Abolish the Department of Homeland Security • Hacker News Board

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Re: Abolish the Department of Homeland Security

#12

Post by InclinedPlane » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 8:27 AM UTC

littleidea wrote: post #9

the link isn't just down, the domain is not resolving for me now

Non-authoritative answer: Name: schneier.com Address: 204.11.246.48

Re: Abolish the Department of Homeland Security

#13

Post by adamrights » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 8:58 AM UTC

Have you seen this: NY Times has an article. Good friend did the research and filed the FOIA: http://epic.org/2012/01/epic---foia-documents-reveal-h.html <---EPIC - FOIA Documents Reveal Homeland Security is Monitoring Political Dissent

Re: Abolish the Department of Homeland Security

#14

Post by adamrights » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 9:15 AM UTC

They also hired contractors to monitor social networks: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3463850

Re: Abolish the Department of Homeland Security

#15

Post by Flow » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 10:08 AM UTC

I'm not a native english speaker, the word "homeland" just seems like a weird choice to me. It feels too patriotic and even a bit fascistic. I can't recall any public discussion about the name when they were created, but then I'm not from the US so I might have missed those.

Also, I'm associating the word with "fatherland", from the post-WW2-nazis-won-movie with Rutger Hauer :-/

Re: Abolish the Department of Homeland Security

#16

Post by brc » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 10:14 AM UTC

Flow wrote: post #15

I'm not a native english speaker, the word "homeland" just seems like a weird choice to me. It feels too patriotic and even a bit fascistic. I can't recall any public discussion about the name when they were created, but then I'm not from the US so I might have missed those. Also, I'm associating the word with "fatherland", from the post-WW2-nazis-won-movie with Rutger Hauer :-/

When it was coined, patriotism was all the rage.

Yes, it is a weird name when looking externally. But it (like the PATRIOT act) is a product of the fear at the time.

And it's time to dump both of those creations.

Re: Abolish the Department of Homeland Security

#17

Post by ck2 » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 10:30 AM UTC

Before the decade is out they will just rename it to do an end-run around public relations. Nothing will change and it's never going away because there's major money being made from it's fake foolishness already.

You really think they are going to give up the "visual response teams" for searching people at bus and train stations (and even in traffic)? That's the gold topping of security theater.

ZERO terrorists caught for all that money and other than the box cutters the original 9/11 would have still made it on the planes for all the rights violated and money spent.

The should have just secured all airplane cockpit doors and called it a day but first rule of government, why spend just a million when you can potentially spend a billion and get lots of wartime powers.

Re: Abolish the Department of Homeland Security

#18

Post by Revisor » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 10:32 AM UTC

So the argument is that DHS is ineffective and wasteful? I thought the article would talk about how DHS is dangerous because it systematically dismantles your freedom in exchange for omnipresent surveillance and faux security.

Then again, I'm only watching it from the outside.

Re: Abolish the Department of Homeland Security

#19

Post by gojomo » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 10:34 AM UTC

Flow wrote: post #15

I'm not a native english speaker, the word "homeland" just seems like a weird choice to me. It feels too patriotic and even a bit fascistic. I can't recall any public discussion about the name when they were created, but then I'm not from the US so I might have missed those. Also, I'm associating the word with "fatherland", from the post-WW2-nazis-won-movie with Rutger Hauer :-/

You intuition is right, it's kinda creepy to native speakers of American english, too.

There was some discussion at the time, but not enough to modify the course of the barreling train in Washington DC that created the DHS.

Here's one example from 2002:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/kausfiles_sp...

Re: Abolish the Department of Homeland Security

#20

Post by DanBC » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 10:35 AM UTC

> TSA was created two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks, when Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA) [.pdf] to keep the millions of Americans who travel each day safe and secure across numerous modes of transportation.

The rise in death rates after 9/11 from people switching from safe air transport to dangerous road transport is well known by now.

So it's surprising to see TSA still saying they're spending money to keep transport safe. That is blatantly not true. One man tries to set fire to plastic explosive stored in his shoe - now everyone has to take off their shoes. Meanwhile, thousands die in road traffic every year.

I've travelled on California[1] roads. God almighty; for a nation obsessed with doing everything by car some parts of the US have an appalling road system. (I never knew why Americans were happy to drive cars with awful gas milage. Cheap gas doesn't quite answer that question. Cheap gas and bloody terrible road surfaces which need a big comfy car does.)

You can kind of forgive Joe Sixpack for being bad at risk assessment and management. But a government department, spending millions and billions of public money? It's a disgusting waste.