Napolitano Confronts Drudge Report over ‘Orwellian…Big Sis’ View
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Matt Drudge is “just wrong” for dubbing her “Big Sis” on his Drudge Report website, and defended DHS’s efforts to respect people’s civil liberties while protecting against terrorist attacks.
“I don’t think he means it kindly,” Napolitano said, when asked about the nickname today during an event sponsored by Politico. “I think that what he means is that we are watching too much; kind of an Orwellian view. And he’s just wrong.”
Although Homeland Security does have a vast intelligence architecture at Customs and Border Protection, TSA, Immigration Customs Enforcement, the Coast Guard and Secret Service, Napolitano dismissed any privacy concerns.
“We’re always striking that balance,” between security and liberty, Napolitano said.
While programs such as US-VISIT collect biometric fingerprint information and pictures of certain international travelers and DHS runs airline passenger name and booking information (Passenger name Records) through watch lists and other databases, Napolitano said, “We don’t do anything without running it through our own civil rights and privacy office.”
Some DHS programs have been killed because they have been viewed as intrusive. During the Bush administration DHS proposed setting up the National Applications Office to provide DHS and civil, state and local emergency planners with imagery and data from satellites run by the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Napolitano decided to end the program after a lengthy review in June 2009.
“The concern that there is too much intelligence gathering … I think is overblown,” Napolitano said.
Describing the challenges of obtaining intelligence to identify potential threats Napolitano said, “The plain fact of the matter is that we live in a very complicated world where there are different sources of terrorism — of violent extremism, and we have to be cognizant of all of those sources of evolving threats and we have to constantly be changing what we do in order…to prevent a successful attack.”
Asked by Politico’s Mike Allen if she had a nickname for Drudge, Napolitano demurred saying, “I think we should keep our discussion at a high level.”
One area where the public does see and interact with DHS on a daily basis is passing through airline security. Passenger screening is the final layer of security after intelligence and data collection have run their course to detect possible threats. Napolitano said that eventually travelers will be able to keep their shoes on as screening methods improve.
“We are moving towards an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen,” she said. “I think one of the first things you will see over time is the ability to keep your shoes on. One of the last things is the reduction or limitation on liquids.”
A report released last week by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group and former members of the 9/11 Commission criticized the government for not moving forward or fast enough to develop suitable screening technologies.
“There’s going to be better technology,” Napolitano said. “We moved to magnetometers to a new AIT [Advanced Imagine Technology].”
Making reference to a joint DHS/ FBI bulletin that was distributed to law enforcement over the weekend on aviation threats Napolitano said, “The terrorists continue to focus on aviation…why? Because aviation succeeded in the past.”

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Reminds me of a Joe Cocker song… You Can Leave Your Hat On. I can see it now… travelers standing in line – nothing but their shoes on.
Posted by: JanieG | September 6, 2011, 6:04 pm 6:04 pm
Isn’t feeling us up with our shoes on kinda kinky?
Please STOP taking naked images of us and feeling us up! I’ll gladly take my shoes off if you stop doing those things.
Posted by: JustAGuy | September 6, 2011, 6:10 pm 6:10 pm
“Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
-Thomas Jefferson
Posted by: Clarity2009 | September 6, 2011, 6:18 pm 6:18 pm
Has Big Sis added punksterJimmy Hoffa Jr to her domestic terrorist watch list…you know the one that contains returning war vets?
Posted by: Alli Curtis | September 6, 2011, 6:22 pm 6:22 pm
So, the term “overseas contingency” does not constitute any form of doublethink?
Posted by: daijimsee | September 6, 2011, 6:36 pm 6:36 pm
Oh well! as long as I can keep the shoes on who care if people can see me through the nude screen. Thanks for protecting my privacy, sis!
Posted by: gg | September 6, 2011, 6:41 pm 6:41 pm
I have said in jest that only if they start letting us keep our shoes on at airports before the next election will I vote to re-elect Pres. Obama . . . and it looks like they may hold me to it!
