The Department of Homeland Security Is Broken and DangerousThe department suffers “a dangerous combination of broad authorities, weak safeguards, and insufficient oversight.”
J.D. TUCCILLE
4.25.2022
Founded 20 years ago in the panic-stricken days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was originally tasked with guarding the borders and preventing similar future assaults from abroad. Since then, the agency's focus has shifted to enemies closer to home in the form of Americans the government has tagged as potential threats. That's unfortunate, because throughout its brief existence, DHS has demonstrated poor judgment, worse respect for individual liberties, and an impressive inability to implement necessary reforms of the sort that watchdogs now recommend.
"What we, in the Department of Homeland Security, have assessed it that the greatest terrorism-related threat that we face in the homeland is a threat of domestic violent extremism: individuals drawn to violence because of ideologies of hate or false narratives propagated on social media and other online platforms," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told the national convention of Al Sharpton's National Action Network in New York City on April 8. "And the most prominent threat is the threat of white supremacists."
The shift from chasing external threats to looking for those found inside the country is no surprise to anybody familiar with DHS's political sensitivities. Just as Republicans fret over immigrants, Democrats worry about radicals under the bed. Donald Trump's loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election meant DHS announcements stopped talking about border walls in favor of warning about "domestic violent extremists" motivated by the "online proliferation of false or misleading narratives." But it's still the same plodding bureaucracy with lots of resources and only a modicum of decency.
"The department has aggressively targeted Muslims, communities of color, and social justice movements in the name of security," Faiza Patel, Rachel Levinson-Waldman, and Harsha Panduranga warn in a Brennan Center for Justice report on the Department of Homeland Security published last week. "It conceals information about its vast databases and intrusive surveillance technologies. And it often embarks on ventures that implicate Americans' privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties without even establishing or measuring their usefulness.
These problems have long festered due to a dangerous combination of broad authorities, weak safeguards, and insufficient oversight," they add.
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Source:
https://reason.com/2022/04/25/the-department-of-homeland-security-is-broken-and-dangerous/
