Kelly was, as I recall, the commissioner of the United States Customs Service when morale in that agency hit rock bottom. If you are wondering why, let me give you a few examples: He apparently believed that there was a very high degree of corruption in the Customs Service. Yet, despite his statements to that effect, there were not large scale numbers of corruption arrests in much higher percentage during his reign than before he was the boss there. Why not? Moist likely because, like in any law enforcement agency, corruption existed - but it was nowhere nearly as bad as he seemingly believed or fantasized it to be.
Then there was the case of a black Jamaican woman who was searched by Customs Inspectors after arriving at JFK airport aboard a Jamaica Airlines flight. She claimed she was stopped because of racism and racial profiling. Kelly, as I recall, immediately agreed with her, seemingly without checking into the facts of her case and she was suing the government over it. Indeed there had been profiling, but not of her due to her race. The profiling was routine and legal. You see, the flight had been profiled, as were many other flights targeted that were coming from known narcotics transfer and source countries and as for having had transported many a smuggler in the past. Jamaica was both a source country and transfer point for illegal narcotics that would be smuggled in the US. The flight was a choice flight for smugglers to use. People on that flight were often subjected to Customs searches based on that knowledge as well as over considerations.
In addition, as I remember, there was the legal blooper of the century made by Kelly when he in essence said that Customs officials were illegally searching people at the border because they were doing so absent probable cause and that he was going to eliminate that illegal practice. Had he even done one tiny little bit of research on the subject of Customs search authority and border searches he would have realized that Customs searches, at the border or its equivalent, do not require probable cause and can be performed on as little as a hunch on the part of a Customs official. He would also have learned that such searches had been upheld as legal by SCOTUS many years before Ray Kelly was born. Customs searches, at the border (or its equivalent) are very different in scope of authority that are most other searches conducted by law enforcement officials. Kelly though, barged right into the Customs Service, with preconceived legal notions and with his prior hang-ups over the amount of corruption he perceived in the NYPD and he weighed down Customs with them. Add to that the fact that almost every other memo, signed by him, for about his first 6 months or so in charge, to reach field personnel (at least those I saw) had to do with integrity problems that he perceived and you can understand how morale plummeted under his reign in Customs.
To be quite frank, he was in my opinion the biggest asshole in charge of any government agency that I have ever seen except maybe for Janet Napolitano but if he takes her slot he is, I think, sure to surpass her ineptness. When he was in Customs, it was rumored that he was supposedly gunning to get the directors spot in the FBI. In fact he was in the running for it: "Kelly, who has been leading the city’s police department for more than a decade, was considered a one-time contender to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the Clinton administration" (source). He did not get that position but left Customs and returned to the NYPD. Many Customs personnel, whom I knew, were happy to see him go and many NYPD officers seemed none too happy to be saddled with him again. I imagine it was his inability to adjust to federal service and his apparent misunderstandings about legal issues (in my estimation also his ego driven overall piss poor performance and his seeming paranoia about corruption) in the Customs Service, under Clinton, that assured he would never sit in the seat of power at the FBI. Funny how Schumer is not quoted as telling us anything about Ray Kelly as the Commissioner of Customs and how he was passed over in the selection process to lead the FBI - isn't it! And no that's not George W. Bush's fault.
In my opinion, and I am nowhere near being alone on this point, Kelly is a super ego maniac. He evidently does not give a rat's ass about the rights of people he is supposed to be serving nor about the Constitution he has sworn to protect and is supposed to uphold. He instead seemingly acts as if he is the puppet henchman of a despot (take your pick of either Clinton or Bloomberg or both) and that he is mostly employed to see their will is done without regard for the law unless such concern is politically beneficent to his bosses or himself. Just take a look at his number one pet project on the streets of NY - Stop and Frisk. I think it is a racist system of profiling black, Hispanic and even white people. Just ask any white guy who has had the nerve to let the cops see him walk through a black neighborhood at night. Strange though, you hear little or nothing about that in the media but if you are a white guy traversing a black neighborhood you seemingly are a likely target of the NYPD stop and frisk program based only on your race.
As noted above, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has bragged that his army is the third or fourth largest in the world- he made it quite clear that he was referring to the NYPD as an army. Mr. Kelly never once corrected Bloomberg to tell him that he is in charge of a police department and not an army nor that it would be illegal for Bloomberg to be running an army in NYC. Kelly apparently just kisses the asses of those with whom he is in favor and with those whose ultra leftist politics he agrees in order to advance his own power hungry agenda.
In my opinion, Ray Kelly would be about the worst possible candidate for the job of running the Department of Homeland Security under any administration that would be mindful of the Constitution and of the rights of the People. Under the current administration though - he might fit in perfectly and I have little to no doubt he would be willing to pull the trigger (or order his personnel to do so) when aimed in law abiding and patriotic citizens of the United States of America to promote his bosses political agenda.
Of course, I guess to be absolutely fair, I should mention that I think he would, in all likelihood, be a step up from Janet Napolitano as the head man (yes that pun was intentional) at DHS. So, instead of being the ground on which the dog has shit and pissed, he would be the shit itself. If you want to see another petty tyrant in charge of a department in Washington, then do nothing. If you want someone in charge of DHS who is actually qualified for the job and who will support the Constitution, then I think you need let your elected officials know, immediately, that you oppose Ray Kelly as the head of DHS.
All the best,
Glenn B
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