Radioactive DHS

by emptywheel

There is not one but two articles in the WaPo today suggesting DHS' massive corruption is impeding its efforts to get protective scanners in place at our ports and border. The first article explains that implementation of the big radiation detectors designated for the borders will be delayed, again.

For more than a year, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and others have told Congress that the costly next-generation machines would sharply improve the screening of trucks, cars and cargo containers for radiological material. In announcing contracts in July 2006 to buy as many as 1,400 of the devices, Chertoff said they were ready to be deployed in the field for research. He recently called their acquisition a "vital priority."

But in the face of growing questions by government auditors, Congress and border officials about the machines' performance, Chertoff has decided that they don't operate well enough and need more work. It could be another year before they are ready, officials said.

More intriguingly, it suggests Chertoff's DHS may be meddling with the data surround the machines to try to get them approved for use.

In a Nov. 16 letter to Congress, the director of the DNDO said his staff members were looking into allegations that someone there directed personnel from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, who were helping analyze recent results of testing of the machines, to delete some of the data.

"We have also issued a preservation notice to all personnel who have worked on the ASP program directing them to preserve all documents, e-mail, and memoranda relating to the ASP program," Vayl Oxford, director of the nuclear detection office, wrote to Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been examining the program.

Because if you're paying $1.2 billion for a radiation detectors, you're apparently not paying for a guarantee they'll work, and you've got to fudge with the data to make it look right.

A second article reveals that DHS awarded a contract worth nearly half a billion dollars to a firm incorrectly identified as a small disadvantaged firm. Then, DHS failed to exercise the proper oversight over the firm.

The Department of Homeland Security improperly awarded a half-billion-dollar, no-bid contract in 2003 to a little-known company to maintain thousands of X-ray, radiation and other screening machines at U.S. border checkpoints, incorrectly designating the firm a disadvantaged small business, according to a report by the department's inspector general.  

The annual revenue of Chenega Technology Services, a firm owned by Alaska Natives and based in Fairfax County, was too high to qualify for the nine-year, $475 million contract, the report said. After the contract was awarded, the department's U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency also failed to ensure that Chenega did not pass most of the work to large federal subcontractors, and the company failed for four years -- until last month -- to deliver a management system that would achieve savings to justify its middleman role.

While the article doesn't say so directly, it strongly suggests that such a corrupt boondoggle--in the name of Alaskan Natives--has the distinct odor of Ted Stevens. Who refused to comment for the article.

I'm hoping to come back to this. But I do believe it's time to start adding up all the corrupt deals running through DHS. Not least, because we know a bunch of ex-Bushies have gone on to lobby in the Homeland Security industry.

An analysis of what ex-Bushies do when they go into lobbying, conducted for Politico by the Center for Responsive Politics, found that while their clients generally track with those of the lobbying community as a whole, there are some anomalies.

Three industries stand out as especially popular: homeland security, alternative energy and beer.

The first two are easily explained.

The Department of Homeland Security is a new agency with a massive budget to disburse, so insider knowledge trades at a premium;

Makes you wonder how much of this is laundry and how much a legitimate effort to protect our nation's borders?

Comments

[P J Evans]

Which breweries should we be avoiding?

[looseheadprop]

EW,

This is such a weird coincidence!

I heard another story yesterday about somebody trying to NIST to alter their findings with respect to voting machine technology. The person I was speaking with on the phone was interupted by his cell phone and it was an NISt staffer calling to complain (more like whistle blow).

I guess NIST is also getting the Bushco "we make our own reality" "Lets politicize and corrupt yet another federal agency" treatment.

[emptywheel]

LHP

Yeah, I think you're right.

This case is particularly interesting for teh bind it puts Chertoff in. Per Congress, he's got to certify the machines himself. I think he was really trying to get the results he wanted, while maintaining plausible deniability about the machines.

[radiofreewill]

First, shame on DHS for politically bigfooting NIST!

That's no different than if Gonzo, hypothetically speaking, were to have gone to the FBI Labs at Quantico and demanded all the evidence of Judy Miller's fingerprints on Scooter's copy of the NIE be given back like it never happened.

Next, apparently the formation of DHS was a Gooper Free-for-All from the very beginning - a big smorgasbord slopped into the pig trough of Our Money for the express purpose of Rewarding the Loyalists.

How else do you explain Niece-of-the-Chairman-of-the-JCS, Julie Myers, except as a scandal of political patronage at DHS? No skills and a track record of incompetence, but she does hold the 'right' beliefs and the 'right' connections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_L._Myers

[Pete Pierce]

Simply put, former 3rd Circuit Judge Mike Chertoff is exponentially more of a threat to you than Osama Bin Ladin or any El Quaeda or terrorist leader.

