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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ryanyomomma (talk | contribs) at 06:56, 26 March 2013 (→‎Acquisition of munitions and MRAPs: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Biggest terrorists group in the World

The DHS poses a huge threat to the peace and safety of Americans. It needs to be ground into the dust under the collective bootheel of the nation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.239.111 (talk) 03:22, 10 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nomenclature

It's complete nonsense to translate "homeland" as "Heimat". The term Heimat is specificly German. "Homeland" is only one aspect of its meaning. The whole paragraph should be deleted. Somebody trys to link the Bush administration to Nazy Germany. A German historian 141.35.23.126 (talk) 12:14, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What do they do?

I'd like to have a section about what DHS actually does. I'm kind of confused about the actual activities of the department. Quantumelfmage 00:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The lion's share of what DHS does is done by the agencies that fall within it -- the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the TSA, FEMA, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, and a few others. Eddiefranklin 05:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Headquarters

I added the small paragraph on the DHS headquarters. If anybody has more info, that'd be good. Tooptoo 17:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like White House PR

"Although controversial, the reforms instituted by the Department have been instrumental in undercovering several domestic terror plots."

I think this sentence needs to be removed if a source isn't cited. --user: Detroit journalist 12-7-05

I see no evidence behind this statement presented. Are there events and incidents that can be presented as proof for this claim, or is it boilerplate lifted from a government website/pamphlet? --anonymous user, 01:10, 12 September 2005

Another comment on this: note that to support this statement, while it is necessary to demonstrate that several domestic terror plots have been uncovered by DHS, this is not sufficient. It is also required to demonstrate that the reforms instituted by DHS or by the creation of DHS itself were "instrumental" in uncovering these plots. It is possible to imagine that plots have been uncovered, which would have been uncovered without the creation of DHS or its reforms. Revolver 23:02, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to see these incidents discussed, or this sentence removed. Vivacissamamente 23:09, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree; that was the first thing I thought when I read that sentence. Source, please? If the DHS has actually done something good, I think it deserves more specific documentation. (n.b. I have consolidated some other comments about this sentence which were further down on this page.) --Woozle 00:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


The sources for the budget and employee figures is an article published by FOXNEWS.com (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,70974,00.html ). The employee figure (164,184) was rearched by adding up the employee figures of each department going into the DHS.

--hoshie


Who initiated the change, the blues or reds

This article seem to say that democrats initiated the creation of DHS. I was under the impression DHS is purely the work of conservatives. Anyway, i think that is worth highlighting in the main article. "President Bush, resistant to early entreaties by Democrats to create the department after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, eventually embraced the idea -- but insisted on freedom from many existing civil service laws in assembling the new bureaucracy." [1]

The Democrats came up with the idea and pushed for it, and the Republicans opposed it. Then, just before the 2002 midterms, the Republicans removed workers rights protection fro the propsal and pushed for it, so they could look good in the elections and the Dems would look bad by having to fight their creation to protect its workers. Typical Republicans, playing election-day-grab with national securty.

History of the department

Shouldn't the history of the department before its creation be mentioned in the article? Wasn't it suggested originally in early 2001?

United States Office of Homeland Security

Wouldn't it make sense to merge United States Office of Homeland Security into this page's History section? OK, so "...the office was superseded, but not replaced..." -- what's that supposed to mean? My dictionary says those 2 words are synonymous. And even if there is some technical difference, is there any practical difference? (A bit like Operation Desert Sword. Does anyone remember all 2 minutes of that?) Ewlyahoocom 19:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merge of Ready.gov back into DHS

I proposed this merge because the segment on DHS seemed fine (and the Ready.gov version is a little out of date). Perhaps consider changing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready.gov to a redirect to the DHS page or the DHS page Ready.gov section? +Johnson 09:20, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree Ready.gov content can be easily updated, and it is notable in its own right. MPS 15:06, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well then please expand the Ready.gov site to more than just a copy of what was on DHS and place a
Main article: Ready.gov
link in DHS where appropriate. I don't think there is any real reason to give Ready.gov its own article since there is not much information on it, and I feel that a redirect would suffice, but if you insist, it would be nice to make some changes to Ready.gov. +Johnson 19:25, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Link to Wikipedia from Ready.gov

What is this supposed to show? All you had to do to make that was put wikipedia at the end. If I wanted to, I could say Link to Myspace from Ready.gov. What is the purpose? +Johnson 23:36, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Appointment of DHS Leadership

DHS operates in the same manner as other Cabinet Departments (Treasury, Justice, Defense, etc.). Senior "leadership" (the Secretary and Deputy Secretary, Under Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, etc.) are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. There are other political appointments at a lower level that do not require Senate confirmation. Many mid- to upper-level leadership positions are filled by career civil servants as well.

