We've spent nearly a TRILLION dollars on Homeland Security since 9/11

[cali]

Last edited Fri Sep 26, 2014, 11:29 AM - Edit history (1)

why do we act like we live in a pre-9/11 nation?

I'm not saying that there could never be a terrorist attack now. But surely with all that money and all the abrogations of rights and intrusive procedures and monitoring, the risk of a massive attack such as 9/11 has been sharply reduced, right?

We have thousands of shooting in this country every year and since 2007 we have over a dozen mass shootings every year and yet we freak the fuck out about foreign terrorists.

Not that I've heard so much as a peep out of any government official reassuring us that Homeland Security protects us.

Maybe it doesn't, but in that case, we've spent a whole lot of treasure on nothing. And if it does, why no comment on that? Instead, we hear from government officials and elected politicians about the terrible threat from foreign terrorists.

[valerief]

1. Hey, we live in a trickle up economy. We're not allowed to worry about where our

money goes. After all, the PTB have given us kitty videos. Isn't that enough?

[leftstreet]

2. The nuke industry's about to get their own $1 trillion

September 21, 2014

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A sprawling new plant here in a former soybean field makes the mechanical guts of America’s atomic warheads. Bigger than the Pentagon, full of futuristic gear and thousands of workers, the plant, dedicated last month, modernizes the aging weapons that the United States can fire from missiles, bombers and submarines.

It is part of a nationwide wave of atomic revitalization that includes plans for a new generation of weapon carriers. A recent federal study put the collective price tag, over the next three decades, at up to a trillion dollars.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/us/us-ramping-up-major-renewal-in-nuclear-arms.html

I welcome our Homeland Security Overlords!

[liberal N proud]

3. Lots of oligarchs getting richer from security theater

[CJCRANE]

4. It's the Greatest Show On Earth!

[closeupready]

5. These bullshit alerts scare people into supporting MIC defense spending.

Which makes war profiteers even richer. That simple.

[LondonReign2]

6. Massive NSA server farms ain't cheap you know!

[sabrina 1]

7. The NSA missed the Boston Bomber, despite having actual knowledge and warnings about him.

And now they appear to have never heard of ISIS while they know what the average person is eating for dinner.

Surely this 'sophisticated' 'worse than AQ' group has websites, they DO, that could be traced. Perhaps the NSA missed them too? Surely they own cell phones that 'data' could be collected and stored' from??

And if they have allies right here in the US, how do they communicate with them?

Billions are spent on the NSA every year. Yet they seem to miss all these threats which supposedly is WHY they are spying on the WHOLE WORLD?

Weren't they supposed to sort through all that 'data' to find that 'needle in the haystack' that was the main purpose of all of this spying?

How come no one tracked down the ISPs of these 'sophisticated websites' that are posing Hollywood quality videos to sign up recruits from all over the world?

Is that beyond the capacity of the all powerful NSA?

[CJCRANE]

10. The extremist groups have been openly using social media for years.

I stumbled onto a Jihadi supporters' group on Facebook about eighteen months ago. I became familair with their ideology and overall plans just from reading their public postings.

It's been interesting watching events unfold.

I think the real battle may be between the neocons and the neolibs. The neocons seem to want more war, as usual, and the neolibs probably want more markets and more free trade, so what we get is a compromise between the two.

[J_J_]

15. seriously

Al queda has an American internet magazine called "Inspire" where they teach people to make bombs, NSA can't trace that?


The whole thing is/was a farce for perpetual war.

On 9/11, even with Bush's incompetence, we had air force fighter jets that would regularly intercept any suspicious flight within 5 minutes (see Payne Stewart)

Those jets should never had hit their targets in the first place.

We don't need more money spent, more spying, more bombs.

We need to get the evildoers out of positions of power then demand the professionals the US government hires actually do their damn jobs.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. A Trillion Directly Accounted For

Given the FBI (Justice Department) and Secret Service (Treasury) costs, there are likely some buried costs that just look like the normal cost of doing government business.

Who know, it could be 20% more than what we know.

[woo me with science]

11. You beat me to it.

Unfathomable secrecy, black budgets and deceptive accounting these days. Who knows how much is being poured into our own oppression.

[cali]

9. kick. to me, this is a big deal.

[One_Life_To_Give]

12. 70MPH boats to police No Wake zones don't stop much

Gave a few connected people some fun rides. But when you start handing money out like candy. Don't be surprised that most of what was purchased was junk.

[gratuitous]

13. From a post yesterday that sank like a stone

"You've completed a 20-year cycle of escalating missile attacks, kidnappings, interventions, and turning your country into a giant prison. The result, they tell you, is that now the threat is even greater than before. And the solution? Let's do all the same things that worked so well the first time."

So, we're gonna need another trillion dollars. In the meantime, every little rumor or imagining or speculation will immediately assume concrete form of the Greatest Threat We Face Today. So be careful on the train. Watch out on the subway. Check your water supply. Get one of those mirror-on-a-stick doohickeys to look under your car every morning. Buy duct tape and plastic sheeting, and practice covering your windows and doors. Hide under the bed. Assume the fetal position. And if you're STILL not scared enough - you traitorous lout - we'll bring out Lindsay Graham and John McCain, a prospect that makes even the nerviest person quail.

[cali]

17. +1. great post

[Initech]

14. Just think that trillion dollars could go towards something useful.

Like fixing our broken infrastructure or giving health care to the masses. Instead it's being used to scare us against an invisible enemy and someone is getting rich off it,and it's not us.

[woo me with science]

16. We're safer than ever! But in so much danger we need new wars!

We fund ISIS! We are fighting ISIS! We have always been at war with ISIS!

War is Peace!