…they claim to have infiltrated Utah undocumented aliens’ social networks. So don’t Tweet, poor downtrodden brown Utahns! Change your Facebook status to “In Hiding!” #fb #immigration

Honestly, when I first shared this story from the Trib, I didn’t realize it’d have such legs, but I’ve been hearing it on NPR, and seeing it everywhere in my feed. And I’m glad it’s getting wide coverage, because it’s a very troubling and disturbing story indeed.

Mystery group lists 1,300 in Utah it claims are undocumented immigrants | The Salt Lake Tribune

“We then spend the time and effort needed to gather information along with legal Mexican nationals who infiltrate their social networks and help us obtain the necessary information we need to add them to our list,” the letter explains.

The accuracy of the list is unclear. Some phone numbers were disconnected or answered by a different person.

A West Valley City woman said the contact information for her and her family is correct, but she became a permanent resident earlier this week. The Peruvian woman, whom The Tribune is not identifying, said she has been in Utah 14 years.

“I don’t even know who would send out a paper like that,” she said.

Compiling and distributing the list itself could be illegal. If the compilers took data from state or local databases not available to the public, they could be charged with a misdemeanor under state law, said Jeff Hunt, a Utah media attorney. If the group lied to obtain the data, that could be fraud.

Asked whether he was aware of similar efforts, Hunt said, “I’ve never heard of anything close.”

A note next to one Clearfield woman on the list said, “Baby due 4/4/10.”

She confirmed to The Tribune she has a baby, but she said she lives in the United States legally.

What’s troubling and disturbing to the Concerned Busybodies of Zion, which will turn out to be one passive-agressive gamma male paleo-conservative who can’t even get elected president of his local LDS stake, is that LAWBREAKERS ARE GOING UNPUNISHED.

Illegal aliens are here illegally, you see, and thus a crime is being committed every! moment! they! are! here!

What’s troubling and disturbing to me, and everyone else, is that some fussy passive-agressive dickwad with more access to confidential medical records than ought to be allowed has illegally passed along information that is probably covered under that law where your doctor’s office makes you sign a form attesting to the confidentiality of your records every year.

UPDATE: to clarify my poorly developed stream of unconsciousness here, I was wondering who the mystery group was, and how they might have easily gathered the confidential information. As it has turned out, the “mystery group” turned out to be two women, one an employee of a Utah state agency, and one who was a temp. So my guess was wrong – I had speculated that someone had gained access to a non-profit’s records, and the largest non-profit social service group I knew of that focused on the Latino community in Utah was Crossroads Community Center.

The comments threads on the Salt Lake Tribune’s followup stories have been rather hair-raising, to say the least. BECAUSE THE CRIMINALS THEY GO UNPUNISHED! Anyway, my guess that the group had collated the “brownlist” from Crossroads’ records was wrong, drat it. On the other hand, they are in much, much bigger trouble for accessing Utah state records from their place of employment.

The only way it would be relatively simple to gather the kind of data that’s in this list is via medical records at a public clinic, such as one connected somehow to a cultural center for Latinos (in Salt Lake, the big one would be Crossroads Urban Center, which has a very basic and frames-based website indeed. So I can’t link directly to their privacy policy, but here it is:

DONOR AND CLIENT INFORMATION PRIVACY POLICY

Information collected from donors and clients of Crossroads Urban Center is never made available to anyone outside the organization. This includes names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mails, and dates and amounts of any donations made or services rendered.
No information regarding visitors to the Crossroads Urban Center website is currently being collected by Crossroads.

You may review any information Crossroads may have on file regarding you, or request correction of such information, by contacting Jim Hokom(email) at Crossroads. Because no donor or client information is shared outside the organization, an opt out provision regarding the sharing of said information is deemed unnecessary. You may, however, contact Crossroads’ Executive Director, Glenn Bailey(email), to verify this policy at any time.
All information about donors and clients of Crossroads is secured internally at Crossroads. We are currently not making use of any outside servers or data management systems outside our immediate control.

