The Department of Homeland Security Goes on a Panty Raid

In 2002, the Bush
administration issued a formal proposal outlining the reasoning for
the creation a new, cabinet-level bureaucracy, the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS).

“The changing nature of the threats facing America requires a
new government structure to protect against invisible enemies that
can strike with a wide variety of weapons,” the proposal explained.
“America needs a single, unified homeland security structure that
will improve protection against today’s threats and be flexible
enough to help meet the unknown threats of the future.” Without
DHS, America would never be safe.

Flash forward to 2014. The Department of Homeland Security has a

$39 billion annual budget. It is fighting the fight
against our invisible enemies, and taking on the unknown threats of
the future.

By confiscating baseball-themed women’s underwear from
enthusiastic local retailers.

The Kansas City Star reports
on Peregrine Honig, who created the design for “Lucky Royals”
women’s boyshorts, featuring the words “take the crown” and a “KC”
logo emblazoned on the rear, in honor of the Kansas City Royals
baseball team making it to the World Series.

Honig was going to sell the boyshorts in her store, Honig’s
Birdies Panties. Then a pair of DHS agents stopped by:

Homeland Security agents visited the Crossroads store and
confiscated the few dozen pairs of underwear, printed in Kansas
City by Lindquist
Press.

“They came in and there were two guys” Honig said. “I asked one
of them what size he needed and he showed me a badge and took me
outside. They told me they were from Homeland Security and we were
violating copyright laws.”

She thought that since the underwear featured her hand-drawn
design that she was safe. But the officers explained that by
connecting the “K” and the “C,” she infringed on major league
baseball copyright. (The officials involved could not be
immediately reached for comment.)

They placed the underwear in an official Homeland Security bag
and had Honig sign a statement saying she wouldn’t use the
logo.

Don’t you feel safer now?

The Royals won their first World Series game in
decades last night. We all lose when overfunded, unnecessary
bureaucracies expand their poorly defined missions into doing dumb
stuff like this.

(Link via
Radley Balko’s Twitter feed.)

Here’s ReasonTV with three reasons to scrap DHS now: