Speech Tyranny in the U.K.?

By Frederick Attenborough

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

 

Pub landlords will be turned into “banter police,” venues will be less likely to book edgy performers, and universities will be gifted a lawful reason to rescind invitations to controversial guest speakers under reforms to workers’ rights that form part of the newly elected U.K. Labour government’s ongoing war on free speech.

 

To be sure, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has already done some shocking things to attack free speech — encouraging the police to record more Orwellian “non-crime hate incidents” against people who upset members of supposedly “marginalized” groups, for instance, as well as stopping commencement of a law designed to tackle cancel culture at universities, and developing a “conversion practices” ban that will punish parents, doctors, and teachers who dissent from gender ideology.

 

Then there are the risks coming down the track that include the criminalization of “Islamophobia,” a Race Equality Act that will embed critical race theory in workplaces, and an attempt to force newspapers and magazines to bend the knee to a state-controlled press regulator.

 

For all that, however, the Labour government’s draft Employment Rights Bill is by far the biggest threat we’ve seen so far.

 

Provisions contained in this rather bland-sounding legislation mean the Equality Act 2010 will be updated to make employers liable for staff being offended by third parties, such as customers or members of the public.

 

Similar rights were due to come into law last year after ministers backed a Private Member’s Bill brought forward by Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse. Clause 1 of the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill 2022-23 would have created new liabilities for employers in cases of third-party harassment of their staff, unless the employer had taken “all reasonable steps” to prevent such harassment.

 

However, thanks in part to the campaigning work of the Free Speech Union (FSU), two amendments were ultimately accepted during committee stage, which significantly reduced the scope of the bill by removing Clause 1 entirely.

 

But now these proposals have been resurrected thanks to our full-throttle woke Labour Government.

 

Be in no doubt that this snowflakes’ charter will have disastrous consequences for freedom of speech, impose huge compliance costs on Britain’s one and a half million businesses, further the encroachment into our lives of a philosophy of mindless compliance, and bring what can only be described as a Starmer-esque joylessness to areas where we were once able to enjoy life.

 

It’s true that the Equality Act 2010 already makes employers liable for breaches of the Equality Act by employees. But the leap made in Labour’s Employment Rights Bill is to apply this regime to harassment by third parties — employers will be vicariously liable for harassment that their employees suffer at the hands of third parties (i.e., members of the public) in the course of employment.

 

If we were just talking about sexual harassment, that would be one thing. But this bill actually seeks to extend third-party liability to every type of “unwanted conduct” already prohibited by the Equality Act, including overheard conversations.

 

In other words, under this legislation employers will have a duty to protect their workers from overhearing “upsetting” remarks made not only by their colleagues, but by members of the public as well.

 

Across the retail, hospitality, entertainment, and academic sectors, businesses will have a legitimate legal interest in policing what members of the public say — what we now think of as casual and fundamentally private speech will be governed by formal codes of conduct and scrutinized for its potential legal consequences.

 

This is an unacceptable bid to regulate the interactions of day-to-day life.

 

Under the Equality Act, employers had a defense against a claim of third-party harassment if they could show they had taken “such steps as would have been reasonably practicable” to prevent the harassment. However, under Labour’s bill this defense only applies if the employer can show it has taken “all reasonable steps” to prevent the breach — a higher threshold that will encourage businesses to err on the side of caution in regulating what their customers say and do while on their premises.

 

Setting aside the chilling effect this will have on free speech, there are the eye-watering compliance costs to consider.

 

Across vast swathes of the retail and hospitality sectors, possible mechanisms for controlling customers’ conduct — and thereby reducing liability risk — will likely include prominent customer codes of conduct with specific and onerous restrictions on how customers should address members of staff, with any customers assessed as posing a “harassment” risk to staff being banned and placed on a blacklist.

 

What sort of impact is this likely to have on British pubs, for instance, many of which are already struggling to survive?

 

According to the chief executive of UKHospitality, Kate Nicholls, staff in restaurants, bars, pubs, and hotels are working in a “social environment” where “there are jokes and people are boisterous.” She said that while everyone wants to make sure their staff are protected, “we don’t want to be policing our customers’ behavior.”

 

But of course under this new legislation, it’s possible that every pub in England and Wales will need to employ “banter cops” tasked with eavesdropping on customers’ conversations and barring anyone who tells an inappropriate joke.

 

The fact that we’re even having these conversations over in the U.K. tells you everything you need to know about our government’s censorial approach to forms of speech that dissent from prevailing orthodoxy.

 

And what will become of book launches? Would a large chain like Waterstones, for example, risk an in-store book signing by J. K. Rowling, Lionel Shriver, or Riley Gaines on the off-chance that one of the author’s fans might be wearing a T-shirt that says, “Woman = Adult Human Female,” knowing that an employee could sue for hurt feelings — real or vexatious?

 

At the costlier end of the hospitality sector where parties agree to written terms — for instance, the provision of conference venues — employers are likely to reduce the risk of employees complaining of harassment by attendees by requiring guest organizations to warrant or undertake not to harass employees, and to indemnify the host for any losses it suffers as a result of employees claiming third-party harassment.

 

The creation of this new risk under Labour’s Employment Rights Bill, and its transfer to third parties, is likely to have a disproportionate effect on groups in our society that hold dissenting views, the expression of which can easily be misrepresented by opponents as “harassment” — Christian groups, for instance, and women who believe in the reality of biological sex.

 

Exercise of the freedoms of association and speech by these groups will likely become disproportionately risky and expensive.

 

The impact on academia will be particularly egregious.

 

Under the Equality Act in its current form, students and visiting speakers are third parties, and universities therefore do not have a legal duty to protect other students and staff members from “harassment” by them.

 

While it is well known that in practice U.K. universities regularly over-apply the Equality Act, the law can nevertheless be correctly applied when campaign groups like the FSU initiate legal challenges.

 

However, if the Equality Act is reformed in the way proposed, this defense will no longer be available to those who want to protect free speech on campus, since universities would legitimately be able to claim they have a lawful reason to rescind an invitation to, say, a visiting speaker whose views an activist employee regards as “hateful” or “transphobic.”

 

Given the culture of risk-aversion and defensiveness at U.K. universities, Labour’s Employment Rights Bill as written would regularly result in universities obstructing or canceling any speaking engagement that might potentially result in an employee claiming that the speaker’s appearance on campus and their expression of certain contentious views constituted harassment under the Equality Act.

 

Put another way, the effect would be to legitimize and give force of law to some of the most egregious interferences with academic free speech.

What Is Biden Waiting For?