That certainly seems like a very firm and reasonable privacy policy, so I’d be very surprised if some secret-agenty Concerned Busybody would actually BREAK THE LAW or DO SOMETHING AGAINST POLICY by passing along personal information to ICE (who isn’t all that interested in it, frankly) or to the Salt Lake Trib (who are probably happy with all the extra hits on their recently redesigned Internets tubes).

There may be some other group that offers medical care whose records might not be secure, but Crossroads is probably hurting for donations for their FOOD PANTRY THAT FEEDS CHILDREN THAT ARE COMMITTING THE CRIME OF BEING POOR AND BROWN and so forth, and you can doniate via something called Network for Good, or donate time, food, clothing, or something off their Wish List.

They do good work and they don’t discriminate: if you’re poor, but not a citizen, all that matters is that you are in need.

Amongst all the hoo-ha the national press is kicking up about this “illegal alien LIST OF SHAME AND PREGNIT WIMMIN” story is a very small detail that makes me feel proud, sad and exasperated at the same time. The Crossroads Urban Center is part of a group called CORC, or Coalition of Religious Communities. The member organizations are listed (in a desperately sad little table, can’t some kind web designer help them??):

Religious Communities Represented

in the CORC Coalition

American Baptist	Baha’i (Orthodox)
Buddhist	Catholic
Christian (Disciples of Christ)	Episcopal
Greek Orthodox	Humanist
Independent Baptist	Islamic Society of Utah
Jewish	Lutheran
Metropolitan Community Church	Presbyterian
Relgious Society of Friends (Quaker)	Unitarian Univeralist
United Church of Christ	United Methodist
Affiliate: Mormons for Equality & Social Justice (MESJ)

Yeah, that’s right – all the major mainline and world religions represented, including the Baha’is and Buddhists and Moslems AND JEWS, together! Except, the One True Religion (That Is The Only One That Matters And The Only One You Need To Accept And Know Is True And Vote Republican For Time And All Eternity) is represented by a piddly little affiliate listing, for something called “Mormons for Equality and Social Justice.” Wow, it must really be a challenge to be in that last group, but I wish them all the best. May God bless the work they do and send them lots of volunteers and donations in kind.

Anyway, whilst Googling around for fodder material, I ran across an interesting site that rang a few warning bells for me.

The Center for Immigration Studies

Sounds academic and scholarly, doesn’t it? But this is what popped up when I Googled “Salt Lake Latino center” because I couldn’t remember Crossroad’s name:

Salt Lake City Police Chief Protecting Illegal Aliens
By Ronald W. Mortensen, June 3, 2010

Not too long ago, Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank was in Washington along with other big-city police chiefs. They met with Attorney General Eric Holder to complain about how the newly enacted Arizona law (SB 1070) would inevitably lead to racial profiling of illegal aliens and how unfair it was.

So, just how fair is Chief Burbank?

Chief Burbank, who denies that he sees things in terms of race, spends an inordinate amount of time and resources proving that Latinos do not commit crimes in excessively high numbers. However, the chief fails to distinguish between Latinos who are legally in the United States and the estimated 100,000 illegal aliens in Utah who are primarily Latinos. (Note: Police Chief Burbank is the one who specifically focuses on Latino crime and it was the authors of a study that he commissioned who said, “Salt Lake City’s immigrant population is predominantly Latino”).

In addition, Chief Burbank conveniently overlooks the fact that a senior Social Security Administration official estimates that about 75 percent of all illegal aliens have fraudulent Social Security numbers. This is a felony. So, unless 75 percent of the general population is committing major felonies, it would appear that illegal aliens do indeed commit crime at an inordinately high rate.

In addition, based on investigations by Utah Workforce Services and the Utah Attorney General’s office, it is estimated that at least 50,000 Utah kids under age 18 have their identities being used primarily by illegal aliens to get jobs.

Under Utah law the use of another person’s identifying data, including their Social Security number, either knowingly or unknowing. is identity fraud, a felony.

