DHS is creating a national police force that spies on schools, nursing homes, strippers etc.
DHS has spent billions of tax dollars since 2003 outfitting state & local law enforcement agencies – including New Mexico’s – with armored vehicles, powerful weaponry and a massive illegal national cell phone spying network called 'Stingray'.
Click here to read more.
DHS has a $60 billion budget, the worst employee morale in the federal government and a mission portfolio so big and varied it doesn’t have a single definition of “homeland security.”
A three-part series by The Albuquerque Journal Washington Bureau reporter Michael Coleman makes clear that if there is a poster child for mission creep, Homeland Security is it. And unfortunately, “creep” accurately describes:
1. The department’s expanding mission since 2002,
2. Its stealthy reach into local law enforcement jurisdictions, and
3. Its opaque accountability and visible heavy hand.
In addition to protecting America’s borders and airports, DHS is interrogating people suspected of pirating movies at movie theaters, seizing counterfeit NBA merchandise in San Antonio and working pickpocket cases.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents are now working with local police all over New Mexico, aiming to become an integral part of domestic crime fighting in the state. HSI officers are deployed in the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, as well as at police departments in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Farmington, Aztec and elsewhere across the state, Abar said.
“We are working side-by-side, literally – we are entrenched with our state and local counterparts,” Abar said.
“Too many people think we do immigration, and we don’t really do any of that at all” said Abar.
No, you work with local law enforcement to spy on Americans!
Abar declined to say whether Homeland Security officers helped Albuquerque police respond to the unruly March 30 public demonstrations protesting the killing of James Boyd, who was shot by Albuquerque police March 16. But Abar confirmed that HSI officers are helping local police investigate gang activity in New Mexico, as well as track missing and exploited children, break up pickpocket rings and even sleuth for stolen and fraudulent Native American art.
“Native American culture is very important here in New Mexico, and we want to preserve that,” Abar said.
HSI isn’t just working criminal cases; it is also spying on strippers! Last June, HSI’s Albuquerque field office announced it would meet with adult dancers and strip club owners to train them about the dangers of sex trafficking and how to recognize it.
DHS agents are planning seminars and workshops at retirement centers to inform older residents about lottery, IRA and jail fraud schemes. And the agency last month announced a program called iGuardian that will send DHS officers into schools and nursing homes, where they will teach young and old alike about the dangers of Internet predators.
DHS and the lottery? This is beyond disturbing, what possible terrorist threat does the lottery pose? Ah, I know it helps fund the terrorist DHS police grant program that's responsible for militarizing our police force, now it makes perfect sense!
“We want to secure the Internet and make sure the individuals on it understand the pitfalls, and that they can become victims,” Abar said.
Abar's comment below should sound alarm bells ringing across the country. DHS wants to expand its role in local law enforcement:
“I really do want to expand the footprint as far as my side of Homeland Security,” said Kevin Abar, assistant special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New Mexico.
DHS spying is MUCH WORSE than you can imagine: "Within DHS, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has a lead role in analyzing and sharing law enforcement, intelligence, and other information in support of the department’s missions and responsibilities. Other DHS components also have their own intelligence analysis capabilities and are part of the DHS Intelligence Enterprise.
The I&A consist of six DHS operational components (CBP, USCIS, ICE, TSA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Secret Service), and three DHS headquarters elements (the National Protection and Plans Directorate, the Office of Operations).
In an effort to promote the understanding of threats, members of the enterprise are to deliver intelligence analysis and information to DHS leadership; state, local, tribal, and territorial partners; DHS components; the Intelligence Community; and private sector partners.
Private sector partners? In plain English its PRIVATE CORPORATIONS that aid DHS spying on Americans!
Homeland Security Affairs boasts about how closely they work with private corporations:
“…I want to just say this about the private sector. In my mind, the government is incapable of responding to its maximum ability without private sector support…” –Tom Ridge, Former Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Click here to read DHS's "Intelligence Analysis" report.
The last thing in the world you want is a Department of Homeland Security involved in a day-to-day basis with traditional and state and local law enforcement,” said Tom Ridge, the nation’s first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, in a Journal interview. “It’s not their role or their function, unless it’s related to terrorist activity.”
Ridge acknowledged that understaffed police jurisdictions working to solve local crimes might be tempted by offers of federal assistance. But he also suggested that local cops may be trading some of their autonomy in the bargain.
“I would be wary if I were a local law enforcement official when DHS says, ‘I’ll volunteer to help you here, or do this, or oversee this equipment,’ ” Ridge said, adding that Homeland Security is taking on roles traditionally reserved for local police or the FBI.
“I can’t believe Homeland Security investigators are involved in local crime,” Ridge said. “If they want to be involved and invested in local crime, they ought to apply for a position in the local police force.”
Dan Klein, a retired Albuquerque Police Department sergeant, said he’s noticed the increasing federal police presence around the city.
“It seems like Homeland Security is taking more of a local law enforcement role,” Klein told the Journal . “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but at least here, we are moving more toward a national police force. Homeland Security is involved with a lot of little things around town. Somebody in Washington needs to call a timeout.”
News flash Mr. Klein, its happening nationwide!
Sen. Tom Udall: “Speaking as a former (New Mexico) attorney general, I also fear any step toward nationalizing our police force jeopardizes the accountability that law enforcement officers must feel toward the community they are responsible for protecting. Since DHS was created, I have spoken out against tactics used by its component agencies, such as TSA, which I believe sacrifice personal privacy without effectively protecting Americans’ security.
