee for the new license. One wonders why the state maritime patrol just couldn’t check the birth date? Well, then the state wouldn’t get the additional revenue would they?
But wouldn't that be racist and jingoistic?
ML/NJ
I glad I was 12 when I was. I would go out on the channel by myself at 5:30 AM and just fish. No license, No jacket, just fish.(TN)
Ihre Papieren, bitte.
Please!
ML/NJ
Ya think?
Not. Wisconsin has required photo ID to purchase cold meds for several years now. All while Diamond Jim Doyle has been giving some sob story about how his poor old mum would be disenfranchised if she needed a photo ID to vote. Apparently the old bird must never get the sniffles.
Here is a COUNTER proposal.
In much of the US, why don’t States abandon automobile licensing altogether? It is not as ridiculous an idea as it sounds.
The state of Florida alone has something like 500,000 unlicensed drivers right now. The police have for all intents and purposes given up on arresting or even ticketing people because they don’t have a driver’s license.
The net result? Not a whole lot of anything. This is because the police are concerned, and *should* be concerned with *unsafe* drivers. If you are driving safely, it should not matter if you have a license or not.
The entire concept of vehicle licensing is based on the idea that somehow it will make the roads safer. But in truth, that may not be the case.
“But driver’s licenses are a useful form of identification for *other* things!”, is the usual argument.
It shouldn’t be. That is not the purpose of a driver’s license, even if they are used for that purpose. If you *need* an ID, for some reason, States and some businesses also issue photo IDs as well.
For these reasons, I suggest that everybody take a deep breath and step back from the idea of licensing boats as well. Will licensing really increase our security one iota?
The 9-11 attackers didn’t have driver’s licenses. But they were authorized to get them if they wanted them. They all did have legitimate passports, which also points out the futility of thinking that passports will improve our security, either. 2M Americans visit Mexico alone every year. Do they need passports even though they haven’t for a hundred years?
While the federal government now has an immense fingerprint database, it might be about the only really effective database for public safety. DNA databases don’t do anything before the fact. They are only useful after the fact, as it takes far too long to check DNA, compared to fingerprints.
But back to licensing. If your State, and the federal government, both have your fingerprints which any police officer can check on his car fingerprint reader, do you need a driver’s license? Or a boat license?
Perhaps they are just a terribly expensive waste. If the police officer has pulled you over for speeding, you are going to get a ticket, with or without a license.
Maybe they are just 20th Century artifacts.
Yah old people and minorities hardest hit and this will definitely hamper the democrat party right ?
Well said!
We have the same thing in California. Driver’s license for Claritin-D and not more than a certain amount per month. But it only affects law-abiding folks. The nanny state sure has their priorities straight!
Forget about enjoying a day on the water fishing.
But this will reduce “boater fraud”...
Those dang Canadians might declare a jihad. Eh?
You want to build a fence across the Great Lakes?
What's wrong with stopping terrorists from coming in from Canada by boat? We check the cars.
Because Canada is not a threat to us. they've even covered our air space at times when we were short on planes. Canada at least attempts somewhat to control who comes in to their nation.
Go to a beach in the Gulf of Mexico, The Alantic, or Pacific coast and look out to sea. If you see a ship clearly without binoculars there is a good chance it is in International Waters. Ships {Freighters} come into our ports daily uninspected. Anyone of them could be carring a NBC payload into a port like NYC, or even worse Norfolk, Virginia.
Yet it seems all DHS has to to is worry about some local yokel out in his bass boat on a weekend and getting his picture not to mention some FEDERAL TAX MONEY and FEDERAL ID CARD. See a problem here?
Why come in from Canada who at least has some border control enforcement when Mexico will do everything it's it's power to get you into the USA friend or foe. Snap pictures of VISA holdeers. Enforce current Visa laws. That alsone would have prevented 9/11/. Check all baggage bellonging to all foreign nationals coming into the United States especially with suspect nationalities.
But stop trying to treat obvious law abiding U.S. citizens as potential terrorist while our goverment's leqadership still kisses up to the very nation's who's preople attacted us and funded the operations on 9/11 and no I don't mean Iraq. One nation had all but four of the 9/11 attackers as it's citizens and not a word was said.
We are a nation governed by globalist control freaks who got their high ranking created job just by being a family friend of a political family.
Canada has some very loose refugee and immigration laws that allow potential terrorists to legally set themselves up in Canada.
If you recall there was a terrorist caught trying to enter with a car trunk filled with explosives via a ferry. He was stopped by Customs Officers on an inbound inspection.
Canadians are not a threat to the US, but there have been several incidents of real terrorists coming into the US via Canada. The borders between the US and Canada are probably more porous than those between the US and Mexico. Just because we don’t have millions of Canadians coming across the border doesn’t mean that the border is even remotely secure.
