The Department of Border Security: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
by John Lawrence, March 16, 2019
It's not the job of the Department of Defense to defend our borders. Neither is it the job of Homeland Security. So, gee, we'll have to have another multibillion dollar Department just to defend our borders. Call it the Department of Border Security. I thought the Department of Defense was to defend us. Well then, I thought it was the job of the Department of Homeland Security to, well, defend the homeland, but I was wrong. The job, evidently, of the Department of Defense is to defend our allies. Well then, let the allies pay for it. It's costing us a trillion dollars a year and they don't even defend the Homeland meaning the continental United States. But really their job is offense. Defense is a misnomer.
The history of the US is a history of the proliferation of various defense departments and intelligence agencies. Each new one is designed to protect the turf and the money of the last one. The FBI was established in 1908 with a job description much like that of the CIA which was established in 1947. To protect the turf of the FBI, though, the CIA was forbidden to collect intelligence about what was going on inside the country. To protect the turf of the CIA, the FBI was forbidden to collect intelligence about what was going on outside the country. The budget of the FBI is about $8 billion. The budget of the CIA is about $14 billion. But even that isn't enough. The National Security Agency was established in 1952. You'd think the CIA was capable of doing its job but, no, another agency had to be established with a budget of around 11 billion dollars.
In fact there are 17, count 'em, separate US intelligence agencies. Each one was established to create new jobs because the older ones' job descriptions were written in such a way that they couldn't perform what was perceived as a new need for more intelligence. Wikipedia reported:
The United States Intelligence Community (IC) is a federation of 16 separate United States government intelligence agencies and a 17th administrative office, that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities to support the foreign policy and national security of the United States. Member organizations of the IC include intelligence agencies, military intelligence, and civilian intelligence and analysis offices within federal executive departments. The IC is overseen by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) making up the seventeen-member Intelligence Community, which itself is headed by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who reports to the President of the United States.
The Washington Post reported in 2010 that there were 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies in 10,000 locations in the United States that were working on counterterrorism, homeland security, and intelligence, and that the intelligence community as a whole includes 854,000 people holding top-secret clearances. According to a 2008 study by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, private contractors make up 29% of the workforce in the U.S. intelligence community and account for 49% of their personnel budgets.
But none of these intelligence agencies is responsible for intelligence related to border security. Therefore, we need another department. No, 2 departments: one responsible for the implementation of border security and one responsible for the intelligence related to border security. Obviously, the Department of Homeland Security cannot provide these functions. We need brand new departments with billion dollar budgets and offices located in every state so that US Senators can bring home the pork and get reelected.
So that's why I think that there will be a push for a Department of Border Security because, evidently, it's not the job of the Defense Department to defend our borders. Neither is it the job of the Department of Homeland Security to defend our borders. So we must need a new department which will employ thousands and have a budget in the billions because the National Security State needs more jobs. Obviously, this could go on forever with a Department of Ocean Security because the US is surrounded by oceans, a Department of Space Security because the US is surrounded by space, a Department of Biological Security because the enemy will try to take us down with germs.
And so on and so on ad infinitum. But there will be no Department of Climate Change because climate change is not a threat.
