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DHS Chief Janet Napolitano Resigns

schwit1 writes with news that the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has resigned her post. Napolitano entered the office at the beginning of President Obama's first term, and she was only the third person to hold the position since it was created in response to the September 11th attacks. In a statement, she said the Department of Homeland Security "has improved the safety of travelers; implemented smart steps that make our immigration system more fair and focused while deploying record resources to protect our nation's borders; worked with states to build resiliency and make our nation's emergency and disaster response capabilities more robust; and partnered with the private sector to improve our cybersecurity." Napolitano will be taking over the presidency of the University of California's 10-campus education system. "UC officials believe that her Cabinet experiences –- which include helping to lead responses to hurricanes and tornadoes and overseeing some anti-terrorism measures — will help UC administer its federal energy and nuclear weapons labs and aid its federally funded research in medicine and other areas."

21 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. University of Califonia? Oh, they'll love her. by Picass0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "They said 'California is the place you outta be' so she loaded up he spooks and she moved to Beverly..."

  2. Immigration? by FriendlyLurker · · Score: 4, Informative

    Its going fantastically after $100 BILLION/10 years spent. Well done results are fantastic. See immigration reform = surveillance reform as military tactics move inland from US borders

  3. I speak for all of us when I say by Gothmolly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    GFY Janet, you fascist, power-grabbing hooligan.

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    1. Re:I speak for all of us when I say by bjdevil66 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      With her resigning her post, this day is a great day for the entire country.

      While governor of my home state (Arizona), she was a friend of big government and an enemy of libertarian views. She ran up the Arizona state budget by billions, starting new and costly programs, with no long-term plans on how to pay for them in leaner times. She also pushed hard for planting the roots of a surveillance state, led by state-wide photo radar on state highways.

      Then in 2008, seeing the writing on the wall - she was term-limited and couldn't run again, the state's economy/budget was about to tank as the first signs of the housing collapse were appearing - she sucked up HARD to Barack Obama on the 2008 campaign trail and grabbed the first government post thrown her way as payment.

      Many of us here in Arizona cheered when she left, but quietly shuddered when we realized what position she'd taken, knowing her views. IMO, we're lucky we've only had to deal with naked body scanners and that enough people pushed back against her, "to hell with privacy - we need to keep these idiots safe," mentality to keep her in check. Maybe we're also lucky she was generally incompetent and became more of a DC bureaucrat that became too politically paralyzed to push for her grand views of what she would've really wanted to implement?

      And you've gotta wonder what changes she could possibly bring to a university system. She was part of a sprawling bureaucracy in DC - I guess the UC system wants a bigger bureaucracy? Maybe they just want to capitalize on her connections in DC to get federal funds (making her a de facto lobbyist)?

      On the future DHS replacement - here's to hoping the president doesn't pick another bureaucrat. Maybe the president will live up to some of his campaign promises now on openness in government when picking her successor? Realistically, I'm pretty sure it won't be a Ron Paul type...

  4. Wasted funds on an epic scale by MetalliQaZ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "implemented smart steps"

    With the huge pile of body scanners sitting unused in warehouses thanks to DHS's wild (and illegal) binge on ineffective and invasive scanning technology, I have a hard time with their using the phrase "smart steps". In fact it's so bad, it almost seems like an inside joke. Not funny. And Janet? You make me sick

    --
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  5. tellingly 'relevant' experience by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "UC officials believe that her Cabinet experiences –- which include helping to lead responses to hurricanes and tornadoes and overseeing some anti-terrorism measures — will help UC administer its federal energy and nuclear weapons labs and aid its federally funded research in medicine and other areas."

    It's a good thing there's no need to have the head of a university system have experience in anything like education or research. All that matters is those security-industry connections!

  6. I've got this one by grasshoppa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    has improved the safety of travelers;

    Prove a negative. Nice.

    implemented smart steps that make our immigration system more fair and focused while deploying record resources to protect our nation's borders;

    So...nothing. No, wait! Nothing, but we spent "record resources" achieving it.

    worked with states to build resiliency and make our nation's emergency and disaster response capabilities more robust;

    So..nothing again. At least, nothing quantifiable, which is pretty much the same thing.

    and partnered with the private sector to improve our cybersecurity.

    Did...she just list PRISM as an accomplishment on her resume?

    Stunning.

