As you know, the FBI has created a massive biometric database, which includes facial photos and fingerprints of over a million citizens accused of a crime at some point. And, as you know, the FBI has insisted on exempting this database from Privacy Act protections that help us a) learn if our government is collecting data on us and b) sue our government if it's misusing the data (cough by spying on activists cough). The FBI says too many people will interfere with their investigations if they're always asking what info their government has on them. These pesky protections for Americans, always interfering with the FBI's ability to do its job! And those who respond that you wind up in those databases because you must have done something wrong should contemplate how easy they might find themselves in the wrong-place-wrong-time and thus how easily they could wind up in it. So the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the Defending Dissent Foundation help you tell the Department of Justice to reject FBI attempts to exempt their biometric database from civil rights protections.
Meanwhile, the EPA has proposed changes to its Regional Haze rule, which covers air pollution in national parks and wilderness areas. Haze results from the interaction of various particles pumped into our air by farming, industry, car emissions, and wildfires; mainly haze interferes with visibility, but if haze gets dense enough, it becomes smog, which is quite dangerous to our respiratory health. Folks inclined to squeal UNELECTEDZ BUREAUCRATZ TELLZ TEH PEEPULZ WHATZ TO DO!!!!! might consider that the EPA's authority to regulate haze comes from the Clean Air Act, and if they don't like it, they need to tell their Congressfolk to rewrite the law. I'll call them objectively pro-pollution when they do, but hey, if you can't stand the heat, et cetera. And I'll brook no silliness about REGULASHUNZ KILLINGZ TEH JOBS!!!! -- regulations create jobs for the people who redesign and rebuild equipment to comply with them. So the Wilderness Society helps you tell the EPA to issue the most vigorous Regional Haze rules possible, so that our public lands can enjoy clean air for generations to come.
Comments