Is the War on Terror Being Over-outsourced?

Are too many of the billions of your taxpayer dollars being spent by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on technology to prevent another 9/11 terrorist attack being spent on third-party contractors the department is unable to control? Does an over dependency on outsourcing put the U.S. at risk? "Yes" and "yes" says BusinessWeek in its special series Homeland Insecurity.

Noting that about $3 billion worth (about 60 percent) of DHS' third-party information technology contracts are currently "underperforming" in several key areas, including scheduling, budgeting or qualified management, BusinessWeek quotes Rep. Henry Waxman (D.-Calif.), as stating, "When you talk about the Department of Homeland Security, it's not only a loss of money but it may well be a loss of our national security interests if we don't have the work done that needs to be done."

The BusinessWeek article includes a table detailing the specific performance shortfalls of the underperforming DHS information technology contracts, and a list of the top 10 technology contractors currently working for DHS.

In September 2007, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that since its creation in 2003, the Department of Homeland Security had made little progress in the fundamental areas of improving emergency preparedness, and eliminating barriers to agency-wide sharing of intelligence information. In addition, the GAO found that DHS' science and technology initiatives failed to achieve success in five of six performance goals.

The report came on the heels of a March 2006 GAO report to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that its agents had succeeded in sneaking enough radioactive material to build two dirty bombs into the U.S. at controlled points along the northern and southern border.

Also See:
Federal Agents Smuggle Dirty Bomb Material into U.S.
GAO Gives Homeland Security Mixed Report Card