May 27, 2008, - 10:35 am
Who’s Your Doggie? – New Homeland Security Policy: DON’T Buy American . . . & Pay Four Times As Much
By Debbie Schlussel
More waste over at Michael “Serpenthead/Mr. Burns” Chertoff’s Department of Homeland (Non)Security.
While America’s economy is sputtering, our precious DHS has chosen to spurn Americans and pay four times as much to import bomb-sniffing dogs from Europe. Because we need to subsidize the European economy. Buy American? No way, at DHS:
The government imports hundreds of untrained bomb- and drug-sniffing dogs from Europe each year for as much as $4,535 apiece, four times the price charged by American breeders, says a federal report out [Friday].
The high canine price tags are prompting outrage from congressional and government spending critics and U.S. breeders, who say taxpayer money is being wasted.
“What kind of dogs are these – gold-plated?” asked Leslie Paige of Citizens Against Government Waste.
The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general (IG) found that the Customs and Border Protection division spent $1.46 million on 322 untrained dogs between April 2006 and June 2007. CBP has more than 1,000 trained dogs working at the nation’s borders, airports and seaports, and the number is expected to grow.
The report called the figure “reasonable” and “comparable” to what other government agencies pay. The Secret Service, which has 75 dogs, pays an average of $4,533 for its dogs. The Department of Defense, which gets a discount because it buys more dogs than other agencies, pays between $3,300 and $3,800 per dog, the IG found.
HUH? Two wrongs make a right? They’re all wasting money. Just because one agency or more are wasting money abroad when they could “Buy American” at 1/4th the price, doesn’t mean it’s “reasonable.” It isn’t.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., called it “irresponsible” that the government is spending so much, even before it pays $15,000 per canine team for 13 to 15 weeks of training.
A typical purebred in the USA sells for about $1,200. . . . “Using canines . . . is smart security,” Thompson says. But “paying $4,000 for an untrained European canine seems excessive, a waste of taxpayer money and does not support the breeders we have right here at home.”
Lee Titus, director of CBP’s Canine Enforcement Training Center in Front Royal, Va., where the dogs are trained, said 90% of the dogs come from overseas because Europe has a long history of breeding dogs with the proper temperament for security duties. U.S. breeders, he says, breed mostly “pretty” show dogs or pets.
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan says the “bloodlines from Europe make the dogs very desirable for us.”
The government, which puts its requests for dogs out for competitive bidding, buys Belgian Malinoises, Labradors and shepherds.
Michelle Denson, who breeds Belgian Malinois dogs in Ocala, Fla., says her dogs are no different from European dogs. She says she has sold some to police departments for $1,000. “There’s plenty of American breeders who breed these kinds of dogs,” she says, “and they don’t charge this exorbitant amount of money.”
Hmmm . . . police departments all over America buy and train drug-sniffing dogs from American breeders. And they seem to work just fine for these real, actual street cops.
Sorry, but I don’t buy this “European breeding” BS from the snobby, money-wasting suits atop DHS. It’s just another excuse to live the high life and enjoy the finest at taxpayer expense. Just because dogs were bred on a continent where no-one uses deoderant, shaves their armpits, or takes a shower more than once a week, doesn’t mean they can sniff things any better.
Blue-blood dogs–You’re paying through the nose for them. Your tax dollars “at work.”
But . . . ah, next time a bomb or arms gets through Customs, we can blame Europe.
But . . . ah, next time a bomb or arms gets through Customs, we can blame Europe.
You mean like http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2870088.html ?
Japanese customs officers were left embarrassed after a sniffer dog failed to find marijuana planted in a passenger’s luggage.
They had to make a public announcement as the dog’s trainers couldn’t remember which bag they had stashed the drugs in, reports the Daily Telegraph.
An officer at Narita International Airport had stuffed five ounces of marijuana into the side pocket of a randomly selected black suitcase coming off an overseas flight.
“The dog couldn’t find it and the officer also forgot which bag he put it in,” a customs office spokeswoman said. “If by some chance passengers find it in their suitcase, we’re asking them to return it.”
Ok, drugs and Japan, but still.
laneh on May 27, 2008 at 1:27 pm