DHS Strains As Goals, Mandates Go Unmet

[Lone_Star_Dem]

Source: Washington Post

Stumping for President Bush's ill-fated immigration overhaul in 2006, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff vowed that his department would wrest "operational control" of the nation's borders away from human and drug traffickers within five years.

That projection was based on the prospect of tough new enforcement measures as well as a temporary-worker program meant to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants, including the most ambitious use of surveillance technology ever tried on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Two years later, the legislative overhaul has been shelved, development of the "virtual fence" has been delayed, and its designers are going back to the drawing board. Completion of its first phase has been put off until as late as 2011, congressional investigators say. The possibility of this outcome was flagged early on by internal and external watchdogs, who warned of unrealistically tight deadlines, vague direction to contractors, harsh operating conditions and tough requirements of Border Patrol end-users.

The virtual fence is not the first major contractor-led technology effort to be ineffective, incomplete or too expensive to sustain since the Department of Homeland Security was formed five years ago this month. Former officials, private-sector partners and independent analysts say the evolving 208,000-worker, $38 billion agency remains hindered by a crisis-of-the-moment environment, in which the rush to fulfill each new mandate or meet every threat undermines its ability to hold a strategic course and deliver promised results.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030503664.html?nav=rss_nation

[ixion]

1. but they apparently have plenty of time to harass free citizens at airports

:argh:

[tanyev]

2. But don't we all feel more secure?

:sarcasm: