“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
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August 9, 2024 — America’s empire shifted into high gear after the 9/11 attacks.
We put boots on the ground (not to mention briefcases of CIA cash) in Afghanistan. We put boots on the ground in Iraq, a nation unrelated to the 9/11 attacks, but the perfect bogeyman for our fears of further terrorism around the world.
Part of this imperial consolidation involved the creation of a new cabinet position in 2002: The Department of Homeland Security.
Rolling up dozens of smaller agencies, DHS has grown to become a surveillance state for those within the United States.
Today, we turn to veteran journalist Matt Tiabbi, who explores the origin of this agency, and why its dismantling is the first step towards liberating the American people from the domestic panopticon.
The following essay is an excerpt from a series Taibbi has written following an interview with former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) after she was placed on a terror watch list.
Despite having served in U.S. Army Reserves, Gabbard and her husband were tailed by Air Marshals and bomb dogs under Homeland Security’s “Quiet Skies” program.
“As a war veteran with no connection to January 6 or any other known offense,” comments Taibbi, “her appearance on a terror watch list is striking, and symbolic of the way politicians and intelligence officials have turned the machinery of the War on Terror inward in the last decade.”
It’s, “unconstitutional on every level,” Gabbard says. “And I’m not the only one.”
Oh, and the U.S. national debt crossed $35 Trillion yesterday. Have a good weekend. ~~ Addison
CONTINUED BELOW…
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The First Deep State Fix? Dismantle Homeland Security
Matt Tiabbi, Racket News
On November 26, 2002, George W. Bush signed the Homeland Security Act. The New York Times explained the new department’s mission:
It will bring together nearly 170,000 workers from 22 agencies with widely varying histories and missions, like the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the federal security guards in airports and the Customs Service. The goal is to improve security… strengthen the ability of federal, state and local authorities to respond to an attack…
Bush’s pen-flick turned into the largest state reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense, as those 170,000 employees turned into 260,000 by 2024. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman imagined a single mega-agency could better coordinate intelligence, border control, and other missions to prevent attack. That the U.S. already had more than enough capability to prevent the original 9/11 (the FBI failed to stop suspects already being monitored) didn’t matter. The Homeland bill was “politically expedient” for Bush, who signed over objections of fiscal conservatives in his staff, who worried a blank check for “security” would create a spending suckhole.
Twenty-two years later, the DHS has not only become a mountain of waste, it stands among the biggest threats to democracy we face. Ostensibly designed to hunt terrorists abroad, it sees the American population as the primary enemy, wilfully confusing threats to its funding with “terrorism.”
Buried in the story of former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard being stalked as a terrorist threat by a DHS sub-agency, the Transportation Security Administration, was a grotesque detail. As Gabbard noted, documents were released earlier this year detailing the work of the (thankfully short-lived) Homeland Intelligence Experts Group, another DHS “advisory panel.” This fledgling Politburo was dominated by party and intelligence figures in much the same way as its Russian counterpart:
Founded in 2023, the group featured former CIA chief John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Paul Kolbe of Harvard’s Belfer Center, NBC security official Thomas Galati, and Lawfare editor Benjamin Wittes. This was the group that concluded being “in the military or religious” indicated a threat of terror or extremism.
Lawmakers after World War II were concerned about the potential misuse of new intelligence capabilities and passed laws like the Smith-Mundt Act that drew bright lines, telling agencies like the State Department they weren’t permitted to propagandize (read: lie to) Americans the same way they did to foreign populations. The CIA’s original charter likewise barred domestic operations.
The rules didn’t hold. The Church Committee hearings of the 1970s in the Senate were necessitated by horrific revelations. The FBI and CIA were both caught in grotesque domestic spying operations that included infiltration of activist groups, illegal wiretapping, even human experimentation. Rules had to be rewritten, with the CIA told to stop whacking people and the FBI temporarily forced back in the direction of needing something in the general vicinity of probable cause to investigate.
All of this went out the window after 9/11. Now, we have the worst of all worlds. ~ Matt Tiabbi, Racket News
So it goes,
Addison Wiggin
Founder, The Wiggin Sessions
P.S.:I’m a fan of Matt Taibbi. He’s a new school independent journalist. Which is to say, rather than whine about corporate media selling out to advertisers and lame politicians, with Racket News, he’s done something about it. From Taibbi’s welcome letter when you become a subscriber:
“When I first wrote this letter some years ago, I didn’t know how important the relationship with subscribers would become. Other reporters have worked under models similar to this — the great I.F. Stone pioneered the idea by publishing an enormously influential newsletter out of his house — and while the idea of independent journalism has been analyzed by media professionals, few have written about the unique interpersonal dynamic between subscribers and reporters.”
Hear, hear.
Taibbi is an investigative reporter and as such doesn’t give financial advice. But his work is refreshing. While chasing a story, he’s not afraid to share his opinion. And he writes well. So his ideas are engaging. He makes me think. The best part is I only agree with him about half the time. You can check out his work here: Racket News.
For the record, we don’t know Matt personally. Nor does Grey Swan get compensated for including links to his site.
P.P.S.: How did we get here? An alternative view of the financial, economic, and political history of the United States from Demise of the Dollar through Financial Reckoning Day and on to Empire of Debt — all three books are available in their third post-pandemic editions.
(Or… simply pre-order Empire of Debt: We Came, We Saw, We Borrowed, now available at AmazonandBarnes & Noble or if you prefer one of these sites:Bookshop.org; Books-A-Million; or Target.)
Please send your comments, reactions, opprobrium, vitriol and praise to: addison@greyswanfraternity.com
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