THIS Is Why You ALWAYS Notify the Police of Drills...

The folks at AT&T learned an important lesson last week: if you're going to hold an emergency preparedness drill, you should "reach out and touch someone" by notifying the local emergency responders, AND your employees. AT&T didn't think of that little aspect... and caused all sorts of holy hell in the Windy City. According to AT&T officials, they were holding "video training" to familiarize key employees with the facility's active shooter response plan. One aspect of the plan involved a facility-wide text message advising staff of the attack. Since they hadn't thought to notify staff, or include the standard "THIS IS A DRILL, DO NOT RESPOND OR TAKE ANY ACTION" verbiage in their broadcast message, many employees took the notification to be legitimate, resulting in panicked calls to police, fire, EMS, news media, loved ones, and so on.


https://blockclubchicago.org/2019/07/18/active-shooter-drill-in-loop-goes-epically-wrong-after-police-workers-not-notified-in-advance/

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/07/18/active-shooter-drill-gone-wrong/

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-police-active-shooter-false-alarm-loop-512904561.html

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-loop-active-shooter-drill-20190718-menvndwqlnfutmfjuvztk3i5yq-story.html

Drills and exercises are an essential part of an organization's emergency preparedness posture. They allow participants to act out their responses -- hopefully appropriate responses -- to simulated emergency situations. An example we're all familiar with is fire drills in school (not that you should take the time to line up in size place and hold your partner's hand...). Those of us "of an age" will remember the old "duck and cover" drills of the Cold War era, as if a school desk would protect us from a nuclear detonation.

There are two broad categories of exercises: discussion-based and operations-based forming a continuum from the easiest to arrange and hold -- the seminar -- the the most complex -- the full-scale exercise. Ideally, an organization intent on practicing or improving its preparedness efforts would go through the steps in order, allowing them to catch and correct problems earlier in the process, when fixes aren't as complicated (or expensive) to achieve. It also allows the organization's staff to become used to the process. The idea is that by practicing these responses, should the event actually occur, staff will have "experienced" the situation often enough to not panic.

Unfortunately, America generally does not begin planning for a disaster until after the disaster has occurred. Shortly after 9-11, Bush administration officials said "no one had considered the possibility of intentionally crashing planes into buildings," despite the fact that merely 60 years earlier, the Japanese had done almost the same thing, with their kamikaze pilots intentionally flying their aircraft into Allied vessels in the Pacific. Plus, Tom Clancy's 1994 novel, Debt of Honor, ended with a Japanese pilot intentionally crashing his 747 into the Capitol Building during the State of the Union address... a full seven years before 9-11. And it was already proven that planes collided with buildings: in 1945, a B-25 bomber, enveloped in dense fog, crashed into the Empire State Building in New York City.

Rick Rescorla, whom I have mentioned before, was British-born, and had experience in both the British and United States military, plus police experience in Rhodesia and London, before becoming director of security for Morgan Stanley. After the destruction of Pan Am Flight 93 over Lockerbee, Scotland, in 1988, Rescorla became interested in terrorism, and asked a friend with extensive training in the field to examine the (then) Dean Witter offices at the World Trade Center. The friend said the most likely spot for a terrorist attack was in the basement of the building, in the parking garage. Five years later, Islamic fundamentalists parked a truck full of explosives next to a main bearing column and detonated it.

After the botched response to the 1993 WTC attack, Rescorla decided to institute a series of regular evacuation drills, feeling that lost productivity and lost income was far less important than ensuring the safety of the Morgan Stanley employees. Of the 3,700 Morgan Stanley employees at WTC on 9-11, only six perished: Rescorla and five other security staff who were helping other tenants escape.

His recurring drills were key to the Morgan Stanley staff keeping their wits about them as they evacuated, despite announcements from the Port Authority that the buildings were safe and no evacuation was necessary.

Drills work, but they have to be accomplished appropriately.

I was going through some on-line FEMA training, and ran across this little gem on disaster response:

Where State, tribal, or local governments are unable to establish or maintain an effective incident command structure due to catastrophic conditions, the Federal Government, at the direction of the Secretary of Homeland Security, may establish a unified command structure, led by the Unified Coordination Group (UCG), to save lives, protect property, maintain operation of critical infrastructure/key resources (CIKR), contain the event, and protect national security. The Federal Government shall transition to its role of coordinating and supporting the State, tribal, or local government when they are capable of reestablishing their incident command.1

This would be the same Department of Homeland Security that is currently running American concentration camps, demanding papers from citizens with dark skins, and arresting Americans for leaving water in the desert for people seeking a new life in the "land of the free [hah] and the home of the draft dod-- err, brave." The same DHS that has ALL the Federal law enforcement except the FBI. The same DHS whose CBP goons were sharing viciously racist posts on at least one FB group, and whose management investigated those posts... and did nothing.

