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Help Rename the Department of Homeland Security
Hugh Pickens writes "James Fallows writes tongue in cheek that U.S. Department of Fear, led by Secretary of Fear Malcolm P. Stag III, is running a poll. To what should we re-name the Department of Homeland Security? 'Possibilities include Department of ScaredyCatLand Security, reflecting the prevailing mentality of an era, and Department of Fatherland Security, to make us sound strong,' writes Fallows. 'There are many more to choose from, plus you can write in your own nominees. But act now, because the polls close Tuesday.'"
Department of Fatherland Security
I've always been wondering about this, and this line reminds me about it again. Why do countries have genders? Not every country is a man either - for example Russia, China and my country all view it as motherland. On the other hand, according to this, US and then several other countries view it as fatherland. Why?
Wasting Taxpayer Money to oppress law abiding citizens
Department of Unnecessary Services, I think it sums them up quite well.
Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division
Department of Homeland Insecurity which is what it actually is too.
@de_machina
They've set their sights too narrow, Stargate had the right idea.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Seems like the obvious choice.
Gestapo Much easier to say, and the groups seem to be getting more and more similar each day.
I always thought the "Ministry of Truth" had a nice uber-authoritarian ring to it.
Unfortunately, we don't use "Ministry" in our governmental body names, so it would have to be "Department of Truth" or maybe "Department of Truthiness".
Also could bookend the Department of Justice with the Department of the American Way.
-SS "Teach the ignorant, care for the dumb, and punish the stupid."
We already have a more appropriate name prepared for it.
National Security Theatre Company. André de Lorde would be proud.
Waste Of Money And Nothing WOMAN
How about "Closed"?
Big brother monitor every move and revisionist history. 1984 a little late, but its here.
I say we just be honest and call it "KGB-lite". Gestapo has too many letters and STASI just sounds too unpleasant.
Of course, over time, it will outgrow the "lite" part of the name. They all do.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
American Department of Homeland Security of America
How about "Dept of 500 Billion Dollars Wasted"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/09/september-11-homeland-security-spending_n_953288.html
Seriously folks how hard would it be to get SAM's in the country when cartels brings tons of coke and dope over the border? How hard would it be to sit at the end of a runway and use a .50 incendiary round through the fuel tank of a plane about to lift off?
Hard shot? These anti-material rifles can shoot humans from 1.5 miles away.
Why hasn't it happened then? Because there is no terrorist threat.
Clearly we wasted our tax money on these incompetents, unless you like getting molested at the TSA check point (coming to a mall near you soon).
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
What about security threats that exist in dimensions prophesied by String Theory? These areas cannot ignored, or death shall await us, for sure, from dimension N + 1 . . . with huge pointy teeth . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
AKA DOOM.
Department of Steven Colbert.
The Keystone Kops.
Have gnu, will travel.
Department of Rights Termination.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Babylon 5 reference.
BTW, if you like sci-fi and haven't watched B5, you're missing a pretty good story.
Ignore the man behind the curtain.
There's only one reasonable name for it: Miniluv.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
GWBSTEC
George W Bush Second Term Election Committee
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
"Committee for State Security", aka "Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti"?
I like it the way it is. Department is a standard in the US, homeland has a very nazi feel to the name and you want people to believe that the massive overarching department that spies on it's own citizens is trying to do so for people's security. Don't be so modest DHS, I think you've succeeded with your name. Though I suppose you could call it the comity instead of department, much like the 'K' in KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) State Security Committee. It may not match other department names but it would fit in with the new Russian theme you're going with such as having tzars.
I think they should call it the "The F.U.D" and have a multiple accepted expansions for the acronym.
Fear and Uncertainty Department ...
Fundamentally Unnecessary Department
Federal Unchecked Discretion
F**ked Up Department
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I think Savak would work. Orrr Schutzstaffel.
the next stages... i mean, departments, will be announced shortly.
