The new Department of Homeland Security is a terrible idea, as Charles Dodgson implies. Rather than two major agencies, often at loggerheads, now we'll have three.
   Here's an alternative, from the world of business. Many large companies, which face the same issues as governments, have been organizing themselves around their target markets: Global 2000 corporate customers, small businesses, and consumers, for example; or finance, pharma, and car manufacturers. It's an approach which jargon-wielding businesspeople would call customer-centric, a response to the increasingly global markets in which companies operate.
   Well, terrorism is increasingly global too, and the old divide between domestic and external security is meaningless. There is no way the FBI is qualified to do the job; it sounds like CIA work to me. So, stop fudging the issue, and give the job to the one organization that can do it: take domestic anti-terrorism away from the FBI and give it to the CIA. Let the FBI stick to the mafia.
   What to do about agencies such as the INS, which have a role in gathering information for anti-terrorist measures? Put a CIA taskforce in the INS, with full rights to all data. I can already hear the civil liberties crowd moaning about America spying on its own people. Deal with it.Homeland security department [Charles Dodgson]