Lack of results? That never stops government...

Today I read an article from the AP (that comes strikingly close to journalism) about a senate subcommittee actually doing its job in a bipartisan way.  I had to check to make sure that no airborne bacon corps were passing my window.

It seems that in the frantic days after the 2001 9/11 attacks (I feel I must differentiate since someone decided to appropriate that anniversary this year) it was recognized that maybe the immense amounts of law enforcement organizations that have infested come into existence in our fair nation should possibly talk to one another occasionally.  So the idea of Fusion Centers was born to fight terrorism.  I am not sure if this preceded the creation of the Homeland Security fiasco Department, but if fell under their purview either way.  So, unknown amounts of money was supplied by congress and Fusion Centers were created in every state.  Currently, congress "thinks" between 300 million and 1.4 billion has been spent by fedgov on this project.  (I wish I could be that vague on my taxes.)  Based on past performance, I would estimate that we are looking at the higher end, not the lower end.  The frightening part is that this is apparently only 20-30% of the funding for these things.  Remember all of those state budgets that were in the red?

Now, what have they found that these wonderful centers for fighting terrorism have accomplished?  Well, in addition to publishing reports on huge amounts of people exercising their first amendment rights, spending questionably and not stopping (or even finding) any actual terrorist threats, not much.  On the other hand, since we have a new tool in the toolbox, it was decided to expand the mission.  Now we use it to fight crime.  So the same people who wrote inane reports on how Ron Paul supporters and returning veterans were a possible threat to the US are going to be trusted to do the same thing for non-terrorist criminal investigations.  This is like asking the guy who burned down his house by feeding an intact two month old Christmas tree into the fireplace to write a report on fire safety. 

Still, the department spokesman tried valiantly to deny that there was possibly a problem:
"Homeland Security Department spokesman Matthew Chandler called the report "out of date, inaccurate and misleading." He said that it focused entirely on information being produced by fusion centers and did not consider the benefit the involved officials got receiving intelligence from the federal government."

See, when the job of the centers is to PRODUCE INFORMATION, it seems, well, stupid to say that the report is inaccurate because it focused on the information that the centers produced.  Its their job, and they should do it well.  Otherwise, all you would need is a conference center for the different departments to meet in, minus the cubicle farm of analysts who appear to live a little too much in Tom Clancy novels and not enough in the real world.  I might suggest some form of benchmarks and job evaluations, since none exist.  However, if you intend to keep this inane operation running, I might want a job.  Better yet, hire Larry Correia as an analyst.  Then the reports would still be wild works of fiction, but much more entertaining and well written.  And they would have monsters.  Oh, and his publisher would need copies, so they couldn't be leaked early. 

So yet another federal level law enforcement organization is effectively entrenched on the public dime.  And despite the scathing report by this committee, not a thing will be done to remove this wart from the nose of our government because congressional spending and common sense rarely go hand in hand.    On the bright side, this entry will likely get me my own file in a fusion center!