Homeland Security Transparency
(AP)
All Blog Posts from Primary Source
Read all 'Government Oversight' posts in Primary Source
May 10, 2007 6:49 PM Congress has taken a step to shine a little more light on how our tax dollars are being spent to protect the homeland. The House of Representatives has passed a bill requiring public disclosure of counter-terrorism spending by states and cities receiving federal grants from the Department of Homeland Security, created in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
May 3, 2007 6:45 PM 
The Department of Homeland Security has spent up to $71 million developing a vast, computerized information sharing system that many emergency responders across the country don't understand and don't use, according to a Government Accountability Office report obtained by CBS News. The Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) is an internet-based, password-protected system that allows local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to share information in real time as an emergency or disaster unfolds. But many officials tell CBS News they'd rather pick up the phone or be on the scene than manage emergencies from a keyboard.
Homeland Security Computer Boondoggle?
(CBS/AP)
March 29, 2007 4:15 PM
When is an e-mail from the White House not from the White House?
In the age of email, Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman is keeping it old-school with his ongoing letter-writing campaign…actual letters, typed on paper that are in part aimed at getting to the bottom of White House email policies. Waxman, sent one letter today to Counsel to the President Fred Fielding and the second to Karl Rove.
March 27, 2007 3:09 PM
Stoves Tipping Over on Children
When stoves are installed in kitchens – there’s an optional bracket that can anchor the range to the floor – but in millions of homes it’s not installed. This leaves stoves from multiple manufacturers susceptible to tipping over if a child were to lean or climb on the stove door. According to the Consumer Products Safety Commission there have been 12 deaths to date from stoves toppling small children or the elderly –including one last fall that killed Alex Dustin Smith, a 17-month-old in Elmira, NY. Now, a House Congressional committee is investigating.
March 12, 2007 6:08 PM 
When wounded soldiers come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, their families often end up trapped in a bureaucratic labyrinth. The CBS Investigative Team’s report on Sgt. Eric Edmundson shows that some families are forced to become their own full-time advocates.
Eric’s sister Anna Frese sent CBS News the stack of business cards her family collected throughout their bureaucratic odyssey- 107 cards high. Eric is now at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago – the best treatment facility for traumatic brain injury nationwide. And since he’s still on active duty, the Pentagon picks up the tab. But Frese estimates it took thousands of emails, three trips to Washington, endless meetings and hundreds of phone calls to get him there.
One Soldier's Trip Through the Maze
(CBS)
Eric’s sister Anna Frese sent CBS News the stack of business cards her family collected throughout their bureaucratic odyssey- 107 cards high. Eric is now at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago – the best treatment facility for traumatic brain injury nationwide. And since he’s still on active duty, the Pentagon picks up the tab. But Frese estimates it took thousands of emails, three trips to Washington, endless meetings and hundreds of phone calls to get him there.
March 5, 2007 6:34 PM
Squeaky Wheel Gets the Care
It's well known that one of the best facilities in the world for traumatic brain injury is the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, also known as RIC. A senior congressional source says the challenge is for the Veterans Administration (VA) to figure out how to do what RIC does or give vouchers to soldiers so they can seek private treatment.
So far the facility has only treated one soldier from the Iraq war- his name is Spc. Eric Edmundson. Originally from Alaska, Edmundson was seriously injured in northern Iraq and sent to Walter Reed. But his father was dissatisfied with the care and pushed for his son to be transferred. He went to the VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. Once there, Spc. Edmundson lost weight and his father, Ed Edmundson, complained again - apparently to the right people in Washington. Now his son has some of the best care in the world. He remains on active duty status even though his return to service in the near future is unlikely. By remaining active, all of his medical expenses can be paid for by the Pentagon.
So far the facility has only treated one soldier from the Iraq war- his name is Spc. Eric Edmundson. Originally from Alaska, Edmundson was seriously injured in northern Iraq and sent to Walter Reed. But his father was dissatisfied with the care and pushed for his son to be transferred. He went to the VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. Once there, Spc. Edmundson lost weight and his father, Ed Edmundson, complained again - apparently to the right people in Washington. Now his son has some of the best care in the world. He remains on active duty status even though his return to service in the near future is unlikely. By remaining active, all of his medical expenses can be paid for by the Pentagon.
February 13, 2007 9:45 PM
At this time of year weather is an important story, particularly given the unsettling mix of all the white stuff up North, the tornadoes down South and a brewing storm headed our way in the East. Not surprisingly, as I write this, weather is leading our broadcast, part of a “A” block chock full of stories pieces on North Korea, debate over the Iraq resolution in the House, and massive mall shooting in Utah. Busy, busy.
