In the last year, the Department of Homeland Security paid over $10 million to a public relations firm to sell the public on the benefits of the US-VISIT program and help it downplay the inevitable incompetence endemic to the bureaucracy.

US-VISIT is a program which tracks foreign visitors to the U.S., from their first embassy visit all the way through the end of their visit and final departure from the country.

A major component of the program is screening of visitors’ travel documents and fingerprints at ports of entry. And when something goes wrong with that part, the arrival lines start getting very long, as they did on August 18. That’s the day that US-VISIT’s computer network was hit by the Zotob Internet worm, a fact that DHS strongly denied right up until it released documents under FOIA that showed that not only was that exactly what happened, but that DHS had allowed it to happen by holding back a security patch which would have prevented it.

Meanwhile, the FOIA case isn’t over. Kevin Poulsen ofWired magazine, who filed the FOIA request, is still trying to get DHS to release documents about the incident.

According to documents filed (PDF) in the case [May 4], they’re hiding precisely 666 pages of documents about the virus infection that they’ve publicly denied ever occurred.

That’s 330 pages of helpdesk calls from screeners complaining about their computers being down; another 244 pages of work tickets to attack the problem; and 21 pages of IP addresses of computers “involved in the incident.” Another document is described as a meeting notice on a “Zotob Status Meeting” in November “regarding the Zotob virus.”

They’re claiming that these, and other documents, are exempt from disclosure in their entirety. While some of the information in the 666 pages should clearly be blacked out (I don’t want to know the IP addresses of US-VISIT computers, though I certainly hope I couldn’t just telnet to them if I did) it’s hard to imagine how information like the number of computers infected is properly exempt. — 27B Stroke 6

Meanwhile, the PR firm Fleishman Hillard is bilking America to the tune of $347 an hour “to scan the news for coverage of US-VISIT, ghost-write editorials, and educate Americans and foreigners about the benefits of the program,” writes Ryan Singel.

The contract (PDF), also obtained through a Freedom of Information Request, covers 2005-2006, with the option to extend the work order for four more years.

From April 1, 2005 to March 31, 2006, US-VISIT was obligated to pay $10,429,241 for 30,000 hours of PR services. — 27B Stroke 6

That’s right. You’re paying for this PR firm to re-educate you on the benefits of government incompetence, not to mention the benefits of government misusing the cry of “national security” as a shield to cover up government incompetence. As if we didn’t already know.