> This should raise serious questions about DHS. Who are they employing?
Most US civil servants are hired through a competitive process. Given positions, these people all had security clearances.
There are exceptions that are hired as political appointees though. Normally these are the politically shrewd players, but regularly phd brainiacs, albiet politically inclined.
Most US civil servants are good people, and well credentialed and are hard working folks.
> How are they trained?
Federal Law enforcement are trained at the FLETC locations [1]. Federal law enforcement training is generally considered vastly superior to local law enforcement.
> How are they preventing abuse of power?
Pretty much every federal system has strong auditing and logging capabilities, and internal affairs/Inspector General. It doesn't always mean you can catch a perpetrator misusing a system, but you do have the data to get them after the fact.
> What is the culture there?
This is really an organization by organization thing.
US Secret Service historically had the best mission culture.
DHS, allegedly, is more of a dog-eat-dog organization. Many former DHS folks told me it was not a good place to work. Personally, all the DHS people I met were qualified. They have some immense challenges in DHS and that stress is probably part of the problem.
> Under the prior administration, DHS acted brutally, in many cases. What happened to correct that culture?
Civil servants, like the military, take their marching orders from civilian management. When an administration takes over the federal government in a transition, they assign political appointees to the highest positions that may receive senate confirmation, if they pass it. Given President Biden, the Biden administration installed the current leadership.
When you swap the leadership, you do significantly impact the culture. However, if civil servants are not following orders of the SES management, they can get in big trouble, to include, losing their positions.
Racist abuse of migrant kids and breaking the bones of unarmed protesters really eats at the soul over time, I'd imagine. Those poor DHS agents - won't someone think of their stress levels?
Because naturally securing the border, airports, etc is a simple affair that everyone in this forum could accomplish with very little difficulty and much less corruption.
DHS was created in ~2002 and has been a joke ever since. The airports and other borders were secured before that by other agencies. (No, 9/11 does not mean we needed a new agency - credible briefings were ignored by higher-ups and the attackers had powerful backing)
Lots of stuff in our modern post-DHS security era is a total joke. Removing shoes and throwing out liquids over a certain size doesn't protect anyone.
Thanks for the informative comment - I know a lot of that, but it's good to see it here from someone who knows.
But it doesn't address the question, and even sweeps it under the rug by implying that because of these systems there can't be serious problems: There may be serious problems at DHS
> US Secret Service historically had the best mission culture.
The US Secret Service has had numerous, serious scandals, including some that led experts to say they were a failing organization. Several times people getting drunk and also abusing locals during overseas missions. One used their power and organization resources to intimidate their (ex-spouse's new lover? I don't remember it exactly.) Under Obama, IIRC, the attacker who made it into the White House and was discovered by accident. Etc. Etc.
Most US civil servants are hired through a competitive process. Given positions, these people all had security clearances.
There are exceptions that are hired as political appointees though. Normally these are the politically shrewd players, but regularly phd brainiacs, albiet politically inclined.
Most US civil servants are good people, and well credentialed and are hard working folks.
> How are they trained?
Federal Law enforcement are trained at the FLETC locations [1]. Federal law enforcement training is generally considered vastly superior to local law enforcement.
> How are they preventing abuse of power?
Pretty much every federal system has strong auditing and logging capabilities, and internal affairs/Inspector General. It doesn't always mean you can catch a perpetrator misusing a system, but you do have the data to get them after the fact.
> What is the culture there?
This is really an organization by organization thing.
US Secret Service historically had the best mission culture.
DHS, allegedly, is more of a dog-eat-dog organization. Many former DHS folks told me it was not a good place to work. Personally, all the DHS people I met were qualified. They have some immense challenges in DHS and that stress is probably part of the problem.
> Under the prior administration, DHS acted brutally, in many cases. What happened to correct that culture?
Civil servants, like the military, take their marching orders from civilian management. When an administration takes over the federal government in a transition, they assign political appointees to the highest positions that may receive senate confirmation, if they pass it. Given President Biden, the Biden administration installed the current leadership.
When you swap the leadership, you do significantly impact the culture. However, if civil servants are not following orders of the SES management, they can get in big trouble, to include, losing their positions.
[1] https://www.fletc.gov/