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The Department of Homeland Security Needs Its Own Edward Snowden
blottsie writes: Out of all the U.S. government agencies, the Department of Homeland Security is one of the least transparent. As such, the number of Freedom of Information Act requests it receives have doubled since 2008. But the DHS has only become more adamant about blocking FOIA requests over the years. The problem has become so severe that nothing short of an Edward Snowden-style leak may be needed to increase transparency at the DHS.
I'm sure there are hundreds of people who are dying to be criminalized without due process and live in Russia just to be an American patriot.
Just sayin'
Or, they could become less obstinate in blocking FOIA requests.
The thermonuclear option isn't always a good idea.
I still don't get why we still have this elaborate subsidy for a bunch of glorified mall cops.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
That would fix a lot of problems.
Treason Charges, Swift Trials, and a Well Deserved Death at the end of a rope...
Every single government department that has power over other people needs a watchdog or oversight committee.
Yes.
The problem has become so severe that nothing short of an Edward Snowden-style leak may be needed to increase transparency at the DHS.
Such a leak is just as likely to have exactly the opposite effect. The Snowden leak hasn't exactly made the NSA any more forthcoming regarding their activities. No, the ONLY thing that is going to force DHS to be more transparent in the long run is a motivated Congress. Oversight of the executive branch is after all their job. But since the Dems and Reps are so busy trying to grab power they can't be bothered. The judiciary is no help since they have their head stuck in the sand over standing that they are worse than useless. So the executive branch can do whatever the hell they like without consequence until at least one of the other branches of government starts doing their damn job. All a leak is likely to do is show them what they need to do the be even less transparent than they already are.
The whole point of being the secret police is that they're the SECRET fucking police. We've allowed literally half of the government agencies to be consolidated under one uber-agency whose charter is some nebulous bullshit about "keeping the fatherland safe". And then people are SURPRISED when it follows the example of the Gestapo and the KGB.
The simple way to fix this is just shut the DHS down. It was a bureaucracy conceived in panic: poorly engineered and even more poorly implemented. Just shut it down. Turn all the records over to Congress and start over.
Simple reboot. Fix the glitch. Just like Milton's payroll issue.
Scott
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."
I still don't get why we still have this elaborate subsidy for a bunch of glorified mall cops.
Because the American public is ill informed and they do not want to be better informed.
They watch the news and have "facts" spoon fed to them by people with their own agenda.
When a politician actually says, "Hold on here! We need to think about this police state crap!" they are labeled as being "soft on terror" and the public being incapable of having a thought that isn't planted there by the media, goes along. And people are totally afraid because of the irresponsible and incompetent media.
In the article, an AMERICAN of Libyan decent was held without cause by the border thugs. I assure you that many Americans have no problem with that because she is an Arab - who cares what the ramifications are on our society and freedoms. See, we the stupid people only want freedom for people like us. The others can rot in jail.
So, mix in unwarranted fear, bigotry and stupidity and we have the DHS.
Fix the glitch. Just like Milton's payroll issue.
That didn't end well, iirc.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Turn the it over to Congress? Yes, let's swap DHS for a bunch of do-nothing industry and wealthy donor shills. What could possibly go wrong?
Sounds like you think that secrecy which is used to commit outright crimes in your name, is needed.
Here's an idea. I'm going to punch you square in the face. Then I'm going to make it illegal to tell anyone about it, because it would harm my reputation and my professional job is to be the head of a big governmental agency.
But if that agency knew I punched you square in the face, I'd get publicly in trouble, which would make my agency look bad, which would cut their funding, which would mean they cannot protect people as well, thus my punching you in the face will be kept secret in the name of national security.
Forget the fact I'm not supposed to be punching you in the first place...... what matters is now that I *have* punched you in the face, we need to all keep super secret about it or else my agency would look bad.
That is the secrecy you protect so vigorously.
Fix the glitch. Just like Milton's payroll issue.
That didn't end well, iirc.
He got his stapler back in the end.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
That fucking bunch of bottom-feeding dolts wouldn't dare jeopardize their gravy train.
Makes me wonder if the increase in FOIA requests corresponds to the rise of the Tea Party? These folks are anti-government regardless of the agency.
Who the fuck in the right mind would whistleblow against the US Government again? So what if what Snowden did was in Americans' best interest, the Powers that Be told us that he was wrong, he was nothing but a hacker, a traitor, a spy for Russia, and the American Public bought it hook, line, and sinker. Good fucking luck getting someone as courageous as Snowden to make a difference again.
Snowden was able to do what he did at the NSA because he had the wealth to be able to afford to run away. Most people who work in government jobs don't have that luxury.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
should be shuttered forever.
The problem here is that we need Congress to amend the Freedom of Information Act. DHS can hide the way they do because they can claim a "national security" exemption to FOIA - one of the very few things (apart from ongoing criminal investigations and ongoing collective bargaining, among a handful of others) that can be used to block a FOIA request. The national security exemption also tends to be the most often abused, especially by police departments and other law enforcement agencies. A lot of the time, the agencies know they won't win when the people requesting the records appeal, but it's a handy way to stonewall records requests right out of the gate.
What should happen is that FOIA should be amended to make it clear when the national security exemption does and does not apply, so that it can't be used to hide behind anymore.
the DHS has never hired anyone smart enough to have ethics.
You mean someone willing to publish virtually every aspect of how we protect ourselves from terrorism without any independent review, oversight or responsibility?
Hopefully the great mass of irony in your statement squished your brain as it rolled out of your mouth.
this is the do everything forever department created after september 2001 and designed to be an intractable part of the amorphous war on terror. to date its various wings include
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: so bogged down by congress it can barely stock the staplers and ink the stamp pads
U.S. Customs and Border Protection: charged with manning our immigration checkpoints that exist, paradoxically, nearly 100 miles inside our borders as well as directly upon them. congress pumps money into these guys, who cant seem to go more than a week without accidentally killing someone across the border.
Federal Emergency Management Agency: home of "secret death camps" for rabid neo-conservatives, and for the rest of us a red flag which completely exposed the bumbling incompetence of the DHS after Hurricane Katrina. their latest campaign has been telling people through billboards about the need to make an emergency plan. As if to tacitly admit theyre just as inept and meaningless as they were 9 years ago
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: packs undocumented immigrants into shanty camps, and really thats about it. Completely neutered after NAFTA for its customs enforcement, and just as paralyzed by congress. Arizona mistakenly began shipping their "illegals" to ICE facilities only to find ICE released them, as it isnt a magic button to get the sheriff re-elected.
Transportation Security Administration home of the freedom grope, these guys are highschool drop outs and police academy rejects itching for a reason to ruin your summer.
U.S. Coast Guard there is no conceiveable reason this agency should not be under control of the pentagon, or something more relevant to its mission, but this is the seventh department its been reassigned to since its creation and like the fat kid in gym class, it probably wont be very permanent.
National Protection and Programs Directorate purportedly does something with "cybersecurity" but its amorphous enough to land firmly in the camp of cabinet level private toilets designed to pitch federal tax dollars into. mostly a 2.5 billion dollar per year dole for government contractors.
U.S. Secret Service they guard the president and for some mind boggling reason, investigate counterfeit currency.
TL;DR: the DHS was designed with no one particular in mind. the first thing our president told us after 9/11 was to "go shopping" and in order to bolster that order from the commander in chief, the consumer confidence index in 2001 got its own department into which lands of home would ostensibly become secure as if by magic. its scope is so broadly defined and its mission so incongruent that it cannot possibly function in any meaningful fashion. Its not off-the-map like the NSA, rather, its largesse makes it incapable of escaping scrutiny.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Fix the glitch. Just like Milton's payroll issue.
That didn't end well, iirc.
He got salt with his margarita.
+1 Uncomfortably Insightful
Homeland Security is an institution based in FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. The more they panic the populace the more Congress will capitulate and grant them ever increasing power and funding. Secrecy grants them a shield to deflect all criticism: in the event of an attack they can simply state they were underfunded or were not granted the powers they needed to protect the people regardless of whatever the truth may be and no one except initiated would be the wiser. Instead of confronting terrorism using our well accepted and established system of Justice we all get thrown into a state of complete panic when someone attacks us for political motivations. Last year 1.6 million American's died of cancer. Why don't we spend trillions of dollars combating a real threat instead of something that may kill 1 in 20 million Americans?
