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<dd><font size=3>How to Fund an American Police State <br>
<dd>Real Money for an Imaginary War</b> <br>
<dd>By
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/stephansalisbury">
Stephan Salisbury</a><br><br>
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<dd><font size=1>
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/#more" eudora="autourl">
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/#more<br>
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</a></font>
<dd><font size=3>At the height of the Occupy Wall Street evictions, it
seemed as though some diminutive version of “shock and awe” had stumbled
from Baghdad, Iraq, to Oakland, California. American police forces
had been “militarized,” many commentators
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/09/opinion/navarrette-militarized-police/index.html">
worried</a>, as though the firepower and callous tactics on display were
anomalies, surprises bursting upon us from nowhere. <br><br>
<dd>There should have been no surprise. Those flash grenades
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/28/occupy-oakland-police-tea_n_1239232.html">
exploding</a> in Oakland and the sound cannons on
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/lrad-explains-sound-cannon-use-at-occupy-wall-street.php">
New York’s streets</a> simply opened small windows onto a national
policing landscape long in the process of militarization -- a bleak
domestic no man’s land marked by tanks and drones, robot bomb detectors,
grenade launchers, tasers, and most of all, interlinked video
surveillance cameras and information databases growing quietly on
unobtrusive server farms everywhere.<br><br>
<dd><a name="more"></a>The ubiquitous fantasy of “homeland security,”
pushed hard by the federal government in the wake of 9/11, has been
widely embraced by the public. It has also excited intense weapons-
and techno<a name="more"></a>-envy among police departments and
municipalities vying for the latest in armor and spy equipment.<br>
<br>
<dd>In such a world, deadly gadgetry is just a grant request away, so why
shouldn’t the 14,000 at-risk souls in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, have a
closed-circuit-digital-camera-and-monitor system (cost: $180,000,
courtesy of the Homeland Security Department)
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/08/12/us_doles_out_millions_for_street_cameras/?page=full">
identical</a> to the one up and running in New York’s Times
Square?<br><br>
<dd>So much money has gone into armoring and arming local law-enforcement
since 9/11 that the federal government could have
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/27/BUGADEUAO01.DTL&ao=all">
rebuilt</a> post-Katrina New Orleans five times over and had enough money
left in the kitty to provide job training and housing for every one of
the record 41,000-plus homeless people in New York City. It could have
added in the growing population of 15,000 homeless in Philadelphia, my
hometown, and still have had money to spare. Add disintegrating Detroit,
Newark, and Camden to the list. Throw in some crumbling bridges and
roads, too.<br><br>
<dd>But why drone on? We all know that addressing acute social and
economic issues here in the homeland was the road not taken. Since 9/11,
the Department of Homeland Security alone has
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/monitoring-america/">
doled out</a> somewhere between $30 billion and $40 billion in direct
grants to state and local law enforcement, as well as other first
responders. At the same time, defense contractors have proven
endlessly inventive in adapting
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/18/defense-cuts-force-contractors-to-look-to-sell-spy-tech-to-cops-others.html">
sales pitches</a> originally honed for the military on the battlefields
of Iraq and Afghanistan to the desires of police on the streets of San
Francisco and lower Manhattan. Oakland may not be Basra but (as former
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld liked to say) there are always the
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns">
unknown unknowns</a>: best be prepared.<br><br>
<dd>All told, the federal government
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://nationalpriorities.org/publications/2011/us-security-spending-since-911/">
has appropriated</a> about $635 billion, accounting for inflation, for
homeland security-related activities and equipment since the 9/11
attacks. To conclude, though, that “the police” have become increasingly
militarized casts too narrow a net. The truth is that virtually the
entire apparatus of government has been mobilized and militarized right
down to the university campus.<br><br>
<dd>Perhaps the pepper spray
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4">
used</a> on Occupy demonstrators last November at University of
California-Davis wasn’t directly paid for by the federal government. But
those who used it work closely with Homeland Security and the FBI “in
developing prevention strategies that threaten campus life, property, and
environments,” as UC Davis’s Comprehensive Emergency and Continuity
Management Plan puts it.<br><br>
<dd>Government budgets at every level now include allocations aimed at
fighting an ephemeral “War on Terror” in the United States. A vast
surveillance and military buildup has taken place nationwide to conduct a
pseudo-war against what can be imagined, not what we actually face. The
costs of this effort, started by the Bush administration and promoted
