Congress will finally demand answers from DHS

April 6, 2006

The Department of [tag]Homeland Security[/tag] has been slowly imploding for months. There have been high-profile disasters such as DHS’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, but there have been a series of lesser fiascos, including the department’s inability to secure its own headquarters, its inability to set up a list serve, and a Washington Post series explaining in alarming detail how the agency has been beset by almost every bureaucratic problem imaginable.

What’s more, [tag]DHS[/tag] pledged to create a list of chemical plants, bridges, skyscrapers and other potential terrorist targets, and the department is over a year late in delivering. The agency also said it would install monitors to screen for radiation material entering the country at borders, seaports, and airports; create an efficient network to share alerts with state, local and private industry officials; and install surveillance cameras at all high-risk chemical plants. None of this has happened. House Democrats released a report recently highlighted the fact that DHS set 33 clear goals for itself — and failed to meet all of them. All of this a) ugly; and b) reinforcing the belief that the Bush administration is dangerously incompetent.

Finally, after this week’s news about two top DHS officials getting [tag]arrested[/tag] on sex-related crimes, [tag]Congress[/tag] has just about had it.

The [tag]House[/tag] Homeland Security Committee will [tag]investigate[/tag] Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hiring policies after a senior department official was arrested on charges that he used the Internet to seduce an undercover officer who he thought was a 14-year-old girl.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the committee, put Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) in charge of the investigation. Rogers is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Management, Integration and Oversight.

“The arrest of DHS Deputy Press Secretary Brian J. Doyle raises serious concerns about the department’s hiring policies and, more important, its security-clearance practices,” King said.

It does indeed. I was wondering what it would take to get Congress’ attention; apparently child pornography charges were too serious to overlook.

The first House Homeland Security Committee hearing is scheduled for May 18, not a moment too soon.

This would be more important if it wasn’t obvious that King is only interested in investigating their security-clearance practices for pedophiles. Is there any evidence he cares about the general incompetence you cite?

  • What a concept: the Department of Homeland Security is over a year late with its list of potential terror targets. Meanwhile, a growing list of DHS personnel are being charged with seeking child porn on the Internet.

    Well, now we know how they have been spending their time and the taxpayers’ dime.

  • Point 1: At some point in time a Democrat has been charged with child sex-related crimes

    Point 2: The two officials arrested had at least one friend who was a Democrat

    Therefore given the above it is clear that the whole child sex-thing is tied to the Democrats. My question is, which Democrat will be the first to apologize for it???

  • “the Homeland” (a Nazi term, by the way … seriously)

    I thought the Nazi term was “The Fatherland”. Just curiuos…do you have a reference?

  • Thanks Mr. Flibble.

    I’m even more confused though. the link you provided gave the following results:

    Search results for — Suchergebnisse für ‘Heimatland’:

    mother country — das Heimatland

    native country — das Heimatland

    native land — das Heimatland

    My hunch is that I’m missing something. Is “heimat” german for “home” and thus the assertion that “Homeland” is a nazi term?

  • I can’t guess if it’s a NAZI term–normally, I think of “lebensraum” (“living space”) as something that gained currency explicitly as something the Nazis did. But “heimat” means, roughly, “homeland.” At least that’s how my German professor defined it. Anyway, “Vaterland” goes w-a-a-a-y back and the Nazis can’t claim credit for it.

  • Not to get away from the German meme we have going here, but with the way the Bush administration works, those two pedophile slimeballs will probably get a promotion!

    And did everyone notice that one of them was a high official in the DHS operation to “prevent” internet seduction of children?

    It just doesn’t get much more surrealistic than that. Or does it? I’m afraid to find out.

  • If memory serves (and I trust mine less with each passing day) I think the Nazi party introduced “Homeland = Heimat”, in place of the traditional “Fatherland” at the time they were pushing the “mother and daughter” theme in their postage-stamps (essentially a pro-“master race”-procreation propaganda program), sometime in the 1930s (’38 maybe??). I’ve long since given a promising Demography student my collection of Demography-related stamps and reference books, so I have no way of checking this or referring Edo to a specific reference.

    I have no idea why the term was adopted for our country by the Bush administration (grandson of “Hitler’s banker”), though Bush’s “God is on our side” neatly parallels the Nazi army belt-buckle slogan, under the swastika, “Gott mit uns” (you can still find lots of these pictured on a google image search of “gott mit uns”).

  • I don’t know the derivation of homeland but the word has always freaked me out because it seemed Nazi-esque especially with that “Department of” tacked onto the front.

    The OED has the first occurrance of the word in English in 1670 though not noted again until 1833. They don’t have an etymology for it though.

  • .. an undercover officer who thought he (/she?) was a 14-year-old girl ?? Looking from the outside, this throws me right off the edge. Is fishing for paedophiles legal?

  • Goldilocks–

    You bet it is legal (and great name choice!). I believe what you’re worried about is entrapment, which generally requires the government agent to directly solicit the crime. So, if they went on-line and said, “hey, I’m 14, wanna do it?” they’d be entrapping him, since they suggested the crime. But if they just go on-line and say, “hey, I’m a hottie 14 year old,” to which the “John” replies “Let’s do it,” then the government never suggested the crime-the perp did. Same for drug buys and prostitution stings: the government can’t roll up and suggest you buy some dope or a hooker, they have to wait for the John to suggest it by posing as a hooker-ish or drug dealer-ish type of person on the corner.

    P.S. This is NOT legal advice.

  • My humble (and hopefully wrong, but I doubt it) prediction for 2006:

    Another massive set of hurricanes scrape along the Gulf Coast, wiping out New Orleans again in September 2006. And again in September 2007. And again in September 2008. Maybe Houston gets hit too.

    Gas and oil production stalled again and prices jump before the next winter. But, strangely, no real cold weather in the Northeast, so gas prices sink back down again.

    Global. Warming.

    And the total erosion of the swamps that used to protect New Orleans from the full blast of hurricanes, makes it even worse.

    I think Bush’s “rebuilding” plans are doomed. We need to slow down our carbon-related emissions, pronto, if it’s even possible to turn this thing around anymore.

  • Eadie – thanks a lot for your clarification. I really needed and appreciate that. For me, however, there remains a grey area here. We all know we all have desires and curiosities in different areas to different extents. The government plant knows this too, relies on it, and plays to it. If you put irresistible temptation in the way of a child you don’t need to say “come and get it” for the child to get burnt.

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