Posted by: Ralph Dean | September 6, 2011, 6:45 pm 6:45 pm
If Janet Incompetano says Drudge is wrong, that means he is right.
Posted by: Contrarian View | September 6, 2011, 6:53 pm 6:53 pm
I think that Big Sis’ comment “Passenger screening is the final layer of security after intelligence and data collection have run their course to detect possible threats.”, is counter intuitive from the standpoint that by contrast, El Al Airlines is able to orchestrate this in such a way that the actual screening in the airport is minimally intrusive and involves little other than standard metal detectors and agents highly trained in behavioral observation.
That model could not be replicated successfully here, until the whole contingent of mouth breathers in Blue shirts was dismissed and replaced by a smaller, more efficient group of experienced counter terrorism experts.
Posted by: Vinylcam | September 6, 2011, 6:59 pm 6:59 pm
Yeh, they say you don’t have to remove your shoes but just try it. I saw on the TSA website some time ago that removal of shoes was not required, so the next time I had to fly I didn’t remove my shoes. When the TSA agent ask me about my shoes I told him the TSA website stated that removal of shoes was not required. No problem, he just pull me over into the full body search line where it took me about 10 minutes of undressing and dressing to get through the screening. The message was clear, do it the way the agent says or they will hold you up no matter how low risk you appear.
Posted by: Ken Dombroski | September 6, 2011, 7:04 pm 7:04 pm
“We are moving towards an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen,” she said.”
THEN START PROFILING YOU IDIOT. This twit has had her chance and failed. Time for someone who will address the issues in the real world, not some dream world they imagine it to be.
Posted by: mop | September 6, 2011, 7:12 pm 7:12 pm
I have not flown in ten years because of Big Sis’s security policies, and don’t plan to do so in the future. I doubt that I will ever fly again!
Posted by: slobo | September 6, 2011, 7:13 pm 7:13 pm
Wow! We get to keep our shoes on while being groped! Thanks Big Sis, I mean Janet.
Posted by: AnneP | September 6, 2011, 7:13 pm 7:13 pm
Oh… sweet freedom! What our forefathers died for! The ability to keep our shoes on while we get poked.prodded and x-rayed. Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty we are free at last.
Well… almost.
Posted by: Jim | September 6, 2011, 7:14 pm 7:14 pm
Until you start criminal profiling instead of feeling old ladies diapers, you haven’t done you job.
Posted by: Iron Head | September 6, 2011, 7:16 pm 7:16 pm
I would like to Ms Janet Napolitano and President Obama to undergo body pat-downs every time they board a plane. I’m a law abiding citizen. If the pat-down is mandatory for every person then it is mandatory for them. Their pat-down should be televised to the public, so everyone would know the proper procedure TSA agents are allow to follow.
Posted by: Gene Martin | September 6, 2011, 7:19 pm 7:19 pm
Janet Incompetano.
Posted by: Darrel | September 6, 2011, 7:31 pm 7:31 pm
I’m disappointed, but not surprised by the number of ‘sheeple’ that agree to expose themselves to potential health risk by just routinely accepting the scanner process. I opt out every single time and subject myself to the pat down – which, of course I think is patently absurd in and of itself. But without going into enough detail to expose myself to a lawsuit, I will simply tell you that I personally know enough about the companies that manufacture those scanners and their business practices to avoid them as though my life depended on it.
What our government is doing is conducting a national lab experiment. Part of the experiment is to determine just how much of your Constitutional and Natural Law rights that they can violate until a rebellion ensues. I’d have to say that they are very happy with what they are seeing so far.
Posted by: Vinylcam | September 6, 2011, 7:37 pm 7:37 pm
Big Sis will let you keep your shoes on while you have to take everything else off and be strip and cavity searched.
Posted by: 2BFree2B | September 6, 2011, 7:56 pm 7:56 pm
TSA searches and activity are a clear violation of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.
‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’
Where are the individual Warrants? What is the probable cause? Who has sworn out the Oath or affirmation?
