Barbara Boxer: DHS was a mistake. I regret voting for it.

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Barbara Boxer: DHS was a mistake. I regret voting for it.

I never imagined a president like Trump when I voted to create the Department of Homeland Security

By Barbara Boxer
Barbara Boxer of a member of the House of Representatives from 1983 to 1993 and the United States Senate from 1993 to 2017.
7/25/2020, 6:00:56 a.m.

Here are the three words that no elected official, serving or retired, wants to say: “I was wrong.”

Throughout my career, I was known for taking some very lonely votes. But I made a mistake in 2002 when I voted to create the Department of Homeland Security, which had been recommended by a number of members of Congress in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 the year before.

Looking back in the congressional record, I could hear the doubts in my voice.

“I have tremendous misgivings about the size and shape of this department,” I said. I warned that people could “less accountable, hiding under layers of bureaucracy.” I worried out loud on the Senate floor about including FEMA, the Coast Guard and immigration agencies into one giant department.

Still, most people thought this was a good idea. The memory of 9/11 haunted me: The hijacked airplanes were headed to California, which I represented, and I’d lost constituents in the attack. The World Trade Center collapsed in the city where I was born.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/25/barbara-boxer-regret-dhs/

[Blues Heron]

1. No shit sherlock

Little late on the wakey wakey, but better late than never.

[secondwind]

3. There isn't a person alive who hasn't made a mistake or two.

Stepping up and admitting you made a mistake is not easy, especially for a politician

I applaud her

[dlk]

2. DHS needs to be discontinued and disbanded

When it was created under the Bush administration, I was very concerned the agency’s mission would evolve into what we’re seeing today. America doesn’t need this agency. It’s redundant at best and a vehicle for attacking Americans. Let’s save some tax dollars (and the Constitution while we’re at it).

[secondwind]

4. Amen!!

[dlk]

6. Many have forgotten Nixon's illegal domestic spying during the Vietnam war

Using government resources to go after Americans who don’t agree with them isn’t anything new for Republicans It’s merely more thoroughly plotted out and better funded.

[Demsrule86]

5. DHS must go.

[rurallib]

7. Just the term "Homeland Security" had such Nazi overtones

it made me shake when i first heard it.

Unlike Boxer, I had little doubt where such a unit would head - especially under Republicans.

[klook]

9. Yes, deliberate echo of "Fatherland." (nt)

[Polly Hennessey]

8. My thought exactly.

The name alone was a big reddish flag waving, waving, Barbara. All Congress critters should be aware of future consequences. The possibility of a moronic idiot leading us is always there......why, because we have a stupid 30%, we have an easily persuadable 30%. The two groups together can create a disaster. We now have a perfect storm: a stupid demonic tRump and a pandemic.

[SharonAnn]

10. I was against it, too. FEMA, Coast Guard, and Immigration didn't belong.

[fromVT]

11. The key passage

When we debated the DHS bill, I sided with 27 other senators on an amendment by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) to delay the merger of the 22 organizations included in the department for three years and set up checks and balances as well as robust congressional oversight. We lost that fight...

Senators were so frightened by 9/11 that they gave away their power. That was a pattern in those days.

Now we'll pay for it.

[eppur_se_muova]

12. Like our military, it has had mission creep inflicted on it from upper management.

Reorganized a bit and used properly, it could be a useful force against terrorism, foreign and domestic. To abuse it, you just need to label the wrong people 'terrorists'. Just as you can abuse police forces by labeling the wrong people 'criminal'.

It's not the tool that's deeply flawed so much as it is the tool-users.

[onetexan]

13. corruption has run way too deep. One of Biden's first acts should be to abolish DHS along with ICE.