By Noah Rothman

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

 

One of the better-known of Iran’s cat’s-paws in the Middle East is attempting to weasel its way out of the consequences that tend to accompany the killing of American soldiers by declaring victory and retreating:

I guess it’s worth a try, but it’s hard to imagine that anyone would be convinced by timidity — even the sort dressed up in bluster. But why would Kataib Hezbollah know that? They shouldn’t have been granted the luxury of the time it took them to draft this pusillanimous statement. Its operatives should be too busy digging the bodies of their comrades in arms out of the rubble. And yet, they’re not.

 

President Joe Biden has reportedly decided on the retaliatory measures he will take against Iran’s Shiite militias and, perhaps, Iran itself. That retaliation will reportedly come in stages. As Jim Geraghty noted, the wisdom of Biden’s addiction to telegraphing his punches is questionable, particularly when it comes to the militias directly responsible for the attack on Tower 22 that killed three Americans and injured scores more. There is no strategic ambiguity there. If the Americans are coming at all, they’re coming for them first. But why should Kataib Hezbollah believe that Biden’s response would be a swift one?

 

He didn’t respond swiftly against Houthi aggression. He treated the drones and rockets raining down on naval and commercial marine traffic in the region like a nuisance for three months. He didn’t respond swiftly to Shiite-militia attacks on U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria. U.S. and coalition forces came under attack twelve times, producing dozens of injuries before Biden deigned to respond. And then he did only in a “narrowly tailored” fashion designed to convey America’s prohibitive fear of an escalating conflict.

 

Given Biden’s obvious distaste for punitive — much less preemptive — strikes against America’s adversaries, maybe Kataib Hezbollah thinks that he can lulled into a false sense of security. It’s insane, but it’s not exactly crazy.

Defending Arizona

Kris W. Kobach
Wednesday, July 07, 2010

A law that basically makes a few small, carefully considered changes in police procedure, Arizona’s S.B. 1070, has inspired a vastly disproportionate response. Few laws have ever been so grossly mischaracterized by so many leaders on the left. From President Obama on down, they rushed to the microphone after it was enacted to hyperventilate about an impending police state in Arizona. Excitable bloggers invoked Jim Crow, apartheid, and the Nuremberg laws of Nazi Germany.

Their charges are completely false. Most stem from misunderstandings, perhaps willful and perhaps merely ignorant, of what the law is about and how it works. The false charges have been numerous, but the three most common are the following.

First, and most outrageously, critics incorrectly claim that the law would promote racial profiling. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.) said this, along with Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D., Ill.), Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D., D.C.), and the rest of the race-baiting caucus in Congress. But since so many members of Congress don’t bother to read bills anymore, their error was hardly unexpected. More surprising was the commentary from the country’s top lawyer. Attorney General Eric Holder sternly warned the nation on Meet the Press that the law “has the possibility of leading to racial profiling.” A few days later, when pressed about his comments in a House of Representatives committee hearing, Holder admitted that he hadn’t actually read the law. Another S.B. 1070 opponent, secretary of homeland security Janet Napolitano, says she has not read the law either.

If they had read it, Holder and Napolitano would have seen that S.B. 1070 expressly prohibits racial profiling. In four different sections, the law reiterates that a law-enforcement official “may not consider race, color, or national origin” in making any stops or determining an alien’s immigration status. With this language, S.B. 1070 goes to extraordinary lengths to protect against racial profiling; most state and federal statutes do not include such special protection in their text. In addition, all the normal Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment protections against racial profiling will continue to apply.

Second, critics have declared that the law will require aliens to carry documentation that they weren’t otherwise required to possess. President Obama claimed, “Now, suddenly, if you don’t have your papers . . . you’re going to be harassed.” The president would do well to familiarize himself with current federal immigration laws. Since 1940, it has been a federal crime for aliens not to keep certain registration documents on their person or not to register with the federal government. The Arizona law prohibits aliens from violating these federal statutes (8 U.S.C. §§ 1304(a) and 1306(e)). In other words, the Arizona law simply adds a layer of state penalty to what was already a crime under federal law.

For legal permanent resident aliens, the relevant document is a green card. For short-term visitors from a visa-waiver country (one of 36 countries whose citizens may visit the United States for up to 90 days without a visa), the relevant document is an I-94 registration receipt, which is placed in their passport at the port of entry. The consequences of violating the Arizona law are the same as the consequences of violating the federal law: a fine of up to $100 and/or imprisonment for up to 30 days. Any American who has traveled abroad knows that just about every country in the world imposes similar documentation requirements on U.S. citizens. It is hardly unfair or unusual to enforce our own laws on the subject.

There’s nothing new about police officers’ taking illegal aliens into custody, in Arizona or elsewhere. The documentation provisions of S.B. 1070 simply give Arizona law enforcement one more option in how to deal with them. Previously, when officers encountered illegal aliens in the course of their normal duties enforcing other laws, they could turn them over to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) for handling under federal procedures, or else make a case under Arizona’s human-smuggling statute. Now S.B. 1070 offers a third course of action: Illegal aliens without documentation can be jailed under state law even if human-smuggling provisions do not apply. If a local police department prefers to turn all illegal aliens that it encounters over to ICE, it can certainly continue to do so.

Third, critics have claimed that the law requires police officers to stop people in order to question them about their immigration status. Here too, President Obama misrepresented the law. Offering the example of a Hispanic family going to an ice-cream parlor, Obama said a police officer might walk up to the father and start interrogating him about his immigration documents. But Section 2 of S.B. 1070 stipulates that in order for its provisions to apply, a law-enforcement officer must first make a “lawful stop, detention, or arrest . . . in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state.”

The original wording made reference to “lawful contact”; this was revised to “lawful stop, detention, or arrest” to make clear that officers could not stop someone simply on suspicion and ask for his papers. So in President Obama’s example, S.B. 1070 might come into play if the person came running out of the ice-cream shop with a gun in one hand and a bagful of money in the other (and then only if race-neutral indicators that the person was an illegal alien came to light). But an officer could not demand identification without the initial lawbreaking that justified the stop.

The law operates in straightforward fashion. If a police officer, during a detention to investigate another offense, develops reasonable suspicion that the subject is an illegal alien, then the officer must take specific steps to verify or dispel that reasonable suspicion. And contrary to the claims of critics, “reasonable suspicion” is a well-defined concept. Over the past four decades, the courts have issued more than 800 opinions defining those two words in the context of immigration violations.

The most common situation in which S.B. 1070 will come into play is during a traffic stop. Suppose a police officer pulls over a minivan for speeding. He discovers that 16 people are crammed into the van and the seats have been removed. Neither the driver nor any of the passengers have any identification documents. The driver is acting evasively, and the vehicle is traveling on a known human-smuggling corridor. Courts have held that those four factors can give an officer reasonable suspicion to believe that the occupants are aliens unlawfully present in the United States.

