Who Is Watching the Watchmen?

April was a cruel month indeed for new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The weeks before the Swine Flu outbreak found her stumbling through reporters' questions about a DHS threat assessment memo on "Rightwing Extremism." That memo urged law enforcers nationwide to monitor the allegedly gathering danger from Rightist radicals, including pro-lifers, immigration opponents, and those who reject "federal authority in favor of state and local authority." Was this a sinister conspiracy by an administration full of Chard-sipping arugula eaters determined to spy on Red-State patriots? That's quite unlikely: The memo was commissioned during the Bush administration, as was a similar memo focusing on "Leftwing Extremists." But conservatives were nonetheless right to be concerned. The DHS memo suggests that bureaucratic "mission creep" can be as dangerous to liberty as a deliberate campaign of repression...CATO