Are you personally afraid of Homeland Security?

[doodadem]

Just curious about members feelings on this one. When I tell my husband about some of the discussions we get into on DU, he's just sure that Homeland Security is going to be busting in our door any minute.
ARE we monitored? How sad is it that regular citizens have to even think about this issue?

[bryant69]

1. I'm more afraid of Giant Spiders

But that's just arachnaphobia talking.

Actually I doubt that we are first in line to be monitored--it'd be flattering to think that we were, but (for the most part) this board is committed to peaceful and lawful transition to something better.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[AllyCat]

2. Dunno if most feared status is warranted

but I get held back for search EVERY time I fly somewhere. Homeland security is only to secure the homeland from itself, not protect the homeland from others.

[Walt Starr]

3. Actually, I find DHS to be the biggest joke ever

I'd call DHS the keystone cops of antiterrorism.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. I feel much safer thinking that they monitor all the terrorists

in here. Makes me proud to be Amurkan. :)

[Bluzmann57]

5. No

but just in case they are monitoring DU, Fuck you Homeland security people. Do your jobs and leave innocent people alone. There, I got that off my chest.

[Cuban_Liberal]

6. No, merely amused.

They're huge, but inept--- the PERFECT bureaucracy, IMO.

[Droopy]

7. No

I really don't think they care about what a bunch of lefties have to say on a web site about politics. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there are members of Homeland Security who moniter this site, but not because they are looking for terrorists, but because they are Democrats.

[Newsjock]

8. My name is on the no-fly list

As my father (who has the same first name as me) learned when he tried to fly recently. He got on board, but not until he was "interrogated." (And we're all about as pasty-white Anglo as one can be, and have appropriately pasty-white Anglo names.)

So yes, as a professional journalist -- and an openly gay one, at that -- whose name is no doubt already "on file" in more than a handful of government agencies, yes, I'm afraid of the Homeland Security thugs. No, I don't think they're monitoring my home or are about to bust in or anything like that, but I fear the next time that I have an otherwise "normal" run-in with the law, like a ticket or something.

But I sure as hell won't be trying to fly anywhere anytime soon. And, yes, that's sad.

[mcscajun]

9. Not afraid...yet.

They're still a joke right now, albeit a very bad one. And there are people who they are hurting...and I worry.

But I'm not personally afraid of them...yet. When they've been entrenched for a few more years, then we might have to really be afraid.

[mattclearing]

10. No, but the name gives me the creeps.

Last I checked, we were a nation of immigrants.

Unless we're talking about Native Americans, this isn't anyone here's homeland.

[CrispyQ]

16. Agreed. I have a bumper sticker

"I live in America, not the Homeland."

[area51]

24. Name of dept.

DHS should more accurately be called the Dept. of Fatherland Security.


"Prosperity is just around the corner." -- Herbert Hoover
"The economy has turned a corner." -- GW Bush

Herbert Hoover = GW Bush

Neither man cared about the Depression their economic policies created.

[katinmn]

28. I'm with you -- hate the name

"homeland" is what you refer to when speaking of where you came from, not where you live.

I'm sure the taxpayers paid 100s of thousands in consulting fees to be saddled with that one.

(sigh)

[TWiley]

11. Yes.

The potential for abuse is ominous. In fact, John asscroft contacted the department of homeland security in Texas because the democrats refused to show up for a steamrolled vote.

This is especially true with the "with us or against us" mentality of the bush administration and the holy rollers who support him.

The Michigan State "Red" Squad survielled all anti-war protesters and committed dirty tricks against these American citizens which were designed to slander their names, or cost them their jobs. This happened between 1968 and 1974.

Homeland security has already investigated anti-war groups in America as though they threatened the "national security" somehow.

Once this outfit becomes fully politicized, and I believe that it will, then we will have a monster many times more potent than the STAZI or the KGB. This is the natural result of technological advancements combined with radical right wing politics.

Every democrat should be concerned. This administration has shown genuine intent of prohibiting anyone who disagrees with their agenda of their civil liberties and of their right to vote.

[hang a left]

22. I see them as a sleeping monster.

We will have checkpoints with fingerprinting done at our borders in place by 2006. I don't know when they are going to implement the National ID card. I read an article about fingerprinting at traffic stops in Green Bay just yesterday. Who knows what else is coming.

Welcome to the New World Order.

[burn the bush]

12. yes, i am afraid of the US hitler squad

[mattclearing]

18. You mean the "Bushtapo"?

I'm trying to get this word into circulation.

[TWiley]

23. Well, you can count on me to help circulate it.

Bushtapo eh eh eh. It has a nice and true ring to it.

[Solly Mack]

13. I had to get a special passport not too long ago and I must

admit to sweating it. lol

It did take much longer than they said it would. I figured they were debating the pros and cons of letting me out of the country. lolol

[theorist]

14. Incompetent boobs! The whole lot of them!

They haven't even stopped a single terrorist attack or successfully broken up militant cells in the US. I am only afraid of them to the point that they will surely overstep their duty of protecting us citizens to begin protecting us from ourselves. How will they do this? I'm not sure, but it's inevitable with this group running things. (I think it will have something to do with indefinite internment of "UnAmerican Scum".)

[Freebird12004]

15. it's still better than anywhere else

so far

[coreystone]

17. I Am Much More Concerned About the "Home Land Insecurity"..

of this administration and the propaganda which is being passed out (courtesy of the MSM) to the American people. I find it unfathomably incoherent that there are many of our fellow country-persons who haven't connected the dots. This administration has totally failed to secure too many aspects of their own competence, for me, to really believe that "Homeland Security" has the commitment necessary to justify the paranoia that they have spread.

When they go back and attempt to find those having instigated the "anthrax" threat and murders of the fall of 2001, then I will be concerned. Then, there will be some validity of this administration being "walking the talk"! I work for the Post Office, and I am disgusted with the lack of resolution that this administration has shown to fellow workers of mine. Some of us have died from this propaganda!!

REMEMBER THE ANTHRAX

[against all enemies]

19. They are looking at Democrats first, terrorists later,

[seabeyond]

20. i went on plane a couple times after 9/11

i was the one pulled out, everytime.........would have men come over to intimidate me. missed a plane once, holding leg up and waiting for lady to be scanned. i see myself being taken down at airports, just cant get myself to take a trip with a plane. dont want to go anywhere that far, that bad to walk into an enviroment where i no longer have any right. might at well walk into the prison system

[ThorsHammer]

21. No

[CWebster]

25. Of course not

It can't happen here...

[Disturbed]

26. New HS Chief helped write the Patriot Act.

Yeah, he will be confirmed.

Don't worry. Be happy.

[katinmn]

27. Yes. I am afraid of the dept's deviousness and incompetence

and the likelihood that it abuses the information it has on people.

[Nordmadr]

29. Yes,

the combination of the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, along with FEMA powers make me nervous. How easy is it to abuse this power? Just ask anyone sitting in a cell somewhere without any recourse or representation. It seems to me the government is just prepping for some terrrible event, and not just a "supposed" terrorist attack.

[shesemsmom]

30. I am sure we are monitored

THEY really need to get a life. I don't care if they come knocking on my door.

[The Flaming Red Head]

31. I’d like to give them all a wedgie.

Bunch of idiots using taxpayer money to hold tacky little beach parties and hand out tacky little plaques to each other.


Anyway, everyone knows that this Bush eats his own, so suspect a few of their heads may roll (literally) before it’s over.