[Vision2020] Homeland Security at work in Boise

[Mark Solomon]

All,

The following is from one of the best political blogs in the country: 
Randy Stapilus' Ridenbaugh Press out of Boise. I visit there daily.

http://www.ridenbaugh.com

Mark Solomon
*************

Secretive police, policing speech
by Randy Stapilus 

Homeland Security is a lousy name purely for its connotations: It 
echoes too near the old German "fatherland" and Russian "motherland" 
(or "fatherland"). The eeriness factor multiplies when it generates 
cases like that of Dwight Scarbrough in Boise.

That story, told inthe current Boise Weekly (and highlighted well in 
the current Boise Guardian), is enough to make anyone wonder whose 
security is being protected. The dividing line, apparently, has to do 
with who you vote for.

The full story (including tape conversation transcripts), well worth 
reading, is in the Weekly. (A number of comments have been posted to 
it; none indicate any sort of rebuttal of the facts presented.) 
Briefly: Scarbrough, who is a veteran and also anti-war and critical 
of the Bush Administration, is also a federal employee at the west 
Boise federal center near Overland Road and Interstate 84. His 
vehicle is splattered with stickers reflecting his views. As a 
federal employee, he is not allowed to campaign on work time or in 
the office, and hasn't been accused of that. Like everyone else, he 
isn't allowed "Posting or affixing signs, pamphlets, handbills or 
flyers on federal property", but then most people wouldn't consider 
driving a car into a parking lot to constitute "posting or affixing." 
Homeland Security apparently isn't like most people, and (provoked by 
who or what, we do not know) sent a couple of agents around to 
Scarbrough. His free exercise of speech on his personal motor 
vehicle, he was told, would have to go.

Scarbough has been battling this, and the American Civil Liberties 
Union has gotten involved. Again, read the Weekly for the whole tale. 
But circle back around for four other points:

First. Is there any record of Homeland Security demanding similar 
removal of pro-Bush or pro-war signage? Any at all? Even once? A 
Boise federal building parking lot surely has a few Bush bumper 
stickers in evidence; were the owners of those vehicles similarly 
confronted? (We'd give them a bye - for consistency if nothing else - 
if the agents similarly confronted the owners of all other vehicles 
in the lot containing any sort of sticker. Why should stickers for 
rock bands or TV shows be exempt?)

Second. Scarbrough was confronted not per se as a federal employee, 
but rather someone who - presumably - had "posted or affixed" signage 
on federal property by virtue of driving onto it and parking there. 
This had nothing to do with his employment, only with the vehicle he 
drove. Does that mean anyone who has similar kinds of signage on 
their vehicle - or even a worn-out Kerry/Edwards sticker on their 
bumper - and parks on federal property (how about, say, within a 
national forest or on BLM land) can expect a similar visit from 
Homeland Security? And if not, why, exactly, not?

Third. Under which of the DHS six agenda points does shutting down 
Scarbrough's free speech fit? The closest fit might be "increase 
overall preparedness" - if that is, you take a really dark view of 
what the agency is preparing for.

Fourth. The spookiest part of the Weekly story came at the end, when 
the reporter was trying to track down the mysterious Boise Homeland 
Security office (the federal flavor, not the state). Here is what he 
wrote about that:

     I was only able to confirm the location of the office after 
asking the security officer at the Natural Resource Complex, whose 
job (ostensibly, at least) it is to enforce the rules concerning 
pamphlets, dogs and other controlled substances on federal property. 
He would not comment about the incident, saying, "If this is about 
what I think it's about, I'm not allowed to say nothing." He referred 
me to "FPS, Federal Courthouse, Department of Homeland Security," to 
find someone who would be able to comment. When I asked who I should 
say referred me, he covered his nameplate with his hand.

     The "office," once I found it, wasn't much of an office at all, 
from a service perspective. The door was locked and there was neither 
a receptionist nor a desk at the front window. When I rang the 
doorbell, a woman emerged from a nearby cubicle and spoke to me 
through a tennis-ball-sized hole in the window. She would not confirm 
the name or identity of the officers, nor their badge numbers 
(Scarbrough, of course, had written them all down). I slipped a 
business card through the hole, and by press time, no one had called 
me back.

     However, when I tried the number provided by the U.S. Marshals, 
Terry Martin at the Federal Protection Service was able to confirm 
that the officers identified by Scarbrough did, in fact, work for 
Homeland Security. He then referred me to the Department of Homeland 
Security's media spokesman in Texas, who had not responded by press 
time to my request for information about the incident, or about any 
change in federal law concerning stickers on vehicles in federal 
parking lots.

The former Senator Steve Symms used to sign off his letters with, 
"Yours for a free society." Welcome, Steve, to the society of 
Homeland Security, where government is becoming too elusive for 
anyone to take a bite out of it.
file under Idaho
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