Ratings champion "American Idol" will face serious competition when it returns next month -the U. S. Department of Homeland Security.
"Homeland Security USA," an ABC reality series debuting Jan. 6, tracks the daily efforts of the federal workers responsible for safeguarding the nation’s airports, borders, waters and anyplace else threats might arise.
While viewers see the mechanics of
agencies including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Transportation Security Administration, absent is discussion of such hot-button issues as post-Sept. 11 security programs or immigration policies.
That’s by design, said series executive producer Arnold Shapiro, whose credits include "Rescue 911" and "Big Brother."
"It doesn’t have a political point of view," Shapiro said. "It’s not meant to show the (department) higher-ups … just the average men and women on the front lines protecting our country from various things illegal and dangerous."
"Homeland Security USA" has a week to win viewers before it has to face Fox’s hit singing contest, back Jan. 13.
The ABC series, filmed with the department’s co-operation, is a virtual travelogue in the first episode as it skips from border crossings at Blaine, Wash., and San Ysidro, Calif., to Los Angeles International Airport to a mail processing plant.
Turns out even mail has dramatic possibilities, as sharp-eyed officers pry open toys containing black-market prescription drugs and uncover an exotic and illicit food item – barbecued bats from Thailand.
The show mixes the offbeat and the serious, including drug smugglers, people trying to enter the country with doctored papers and a woman who’s been shoved under a car seat in a painful, failed effort to slip into the country.
Not all goes the department’s way in the 13 episodes. In one scene, guns are drawn against a man trying to drive across the U. S.-Mexico border with his family, terrifying his wife and young children, until agents discover it’s a case of mistaken identity.Shapiro says he retained control over the show’s creative content. The department pre-screened episodes and could ask for deletion of elements that would have revealed law-enforcement strategies, infringed on personal rights or jeopardized pending legal cases.
The series is based on Australia’s popular "Border Security," which was optioned by ABC. "Homeland Security USA" is intended as entertainment without a political point of view, said Vicki Dummer, ABC’s executive in charge of alternative series.
The department saw the show "as a great opportunity to help the American public understand what their government does and what the Department of Homeland Security, the youngest department, does," said department spokesman Ed Fox.
But "Homeland Security USA" has provoked debate sight unseen. A Facebook page opposing the series drew more than 500 postings within its first few days. Many were negative, including denunciations of the show as government propaganda.http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1361715
I wonder how long it will last when Obama takes office. He wants raids and deportation stopped. Why have a Dept if your not going to allow them to do their job? Napalitano is his pick for Homeland Security remember?
January 31st, 2010 at 4:34 am
its a ploy….they want to make it appear that DHS has the best interest of the American people in hand…when it is clear (in real reality) that they dont give a sh*t for our basic constitutional rights.
References :
January 31st, 2010 at 5:13 am
I wonder how long it will last when Obama takes office. He wants raids and deportation stopped. Why have a Dept if your not going to allow them to do their job? Napalitano is his pick for Homeland Security remember?
References :
January 31st, 2010 at 6:03 am
This similar question was asked about Sheriff Joe’s upcoming television program.
I would like to see them film and air it as it happened or if you would "live", without the loophole of Mr. Shapiro’s "show creative content." I can support and understand the concern of revealing law enforcement tactics or jeopardized pending legal cases. Yet as for infringing on personal rights or even arrest procedures needs to be seen. I said it before and I’ll say it again, if certain information is released within 48 hrs of a sweep a lot of information as to profiling and racism can be answered.
A show such as this would revel more than who is doing what, it would also allow us to see what the police are doing to who, why and how
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AqTcR_GezmVQdPhQPhcpMZPsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20081222061908AAy12N7&show=7#profile-info-5HYabirzaa
.
References :