“It’s a way of fundamentally changing our culture by making people suspect if they don’t willingly give up their privacy. Regular people will become suspect.” — Tim Sparapani, legislative counsel of the ACLU, on the “trusted traveler” program that allows people to bypass some airport security if they agree to undergo a background check, supply their fingerprints and a digital scan of their iris to establish their identity. Program members are then given a card with that information encoded on it.

“I would hope that eventually a large number of people would find their way into a trusted or vetted traveler program.” — Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Deparmtent of Homeland Security.

The super-genius lawyers at Clark County have come up with yet another winner, if by “winner” you mean “Ninth Circuit appeal fodder.” This time, the county has decided to make it a crime for someone younger than 18 to possess graffiti-making materials, considering that prima facie evidence of intent to tag.

In a legal strategy that always seems to produce the most perverse results, police officers will have the discretion to determine if a youngster is out to vandalize property, or simply heading home to paint some pretty sets for the school play. Yeah, that won’t backfire.

“What’s a 12-year-old kid doing with 65 paint cans in his backpack at 2 in the morning? That’s the question you have to ask. Obviously, if you stop a group of kids and one has a magic marker, you’re not going to write him a ticket,” says Metro Detective Dan Newman, in the morning Review-Journal.

Actually, Detective, the question we would ask is what are officers on the shift with the fewest number of cops doing chasing taggers instead of, say, drunken drivers, robbers, car thieves or murderers? Oh, and not for nothing, but if a 12-year-old kid is hefting a backpack with 65 cans of spray paint, we’d maybe check him for steroid use.

And the fact is, the kid with the magic marker will get a ticket, if he or she chooses to commit another crime, contempt of cop. Then this and all other laws on the books will be deployed to give that citizen an attitude adjustment. And when mom and dad go complaining to Metro, it won’t be long before they hear about “officer discretion,” which was deliberately built into this law because they county doesn’t know how to write real ones.

Think we’re wrong? These are the same people who have made it a crime to watch — you read that right, to simply stand there and watch an illegal street drag race. These are (some) of the same people who wrote a law so restrictive that you couldn’t stand on the Strip and pass out the R-J, CityLife, or even a church newsletter asking for donations to the widows and orphans fund. And when the courts ruled against the county, commissioners simply vowed to try, try again, and see what sticks.

Seems to us the real danger is the commission, and their conspiracy to subvert the Constitution.

Let’s try to apply their logic in the graffiti case to other crimes. If a police officer pulls over a guy with 12 cases of beer in his trunk (that’s 144 beers, or what we at Various Things & Stuff like to call “Friday”) is that evidence of intent to drive drunk? If a police officer pulls over a guy with an entire box of Sudafed, can he be charged with intent to manufacture meth?

There’s a reason that we require cops to catch people in the act of committing a crime like drunk driving, making meth or tagging freeway signs: Because until they actually dosomething, they haven’t committed a crime. If a policeman’s job is only easy in a police state, the Clark County Commission is sure putting out the La-Z-Boys, aren’t they?

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Thank God for the ACLU.

We at Various Things & Stuff have lots of knowledge, and that’s why the national media always wants to quote us on matters of import to national politics, policy or the process of producing a fine India Pale Ale. And we share our knowledge freely, because it belongs to the world.

All we ask is, get our affiliation right.

The Hotline, a highly regarded clipping service of the National Journal Group, quoted our item here yesterday about U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons’ secret, evil plan to drill for oil off the California coast, putting the beaches where we grew up in jeopardy of oilification. As a result, we questioned why a state’s rights supporter like Gibbons would force drilling upon native peoples who don’t want it. (Especially since Gibbons has seen firsthand the effects of forcification upon native peoples, in the form of Yucca Mountain.)

And while we appreciate the nod, The Hotline misidentified us as a “Review-Journal columnist.” Hey, Hotline, to paraphrase rocker Tom Petty, don’t do us like that. We at Various Things & Stuff used to work at the R-J, but since April, we’ve been happily ensconced in the executive suite at CityLife, the Las Vegas Valley’s best alternative newsweekly. Think of it like CityPaper in your own berg of Washington, D.C.

Other than that, however, we appreciate the publicification. Maybe Gibbons will reconsider his stance on offshore drilling, in order to gain esteem in the eyes of us at the blog. And, yes, maybe newly single Jennifer Aniston will give us a call to ask what we’re doing Saturday night. (Sorry, Jen, we’re all booked up!)