Free Republic

I can't tell what what Corps. are working on this, yet. But, if I were to bet I'd say that Visionics is one of them. Visionics is doing a lot of biometrics related work for the FedGov.

AAMVA

Baggage could be screened on U.S. ships, trains and buses, maritime and land security heads says

also EPIC has stuff on this, besides what you'll find on my threads. National ID Cards

Do you have bill number? What is timeline for this bill?

Not yet. It's being introduced today. Check back tonight or tomorrow. Thomas won't have the text of it for a few hours/days.

National database
Biometric in that database held by the govt.
taking a "license to drive" and turning into a national iD

bump

Fisheries and Oceans Canada: Canada Disappointed With Outcome of NAFO Meeting

Story Filed: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 10:06 AM EST

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, FEBRUARY 5, 2002 (CCN Newswire via COMTEX) -- The Honourable Robert G. Thibault, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, today indicated that he was pleased with the efforts of the Canadian delegation, but deeply disappointed with the outcome of the special meeting of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) last week. The meeting was held in Helsingor, Denmark, from January 29 to February 1, 2002.

"Canada's objective at these meetings has been to ensure that conservation measures are in place to protect and rebuild fish stocks in the NAFO Regulatory Area, and to ensure that there is compliance with these measures by the vessels of NAFO member countries," said Minister Thibault. "It is very disappointing that, even when presented with strong evidence, NAFO would reject some of our proposals, particularly those which would have helped address the increasing trend towards non-compliance by some foreign fishing vessels."

"However, as a result of the Canadian disclosure of non-compliance, NAFO did agree to establish a process to review and assess compliance performance on an annual basis. This is a serious issue for us and, over the next year, we will increase our monitoring of foreign activity to assess compliance and to provide input into that process. We will continue to press member countries, both bilaterally and in multilateral forums such as NAFO, to take action in response to evidence of violations by their fleets."

Canada's aim at the NAFO meeting in Denmark was to introduce new conservation measures to protect and rebuild stocks, particularly those subject to moratoria. To support the need for these new measures, Canada presented information showing an increasing trend in non-compliance by vessels of some foreign countries party to NAFO. This information is the result of Canada's continuous monitoring of the activity of foreign vessels in the NAFO Regulatory Area.

The specific proposals advanced by Canada were aimed at addressing excessive by-catch of moratoria species, mis-reporting and exceeding quotas. While NAFO accepted some of Canada's proposals, including significantly increasing mesh size in the directed skate fishery and implementing daily reporting of catches in the 3L shrimp fishery, it did reject Canada's proposal to restrict the depth in which the Greenland halibut fishery would be conducted.

Restricting depth in the Greenland halibut fishery would have helped ensure that those participating in this fishery would be legitimately fishing just for that species, and not using this fishery as an opportunity to target some of the species that are currently subject to moratoria. NAFO not only rejected the proposal to restrict Greenland halibut fishing to deeper water, but voted to increase the Greenland halibut Total Allowable Catch (TAC) from 40,000t to 44,000t. This decision ignored advice from the NAFO Scientific Council, which had recommended maintaining the TAC of 40,000t.

With the exception of Greenland halibut, all other harvest levels recommended by the Scientific Council for NAFO stocks were adopted by NAFO. Moratoria will be maintained on 3NO cod, 3NO witch flounder, 3LN redfish and 3LNO American plaice stocks.

The TAC for the yellowtail flounder fishery will continue to be set at 13,000t. The Canadian fleet which has the predominant share of the NAFO quota of yellowtail flounder will continue to be managed with a set of strict controls similar to those applied in recent years. Conservation measures include minimum mesh size, 100% observer coverage and a dockside-monitoring program to monitor all landings.

Current management measures for 3L shrimp will continue in 2002 with a TAC of 6,000t, of which Canada receives 5,000t. The remaining 1,000t is fished outside Canada's fisheries waters in the NAFO Regulatory Area and is shared by other NAFO members. The moratorium on shrimp fishing in Divisions 3NO will continue.

Measures adopted at the Special Fisheries Commission meeting will be put in place during the 2002 season.

"I want to thank members of the Canadian delegation for their commitment to the conservation of fish stocks and for their contribution in addressing complex issues associated with the work of the Commission" added Minister Thibault.

NAFO was founded in 1978 to provide for the conservation and management of fish stocks that are found in the NAFO Regulatory Area, which is beyond Canada's 200-mile limit. Its members are Canada, Bulgaria, Cuba, Denmark (on behalf of the Faroe Islands and Greenland), Estonia, the European Union, France (on behalf of St. Pierre and Miquelon), Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and the United States of America.

The backgrounder related to this announcement is available on the automated Fax-On-Demand service of Fisheries and Oceans. It is immediately retrievable -- to users with a touchtone phone and a fax machine -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

maybe I should apply for a job and drive them out with my rude bostonian ways.