What exactly is Homeland Security?

When our government spends billions upon billions to check on our own citizens to see if we are terrorists. I'm third generation American, and I'm treated the same as a visitor from another country when I go through customs to return to the US.

It's true that Bush treats the Constitution as toilet paper as he uses the Bill of Rights to wipe out his ass. "Homeland Security" is a political catch phrase used in a vain attempt by Bush's pals to make it seem like losing our rights is a good thing! However, aside from their incompetance at not seeing it coming, I don't think Bush is directly responsible for 9/11. Keep in mind, the governmet we attacked is also not responsible for 9/11. Our government is the most despicable one in the world.

Re: What exactly is Homeland Security?

I think that Jefferson said something to the effect (I am not looking this up) that any peoples who would trade freedom for security, will obtain neither and deserve neither.

That being said, whether homeland security laws and official policies have this effect is quite a different question. I would like to see one or two specific examples of homeland security rules or laws that strip away Americans' rights. Also, do you believe that we are actually in serious danger of attack or that we are not? Should the issue arise, would you be willing to trade a tiny amount of freedom for a significant gain in security or would you not?

Personally, I tend to think that our freedoms must always be protected zealously, because they will always be under fire, but that it could make sense to accept a tiny reduction in freedom, particularly if temporary, for a large gain in protection against severe dangers.

Had the Patriot act been in place pre-9/11, odds are pretty good those hijackers would not have been able to do the damage they did.

That is what Homeland security is about. It's not about prying into everyones lives, like anyone in the government has that kind of time. It's to stop any further terror attacks happening on our property.

McG, You are wrong; our intelligence agencies had the names of those terrorists taking flying lessons without learning how to land the planes. Other information concerning the use of planes for terrorist activity was already available. It's called "due diligence." None was used.

WHITE HOUSE ADMITS PRE-9/11 WARNINGS; BUSH STILL DENIES IT


I saw this and thought it interesting.


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WHITE HOUSE ADMITS PRE-9/11 WARNINGS; BUSH STILL DENIES IT
At his press conference yesterday, President Bush was asked about charges that he had received warnings prior to the September 11th attacks that a terrorist incident was imminent. He answered that even asking such a question was "an absurd insinuation." It was the same sentiment expressed by Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who said in May of 2002 that "[no one predicted] that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane."

The problem for the president and the administration is that the White House has previously admitted that the president had personally received such specific warnings. As ABC News reported in May of 2002, "White House officials acknowledge that U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before the September 11th attacks that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might try to hijack American planes." As Condoleezza Rice said at a hastily called press conference to spin these revelations, the President specifically received an "analytic report" on August 6th, 2001 at his Crawford mansion that "talked about Osama bin Laden's methods of operation" and "mentioned hijacking." According to Reuters, that report was congruent with "intelligence since 1998 that said followers of bin Laden were planning to strike U.S. targets, hijack U.S. planes.".

While the administration claims that the president's pre-9/11 warning was
actually "not a warning," the threat was specific enough for Attorney
General John Ashcroft to stop flying commercial airlines. While no warning
was issued for the general public after Bush's personal intelligence
warning, Ashcroft was flying exclusively by leased jet instead of commercial airlines because of an official "threat assessment by the FBI."

The idea that terrorist would strike at US targets and hijack US planes is both years old and non-specific. Generally the speculation involved hijacking planes and then making demands in return for the passengers' safety. What was Bush supposed to do, protect every concievable target in the US 24 x 7? The man had only been in office 7 months on 9/11.

As for this old Ashcroft story, he was responding to personal threats against himself from domestic sources, and continued to take commercial aircraft for personal travel. No other cabinet member who had been using commercial flights stopped.

Since we have real external enemies who are really trying to kill us, trying to work together to safeguard the country might be more useful than trying to attack each other. Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11, not the president or the attorney general.

Brandon, I'd agree with you on your opinion except for the fact that what was needed before 9-11 was what we are doing today with very high priority. The threat was there before 9-11 and the threat is still there after 9-11. If security was possible before, 9-11 may never have happened. Sure, it's hind site, but it's our federal governments responsibility to protect its citizens. Why do you think Ashcroft used a private jet after he had knowedge of such a threat? There's only one interpretation for many of us.

And why didn't the previous president, Bill Clinton, organize any of these things either? Both the new president and the former president did as much as could have reasonably been expected to at the time. If Bush had begun the total lockdown situation we are now moving towards, he would have been absolutely villified by political opponents, who would have taken the opportunity to accuse him of creating a climate of fear.

Even with all of the security we have now, it would be absolute child's play to simply pick a different target and another form of attack. While writing this sentence, the first thing that comes to mind is a large bomb in a large mall. Unless you want 24 x 7 protection around everything, protecting effectively against domestic terror attacks will never be very effective.

I think that the idea that Ashcroft knew that terrorists would use airplanes as missiles, and chose to keep the information private is just the worst type of conspiracy theory. I believe that any peoples who, when faced with an implacable foe with terrible destructive powers potentially at their disposal, spend most of their energy fighting amongst themselves, richly deserve to become extinct.

Why not blame Abraham Lincoln?

You can blame Clinton for this one too.
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WASHINGTON, June 10 - The State Department acknowledged Thursday that it was wrong in reporting that terrorism declined worldwide last year, a finding the Bush administration had pointed to as evidence of its success in countering terror.

Instead, the number of incidents and the toll in victims increased sharply, the department said. Statements by senior administration officials
claiming success were based "on the facts as we had them at the time; the facts that we had were wrong," Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said.

... Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, said at the time, "You will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the
fight." His office did not respond Thursday to a request for a statement on disclosures that some of the findings were inaccurate. The erroneous
report, titled "Patterns of Global Terrorism," said that attacks declined last year to the lowest level in 34 years and dropped 45 percent since 2001, Mr. Bush's first year as president, when 346 attacks occurred. [The report cited just 190 acts of terrorism in 2003, down from 198 in 2002.]

-- The New York Times, 11 June 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/11/politics/11terr.html

Department of State: "preliminary results indicate that the figures for the number of attacks and casualties will be up sharply from what was
published".
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/33433.htm

Do you ever read the various posts you respond to? I indicated that neither Clinton nor Bush could be blamed.

When fighting a very dangerous opponent in a worldwide war, which is more or less what we face in our confrontation with radical Islam, it is entirely possible that when you first begin to confront them, things get worse before they get better, but that is hardly a reason not to confront them.

I can see that my suggestion that protecting the country together, rather than accusing each other of responsibility for terrorism, fell on fertile ground with you.