"The Long Arm Of The Law" America's Department of Homeland Security Goes Worldwide

UNITED STATES

Home and Away

The US Department of Homeland Security has generated occasional controversy since its creation in 2002.

But the latest debate focuses on a new area: The domestic anti-terrorism agency’s rapid expansion of its operations on foreign soil.

Around 2,000 Homeland Security employees are deployed to more than 70 countries around the world, the New York Times reported, while hundreds more patrol the skies and seas of Central America, the Pacific and the Caribbean. Washington and various US allies say these patrols are making the world safer for everybody, as well as preventing threats from ever reaching American soil. But skeptics see Homeland’s activities as an unregulated and often clandestine infringement on national sovereignty and individual rights.

In countries like Ecuador, South Africa and Kenya, Homeland Security agents have helped make massive drug busts and trained local security forces in counterterrorism. And France, Germany and various other countries have not only at times sought deeper partnerships with the agency, but also moved to reshape their own anti-terrorism outfits in its image.

After a meeting with former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson in 2016, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere pushed for the creation of a similar outfit in Germany – where such agencies spark disturbing associations with the hated East German Ministry for State Security, more commonly known as the Stasi, Handelsblatt Global reported. Among his maneuvers: an airline passenger data-storage law that requires airlines to pass on passenger data for flights to and from Germany to the country’s Federal Criminal Police. This includes names, credit-card numbers, luggage information and dietary preferences, Deutsche Welle reported.

Similarly, in December Canada passed legislation that, when fully ratified, will expand the authority of US customs and border-control officers working at Canadian airports, the National Post reported.

The legislation, known as Bill C-23, or the Preclearance Act of 2016, allows Homeland Security employees to carry firearms and conduct strip-searches in Canadian airports, and gives them the authority to detain Canadians should they decide to withdraw from preclearance procedures, Al-Jazeera reported.

“The Government of Canada is committed to making the Canada-United States border more efficient and secure,” Ralph Goodale, Canada’s minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, said after the bill’s passage. He also assured Canadians their rights would be protected.

Not everybody is convinced.

In Germany, lawmaker Andrej Hunko has criticized that nation’s empowering of Homeland Security agents to investigate and interrogate travelers before they board planes bound for the US. The agency’s procedures are not transparent, he complained, and likely include racial profiling – despite Germany’s profession that it has “no evidence that such profiling is carried out.”

Union workers in Canada also protested that added security checks could eliminate union jobs – and tacitly reject Canadians based on their religion or ethnicity.

Meanwhile, the law “provides explicit blanket immunity” to US preclearance officers “from anything done or omitted” in the exercise of their powers and duties, according to the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association.