The Department of Homeland Security is a mess, mind you, but that's as much implementation as anything else, it's designed to make it possible for Congress to monitor the security pork better, which had previously been scattered through the Federal Government, and therefore had no single cabinet secretary that could be brought in to testify and question, and no single budget bill to cut deals over. The problem is not the department, as much as it is that the United States has a pervasive fear in its population. For example, take a look at this gallup poll trend over the years on perceptions of crime: http://www.gallup.com/poll/150464/Americans-Believe-Crime-Worsening.aspx and then compare it to actual violent crime rates. Americans by a large margin believe that crime is getting worse, when, in fact, violent crime is going down. Note that the graph strongly corresponds to rhetoric on crime, and to personal economic, as opposed to physical, insecurity.
It does not matter what the department is called, as long as Americans vastly over-rate the chances of dying in criminal or terrorist attacks, particularly in crimes committed by strangers or foreigners, as opposed to the far more likely case of being killed by someone they know. Statistically speaking, suicide is more common that homicide, and among homicide categories, being killed by a current or former romantic partner outweighs all other categories. But that's not what DoHs monitors by and large. Instead looked at in an unbiased fashion, for example this post at Reason magazine, http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized terrorism is a lower risk that we run going out to drive, or consuming ordinary products.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
Let's call them 'The Happiness Patrol'.
Not only was it a great Dr Who episode (with good ol' Ace and the 7th doctor), but it paints a pretty grim picture that hits a little too close to the mark of how government works today.
Win Win.
In the true spirit of America, I propose a backcronym:
RETARDED: REdundant Treasonous Americans Raping Democracy Every Day
In recognition of their excellence in, and the cultural importance of, the art of Security Theatre as well as the DHS' impressive work in broadening the appeal of the Theatre Arts beyond stereotypical culture snobs, theatre tech geeks, and effeminate thesbians and into the untapped domain of jackbooted authoritarians, we should really place the DHS under the National Endowment for the Arts...
They might find it a bit difficult, at first, being under a department with a budget of less than $200 million, and having cultural reactionaries hate your guts; but I'm sure that they would adjust. They might also find collaboration with some of the more opaque postmodern artistic movements useful in crafting future regulations. Imagine how resistant to the forces of government transparency and oversight they could be if future watch lists and legally murky policies were not only secret; but took the form of abstract expressionist paintings or heavily redacted found-object collage. Wikileaks and their ilk would be helpless!
Dibs on working for Information Retrieval.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It might as well be a 1984 reference, that's what they aspire to. WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!!
I'd rename it to "the now defunct, disbanded Department of Homeland Security". The military is supposed to secure our borders, and in my mind "security" doesn't mean being secure against tornados and earthquakes. FEMA should exist, DHS should not.
Free Martian Whores!
...since they handle more packages per day than those two combined, anyway.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
The Department of Freedom and Privacy Why do the names of these things frequently say backwards of what they do (eg, DRM)?
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
Department of the Gravy Train
t
I don't have a catchy acronym because its not funny.
We are in the stages of being another Greece, we have grown our government beyond our means to support it. The real one percent is those in high paying government jobs. Yes I know that not all jobs are high paying in government but there are too many horror stories to just be a coincidence.
Department of Homeland Security is Department of Jumped the Shark.... Time to start axing some Departments and this is a good place to start. Ron Paul seemed to have missed one.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
We have had an organization charged with the defense of our nation for 370 years. How about we let them do their job rather than fight in overseas wars (and get rid of the expensive and excessive DHP)?
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
The EPA is willing to spend up to $9 million to save a single human life. And the GOP claims this is too much.
The DOT (cars) and the FAA (plane construction) are willing to spend $6 million to save a single human life.
The Department of Homeland Security is willing to spend $180 million to save a single life (as per the Federal Air Marshall's estimates).
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Schutzstaffel would be more appropriate.
And it's new logo would be the logo of the band Kiss with KI turned into DH.
Let's rename the war on terror to be more accurate too ...
Virtual strip-searches, ball-fondling, never-ending but ineffectual id checks, forcing women to drink their own breast-milk, arbitrary rule enforcement, making everyone go bare-foot, singling-out people by the clothes they wear, forcing people to remove nipple rings with pliers, torturing injured flyers, making people piss on themselves, the list is practically endless.
And yet the TSA hasn't caught a single terrorist.
But they sure are doing a bang-up job of destroying human dignity. Therefore I say we rename the War on Terror to The War on Dignity.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I think they should rename it to "The Unicorn Society", i mean they are looking for non-existent things afterall
Let's just call it defunct.
