"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

The Office of Homeland Security

(Now a 170,000 member Department by virtue of The Homeland Security bill  H.R. 5005)

Trading Liberty for Alleged Security.  Has the Federal Government begun Goose-Stepping us into the Emergence of a Police State?


It was clear from the beginning that the U.S. military would have to strike fiercely against such savage enemies. As Americans, we support that -- with hopes the strikes will provide a "lesson in learning" to nations that harbor, feed, arm and protect terrorists.

It was less clear how fiercely the government might strike against American freedom. We were encouraged by George W. Bush's repeated assurances that he would protect, not sacrifice, freedom.  Other voices -- calling for renewed imposition of intrusive, ineffective surveillance and other restrictions on freedom --
were more ominous.

This is not unexpected.  To a very large extent, responsibility for the deaths of over 3,000 innocent Americans at World Trade Center America must be shared by a government we had assumed would protect us.  After all ... providing for the common defense and insuring domestic tranquility while guaranteeing personal liberty, are the constitutional responsibilities of the Federal Government.  

Even a child knows that you don't open the door to your home without first looking through the peephole.  And in that basic common sense rule, the US Department of Justice and Immigration and Naturalization Service were totally negligent in actions, and virtually criminal in it's cover-up (see www.justice-denied.net).

When you combine this with a group of elected officials in the Judiciary Committees who wrote reports documenting INS negligence and corruption but never held anyone's feet to the fire,  the US Government bureaucracy not only plowed the field for terrorism in America, but planted the seeds and allowed them to take root.   

On the evening of September 20, 2001 President Bush seemed to unwittingly ally himself with the worst enemies of freedom. He made a seemingly innocuous -- even a comforting-sounding -- announcement. He said he had created the cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security,
with Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as its head.

Most people were utterly unaware of the significance of Bush's new bureaucracy. But for anyone watching the advance of police-state policies in America, absolutely nothing could have been more ominous.

The Homeland Defense Agency is not a new idea. Conceived by a bi-partisan commission headed by former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, this Clinton-era conception, "The Phase III Report Of The U.S. Commission On National Security/21st Century," is nothing less than the framework for a permanent military-bureaucratic American police state.

The new Homeland Defense Agency is the lynchpin of a plan that extensively reorganizes both the executive and legislative functions of the U.S. government. Among other things, the plan makes the National Guard a national police force. It extensively  federalizes both the study and the work of science, mathematics, and engineering. It creates numerous new sub-bureaucracies.

The Homeland Security agency itself is to "be built upon the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the three organizations currently on the front line of border security-the Coast Guard,
the Customs Service, and the Border Patrol- transferred to it."  The plan calls for the new agency to oversee activities of the Department of Defense, as well as to assume a variety of duties now held by agencies from the Department of Commerce to the FBI.

When the plan was announced in January of 2001, the media barely covered it, and shortly thereafter, the plan itself, and the government Web site created expressly for it, dropped out of sight. We found the full text of the report at only one government location:  http://www.nssg.gov/phaseIII.pdf.

   Update: On November 25, 2001 we were informed by a concerned citizen that the US government has killed the above webpage.  You can now get it by going to the private site http://www.homelandsecurity.org/sugg_reading/Phase_III_Report.pdf.  We suspected that the federal government would do this, probably to keep Americans in ignorance.

For your convenience, DOJgov.net continues to make it available as a download on this website.  Right click phaseIII.pdf and download.

 Read it and shudder, because this type of bureaucracy only grows in size and power.  And let's always keep in mind that this terrorism occurred because of a corrupt and inept USDOJ Immigration and Naturalization Service that would prefer cover-up to termination of those responsible.  

Perhaps the worst result of a 50 year Cold War was the rise of an arrogant federal bureaucracy composed of the tenured and "Protected."  These are the people who actually run America.  Websites such as www.justice-denied.net have shown that in consort with feckless, fawning, politicians, they would rather confiscate your liberty than point fingers at themselves. 

Do not be fooled by people hiding behind waving a flag and providing easy answers. The purpose of this agency and the larger plan of which it is merely one part, is not to make us safer. It is based on the logic that government never makes mistakes.  It is a response rooted in the philosophy that American liberty should be sacrificed at the alter of arrogance.  Once again, crisis has been used as a false justification of the will to power.

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June 6, 2002 Update - WE TOLD YOU SO: According to today's presidential speech (which has gained bipartisan support), The Office of Homeland Security is being upgraded to a super-agency called The DEPARTMENT Of Homeland Security.

The FBI and the CIA would not be replaced by the new agency, but some of their operations could be given over to it. The agency would envelop 22 other federal agencies, including the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Customs Service, the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Border Patrol, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Program, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Secret Service.

Wait until until segments of law enforcement and the military (such as The National Guard) are brought in and we end up with a national police force.  And don't think that the existing agencies where these 170,000 civil servants are drawn from will accept proportionately reduced budgets and personal from their bureaucracies.  We are looking at an increase of at least 100,000 government employees, paid for by the US taxpayer.

We are looking at a game of musical chairs recycling of masses of incompetent and apathetic tenured civil servants.  Remember that since the September 11, 2001 terrorism, NOT ONE USDOJ, INS, FBI or other federal employee has been fired for their corruption and indolence in getting us into this mess.

