Posted by
Systems Analyst on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 12:07:32 AM
In early 2002, when the Homeland Security Agency was first proposed, I sounded a warning that its duties, responsibilities, and even its innocuous name indicated that it would inevitably become an instrument of oppression. If anyone paid attention, it was only to laugh and dismiss my paranoid fantasies.
Today, this story appeared on Fox News. Sometimes I hate being right.
I have never heard of a fusion center. I did not know the Department of Homeland Security was in the business of defining anyone who might think personal liberty is good as a terrorist. I did not know they were developing justifications for the idea that anyone who disagrees with current public policy, promotes a different public policy, or even supports a candidate from a different party than the one currently in power, as a terrorist. I am not, however, the least bit surprised.
In the words of Jane Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, "That's why we started this.... Now we know that it's not just
the 9/11-type incidents but many, many other types of incidents that we can benefit from having fusion centers that share
information and product and analysis upwards and horizontally." Be afraid.
I did not realize the extent of the secrecy enveloping the activities of the Department of Homeland Security. Once again, I am not the least bit surprised. Secret police organizations whose purpose is to suppress all opposition to the ruling regime through intimidation, kidnapping, torture and murder rarely wish their activities to be publicized.
It does not have to be this way. In cryptography, there is a rule that any code must follow to be taken seriously. The rule is, any good code algorithm must be public knowledge. It must be something that anyone can implement. At the same time, even with that knowledge, it must still be impossible to decode a message without the key in a useful amount of time.
The Department of Homeland Security could and should operate in much the same way. Their guiding principles, if not their actual methods, must be public knowledge. They need to be subject to the same laws that govern any other police organization in the country. They need to be subject to public scrutiny to keep them honest. Or, they need to be disbanded for our own safety and that of the Republic.
As things stand, a mere six years after its inception the Department of Homeland Security is showing undeniable signs that they are planning to crack down on dissenters. Any dissenters. That means you.
By the criteria outlined in "The Modern Militia Movement" I am a potential terrorist because I am writing this blog. You are a potential terrorist because you are reading it. Between us, we are conspirators in an underground militia.
I don't know what worries me more, the idea that I could be profiled as a potential threat to my own country, or the idea that people who actually make and use bombs, and who fly airplanes into crowded office buildings, are not.