Homeland Security Act

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The Homeland Security Act (HSA) of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-296, 116 Stat. 2135 (Nov. 25, 2002), introduced in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, created the Department of Homeland Security in the largest government reorganization in 50 years, since the Department of Defense was created. The HSA is a sweeping anti-terrorism bill giving federal law enforcement agencies broad powers to monitor citizens.

The new department created by the 35-page Homeland Security Act assumed a number of government functions previously conducted in other departments. It superseded, but did not replace the Office of Homeland Security, which retained an advisory role.

1 Civil liberties concerns
2 Eli Lilly rider to HSA
3 See also
4 External links
5 Notes

[edit] Civil liberties concerns

Some citizens argue that Civil liberties are imperiled by the Homeland Security Act. Those they argue to be imperiled include some constitutional rights such as the rights to freedom of speech, religion, assembly and privacy; the rights to counsel and due process; and protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. Many citizens do not agree with this view.

Only eighteen cities and towns went to the extreme measure of declaring themselves 'civil liberties safe zones' following HSA's passage, according to a 2002 Village Voice column. [2]

Concerns about curtailment of civil liberties by the HSA were given a heightened sense of urgency by media revelations in 2002, about another Bush administration initiative, which created a new Pentagon agency under the direction of John Poindexter, known as the Office of Total Information Awareness.

[edit] Eli Lilly rider to HSA

Political analysts and the parents of autistic children were baffled when it was learned, shortly after the passage of the HSA, that a rider to the bill had been added just prior to passage, that would shield Eli Lilly and the pharmaceutical industry from billions of dollars in anticipated lawsuits over vaccines. "It's a mystery to us," who inserted the rider, said Eli Lilly spokesman Rob Smith at the time. The provision was designed to force lawsuits over the preservative thiomersal, calling the suits into a special 'vaccine court'^[1]. Thiomersal was used in a some vaccines originally developed and marketed by Eli Lilly in 1930, two decades before autism spectrum disorders were first described by Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger. The provision could have resulted in the dismissal of thousands of cases filed by parents, who contend mercury in thimerosal poisoned their children, causing autism and other neurological ailments, but the rider was subsequently repealed when the next session of congress convened in 2003. Senate Bill 3, currently under consideration as of June, 2005, may restore elements of the rider.