Obama's pending homeland security appointments show his hypocrisy (again)

Stars are shifting in the constellation of command in post-constitutional America. Janet Napolitano is preparing to step down as head of the Department of Homeland Security in order to serve as chancellor of the University of California Schools system. In the interim, Obama has nominated Alejandro Mayorkas for the number two post at the department, which will leave him in day to day command until Napolitano is replaced. Alejandro Mayorkas is currently under investigation for intervening to secure a visa for a Chinese investor. Obama has indicated he may give NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly the nod for the top post, a move that Congressional Republicans heavily favor.

Obama's speech to the nation after the George Zimmerman verdict was more about scoring points than securing rights to life and limb, if his comments on Ray Kelly are any guide “Mr. Kelly might be very happy where he is, but if he’s not I’d want to know about it, because obviously he’d be very well qualified for the [Homeland Security] job,” the president said.

Kelly has been New York's top cop for more than 12 years. These 12 years have seen a vast expansion of Operation Impact, a program that targets young men of color disproportionately for stop-and-frisk searches for constitutionally dubious reasons, such as being present in a high crime area and or making “furtive movements.” The program of seemingly random aggressive stops target black and Latino youth 84 percent of the time. Between the abuse of everyday working class youth of color and the abuse of protestors, New York City has over 1,300 civil rights lawsuits pending against it.

The program produces a climate of fear and intimidation in many New York neighborhoods. This climate is something that Kelly gleefully and openly applauds. According to a story published at constitutioncampaign.org, “NYPD Police Chief Ray Kelly said the stop and frisk policy was designed to make young black and Latino men afraid that they would be stopped wherever they left their buildings.”

With Obama backing Kelly, America can expect this campaign to extend nationwide. Indeed, expanding his powers beyond the scope of New York is something Kelly has already done. In violation of the CIA's own charter which prohibits it from engaging in domestic law enforcement, the NYPD has had CIA agents on loan to help with terrorism investigations. The CIA's own Inspector General noted in a classified report that there were "irregular personnel practices, the lack of formal documentation in some important instances.”

The formal documentation did cover the NYPD's survey of every single mosque in the city in an effort to “proactively” map the entire Muslim community. This low level ubiquitous surveillance extended even beyond the NYPD's jurisdiction to Newark, NJ in a colonial spying effort that produced this 60 page secret document [view here] that cataloged every mosque and Muslim owned eatery in the neighboring city, including a Dunkin’ Donuts franchise (an in depth investigation was clearly in order). It clearly marks the geographic distribution of “foreign born” people by community and neighborhood. At one Mosque that was predominantly African American the officers noted “active and aggressive counter-surveillance,” in other words “Why are those guys with doughnut crumbs on their bellies taking our picture from that Crown Victoria?”

Fear and intimidation for young men of color and the wholesale cataloging of every Muslim in the NYC area are not the only ways that Ray Kelly's jackboots smash down on the face of the body politic. Kelly sits on the Homeland Security Advisory Board, where he helped coordinate the nationwide crackdown on the Occupy movement in late 2011. While his soon to be predecessor Napolitano denied DHS coordination of the brutal suppression, the actual coordination was done through a non-profit called the Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF, of which Kelly is a member. The Executive Director of PERF, Chuck Wexler, also sits on the Homeland Security Advisory Board.

The resultant suppression, including one on the Brooklyn Bridge that resulted in an ongoing suit, saw more people arrested in the United States than during the recent uprising in Iran. Pepper spray flowed freely from New York, to the campuses of the University of California, where Napolitano, America's first lady of repression, will now have a more intimate role in suppressing student demonstrations. Her ascending to her post there will require a vote by the Regents of California, including Diane Feinstien's husband Michael Blum, who makes his billions in part from drone warfare.

President Obama calls America a nation of laws. Perhaps the law he refers to is the law of the jungle. This jungle is about to get a new apex predator in the form of Ray Kelly, who will bring racist policing tactics to the whole country with efficient vigor.

View the full AP PDF here.