Bob Barr

Homeland Security Job Just Too Big

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

February 22, 2006

Poor Michael Chertoff. The secretary of Homeland Security just can't seem to get a break. One day he's trying valiantly to convince a highly skeptical Congress that the sprawling department under his tutelage really did know what it was doing before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. The next day, he's explaining to the American public why it is a wise use of taxpayer dollars to spend $50 million to teach school bus drivers how to be terrorist watchdogs.

No sooner has the beleaguered secretary addressed those hot potatoes than an even toastier spud is thrown in his lap—explaining why it makes sense to hire an international shipping management firm headquartered in the United Arab Emirate of Dubai to run six major U.S. port facilities.

Regardless of whether Chertoff stays on as Homeland Security chief or if another poor soul is assigned the duty, the department will continue to be tossed around like a yacht in a hurricane. The reason? The department is just too big for any one individual, no matter how bright (and Chertoff is bright), to manage. Perhaps even more to the point, the policy-makers at the nation's helm simply cannot make up their minds what they want the massive department to do and what its priorities really should be.

Assigning one man the responsibility to anticipate, prepare for, handle and follow up the ever-lengthening list of natural disasters that make a frightened population turn to Uncle Sam for help would be a humongous job by itself. Forcing the Homeland Security secretary to also anticipate, prepare for, handle and follow up on every possible unnatural disaster affecting our domestic security is simply too much to ask of any one man or woman.

So long as we require our Homeland Security czar to be both tactician—responsible for the minutiae of security at the community level—and the country's chief strategist for domestic security, our national homeland security will continue to founder. So long as we want a Cabinet secretary to hold the American people's hands and assure them they'll be safe if only they use enough duct tape and plastic sheeting and teach enough school bus drivers to watch out for terrorists, we will not have a Homeland Security chief sufficiently focused on the big picture to get a handle on the real problem.

And what is the real problem? Borders and entry points so porous that each year so many people come through illegally that the government doesn't even know how many, much less where they are or what they are doing.

The political firestorm over whether commercial port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia should be managed by a foreign company owned by Dubai Ports Authority, which recently purchased London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which had been managing the ports, raises a number of important and intriguing questions. However, in part because the Homeland Security secretary is pulled in so many directions at once, the administration failed to do its homework on Capitol Hill or with the media, in such a way that would give it at least some chance for success on the merits of selling this to the American public.

The public, as is usually the case, has little if any idea what is going on; and the debate will likely turn into an exercise in Middle East-bashing and flag waving, rather than focusing on fundamental security matters. For example, will people ask whether it is good public policy in the first instance to have foreign-owned companies—whether owned by the British, Middle Easterners, or whoever—managing our ports? Will the debate focus on whether a company's ownership really matters so much, so long as we have adequate safeguards to ensure security of hiring, financing and operation? Will there be oversight hearings that really come to grips with the poor state of our government's border security? Probably not.

What we'll likely witness is a superficial debate over appearances rather than substance. It may even become comical. Already, one congressman from New York harrumphed that allowing a Middle Eastern company to manage ports in New York and New Jersey would be outrageous because, after all, a foreign company would not be able to "guard against corruption."

Seems that when it comes to beating up on foreign companies, some of our esteemed legislators peer through rose-colored glasses that filter out such awkward realities as the deep corruption that has plagued many U.S. ports for decades. If these guys were serious about improving the integrity of and security at U.S. ports, a little housecleaning by a company not beholden to the unions and the status quo might be just what the doctor ordered.

Bob Barr occupies the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy at the American Conservative Union Foundation.