WHTI: Another Link in the Control and Surveillance Grid

By Kurt Nimmo~Infowars

In the PSA here, happy young people tote their Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) RFID cards as America the Beautiful plays in the background. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security claim this little biometric card will make traveling “more efficient,” not for tourists and business travelers, of course, but for the government. On June 1, 2009, U.S. citizens returning from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean or Bermuda will be required to have this card, otherwise they will not be allowed in the country.

In January, the CBP and DHS penned a deal with Unisys Corporation to “provide information technology in support of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative,” specifically RFID. “The RFID component stores the traveler’s relevant information. Card readers that Unisys will deploy and manage will quickly communicate that information to CBP, whose systems can confirm the document’s validity and the traveler’s identity.”

The solution will also capture images of the vehicle and its driver, read license plate information, send the captured data to other CBP systems, and retain that data so that future searches can be performed quickly and easily.

Doubtless this data will also be shared with the DHS and other government agencies and will be retained in sprawling databases of the sort used by the NSA in its so-called warrantless electronic surveillance program.

In August, the Washington Post reported on a networked called the Border Crossing Information system.

“The federal government has been using its system of border checkpoints to greatly expand a database on travelers entering the country by collecting information on all U.S. citizens crossing by land, compiling data that will be stored for 15 years and may be used in criminal and intelligence investigations,” wrote Ellen Nakashima. Not only is it described as “part of a broader effort to guard against terrorist threats,” it also “reflects the growing number of government systems containing personal information on Americans that can be shared for a broad range of law enforcement and intelligence purposes, some of which are exempt from some Privacy Act protections.”

All of this was “authorized” after everything changed on September 11, 2001. “The government states in its notice [on the Border Crossing Information system] that the system was authorized by post-Sept. 11 laws, including the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004,” the Post reports.

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Related posts:

1. US rolls out ‘Vicinity RFID’ to check IDs in moving vehicles
2. CCTV, Face Recognition, National ID Cards Help Create a 1984 Surveillance State
3. Military Industrial Complex Biometric Surveillance Control Grid Revealing Itself
4. More Details On the Surveillance Grid Emerge
5. Vermont Issues Licenses With RFID Tags
6. Chronicling the Surveillance Control Grid
7. UK surveillance plan to go ahead: Communication firms asked to monitor all internet use