The Federal Emergency Management Agency manipulated scientific research to play down the danger posed by formaldehyde in trailers issued to hurricane victims, according to an investigation by congressional Democrats.
FEMA "ignored, hid and manipulated government research on the potential impact of long-term exposure to formaldehyde" on Katrina and Rita victims now living in FEMA trailers, said a letter written by Democrats on Monday.
Democrats on a House Science and Technology subcommittee wrote the letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. FEMA is part of the Homeland Security Department.
This is another case where the left would bring it up and the right would shoot it down as "conspiracy". Well it doesn't look so much like a conspiracy now.
The first secretary of the Homeland Security Department says waterboarding is torture.
"There's just no doubt in my mind — under any set of rules — waterboarding is torture," Tom Ridge said Friday in an interview with the Associated Press. Ridge had offered the same opinion earlier in the day to members of the American Bar Association at a homeland security conference.
No wonder why the administration got rid of him - he sounds like a silly liberal.
The Homeland Security Department spent more than $90 million to create a network for sharing sensitive anti-terrorism information with state and local governments that it has decided to replace, according to an internal department document.
The decision was made late last year but was not announced. It was outlined in an Oct. 27 memorandum that listed the network's flaws and asserted that DHS's counterterrorism, immigration enforcement and disaster management missions were hampered by the proliferation of more than 100 Web "portals" that provide poorly coordinated information.
How many billions have been wasted by Bush, yet the Republicans go out and brag about their fiscal responsibility? And they wonder why the real Republicans won't even get out to vote for them.
The multibillion-dollar surge in federal contracting to bolster the nation's domestic defenses in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been marred by extensive waste and misspent funds, according to a new bipartisan congressional report.
Lawmakers say that since the Homeland Security Department's formation in 2003, an explosion of no-bid deals and a critical shortage of trained government contract managers have created a system prone to abuse. Based on a comprehensive survey of hundreds of government audits, 32 Homeland Security Department contracts worth a total of $34 billion have "experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending, or mismanagement," according to the report, which is slated for release today and was obtained in advance by The Washington Post.
The value of contracts awarded without full competition increased 739 percent from 2003 to 2005, to $5.5 billion, more than half the $10 billion awarded by the department that year. By comparison, the agency awarded a total of $3.5 billion in contracts in 2003, the year it was created.
Among the contracts that went awry were deals for hiring airport screeners, inspecting airport luggage, detecting radiation at the nation's ports, securing the borders and housing Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Investigators looking into those contracts turned up whole security systems that needed to be scrapped, contractor bills for luxury hotel rooms and Homeland Security officials who bought personal items with government credit cards.
Yeah, the Republicans are really the ones who are up on homeland security, national defense and fiscal responsibility. The Midas touch - what the Republicans touch turns to gold (for corporations).
So why do illegal immigrants come here? Simple - because they can get jobs and numerous companies won't worry about checking their legal status. So for people who really think illegal immigration is a bad thing, consider these employers as drug dealers supplying to their junkies.
What is interesting is how the situation has gained attention. I know it is political and so do most people, but for those that don't think it is, here is something to think about. This appears in today's Washington Post:
The Bush administration, which is vowing to crack down on U.S. companies that hire illegal workers, virtually abandoned such employer sanctions before it began pushing to overhaul U.S. immigration laws last year, government statistics show.
Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.
So the number of illegal immigrants coming into the country is increasing while actual enforcement is in decline, or should I say, at a damn near halt. Of course people will look at that and blame Clinton because it started in 1999, but look at the next paragraph:
In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three.
We are now reduced from being Americans to being a string of ones and zeros:
The Pentagon pays a private company to compile data on teenagers it can recruit to the military. The Homeland Security Department buys consumer information to help screen people at borders and detect immigration fraud.
As federal agencies delve into the vast commercial market for consumer information, such as buying habits and financial records, they are tapping into data that would be difficult for the government to accumulate but that has become a booming business for private companies.
Industry executives, analysts and watchdog groups say the federal government has significantly increased what it spends to buy personal data from the private sector, along with the software to make sense of it, since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They expect the sums to keep rising far into the future.
So what protections are being put in place to make sure people don't misuse this information? With the growing number of "computer thefts" (like I believe they are really being stolen), more of our information can be made available for illegal activities.
Another protection that needs to be put in place is making sure this information is not made available to elected officials. It could quickly be abused by politicians hoping to gain the edge in targeting mailings and phone calls.
This is a program that needs very serious oversight by not only Congress but also the Judicial branch. It is the only way to protect our democracy from a sure demise.
