Throwing money at technology
Published: 19 Oct 2004 16:15 BST
"You can collect all the information that you want, but unless you can get the right information to the right people, it doesn't really matter," said Gilman Louie, chief executive of In-Q-Tel, a CIA-affiliated venture capital firm, and member of the Markle Foundation's task force on digital security. "Historically we are, as a government, good at big defence projects but not big information technology programmes. IT is a much murkier area."
The numbers seem to reflect that ambiguity. In a June report, the non-profit US National Taxpayers Union estimated that more than half of new homeland security funding since 2001 -- $164bn -- is being spent on programmes unrelated to defence or response to terrorist attacks. As an example, the organisation cited the renaming of the Agriculture Act of 2001 as the "Farm Security Act" after 11 September.
"As if chickpeas, lentils and mohair have anything to do with national security. One congressman even stated that a peanut subsidy, with a $3.5bn price tag, 'strengthens America's national security,'" the 335,000-member group said. "Members of Congress have been cloaking old-fashioned pork in the robes of 'security' for the 'homeland.'"
Making matters worse, local districts that receive such security windfalls often have no idea what they are supposed to do with the money. As a result, many state and regional agencies are simply buying ambulances, fire engines and other equipment that can be used for public safety but are not necessarily earmarked for homeland security -- an accounting sleight of hand known as "supplantation", in the language of procurement.
These concerns were brought into sharp relief last year in a Rand study based on interviews with 190 "first responders", or emergency workers, from 83 organisations across the country. The workers "felt they did not know what they needed to protect against, what protection was appropriate and where to look for it," according to the report, which was conducted for the US Federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
In remarks to emergency workers and business leaders last month in Arizona, US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge acknowledged that improvements are needed in communication and direction but stressed his department's progress. "If you're thinking that there's more that we can do, you're right. But after three years, in every way possible, we've made a real difference in securing our people and our homeland. The successful integration of people and technology for a greater purpose has had a genuine result," he said.
Still, when specific security technologies do receive government funding, law enforcement and other agencies have been known to spend large sums on products and services that are unproven or have shown dubious results. So-called biometric technologies such as iris-scanning identification systems have encountered problems in the UK, where test versions failed to work for people with contact lenses, long eyelashes and watery eyes.
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