The People have Spoken: Results of Our DHS Poll

% of total votes for each choice in "Rename DHS Poll," Nov., 2011 (N=3,253)

From Nov. 2nd to Nov 8th, 2011 we orchestrated the largest ever nationwide poll on the future of the Department of Homeland Security.

Our poll concerned the most pressing question of all: Should DHS be renamed? We provided a list of alternative names and invited the American People to vote for their favorites.  By the end of the polling period, a total of 3,253 people had voted; as respondents were allowed to choose more than one response, a total of 4,064 votes were cast.

As per the above chart, these were the top responses, listed in order of votes received:

1. Privatize and name it after the buyer (i.e. "Haliburton Security" or "Saudi Binladin Group Security"): 1113 votes, 27% 
2. Scaredycatland Security (staff pick): 1008 votes, 25%
3. Fatherland Security (says we're strong):  668 votes, 16%
4. Bankland Security (its all theirs anyway): 533 votes, 14%
5. Droneland Security (rhymes with "homeland"): 329 votes, 10%

Other names received fewer than 10% of votes cast. 

We are most grateful to journalist James Fallows for having publicized our national survey on his excellent blog at the Atlantic Monthly.

Citizen contributed names

A number of citizens who declined to participate in the poll chose to submit their own names for DHS.  They submitted these names over Twitter, in the comments sections of blogs, and on major bulletin board sites across the country.  A Taiwanese website also participated.   By the end of the polling period, 568 people had suggested hundreds of alternative names for Homeland Security.

Many "citizen contributed" names were quite dubious.  Whenever individuals submitted their own names (as opposed to selecting the items on the poll) we made every effort to track down IP addresses or subpoena Twitter account information. 

Plethora of acronyms

Until our next federal grant comes through, we will not have the resources to analyze all the names, let alone arrest everyone who participated.

However, based on preliminary analysis by a team led by Undersecretary Wolf, the following acronyms are likely to be rejected: 

• KGB: Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
• RETARDED: REdundant Treasonous Americans Raping Democracy Every Day
• DEAD: Department to Eradicate American Democracy
• ADHD: American Department of Homeland Defense
• DICKS: Department of Inequality, Capitalism, Korruption and Servitude
• DUM: Department of Unpatriotic Mentality
• DOFUS: Department of Fear, United States
• DOHAC: Department of Hope and Change
• DEATHSTAR: DEfending America THrough Security Theatrics And Ridiculousness
• WASTE: Wacky Administration Sacrificing the Taxes of Everyone
• SACUP: Dept. of Shove All Complaints Up Pooper
• BENDOVER: Bureau of Ending National Debate Over Violation of Everyone's Rights
• DIE: Dept. of Do It or Else
• GROPE: Government Response to Obvious Political Expediency
• C****: Committee for Unethical National Threat Scaremongering
• DOOM: Department Of Orwellian Misrule
• MILF: Ministry of Instantaneous and Last Freedom
• DAMNIT: Department of Absolutely Meaningless National Insecurity Theater
• USELESS: United States Emergency Law Enforcement Secret Service
• DUH: Department of Upperclass Hooligans
• A*******: American Security Services, Homeland Operations, Law Enforcement for the State
• RSMA: Reich Security Main Office
• SAFETY: Securing American's Fear of Everything Threatening You
• DHS: Department of Honor and Selflessness (inspired by this)
• DIPS***: Department of International Perception State Homeland Investigation Taskforce
  

Other dubious names
Following are some of the more curious name suggestions we received:

• Mystery Security Theater 3000
• Department of Perpetual Orange
• The Unicorn Society (I mean they are looking for non-existent things after all)
• Mother of all Fatherland Departments
• The Kindly Ones (A Greek euphemism for the Furies)
• 米国淫民的爱国爱党情操不高尚嘛  (The United States of Kinky Party Patriotic Sentiments of the People is Not a Noble Thing)

One entrepreneur suggested the DHS be named after his company's "security" product (SecurityFeelBetter).  That's capitalism at its best.   

Where to go from here? 

 Hubble Space Telescope photo of remote galaxies (NASA).

