Very dubious about argument for firefighter/DHS alliance

Count me among the skeptics regarding the new alliance between DHS and fire departments nationwide where firefighters will be trained to look for possible terrorist activities when entering homes  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.  How does this square with the 4th Amendment in the Bill of Rights?

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.         

Not well, in my book, and apiece with misguided efforts such as the now deep-sixed LAPD plans to “map” Islamic Neighborhoods as ways of eroding civil rights.  They indicate either:

or, in my book, both!  Equally worrisome is the likelihood that firefighters, who’ve always been immune to the scandals involving rogue cops who abuse their power, would lose public faith in them. There are pious reassurances from officials such as DHS intelligence official Jack Tomarchio, that “They’re really doing technical inspections, and if perchance they find something like, you know, a bunch of RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) rounds in somebody’s basement, I think it’s a no-brainer …. The police ought to know about that; the fire service ought to know about that; and potentially maybe somebody in the intelligence community should know about that.”AP reports, based on documents they obtained, that as part of the program that started last December, “Homeland Security gave secret clearances to nine New York fire chiefs.”  According to the AP story:

“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.’”        

Perhaps the most shocking statements, in terms of blithfully ignoring privacy guarantees, came from three fire officials:

Hey, as German said, ”If in the conduct of doing their jobs they come across evidence of a crime, of course they should report that to the police .. But you don’t want them being intelligence agents.” I know that it makes sense for intelligence officials to push information they’ve obtained to firefighters because of additional risk they may encounter because of explosives, etc. but I just don’t buy it that they should become the eyes and ears of DHS.

As I’ve pointed out many times before, how many times does DHS need to be reminded that one of our real advantages in the War on Terror (not to mention our rights as citizens) is the Bill of Rights, which those in states that sponsor terrorism don’t?  If we lose those them, we’re confirming the growing suspicions in the Arab world that we’re just the bullies that the Iraq War and mutterings about an invasion of Iraq raise.

I’ve already sent Bush Administration officials all my copies of the pocket-sized Constitution from the National Constitution Center, but rest assured, fire chiefs, yours will be in the mail soon…. 

More about growing anti-American sentiment worldwide. 

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