The only elected officials (I think) in the Executive Branch are the President and Vice President.

Organization

This really seems like useless info. I think that a list of their operating agencies and bureaus would be much more useful, and more concise. Who really cares if DHS has a "Chief Human Capital Officer " or a "Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy"; what really matters is that they run the Secret Service and Citizenship and Immigration Services, yet those appear at the bottom of the article. Cornell Rockey 12:53, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this point of view. I think this page needs to be better organized to be as succinct as possible. I think it is important that citizens have transparent understanding of what the DHS is and what it exists to accomplish. --Jaycorrales 07:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Updated. Should we seperate Administrative Organization from Major Agencies? Maybe they should be in separate sections. --Jaycorrales 23:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but you updated with the wrong info ... what was there before was accurate.

I added it as a separate section and cited my source. The list of agencies is probably more useful to the average person than a list of positions within the organization (as noted above). --Jaycorrales 22:18, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your point, but the information you are using is out of date -- there's no longer a 'Directorate of Border and Transportation Security,' for example. (Your source refers to the way the Department was initially created, but it has since been reorganized - dhs.gov has the current org chart) I replaced the section with a list of the seven major operational agencies in DHS - I think that is the simplest way to do it. -- Ed

Hi There! I wanted to point out this sentence, which I feel is slightly misleading and diminishing to the Coast Guard: Whereas the Department of Defense is charged with military actions abroad, the Department of Homeland Security works in the civilian sphere to protect the United States within, at, and outside its borders. While the Coast Guard can sometimes be directed by the Dept of the Navy during wartime, it belongs to DHS during peacetime. Nevertheless, whether during war or peace, the Coast Guard is one of the five branches of the Armed Forces. This sentence should include this exception to acknowledge the sacrifices of the proud servicemen and servicewomen who take real risks everyday to protect us - remember, the Coast Guard is always deployed, unlike other branches of the military, so the Coast Guard is doing its thing every single day. It definitely deserves mention here, because this military branch is a very important part of DHS. Here is what the edited sentence could look like: "Whereas the Department of Defense is charged with military actions abroad, the Department of Homeland Security works mainly in the civilian sphere to protect the United States within, at, and outside its borders. And additional sentence uld then be added to point out that one of the five branches of the US Armed Forces, namely the Coast Guard, belongs to DHS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.134.102.176 (talk) 17:12, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No sourcing for alleged use of tens of thousands of temporary agents

There is no mention of this allegation in sources 13, 14, 15, 16. I recommend deletion of this passage:

"In November 2006 the DHS had also mobilized tens of thousands of temporarily hired agents to conduct surveillance and practice clandestine operations on a person living on disability in Long Beach, California. The operation lasted three months, reached Canada and Taiwan, and was estimated to have cost several hundreds of millions of dollars, and yet the person in question was later assessed to have no connection with threat activities. The case caused a sensation among the intelligence communities in three countries and the exposure of incompetence and massive waste on the part of DHS in the case."

Robert Stephen Spiegel 15:45, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

DHS receives multiple Vandlism warnings

the above should not be included in the page. It is a so what. It only means that someone at that ip has been warned. --Jeanenawhitney (talk) 18:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of agencies within the DHS?

Would a list of all of the agencies within the DHS belong in this article, or would a new page be better? Most people know that TSA and FEMA are part of DHS, but most don't know that the Secret Service and the Coast Guard are in there too. See http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/#1 - JeffJonez (talk) 02:49, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

USCIS

I went ahead and altered the list of agencies to reflect the new title of INS, USCIS. I choose to do this not only because it is the correct title, but because the article goes on to refer to the agency as USCIS without clarifying that the title had been changed. Alex (talk)

Pro-life contoversy

I noticed that there was a controversy about pro-life activists being included among right-wing extremist groups. I'm not sure it fits into the controversies section, but it is something that did cause quite a bit of public outcry. [2] ADM (talk) 17:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The whole Rightwing Extremists Advisory issue popped up over at Janet Napolitano, and will most likely be moved shortly to the controversy section here. - JeffJonez (talk) 20:08, 18 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How Can an Article on DHS be Complete Without Mentioning 12 Million Illegal Immigrants?

