Ouch!
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and experts trashed Homeland Security efforts to create a list of likely targets for terrorists. Such a list would identify sites that should need protection or contingency plans in the event of an attack. Apparently though, there are miniature golf courses and water parks on the secret list so far (it was supposed to complete by now), but some major sites--left unidentified in the article--are not there.
Here's some choice quotes from the USA Today article:
Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla: "Their list is a joke" & It is “an exercise in full employment for bureaucrats, rather than a realistic way to make the country safer.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif: “I honestly don't know what they've been doing over there” & “I think you could take the average mayor or member of Congress and give them a month, and they would come up with a better list.”
Michael O'Hanlon, a homeland security expert at the Brookings Institution: The list so far has been “a stapling exercise.”
Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee: His committee has a “concern about what's in the database and what isn't and how it was compiled. We need a credible … database in order to identify the vulnerabilities.”
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