The Fatherland Security Act of 2002
William Safire at The New York Times -
You Are a Suspect 
- hoo boy, does John Poindexter have something
in store for us! Fascist pig. Archived at cryptome
here. [smith2004]
If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:
Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend -- all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you -- passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance -- and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen.
H.R. 5710:, the "Homeland Security Act of 2002", is the bill about which Mr. Safire was writing. The text is over half a megabyte. It is likely that most of the representatives who voted to pass it on Wednesday did so without reading it. I've only skimmed parts of it. There were a few possibly positive items in the table of contents: "Sec. 471. Abolishment of INS" (replaced by the Bureau of Border Security and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services), "Sec. 880. Prohibition of the Terrorism Information and Prevention System", "Sec. 886. Sense of Congress reaffirming the continued importance and applicability of the Posse Comitatus Act", "Title XIV--Arming Pilots Against Terrorism". But there were some really horrible things: "Sec. 895. Authority to share grand jury information", "[TITLE XI] Subtitle B--Transfer of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to the Department of Justice". The new "Secretary of Homeland Security" looks like a pretty powerful post. All hail the Fatherland.
[Sec 1111 (a)] (1) IN GENERAL- There is established within the Department of Justice under the general authority of the Attorney General the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (in this section referred to as the `Bureau').
...
[Sec 1111 (c)] (1) IN GENERAL- Subject to paragraph (2), but notwithstanding any other provision of law, there are transferred to the Department of Justice the authorities, functions, personnel, and assets of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which shall be maintained as a distinct entity within the Department of Justice, including the related functions of the Secretary of the Treasury.
...
SEC. 1113. POWERS OF AGENTS OF THE BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS, AND EXPLOSIVES.Chapter 203 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding the following:`Sec. 3051. Powers of Special Agents of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.`(a) Special agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, as well as any other investigator or officer charged by the Attorney General with the duty of enforcing any of the criminal, seizure, or forfeiture provisions of the laws of the United States, may carry firearms, serve warrants and subpoenas issued under the authority of the United States and make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony.
`(b) Any special agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives may, in respect to the performance of his or her duties, make seizures of property subject to forfeiture to the United States.
`(c)(1) Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3), and except to the extent that such provisions conflict with the provisions of section 983 of title 18, United States Code, insofar as section 983 applies, the provisions of the Customs laws relating to--`(A) the seizure, summary and judicial forfeiture, and condemnation of property;shall apply to seizures and forfeitures incurred, or alleged to have been incurred, under any applicable provision of law enforced or administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
`(B) the disposition of such property;
`(C) the remission or mitigation of such forfeiture; and
`(D) the compromise of claims,
`(2) For purposes of paragraph (1), duties that are imposed upon a customs officer or any other person with respect to the seizure and forfeiture of property under the customs laws of the United States shall be performed with respect to seizures and forfeitures of property under this section by such officers, agents, or any other person as may be authorized or designated for that purpose by the Attorney General.
`(3) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the disposition of firearms forfeited by reason of a violation of any law of the United States shall be governed by the provisions of section 5872(b) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.'.
Ron Paul - Oppose The New Homeland Security Bureaucracy! - Dr. Paul's failed attempt to convince the House to vote against this newest monstrosity. LewRockwell.com printed this speech here. [sierra]
Mr. Speaker, when the process of creating a Department of Homeland Security commenced, Congress was led to believe that the legislation would be a simple reorganization aimed at increasing efficiency, not an attempt to expand federal power. Fiscally conservative members of Congress were even told that the bill would be budget neutral! Yet, when the House of Representatives initially considered creating a Department of Homeland Security, the legislative vehicle almost overnight grew from 32 pages to 282 pages- and the cost had ballooned to at least $3 billion. Now we are prepared to vote on a nearly 500-page bill that increases federal expenditures and raises troubling civil liberties questions. Adding insult to injury, this bill was put together late last night and introduced only this morning. Worst of all, the text of the bill has not been made readily available to most members, meaning this Congress is prepared to create a massive new federal agency without even knowing the details. This is a dangerous and irresponsible practice.