DHS, TSA, NSA the FBI they're all part of Big Brother's alphabet soup spying apparatus meant to spy on dissenters in America.
Federal and local authorities contend the high-tech and often highly visible equipment deters crime and protects officers against violent offenders, some of whom are armed with increasingly deadly weapons themselves. But civil liberties groups, members of Congress and some former law enforcement officials wonder if the investment is worth it, and if it is effectively turning local police forces into paramilitary units.
“There has been a trend of militarization of police agencies across the country, and it’s been stimulated by federal grants to purchase high-level technology and heavy armament that we have never seen before, except in military situations,” said Peter Simonson, executive director of the New Mexico American Civil Liberties Union.
“Increasingly, you see APD using SWAT teams with riot gear and full body armor and helmets and assault rifles to perform operations that were traditionally carried out by uniformed policemen,” Simonson said. “The tactics have changed.”
Click here & here to read more about DHS giving police departments military gear.
An Indiana Sheriff said "The United States of America has become a war zone" which is being used to justify new MRAP Military vehicles.
"Americans should ... be concerned unless they want their main streets patrolled in ways that mirror a war zone" wrote congressman Hank Johnson.
It is difficult – if not impossible – to determine exactly how much U.S. Department of Homeland Security money has been used to buy equipment for New Mexico law enforcement agencies over the past decade. DHS officials in Washington referred the Journal to the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management for information about the grants.
New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management officials reported receiving $28.6 million in federal Homeland Security grants in 2014. That money was passed along to counties, cities and towns across New Mexico for both law enforcement and emergency management programs. But the state could not provide the Journal with specifics about which jurisdictions received the money – or how it was spent.
The Albuquerque Police Department has received about $2.5 million in State Homeland Security Grant Program awards from the federal government since 2009. Among the purchases was a bomb robot, as well as tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment for “a variety of items for tactical teams, scope mounts and range finders, etc.,” said Roger Ebner, director of APD’s emergency management unit. However, Ebner also said this particular grant appears to be slowing. APD received more than $1 million of the grant money in 2010, and by 2013 the grant award had dwindled to $220,000.
DHS isn’t the only federal department providing communities with equipment meant for the battlefield.
The Department of Defense’s military surplus program last year sent the cities of Farmington and Los Lunas mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPs, from the U.S. military surplus program. The vehicles, which were used in the Iraq War, are valued at more than $600,000 each, but the departments had to pay only the price of shipment – about $3,000 – to acquire them. Their maintenance, which can be substantial, is also the cities’ responsibility.
Farmington Police Cmdr. Cliff Washburn, who oversees the city’s SWAT team, told The Daily Times newspaper in Farmington that the fearsome-looking vehicle was a deterrent in itself and would be deployed at all SWAT team calls in the community.
“It’s foolish to leave an asset at home when you might need it in the field,” Washburn told the Daily Times. “Plus, it’s very intimidating. You roll up in front of somebody’s house with that, and it gets their attention. We’ll take it everywhere we go.”
Kevin Abar, assistant special agent in charge of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations in New Mexico, told the Journal that as DHS’s physical presence in Albuquerque has expanded, the number of agents working the state has grown, too. Abar declined to say how many HSI officers are based in New Mexico, citing security concerns. But the number has “more than quadrupled” in the past three years, he said.
“We’ve up-armored,” Abar said. “That means putting more people and more resources on the ground. When we looked at New Mexico from an agency standpoint, we realized we could do quite a bit of good but we needed to put more resources and more agents on the ground, and over the past three years that’s what we’ve done.”
Tom Ridge, the first man to head DHS told the Journal, that DHS had “kind of lost their way.”
“It is clear to me … that DHS has yet to reach its full potential as an organization,” Secretary Jeh Johnson wrote in a six-page letter to senior Homeland Security managers dated April 22 – five days before the Journal launched its reports on the department’s expanding budget and “mission creep.”
Hasn't reached its full potential? What hasn't DHS infiltrated? What's left to spy on our bathroom habits?
The new secretary is acknowledging the agency has serious problems.
Sen. Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the Journal series raised “smart questions” about the Department of Homeland Security’s missions. The series examined how Homeland Security agents are increasingly working on local police cases.
“Serious questions have been raised by congressional oversight committees and in communities in New Mexico and around the country about inefficiency and mission creep at the agency,” Udall said.
DHS has lacked a coherent mission statement or even a single definition of homeland security according to a Congressional Research Service study.
Which DHS see's as an open invitation to use police as a national spy force!
Nothing says America won’t let the terrorists win like busting pickpockets in the Land of Enchantment.
Or tracking down fraudulent Native American art.
Or training Albuquerque strippers how to recognize sex trafficking.
Or sending armored personnel carriers to ever police department in the country.
Welcome to the 2014 version of DHS!
http://www.abqjournal.com/390438/news/homeland-security-a-runaway-train.html
http://www.abqjournal.com/391339/news/feds-help-militarize-police-agencies.html
http://www.abqjournal.com/390807/news/nm-footprint-grows-weve-uparmored.html
http://www.abqjournal.com/393959/opinion/homelands-mission-creep-works-on-3-levels.html
http://www.abqjournal.com/394239/news/dhs-head-agency-needs-change.html
