Homeland security enters the classroom

Homeland security enters the classroom Pioneering program starts next year at Harford high school The Harford County school system plans to open what will apparently be the nation's first magnet program focused on homeland security, preparing high school students for careers in disaster response, high-level computer science and law enforcement.

Students in the program, scheduled to open in the fall of 2007 at Joppatowne High School, will be given limited security clearances to enable them to perform internships at nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground, where the military develops and tests conventional and biological weapons. The curriculum, which is being developed, is expected to include public safety, border control, religious ideology, geospatial technology, cybersecurity, and threat identification.

A cross-section of county teachers with military or emergency-response backgrounds, including a former Navy liaison to APG who teaches science, will create the program. State education officials see an opportunity to prepare students for the thousands of jobs focused on national security and weapons research that are expected to come to Maryland in a nationwide consolidation of military bases.

They are closely watching the program and hope to expand it to other jurisdictions. "Our interest is based on labor market demand and research that shows the need for careers in this field," said Jeanne-Marie Holly, a program manager for the state's Office of Career and Technology Education Systems.

Police State USA

by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
August 10, 2004

Last week's announcement that the terrorist threat warning level has been raised in parts of New York, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. has led to dramatic and unprecedented restrictions on the movements of citizens. Americans wishing to visit the U.S. Capitol must, for example, pass through several checkpoints and submit to police inspection of their cars and persons.

Many Americans support the new security measures because they claim to feel safer when the government issues terror alerts and fills the streets with militarized police forces. As one tourist interviewed this week said, “It makes me feel comfortable to know that everything is being checked.” It is ironic that tourists coming to Washington to celebrate the freedoms embodied in the Declaration of Independence are so eager to give up those freedoms with no questions asked.

Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens' lives. This doesn't stop governments, including our own, from seeking more control over and intrusion into our lives. As one Member of Congress stated to the press last week, “people who don't want to be searched don't need to come on Capitol grounds.” What an insult! The Capitol belongs to the American people who pay for it, not to Congress or the police.

It is worth noting that the government rushes first to protect itself, devoting enormous resources to make places like the Capitol grounds safe, while just beyond lies one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the nation. What makes Congress more worthy of protection from terrorists than ordinary citizens?

To understand the nature of our domestic response to the September 11th, 2001 attacks, we must understand the nature of government. Government naturally expands, and any crises – whether real or manufactured – serve to justify more and more government power over our lives. Bureaucrats have used the tragedy of 9/11 as an excuse to seize police powers sought for decades, such as warrantless searches, Internet monitoring, and access to bank records. It should be no surprise that the recently released report of the 9/11 Commission has but one central recommendation: bigger government and more spending at home and abroad.

Every new security measure represents another failure of the once-courageous American spirit. The more we change our lives, the more we obsess about terrorism, the more the terrorists have won. As commentator Lew Rockwell of the Ludwig von Mises Institute explains, terrorists in effect have been elevated by our response to 9/11: “They are running the country. They determine our civic life. They shape our private life. They decide how public resources are spent. They may dictate who gets to be the next president. It should be obvious that the government doesn't object. Not at all. The government benefits, by getting ever more reason for ever more money and power.”

Every generation must resist the temptation to believe that it lives in the most dangerous time in American history. The threat of Islamic terrorism is real, but it is not the greatest danger ever faced by our nation. This is not to dismiss the threat of terrorism, but rather to put it in perspective. Those who seek to whip the nation into a frenzy of fear do a disservice to a country that expelled the British, fought two world wars, and stared down the Soviet empire.

Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.

August 10, 2004

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.

The Orwellian US

Journalists often compare contemporary society to the totalitarian social order described in George Orwell's disturbing novel 1984. Orwell portrayed the state as being all-powerful, controlling every aspect of citizens' lives. When the novel was first published in 1949, few people could conceive of such a society. Most felt that citizens simply wouldn't allow it. Of course, if the state had attempted to implement a totalitarian society overnight, angry citizens might have prevented it. But the state cautiously enacts its takeovers incrementally, so as to not arouse the public. Also, it is able to persuade people that the agenda it is pursuing is for their own good or for the betterment of society. Consequently, little resistance is offered.

Of course, you already know how the state operates but I wanted to remind you again before discussing three invasive government proposals that will seriously encroach on our freedoms. In fact, these three, if they materialize, should make us turn off the TV, put down the remote control, get off the couch and take to the streets.

The first has been reported on LRC by both Rep. Ron Paul and Wendy McElroy: the "New Freedom Commission on Mental Health" that proposes a governmental mandate requiring mental-health screening for all Americans, including public schoolchildren and even pre-school children, with or without parental consent. Rep. Paul criticized the proposal as follows: "...it negates parental rights and would encourage the over-medication of children." Although this law would provide a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry and greatly enlarge the Washington bureaucracy, it would be a disaster for Americans especially families.

The excessive use of antidepressants by children was the subject of recent editorial by The Beaufort Gazette that contained this comment: "A growing body of research, some of it performed by the FDA's own experts, but suppressed until recently, indicates that children and teenagers may be at risk for suicidal tendencies after taking antidepressants that were approved for use in adult patients." Ritalin (methylphenidate), one of the primary drugs used to control children, is addictive and has serious side effects. Methylphenidate is already being abused by young drug users. When mixed with heroin, it is called a "speedball" and is illegally sold on the street for a "quick-fix."

The second encroachment, still in the discussion stage, is for government to monitor homeschooling more aggressively. But homeschooling is already subject to government scrutiny, including enforced testing requirements and so forth. Frankly, the word "monitor" raises a red flag because government monitoring usually evolves into government control. Public schools, or perhaps the more appropriate designation that has been suggested, "government schools," blend indoctrination with education and imprudently rely on the latest untested teaching fads.

These are some of the reasons why many parents elect to home school their children. But Washington bureaucrats won't rest until they are able to control the curricula, philosophy and teaching techniques of home schooling.

Finally, there is the "American Community Survey," a new annual census report which has been described as "an attempt to invade every aspect of our lives." The questionnaire is a breathtaking 24 pages long and contains all-encompassing questions dealing with such issues as "a person's job, income, physical and emotional health, family status, and intimate personal and private habits." Questions demand to know how many days you were sick last year, whether you have trouble getting up the stairs, and, curiously, what time you leave for work each morning. You must give the names and addresses of your friends and relatives and answer inappropriate questions about them as well. If others live in your home, you are required to indicate how many years of school they completed; when they last worked at a job, what languages they speak, and their physical and emotional problems.

So, what happens if you, like me, think these questions are none of the government's business and you don't want to become an informer on your friends and relatives? Your noncompliance will cost you big bucks. For every question not answered, there is a $100 fine. For every intentionally false answer, there is a $500 fine and Washington bureaucrats will decide whether the false answer was intentional or not.

These three proposals amount to a bureaucratic inquisition. And I don't think I exaggerate when I call them Orwellian. Once implemented their scope will be gradually expanded. Our children will, in essence, become wards of the state, even while they are still pre-schoolers. The state will decide if the behavior, thought processes and opinions of our children are suitable. If not, they may need to be drugged or subjected to corrective tutoring. Home schooling will be forced to conform its curricula and philosophy with government schooling so all students' beliefs can be made uniform. Expanded surveillance of citizens will be used to help Washington identify those whom it suspects are resisting government efforts to "protect" our freedoms and "improve" society. Once these noncompliant citizens are known, bureaucrats can decide what measures should be taken to modify their insubordination.

Our apathetic representatives in Washington, Republicans as well as Democrats, have no qualms about supporting proposals like these. Yet they expect us to continue to return them to office.

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