09.07.11
Damned by faint praise
Nature, the UK pub for serious peer-reviewed science publication, has a brief overview of what the Department of Homeland Security has achieved in the last decade. (It comes in the news section of the mag.)
It won’t come as revelatory to readers that the verdict is much less than stellar.
The writer interviews Tara O’Toole, formerly the de facto leader of the US bioterror public/private sector defense industry.
A couple years ago she was tabbed by the Obama administration for service as an undersecretary at DHS for its science and research development ops. And yesterday she bore mention in the blog in connection with the debt crisis, austerity politics and national economic failure putting a crimp into financing for bioterror defense.
From Nature:
Ten years on it has become apparent the {Science and Technology Directorate of DHS] has seriously underachieved …
When Tara O’Toole listed 16 of the directorate’s most significant results in a memo to [the author] earlier this year, she named some decidedly low-powered accomplishments along with some significant ones in cybersecurity and power-grid security. The accomplishments included a new lightweight breathing apparatus for firefighters, the IronKey secure USB thumb drive that can destroy its data or prevent unauthorized access, a new scanner called MagViz that will allow passengers to carry water bottles through airport security; and new hardware for making power grids resilient against lightning strikes, solar storms and electromagnetic pulse attacks. Despite some major achievements, the list is somehow underwhelming …
At one point the article mentions DHS projects to screen for nuclear cargo smuggling resulted in the inflation of helium-3 prices, from $200/l
to ten times that amount in the space of a year. This had a shot-in-the-foot effect, “putting a strain on research budgets.”
Nature is here. Articles are available by subscription. (Hat tip to SA.)
DHS figures in DD’s “National Anthem.” Notice comes at 1:17 in, followed by an illustration of the infamous “puffer machine” explosives detector, a total disaster.