Posted by: 4th Amendment | September 6, 2011, 8:00 pm 8:00 pm
So, the TSA will begin a more behavior profile-centric approach, instead of the random screening of grandmothers. Awesome… but wasn’t this the same idea that had all the libs’ panties in a bunch a few years ago? Remember how they screamed, “PROFILING!” I guess all you have to do is call it “an intelligence and risk-based approach”, and everything is A-OK in LeftieLand. Those libs are soooo funny!
Posted by: jrobinson | September 6, 2011, 8:19 pm 8:19 pm
The Terrorists have been knee slapping and high fiving ever since that dumbass Bush grew our taxpayer debt by (only God knows how much ) creating DHS. How many of you intelligent people realized, as I did, the moment those planes hit their targets, we could go either way. The terrorists and the communists, (Obama included) could not have been more happy the minute that Bush “created” DHS. Patriot Act aside, one of the most crippling things Bush ever did to our Liberty was to “create” DHS. I knew the second those words were spoken that it was all downhill from there. The terrs had to be tongue kissing their rugs with glee as soon as that came down. What the high hell in Hogville did anyone think was going to happen by “creating” an unrealistic nationwide government entity having only one mission, to restrict the freedoms and movement of American Citizenry and call it Homeland Security. Hello ? Bush was a very poor president but I can assure you Gore would have been worse. The only thing that would have been good about gore is that he would have been out in four. That should have been what happened with Bush but even he was better than kerry. What the hell. Everyone wants to blame Bush, thats messed up. Am I defending Bush ? Hell NO. I am blaming the American Apathetic Masses that were too busy watching CSI and Sex on TV every night, maxxing out your credit and reading the billboards instead of your history book. AMERICANS cannot blame anyone but themselves for this mess we are in. We let it happen folks. Not enough of you were paying attention when it mattered most. So many of you want to talk tough now but never paid attention THEN when the pieces were actually moveable. Now you are all condemned to be reactive because you failed to pay attention. Maybe know you’ll start paying attention. Problem is, your on the verge of panic and that will cause you to fall for anything that looks like it’s floating. Don’t be a sucker twice America ! Get yourselves real familiar with the Constitution and focus on it because it is a proven blueprint for a free Republic. Anything else is smoke and mirrors or communism at best. Stop fooling yourselves and get back to the founding document ! We can go uphill from there only if we survive as a country. These United States are spinning apart and may very well completely disintegrate. Our only HOPE is that we may slow down and get back to the basics of our Constitution. Its not about Party, It’s about Country, and that is about The Constitution People.
Posted by: buster Mghee | September 6, 2011, 8:41 pm 8:41 pm
I fly this weekend. I’ll try going through with my shoes on. Wish me luck. Oh, BIg Sis, Drudge has it right.
Posted by: Ben | September 6, 2011, 9:10 pm 9:10 pm
Can we also keep our underwear too??
Posted by: junkmaninohio | September 6, 2011, 9:44 pm 9:44 pm
At one time in the distant past,Muslim terrorists were dispatching bombs on packages being addressed to Israel recipients on international flights.
All international carriers then merged all mail addressed to Israel on flights going to Muslim country destinations.
The threat to Israel vanished.
Why not have only Muslim people placed on flights together and ban them from commercial airlines?No more searches,no more threat!
No more
Posted by: Wally Kaye | September 6, 2011, 9:56 pm 9:56 pm
Dear Big Sis,
For the record, the TSA has prevented exactly zero terrorist attacks. Not a single plot has been uncovered since the Shoe Bomber started it all in 2001, except the ones that failed to execute once already on the plane.
But, if you think that an impromptu prostrate exam makes people safer, then by all means keep doing the “super job” you’re doing. As long as the TSA remains vigilant, there’s a Wal-mart somewhere that needs a greeter.
PS – please give me my fingernail clipper back!
Posted by: IrateNate | September 6, 2011, 10:00 pm 10:00 pm
Um, yeah. So all you do is interview big sis without citing any of the reasons she’s called that, or questioning her rebuttal? Real great reporting.
