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Homeland Security Act: The Rise of the American Police State (Part 3)
By Jennifer Van Bergen
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday, 4 December 2002

Homeland Security Act

The concerns of civil libertarians about incursions on civil liberties 
under the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act or Homeland Security Act do not begin to 
make a dent on public awareness (or in Bush policy-making) because 
they do not consider the Cheney Plan for Global Dominance. The Plan 
supersedes all.    

Global domination is the universal dream of every secret warrior.
As one of my students wrote in class a few years ago: "The two major 
Universal Drives seem to be Dominance (survival) and Sex (love).  As 
long as these two conflicts don't arise, there is peace in the world."

But, while everyone may share such drives, not everyone has "an 
inordinate sense of his own entitlement" like Bush and those in 
his inner circle have.   

If you have the underlying belief that you must dominate in order to 
survive, you are unlikely to have much concern for civil liberties.   

The Homeland Security Act, like the PATRIOT Act, is a further incursion 
on American civil liberties. Both of these Acts arose out of a deeper 
background policy of global domination and disregard for the sanctity 
of individual human rights.   

Federal Supervision of First Responders

The biggest charge that Jasper makes against the Homeland Security 
Act is that it "mandates federal supervision, funding, and coordination 
of 'local first responders' - specifically police and emergency personnel," 
thus expanding federal control of local law enforcement.   

The sections in the Homeland Security Act that concern "first 
responders" are in Title V: Emergency Preparedness and Response, 
but there is no specific mandate of federal control over local police.
The provision simply provides for coordination and guidance. Although 
centralization appears to be the only way to properly handle emergency 
preparedness on a sufficiently large scale to protect our country, there 
is, nonetheless, reason for concern that central federal coordination 
could lead to loss of local control and to potential federal militarization, 
especially in view of the many other measures and events that support 
such a possibility - such as, the Military Tribunals without constitutional 
procedural protections, the preemptive "war" on Iraq, the refusal of 
hearings and legal representation to "unlawful enemy combatants" and 
Guantanamo detainees, the indefinite detention of immigrants who are 
not even determined to be a danger (also often without hearings or 
representation), information-sharing provisions, the mixing of foreign 
and domestic investigations under FISA, Citizen Corps, and many more new 
measures now under the Homeland Security Act enumerated below.   

According to the United States Northern Command (USNC), "First 
responders are the men and women who are "first on the scene" as 
a natural or man-made disaster unfolds. They are also the last to 
leave the scene. First responders are policemen, firemen, emergency 
medical technicians. ... There are 11 million state and local first 
responders in 87,000 jurisdictions throughout the United States."

The USNC states that: "Our nation's structure of overlapping federal, 
state, and local governance - more than 87,000 different jurisdictions 
- provides a unique opportunity and challenge for U.S. Northern 
Command. Operations are underway to develop interconnected and 
complementary relationships and plans to support first responders.  
Everyone on this broad team, including U.S. Northern Command, wants 
to ensure the safety and security of the American people" (emphasis 
added).   

USNC notes that the Posse Comitatus Act (18 USC 1385)4 "generally 
prohibits U.S. military personnel from interdicting vehicles, vessels 
and aircraft; conducting surveillance, searches, pursuit and seizures; 
or making arrests on behalf of civilian law enforcement authorities."   

USNC adds:  "Prohibiting direct military involvement in law enforcement 
is in keeping with long-standing U.S. law and policy limiting the 
military's role in domestic affairs."   

However, the USNC notes four statutory exceptions to this prohibition:  
(1) counter-drug assistance (10 USC 371-82), (2) Insurrection Act (10 
USC 331-34), (3) crimes using nuclear materials (18 USC 831), and (4) 
chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction (10 USC 382).  
According to a March 6, 2002 article by Gary Seigle on Government 
Executive Magazine, titled "'First responders' to terrorism seek federal 
strategy, equipment," first responders themselves were seeking federal 
assistance and guidance. Seigle writes: "A national training standard 
should be established and maintained by the federal government for 
first responders who are poorly prepared and equipped to recognize or 
respond to a weapon of mass destruction attack, emergency officials 
told a congressional subcommittee yesterday."

According to the New York Times, General Ralph E. Eberhart, now in 
charge of USNC, said earlier this year that he would welcome a review 
of existing restrictions against using military forces domestically.  
(See Part 2 of this series, footnote 2.) Meaning, presumably, 
overturning the Posse Comitatus Act. Doing so would essentially 
mean allowing a standing domestic army.   

James Madison, a proponent of strong national government, wrote:    

     In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly 
     given to the executive magistrate. Constant apprehension of war 
     has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body.  
     A standing military force with an overgrown executive will not 
     long be safe companions to liberty.  

Patrick Henry said: "A standing army [will] execute the execrable 
commands of tyranny."  This is "a most dangerous power," he 
declared.

Other provisions of concern are:

Title II creates a Directorate of Information Analysis and Infrastructure 
Protection, charged with creating and maintaining a massive data base 
of public and private information on virtually any individual in the United 
States. Information on persons' credit card purchases, telephone calls, 
banking transactions, and travel patterns can be compiled and used to 
assemble a profile that could be used to mark innocent people as 
terrorist suspects.   

Section 201(d)(5) gives this Directorate authority to "develop a 
comprehensive national plan for securing the key resources and 
critical infrastructure of the United States, including power 
production, generation, and distribution systems, information 
technology and telecommunications systems (including satellites), 
electronic financial and property record storage and transmission 
systems, emergency preparedness communications systems, and the 
physical and technological assets that support such systems."   

Sounds almost like a communist state.   

