TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Many Congressional Democrats seem to be in a race to prove they can destroy the country on the pretext of 9/11 just as fast if not faster than the White House. Upon taking control, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Bohemian Grove) immediately pushed through the full House of Representatives a 279-page bill implementing the draconian measures suggested by the 9/11 Cover-up Commission which have yet to become law.

The information contained in sponsor Rep. Bennie Thompson's official 23-page summary of the bill, AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY FROM TOTAL411.INFO reveals several measures to increase the power of the Big Brother surveillance state:

§403 – Airport Checkpoint Screening Explosive Detection
This provision creates a Checkpoint Screening Security Fund to support the research, development and deployment of EDS checkpoint technologies. The provision provides a one-time deposit of $250 million in FY2008, from the revenues collected from the passenger ticket fees. The 9/11 Commissioners continues to be concerned about the threat that a would-be terrorist would get passed the TSA checkpoint with explosives strapped to their bodies. The 9/11 Public Discourse Project gave Congress a "C" on improving airline screening checkpoints to detect explosives. The Commissioners found that "while more advanced screening technology is being developed, Congress needs to provide the funding for, and TSA needs to move as expeditiously as possible with the appropriate installation of explosive detection trace portals at more of the nation's airports."
[...]

§404 – Strengthening Explosive Detection at Airport Screening Checkpoints
This provision directs the Department of Homeland Security to issue, within seven days of enactment, a strategic plan for the deployment of explosive detection equipment at checkpoints that is long overdue under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

[...]

§409 – Advanced Airline Passenger Prescreening.
This provision directs the Secretary to submit a plan with milestones to test and implement a system to prescreen passengers against the automatic selectee and no fly lists. The plan is due 90 days after enactment of the Act and must include (1) a description of the system; (2) a projected timeline for each phase of testing and implementation of the system; (3) an explanation of how the system integrates with the prescreening system for passenger on international flights; and (4) a description of how the system complies with the Privacy Act.

[...]

§722 – Homeland Security Advisory System
. This section directs the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis to implement an advisory system to relay advisories and alerts to the public regarding threats to the homeland. This bill likewise prescribes the contents of those advisories and alerts, and it makes clear that the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis is not to use color designations as the exclusive means warning the public of potential threat conditions.

§723 – Homeland Security Information Sharing
. This section directs the Secretary to integrate the various intelligence components of the Department (CBP, ICE, TSA, etc.) into a Departmental Information Sharing Environment (ISE) to be administered by the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis. To support the development of the ISE, this section: (1) requires the Secretary to appoint "Knowledge Management Officers" for each intelligence component in order to promote a coordinated approach to gathering and disseminating homeland security information; (2) establishes business processes for the review of information provided by State, local, tribal, and private sector sources and related feedback mechanisms; and (3) establishes a training program for Department employees so they can better understand what "homeland security information" is, how they can identify it as part of their day-to-day work, and how it is relevant to the Office of Intelligence and Analysis;

This section also directs the Secretary, acting through the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, to establish a comprehensive information technology network architecture that will connect all of the databases within the Department of Homeland Security to each other – promoting internal information-sharing within the Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) and among the Department's various intelligence components. This section requires the Secretary to submit an implementation plan and progress report to Congress in order to monitor the development of the architecture and encourages its developers to adopt the functions, methods, policies, and network qualities recommended by the Markle Foundation.
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Although the bill would purportedly give a special "privacy and civil liberties oversight board" more power; overall the bill just throws more money at the homeland-industrial complex, creates more and bigger databases on Americans, and subjects Americans to even greater surveillance, intrusion and stripping of rights while travelling than is now the case.


• The Senate Homeland Security Commitee will mark-up and amend the bill before deciding whether to send it to the Senate floor. You can let the Committee know your opposition to surveillance, federalizing local law enforcement and "information sharing" by phoning the Committee directly at 202-224-4751.
  
  To reach your state's Senators with your concerns, the Congressional switchboard is 202-224-2131.
  
  The complete table of contents for HR 1, the "Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007" are available at this link.

| Posted at 13:28 | PERMA-LINK |

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