Now that we are well on our way to instituting "behavioral profiling," that is to say "looking at your background so when your passenger list comes up we start identifying people that need more scrutiny," at airports in the United States and Britain in the wake of the "liquid bomb" non-threat a week and a half ago, the corporate media is reporting that Rashid Rauf, initially pegged as the plot "key planner" and a close relative of Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar who went over the al-Qaeda dark side, is in fact not what he is cracked up to be, or rather what the corporate media, listening to Pakistan's duplicitous ISI, basically a branch office of the CIA, made him out to be.

After "two weeks of interrogation, an inch-by-inch search of his house and analysis of his home computer, officials are now saying that his extradition is 'a way down the track' if it happens at all," notes the Daily Mail. "It comes amid wider suspicions that the plot may not have been as serious, or as far advanced, as the authorities initially claimed.... Analysts suspect Pakistani authorities exaggerated Rauf's role to appear 'tough on terrorism' and impress Britain and America."

How fortuitous, especially for the neocons and Bush's Ministry of Homeland Security, busily working to trounce the Constitution and turn America into a snoop and police state.

"Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called on state legislators Thursday to embrace new federal driver's license requirements to strengthen security," reports the Associated Press. "Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service. Practically speaking, your driver's license likely will have to be reissued to meet federal standards," explained CNet News in March. In addition to name, birth date, sex, ID number, a digital photograph, and address, "Homeland Security is permitted to add additional requirements-such as a fingerprint or retinal scan-on top of those." In short, without this new card, slotted to go online by 2008, you will be unable to function in society.

"In a speech at the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures, Chertoff sought to allay privacy concerns about the federal Real ID Act, saying there are no plans to create a federal database of drivers' personal information," same as the NSA, ensconced in telecom offices, only listens in on al-Qaeda phone calls or reads Osama's email.

Recall Chertoff and AG Gonzales using the absurd liquid bomb plot as an excuse to hold "suspects" for long periods of time minus formal charge, as the Brits currently do. "What helped the British in this case is the ability to be nimble, to be fast, to be flexible, to operate based on fast-moving information," or rather spurious information. "The Bush administration has pushed for greater executive authority in the war on terror, leading it to create a warrantless eavesdropping program, hold suspects who are deemed as 'enemy combatants' for long periods and establish a military tribunal system for detainees that affords defendants fewer rights than traditional courts-martial," the Associated Press reported last week. In other words, kicking the Bill of Rights while it is down.

Of course, at this point-with more than a week of corporate media reports detailing implausible liquid bomb scenarios, and airports going into hysterical lockdown, the fact Rashid Rauf did not plan to bomb airplanes, or the disappeared "suspects" in London did not have bombs, airline tickets, or even passports-it does not matter if there was a threat or not.

Far too many Americans, reacting like Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One, to commands from the Borg Hive, now believe al-Qaeda will sooner or later mix up a deadly concoction of bathroom chemicals on the next red-eye flight out of Chicago, thus they will acquiesce to barking security thugs at airports and mindlessly march through X-rated X-ray machines with nary a bleat of protest.

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