At that point, S.B. 1070 kicks in and requires the police officer, “when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person” by verifying it with the federal government (ICE maintains a 24/7 hotline for exactly that purpose). Indeed, many police officers in Arizona were already regularly contacting ICE before S.B. 1070 was enacted. Critics of the law evidently think police officers should turn a blind eye to any violations of federal immigration law that they come across. The Arizona legislature and the people of Arizona felt otherwise.

In sum, the law does not make any radical changes. Rather, it gives Arizona police officers a few additional tools to use when they come into contact with illegal aliens during their normal law-enforcement duties. It also ensures that local cooperation with ICE will occur more regularly. Other provisions that have received less media hype prohibit Arizona cities from restricting enforcement of immigration laws (for example, by preventing their officers from contacting ICE), and make it a misdemeanor for an alien who lacks work authorization to solicit work in a public place.

In spite of the law’s narrow scope, Attorney General Holder has taken the extraordinarily unusual step of suggesting that the Justice Department will take action against the State of Arizona after it reviews the law. Presumably, the lawyers who conduct the review will actually read the text of S.B. 1070, and when they do, they will find precious little on which to base a legal challenge.

S.B. 1070 was drafted in the full expectation that the ACLU would sue, as indeed it has. In anticipation of a challenge, S.B. 1070 was designed to withstand any argument that the ACLU lawyers can throw at it — regardless of whether they happen to be working inside the Holder Justice Department or outside of it. Let’s consider their available arguments one by one.

Opponents of the law have been raising a hue and cry about racial profiling, but that argument is a non-starter. Because the initial legal challenge was filed before the law was actually applied, the challenge is a “facial” one — asserting that S.B. 1070 is unconstitutional on its face. Consequently, the challengers are basing their claims on speculation: They hypothesize that police officers might act in bad faith and violate the express terms of S.B. 1070.

The Supreme Court has held that such speculation cannot serve to strike down a law as unconstitutional. In the 1987 case of United States v. Salerno, the Court made clear that a “facial challenge to a legislative Act is, of course, the most difficult challenge to mount successfully, since the challenger must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid.” Here, Arizona need only point out that if its police officers follow the clearly stated terms of S.B. 1070, no racial profiling will occur.

The ACLU’s only remotely plausible argument is that the law is unconstitutional through preemption — meaning that legislation passed by Congress prohibits the State of Arizona from enforcing S.B. 1070. The problem here is that no such legislation exists. While controlling immigration is a job of the federal government, Congress has never enacted a statute that expressly bars states from assisting it in the manner contemplated by the Arizona statute. Without any express preemption to rely on, the challengers must resort to making a more difficult “implied preemption” argument. This is a claim that the Arizona law conflicts with federal law, and therefore interferes with the fulfillment of congressional objectives. However, the numerous judicial precedents supporting the Arizona law will make this an uphill climb.

The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that states can enact statutes to discourage illegal immigration without being preempted by federal law. In the landmark 1976 case of De Canas v. Bica, the Supreme Court upheld a California law that prohibited employers from knowingly hiring unauthorized aliens. The Court rejected preemption arguments, since “respondents . . . fail to point out, and an independent review does not reveal, any specific indication in either the wording or the legislative history of the [Immigration and Nationality Act] that Congress intended to preclude . . . state regulation touching on aliens in general.” States and cities can enact laws discouraging illegal immigration, and can assist the federal government in enforcing federal immigration laws in other ways, as long as their actions don’t conflict with federal law.

In the case of S.B. 1070, the ACLU will be hard-pressed to find any such conflict. Indeed, S.B. 1070 is a mirror image of federal law. The documentation provisions of the Arizona law penalize precisely the same conduct that is already penalized under federal immigration law: “In addition to any violation of federal law, a person is guilty of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document if the person is in violation of 8 United States Code section 1304(e) or 1306(a).” Because S.B. 1070 matches federal law so precisely, it is protected by the legal doctrine of “concurrent enforcement.” As the Ninth Circuit, which covers Arizona, recognized in Gonzales v. City of Peoria (1983), “where state enforcement activities do not impair federal regulatory interests concurrent enforcement activity is authorized.”

If the documentation section of the Arizona law isn’t preempted, what about the rest of the law — for example, the section requiring police officers to contact the federal government when they develop reasonable suspicion that a person they are investigating for violating another law is an illegal alien? Here too, Arizona’s law is on solid legal ground. The Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits of the U.S. Court of Appeals have all recognized the inherent authority of state and local officers to make immigration arrests.

In Gonzales v. Peoria, the Ninth Circuit specifically held that local police could make such arrests: “The general rule is that local police are not precluded from enforcing federal statutes. . . . Federal and local enforcement have identical purposes — the prevention of the misdemeanor or felony of illegal entry.” And in 2005 a unanimous Supreme Court in Muehler v. Mena recognized the authority of local police officers to inquire into the immigration status of individuals who have been lawfully detained.

Moreover, since the Gonzales v. Peoria decision, Congress has taken numerous steps to promote, not discourage, assistance by state and local police in making immigration arrests. As the Tenth Circuit observed in the 1999 case of United States v. Vasquez-Alvarez, federal law “evinces a clear invitation from Congress for state and local agencies to participate in the process of enforcing federal immigration laws.” In 1996, as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, Congress wisely put in place a federal statutory requirement that federal officials must respond whenever a state or local police officer requests verification of an alien’s immigration status (8 U.S.C. § 1373(c)).

Congress also began appropriating funds in 1994 for the Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC), which operates the 24/7 hotline for requests from local police. The purpose of the LESC is to assist law-enforcement agencies in determining whether persons they have contact with are illegal aliens. In fiscal year 2005, the LESC responded to a staggering 504,678 calls from state and local police. That’s an average of 1,383 calls per day. This high volume reflects the fact that police in all 50 states are already arresting illegal aliens, and in most cases transferring them to federal custody. S.B. 1070 does not create state and local arrest authority; it makes that existing authority more systematic and efficient.

The only argument the ACLU has left is the dubious claim that more vigorous enforcement of federal immigration laws in Arizona will conflict with federal purposes, perhaps by compelling LESC personnel to respond to a much larger number of calls from Arizona. But the U.S. District Court for Arizona already rejected that line of thinking in Arizona Contractors Association v. Napolitano (2007), evaluating Arizona’s 2007 law that required all employers to use the E-Verify system to verify the work authorization of employees. According to the court, “the fact that the Act will result in additional inquiries to the federal government is consistent with federal law.” (In that case, Janet Napolitano, as governor of Arizona, defended the law; now, as homeland-security secretary, she opposes S.B. 1070.)

