# 2 Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty

[furtherfield]

# 2 Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty
Sources:
Global Outlook
Winter 2003
Title: "Homeland Defense: Pentagon Declares War on America"
Author: Frank Morales

Rense.com, 2-11-03 & Global Outlook, Volume 4
Title: "Secret Patriot II Destroys Remaining US Liberty"
Author: Alex Jones

Center for Public Integrity (publicintegrity.org)
Title: "Justice Department Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Terrorism Act"
Author: Charles Lewis and Adam Mayle

Faculty evaluators: Robert Manning, Rashmi Singh Ph.D., Andrew Botterell
Ph.D.
Student researchers: Sherry Grant, Dylan Citrin Cummins

Corporate Media partial coverage:
Atlanta Journal-constitution, 5/11/03/, Patriot Act II, by E. Moscoso, and
N.Achrati
The Tampa Tribune, 3/28/03, Patriot Act II, by Cassio Furtado
Baltimore Sun, 2/21/03, patriot Act Squel Worse than First, by Rajeev Goyle

As reported widely in the mainstream press, the new Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) represents the most extensive restructuring of the U.S.
government since 1947 - the year the Department of War was combined with the
Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Air Force, to create the Department of
Defense. The new Department of Homeland Security combines over one hundred
separate entities of the executive branch, including the Secret Service, the
Coast Guard, and the Border Patrol, among others. The DHS employs over
170,000 federal workers and commands a total annual budget of $37 billion.
But what does this mean for the people of the United States? What sort of
long-term implications will it have on the day to day lives of average
Americans? These questions have received scant attention in the corporate
media.

The concept of Homeland Security was thrown around the Pentagon long before
the events of 9/11. Originally titled "Homeland Defense," it was placed
within the Pentagon's "Operations Other Than War (OOTW)" command, under the
stand-alone civil disturbance plan called the "Garden Plot." Over the years,
homeland defense has been extended by a host of Presidential Decision
Directives and Executive Orders. Now, following the events of 9/11, the
initial concept has ballooned into a vast, powerful, and far-reaching
department.

One DHS mandate largely ignored by the press requires the FBI, CIA, state,
and local governments to share intelligence reports with the department upon
command, without explanation. Civil rights activists claim that this
endangers the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans by blurring the
lines between foreign and domestic spying (as occurred during the CointelPro
plan of the '60s and '70s). According to the ACLU, the Department of
Homeland Security will be "100% secret and 0% accountable." Meanwhile, the
gathering, retention, and use of information collected is a central focus of
the Bush administration's new agenda. Officially established to track down
terrorists, information can be collected on any dissenter, American citizen
or not, violent or not. The classification of recent peace marches and
protests as "terrorist events" within DOD and FEMA documents is one example
of the dangerous potential of these mandates.

As part of Homeland Security, the PATRIOT Act of 2001 allows the government
increased and unprecedented access to the lives of American citizens and
represents an unrestrained imposition on our civil liberties. Wiretaps,
previously confined to one phone, can now follow a person from place to
place at the behest of government agents and people can now be detained on
the vague suspicion that they might be a terrorist - or assisting one.
Detainees can also be denied the right to legal representation (or the right
of private counsel when they are allowed to meet with their attorneys).

William Safire, a writer for the New York Times, defined the first Patriot
Act as a Presidential effort to seize dictatorial control. No member of
Congress was given sufficient time to study the first Patriot Act that was
passed by the house on October 27, 2001. In some cases, while driving the
Act through Congress, Vice-President Cheney would not allow the legislation
to be read; publicly threatening members of Congress that they would be
blamed for the next terrorist attack if they did not vote for the Patriot
Act.

The "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003" (AKA Patriot Act II) poses
even greater hazards to civil liberties. The draft proposal of Patriot Act
II was leaked from Ashcroft's staff in February of 2003 and is stamped
'Confidential - Not for Distribution.' Patriot Act II was widely
editorialized against in the U.S. media but full disclosure on the contents,
implications and motivations were under developed. In particular, there are
three glaring areas that warranted greater coverage by the American media:

The second Patriot Act proposes to place the entire Federal government and
many areas of state government under the exclusive jurisdiction of the
Justice department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM
military command.

Under section 501, a U.S. citizen engaging in lawful activity can be picked
off the streets or from home and taken to a secret military tribunal with no
access to or notification of a lawyer, the press, or family. This would be
considered "justified" if the agent 'inferred from conduct' suspicious
intention. One proposed option is that any violation of Federal or State law
could designate a U.S. citizen as an 'enemy combatant' and allow him or her
to be stripped of citizenship.

Section 102 states that any information gathering can be considered as the
pursuit of covert intelligence for a foreign power - even legal intelligence
gathering by a U.S. reporter. This provision could make newsgathering
illegal, and therefore an act of terrorism.

In addition, the Bush administration is calling for a repeal of the Posse
Comitatus Act of 1878, a law passed after the Civil War to prohibit the
deployment of federal military forces onto American streets to control civil
action - otherwise known as Martial Law.

One fear among civil rights activists is that, now that the details of the
Domestic Security Enhancement Act/Patriotic Act II have been revealed, the
proposals contained therein will be taken apart, renamed, and incorporated
into other, broader pieces of legislation within the Department of Homeland
Security.

UPDATE BY FRANK MORALES

To further prepare for new "law enforcement" missions for the military
within America, overseen by the Northern Command, the Center for Law and
Military Operations, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, recently published
the legal rationale for these developments. Entitled, Domestic Operational
Law Handbook for Judge Advocates, the document reflects the growing momentum
towards the repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act. Virtually unreported in any
media, and published prior to 911, the document states that although "the
Founding Fathers' hesitancy to raise a standing army and their desire to
render the military subordinate to civilian authority" is "rooted in the
Constitution," "exceptions to the restrictions on employment of federal
armed forces to assist state and local civil authorities are also grounded
in the Constitution, which provides the basis for federal legislation
allowing military assistance for civil disturbances." The JAG handbook
attempts to solidify, from a legal standpoint, Pentagon penetration of
America and it's "operations other than war," essentially providing the U.S.
corporate elite with lawful justification for its class war against the
American people, specifically those that resist the "new world law and
order" agenda.

The handbook notes that "the Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan,
named GARDEN PLOT, provides guidance and direction for planning,
coordination, and executing military operations during domestic civil
disturbances." Operation Garden Plot, originating in 1968 and continually
updated, is according to the JAG handbook, tasked with the mission of
conducting "civil disturbance operations throughout the United States,"
providing "wide latitude to a commander to use federal forces to assist
civil law enforcement in restoring law and order." And it's exactly this
type of "wide latitude" that we've witnessed at recent protests in NYC and
Oakland.

United States Army Field Manual 19-15, entitled Civil Disturbances, issued
in 1985, is designed to equip soldiers with the "tactics, techniques and
procedures" necessary to suppress dissent. The manual states that "crowd
control formations may be employed to disperse, contain, or block a crowd.
When employed to disperse a crowd, they are particularly effective in urban
areas because they enable the control force to split a crowd into smaller
segments." Sound familiar? If you were at the February 15 NYC Peace Rally it
certainly does. The manual goes on to state that "if the crowd refuses to
move, the control force may have to employ other techniques, such as riot
control agents or apprehensions." The Army "civil disturbance" manual,
correlated to present day realities, also makes the point that "civil
disturbances include acts of terrorism," which "may be organized by
disaffected groups," who hope to "embarrass the government," and who may in
fact "demonstrate as a cover for terrorism."

The sophistry involved in turning a peace rally into a pro-al Qaeda rally is
precisely the logic that is operative within Pentagon driven civil
disturbance planning situated within the broader context of so-called
"homeland defense." In fact, rather than protest being the occasion of
"terrorism," the "war on terrorism" is the cover for the war on dissent. But
don't take my word for it. Listen to what the California Anti-Terrorism
Information Center spokesman Mike Van Winkle had to say recently to the
Oakland Tribune (5/18/03): "You can make an easy kind of link that, if you
have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought
against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that
protest.You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist
act."

http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/2.html