Under this provision, personnel from the CIA, FBI, DOS, NSA, DIA, and 
any other agency the President considers appropriate, "may be detailed 
to the Department for the performance of analytic functions and related 
duties" (201(f)(1)).    

This makes the Directorate equivalent to a massive domestic 
intelligence agency like the KGB. KGB translates as "the 
Committee of the State Security." 

Private sector analysts may be used and cooperative agreements 
between agencies are authorized (201(e)(2) and (f)(3)).    

It is true that information sharing may be necessary, but these 
provisions, to say the least, obliterate the distinction between foreign 
and domestic intelligence gathering that was codified by the charter of 
the Central Intelligence Agency of 1947 and by the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act of 1978. Indeed, if the PATRIOT Act did not eviscerate 
those statutes, the Homeland Security Act finishes the job.   

Section 214 exempts "critical infrastructure information" that is 
voluntarily submitted to "a covered Federal agency" (201(f)(2)) from 
public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  Once 
such information is submitted to the government, it cannot be used in 
any civil action against the person or entity that submitted it and 
government officer who knowingly discloses such information would be 
subject to criminal penalties (including imprisonment) and fines, as 
well as the loss of his or her position.   

Senator Leahy (D-Vt) warned that the FOIA exemption would "encourage 
government complicity with private firms to keep secret information 
about critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, reduce the incentive 
to fix the problems and end up hurting rather than helping our national 
security."

The People for the American Way note that the exemption keeps the 
Department of Homeland Security "from having to defend non-disclosure 
of information in a court of law."   

As one reporter noted:  "U.S. law does not treat leaks of defense 
information as a criminal act, nor should it. But leaks of business 
information will now be a crime."

Section 225 absorbs the entire text of the Cyber Security Enhancement 
Act of 2001 (CSEA) which previously passed the House as a freestanding 
measure (HR 3482). Sponsored by Lamar Smith (R-TX), the CSEA allows 
service providers to voluntarily provide government agents with access 
to the contents of customer communications without consent based on a 
"good faith" belief that an emergency justifies the release. The same 
section allows for the installation of pen register and trap and trace 
devices without a court order where there is an ongoing attack on a 
"protected computer." Any computer involved in interstate commerce 
qualifies.   

Title III concerns "Science and Technology in Support of Homeland 
Security." Section 304, according to the national Gulf War Resources 
Center, Inc., "grants the HHS secretary extraordinary powers to declare 
a health emergency simply based on a POTENTIAL threat. This means 
that a hypothetical threat analysis from intelligence agencies that 
failed to warn of Sept 11th could be used as a reason to suspend civil 
liberties and start mandatory smallpox vaccinations."   

The Cure Autism Now Foundation noted on their website that, "In an 
eleventh hour maneuver, the House suddenly amended the Homeland 
Security Act with a rider that makes it impossible for families who 
believe their children were neurologically damaged by non-essential 
mercury based additives [thimerosal] in vaccines to sue for civil 
damages --- even in cases of fraud or criminal negligence."

Parents Requesting open Vaccine Education (PROVE) and The Connecticut 
Vaccine Information Alliance (CTVIA) state that not only does the Act 
"let drug giant Eli Lily off the hook for thimerosal based vaccine 
induced injuries and deaths," but there are "no personal, religious, 
or medical exemptions" for the forced smallpox vaccinations, if the 
authority is exercised, and "no guarantees for humane quarantine laws."

Under Section 308, "extramural research development, demonstration, 
testing, and evaluation programs ... to ensure that colleges, universities,
private research institutes, and companies (and consortia thereof) from 
as many areas of the United States as practicable participate" is 
authorized.    

While it may make sense for government to draw upon academia for 
research, etc., universities must retain their educational independence 
if academic freedom is to be preserved. Government intrusion taints 
academic pursuits.   

A clear illustration of abuse of academia were the "extramural" 
programs carried out under Central Intelligence Agency Projects 
Bluebird, MkUltra, and Monarch, from the 1940's through the 1970's.  
These C.I.A. projects funded similar such organizations to carry out 
"research" on unwitting American citizens to see if drugs or other 
"scientific" methods, such as hypnosis, "psychic
driving," or other 
forms of mind control programming, could be used to brainwash individuals.

That was in support of homeland security, too.

Titles IV and XI relate to immigration and border issues. The American 
Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) states that the law "fails to 
provide for a high-level official who is focused on our nations immigration 
policy, relegates immigration services to a bureau that lacks its own 
Under-Secretary, provides little or no coordination between immigration 
enforcement and services, and fails to adequately protect the important 
role of immigration courts."

AILA further warns that although the Homeland Security Act "codifies 
the existence of the courts and the Attorney General's authority to 
control them," it "fails to address key concerns such as the role and 
independence of the courts and the impartiality of the judicial process."  

Two recent conflicting appellate decisions about whether immigration 
courts should be viewed as equivalent to what are known as Article III 
courts (federal courts) in terms of the public's First Amendment right 
of access to hearings support AILA's view.   

Section 871 allows the Homeland Security Department to form advisory 
committees exempt from sunshine provisions in federal law that 
normally allow citizens to find out what occurred in meetings of 
such committees. This provision is clearly Cheney's answer to those 
who have sued him to produce records of his energy policy advisory 
committee.   

Section 891 contains the entire text of the Homeland Security 
Information Sharing Act (HSISA), which passed the House under HR 
4598 earlier in the session. This provision will facilitate the 
sharing of sensitive intelligence information with state and local 
authorities and allows for greater sharing of grand jury information 
and electronic surveillance context.   

[snip snip snip]
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Full article at "Truthout"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/12.05B.jvb.hsa.3.htm

Cheers, Steve..

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