Passport to voting

As a registered voter in Tucson since 1984, I set off Tuesday morning to vote for the Regional Transportation Authority and psychiatric facility propositions.

I was turned away at the polls because my American passport was deemed not acceptable as valid identification: “You need to bring something with your address on it.”

I am bemused by how the intent of an unnecessary law (Proposition 200), designed to remedy a problem that probably never existed (hordes of undocumented persons streaming across the deserts to flood our ballot boxes), ultimately got perverted when legislation was written from the referendum.

The devil is truly in the details. I presented a U.S. passport proving my citizenship and a valid Pima County voter registration card, but these were not acceptable for me to vote.

However, I could bring in a utility bill and bank statement. Or I could show my Arizona drivers license, similar to that held by thousands of illegal immigrants in Arizona who obtained them before the laws were tightened.

Supporters of Proposition 200 might wonder how their elected officials are carrying out their mandate to keep noncitizens from voting.

My advice? Don’t bring your passport when they’re up for re-election this fall.

Charles Allen

Part of the problem

C.T. Revere’s Monday column (“Whodathunkit? Qwest thumbs nose at bid for phone records“), applauding Qwest’s unwillingness to join the fight against terrorism, disheartens me, to say the least.

It mirrors Sen. Harry Reid’s glee when he thought his gang of liberal senators had stopped the Patriot Act.

When will you liberals understand we are at war? Some of our civil liberties need to be compromised during these times. More than 60 percent of my fellow Americans feel the same way.

Qwest did not stand up for us, as your column states. Qwest and you stand for allowing the terrorists to communicate uninhibited. FISA is not operative during a time of war. With friends of America like you, who needs enemies?

Bill Polson

Qwest for terrorists

Columinist C.T. Revere thinks Qwest’s refusal to release its phone records to the government makes them special.

Certainly it makes them the choice of phone service for al-Qaida to set up plans to kill more Americans.

I am sure all the terrorists will switch to Qwest. It is my phone service, but not for long.

John F. Sukey

Shelling the nuts

“This is nuts!” That was our good old U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl’s response to the questioning over the Bush administration’s monitoring of domestic telephone traffic.

Sen. Kyl then proceeded to repeat the same old party line about the U.S. being at war and how we shouldn’t scrutinize the administration’s tactics.

This response harkens me back to that fearless protector of freedom, truth, justice and the American way, Karl Rove (well, skip the “truth” part), declaring it unpatriotic to question the invasion of Iraq.

Is it nuts to question this administration’s practices?

Call me nuts, but the crew in the West Wing seems to have, at best, a rather spotty record.

Is it nuts for our senator to strive to maintain our nutty system of checks and balances? Is it nuts for Sen. Kyl to uphold the U.S. Constitution?

Maybe it’s just plain nuts for us to maintain the same old guard on Capitol Hill!

Doug Lojewski

Crossed wires

Re: the Friday AP article “Storm over bugging“:

Sen. Jon Kyl had it right when he said, “This is nuts,” as we’re at war and must collect intelligence on the enemy without telling the enemy in advance how that will be done.

How come I have to go to a New York newspaper to find out what one of my senators thinks on the topic?

Jeff Econ

Read on

Your headline “Storm over bugging” is a total distortion of facts. There was no ” bugging.” You deliberately tried to mislead the readers.

To put the relevant facts in the third paragraph, that the government does not listen in to domestic phone calls, is too late.

It puts the government in a position of denial when it has nothing to deny.

Those who only read the headlines get the impression the government is doing something illegal, which is far from the truth.

Your continued policy of printing mostly opinion columns and distorted headlines forces me to join the growing group of people who look for their news elsewhere.

Edward Maciejeski

Green Valley

2-party system a failure

Last night on TV, the Pima County chairpersons for the Democratic and Republican parties disagreed about which party had the most national figures under indictment, investigation or en route to jail.

Neither denied that there were plenty of both kinds.

What kind of a choice is that for voters? The so-called “two-party system” has failed us. Is it not time we got the choice of “none of the above” when we get to the voting booth?

You can check out the details by entering “Congress indicted” on Google.

R.C. LEONARD

Expand representation

Re: the Thursday RealFAST local news “Three plenty in Pinal“:

The AP got it wrong. The bill requiring counties to expand their boards of supervisors is not dead. It has been sent back for reconsideration.

In Pinal County, seeing how much is not getting done by three supervisors trying to do the job for all 260,000-plus of us, we hope the Democrats quit playing partisan politics and the conservative Republicans see that something Democrats dislike can’t be all bad.

I’m a former Democrat who quit because of the corruption of too much power in the hands of this one-party county commission.

Evaline J. Auerbach

Oracle