Buh Buhs to two worthless individuals:

Rachel Paulose' short chaotic no experience attempt to be a Federalist Zealot Bushie US Attorney with next to no experience as an AUSA--she's been moved to suck the taxpayers' money at DOJ OLP with the rest of the Dead Bushie Wood keeping the ghost of Sampson and Goodling and incompetent political hacks alive as DOJ has been irreversibly broken pushing over 2500 phony evidence cases with the FBI and prosecuting Democrats from 4-1 to 10-1 in some districts according to a recent survey.

Lie and Redact; Redact and like is the message from DHS, DOJ, FBI, CIA and the rest of the alphabet hacks.

Fran Townsend has helped preside over the most pourous ineffective security policy since the Titanic got very wet. She's helped Chertoff waste billions and jeapordize countless lives, and make a no fly list that is 99.9999% fictional infringing on innocent peoples' lives. As the airports jam and fail tonight and this week, you can see their Katrina approach to security in action.

Paulose hypocritically exclaimed:

"McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of any public servant who is now, or ever may have been, a member of the Federalist Society; a person of faith; and/or a conservative (especially a young, conservative woman of color)."

This from a member of a DOJ whose civil rights policy has done much to damage minorities and people of color. This from a DOJ member whose advisors as well as DHS have helped to hamstring African Americans in New Orleans, many who like the Iraq refugees have fled and will never return.

[grayslady]

Hmmmmm. Isn't Lieberman the chair of the subcommittee on Homeland Security? Anyone besides me think he'll never hold any hearings on all of this?

[emptywheel]

grays

Yep. He's um, lukewarm, about pressing this much. It's worth noting that one of the three companies involved in the big radiation scanners is located in Meriden CT.

[Neil]

Why did the dems give Leiberman the chair of the DHS subcommitee? I bet he asked for it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Wake up people. It started then.

[Curiouser]

All in the Family
Connecting the dots between an Alaska senator, his kin, and some fat U.S. contracts
By Kit R. Roane
Posted 11/28/04

"Last month, staffers for Alaska Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski summoned officials from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to a meeting in Murkowski's Senate office to discuss awarding a multimillion-dollar, sole-source contract to Chenega Corp., an Alaska Native firm that is represented by Stevens's brother-in-law."

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/041206/6stevens.htm?s_cid=related-links:TOP

[Jodi]

Nothing unusual if you have watched the DOD, FBI, ...

It is your government in action. Feeding at the trough. Hiding failure, incompetence, graft, milking the lobbyists for re-election funds.

Democrat or Republican, it makes no difference!

[readerOfTeaLeaves]

EW, this is weird and creepy. Google Map 'Chenega, Alaska'. You'll note it is on Prince William Sound, where the ExxonValdez oil spill occurred. Valdez is in the NE tip of Prince William Sound, and Chenega is on the west tip. But the Chenega village was mostly wiped out in the 1964 Alaskan earthquake. There can't be very many Chenegans left; most were relocated after 1964 in the region of Prince William Sound, where they were impacted by the ExxonValdez spill. But I'm dim on further specifics.

But this is exceptionally bizarre: The annual revenue of Chenega Technology Services, a firm owned by Alaska Natives and based in Fairfax County, was too high to qualify for the nine-year, $475 million contract . Huh?! IIRC, 'Chenega' is like.... maybe 70 people...? And that's counting second-cousins, once removed. 70 or so people aren't operating a $475m/year biz. Or, should I rephrase, 'not a legitimate biz.

I suspect you are correct in linking this somehow to Sen. Toobz; this must be a front for someone's Dark Arts.

Which prompts me to ponder whether Shirlington Limo Services was swinging by Chenega Technology Services and picking up 'clients' for those poker parties at the Watergate with the Dukestir and Dusty Foggo? Cause the info you've provided about the size of the contract definitely does not make any sense on the face of it. (Even if the Chenegans were only the original 'investors' for such a business, it still does not make sense.)

Wonder how and/or why this is also tied in with the USAG firings...? IIRC, you and Wampum (sp?) - some months back - were pondering a correlation between: (1) the fired USAGs, and (2) their involvement with native trust funds. (At least, that's the gist as I recall.) If USAGs were close to stumbling on massive fraud linking Native Trusts with Homeland Security, they'd have become politically toxic to Bu$hCo. It would be pretty easy to use a small native corporation as a false front; they'd be under most people's radar, and there would be very few people to call 'b.s.' on such an enterprise.

[Markinsanfran]

"the distinct odor of Ted Stevens"? Eeewwww!

Something like polar bear breath?