The Department of Homeland Security is building a massive database of critical national infrastructure to be used to determine what sites most need protection from terrorist attacks.
Among the critical assets in the database are Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, a Kangaroo Conservation Center, Jay’s Sporting Goods, several Wal-Mart stores, Amish Country Popcorn, and the Sweetwater Flea Market.
The DHS Office of Inspector General found the National Asset Database, being compiled to support a variety of infrastructure protection projects, full to overflowing with “poor quality” data, such as 4,055 malls, shopping centers, and retail outlets, 224 racetracks, 539 theme or amusement parks and 163 water parks, 514 religious meeting places and 1,305 casinos.
Casinos and amusement parks are critical infrastructure in the event of a terrorist attack?
The data, compiled largely from two calls to states for submissions, is inconsistent between states, and contains large numbers of “out of place” items, largely due to lack of clear DHS guidance on what should be submitted, the inspector general’s report (PDF) said.
And some of those out of place items seem quite out of place on a critical infrastructure list, such as a Sears Auto Center, a Pepsi bottling plant, the Trees of Mystery, the 4 Cs Fuel and Lube, a truckstop, High Stakes Bingo, and the Mule Day Parade.
The state of Iowa, for instance, has several strange places on its critical infrastructure list, including a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop near Des Moines. And Florida counts two small tourist attractions, Weeki Wachee Springs and Dinosaur World, among critical assets for which it’s applied for homeland security grant money.
And many of the people who learned their businesses were in this database were mystified.
“Seems like someone has gone overboard,” said Larry Buss, who helps organize the Apple and Pork Festival in Clinton, Ill. “Their time could be spent better doing other things, like providing security for the country.”
Angela McNabb, manager of the Sweetwater Flea Market, which is 50 miles from Knoxville, Tenn., said: “I don’t know where they get their information. We are talking about a flea market here.”
“I am out in the middle of nowhere,” said [Amish Country Popcorn owner Brian] Lehman, whose business in Berne, Ind., has five employees and grows and distributes popcorn. “We are nothing but a bunch of Amish buggies and tractors out here. No one would care.”
– New York Times
Not surprisingly, the inspector general recommended that DHS work with the states to clean the junk out of the database and to clarify the requirements of what should be included for the next time it asks the states to submit data to the database.
In the meantime, whoever owns Nix’s Check Cashing is probably laughing at learning his little strip-mall business has found its way into a Homeland Security “critical infrastructure” database.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Karl Marx would love the popular moves among politicians in various state governments and the federal government to ban so-called "junk" food in schools, and to "put healthy food in" convenience stores and on the tables of those they define as poor. It's a very elitist and arrogant mindset that promotes this ideology, and it needs to be addressed.
Ultimately, the war supporters in Congress prevailed in the vote on the resolution. Still, the vote was significant because it places every member of Congress on the record as supporting or not supporting the unconstitutional, costly, violent occupation of a country that never attacked us. This vote should serve as an important reminder to the American people of where their representatives really stand when it comes to policing the world, empire building, and war.
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Jul 12, 2006
tangledwing » Moss and mountain stream, 2 trillion dollar war, Critical database and Petting Zoos, Computing the forces of nature
Jul 12, 2006
A Different Lemming » Blog Archive » I kid you not!
Jason
Jul 12, 2006
Then again;
You had an article saying that DHS will not save you in the case of a natual disaster, Wal-Mart will.
Perhaps this database of ‘junk’ is actually saying that peers will help themselves to safety.
I mean, after all, won’t DHS be too busy clogging up their ‘critical infrastructure’s’ abilities to help anyone?
Certainly smuthering someone in ’safety’ means protecting themselves from… themselves.
Michael Hampton
Jul 12, 2006
DHS will be too busy saving themselves to worry about anyone else, I suspect. It’s up to us to do it ourselves, as it always has been.
Nate
Jul 12, 2006
They should start another commitee to spend three years analyzing
how to improve the report.
Vasiliy
Jul 12, 2006
Well, personally I can see how the Donut shop needs to be protected. Hit that puppy at the right time and you take out most, if not all, cops in the area.
buff daddy
Jul 13, 2006
If you guys only knew the true genius behind this then the LAST thing you would ever consider doing is ridiculing me for saying it…
“The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.”
buff daddy
Jul 16, 2006
Let me clarify my previous comment a bit since re-reading it today doesn’t seem as “intelligent” as it did when I first wrote it!
There was obviously a reason why somebody decided to include these “irrelevant” sites in this database, and regardless of whether they were puposely chosen or accidentally included, they do deserve to be there.
The citizens of the “Allies of Freedom” (or whatever the slogan is) have a similar profile (or stereotype, if you prefer) of what makes a terrorist a terrorist. They hate freedom with a passion, they hate all religions except their own, they’re psychotic and insane, they’re stupid people and single-minded and they have no compassion, empathy or morals whatsoever. If this a fair statement, then what does that mean to us “infidels” since we’re the target of their hatred? Since their group’s numbers are small and their resources are even smaller, they will try to get the most out of what they have, right?
A casino is a perfect target for a terrorist because it has four things: 1. Thousands of people in one building, 2. The mortal sin of gambling, 3. The freedom for people to sin and 4. The devestating financial impact on the economy on both a federal level and a state level.
An amusement park also has the perfect combination of population, freedom and children. We’ll be pissed off if you kill two thousand people, but what would be the social impact of killing 2 thousand children? Not saying they would, but if we believe they have no compassion or morals then why couldn’t we believe they’d do something like this?
Again, Wal-mart and similar type stores has become the new “Face of a Free America” that we display to the world today. Whether anybody likes it or not, the fact that Wal-Mart is a MAJOR factor on many levels of our current economy makes them a very inticing target for “destruction from within”, the same reason for choosing the WTC. Wal-mart has more employees on it’s payroll than any other corporation, and right now our unemployment rate is a little shaky right now. It’s like killing two birds with one stone, so to speak, by making people afraid to shop and reducing the amount of jobs for employement. Everybody has this notion that Wal-Mart is an evil empire and they’re taking over the country, but the truth of the matter is that they’re the “heart and soul” of our CURRENT economy and if they’re gone in a blink of an eye, we’re screwed! You can’t create all those jobs AND entice consumer spending quickly enough to prevent an economic disaster!
I don’t want to hit on every specific company sited above, but you should get the idea. If we have a Critical Infrastructure Database with opinion-based entries, then it WILL be useless. I am not concerned about what happens to a Wal-Mart store in Boise, ID, I am terrified about the possible social impact a terrorist bombing of a Wal-Mart store in Boise, ID would have when people start asking themselves “If IDAHO isn’t safe from a terrorist attack, is ANYPLACE safe in the US anymore?!?!”
Dec 21, 2006
Two years of Homeland Stupidity - Homeland Stupidity