Suppose you’re walking along, minding your own business, and you come across something strange. Something you need to report to the authorities. What authority would — at least in theory — be ultimately responsible?

You found:

I find the USA’s many many agencies amusing for two reasons. Firstly, because many if not most Americans dislike the idea of “big government”. Secondly, the US is in so much debt yes these many agencies must be costing a lot in unnecessary duplication.

Also the Australian Federal Police home page doesn’t have garish national flags everywhere. Here’s a fun game for you at home: click any of the USA agency links from above, go to their home page, and if there’s no US flag you win! Give yourself a pat on the back.

(You might argue that many of these US agencies are merely part of the DHS. That might be technically true, but I’d argue that the DHS was only created in 2002 as a response to the World Trade Center attacks. It seems to be more of an umbrella organisation rather than any serious attempt to pare back the duplication. In other words, the DHS is all about “more”, not “less”.)