In summary, we’ve heard all these arguments before. Many of the people and organizations that are now declaring S.B. 1070 to be unconstitutional made the same claims regarding previous Arizona statutes: Arizona’s last three major laws concerning illegal immigration were all challenged in court — Proposition 200 in 2004, the Human Smuggling Act in 2005, and the Legal Arizona Workers Act in 2007. (I assisted in the defense of the last two.) In every case, the Arizona law in question was sustained. Most recently, in 2008 Arizona won an impressive victory in the Ninth Circuit when the Legal Arizona Workers Act was upheld against a preemption challenge. I expect that when the dust settles after S.B. 1070 is litigated, Arizona will still be undefeated in defense of its immigration laws.

Enforcing the Nation's Immigration Laws Would Be a Bargain

Byron York
Monday, May 10, 2010

Even as the Obama administration plans to challenge and undermine Arizona's new immigration law, the White House still wants state residents to know that it feels their pain. "It's really a cry of frustration from Arizona," Homeland Security Secretary -- and former Arizona governor -- Janet Napolitano said recently. "It's a frustration ultimately that will only be solved with comprehensive immigration reform."

But for the majority of Arizonans, the source of frustration is not the absence of comprehensive reform. It is the federal government's halfhearted enforcement of the nation's immigration laws. And what is seldom discussed in the current controversy is how little -- in relative terms -- better enforcement would cost.

On April 19, the same day the Arizona Legislature passed the immigration measure, the state's two Republican senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, unveiled a new plan to secure the U.S. border with Mexico. It's a combination of completing and improving the border fence, adding new Border Patrol agents, expanding a policy of briefly jailing illegal border crossers and several other programs already in existence. Although there is not yet an estimate of how much it would cost, the price would be vastly less than the sums going to bailouts, the stimulus and the planned national healthcare system.

"When you are talking about national security and laying the foundation for comprehensive immigration reform, it's a relatively small investment," says Kyl.

Start with the fence. The Secure Fence Act, passed by Congress in 2006, specified 700 miles of the Southwest border to be secured with double-layered, reinforced fencing and other physical barriers. The Customs and Border Protection agency says 646 miles of fencing have been finished. For them, the job is essentially done.

But it's not, and the situation in Arizona shows why. The state's border with Mexico is 375 miles long. As it stands today, there are 123 miles of pedestrian fence, that is, high fence meant to stop people from climbing over. However, all but 10 miles of that is single-layered fence, which is easier to cut and get through than a double-layered fence, especially one with a road or other space between the barriers.

In addition, there are 182 miles of vehicle fencing -- bollards or steel beams designed to stop smugglers in cars and trucks. But illegals can easily climb over these, and sometimes smugglers can drive over them using their own ramps.

The Kyl-McCain plan would require double- and even triple-layer fencing in several areas of the border and beefed-up barriers in others. "According to the Border Patrol, it would have a very significant positive effect," McCain says. "Just as it has had a positive effect in San Diego and Texas."

How much would it cost? Given that much of the basic structure already exists, perhaps $1 million per mile. Revamp the whole 700 miles, and it's $700 million.

Kyl and McCain would add 3,000 new Border Patrol agents. A back-of-the-envelope cost estimate is about $100 million per 1,000 new agents, so the plan would cost about $300 million. The proposal also calls for hiring more U.S. marshals, clerks and administrative staff, which would mean more costs.

Then there is the jailing program, called Operation Streamline, which sends all illegal crossers to jail for a period of 15 to 60 days. When it has been tried selected areas, it has caused the illegal crossing rates to plummet. "Very effective," says McCain. "A huge deterrent," says Kyl.

The senators are waiting for an estimate of how much a bigger an expanded Operation Streamline would cost, but so far, the Obama administration has not come up with a number.

There are other expenses. For example, McCain and Kyl want to send a few thousand National Guard troops to the border. When this was done in 2007 and 2008, it cost a total of $1 billion.

There is little doubt such moves would work. In one part of the Arizona-Mexico border where authorities installed double-layered fencing and implemented Operation Streamline, the yearly number of illegal crossers went from 118,000 to 8,000.

Total cost? It's hard to say, but it seems fair to guess that for a relatively low price -- perhaps $5 billion? -- the nation could radically increase the security of the Southwest border. The columnist George Will recently called the cost of securing the border "a rounding error on the ($50 billion) GM bailout." He's right.

As Kyl and McCain see it, Napolitano has things totally turned around. Today's problem won't be solved by comprehensive immigration reform. Instead, solving the problem would make comprehensive reform possible -- and a bargain, too.

Border Murder Highlights Administration's Failure

Ken Blackwell
Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Editors' Note: This column is co-authored by Ken Klukowski.

The tragic murder of a Good Samaritan rancher in Arizona has people yelling for an effective response to this outrage. Although most illegal immigrants are just human beings that are desperately seeking to provide for themselves and their families, this murder shines a spotlight on the Obama administration’s utter failure to secure our borders and uphold the rule of law.

A top story on March 30 is that Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was apparently gunned down by an illegal immigrant. Krentz’s family has maintained a ranch in southern Arizona since 1907, and he was known as a compassionate man who gave water and medical care to illegal immigrants crossing his land from Mexico.

Krentz was found shot to death, slumped over his vehicle on his ranch. Police dogs tracked the shooter to the Mexican border 15 miles away, indicating that the shooter was almost certainly someone in this country illegally from Mexico.

The murder of this good man casts in stark relief the outrageous failure of President Barack Obama and Secretary Janet “the system worked” Napolitano to deal with the enormous problem America faces as a result of illegal immigrants. Perhaps if they weren’t so busy taking over the economy (which the Constitution forbids them from doing), they’d actually secure the border (which the Constitution requires them to do).

This outrage occurred just as the Obama administration plans on pivoting to the immigration issue, at the perfect time to try to create a wedge issue to scare Hispanics into voting Democrat in 2010 in order to mitigate the massive losses in Congress that Democrats are sure to suffer after more than a year of ramming through a far-left agenda with extreme partisanship.

Immigration is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed. There are approximately 12 million foreigners in this country illegally, creating serious problems for a whole host of issues, from education, to healthcare, to employment, to law enforcement.

And this issue must be addressed in a humane and compassionate manner. Most illegal immigrants don’t want to break the law. They’re just desperate to find work to provide for themselves and their families, and they know that America is a land of opportunity. So they break our laws to get here and stay here because they’re focused on making a better life for their families.

In tackling immigration, we need to always remember that most of these people don’t want to harm Americans; they just want to help themselves and their loved ones. And they’re desperate to do so.

But the United States is a prosperous land of opportunity only because we live by the rule of law. We’re a country that respects property rights and business contracts, and that encourages free markets and private businesses (at least until President Obama took office).

