ARNOLD KLING JOINS IN THE HOMELAND SECURITY PILE-ON:

One difference between The Homeland Security Department and the AOL-TimeWarner merger is that today we have weblogs that allow skeptics to raise our voices. . . .

Anyone who has ever worked in a large organization has to confront the issue that the organization as a whole seems dumber than its individual members. That is why so many of us are trying to use the Internet as our vessel to immigrate to Free Agent Nation.

So now we have an organization that can protect us from terrorism by engaging in massive exercises in team-building, obtaining buy-in, diagramming its processes, and so forth. We’re going to fight Al Qaeda with Dilbert.

I think he’s right with this point, too:

My guess is that somewhere, in some random agency far removed from the Department of Homeland Security, there is a skunkworks of fewer than 300 people that is going to defeat violent Islamic extremists operating in the United States. If not, then we are in big trouble.

I hope that Congress is keeping this in mind.