How FEMA stole Christmas
Yet more revelations of bureaucratic incompetence in the Department of Homeland Stupidity.
There are 500 children still unaccounted for after Hurricane Katrina, but the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is having trouble locating them because FEMA won't share its evacuee database with them, citing privacy laws. Even the FBI had trouble getting access to the necessary information until the Justice Department stepped in earlier this month.
In recent days, FEMA has released data that helped close 15 cases. Yesterday, after inquiries from The Washington Post, the agency sent the FBI a computer disk with the names of 570,000 evacuees.But as the four-month anniversary of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history approaches, congressional leaders, law enforcement authorities and family advocates say FEMA's slow response has meant that many families that could have been reunited this holiday season instead remain apart.
Wait a minute... the Department of Homeland security won't share information because it doesn't want to infringe privacy laws? This coming from a federal bureaucracy in an environment where it's apparently OK for the president to authorize illegal eavesdropping on domestic telephone calls and e-mail in the national interest, privacy considerations be damned.
Privacy does not seem to be an issue when the 'national interest' is at stake, but apparently the Katrina aftermath is old news and has no bearing on the national interest. What a strange and sad concept.
In early October, as leads began to dwindle, the center requested access to FEMA's list of the 2.8 million families that had applied for federal disaster assistance. FEMA balked, saying it was illegal to share the private information. Lawyers at the center argued that because it was working on behalf of the Justice Department "it would fall within one of the exceptions of the Privacy Act for this limited purpose," Allen said. For years, investigators for the center have had access to FBI databases.On Oct. 25, the center provided the list of 1,600 children missing at the time to FEMA and made its request for the database in writing. On Nov. 23, nearly three months after Katrina hit, FEMA rejected it.
It is sad and appalling that a government that can spend hundreds of billions pursuing an ill-conceived war in a far off land cannot get its emergency response efforts together at home. It is a scandal that any child (let alone 500) remains missing months after the storm, due to bureaucratic 'concerns' about protecting privacy. Particularly under an administration not known for its commitment to privacy and other rights at home and abroad.
What would Jesus say?
"And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them." (Luke 11:46)He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me." (Mark 9:36-37)