What does all the Homeland Security money pay for, exactly? (Boston/Mooninite thread)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

Wiretapping Democratic political candidates?

If many or most of the Mooninite signs had been hanging for WEEKS, in these public places where there's tons of people, when the worried citizen phone call triggered the response, shouldn't there have been surveillance photos/tapes during this time showing that these things had been hung up and obvious, lit up and everything, for a long time, and therefore were unlikely to be harmful, even if the authorities had no clue about adult swim or Aqua Teen Hunger Force?

Since the Boston Police Dept. concern was about terrorism, I'd have to assume they involved the Dept. of Homeland Security almost immediately as they began to investigate and "neutralize" (LOL) the signs. What wonderful input did they get from DHS I wonder. Have DHS spokespeople been on the media coverage explaining what their contribution in all this was, or completely invisible?

If the DHS was in any way justified as an agency, they should have been able to identify in very short order the source and nature of the signs and help "defuse" the situation before the widespread panic was promoted by media and Boston agencies. Maintaining security shouldn't consist only of preventing terrorist incidents (which they would have failed miserably in doing, had the signs actually been bombs), but should include sorting out real from bogus threats and averting destructive panics. Aopparently DHS has no interest in doing this since they have supported a political agenda, since inception, of promoting fear, fear, fear in the American public.

What, exactly, does the DHS money get used for?

But I guess the DHS still has its great track record in the Katrina response to fall back on.

[mmonk]

1. I don't feel completely comfortable with the dept of "Homeland Security"

Sounds too, well, you know how it sounds. Don't we have enough agencies to watch people and gouge the public trough?

[slutticus]

2. The money goes to spreading panic..

...and hysteria via various media and government outlets.

Gotta keep the people scared somehow.

Must protect the Fatherland.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Arming the police state, set on taking away as many of our Constitutional rights as possible?

[MADem]

4. It goes to protecting petting zoos in GOP states

It's a big fucking boondoggle. You think MA or NYC gets a "fair share" of that money? Dream on. That business in MA would have been paid for by us taxpayers, not DHS. We are a huge east coast port, we transship natural gas, we're terribly vulnerable, but we don't get enough of the dough, and neither does NYC. Petting zoos do. We're not sufficiently GOP to suit those fuckers.

The only reason we didn't pay for it this time is because GOP TIME WARNER/TURNER coughed up a million bucks, as they SHOULD HAVE. Gee, if the cheap fucks had gotten permission, paid a couple a grand per week to the city for each installation and notified them of the locations, they could have had the same effect without all the bullshit that ensued. Serves the Republican cheapskates right.