The Benevolent and Reasonable Department of Homeland Security

On the plane home last night returning from a family trip to New Orleans, I watched "The Last Mimzy", an interesting kids scifi fantasy movie. The sci-fi elements were a little far fetched, but that was nothing compared to the movie's portrayal of the Department of Homeland Security.

Let me set the scene: A brother and sister find technology transported from the future which they keep with them in their home.

One day, the kids activate the futuristic thingees and cause the whole northwestern US to have a power outage. The DHS traces the outage to their house, and immediately take the family in custody. So far, that makes sense.

The Fed's subsequently analyze the futuristic items and notice nanotechnology in them that the experts say humans are decades or centuries from acquiring. Not to mention they see the girl use the items to create an energy vortex of some sort right in front of them.

Then we get the wonderfully happy ending: The kids manage to escape, use the technology to create a time vortex to return 'untainted' genetic material (a girl's tear) to humankind of the future so that they can be saved from dying out from pollution. And the girl, who was almost pulled into the future, gets saved by her brother and returned safe to her parents.

And not only that - the family doesn't get locked up again, and is free to go, despite the Fed's seeing the unexplained time vortex and the use of unimaginable technology. That, under this government, is the most unbelievable thing about the movie. If only we lived in such a place.