UPDATE: Commenter Andre Szara sent the following link from a story in CNN from 2005. Old news but useful information.
The item outlines the Patriot Act requirements for truck drivers; like most government regulations it makes for depressing reading. Basically, they’re going to:
- fingerprint every hazmat trucker in the U.S.
- this will take five years, minimum
- most states have only one fingerprinting site
- since they don’t have the fingerprinting process up and running the Transportation Security administration used a list of names of almost three million current hazmat truckers to check against a list of known terrorists. They were able to turn over approximately a hundred leads to the FBI.
So beginning in January, 2005, all truckers applying for hazmat licenses would be fingerprinted upon application. The rest will slowly come through the mill:
The fingerprints will be submitted to the FBI, which will run them against its extensive criminal database. If the background check reveals that the driver has been convicted of terrorism, espionage, murder or certain other felonies, the driver will be permanently banned from hauling hazardous materials. They also will be banned if they are fugitives or adjudicated as mentally ill.
Critics say this is a “feel-good” resolution. Of course, they will be the first in line to complain if somehow a hazmat driver becomes involved in a terrorist act.
Have you noticed that for those who thrive on angry outrage, whatever attempts are made to make things safer are both useless measures and, at the same time, not enough? So if nothing happens, they can sneer, and if awful destruction occurs they can point fingers. These are the people who cringe at the idea of domestic intelligence because it might involve someone examining their library card use.
In the phrase “useful idiots” it is the noun which is operative here.
Fox News had a video up tonight titled “Warning Signs.”
The FBI in Kansas City is said to be conducting an investigation into a truck-driving school in West Plains, Missouri.
The South Central Career Center, with its peeling sign out front, offers truck driving lessons. It seems to have attracted a large number of Somali Muslims from a community of Somalis in Kansas City. In the last 18 months, the majority of its students have been Somalians.Should we be concerned? Probably. Why in the Midwest? Why the concentration of Somalis in this line of work? Is this anything like flight training school except you don’t have to learn to land? Are they bothering to learn how to brake one of those things?
In a way, trucks are of more concern than planes. They are ubiquitous, a commonplace in our everyday landscape. They pass us all the time on the highway and we don't even notice. An 18 wheeler loaded surreptitiously with something explosively unstable could be a nightmare beyond the wildest imaginings of whatever concerns Dubai Ports raised.The FBI is investigating, but it isn’t talking. I’ll bet a great many driving schools are under scrutiny. Fox News just happened upon one of them.
13 comments:
NO! NO RATIONALITY ANDREW! Panic! Time to panic! The brown people are driving trucks! Panic!
And vote for Bush please.
Anything is possible.
The FBI is paid to check stuff like that. It's their job.
--Hey, Sgt
Vote for Bush . . . ? George can't run again, you know, the Constitution thingy . . . . or do you mean Jeb . . . ?
Andrew I agree that this may be a way to move up, though the school is nowhere near where these people live. It's quite a hike. And one of the people involved, a black American with a Muslim name, is also being investigated for fraud in this driving scheme. So it may be nothing more than his criminality at issue.
Nonetheless, it deserves some investigation. As do the Muslim compounds in Virginia. Not nice places, according to the few who've managed to get out.
Post 9/11 anything anomalous deserves a look-see. I suggest you read some of the former posts on this blog about the many arrests in the Midwest for money-lundering, fraud, etc., by Pakistani convenience stores.
Susan Baker If you saw panic in my post, I suggest professional help -- it was a report on a company the FBI "finds of interest."
You will notice that the title of the post has a question mark. This indicates that we don't know if there's a problem or not.
What you don't know can't hurt you, right? So keep on truckin', kid.
Tom
Thanks for the info. You save me asking my trucker brother-in-law...and you confirm what I'd wondered about.
No doubt the men and women from Somali as well as most other Islamic countries are hard-working and only interested in personal advancement … for the most part. But so are immigrants from South Korea, Latin America, and the Ukraine. We obviously can’t let all the honest hard-working people from around the world into our country. Why not give preference to people from Christian and Buddhist nations? After all they require less vetting and less monitoring. We’re going to have to turn away some good hard-working people … why not make it easier for ourselves?
Interesting story which deserves **professional** and skeptical attention.
It's either a way to move up or ...
Where's agent Bauer?
Even if the vast majority are simply people looking to make a good living, it would require only one of them being a terrorist to create a real danger. I believe at least keeping an eye on the situation is the right thing to do.
I can't imagine NOT keeping an eye it something like that. I can't imagine why Sgt Baker would have an objection to it either. It happens to be the brown people from Islamic nations who fly airplanes into buildings, and chances are it'll be brown people from Islamic nations who pull off the next 911 stunt, so it would probably behoove the FBI to check out brown people from Islamic nations when they start flocking to a given transport school.
Does Sgt Baker suggest that checking out brown people in flight schools is a panic reaction? Or should we wait for a truck bomb to level a city block or two before we start watching trucking schools?
sgt. susan baker seems quite excitable. And isn't it typical of a lefty to focus on the "color" of a person's skin.
sgt. baker, what "color" is a Muslim?
Every state has hundreds, even thousands of fingerprint sites, their called 'police stations.'
I have to have background checks done, at least, yearly as part of Fed/State legislation to operate a pari-mutual business. Every trucker could be printed well inside of a year, the fed only needs to provide the print cards and the registration questionaire.
This is plain stupid.
West Plains, Missouri? That's in the heart of the Ozarks, not far from my hometown.
Amazing.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
You people are completely ridiculous! Somalis are terrorists?? Just because they are MUSLIM?? Listen to yourselves people! You can't discriminate against people because they are Muslims? Just because 9/11 was caused by Muslims DOES NOT, by any means, mean that all Muslims of any culture are terrorists. Do you even know where Somalia is on a map? And even if some Somalis involve themselves in illegal activities that does not represent the rest of Somali population. You guys are complete idiots. What makes you think you can judge? Absolutely ridiculous. You need to get past your biases and become realistic. A Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, or a Buddhist, any one person from any of these religions can become a terrorist, BUT that does not mean everyone belonging to that faith is a terrorist. Keep that in mind and quit being such fucking assholes.
I love when the "Peace and tolerance" crowd show thier true colors like hibo here does.
First off, hibo, no one said "ALL" Somalis are terrorists. In fact , you came to that conclusion yourself and so you responded in typical cliched boring Lefty tripe.
You know nothing about Islam therefore you are not qualified to state we are "complete idiots".. I can assure you we have forgotten more about Islam than you'll ever know.
So yes.. we can judge.. we can dicern.. because we're not stupid.
Only willfully ignorant persons such as yourself believe you can't judge... that'a limitation you put on yourself.
Who are you tell us we can't?
Why can you judge but no one else... especially when you know nothing?
When will a Leftist break the mold and make counter-arguments intelligently and without the typical emotional whining?
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