These and other moves to increase national "security and readiness," in the words of Thomas Ridge, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, were carried out under the auspices of his office. Other measures in "Operation Liberty Shield" include the arrests of Iraqi nationals living here, the jailing of asylum-seekers, and the implementation of a list of "security guidelines" in food processing companies.

Meat packers and other workers in food factories may be subject to "background checks" under the new rules, published by the Food and Drug Administration. Workers could also be banned from "bringing purses or other personal items into food-storage areas," reported the Associated Press March 22.

"We will increase security at our borders," said Ridge on March 19. "There will be more Coast Guard air and sea patrols off our shores and in our ports," in which police vessels will escort passenger ships into ports, along with "hundreds of more agents and resources on the border," he said.

National Guard troops and police have increased patrols of interstate freeways, other major roads, bridges, and subway tunnels. Many entrants into government buildings have to stop to have their briefcases inspected.

In New York some police units carry submachine guns as they patrol with dogs. "There is a two-front war here. One is on the streets of our cities, and one is overseas," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Homeland Security spokesman William Strassberger announced a sweep of Iraqi residents in the United States. FBI agents are carrying it out in collaboration with cops from the new Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE), which is under Homeland Security’s jurisdiction. BICE replaces the former Immigration and Naturalization Service--the widely hated INS--which fell under the Justice Department.

Officials say they are on the lookout for Iraqis who "might pose a threat to the safety and security of the American people," and will use alleged violations of immigration law in jailing them. Those who are suspected of sympathizing with Saddam Hussein will be singled out.

"Voluntary interviews" will be conducted with 11,000 Iraqis, officials said.

Ridge indicated that the sweep will not stop with Iraqis, saying that "intelligence reporting indicates that...Iraqi state agents, Iraq surrogate groups, other regional extremist organizations and ad-hoc groups or disgruntled individuals may use this time period to conduct terrorist attacks against the United States and our interests either here or abroad."

In Colorado some 50 people had been arrested by March 21, nearly 10 percent of the state’s total Iraqi population. The arrests were "designed to make the country safer during the tense days ahead," stated the Denver Post.

The next day two Iraqi brothers in Denver were arrested and charged with sending $7 million to Iraq "through an unlicensed money transmitting business."

Homeland Security officials have announced that asylum seekers from countries with alleged links to Al Qaeda will be locked up while their applications are processed.  
 
Increased military, police air patrols
In addition to stepping up patrols of streets, railways, and waterways, the police and military have expanded their presence in the skies, using fighter and surveillance aircraft over U.S. cities. More than 80 FBI "nightstalker" aircraft are in operation, equipped to enable the cops to listen in on cellphone conversations and carry out other snooping.

MSNBC.com reported that the onset of all-out war "could mean more jet fighters patrolling the skies around big cities and ground-based air defenses around population centers." The report cited "authorities at the North American Aerospace Defense Command" (NORAD).

Officials from the military command that oversees NORAD, the Colorado-based Northern Command (Northcom), made similar observations. Of the nine U.S. military commands, Northcom is the only one charged with carrying out military operations within U.S. territory.

At the command’s official launch October 1, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz called Northcom’s formation "historic." The move breaks with the restrictions on the use of U.S. military forces on U.S. soil that were imposed under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

Northcom was not the brainchild of the Bush administration. It was built on foundations laid during the two terms of Democratic president William Clinton. The command’s immediate predecessor, the Virginia-based Joint Task Force-Civil Support, was established by the Clinton administration in 1999 as a "homeland defense command."

Over the last year and a half, the National Guard--a so-called citizen’s army, which has increasingly come under military command--has increased the number of troops on active duty from an average of 5,000 to 50,000.  
 
Clinton-era measures laid foundation
Other attacks on workers’ rights identified with the Bush administration also go back to the Clinton years. Two 1996 bills laid the legal basis for the intensified attacks on working people who are immigrants, and the use of "terrorism" as grounds for brushing aside legal rights. They were the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. The new laws expanded the powers of the INS to seize and deport undocumented immigrants without the right to judicial review or appeal, and authorized the INS to jail noncitizens based on "secret evidence." Some two dozen people had already been imprisoned based on secret evidence long before the September 11 World Trade Center attacks.

During Clinton’s eight years in office, 100,000 more cops were put on the streets, the U.S. prison population doubled to 2 million inmates, and the INS was expanded into the largest federal cop agency. Nearly 300,000 immigrants were deported from 1997 to 1999. An INS spokesman of the day, Russell Bergeron, said: "We apprehend and take into custody more people than any other agency in the world."

This is the course the Bush administration has taken further, in some cases giving legal blessing to new police powers. On February 28, for example, the last day of the INS, Attorney General John Ashcroft handed new authority to FBI agents to arrest people on immigration charges if they are deemed to be a wartime threat.

The Bush White House has added one piece of major legislation, the Patriot Act, to the legislative attacks on workers’ rights of the 1990s. The act gave official blessing to a range of police surveillance operations.

Attorney General John Ashcroft and other officials have also begun extending their infringements of workers’ rights to U.S. citizens. In the aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan, Yasser Hamdi and José Padilla were both jailed as "enemy combatants," placed in solitary confinement without charges, and denied access to legal counsel.

The government suffered a setback in the latest court hearing challenging this denial. In mid-March, a Federal District Court in New York ruled that Padilla has the right to meet with a lawyer to challenge his status as an "enemy combatant."  
 
 
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