home waiting waiting and home home waiting waiting homeland security home

I perused the 35 pages and was surprised that it didn't mention anything about how it was that just a couple dozen Saudis were able to wreak so much damage on our country. Typically one would expect to see an analysis of why something happened in the first place before making such an enormous commitment to addressing the issue. But that’s not this administration’s stategery.

The impact on the Bill of Rights will play itself out - much of the damage will be done by those suddenly and grossly empowered with all these new powers to act unilaterally as they deem appropriate. The funny thing is that in two or maybe six years all that power will be vested in Hillary! 

The following three paragraphs of analysis were lifted from:

http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/1194/1/18/

Perhaps the most flawed provision is a new exemption to the Freedom of Information Act. Information “related to the security of critical infrastructure or protected systems” that companies voluntarily give to the new Department will now be automatically withheld from public disclosure. Moreover, the information cannot be used in civil suits and any civil servant providing such information will face criminal penalties, thereby undermining basic whistleblower protections. As if that was not enough, the bill pre-empts state law to insure that the information is not disclosed by state openness laws. And to round things out, the non-disclosable information submitted by corporations can still be used in regulatory matters, but would not be in the public record, creating a highly unusual ex parte communication.

It is not hard to imagine how corporations can misuse this new provision to safeguard themselves from lawsuits. When in doubt stamp critical infrastructure information on the materials and “voluntarily” send it to the new Department. That way the company will not be held liable for danger caused to the public.

It is shocking that this over-reaching provision made it into the final bill. A more reasonable bipartisan approach was agreed to by Senators Robert Bennett (R-UT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Carl Levin (D-MI). According to Senator Bennett, the administration and corporations could live with the compromise. According to Senator Levin, the good government groups and newspaper editors could live with the compromise. But that was before the elections. The House Republicans had this more extreme version and pushed hard. The administration did nothing. Now we are left with a lockbox of secrecy and corporate immunity.

This bit I summarized from today's Financial Times:

• It gives $120M to Texas A&M University for research. Delay, Armey and Dumbya all hail from Texas, and the incoming school president is Senior’s former CIA director Gates. (The same fool Aggies that can't even build a bonfire without killing innocent college students!)
• It exempts from all product liability lawsuits any company that is deemed by the government to be making products needed for the war on terrorism.