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"Project Gunwalker," the growing scandal in which the Burea of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) deliberately allowed thousands of firearms to be "walked" across the U.S./Mexican border by known gun traffickers, was almost certainly primarily the work of the Department of Justice. The DoJ is the parent department of the BATFE, and DoJ's fingerprints are all over this travesty. Still, this is too big for even the DoJ to have done completely on its own. Sipsey Street Irregular Mike Vanderboegh has been digging deeply into what looks like an administration-wide operation to create the mythical "iron river" of guns...

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano used a trip to El Paso, Texas, as an opportunity to claim that the border with Mexico is “better now than it ever has been.”

Obama and Janet Napolitano appointed Arif Alikhan, a devout Muslim, as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano swore-in Kareem Shora, a devout Muslim, who was born in Damascus, Syria, as ADC National Executive Director as a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC).

The government flouts the Fourth Amendment in the name of security. It was Adolf Hitler who first used science and technology to monitor people, places, and things. Closed-circuit television, or CCTV, was developed for the Third Reich by Siemens AG to observe V-2 rocket launches and operators at the Peenemünde Research Center in Germany. In the 1940s, CCTV used strategically placed video cameras to capture footage and then broadcast it back, allowing for real-time surveillance.Flash forward 70 years and surveillance systems have, like it or not, become broadly accepted as part of 21st century life — from traffic cameras, to...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano rang in the New Year with a visit to Afghanistan. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Embassy in Kabul) (CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which by its own admission has thus far failed to control even half of America's nearly 2,000-mile-long border with Mexico, is now sending personnel to Afghanistan to help that country secure its border with Pakistan. On a New Year’s visit to Afghanistan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there are now 25 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CPB) personnel on the ground in Afghanistan. That...

What is unclear is the extent to which companies such as Walmart will be asked to assist in detaining persons of interest. The Gazette asked Walmart corporate if DHS was expecting them to detain individuals, if requested by law-enforcement, until officers could arrive at the scene. They were also asked if they had received assurances they would not be held liable if they detained someone based simply on a report by another customer. Multiple requests for information were not returned. There has already been one such case in which a private company was sued for acting on individuals with concerns....

In the wake of last month’s DHS memo on how to create a de facto amnesty without congressional consent comes a similar “draft” proposal instructing local police to stop enforcing immigration laws. As reported by my colleague Jessica Vaughan, “According to a draft policy document now being circulated among a limited group of stakeholders, ICE chief John Morton intends to prohibit not only his officers, but also local officers with 287(g)immigration authority, from busting illegal aliens who are discovered as a result of traffic violations.” So that means we’ll go back to the situation where illegal aliens can drive illegally...

The 1,200 National Guard troops that are being deployed incrementally to the southwest border “will not be doing direct law enforcement,” said U.S. National Guard Bureau Director of Communications Jack Harrison when asked if the forces would be interdicting drugs and undocumented immigrants. “The two mission sets are criminal analysts and enter-identification team,” Harrison told CNSNews.com. “I can tell you that guardsmen will not be doing direct law enforcement on the southwest border.” In other words, the National Guardsmen will not be used to actually stop and detain illegal aliens trying to sneak across the border into the United States.Harrison...

Sound too conspiratorial to be true? Like the cover-up ops of spy novels? Well, it's reality. And it is possibly the most bizarre, inhumane and abusive way that the White House is expanding its power over the American people. It's not an extremist belief or theory of the far right. It's a fact that has been confirmed by The New York Times, The Washington Post and MSNBC and even documented by the far-left online magazine Salon.com. And it's the gravest nightmare of U.S. citizens and abandonment of our Constitution to date: a presidential assassination program in which U.S. citizens are...

Source: Administration Weighs Bypassing Congress to Let Illegal Immigrants Stay The Obama administration has been holding behind-the-scenes talks to determine whether the Department of Homeland Security can unilaterally grant legal status on a mass basis to illegal immigrants, a former Bush administration official who spoke with at least three people involved in those talks told FoxNews.com. The Obama administration has been holding behind-the-scenes talks to determine whether the Department of Homeland Security can unilaterally grant legal status on a mass basis to illegal immigrants, a former Bush administration official who spoke with at least three people involved in those talks...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday. As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities. John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comment during a meeting on Wednesday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper reports. "I don't think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution," Morton told the newspaper. The best way to reduce illegal immigration is through a comprehensive federal approach, he said, and not a patchwork of state laws. The law, which criminalizes being in...

