Kill the "Blackwater Bill"
House Bill 201 is currently being considered by the Motor Vehicles Subcommittee in the Maryland's House Environmental Matters Committee. It was sponsored by Delegate Wayne Norman (R-Harford County). It deals with renewal of drivers licenses for people who are overseas. Currently if a Maryland resident wants to get their drivers license renewed, they would have to go to an MVA branch to do so. However there are two exceptions in current law
I refer to this bill as the "Blackwater Bill" because amongst many other companies, it would give employees of the very notorious company Blackwater Worldwide (which recently changed its name to Xe Services LLC) and Halliburton special dispensation in Maryland law that we currently only give to US Military Personnel deployed overseas. I believe that this is a bad precedent to set. Why should we elevate private contractors in Maryland's State law over other crucial Federal Government employees (such as Foreign Service workers, USAID, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy, etc)? Contractors are overseas out of their own free will. They often get paid many times more what the soldiers get for the similar jobs. They are free to leave. They include foreign citizens. And most importantly, like anyone else, they can renew their license by mail under the already existing law. Giving them a special place in Maryland's law is not necessary, nor a good idea.
I believe this bill should be stopped. And I need your help to stop it. The next time this bill will be considered is on Tuesday (2/16/2010) afternoon in the Motor Vehicles Subcommittee. If you agree that this bill sets a bad precedent, then please contact the state legislators on the committee (their emails are shown below) before Tuesday and politely ask them to vote this unnecessary bill down. I have provided their contact information at the end of this blog post.
Here is some background information regarding recent behavior of some of a few such military contractor companies. Certainly this is not representative of all military contractors. Most are upstanding and law abiding people committed to doing a very difficult job. In fact, I am one myself. However, there have been too many well-documented cases of egregious abuses and illegality.
- Active duty military personnel who are deployed overseas will have the expiration date automatically extended to 30 days after their return to Maryland.
- Anyone else who is out of the state "for cause" can renew their license by mail.
I refer to this bill as the "Blackwater Bill" because amongst many other companies, it would give employees of the very notorious company Blackwater Worldwide (which recently changed its name to Xe Services LLC) and Halliburton special dispensation in Maryland law that we currently only give to US Military Personnel deployed overseas. I believe that this is a bad precedent to set. Why should we elevate private contractors in Maryland's State law over other crucial Federal Government employees (such as Foreign Service workers, USAID, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy, etc)? Contractors are overseas out of their own free will. They often get paid many times more what the soldiers get for the similar jobs. They are free to leave. They include foreign citizens. And most importantly, like anyone else, they can renew their license by mail under the already existing law. Giving them a special place in Maryland's law is not necessary, nor a good idea.
I believe this bill should be stopped. And I need your help to stop it. The next time this bill will be considered is on Tuesday (2/16/2010) afternoon in the Motor Vehicles Subcommittee. If you agree that this bill sets a bad precedent, then please contact the state legislators on the committee (their emails are shown below) before Tuesday and politely ask them to vote this unnecessary bill down. I have provided their contact information at the end of this blog post.
Here is some background information regarding recent behavior of some of a few such military contractor companies. Certainly this is not representative of all military contractors. Most are upstanding and law abiding people committed to doing a very difficult job. In fact, I am one myself. However, there have been too many well-documented cases of egregious abuses and illegality.
- Contractor gets Probation for executing a handcuffed Afghan prisoner (5/8/2009): Click here.
- British Aerospace Engineering pays a $400 million settlement for bribing Saudi officials in an arms deal between UK and the Saudis (2/6/2010). Click here.
- Army Specialist Marcos O. Nolasco was electrocuted while taking a shower due to Kellogg Brown & Root's (Halliburton) faulty electrical wiring in Iraq which was then covered up (5/4/2008). Click here.
- Private contractors overpricing in Iraq (10/1/2007). Click here.
- Blackwater said to have billed US Government for prostitute (2/12/2010). Click here.
Please make sure that all communications are respectful and concise:
maggie.mcintosh@house.state.md.us,
james.malone@house.state.md.us,
alfred.carr@house.state.md.us,
barbara.frush@house.state.md.us,
cheryl.glenn@house.state.md.us,
anne.healey@house.state.md.us,
wayne.norman@house.state.md.us,
andrew.serafini@house.state.md.us,
dana.stein@house.state.md.us,
paul.stull@house.state.md.us,
pamela.beidle@house.state.md.us,
elizabeth.bobo@house.state.md.us,
rudolph.cane@house.state.md.us,
virginia.clagett@house.state.md.us,
marvin.holmes@house.state.md.us,
tom.hucker@house.state.md.us,
stephen.lafferty@house.state.md.us,
doyle.niemann@house.state.md.us,
anthony.odonnell@house.state.md.us,
tanya.shewell@house.state.md.us,
richard.sossi@house.state.md.us,
michael.weir@house.state.md.us
- Saqib
posted by Saqib Ali at 1:50 AM
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