Counter Terrorism/Homeland Security Funding Seriously Flawed
- Lawhawk
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» Lawhawk - The illusion of safety and funding anti-terror programs
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedco...It's a cruel irony of post-9/11 New York: Most of the intensive security measures we've deployed around the city since that morning had already been in place at the WTC for 81/2 years — since the WTC reopened after the 1993 truck bombing.The WTC was the prototype for today's Fortress America — and the Twin Towers' fall proved that Fortress America is a mirage, not a strategy to defeat global terror.
Cars and trucks couldn't get anywhere near the WTC; cement barriers blocked off the streets surrounding the towers. Both people and dogs meticulously checked every delivery truck. Employees and visitors on foot had to navigate a phalanx of security guards — who would search food deliveries and carefully match faces to ID cards before allowing access to the elevator banks. Guards patrolled the floors of the complex relentlessly. (Eleven died on 9/11.)
But the paramilitary mentality that pervaded the WTC didn't stop 9/11.
It just pushed the threat of predictable terrorist activity to the statistically unlikely margins — and al Qaeda operatives, toiling unmolested overseas, adapted quickly to working within those narrow margins.
After 9/11, the rest of New York moved to push those margins out even further: Cement flowerpots everywhere! Cyber-ID cards for everyone!
But if al Qaeda had remained free overseas to work within those ever-narrowed margins, we would not be any safer today.
Four weeks ago, Fortress America temporarily moved to the Citicorp Center — and New York pols used the new threat information as proof that the city remains strapped for resources.
But the real work had already been done. The Bush administration had worked with our overseas allies to smash terrorist hard drives in Pakistan and to sever an Islamofascist network in London. We uncovered a plot before it could be executed.
That's homeland security. And the benefits accrue immeasurably to the citizens of New York, not to those of Des Moines. As City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. put it after the Citicorp threat: "Terrorist laptops don't have plans of Iowa cornfields."
In fact, Bloomberg's most urgent request for federal security funding is also his most modest: $20 million a year to expand an elite police counterterrorism force. NYPD intelligence officers thwarted two amateur would-be subway bombers last week.
That dirty work is immensely more valuable than spending $78 million to "enhance security" at hospitals, as Bloomberg also proposes — because al Qaeda will attack what isn't secured.
Indeed, much of the rest of our "fair share" of homeland-security money would be spent on perfecting Fortress America's elusive main goal: The illusion of safety.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Pork and Homeland Security
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/ru...-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - New Jersey Di$$ed
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/...A New Jersey senator yesterday launched a border war over homeland security funding by slamming New York's growing piece of the pie while decrying the Garden State's shrinking share.I am in the process of preparing an article on this subject for publication next week. Here's a hint at what I'm proposing to do about it.
Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg was seething after homeland security money for Newark plummeted 17 percent, to $12.4 million, while New York City's federal anti-terrorism aid soared 344 percent."It's absolutely unfair," Lautenberg fumed just prior to the vote on sweeping intelligence reform. "Where did they come off with this?"
Lautenberg said New Jersey got shafted although the stretch of land from Newark's Liberty Airport to the harbor "is the biggest terrorist target in the country."
"I don't know whether this is a political repercussion of some kind," Lautenberg vented.
"We'll have a chance to talk with [Homeland Security Secretary-nominee Bernard] Kerik. We plan to do it very aggressively," he added.
While Lautenberg steamed over the New Jersey funding cuts, New York Sen. Charles Schumer protected his home turf — but held off on taking shots at his jilted fellow Democrat.
"I think New York definitely should have gone up," Schumer said. "But New Jersey is probably one of the states on the front lines, too."
Create a Homeland Security Funding Commission. Why create a new bureaucracy you say? Simple. Because it worked for the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which was responsible for handling the delicate political task of deciding what bases needed to be closed and reorganized for future purposes at the end of the Cold War.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Some localities have more money than they know what to do with
http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/... - that aid isn't just going to protect places like the Port Authority of New York Bus Terminal or Lincoln Tunnel or the Grand Central Station, but buying new pickup trucks for rural counties that have more money coming from the federal homeland security funds than they know what to do with.Here's a hint - stop spending the damn money on new pickup trucks and deliver it to the places tha truly need it.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Are homeland security funds being wasted?
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/...In a draft report to be released next month, Homeland Security Department Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin says lax oversight by the feds has allowed local politics — rather than pressing needs — to determine how the grant money is spent.Ervin also takes his own agency to task for the "funding of projects with low scores in the review process," according to his summary of the report, which is expected to be released in full next month.
New York officials say their grant money has been put to good use.