On the other hand, true whistleblowers (see: www.justice-denied.net) will continue to be brutalized and terminated.  Pseudo whistleblowers like FBI agent like Coleen Rowley will be paraded before Congress to publicly tell her story and at the same time, cover for dysfunctional government by saying that eye blink changes in the USDOJ have corrected the problem.  The concept of Bread and Circus' hasn't changed since the days of the Roman Empire.

OTHER PEOPLE'S VIEWS:

Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center: "I think we've reached the point in the debate where we need to ask larger questions about where this administration is taking the U.S. government...  someone needs to apply the brakes" or the United States will become a "police state."

Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center for Democracy & Technology: "When the government collects monumental amounts of information, it may not be able to find anything it needs. The problem they had (before Sept. 11) wasn't in finding information, it was in analyzing information, and if they have more information they'll have more analytic problems. The public is saying 'please do what is necessary' -- and the government is saying 'take off the shackles.' But I really believe that in 90 percent of the cases, they're saying 'let's blame the law rather than the fact that we had a massive intelligence failure.' What the public needs is a better FBI, not fundamental changes in government." [Editor - Which means Congress and unelected agency bureaucrats prefer new regulations to limit personal liberty and extend the power of government]

Richard Gephardt, the Democratic leader in the House: Told Reuters the move is "precisely what I think should be done."  

UPDATE: 2002 - The Department of Homeland Security will begin taking shape March 1, 2003 when the Secret Service, Customs Service and several huge agencies will be folded into the massive new department.  True to politicians protecting their donors, it gives unrelated protection to pharmaceutical companies that have already been sued over suspect ingredients used in vaccines unrelated to the terrorist threat.  This includes using Mercury in vaccines that have caused Autism (childhood schizophrenia) in the young.

In addition, The terrorism insurance bill is H.R. 3210, protects losses to insurance companies by indemnifying them with 90,000,000,000 of taxpayer funds.  At the same time, these same insurance companies can charge whatever they want in premiums, in spite of most payouts being covered by the US Taxpayer.

UPDATE: MARCH 16, 2004 - According to very reliable sources, the Department of Homeland Security is a disaster.  The new $40 billion dollar agency, sewn together one year ago out of 22 agencies, has proven to be a bureaucratic "Frankenstein" (as predicted by Michael G. Leventhal, editor of www.dojgov.net).  It is clumsy, confused and slow moving, having failed to consolidate the government's anti-terrorism efforts and perform its mission.

No one person is in charge of bioterrorism planning.  Immigration and customs procedures remain disorganized, with an increasingly backlogged work load.  As in the past, this inheritor of the Immigration and Naturalization Service from the US Department of Justice is still plagued by corruption, including the selling of Green Cards and processing of visas without proper background checks.  At the same time, they continue to request more money for salary increases and more people.

No strategy has been developed for protecting the nation's electrical grids, railways and power plants.

Note: Michael G. Leventhal, Editor and Publisher of www.DOJgov.net is a recognized authority in the field of computer technology  

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ARMEY'S FAREWELL SPEECH: PROTECT PERSONAL FREEDOMS

Dec 07, 2002

Outgoing House Majority Leader Dick Armey addressed a National Press Club luncheon Friday afternoon in Washington.

He warned how the nation must guard against the "awful, dangerous seduction" of sacrificing freedom for safety in the fight against terrorism.

"America has always been a marvelous nation. I always say it. We have always loved freedom so much that we have been willing to sacrifice our peace to defend the freedoms of others. No other nation ever did that.

"And in doing so historically, we have always had the luxury of sitting safely here at home in America and sending our heroes abroad to fight for freedom.

"But today we face an insidious threat that comes right into our neighborhood. We live with it every day, this threat of terrorism. Our need, our anxiety about personal security is at a level that we've never seen before in America, and for the first time in America we call upon ourselves, each and every single one of us, to be a hero for freedom right here at home where I live, in my community.

"And so the courage of America is being called upon more than at any time in my lifetime. And what I fear I hear is an echo chamber of voices in America that are saying, ``Give us greater dominion over your personal liberties and we will make you secure.''

"Now, I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, we'll be safe if we have a cop on every corner. We will be safe if we have a spy camera in every hall. We'll at least be safer. We will be safer if we have an elaborate system by which we, in the ordinary business of life, spy on one another and report it to the proper authorities. We will probably be safer if we have a national identification card. We may be safer, in fact, if we could snoop on the Internet and read everybody's e-mail.

"There are many authorities that we can extend to the government of this country that'll make us safer. But will we be free?

"We seek a balance on this. We worked hard on that with the PATRIOT Act. We worked hard on that with homeland security. And I think in terms of the law that has been written, we've cut a fine line that respects our freedom in the interest of our safety.

"But our freedom will only last through the [appropriate] implementation of these laws. And once again we are restored to that oldest adage: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

"We, the people, had better keep an eye on we, the people; that is, our government. Not out of contempt or lack of appreciation or disrespect, but out of a sense of guardianship. How do you use these tools we have given you to make us safe in such a manner that'll preserve our freedom?

"That is a duty to our very essence as a nation. Who we are, what is it about us that has set us apart in the history of the world is our love for freedom.

"As I said earlier, freedom is no policy for the timid. And my plaintive plea to all my colleagues that remain in this government as I leave it is, for your sake, for my sake, for heaven's sake, don't give up on freedom. "