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6-14-5
Fear Is A Booming Business In
America Hemorrhaging Money
For Homeland Security
By Georg Mascolo
6-14-5
- Fear can be a lucrative
business. That, at least, is what American
companies selling security gadgets are
finding out as the US government continues
to spend billions of dollars on a variety
of different Homeland Security programs.
The only problem? Most of them are useless.
- Clark Kent Ervin, 46,
is one of those people on whom the US
president likes to depend. The staunch
Republican is an old friend from Texas
who once worked for George W. Bush in
the governor's mansion and who, on Bush
Junior's recommendation, managed to
get a job in Bush Senior's administration.
Ervin is an amiable man who is usually
quick to smile. The exception? When
you mention his last employer -- the
two-and-a-half-year-old US Department
of Homeland Security.
- The problems at the
bureaucratic behemoth -- with its 180,000
employees -- are myriad, says Ervin,
a graduate of Harvard. "I've never experienced
anything like it before," he says.
- And now Ervin, appointed
by his friend Bush to the position of
highest-ranking internal auditor on
the homeland security front, is suddenly
without a job. His reports on the chaos,
corruption and wastefulness at the department
were so thorough and full-throated that
he became a liability to the president.
Since Ervin was forced out of the department,
the gold rush-like mood in the American
security industry, whose excesses were
at the center of Ervin's complaints,
has continued unabated.
- The business of fear
in the United States of America has
been booming ever since September 11,
2001 and the price tag for the protective
cordon of high-tech gadgetry intended
to keep the US safe from more terrorist
attacks is enormous. Devices designed
to detect nuclear material in shipping
containers will cost the US government
$300 million. The budget for the American
Shield Initiative, a plan that calls
for monitoring the country's borders
with sensors or drones, comes at the
hefty price of $2.5 billion. A further
$10 billion is budgeted for a new computer
system designed to monitor visitors,
while outfitting all 6,800 aircraft
in US commercial aviation with anti-missile
systems will cost about the same amount.
The total 2005 Homeland Security budget
weighs in at a whopping $50 billion
-- roughly equivalent to the gross national
product of New Zealand.
- "The market is growing
at an incredible rate," gushes the Security
Industry Association at its "networking
lunch" with members of Congress and
administration officials. Throughout
the country, conventions are being held
where products like mobile emergency
command centers and Blackberrys that
provide direct access to FBI computers
are on offer. Another popular item is
"Fido," a cell phone-sized device used
to detect explosive material. Demand
is high, especially now that the going
rate for a decent bomb-sniffing dog
in the United States has skyrocketed
to $10,000.
- "We'll call these the
good old days in ten years," says an
enthusiastic Ray Oleson, whose information
technology company posted a fifty percent
jump in sales in the first quarter of
this year. The American newsmagazine
US News & World Report calls the
booming business "Washington's version
of a Turkish bazaar."
- Ervin, the fired auditor,
is wary of the current consumerist climate
and would have preferred spending funds
more slowly and judiciously. After all,
much of what the industry is peddling
as products designed "to secure America's
future" (an industry marketing slogan)
has proven to be insufficiently developed
and prone to failure. To this day, the
harbor nuclear detectors are incapable
of distinguishing between bombs and
kitty litter or bananas, leading frustrated
customs officials to simply shut them
off. The new $1.2 billion explosives
detectors for the Transportation Security
Administration (TSA), a part of Homeland
Security, are equally unreliable.
- Another criticism of
Homeland Security's money-spending ways
is that it isn't terribly focused. The
security business is booming in places
like the Virgin Islands, American Samoa
and Wyoming as well -- hardly places
that come to mind as potential terrorist
targets. But according to the requirements
stipulated by Congress, the Department
of Homeland Security's budget must be
equally distributed among all US states
and territories. Last year, Wyoming
spent $37.74 per capita on homeland
security while the state of New York
had to make do with $5.41 per capita.
The result? Every police officer in
Wyoming now has his or her own ABC protective
suit.
- To make sure that all
this lucrative hemorrhaging of American
taxpayers' money doesn't come to an
end too soon, the security industry
has taken a page from the defense industry
and hired specialists who are aptly
nicknamed "rainmakers" -- political
insiders adept at selling their influence
to the highest bidder. Tom Ridge, the
former Secretary of Homeland Security,
is now lobbying on behalf of container
security, while many of his former top
officials have set up shop on K Street,
Washington's magnificent mile for lobbyists.
- Indeed, in the three
years since it came into being, the
Transportation Security Administration
has already gone through four directors.
Each of the current director's predecessors
was simply unable to resist the temptations
of the industry. Richard Clarke, the
former White House Chief of Counterterrorism,
warns that "we'll never have a competent
team if this goes on." According to
a government study, thus far only four
of the Department of Homeland Security's
33 homeland protection programs are
considered effective, leading the new
Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael
Chertoff, to promise Congress that he'll
be taken a closer look at how the department
spends its billions. But despite Chertoff's
promises, the booming industry's prospects
remain as rosy as ever. Indeed, the
Secretary recently told a gathering
of 400 industry executives that the
government still depends on their help.
"We need you to make America a safer
place," he said -- to roaring applause.
- http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,360394,00.html
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