Hightower Lowdown

Halliburton, the giant government contractor with its own personal sugar daddy, Dick Cheney, keeps getting multibillion-dollar, no-bid contracts from the BushCheney regime, despite having been found guilty of shoddy work, massive cost-overruns, and fraudulent billings.

Its latest windfall, however, is not merely worrisome to tax payers but should set off an alarm regarding the Bushites' antidemocratic penchant to extend ever more police and military power over We the People.

Halliburton has received a $385 million grant to build a network of detention centers across our country. Each of these centers, which are to be run by homeland-security authorities and possibly located on unused military bases, could "detain" and hold up to 5,000 people.

"Detain," of course, is a euphemism for "incarcerate" —or "lock up." And "center" is a gentle term for "prison."

So why does America suddenly need to spend more than a third of a billion dollars to establish a new mass prison complex in our country? The feds and Halliburton cryptically say that the detention centers could be needed for "some kind of mass migration" or for "the rapid development of new programs." When asked what "new programs" might mean, a Halliburton spokeswoman said she could provide no additional information.

The Bushites refer to this as a "contingency contract," saying that the detention centers might never be built, but that Halliburton will have the cash and authority to move quickly if and when the authorities give the goahead. The corporation's executive vice president says that Halliburton is "gratified" because the deal "builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency management support."

So who is to be managed, and in support of what policy?