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Cuts in urban homeland security spending: more reason for considering ad hoc networks..
By WDavidStephenson | July 19, 2007
DHS must be doing something right in doling out local funding assistance this year: everyone (even New York and DC, which were among the few locales to avoid cuts and get modest increases) has been screaming that they are shortchanged. The WaPo reports that the cuts will be particularly harsh for mid-sized cities, for whom funding will essentially vanish.
The FY07 Homeland Security Grants will total $1.7 billion. Of that, nearly $411 million will go to the 6 urban areas DHS considers to be at the greatest risk of a terrorist attack: New York City/Northern New Jersey; the National Capital Region; Los Angeles/Long Beach; the California Bay Area; Houston; and Chicago.
Since the program was begun in 2001, DHS has made a total of $23 billion in grants to help states, territories, and urban areas prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from terrorist attacks and other disasters.
According to the Post, “.. overall state and local grants have declined by about $1 billion, or by roughly one-third, since 2004. ”
In announcing the urban grants, Chertoff said the allocations were in line with the policy he announced when he took office (but has been frequently criticized for not honoring, especially when NYC and DC were cut in recent years). In an interview with the post, he said DHS no longer is:
” basing grants on such considerations as the location of national monuments, tall buildings and shopping malls — a much-derided formula whose main creators have resigned.
This year, a simplified calculation focused on population size, economic importance, and the presence of security facilities and ‘nationally significant critical infrastructure’ such as bridges, dams and power plants, he said.”
Just thinkin: as long as we’re spending an average of $12 billion a month in Iraq (and arguably, increasing the risk of terrorism, rather than reducing it, in the bargain), there ain’t gonna be much left for homeland security spending. IMHO, especially because we saw during the Alabama tornadoes this winter that even first responders are now using their personal cell phones rather than the dedicated emergency communication networks, doesn’t it make sense that a little bit of this already paltry spending on emergency communication be siphoned off to plan how to capitalize on the much more advanced personal communication devices that we already carry?
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homeland security DHS Department of Homeland Security War on Terror Iraq War terrorism antiterrorism networked homeland security government IT politics collaboration disaster planning
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