Franklin Freeman
copyright © the author 2003
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Back in July 2002 House Republican majority leader Richard Armey insisted that the Justice Department's neighbour-against-neighbour Operation TIPS spying effort be excluded from legislation authorizing the Homeland Security Department. "There is no place in America for ... utility workers and cable technicians to become government sanctioned peeping toms", he said. And despite the Justice Department's best efforts, TIPS has sunk like a stone — it was abandoned in December.
(Stop the Government from Turning Neighbour Against Neighbour!', American Civil Liberties Union, 7 Oct. 2002;
'Feds' Spying Plan Fades to Black', Wired News, 4 Dec. 2002
)
But, like the mythical hydra, when one head is cut off, another three grow in its place. Straightaway there arose the Pentagon-sponsored Total Information Awareness program (TIA), a hi-tech equivalent of TIPS designed to gather all electronic information about everyone. (It is an ideal which will need long-term development.) It is linked to Homeland Security's Information Awareness Office. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisc) planned to introduce a bill on January 23 to suspend the program "until Congress can review the data-mining issues".
(
'Pentagon database plan hits snag on Hill', BusinessWeek online, 20 Jan. 2003
)
Lurking underground at the same time (as we have now learned) was a secret US Justice Department draft called the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, "a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act, which will give the government broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information". Dubbed "Patriot II" for short, it would "significantly expand the federal government's power to investigate, detain and punish suspected terrorists in secret and without court supervision. ... Under the draft, the government could declare individuals, not just groups, 'foreign powers' subject to clandestine surveillance ...". The Act would also eliminate the 2005 expiration date of the original "Patriot Act".
The draft, dated January 9, might have remained hidden had not the Center for Public Integrity obtained a copy and posted it on its website, on February 7.
('Special Report: Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act', The Public-i, 7 Feb. 2003; 'U.S. May Seek Wider Anti-Terror Powers', Washington Post, 8 Feb. 2003, p.A01; ICO article, 15 Nov. 2003.)
Shortly before this we learned of a new planned "terrorism agency", the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. It would be under the "supervision" of CIA boss George Tenet, and would lead all other "intelligence" agencies — the CIA, the Pentagon, the FBI and, through Homeland Security, state and local law enforcement authorities.
(Walter Pincus and Mike Allen, 'Terrorism Agency Planned', Washington Post, 29 Jan. 2003, p.A12)
This shows where the police-state drive is coming from. And "the terrorists" — as under Joseph Stalin, a largely-mythical group, are the pretext for erecting an all-seeing, all-controlling police-state monster over society.