The new Sicherheitsdienst

[markomalley]

Its been a while since I've been on this board, so this may have been discussed already. If so, my apologies. But, if not, here's something I did up a couple of days ago...I hope you like it:

Well, I hope they are happy. Both sides have created a National Intelligence director. You know what I see? I see a new Sicherheitsdienst (SD).

CNN says,
the legislation establishes a new director of national intelligence to oversee the nation's 15 military and civilian spy agencies and make sure they work together...


It's too long to quote, but check out the description of the SD in the Wikipedia. Sounds chillingly familiar.

What aggrevates me here is that both sides let the cause of freedom and individual liberty down here. Although some would prefer I blame Bush, I can't lavish all my disgust in his direction. There is plenty to go around to the other side of the aisle here, as well. The vote in the Senate was 89-2...one dem and one repub voted against it.

Folks, if you supported this abortion, I hope you recognize what your support has done. Unfortunately, the paranoids appear to be more and more correct...its doubtful we'll recognize this country when its all said and done.

Let's take a look at specifics. I don't have the time to go through all 563 pages in the new law. (You can look up S. 2845 on
The national security act (50 USC 401a) has been modified to strike the word "foreign" from the "national foreign intelligence prorgram."

Oh, here's a good one. You know that television signals are transitioning from analog to digital, right? (Would apparently have nothing to do with intelligence, but it is in this act...). Well, there is now a deadline for this: 2007. Why is there a deadline? Because some of the frequencies currently used for television are going to be turned over to DHS for their use. And so they are going to place a deadline on making all existing televisions obsolete in order to accomplish that.

Another really important feature of this bill: it prohibits passengers from carrying butane lighters aboard aircraft. (Flicking your bic is a threat to national security, apparently).

There's a bunch more. I just don't have the time to go through all 563 pages. Sorry.

Here's the bottom line: there are significant structural changes that have just been made to the Federal government. A whole bunch of power has just been consolidated into the hands of one man and the agency he will run. This man (or woman) has been given the power of the pursestrings over all intelligence resources within the Federal government. Anybody who has ever worked within the government should realize that this is a HUGE amount of power. (I want you to recall, for example, when the Feds raised the drinking age from 18 to 21...they don't have the power to do so, so how they did it was by threatening the states to withhold their federal highway funds if the states didn't raise the drinking age. Same thing with lowering the DUI limit from .1 to .08. That's how you exert influence in the government is by controlling the money)

I am not so paranoid about this power being abused.....yet. But, after this becomes the norm in a few years and everybody forgets about it, then that power will be able to be exerted. Here's the neat part of it: because it involves intelligence information, you and I will not be able to monitor it and have oversight. Most of Congress won't be able to do so either...the only ones in Congress that will have full oversight are those who are assigned in senior positions on the correct committees. And we can all see how good a job of oversight Congress does. So, this agency will be essentially able to operate without any of the normal checks upon which government agencies have to operate. Because it will all be secret (Ok, well Top Secret/Codeword).

The implication is that rumors will abound. The dems will have rumors floating around whenever a repub president is in office. The repubs will have rumors whenever a dem president is in office. We won't be able to check on those rumors because there won't be any reliable information available. It's not like you have one agency now keeping tabs on the others (turf wars resulting in press leaks). The vast majority on both sides of the aisle have supported this bill. I hope they will be happy with it in 10 years.


My only question is, who is going to be our version of Heydrich?