Monday, March 28, 2005
Confusing Vigilantes and Minutemen
Overall, I am a strong supporter of President Bush's international and domestic agendas. But no one hits all homers; and I think the President is swinging and missing a few in the homeland security area. My last post discussed the TSA bureaucracy's preference for contol over security.
Carrying that theme further, I think the President erred badly in calling the Arizona Minuteman Project participants "vigilantes", as reported here : "I'm against vigilantes in the United States of America," Mr. Bush said at a joint press conference. "I'm for enforcing the law in a rational way." The President should have shown more faith in the citizens, following the "Trust the People" theme of his campaigns. That theme and his "Citizen Choice and Action" theme are both noble and characteristically American.
So what do we know about the Minuteman Project (MMP) ? From the same article : "More than 1,000 people — including 30 pilots and their private planes — have volunteered for the Minuteman Project, beginning next month along the Arizona-Mexico border. Civilians will monitor the movement of illegal aliens for the month of April and report them to the Border Patrol." Sounds more like a neighborhood watch group than a bunch of vigilantes; but the neighborhood is 20 miles of Cochise County desert borderland southeast of Tucson.
Cochise County is named for the Apache chief who dominated the area 150 years ago; its rugged and desolate terrain made it a favorite for Geronomo's raiding parties. Today, that terrain, softened in places by irrigation and farming projects, still provides cover for groups of smugglers transporting illegal aliens, drugs, and weapons from Mexico to the US. And, while not as hostile as the old Apaches, the gangs of today pose a violent threat to rural ranches and residents. Some intelligence reports indicate that the smuggler gangs are used by would-be terrorists to gain entry into the US. This is tough terrain for an understaffed Border Patrol contingent to monitor; they should welcome the help, even for a month-long demonstration.
Of course, the MMP ( The Minuteman Project ) also bills itself as a "political assembly ... to protest the refusal of the Congress and President to protect our borders from illegal immigrants, ... thereby creating an imminent danger to all American." I guess that could be seen as political image problem; but the real question is - are these citizens doing something odious or frivolous , or are they engaged in a serious and potentially useful activity?
Perhaps, we can judge the MMP's character by the nature of its enemies. If so, this Washington Times article tells the story Gang will target Minuteman vigil on Mexico border : " Members of a violent Central America-based gang have been sent to Arizona to target Minuteman Project volunteers, who will begin a monthlong border vigil this weekend to find and report foreigner sneaking into the United States, project officials say."
The gang cited is the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, gang. According to the article :
"The MS-13 gang has established major smuggling operations in several areas along the U.S.-Mexico border and have transported hundreds of Central and South Americans -- including gang members -- into the United States in the past two years. The gang also is involved in drug and weapons smuggling. ... Authorities said that the gang has earned a reputation from the other street gangs as being particularly ruthless ....
The MS-13 gang, with 20,000 members nationwide, has risen in recent months to such prominence that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, has begun a nationwide crackdown on gang members in this country -- as part of a sweeping law-enforcement initiative known as Operation Community Shield."
I don't know all the details about this project, but it seems more beneficial than harmful. Participants come from many states and represent a wide variety of ethnicities, including mexican and native americans; they are said to be 40% minority and women. It seems like a good idea to let citizens become involved more directly in Homeland Security activities.
There is a lot that citizens can do to help keep their local areas safe and to respond to crises. When two criminals terrorized the Washington DC Beltway in a series of sniper murders, police tried to keep close wraps on information and were upset when details of the suspect vehicle leaked out. But it was the leaked information over talk radio that helped a trucker spot the criminals in a rest area. He called the police who arrested the pair. Citizen involvement does work and it can be enabled by clever use of our distributed communications and computing capabilities. We have relatively inexpensive and ubiquitous technology and a technologically aware and patriotic citizenry. Why not use these advantages to augment and support Homeland Security efforts?
Public protests and demonstrations like this one may be a good way to get the government's attention to the Border Security issue and also to the issue of how best to couple citizens and regular authorities to get results. These "Minutemen" seem more like citizen activists than vigilantes. Rather than denigrate them, perhaps the government should embrace them in a common experiment.
