WOULD SOMEONE GIVE OBAMA A MEMO ON THIS? – AT 10:02 A.M. ET:  Exciting and inspiring, this is an example of your government at work.  From the Washington Post:

The Department of Homeland Security plans to spend more than $300 million over the next four years on radiation-detection equipment that has not been fully tested and may not work, according to a budget request and an unreleased report by the Government Accountability Office.

The department’s plan is the latest in a series of efforts involving the troubled Advanced Spectroscopic Portal machine, which was touted by the George W. Bush administration as an advanced way to prevent the importation of radioactive materials that could be used in a nuclear or dirty bomb.

In January, the National Academy of Sciences released a report that found there was no way to know whether the machines, known as ASPs, worked as promised. An academy panel found that in promoting the machines to Congress, the department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office had presented its findings “in ways that are incorrect and potentially misleading.”

That report followed the department’s decision to abandon plans to use ASPs for primary screening at ports and borders because of such questions.

Now, the nuclear detection office said it intends to buy up to 400 ASPs by 2016, according the office’s budget request, even though the department has not fulfilled internal requirements to conduct an independent review of the results of ASP testing before buying the equipment, according to the new GAO report.

COMMENT:  Hmm, one wonders which lobbyists were involved, which members of Congress, and which campaign contributors.  But of course I'm being cynical.  Not.

I hope the article made you feel safer.  As for me, on my next trip I'm going by horse and buggy.

July 14, 2011