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...all patriots must learn to love their country.
gets my vote.
Okay, a lot of pretty fair slams on DHS here. Yeah, it's an impressively fascist name and it works like absolute shit at the department-level. Many of its agencies do good work, though. US Coast Guard, Customs, FEMA (when not run by Michael Brown), Secret Service. Any component of DHS that they moved in from other departments tend to work decently, while new ones they created, like TSA, work for shit. It's easy to condem the whole department but that's a superficial way to look at the problem.
The real problem was putting people who fundamentally don't believe government can work in charge of making government work.
Who can argue with that.
Ministry of Instantaneous and Last Freedom?
The DHS name has inspired cowardice, and when America needed its government department's help the most? It, and its thoughtless leader had better things to do. Hard? It's public record.
United
States
Emergency
Law
Enforcement
Secret
Service
Department of Homeophobia
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
In German. Or Russian. Or maybe Chinese.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Seriously, it's going to grow as structured. Soon we will be enduring their crap on every form of transportation there is.
Blogging because I can...
How about the Former Department of Homeland Security? Because it should be dismantled.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
"Are you from the Department of Upperclass Hooligans?" "D.U.H.!"
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Internal Surveillance and Security Service
They're using their grammar skills there.
We've already got the rip tracks for all their actions done anyway.
First, they have to form a Committee for Renaming the Department of Homeland Security.
Second, the committee has to work for two years and draft a 1000-page conclusions document.
Third, there has to be a nation-wide referendum.
Fourth...
Big Brother!
how about Bureau of Cultural Enforcement
C|N>K
short and sweet. of course, all the previous suggestions to name it "defunct" would be even better. for a more pointed suggestion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Public_Enlightenment_and_Propaganda
I submit:
Schutzstaffel!
No, it sounds like a pastry.
And now I'm all hungry...,
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Retask it as the Department of Inverse Causality and Kabuki (DICK). Their motto can be "preventing yesterday's threats tomorrow." Anyone care to take a stab at translating that into Latin?
For anyone not familiar with this particular organization, shorten it to Stasi and think back to before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I like it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Dystopia Homeland Security, Torqueo Patria Obsidis (Distorted/Tortured/Twisted Homeland/Fatherland Hostage/Security)
It was hidden in plain sight all along.
Department of Information Retrieval.
would be my favorite but perhaps we should go with the spam voting meme and as a group astroturf this:
Department of Colbert
Another direction would be the
Department of Never Gonna Give you up.
If you think about the lyrics it actually makes a strange sense.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I believe "Hedge Fund Department" would make BOFA more inclusive, because WF, CITI, and CHASE seem to have equal powers.
I wouldn't eat any of their pastries....
The Federal government should privatize it, retaining options at low strike prices. Then they can seek venture funding, have an IPO, sell into the general market, and reap enough profit to help make a dent in the national debt. The new, privatized TSA should be called Grope-on.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Well, "Department of Homeland Security," to me, implies a department that's responsible for keeping US territory (the fifty states) safe. You know, defending it. So I would propose that we call it the "Department of Defense." Oh, wait, there's a problem because we already have some other department called that. But that department isn't really concerned with defending US soil, and it hasn't been since 1945. So I would propose that we do the following:
The thing currently called the Department of Homeland Security becomes the Department of Defense.
The thing currently called the Department of Defense becomes the Department of Invading Asia and the Middle-East.
Once we have the names straightened out, we can cut funding for anything being being done by the new Department of Defense (former DHS) that does not defend US territory. Oh, wait, that would imply defunding the whole thing.
Find free books.
How about the obvious:
Dept of CONTROL
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
How about "That Department we disbanded in 2012 because we all recognized the stupidity of security theater and the costs in wealth and public good of the ridiculous overreaction to 9/11 cost us?"
Or is that too long?
-Styopa
Department of the Nightwatch
It needs to be renamed the "Ministry of Love" or the "Department of Frightened Old Women" depending on which direction you want to go with your irony.
Proverbs 21:19
Department of Inequality, Capitalism, Korruption and Servitude
Sorry, couldn't think of anything good that starts with "K"
GeStaPo. Geheime Staat Polizei (Secret National Police).
