I'd like Homeland Security a lot better if it were really making the homeland safer.
So far, they've only succeeded in scaring me more and more, as I hear more and more horror stories.
For instance, until Lisa Myers at NBC broke her story, you could go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission site and find out where all the nuclear materials in America were stored.
With maps. And floor plans. And color coding pointing to the most dangerous materials:
In a medical building in the Washington, D.C., area, a freezer of radioactive material sat in a hallway unguarded.
How did NBC News find it? By carefully reading a U.S. government Web site belonging to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. There, NBC News found more than a dozen recently filed documents identifying hospitals, universities and businesses that store dangerous radioactive materials — complete with detailed floor plans and room numbers.
One floor plan was helpfully color-coded, with red indicating the most potent material. On another, an East Coast hospital revealed that its radioactive material is near the blood bank. So, NBC checked the room number listed, and got right up to the door.
Especially troubling to experts — information, including a map and photo, making it easy to find a Texas business storing large amounts of deadly materials.
According to Ferguson, there's enough material at this facility to make "probably at least a dozen" dirty bombs. [Government website listed location of nuclear materials MSNBC 10/25/04] (Story links open in new windows)
If you haven't visited the NRC site, it's too late now: (Story links open in new windows)
Monday there was an unexpected development: Six days after NBC News showed the documents to the NRC, the agency shut down that part of the Web site, which may have been inadvertently providing a road map to terror.
But what were they thinking? What else has been overlooked?
And what is the Department of Homeland Security doing, besides adding a whole bunch of names to the memo distribution list?
Do you feel safer now?
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Article comments
1 - Yensid Tlaw
This is just another in a log list of fuck ups by our government. Our security in this country is only a dream of what the American people wish it could be. The reality is much more real. If I really wanted to do harm to someone or something in this country I could and I am not a terrorist. They are waiting and plotting for the right time to attack again and George Bush is making their job easer.