The New Republic’s Jeffrey Rosen calls for the abolition of the 22-agency, $52 billion-a-year Dept. of Homeland Security. Rosen argues that DHS was created after 9/11, because something drastic was needed to assuage fears of another terrorist attack. But from a cost-benefit perspective, the agency stinks. DHS can’t make the entire country terrorist-proof. So they haphazardly throw millions at surveillance cameras or radiation detection at ports.

Rosen argues that the federal government can do only two things about terrorism: gather intelligence about potential attacks and respond to attacks that do happen. The former is the role of the CIA and the myriad other intelligence agencies– none of which are even in DHS. The latter is the work of FEMA, which is under DHS, and was disgraced after Hurricane Katrina (actually, several of members of Congress who support DHS’s continued existence want FEMA out of the department).

I agree with Rosen– DHS has proved counter-productive. I would add that the Department’s creation has hurt more than counter-terrorism policy. Our immigration laws are even more of a mess now, because immigration agencies were thrown into DHS. The result is that undocumented immigrants have been insultingly brought into the "war on terror." Rosen is mostly sympathetic with DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. But Chertoff’s border patrol and factory raids have ratcheted-up national fears of immigrants, while ruining the lives of many poor, hard-working people.

Perhaps Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, Obama’s pick to head DHS, will be more sensitive to the immigration/terrorism conflation. Of course, there should never have been a cabinet department structured to encourage such a conflation.-MB

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