faithfully by the Obama administration, have been, and continue to be,
virtually incalculable. In the process, public service and the public
imagination have been weaponized.<br><br>
<dd>Farewell to Peaceful Private Life<br><br>
</b>
<dd>We’re not just talking money eagerly squandered. That may prove
the least of it. More importantly, the fundamental values of American
democracy -- particularly the right to lead an autonomous private life --
have been compromised with grim efficiency. The weaponry and tactics now
routinely employed by police are visible evidence of this. <br><br>
<dd>Yes, it’s true that Montgomery County, Texas, has
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/texas-county-police-buys-drone-can-carry-weapons">
purchased</a> a weapons-capable drone. (They say they’ll only arm
it with tasers, if necessary.) Yes, it’s true that the Tampa police have
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2012/jan/05/4/tampa-police-to-buy-armored-vehicle-communication--ar-344028/">
beefed the force up</a> with an eight-ton armored personnel carrier,
augmenting two older tanks the department already owns. Yes, the Fargo
police are ready with
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://americaswarwithin.org/articles/2011/12/21/local-police-stockpile-high-tech-combat-ready-gear">
bomb detection robots</a>, and Chicago
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704538404574539910412824756.html">
boasts a network</a> of at least 15,000 interlinked surveillance cameras.
<br><br>
<dd>New York City’s 34,000-member police force is now the ground zero of
a
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.northjersey.com/news/Justice_Department_to_review_complaints_on_NYPD_spying_of_Muslims.html">
growing outcry</a> over rampant secret spying on Muslim students and
communities up and down the East coast. It has been a big
beneficiary of federal security largess. Between 2003 and 2010, the
city
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/homeland/Does-New-York-City.html">
received</a> more than $1.1 billion through Homeland Security’s Urban
Areas Security Initiative grant program. And that’s only one of the grant
programs funneling such money to New York.<br><br>
<dd>The Obama White House itself has
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/27/nypd-muslim-surveillance_n_1303400.html">
directly funded</a> part of the New York Police Department’s anti-Muslim
surveillance program. Top officials of New York’s finest have, however,
repeatedly
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-10-16/local/30303646_1_nypd-grant-money-vendors">
refused to disclose</a> just how much anti-terrorism money it has been
spending, citing, of course, security.<br><br>
<dd>Can New York City ever be “secure”? Mayor Michael Bloomberg
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2068428/Bloomberg-I-army-NYPD-State-Department-New-York-City.html">
boasted recently</a> with obvious satisfaction: “I have my own army in
the NYPD, which is the seventh largest army in the world.” That
would be the Vietnamese army actually, but accuracy isn’t the
point. The smugness of the boast is. And meanwhile the money keeps
pouring in and the “security” activities only multiply.<br><br>
<dd>
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568584288/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20">
<img src="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/mohamedghost.gif" alt="[]">
</a>Why, for instance, are New York cops
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/newark-mayor-and-yale-university-head-slam-nypd-spying-program.html">
traveling</a> to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and Newark,
New Jersey, to spy on ordinary Muslim citizens, who have nothing to do
with New York and are not suspected of doing anything? For what
conceivable purpose does Tampa want an eight-ton armored vehicle? Why do
Texas sheriffs north of Houston believe one drone -- or a dozen, for that
matter -- will make Montgomery County a better place? What manner of
thinking conjures up a future that requires such hardware? We have
entered a dark world that demands an inescapable battery of
closed-circuit, networked video cameras trained on ordinary citizens
strolling Michigan Avenue.<br><br>
<dd>This is not simply a police issue. Law enforcement agencies may
acquire the equipment and deploy it, but city legislators and executives
must approve the expenditures and the uses. State legislators and
bureaucrats refine the local grant requests. Federal officials, with
endless input from national security and defense vendors and lobbyists,
appropriate the funds.<br><br>
<dd>Doubters are simply swept aside (while legions of security and
terrorism pundits spin dread-inducing fantasies), and ultimately, the
American people accept and live with the results. We get what we pay for
-- Mayor Bloomberg’s “army,” replicated coast to coast.<br><br>
<dd>Budgets Tell the Story<br><br>
</b>
<dd>Militarized thinking is made manifest through budgets, which daily
reshape political and bureaucratic life in large and small ways. Not long
after the 9/11 attacks, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft,
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/testimony/2001/1206transcriptsenatejudiciarycommittee.htm">
appearing</a> before the Senate Judiciary Committee, used this formula to
define the new American environment and so the thinking that went with
it: “Terrorist operatives infiltrate our communities -- plotting,
planning, and waiting to kill again.” To counter that, the
