Several years ago, when President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, I sent an email to several people to explain that in the original German, it would be called “Heimatsicherheitsdienst. ”
Heimat is “Homeland” in German. Sicherheitsdienst means “Security Service.” The Third Reich had a Sicherheitsdienst – SD – and the German Democratic Republic had a Staatsicherheitsdienst – State Security Service. So parallel to Nazi Germany and Communist Germany, America now has a Heimatsicherheitsdient.
Yesterday I did a google search to see how many websites or blogs had a reference to “Heimatsicherheitsdienst” and 54 hits came up. Today I did the same search, and got 66 hits. Most hits were postings criticial of the Homeland Security agency on various libertarian or left-liberal blogs. But both yesterday and today, the final hit that came up on google was the official website of the Department of Homeland Security www.dhs.gov !
~ Gene Berkman, Renaissance Books.