Why do we need a Department of Homeland Security?

[Count Olaf]

Why would Obama continue some dumb ass dept that Bush started?

If Bush would have just read the memos the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented.

If the Pentagon and NORAD would have followed standard procedure already in place, the attacks could have been prevented.

How much money is being wasted on this orwellian Nazi department hired to spy on us and generally violate our Constitution?


I propose we end the Homeland Security Dept. We don't need it and we cannot afford it. We never had it before and we can certainly do without it.





We can then divert the money to the Department of People Security. Money will be used to create jobs refurbishing foreclosed homes(turning mcmansions into duplexes etc.) to provide housing for the millions of people who are homeless.


We need to start standing up to this government and DEMAND that they throw us a bone. WE know how much money they are wasting, how much they handed to their banker buddies, why do we let them treat us this way?

They(are supposed to) work for US and they can't do a single thing for the millions of people that are hurting because of their policies!!

When will we fight for the people these government policies have devastated?

So many people are hurting, struggling every day just to survive....who will speak for them? Who will fight for them?


One Million Homeless Children in America’s Schools
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9039235

[mike r]

1. Don't you want to be safe?

[pscot]

2. Because we're a frightened people?

:scared:

[Loge23]

3. But who will pat me down at the airports?

I totally agree - this scam is one of the most egregous of all the Republican "less government" scams that they run.
It seems everytime we have a Rep in office, or in control, we get more government in the way of enforcement and curbed civil rights.
I saw a baseball special program the other day about the Marlins trip to Puerto Rico (and don't get me started on that!). Anyway, here's the team on the tarmac getting aboard their chartered plane. The nutso TSA thugs are wanding and frisking players, arms outstretched, as they board. I mean, is there a threat here? What are we paying these idiots to abuse us anyway?
Perhaps the only good for the TSA/DHS is keeping the unemployment figures down.

[Ozymanithrax]

4. It is called the Homeland Security Act of 2002

Homeland Security Act of 2002
As an official department created by law, it would be necessary to repeal that law and establish a different system of organization for the various departments that were placed there.

[Count Olaf]

14. that seems easy enough

just as easily as it has been created, it can be dismantled.

[Posteritatis]

16. No one in the Congress would dare vote to do that. (nt)

[Ozymanithrax]

21. Well, Republicans would not dismantle it, and without the Senate that can not be done.

They can not just vote it away, because all the bureaus that come under Homeland Security have to be reformed and whole new organizational structures must be created.

What I've noticed about law is that nothing can be just established or disestablished. It takes time, effort, and political capitol. Over 209,000 people worked in Homeland Security in 2007. Where do the go? Who will be their new bosses?

And what is the point of disestablishing Homeland Security? What would work better without it?

[Count Olaf]

24. "What would work better without it?"

Democracy. The Constitution.

These bastards pretended they were incompetent on 9/11, then used their own "incompetence" to push this real attack on our freedoms.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. I could not agree more.

[Cal33]

6. There are so many department heads and advisers left over

from the Bush Administration who are serving in the present one. As long as they
are around, these departments will be around also.

[Count Olaf]

28. which is exactly why we should eliminate it and them

we can't afford it.

If we cannot afford to pay out social security, we cannot afford homeland security.

[blogslut]

7. Well, when the Clinton adminstration first proposed the DHS...

It was designed as a means for all the assorted law enforcement and intelligence agencies to share information in order to better protect us against impending threats.

What Bush did with it is another story.

EDIT ADD: Excerpt from Al Franken's book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, entitled "Operation Ignore"

Meanwhile, on February 15, 2001, a commission led by former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman issued its third and final report on national security. The Hart-Rudman report warned that "mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing concern'' and said that America was woefully unprepared for a "catastrophic'' domestic terrorist attack and urged the creation of a new federal agency: "A National Homeland Security Agency with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security” that would include the Customs Service, the Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and more than a dozen other government departments and agencies.

The Hart-Rudman Commission had studied every aspect of national security over a period of years and had come to a unanimous conclusion: "This commission believes that the security of the American homeland from the threats of the new century should be the primary national security mission of the U.S. government."

The report generated a great deal of media attention and even a bill in Congress to establish a National Homeland Security Agency. But over at the White House, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decided that the best course of action was not to implement the recommendations of the Hart-Rudman report, but instead to launch a sweeping initiative dubbed "Operation Ignore."

[hunter]

8. Because every evil empire has one.

If we got rid of our empire we wouldn't need a homeland. We'd all be ordinary people who were at home or not at home.

[Count Olaf]

30. end the empire

:applause:

[political_Dem]

9. We don't. It's more pork from the government.

It was only created to make America into the fearful, cowering nation it is.

Besides, I've hated the word "homeland" since its inception. I still think that it lends itself to Nazi-speak.

[leveymg]

10. They read the memos to Bush. The NORAD procedures were changed by Cheney.

9/11 changed everything, didn't you get the memo? We're stuck with DHS, forever, even the Afrikaaner agency name.

[Count Olaf]

12. ...and Rumsfeld was the only person on the planet that had no idea of the attacks

until a plane hit the pentagon over an hour after the towers.

I don't think any department of homeland security can fix that kind of 'stupid'.

[leveymg]

13. Weird thing is, Rummy was the one to authorize the intercepts under Cheney rules

Funny, Rummy was too busy eating danish and drinking coffee at the Pentagon to be notified. So, Cheney took over command at the White House bunker, according to Transportation Sec. Mineta.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfdOwt2v3Y

During the course of the meeting (at the Pentagon on the morning of 9/11) Rumsfeld predicts that some kind of “shocking” world event will occur in the near future (see (Before 8:46 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Most accounts suggest the meeting is adjourned soon after the time the first WTC tower is hit, presumably around 8:50 a.m., though one report says it ends at about 9 a.m. Just prior to the meeting ending, Rumsfeld is handed a note informing him of the crash (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Edmund Giambastiani also sees this note. Whether the other people in attendance are notified of the crash at this time is unknown. (Larry King Live, 12/5/2001; ABC News, 8/12/2002; PBS, 10/26/2004; American Forces Press Service, 9/8/2006) Thomas White says, “We all went on with the day’s business,” after leaving the meeting. He heads off to give a speech at the nearby Army Navy Country Club. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Giambastiani return to their offices. (Vanity Fair, 5/9/2003; American Forces Press Service, 9/8/2006) http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_9/11=donaldrumsfeld

Strangely, it all makes sense only if you're willing to accept the possibility of intentionality.

[Count Olaf]

15. well how was he supposed to know- he was "looking outward"

nt

[leveymg]

22. He was also busy figuring out where to paint that line that should not be crossed

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25008.htm

Revealed: Ashcroft, Tenet, Rumsfeld warned 9/11 Commission about ‘line’ it ’should not cross’

By Sahil Kapur
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 -- 9:11 am

Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to a document recently obtained by the ACLU.

The notification came in a letter dated January 6, 2004, addressed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet. The ACLU described it as a fax sent by David Addington, then-counsel to former vice president Dick Cheney.

In the message, the officials denied the bipartisan commission's request to question terrorist detainees, informing its two senior-most members that doing so would "cross" a "line" and obstruct the administration's ability to protect the nation.

"In response to the Commission's expansive requests for access to secrets, the executive branch has provided such access in full cooperation," the letter read. "There is, however, a line that the Commission should not cross -- the line separating the Commission's proper inquiry into the September 11, 2001 attacks from interference with the Government's ability to safeguard the national security, including protection of Americans from future terrorist attacks."

The 9/11 Commission, officially called the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was formed by President Bush in November of 2002 "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks" and to offer recommendations for preventing future attacks.

[The Northerner]

11. K&R

[Blue Owl]

17. To protect us from lightning strikes

which are 25 times more likely to occur in your neighborhood than terrorist attacks.

[Count Olaf]

29. we have 100,000 per year dying of no health care

maybe we should have a department of common sense

[WinkyDink]

18. "orwellian Nazi department hired to spy on us and generally violate our Constitution" = ANSWER.

[hobbit709]

19. Because our corporate masters want to keep us serfs cowed.

[Rex]

20. Don't you remember? 9/11 changed everything!

The Repukes WANT, no NEED to be controlled by a tyranical system of spies and survellance. They live in a state of constant FEAR that promotes the rise of organizations to watch them and their neighbors, for the off chance that one might be a terrorist. The Homeland Security is nothing more than an attempt to keep the illusion alive that communism just could not do after the fall of the Soviet Union. They didn't have the chance, until 9/11, to create an overwatch groups that violates everyones privacy rights daily. This is further, longterm work, to make the masses predictable and ignorant. Best way to rule, while stealing the masses money from the Treasury for a few big private companies. See? 9/11 means no oversight of the free market...just draconion measures to take away individuals personal rights and liberties.

That is why they created the DHS.

[Panaconda]

23. Great post

Cash cow for the MIC and fear machine.

K&R

[GeorgeGist]

Because the Department of Defense ...

wasn't generating enough profits for the military-industrial complex.

[GeorgeGist]

25. Because the Department of Defense ...

wasn't generating enough profits for the military-industrial complex.

[Recursion]

26. Well, we pretty much pressured Bush into making it

Bush said it would be too cumbersome and just add layers of bureaucracy without actually improving inter-agency communication. But this was just after 9/11 and Democrats were running scared looking for any way to appear "tough", so we pressured the Republicans into making it. For once in W's life, he was right.

Not that I blame the Democrats for the fiasco it became under Bush's administration. This was a reorganization the size of the 1947 national security act and it got pieced together with spit and duct tape over a weekend. Not surprisingly, it's got some problems.

[Count Olaf]

27. And now they're coming for your retirement!

Are you gonna let them take your Social Security while they are wasting money on this BS?