Posted by: watchman | September 6, 2011, 10:38 pm 10:38 pm
How nice of her…you can leave your shoes on but everything else come of for your government approved sexual assault and cavity search…unless your a muslim like obamacommie….then you can check your self and we will believe you.
Posted by: Logical1 | September 6, 2011, 11:01 pm 11:01 pm
Profile, profile, profile!!! Israel has the safest airlines simply because they use their own common sense and realize the only way to actually deter a would be terrorist is to PROFILE, PROFILE, PROFILE!! TSA has no common sense and doesn’t seem to have a clue that an Iranian looking person dressed in the muslum garb just might be more of a suspect then a child in it’s mother’s arms, or an elederly person in a wheel chair, or a 3, or 4 year old child. Just as the Barack Hussein Obama has lost all common sense in the White House, so goes his TSA department!!
Posted by: Carolyn | September 6, 2011, 11:13 pm 11:13 pm
Gee golly thanks! I can keep my shoes on! THANKS BIG SIS!
Posted by: Mike | September 6, 2011, 11:32 pm 11:32 pm
Wow, Big Sis, you even run it through your very own civil rights and privacy office? You mean one where you pay the salaries of many people who somehow always tell you your ideas are hunky-dory? I’d love to hear how that meeting went down: “Well, we think that parents are going to be just fine with us taking naked pictures of their kids. I mean, what’s a little ionizing radiation between friends? It’s probably not dangerous, so let’s send the pregnant women through to let their fetuses get a little extra X-rays. Why, having complete strangers shoving their hands down your pants will just make people feel happy. And sure, it might trigger some rape victims’ PTSD when we force them to accept unwelcome sexual contact again, but who cares about rape victims? Not us!”
Posted by: Sommer Gentry | September 6, 2011, 11:45 pm 11:45 pm
Wow, Big Sis, you even run it through your very own civil rights and privacy office? You mean one where you pay the salaries of many people who somehow always tell you your ideas are hunky-dory? I’d love to hear how that meeting went down: “Well, we think that parents are going to be just fine with us taking naked pictures of their kids. I mean, what’s a little ionizing radiation between friends? It’s probably not dangerous, so let’s send the pregnant women through to let their fetuses get a little extra X-rays. Why, having complete strangers shoving their hands down your pants will just make people feel happy. And sure, it might trigger some rape victims’ PTSD when we force them to accept unwelcome sexual contact again, but who cares about rape victims? Not us!”
Posted by: Sommer Gentry | September 7, 2011, 12:18 am 12:18 am
“We don’t do anything without running it through our own civil rights and privacy office.”
Isn’t that like letting the fox guard the hen house? There’s this little thing called conflict of interest.
“Although Homeland Security does have a vast intelligence architecture at Customs and Border Protection, TSA, Immigration Customs Enforcement, the Coast Guard and Secret Service, Napolitano dismissed any privacy concerns.”
Dismissing privacy concerns. Doesn’t that mean she’s chosen not to pay attention to them instead of actually addressing them? That’s essentially saying “we don’t care if you feel invaded because we’ll just pretend the problem doesn’t exist and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Posted by: BigDaddyDK | September 7, 2011, 1:03 am 1:03 am
Interesting that they say as screening methods improve we’ll be able to keep our shoes on. What does that mean exactly? Full X-ray a la a visit to the hospital? Yeah, we can keep on our shoes but get irradiated whenever we want to fly. They tell us the body scanner radiation is less than what we receive on an aircraft too, but they fail to address the cumulative impact. Let’s just add a bit more to the already elevated exposure. No big deal. They’re dealing in details to ignore the big picture.
Posted by: BigDaddyDK | September 7, 2011, 1:11 am 1:11 am
Naplitano is typically an Obama administration employee, arrogant, not to bright and a mouth breather, just like Pistole!
Posted by: RufusVonDufuws | September 7, 2011, 2:18 am 2:18 am
Most of us could care less about the scanners and/or taking off our shoes. It’s the sexual assaults that violate our 4th Amendment rights. There is no lawful reason for fondling passengers or for us having to willfully accept it for the “privilege” of us participating in a major form of transportation.
