Hunter, Sensenbrenner Hold Line: Military & Intel, Illegal Aliens & Driver's Licenses

It could happen any day now: A U.S. military unit heads into an urban combat zone in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. Its members believe they know where Abu Musab Zarqawi is hiding. Their mission is to capture or kill the most murderous terrorist this side of Osama bin Laden.

Their chance of succeeding--and getting back alive--will be enhanced by accurate and timely intelligence fed to them from overhead satellites.

Question: Who should control those satellites?

Should it be the military commanders of the troops heading into combat? Or should it be a civilian bureaucrat--removed from the military chain of command--sitting in a velvet-draped office in Washington, D.C.?

Right now, the military controls the spy satellites that collect "tactical" intelligence for use in combat. Meanwhile, the Central Intelligence Agency uses these very same satellites for collecting "strategic" intelligence (about things like those suspected Iraqi weapons-of-mass-destruction stockpiles that the CIA--while relying on the satellites--did not recruit a single Iraqi spy to track down and verify on the ground).

Licensed Hijackers

The National Security Agency, which intercepts, decodes and translates communications, the National Reconaissance Office, which operates the surveillance satellites themselves, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes and integrates the data gathered into maps and other combat-usable applications, are all part of the Department of Defense. Their budget requests are generated by the military, and their chain of command runs from the commanders in the field, through the secretary of Defense, to the commander in chief in the White House.

Liberal Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, wants to take authority over these satellites away from the military commanders and give it to a newly minted civilian bureaucrat, known as the National Intelligence Director, who will have ultimate administrative authority over all intelligence operations both military and civilian. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D.-Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, wants to do that, too.

House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter (R.-Calif.) is standing up for American warriors in the field by standing in the way of Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman.

Hunter is right. Collins and Lieberman are wrong. This is the main conflict that has held up the "intelligence reform" bill that Congress is currently considering in response to the report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

Now, consider another case. This one, sadly, already came to pass:

Nineteen al Qaeda terrorists board four U.S. jetliners. They identify themselves to the airlines using some of the 63 separate driver's licenses that had been issued to them by various U.S. states--and, in some instances, which they had secured with the help of illegal aliens who had already learned how to manipulate the lax practices of state departments of motor vehicles.

The terrorists hijack the jets and crash them into the twin towers at the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Northern Virginia, and a field in Western Pennsylvania. They murder more than 3,000 people.

In response to these attacks, thousands of U.S. troops are deployed to Afghanistan to root out the terrorist bosses of these calculated killers. A global war on terror is launched. Many billions of dollars are spent. Many brave, young U.S. fighters are killed or wounded in battle.

Almost three years after the September 11, 2001, attacks, a special federal commission set up to study why the U.S. was so vulnerable recommends that the federal government "set standards for the issuance of . . . driver's licenses."

Never mind that it took three years and a panel of muckity-mucks to arrive at this simple, commonsense application of the federal government's core constitutional function of securing the nation against foreign enemies and providing laws to regulate the immigration and naturalization of aliens. The fact is: The recommendation has not yet been implemented.

If another set of al Qaeda killers were to enter the United States this morning--this time walking illegally across the Mexican or Canadian border--many U.S. states would still give them driver's licenses.

This is another conflict holding up the bill in response to the commission's recommendations. House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.) is insisting that the bill actually carry out the commission's recommendation on setting national standards for driver's licenses. The House has proposed language that would effectively bar states from giving licenses to illegal aliens.

Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman are against this, too.

The majority of the Republicans in the House support the principled stand Hunter and Sensenbrenner have taken on the bill. House Speaker Dennis Hastert two weeks ago refused to bring a bill to a vote without the support of these two key chairmen. Liberals in the House, the Senate and the establishment press want to force Hunter and Sensenbrenner to surrender. But these two conservatives are standing up for America. President Bush should stand with them and insist that Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins surrender.

In addition to the items considered in this post I would like to offer some more items or maybe different legislation.

It might be good to start with the basics.

Voter Legislation. This would require positive picture ID from anyone casting a ballot in a Federal election. That ID number would be matched with a national database where it would be verified as belonging to a real living human being and that person has not already voted in the particular election. Registration for voters in a Federal election would close on June 1 or 30 days before a primary.
No voter registration could involve anyone other that the person is registering. ie no one could bring your card in for you.
No convicted fellon could vote in a Federal election.

Border Control. All illegal imigrants would be deported immediately. Positive ID would be required of anyone entering the country in the future. A tracking/reporting system would be designed and implemented to ensure that a person here on a visa was actually doing what the visa allowed. ie a student must be actively attending a school.

