Return to Article: Homeland Security secretary highlights importance of technology
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21817
DHS is a joke! We are no safer today than we were 9/10 or 9/11. Our society is an "open" society and cannot be protected against everything. All DHS has done is spend our money and provided inconvenience for us and our enemies. They are taxing us by delaying shipments of goods that increase prices we pay; they are delaying travel and reducing the things we may travel with. I have no problem with a law that bans all carry ons for air travel - others think that is really bad. Terror on a plane is presented to different people in different ways.
Kids are a method of terror for many flyers as are carry ons and free upgrades and sitting on the apron for hours and hours because the planes cannot takeoff in a timely manner. DHS has nothing to do with any of these things yet the represent terror to many travelers. DHS however makes you wait in long lines to enter the world of aircraft terror and increases the flying experience for those they make shoeless. So the barefoot flyers still must face the terror of cramped sits, crying kids, passengers hitting everyone with carry ons as they board, and over head racks that are full so you cannot stow carry ons anyway.
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21801
The DHS Secretary is right on target on two issues:
1) Technology is key to everything that DHS does, and
2) Spending all your time chasing the newest gadget will not make DHS more effective.What is disconcerting is that DHS has yet to establish an effective mechanism for coping with the fast paced IT market or leveraging commercial IT best practices?
The authors of the E-Gov Act and Clinger Cohen Act understood these problems, and provided legal foundation for agency heads to leverage IT best practices and public interest consortia. The Markle Foundation and Homeland Security Advisory Council reinforced this need, and called out for the creation of an Information Sharing Public/Private Partnership that could tap into the superior expertise of the commercial market. Now many years latter, where is the evidence that any of this guidance is being followed?
There is a better way to leverage IT innovations and best practices of the market, and much has been done outside of DHS that can be readily leveraged. Unfortunately, all of DHS' decision-making has been outsourced, putting at risk its very mission.
Maybe next year.
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