Dad looked at me over the table the next morning and said, "It looks like it's going to get better, at least." He handed me a copy of the Chronicle open to the third page.
> A Department of Homeland Security spokesman has confirmed that the San Francisco office has requested a 300 percent budget and personnel increase from DC
What?
> Major General Graeme Sutherland, the commanding officer for Northern California DHS operations, confirmed the request at a press conference yesterday, noting that a spike in suspicious activity in the Bay Area prompted the request. "We are tracking a spike in underground chatter and activity and believe that saboteurs are deliberately manufacturing false security alerts to undermine our efforts."
My eyes crossed. No freaking way.
> "These false alarms are potentially 'radar chaff' intended to disguise real attacks. The only effective way of combatting them is to step up staffing and analyst levels so that we can fully investigate every lead."
> Sutherland noted the delays experienced all over the city were "unfortunate" and committed to eliminating them.
I had a vision of the city with four or five times as many DHS enforcers, brought in to make up for my own stupid ideas. Van was right. The more I fought them, the worse it was going to get.
Dad pointed at the paper. "These guys may be fools, but they're methodical fools. They'll just keep throwing resources at this problem until they solve it. It's tractable, you know. Mining all the data in the city, following up on every lead. They'll catch the terrorists."
I lost it. "Dad! Are you listening to yourself? They're talking about investigating practically every person in the city of San Francisco!"