1.6 Billion Rounds Of Ammo For Homeland Security? It's Time For A National Conversation

The Denver Post, on February 15^th, ran an Associated Press article entitled Homeland Security aims to buy 1.6b rounds of ammo, to far too little notice. It confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security has issued an open purchase order for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. As elsewhere reported, much of this purchase order is for rounds forbidden by international law for use in war plus a frightening amount specialized for snipers. Also reported elsewhere, at the height of the Iraq War the Army was expending fewer than 6 million rounds a month. 1.6 billion rounds, therefore, would be enough to sustain a hot war for 20+ years. In America.

Read more at Forbes Read More......

U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens

Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime.

Not everyone was on board. "This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public," Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, argued in the meeting, according to people familiar with the discussions.

A week later, the attorney general signed the changes into effect.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal Read More......

WSJ: U.S. to Stop Deporting Some Illegal Immigrants

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama said Friday that his administration would let many young illegal immigrants legally live and work in the U.S., sidestepping Congress after years of stalemate over the nation's immigration policy. [...] Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the immigration laws "are not designed to be blindly enforced without consideration given to the individual circumstances of each case."Read more at the Wall Street Journal... Read More......

Breaking News: Feds Falsely Censor Popular Blog For Over A Year, Deny All Due Process, Hide All Details...

Imagine if the US government, with no notice or warning, raided a small but popular magazine's offices over a Thanksgiving weekend, seized the company's printing presses, and told the world that the magazine was a criminal enterprise with a giant banner on their building. Then imagine that it never arrested anyone, never let a trial happen, and filed everything about the case under seal, not even letting the magazine's lawyers talk to the judge presiding over the case. And it continued to deny any due process at all for over a year, before finally just handing everything back to the magazine and pretending nothing happened. I expect most people would be outraged. I expect that nearly all of you would say that's a classic case of prior restraint, a massive First Amendment violation, and exactly the kind of thing that does not, or should not, happen in the United States.

Read more at Techdirt.com Read More......

NumbersUSA: 10 Sweeping Victories in the House

NumbersUSA Newsletter, 6/3/2011 (Re: IMMIGRATION) - [Excerpts] We didn't have just 1 victory in the House of Representatives this week, BUT 10 VICTORIES IN ALL!!! ∴ In fact, every immigration amendment vote to the 2012 Homeland Security spending bill the past two days went our way. ∴ Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado wrapped and delivered a great present to us when he requested a roll call vote on his amendment to end the 287(g) local enforcement program. His amendment was defeated with broad bi-partisan support with 75% of the votes cast opposing his amendment!

Read Roy [Beck's] detailed descriptions of all the votes.

All in all, the House passed amendments to:

• set aside funding for Border Patrol to eliminate look-out posts along the U.S.-Mexico border;
  
• set aside funding to hire additional Shadow Wolves who track down smugglers along the border;
  
• reallocate funds to increase funding for the 287(g) program by nearly 20%;
  
• reallocate funding to increase support for the Law Enforcement Support Center;
  
• ensure that funding provided in the spending bill is used to enforce existing federal law requiring the detention of illegal aliens who are violent criminals awaiting deportation;
  
• withhold funding from cities that have sanctuary city policies in place;
  
• prohibit the Administration from offering amnesty through "deferred action";
  
• require all DHS contractors to use E-Verify to check new hires; and
  
• reallocate funds to build cell towers providing full service along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

For any of our activists who are concerned about the federal budget and homeland security, all of the amendments are budget neutral and only reallocate funding that was set aside for executive management of the department. Read More......

SEC and Homeland Security need Web backup, GAO says

REUTERS, 10/26/2009 by Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor - WASHINGTON: Securities exchanges have a sound network back-up if a severe pandemic keeps people home and clogging the Internet, but the Homeland Security Department has done little planning, Congressional investigators said on Monday. ∴ The department does not even have a plan to start work on the issue, the General Accountability Office said. ∴ But the Homeland Security Department accused the GAO of having unrealistic expectations of how the Internet could be managed if millions began to telework from home at the same time as bored or sick schoolchildren were playing online, sucking up valuable bandwidth. Read more at Reuters...

Is this a lead-in to giving the President authority to control the Internet in case of an 'emergency?' --bc Read More......

Department of Homeland Security Reining in Maverick Division

AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW & JUSTICE (ACLJ), Jay Sekulow's Trial Notebook 5/6/2009 - Reports began circulating today that the Department of Homeland Security is “reining in a maverick division of the agency” following criticism of reports that have been issued over the last several months concerning domestic terrorists and extremists. As many will recall, the report issued over the last two months included veteran’s organizations, pro-life groups and others as potential domestic terrorists. In a recent report issued and quickly withdrawn, the same division of the Department of Homeland Security distributed a “domestic extremism lexicon” which included Jewish groups, animal rights groups, Christian organizations, as well as pro-life groups. It even included groups dealing with Cuban independence. Department of Homeland Security’s spokesperson, Amy Kudwa, said the report was not authorized and has been revoked. In addition, Homeland Security officials have stated that they have taken action to reign in “a maverick attitude” within a section of Homeland Security.

The Department has also issued new internal protocols to prevent these type of releases in the future. Read more at ACLJ... Read More......