The Department of Homeland Security has recently released an “unbiased” promotional video as part of its “See Something, Say Something” campaign.

After the first suspicious act, we are shown clippings from newspapers of homegrown terrorist like The Unabomber,  Timothy McVeigh, and “Jihad” Jane. Even the pilot of the plane who crashed into an IRS building last February made the cut. The Shoe Bomber and Underwear Bomber were left off the list and even more stunningly absent are the 19 hijackers from September 11th.

Why would the DHS purposely leave out the terrorist act that caused 3,000+ people to die and completely changed our daily mentality? Remember, September 11th was THE REASON that the DHS was created.

Within the video, we are asked to “not pay attention to a person’s race” when determining if they’re a terrorist or not, yet nearly every “potential terrorist” is a white, middle-aged man, either driving a van in a hood or in a public place with hat and sunglasses.

Could you imagine the outage if a Arabic gentleman was an actor in this movie? It’s worth noting that I know that every Muslim is not a terrorist and that the few that are make up a VERY small percentages of an otherwise peaceful religion. Still, statisically speaking, it is an Islamic terrorist who is more likely to committ a terrorist act. Again… 9/11, the Shoe Bomber, Underwear Bomber, USS Cole attack, multiple US embassies… all Al-Qaeda sponsored.

DHS is taking steps to expedite airline screening procedures with the creation of the trusted traveler programs , but does this go far enough? Is patting down Donald Rumsfeld or a 61 year old bladder cancer survivor with a urostomy bag really a good allocation of resources? You make your own determination.

It is also worth mentioning that you as an American have a 1 in 25 million chance of dying in a terrorist act. You are more likely to get hit by lightning 49 times (1 in 500,000 chance) before you die by a terrorist.

To bring things full circle, why would DHS want us to police oursevles? There certainly is merit in saying something when you view suspicious activity, but do we really need to peek over someone’s shoulder to see who they’re texting (my favorite part of the movie)? I worry that we’re creating a hyper-phobic society and that we’ll never be able to snap out of it.

What do you think?