government had urgently embarked on “a wartime reorganization,” he said,
and was “forging new relationships of cooperation with state and local
law enforcement.”<br><br>
<dd>While such visionary Ashcroftian rhetoric has cooled in recent years,
the relationships and funding he touted a decade ago have been
institutionalized throughout government -- federal, state, and local --
as well as civil society. The creation of the Department of Homeland
Security, with a total 2012 budget of about $57 billion, is the most
obvious example of this.<br><br>
<dd>That budget only hints at what’s being doled out for homeland
security at the federal level. Such moneys flow not just from Homeland
Security, but from the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection
Agency, the Commerce Department, the Department of Agriculture, and the
Department of Defense.<br><br>
<dd>In 2010, the Office of Management and Budget
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=b7e871b1-77af-464e-ab6e-3fca8511c1ce">
reckoned</a> that 31 separate federal agencies were involved in homeland
security-related funding that year to the tune of more than $65 billion.
The Census Bureau, which has itself been
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=2327">
compromised</a> by War on Terror activities -- mapping Middle Eastern and
Muslim communities for counter-terrorism officials -- estimated that
federal homeland security funding topped $70 billion in 2010. But
government officials acknowledge that much funding is not included in
that compilation. (Grants made through the $5.6 billion Project
BioShield, to offer but one example, an exotic vaccination and medical
program launched in 2004, are absent from the total.)<br><br>
<dd>Even the estimate of more than $635 billion in such expenditures does
not tell the full spending story. That figure does not include the
national intelligence or military intelligence budgets for which the
Obama Administration is seeking $52.6 billion and $19.6 billion
respectively in 2013, or secret parts of the national security budget,
the so-called black budget.<br><br>
<dd>Local funding is also unaccounted for. New York’s Police Commissioner
Raymond Kelly
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/09/08/exclusive-elaborate-new-york-city-post-911-security/">
claims</a> total national homeland security spending could easily be near
a trillion dollars. Money well spent, he says -- New York needs that
anti-terror army, the thousands of surveillance cameras, those
sophisticated new weapons, and, naturally, a navy that now includes
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.policeone.com/police-products/investigation/video-surveillance/articles/4780384-NYC-cops-skim-for-bombs-using-drone-submarines/">
six drone submarines</a> (thanks to $540,000 in Homeland Security cash)
to keep an eye on the terrorist threat beneath the waves.<br><br>
<dd>And even that’s not enough.<br><br>
<dd>“We have a new boat on order,” Kelly
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/09/08/exclusive-elaborate-new-york-city-post-911-security/">
said</a> recently, alluding to a bullet-proof vessel paid for by, yes,
Homeland Security (cost unspecified). “We envision a situation where we
may have to get to an island or across water quickly, so we’re able to
transport our heavy weapons officers rapidly. We have to do things
differently. We know that this is where terrorists want to
come.”<br><br>
<dd>With submarines available to those who protect and serve (and grab
the grant money), a simple armored SWAT carrier should hardly raise an
eyebrow. The Tampa police will get one as part of their security buildup
before the city hosts the Republican convention this summer. Tampa and
Charlotte, which will host the Democratic convention, each received
special $50 million security allocations from Congress to “harden” the
cities. <br><br>
<dd>Marc Hamlin, Tampa’s assistant police chief,
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/article1209265.ece">
told</a> the Tampa city council that two old tanks, already owned and
operated by the police, were simply not enough. They were just too
unreliable. “Thank God we have two, because one seems to break down every
week," he lamented.<br><br>
<dd>Not everyone on the council seemed convinced Tampa needed a truck
sheathed in 1.5-inch high-grade steel, and featuring ballistic glass
panels, blast shields, and powered turrets. City Council Vice Chairwoman
Mary Mulhern claimed she found the purchase “kind of troubling,” a sign
that Tampa is becoming “militarized.” Then she voted to approve it
anyway, along with the other council members. Hamlin was pleased. “It’s
one of those things where you prepare for the worst, and you hope for the
best,” he
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/baybuzz/content/tampa-ready-begin-spending-republican-national-convention-security-funds-police-upgrades">
explained</a>.<br><br>
<dd>When Mulhern suggested that some of the windfall $50 million might be
used to help the city’s growing homeless population, Tampa Mayor Bob
Buckhorn
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/article1209265.ece">
set her straight</a>. “We can’t be diverted from what the appropriate use
of that money is, and that is to provide a safe environment for the
convention. It’s not to be used for pet projects or things totally
unrelated to security.”<br><br>
<dd>Tampa will also be spending more than $1 million for state of the art
digital video uplinks to surveillance helicopters. (“Analog
technology is almost Stone Age,” commented one approving council member.)
