DHS goons spy on Maryland library patrons - chilling

[LiberalEsto]

The Washington Post ran a chilling news story on the front page of its Metro section today -- a story I think belonged on Page 1. The audacity and intrusiveness of local Homeland Security officers takes my breath away. And it could happen anywhere in the US.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021602066.html
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Last week two men with "Homeland Security" written on their baseball caps walked into a library in Bethesda, Maryland and announced to everyone who was using a computer that viewing pornography in the Internet was forbidden.

Then they challenged one person about what he was viewing on the computer he was using, and asked him to step outside, according to a witness. A librarian intervened, and the police were called, and the two men were told to leave the library.

The men were members of Montgomery County's Homeland Security Department, which has about 300 unarmed members that patrol county buildings, according to the Post. They won't say exactly how many members there are. The annual budget, including salaries, is $3.6 million.

This is our tax money being used to pay 300 guys who snoop on library patrons! This could be going to schools, all-day kindergarten, health care, road improvements. But no, our supposedly liberal Democratic county squanders the money on thugs who snoop at libraries and throw their weight around.

It developed that the Homeland Security department's members do not have the right to enforce obscenity laws in our county, and the two offenders were reassigned to other duties. (Maybe the peeking-in-your-bedroom-window squad?)

The County Executive, Bruce Romer, said the HS guys "overstepped their authority" and were reminded that the county "supports the right of patrons to view the materials of their choice." Romer also stated the HS officers will be trained "to fully understand library policy and its consistency with residents' First Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution."

Okay, this happened in a very liberal, heavily Democratic, highly educated county right outside Washington DC. Hopefully they nipped this library spying business in the bud, at least in Montgomery County, Maryland.

But what about communities that aren't as liberal or educated about First Amendment rights? What about Homeland Security officers who could be allowed to run roughshod over people's rights?

I am extremely concerned and alarmed over what seems to be a patchwork system of controls over these Homeland Security "officers" across the United States.

To whom do they answer? Where does their loyalty lie? Who pays their salaries? Is it all local funding, or federal money from DHS? Why are they throwing their weight around menacing ordinary citizens for viewing racy things on the Internet? Where did they get the idea that they could even try to do so?

I think it behooves us to learn more about the operations, controls and mandates of these virtually secret law enforcement agents that are supposedly protecting us from terrorism.

[RubyDuby in GA]

1. I hope they were wearing the appropriate attire:

brown shirts.

We get closer every day.........

[htuttle]

2. NOBODY expects the Department of Homeland Security!

[Clark2008]

7. LOL!

[rucky]

3. If you just burn the books, you'll never know who's reading them.

Another "improvement" the Gestapo's made since the Hitler days.

[liberalitch]

4. It is not a crime to view porn on the internet.....

as long as everyone is a consenting adult (the viewer and the viewee)

[ArbustoBuster]

5. The two offenders were reassigned to other duties?

In a just, sensible world those "other duties" would entail standing in the unemployment line with bad recommendations for any future employment.

[Democrats_win]

6. Department of Fear: fear those pornos, those 80 years olds on marijuana,

those huddle masses to the south of the border, the hungry on the street corner asking for a dime, teachers showing operas of Faust. Yes those are the ones to fear.

Don't fear big brother who's listening in on your phone conversations, locking people up without charging them or putting them on trial, lying and conspiring to get us into a war. Don't fear them, because if you do, they'll get you.

[LiberalEsto]

8. And the Canadian medications

that threaten the profits of big pharmaceutical companies.
Aren't HS goons confiscating prescription meds ordered by Americans?

Seems to me we've had an entirely new level of "law enforcement" inflicted on us. But whose laws are they enforcing, and on whose behalf?

[Freddie Stubbs]

9. They were not 'DHS' goons

The men were members of Montgomery County's Homeland Security Department, which has about 300 unarmed members that patrol county buildings, according to the Post.

These were county employees, not federal employees. You may want to change the title of this tread.

[htuttle]

10. Most of the state and county 'homeland security' entities

...receive almost all their funding from grants from the Federal DHS, and generally have dual responsibilities to both their home county, and the Federal DHS. It's similar to how the 'Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Task Forces' were set up and run back during Bush Sr.s reign.

[Freddie Stubbs]

17. But the county does the hiring and firing of workers

Apparently Montgomery County needs to reign in its employees.

[LiberalEsto]

18. Whom do they answer to?

Yes, you're quite right, MoCo needs to train them better.

But since they are funded with an unknown amount of federal DHS money as well as an unknown amount of MoCo tax money, I'm not sure who's calling the shots and to whom these guys ultimately answer. That's one of the things I want to see clarified.

[htuttle]

20. That was the question with the Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Task forces...

...back in the 80's. Local police departments (including the one in my own city) were dismayed to discover that the Federal government seemed to be giving the task force members their own set of orders, sometimes quite different from those the local department gave out.

[LiberalEsto]

12. Anybody who comes into a public library and starts

throwing their weight around, supposedly in the name of the law, demanding to see what people are doing on computers, and (illegally) telling them they are not allowed to view this or that, IN VIOLATION OF THE US CONSTITUTION, fits my definition of a goon.

I don't know who they work for. The federal DHS or the county, or King George, or what.

But I know they don't work for people who believe in freedom.

[Freddie Stubbs]

16. I won't argue with you that they aren't goons

But they are Montgomery County goons, not DHS goons.

[Terran1212]

11. My sis works for DHS

Some of their exploits include monitoring animal rights protesters (at the Aquarium in Atlanta).

Not the best group ever.

[coalition_unwilling]

14. I hope you're working on your sister (a la Ellsberg)

We need more "insiders" blowing the whistle.

I might recommend Ellsberg's "Secrets" to be a gift for your sister.

[transeo]

13. Let's hear it for the librarians

They have consistently fought DHS all over the country and again, did the right thing by calling the police and throwing them out of the library. I worked for a local library system for 7 years and believe me, they are the first defenders of free speach. Librarians rock.

:toast:

[LiberalEsto]

15. You are right - thank heaven for librarians

But who will protect our rights OUTSIDE the libraries?

[dubyamd]

19. sop

Being educated will not stop this there are many communities that would welcome the effort and applaud the porn police. All the while saying if you have nothing to hide why worry.
It is simple I still want some people around when they come for me.