"Homeland Security - Security For Whom?"

By Ron Ewart, President of the

National Association of Rural Landowners

and creator of the

"PARALLAX PROPHECIES INSTITUTE"

Devoted to the noble goal of getting Americans to think LIKE Americans and acting FOR America.

© Copyright Sunday, March 24, 2013 - All Rights Reserved

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Re-posted with direct permission of Ron EWART.

 

This article can also be viewed at: http://www.theparallaxprophecies.com/pparchives/032413.html

 

 

NOTE: We will be devoting this and future columns to why government has become the enemy of the people, by highlighting government agencies, their history and their actions, with the goal of getting more Americans to take on their government by uniting as Americans for America.

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The U. S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) came into being shortly after the attack of September 11, 2001 on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC, under the Homeland Security Act of 2002.  (http://www.dhs.gov/homeland-security-act-2002).  The new DHS combined 22 agencies under one presidential cabinet level bureaucracy.  You can find what agencies became part of DHS at this link:  http://www.dhs.gov/who-joined-dhs.  The department's stated mission is to protect the "homeland" from terrorist attacks, except in the process DHS, with the help of their private partner and radical left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, have labeled American patriots, conservatives and returning vets as domestic terrorists. 

 

About the same time, the Congress and President Bush passed the Patriot Act in a knee-jerk reaction to the 9/11 attack without regard to constitutional violations.  What next ..... drone surveillance or assassination of American citizens in America, warrantless arrests under the NDAA, National ID cards, RFID identity chips implanted under the skin, or just outright confiscation (stealing) of our bank deposits, IRA's and 401K's, Cyprus style?  Sure, these are stretches, but what or who will stop government if they decide to do it?

 

Unfortunately, when you give a government agency power without a lot of oversight, they exercise that power way beyond the limits of their charter, because that is the nature of government.  All cabinet level departments have done this over the last several decades, only under Obama it has increased.  Even state and local bureaucracies take on this arrogant, "we-are-the-masters" posture.  They think they own us.  They have become little tin Gods who yell at us,"... obey the law or else!"  Some brave Americans resist, but today over half the American people think government does own us and they don't care because they are getting "free stuff".  How easily they have surrendered their freedom.

 

In any event, we were very curious as to why DHS purchased about 1,600,000,000 rounds of ammunition (much of it the deadly hollow-points) and 7,000 fully automatic assault rifles?  DHS is not part of the military so why would they be stockpiling such huge quantities of ammunition and weapons, enough ammunition to pump five bullets into each American, man, woman and child?  As we mentioned in a previous column, on January 31, 2013 we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with DHS asking them to produce documents for three specific questions.  We also requested a fee waiver under the provisions of 5 USC S 552 4(A)(iii).  You can view our FOIA request in PDF format HERE.  We requested documents regarding:

 

1.    Who (name and title) at DHS approved the purchases of ammunition and assault rifles?

2.    What agencies were designated to receive the ammunition and rifles?

3.    Where did the money come from to make the purchases and who in the Congress authorized the purchases?

 

Sounds simple enough doesn't it?  It is anything but simple when it comes to government.  We received a long letter from DHS a couple of weeks later telling us the fee waiver was approved and we could expect the documents in about 30 working days.  Then, just the other day we received another letter from DHS saying that they had funneled our FOIA request out to eight (8) different agencies under DHS and on the same day we received letters from two of those agencies denying our fee waiver.  We were incensed by this side-step maneuver by DHS and fired off a certified letter to Secretary Janet Napolitano indicating our displeasure with their decision and a few other well-chosen words.  We sent a copy of the letter to U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder at the U. S. Department of Justice as well.  

 

Our letter fully explains how we felt about their attempts to divert attention away from DHS for the purchases.  Readers are welcome to share it, if they deem it appropriate.  In fact, we encourage them to share it.  Our readers might even consider sharing their thoughts with Madame Secretary Napolitano.  

 

Our letter to Napolitano expresses our view as well as the views of millions of other freedom-loving Americans about how we are arrogantly treated by government, at all levels.  Unfortunately, government will continue to be arrogant and abusive if we don't challenge them, en masse.  They have the "guns" and the "bullets" that they just bought with our money.  Nevertheless, we're challenging them at our own risk, as we know that they are monitoring our website daily!  Will you challenge them?  Or, are you going to just watch from the shadows and let others take the risks and fight the fight and hope you don't get noticed?  There is a name for that.

 

The following letter is just one way we are challenging them peacefully.

