We All Must Have Work Permits from Dear Leader

The House is considering HR 4437, the "The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005," which also includes HR 4312, the "Border Security and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2005." Last week, the House Judiciary Committee approved the proposal on a party-line vote. The ACLU noted that, while HR 4312 has had some consideration by Congress, no substantive hearings have been held on the larger bill.

The legislation would create a sea-change in federal employment rules by requiring all workers in the country to obtain a federal agency’s permission to work. All employers would be required to participate in a national employment eligibility verification program in an expansion of the faulty but voluntary "Basic Pilot" program in current law. Like Basic Pilot, the new program would use an Internet-based system to check the names and social security numbers of all employees -- citizens and non-citizen alike -- against a Department of Homeland Security database.

The ACLU said that such a move would place a huge burden on both employers and workers. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office reported that conservative estimates of implementing such a system would cost at least $11.7 billion annually, a large share of which would be shouldered by businesses. Also, even assuming a near-perfect accuracy rate in the program, millions of legal, eligible American workers could still have their right to work seriously delayed or denied --fighting bureaucratic red tape to keep a job and pay bills. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations have expressed strong reservations with the employment verification provisions.

You read it right.

You would have to have government authorization to hold a job even as a United States citizen and without that authorization you could be held indefinitely and processed without due process by the government.

Creating all kinds of entrepreneurial opportunities for contractors like CACI, Blackwater, and CSC/DynCorp, no doubt.

Ah, the blessings of free enterprise.