Don't Monitor Political Thought

Update: Intelligence analysts at the Homeland Security Department ignored objections by civil-liberties officials before sending out a controversial report on the resurgence of domestic right-wing extremism, a department official confirmed Friday.

Last week's release of the publication Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (7 April 2009 ) by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is ludicrous.

I love anti-hate groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center because of their humanism and abiding exposure of and rebuttals to rightwing whack jobs.

But monitoring the political thought and activity of Americans ought not be the business of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or any other governmental agency.

From the DHS report:

This product is one of a series of intelligence assessments published by the Extremism and Radicalization Branch to facilitate a greater understanding of the phenomenon of violent radicalization in the United States. The information is provided to federal, state, local, and tribal counterterrorism and law enforcement officials so they may effectively deter, prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist attacks against the United States.

Look, if American citizens wish to hold and develop crackpot ideas and conceptions, that's their right and their business. In other words: The DHS should butt the hell out.

I never thought that I would agree with much that Michelle Malkin says, but she is right on in writing, "The 'report' (PDF file here) was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real."

This report could just as easily been written by J. Edgar Hoover or John Mitchell in the 1960s-70s by inserting blackpower, civil rights and peace for "antigovernment," "white supremacist," and "rightwing extremist" groups.