And the American People are Safer! (cont.)

I haven't gone to the actual report yet to get the details, but the Wall St. Journal brings us this news:

Among other woes at Homeland Security, the inspector general’s office says it can’t widely distribute electronic announcements of new watchdog reports. A spokeswoman explains the department lacks capacity to create a mass email list, and “We don’t have a fix at this point.” Former Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin calls circulating such information crucial.

Doesn't the idea that DHS can't manage a task any modern sixth-grader could do fill you with a sense of security and warmth? Good to know that the people in charge of protecting our nation from clever and tech-saavy terrorists can't master technology from the early 1980's. God forbid we might want RSS feeds or podcasts.

Perhaps the problem is with a contractor they've hired. That seems to be what they're claiming about the problems with guarding their headquarters.

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."

Daniels was employed until last fall by Wackenhut Services Inc., the private security firm that guards Homeland's headquarters in a residential area of Washington. The company has been criticized previously for its work at nuclear facilities and transporting nuclear weapons.

Homeland Security officials say they have little control over Wackenhut's training of guards but plan to improve that with a new contract.

Remember all that flap about changing the labor rules for government workers so that they could be "flexible" in staffing the DHS, back when they were forming it in the first place? Now we're stuck waiting until the next contract negotiation with a private firm? Are they kidding?

Complete incompetence - the hallmark of the Bush Administration.