You Can Trust Us To Spend You Money Foolishly

While the Department of Homeland Security has been busy sleeping at the wheel, we have time to examine how effectively our tax dollars are being spent on protecting our borders, ports, railways, trucking routes, chemical plants, fuel depots, nuclear power plants and our hometowns. A tremendous amount of money is being spent without any real consideration as to how, why or on what.

Audit Finds Lack of Coordination in Security Spending

An independent media review of homeland security spending in Indiana found a number of duplications and an all-over lack of coordination, including the purchase of t-shirts and office supplies for a volunteer emergency program. Is the area getting the security the people pay for?

It just goes to show you that a tightly controlled Republican-dominated state like Indiana gets its grubby paws on some indiscriminantly controlled funds and it goes hog wild buying essential equipment like t-shirts that celebrate homeland security and fascist domination of the world according to the dictates of the Christian Right rather than genuine equipment that would make us safe from hazardous material leaks, train derailments, chemical leaks, attacks on nuclear power plants, or even a natural disaster. While I know that the world works on the basis of who has the most reams of paper and the largest collection of paper clips, I cannot, however, fathom how office supplies falls into the category of protecting the homefront in the case of federal funds trickling down to the home fronts.

One would imagine that the DHS folks would have some pre-determined parameters on how this money could be spent. One would further imagine that DHS, GAO and OMB would have some bean counters keeping track as to how these funds are actually spent. One would even imagine that the DHS folks would have their own experts (a laughable proposition in and of itself) specify what equipment actually meets or exceeds established equipment standards for use in the effort to protect our great nation. But even in the pursuit of protecting our nation the Bush administration seems hell-bent on allowing a laissez faire and hands off the state level republicans approach.

It is funny that the federal government dictates how we spend its money in terms of education but leaves no standards at all in place for our national security. The very idea of dictating education expenditures and policies by this Republican administration--despite the Republican plank of making government smaller and allowing more state and local control--while leaving national security up for grabs is rather bizarre.

According to an article by Theodore Kim on the IndyStar.com website, area counties have purchased a “hodgepodge” of items with the $30 million in federal homeland security money they have received since 9/11. “A review of hundreds of the purchases reveals some with questionable ties to security and a few, according to the state homeland security chief, that ‘make you scratch your head,’” Kim says.

Kim adds, “the post-9/11 equipment frenzy reveals patchwork spending patterns that highlight a lack of coordination among jurisdictions. Local officials make decisions primarily by surveying their own needs and desires, with little regard for the equipment that neighboring jurisdictions have.”

For instance, Kim says one county purchased a radiation monitoring system for $50,000, while another bought four radiation “pagers” of a different kind for $6,000. A third chose another type of detector that fits on the sun visor of a car.

Then again, with all the attention given to the idea of increased interagency communication and cooperation, one would expect that such standards of cooperation and communication would--be at the very least--imposed upon the states. After all, we are seeing a push at the federal level for a one-size-fits-all standardized test for schools across the nation, why not a set of reasonable and workable standards for homeland security equipment and expenditures? We even have such standards for NATO allies and coalition supplies in Iraq and Afghanistan... why not between Lake, Marion, Newton, St. Joseph, Jasper and Porter Counties in Indiana?

Read the original article from the Indianapolis Star.

Then there is port security. After the bruhaha on the Dubai World Ports affair, one would think that DHS and the Bush administration would be hot to trot on making sure our busiest ports--especially those having a large number of international exchanges occuring daily--would have an appropriate amount of attention and funding. Apparently the folks in the northwest corner of our nation do not deserve the attention of DHS.

DHS Shells Out Funds for Port Security

The Department of Homeland Security finally doled out the long-awaited fund for port security last week, handing out more than $168 million for security programs designed to prevent terrorist attacks. But not everyone is happy with the results.

The Associated Press says two busy ports in Oregon, the Portland and Vancouver ports, received no funding at all under the new deals. AP says the Port of Portland sought more than $100,000 for improvements. The Port of Vancouver, meanwhile, requested almost $2.3 million to add secure wireless capabilities to the current surveillance system, install additional surveillance equipment and improve physical security in Port-owned lands, including lighting and cameras.

Just a while ago the DHS funds were denied to New York City. Now they are being denied to two of the west coast's busiest international ports. Where is all of our money going? Oh, that's right, I forgot... We are spending so much on Halliburton (and its subsidiaries like KBR) contracts that produce facilities that crumble before they can even be used--and on not supplying our troops proper body armor, and on Hum-Vees that do not have proper armor on the undercarriage--that we really cannot afford to spend it where we might really need it: on our own homefront.

AP says this was the sixth round of Department of Homeland Security funding. “This year’s money was awarded based on the relative risk of a terrorist attack at each port,” AP says.

The twin-port complex of Los Angeles and Long Beach will get about $12 million in 2006. The Port of Seattle won about $7.4 million and the Port of Tacoma received $2.5 million from the government’s port security grant program for fiscal 2006.

Halliburton gets BILLIONS and we watch them waste it by supplying tainted water, building facilities that are non-functional, and on providing services by hiring Pakistanis, Indians, Philipinos, Sri Lankans and others that work for nothing as kitchen and logistics workers--all the while Halliburton is pocketing ecessive profits--while our ports are either offered a mere pittance or nothing at all.

Anyone with a background in security will tell you that we would be better off if we spent BILLIONS on our ports and only lined the pockets of Halliburton with millions--or nothing at all.

Read the orginal Portland Examiner article.