Oh dear!! Let me run upstairs to fetch the costume jewelry pearls Mom left me so I can clutch them (since they’re too small to fit around my rather beefy neck, I can wear them as a bracelet looped over my wrist).

Very interesting. Mr Mortensen is very deeply concerned about ALL THIS ILLEGAL ALIENISM GOING UNPUNISHED BY LAW ENFORCEMENT. He quotes from rather dubious “sources” and “studies.” He is EXTREMELY CONCERNED ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY FRAUD AND IDENTITY THEFT BY BROWN LATINO PEOPLES!

HE IS ALSO CONCERNED ABOUT ILLEGAL ALIENS CRYING “SANCTUARY! SANCTUARY!” OUTSIDE THE CATHEDRAL OF THE MADELEINE (okay that’s a stretch but I had a very Charles Laughton moment just now).

HE IS VERY CONCERNED THAT SALT LAKE POLICE CHIEF CHRIS BURBANK IS NOT ENFORCING THE LAW AND IN FACT IS REFUSING TO BELIEVE MR MORTENSEN’S IMPORTANT STATISTICS ABOUT THE BROWN PEOPLES COMMITTING ALL THE IDENTITY THEFT SOCIAL SECURITY FRAUD ILLEGAL ALIEN LAWBREAKING THAT UTAH IS SUFFERING FROM OH MY!

(SORRY..sorry, caps key got stuck. Is there a CAPS ON CAPS key? or should I bold the most shouty bits?)

So what I think, the Salt Lake Tribune should ask the Center for Immigration Studies to comment on the story… because they’re very concerned citizens indeed. They claim to have “former government officials” and “retired university professors” on their roster, so they’re just the folks who would be a great resource. Also, it appears that Mr Mortensen is Utah-based, since many of his blog topics on the CIS.org site have a Utah slant.

Yes, kind of wondering if there could be a connection. Interesting, no? Si!

Hope my Utah friends and family take an interest in politics this fall and VOTE; even in ultra-mega-infra-Red Utah, there are Democrats worth electin. One of them is NOT worth re-electing: Jim Matheson, Blue Dog incumbent from the second Congressional district was thrown into a primary because his opponent, progressive liberal Claudia Wright, galvanized yesterday’s Democratic convention delegates.

Howie Klein: Can Brigham Young’s Great Great Gay Progressive Granddaughter Oust A Blue Dog & Win A House Seat In Utah?

A hearty band of awesome Democrats there put their collective foot down and prevented anti-healthcare Blue Dog Jim Matheson from winning the party endorsement at yesterday’s convention in Salt Lake City. No more South Park jokes for me. Matheson is one of the most reactionary Democrats in Congress, consistently crossing the aisle to vote with the Republicans on key issues. Since Obama was elected, his ProgressivePunch score– a dismal 35.37– has been identical to those of two of the most unsavory of the Old South Blue Dogs, John Barrow (GA) and Mike Ross (AR). And, like Barrow and Ross, he left the Democratic Party to vote for the anti-choice Stupak Amendment and against healthcare reform. Now Utah Democrats are sick enough of the ten-year incumbent to say no…

…Sensing that retired school teacher Claudia Wright was making headway, Matheson put in a hysterical call begging Steny Hoyer to fly out to Salt Lake City to save him. Hoyer did fly out, and begged and cajoled delegates to vote for Matheson, but ultimately failed to secure the party endorsement for him. He came up 5% short of the 60% needed.
Bush won UT-02 both times with two-thirds of the votes, but in 2008 Obama held McCain to 57%. Perhaps even more important, moderate Republicans are repulsed by what they’ve seen their party turn into. This isn’t just a party of teabaggers; this is a full-on fascist party of crazed militia loons and separatists. If Wright wins the Democratic nomination, she can win the election– and Democrats are ready for a real Democrat.

