Timothy Birdnow

Actually I love this idea; it would eliminate a whole cabinet-level bureaucracy and the Democrats would lose all those voters who have been one of their power bases. George W. Bush was a fool in creating the Department of Homeland Security in the first place, and the TSA too.

We handled these functions just fine prior to 911 in other branches of government, and using private sector people. I don't think anyone can credibly argue we've seen any real improvement in air traffic safety or otherwise by making these changes - we just grew the government.

How has strip-searching little old grandmothers and refusing to racially profile protect us?

Yes, 911 was a spectacular security failure, but it probably would have happened even if we had a Department of Homeland Security, it just would have gone down differently. The terrorists exploited loopholes that were there, and would have done likewise with other loopholes. The only reason we haven't had another major attack is because we wiped out Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations with an international reach.

According to Wikipedia (not a reliable source but usually pretty good on this sort of thing:

And that included the Pulse Nightclub attack which killed 50 people in 2016.

Yes, hijackings have declines (there have onliy been 55 since the 911 attacks) but that would have been the case if we hadn't federalized airport security too - just changing the way we handle screening would have sufficed.

And we know that people testing the system have gotten all sorts of things through airport security that shouldn't have been allowed. Basically TSA is the Post Office with metal detectors.

So you go girl! We'll move ICE to the War Department and then run it like a military operation and quit this futzing about.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at February 21, 2026 12:55 AM (ja9sb)

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at February 21, 2026 12:55 AM (ja9sb)

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at February 21, 2026 12:09 PM (oflqW)

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