We’re also a country where lawbreaking is punished, and where violent criminals are held to account. Foreigners who murder innocent Americans in cold blood should receive the ultimate punishment, as a clear statement that such crimes shall be met with swift and sure justice in the United States.

Ronald Reagan once said, “A nation that cannot control its own borders is not a nation.” The Constitution tasks the federal government with controlling our borders, to maintain an effective immigration policy and to protect the property, rights, and lives of American citizens.

The tragic murder of Robert Krentz shows just how abysmally the federal government has failed us all in this regard. Secretary Napolitano needs to admit that the system did not work. And President Obama had better drop the hyper-partisanship to address immigration in a way that meets Republican demands to uphold the rule of law and not reward illegal behavior.

This is not the time for far-left pandering or promises of amnesty in the galling hopes of political gain. Nor is this the time for cramming through a law instead of beginning a long, slow, deliberate conversation with the opposition party and the American people. This is the time for addressing a serious problem for this country, a problem that quite clearly includes a deadly threat to our citizens.

Before and After: A Security Failure All Around

Paul Greenberg
Wednesday, February 03, 2010

It wasn't just that the whole national security system -- you know, the one the secretary of Homeland Security said had worked -- didn't.

As it turned out, the whole elaborate apparatus was unable to keep a clear and ticking danger off an American airliner Christmas Day -- despite an abundance of warning signs.

That wasn't just the conclusion of the opposition, but of the president.

It took him days to say so, but he did admit it, finally speaking of a "systemic" failure, as if it were the system's fault rather than that of those he had placed in charge of it.

It was hard to avoid the impression at the time that not only was the commander-in-chief on vacation but his whole security team.

It was what happened afterward that troubles now. After being interviewed by the FBI, the suspect wasn't turned over to the military or even the special intelligence unit supposed to handle such cases -- the HIG, or High-Value Interrogation Group.

After being subdued by the passengers on the flight, the suspect wasn't treated as an unlawful enemy combatant and promptly dispatched to a secure military post, where experts adept at this sort of thing could interrogate him at length under conditions designed to garner every bit of useful intelligence from him.

Instead, our unwelcome guest was turned over to the criminal justice system -- with all rights, privileges and delays appertaining thereto.

Naturally, once given his Miranda warning and benefit of counsel, he clammed shut.

Dennis Blair, our national intelligence director, admitted this additional failure of the system when he testified before the Senate's committee on homeland security. The HIG, he told the committee, "was created explicitly for this purpose," but "we did not invoke the HIG in this case. We should have. Frankly, we were thinking more of overseas people and, duh, you know, we didn't (use) it here."

Well, duh, yes. Memo to the admiral: This is a global war on terror even if the administration now refuses to use that term. Which may be a large part of the problem. Language matters. Vague language leads to vague policies, with enough holes in it for a terrorist trained by al-Qaida to slip into the criminal justice system instead of being treated as the enemy combatant he is.

It took Admiral Blair's office several hours to post a notice on its Web site saying the suspect had been interviewed by FBI agents, and had revealed "important intelligence at that time...."

Imagine how much other important intelligence might have been obtained if the suspect had been interrogated for days instead of minutes. And in nice, quiet surroundings that invite a guest to talk. Much like those at lovely Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where there exists a facility specifically designed, built and operated to hold and question such suspects.

But this administration still proposes to shutter Gitmo, or at least move it to the American mainland. For no reason except to please our enemies and critics abroad. As if anything we could do, short of disappearing, would please them. Our very existence offends them.

"The over-all intelligence system did not do its job," Admiral Blair told the committee, acknowledging the obvious. That special group he mentioned (HIG) not only wasn't called in; it now turns out that it barely exists. A year into this administration, it still hasn't been organized, or at least sufficiently trained, to be of much use in cases like this.

The military interrogators who would have been of use, who know what questions to ask and possibilities to probe, were never called in.

Who was in charge here? "It's in large part my responsibility," Admiral Blair admitted. But he hasn't resigned. Nor has any other higher-up in the administration, including the secretary of homeland "security" who was testifying at his side.

As it turns out, Janet Napolitano wasn't even consulted before the Justice Department (Eric Holder, attorney general) decided to turn Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab over to the criminal justice system. Nor was Michael Leiter, who heads the National Counterterrorism Center.

This is no way to fight a war. But of course to fight a war you have to recognize you're in one, instead of in criminal court.

It seems the old walls between American intelligence agencies that set the stage for 9/11, and that were supposed to have been eliminated, are still in place. And the big problem still remains: Too many intelligence agencies, not enough responsibility. Or strong leadership. (Would you seriously entrust the security of this country to the likes of the Hon. Eric Holder?)

How fix the problem? A few good, well-earned resignations would do for starters. There's an old rule in the military: a commander is responsible for whatever his unit does or does not do. What a pity it doesn't seem to apply to some of the country's civilian leaders.

What I Saw At the Napolitano "Revolution"

Austin Hill
Sunday, January 10, 2010

Two terrorist attacks on American soil within les s than sixty days. Administration officials declare that “the system worked” after the Christmas day attack, only to be contradicted by the President days later. The President notes on December 29th that the Christmas day attack was carried out by merely an “isolated extremist,” but then declares on January 7 that “we are at war,” and that we must stay “one step ahead of a nimble adversary," in complete contradiction of his Homeland Security Secretary and his own previous remarks.

Oh, my –how does America’s liberal media explain it all away?

One of the most extraordinary accounts of this chaos was served up by Washington Post columnist David Broder. In the aftermath of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s sweep-it-under-the-rug “the system worked” analysis of the Christmas day attack, Broder published a column on January 1 explaining her terrific handling of the crisis.

“In the years I have known her,” Broder wrote, “she has managed every challenge that has come her way with the same calm command that she showed in this instance. If there is anyone in the administration who embodies President Obama's preference for quiet competence with ‘no drama,’ it is Janet Napolitano.”

Well, - gosh! - I can’t claim to have known Napolitano for “years” like the super-cool Mr. Broder does. However, I was an Arizonan for all six years of Napolitano’s tenure as Governor in that state, so I know some things about Ms. Napolitano.

As Arizona Governor, Napolitano was all over the road with policy positions on security. Early in her first term in 2003, she voiced support for a proposal to allow illegal immigrants to be issued state driver's licenses. When public outcry turned against her, she fell silent on the issue, and later refused to take a position on the matter when her fellow Democrats introduced legislation to actually make the driver’s license “dream” a reality.

And while 2003 saw the states of California and Texas contemplate whether or not to send state National Guard Troops to the U.S. / Mexico border, Napolitano opposed the idea for Arizona, arguing at the time that border security is a “federal issue” and not the job of state government. Yet three years later, in the midst of her 2006 re-election campaign, Governor Napolitano shocked Democrats and Republicans alike by dispatching the Arizona National Guard to the Mexican border, to “help” with the flood of illegal immigrants.