Rename DHS the Department of Defense, and rename the current Defense Department the Foreign Legion.
The only good dept of homeland security is a lack of one. Let the coasties go back to rescuing people and stopping smugglers.
No sir I dont like it.
Besides, it has a nice acronym.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
the Spanish Inquisition.
Of-course the Spanish Inquisition didn't by default assume that everybody is a terrorist, unlike DHS.
DHS shall be ironically known as Department of Honor and Selflessness.
You can't handle the truth.
- (State Homeland Investigation Taskforce) - aka DIP(SHIT)
As a non-USAer; I have to say that the DHS has been doing an excellent PR job for your country.
I too think something in German or Russian would be appropriate. Amerikanischer Staat Schutz?
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Security Theater
Motto: "Wasting billions making millions feel not one bit safer"
-- "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." - R.A.H.
Department of reConstitution
Department In Constitution Killing
Ministry of If You Have Nothing To Hide Then What's The Problem?
Order of the New World
Department of Look Over There
Ministry of Get Used To It Because You are a Plebe
New NotSee Agency (bonus points for anyone who really gets this one)
Reformed Agency Protecting Everyone
Really, what's the point of an exercise in renaming it? Those that pay attention to the real plight will be mildly entertained, and those that do not will see only lame government-directed jibbery.
The Department of Perpetual Orange, with possible Yellow heading into this weekend.
Department of Fucking Idiots.
or
Department of Unpatriotic Mentality.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Germany had the Fatherland, Motherland had the Soviet Union, and the US has Homeland.
No, now is not the time.
A new name implies a new focus, new processes, or at least a new mission attitude.
To rename it now is to embrace the department's need for PR image update, but without a clear new mandate it is just enabling 10 years of the same outdated behavior.
I appreciate the humor of the OP but this is the kind of idea I could see being promoted in the halls of DHS.
Top-level orgchart for DHS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Homeland-security-orgchart-2008-07-17.png
Suggestions:
1) Put FEMA, plus the search & rescue part of the Coast Guard, under the Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS). Put the policing part of the Coast Guard under the DoD and/or Commerce.
2) Disband the TSA, and require private parties to control their own security. Let each airline specify their own security checks, to a regulated baseline. If you the consumer don't like the level of security, you can choose a different airline that makes you take off your shoes, or that asks you intelligent questions instead of stupidly frisking you, etc. Let the market decide.
3) Split the Secret Service into its separate functions under the Treasury (counterfeiting etc), President/VP (protection), and State (protection).
4) Put Customs under the Dept of Commerce.
5) Put Immigration under the Dept of State.
6) Send the higher bureaucracy of DHS to an isolated island in the south pacific, where it will implode within a matter of days under its own weight and paranoia.
7) Nothing is left to rename. Move along.
How about we keep the name but only refer to it in the historical sense? As in, "Remember when the Department of Homeland Security existed and made everyone's live miserable with no noticeable improvement in homeland security?"
That's pretty much the entire "Federal Reserve". We may be converging on a root problem here.
oh sorry, I thought if we were going to do name calling, I'd better ask an elementary school kid.
The Department of Fascist Enforcement of the Police State of America, because frankly that's what it is.
Seriously, it's all some Nazi bullshit that we should jam in their ass this next election. I got a feeling this next election cycle will be another "fuck you all, your fired" voter reaction. We just need some people that will actually do as we want them, not as they are bribed.
Take the Red Pill.
The Mother of all Fatherland Departments?
The Department of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. The Department of Homeland Uncertainty
ministry of peace, love, and the rubber glove.
Virtual strip-searches, ball-fondling [boingboing.net], never-ending but ineffectual id checks [nypost.com], forcing women to drink their own breast-milk [usatoday.com], arbitrary rule enforcement [hotair.com], making everyone go bare-foot, singling-out people by the clothes they wear [nydailynews.com], forcing people to remove nipple rings with pliers [rackjite.com], torturing injured flyers [podiatry.com], making people piss on themselves [msn.com], the list is practically endless.
And yet the TSA hasn't caught a single terrorist.
You seem to have missed the entire point. George W. Bush was right there on TV 4 hours after the 9/11 attacks announcing that the UBL terrists did it and they Hate Us For Our Freedoms.