The main article doesn't mention the inherent conflict between the words and the image of "homeland security" and the presence of at least 12 million illegal immigrants in America. Also, there's continuing violence and chaos along the U.S-Mexico border. E-Verify, which has the potential to end a lot of illegal immigration, is not even mentioned. The apparent DHS attempts to weaken the REAL ID legislation are similarly not mentioned. So this article is woefully incomplete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.44.153.18 (talk) 03:28, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody said it was complete. Start placing cited facts in the relevant sections (I'll guess 'criticisms' in this case) and let's see what sticks. You can also work (not rant) on the Real ID, E-verify and Illegal immigration to the United States articles when you're done here. - JeffJonez (talk) 05:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What about the state departments of homeland security

Each state has its own department of homeland security...anybody care to help me write article on them?Smallman12q (talk) 21:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fusion Centers

The Fusion Center section has an extended quote that, in my reading, distorts an original source document:

David Rittgers of the Cato Institute has noted..."and the Department of Homeland Security described half of the American political spectrum as “right wing extremists.”[60]"

The David Rittgers' article referenced by note 60 contains a link to a DHS intelligence report titled "Rightwing Extremism...." Mr. Rittgers may believe "half the political spectrum" consists of right wing extremists. The DHS intelligence report report does not say that. I think that part of the quotation should be deleted because it represents opinion not supported by the original source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bellavita (talk • contribs) 00:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

--Bellavita (talk) 00:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

DHS forms

These forms are Rosetta Stones of the names of DHS and various agencies and features:

WhisperToMe (talk) 01:51, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Budget

The mentions of the DHS's budget seem designed to give biased pro-DHS impressions, and certainly gives confusing impressions:

1) The opening paragraph has a final sentence of "In fiscal year 2011 it was allocated a budget of $98.8 billion and spent, net, $66.4 billion."

(a) I find it difficult to believe that any government department, of any country, would spend only 2/3rds of its budget.

(b) the "spent, net" strikes me as some sort of definitional trick.

(c) I don't think such a snapshot factoid belongs in the opening paragraph at all, regardless of the values used. It isn't part of what the organization "is", and the size of the DHS is given in the adjacent Box.

(d) And the Box gives the budget as $55.1 billion for the previous year, throwing even greater doubt onto the two values given in the opening paragraph.


2) The "Expenditures" section starts: "In the United States Federal Budget for 2010, entitled 'A New Era of Responsibility'" I object to giving the title.

(a) First, the actual title was: "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise" so the article's statement is factually incorrect.

(b) The title is clearly a political statement of little (any?) factual relevance to a discussion of the DHS's budget.


3) Continuing the "Expenditures" section there is: "the DHS was allocated a discretionary budget of $42.7 billion ... The end-of-year DHS Annual Financial Report ... showed a net cost of operations of $56.4 billion ... out of total budgetary resources of $83.2 billion"

(a) None of the values given agree with the $55.1 billion given in the Box.

(b) "discretionary budget", "net cost of operations" and "total budgetary resources" are undefined terms. How do they relate to each other? How do they relate to the Box's "Annual Budget"? How do they relate to the "net, spent" measure used in the opening paragraph?


In short: What is the DHS's budget?

121.98.218.165 (talk) 01:30, 16 July 2012 (UTC) Martyn[reply]

Acquisition of munitions and MRAPs

Why hasn't anyone bother to include DHS' recent purchases of 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition and MRAP vehicles? At first, I thought this was conspiracy dribble, but after The Denver Post and Forbes ran the story, I would like to think that some diligent user would note this on the article. On a personal note, at the height of combat operations during the 2003 Iraq invasion, the Army was expending 6 million rounds of ammunition. Statistically, DHS has enough ammunition to sustain a war for the next 20 years. Again, this is not conspiracy dribble. This is just statistics and common sense. Why does DHS need that much ammo and vehicles that are designed to resist mines/IEDs if their role is strictly meant for domestic protection within the states?Ryanyomomma (talk) 06:56, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[1] [2]

  1. ^ http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_22594279/homeland-security-aims-buy-1-6-billion-rounds
  2. ^ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/
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