DHS: We Are All Less Safe, And I Am Insulted. Grrr.

by hilzoy

Maureen Dowd Eric Lipton has a good column article today. It's about the Department of Homeland Security's "National Asset Database", which lists some 8,591 possible terrorist targets. Not surprisingly, it turns out to contain some peculiar things:

"It reads like a tally of terrorist targets that a child might have written: Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market and an unspecified “Beach at End of a Street.”

But the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, in a report released Tuesday, found that the list was not child’s play: all these “unusual or out-of-place” sites “whose criticality is not readily apparent” are inexplicably included in the official federal antiterrorism database. (...)

In addition to the petting zoo, in Woodville, Ala., and the Mule Day Parade in Columbia, Tenn., the auditors questioned many entries, including “Nix’s Check Cashing,” “Mall at Sears,” “Ice Cream Parlor,” “Tackle Shop,” “Donut Shop,” “Anti-Cruelty Society” and “Bean Fest.”

Even people connected to some of those businesses or events are baffled at their inclusion as possible terrorist targets.

“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.” (...)

One business owner who learned from a reporter that a company named Amish Country Popcorn was on the list was at first puzzled. The businessman, Brian Lehman, said he owned the only operation in the country with that name.

“I am out in the middle of nowhere,” said Mr. 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.”

But on second thought, he came up with an explanation.

“Maybe because popcorn explodes?”"

Ha ha ha. Those kidders at the Department of Homeland Security. In addition to Nix's Check cashing, there's also a Mailboxes Etc., a tackle shop, and something listed only as "inn". I'm sure all the patrons of these fine establishments will feel safer knowing that DHS is keeping an eye on them. If only the same could be said for the rest of us.

But how, I hear you ask, did DHS manage to add insult to the possibility of injury? Well, as I was reading the actual DHS report (pdf), I got to its first list of "Examples of Out-of-Place Assets" (p. 11). Assets are supposed to be either "critical infrastructure" or "key assets", and key assets are defined as follows: "Key assets include symbols or historical attractions, such as prominent national, state, or local monuments and icons." (pp. 2-3) "Out-of-Place Assets" are things that do not meet these criteria, but are on the list anyways; this list picks out some supposedly egregious examples. And there, along with Nix's Check Cashing, Mall At Sears, Auto Shop, and one state's "Right to Life Committee" (?!), what did I find?

This:

And what, you might ask, is that? Why: it's a large pink marble art deco tower* with a carillon at the top. My great-grandfather built it as, um, a gift to the American people. It's actually quite nice: lovely gardens which are recovering nicely after the hurricanes swept through a couple of years ago:

along with a quite decent collection of rare native plants that they're trying to preserve.

I would understand perfectly if they were trying to weed out the second- or third-tier "state or local monuments", in order to focus on Mount Rushmore and Monticello. But I don't see, really, why the good old tower belongs in the same category as Nix's check cashing.

Hmmph.

***

* Its actual name, these days, is 'Historic Bok Sanctuary'. It used to be the Singing Tower, but I think it was felt that this slighted the gardens in some way, and a series of new names ensued. I didn't know that they had settled on this one the last time I visited, and thus it was that when I was greeted at the gate by someone saying: "Welcome to the Historic Bok Sanctuary; may I help you?", the part of my brain that normally censors the sillier things that cross my mind went on the fritz, and I said: Yes; I'm a Historic Bok, and the enemy is in hot pursuit. Will you take me in?

She looked at me in a peculiar sort of way, and I gulped and said: admission for one, please.

Comments

[xanax]

"I'm sure all the patrons of these fine establishments will feel safer knowing that DHS is keeping an eye on them."

'Specially that Bean Fest. Can't never be too careful with your local Bean Fest...

(Lord, give us strength).

[JohnN]

errrr.... "beach at the end of a street"

... how do you blow up a beach?

[Jesurgislac]

JohnN: how do you blow up a beach?

Bury explosives in the sand.

[Jesurgislac]

Hilzoy, that's a lovely thing to have in the family. (I have a watercolor painting my great-grandfather did of a house where he was working - he was a cabinet-maker - about a hundred years ago, which is more portable, but your tower is splendid.

The Historic Bok Sanctuary: sporfle.

[The Xsociate]

Not to be a nitpicker Hizoy, but your link is to a NYT article by Eric Lipton, not Maureen. I think the mix up may be because they often place Times Select Ads at the top of articles, making it appear as though the person in the ad wrote the proceeding piece.

[ajay]

It's all about the kids. Here's an experiment: tell your five-year-old (if you don't have one, borrow one from a friend) that a truck bomb blew up the Jefferson County Exxon Petrochemical Refinery (an unquestionably valuable national asset) and he will look vaguely interested at best.

