Does the Government Have the Will to Keep Americans Secure?

Has the USA learned anything about Perimeter Security in the Past Decade?


Case #1: The USS Cole -- a man in a small boat who has not been identified in any way approaches to within 10 yards of the USS Cole. He looks like he might be delivering vegetables. But actually his boat contains a bomb. Many US lives are lost.





Case #2 Ten years later a man approaches a CIA Camp in Afghanistan. He is unidentifed, but he is wearing the uniform of the Aghanistan Army. He's allowed into the camp. Under his uniform he's wearing an explosive vest. Many US lives are lost.





Now, you may be thinking, yes but why didn't you tell the government about perimeter security right after the USS Cole incident. I did, as a consultant to NCIS, at the direction of the Secretary of the Navy, I did.





Since that time the methods available for very reliable biometric identification have gotten cheaper, simpler and faster. They rely on the veins in the hand, which are just as distinctive as the iris of the eye, or the structure of the face.





That CIA camp in Afghanistan only had a few dozen people who were authorized to be in the camp at all. Let's say 100 people. Well, that data could be stored in .0000000001% of a chip, in a very small battery power machine. It's not a budget buster for the US government to get that done. With such a machine, and a single gate, there would be no need to speculate about somebody's identity based on their uniform. Any person gaining ingress into the camp would be positively identified. Total cost, amortized over say 10,000 hand scans, about 17 cents per scan.





Hillary's got $100 Billion to drop on the enviros at Copenhagen, but we can't find 17 cents to keep patriots and heros safe from harm. In 10 years we have learned nothing, nada, nihil, zip, zilch about perimeter security. We can't keep bombers off our planes, crashers out of White House dinner parties. We are hapless, lame, feckless.





We accept this because we are not very political people. Most of us just don't care. In a more mentally alert nation, like Switzerland for example, the kind of failures we routinely have would be corrected. Someone would take steps -- fixes would be put in place. If I gave my perimeter security presentation to the Swiss, they would have done something about it. Caring is actually important to getting things done.|||I would agree. It seems our government is trying to wish this all away rather than do what is necessary to save lives. They are inept at governing. Political correctness and giving terrorists rights as citizens isn't going to help either. Spending on the war has become unpopular with the citizens so rather than do what is right, they do no more than they must. Much of what is done or not done these days is meant to change attitudes among the populous. Old methods of security, capitalism, consumerism are all in a transformative state beginning with making the young people feel our ways have led to failure.|||Then of course, there is the problem of home-grown terrorism. Check out next door's activities- could be a bomb making factory.|||No, terrorism is good for business, just ask Dick Cheney and Halliburton|||the govt has the will to do whatever its in their best interests not necesairly the people's.|||You are absolutely right!