Homeland Security Secretary Attacks Patriot Act

Consistent with what President Obama and others in his party ran on, Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security, is taking a valuable tool out of the war-on-terror toolbox.

Let’s try this again. The head of Homeland Security, that’s the new cabinet level position in The White House responsible for preventing terrorist attacks and keeping us as safe from terrorists as possible. That one.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano plans to kill a program begun by the Bush administration that would use U.S. spy satellites for domestic security and law enforcement, a government official said Monday.

Napolitano recently reached her decision after the program was discussed with law enforcement officials, and she was told it was not an urgent issue, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about it.

The program, called the National Applications Office, has been delayed because of privacy and civil liberty concerns.

Tearing up the Patriot Act by removing the tools from the toolbox means Obama is willing to take a gamble with your life where his predecessor would not.

link: AP, DHS to kill domestic satellite spying | Free, But Not Free To Kill, Patriot Act

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3 thoughts on “Homeland Security Secretary Attacks Patriot Act”

  1. Hello, Ross:

    First – I like your blog and the intelligent comics. If you will check out my blog (address provided) – you’ll see I take exception to tortured leaps of logic, the kind I see on Fox News, for instance. We’ll need to agree to disagree on some issues (but not during business hours in which I’ll probably just nod my head…).

    I will comment on this post. I think it’s safe to say that what the intent of the this change in the Patriot Act is intended to do is to reverse what many people have called a huge over-reaching of the previous administration’s executive powers. Let me qualify my remarks by saying that I don’t like terrorists any more than the next guy and I’m definitely NOT implying we as Americans ought to drop our pants and allow people to walk all over us, or murder us, or whathaveyou.

    Now, as much as I find terrorism objectionable, I find it twice as objectionable to gradually move towards what intelligent people might call a police-state. We might need to discuss this further over a couple of beers or something. I don’t know how you interpret the Constitution, but the system of checks and balances written in to it by our esteemed Founders was implicitly designed to keep heavy handed laws from being applied by a small group of individuals or single individuals. Our Government is tedious and ponderous, but only as it is designed to be that way. When powerful individuals single-handedly change our rights and freedoms and tell us it’s for our own good to keep us safe, then I propose that something is amiss. Before you object too loudly, I realize that this is happening now, too. I don’t back any administration’s foreign or domestic policy since, oh, let’s say Eisenhower. I like Ike. Another post.

    Well, I invite you to read my blog. It includes references to my favorite local sandwich store and even you. Hope that’s not muddling up the employment waters too much, but I look forward to political banter at work now that the door’s been opened.

    1. comics / comments, that’s OK. whichever because comics, in terms of a sense of humor, is integral here. Though maybe not immediately recognizable. what?

      We’ll need to agree to disagree on some issues (but not during business hours in which I’ll probably just nod my head…)

      There’s a time and a place, right here is the best place. imho

      to reverse what many people have called a huge over-reaching of the previous administration’s executive powers

      True statement, that’s the general liberal position in things like this and there are many people, mostly democrats, that either believe that or fear that. Well, that and the fact that Bush got it into law that was ultimately validated by the Supreme Court. All other logic stops after the word Bush and if Bush was for it, then it was bad and dangerous. Been there done that.

      I come down on the side of the Constitution that says that the Presidents only obligation is to protect the homeland, this country and the Constitution itself. (our Constitutional lawyer for a President should review his oath again) To me that means to use all means possible, emphasis on possible, to try to interrupt or get the terrorists that we know are here. I don’t see how terrorists and/or enemy combatants have any constitutional protections whatsoever. I don’t see doing that as over-reaching. I see it as doing everything possible. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Taking away an effective tool to protect Americans is ‘recklessness cloaked in righteousness’ which ‘would make the American people less safe.’ Thank you Dick Cheney.

      I’m not into believing that the effectiveness of the program = an assault on the private citizen. The assault is aimed at the bad guys and has worked. True it would be technically possible to see what I bought at Sams today, but I’m confident that they could use more help in hunting down the terrorists than to have the time or inclination to be snooping on regular citizens like you or I. To kill the program because it could be a Hitler’s wet dream is not just wrong, but dangerous.

      Napolitano would call me a right wing extremist. (And proud of it. 🙂 ) She’s the one that took the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ and ‘war on terror’ out of the Homeland Security Departments’ lexicon. Best I can figure now, in Napolitano’s world, a ‘terrorist’ is now the ‘man’ part of a ‘man made disaster.’ And why is this? What, don’t want to upset the enemy? She needs to stay focused on beating the enemy instead of tearing up the Patriot Act.

      I’ve had a similar discussion a week ago. It’s What Passes For Safe That Matters

      I had a nice discussion with Derek Cosson there on the very subject of your objection. Which is the same as his. No sense in repeating myself when a link will do. That and its late.

      Also, thanks for stopping in and opining.

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