Flunking out on security

A YEAR AND A HALF ISN’T MUCH time to make the kind of sweeping homeland security improvements recommended by the 9/11 commission. But as Monday’s report card from the former panel’s membership shows, most of the parties involved aren’t even trying.

The report card assessed the performance of Congress and the Bush administration in implementing all 41 of the panel’s original recommendations, which were issued in July 2004. The grades, including five Fs, 12 Ds and only one A, show that both branches of government are flunking out when it comes to national security.

The report card is a public relations nightmare for President Bush, who was reelected largely on the perception that he could keep Americans safer than the opposition. Bush’s appointees have thus far done little to reform the nation’s intelligence operations, which are still mostly failing to share information either within the federal government or with state and local agencies. No action has been taken to declassify the overall intelligence budget, meaning congressional oversight of intelligence spending is impossible, and the administration’s failure to develop standards for detention and prosecution of captured terrorism suspects is destroying U.S. credibility abroad.

Congress shares plenty of the blame. Among the most egregious failures identified by the panel is the way legislators allocate homeland security funds. The money is distributed to states based on a formula that sends far too much to places at little or no risk of attack, while facilities truly at risk, such as the Port of Los Angeles, are underfunded. The reauthorization bill for the Patriot Act contains a revision that would fix the problem, but it is in serious danger of being stripped out by a handful of senators who appear more interested in shipping pork to their home states than in protecting Americans’ lives.

More than four years after 9/11, Americans aren’t much safer from terrorist attack than they were before the tragedy. The upgraded watch list for screening airline passengers still isn’t in place; local police and fire agencies still don’t have a uniform system of communicating with each other; no nationwide terrorism risk assessment has been performed. Nobody expects the ship of state to turn on a dime, but this one is barely turning at all.