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Papers, Please! » Blog Archive » “Mother, may I?”:
Should you have to ask for permission from the government before you are allowed to get on a plane or cruise ship?
The Department of Homeland Security has proposed that airlines and cruise ships be required to get individual permission (”clearance”) from the DHS for each individual passenger on all flights to, from, or via the U.S. Unless the answer is “Yes” — if the answer is “no” or “maybe”, or if the DHS doesn’t answer at all — the airline wouldn’t be allowed to give you a boarding pass, or let you or your luggage on the plane or ship.

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Gahhhh! another overzealous program of fictional protections. People do not, should not, need permission to leave the country. This goes beyond the sillyness problem of security theater in airports and elsewhere and drives right down into our fundamental capacity to be citizens.

Politicizing the IRS is a Political Cancer Symptom:
The NYT reports that the admonistration is manipulating the IRS for political gain: I.R.S. Going Slow Before Election,

The commissioner of internal revenue has ordered his agency to delay collecting back taxes from Hurricane Katrina victims until after the Nov. 7 elections and the holiday season, saying he did so in part to avoid negative publicity.

The commissioner, Mark W. Everson, who has close ties to the White House, said in an interview that postponing collections until after the midterm elections, along with postponing notices to people who failed to file tax returns, was a routine effort to avoid casting the Internal Revenue Service in a bad light.

Except that it isn’t routine at all: “four former I.R.S. commissioners, who served under presidents of both parties, said that doing so because of an election was improper and indefensible.”

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I agree, this is indefensible. It is wrong to use tax collection or lack of for political purposes. Tax collection is about supporting the critical infrastructure of the nation, and it should never be made to appear to benefit one party or another, it benefits everyone.