{"id":151,"date":"2003-06-15T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-06-15T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opendna.com\/?p=151"},"modified":"2003-06-15T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-06-15T12:00:00","slug":"more-defections-from-the-whitehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/2003\/06\/15\/more-defections-from-the-whitehouse\/","title":{"rendered":"More Defections from the Whitehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

The longer I sat and watched, the more concerned I became,
\nuntil I got up and walked out. <\/i>—Rand Beers, counterterrorism official<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another high-level
\ngovernment careerist has come out to denounce the Administration’s
\nhandling of… well, this time it’s the War on Terrorism. In a Wash
\nington
\nPost interview<\/a> [also CNN<\/a>]
\nRand Beers is quoted as saying he “never felt so strongly about something
\nin my life” so he has defected to Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) campaign.
\nBeers charged that the Whitehouse “wasn’t matching its deeds to its words
\nin the war on terrorism. They’re making us less secure, not more secure.”
\nHomeland security, he says, suffers from “policy constipation. Nothing
\ngets done.”<\/p>\n

The Immigration and Naturalization Service, he said, needs
\nfurther reorganization. The Homeland Security Department is
\nunderfunded.<\/i> (WP)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Comments? I got nothin’. I’m not allowed
\nto comment on policy because policy is way<\/strong> above my pay
\ngrade. But back in January
\nI wrote this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Reading the tea leave I conclude that budget cuts in
\nstaffing are on the way: the port is scaling back outward assignments, the
\nunion is jokeying with management over increasing the workload, and USCS –
\nwhich always gets hit before us – has had overtime slashed. …Expect
\nlonger lines at airports.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There was a meeting of
\nhigher-than-mes recently. The INS-legacy supervisors came out warning that
\nthe Folks Up-Stairs (who are mostly legacy Customs) have decided to
\n“slash” overtime for our people. We’re going to see our inspections staff
\nshrink on every shift and the schedules wiggled to swallow up as much
\novertime as possible. My Sups concede that that means longer lines for
\npassengers (think over<\/i> an hour), but the orders come from Up There.
\nIf you don’t like it write your Congress-critter or ask the
\nimmigration\/passport control officer (still wearing INS patches) for U.S.
\nCustoms complaint card. Many of us will be keeping a stack of response
\ncards in our booths (supplies limited). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

What about being systemically underfunded? Uh… Maybe another time…
\nWhen I’ve gathered the links. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

P.S. On a related note: back in March diplomat John Brady Kiesling sent
\na public
\nresignation letter<\/a> to Secretary of State Powell.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The longer I sat and watched, the more concerned I became, until I got up and walked out. —Rand Beers, counterterrorism official Another high-level government careerist has come out to denounce the Administration’s handling of… well, this time it’s the War on Terrorism. In a Wash ington Post interview [also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[20,39,23],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-line","tag-immigration","tag-terrorism","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opendna.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}