What I find interesting, and lacking, in this "report card" is what it doesn't address. The report gives a grade for each of nine areas, as if each area is what I call an area of vulnerability. Now the interesting part.

Are there 10, 11, or many more areas of vulnerability? I can think of a few. The danger, as I see it, is that the evaluators are locked into the same paradigms as Homeland Security. It is almost as if no one is asking, "what have we forgotten here folks?"

I'm sure the response from the experts would be nothing, we've thought of everything. And therein lies the danger. Whenever you say I've thought of everything, something else comes along to bite you.

So, we're basically failing in providing security to the American people.

The reason for the failure is the American people themselves. All they do is cry about how there freedom has been taken away because DHS has instituted a new regulation. DHS needs to stand up to these cry babies and say IF you want to be protected get out of the way and let me do my job. The american public wants it both ways, create a security posture to protect us as long as it doesn't affect me.

I disagree with any notion that we are safer by having our freedoms stripped away. It paints a big huge shiny target on our backs as being a nation worthy of thier hate. The way to be safer is controlling who and what comes and goes from this country. And I might add, Timothy McVeigh and the Columbine killers were terrorists too. We have to recognize how to help people with their problems before they go off the deep end. We have to learn how to understand and deal with cultures of the world who are different than us. Call me a sissy if you want, but I feel help and understanding is the way to go or we'll never know peace.

homeland security is a joke
its a waste of tax dollars...
a boondoggle....

Scott, you aren't a sissy, you just suffer from naivete. We tried to help the South Vietnamese, Muslim Albanians and Bosnians, the Somalis, we would try to help residents of Darfur if not under threat from Arab oppressors,and most recently we are trying to help Iraqis and Afghans....along with everyone else in the world through extensive foregin aid. How do they repay us?

Hep and understanding? We try to help...what she we understand...that they want to kill us and each other?

99.99999% of American "rights" are not affected. If you were talking on a regular basis to a member of organized crime, would you expect the right to private phone calls? What is the difference between that and a phone call to known terrorists?

If you prefer a lack of government involvement in the public's safety then I suggest you move to North Korea. Kim Jong Il continually starves dissidents, imprisons them, murders and rapes many of the women, and lives in luxury while his people know nothing of the conveniences of electricity or running water. By all means, if you don't like America- leave.

Guess I wonder why it's failing, the Dems are doing all they can to kill the whole program. I know the nay sayers are going to tell me I'm crazy, yet look at their voting records its a simple search.

Who in heaven's name is this Flynn idiot who says that our borders are a hot topic politically, but has little to do with security. Is he nuts. where does he think all the criminals are coming from? It is so easy for Al Qaeda to get in here from Mexico, it's ludicrous. If he is an example of who we have doing field surveys of our security forces and their priorities, we are in big trouble!!! GET A CLUE FLYNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fema
I am so upset, they have done nothing ,accept cover their actions up regarding letting us stay in trailer filled with chemical poison,I have crohn's diease,now have formaldehyde poison in me,They just don't care that I am sick,have shortness of breath, burning throat,voice is completely hoarse,etc. I call to let them know 7/15 still in fema trailer,they have done a visual check and that is it...
Oh how sad to treat human life like this..

Now we're going to pay for a team of professional bs artists "to keep Americans engaged and alert"? Quit selling fear and do your job!

I'm more fearful of another catastrophic failure by these idiots than a terrorist attack. They've created 100 times more terrorists than they've caught or killed, between Abu Graib, secret prisons, the unjustifiable Iraq invasion and occupation, ridiculous threats toward Iran, backing Israel's bombing of Lebanon,... It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.