Maybe I'm overly-paranoid when it comes to der trumpenfuhrer, but I can see him and his playmates declaring a "national emergency" that would "require" suspension of the Constitution.



1. IS-830, Introduction to NRF Incident Annexes, https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-830, retrieved 07-07-19

Law Enforcement

 

Ferguson, MO, 2014

Those three hard-hitting All-American Military Fighting Men are fro--- what? They're not active military? They're cops?

They're police officers?

Crap, they look like Marine Expeditionary Forces guys heading into Baghdad.

No wonder they're busy killing dogs and 90-year-old women and 19-year-old kids. They think they're playing G.I. Joe.

They get all this high-falutin' military hardware from Uncle Sam as part of the "War on Terra" -- despite the fact that Ferguson, MO, is not a terribly likely target for Haji al-Kahbuum -- so they feel the need to play with it when they get bored.

Kinda like the bad old days:

Birmingham, AL, 1963 

 

I guess I was really lucky: my stint in law enforcement came between these two periods, during the 70s and 80s when most cops -- not all, but most -- tried to be decent citizens, and tried to respect their fellow man.

 

Yeah, we had some gang issues and drug issues and of course the tail end of Vietnam and Watergate, but for the most part, the cops tried to be decent.

 





Yeah, About That...

Haven't yet, but with all the RWNJs out there, it's just a metter of time.

 

Source: http://hahagotya.com/11168/seen-this-on-facebook-yet/

Fresh Mushrooms...

As Saint Ronnie said, "well, there you go again..."

The rethuglicans are returning to one of their previous, less-than-stellarly-successful campaigns. I saw an ad on YouTube, decrying the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran, culminating with the ominous warning that if we don't stop Obama now, we'll have a mushroom cloud next week.

Apparently, the best way to prevent a nuclear (or as they pronounce it, "nukuler") holocaust is to... nuke Iran.

How long has that meme been floating around?

Since friggin' 1980!

"If You've Got Nothing to Hide..."

One of the more conservative medical bloggers -- whom I will not link to because he's such a dyed-in-the-wool-right-wing whackjob (but also a helluva medic) -- was bitching about the TSA.

BillyJoeBobBubba "forgot" to remove live ammunition from his bags before heading to the airport to board a plane, and was complaining about the search that ensued.

This from one of those "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about" types. It was HIS philosophical cronies, after all, who established the TSA (and the rest of DHS) and rammed it down our throats.

Apparently, the fact that they searched a white man instead of a scary brown Moozlum is, well... intolerable.

Got news for ya, Bubba: you're the ones screaming that everybody should be armed, so it makes sense that you're the ones who should pay the price when your gun mania gets you in hot water. You're the ones who say "security trumps everything else", including Fourth Amendment freedoms. You're the ones who demanded the PATRIOT Act. You're the ones who supported the establishment of the American version of the Gestapo. You're the ones who insisted -- screechingly -- that TSA damn near strip search everyone within 5 miles of an airplane.

You wanted it, BillyJoeBobBubba, and you got it. Now YOU get to live with it, too, just like the rest of us.

Moronic redneck LOSER.

The Irony is Delicious

Have you seen all the rabid right-wingers with the bumper stickers that say, "Those who sacrifice freedom for liberty deserve neither"?

Well, first, the correct quotation is, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." It was said by Benjamin Franklin.

Second, the folks most likely to display this sticker are members of the bush-Palin lunatic fringe... the ones who support things like the Patriot Act, the formation of the Department of Homeland Security, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and the suspension of habeus corpus.

In other words, they're the ones supporting the reductions of liberty in the "interests" of safety.

Disgusting. Absolutely Dee-skus-ting.

Last week, an AP reporter and photographer stopped at the Oak Hill General Store in Standish, Maine (about 20 miles NW of Portland), to check a tip about an "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool," in which bettors could wager on the date that President-Elect Obama would be assassinated.

Portland Press-Herald columnist Bill Nemitz:

It all started 11 days ago when The Associated Press in Portland received an anonymous tip of a sign inside the store announcing the "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool."

AP writer Jerry Harkavy and photographer Bob Bukaty took a ride out and, sure enough, saw those very words scrawled across a whiteboard inside the store.

Before they were rebuffed by a man behind the counter who wouldn't give his name, Harkavy said, they also noted that to win the $1-per-entry pool, a contestant had to pick the date that President-elect Barack Obama would be assassinated.

"Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. And at the bottom of the board were the words: "Let's hope someone wins."

Of course, the Secret Service, the state AG's office, and the Cumberland County Sheriff are all investigating.

Note that the store is advocating the use of violence in the furtherance of a political objective. Guess what? Under Federal law, that makes the Oak Hill General Store a terrorist organization. I'd love to see the Ministry for Homeland Security swoop down on them.

Steve Collins, owner of the Oak Hill General Store, supports terrorism and murder. He should be arrested on terrorism charges.

The fine God-fearing folks who bought squares in the pool should also be arrested, for their obvious terrorist symapthies.

There have been other racially-tinged incidents in Maine, too:

Closer to home, a student was suspended from Gray-New Gloucester High School after standing up in class and delivering a racist, anti-Obama rant. And on Mount Desert Island, police are investigating three cases in which all-black, cardboard cut-outs of human figures were hung from trees along roadsides just after the election.

This is Maine, for God's sake. Maine, not Alabama or Mississippi or Arkansas.

Nemitz asks what can be done:

Thomas Harnett, Maine's assistant attorney general for civil rights education and enforcement, said it's too soon to determine what legal action, if any, might stem from the Oak Hill General Store sign. But he agreed with Wessler [Stephen Wessler, executive director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence] that what law enforcement sometimes can't accomplish, community outrage can.

"The best way to counter hateful speech is to assert one's own right to free speech," Harnett said. "It's very important for people to speak out loudly and clearly and powerfully that this is not how Maine feels."

I'd say the decent people in Standish -- which voted for Obama -- should shun the Oak Hill General Store and leave it for the local KKK contingent. I doubt there are enough racists in town to keep the store alive, especially in this economy.

Maybe someone should grab the wire frame from a campaign sign and designate the store "Standish KKK Headquarters" or "We Support Terrorism and Murder."

Oh, and when the story broke on AP, Collins -- being the brave, courageous terrorist that he is -- fled to an undisclosed location in northern Maine for some hunting.

Stevie, you like posting hateful speech, so come on back and face the music.

You hateful, racist,neocon pussy.

Back to Being Serious

Now that the election is over -- except for a few obligatory attempts to disenfranchise the 52% of the electorate who voted for Obama -- it's time to look ahead.

Number one, I'm sure the Secret Service is going to have additional agents assigned to Obama's detail. After all, they now have to worry about not just the usual loonies who want to kill a president, but also the disgruntled rednecks who "cain't beleeve we done elected a nigra." And unfortunately, these rednecks don't just live in the south. Here in central Maine, I ran into a guy who said the country "couldn't afford a n****r in the White House." Central Maine, mind you, not Alabama or Tennessee. I have said it before and I'll say it again: the Secret Service is the premier executive protection agency on Earth, and they've probably been planning for this since Obama formed his exploratory committee.

Second, the Christianists*, Dominionists, and other fundie wingnuts have lost this opportunity to have one of their own in the line of succession. That doesn't mean, however, that they're going to fade back into obscurity. The Dobsons, Falwells, and their ilk will continue to poison American discourse with their perverted views of Christianity; we must not miss a single opportunity to point out that -- despite their claims -- they do not represent this country.

Third, it will be very interesting to see what kind of surprises Cheney and bush may have planned for the country between now and January 20. Yes, Commander Codpiece called President-elect Obama (Lord, how that must stick in his craw!) to congratulate him, but I still don't trust Biggus Dickus or dim son as far as I could throw them.

__________

On a more pleasant topic, I saw a clip last night from WDIV TV in Detroit, showing the line at one polling location: the line came out the door, wrapped around the block, and had a start on a second wrap. This, from a city that has had low turnouts the last few elections.

Here in Maine, the Secretary of State reports turnout may exceed 80% - a record for the state.

And it appears that turnout may hit record levels in many, many locations -- a testament to the importance of this election, and to the effectiveness of Obama's GOTV efforts.

And this just in from WCSH TV in Portland: a referendum to allow a casino (with a legally-mandated 10-year monopoly) had been defeated. The bill would have lowered the gambling age from 21 to 19, in addition to the non-compete provision. It needed to fail, and it did.

Oh, and for those who don't keep track of these things, there are now NO Rethuglicans in any New England US House delegation. The last one, Chris Shays of CT, was defeated.


*Christianists as opposed to Christians, of course.

On Wednesday, I mentioned the possibility of a desperate last-minute power-grab by the current administration. I said, "I wouldn't put it past Cheney ... to greet us the day after Election Day..." without stopping to think that it doesn't have to be the day after. It could be any day, up to and including Inauguration Day.

Obviously, the easiest way for the Cheneyites to retain power would be to have some sort of terror attack which would -- at least in their minds -- justify the imposition of martial law.

In discussing this with some friends, one pointed out that even Cheney and bush wouldn't have the gall to try such a move. Then, I found this video from C-Span:



"...There would be martial law in America if we voted no..." (Money quote starts at 00:25)

Now granted, Congressman Sherman was discussing the ramifications of the bailout bill, but this shows that the idea of imposing martial law is starting to percolate through the administration.

This is a terrifying thought.

My friend also said that even if they try martial law, the government wouldn't allow it. I fear that is wishful thinking. Congress hasn't stood up against this administration since Day One, not against the Patriot Act, the suspension of habeus corpus, Gitmo or any of the other schemes Cheney and bush have come up with. The legal system wouldn't be of much use either, since Cheney and bush have ensured that only loyal bushies are installed as US Attorneys... and they're the ones who would have to act (assuming that Congress is effectively neutralized, as I fear it is).

She also claimed that during the final days of Nixon's implosion, military and law enforcement units were placed on alert, just in case Tricky Dick tried to impose martial law to remain in power; she said the same thing would happen now. I'm not so sure. In the first place, Nixon's downfall took place at the tail end of Vietnam, by which time the military had lost all confidence in their Commander in Chief; I'm not sure that applies now. This time, one could argue that the military supports the administration's "efforts" to root out terrorists. Furthermore, Cheney and bush have been pretty damned effective in purging the military of "disloyal" commanders.

And let us not forget that after 9-11, Federal law enforcement, with the exception of the FBI, was concentrated in the Department of Homeland Security. I've written many times about DHS, often comparing the agency to the gone-but-not-forgotten KGB, the "sword and shield" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. DHS is completely under the thumb of the administration, and Michael "Skeletor" Chertoff doesn't strike me as the kind who would move against his superiors, especially not to defend a "goddamned piece of paper." I say it is entirely possible that any attempt to protest an imposition of martial law would be met by heavily armed DHS storm troopers fanatically loyal to Cheney and bush. The FBI would be equally useless, for under this administration, they have been given powers that they have only dreamed of, much more power than they held even under Hoover's heyday. Besides, the United States Secret Service -- formerly part of the Treasury Dept, and now, of course, an entity of DHS -- is the most professional, most competent executive protection organization on the face of the earth, and like the rest of DHS, would probably be loyal to the current regime.

Cheney and bush would have no problem inventing a disaster: another attack, "warnings" of an "impending" attack (and we've seen how often those crop up when the administration's in trouble), or even using the current economic meltdown. Cheney and bush would use bush's claim of "unitary executive power" and Cheney's position as "part of the legislative branch" to squelch any opposition.

Okay, maybe I'm paranoid, but -- as Henry Kissinger said, "Even a paranoid can have enemies."

It will be interesting to see if the United States of America still exists as a free nation on January 21, 2009.

TSA Strikes Out One More Time...

This is starting to get monotonous. Can't these frickin' MO-rons get anything right?



The fine folks at TSA ("Thousands Standing Around") are continuing to wage the good fight against liquids aboard planes, while still managing to miss legitimate threats. It appears a man managed to get through the all the security checkpoints at Reagan National Airport with a gun.

Before the passenger boarded his flight about 7:30 a.m. Sunday, he realized that he had the gun and returned voluntarily to the checkpoint... Yingling [a spokesman for the airport] said that the agency's officers took the gun and issued a summons and that the man was allowed to continue his trip.

A TSA spokesdrone had this to say: "...testing shows that the agency has a "very high success rate" in detecting firearms." Yeah, if the screeners know they're being tested. See, for instance, here, here, here, and here. These are, of course, the same TSA screeners who are too busy groping a woman's breasts and stealing from passengers (see here, here, here)to focus on their primary job, which is "keeping us safe from terrists."



