A Massive "Security"doggle -- 9/11 As An Excuse To Fund The Slimmest Pretenses Of Security
Yes, now we've got anti-terrorist sno-cone machines. Seriously. Seriously!

James Bovard blogs about what he calls "Homeland Security's Multibillion-Dollar Comedy Show" -- handouts for any and all state and local agencies that make the slightest effort to tie purchases they want to "security":

After the 9/11 attacks, Congress and the Bush administration pretended that unlimited federal spending was one of the best ways to thwart terrorist threats. In 2002, Congress created the Homeland Security Department (DHS), sweeping some of the most inept federal agencies, such as the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), into the new mega-department. Congress also created numerous programs -- some run directly by FEMA -- to shovel out more than $30 billion in anti-terrorism funding to local and state governments.

As Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) observed a few years ago, "FEMA's lax guidelines and oversight made the agency a virtual rubberstamp for most anything that grant recipients creatively justified as related to homeland security -- regardless of how loosely related." Louisiana Homeland Security grant recipients spent $2,400 for a lapel microphone and $2,700 for a teleprompter. Fort Worth, Texas, spent $24,000 of a federal anti-terrorism grant on a latrine-on-wheels. Other Texas local governments spent Homeland Security grants on "a hog catcher for Liberty County, body bags, garbage bags, Ziploc bags and two 2011 Camaros at $31,000 apiece," as a Senate report revealed.

DHS approved a Michigan police department's spending $6,200 of its grant on 13 sno-cone machines. The Senate report noted that local officials "defended the sno-cone purchases saying the machines were needed to treat heat-related emergencies." DHS also asserted that the machines were "dual purpose" because they "could be used to fill ice packs in an emergency."

...DHS handouts make state and local law-enforcement agencies more intrusive and punitive. DHS has given a number of grants to purchase license-plate readers for police patrol cars. One California urban area spent $6 million on the readers, which were used to detect vehicles with "excessive traffic violations."

...Maryland used federal Homeland Security grants to equip hundreds of police cars with license-plate scanners that create almost 100 million records per year detailing exactly where and when each vehicle travels. The grants also paid for stationary cameras that recorded license plates passing on nearby roads. The massive databank, which mortifies the ACLU, has been almost a total failure at nailing violent criminals or car thieves or terrorists. Instead, almost all the license-plate alerts involve scofflaws who failed to take their cars in for mandatory vehicle-emissions tests.

Bovard is right on:

What does the United States have to show for tens of billions of dollars of Homeland Security antiterrorism spending by local and state governments? Michael Sheehan, former New York City deputy commissioner for counterterrorism, observed, "I firmly believe that those huge budget increases have not significantly contributed to our post-9/11 security." But the war on terrorism has been an unmitigated victory for Leviathan and politicians at every level of government.