Witch-hunting is a historical example of mass behavior potentially fueled by moral panic. The current trend towards banning phone use in schools is another.

The Department of Homeland Security was just a combination of existing federal bureaus into one entity. What you have to remember and what is noted in the 9-11 report and everyone should read the 9-11 report is that we had evidence of the attacks prior to them occurring, but the problem was inter-agency rivalries prevented the information getting to some central location where you can connect the dots.

Now it’s not to say that there wasn’t a lot of knee jerk authoritarian reaction to the attacks in the form of the patriot act, warrantless surveillance, legalized torture, and extraordinary rendition. Combining federal agencies into the department of homeland security by comparison seemed pretty mild at the time.