Only 4% of respondents in our national poll said they favor retaining the name Homeland Security.  This means the name is probably going to have to change. What is our next step?  OutputLogic describes our plan of action quite accurately:

First, they have to form a Committee for Renaming the Department of Homeland Security.  Second, the committee has to work for two years and draft a 1000-page conclusions document.  Third, there has to be a nation-wide referendum. Fourth…

Because the debt is scary enough already, we will outsource as much of this work as possible to companies in Asia.  Encouragingly, we received some interesting responses from Taiwan.  Staff particularly appreciated the forward thinking behind a name suggested by one of the Taiwanese.  SandersYao wrote:

If the boundaries of U.S. imperialism were to be extended to encompass the scope of the universe, it should be called the Space Security Agency.  

Our global media partners

James Fallows publicized our poll.

The U.S. Dept. of Fear couldn't possibly achieve its objectives without the complicity of the media.  Here's a partial list of various media organizations that helped to promote the survey (along with the number of DHS names suggested):

• Atlantic Monthly, "Cast Your Vote Now! New Names for DHS": n/a
• SlashDot, "Help Rename the Department of Homeland Security": 382 names
• FearDepartment, "Other suggested names for Homeland Security": 66 names
• MetaFilter: "Department of Terror and Graft": 39 names
• @FearDept (our Twitter account): 32 names 
• Flier Talk, "The Atlantic poll: Vote on a new name for the Department of Homeland Security": 25 names
• Jandan.net, "恶搞，为美国国土安全部门重命名": 18 names
• TeraScape Networks, "Help Rename Homeland Security": 5 names
• Prison Planet Forum, "Rename the U.S. Department of Fear... err, um... I mean Homeland Security.": 1 name

Survey questionnaire
Voters could select multiple items.  The online polling gadget (bellow) calculates the percent for each item as percent of the number of persons voting (N=3,253), whereas our chart (top of the post) indicates the percent of total votes (4,064) each item received.  

Should we rename Homeland Security? What would be a better name for it?

Word of the Month: DEGENERATE

During a press conference Friday morning at DoF Center, Secretary of Fear Malcolm P. Stag III declared "degenerate" Word of the Month for December 2011.

SecFear said, "Degenerate, as with many of our most successful memes, was formulated in the minds of elite right wing bloggers. Next thing, the word was uncritically embraced by the mainstream media."

Later in the day, Dr. Rebecca Wolf, Undersecretary for Information, told Fox & Friends: "We were delighted to observe how quickly use of the word metamorphosed. From a means of impugning places and activities associated with OWS, it soon became a means of disparaging the character of individuals."

"Let me put it this way," SecFear said, "You waterboard the terrorist, you pepper spray the degenerate."

Wikipedia photos prove Iran culpable in terrorism

UPDATES (2)
In addition to spying on the private communications of the American People, counter-terrorism analysts of the United States Department of Fear routinely harness "open source" online resources in our effort to combat terrorism.

Recently, while surveying Wikipedia, a DoF staff member detected a pattern in some photographs.

The photos discovered by our analyst reveal the "missing link" that connects the 2001 anthrax attacks--long believed to have been carried out by Al Qaeda--to Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula and Quds Force. Quds Force, of course, is the unit of the Iranian Guard most recently implicated in the plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador.    

Based on this timely and important discovery, the U.S. Department of Fear has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.  On Tuesday SecFear will demand the Security Council pass a resolution authorizing one of our allies to attack Iran's nuclear facilities -- facilities we're convinced are being used to build nuclear bombs. 

UPDATE 1: 
James Fallows, a journalist for the Atlantic Monthly, has published information that skeptics claim puts a cloud of doubt over the credibility of our evidence of a link between the 2001 anthrax attacks, Al Qaeda and its dangerous new affiliate, and Iran's Quds Force.

UPDATE 2:
Secretary of Fear Malcolm P. Stag III announced late Thursday afternoon that he will go forward with his plan to present the UN Security Council with the hard photographic evidence.

"Quds Force carried out the 2001 anthrax attacks--the link is irrefutable," SecFear told FoxNews. "Wikipedia is a trusted resource of the intelligence community," he added.   