One of the most extraordinary components of Napolitano’s Arizona legacy has to do with her attempt to monetize state security. With virtually no input from the state legislature, Governor Napolitano used her executive powers to mandate the purchase and installation of speed-limit enforcing “photo radar” cameras which are now dispersed literally everywhere in Arizona - - in the city, and throughout the state’s vast rural regions as well.

Napolitano’s approach to speed enforcement is bad enough for its draconian, big-brother approach. But worse still, in a blatantly cynical move, Napolitano established that citations from the statewide “speed cameras” would carry with them no penalty to one’s driving record - - just a monetary fee. As long as offending drivers are willing to write the check and pay off the government, they can continue to violate speed limit laws with no restrictions on their driving privileges, and the state “profits” all the more.

In 2009 during her last few days as Arizona’s Governor, Napolitano explained that her “speed cameras” were a “solution” to the state’s budget woes. And this should raise concerns for all Americans today: as Governor of Arizona, our current Secretary of Homeland Security took the moral imperative of “public security” and reduced it down to a matter of mere revenue generation.

Had David Broder waited a couple more days before publishing his “I love Janet” piece, he may have seen the New York Times report on January 3rd noting that Napolitano’s “Arizona security experiment” is likely headed for the trash heap. As if the intended purposes of the program aren’t bad enough, Napolitano’s “photo radar” program has also failed to save Arizona from its budget woes, producing less than a third of Napolitano’s projected $120 million in annual “revenues.”

In the aftermath of the Christmas day terrorist attack, there has been chatter about shake-ups among President Obama’s security team. But don’t look for Napolitano’s departure any time soon. She “earned” a secure position in the Obama Administration by defying her long-standing friendship with the Clintons (President Clinton once appointed Napolitano as a “U.S. Attorney”) back in 2008 and endorsing Obama over Hillary. It is political cronyism at its worst - but it is the way things work in Washington.

And this is why we need a security professional heading-up the DHS – and not a politician.

The Joke’s on Us

The Pantybomber wasn’t the big joke. We are.

By Mark Steyn
Saturday, January 2, 2010

On Christmas Day, a gentleman from Nigeria succeeded (effortlessly) in boarding a flight to Detroit with a bomb in his underwear. Pretty funny, huh?

But the Pantybomber wasn’t the big joke. The real laugh was the United States government. The global hyperpower spent the next week making itself a laughingstock to the entire planet. First, the bureaucrats at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) swung into action with a whole new range of restrictions.

Against radical Yemen-trained Muslims wearing weaponized briefs? Of course not. That would be too obvious. So instead they imposed a slew of constraints against you. At Heathrow last week, they were permitting only one item of carry-on on U.S. flights. In Toronto, no large purses.

Um, the Pantybomber didn’t have a purse. He brought the bomb on board under his private parts, and his private parts weren’t part of his carry-on (although, if reports of injuries sustained in his failed mission are correct, they may well have been part of his carry-off). But no matter. If in doubt, blame the victim. The TSA announced that for the last hour of the flight no passenger can use the toilets or have anything on his lap — not a laptop, not a blanket, not a stewardess, not even a paperback book. I can’t wait for the first lawsuit after an infidel flight attendant confiscates a litigious imam’s Koran as they’re coming into LAX.

You’re still free to read a paperback if you’re flying from Paris to Sydney, or Stockholm to Beijing, or Kuala Lumpur to Heathrow. But not to LAX or JFK. The TSA were responding as bonehead bureaucracies do: Don’t just stand there, do something. And every time the TSA does something, you’ll have to stand there, longer and longer, suffering ever more pointless indignities. Last week, guest-hosting The Rush Limbaugh Show, I took a call from a lady who said that, if it helps keep her safe, she’s happy to get to the airport “four, five, whatever hours” before the flight. Try to put a figure on “whatever” and you’ll get a sense of where America’s transportation system is headed. Ten years ago, you got to the airport 45 minutes, an hour before the flight. Now, thanks to the ever more demanding choreographers of the homeland-security kabuki, it’s two, three, four, whatever. Look at O’Hare and imagine the size of airport we’ll need. And by then the Pantybomber won’t even need to get on the plane; he can kill more people blowing up the check-in line.

And remember, this was a bombing mission that “failed.” With failures like this, who needs victories?

Joke, joke, joke. The only good news was that the derision was so universal that the TSA promptly reined in some of their wackier impositions a couple of days later. But by then Janet Incompetano, the homeland-security secretary, had gone on TV and declared to the world that there was nothing to worry about: “The system worked.”

Indeed, it worked “smoothly.” The al-Qaeda trainee on a terrorist watch list, a man banned from the United Kingdom and reported to the CIA by his own father, got on board the plane, assembled the bomb, and attempted to detonate it. But don’t worry ’bout a thing; the system worked.

Twenty-four hours later, Secretary Incompetano was back on TV to protest that her words had been taken “out of context.” No doubt, the al-Qaeda-trained CIA-reported cash-paying crotch-stuffed watch-list member’s smooth progress through check-in was also taken “out of context.”

But by then the president of the United States had also taken to the airwaves. For three days, he had remained silent — which I believe is a world record for the 44th president. Since Jan. 20, 2009, it’s been difficult to switch on the TV and not find him yakking — accepting an award in Oslo for not being George W. Bush, doing Special Olympics gags with Jay Leno, apologizing for America to some dictator or other . . . But across the electric wires an eerie still had descended. And when the president finally spoke, even making allowances for his usual detached cool, he sounded less like a commander-in-chief addressing the nation after an attempted attack than an assistant DA at a Cook County press conference announcing a drug bust: “Here’s what we know so far. . . . As the plane made its final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a passenger allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device. . . . The suspect was immediately subdued. . . . The suspect is now in custody and has been charged.” Etc, etc, piling up one desiccated legalism on another: “Allegedly . . . ” “suspect . . . ” “charged . . . ” The president can’t tell an allegedly alleged suspect (which is what he is in Obama fantasy-land) from an enemy combatant (which is what he is in cold hard reality). But worse than the complacent cop-show jargonizing was a phrase it’s hard to read as anything other than a deliberate attempt to mislead the public: The president referred to the Knickerbomber as an “isolated extremist.” By this time, it was already clear that young Umar had been radicalized by jihadist networks in London and fast-tracked to training in Yemen by terror operatives who understood the potentially high value of a Westernized Muslim with excellent English from a respectable family. Yet President Obama tried to pass him off as some sort of lone misfit who wakes up one morning and goes bananas. Could happen to anyone.