On almost any other night the story I worked on today would have made the show hands-down. It focused on a hearing in D.C. in which an insider blew the whistle on the drug manufacturer Sanofi Aventis, and alleged fraud in clinical trials involving its controversial antibiotic Ketek. My editors thought the script was strong (me too). The debate, as often happens, boiled down to a very few degrees. Was a story about Ketek, a drug used by about three million people last year for respiratory infections, more important than weather that could alter life for millions more?
Beyond the script I argued the Big Picture – a major drug manufacturer accused of knowingly passing along falsified drug data to the FDA and then coaching the head of its drug trials on how to deceive agency inspectors…
Guess what? A close call. But I lost. Snowed out by a snow day.
So we did what we often do – posted the piece here on the site. Only this time you get first look. I’d be interested to know what you think…
Snow Day Can't Cancel Ketek Story
We had a Snow Day on the Evening News tonight.
Video: At this time of year weather is an important story, particularly given the unsettling mix of all the white stuff up North, the tornadoes down South and a brewing storm headed our way in the East. Not surprisingly, as I write this, weather is leading our broadcast, part of a “A” block chock full of stories pieces on North Korea, debate over the Iraq resolution in the House, and massive mall shooting in Utah. Busy, busy.
On almost any other night the story I worked on today would have made the show hands-down. It focused on a hearing in D.C. in which an insider blew the whistle on the drug manufacturer Sanofi Aventis, and alleged fraud in clinical trials involving its controversial antibiotic Ketek. My editors thought the script was strong (me too). The debate, as often happens, boiled down to a very few degrees. Was a story about Ketek, a drug used by about three million people last year for respiratory infections, more important than weather that could alter life for millions more?
Beyond the script I argued the Big Picture – a major drug manufacturer accused of knowingly passing along falsified drug data to the FDA and then coaching the head of its drug trials on how to deceive agency inspectors…
Guess what? A close call. But I lost. Snowed out by a snow day.
So we did what we often do – posted the piece here on the site. Only this time you get first look. I’d be interested to know what you think…
January 11, 2007 2:52 PM 
The saga of the Sea-based X-Band radar SBX continues. When last we heard from our favorite floating missile defense system on December 22nd, it was leaving from Hawaiian waters to its deployment point of Adak island in Alaska.
The Investigative Unit has learned that by December 27th, the SBX was pulling back into the naval base at Pearl Harbor for repairs.
The X-Band and the Sea…and an SBX Secret Mission?
(Missile Defense Agency)
The Investigative Unit has learned that by December 27th, the SBX was pulling back into the naval base at Pearl Harbor for repairs.
December 22, 2006 3:56 PM This just in: the CBS Investigative Unit has just learned that General Trey Obering decided late yesterday to deploy the SBX to its operations area near Adak Island in the Bering Sea. It will leave Hawaiian waters, "within a few days." It's a 2500 mile trip and with a top speed of about 12 miles an hour, you do the math about when it will get there.
SBX: The Voyage Begins
(Missile Defense Agency)
December 20, 2006 6:05 PM
By Armen Keteyian and Michael Rey
The photograph at left is the most iconic image we have of a pretty photogenic piece of equipment. Late afternoon at Pearl Harbor, the American flag flutters over the Arizona Memorial. And in the background, as if we need any more of a stark reminder, looms the future of the defense apparatus of the United States.
The parts of the SBX-1 are as impressive as they look: nearly 28 stories tall it sits on two pontoons each the size of a Trident submarine and can chug along at 12 miles an hour on the open sea. It is that vessel that will be deployed in the Bering Sea so that it can pick up a missile launched from North Korea and activate the defense system that will shoot it out of the sky.
But as we kept finding in our reporting, the great parts of the SBX-- the incredible x-band radar, the sturdy North Sea oil platform on which it sits, and the good men and women of the Missile Defense Agency—might not add up to the perfect whole.
SBX-Missile Defense Out to Sea?
(Missile Defense Agency)
By Armen Keteyian and Michael Rey
The photograph at left is the most iconic image we have of a pretty photogenic piece of equipment. Late afternoon at Pearl Harbor, the American flag flutters over the Arizona Memorial. And in the background, as if we need any more of a stark reminder, looms the future of the defense apparatus of the United States.
The parts of the SBX-1 are as impressive as they look: nearly 28 stories tall it sits on two pontoons each the size of a Trident submarine and can chug along at 12 miles an hour on the open sea. It is that vessel that will be deployed in the Bering Sea so that it can pick up a missile launched from North Korea and activate the defense system that will shoot it out of the sky.
But as we kept finding in our reporting, the great parts of the SBX-- the incredible x-band radar, the sturdy North Sea oil platform on which it sits, and the good men and women of the Missile Defense Agency—might not add up to the perfect whole.
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
