Here is a bizarre story about two officers of the Maryland Homeland Security agency raiding a public library where they suspected that visitors were accessing porn sites on library computers:
Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers. Then they made their announcement: The viewing of Internet pornography was forbidden.
The men looked stern and wore baseball caps emblazoned with the words “Homeland Security.” The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography.
After the two men made their announcement, one of them challenged an Internet user’s choice of viewing material and asked him to step outside, according to a witness. A librarian intervened, and the two men went into the library’s work area to discuss the matter. A police officer arrived. In the end, no one had to step outside except the uniformed men.
They were officers of the security division of Montgomery County’s Homeland Security Department, an unarmed force that patrols about 300 county buildings — but is not responsible for enforcing obscenity laws.
This is an example of what happens when the government’s security apparatus is overly empowered. These two super cops worked for the state of Maryland, but they share the mentality of the worker bees at the NSA who are under direct orders of President Bush to spy on anyone they choose.
There are always a few bad apples in the basket. Imagine what the bad apples at NSA have been up to — spying on congressional representatives of both parties and their staffs or the president’s political enemies, perhaps. It can’t be said that this couldn’t happen because it already has.
Spying on your enemies was the sport of choice not so very long ago. J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon perfected it to an art. Nixon got caught, however, which led Congress to enact the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in order to keep future presidents out of the personal affairs of innocent Americans.
