The big, simple reason why the Immigration Bill should be rejected

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: May 27, 2007 12:39:55 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: The big, simple reason why the Immigration Bill should be  
rejected


Dave,

I don't claim to be an expert on immigration policy.  I'm not
schooled in the intricacies of the different visa types and their
ramifications.  Personally, having lived here in Los Angeles my
entire life, I don't have problems with a multicultural environment,
and I can't help but suspect that a large part of the organized
opposition to the Immigration Bill is driven by racism, even if
below the conscious level in many people.

But from a technical and privacy standpoint, there are aspects of the
bill that seem potentially problematic in their current form,
particularly mandated data sharing of Social Security Administration
data with the Department of Homeland Security, and the ordered use
of the significantly error-prone employee verification database to
verify the status of all future and even current employees.  The
latter is likely to *falsely* indicate that millions of persons
don't have legal employment status.

But there's a much bigger, fundamental reason why the bill should be
rejected, that overrides any and all positive and negative details.

The Immigration Bill is enormous, and if enacted would trigger
immense changes throughout the U.S., and by extension around the
world.  It is inexcusable beyond words that such a massive
undertaking be foisted on the public as a result of secret, backroom
negotiations, with nary a meaningful public hearing to openly
discuss the issues and ramifications.

An exercise of such scope demands a major series of hearings and
comment periods, not a "grand compromise" by the same sort of
politicians who have "compromised" us either directly or indirectly
in the past into other bad legislation, not to mention the Iraq war
and similar travesties.

Immigration reform is a highly emotional topic, but it's also an
extremely technical one, with complex impacts throughout the economy
and people's lives.  It is not an appropriate subject for wink and
handshake legislation, and the legislators involved -- in both
parties -- should be ashamed of themselves.

The only reasonable approach now is to deep-six the current
Immigration Bill and start from scratch with due process.  A bad
bill is most decidedly worse than no bill, especially with ad hoc
changes in the legislation now taking place that appear to make
matters even worse than the existing status quo.

The people of this country should demand no less.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, IOIC
   - International Open Internet Coalition - http://www.ioic.net
Founder, CIFIP
   - California Initiative For Internet Privacy - http://www.cifip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com




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