 

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CERTIFIED – RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED

FEDERAL INFORMATION REQUEST UNDER THE

“Freedom Of Information Act”

March 18, 2013

Secretary Janet Napolitano
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

cc:      Eric Neuschaefer, FOIA Program Specialist, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C. 20528

          Attorney General Eric Holder, U. S. Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington DC 20530-0001

                                                                        Re:       Ammunition and AR-15 Acquisitions, et al

                                                                                    FOIA Request Number 2013 HQFO-00426

Dear Madame Secretary Napolitano:

We filed a formal written Freedom of Information Request (FOIA) under 5 USC S 552, by first-class letter dated January 30, 2013, to the agency over which you have jurisdiction, the U. S. Department of Homeland Security, (DHS) regarding the acquisition by DHS of over 1 billions rounds of ammunition (much of it hollow-point ammunition) and at least 7,000 fully automatic AR-15 assault rifles.  On February 19, 2013 we received a long first-class letter from one Eric Neuschaefer, DHS FOIA Program Specialist, indicating how he, Mr. Neuschaefer, would handle our request.  We responded with a first-class letter dated February 20, 2013, narrowing our request to a few specific documents at his suggestion.

To our absolute amazement, surprise and disgust, we received a first-class letter from Mr. Neuschaefer dated March 4, 2013 that he had funneled our request out to eight (8) different agencies that fall under the jurisdiction of DHS.  On the same day we received two responses from DHS agencies.

Secretary Napolitano, our request was significantly specific.  We wanted to know:

1.               Who (that is a real live person with a name and title) approved the said purchases at DHS?

2.               What federal agencies were designated to receive the ammunition and assault rifles?

3.               Where did the money come from to make the purchases?

Three (3) documents should pretty well answer our request, not a thousand documents from eight (8) different agencies, subject to FOIA fees.

The whole country knows that DHS signed the purchase orders for the ammunition and assault rifles.  The purchase order for the ammunition and assault rifles originated in the offices of DHS not eight (8) different agencies under DHS.  Therefore, DHS knows (the person) who approved the purchase.  They know where the ammunition and assault rifles are supposed to be distributed and they know where the money came from to make the purchases.

To funnel our FOIA request off to eight (8) different agencies is a blatant attempt to obfuscate DHS’s complicity in the purchase.  It is also an attempt to make our request much more complicated than it has to be.  It’s the old “document blitz” model used by way-too-many attorneys to run their opponent out of money.  The decision by Mr. Neuschaefer to funnel our request out to eight (8) different agencies will also cost the government more money to respond to our request, when DHS is quite capable of responding with little time and little expense. 

We requested a waiver of fees under 5 USC 552 4(A)(iii), which was conditionally granted in Mr. Neuschaefer’s February 20, 2013 response to our original request, as long as it was less than 100 documents.  In the now three responses from the eight (8) agencies, (we’ve only received two so far) they are denying our fee waiver.  Consequently this action by DHS also forces us to pay FOIA fees to eight (8) different agencies, when it is absolutely clear that DHS is wholly responsible for the purchases and it is absolutely clear that our fee waiver request is 100% valid under 5 USC 552 4(A)(iii).

Mr. Neuschaefer’s decision to funnel our FOIA request out to eight (8) different agencies is an all-too-frequently used government attempt to “snow” the so-called ignorant population.  For all we know, you personally, directed Mr. Neuschaefer to make that decision to re-direct responsibility away from DHS and cover up an overt act by DHS.  For all we know, you approved those purchases.  This is what government does when it doesn’t want its negligent, or criminal acts known to the public, you know, like Benghazi and Fast and Furious.  It is these kinds of actions by government that is why millions of Americans don’t trust it anymore.

DHS has had ample opportunity, under the time requirements of federal law, to answer our FOIA request, but has failed to do so.  If we have not received a response to our very simple FOIA request from DHS by April 1, 2013, we will consult with a national legal firm on our options to obtain the information we have requested that, by federal law, DHS is obligated to provide.  Or, we will file our own case in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.  Either way, it will just cost the government a great deal more money than if they had just responded appropriately to our request. 

The government demands that the people obey the law, or suffer the consequences.  We are demanding that the government obey the law ….. or suffer the legal consequences.  The buck stops with you Madame Secretary.

You might be saying to yourself right now, how dare this ignoramus challenge our authority and our processes.  Well Madame Secretary this is still America.  It isn’t communist Russia, Mao’s China, or Hitler’s Germany.  Americans still have rights under the law and the government is obligated, under the U. S. Constitution, to protect and defend those rights, that is if they are true to their oath.  Otherwise, government is just an abusive, arrogant tyrant.

                                                                        Respectfully,

cc:  copies of this letter have been sent to major newspapers, radio, TV and cable news networks and other interested parties. .

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We are under no illusions that we could even get an answer to our FOIA request from DHS since they won't even tell the Congress what they are doing.  (See http://www.infowars.com/big-sis-refuses-to-answer-congress-on-ammo-purchases/)  But we can't just sit back and do nothing.

If you care about the survival of a free America, please join with us at the "Parallax Prophecies Institute" to bring the citizens of this great country back to being united Americans who fearlessly turn on their enemies when threatened, foreign or domestic, instead of being divided, weak, spineless Americans who are locked in the yoke of enslavement, pulling the royal cart of government.  Join with us as free Americans peacefully, against a government that has become the enemy of the people.  Remember!  If you fear government, they win and you are but a slave.

Next week the Parallax Prophecies column will take up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), another in-your-face enemy of the people and freedom.