Serious question...Does our government

[serryjw]

do anything right? 5 years after 9-11 the intelligence community are still have turf wars. I heard on C-span this morning that over 8 intel agencies can still not communicate with each other.
quote.......
In the years since Bush stood atop the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center and pledged retaliation against "the people who knocked down these buildings," the federal government has undergone an unprecedented expansion and reorganization.

Yet the counterterrorism infrastructure that resulted has become so immense and unwieldy that many looking at it from the outside, and even some on the inside, have trouble understanding how it works or how much safer it has made the country.

snip......
Institutions historically charged with protecting the nation have produced a new generation of bureaucratic offspring -- the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) and Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism (JITF-CT), the Treasury Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA), and the FBI's National Security Service (NSS), to name a few -- many with seemingly overlapping missions.
snip......
The FBI, where counterterrorism now accounts for half of all investigations, has nearly doubled its budget to $6 billion since 2001 and added 7,000 employees. Twenty-two domestic agencies have been combined under the new Department of Homeland Security, while separate counterterrorism divisions now exist in virtually every nook and cranny of the federal government, from the Transportation Department to the Food and Drug Administration.

Outside Washington, 42 states have established intelligence "fusion centers" -- centralized locations where local, state and federal officials operate joint information-gathering and analysis operations.

end quote......a lot more

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/08/AR2006080800964.html

[sweetheart]

1. fossilization

Economic and government organizations ossify and finally fossilize. We're seeing signs of the latter.

Its time for a mass transparency of government, to expose the incompetence and inept wasteful spending of
republican fat and pork barrels of oil dumped on corporate interests.

And finally, the whole thing is completely failed and turned to stone, that
if the entire organization didn't exist on this planet, we'd all be better off...

[serryjw]

5. Agreed

It is so big that the layers of bureaucracy make it impossible to function. Between the Federal government and all the contractors I feel like I am being raped on a daily basis....would someone at least kiss me?

[John Gauger]

2. No

Our government cannot do anything right. Nor has it historically. You should know by now that our government, not any government, is to be trusted.

[serryjw]

6. Welcome to DU

You're probably right so why don't we just save all that tax money and not pretend * is going to keep us safe. TRUST, you are kidding??

[acmejack]

8. Thank you Ronald Reagan.

You're not into Roads, clean water, schools, or any of those kind of things I assume?

[MissMarple]

9. Yup, that's the whole point behind our Constitution,

human nature being what it is. The conflicts inherent in an unregulated free market system should foster distrust of big business, as well. Kindergarten has rules for a reason. ;)


Welcome to DU!

[sweetheart]

10. as fundamentalisms go...

Is trust really something yours to give, or something that is already present
when truth is involved, when goodwill is overflowing, government is a better agent
for your interests than an opaque corporate boardroom.

We've to find a round between the anarchistic libertarian impossible-topia and
the welfare of the all of humanity. Buddha's libertarian om resonantes, and
yet echo's with the cries of the sick and disenfranchised to be cared for as
best we can; buddha's name be praised. O8)

[tbyg52]

12. Yup.

That's why we have checks and balances, and avoid no-bid contracts, and make our government do its business in the open. In a perfect world..... Still, it's something to shoot for. What's the alternative?

Welcome to DU!

[Wise Doubter]

3. It`s all part of the next "terrorist attack" ...

:puke:

[OwnedByFerrets]

4. Our state and local governments

are keeping this country glued together right now. If not for them, we would be completely farked...........even with them, we may be, unless the power shifts to the left this november.

[serryjw]

7. They are trying

but have limited resources. The power shifting in November is not going to improve intel...it's a dinosaurs and it no longer works.They money spent on bushit compared to how we could have spent it to reduce the risk is criminal.

[Rosemary2205]

11. Even Newnan GA needs it's own "homeland security" dept now.

they have an office, several full time employees, a nice meeting room complete with 60" HDTV and heated leather massage recliners - 3 squad cars with Homeland Security logos and 2 Harley's with Homeland security logos. I think they score about half a million a year total in Homeland security funds. To date, they have never assisted in any terror arrests or investigations. -- They participate in a regional terror response simulation every couple though.

[serryjw]

13. The money we are spending on bushit

No wonder we have no universal healthcare.I'm sure you stay up at night worrying about a terrorist attack.

[Odin2005]

14. "The bureaucracy is explanding...

...to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." -Unknown