Posted on 01/07/2011 4:34:55 PM PST by upchuck
Hardly anyone has seriously scrutinized either the priorities or the spending patterns of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its junior partner, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), since their hurried creation in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Sure, they get criticized plenty. But year in, year out, they continue to grow faster and cost more -- presumably because Americans think they are being protected from terrorism by all that spending. Yet there is no evidence whatsoever that the agencies are making Americans any safer.
DHS serves only one clear purpose: to provide unimaginable bonanzas for favored congressional districts around the United States, most of which face no statistically significant security threat at all. One thinks of the $436,504 that the Blackfeet Nation of Montana received in fiscal 2010 "to help strengthen the nation against risks associated with potential terrorist attacks"; the $1,000,000 that the village of Poynette, Wisconsin (pop. 2,266) received in fiscal 2009 for an "emergency operations center"; or the $67,000 worth of surveillance equipment purchased by Marin County, California, and discovered, still in its original packaging, four years later. And indeed, every U.S. state, no matter how landlocked or underpopulated, receives, by law, a fixed percentage of homeland security spending every year.
As for the TSA, I am not aware of a single bomber or bomb plot stopped by its time-wasting procedures. In fact, TSA screeners consistently fail to spot the majority of fake "bombs" and bomb parts the agency periodically plants to test their skills. In Los Angeles, whose airport was targeted by the "millennium plot" on New Year's 2000, screeners failed some 75 percent of these tests.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
DHS is right up there with the EPA and FCC on the list of obnoxious government agencies that need to be shut down. Really bad.
It's not on the excerpt list. Why not post it here?
As ALWAYS, I tried to post the entire article. However, the article posting page software said articles from foreignpolicy.com must be excerpted.
FWIW, I have been told by Jim Rob that the excerpt list here is not up to date. He offered no reason as to why.
This excerpting business seems to cause a lot of consternation among FReepers. There are better ways of doing it. But it ain't my house.
Agreed! This alone is basis for that: Forget Arizona, Obama sends Border Patrol to Afghanistan
US Border Patrol Weekly Blotter
Reported on January 2, 2011
Buffalo Sector – Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Egypt near Oswego, New York. Records checks revealed the subject had a criminal history, including a prior felony conviction for receiving stolen property. The subject had also been previously removed from the United States.
Did the United States defend itself against the Communist aggression without a Department of Homeland Security?
Did the US Coast Guard exist and function for centuries while not under a Department of Homeland Security?
Has Janet Napolitano ever been legitimized as serving in the military, or on the frontlines, or ever as an at-risk intelligence operative?
Is Michael Chertoff, the Rabbi's son and past DHS, invested in TSA X-ray machines?
Are those X-ray machines to be employed at the coming NFL playoff games and Super Bowl, infinitely more target rich terrorist opportunities than a 757?
Is there not an US Department of Transportation, as in Transportation Security Agency (TSA)?
When Senator(?)Chuck Schumer declares the Tea Party as regression to the nineteenth century, is the Senator so abysmally ignorant and bigoted that he does not know what the American Revolution, (or even the French revolution), means in terms of the human spirit?
Did the citizens of the United States really really elect as President someone like Barack Obama (and that's no personal dislike of him so much as disgust as such being President)?
Does not freedom and human dignity in a crowded world require independent thought and individual courage from each of us?
Johnny Suntrade
The underlying mission of the FCC is required. Someone has to establish who gets to use which frequency bands for what purpose, which is clearly a public function, since broadcast bands are a public commons.
Likewise someone has to establish and enforce technical standards on electromagnetic emissions since improper emissions deny the use of the electronic spectrum to everyone else.
That said, a lot of the FCC is probably excess baggage.
and thank you progressive George Bush for stealing our liberty and freedom under the guise of increased safety and paving the way for the final phase of the subversive progressive takeover of our country.
In this new world fools and their lives are soon parted.
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