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Comment by JonSkeptic | Hacker News Reader

Talk about sensationalist news. "The Case for Abolishing the DHS".

It may be one of the scariest departments in the government right now, but it serves a fundamental purpose: to secure the nation from the many threats we face. *http://www.dhs.gov/about-dhs). It should be steered back towards protection (and probably toward creating a better mission statement as well), not dismantled.

When dealing with code and servers, sometimes you have to delete something and start over and it usually sucks to have to do it; imagine how bad it would be with an entire DEPARTMENT of the government. The article states that there are 15 vacancies at the top: this is an opportunity. Update it, fill it with new, ethical, honest leadership and it could be everything it was originally meant to be.

Shame on Businessweek for adding nothing to the discourse but for an emotional headline.

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Shame on Businessweek for adding nothing to the discourse but for an emotional headline.

Thank you Business Week for participating in a rational discussion about our nation's deep dive into fear.

It's time to raise our heads from the sand, take a look around, and start making a positive contribution to the world again.

The number of downvotes the user has received despite representing the minority in the discussion here indicates they were right about the level of emotion.

I think the commenter was downvoted because they dismissed the original article as nothing more than an "emotional headline". Even a casual reading of the article shows otherwise.

DHS was supposed to sensibly help coordinate existing departments with common goals hindered by bureaucratic divisions.

Instead we have something increasingly akin to a military which considers citizens at best suspicious and at worst presumed enemy combatants. Catholics, Evangelicals, and other predominant religious denominations are listed as indicators of potential terrorists. Anyone getting on an airplane with so much as a soda or can opener is presumed smuggling weapons. Anyone exhibiting self-sufficiency/survivalist tendencies is declared suspect. Vehicle checkpoints asking citizenship & business & destination are operated hundreds of miles inland. DHS employees are admonished to obey orders without question. Ammunition procurement[1] exceeding whole militaries is normalized. "Drone assassination" of citizens on home soil is declared (not legislated) lawful. Wholesale civilian monitoring (to wit NSA scandal) is common, and its consequences far from transparent now (save vague "a few terrorists were stopped"). Defacto national IDs are imposed/coerced (a la "Deine Papiere, bitte"). Wasn't long ago that every one of these points, and a whole lot more, were indicative of the worst oppressive governments; their recent commonality all a consequence of DHS.

This isn't just a result of a few vacancies at the top. This is systemic of the American leadership viewing the American people, and their historical values, being considered hostile opponents.

[1] - Yes, I'm aware of the alleged budgetary long-term purchasing theories. Even taking that into account, it's a whole lotta firepower intended against...who exactly?

> but it serves a fundamental purpose: to secure the nation from the many threats we face.

The biggest threat we face is the DHS. What if its fundamental purpose is reached by dismantling itself?

Which is more likely, being killed or injured by a terrorist attack or being killed, arrested, molested, or detained by the DHS? Trick question -- flying on an airplane pretty much ensures you get molested by the DHS.

"It may be one of the scariest departments in the government right now, but it serves a fundamental purpose: to secure the nation from the many threats we face"

1. The actual threats we face are a secret.

2. There is no evidence that the DHS is or ever was actually protecting us from anything.

3. There is no evidence that the DHS is or ever was doing a better job of protecting us than the intelligence, military, and law enforcement communities had done before the DHS was established.

As a non-American, the DHS has always come across to me as some form of large scale elaborate joke. I'm genuinely curious if the department you are spending billions of dollars on has actually accomplished anything at all of any practical use?

Almost everything DHS is doing now was being done before DHS. Even TSA was being handled by private security under FAA regulations, IIRC.

So while it may seem like an elaborate joke, it's not. Coast Guard does search and rescue work nearly every day, FEMA responds to natural disasters, etc.

> Coast Guard does search and rescue work nearly every day

Over 100 cases every day.

Indeed it is one of the scariest departments simply because of its name. "Homeland Security" is ironically, especially un-American sounding, in that no one ever uses the word 'homeland'. See http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/kausfiles_sp...

They should have gone all in originally and just named it the "Committee for Internal Security".

I have heard Dianne Feinstein use the word "Homeland" outside of the context of the department itself. I'd guess that Lindsey Graham and others are also doing this.

The more traditional phrase, Republic, used by Benjamin Franklin, and in the pledge of Allegiance is, as your article points out, more closely ties the U.S. to certain philosophical principles, whereas the term homeland is restricted to the physical, geographic location and the individuals in it.

If the lexicon is reduced to physical protection, than it's less vulnerable to arguments of lost liberty.

I was also creeped out (still am) by the name, especially given the spirit of the times (eg yellow ribbons etc). I had the same sense as described here: http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/alyssa-figueroa/dissecting...

I was also surprised at the time by often seeing "Department of Defense", as we were bunker busting and daisy cutting the crap out of people across the globe. I also just recently learned that we don't know the number of US military installations around the globe (700?, 900?) and instead of dismantling them after collapse of USSR, we found new justifications.

I realize it's just an emotional headline if you didn't RTFA, but had you done that you would see they cited quite a few expenditures that are utterly wasteful when put in context.

Shutting down DHS wouldn't necessarily mean shutting down everything that falls under the DHS umbrella. As recently as 2000 there was no DHS. It was created to improve coordination between agencies; if it's not doing a good job of that, then split them apart again.

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