Was Mayor Bloomberg's terrorist bomb scare a success?

Late Sunday afternoon, the office of New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg announced that a terrorism related press conference was about to occur. At the press conference, NYPD officials alleged that a home grown lone wolf terrorist had been caught planning a series of terrorist attacks across the city using homemade bombs.

Our question: Did the this Fear Event have its intended effect?

Threat to repair bridge triggers deployment of land, air and sea assets

We're proud to announce that we prevented Occupy DC protesters from repairing Key Bridge today--our Sign Intelligence Unit determined they planning to do something like that.  The serious nature of the threat prompted full mobilization of the department's land, air, and sea assets. 

Occupy DC protesters, hell bent on fixing the bridge, numbered in the hundreds.  

Land:  Ten of some fifty vehicles deployed--in addition to four horses.

Air:  One of our surveillance helicopters (we kept the AWACS at a safe distance).

Sea:  Heavily armed patrol boat passes under the bridge. 

Occupation Domino Theory

"If the Department of Fear now were to throw in the towel, and come home, and the Occupiers took over South Cascadia, then, all over North America, all over the Pacific, in the Mid East, in Europe, in the world, the Department of Fear would suffer a blow. And war. Because we are the great war-making entity in the world today because of our power. Would suffer a blow from which it might not recover."

- Secretary of Fear Malcolm P. Stag III

Kite-fliers to be charged under Terrorism Act

The U.S. Dept. of Fear is passionate about charging ordinary Americans with crimes under our terrorism laws.  Today many countries can be observed to be following our example.  

Kite-flyers to be booked under ATA

Staff Report

LAHORE: Capital City Police Officer (CCPO), Ahmad Raza Tahir said that cases under Terrorism Act would be registered against those kite-flyers who would deliberately endanger lives of fellow citizens by using dangerous strings.

CCPO directed a complete ban on kite-flying and directed all SHOs to ensure indiscriminate action against the usage of prohibited elements, such as dangerous strings, in order to ensure proper protection of innocent lives. He also directed a strict action against aerial firing and those indulging in the string-making and kite-flying for which all divisional SPs will be held responsible for their respective areas. On the directive of CCPO, during the current year, Lahore Police has registered as many as 380 cases of kite-flying and arrested 405 culprits.

He warned that if any officer or official displayed laxity in this regard, he would be proceeded against strictly, at the departmental level. He ordered Lahore Police to take effective legal action with regard to aerial firing and stated that law would come into action indiscriminately against those who flout the ban on kite-flying. He also instructed police officers to ensure comprehensive implementation of ban on kite flying, aerial firing and fireworks in their respective areas.

Daily Times of Pakistan

Cash or Visa? We're making that choice easier for you

Our financial partners make money every time a consumer pulls out plastic to settle a bill. This got us thinking. What if everyone who tried to pay with cash received a suspicious look or a visit from the FBI?

We made this video to train hotel staff.

Hat-tip Citizensnews

Other suggested names for Homeland Security

Do you have a new name in mind for DHS? If you're on Twitter, we invite you to tweet your suggestion to @FearDept with the tag #NewName4DHS.

More names:

What do the stars and stripes symbolize?

The stars represent the 50 great American banks of 1980s; the stripes, the 14 great banks after the mergers of the 1990s.   For more details, see this post.

Jesse Ventura can't have his day in court (national security)

Some background from the Washington Post:

Ventura sued the federal government in January, alleging that airport scans and pat-downs amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. A district judge in St. Paul threw out his lawsuit Thursday, ruling it should have been filed in a Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ventura has said a titanium hip implanted in him in 2008 sets off metal detectors and that agents previously used hand-held wands to scan his body. He said he was subjected to a body pat-down after an airport metal detector went off last November. Ventura said he hasn’t flown since and won’t fly commercially again.

Asked to comment on the case, SecFear Malcolm P. Stag III said, "We regard Gov. Ventura as a possible terror suspect just like any other American citizen. Because he's neither a member of the club nor a corporation, he lacks standing in our courts."

