The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is sending rather blunt letters rejecting applicants for Transportation Worker Identification Credentials, an ID necessary for employment as a dock worker and in other transportation-related fields where security is a concern. As the NYT reports:
A German graduate student in oceanography at M.I.T. applied to the Transportation Security Administration for a new ID card allowing him to work around ships and docks.
What the student, Wilken-Jon von Appen, received in return was a letter that not only turned him down but added an ominous warning from John M. Busch, a security administration official: “I have determined that you pose a security threat.”
Similar letters have gone to 5,000 applicants across the country who have at least initially been turned down for a Transportation Worker Identification Credential, an ID card meant to guard against acts of terrorism, agency officials said Monday.
The officials also said they were sorry about the language, which they may change in the future, but had no intention of withdrawing letters already sent.
“It’s an unfortunate choice of words in a bureaucratic letter,” said Ellen Howe, a security agency spokeswoman.
Ms. Howe and Maurine Fanguy, who oversees the new ID card program, said that most foreign students did not qualify for the identity cards, but that the letters were not intended to label the recipients as potential terrorists. (Some applicants are also turned down because of criminal records.)
Even if DHS were justified in labeling some foreign students as "security threats," would this be a smart thing to put in a letter of this sort? Suppose Mr. von Appen really did pose a threat of some sort, and was not simply denied the credential because he is a foreigner, why would a security agency want to tip him off? I'm simply baffled by the bureaucratic ineptitude that would lead to the issuance of letters like this.
Italian’s Detention Illustrates Dangers Foreign Visitors Face
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14visa.html
"Mein Führer! I can walk!"
Why on earth would we want to let ANY foreign students work anywhere in the country? They are here on a student visa - they are supposed to be studying, not working on the docks! Just try working in a foreign country while there on a student visa.
Of course there is a separate question of why we have so many foreign students in the country to begin with. The govenment-educational complex has a lot to answer for.
Well, both words contain the letters 'l', 'a', 'n' ,and 'd'. Would "Homecountry" be more to your liking? You do understand that "Vater" does not translate to "Home", correct?
Not that it's at all relevant to JA's point, but the permit appears to be related to the student's research interests. (It's not hard to imagine that an oceanography student might need to be able "to work around ships and docks.")
SIG357 seems to have utterly failed to percieve the distinction between denotation and connotation. "Department of Domestic Security" would have been a better choice than "Department of Homeland Security", due to the latter's evocation of Nazi and Soviet rhetoric about the Fatherland or the Motherland.
Indeed, I know a few people who insist on refering to DHS as either the Heimatsicherheitsdienst or as Rodina Bezopastnosti.
I agree with erics (with The Cabbage's corollary).
Start and operate a company and you will no longer be baffled, but will hire CPAs, lawyers, benefits administrators, insurance brokers and CFOs to be baffled on your behalf.
I'm not sure if 'ineptitude' is quite the right term here. It seems more like a Freudian slip: Just for an instant, the mask slips away and we get to see the true nature of the police state.
These are oceanography grad students. I have a friend who was also an MIT student in oceanography who spent an entire semester at sea. They aren't going to become dock workers--their education requires access to ships and docks.
Because we notice a lot of highly skilled foreign talent, and draw it into the US using our educational institutions? Because this not only improves relations overseas, but also results in a net, permanent increase in skilled talent in the US (I knew quite a few international students at MIT, and the vast majority of them are still in the US, either on work visas or having become naturalized citizens)? Because the US has always done this throughout its history, and it seems to have worked pretty well so far?
I think it's detrimental to the US in the long-term to be putting these restrictions on foreigners (especially students), but that aside, I agree that the language used is ridiculous.
As you have pointed out SIG357 doesn't get it. But then, a selection of a .357 from Sig is a strange choice too. Anything less than a .45 is for wussies
:)
Connotation is in the eye of the beholder...
Of course, I would love to respond to this, although others have done so more eloquently. I would like to add that we actually benefit quite from having foriegn students in our schools -- they pay higher tuition, which is often paid by their government, and our students learn about opportunities in the global economy that they wouldn't if they were just isolated in the midwest with other US students.
But we must be careful -- when ever you say anything SIG disagrees with, he will label you as 'dishonest,' as I have learned.
This seems to miss the distinction also missed by the bureaucrats/drafters of those letters. Security risk is not the same as unscreened or rejected for other/arbitrary reasons. Yes, unscreened may be seen as a sort of "risk," but in security circles "security risk" means more than unknown or neutral possibility. If someone was intent on causing harm and the power company/screeners were aware, I sure hope the power company would not let them in with a nuclear plant employee.
This is one of the biggest complaints I hear from professionals when I travel around the world, and in my profession. People were willing to forgive extra security procedures after 9/11, but now the rude agents, the denials of visas for no reason and seemingly arbitrary, and so on, have convinced many professors to not teach or deliver ground breaking papers in the US. Instead, they go to Germany. Students are looking to universities in europe instead of here, depriving us their unique skills, and making the world more wary and isolated against the US. Business professionals can't enter the US, and so do business elsewhere.
It's hurting us because we are losing the best and brightest to other countries, we are losing business opportunities, and we are losing the respect of other countries.
And let's remember, the terror alert is Bert! http://www.geekandproud.net/terror/
Or the United Kingdom.
From a German perspective, it is quite common to avoid visiting the U.S. if not really necessary.
What charming people you know, Andrew.