Americans don't trust Homeland Security or its mission

Coach is Right ^ | 1/6/13 | George Spelvin

[winodog]

It took the D of C over 200 years to create an agency to defend the borders? That was their original job.

Homeland gave me the creeps from day one. They never protected any borders.

Instead they geared up to protect the bureaucrats from we the people or they geared up to make war on we the people.

Just like the TSA and every other agency since 2000

[Tupelo]

Glynco, Ga; Training center for the American SS and Gestapo. Wilson would be proud.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

It is past time for there to be a specific citizens lobbying group with a simple mission: That there are several federal government agencies that have no legitimate need to exist, so should be abolished.

The argument this lobbying organization makes does not need to be fiery or aggressive in any way, just the clear statement that these agencies serve no needed purpose, and are extremely expensive, so government should no longer pretend they have purpose, and despite the inertia of their great bulk, should end funding for them. Buh-bye.

No anger, or threats, or rage. The US was a better place without them, and there is no reason to keep them going, as their missions are either redundant with other agencies, or are intrusive and oppressive without tangible purpose or objective; so they should be dismissed, and the money not spent on other things that are equally unneeded.

These agencies are as superfluous as the industries subsidized by the administration who never achieved what they were supposed to do.

The TSA is as meaningless as A123 Systems or Solyndra. We are no longer subsidizing those, just writing off the investment. The same calm objectivity should apply to the TSA.

Those who supported it were not bad people, they just misjudged America’s security needs and created a bureaucracy that serves to good purpose. So it should be packed in boxes, recycled if possible to more useful purpose, but it is too expensive to keep pumping money into.

Likewise, those who wish them abolished are also not bad people, and do not deserve scrutiny, threats or punishment for demanding efficiency and at least a modicum of careful spending by the federal government.

Admit the mistakes, and stop funding them. It’s not so hard.

[tanknetter]

One has to remember that many of the entities within DHS are legacy agencies that were taken from other departments and placed in DHS. Coast Guard, Border Patrol, U.S. Customs, INS, and the Secret Service were all taken out of their respective departments and placed under the new bureaucracy and then they tossed in the newly created TSA.

Yup, and those pretty parochial interests don't really play well with each other, if the recent Federal employee survey is right. DHS ranks pretty much last or second to last across the board in terms of morale.

I also think that there's a lot of passive aggressiveness going on within the agency as well relative to the "expansive" approach taken (especially by the current administration). The public face of this is the lawsuit filed by those ICE agents against the President (actually Secretary Napolitano) over the illegal nature of the DACA program.

[USNBandit]

The not so public face is the background on the shooting of the LA ICE ASAC by a supervisor that used to be INS. Other issues are the general treatment of any small legacy agency group within a larger organization. CBP has a lot of Border Patrol management despite some major players having really sketchy ethics backgrounds. BP Sector staff demands knowledge of almost all activities within their sector, but doesn't have a reputation for being able to keep secrets.

It is going to be an ongoing challenge.