Get arrested at a protest? It's getting more difficult for peaceful activists to leave the U.S. when they want to.
That's not the most disturbing part. What's even more disturbing is that the FBI is using tax dollars to keep track of peaceful dissenters. Not a new revelation by any means, but disturbing that the practice is not only continuing, but has been escalated.
This database is also shared with other nations, and is an affront to national sovereignty.
Since Yahoo usually deletes articles after a month or so, the whole thing is posted below:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20071..._us_cda_border
If you want out of the U.S. at some point, get out while you still can.
That's not the most disturbing part. What's even more disturbing is that the FBI is using tax dollars to keep track of peaceful dissenters. Not a new revelation by any means, but disturbing that the practice is not only continuing, but has been escalated.
This database is also shared with other nations, and is an affront to national sovereignty.
Since Yahoo usually deletes articles after a month or so, the whole thing is posted below:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20071..._us_cda_border
U.S. peace activists test Canadian border restrictions
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Wed Oct 3, 9:06 PM ET
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. - U.S. peace activists Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright have had a tough time entering Canada lately because their names send up red flags in border agents' computers.
Both women have been arrested in the United States protesting against the Iraq war, which has landed them in an international criminal database. When they visited Canada in August, they were told they would have to apply for "criminal rehabilitation" and pay $200 if they ever wanted to visit again. Neither applied.
On Wednesday, Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, and Wright, a retired U.S. army colonel, walked into Canada at Niagara Falls to test whether they really would be denied entry because of their anti-war-related arrests.
They were.
Now they're asking why the names of those arrested during peaceful protests would be included in an FBI-maintained database meant to track fugitives, potential terrorists, missing persons and violent felons.
"We are certainly no threat to the Canadian people," Benjamin said.
The protesters believe the inclusion of activists' names in the National Crime Information Center database is a form of political intimidation of those opposed to U.S. administration policies.
FBI spokesman Paul Moskal said while the FBI maintains the database, the data are supplied by arresting agencies and others.
By relying on the database to screen visitors, Canada is participating in the administration's suppression of free speech, charged John Curr, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union in Buffalo.
"The Canadians accepted wholesale once you're on the list, you don't get into Canada," Wright said shortly before walking across the Rainbow Bridge into Ontario.
She and Benjamin spent 2½ hours in the customs inspection area before being sent back to the United States.
Derek Mellon, a spokesman with the Canada Border Services Agency, said he was unable to comment on Wright and Benjamin specifically but noted all foreign visitors must meet longstanding admissibility requirements, such as having valid travel documents and a clean criminal record.
"We welcome millions of American visitors every year," he said.
Canada generally refuses entry to anyone who has been convicted of a criminal offence, regardless of the nature of it. Those with convictions, however, may apply to be rehabilitated, which involves filing paperwork and paying a processing fee ranging from $200 to $1,000.
Mellon said that is not new.
"The admissibility requirements have not changed," he said.
Benjamin said she and Wright, who resigned as a senior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia in 2003, plan to protest at the Canadian Embassy in Washington on Thursday and ask the FBI to remove the protest charges from the NCIC database.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Wed Oct 3, 9:06 PM ET
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. - U.S. peace activists Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright have had a tough time entering Canada lately because their names send up red flags in border agents' computers.
Both women have been arrested in the United States protesting against the Iraq war, which has landed them in an international criminal database. When they visited Canada in August, they were told they would have to apply for "criminal rehabilitation" and pay $200 if they ever wanted to visit again. Neither applied.
On Wednesday, Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink, and Wright, a retired U.S. army colonel, walked into Canada at Niagara Falls to test whether they really would be denied entry because of their anti-war-related arrests.
They were.
Now they're asking why the names of those arrested during peaceful protests would be included in an FBI-maintained database meant to track fugitives, potential terrorists, missing persons and violent felons.
"We are certainly no threat to the Canadian people," Benjamin said.
The protesters believe the inclusion of activists' names in the National Crime Information Center database is a form of political intimidation of those opposed to U.S. administration policies.
FBI spokesman Paul Moskal said while the FBI maintains the database, the data are supplied by arresting agencies and others.
By relying on the database to screen visitors, Canada is participating in the administration's suppression of free speech, charged John Curr, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union in Buffalo.
"The Canadians accepted wholesale once you're on the list, you don't get into Canada," Wright said shortly before walking across the Rainbow Bridge into Ontario.
She and Benjamin spent 2½ hours in the customs inspection area before being sent back to the United States.
Derek Mellon, a spokesman with the Canada Border Services Agency, said he was unable to comment on Wright and Benjamin specifically but noted all foreign visitors must meet longstanding admissibility requirements, such as having valid travel documents and a clean criminal record.
"We welcome millions of American visitors every year," he said.
Canada generally refuses entry to anyone who has been convicted of a criminal offence, regardless of the nature of it. Those with convictions, however, may apply to be rehabilitated, which involves filing paperwork and paying a processing fee ranging from $200 to $1,000.
Mellon said that is not new.
"The admissibility requirements have not changed," he said.
Benjamin said she and Wright, who resigned as a senior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia in 2003, plan to protest at the Canadian Embassy in Washington on Thursday and ask the FBI to remove the protest charges from the NCIC database.
If you want out of the U.S. at some point, get out while you still can.
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