Message 18299714
exerpt:
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The new department [of homeland security] will employ 170,000 people -- making it second only to the Pentagon as our largest government institution. Under its authority will be the Customs Service, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Border Patrol, and the Transportation Security Administration, to name a few. The New York Times reports that the bill "provides the new department with what congressional officials say is unprecedented power for a federal agency to organize itself as it chooses, without congressional oversight or interference" (authority "demanded by the Bush administration"). With the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies under its control, Homeland Security will constitute an intelligence-gathering institution of massive proportions. "Administration officials acknowledge," says the Times, "that the Department of Homeland Security could eventually emerge as a rival to the FBI as a domestic intelligence-gathering agency." Language added to the bill since the recent election "allows the administration to reorganize the department after it is created." What this means in the real world is that essential security services (the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and the Border Patrol) will no longer be subject to congressional "interference"; will no longer have to account for themselves to the people; and will no longer be answerable to any but the White House, which can institute any changes it wants in the new department without going to the people for approval. And the administration already admits that Homeland Security could become a super-FBI operating without any of the FBI's present constitutional constrictions.
In addition, the 170,000 Homeland Security employees will be stripped of civil service protections. This proposal was couched as a money-saving, anti-union tactic that would give the new department "flexibility" (Bush's word). What it means in everyday reality is the department will exert complete control over its employees, who will no doubt face severe consequences for acts of conscience (such as telling their fellow Americans what Homeland Security is really up to).
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