But, if it takes the White House three days to react to an attack on the United States, their rapid-response unit can fire back in nothing flat when Dick Cheney speaks. “It is telling,” huffed the president’s communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, “that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the administration than condemning the attackers.”

“Condemning the attackers”? What happened to all the allegedly alleged stuff? Shouldn’t that be “condemning the alleged isolated attacker”? The communications director seems to be wandering a bit off-message here, whatever the message is: The system worked, so we’re inconveniencing you even more. The system failed, but the alleged suspect is an isolated extremist, so why won’t that cowardly squish Cheney have the guts to condemn the attacker and his vast network of associates?

The real message was conveyed by Fouad Ajami, discussing the new administration’s foreign policy in the Wall Street Journal: “No despot fears Mr. Obama, and no blogger in Cairo or Damascus or Tehran, no demonstrator in those cruel Iranian streets, expects Mr. Obama to ride to the rescue.” True. Another Iranian deadline passed on New Year’s Eve, but the United States will set a new one for Groundhog Day or whenever.

And, just as the thug states understand they now have the run of the planet, so do the terror cells. A thwarted terror attack at Christmas is bad enough. Spending the following week making yourself a global joke is worse. Every A-list despot and dimestore jihadist got that message loud and clear — and so did American allies already feeling semi-abandoned by this most parochial of presidents. Expect a bumpy twelve months ahead. Happy New Year.

War? What War?

Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 01, 2010

WASHINGTON -- Janet Napolitano -- former Arizona governor, now overmatched secretary of homeland security -- will forever be remembered for having said of the attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit: "The system worked." The attacker's concerned father had warned U.S. authorities about his son's jihadist tendencies. The would-be bomber paid cash and checked no luggage on a transoceanic flight. He was nonetheless allowed to fly, and would have killed 288 people in the air alone, save for a faulty detonator and quick actions by a few passengers.

Heck of a job, Brownie.

The reason the country is uneasy about the Obama administration's response to this attack is a distinct sense of not just incompetence but incomprehension. From the very beginning, President Obama has relentlessly tried to downplay and deny the nature of the terrorist threat we continue to face. Napolitano renames terrorism "man-caused disasters." Obama goes abroad and pledges to cleanse America of its post-9/11 counterterrorist sins. Hence, Guantanamo will close, CIA interrogators will face a special prosecutor, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed will bask in a civilian trial in New York -- a trifecta of political correctness and image management.

And just to make sure even the dimmest understand, Obama banishes the term "war on terror." It's over -- that is, if it ever existed.

Obama may have declared the war over. Unfortunately al-Qaeda has not. Which gives new meaning to the term "asymmetric warfare."

And produces linguistic -- and logical -- oddities that littered Obama's public pronouncements following the Christmas Day attack. In his first statement, Obama referred to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as "an isolated extremist." This is the same president who, after the Ford Hood shooting, warned us "against jumping to conclusions" -- code for daring to associate Nidal Hasan's mass murder with his Islamist ideology. Yet, with Abdulmutallab, Obama jumped immediately to the conclusion, against all existing evidence, that the bomber acted alone.

More jarring still were Obama's references to the terrorist as a "suspect" who "allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device." You can hear the echo of FDR: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- Japanese naval and air force suspects allegedly bombed Pearl Harbor."

Obama reassured the nation that this "suspect" had been charged. Reassurance? The president should be saying: We have captured an enemy combatant -- an illegal combatant under the laws of war: no uniform, direct attack on civilians -- and now to prevent future attacks, he is being interrogated regarding information he may have about al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Instead, Abdulmutallab is dispatched to some Detroit-area jail and immediately lawyered up. At which point -- surprise! -- he stops talking.

This absurdity renders hollow Obama's declaration that "we will not rest until we find all who were involved." Once we've given Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent, we have gratuitously forfeited our right to find out from him precisely who else was involved, namely those who trained, instructed, armed and sent him.

This is all quite mad even in Obama's terms. He sends 30,000 troops to fight terror overseas, yet if any terrorists come to attack us here, they are magically transformed from enemy into defendant.

The logic is perverse. If we find Abdulmutallab in an al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen, where he is merely preparing for a terror attack, we snuff him out with a Predator -- no judge, no jury, no qualms. But if we catch him in the United States in the very act of mass murder, he instantly acquires protection not just from execution by drone but even from interrogation.

The president said that this incident highlights "the nature of those who threaten our homeland." But the president is constantly denying the nature of those who threaten our homeland. On Tuesday, he referred five times to Abdulmutallab (and his terrorist ilk) as "extremist(s)."

A man who shoots abortion doctors is an extremist. An eco-fanatic who torches logging sites is an extremist. Abdulmutallab is not one of these. He is a jihadist. And unlike the guys who shoot abortion doctors, jihadists have cells all over the world; they blow up trains in London, nightclubs in Bali and airplanes over Detroit (if they can); and are openly pledged to war on America.

Any government can through laxity let someone slip through the cracks. But a government that refuses to admit that we are at war, indeed, refuses even to name the enemy -- jihadist is a word banished from the Obama lexicon -- turns laxity into a governing philosophy.

(Right) Winging it At the Dems

Jonah Goldberg
Friday, April 17, 2009

The Extremism and Radicalization Branch, Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division of the Department of Homeland Security issued a report last week. It's called "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."

I had no idea there even was an ERBHETAD of the DHS working on the RECEPCFRRR.

Who among us doesn't feel safer already?

The problem with it is that it makes little effort to document or demonstrate its contention that "extremist" groups are resurgent, that they are right-wing, or that they may be formed from the ranks of "disgruntled military veterans." Worse, it's very sloppy about what qualifies someone as "extremist" in the first place. Basically, it's fancy bureaucratese for: We're guessing bad people will do bad things because the economy is bad and the president is black. But we have no real evidence.

For instance, the report insists that returning "disgruntled military veterans" from Iraq and Afghanistan are recruitment fodder for extremist and terrorist groups.

But, if you follow the footnotes, as John Hinderaker of the Powerline blog did, you'll discover that, according to the FBI, only 19 Iraq and Afghanistan war vets have joined the "extremist movement" (and some of them may have lied about their service). More than half of America's 1.4 million active-duty military personal have served in Iraq or Afghanistan (and there are roughly 23 million veterans in the United States). Any way you slice it, 19 yahoos amount to statistical noise so faint you would need one of those UFO-hunting dishes to pick it up.

My objection to the DHS report -- and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano's thumbless grasp of why the report bothers people -- isn't that the agency is concerned with domestic terrorists. It should be, even though it wrankles a bit that this administration is so squeamish to describe Islamic terrorists as "terrorists" but is promiscuous with the T-word when it comes to right-wing Americans.

