Posted by Jack
“Crazy people who still think the government brought down the Twin Towers in a controlled explosion have to stop pretending that Im the one whos being nave. How big a lunatic do you have to be to watch two giant airliners packed with jet fuel slam into buildings on live TV, igniting a massive inferno that burned for two hours, and then think, well, if you believe that was the cause Stop asking me to raise this ridiculous topic on the show and start asking your doctor if Paxil is right for you.” Bill Maher, talk show host
“The cost of airport security ($9 per passenger) is 1000 times higher than for railway security ($0.01 per passenger), even though the number of attacks on trains is similar to that in planes. This is analogous to committing mammography resources to screening only the left breast, and ignoring the right side, even though cancer can affect both breasts.” Elizabeth Linos, security research scientist
“Almost $5 billion of $16.04 billion in grants approved by Congress for states and Washington, D.C., from fiscal 2002 to 2007 remain in federal coffers, according to Homeland Security Department budget figures. That’s fueled concerns in the Bush administration and Congress that the government has been dishing out money faster than local governments can spend it.” USA Today 6/26/2007
“Because it is human nature to overspend on unlikely catastrophic events, it is likely that terrorists have succeeded in getting the world to overspend on counterterrorism, Copenhagen Consensus Paper – An economic study (Rhode Island has had plenty of counter-terrorism money thrown at it since 9/11 a little more than $12 million in 2007, and a total of about $73 million over the last five years and its still coming.) According to one of the Copenhagen economists, Todd Sandler of the University of Texas, a lot of Homeland Security is pork barrel spending. When you combine what is being bought with the absence of accounting for risk, there is surely a lot of waste.
“We are spending $10 billion on a program to fingerprint foreigners. I think it is an enormous waste of money. The amount of security I’m getting is not nearly worth that cost. I can hire a thousand FBI agents for the same amount of money. That sounds like a way better security investment. It’s the philosophy. “Will this make us safer?” is the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is: is it worth it? Many things that will make us safer aren’t worth it.” Bruce Schneier, author and security expert
“The nation’s newest and third-largest federal department signed at least 18,505 contracts for an astonishing array of goods and services, ranging from almost $800 million on airport bomb-detection devices to $14.8 million on hotel rooms. Many of these contracts were signed during a crisislike atmosphere following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the private contractors who filled the orders. ” Global Security.org 5/4/2004
“A volunteer fire department that spent $100,000 of Homeland Security money on a new gym complete with personal trainer. Her report points out more than once that Colorado’s state government will not make public how it’s spending taxpayer money.” Deb Sherman KUSA in Denver
“The attacks of Sept. 11 transformed ports of entry into points of anxiety, but the job itself didnt get any easier just as illegal drugs slipped through loopholes, so did potential security threats. While no attacks have originated at the ports, reminders that they are vulnerable are frequent ” Summary from a GAO study regarding Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT).
“Seven years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the federal government has made only limited progress toward preventing a catastrophic nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil and combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction abroad, according to a report card to be issued today by 22 former U.S. officials.” And in the area of Integrating U.S. programs, a key function of this agency, the panel gave Homeland Security D (poor). Lee Hamilton-D, vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, and Warren Rudman-R, co-chairman of a 2001 blue-ribbon commission on terrorism. Courtesy of the Washington Post 9/10/2008