Ironically the point of terrorism is to effect political change based on the psychological impact of an attack. Congress seems to pay no heed to this as they accelerate the decline of America into a police state, perhaps to the desire of the terrorist boogieman. Certainly anyone who has read a history book knows what happens when a people grant their government extraordinary powers to combat a perceived threat: a dictator arises and they lose all their liberties. I speak for no one besides myself but I would rather take my chances with being killed by a malcontent than risk losing everything precious in my life to totalitarian government.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
And Milton could set the building on fire before he leaves.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Let me get this straight; because this article is making my mind blow..... When Mr Snowden did what he did, the comments here on Slashdot both hailed him as hero and decried him as a traitor. This is still unresolved.
And now we're saying that we NEED to have a Snowden-style event to have any kind of transparency at DHS? So, Americans need to give up their Hawaiian gymnast girlfriends, go on the lam, be hunted by every three-letter agency, have to move to Russia, have a price put on their heads, and still be hated by 50% of America who'd want to thrown them in a deep dark hole for the rest of their lives without a trial..... All so *you* can have some nice "transparency" at the DHS?????
Sorry, but if that's what's required, PLEASE NOW ADMIT THAT AMERICA IS A FASCIST POLICE STATE, and that if the price of freedom is so high that most people aren't willing to give up everything for that freedom, we have become land of the sheep.
Also, if you feel that's what's required; do it yourself; or start a revolution to take your country back from the oligarchs that have made into a greedy-self-serving-piece-of-shit-excuse for a nation. Mr Snowdens are few and far between and you're lucky to have the ones you have.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
What could possibly go wrong?
The status quo.
The people are the oversight committee.
If you establish another government office to do the overseeing, it will immediately be infected by the corruption of that which it oversees. It is impossible to keep such a committee independent, since the people sitting on the committee ultimately face the same incentives as the people they oversee.
If we are unwilling to stand up and protect our whistle blowers, then we won't get whistle blowers.
simple as that
yes the cancer may open your eyes that maybe some of your habits are not that great, but at which price...?
You all remember the recent smallpox discovery at the NIH ... well it turns out they found quite a number of samples of various other things, and their disposition was somewhat odd: some of them went to the FDA, the CDC, or were destroyed, but a number of samples (they didn't say what) were sent to Homeland Security.
WTF?!
What possible business can H.S. have with vials of deadly diseases?
'The original smallpox samples, along with ten others that were unclearly labeled, were securely transferred to the CDC’s high-containment facility in Atlanta., the FDA said, and 32 other vials have already been destroyed. The remaining 279 were transferred to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Bioforensic Analysis Center “for safeguarding.”'
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/1...
I'm going to assume that you're trying to say that DHS has no oversight. Here's the congressional committee charged with oversight of DHS: homeland.house.gov
We need direct action to dismantle the Fascist regime presently in power by eradicating the NSA and the TSA, returning the FBI to Law Enforcement, charging the members of Congress found to be conducting rampant Insider Trading with Federal Charges rather than giving them a pass and revoking the Patriot Act. Until then, it doesn't matter if we have 1,000 Snowdens, because it wont mean jack shit beyond tabloid fodder.
If history tells us anything, then that a single man who does things unsupervised can do a lot less harm than a whole governmental organization who does things unsupervised.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Dude, you have to learn how to read slogans. "Yes we can" means "We CAN, but we DON'T". And Hope and change means that you may hope for change. If you so please. It's a free country after all.
Seriously. Did anyone really expect anything just 'cause the guy is from the other end of The Party?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Same cost, same corruption and same amount of taxpayer money being squandered, but at least you do NOT get anything for it instead of getting inconvenience and surveillance.
I'd say it's a step in the right direction.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
U.S. Coast Guard there is no conceiveable reason this agency should not be under control of the pentagon ...
The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the U.S. armed forces from enforcing the law. That is why the National Guard is normally under the command of a State Governor and the Coast Guard is normally under the command of a civilian agency. When under such command they are not considered part of the U.S. armed forces and a Governor can have the state National Guard units enforce the law, for example during natural disasters, riots, etc. Similarly when under civilian command the Coast Guard can enforce maritime law, enforce safety regulations, arrest smugglers, etc.