Could something happen? Of course. Am I sick and tired of this administrations games with scaring the hell out Americans when serious threats don't really exist? Definitely. Maybe that's why the US public is turning away from the Bush administration and their claims of protecting America. The public has turned but the administration doesn't get it yet. Why should we believe anything that they have to say? How did such a non-story actually become a story? Who's pulling strings to try and play the fear card once again?
You know there is a growing sense of desperation in the White House when vague, ill-defined terror threats are allowed to leak to the press. Now comes news of a terror threat of some sort against sporting venues. What the threat entails, who is involved, and who might be at risk is unknown, but an "abundance of caution" is often Bush Administration code for using propaganda to keep the American sheeple fearful and thus in line. After all, if you're fearing for your safety, you're not very well going to be worrying about things like the economy or port security, are you? Yes, someone is going to do something horrible somewhere, to somebody, at some indeterminate point in time. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Otherwise, the terrorists will win....
WASHINGTON - The agency entrusted with protecting the U.S. homeland is having difficulty safeguarding its own headquarters, say private security guards at the complex.
The guards have taken their concerns to Congress, describing inadequate training, failed security tests and slow or confused reactions to bomb and biological threats.
For instance, when an envelope with suspicious powder was opened last fall at Homeland Security Department headquarters, guards said they watched in amazement as superiors carried it by the office of Secretary Michael Chertoff, took it outside and then shook it outside Chertoff's window without evacuating people nearby.
The scare, caused by white powder that proved to be harmless, "stands as one glaring example" of the agency's security problems, said Derrick Daniels, one of the first guards to respond to the incident.
So if between this report and what Katrina showed us then what the hell was the purpose of creating the department? The only thing they have been successful at is scaring Americans with their bogus terror warnings and adding an extra layer of bureaucracy to our already fat government.
Here I am, sitting in the UK, reading things like this, Bush and his so called Homeland Security, how the hell can they be trusted to protect a country if they can not even protect their own headquarters. Looks like another fine Bush department needs and overhaul!
WASHINGTON - The agency entrusted with protecting the U.S. homeland is having difficulty safeguarding its own headquarters, say private security guards at the complex.
The guards have taken their concerns to Congress, describing inadequate training, failed security tests and slow or confused reactions to bomb and biological threats.
For instance, when an envelope with suspicious powder was opened last fall at Homeland Security Department headquarters, guards said they watched in amazement as superiors carried it by the office of Secretary Michael Chertoff, took it outside and then shook it outside Chertoff's window without evacuating people nearby.
The scare, caused by white powder that proved to be harmless, "stands as one glaring example" of the agency's security problems, said Derrick Daniels, one of the first guards to respond to the incident.
"I had never previously been given training ... describing how to respond to a possible chemical attack," Daniels told The Associated Press. "I wouldn't feel safe nowhere on this compound as an officer."
The White House cited failures by the Homeland Security Department and
other agencies in planning, communications and leadership in a report on
Hurricane Katrina Thursday and proposed a broad reworking of how the
government would respond to the next catastrophe.
The 228-page report by White House homeland security adviser Frances
Fragos Townsend urges changes in 11 key areas  mainly in better disaster
relief coordination among federal agencies  before the next hurricane
season begins June 1. The White House study took a softer approach than a
scathing House report issued last week, focusing on proposals to fix
problems without singling out any individuals for blame.
"We will learn from the lessons of the past to better protect the
American people," President Bush said Thursday at the end of a Cabinet
meeting where the report was released.
"I wasn't satisfied with the federal response," Bush said.
What is funny is how the White House had to wait until two other reports had
the same findings and Michael Brown decided to tell all to Congress. I still
wonder how much worse things would of been for the White House if they didn't
claim executive privilege on so many documents.
On the morning that Michael Brown has threatened to tell all to Senate
regarding the Katrina failures, the New York Times publishes a story that shows
Bush's first reactions to the storm were based upon lies:
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9  In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush
administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they
were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters
to engulf New Orleans.
But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness
account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the
Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day
before, and the White House itself at midnight.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency official, Marty Bahamonde, first
heard of a major levee breach Monday morning. By late Monday afternoon, Mr.
Bahamonde had hitched a ride on a Coast Guard helicopter over the breach at
the 17th Street Canal to confirm the extensive flooding. He then telephoned
his report to FEMA headquarters in Washington, which notified the Homeland
Security Department.
"FYI from FEMA," said an e-mail message from the agency's public affairs
staff describing the helicopter flight, sent Monday night at 9:27 to the
chief of staff of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and recently
unearthed by investigators. Conditions, the message said, "are far more
serious than media reports are currently reflecting. Finding extensive
flooding and more stranded people than they had thought  also a number of
fires."
