Barack Obama signed a new Executive Order on October 26 which will expand the role and power of the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Janet Napolitano. The order establishes a new Security Partnership Council that will have tremendous effects for state and local areas that interact with DHS.The purpose of this order is to maximize the Federal Government’s ability to develop local partnerships in the United States to support homeland security priorities. Partnerships are collaborative working relationships in which the goals, structure, and roles and responsibilities of the relationships are mutually determined. Collaboration enables the Federal Government and its partners to use resources more efficiently, build on one another’s expertise, drive innovation, engage in collective action, broaden investments to achieve shared goals, and improve performance. Partnerships enhance our ability to address homeland security priorities, from responding to natural disasters to preventing terrorism, by utilizing diverse perspectives, skills, tools, and resources.The National Security Strategy emphasizes the importance of partnerships, underscoring that to keep our Nation safe “we must tap the ingenuity outside government through strategic partnerships with the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, foundations, and community-based organizations. Such partnerships are critical to U.S. success at home and abroad, and we will support them through enhanced opportunities for engagement, coordination, transparency, and information sharing.” This approach recognizes that, given the complexities and range of challenges, we must institutionalize an all-of-Nation effort to address the evolving threats to the United States.
Since it’s creation in 2001 from the aftermath of 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security has expanded its authority over states, communities, and law enforcement each year. From expanding TSA responsibilities over airport transportation to now include trains, subways, and even highway checkpoints, to new regulations in how border control agents function in immigrationconflicts, Homeland Security is one of the fastest growing government agencies in the past decade.Through creating a new Steering Committee in partnership with how Homeland Security missions, directives, and programs are implemented in state and local levels, the fine line between state sovereignty and the need protect the country from disaster and terror attacks is becoming smaller every day. Over the past few years Homeland Security grants to local law enforcement have led to a militarization of police and public safety, and new drone technology is being used in criminal investigations outside the scope of national security.In a little more than a decade, the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with its underlying and partnering Federal agencies, have infiltrated nearly every community in America. This new Executive Order, which expands the scope of the agency and gives it greater power in state and local partnerships, will mean greater loss of freedoms and liberties to both the states and citizens as the Federal government imposes greater authority over what should remain state sovereignty scope and missions.
A new Council and Steering Committee is created in this executive order. According to the EO, the Council membership will be:
(i) Pursuant to the nomination process established in subsection (b)(ii) of this section, the Council shall be composed of Federal officials who are from field offices of the executive departments, agencies, and bureaus (agencies) that are members of the Steering Committee established in subsection (c) of this section, and who have demonstrated an ability to develop, sustain, and institutionalize local partnerships to address policy priorities.(ii) The nomination process and selection criteria for members of the Council shall be established by the Steering Committee. Based on those criteria, agency heads may select and present to the Steering Committee their nominee or nominees to represent them on the Council. The Steering Committee shall consider all of the nominees and decide by consensus which of the nominees shall participate on the Council. Each member agency on the Steering Committee, with the exception of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, may have at least one representative on the Council.
Then the Steering committee will be chaired by the Chair of the Council and this steering committee will include a representative at the Deputy agency head level, or that representative’s designee from the following agencies:
(i) Department of State;(ii) Department of the Treasury;(iii) Department of Defense;(iv) Department of Justice;(v) Department of the Interior;(vi) Department of Agriculture;(vii) Department of Commerce;(viii) Department of Labor;(ix) Department of Health and Human Services;(x) Department of Housing and Urban Development;(xi) Department of Transportation;(xii) Department of Energy;(xiii) Department of Education;(xiv) Department of Veterans Affairs;(xv) Department of Homeland Security;(xvi) Office of the Director of National Intelligence;(xvii) Environmental Protection Agency;(xviii) Small Business Administration; and(xix) Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Does anyone think this will either give the people more of their freedoms back or actually catch “terrorists?” If you do, then there is some ocean front property beside my house I would like to sell you.
Over and over the federal government, whose main job is to protect, fails to do so, and to cover their obvious failure in this, they continue to promote more government to do what they are currently failing to do. It goes on and on and on and now it’s coming into local and state government. It will be only a matter of time before the federal government becomes the only governing power in this nation, if their power is not reined in via the Constitution.
So again, we so more expansion of the federal government and a bigger power grab, even into the local and state areas of government by the feds.
