Oversight report finds major problems with DHS
U.S. Senator Tom Coburn released his final oversight report on the Department of Homeland Security, which has found major problems in the branch.
The report finds that Homeland Security is not successfully executing any of its five main missions.
“Ten years of oversight of the Department of Homeland Security finds that the Department still has a lot of work to do to strengthen our nation’s security,” Coburn explained. “Congress needs to review the Department’s mission and programs and refocus DHS on national priorities where DHS has a lead responsibility.”
Homeland Security spent $50 billion over the past 11 years on counter terrorism programs, but the Department cannot demonstrate if the nation is more secure as a result.
$50,000,000,000.00 in case you want to see it written out.
And nothing to prove it wasn’t wasted.
Every penny.
When I see DHS, I think TSA, which is one of the bigger wastes of taxpayer dollars. Inefficient, rude, ineffective, and of course with a significant thievery problem. While some of the TSA “officers” I’ve encountered while flying actually are pleasant and efficient, many of them have no idea what they are doing. Nor are they even polite about it. Everyone one of them will sneeringly tell you that their particular variation of the rules is the “only right one”. Even when I show them in black and white what their own rules say, they tell me that I’m wrong.
Oh, and they’ve never stopped one terrorist. Or caught one for that matter. Or stopped one infernal device from being put on a plane.
They’ll put on a dog and pony show displaying all the “contraband” that they’ve found. Not one piece of which has ever been shown to be carried by a terrorist.
Then there is the grant money given to state and local agencies for “anti terrorism”. None of the high tech gear, vehicles, weapons, or other gee gaws has stopped a terrorist yet. Cameras? Sure, they’ll help catch the bad guys (maybe) after the crime. But even in the case of the Boston Marathon bombings it was old fashioned detective work, not high tech super duper technology that caught the suspects. Not the becoming ubiquitous and intrusive government owned and paid for cameras, but private video and still photos. Crowd sourcing.
Don’t start me on FEMA. They can’t even get flood maps right. And of course the maps always seem to err on the side of costing the taxpayers even more money for insurance they don’t need. Several years ago I suggested that FEMA could be replaced by a combination of Walmart and FedEx, but everyone thought I was joking. I wasn’t, I was just ahead of my time.
Maybe the new Congress will do something about this black hole of an agency other than just blindly dump more money into it.
I’m not holding my breath, mind you.
Its not surprising that we find that the EMS Artifact doesn’t know what he is
talking about.
Here is proof that the TSA is always one step ahead of the terrorists. 🙂
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/01/curse-the-brilliant-tsa.php
I’m suitably chastised. BTW, my wife got the full TSA treatment because she brought a bottle of saline nasal spray in her carry on. It was 3.5 oz. She asked them to send the results of her mammogram to her primary card doctor. And no, I am not kidding. She almost missed our flight because of that.
Lets run down what the TSA has protected us from.
1) a 14 year old girl
2) a six month old child (although the diapers have been know to be a WMD)
3) two female colostomy patients.
4) rum icing on a cupcake
5) two Indian diplomats
6) a 80 year old, wheelchair bound, Jewish, former Secretary of State of the US. (Henry frikken Kissinger)
What they did not protect us from.
1) a man who had a suitcase full of expired boarding passes and was using them to board aircraft. (Caught by airline personnel.)
Not to mention the “shoe bomber” and the “underwear bomber”. Both of which were caught by other passengers. Although in completely fairness, it was foreign versions of the TSA that didn’t catch them.
I’ve long said, and I am not kidding, that allowing licensed passengers to fly arms would be more effective in protecting airlines.
Speaking of which, let’s not forget the baggage handler/gun runner.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/23/us/delta-employee-gun-smuggling/
I was going to, but didn’t. Certainly, among other things, it’s a spectacular TSA failure. They poke and prod us at random, but apparently, once someone has a security clearance, they are good to go. Go and commit crimes in this case. Ironically, my son was given grief the last time he flew because he showed his government issued Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC). Which is issued by the same TSA that for which the nitwits at the airport work. One told him that he needed a “government issued” ID. Duh. I’ve been tempted to use my concealed carry permit, since it’s issued by the government, but don’t want any of the TSA workers to faint.
Last week, I went through the TSA checkpoint @ Dulles airport. As I was removing my scarf, sweater, & shoes, separating laptop from purse, etc., before going through the xray scanner, a woman wearing a full burkah (spelling?), including head/face covering, carrying a child, walked through the “no exit” gate & had her head patted slightly by a female agent. No scan, no metal detector, no full patdown. The person could have been male, wearing an explosive bodysuit, who knows, who cares! Meanwhile, the rest of us are given more & more “thou shalt not’s” in order to fly without being hassled by “security” agents.
Because the cowards that run TSA (and the rest of the federal government) are afraid of offending the mythical “peaceful Muslims”. They’d rather have a plane full of travelers blown up than have a complaint from the perpetually aggrieved. They care about their jobs and pensions far more than they care about actually doing their jobs.