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“Environmental justice” describes the commitment of the Federal Government, through its policies, programs, and activities, to avoid placing disproportionately high and adverse effects on the human health and environment of minority or low-income populations. As described in the 2010 Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR), our Nation’s vision of homeland security is a homeland safe and secure, resilient against terrorism and other hazards, and where American interests and aspirations and the American way of life can thrive. In seeking to fulfill this vision, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) aspires to avoid burdening minority and low-income populations with a disproportionate share...

I think the Department of Homeland Security just called me a terrorist. Not only me, but millions of other law-abiding Americans, not to mention Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Patrick Henry, among others.

Obama lost my vote yesterday when he declined to expand the exceedingly narrow conscience exemptions proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again. I do not come at this issue as a Catholic special pleader, who wants only to protect my own, although it was a little bracing to realize that the president’s decision yesterday essentially told us, as Catholics, that there is no room in this great country of ours for the institutions our...

Just sit back for a minute and imagine the howls from the media if it was disclosed that George W. Bush's Department of Homeland Security was monitoring the social media activity of journalists. The word Nixonian would be trending on Twitter and you could be assured the daily White House press briefing would turn into a free-for-all. Well, it'll be interesting to see the reaction of Obama's adoring White House press corps when they discover their activities are being tracked by the Department of Homeland Security.Freedom of speech might allow journalists to get away with a lot in America, but...

VIPR Searches and the American Citizen: 'Dominate. Intimidate. Control.' By John W. Whitehead 7/5/2011 "They're trying to scare the pants off the American people that we need these things... Fear is a commodity and they're selling it. The more they can sell it, the more we buy into it. When American people are afraid, they will accept anything."--Kate Hanni, passengers' rights advocate "Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government...Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and...

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security lied to Congress and the media to cover up a secret amnesty program that dismissed the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions. The scandalous story of how the government agency charged with keeping America safe systematically cancels pending deportations was first reported by Texas’s largest newspaper last year. The remarkable program stunned the legal profession and baffled immigration attorneys who say the government bounced their clients’ deportation even when expulsion was virtually guaranteed.After the story broke other media outlets began to dig around and Senate leaders launched...

According to another one of those White House briefings of reporters designed to suck up all available credit for good news, President Obama's homeland security advisor reveals that it was a really tense time in the air-conditioned White House as unidentified U.S. Navy SEALs closed in on the world's most wanted man after midnight a half a world away. "Minutes passed like days," says John Brennan, who bravely stood with press secretary Jay Carney before reporters and TV cameras today chronicling his boss' weekend heroics. The heavily-armed commandos flying in a quartet of darkened Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters more than...

"Project Gunwalker," the growing scandal in which the Burea of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) deliberately allowed thousands of firearms to be "walked" across the U.S./Mexican border by known gun traffickers, was almost certainly primarily the work of the Department of Justice. The DoJ is the parent department of the BATFE, and DoJ's fingerprints are all over this travesty. Still, this is too big for even the DoJ to have done completely on its own. Sipsey Street Irregular Mike Vanderboegh has been digging deeply into what looks like an administration-wide operation to create the mythical "iron river" of guns...

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano used a trip to El Paso, Texas, as an opportunity to claim that the border with Mexico is “better now than it ever has been.”

Obama and Janet Napolitano appointed Arif Alikhan, a devout Muslim, as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano swore-in Kareem Shora, a devout Muslim, who was born in Damascus, Syria, as ADC National Executive Director as a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC).

The government flouts the Fourth Amendment in the name of security. It was Adolf Hitler who first used science and technology to monitor people, places, and things. Closed-circuit television, or CCTV, was developed for the Third Reich by Siemens AG to observe V-2 rocket launches and operators at the Peenemünde Research Center in Germany. In the 1940s, CCTV used strategically placed video cameras to capture footage and then broadcast it back, allowing for real-time surveillance.Flash forward 70 years and surveillance systems have, like it or not, become broadly accepted as part of 21st century life — from traffic cameras, to...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano rang in the New Year with a visit to Afghanistan. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Embassy in Kabul) (CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which by its own admission has thus far failed to control even half of America's nearly 2,000-mile-long border with Mexico, is now sending personnel to Afghanistan to help that country secure its border with Pakistan. On a New Year’s visit to Afghanistan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there are now 25 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CPB) personnel on the ground in Afghanistan. That...