UPDATE 29March05 : This latest OP/ED from the Washington Times Gangs and Minutemen provides more detail on the gang targeting the Arizona MMP folks. It also indicates one of the unintended consequences of bureaucracies banding together to keep control - they can end up siding with the bad guys against the honest citizens.
Carrying that theme further, I think the President erred badly in calling the Arizona Minuteman Project participants "vigilantes", as reported here : "I'm against vigilantes in the United States of America," Mr. Bush said at a joint press conference. "I'm for enforcing the law in a rational way." The President should have shown more faith in the citizens, following the "Trust the People" theme of his campaigns. That theme and his "Citizen Choice and Action" theme are both noble and characteristically American.
So what do we know about the Minuteman Project (MMP) ? From the same article : "More than 1,000 people — including 30 pilots and their private planes — have volunteered for the Minuteman Project, beginning next month along the Arizona-Mexico border. Civilians will monitor the movement of illegal aliens for the month of April and report them to the Border Patrol." Sounds more like a neighborhood watch group than a bunch of vigilantes; but the neighborhood is 20 miles of Cochise County desert borderland southeast of Tucson.
Cochise County is named for the Apache chief who dominated the area 150 years ago; its rugged and desolate terrain made it a favorite for Geronomo's raiding parties. Today, that terrain, softened in places by irrigation and farming projects, still provides cover for groups of smugglers transporting illegal aliens, drugs, and weapons from Mexico to the US. And, while not as hostile as the old Apaches, the gangs of today pose a violent threat to rural ranches and residents. Some intelligence reports indicate that the smuggler gangs are used by would-be terrorists to gain entry into the US. This is tough terrain for an understaffed Border Patrol contingent to monitor; they should welcome the help, even for a month-long demonstration.
Of course, the MMP ( The Minuteman Project ) also bills itself as a "political assembly ... to protest the refusal of the Congress and President to protect our borders from illegal immigrants, ... thereby creating an imminent danger to all American." I guess that could be seen as political image problem; but the real question is - are these citizens doing something odious or frivolous , or are they engaged in a serious and potentially useful activity?
Perhaps, we can judge the MMP's character by the nature of its enemies. If so, this Washington Times article tells the story Gang will target Minuteman vigil on Mexico border : " Members of a violent Central America-based gang have been sent to Arizona to target Minuteman Project volunteers, who will begin a monthlong border vigil this weekend to find and report foreigner sneaking into the United States, project officials say."
The gang cited is the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, gang. According to the article :
"The MS-13 gang has established major smuggling operations in several areas along the U.S.-Mexico border and have transported hundreds of Central and South Americans -- including gang members -- into the United States in the past two years. The gang also is involved in drug and weapons smuggling. ... Authorities said that the gang has earned a reputation from the other street gangs as being particularly ruthless ....
The MS-13 gang, with 20,000 members nationwide, has risen in recent months to such prominence that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, has begun a nationwide crackdown on gang members in this country -- as part of a sweeping law-enforcement initiative known as Operation Community Shield."
I don't know all the details about this project, but it seems more beneficial than harmful. Participants come from many states and represent a wide variety of ethnicities, including mexican and native americans; they are said to be 40% minority and women. It seems like a good idea to let citizens become involved more directly in Homeland Security activities.
There is a lot that citizens can do to help keep their local areas safe and to respond to crises. When two criminals terrorized the Washington DC Beltway in a series of sniper murders, police tried to keep close wraps on information and were upset when details of the suspect vehicle leaked out. But it was the leaked information over talk radio that helped a trucker spot the criminals in a rest area. He called the police who arrested the pair. Citizen involvement does work and it can be enabled by clever use of our distributed communications and computing capabilities. We have relatively inexpensive and ubiquitous technology and a technologically aware and patriotic citizenry. Why not use these advantages to augment and support Homeland Security efforts?
Public protests and demonstrations like this one may be a good way to get the government's attention to the Border Security issue and also to the issue of how best to couple citizens and regular authorities to get results. These "Minutemen" seem more like citizen activists than vigilantes. Rather than denigrate them, perhaps the government should embrace them in a common experiment.
UPDATE 29March05 : This latest OP/ED from the Washington Times Gangs and Minutemen provides more detail on the gang targeting the Arizona MMP folks. It also indicates one of the unintended consequences of bureaucracies banding together to keep control - they can end up siding with the bad guys against the honest citizens.
