Out Of Step With Personal and National Security

After 9/11, any sane American should advocate more stringent security measures. The June 6, 2005 edition of the Washington Post presented two disturbing stories about the laxness of our national security--one on the state/local level and one on the national level.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/05/AR2005060501347_pf.html :

Va. Police Back Off Immigration Enforcement
Other Legislation, Fear of Abuse Cited
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 6, 2005; B01

The Virginia State Police have backed off a plan that would have allowed some officers to make immigration arrests, a prospect that had been fiercely opposed by immigrant rights advocates.
The state police chief, Col. Steve Flaherty, said last week that his department has decided against proceeding with an agreement with federal authorities that would have made Virginia the third state in the nation to adopt such a practice....
Virginia offers an example of the sensitivity surrounding the issue: While state police were negotiating their agreement last year with Homeland Security officials, the Virginia
legislature passed a bill giving local and state police slightly more power to enforce immigration law.
Immigrants panicked, despite the fact that the Virginia law was very narrowly drawn. It allowed police to arrest only convicted felons who had re-entered the country illegally after being deported....
Several of the police and sheriff's departments in Northern Virginia said they were not interested in gaining the additional authority.
"We're not advocating, supporting or facilitating illegal immigration," said Dave Rohrer, chief of the Fairfax County police.
But, he added: "Our job is to protect people. And I'm concerned that people who are
victims of a crime, whether citizens or not, are not calling us because they're afraid we're going to check [legal] status only."

Chief Rohrer, I'm all for cutting down on crime, but the last time I looked, being an illegal immigrant is against the law. I'd like to see some hard statistics on the number of all classes of crimes committed by illegals, especially with regard to, but not limited to, the convicted felons who re-enter this country after being deported.
Despite your protests to the contrary, Chief Rohrer, you are indeed facilitating illegal immigration, within just a few miles of our nation's capital!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/05/AR2005060501213_pf.html :

FBI Pushed Ahead With Troubled Software
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 6, 2005; A01

Some FBI officials began raising doubts about the bureau's attempts to create a computerized case management system as early as 2003, two years before the $170 million project was abandoned altogether, according to a confidential report to the House Appropriations Committee.
By 2004, the report found, the FBI had identified 400 problems with early versions of the troubled software -- but never told the contractor. The bureau also went ahead with a $17 million testing program last December, even though it was clear by then that the software would have to be scrapped, according to the review....
Numerous outside experts and panels have criticized the FBI's paper-based records system as outmoded and inefficient, and the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks concluded that the shortcomings may have contributed to the failure to detect the al Qaeda plot. The Justice Department's inspector general warned in February that the FBI's continuing technology problems had "national security implications" and that agents were "significantly hampered" in their efforts to prevent terrorism and combat other serious crimes....
...Zalmai Azmi -- the FBI's new information technology chief and the fourth person to occupy the position during the VCF project -- predicted in April 2004 that the first version of VCF would be delivered by the end of the year.
But according to the congressional report, problems continued to mount...


Let's see....The state and local police don't want to enforce immigration laws, even on a limited basis, and the feds don't have the computer software to track suspected terrorists. And the Washington Post has now advertised those shortcomings.
I don't feel very safe right now.