Attorney General Eric Holder tells Jake Tapper this morning that alleged Times Square bombing screwup Faisal Shahzad was facilitated, financed and working under the direction of the Pakistani Taliban. While that clears some things up, remember that there is still a middle-aged Tea Party supporter stalking the Nutmeg State, who is angry about the housing crisis and the health care bill, with his U.S. citizenship still in good standing, and probably linking up with our home-grown militias for more one-off attacks. OK, so I'm the millionth person to make that joke in the last week. But it's more than a...

Earlier this week it was reported that the Obama White House removed confessed terrorist Faisal Shahzad from the Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list sometime after Barack Obama came into office. Terrorist Faisal Shahzad had substantial connections to the Taliban, reached out to the Taliban, was influenced by Yemeni terror leader Anwar al Awlaki, made at least a dozen return trips to Pakistan since arriving in the United States in 1999, and he bought a one way ticket with cash to Pakistan. Now we find out that he was “blogging” and asking for jihad as far back as 2006...

Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list - Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) - between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States. TECS is a major law enforcement computer system that allows its approximately 120,000 users from 20 federal agencies to share information. The database is designed to identify individuals suspected of or involved in violation of federal law. CBS News Exclusive Picture of Shahzad The system has been recently called inefficient by members of Congress. In...

H/T Mike at SipseyStreetIrregulars Terrorists and Guns: The Nature of the Threat and Proposed Reforms Wednesday, May 5, 2010 10:00 AM Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 342 Add To My Calendar (vCal) Witnesses Panel 1 The Honorable Frank R. Lautenberg U.S. Senate The Honorable Peter T. King U.S. House of Representatives The Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg Mayor City of New York The Honorable Raymond W. Kelly Police Commissioner City of New York Panel 2 Daniel D. Roberts Assistant Director, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation U.S. Department of Justice Eileen R. Larence Director, Homeland Security and Justice...

Note: Video included at the link. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (AP Photo) (CNSNews.com) -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, while testifying before a Senate panel, said the United States’s southwest border is “as secure now as it has ever been.” “I say this again as someone who has walked that border,” she said. “I’ve ridden that border. I’ve flown it. I’ve driven it. I know that border I think as well as anyone, and I will tell you it is as secure now as it has ever been.” Napolitano made that remark in response to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.),...

As a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, EPIC has obtained hundreds of pages of documents from the Department of Homeland Security about the plan to deploy full body scanners in US airports. A letter to EPIC reveals that the government agency possesses about 2,000 body scanner photos from devices that the DHS said earlier "could not store or record images." EPIC has also obtained the most recent device procurement specifications, and several hundred new pages of traveler complaints. For more information, see EPIC: Whole Body Imaging and EPIC: EPIC v. Department of Homeland Security. 

The Department of Homeland Security has just reported that during 2009, they issued 1,130,818 new Green Cards to foreign nationals, allowing them to work legally in this country. That number represents the fourth highest number of cards issued in one year.

750,000 of the new Green Cards were given to the families of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

The top four recipient nations are as follows:

-Mexico…164,920 
-China…receiving 64,238
-Philippines…60,029
-India…57,304 

In Feb. 2009, the financial institution Merrill Lynch announced that the nation’s actual unemployment rate had reached 13.9 percent. A year later, that number had risen to 17.3 percent. This figure represents Americans...

Another Obama administration nominee, Robert Harding for director of the Transportation Security Administration, has bitten the dust after investigators discovered his defense-contracting company collected millions more federal money than it was entitled to. Mr. Harding blamed the overcharge on his accountants. His company also got a federal contract under a "set-aside" program for service-disabled veterans. His service-related disability? Sleep apnea. Mr. Harding slinks away two months after Erroll Southers, a former counterterrorism supervisor for the Los Angeles airport police and a favorite of Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., took himself out of the running for the TSA top job after admitting...