New Homeland Security

I'm not sure what to make of this as yet (from the Baltimore Sun):

The Department of Homeland Security has quietly scaled back its intelligence operation in a move that some intelligence insiders say could significantly hamper the government's ability to protect the country from terrorist attacks.

Originally assigned by Congress to collect and analyze terrorism intelligence from throughout the federal government, the department instead plans to concentrate solely on information gathered from within its own units, focusing mostly on border security and, eventually, data from state and local governments, officials said....

The scaled-down approach pulls together the intelligence collected from agencies within the Homeland Security Department, which includes Immigration and Customs, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration and others.

The new approach, Hughes said, is a "pretty substantial function," involving passport fraud, terrorist strategies for entering the country and patterns in security breaches at airports.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff approved the shift after a comprehensive review this year.

Republican Sen. Susan M. Collins of Maine, who chairs the committee that oversees the department, said that because Homeland Security "never really fulfilled" its early responsibility to analyze the terrorism threat broadly, Chertoff's move to focus on intelligence developed inside the department is "a step in the right direction."

But Collins said the department's intelligence operation "appears to still lack the support and resources it needs."