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An editorial in today's Times prompts us to report something odd we'd encountered but set aside. First, the editorial:

Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I., created unease on Wednesday with their vague warning that Al Qaeda is planning an attack in the United States. It wasn't so much the grimly familiar warning. It was the absence of Tom Ridge.

The public understands that warnings are not likely to be specific. But two and a half years after 9/11, bureaucratic turf battles over the nation's security are inexcusable. The 2002 law that established the Department of Homeland Security gave Mr. Ridge the responsibility of coordinating terror-related intelligence analyses and threat assessments. His color-coded terror advisories are often mocked. But at least they signal Washington's best relative estimate of risk.

Last Wednesday, Mr. Ashcroft failed to bring Mr. Ridge with him Ñ and Mr. Ridge had been on television that very morning assuring viewers that there was no new intelligence requiring an increase in the threat level. That left everyone wondering what to make of Mr. Ashcroft's different message. The official explanation, that Mr. Ashcroft just wanted to show pictures of wanted terrorists, deepened the confusion. His comments, and those of other officials, about terrorists perhaps wanting to disrupt the election, presumably to hurt the incumbent, were horribly inappropriate.

Well, an awful lot of things Mr. Ashcroft does are horribly inappropriate, but that's not what caught our eye. It was the part about bureaucratic turf battles. I mean, it's plenty weird that the director of Homeland Security (and how we despise that name; it has always sounded to us like something from the Soviet Union. Why didn't they just say "National Security"? What's this "Homeland" stuff? It's creepy. No one says "Homeland". Have you ever said "Homeland"? The Soviet's had "The Motherland", the Nazis had "The Fatherland", and we're sorry but "Homeland" is just as creepy as both of those things) wasn't there Ñ or worse, that he was on TV that morning saying everything was fine.

The reason it caught our eye is that not long ago we stumbled upon something weird on the Justice Department's website. Well, we thought it was weird--maybe we don't know how government websites work.

If you go to the Justice department's website, www.usdoj.gov, scroll down to this:

For the latest homeland security news, alerts, threats or for emergency planning information, visit the Department of Homeland Security at www.dhs.gov.

...and click on the link to go to the website of the Department of Homeland Security, www.usdoj.gov, you don't go directly there. You get a disclaimer page. This is the exact text of that disclaimer:

You are now leaving the Department of Justice WWW server

You are about to access

http://www.dhs.gov

The Department of Justice takes no responsibility for, and exercises no control over, the organizations, views, accuracy, copyright or trademark compliance or legality of the material contained on this server.

...after which you are redirected to the Department of Homeland Security.

Is that weird? Do all government websites disclaim all other government websites? Or is this some kind of turf war pettiness?

Does anyone know? Seriously, if you know email us.