Audrey Hudson at The Washington Times - A supersnoop's dream - more on Poindexter's "Total Information Awareness" plan.
"There is a great danger in this provision. It gives carte blanche to eavesdrop on Americans on the flimsiest of evidence, if any evidence at all," said Phil Kent, president of the Southeastern Legal Foundation.
Mr. Kent called the provision "an unprecedented electronic dragnet."
"I think it's the most sweeping threat to civil liberties since Japanese-American internment," Mr. Kent said.
Mr. Kent and outgoing Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican, are lobbying the Senate to remove this and other provisions they say are a threat to civil liberties and restrict the public's right to know of government activities.
"In defense of members of Congress, many don't read the whole legislation and very few people read the fine print," said Mr. Barr. "You would think the Pentagon planning a system to peek at personal data would get a little more attention.
"It's outrageous, it really is outrageous," Mr. Barr said.
Garry Reed's Loose Cannon Libertarian - Conspiracy Leery - was the Oklahoma City bombing part of an Islamist conspiracy, or is talk of one simply a good excuse to attack Iraq?
Bruce Schneier's Cryptogram - November 15, 2002 - a short issue, because Mr. Schneier is finishing up his new book, which is slated to be available in stores next September.
We are being told that we are in graver danger than ever, and that we must change our lives in drastic and inconvenient ways in order to be secure. We are being told that we must give up privacy or anonymity, or accept restrictions on our actions. We are being told that the police need new investigative powers, that domestic spying capabilities need to be instituted, and that our militaries must be brought to bear on countries that support terrorism. What we're being told is mostly untrue. Most of the changes we're being asked to endure don't result in good security. They don't make us safer. Some of the changes actually make things worse.
My new book, still untitled, is a book about security. Not computer security, but security in general. Its goal is to teach readers how to think differently, how to tell good security from bad security, and to be able to explain why. Its goal is to instill in readers a healthy skepticism about security, especially the technologies surrounding security. Its goal is to convince readers that good security is about people.
Free-Market.Net Spotlight - The value of the vote - if you stop thinking about voting as having anything to do with who gets elected, and start thinking of it as a way to express your opinion, it may seem less futile.
J. Orlin Grabbe - The Function of the Drug War - a classic. Worth a re-read if you've seen it already. [grabbe]
Only the failure of the Drug War and the continuing success of drug enterprises can sustain the continuing stream of assets ripe for seizure (off-budget funding) and the beneficial media publicity, such as lurid TV footage of stacks of plastic-wrapped money and cocaine. Thus the failure of the Drug War becomes the measure of the Drug Warriors' success, and the ineffectiveness of the Drug Warriors becomes the continuing justification for their existence. The Drug Warriors are ever justified by the continuing Drug Crisis and the richness of the Drug Warriors' targets. Hence the Drug Warriors must fight the Drug War ever harder in order to ensure that it will be successfully lost.
D.W. MacKenzie at Ideas on Liberty - I, Government - a short, accurate description of this ancient monster. [smith2004]
Bill Walker at Laissez Faire Electronic Times - Minutemen and Bounty Hunters - a few encouraging words about the coming anarcho-capitalist order. [grabbe]
Henry Makow at Bankindex.com - Could Bush Become another Hitler? The Timetable for Tyranny - of course he could. Mr. Makow recommends joining Edward Griffin's Freedom Force International, the John Birch Society, or Bob Schulz's We the People! [grabbe]
Peggy Noonen at The Wall Street Journal via FreeRepublic - "Them" [one group for whom liberals have no tolerance at all] - in defense of smokers.
A short word on smokers. They are people who've made a deal. They are old-fashioned, and it's an old-fashioned deal. Their sense of life is essentially conservative: They know it is short, they know part of how you say thank you for it is to really feel it and enjoy it, and they know this life isn't the most transcendent and important one you'll be living. Smokers are disproportionately Catholic, did you know that? They know that eventually something will kill them. They accept death and illness as part of the equation. They love smoking so much, it so enhances their enjoyment of each day, that they'll gamble. Some of them, they know, will die in a car accident next year, so it won't matter if they smoked; some will die of old age at 97; some will get emphysema or lung cancer at 50 and pay the price. Fine. You buys your smokes and takes your chances. This is a hardy and, as I said, old-fashioned approach to life. It is not modern. Modern people think that if they're tidy, floss and eat fennel they'll never die, and if they get sick they'll clone themselves and go get reborn. Smokers are more stoic and sacramental. They don't want to be cloned, they want to go to heaven and see grandma. I made up the part about how they're disproportionately Catholic but I bet it's true and in any case why shouldn't I assert phony facts? The other side does.
Bill White at Pravda - Gun Groups See Steady Bleed into Militias; Domestic Unrest Still Growing in United States - a year-old article from Russia illuminating America's growing militia movement much better than you'll see in our socialist press. Mentions GOA and the TRT as well. [kaba]
There are three issues that motivate America's militia movement -- support of gun rights, opposition to taxation, and opposition to the United Nations and the loss of America's sovereignty to global corporate rule -- a system the militias see as socialism and anti-globalists label capitalism, and which is really a blend of the worst elements of the two. Among these issues, the most important, the one that seems most immediately threatening, and which has been the prime motivation for the existence of the militia movement, has been the possibility of nation-wide confiscation of firearms by the US Federal government. In America, the people know that the foundation of their liberty is their ability to use firearms to resist government police and military personnel, and it is widely believed that an attempt to confiscate their arms will be the first step in imposing a dictatorship on US citizens. Daily this has seemed more real, and thus there has been a steady bleed of activists out of mainstream groups like the National Rifle Association, and into more confrontational activist groups, like Gun Owners of America and the Tyranny Response Team, and eventually into militias and other armed non-governmental formations.
...
Conclusion: America's Militia Movement Is Not To Be Discounted
It is clear that the rural people of American -- the mostly white population descended from the original European settlers of the nation -- have become alienated from the cosmopolitan blend of urban white liberals and their train of ethnically defined special interests that have gained control of America's cities. One only has to look at a map of who voted for George Bush and who voted for Al Gore to see that a clear divide has occurred between the values of the country's elite and their lackeys, and the real working people of the nation.
America's white working class, so long reviled by the intellectuals and the clique that control the government, has been organizing itself into regional-ethnically based citizen militias that are prepared to fight to restore the values of their ancestor's revolution two hundred and twenty five years ago. For the first time in a century, more of America's white population lives in rural areas than in it's cities, and that demographic change is only one indicator of the larger, more widely spread divide.
Should the American nation fracture, whether due to a massive terrorist attack, the repressive domestic policies of its government, or a combination of both, it is clear that there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Americans who are already organized in paramilitary armed formation for the goal of seizing power and restoring the Constitutional Republic that they feel progressive liberalism has lost them.
Osama bin Laden has said that he feels that terrorist attacks can create enough instability in America that forces that already want to change the course of the government will see it weakened enough that an opportunity to act will emerge. With the growing divorce between an imperial government of usurpation and the nation's original Constitutional principles, bin Laden may not be far off.
Martha V. Creegan at The Caledonian-Record - Locals Come Face To Face With Homeland Security - a federal checkpoint was set up at the border between New Hampshire and Vermont. They searched the reported family's car after asking for "permission". [kaba]
Joe Mellia, press agent for the U.S. Border Patrol, confirmed a check point was set up on Route 3 in North Stratford last Monday morning. He could not talk about the specifics, or indicate why or what the agents were looking for that day.
"We're putting up check points intermittently on arteries known to have traffic from the border area," said Mellia.
He said in general the agents are looking for illegal aliens, illegal weapons, drugs and other contraband.
