Bush Proposes Massive Domestic Secret Police Agency Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit BUSH PROPOSES MASSIVE DOMESTIC SECRET POLICE AGENCY [Our very own DINA -- to be run, no doubt, by the pigs who gave us Chile's, and Iran-Contra, aided and abetted by the criminals who are in bed with the Cuban gusanos. Will the Congress roll over and play dead this time? We shall see...] Reuters via Yahoo - Thu Jun 6, 6:45 PM ET Bush Proposes Overhaul of Homeland Security By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bowing to Congress, President Bush on Thursday proposed a radical overhaul of homeland security to create a new 170,000-strong Cabinet agency to guard against terrorism and prevent the type of intelligence lapses that preceded the Sept. 11 attacks. In a prime-time speech of about 11 minutes on Thursday night, Bush was to lay out his vision for a Department of Homeland Security with an annual budget of $37 billion carved from a host of existing agencies. Bush was calling on Congress to approve the new agency before the end of the year. "So tonight, I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the American homeland and protecting the American people," Bush will say, according to speech excerpts released by the White House. Guaranteeing a turf battle in the federal bureaucracy and among members of Congress accustomed to setting agency budgets, the new department would absorb the Secret Service, the Customs Service, the Coast Guard, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Border Patrol, and draw from many other federal agencies. The White House billed the reorganization as the most sweeping since President Harry Truman confronted the Cold War in 1947. Secret Service, for example, has been under the Treasury Department since 1865. Homeland Security would be the first Cabinet agency created from scratch since the Energy Department in 1977. "It's all part of going from a peacetime society to a society mobilizing for war," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. The Homeland Security Department would have four main goals: - Bolster security for air, road and rail travel and prevent undesirables from crossing into the United States; - Improve the country's ability to confront emergencies and respond to them; - Prevent chemical, biological and radiological attacks; - Protect critical infrastructure and provide a central clearinghouse for intelligence analysis. $37 BILLION BUDGET In a major concentration of government power, the department would have 170,000 employees who would be shifted from other agencies. The $37 billion budget would be carved out of eight existing Cabinet departments and various other agencies who would contribute personnel and assets. The task ahead of creating the agency is sobering: Congress currently has 88 committees and subcommittees with jurisdiction over homeland security. The new department would swallow up a string of agencies, including the new Transportation Security Administration, in order to consolidate security at borders, airports and ports. And it would create some upheaval. Intelligence failures by the FBI and CIA before Sept. 11 now coming to light have triggered congressional hearings and Bush has admitted the agencies did not communicate properly. The new agency would seek to end this traditional reluctance to share by taking information from both and analyzing it. The new agency would be headed by the current director of the White House Office of Homeland Security, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, whose job was created in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. The reaction from Capitol Hill was largely positive, since many lawmakers, mostly Democrats but also some Republicans, had been calling for the move for months. So far Bush had opposed a Cabinet-level agency because of the time required for Congress to approve it. "It shows real leadership to be willing to change direction, and that is what the president has done for the security of all Americans," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who months ago offered a bipartisan proposal to establish a Cabinet-level office of homeland security that the White House had opposed. 'IT IS ABOUT TIME' Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, said, "I only say that it is about time, and I hope that it is not too late." South Dakota Democrat Sen. Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, said he was encouraged Bush recognized the need for the overhaul and looked forward "to seeing the details." But Democratic staff on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee complained Bush's proposal would weigh down homeland security with responsibilities like oil spill cleanups and risked expanding the size of government at a huge cost to taxpayers. "Now, facing a congressional inquiry into the intelligence failures surrounding Sept. 11, the administration appears to be looking for any way to divert attention, even to the point of reversing its own positions," David Sirota, spokesman for the Democratic minority on the committee, said in a statement. The White House said its aim was to transform a "confusing patchwork" of more than 100 agencies with some responsibility for homeland security into a single, effective agency. U.S. stock prices fell ahead of Bush's speech, which the markets appeared to take as a sobering reminder that there may be future attacks on the United States and that additional U.S. military actions are possible. Fleischer denied the timing of Bush's announcement was to divert attention from congressional hearings that began this week into intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that protecting the country is "a priority any time." "The president believes that -- as much as has been done by the various entities of the government with great success -- that we can and we should do more," Fleischer said. he said Bush made the decision on a new agency in late May. Analysts doubted Bush was simply trying to change the subject. "You don't make a reorganization proposal of this magnitude in response to what has happened in the past three or four weeks," said Brookings Institution security analyst Ivo Daalder. "This is a massive undertaking." ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcov-06.06.02-19:11:06-1068