Another nail in the coffin for democracy and civil rights; your local firehouse is now being enrolled to further encroach on your privacy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Firefighters in major cities are being trained to take on a new role as lookouts for terrorism, raising concerns of eroding their standing as American icons and infringing on people’s privacy.
Unlike police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel don’t need warrants to access hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings each year, putting them in a position to spot behavior that could indicate terrorist activity or planning.
But there are fears that they could lose the faith of a skeptical public by becoming the eyes of the government, looking for suspicious items such as building blueprints or bomb-making manuals or materials.
It goes on:
The American Civil Liberties Union says using firefighters to gather intelligence is another step in that direction. Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now national security policy counsel to the ACLU, said the concept is dangerously close to the Bush administration’s 2002 proposal to have workers with access to private homes – such as postal carriers and telephone repairmen – report suspicious behavior to the FBI.
“Americans universally abhorred that idea,” German said.
The Homeland Security Department is testing a program with the New York City fire department to share intelligence information so firefighters are better prepared when they respond to emergency calls. Homeland Security also trains the New York City fire service in how to identify material or behavior that may indicate terrorist activities. If it’s successful, the government intends to expand the program to other major metropolitan areas.
(my italics)
So now it will be left to the suspicious (or, even malicious) mind of a random firefighter whether you will end up on a list for further investigation.
And it wouldn’t take a warrant to cite you for a ‘fire safety violation’ to gain access to your home and records.
What’s next? Enlisting nursery school teachers to obtain information from your toddlers?
Thirty months ago I wrote an entry called The legacy of East-Germany. We seem to be getting closer by the minute and the Democratic ‘leadership’ barely raises an eyebrow.
I wrote this comment in a moment of frustration a couple of weeks ago:
Re: Humping the terraists over there… (4.00 / 5)
I really, really would like to stop being a total cynic!
But these people (too many Democrats included) make it very clear that there is no reason for optimism for the future.
Has Congress become the biggest congregation of cowards and Scaredy Cats ever observed in a legislative body?
[I’m sorry to say, but I’ve been telling curly lately that even most of the US population is displaying incredible cowardness in so meekly accepting the current national leadership’s march towards the cliff – fucking lemmings.)
by ask on Fri Nov 9th, 2007 at 12:34:05 PM EST
Wake up folks; your democracy is eroding away rapidly!
