I just heard on the BBC World Service radio that the amateur rocketeers in the US will all have to photographed and fingerprinted by the ATF as the ATF has stated that they supposedly are considered to be dealing with/using "explosives" [and no doubt, foreign terrorists have infiltrated the rocketry groups and are planning rocket attacks on the Pentagon and Whitehouse right now].

A fact which the National Association of Rocketry dispute as the small "engines" that power their rockets burn at a rate of "centimetres per second" rather than hundreds (or thousands) of meters per second for most explosives.

The NAR spokesman also stated that all their launches of all such rockets are already "controlled"/managed by the FAA and have been for years - so why the sudden shift from FAA control to ATF control?

I can't find a link to post about this story, but if its true, then it represents another step on the path to further erosion of civil rights in the US.

Since you quoted one of my favorite lines from B5, might as well quote the creator of that series on whats going on lately. Basicially the topic of the Nightwatch came up, and people back when the show aired wondered what the possibility was of that happening in modern times. Someone dug that thread back up recently, and here is the quote:

>Do you think the conditions are currently right for martial law? I
>realize that something similar has been discussed to death already on
>this group, but it's not quite the same question, so I hope you'll
>indulge me.

Well, let's see...American citizens (low-lifes, yes, but citizens nonetheless)
detained without questioning or formal charges, military tribunals reviewing
cases in secret without the right of appeal, a proposed system of gathering
everyone's private information for use by the government, tracking checkouts at
public libraries, going through purchases to determine who's taken various
kinds of lessons (including, most recently, suba diving lessons), asking high
schools to turn over addresses for students eligible for military service,
signing an overall action for overseas "hits" on possible targets that does not
specifically exclude American citizens as targets and thus generically includes
them, all but reversing the Freedom of Information Act, a declaration of
wartime emergency that has no clearly defined end-point, moves to weaken or
eliminate the Posse Comitatas act which prohibits the use of military in
domestic situations, the detainment at airports -- under the new terrorist
provisions -- of pepole whose only offense was to take part in protest marches
in Seattle and San Francisco, the loosening of search and seizure laws....

No, not at all, why do you ask?

jms

Heh,
that why I gave it the subject line I did.

It worries me that everything that was portrayed in B5 "as a way off, futuristic - it'll never happen here series" has started to come to pass since 9/11.

When B5 was written no-one would have ever thought something like NightWatch would ever be possible again in the US.

Now, look what JMS indicates - things are getting kind of spooky...

And don't get me started on similarlities between President Clarke and Dubbya...

And no, I don't think that Saddam or Bin Laden is affiliated with the Shadows....

...But maybe Dubbya (or his advisers) are.

You've allways had to have an explosives license (Or be certified by a rocketry organization) for high powered rocketry (see tripoli.org for more info). Generally for an H powered rocket (160 newton seconds) or higher the ATF steps in and requires you to show you're not going to blow yourself up.

For low powered rocketry, I don't see the point. Rocketry has been one of my hobbies for over a decade now, and I can tell you anybody that is interested in rocketry is sure smart enough to come up with something way more deadly than H motor.

Yeah, that is stupid. there's some inconveniences I'm willing to take to stop terrorists, like say, waiting a little longer at the airport. But model rockets? Hell no. When they realize that a terrorist can outfit a model helicopter with a wireless camera and a chunk of c4/anthrax, they'll want to ban/restrict/regulate that. Maybe if every week or so the Pentagon was under attack by model fucking rockets, then I'd say some reasonable restrictions were in order.


Keep the US in the hands of the people. Get armed.