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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (57890)	11/19/2002 8:42:05 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

A False Sense of Security The blame for that rests mostly with President Bush. No surprise IMO "If homeland security is so important, why isn’t Bush spending more money on it?" msnbc.com NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE Nov. 15 — Homeland security. It was arguably the key to the big GOP win in the midterm elections. Voters just trusted President Bush more than the Democrats to take care of it. Maybe he deserved that trust; it’s hard to choose a party over a president when security is on the line. But the basic budget facts tell a different story. Even now, the president is consistently under-funding and delaying critical homeland security initiatives. If there’s another big attack, Bush — and his budget director, Mitch Daniels — may have some difficult questions to answer. TAKE PORT SECURITY. Currently, only two percent of the cargo that arrives on American shores is inspected. You’re about fifty times more likely to have your luggage inspected at the airport than that guy with a 10-ton container is at the docks. We all know that stowaway terrorists, explosives and even nuclear weapons can be smuggled in by sea, and that we need to do something about it. The president himself said earlier this year that “We’re working hard to make sure … that the port is safer. The Customs Service is working with overseas ports and shippers to improve its knowledge of container shipments.” That sounds reassuring, but the details of what is actually happening are not. Congress took action last year, authorizing “such sums as necessary” to enhance port security. The best estimate of what is necessary, according to a consensus by industry and security experts, is $700 million minimum. Over the objections of Democrats, Congress has provided only $250 million for the ports, 35 percent less than originally authorized. In August, Bush vetoed a bill that would have placed Customs officials in foreign ports, to help check the cargo before it’s shipped. Some critics argue that even $700 million is far too stingy, given the threat. For another half a billion, every cargo shipment could be checked with a Geiger counter (about the size of a pager), which detects radioactivity from nuclear materials. There are some false positives — the potassium in bananas, for instance, can set off the meter. But port officials say those obstacles can be overcome. Wouldn’t you feel better if someone passed a Geiger counter over the cargo that comes into our ports? Bush and Mitchell Daniels are unconvinced. It’s not that they have a study saying it doesn’t make sense. They just don’t want to spend the money. Border security is another example. Congress authorized funding for 200 additional Immigration and Naturalization Service inspectors and 200 new INS investigators. Again, it sounds like a no-brainer; the agency is a mess, it’s true, but that’s mostly because it is overwhelmed. No one who has looked at the INS ever said it didn’t need more inspectors and investigators on the ground. But the president’s proposed “continuing resolution” doesn’t fund them. What’s a “continuing resolution”? It’s a crutch that Congress has used in recent years to keep the government open when the parties can’t agree on actual appropriations of money. It kicks the hard spending choices down the road. That may have been fine pre-September 11, but this year’s government-by-continuing resolution is a dangerous game. The longer we delay in making much-needed security improvements, the more vulnerable we become. The Republican continuing resolution delays $800 million for bioterrorism prevention (money that was requested immediately after September 11) and $3.5 billion for emergency rescue teams and other first responders. We already know that the administration is in no particular hurry on homeland security, especially if it can be exploited politically. In early 2001, a commission chaired by former Sens. Gary Hart and Warren Rudman issued a report calling for the creation of a Department of Homeland Security. It was largely ignored until after September 11, when Democrats and a few Republicans pushed for a new, Cabinet-level department, and the White House was adamantly opposed. For nine months after September 11, Bush continued his opposition, before adopting the Hart-Rudman idea as his own. Then, this fall, the parties disagreed over how easy it should be to fire employees of the new department. I happened to think the GOP was right on this one, and the Democrats wrong for carrying the water of the government employees unions. But the fact remains that when Sen. John Breaux, a conservative Democrat, offered a reasonable compromise, the White House rejected it. Bush preferred to use the issue politically (to devastating effect in Georgia, where Sen. Max Cleland, who lost his re-election bid, was accused of delaying the department) rather than get the thing done. After delaying for months, he had the nerve to attack Democrats like Cleland for delaying. And it worked. Since the election, the logjam has been broken and a new Department of Homeland Security will be in place soon. That’s good news. But the money to fund the programs of the new department is still hung up in continuing resolutions, and is too stingy to begin with. The blame for that — and for the overall slowness of our efforts to secure this country — rests mostly with President Bush. © 2002 Newsweek, Inc.