Plenty of people noticed this was where it was heading right when the thing was announced. It's right in the name, too.
The general reaction was one of indifference. I vividly recall sharing a link to a bit of American-written op-ed in the grauniad warning of this. The Californians I was talking to shrugged it off as "written for European audiences" and therefore not worth consideration.
Well, American People, if you don't want to listen to even your own fellow countrymen (and -women, as was the case here) just because it was published outside of the "homeland", don't be surprised if you get horribly blindsided by the bloody obvious.
Needs about 350 million edward snowdens. Time to vote these criminals out people! Democrats and republicans both.
Most of the US states need one... most of the departments in those states need them... Many major and even minor cities need them.
Whistleblowing and leaking should become a core part of our democracy. Yes, government must keep some things secret... like your identity info so assholes aren't stealing your ID every two seconds to rob you. Or national security secrets like the plans to the latest hydrogen bomb. By all means keep those secrets.
But pretty much everything that doesn't need to be kept secret... shouldn't. Total disclosure. Government should in most cases be naked.
Technically, they work for us. They are employees in our company. We have every right to know everything.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
To rely on some lone person to give up their freedom for the sake of yours, for a second time, makes you seem so pathetically weak and likely unworthy.
You think Snowden is happy with the support he has received? None of you has so much as lifted a finger in his defense.
You're all fat and stupid and will be buried with your guns unfired in your new police state.
Big grains, BIG grains of salt on the rim.
Early on in my IT career, met a guy who was rather ruthless in his use of company resources and time. Was the network and server guy, before they 'changed it all up', post late 90's boom. He got work done, but was always working on 'outside endeavours' , certs mainly, which up front made sense. Now, printing off entire cert books on company paper seemed a bit, umm, unregular, but I was green as could be. What did I know, despite my reservations about that. Ethically gray would be an adequate descriptor of this guy. Use what resources available at all costs, and without hesitation.
Fast forward over a decade. A few weeks ago in fact. For whatever reason, I'm plopping around Linked-In, and whose name do I stumble upon? Same guy I worked with early on. His position? Something high up in 'Cyber*' working for DHS. Looked through his career and he'd worked the system pretty well. Online colleges for 'civil service' requirements... worked at mililtary bases, including 'US DNS' locations. It wasn't stellar in terms of academics, but his job placement was just right. They guy had THE career path to get where he was today.
Anyways, there he is at DHS. And looking back, the more it made sense. This guy was borderline sociopath. Absolute political animal. Unquestionably intelligent to be sure, but not afraid to cross anyone or burn a bridge if you stood in his way. And he'd do this all with a slight smile and off the cuff joke if need be. It's both slightly impressive and fairly unnerving that he could work himself up into that position. Tried some basic Googling, but this guys name just isn't out there. Not sure if he's been scrubbed from the Net, or has been very careful. Either way, I doubt I'll forget this guy anytime soon, knowing just where he sits within the US Government, at DHS, pulling policy this way or that. Have to wonder if he had a hand in this topic in fact.
/CSB
Sounds like you think that secrecy which is used to commit outright crimes in your name, is needed. [...] That is the secrecy you protect so vigorously.
To me it sounds like you completely missed the sarcastic irony and react to it with predictable violence, while more or less explaining the same point.
(Full disclosure: I'm not the GP.)
Sensible policies at those agencies is a solution. And less expensive, too.
Since DHS doesn't deal with actual information, it is reasonable that they do not respond to Freedom of Information requests.
Sounds like a Bonnie Tyler song from the 80's.. anybody got a VIdeo, Big Hair Wig, and Martha Quinn's iPhone number?
Turn all the records over to Congress and start over.
I'm sorry, what? Turn the records over to the same panicky corrupt bastards that created the department? Give me some time to figure out the logic there..
I'm afraid if you want to start over, you'll have to destroy the universe.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Likely they were discovered earlier than Snowden and became the subject of an extrajudicial execution, much as some have clamored to have done to Snowden.
The problem is: There's far far too many of 'them'.
Mindless cattle following their respective shepherds.
The difference between the rest of the world's leaders and ours are only the titles and the 'ideological path' to sway their opinions.
It's less nowadays about swaying others and more about finding like-minded individuals, banding together, and keeping your heads intact.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/07/23/blacklisted/