Tom Cocola, a spokesman for New York City's Department of Transportation, awarded nearly $4 million in port grants this year, said the funding is being used to upgrade security at ferry terminals.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Re: New Jersey Di$$ed
In response to New Jersey Di$$ed posted by Lawhawk:In his State of the State Address, acting Governor Codey echoed the comments made by Lautenberg and others who have criticized the federal government's terror prevention formulas.
http://www.state.nj.us/sos2005/speech_te...
And we fought the administration in Washington when their funding decisions threatened our safety.Indeed. Yes, this is a political speech, but Codey's comments are spot-on. There are serious problems with funding these programs, and New Jersey has gotten shafted by the feds. This has to change. Quickly.Mr. President, homeland security isn't about the red states or the blue states.
It's about the United States. It isn't about Republicans or Democrats. It's about Americans.
Al Qaeda doesn't care how we vote. Their killing knows no boundaries. Their hatred includes us all.
Mr. President, how can Wyoming receive $30 dollars per capita for homeland security aid while New Jersey receives only $6 dollars per capita?
Homeland security funding increased 24% this year but yet, funding was cut for Newark, one of only three cities put on Orange Alert this summer.
Mr. President. We live our lives in the shadow of the fallen towers.
For purposes of terrorism, the FBI has called the stretch between Port Newark and Newark International Airport the most dangerous two miles in America.
We have nuclear plants and oil refineries, chemical plants and financial districts.
We have been targeted before and we will likely be targeted again.
This is not a fight just to get our fair share from Washington. This is a fight to protect our communities from an evil we all know.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Miniter: On Homeland Security Funding
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists...-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - And this is what Homeland Security money goes to?!
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/... - Newark, NJ has used homeland security money to purchase 10 new air conditioned garbage trucks.Newark used federal Department of Homeland Security funds to help pay for 10 top-of-the-line, air-conditioned garbage trucks — and a group of state lawmakers think that stinks.New Jersey has long complained about being shortchanged in homeland security funding, yet they found the time and effort to put in for purchasing 10 new garbage trucks.
Newark unveiled its new garbage trucks last month — and boasted that the financing had partly come from "Homeland Security grants."Republican lawmakers yesterday blasted the city for "misuse" of federal money.
"It goes to the heart of credibility," said Assemblyman Joseph Pennacchio, who noted New Jersey officials have been lobbying for more anti-terror funds.
"You can't say we're buying garbage trucks on one hand and we're not getting enough Homeland Security money on the other."
Not to mention that it's illegal to buy garbage trucks with a Homeland Security grant, says the department.
"There's an approved list of equipment that can be bought with Homeland Security funding, and garbage trucks are not on that list," said the department's spokesman, Marc Short.
-- posted by Lawhawk
» Lawhawk - Homeland security funding as pork
http://www.dcexaminer.com/articles/2005/...But Congress has also ignored the 9/11 Commission's recommendation to use this colossal sum primarily to protect the nation's most vulnerable and strategic targets - including Washington. Instead, hundreds of millions of dollars have been squandered on political pork, according to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Chris Cox, R-Calif., who says the money's being "doled out to every local community in the country, whether they need it or not." In turn, local officials use homeland security funds to purchase such "necessities" as air-conditioned garbage trucks and orange traffic cones.And all of this is just the way business is done in Congress. Rationality doesn't matter or count in how the money is split. Making sure that your home district gets a cut, no matter how relevant or necessary is, is the paramount issue.Cox has introduced a bill to change the way these funds are distributed by switching to a risk-based formula. A similar measure failed in Congress last year and this one may too - unless citizens hold their representatives' feet to the fire. The current method of dividing Department of Homeland Security grants between all 50 states along political power lines has to be one of the worst possible ways to ensure that the remaining billions are spent in a rational manner.
Rationality has had little to do with it so far. As "60 Minutes" reporter Steve Kroft found out, the nation's capital is just as lackadaisical with its homeland security funds as the Santa Clara, Calif., sheriff's department, which purchased four Segways to transport its bomb squad in the event of a terrorist attack on Silicon Valley. They won't get very far at 12.5 mph.
Similar outrages can be found closer to home. According to Citizens Against Government Waste, $208,100 in port security grants went to a private yacht company that operates luxury dinner cruises in Washington, Boston and Chicago. What are they protecting, the contents of the bar? Kroft also reported that some of D.C.'s homeland security money was spent on leather jackets, a computerized car towing service, developing a rap song on emergency preparedness and sending city sanitation workers to a Dale Carnegie class.
Thus, money is spent on the items listed above. Meanwhile, locales that really need security bolstered have to fight for every last nickel.
-- posted by Lawhawk
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