A failure to communicate

If we wish to be prudent about political matters, as we should, we would expect the security-surveillance apparatus to waste money as though it were free. I believe myself to be prudent, yet I found this story to be astonishing and unsurprising:

DHS has spent $430 million over the past nine years to provide radios tuned to a common, secure channel to 123,000 employees across the country. Problem is, no one seems to know how to use them.

Only one of 479 DHS employees surveyed by the inspector general’s office was actually able to use the common channel, according to the report. Most of those surveyed — 72 percent — didn’t even know the common channel existed. Another 25 percent knew the channel existed but weren’t able to find it; 3 percent were able to find an older common channel, but not the current one.

The investigators also found that more than half of the radios did not have the settings for the common channel programmed into them. Only 20 percent of radios tested had all the correct settings.

Related articles

• Homeland Security spent $430M on radios its employees don’t know how to use (arstechnica.com)
• Homeland Security Has Spent $430 Million on Radios Its Employees Don’t Know How to Use (crooksandliars.com)
• Homeland Security Spent $430-Million To Tune Its Radios To A New Frequency, And Failed (informationliberation.com)
• Homeland Security Spent $430-Million To Tune Its Radios To A New Frequency, And Failed (infiniteunknown.net)
• Homeland Security Spent $430 Million on Radios Its Employees Don’t Know How to Use (truthdig.com)
• DHS to more than double number of its Predator Drone (presstv.com)
• New Jersey nonsensically claims DHS-funded “Text Against Terror” program is a success (EndtheLie.com)
• Homeland Security Wants to More Than Double Its Predator Drone Fleet Inside the US, Despite Safety (democraticunderground.com)