On the issues, there’s no question who the real Democrat is. Wright supports Alan Grayson’s proposal of Medicare for all, supports women’s choice, plain and simple. She’s an environmentalist; he voted against the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, promoting clean energy and limiting emissions of greenhouse gases, and he voted against HR2454 (cap and trade). Claudia is a strong advocate of a humane and comprehensive immigration policy; Matheson is all about building a high border fence. Claudia supports public funding for campaigns, and Matheson is another sleazy conservative, taking immense sums of money from the industries and corporations he’s supposed to be overseeing. And of course, he’s a vicious homophobe who voted for a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality. Claudia believes people should have the right to marry whomever they want to.

…that’s how politics in Utah works when both major parties book their conventions into the same complex on the same date.

Rolly: Guns and coffee don’t mix – Salt Lake Tribune

The Republicans secured their Salt Palace space some time ago and will hold their convention on the complex’s north side. The Democrats were having a difficult time finding a suitable place for what they were willing to pay, then settled on the Salt Palace’s south section after a group canceled its reservation for that day.

So between the two parties — the Democrats have around 2,700 delegates, and plan for a total attendance of about 5,000, while the Republicans have 3,000 delegates and could get as many as 7,000 attendees — there will be about 12,000 folks at the Salt Palace with huge trust issues between them.

The good news is that most of the guns likely will be on the Republican side of the Salt Palace while most of the coffee will be on the Democratic side — and there shouldn’t be too much mixing of the two.

I’m pretty sure none of my family members still living in Utah are involved in local politics, but if they were, most of them would be on the south side of the complex, arguing anti-war, pro-health care planks over a nice mocha java with the other East Bench Liberals. One or two might be inclined to stroll over to the north side, but the only cousin that’s what I’d call “gun friendly” is probably too centrist in his politics to feel comfortable at a conservative Republican shindig; he’s a public radio listener, for God’s sake!

The joke in the title depends on the underlying religious divide in Utah; it’s pretty much a given that conservative Republicans are generally of the “majority faith” (with a generous admixture of evangelicals from the northern half of the state). Therefore, anybody that’s a “not” tends to be a non-believer, a non-Christian, or from one ‘a them ebil social justice churches, and also tends to vote Democratic when given the opportunity. It’s a way of letting everybody know your “not-ness.”

With all that caffeine, you’d think Utah Democrats would get a lot more done, and a lot more of their people elected, but outside of the Salt Lake Valley, the overwhelming majority of people look on caffeine and liberalism as practically Satanic.

bright enough to know you have to declare a firearm when checking in for a flight, not bright enough to UNLOAD and then PROPERLY HANDLE the weapon when declaring same. Skycap suffered minor shrapnel injury in his foot because this dumbass took a loaded weapon to the Salt Lake airport. Security scare: Gun accidentally discharged at Salt Lake City airport – Salt Lake Tribune

A passenger checking a gun accidentally discharged his weapon on the curbside of Terminal I of Salt Lake City International Airport.

The passenger was declaring his weapon to Sky Cap when he either mishandled or dropped it, said David Korzep, airport operations superintendent. The semiautomatic pistol had one bullet left in the chamber, Korzep said, and when it struck the pavement, shrapnel hit the foot of the Sky Cap employee. He was treated on the scene and not transported to the hospital.

Why it’s important that parents of gay children love and accept them just as they are, and why Utah is a deeply strange place:

A Gift, from the Homophobic Culture « One Utah

When we watch the LDS church claim they aren’t homophobic, and that common ground can be reached, even while they destroy bills that would help reach that ground, we are just watching a big, none too subtle, wink and nod at the culture of hate. When we see the single largest cultural influence in Utah raise money to take rights away from people based on beliefs they have no right to export onto others, we are simply watching the same long drawn out battle that has gone on with women, non white races, youth, counter culture, etc etc etc. We are watching fear and ignorance and a desire to hold on to power being turned into a poisonous brew that claims to be the culture of family values. And it certainly won’t be exported in the same way to everyone, but it is still poisonous.

Because in that culture, a culture that teaches people in a million subtle and not subtle ways that to be GLBT is to have something wrong with you, to have something that should be cured, or fixed, some people get the message more directly than most. And act on it.

And that is their “family values.” When your mother arranges your rape.