If you want to criticize the Federal Emergency Management Agency, today’s lesson is: don’t do it when FEMA is looking.

George Barisich, 49, received a $75 ticket from Homeland Security officials when he gave away a T-shirt with a message critical to FEMA printed on it Feb. 1 in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Chalmette, La.

FEMA officials just happened to be around, because they were operating a relief tent in the same parking lot. So they wrote him a ticket for selling the T-shirt on federal property.

Barisich has been selling the shirts, which read, “Flooded by Katrina! Forgotten by FEMA! What’s Next, Mr. Bush?” However, he said he gave this particular one away for free.

“If we ignored this violation, you could have potentially 20 to 30 people standing out in front of the (FEMA) center, obstructing things,” says Dean Boyd, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesman. “We’ve got a duty and a job under the law.”

Boyd says the message on Barisich’s shirt isn’t the issue. Barisich says he intends to fight the $75 ticket in court.

Word of Barisich’s plight is circulating around battered St. Bernard Parish, where 22,000 of the 26,000 homes were destroyed by flooding. Larry Ingargiola, the local emergency operations chief, calls it “totally ridiculous.”

“I’ve tried to work with them,” he says of the federal government. “But some of the rules they’ve got down here are unbelievable. For God’s sake, everybody knows George. They’re pushing the buttons a little bit too far.”

. . . He says he’ll fight the ticket because “if you do something wrong, you pay for it. If you didn’t, you don’t ever say you did.” — USA TODAY

How exactly did a Wal-Mart parking lot turn into federal property? And how, if he gave away the T-shirt, could he be accused of selling it? This ticket is ridiculous. It’s clear that DHS gave Barisich the ticket solely to harass and intimidate him. Hardly the way to treat someone who lost almost everything in the hurricane.

But being stupid is what FEMA does best.

And I’ll do what I can, which is to continue pointing out that the Department of Homeland Security sucks. And at least for the time being I’m staying far away from any federal property or Wal-Mart parking lots.