The Department of Homeland Security was born in the ashes of 9/11 and was initially authorized by the 2002 Homeland Security Act.
From the start, DHS was an agency looking for a mission. Were they spies? Cops? Paper pushers? As it turns out, the answers to those questions are yes, yes, and yes.
Naturally, this has led to redundancy and waste – two things that the government excels at. One of the biggest wastes of time and money at DHS is the proliferation of boards, panels, and other advisory entities with important-sounding names.
Here's one for you: "Homeland Intelligence Experts Group." The innocuous name hides the fact that the biggest heavy-hitters in government intelligence and law enforcement were on it.
And you've never heard of it.
Thankfully, the good folks at America First Legal (AFL) used the auspices of the Freedom of Information Act to ferret out the activities of this group. The panel included former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan – two of the most political appointees in the history of their respective agencies.
This is relevant when considering some of the conclusions the "Experts Group" reached about Donald Trump supporters.
The AFL documents revealed that "supporters of the former president" accounted for "most of the Domestic Terrorism threat" in the U.S.
"There is a political backdrop to all of this. It seems that most of the Domestic Terrorism threat now comes from supporters of the former president. It is not like you want a political advantage, but people have attacked the government and its institutions for the last six years," meeting notes from the board stated.
Of course, you want a political advantage, otherwise you wouldn't have signed that letter before the 2020 election claiming Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation.
It gets worse for anyone suspected of being on the right.
Citing unnamed "researchers," the board also claimed that specific traits – like those who served "in the military" or are "religious" – are "indicators of extremists and terrorism" that the U.S. should be "more worried" about.
"If you ask researchers to dive into indicators of extremists and terrorism, they might indicate being in the military or religious," the board said. "This being identified as an indicator suggests we should be more worried about those. We need the space to talk about it honestly."
The files were released Friday as the second installment of AFL's "#DeepStateDiaries," which was described by the organization as a "multi-part series of releases including newly obtained documents."
"These shocking records reveal apparent unabashed partisanship on this Deep State committee," AFL Executive Director Gene Hamilton told Fox News Digital. "All efforts to weaponize the federal government against political opponents of the ruling regime should be stopped. We look forward to exposing more records in the coming days."
It actually gets worse, There is a Stasi-like attachment to trying to get Americans to tattle on one another.
Certain efforts outlined in the files released Thursday showed how the board hoped to enhance its ability to collect information about Americans.
The group of "experts" said the "See Something, Say Something" campaign following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City fell short because "Americans have an ambivalent feeling of telling on each other."
"We see people who go off the rails. We need people to say something. We need a nationwide campaign to push it to the locals," the meeting notes stated.
"To get a mother or teacher to come forward, it needs to be a public health catcher's mitt," one board member noted.
God, that's creepy.
Note how many proposed new responsibilities the CDC and the public health bureaucracy have been offered the last few years. Gun violence is a "public health crisis." Air pollution and warning labels on social media sites are proposed public health emergencies. And they're just getting started.
"The security of the American people depends on our capacity to collect, generate, and disseminate actionable intelligence to our federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, campus, and private sector partners," DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement at the time the "Experts Group" was formed in 2023.
The East German Stasi encouraged children to turn in their parents for "anti-socialist thinking." We're not close to that point yet. But we're a lot closer since Joe Biden became president.
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