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (57890)	11/20/2002 2:14:46 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

When you board a plane in the next year, your pilot may be armed. Make a call from a pay phone at the ballpark, and it may be tapped. Pay for a sandwich with a credit card, and the transaction may wind up in an electronic file with your tax returns, travel history, and speeding tickets. These are some of the ways that the biggest reorganization of the federal government in half a century could trickle down into the minutiae of the daily life of Americans. Let's hope the pilot isn't drunk and armed... Security act to pervade daily lives By Gail Russell Chaddock \| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor www.christiansciencemonitor.com WASHINGTON – When you board a plane in the next year, your pilot may be armed. Make a call from a pay phone at the ballpark, and it may be tapped. Pay for a sandwich with a credit card, and the transaction may wind up in an electronic file with your tax returns, travel history, and speeding tickets. These are some of the ways that the biggest reorganization of the federal government in half a century could trickle down into the minutiae of the daily life of Americans. The Homeland Security Act that President Bush is poised to sign is sweeping in scope and will have big consequences, intended and unintended, on everything from civil liberties of Americans to due process for immigrants. Some have little to do with homeland security, but emerged out of the intensive, last-minute bargaining that shaped this effort to refocus the nation's resources to defeat terrorism. As votes on the historic bill wrapped up this week, most lawmakers were still rifling through its 484 pages to find out what's there. "The statute is elephantine," says Allen Weinstein, president of the Center for Democracy in Washington. "It means we're probably going to have to deal with a law of unintended consequences." While debate in Congress focused on bargaining rights of federal workers and the fate of mammoth agencies, many features of this bill reach deep into the fabric of American life. Among the implications: • New authority for agencies to collect and mine data on individuals and groups, including databases that combine personal, governmental, and corporate records - including e-mails and websites viewed. • Limits on the information citizens can request under the Freedom of Information Act, and criminal penalties for government employees who leak information. This was a top priority for business groups, who worry that disclosing critical information to the new department could expose corporate secrets or vulnerabilities to competitors or terrorists. "Companies feel they need this, because without it they will be less willing to share this information," says Joe Rubin, director of congressional affairs for the US Chamber of Commerce. • More latitude for government advisory committees to meet in secret - not subject to the requirements of the open meeting laws. If Dick Cheney's controversial meetings with energy companies in 2001 were held under the bill's provisions, they could be kept secret if deemed to be "national-security related." • Limits on liability for those who manufacture "antiterrorism technologies," including vaccines, gas masks, and baggage screening equipment. As a condition for their votes, several Senate moderates have an agreement from House leaders to revisit some of these provisions when the 108th Congress convenes in January. • New powers to government officials to declare national health emergencies, including quarantines and forced vaccination. "We could see a situation in this country where you are going to have forced use of vaccines and no accountability for those who make them. It's a prescription for tyranny," says Barbara Loe Fisher, cofounder of the National Vaccine Information Center. While critical of many features of this bill, civil liberties activists welcome a provision that bans the controversial "terrorism information and prevention system" (TIPS), first proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft. "It was a very bad idea that would have enlisted neighbors and the general public to become amateur snoops for homeland security purposes ... evading the constitutional protections government has to comply with when they do surveillance. It's a victory to get this out of the bill," says Tim Edgar of the American Civil Liberties Union. Still, groups on the left and right worry the act has pitfalls for individual privacy and liberty. It's the second time in half a century that Washington has revamped its bureaucracy to meet new defense needs. After World War II, President Truman unified the armed services around a new Department of Defense - a process that took decades. Some say it's not done yet. The new Department of Homeland Security is an even more complex undertaking. The terrorist foe is more agile and obscure than the lumbering nation-states that were the object of Truman's reorganization. Even as the final votes were being tallied, senators were already calling for modifications in the law in January. What especially concerns privacy groups is the capacity of the new law to centralize all the snooping activities allowed by the Patriot Act, passed after the 9/11 attacks. Lisa Dean, director of the Free Congress Foundation says Americans eventually "may find that their conversations have been monitored or [that they've been] caught walking past a surveillance camera and be outraged, but find they have no legal recourse."