On December 15, a British Muslim family of 11 was barred by U.S. authorities from boarding a flight from London’s Gatwick to Los Angeles, where they were planning on visiting Disneyland. No explanation was given to the family for the decision, the Guardian reported.

Of the more than 5,400 children, mostly from El Salvador, have applied to join their parents who are already (legally) in the United States, under the Obama administration’s Central American Minors program, established in December, not a single one has been granted entry, the New York Times reports.

U.S. Marine Stephen Lewis, a private first class stationed at Camp Pendleton in southern California, was arrested two weeks ago after arranging to have sex with an entire family: a man, his 12-year-old son, and his 11-year-old daughter. The only problem with this plan (aside from everything) was that he arranged for the meeting with an undercover Department of Homeland Security agent on the incest website family4love.com (note: these agents are “essential” employees during the shutdown).

The big winners in the enormous budget cuts that will gut the federal government: undocumented immigrants! The Department of Homeland Security has released from its jails more than 2000 immigrants who were facing deportation, well above the number that the Obama administration said would be (which is a shame for the Obama administration, which just loves deporting people).

All TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington wanted was a simple life, with a simple boat, so that he might draw out his remaining days in peaceful aquatic seclusion. Chartering retired couples and young honeymooners on day trips, resolving the quarrels of local fisherman, nibbling on sponge cake and watching the sun bake all of those tourists covered in oil. He was done with the game, and he thought the game was done with him.

The Department of Homeland Security struggled to avoid monitoring or suppressing the Occupy Wall Street movement last year, despite being bombarded with requests from various federal agencies for intelligence on the protests, according to documents released via the Freedom of Information Act.

Matt Drudge—who can usually be found boasting about all his mouth-breathing readers—has been taking umbrage today at the revelation that Department of Homeland Security officials "monitor" his web site, along with about 200 other news and social networking sites. Or as Glenn Beck's Blaze hilariously put it, "Homeland Security Given Green Light to Monitor American Journalists." So what do you call reading a newspaper?

The New Yorker has just posted Mattathias Schwartz's excellent piece in last week's magazine on the disastrous raid to arrest Jamaican druglord Christopher "Dudus" Coke. At the DEA's insistence, Jamaican authorities reluctantly raided Tivoli Gardens, the West Kingston slum Coke ran as a de facto governor, two years ago. Coke didn't turn up, but Jamaican police officers killed 73 civilians, many of them allegedly in cold blood. A Department of Homeland Security surveillance plane was overhead the whole time.

The Church of Scientology of Washington State is hosting an "evening discussion on human rights" at its Seattle headquarters on Wednesday, and until today, a Department of Homeland Security official was scheduled to participate.

The hacktivists of Anonymous are often dismissed as unskilled noobs. But now the Department of Homeland Security has called out Anonymous as "script kiddies" with rudimentary hacking skills. Oh no they didn't.

Taking disabled people's toys, exposing women's breasts, making women remove their prosthetic breasts: seems TSA agents never stop figuring out new ways to be sadistic. Now comes word that some agents made a wheelchair-bound, 95-year-old woman with final-stage leukemia take off her adult diaper for pat-down purposes.

Remember the government's color-coded terror alert system? Sure you do. It was fun, festive, and went with everything. Well, it's history. Back in January, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to phase out the system. So what will replace it? As of April 27, terror alerts will come in just two forms —"elevated" and "imminent"— and will be broadcast over the two most popular social networks.

According to CBS News, the government has identified a "credible" terrorist plot to poison restaurants and hotels by infecting buffets and salad bars with ricin and cyanide. To be completely safe, don't ever eat anything again. Especially salad. [CBS]

The Federal Air Marshal office in Orlando has been plagued with scandal over the past few years, most famously for a Jeopardy-style game supervisors played with derogatory categories for African-Americans and people they thought were gay.

Well, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's reemergence from hiding didn't last long. He was scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a New York hacking convention today. Homeland Security agents showed up, Assange got spooked and cancelled his appearance.

The Department of Homeland Security recently announced that they're going to be monitoring Twitter and sites like it for keywords during the Olympics. Unlike everyone else, however, they will not get tired of your lame It's bobsled time! jokes. [ABC]

Boing Boing is excited by a YouTube video from a guy who claims Border Patrol agents tasered and beat him at an "anti-terrorism" checkpoint in Arizona when he declined a search of his car.

The Department of Homeland Security is employing the cast of Sesame Street to indoctrinate America's littlest citizens in the nuances of societal distrust and paranoia. This makes sense because Sesame Street is a Leninist television program produced by the socialist government and dating back to the height of fiscal crisis brought about by the reckless expansion of the welfare state to whose beneficiaries Sesame Street was engineered to placate.And the Department of Homeland Security represents the biggest expansion of government since the New Deal!

Score one for Lord Balaji, known to some Indian Hindus as the "Visa God." The Department of Homeland Security changed its rules Friday so as to allow U.S. businesses to employ foreigners for up to 29 months before they must obtain an H-1B visa. Previously, the limit had been 12 months — and the DHS used "emergency" provisions to avoid public review of the change. The foreigners must be students who attended American schools and earned a degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, employed in their field of study. Either that or they have to supermodels, reports the WSJ. Because who said the huddled masses can't look like the Indian/Irish/French Saira Mohan?