Office of Homeland Security

President Bush has proposed a budget of $38 billion for the new Office of Homeland Security. Directed by Tom Ridge, the office’s stated mission is to coordinate the efforts of federal, state and local agencies that have programs designed to prevent terrorist attacks in the U.S. But although preventing duplication of services seems a worthy goal – no one disputes that government agencies have a poor track record of working with each other – Ridge’s new protocols and recommendations may go largely ignored. Ridge lacks authority to enforce recommendations to the 40 federal agencies and more than 200 federal programs that deal with issues of public safety.

What bothers those concerned about the office’s impact on civil liberties is that Ridge is a presidential advisor who lacks cabinet status. As such, he is not required to make the work of his office public. Nor is he required to testify before Congress or to justify his budget requests. While he has spoken to legislators in closed-door sessions, he has not testified publicly.

NorthCom

The Pentagon’s new Northern Command will also be working in secrecy. Announced April 17, 2002, and scheduled to take effect on October 1, 2002, Northern Command or NorthCom will be responsible for homeland security in the continental U.S., Alaska, Canada, Mexico and portions of the Caribbean. Directed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, NorthCom will operate independently of the Office of Homeland Security, although Rumsfeld says he will consult with Ridge.

NorthCom will consist largely of aerospace operations, such as those that the Air Force and Air National Guard have been providing over major U.S. cities since September 11. It will also coordinate naval defense of American shores out to at least 500 miles. As Rumsfeld explained in a press statement, "This is the first time that the continental U.S. will be assigned a commander. The new commander will be responsible for land, aerospace and sea defenses of the U.S. He will command U.S. forces that operate within the U.S., in support of civil authorities."

Transportation Security Administration

NorthCom will also work with the newly formed Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Located within the Department of Transportation, the TSA was created on November 19, 2001, when the President signed into law the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. As a part of the Department of Transportation, the TSA is subject to public oversight.

By November 2002, the TSA is supposed to assume control of screening at the nation’s 429 commercial airports and to oversee the purchase and installation of thousands of machines to detect bombs in luggage. Congress created a new $10 tax per airline ticket in order to generate $1 billion a year to fund the agency and to hire about 28,000 people. The TSA now estimates that it will need to hire 72,000 people to accomplish its task and that it will need approximately $6.8 billion.

As of May 2002, the TSA had hired only 1,200 airport screeners and 13 federal security directors to oversee airport security plans.

Many have criticized the TSA not only for the slow pace of its work, but also for conducting random searches and implementing haphazard security measures. There are no consistent standards to assess who is a genuine risk. Airport security personnel have no access to FBI lists, for instance, nor are they trained on how to assess behavior factors, such as past travel patterns.

Likewise, alternative and less invasive airline security measures – such as limitations on the number of carry-on bags, baggage matching to be sure that passengers always travel on the same plane as their luggage, and strict control of secure areas in airports – have not been emphasized.

The TSA also plans to conduct background checks and issue identification cards to airport personnel: pilots, maintenance workers and others. Tom Ridge of the Office of Homeland Security supports extending this kind of pre-screening to passengers, at least on a voluntary basis. Proponents argue that a voluntary national identification program would give people the opportunity to gain expedited treatment at airports and borders as long as they are willing to submit personal information for a detailed background check. At this point, the TSA is so overwhelmed with its current duties that issuing voluntary national identification cards seems a long way off, but, says ACLU’s Corrigan, there are many reasons to reject this proposal.

"Over the past few decades, proposals for a national identification system have appeared as a quick fix to a national problem of tracking one segment of the population or another, including immigrants and deadbeat dads," she explains. "Since September 11, national ID proposals have been discussed as a possible counterterrorism measure. But a national ID card would substantially infringe on the rights of privacy and equality of many Americans, and would not prevent terrorist attacks.

"The rationale for creating a national ID system post-September 11 is to create a clear line between ‘us’ (innocent people) and ‘them’ (dangerous terrorists). Everyone would like an ID card that would put them squarely on the right side of the line. Unfortunately, none of the proposed identification systems would effectively sort out the ‘good’ from the ‘bad.’"

