Ridge as Secretary of Homeland Security
 

Anyone else feeling reeeeeeeally nervous about this whole "Office of Homeland Security", let alone letting our now-former govenor of PA, Ridge, be the 1st Secretary?

My cousin Ed (retired Army) has been quoting "Nightwatch" speeches (B5) and singing old Nazi war songs all morning (I knew he watched the History Channel too much!)

Given that Ridge has shown little to no compassion to the poor or disabled in PA while Govenor and shelved a blue-ribbon study by a friend of mine on loan to the Dept of Education from the Corrections Department which showed that if PA spent just $500 dollars more per student per year on education, we could halve the prison population in PA in 10 years (Ridge became govenor, was given the study and said he'd rather build prisons and toss people into them because it was politically more attractive), I just don't feel good about ANY of this!

Nightwatch
 

That's interesting. One of the first things I thought of when I heard the phrase "Homeland Security" was Nightwatch.

It wasn't even a thought. It was so instinctive that the word just popped into my head and it actually took me a second to reason out why.

All the talk of wiretaps and network sniffers and investigating anything out of the ordinary makes me wonder how far the 4th ammendment will be bent.

I think this sort of thing has the potential to become something like Nightwatch. But it doesn't HAVE to. We just have to be sure that we do not relax the requirement of "probably cause" and start using "possible harm" as a substitute.

Bush mentioned something about getting our lives "almost back to normal." The question is: how close is "almost?"

I don't know much about Gov. Ridge, given that I've only lived here a year. I know that he is considered a moderate, is a Vietnam vet, and is probably not the Vice President right now b/c of his pro-choice views. I will admit I was kinda happy to hear that he would have to resign, mainly b/c of the shit going on with the School District and the Parking Authority. I am curious to see how Schweiker is going to handle this little situation.

It's all good, b/c when big Ed sits down in Harrisburg in 2004, he'll take care of us here in Philadelphia. Now, if those morons in Mayfair would quit electing Perzel to the State Senate, then we'll be in really good shape. ;)

So reassuring to know that, in times of crisis, we have these career politicians to rescue us, who have spent their lives building their careers by forging unproductive and unconstitutional alliances between the public and private sector.

Next we will learn that Bud Shuster will be in charge of the bid process. I'm going to barf now.

Let's go hold a protest rally on I-99. ;)

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I instinctively translated "Office of Homeland Security" to "Office of Internal Security", which pretty much suggests your basic secret police agency.

I guess Bush managed to pay off his political debt to Ridge with this.


BTW, John Ashcroft has already put forth a bill which would greatly expand wiretapping ability (to basically "when we feel like it" for much stuff), and another has already passed the Senate. Check out http://www.eff.org for more on this.

Okay, now I've REALLY thought about it...
 

What the hell is this new position supposed to do? I heard Bush talk last night...and while the speech was actually good (he used and PRONOUNCED the word "totalitarianism"...CORRECTLY!!!), I'm still confused. I mean, don't we already have the FBI, the CIA, the military, and local law enforcement to protect homeland security? How different can this be from what the Justice Department is already supposed to do? Now that I really think about this, it pisses me off. If I were in the military or in the world of law enforcement, I'd be a bit offended b/c quite frankly, it seems to be a bit of a slag.

Having lived under GOVERNOR John Ashcroft for 8 years in Missouri, I can only say this: turd. The end.

*sighs*
Shit liek this combined with the SSSCA is why ill never live in the US of A. Its abit like the RUssia of Communism - an experiment taken too far and now were seeing just how badly it bends and snaps. Excuse me while i pre-book my ticket to switzerland.

Re: Okay, now I've REALLY thought about it...
 

I don't understand it at all -- why not just make the National Security Office a cabinet-level position? What the heck is the difference between what they do and this new position.

Radio Times on WHYY at 11 am is supposed to have a show explaining what the heck this office is going to be -- no guests listed, so I don't know if Ridge is going to call in. Probably should listen -- I have to prep the dehydrator today. . .