Another $2 million will go to install 60 surveillance cameras on city
streets. That represents an uncharacteristic pullback from the city’s
initial plan to acquire more than 230 cameras as well as two drones at a
cost of about $5 million. Even the police deemed that too expensive --
for the moment.<br><br>
<dd>All of this hardware will remain in Tampa after the Republicans and
any protestors are long gone. What use will it serve then? In the Tampa
area, the armored truck will join the armored fleet, police officials
said, ferrying SWAT teams on calls and protecting police serving search
warrants. In the past, Hamlin claimed, Tampa’s tanks have been shot at.
He did not mention that crime rates in Tampa and across Florida are at
four-decade lows.<br><br>
<dd>The video surveillance cameras will, of course, also
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/tampa-gets-six-bids-for-surveillance-cameras-at-the-republican-national/1211236">
stay in place</a>, streaming digitized images to an ever-growing
database, where they will be stored waiting for the day when facial
recognition software is employed to mix and match. This strategy is being
followed all over the country, including in Chicago, with its huge video
surveillance network, and New York City, where all of lower Manhattan is
now on camera.<br><br>
<dd>Tampa has already been down this road once in the post-9/11 era. The
city was home to a much-watched experiment in using such software.
Images taken by cameras installed on the street were to be matched with
photographs in a database of suspects. The system failed completely and
was
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=security/bigbrother/tech/tampa-scraps-facial-recognition.txt">
scrapped</a> in 2003. On the other hand, sheriffs in the Tampa Bay area
are currently
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article1019492.ece">
using</a> facial recognition software to match photographs snapped by
police on the street with a database of suspects with outstanding
warrants. Police are excited by that program and look forward to its
future expansion.<br><br>
<dd>The Rise of the Fusion Centers<br><br>
</b>
<dd>Homeland Security has played a big role in creating one particularly
potent element in the nation's expanding database network. Working with
the Department of Justice in the wake of 9/11, it launched what has grown
into 72 interlinked state “fusion centers” -- repositories for everything
from Immigration Customs Enforcement data and photographs to local police
reports and even gossip.
“<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.vsp.state.va.us/FusionCenter/Report_Suspicious_Activity.shtm">
Suspicious Activity Reports</a>” gathered from public tipsters -- thanks
to Homeland Security’s “if you see something, say something” program --
are now flowing into state centers. Those fusion centers are possibly the
greatest facilitators of dish in history, and have vast potential for
disseminating dubious information and stigmatizing purely political
activity. And most Americans have never even heard of them. <br><br>
<dd>Yet fusion centers now operate in every state, centralizing
intelligence gathering and facilitating dissemination of material of
every sort across the country. Here is where information gathered by cops
and citizens, FBI agents and immigration officers goes to fester. It is a
staggering load of data, unevenly and sometimes questionably vetted, and
it is ultimately
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1883101,00.html">
available</a> to any state or local law-enforcement officer, any
immigration agent or official, any intelligence or security bureaucrat
with a computer and network access.<br><br>
<dd>The idea for these centers grew from the notion that agencies needed
to share what they knew in an “unfettered” environment. How comforting to
know that the walls between intelligence and law enforcement are breached
in an essentially
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://epic.org/privacy/fusion/">
unregulated fashion</a>. <br><br>
<dd>Many other states have monitored antiwar activists, gathering and
storing names and information.
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/fusion-center-encourages-improper-investigations-lobbying-groups-and-anti-war">
Texas</a> and other states have stored “intelligence” on Muslims.
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175303/">
Pennsylvania</a> gathered reports on opponents of natural gas drilling.
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://publicintelligence.net/florida-fusion-center-monitored-bp-protests-ron-paul-events-code-pink/">
Florida</a> has scrutinized supporters of presidential candidate Ron
Paul. The list of such questionable activities is very long. We have no
idea how much dubious data has been squirreled away by authorities and
remains within the networked system. But we do know that information
pours into it with relative ease and spreads like an oil slick.
Cleaning up and removing the mess is another story entirely.<br><br>
<dd>Anyone who wants to learn something about fusion center funding will
also find it maddeningly difficult to track. Not even the Homeland
Security Department can say with certainty how much of its own money has
gone into these data nests over the last decade. The amounts are
staggering, however. From 2004 to 2009 alone, the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) reported that states used about $426 million
in Homeland Security Department grants to fund fusion-related activities
nationally. The centers also receive state and local funds, as well as
funds from other federal agencies. How much? We don’t know, although GAO
data suggest state and local funding at least equals the Homeland
Security share.<br><br>
<dd>Yet, as Tampa, New York City, and other urban areas bulk up with
high-tech anti-terrorism equipment and fusion centers have proliferated,
the number of even remotely “terror-related” incidents has declined. The
equipment acquired and projects inaugurated to fend off largely imaginary
threats is instead increasingly deployed to address ordinary criminal
activity, perceived political disruptions, and the tracking and
surveillance of American Muslims. The Transportation Safety
Administration is now even
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/mission-creep-this-tennessee-highway-is-now-patrolled-by-tsa/247243/">
patrolling highways</a>. It could be called a case of mission
creep, but the more accurate description might be:
bait-and-switch.<br><br>
<dd>The
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2011/09/does_the_united_states_spend_too_much_on_homeland_security.html">
chances</a> of an American dying in a terrorist incident in a given year
are 1 in 3.5 million. To reduce that risk, to make something minuscule
even more minuscule, what has the nation spent? What has it cost us?
Instead of rebuilding a ravaged American city in a timely fashion or
making Americans more secure in their “underwater” homes and their
disappearing jobs, we have created militarized police forces, visible
evidence of police-state-style funding.<br><br>
<dd>Stephan Salisbury is cultural writer for the </i>Philadelphia
Inquirer and a
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175418/stephan_salisbury_islam-baiting_doesn%27t_work">
TomDispatch regular</a>. His most recent book is
</i>
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.amazon.com/dp/1568584288/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20">
Mohamed’s Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland</a>.
To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which
Salisbury discusses post-9/11 police “mission creep” in this country,
click
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://tomdispatch.blogspot.com/2012/03/welcome-to-house-of-fund.html">
here</a>, or download it to your iPod
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=j0SS4Al/iVI&subid=&offerid=146261.1&type=10&tmpid=5573&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Ftomcast-from-tomdispatch-com%2Fid357095817">
here</a>.<br><br>
</i>
<dd>[Note on Sources and Further Reading:</b> The following documents can
all be found in pdf format by clicking on “here”: the UC Davis
Comprehensive Emergency Management plan
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://safetyservices.ucdavis.edu/programs-and-services/ecp/emergency-plans-1/emergency-plan/UCD%20CEP%20FINAL.pdf">
here</a>, Census Bureau figures on Homeland Security spending
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0526.pdf">
here</a>, a report on questionable fusion center actions
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/privacy/fusion_update_20080729.pdf">
here</a>, the GAO report on fusion centers
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10972.pdf">
here</a>, a report on the decline in the terrorist threat
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://sanford.duke.edu/centers/tcths/documents/Kurzman_Muslim-American_Terrorism_in_the_Decade_Since_9_11.pdf">
here</a>, and Congressional testimony favoring counterterrorism “mission
creep”
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/docs/pubs/HS-HPSCI-hearing-011812.pdf">
here</a>.]<br><br>
<dd>Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on
<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175511/tomgram:_stephan_salisbury,_weaponizing_the_body_politic/http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch">
Facebook.</a><br><br>
<dd>Copyright 2012 Stephan Salisbury<br><br>
<br><br>
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