As Corrigan explains, identification cards simply confirm that people are who they say they are, but they are only as good as the information supplied and they don’t establish motive or intent to attack a plane.

"All 19 of the September 11th hijackers had social security numbers, although not all of them were legitimate," she notes. "One of the hijackers was listed in the San Diego phone book. And still others rented automobiles with their debit cards and lived in suburban Florida neighborhoods. But only a few of the hijackers were on FBI watch lists. An ID card would simply have reaffirmed the hijackers’ real or assumed identities. It would have done nothing to establish their criminal motives."

Corrigan is also concerned that national ID cards would not only threaten the basic freedom to move freely, but provide a new tool for racial and ethnic profiling and lead to more harassment of people who are perceived as looking or sounding foreign. "Latinos, Asians, African Americans and other minorities would become subject to more and more status and identity checks – and not just from their employers, but also from police, banks, merchants and others," Corrigan says.

The TSA is also charged with protection of bridges and pipelines. National Guard troops charged with protecting Bay Area bridges against terrorism, however, claim that they lack the necessary weapons and training. Soldiers say they don’t have basic equipment to maintain weapons, are saddled with vehicles that don’t run and are not adequately trained on how to use their weapons or on carrying out a wartime mission in areas crowded with civilians.

The bigger question may concern the necessity of National Guard troops on civilian bridges in the first place. Even with appropriate weapons and vehicles, what real protection would they provide? Could they accomplish anything at all or do they simply provide a false sense of security?

Progress has also been slow with the TSA’s efforts to increase pipeline safety. After September 11, the Office of Pipeline Safety opened a 24-hour crisis management center in the Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington, D.C., in order to manage emergencies and to "protect pipelines from becoming a weapon against the United States." Yet, proposals to increase safety have not been made public.

Federal policy regarding the transportation of hazardous material has also recently come under fire. On April 8, 2002, Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, a Republican, vetoed President Bush’s endorsement of an Energy Department plan to dispose of 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel, currently being stored at facilities across the country, in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.

Congress selected Yucca Mountain in 1987. To date, the project has cost $7 billion. To reach Yucca Mountain, hazardous material needs to travel through 43 states and, says Governor Guinn, it would put 123 million Americans at risk. He argues that there are insufficient protections in place to make transport safe. The project is based on bad science and bad public policy, he says. "The demands of industry are taking priority over the safety of the American people."

The conflict between the needs of industry and the requirements for public safety is also visible at the nation’s borders. Trade between Canada and the U.S., for example, has been adversely affected since September 11, as border checks slow down trucks carrying goods between the two nations.

The Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism has, since April 16, 2002, enabled thousands of trucks carrying goods for automakers and other large corporations to avoid U.S. Customs inspections at the Ambassador Bridge, between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit. A computerized fast lane at the U.S.-Canada border allows well-known businesses that use the border daily – like General Motors, Ford and Chrysler – to transmit information on truck cargo electronically to Customs computers. General Motors, for instance, has approximately 600 trucks running between Canada and the U.S. each day.

Since September 11, many national leaders have downplayed concerns about eroding American freedoms, saying that polls show the people of the U.S. believe that limitations imposed on civil liberties during wartime are almost always temporary and that we can expect a return to normal conditions once hostilities are ended. But, as the ACLU has pointed out, the war on terrorism, unlike conventional wars, is not likely to come to a public and decisive end. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, for example, has equated the war on terrorism with the nation’s continuing wars on drugs and crime.

"The civil liberties restrictions that are being put in place are extremely expansive in two ways," ACLU President Nadine Strossen said in a recent press statement. "First, most of them apply far beyond the anti-terrorism context, undermining rights of individuals not even suspected of any crime at all, let alone a terrorist crime. And, second, most of these restrictions are unlimited in time."

That is why, says Strossen, Congress and the American people must carefully scrutinize actions that the government is taking – actions that limit liberty without adding anything to safety.