Chapter 5, Part 5: The Department of Homeland Security
I’m back. Adjusting to a new schedule. It’s Day 27 of reading and taking notes on Project 2025.
If you want more detail, you can read my approach and why I'm doing this here.
Just for the record (since it’s going around), I can find no mention of the Insurrection Act in searching the document. There is some discussion of the military supporting the securing of the southern border.
As always, “Summary” means I’m telling it straight without commentary. “My Opinion” is … my opinion. If I look up an outside source (which I don’t do very often because it would take me even longer), it will be clearly marked. If you see **, that’s something I find unusual or outside what would typically be conservative ideology.
SUMMARY
We are still in Chapter 5, The Department of Homeland Security, written by Ken Cuccinelli. His bio is in Part 1.
This section is on the “Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).” We’re on page 187 (154 by the document’s count) of my 922-page PDF, in case you were wondering.
This (the first and only) subsection is “Needed Reforms.”
Cuccinelli says CISA exists to protect .gov networks and coordinate cyber defense and sharing information with “non-federal and private-sector partners” and to coorndinate “infrastructure security and reliance.”
But, he says, it hasn’t stayed in its lane, especially around “censorship of so-called misinformation and disinformation.”
He argues many of its functions should move to other agencies—a recurring theme in Project 2025—and should avoid duplicating functions.
** “Of the utmost urgency is immediately ending CISA’s counter-mis/disinformation efforts. The federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth.”
Cuccinelli says that began because alleged Russian misinformation in the 2016 election, which turned out to be a Clinton campaign dirty trick.
My opinion
The Mueller Report would like a word. And I don’t know whose responsibility, but someone in government should be fighting disinformation and misinformation. And the idea that the federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth is ridiculous. It is not unreasonable to expect the government to evaluate information and to publish the truth.
SUMMARY
Cuccinelli said CISA is an instrument of the Left and the whole advisory committee should be dismissed on Day One.
outside source
If you want to follow the implementation of Project 2025, I suggest going to Project 2025 Tracker.
SUMMARY
Cuccinelli says CISA should help state and local governments assess “whether they have good cyber hygiene in their hardware and software in preparation for an election—but nothing more.”
The next section is “U.S. Coast Guard (USCG).”
This section also begins with “Needed Reforms.”
Cuccinelli argues that Coast Guard fleet should “be sized to the needs of great-power competition” but should also try to save money in its missions.
He says its budget should address “the increasing threat from the Chinese fishing fleet in home waters as well as narcotics and migrant flows in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.”
The next section is “New Policies.”
He says the mission should be scaled down to match congressional budgeting, but the shipbuilding plan is insufficient. He suggests the Coast Guard be required to submit a long-range shipbuilding plan to Congress the way the Navy does.
He argues for prioritizing expansion of facilities in American Samoa “to counter growing Chinese influence and encroachment.”
My opinion
We’re in islands in the Pacific far from our mainland, but China is the one encroaching?
SUMMARY
Cuccinelli calls for joint wartime drills between the Coast Guard and the Navy.
He says the Coast Guard is underfunded, so the Arctic mission might be better under the Navy. “Either way, the Arctic mission should be closely coordinated with our Canadian, Danish, and other allies.”
My opinion
Someone didn’t get the memo about our allies.
SUMMARY
The next subsection is “Personnel.” Cuccinelli bemoans “the messaging on wokeness and diversity.” He says any of Biden’s hires and promotions should be revetted, and anyone who refused a COVID vaccine should be reinstated “with time in service credited to such returnees.”
Moving on to the “U.S. Secret Service (USSS).” The first subsection follows the pattern: “Needed Reforms.”
Cuccinelli says the agency is distracted by it dual mission of protection and financial investigations. “The failures of the USSS protective mission are too numerous to list here,” he says. (Note this was written before then-candidate Trump was shot at. He does mention then Vice President-elect Harris being inside the DNC office on Jan. 6, 2021, while a pipe bomb was outside.
My opinion
No mention of what else was happening that day.
SUMMARY
Cuccinelli says a December 2015 bipartisan report from the House Oversight Committee lists dozens of incidents and recommendations for reform, and he “adopts those findings and recommendations in whole …”
He says Secret Service agents spent two-thirds of their time on investigative activities—the agency was initially established to investigate counterfeit money—but now it prioritizes electronic financial crimes.
He complains that agents then go on to corporate security jobs. “… the agency has completely lost sight of the primary of its protective mission,” he says.
In the subsection “New Policies,” he recommends transferring investigations to the departments of Justice and Treasury.
** “USSS agents stationed outside of Washington, D.C., should be transferred to work in Immigration and Customs Enforcement field offices where they would continue to be the ‘boots on the ground’ to follow up on threat reports throughout the country and liaise with local law enforcement for visits by protectees.”
My opinion
Would that include details for former presidents and their families? What about current family members not living in D.C.?
And wouldn’t those investigative jobs still need to be done? Why not just transfer the agents working on them, since they would have the background?
SUMMARY
** “The only investigations not related to USSS’s protective function that agents should pursue would be directed by HSI and relate to tracking the financial crimes associated with illegal immigration. This should include tracing remittances, any funds that are used to pay coyotes or the cartels, and payments by businesses to illegal aliens and all other crimes associated with illegal immigration.”
My opinion
Why should that stay with the Secret Service when everything else would be transferred? I’m not saying we shouldn’t take on coyotes or the cartels. They exploit desperate people (although it seems that this is going after the desperate people instead of the ones taking advantage of them). Just seems weird.
SUMMARY
Cuccinelli says the Secret Service should keep visitor logs for all facilities where the president works or lives. He said Biden avoided that by spending “a historic amount of time” in Delaware. “This has left the American people in the dark as to who is influencing the highest levels of their own government.”
My opinion
Agreed. The same should apply to all presidents, regardless of party, including all the visitors to Mar-a-Lago.
SUMMARY
The next subsection is “Budget.”
He said the reforms would result in significant budget reductions and the closing of dozens of physical offices in the U.S. and internationally. Some of the savings should be used for recruitment.
My opinion
It’s the same amount of work no matter which department it’s in, so wouldn’t the budget (and the offices) just shift? Or do we really just not want to investigate financial crimes?
SUMMARY
The next subsection is “Personnel.” Cuccinelli said the 2015 bipartisan report documented “low morale and high turnover.”
He says if the mission were focused on protection, agents wouldn’t have to “spend the bulk of their time developing unrelated skillsets.”
He said the Uniform Division needs more staff. And they are only allowed to enforce criminal laws outside of the White House. If they were allowed to do more law enforcement, he argues, the job would be more attractive.
We still have to cover sections on the Transportation Security Administration, the Management Directorate, the Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the Office of the General Counsel, the offices Legislative Affairs, Public Affairs, and Partnership and Engagement, the Office of Operations Coordination, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Privacy Office, and Agency Relationships. So I’m going to stop for now
I’ll try to be a little more consistent going forward.