The latest assault on privacy and freedom of speech from this Administration comes from none other than the ex-boss of Michael "doing a great job" Brownie.
Michael Chertoff (better know in some circles as Chairman Mikel Chertov, the generic bad guy from a dozen cold war spy novels) believes that unfiltered access to information on the internet will help radicalize disaffected Americans - creating the greatest terrorist threat to America since voting.
So to quote the Hurricanator's ex-boss..
"We now have a capability of someone to radicalize themselves over the Internet. They can train themselves over the Internet. They never have to necessarily go to the training camp or speak with anybody else and that diffusion of a combination of hatred and technical skills in things like bomb-making is a dangerous combination," Chertoff said. "Those are the kind of terrorists that we may not be able to detect with spies and satellites."
So what's the solution, what would help keep the Radical Left, erm I mean, the radicalization of Americans under control.
How about an additional 20 officers to man the nation's "Intelligence Fusion Centers"?
What, I hear you cry, are "Intelligence Fusion Centers"?
Well, with so many scandalous assaults on the Constitution emanating from this Administration over the last 6 years it's easy to understand why one or two might slip by.
But actually you do know about this one, just not under that name. Remember when all that fuss over the data mining of passenger data hit the fan a few years back - i.e. Congress attempted to stop the CIA/NSA from data mining the personal information of millions of non-terrorist Americans, via the information they were forced to give Airlines?
Well far be it from the CIA or the NSA to directly ignore the wishes of Congress. No, instead it would simply rename the project, then get Homeland Security rather than Congress to determine who should run it - thus filtering out all that unnecessary and time wasteful oversight.
Of course Intelligence Fusion Centers, manned by additional Homeland Security Officers, are not much use without someone to spy on, erm, I mean without intelligence to fusion.
Intelligence to fusion, intelligence to fusion - where am I going to get intelligence to fusion?
How about recording the daily internet activities of every single US resident, and possibly a large number that aren't? Wouldn't that give all those IF Centers something to do, coincidentally justifying the obscene pay of another 20 cronies, as well as a bit of siphoning here, filtering there, to fatten the accounts of.. well corporate lobbyists have hellspawn to feed too you know.
So my guess is don't be surprised when you start hearing how necessary it is to record and retain internet data to prevent the "Radicalization of Americans", as well as the usual "save America from terrorists", or "save the kids from Foley".
btw. Not everyone with the name Michael is a complete git - my brother is named Michael, and as well as not working for Homeland Security, he is one of the millions of Michaels that didn't facilitate the destruction of New Orleans last year.