Homeland Security Audit Reveals Widespread Criminal Activity Within Agency

[Jcrowley]

Corruption, crime inside Homeland Security
By Michael Hampton
Posted: December 8, 2006 10:17 pm
Updated: December 9, 2006 2:26 am

Buried in what would otherwise have been a dry summary of financial audits and inspections, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s semiannual report to Congress (PDF) also contains dozens of reports of misconduct and criminal activity perpetrated by DHS employees themselves.

“Our investigations resulted in 321 arrests, 333 indictments and 243 convictions,” inspector general Richard Skinner wrote in the report’s cover letter.

Clark Kent Ervin, a former DHS inspector general, said the Transportation Security Administration rushed to hire screeners and air marshals in 2003 without running background checks on the applicants. “Knowing DHS dysfunction and disingenuousness, it wouldn’t surprise me if DHS doesn’t fully vet employees for criminal backgrounds before hiring them or periodically recheck them,” Ervin said.

<snip>

But the biggest section of the report was for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is charged with protecting the nation’s borders, where dozens of agents were prosecuted for various crimes such as harboring fugitives, allowing illegal aliens and drugs to pass through border checkpoints, bribery, worker’s compensation fraud, identity theft, and sexual assault.

Transportation Security Administration employees, including federal air marshals, found themselves arrested for stealing from passengers, child pornography, money laundering, and drug smuggling.

http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/12/08/corruption-crime-inside-homeland-security/

[louis-t]

1. You have got to be kidding...

This is a joke, right? It isn't? Un. Friggin'. Believable.

[aquart]

8. Everything was PR. Appearances. No real attempt at security at all.

Mostly, it was just a great big cookie jar.

[burythehatchet]

14. Very good description of the Bush administration

[Felinity]

19. I totally disagree.

Surely DHS has been involved in the massive collection of private and personal data on every citizen of the United States. I feel totally secure that one person with the proper access could release any information about anyone in the country for a few extra bucks.

And lets not forget the point system for airline passengers that we can't even know about. I am probably high risk because I made a reservation and paid cash the day before I went home to my mother's funeral (and yes, my ticket was priced for family emergency, and I gave them the name of the funeral home). So rude of her to not give me a couple weeks notice.

So you just correct yourself or I'll block you!



Just in case:

:sarcasm:


:hug:

[Richard Steele]

28. Yup. SOP for this criminal administration. Just smoke and mirrors hiding CRIME.

[babylonsister]

2. This whole ill-conceived agency needs to be abolished. There

has got to be a better way, starting with ousting the hand-selected know-nothings at the top.
Disgusting...

[SpiralHawk]

3. BushCo republicons - never has there been such a corrupt batch of cronies

to infest any nation.

They are shamelessly corrupt, and love to lecture others about "morality."

What a bunch of wicked wicked evil-doers the Pharisee republicon pretend "christians" are.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

4. K&R there's your warrentless police work... it's like sending troops into combat...

with no leader present and no report afterward... Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutly... what we have now is a couple of mob-ruled groups with no morals or accountability. Law enforcement, like everyone else tends to push the envelope. Taxes are a good analogy... who attempts to pay more than their share of tax? cops go as far as they can to convict... it's their job... take away a civil liberty and by nature they go further... Human nature causes us ALL to keep pushing ahead... it's how a child learns to walk.

[malaise]

5. The agency was set up to defraud

tax payers. It is sure living up to expectation.

[mopinko]

11. i agree, exactly as planned.

working just like it was supposed to.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

6. sorry crowley i forgot to say KICK & RECOMMEND THE DAYLIGHTS OUT OF THIS OP DU!

[formercia]

7. This is what happens

with a TOTAL LACK OF LEADERSHIP!!!!!!!!!

[happydreams]

9. Marvin Bush's company involved in this?

Bush was on the BOD or otherwise invested in a company called Stratesec with numerous Homeland Security Contracts. This could be a big tamale if it unravels.


http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/11458.php


Here is another piece on this. Both WTC and Dulles airport security controlled by Marvin Bush/Kuwait company:



....According to Wayne Black, head of a Florida-based security firm, it is somewhat unusual for a single firm to handle security for both an airline and a airport. It’s also unusual for a firm linked so closely with a foreign-owned company to handle security on such a “sensitive” international airport as Dulles. “When you have a security contract, you know the inner workings of everything,” he said. “Somebody knew somebody,” he added, or the contract would have been scrutinized more carefully.



Marvin Bush’s alleged connections to these companies may shed new light on the Bush administration’s determination in the days after 9/11 to push legislation protecting foreign-owned security companies in the Homeland Security bill. These and other issues will be taken up this week, when Roemer and his colleagues convene the commission’s first meeting....




http://www.utne.com/web_special/web_specials_2003-02/articles/10292-1.html

[DoYouEverWonder]

23. Marvin Bush is no longer assosiated with Stratesec

He stepped down about a year before the 9-11 attack.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

27. same as Dick Cheney no longer associated with Halliburton, right?

[happydreams]

31. officially employed OK, but how do you know he isn't "associated"?

[Octafish]

10. Bush Crime Family wanted the crook Kerik to run the show.

They settled for the traitor Chertoff.

PS: Don't forget the DHS child predators arrested outside schools and in Internet sting Ops.

[thingfisher]

16. This government needs some serious

cancer treatment!

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Disgusting.

Good thing Cheney had all those prisons built, because we need a new security prison for all the corruption cases.

[tanyev]

13. That's what it takes to go places in the Bush regime.

[Canuckistanian]

15. It's Clinton's fault

He introduced a culture of corruption into the agency.... 2 years before the agency was created!

[nam78_two]

17. K&R.nt

[Vidar]

18. Criminal oversight of the few honest law enforcement agencies is the

the whole purpose of the Homeland Security boondoggle.

[BeHereNow]

20. In case no one has noticed, the majority of TSA workers are

not too bright. At least that has been my perception.
I feel bad for some of them actually.

I imagine them to be the decoration on the
corruption cake.They serve two purposes:

-They create the illusion that the administration
is doing something to "Keep us safe."
And they allow the higher ups to rob us blind while they
pay the airport staff wages just above minimum wage
which I guess isn't all that bad if you are illiterate
and can't pass the test for a McDonalds job application.
And that is my observation of the TSA workers I have
encountered at the airports.

Not the sharpest tools in the shed.
But I guess a good cover for the further
pillaging of the US taxpayers, not to mention
fostering and maintaining control over the masses.

BHN

[SammyWinstonJack]

21. knr

[Hekate]

22. I'm shocked, just shocked, to find criminal behavior in a Bush-created department

I'm not surprised there's been theft from luggage. We aren't allowed to lock our bags any more. I think it's significant that when I use those little tamper-evident plastic thingies, I find a note from TSA inside my bags; but when I don't, my things look rummaged through but there's no note.

The rest of it doesn't surprise me either -- just disgusts me.

Hekate

[Disturbed]

24. Over 300 is only the # that were found out.

You can be that there are many more that weren't discovered.

[intaglio]

25. knr n/t

[Dangerously Amused]

26. K&R.

[rman]

29. K&R

[bridgit]

30. k&r'd, i would have thought most assuredly so; the DHS has been among...

thee most grandiose, ornate, byzantine, no-bid crony boondoggles in the history of america :thumbsdown: