WHY HOMELAND SECURITY

Why homeland security?

December 6, 2002

Since September 11, 2001, a day when thousands of Americans died in the horrific aftermath of three acts of terrorism perpetrated and carried out by foreigners, the Bush Administration has been pushing for a consolidation of federal law enforcement agencies into one agency called the Department of Homeland Security. Now that agency has come into being.

One would instantly jump to the conclusion that the Department of Homeland Security will be for the purposes of protecting the homeland, protecting America and American's from foreign invasion. After all, isn't that what has been in the past?

But is that what will be in the future? Remember the words of one change agent in speaking of the paradigm shift, "New paradigm rules violate the fundamental principles of the old."

Dear me, does that mean that the Department of Homeland Security might not be for the purposes of protecting Americans from foreign invasion and foreign terrorism?

Take a look at what has been implemented in our nation over the last ten years, then you tell me. Computers in local, state, and federal buildings have been interfaced and streamlined to share information in an acceptable format to all. The federal government is rapidly establishing a dossier (or dangan) on every man, woman and child in the United States. The contents of that dossier are extensive ... education; training; medical history inclusive of mental, physical, and psychological; how you think; what you believe; family — parents, spouse, children; court records; bank records; shopping records; phone records; IRS records; military service; where you live; where you work ... the list is extensive and getting longer by the day. It relegates the 100 FBI files found in the basement of the White House during the Clinton Administration to the realm of the insignificant.

The government, at the push of a key on a computer console, will know everything there is to know about you, including where to find you if they want to. Most people don't realize this, and if told, quip nonchalantly, "if you have nothing to hide, why should you care."

Let's return to the basement of the White House and the 100 FBI files. Those files might be relegated to the realm of the insignificant in comparison to the information system the government has almost completed building, but the purpose in those files being there was not and is not insignificant. The old axiom "absolute power corrupts absolutely" definitely comes to mind.

Beyond that, there is growing discontent in America ... there is a growing realization that states are in financial trouble, businesses — some employing many people or providing the better part of the economic base for a community — are going out of business or moving their business to other countries. People are finally beginning to wake up to the fact that their rights and liberties are rapidly disappearing, as is the economic base and stability of their nation — something many of us have been saying for some time now. For our efforts, we've been called many names ... radicals, religious fanatics, the "black helicopter" crowd, extremists, hate-mongers, bigots ... to name a few; none complimentary, none intended to be.

This growing discontent comes at a time when the ability of government computers, at all levels, to interface, compile, and share information, is coming together rapidly. Why would the government want to know all this information about Americans?

Since the signing of the Homeland Security Act, talk has turned to revisiting the Posse Comitatus Act which prohibits the use of American military against the American people. After all, the reasoning goes, the military is so much better equipped and trained to handle certain situations and conditions ... like maybe riots, curfews, dissension, people trying to escape tumult, huge camps thrown up in out-of-the-way places to incarcerate large numbers of people, monitoring the movement of people.

Is Homeland Security about protecting American soil and Americans ... or is it about protecting an ever more tyrannical government from the people it hopes to enslave?