Tell the same five-year-old that al-Qaeda hit the Old MacDonald Petting Zoo, and all the ponies, and lambs, and guinea-pigs, and hamsters, and calves are dead, and he will howl the skies from their pinnings.

[Slartibartfast]

I was a bit puzzled about the "insulted" part until I read down a bit. That said, I would mourn said botanical gardens were they to, for instance, be subjected to aerial Agent Orange bombardment, much more than I would the anticipated vandalism of Mt. Rushmore.

Regarding Homeland Security, though, this is exactly the sort of thing that I expect, especially given their history.

The really shocking thing about this post, though, lies in the first sentence: Maureen Dowd has a good column today. I mean, when's the last time that happened?

[Slartibartfast]

As for the tower itself, it's important and interesting (to me, at least) only to the extent that it serves as a sort of focal point for the gardens. Earth people don't get to see the carillon.

OTOH, there's the whole different world of:

William De Turk was appointed director of carillon services of Historic Bok Sanctuary, effective July 1, 2004. He was assistant carillonneur and librarian since 1993. A native of the Philadelphia area, he received a bachelor of music degree cum honore from Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio, and master of music degree in organ performance from the University of Michigan, where he studied the carillon with Percival Price, university carillonneur and noted campanologist. In 1974, he was invited to be come the first carillon scholar at the Bok Singing Tower and worked for one year with Milford Myhre.

"Carilloneur" was not one of those career options my middle school guidance counselor discussed with me, more's the pity.

[cleek]

"Carilloneur" was not one of those career options my middle school guidance counselor discussed with me

me neither. "campanologist", on the other hand... everybody in my class wanted to be a campanologist. i blame Anita Ward.

[Gary Farber]

"Maureen Dowd has a good column today."

?

In the brilliant minds category. Unfortunately, I was unable to provide a link to the Historic Farber Sanctuary, but it probably wouldn't be as pretty, and would consist of a shoebox with some lint in it, anyway.

[Ugh]

Jes: Bury explosives in the sand.

Why are you helping out Al Qaeda by giving away sensitive national security techniques!!!1!1!!!

[Jesurgislac]

Why are you helping out Al Qaeda by giving away sensitive national security techniques!!!1!1!!!

Because I'm a lily-livered, bleeding-heart, liberal, egghead communist.

[OCSteve]

... how do you blow up a beach?

You don’t. However, as I spent the 4th on a huge beach with about 300,000 other people, with banner planes flying over every 10 minutes I had this thought:

Take a crop duster and some nerve agent right now and you could wipe out 300,000 people in less than 5 minutes.

It would not be a sophisticated operation. It would not take more than one or two determined psychos to actually do it.

Maureen Dowd has a good column today

Truly a sentence I never thought I would ever see.

[KCinDC]

I always wanted to be a tintinnabulist.

[Andrew Olmsted]

Because I'm a lily-livered, bleeding-heart, liberal, egghead communist.

You're an egghead?

[hilzoy]

Oops; my bad about the column. I thought I clicked on Maureen Dowd last night, and then there was her smiling face at the top, in what I not assume must have been an ad. Corrected.

I did write the Sanctuary part mostly tongue in cheek, the way one does when one has a snippy little reaction that one knows is largely unjustified and decides to make fun of oneself.

[JakeB]

I noticed a Nestle Purina cat food plant on that list. To strike against Fancy Feast??? The bastards.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

I actually find this rather non-shocking. To blatantly steal from a commentor (y81) at samefacts.com:

I say with confidence that everyone operationally involved in the production of this list is a career civil servant, and that the silliness of the list has nothing to do with an "administration in collapse," but merely illustrates the usual silliness of government bureaucracies.

[radish]

how do you blow up a beach?

Well according to the Israeli Defense Forces you blow it up by setting mines and then waiting for either picnickers or Israeli commandos to step on them. But according to Human Rights Watch and Hamas, it's more effective to use poorly aimed artillery. Michael Chertoff and Don Rumsfeld could not be reached for comment before we went to press...

[hilzoy]

testing...

[hilzoy]

For what it's worth, TypePad does not seem to want to recognize the last two posts (Andrew's and Charles'.) Hmm.

[Gary Farber]

There were other comments on this thread, as well. I wrote one that used to be posted.

I mentioned this post, which lacked for allusion to the Historic Farber Sanctuary, which would only be a shoebox with some lint, anyway.

Or something like that.

I'd have noticed ObWi was back earlier, but I kept trying to post to the defunct thread for more than 45 minutes, not recognizing that it was just the thread that was broken, rather than the blog.