Term Limits. All Federal elected positions would have term limits. (as the president does now).
Congress 4 two year terms
Senate 2 six year terms
Judges would no longer have lifetime appointments. Federal judges 10 years max. Supreme Court judges 15 years max. All judges must retire by age 75.

I'm curious if you've heard about the new SS/Bush Administration Totalization agreement with Mexico.

Totalization: Sellout of American Workers

by Phyllis Schlafly
Nov. 17, 2004
The Democrats are trying to make a campaign issue out of George W. Bush's alleged plan to "privatize" Social Security, scaring seniors into thinking their checks will be cut off. That is a phony issue; all Bush suggests is to offer younger workers the option (not the compulsion) of transferring a very small part of their Social Security benefit into private investments.

The real threat to Social Security doesn't come from giving young people this opportunity. The threat comes from the Bush Administration's plan to load illegal aliens into the Social Security system, an idea that would skyrocket costs and bankrupt the system at the same time that baby boomers flood into their benefit years.

The code word for this racket is "totalization." The United States has totalization agreements with 20 other countries, which have been reasonable and non-controversial, but totalization with Mexico is TOTALLY different.

The idea behind totalization with other countries is to assure a pension to those few individuals who work legally in two countries by "totalizing" their payments into the pension systems of both countries. All existing totalization agreements are with developed nations whose retirement benefits are on a parity with U.S. benefits, and the affected employees work for companies that have been paying taxes into the other countries' retirement systems.

Workers from the other 20 countries come with documents from their employer verifying that they are authorized to work in the United States. Only a minuscule fraction of Mexicans enter with such documents.

The legitimate goal of totalization with other countries is to avoid double taxation for retirement when employers assign their employees to work temporarily in another country. Reciprocity works because there is rough parity between the number of U.S. workers in the 20 other countries and the foreigners from those countries who work in the United States.

But this goal has no relevance to Mexico. There is no parity whatsoever between the number of Mexicans working in the United States and the number of U.S. citizens working in Mexico, and absolutely no parity in the social security systems of the two countries.

Mexican benefits are not remotely equal to U.S. benefits. Americans receive benefits after working for 10 years, but Mexicans have to work 24 years before receiving any benefits.

Mexican workers receive back in retirement only what they actually paid in, plus interest, whereas the U.S. Social Security system is skewed to give lower-wage earners benefits greatly in excess of what they and their employers contributed.

Mexico has two different retirement programs, one for public-sector employees, which is draining the national treasury, and one for private-sector workers, which is estimated to cover only 40 percent of the workforce. The rest of the workers are in the off-the-record economy (euphemistically called the "informal" sector).

The 10 million Mexicans who have illegally entered the United States previously lived in poverty, did not pay social security taxes in Mexico, and did not work for employers who paid taxes into a retirement plan. If they were working at all, it was in the off-the-record economy.

Illegality is no issue with the countries where we have existing totalization agreements because none of them accounts for even one percent of the U.S illegal population. On the other hand, Mexico provides more than two-thirds of the illegals in the United States.

The Bush totalization plan would pay out billions in Social Security benefits to Mexicans for work they did in the U.S. using fraudulent Social Security numbers, something that Americans would go to jail for doing. It would pay Social Security Disability benefits to Mexicans who worked in the United States as little as 3 years.

The Bush totalization plan would lure even more Mexicans into the United States illegally in the hope of amnesty and eligibility for Social Security benefits. The Bush plan would even cover the Mexicans' spouses and dependents who may never have lived in the United States.

Since few if any of the illegal aliens have built up any equity in the Mexican retirement system, what is there to totalize? Totalization is a plan for the U.S. taxpayers to end up assuming the entire burden.

When George W. Bush became President in 2001, the Mexican government expected the United States to pass amnesty (disguised as a guest worker plan and "regularizing" the entry of Mexicans). After 9/11, Mexico's national policy turned to increasing the number of its nationals working in the United States and getting them to qualify for all the social benefits and privileges Americans receive, from driver's licenses to Social Security and Social Security Disability.

The Social Security commissioners of both Mexico and the Bush Administration signed a totalization agreement in June of 2004, but the text of the agreement has been kept secret. Maybe we will be permitted to see it after the President approves it and sends it to Congress.

Let your Members of Congress know you want them to stop this billion-dollar sellout of American workers and taxpayers.
http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2004/nov04/04-11-17.html

PDF TOTALIZATION AGREEMENT
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1286668/posts?page=26 Post 36

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Answer	Percent
No			78%
Yes		22%