President Bush signed the Homeland Security bill into law on November 25th, 2002.
The Bush administration has claimed that the Homeland Security department and the Homeland Security Act are reactions to the 9/11 attacks on America. In fact, CNN and other news agencies have repeatedly reported this.
"The department is a direct result of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which exposed security lapses and intelligence failures, and led to calls for sweeping changes to the nation's defense, intelligence and law enforcement sectors."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/homeland.security/
However, this is not the case. Plans for the Department of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Act were underway as early as 1998. In 1998 the United States Commission on National Security/21st Century began working on a report called Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change, which was issued January 31st 2001. This report called for the creation of a National Homeland Security Agency.
The Commission was actually put together by the Clinton administration and supported by Senator Lieberman. The Bush administration was initially against the idea of the Department of Homeland Security because it was part of the Clinton legacy. However, the initial report by the Commission has been significantly changed and added to by the Bush administration since 9/11.
The initial report outlining the National Homeland Security Agency can be found here:
http://www.nssg.gov/phaseIII.pdf
The Commission was strongly influenced by the Council on Foreign Relations; 9 of its 14 members were members of the CFR.
The Council on Foreign Relations is a semi-secret private organization with strict membership standards. The CFR was created in 1921, originally known as the Rockefeller Council on Foreign Relations. In the CFR's own words:
"If the Council as a body has stood for anything these 75 years, it has been for American internationalism based on American interests. If the Council has had influence during this period, it has derived from individual members taking the varied and often conflicting fare of Council meetings and publications to a wider American audience. From Foreign Affairs articles by W.E.B. DuBois and George F. Kennan to books by Henry A. Kissinger and Stanley Hoffmann, the Council's role has been to find the best minds and leaders, bring them together with other Council members, and provide forum and stage."
Most of the previous directors of the CIA have been members of the CFR including Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, George Bush, William Webster, James Woolsey, John Deutsch, and William Casey.
Henry Kissinger self admittedly does not take an altruistic approach to foreign relations, neither did George Kennan as we will see later on; Allen Dulles has direct ties to the German Nazi regime and hired large numbers of Nazis into the CIA when he was director and helped a large number of Nazis escape to Argentina after WWII where they became American CIA agents working against socialist and nationalist groups in South America.
Bush cabinet members Condoleezza Rice, George Shultz, Robert Blackwill, Dick Cheney, Stephen Hadley, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dov Zakheim, Lewis Libby, and Robert Zoellick are also members of the CFR, as are other members of the Bush cabinet. It should be noted that members of the Clinton administration were also members of the CFR as well; in fact members of the CFR have been part of nearly every administration since WWII.
The CFR has bee accused of being everything from a Nazi organization to a Communist organization, and is typically associated with conspiracy theories about Anglo global domination and the New World Order. The CFR has had a strong influence on American foreign and domestic policy, but its impact on America is typically not exposed in the media, nor is it open to public scrutiny.
The official CFR website:
Back to Homeland Security.
When the Homeland Security proposal was first put forward it was a 32 page document, and by the time it was finally signed into law by the President it was a 500 page document that calls for the creation of the largest federal agency in history with 170,000 employees. The proposed budget for the agency for 2003 is $37.45 billion. The agency will bring the tasks of 22 agencies under one umbrella.
The bill was voted on and passed by the House and Senate with little debate and not enough time to actually review the document.
The Homeland Security Act has changed over time, and some of the powers initially included in the Homeland Security bill have been taken out in part due to the protests of citizens and special interests groups such as the ACLU.
Items of interest in the Homeland Security Act:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/deptofhomeland/analysis/
The exact text of the bill can be found here (below is the analysis of the section):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/deptofhomeland/analysis/title2.html#204
"Section 204. Information voluntarily provided.
This section encourages the sharing of information with the Department of Homeland Security by the private sector, state and local governments, and individuals. It provides that information voluntarily provided by non-federal parties to the Department of Homeland Security that relates to infrastructure vulnerabilities or other vulnerabilities to terrorism is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Also, such information would not lose its protected character if forwarded by the Department of Homeland Security to other federal departments or agencies."
The ACLU's response to the section:
http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=10525&c=111
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/
The official TIA Office web site:
Items that have been removed from the act due to public outcry:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=11295&c=206
For more on Homeland Security see:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/Nightline/govt_surveillance021125.html
| Previous | Next | Contents |
|
| ||||||||||||||||
