James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, points to Operation Safe Commerce -- the Transportation Security Administration's programme to inspect cargo shipments -- as a "classic waste of money" on a function that should be left to the businesses concerned. "Turn it over to the industry -- make them figure out the best way to do it," he urged.
Others caution against over-reliance on the private sector, saying that only the federal government can adequately formulate industry-wide standards.
"One reason that governments promulgate building codes, for example, is that it would be too difficult for each individual to evaluate a building's structural soundness before [deciding] to enter it," according to a report from The Brookings Institution's Project on Homeland Security. "Since it would also be difficult for the individual to evaluate how well the building's air intake could filter out potential bio-terrorist attacks, the same logic could suggest that the government should set minimum antiterrorism standards for buildings."
Moreover, the corporate world's track record on compliance with safety regulations in general is less than stellar. In cases where the government deems the private sector to be responsible for security measures, the institute recommends that companies be required to carry insurance and that the government provide subsidies for counterterrorism measures and other legislated incentives for industries to protect themselves.
Nevertheless, such regulatory authority raises a fundamental question: who will supervise the supervisors?
At the very least, the US Senate and House should each create a permanent special committee to handle homeland security, as it has done to address intelligence oversight, simply to centralise knowledge and authority. From January to July of this year, The Heritage Foundation found, homeland security officials testified in 126 hearings -- the equivalent of 1.5 appearances for every day of the congressional session.
"The government wants to make sure they're spending enough, and in that process, you can be sure that there's money that's going to be wasted," said former Rep. Rick White, a former Republican congressman who is now chief executive of the bipartisan lobby TechNet and a member of the Markle Foundation's task force on digital security. "When Congress is your overseer, you're already in trouble. Congress needs an overseer itself."
