perfessor multigeek's Journal: Homeland Security Bill is in, 90 to 9

So we've gone and done it. I really liked the Constitution. I'll miss it.
For those of you keeping track, the only folks voting against were:
Daniel K. Akaka of Alaska (Dem)
Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia (Dem)
Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin (Dem)
Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina (Dem)
Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii (Dem)
James M. Jeffords of Vermont (Ind)
Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts (Dem)
Carl Levin of Michigan (Dem)
Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland (Dem)
Frank H. Murkowski of Alaska was not present.

So we've got a handful of old standby liberals and a couple of groundbreakers. Hillary, of course, voted with the crowd. Thanks so much, Hil.
What is particularly maddening is that I've been a persistant voice in favor of the consolidation of our security functions for years. I was the one carrying around my copy of Hammerheads and wondering how all of this could be implemented. But yet again our repulsive Republican leadership (in this uniquely timid Republicrat Congress) has hijacked a crucial thing and perverted it into another way to undermine our democracy and yet further enrich their corporate cronies.
Texas A&M Anti-terror Research Center, indeed.
And, of course the existing "intelligence" bureaucracies will remain intact. FBI? Exempt. CIA? Exempt. DIA? Still goin'. This, of course, because they have done such a stellar job explaining and preparing us for, say, (starting at the beginning)
Latvia (all of our agents dead or coopted within a week of insertion. Program continues for years)
shutting down the Cuban Communists and later killing Castro (poisoned wet suits, anybody?)
Guatemala (over and over and over)
Nicaragua (same)
Vietnam (plenty of smart, honorable analysis, all buried before it could reach the White House)
Iran
War on Drugs? Yeah, right.
and so on and so on all leading up to that great intelligence triumph, September 11th.
Thanks, guys. Here's some more billions to play with.

Looks to me like the same FUD that has driven MicroSlime all these years and has allowed them to get companies to replace, say, Novell, with MS servers on the grounds that MS servers don't crash and then, when (waddaya know?) they crash all the time, the same companies meekly go back to Microsoft and pay them huge ongoing consulting fees to keep the thing running. Silly me; it seems to me that when a contractor utterly clusterfucks a job over and over and over YOU FIND A NEW CONTRACTOR!!!!!!!!

To me the Bush quotes at the beginning of the New York Times article say it all. First we've got, "We're making great progress in the war on terror," which seems a bit odd given that our port and border security was just *again* deemed no significantly better by the experts a mere three days ago while we have yet to even find Bin Laden and Al Queda is generally considered just as strong as it was a year ago. I'm not even going to get into our relations with the Saudis.
Then they say that Bush told Senate Republicans ,"Part of that progress will be the ability for us to protect the American people at home." which my brain, oh tricky thing, keeps reading as "the ability to protect us from the American people at home".
Today I sincerely wish that I could just pick up and move to some other country. Somewhere not such a party to this. I am learning to genuinely hate the Bush administration and their Beltway lackies.
Well, back to work.
Rustin