God Bless the DMA . . . I mean, USA

For those of you who don't know what the DMA is, you are missing out. You see, the Ohio Department of Public Safety, a division of the Department of Homeland Security (one of my favorite government entities), has implemented a new measure to decrease the likelihood that terrorists will bomb the hell out of us or otherwise shower our good ol' conservative Bible belt town with chaos. (As my roommate so aptly pointed out, our cows make for a great target.)

Now surely, the Department wouldn't waste our time with a measure unless it actually had the potential to fulfill its purpose. Right? I mean, the government knows that it would make sense to enact only those policies that served a meaningful function and thereby justified the expense involved in their implementation. (Oh wait. I forgot. FEMA proved me wrong on that one with their fields full of empty mobile homes.)

Anyway, back to the point: I work in an office at a state university. That means that anyone employed by our office is a public employee. Thus, anyone signing a contract with our office (and believe me, there were tons of these people wandering into the office throughout the day to sign contracts for which their duties started today--good job on the promptness and pre-planning, guys!) has to sign a DMA.

What is the DMA? (It's quite laughable, so bear with me for a moment.) "DMA" stands for "Declaration Regarding Material Assistance/Nonassistance to a Terrorist Organization." That's right. We are making people sign a form to certify that they have never supported a terrorist organization.

Just what qualifies as a terrorist organization? Couldn't really tell ya. Hell, for all I know the Democratic Party is on the list--right above PETA. The greatest part of the whole ordeal is that no one signing the document today asked what these supposed terrorist organizations were. And it's a good thing really, because the only way to find out is to attempt navigating the Ohio Homeland Security Division's website to find the "Terrorist Exclusion list." (And just to show that the Department wanted everyone to be informed about the documents they were signing, the website isn't even listed on the DMA.)

Because I love you all so much, I have navigated said website and found said list. Take one look at the Terrorist Exclusion List and you will be reminded that we have not indeed grown past the red scare of the McCarthy era; then you'll be reminded that if the terrorists aren't commies, they must be Muslim! Don't expect to be able to pronounce the names of the organizations to which you surely contributed.

But the classic part of this whole thing, the thing that really makes me smile, is the following, an excerpt from the instructions on our lovely DMA:

"Any answer of 'yes' to any question, or the failure to answer 'no' to any question on this declaration shall serve as a disclosure that material assistance to an organization identified on the U.S. Department of State Terrorist Exclusion List has been provided. Failure to disclose the provision of material assistance to such an organization or knowlingly making false statements regarding material assistance to such an organization is a felony of the fifth degree."

Translation: Now, children, if you're a terrorist, we need you to be honest with us. Just tell Uncle Sam all about it and we'll make sure everything's okay. We might even keep you in the U.S., where you have at least a marginal chance of getting a fair trial (or a trial at all, for that matter), rather than sending you to Guantanamo. Mmk? But don't forget, if you leave a question blank we're going to assume you meant "yes" and you're admitting to be a terrorist. And if we find out you lied to us, we're going to charge you with a fifth degree felony. Now run along. We know you're telling us the truth. After all, terrorists are always forthcoming about their plots to destroy the nation.