Posted by: clayusmcret | September 7, 2011, 5:29 am 5:29 am
The TSA and all security screening is a joke!!!
I just flew out of the country with several connecting flights in the US and three other countries. The TSA agents screening the bags through the scanner were clueless!!! They were talking to each other and giggling while the bags passed the screen. When I got home, I did not realize that the pepper spray attached to my home keys ring was still attached!!! It means that it escaped the screeners at four airports in the US and six more times in three different countries!!!
Yet, they ask me me throw away the water bottle I forgot to discard. They let me drink it in front of them but the other bottles were discarded in a garbage can in the screening area. If they are really dangerous, why is everyone standing in a trash can full of “dangerous” liquids and gels disguised as water, toothpaste, lotions, shampoo…etc.
What a joke.
I think one of the TSA screening requirement should be an IQ test. Hire only those who at least get an average IQ of 100. That is not asking too much.
Posted by: Cesskye | September 7, 2011, 5:31 am 5:31 am
Searches to safely fly bothers people so much and yet the abundant amount of personal data available online doesn’t seem to bother anyone. Not consistent with claimed privacy concerns. I prefer to have myself and everyone searched before I use PUBLIC air and other transportation – PUBLIC is the operative word. What offends me, and should offend everyone, is the availability of personal data on the web. That is an invasion of privacy. There is no expectation of privacy in public and it is unreasonable to think that that few moments of a physical security search to save lives violates anyones right to privacy. What about the right to live through the flight? Your right to privacy never trumps my right to live. If you think otherwise, buy your own airplane or walk. In the meantime, I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours and we’ll both live to post intimate details of our lives on Facebook. Idiots.
Posted by: Drudge Reader | September 7, 2011, 7:08 am 7:08 am
Speaks volumes that Drudge’s name for her is ‘Big Sis’ an amusing and obvious play on ‘Big Brother’ and yet she can’t mention what she calls him because it’s not on a high level, obviously a profanity or something like that.
Drudge is a news aggregator site. She’s a political appointee with arguably more power domestically than the FBI, CIA and U.S. military combined for she can direct all of those assets to do what she decides is in the best interest of (I’ll let you fill in the blank).
Posted by: TR | September 7, 2011, 7:47 am 7:47 am
Why is it that Republicans only like national security measures when they are enacted by a Republican politician?
Posted by: Searambler | September 7, 2011, 9:27 am 9:27 am
Nice barter setup:
We give up our personal privacy and security for our own pair of shoes.
Seems fair to me.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Posted by: theoneandonlyjonasv | September 7, 2011, 9:46 am 9:46 am
This would be Gym Teacher is going to have you all on The Watch List Now.
How Dare you Criticize Janet Fatalano!
Posted by: Cheryl | September 7, 2011, 9:52 am 9:52 am
It’s security theatre…there to look good for the politicians to say they’re “doing something” but in reality doing nothing to make us safer but doing a fine job of stomping all over our rights. DHS wants YOUR internet provider to keep track of EVERY web page that you visit…that bill’s moving thru Congress right now.
Yeah, I feel safer.
Posted by: Road-Wearier | September 7, 2011, 10:12 am 10:12 am
wow….Everyone agrees with you big sis…oh wait, no read these comments, you don’t have a single person here defending you, and only the most dronish and sheepish Americans defending you out in public………the terrorist won, thanks Bush, Obama, Cheney, Big Sis etc..
Posted by: Matty McMatt | September 7, 2011, 11:43 am 11:43 am
“Posted by: TR | September 7, 2011, 7:47 am 7:47 am
Why is it that Republicans only like national security measures when they are enacted by a Republican politician?”
—-
I don’t know probably the same reason Democrats only like neo-con foreign policy when its enacted by Democrats. Its because more than half the US public is brain dead to how we’
re being played by these crooks.
Posted by: Matty McMatt | September 7, 2011, 11:45 am 11:45 am