Is it time to dismantle the Dept. of Homeland Security?

[mick063]

Bin Laden is dead, Al Quaida is crippled, Pakistan/Iran could smuggle in a nuke with a shipment of heroin. We all know how effective the DEA is at denying opium passage.

So after the department has been revealed by the mayor of Oakland to be the "coordinator" of a nationwide "crackdown", do we really want a national police force? If civil rights activity were to be defined as "terrorism", isn't that exactly what the department was created for?

When militarized police are controlled on a national scale, why have the National Guard? Oh....I forgot. Ten years of war and long deployments have soaked up every reserve unit worth a hill of beans.

Leave it to the CEO's, bankers, and hedge fund mangers to have an ace up their sleeves. President Bush set them up with one well equipped compliance tool. Not only that, you can pay for the "boots on the ground" with state taxes instead of federal taxes. Way cool. A federally controlled, locally financed army. Brilliant!

There is an added bonus. When the Department of Homeland Security was created, 500 FBI agents were reassigned from domestic "white collar crime" cases to surveillance of domestic terrorists. How convenient for the 1%. Unless one were to define the "fat cats" as economic terrorists. One could only wish.

Gov. Perry wants to eliminate a few departments. Departments that control radioactive waste. Departments that monitor clean air and water. Why isn't the compliance department (AKA Dept. of Homeland Security) getting the axe?

[Tom Ripley]

1. Right after the DEA is dismantled

[badtoworse]

2. No. Only a an idiot would see our situation as not warranting stepped up security

[RufusTFirefly]

3. Shred the DHS into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the four winds

The last guy who tried something similar had a pretty tough time of it.



"I want to shred the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the four winds." -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

[PDJane]

4. Oh, hell........

DHS, that fascistic-titled organization, should have been still born.

It's long past time to dismantle it; in fact, to dismantle the CIA too.

[TheKentuckian]

5. Since it should have never existed, then absolutely past due.

[bigwillq]

6. Hello.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[LWolf]

7. Past time. It should never have existed to begin with. nt

[saras]

8. Is it time to stop raping children? There was NEVER AN EXCUSE for the DHS

It was designed for domestic control, and the PNAC describes what it was for and why it was created.

Shut it down and do stuff that works. It's an idiot-simple decision.

[tavalon]

9. Way past time

Should never have been created in the first place. With a steep, steep learning curve, the employees could segue right on over to a department of Peace. No loss of jobs .

[tavalon]

10. Way past time

Should never have been created in the first place. With a steep, steep learning curve, the employees could segue right on over to a department of Peace. No loss of jobs .

[alittlelark]

11. Of course it is.... but JOB LOSS!!!!!!!!

THAT is what they will argue (if it ever happens).

[unionworks]

12. Bush erected

The framework of the police state. We just saw what happens when people wake up and take to the street demanding real change. Our falling for the lies of that asministration just may have permanently enslaved us.

[krabigirl]

13. Yes.

[jberryhill]

14. Kinda late in the day for that. How about tomorrow afternoon?

[Tesha]

15. It should never have been mantled in the first place.

It was an abomination from Day 1 along with its enabling act, the
USA PATRIOT Act part I.

Tesha

[BlueIris]

16. I wish. Homeland Security has become a creepy, all-encompassing umbrella

with far reaching influence. Hard for me to believe it's going to be dismantled now.

[ThomWV]

17. It shouldn't have ever been created and it will not be deconstructed in our lifetimes

[Fumesucker]

18. A national security state is a one way ratchet..

There's only one natural release lever for such a sociological one way ratchet.

We've seen it play out all over the Middle East for the last year or so.

[ThomWV]

24. !

There must be some short way to say "as much as I hate to admit it, because it is a terrible truth to know, you are absolutely right". Is there some sort of little smiley face for such a thing?

[xchrom]

19. Yes. Nt

[WillyT]

20. Yes !!! - K & R !!!

:kick:

[Magoo48]

21. Hell Yes...

[hobbit709]

22. You want that answer in one word or two?

[libinnyandia]

23. There were many, more independent agencies that existed

before DHS. They have legitimate reasons for existing. They should just be reinstated as part of theeir original agencies.

[lonestarnot]

25. Overdue!

[woo me with science]

26. Hell yes. nt

[progressoid]

27. Ha - good luck with that.

[darth marth]

28. Serious BIG GOVERNMENT that of course Repubilcans should want to dismantle immediately

It is basically a slush fund for Republican pet projects

[Canuckistanian]

29. It shouldn't have been mantled in the first place

Besides the Orwellian name, DHS seems to have too broad of a mandate, sometimes replacing the FBI, the CIA and NSA.

More bureaucracy, more confusion = less time tracking down international criminals.

[Donnachaidh]

30. oh HELL yes. n/t

[Fire Walk With Me]

31. Utterly. It was a power grab to begin with. "Creating causes and conditions."

[Laelth]

32. Yes.

Is this a trick question? Its very name gives me chills.

-Laelth

[treestar]

33. The organization of the Departments doesn't affect what the

laws are that they are enforcing. The only difference the creation of DHS made was organization.

For instance immigration was part of the justice department. Now it is part of DHS. Customs, anything having to do with people crossing into the US was put in one Department.

I've never seen how its creation really did anything effective, but then that is probably a complex question involving bureaucratic structures. Whether it helps them "connect the dots" on terrorism is something we don't have the information to debate.

[annabanana]

34. It wa always a frankenstein's monster of an Agency..

Cobbled together from existing agencies, like US Customs (the oldest agency, btw) and pushed together like the buggy monster in an Edgar suit from MIB...