9/11 Attacks Led To Half-Trillion-Dollar Homeland Security Spending Binge

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/09/september-11-homeland-security-spending_n_953288.html

In July, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security quietly scuttled a multi-billion dollar program to install high-tech radiation detectors at the nation's ports. A top priority of the Bush administration, the advanced spectroscopic portal (ASP) devices that the Raytheon Company was being paid to build weren't just way behind schedule and enormously over budget -- they didn't actually appear to work. The failed project cost taxpayers well over $230 million.

DHS had already pulled the plug on its SBInet program -- an effort to build a "virtual fence" of sensors, cameras and radar along the nation's border -- in January, after paying more than $1.1 billion. The Government Accountability Office, among others, had concluded that poor management and an over-reliance on the prime contractor, Boeing, had caused staggering delays and cost overruns while producing inadequate results.

**Opinion**

Yes, most of which wasn't spent on combating terrorism. Why? Because the threat was hugely overplayed. In effect, the masses were wrongly swayed into sacrificing many of their rights. And now, more and more, reports are surfacing of insufficient management of projects that never materialized.