The Homeland Security leviathan: immense, expensive, pervasively corrupt, the Department of Homeland Security is rapidly becoming a militarized menace to American liberties.

Bellows Falls, Vermont, population 3,024, has eight full-time police officers--and 16 24-hour surveillance cameras. This is just three fewer than operate in "the District of Columbia, which has 181 times Bellows Falls's population," observes the Washington Post.

That New England community of 3,024 people is just one of many "Mayberry-sized places" now under constant surveillance, thanks to federal homeland security grants, and "similar networks have gone up in places such as Baltimore, Chicago, and New York," continues the Post.

While millions of dollars have been lavished on major communities, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has spent much more, proportionately, on grants to smaller communities. For instance: Nevada City, California, has received nearly $500,000; Owyhee, Nevada, a town so small it doesn't have a stoplight, pulled in $225,000.

The arrival of the Homeland Security gravy train hasn't been an unalloyed blessing, of course. States and municipalities that receive the grants "must select from specific items on an approved list" and buy them through federally approved vendors, noted the Hampton (New Hampshire) Union. Communities that applied for the grants had until last October 1 to "adopt a resolution stating they will comply with the Department of Homeland Security's National Incident Management System ... in order to qualify," added the St. Paul Pioneer-Press.

Once they have had a taste of DHS largesse, cities are willing to do anything it takes to keep the money flowing in. On January 3, the department announced a revised grant policy, with some cities slated to get a little more, others to receive a little less. "Cities are either jubilant that they've been designated high-risk targets for terrorism, because that means more dollars, more jobs, more shiny riot gear ... or else they're resentful that they're lower-risk targets, because there's fewer [dollars] in it for them," wrote Pierre Tristam of the Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Those who take the federal nickel must take the federal noose, as well. In this case, grant recipients have to display what Tristam calls "unquestioned submission to homeland security dogma," the central tenet of which is that regimentation and constant surveillance are necessary because it is the public at large that constitutes the real enemy.

"Code Red"