E Pluribus Quattuor : Out of Many, Four

The old moto "E Pluribus Unum" was printed on the back of the U.S. penny.

When Congress bailed out insolvent Wall Street banks in 2008, not only did this move enable Wall Street to continue paying large bonuses, it gave America's largest banks the resources to swallow even more small banks.  The appearance of four humongous banks marked the culmination of a process that had been going on for two decades. 

Somehow the Big Four escaped bankruptcy and were declared to have passed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's "stress test" in 2009.  To mark the occasion, "E Pluribus Quattuor" was proposed as the new moto for the United States America by a committee of the U.S. Senate.

E Pluribus Quattuor describes an action: Many uniting into four. An accurate translation of the motto is "Out of many, four."

____
Too big to fail chart h/t James Fallows

We're keeping America safe from Occupy Wall Street

Street Lights: new tool for spying on Americans

We're excited about a new system that renders street lights capable of spying on the American people and transmitting our messages to them.

Britain's Daily Mail newspaper reports:

Like something out of a sinister Orwellian vision of the future, streetlights with the ability to monitor conversations and announce government warnings are being installed on American streets.

As part of a federally-funded project, manufacturers Illuminating Concepts have begun installing the system, dubbed 'Intellistreets' in the town of Farmington Hills, Michigan.

According to the company’s video presentation the capabilities of the devices include homeland security, public safety, traffic control, advertising and video surveillance features.

Fears the lampposts are a step towards the creation of a police state were further fueled when the firm removed a promotional video from You Tube, rumoured to be a result of negative publicity about the 'Homeland Security' features.

Each street light contains a speaker system to broadcast emergency alerts, and a video display and is also equipped with proximity sensors capable of recording both pedestrian and road traffic.

The speakers and sensors mean they can be programmed to blare out advertisements as people walk past. 

When asked about the system, SecFear Malcolm P. Stag III commented, "When it comes to urban surveillance, redundancy is important.   Drones provide one level of protection, intelligent streetlamps another."

Following is the Intellistreets promotional video.  It explains powerful "homeland security" applications of the new device:

H/t Infowars here and here.

Rules of Engagement for Oakland same as for Iraq

Revised Friday Oct. 28, 2011

On Tuesday October 25th we used tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash grenades to crush the "Occupy Oakland" demonstration against our friends and benefactors on Wall Street.  At least 85 people were arrested.  One protester, Scott Olsen, an Iraq war vet who served two tours, is in critical condition.

One particular incident Tuesday evening showcased the extent to which we now apply the lose and flexible rules that characterized our recent military engagement in Iraq to the streets of American cities.

In April 2010 WikiLeaks (the group led by high-tech terrorist Julian Assange) released a leaked Pentagon file -- the so-called "Collateral Murder" video.  The video depicts the kind of behavior that Pentagon inquiries have deemed to fall within the bounds of our Rules of Engagement for Iraq.  For example, the video shows a badly wounded man bleeding on a Baghdad street.  A mini-van pulls up and some people get out to help the wounded fellow.  Fortunately, one of our helicopter gunships is in a position to uphold our Rules of Engagement and it fires upon the rescuers.

Here's the video.  It's set to begin playing from the spot where our military's attack on the helpers unfolds (9min 12sec):

In the next video, shot in the midst of our violent attack on protesters Tuesday, an Oakland police officer throws a flash grenade at a group of people trying to carry away a badly injured protester.





The Oakland police officer who tossed the flash grenade was undoubtedly familiar with our Rules of Engagement for Iraq.  We applaud the decision of this officer to uphold these rules on American soil.

If we are to exterminate the unruly spirit of altruism and dissent that plagues the streets of Oakland, New York and all the other occupied towns and cities across this great land of liberty, we must treat our own citizens no better than we have treated the inhabitants of the countries we have occupied.  We must train police to behave as if the bottom 99% of society consists of two kinds of American: the terrorist and the potential terrorist.  

Needless to say, we're counting on our news media to cover the attack on the good Samaritans in Oakland the same way CNN covered the attack on the rescue van in the WikiLeaks video.