So, he went about implementing DHS to take away our Freedoms so that the terrists wouldn't hate us anymore.
Now that we're guilty until proven innocent and treated like sheeple at the airports and at random papers-please checkpoints around the country, whilst the government taps our phones and sends agents to infiltrate church groups, the terrists no longer have any reason to hate us.
So, of course the TSA hasn't caught any terrists - they prevent them from needing to attack in the first place!
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Department of Terrorism Mission Accomplished
A Greek euphemism for the Furies.
How about the "nightwatch".
The Suede/Denim secret police, just to acknowlegde that we are somehow living in a world accurate predicted by Jello Biafra.
I have always hated the name. It smacks of Nazi Germany and the father land. I see it as an attempt to start people identifying with the land and not the democracy and freedom. It is the next step (as in the Patriot Act ..) that you try to get people to give up the country and our constitutional rights to protect the "HomeLand" as if the land and whatever form of autocratic government would evolve would be OK because what was important was the "Homeland" not the country, not America, not our freedoms and liberties. You notice its the Republicans that wave the flag, name things "Homeland", push forward the Patriot act and other simiar "streamling" of removal of our protections and freedoms in the name of God and the constitution. Of course the real agenda is to lock down profits, copyrights, patents, eliminate bankrupcies, eliminate restrictions that would have prevented most all the economic disasters in recent history, all from preservation of the top profits.
Snake oil salesmen are not dead, they just joined the party.
Delivering Managed Freedoms Across The Enterprise(tm)
Fascism is indistinguishable from any parody thereof.
...or DERP. Their agents can be DERPs and DERPettes, and they'll go around the country doing DERPy things to better DERPify our country.
Best suggestion so far.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think the original you're looking for was called "Schutzstaffel". Which, btw, translated would be "security squadron", which is ... well, pretty apt.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Seriously. Let's look at the stats.
Damage done by terrorists vs. damage (cost) from DHS?
Damage to freedom by terrorists vs. damage from DHS?
Fear and uncertainty caused by terrorists vs. fear and uncertainty caused by DHS?
the only thing the terrorists are still leading at is "people killed". But we're working on that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And it would be as wrong as the whole department. (It's "die", not "das").
Fitting.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Rename it to The Federal Bereau of Investigation. Because it's their fucking job anyway.
Because we all know shit doesn't smell anymore when you paint it white. Never noticed how everything that has a bad name gets renamed? There's a reason you don't have monosodium glutamate in your food anymore. Only yeast extract.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How about the "Department to hide rampart unemployment"?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Gets my vote
Hope is the currency of fools
I suggest that they rename TSA to STASI or maybe NKVD.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Companies regularly undergo brand renaming when they conveniently want their bad history to dissolve in the public eye. Don't let the US government do the same.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Bend Over and Enjoy It
We're Listening All the Time
State Secrets
Granny is A Terrorist
Transportation Strip Searches
Transportation Cancer Screening
We're Going to Fondle You Now
Baby in Carrier is a Terrorist
9 Oz. Prevention
Let Me See Your Papers
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
scare the people and tell them we live in a dangerous world, so that we can start a new war soon. Against Iran maybe.
I love a good double meaning.
I always thought the "Ministry of Truth" had a nice uber-authoritarian ring to it.
Minitstry of Truth was first used in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. JMS openly admitted borrowing the concept because he wanted people to instantly understand that the ministry was a farce.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
If you want emphasize uncompromising efficiency go for Cheka To point out massive participation and instill fear in the enemy use NKVD For respectability and all-encompassing permeability use KGB
I think Gestapo is appropriate. It seems like we are all suspects, and must prove we not carrying weapons. "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin.
Bureau of Applied Stalinism
Or how about:
American
Stalinist
Security for
Managing
Unpatriotic
National
Citizenry in the
Homeland
Department - the act of departing, leaving, going away.
Department of homeland security - the office responsible for making all the homeland security to depart.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
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For anyone not familiar with this particular organization, shorten it to Stasi and think back to before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I like it.
After the wall came down all the stasi officers got jobs as taxi drivers. They were really good at it because you could get in one of their cabs, tell them your name and they already knew where you lived.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.