What is unclear is the extent to which companies such as Walmart will be asked to assist in detaining persons of interest. The Gazette asked Walmart corporate if DHS was expecting them to detain individuals, if requested by law-enforcement, until officers could arrive at the scene. They were also asked if they had received assurances they would not be held liable if they detained someone based simply on a report by another customer. Multiple requests for information were not returned. There has already been one such case in which a private company was sued for acting on individuals with concerns....

In the wake of last month’s DHS memo on how to create a de facto amnesty without congressional consent comes a similar “draft” proposal instructing local police to stop enforcing immigration laws. As reported by my colleague Jessica Vaughan, “According to a draft policy document now being circulated among a limited group of stakeholders, ICE chief John Morton intends to prohibit not only his officers, but also local officers with 287(g)immigration authority, from busting illegal aliens who are discovered as a result of traffic violations.” So that means we’ll go back to the situation where illegal aliens can drive illegally...

The 1,200 National Guard troops that are being deployed incrementally to the southwest border “will not be doing direct law enforcement,” said U.S. National Guard Bureau Director of Communications Jack Harrison when asked if the forces would be interdicting drugs and undocumented immigrants. “The two mission sets are criminal analysts and enter-identification team,” Harrison told CNSNews.com. “I can tell you that guardsmen will not be doing direct law enforcement on the southwest border.” In other words, the National Guardsmen will not be used to actually stop and detain illegal aliens trying to sneak across the border into the United States.Harrison...

Sound too conspiratorial to be true? Like the cover-up ops of spy novels? Well, it's reality. And it is possibly the most bizarre, inhumane and abusive way that the White House is expanding its power over the American people. It's not an extremist belief or theory of the far right. It's a fact that has been confirmed by The New York Times, The Washington Post and MSNBC and even documented by the far-left online magazine Salon.com. And it's the gravest nightmare of U.S. citizens and abandonment of our Constitution to date: a presidential assassination program in which U.S. citizens are...

Source: Administration Weighs Bypassing Congress to Let Illegal Immigrants Stay The Obama administration has been holding behind-the-scenes talks to determine whether the Department of Homeland Security can unilaterally grant legal status on a mass basis to illegal immigrants, a former Bush administration official who spoke with at least three people involved in those talks told FoxNews.com. The Obama administration has been holding behind-the-scenes talks to determine whether the Department of Homeland Security can unilaterally grant legal status on a mass basis to illegal immigrants, a former Bush administration official who spoke with at least three people involved in those talks...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday. As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities. John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comment during a meeting on Wednesday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper reports. "I don't think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution," Morton told the newspaper. The best way to reduce illegal immigration is through a comprehensive federal approach, he said, and not a patchwork of state laws. The law, which criminalizes being in...

Attorney General Eric Holder tells Jake Tapper this morning that alleged Times Square bombing screwup Faisal Shahzad was facilitated, financed and working under the direction of the Pakistani Taliban. While that clears some things up, remember that there is still a middle-aged Tea Party supporter stalking the Nutmeg State, who is angry about the housing crisis and the health care bill, with his U.S. citizenship still in good standing, and probably linking up with our home-grown militias for more one-off attacks. OK, so I'm the millionth person to make that joke in the last week. But it's more than a...

Earlier this week it was reported that the Obama White House removed confessed terrorist Faisal Shahzad from the Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list sometime after Barack Obama came into office. Terrorist Faisal Shahzad had substantial connections to the Taliban, reached out to the Taliban, was influenced by Yemeni terror leader Anwar al Awlaki, made at least a dozen return trips to Pakistan since arriving in the United States in 1999, and he bought a one way ticket with cash to Pakistan. Now we find out that he was “blogging” and asking for jihad as far back as 2006...

Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list - Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) - between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States. TECS is a major law enforcement computer system that allows its approximately 120,000 users from 20 federal agencies to share information. The database is designed to identify individuals suspected of or involved in violation of federal law. CBS News Exclusive Picture of Shahzad The system has been recently called inefficient by members of Congress. In...

H/T Mike at SipseyStreetIrregulars Terrorists and Guns: The Nature of the Threat and Proposed Reforms Wednesday, May 5, 2010 10:00 AM Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 342 Add To My Calendar (vCal) Witnesses Panel 1 The Honorable Frank R. Lautenberg U.S. Senate The Honorable Peter T. King U.S. House of Representatives The Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg Mayor City of New York The Honorable Raymond W. Kelly Police Commissioner City of New York Panel 2 Daniel D. Roberts Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation U.S. Department of Justice Eileen R. Larence Director, Homeland Security and Justice...

Note: Video included at the link. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (AP Photo) (CNSNews.com) -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, while testifying before a Senate panel, said the United States’s southwest border is “as secure now as it has ever been.” “I say this again as someone who has walked that border,” she said. “I’ve ridden that border. I’ve flown it. I’ve driven it. I know that border I think as well as anyone, and I will tell you it is as secure now as it has ever been.” Napolitano made that remark in response to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.),...

As a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, EPIC has obtained hundreds of pages of documents from the Department of Homeland Security about the plan to deploy full body scanners in US airports. A letter to EPIC reveals that the government agency possesses about 2,000 body scanner photos from devices that the DHS said earlier "could not store or record images." EPIC has also obtained the most recent device procurement specifications, and several hundred new pages of traveler complaints. For more information, see EPIC: Whole Body Imaging and EPIC: EPIC v. Department of Homeland Security. 

The Department of Homeland Security has just reported that during 2009, they issued 1,130,818 new Green Cards to foreign nationals, allowing them to work legally in this country. That number represents the fourth highest number of cards issued in one year.

750,000 of the new Green Cards were given to the families of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

The top four recipient nations are as follows:

-Mexico…164,920 
-China…receiving 64,238
-Philippines…60,029
-India…57,304 

In Feb. 2009, the financial institution Merrill Lynch announced that the nation’s actual unemployment rate had reached 13.9 percent. A year later, that number had risen to 17.3 percent. This figure represents Americans...

Another Obama administration nominee, Robert Harding for director of the Transportation Security Administration, has bitten the dust after investigators discovered his defense-contracting company collected millions more federal money than it was entitled to. Mr. Harding blamed the overcharge on his accountants. His company also got a federal contract under a "set-aside" program for service-disabled veterans. His service-related disability? Sleep apnea. Mr. Harding slinks away two months after Erroll Southers, a former counterterrorism supervisor for the Los Angeles airport police and a favorite of Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., took himself out of the running for the TSA top job after admitting...

A friend of mine has been followed by a car three times in a remote area of Wisconsin. The third time he sped up and noticed the car speeding up after him. He slammed on the brakes and got out of the car. Upon reaching the driver of the other car he noticed the person wearing a blue shirt with Dept. of Homeland Security embroidered on it. He also had a county sheriffs dept tag around his neck. Crazy thing is, he asked the security man what he was doing and the reply was nothing. My friend said he was...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is under pressure to beef up border security in the Southwest in the wake of Saturday's killing of a rancher in southeastern Arizona. Three members of New Mexico's congressional delegation have asked for an increase in the Border Patrol's presence in the Boot Heel of New Mexico, about 10 miles from where the rancher was shot to death over the weekend. U.S. Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, along with Rep. Harry Teague, say Napolitano's agency needs to take more security steps. And former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, called...

Link to complaint filed by Virginia Attorney General challenging the health care law as beyond the authority of Congress under the Commerce Clause

(CNSNews.com) – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told senators it is a national security concern that people from countries with ties to terrorism could 'potentially' gain entry into the United States by crossing the country’s southern border. But according to the Department of Homeland Security’s own reports, thousands of people from 14 “special interest” countries already have come into the United States illegally, including some across the U.S.-Mexico border. (The State Department designates some nations as "special interest" counties because of their links to terrorism.) Napolitano testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday. Her remarks...

