DHS – the Department of Homeland Security – has been given an extraordinary amount of power to intrude into our private lives. This intrusion, in disregard of our legal rights under the Constitution of the United States of America, has been conducted in the name of protecting us from terrorism.

Terrorism, however, has turned out to be an an exceptionally minor problem. Last year, more people in the United States were killed by pet dogs than by terrorists.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released an investigation of the Department of Homeland Security yesterday, specifically focusing on fusion centers, places where local, state, and federal law enforcement officials meet with agents from government surveillance networks, and trade information about citizens’ private activities, in the hopes of somehow using that information to stop terrorism.

The Subcommittee found that these fusion centers are a thorough failure. Their report advised that, “DHS’ work with those state and local fusion centers has not produced useful intelligence to support federal counterterrorism efforts. The Subcommittee investigation found that DHS-assigned detailees to the fusion centers forwarded “intelligence” of uneven quality – oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens’ civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism. The Subcommittee investigation also found that DHS officials’ public claims about fusion centers were not always accurate. For instance, DHS officials asserted that some fusion centers existed when they did not. At times, DHS officials overstated fusion centers’ “success stories.” At other times, DHS officials failed to disclose or acknowledge non-public evaluations highlighting a host of problems at fusion centers and in DHS’ own operations.”

The Department of Homeland Security appears to be a slipshod, non-essential government agency that is only effective at trampling on Americans’ constitutional rights.

Why shouldn’t Congress simply declare the “Homeland Security” concept a failed experiment, and dissolve the Department of Homeland Security?