Below The Beltway

If this report is accurate, the Department of Homeland Security certainly has an odd way of classifying potential terror targets:

WASHINGTON, July 11 ? 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 federal antiterrorism database.

The National Asset Database, as it is known, is so flawed, the inspector general found, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.

And the identity of some of these potential terror targets reads more like a AAA guide book than a government report:

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.?

Umm, yea, sounds like a good idea to me. In addition to overemphasizing seemingly minor targets, the database appears to omit what would logically seem to be some major ones:

But the report also notes that the list ?may have too few assets in essential areas.? It apparently does not include many major business and finance operations or critical national telecommunications hubs.

Which leads one to wonder exactly what the DHS is doing here.

More from Alex Knapp writing at Outside the Beltway, who points out that this list of “national assets” left out such apparently unimportant places as the Statute of Liberty , which leads him to ask this excellent question.

I keep getting emails in my inbox from the GOP explaining how the Bush Administration is ?serious? about terrorism. But how can a person honestly believe that if, after four years, they still haven?t even identified critical infrastructure that might serve as potential terrorist targets?

Beats me.

Homeland Security Watch points this out:

I?ve described the DHS grant system as being at risk to the ?garbage-in, garbage-out? problem in its allocation processes since the beginning of the year. This report provides another point of confirmation that the quality of the data used to make DHS grant decisions is subpar, and perhaps explains some of the oddities in the funding decisions for the State Homeland Security Grant Program in 2006.

I wrote about this seemingly insane funding decisions back in May.

Being prepared is one thiing, preparing for a blizzard in Hawaii is quite another.

Well, at least the Amish popcorn will be safe.