The White House on Tuesday made public excerpts of a previously classified report on cybersecurity prepared by the Bush adminisration. The report prescribes that the president "establish a front line of defense" and better address emerging cybersecurity threats. It also calls on both White House officials and lawmakers to boost domestic Web security programs, especially with respect to the federal government's classified networks, while expanding cybersecurity research and education programs.

WASHINGTON—(ENEWSPF)—February 24, 2010. Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Ranking Member Susan Collins, R-Me., Wednesday questioned the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security about the high ratio of contractors to civilian employees within the DHS workforce. According to DHS estimates, the first the Committee has received despite years of informal requests for these numbers, the Department has 188,000 civilian employees (not including uniformed members of the Coast Guard) and 200,000 contractors working for it – for a total workforce of almost 400,000. “To me, this is just a shocking and unacceptable number,” Lieberman said...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says terrorists who are U.S. citizens or live in the country legally and plot against the U.S. are just as big of a concern as international terrorists. She says that when she started as secretary a year ago, the focus was largely on international terrorists who want to harm U.S. interests. But in the past year, more of the violent extremism that has been seen overseas is showing up in the U.S. She says officials need to drill down and analyze the factors that make a young person, raised in the U.S.,...

Last month, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and her senior staff privately met in Washington, D.C., with a select group of Muslim, Arab, and Sikh organizations. Among the mix were three organizations directly associated with an outlawed terrorist entity — the Muslim Brotherhood. Secretary Napolitano spent an hour and a half briefing them on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) counter-radicalization and anti-terrorist programs. The intensive briefings spanned two days (January 27 and 28) and were called by the DHS. Although there is no evidence of an exchange of classified information, this meeting was the beginning of an Obama administration...

Subtitle: DHS Is Monitoring Social Media and Web Sites for Terror and Disaster Info As the winter Olympics begin, the Department of Homeland Security has disclosed that it will be monitoring the comments and posts on websites and social media like Twitter for information on possible terror threats. Among the sites listed in a privacy impact statement filed Friday afternoon by DHS are the Drudge Report, the Huffington Post, Twitter, Google and this web site, the Blotter. Photo: DHS Monitors Social Media Websites for Olympic Security Police patrol the area outside of the BC Place Stadium which will host the...

The Transportation Security Administration plans to clear 10,000 workers for access to secret intelligence, Fox News has learned.

The Department of Homeland Security has a clear, if difficult, mission. It includes securing 7,500 miles of border and 9,500 miles of shoreline, and protecting 300 million Americans from the threats posed by a bold and determined jihadist enemy. But its greatest menace is a former stay at home mother of 11 and grandmother of eight from Brookfield, Wisconsin. Or so it would seem. Peggy Hamill, state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, is among a group of pro-life activists upon whom a DHS “threat assessment” was performed last year. The assessment targeted the free speech rights of peaceful pro-life activists in...

The number of illegal immigrants living in the United States dropped by 1 million people in two years, according to new estimates by the Department of Homeland Security. The government thinks that 10.8 million illegal immigrants lived in the country in January 2009, down from a peak of nearly 12 million in 2007. If the official estimates are correct, not since 2005 has the population of illegal immigrants been as low as it was last year. Some private researchers, however, are questioning the magnitude of the drop. # Top countries of origin for illegal immigrants in the U.S.: Mexico: 6.65...

In keeping with Barack Obama’s administration position that pro-lifers are “radical right wing extremists” or “Right wing domestic terrorists,” Janet Napolitano is spending time investigating pro-lifers in Wisconsin instead of underwear bombers over Detroit!!! This is pure insanity Homeland Security improperly conducted a threat assessment of Wisconsin pro- and anti-abortion rights groups before an expected rally last year. The department said in a memo released last year that it destroyed or deleted all of the copies of the assessment after an internal review found it violated intelligence gathering guidelines about “protest groups which posed no threat to homeland security.”