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    1. Re:I've got this one by grasshoppa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's more than enough blame to go around.

      At least Snowden had the integrity and honor to do something about it.

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    2. Re:I've got this one by bhlowe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Our borders are so secure, we're only going to have to give amnesty to 30 million.

  7. uc system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    when will the official groping policy be implemented on the campuses?

  8. Re:University of Califonia? Oh, they'll love her. by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Except the beverly hillbillies got rich first then moved to Beverly Hills. In this case, UC is currently paying their president $600K and will probably pay her. Which is odd, because last I heard, the UC system was still cutting scholarships, teachers, and classes due to budget problems.

    But I'm sure that money is well spent: I mean, if Napolitano can bring the same magic to the UC system that she did to DHS, then maybe the UC system will be safe from imagingary threats from Al Quaeda. And isn't that more important than students getting an education? We decided it was more important than the constitution, so yes, the answer is yes whether you like it or not.

    /s. This is idiotic. Why is a taxpayer supported institution wasting money like she's a CEO?

  9. "has improved the safety of travelers" by spacefight · · Score: 5, Funny

    [Citation needed]

    'nuff said.

  10. Re:University of Califonia? Oh, they'll love her. by SJHillman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The theory is that you get what you pay for. A $150,000 salary might attract someone who can save $5 mil. A $600,000 salary might attract someone better who can save $10 mil. In the end, taxpayers might be better off with a higher paid person if they can bring in the benefits. Professors at research universities operate on a similar principal... they might get paid $250,000 because they bring in $10 million in grants.

    Of course, that's the theory.

  11. UC admission process by TheUglyAmerican · · Score: 4, Funny

    I understand the UC admission process will now include fully body cavity searches.

    --
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  12. Re:University of Califonia? Oh, they'll love her. by poetmatt · · Score: 5, Informative

    that may be, but Napolitano didn't save any money. She increased costs substantially, caused economic turmoil for the country with the policies she supported, and spent over 200 million bucks on those scanners which have saved us approximately $0. Did I mention the amount of tourism lost because people were like "Fuck this country" over things like claiming we can randomly stop people in 3/4 of the country. You may think it's a TSA thing, but TSA and DHS go hand in hand. Plus DHS harassing the shit out of foreigners, as well.

    So does that mean she's working gratis? sadly, no.

  13. Re:University of Califonia? Oh, they'll love her. by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Above a certain level, though, you start to pull in the wrong kinds of people. You can definitely get a better professor for $100k than $60k, and probably can get a top one for $200k. But if you're paying an administrator $600k? Now you start pulling in people who don't care about academia, and are just in it for the money. I think it might be better not incentivizing them to jump to academia; academic administration is becoming a revolving door of people from industry and government doing 3-year stints to put on their CV, when it would be better served by people with some kind of actual knowledge about, and commitment to, research and education.

  14. Re:University of Califonia? Oh, they'll love her. by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Interesting

    /s. This is idiotic. Why is a taxpayer supported institution wasting money like she's a CEO?

    Why do you get a CEO? Sometimes it's only for the connections. And Janet Napolitano has a lot of connections. The key is this quote:

    "will help UC administer its federal energy and nuclear weapons labs and aid its federally funded research in medicine and other areas."

    There are groups in the government that want to take those programs away from UC, and privatize them (or whatever). UC wants to keep them because they bring in a lot of money from the federal government. Janet will help with that because of her connections.

    --
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  15. Re:Sounds like an opportunity by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Never happen. Sadly, something like that would be the work of the Obama We Voted For, rather than the Obama We Got.

  16. Re:University of Califonia? Oh, they'll love her. by anagama · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, but for the scanners we wasted money on, that was revenue and probably a lot of profit for the manufacturers. You do realize that the entire sole purpose of the Federal government, is to subsidize a select few friendly mega-corps at our expense (monetary expense, freedom expense). Napolitano did that job perfectly.

    --
    What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
  17. Re:University of Califonia? Oh, they'll love her. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You're thinking about it all wrong. They're not paying her to work there, they're paying her NOT to work at DHS!

  18. Re:University of Califonia? Oh, they'll love her. by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And a sizable percentage of UC's supporters would rather see Napolitano in prison than in charge of that institution. Perhaps the regents should have considered what this is going to do to their funding before they chose someone like Napolitano to run their institution.

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