Bringing liquids on board a plane brings down TSA on you like the wrath of God. But bombs, guns, and knives? Eh, everybody's human, right?

Schticks of One, Half a Dozen of the Other

The Cops Are Cheating…

According to AP…

A motorist who paid a speeding ticket he got from a state trooper who used out-of-state license plates on his unmarked patrol car wants his money back “What gives police the right to drive illegally on the highway?” said Dave Milbrandt, a company finance manager. “Do they have a special exemption?”

It appears Washington State Patrol Trooper Bradford A. Moon was driving an unmarked Dodge Charger with Oregon plates. Moon had removed the plates from a personal vehicle (presumably his, although the article didn’t specify it) after he moved to Washington from Oregon.

Now, when I was a cop, using license plates on a vehicle other than that for which they were issued was called “Misuse of Marker Plates.” In Connecticut, that was an arrest, rather than a ticket. Also, the plates were to be seized, and the car was to be towed. In addition, the car was considered to be (a) unregistered, and (b) uninsured. Operating an unregistered vehicle was a ticket, operating uninsured was another arrest offense. Generally, the penalties were fines: $250 for misuse of plates, $250 for operating uninsured, $50 for operating unregistered, and a one-year drivers license suspension, plus towing and storage charges. Oh, and you didn’t get your vehicle back until you showed up with valid plates, which meant paying the registration fee and buying insurance. Subsequent violations generally doubled all the fines.

So, if there were any justice in the world, the state of Washington would refund Milbrandt’s money, charge Moon with the appropriate violations, and fire his ass.


National Security Trumps All. Well, Almost All…

The telecommunications companies have justified their participation in NSA’s warrantless wiretapping on the basis of “national security.” And I’m willing to admit that national security is important, although not to the extent of sacrificing our liberties.

Unfortunately, a blogger at CSO Magazine found a little monkey wrench in the works:

Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau’s repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

A few of the juicy details:

• A wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) investigation “was halted due to untimely payment,” the audit found. “We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence.” [The blogger, Jeff Bardin, commented, “chain of custody and rules of evidence don’t mean squat if you can’t pay”]
• The ACLU also took a swipe at the telecommunications companies: “It seems the telecoms, who are claiming that they were just being ‘good patriots’ when they allowed the government to spy on us without warrants, are more than willing to pull the plug on national security investigations when the government falls behind in its bills,” and “To put it bluntly, it sounds as though the telecoms believe it when FBI says the warrant is in the mail but not when they say the check is in the mail.” [Bardin has another pointed comment: “We’ll violate laws as long as you pay for us to violate them.”]

Now remind me again why the telecoms are saying they should be granted retroactive immunity for engaging in national security investigations?


No More Good Hands in Florida…

This just in from Business Insurance Magazine:

Florida’s insurance commissioner said on Wednesday that he had suspended Allstate from writing auto insurance policies in the state because it had not complied with a subpoena to testify about its property insurance business.

State officials called off the hearing… when the company officials refused to answer questions and to provide specific documents.

We all know bush, Cheney and their sycophantic thugs are doing everything they can to turn the United States into a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corporate Thieves R Us, so I’m thrilled that Florida (now that Jebbie is gone, thank God) is telling Allstate to stuff their good hands.


Some Future Date in Fire History…

Via the Washington Post, we learn that the brand-spanking new Baghdad embassy is a fire trap:

The firefighting system in the massive $736 million embassy complex in Baghdad has potential safety problems that top U.S. officials dismissed in their rush to declare “mission accomplished”, err... construction largely completed….

“[No] one has ever inspected the electrical system, the power plant” and other parts of the embassy complex….

The Justice Department, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Halliburton, is investigating.

For all the good that will do…

The fire system was installed by First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting (probably a wholly-owned subsidiary of Halliburton). The pipes burst during a routine test. The State Department, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Halliburton, turned to “an outside consulting firm,” which although unidentified, is almost certainly a wholly-owned subsidiary of Halliburton.

The Justice Department “probe” is said to focus on James L. Golden, a contract employee (probably from Halliburton or one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries) and Mary M. French, the project coordinator based in Baghdad.

Once again, corporate profits come ahead of life safety.