Hoping to protect its top-secret operations by decentralizing its massive computer hubs, the National Security Agency will build a 1-million-square-foot data center at Utah's Camp Williams. The years-in-the-making project, which may cost billions over time, got a $181 million start last week when President Obama signed a war spending bill in which Congress agreed to pay for primary construction, power access and security infrastructure. The enormous building, which will have a footprint about three times the size of the Utah State Capitol building, will be constructed on a 200-acre site near the Utah National Guard facility's runway. Congressional records show...

Intelligence Officials Warn Attempted Al Qaeda Attack Months Away The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress WASHINGTON -- Al Qaeda can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday. The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including "clean" recruits with a negligible trail of terrorist contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said. Al Qaeda is...

I can't confirm that (al Qaeda's responsibility for the attack) nor can we confirm the authenticity of the tape, but assuming that it is him, his message contains the same hollow justifications for the mass slaughter of innocents that we've heard before," David Axelrod said on CNN's "State of the Union" program. The audiotape that aired on Al Jazeera television on Sunday claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day bombing of the Detroit-bound plane. A Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has been

Orphaned children from Haiti will be allowed to enter the U.S. temporarily on a case-by-case basis to ensure they received proper care, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State announced Monday. "We are committed to doing everything we can to help reunite families in Haiti during this very difficult time," DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement. "While we remain focused on family reunification in Haiti, authorizing the use of humanitarian parole for orphans who are

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano extended temporary amnesty to Haitians who were illegally inside the U.S. before Tuesday's earthquake, but warned that the Coast Guard would turn back any new refugees fleeing the devastation... If refugees take to the sea--the normal reaction to turmoil throughout Haiti's recent history--officials in the U.S. and other countries will have to grapple with how to deal with a new wave of immigrants, most of whom will arrive without visas. Ms. Napolitano warned that no new arrivals would get amnesty and the U.S. Coast Guard and other authorities would move quickly to stop new migrants....

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COUNCIL OF GOVERNORS By the authority vested in me as President by theConstitution and the laws of the United States of America,including section 1822 of the National Defense AuthorizationAct of 2008 (Public Law 110-181), and in order to strengthenfurther the partnership between the Federal Government and Stategovernments to protect our Nation and its people and property,it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Council of Governors. (a) There is established a Council of Governors (Council).The Council shall consist of 10 State Governors appointed bythe President (Members), of whom no more than five shall be ofthe same political...

Here is video of President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) - Errol Southers - saying he worries about the danger posed by groups that are "Christian-Identity Oriented." He does not explain what he means by that. Southers also mentions groups that are "anti-Government," "anti-abortionist," and with a "survivalist mentality." He never mentions any concern for groups or individuals that have a strong "Muslim-identity," even though virtually ever terror attack - or attempted terror attack - has been carried out by Islamic Jihadists. And President Obama thinks someone like Southers is going to make us safer....

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US spy agencies in recent months picked up clues pointing to an Al-Qaeda attack out of Yemen and were moving to disrupt it, but a crucial piece of information fell through the cracks. Intelligence officials describe a trail of warning signs for the botched Christmas Day attack on a US-bound airliner dating back to August, when the National Security Agency reportedly intercepted chatter among Al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. The NSA, which runs an elaborate global eavesdropping operation, heard conversations from Al-Qaeda figures describing a plot to recruit a Nigerian man for a terrorist attack, the New York...

Two terrorist attacks on American soil within les s than sixty days. Administration officials declare that “the system worked” after the Christmas day attack, only to be contradicted by the President days later. The President notes on December 29th that the Christmas day attack was carried out by merely an “isolated extremist,” but then declares on January 7 that “we are at war,” and that we must stay “one step ahead of a nimble adversary," in complete contradiction of his Homeland Security Secretary and his own previous remarks. Oh, my –how does America’s liberal media explain it all away? One...