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DHS News: Playing Games, Doing Homework

Here's what the Department of Homeland Security has been up to in the last week before Barack Obama is sworn in:

It's Just A Drill To prepare for the administrative turnover commonly known as the Inauguration, outgoing DHS officials from the Bush White House and their Obama-administration replacements ran through a homeland security scenario testing response to an IED placed in the transportation system. Despite Rahm Emanuel's assurances, we'd like to think that it was like a game of Capture the Flag in which departing staff played the terrorists trying to outwit law enforcement.

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Tags: Homeland Security USA / Airport Security / Television Travel / Videos / → All Tags

New ABC Show Sadly More "Cops" Than "Airline"

Our worst fears have been realized: ABC's new show "Homeland Security USA" is more flag-waving, isolationist propaganda than it is a documentary look at the way DHS does business, from guarding borders to ensuring airports are safe. The new sneak previews--available on the network's website--are so hilarious, they spoof themselves. To wit: On the subject of the Swiss miss arriving at LAX without proper papers, one customs officer says:

We found mostly in her bag, uh, her belly dancing equipment.

Meanwhile in Miami, an Ecuadorian man has some illegal guinea pig steaks in his bag. The overriding message seems to be foreign visitors are silly and can't speak English well. What levity--and in the face of unspeakable danger!

Also, suspected drug runners off the coast of Puerto Rico are scary--but eye-in-the-sky enforcers are making sure America is safe. Or something: The preview cuts out before we find out if they were actually packing dope. Is it just us, or is this show about seven years too late to cash in on post-9/11 paranoia?

Related Stories:
· "This Isn't Theater, This Is War" [Jaunted]
· TSA To Get Reality Show Treatment [Jaunted]

Tags: Airport Security / TSA / Television Travel / Homeland Security USA / → All Tags

TSA To Get Reality Show Treatment

If your reputation is already in tatters, you can't destroy it by going on a reality TV show! The TSA, it seems, will make its tube debut at 8 pm on January 6, 2009, when ABC presents "Homeland Security USA," a reality-slash-documentary series that will focus mostly on border issues.

Though the show will follow multiple branches of the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA gets into the mix early, says ABC:

The premiere episode, “This is Your Car on Drugs,” takes viewers inside some of the busiest international entry points to the US. At Los Angeles International Airport, a voluptuous 20-year-old woman arrives from Switzerland with no working papers but a suitcase full of titillating surprises!

Air travel blog the Middle Seat Terminal wonders if the show will be more of a propaganda machine for the government than a critical look at a sometimes dysfunctional agency, but we're withholding judgment for now. If our obsession with Amazing Race has taught us anything, it's that even the outsized efforts of a life coaching, well-coifed, down-to-earth Kiwi can't, uh, put lipstick on a pig.

Related Stories:
· Homeland Security Reality Show: "Heartening" or Propaganda? [WSJ]
· On 7th Birthday, TSA Attempts To Explain Its Reason For Being [Jaunted]

[Photo: Stephen Witherden]