Dept. Of Homeland Paranoia pulls Arab-American census data from the census bureau "so that we can put up signs in Arabic in the right airports."

Reuters is covering the story of how EPIC extracted through the Freedom of Information Act the fact that the Census Bureau pulled Arab-American data out and gave it to the Department of Homeland Paranoia.

I’m not sure what pisses me off more – that the DHP requested this info, that the Census Bureau provided it only 2 years after apologizing for passing along their data on the Japanese during the war, or that the DHP used this ridiculous excuse that they were worried about ensuring that there were enough arabic signs. Gee, that seems just gosh-darned helpful to ensure that if there are more than 1000 Arabs in a town, that they have their own signs. What about the other couple of hundred languages? I could be wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that those reports weren’t pulled, that those other languages did not get their own custom signs, and that this is a flimsy and pathetic bullshit excuse.