Republicans: The Party of Honesty. Aw, BULLSH*T…

Those friggin’ Republicans – the ones who claimed to have restored “dignity” to the White House and the rest of the government – just cannot resist being sleazy and pulling sleazy tricks, no matter how unnecessary:

A mailer from a congressional candidate’s campaign contains a photo of his head attached to an image of a different body that makes him look thinner.

The photo is presented as a true image of Dean Hrbacek, a Republican former mayor of Sugar Land.

Campaign manager Scott Broschart acknowledged to The Houston Chronicle that the
image is a fake.

Is there anything about which a Republican would be truthful?

To borrow Great Orange Satanist Bill in Portland, Maine’s one-word answer…

NO.

"Prearing for the Last Attack," Part Whatever...

A number of times in the past, I have accused the bush administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Transportation Security Administration, and/or FEMA of "preparing for the last attack," a phrase I swiped from security guru Bruce Schneier.

A recent blog post at the NY Times shows Schneier and I are not alone in this belief. Writing in Jet Lagged, commercial airline pilot Patrick Smith (who also writes Salon's "Ask the Pilot" column), makes the point that the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were successful not because the terrorists were able to smuggle weapons aboard commercial jets, but because the hijackers broke the existing paradigm of hijackings:

In years past, a takeover meant hostage negotiations and standoffs; crews were trained in the concept of “passive resistance.” All of that changed forever the instant American Airlines Flight 11 collided with the north tower. What weapons the 19 men possessed mattered little; the success of their plan relied fundamentally on the element of surprise. And in this respect, their scheme was all but guaranteed not to fail.

Smith continues:

For several reasons — particularly the awareness of passengers and crew — just the opposite is true today. Any hijacker would face a planeload of angry and frightened people ready to fight back. Say what you want of terrorists, they cannot afford to waste time and resources on schemes with a high probability of failure. And thus the September 11th template is all but useless to potential hijackers.

Yet it is this "template" to which DHS and TSA fanatically adhere.

Smith's piece -- which should be another must-read (Gawd, I'm finding a lot of those these days) -- is a thoughtful, detailed analysis of why our current airline security program is destined to fail.

Homeland (In)Security

Cross-posted from Watching Those We Chose

We've probably all heard by now of the administration's claim of "authority" to open US Mail addressed to American citizens, without a warrant, based on the "exigent circumstances" associated with the Global War on Terra. And of course we all remember The Great NSA Wiretap Brouhaha from last year.

We now know also that both the CIA and the Defense Department are accessing our personal credit and financial files, again as part of the GWOT.

And we all know that "enemy non-combatants" can be imprisoned, virtually indefinitely, without benefit of any Constitutional rights, and can be tortured by Americans, even if the "enemy" is himself American or one of our few remaining allies.

Now comes news, via the NY Times, that the Defense Dept has also changed their internal regulations on wiretapping Americans, from certification from the Attorney General "issued under the authority of" FISA (Foreign Intelligance Surveillance Act), to "upon attorney general authorization."

This may not seem like much of a difference, but the ten deleted words now leave the DoD free to wiretap Americans without any judicial oversight whatsoever... not even the meagre oversight "provided" by the FISA court (which is, in effect, a Court of Star Chamber for the administration).

Based on the news recently, it appears the administration is concentrating its "homeland security" efforts on building power for the "unitary executive", rather than on the common good.

No one will argue the necessity of properly securing our nation, protecting our citizens and critical infrastructure, and preventing terrorist acts (and, ideally, eliminating the terrorists themselves). I've been in law enforcement and security for the past thirty years; you'll get no argument from me (or any other security professional) that we have to tighten things up, for our own protection.

BUT -- and this is a big "but" -- we cannot do so at the cost of those freedoms which made America, America.

Now that Democrats once again have a say in the workings of government, it is critical that we rein in the abuses of freedom inflicted under the guise of "homeland security." The institutionalized fascism that is the current administration must be brought to heel.

In addition to all the other goals for the 110th Congress, we must urge our Representatives (and Senators) to increase the actual security of our nation -- by hardening or removing targets, by protecting water and food supplies, by strengthening inspections of cargo containers entering our ports -- and at the same time reduce the suppression of honest dissent and the oppression of the American people under spurious claims of "executive privilege", "national security", "homeland security" and "the war on terror."

I hope to be able to present information on "the state of homeland security" -- both as it is and as it should be -- along with how our elected officials plan to balance homeland security and personal freedoms.