The evidence that al-Qaida & Co. are terrorists is widely available, but Napolitano boasts that she calls attacks such as those on 9/11 "man-caused disasters." She says she doesn't want to fuel "the politics of fear." But her own department dubs nebulous and ill-defined Americans as terrorists even though DHS has "no specific information" that they're plotting any attacks.

My real objection to this report is that its source material amounts to "everybody knows." Everybody knows the right is full of whack-jobs, hatemongers and killers, and if we don't remain vigilant, bad things will happen.

Just look at the coverage of these tea parties. To watch CNN, you'd think these were beer hall putsches, as if emulating the Boston Tea Party and demanding less government were straight out of "Mein Kampf."

I wrote a book on fascism which tried to show that what everybody knows isn't necessarily true. The idea that soldiers will return from war and become right-wing militants? Well, that has its roots in Fascist Italy, where veterans returned as black-shirted shock troops of "Il Duce," Benito Mussolini. The only problem was that they clamored for socialism -- the socialism of the trenches! -- and their leader had earned the title "Il Duce" as the leader of the Socialist Party.

The idea that American "hate groups" are right-wing and bristling with vets got new life with JFK's assassination at the hands of a disgruntled vet named Lee Harvey Oswald. Everybody knew right away that Oswald was an agent of "hate" -- and hate was code for right-wing and racist. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren summed up the instantaneous conventional wisdom when he blamed the "climate of hatred" for Kennedy's death. Everybody knew that the right was involved.

There was just one inconvenient truth: Oswald was a communist who, according to the Warren report, had "an extreme dislike of the rightwing" and had actually tried to murder a right-wing former Army general.

When Hollywood filmed the Tom Clancy novel "The Sum of All Fears," it changed the real villains from Jihadi terrorists to a bunch of European CEOs who were secret Nazis. Because "everybody knows" that's where the real threat lies.

Sen. John Kerry belonged to an organization of vets that considered assassinating American politicians. (Kerry denied participating in those meetings.) Barack Obama was friends with, and a colleague of, a domestic terrorist whose organization plotted to murder soldiers and their wives at a social at Fort Dix. A young Hillary Clinton sympathized with the Black Panthers, a paramilitary gang of racist murderers and cop killers.

Bring that up and you're a paranoid nutcase out of "Dr. Strangelove."

But if you're terrified of a bunch of citizens who throw tea in the water and demand lower taxes and less government spending, well, that's just a sign of political seriousness.

Because everyone knows who the real threat to the country is.

Secretary Napolitano And Pay-To-Play Homeland Security

Austin Hill
Sunday, January 18, 2009

“…No doubt she’ll sail right through the confirmation process…”

This is the common assumption of Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, the soon-to-be Secretary of Homeland Security. Indeed, it does appear that she will quite quickly be confirmed in the Senate, to the position for which Mr. Obama has selected her.

But if a majority of Americans knew - - and if the members of the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee actually cared to inquire - about her actual track record in Arizona, Ms. Napolitano might not be such an easy and obvious choice to oversee the domestic security of our nation.

Without a doubt, Ms. Napolitano is an extremely bright and talented person. Well educated and intensely (and admirably) driven, she compensates for whatever she may lack in “flashiness” by projecting a sense of confidence, and a no-nonsense image of being “about the people’s business.”

The confidence, the image, and the “focus” have served her well politically in Arizona. Yet in examining her record, it’s difficult to say that Governor Janet Napolitano has served Arizonans well.

When Napolitano was first elected Governor in November of 2002, Arizona was facing an approximately $2 billion deficit. And while the state dug itself out of that hole quickly enough, Governor Napolitano sailed through the “boom years” of this decade (during which Arizona became one of the fastest growing states in the country) spending tax payers’ money in-discriminately, and covering up the spending with clever accounting gimmicks - - attributing current-day expenditures to future year’s budgets, and all the rest. Even as recently as a year ago, when Arizona’s new budget deficit had already become painfully evident, Governor Napolitano was arguing that her state should be providing “free tuition” at all of the state’s public universities, to any high school student earning a “B” grade average or higher.

Today, the Arizona state budget is right back where it was when Napolitano became Governor - - facing a staggering $2 billion deficit. And as she moves “up” to Washington, the Governor leaves for her predecessor Jan Brewer the tough task of cutting government spending, an ordeal made even more difficult by years of Napolitano’s unwillingness to reign-in her own spendthrift behavior.

In the public safety arena, a state governor’s equivalent of “homeland security,” Napolitano has been all over the road with policy positions. Early in her first term in 2003, she voiced support for a proposal to allow illegal immigrants to be issued state driver's licenses. When public outcry turned against her, she fell silent on the issue, and later refused to take a position on the matter when her fellow Democrats introduced legislation to actually make the driver’s license “dream” a reality.

And while 2003 saw the states of California and Texas contemplate whether or not to send state National Guard Troops to the U.S. / Mexico border, Napolitano opposed the idea for Arizona, arguing at the time that border security is a “federal issue” and not the job of state government. Yet three years later, in the midst of her 2006 re-election campaign, Napolitano shocked Democrats and Republicans alike by dispatching the Arizona National Guard to the Mexican border, to “help” with the flood of illegal immigrants.

In so doing, Ms. Napolitano grabbed international media headlines by becoming the first state Governor to place National Guard Troops at the U.S. / Mexico border ( a fact that she confidently reiterated during her Senate testimony). Yet Americans don’t realize that the move was almost entirely symbolic - - she sent troops to the border, yes, but she refused to authorize the troops to do anything besides merely “observe” the border.

One of the most extraordinary components of Napolitano’s Arizona legacy has emerged all within the past four months. With virtually no input from the state legislature, the Governor used her executive powers to mandate the purchase and installation of speed-limit enforcing “photo radar” cameras. The cameras are now dispersed literally everywhere in Arizona - - in the city, and throughout the state’s vast rural regions as well.

Napolitano’s approach to speed enforcement is bad enough for its draconian, big brother tactics. But worse still, in a blatantly cynical move, Napolitano established that citations from the statewide “speed cameras” would carry with them no penalty to one’s driving record - - just a monetary fee. As long as offending drivers are willing to write the check and pay off the government, they can continue to violate speed limit laws with no restrictions on their driving privileges, and the state “profits” all the more.

In recent weeks, Napolitano herself has even begun to speak of her “speed cameras” as a “solution” to the state’s budget woes. And this raises an important question: if Governor Napolitano is willing to reduce-down to a mere dollar figure the punishment assigned to the “crime” of speeding, will Secretary Napolitano be willing to place a mere price tag on the crime of terrorism?

Troops doing nothing at the international border. Driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. Crime and punishment reduced to dollars and cents. This is Arizona homeland security, Napolitano style. Is America ready?