Heck, I have personally snuck across the border into Canada in a small boat, spent the night and returned to the US. In three weeks of canoeing the Boundary Waters, I saw not a single ranger, border guard or military man.
Inspection is one thing. That is BP's job and in some cases on Some waterways the CG's. Making everyone have photo ID for operating a boat is ridiculous. I speak as one who was operating one alone while camping alone from my early teens on.
Our government is being allowed to make us all potential suspects until proved otherwise. We survived WW2 and the Cold War with the nuclear threat without this crap. During WW2 the only place requiring photo ID to enter or travel to was basically the Manhattan Project Areas and those living within those areas volunteered the surrendering of their rights. To protect vital interest or areas guards were posted.
Case in point Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge. The city was fortified with a fence. About 12 miles upstream is a dam. If the dam had been taken out at full lake level the city would have been flooded. So what was the answer? They suspected it would be an air attack as an attack by water would be impossible. Machine gun placement were built below that dam during WW2 below the dam. The attack never came. But no one living near the dam was treated as potential suspects either.
The Bush Administration has tossed common sense out the window making everyone but the most likely persons thanks to P.C. suspected terrorist. Tell me what was the name of that family who was allowed to fly out of the U.S. on 9/11 yet not even a medical chopper could fly a needed mission?
Small Crafft Boating does not need to be a federal issue and this is just yet another example of Big Brother wanting to know what Joe Citizen rather than Sheik Holdie Handy's sons on student Visas are doing. The government can do good common sense police work without doing such and here is a good example.
Remember the dam I mentioned? Well sometime after 9/11 in the month of February an alert security guard saw three M.E. foreign nationals at the dam at about 3:30 am. Now I'm a local to that area myself. That time of year the only persons at the dam are those driving across it going home. Turns out one I think was wanted possibly for an expired VISA. The guard took their names but the NCIC files were down at the time. He ran them later that morning and got a hit. They were arrested later that day. But the truth of the matter was they worked at a shopping mall. Cops saw them daily. No one including the city asked them to see a VISA to issue a business license. We're the foreign nationals of M.E. origin? Yes anyone could tell.
To yet another point. The government want me to have a federal ID to go fishing in my boat {I already have the boat registered with my state with a hull number} yet 24/7/365 allows without an ounce of harassment Illegals to live and work in the City Of Oak Ridge, Tennessee unharassed. Do you realize what is in that city? It's not just Mexican and Latin American illegals the place has a sizable Chinese population now as well. But the DHS is concerned that my 14 foot outboard is a national security threat?
Bush and his loyal long time family friend appointed lackeys have tried every reason under the sun to build databases on law abiding obvious American Citizens yet ignores real potential threats everyday by the millions. I am not buying into the W.O.T. because Bush and friends has done nothing to show me they are actually serious about securing our borders and dealing heavy haqnded with foreign nationals here illegally. Instead our U.S. Attorneys cut deals to testify against our own BP with them. That is the Bush Legacy on national security. That and a do nothing for the military policy yet people think he's the second Reagan.
Bush policy is always make life rougher on Joe Citizen in the name of W.O.T. The real terrorist in the meantime couldn't give a Tinker D about Bush's databases or W.O.T. because foreign trade relations comes first and they likely aren't in it due to political favors in exchange for trade favors.
Yemen is another good case in point. Yes USS COLE happened under Clinton's watch actually in the very last weeks. Yes Bush ignored it also just like ignoring his friends the Sauds and 9/11 involvement, just like his trade friend Mexico and not securing our borders, and I'll not mention how China Blind Dem Bush's really are.
Name me even one Iraqi 9/11 attacker. They came from our so called TRADE friends Saudi Arabia and the UAE where the Cole bombers thanks to a Navy shipyard located there likely found out all they ever needed to know about where to hit the Cole to do the most possible damage and put it D.I.W.. No it was not just a lucky guess. Tell the governemt to stop wizzing down my leg and telling me it's raining.
So do we unfortunately. You can’t profile a M.E. national, yet you can require every law abiding American who’s family has been here for generations to register themselves with the government to be watched making their private matters an open book. We except it one so called good idea at a time. Anything from Traffic Light Cameras to this. Freedom in exchange for security is a bad bargain. I can only think of one case where it was needed and after the need was met the requirement was dropped. In the mean tyime the government lies and abuses breaks even the very laws it makes. Remember what used to be printed on your Social Security Card? Try to do business without it.
There is a real, real lot of people out kayak fishing on the ocean in the dead of night. And sometinmes without any light. I am one. Always wondered how much of a radar return I make.
So would kayakers need a licence?
The boating industry fought this. It will bring the boating business way down. The bigger boats are under the pressure of the marine prices for gas and diesel.
This crap keeps going an American will have to have a license just to step out his/her front door ...then he/she can wave to the illegals, without any, cutting his/her neighbors lawn.
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