HSC Fades To Black

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2008, Issue No. 29
March 26, 2008

Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/

HOMELAND SECURITY COUNCIL FADES TO BLACK

The Homeland Security Council (HSC), a White House agency that advises the President on homeland security policy, has become one of the darkest corners of the U.S. Government.

The Council was established by President Bush shortly after September 11, 2001 and it was chartered as an agency within the Executive Office of the President in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

"Thereafter, the HSC disappeared from the public record," a new report from the Congressional Research Service noticed.

In particular, according to CRS: The Homeland Security Council "does not appear to have complied with requirements for Federal Register publication of such basic information as descriptions of its central organization."

It has never disclosed "where, from whom, and how the public may obtain information about it." Nor has it published the required "rules of procedure, substantive rules of general applicability, and statements of general policy."

Moreover, "No profile of, or descriptive information regarding, the HSC or its members and staff has appeared, to date, in the annual editions of the United States Government Manual."

This peculiar state of affairs was described by Harold C. Relyea of the Congressional Research Service in "Organizing for Homeland Security: The Homeland Security Council Reconsidered," March 19, 2008:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RS22840.pdf

Last week, President Bush appointed assistant attorney general Kenneth L. Wainstein to be homeland security adviser and chair of the Homeland Security Council, succeeding Frances F. Townsend.


Hitting The Google netted this (among many others). Kenneth L. Wainstein is, of course, an expert in "further break[ing] down the 'wall' between intelligence and law enforcement." (That "wall" of course being just a quaint ol' goddamn piece of paper formerly known as the Constitution of the United States of America.)

"When the government fears the People, that is Liberty. When the People fear the government, that is tyranny." –Thomas Jefferson

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Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark: "Impeachment is not a political question. It is a constitutional duty." AMEN!

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.