How do you spell Gestapo? KGB? How about TSA?
Remember how Obama said on July 17, 2008 (video here) that he wanted a national security force as powerful, strong and well-funded as the US military? Here are his words:
"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
People on the left went ballistic when conservatives and Republicans suggested that those words could be construed as sinister and ominous. Some on the right were upset enough about the tone that they grasped at anything that fit them as Obama's regime unfolded. Some even thought they discovered a "health care army" buried deep in the weeds of the Senate healthcare bill.
But now with Homeland Security's decision to go full steam ahead with scanners in airports after last Christmas' Fruit of Kaboom bomber incident, we're getting a clearer picture of Obama's commitment to the national security state, and that picture centers around a radical expansion of the role and scope of the TSA. How else do we explain these comments from the new head of the TSA, John Pistole, made in July and reported here in USA Today?
Pistole said he wants TSA workers, including 47,000 screeners at 450 airports, to operate as a "national-security, counterterrorism organization, fully integrated into US government efforts."
"I want to take TSA to the next level," Pistole said.
In other words, Obama's vision for a national security force is going to come to fruition through the expansion of the TSA George Bush created after 911.
We now know that that expanded scope will involve putting scanners everywhere. TSA's mandate covers all modes of transportation, not just those over which the federal Department of Transportation has jurisdiction. Train and subway stations and points of maritime embarkation immediately come to mind. But also federal highways, where the feds use scanners to detain and inspect truck traffic. In fact, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano just recently went on the record saying as much:
“I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime. So, what do we need to be doing to strengthen our protections there?”
Think also of stationary federal jurisdictions: all federal buildings. Scanners have already been deployed in a Colorado courthouse according to this report, and expanded use of them has not been ruled out:
"Although we have no current plans for deployment, the US Marshals Service believes in the technology," said Washington-based Michael Prout, assistant director for judicial security for the US marshals. "We will continue to explore the use of body scanners as a security measure for the federal judiciary."
Can you imagine reporting for jury duty but being treated like a common criminal having to submit to a full body naked scan?
Being a surveillance enthusiast whose installation of cameras everywhere on Phoenix highways was rebuffed by its freedom-loving population, Janet Napolitano as head of DHS has made it a priority to fund cameras in New York, which is nearly half way to its goal of 3000 cameras in the city, 90% funded by DHS. She made a high profile visit to Chicago last summer to praise its commitment to camera surveillance.
Will introduction of small, silent 3' spy drones be next?
TSA's mandate currently involves security "in all modes of transportation." Obama appears to be concentrating his efforts on the "all." Expect to see thousands and thousands of new federal hires by the TSA to man the national security state. They will interfere with your every movement, unless you stop this now. Today is a good day to begin.
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