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Feds pouring money into California Homeland Security

May 9, 2011

Amid the slashing of state and school budgets, the federal government is pouring Homeland Security dollars into California at record rates. [SFGate]

In 2010, California received $268 million worth of security spending, about 16 percent of the nearly $1.7 billion awarded nationally, said SFGate.

Federal monies, nearly $1.8 billion since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, have gone to agencies such as the California Highway Patrol to purchase items such as a fleet of command vehicles, a pair of boots and a helicopter.

Following Sept. 11, emergency dollars were almost entirely directed to anti-terror efforts. But after Hurricane Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast four years later, the emphasis changed to potential hazards – natural and man-made, SFGate said.

These days, an estimated 20 percent of the spending statewide goes to training local law enforcement in dealing with a biological, chemical or nuclear attack, as well as an earthquake.

“It makes no sense,” Robert Reich, a UC Berkeley public policy professor and former U.S. labor secretary under Bill Clinton, said to SFGate of the levels of anti-terror spending.

“For every dollar a terrorist spends seeking to create havoc in America, we spend at least $1,000 trying to prevent it,” Reich added. “If the goal of the terrorists is to slowly bankrupt America, they have hit on a pretty good strategy.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation has privately notified California officials that they will receive at least $213 million – and possibly hundreds of millions more – of the $2.4 billion in federal high-speed rail funding that Florida Gov. Rick Scott turned down, SFGate added. Scott feared Florida taxpayers would have had to subsidize the proposed rail service.

California collected $624 million in stimulus dollars last year as a result of a similar decision by the newly elected Republican governors of Ohio and Wisconsin, as well other states, to turn down federal high-speed rail money.

California still needs nearly $15 billion to build all of the planned bullet line between San Francisco and Los Angeles.


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What the heck is going on? I assume that people are aware that FEMA is now in charge of Homeland Security and that FEMA has the authority to take total control of the populace and local gov at any time, with nothing more than the stroke of a pen by the President of the US. The President can declare a state of emergency for many reasons including epidemics and according to the way the new law was wrote, Congress would be completely out of the loop and have no say.

FEMA has been building massive camps all over the US including some in CA. Has anyone googled FEMA CAMPS and had a look or read this bill that “W” enacted during his term? It’s 10 times worse than the Patriot Act. It is odd that we are building all these camps and many are supplied with railway stations.

Apparently, (during a time where FEMA takes over) we can all be thrown in a FEMA prison with no trial for an indefinite amount of time for refusing something as simple as a gov mandated vaccination! All it takes is the stroke of a pen and we no longer have any rights. The bill also allows our gov to bring in outside military forces to control the US citizens during a time of unrest.

This is all a fact, it isn’t fiction. My only question is why and how did the President manage to skirt our US constitution and civil rights acts, including our own elected representatives as afforded every citizen by our forefathers.


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Rex84

GardenPlot more

NSDP51 and HSDP20

The man R.Reagan chose as head of FEMA is from SLO:”It was in the early 1980s, during the first years of the Reagan administration, when FEMA delved into controversial pursuits that tainted the agency with suspicions that linger to this day. President Reagan had selected an old crony, Louis Giuffrida, to serve as FEMA director. Reagan and Guiffrida had originally hooked up during the protest movements of the Vietnam War era. While serving as governor of California, Reagan searched for methods to contain the rising tide of dissent. He turned to Guiffrida, a former National Guard officer with a penchant for population control. Under their leadership, the state government concocted and sometimes implemented draconian anti-subversive plan.”


and finally the fictional King Alfred Plan Google Video while it lasts.


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That King Alfred Plan is mighty freaky stuff. I have a hard time believing that this is a legitimate gov document. It’s a long video and I watched it from beginning to end because I am getting very curious as of lately about what all these FEMA CAMPS are about. I don’t know what to think but I know they have been constructed like internment camps with barb wire intended to keep people in rather than to keep people out and these camps combined can now hold up to half the US population. Whatever is going on, it just couldn’t be what some folks think it is ? It makes no sense. I have been familar with REX 84 for some time, but again, is it really a legitimate document?


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THe N.B.C. training funded by 1 time federal dollars has a major flaw. That kind of training is a use or lose skill. Unless the state can to continued training to keep its personell up to date and refreshed it has very little long term effect. People quit/ retire or change jobs at a rapid rate. Would be nice if they planned on giving our tax dollars right back to us anyway, they would just not take them from us to begin with. Local control at the lowest level possible is always the best option.


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…and we need a Federal Agency to come in and train our State employees? I think those states that “refused Federal dollars” were smart: Money always comes with strings attached. Maybe they did their homework and did not like what those strings were?


Also, can we stop using the term “Federal Dollars” (Homeland Security dollars) or “Federal monies” – there is no such thing, the Federal Reserve prints/digitizes money, and there is nothing Federal about them, apart from the doubly-misleading name. And any money the Federal *government* have is not theirs anyway, and never was.


I don’t normally agree with Robert Reich, but I agree with his point: “It makes no sense.”


Mass transit has never been profitable anywhere, or in any country; it will not be in this one. Especially here in California where society is so far apart (homes to work). Maybe if we all go back to living where we work, like in the REAL “olden times” we’d solve a lot of these problems (pollution, dependency on oil/fuels, etc). If not solve, then severely reduce them. Until we’re ready for that, it’s often all just talk and unproven theories.


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I sincerely hope none of this funding finds its way to efforts at searching train passengers. Any attempt to search my while boarding a train to go to work is going to be met with resistance. It might cost me a day or two in jail but that’s the breaks, it ain’t gonna happen.


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I’d be right with you, there. I’m about done with the whole police state being forced upon us for our own safety.


I’m more of the “well-armed populace = great defense” idea, similar to what Switzerland has.


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I suspect you are a fellow lewrockwell.com or economicpolicyjournal.com fan :) If not, you should check both of those sites out. lewrockwell’s tagline is “anti-state, anti-war, pro-market”


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mkaney

I agree, it allows LE:

To use coercion rem: Senator Larry Craig?

To get physical and escalate further from that if need be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the end, demonstrate the victim as an e.g.for others to fear/respect

Ultimately allowing more revenue collected from or costing to the victim in multiple ways.


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I agree that homeland security dollars probably are not always being spent in a appropriate manor or with what is best for California but what is best for corporate profit.. Over the years it has become apparent that at times scare tactics over come common sense in the need to over protect and over spend on the latest security technology or equipment.


I do agree that high speed rail transportation is the future of California. At 38 million people today and a expected population of 60 million by 2050. We will need the mass transit infrastructure to support a growing economy.


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I don’t think much of any government spending is “always being spent in an appropriate manor” or for what is best for the taxpayers (providers of said spending). Call me a pessimist, but while intentions are sometimes in the right places, spending other people’s money just doesn’t carry the same level of attentiveness and personal responsibility of spending one’s own money.


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