[esopman]

You know, I had the same thought.

As a linguist, I would observe that many of the labels attached to these programs/agencies do, as you rightly observe, have an aura of dystopian totalitarianism about them. Further, they can be back-translated into Russian or German and have something of a Soviet or Nazi ring to them: exempli gratia - Department of Homeland Security comes out in German something like 'Heimatsicherheitsabteilung' or in Russian as roughly 'Ministerststvo or Vedomstvo Bezopasnosti Rodiny.'

America, with no history of a KGB (Committee for State Security = Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) for example, cannot appreciate the semantic field of a word like 'security' for those having experience with European totalitarianism.

It is a little spooky, but not as spooky as what Hillary Clinton could do with all this!

Good observation on your part.

[ScudEast]

I think it might be the vagueness of the terms which makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. To use your example, "Department of Homeland Security" could mean absolutely anything. If it were called "Counter Terrorism Group" then it would have a remit that everyone understands and would remind everyone of 9/11 when they heard it.