The Bloomberg Folly

Among the accomplishments of his presidency in the first term, Bill Clinton would often cite this one: that he had put 100,000 new police officers on the streets of ‘s cities and towns.

It was a stump citation, repeated wherever he went, and it eventually drew fire from Republicans and critics. At most, they said, Clinton’s program had put 60,000 new cops on the street. Probably, it was closer to 40,000.

Who was correct?

Strictly speaking, the critics were. Functionally speaking, Clinton was.

How was this possible?

Because the Clinton era federal program allocated the equivalent amount of money for 100,000 new cops. But as administered by the Justice department, the program left some discretion to police departments (PDs) as to how to spend the money most effectively.

Which is another way of saying: a lot of money ended up going to technology implementations and upgrades that, in many cases, covered shortfalls in manpower.

No matter who you are, you know what some of those technologies are if you have ever seen a traffic camera or watched a remote video feed from a squad car re-played on TV news. Some things you might not have seen are advanced tactical cellular/radio networks, quicker remote access to criminal records and databases between the field and headquarters, automated dispatch systems, command, control and analysis systems, even such things as Kevlar vests, lipstick cameras, bomb detectors, and even some remote controlled surveillance systems.

PDs use a lot of “stuff” and much of it, at least hypothetically, exerts a reduced requirement on “force.” In military parlance, when a technology supplements manpower (or replaces it altogether) it is termed a “force multiplier” for this very reason.

But do you suppose Bill Clinton would have explained any or all of this in place of his well-worn “100,000 new cops on the streets” citation?

Technology is obtuse stuff, as likely to irritate listeners as it is put them to sleep. By comparison, in politics, only the snappy explanations that fit on bumper stickers have worth. Fathom a program that in reality toggled between the addition of human resources and the implementation of cold technologyâÂ?¦ Well, you don’t get to be Bill Clinton by choosing to emphasize the dull machine when People can be cited as the accomplishment.

In fact, this essential dispute between human worth and technology acumen probably arose a moment after the first machine was ever built, and certainly arose a moment after the first computer came into an institution somewhere. During its pre-PC infancy the very word “computer” was synonymous with discussions about “human obsolescence.” After all, the first truly famous computer was the HAL 9000, which decided to kill the entire crew of a fictional space ship because it deemed itself better able to complete the mission.

Like moviemakers, politicians know that technology can be made a villain even as they rely upon it themselves either strategically or tactically. This gets very twisted if one focuses on the high-profile case of Al Gore, who gained infamous attention for the cheeky claim in 2000 of inventing the Internet.

The invention of the Internet is generally credited to the invention of its forerunner, the R&D level ARPANET system developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Scroll through Al Gore’s record in the Senate and you’ll more likely find that Gore was counted among those seeking to abolish DARPA, limit its budget or alter its purpose at various milestones in which the Internet grew from a drawing table device to prominent use.

Nonetheless, Gore made his “inventor” claim in 2000. But then came 2004 and a new take on technology from Gore-the allegation that computer searches for terrorists in systems operated by the Homeland Security department and various intelligence and law enforcement agencies were being conducted by a new generation of what he called “digital brown shirts.” There you have it. had taken his invention and become a high-tech Nazi state (even if many staffing the terminals at DHS, FBI and in PDs were otherwise registered Democrats who had voted for Gore in 2000).

Agenda-driven hysteria about warrant-less wiretapping, data mining, and other tech-based counter-terror methods employed since Sept. 11 trades on the ease with which technology can be vilified for political purposes on a case-by-case basis. Just the word “Privacy!” shouted at the correct tenor and tone can rally a new round of front- and editorial page frets, even in cases where no one has actually been brought forward as a victim. Will the PC or database become the gun of recent sloganeering lore? Maybe the “digital brown shirts” should pre-empt the debate with their own bumper sticker defense: “Computers don’t kill people, guns do.”

Digital technology is so cold and so void of moving parts that those who advocate it as easily assault it. Not everyone can be as zany as about computers as Gore but Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, came close this summer during testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee. Bloomberg was there arguing that DHS short-changed NYC when reducing its grant total by about $83 million in this year’s budget.

He was joined by his own police chief and the mayor and police chief of Washington, D.C., who also said they were under funded in this year’s DHS grant.

As a general matter, the role of the federal Homeland Security department in state, municipal and local PD matters has been to encourage and fund new counter-terrorism technologies through a set of grants programs.

Both the District (as part of the broader National Capital Region) and NYC have exploited these programs since DHS launched the program in 2003 to the tune of millions of dollars in new tech that ranges from the use of network and site-specific electronic sensors for WMD, new intelligence and analysis systems, data mining and surveillance, an opening of communication channels to other agencies, training in new technical and professional disciplines, and enterprise level re-designs of post-event “first responder” and emergency response public safety organizations and systems.

Make no mistake about it: the two high-risk regions have spent enormously in these areas since the immediate aftermath of September 11, and DHS (meaning federal taxpayers) has funded some of it.

Just as solutions to public problems sometimes can be toggled from people to technology, elected officials also toggle between discordant positions. As “policy leaders” of jurisdictions, at budget time, such leaders as the mayors of New York and the District have a compelling reason to decry all that has not yet been done because it has not yet been funded. “We are not as secure as we should be!” or so goes the refrain as state-and-locals beg for more at the federal trough.

But at re-election time, the same leaders will tout all the improvements in security they have made during their term of office. “We are more secure than ever!”

In politics and bureaucracy, there is no such thing as “enough money” though there can sometimes be too much technology. At one end of the spectrum, the assault on searches of phone logs is a digital bogeyman that must be wrestled to submission-by people (or, at least, lawyers). At the other end, the sacrifice of human intelligence (HUMINT or “boots on the ground”) to excessive reliance on satellite surveillance or other “stand-off” technologies are often cited as a pre-9/11 flaw in ‘s counter-terror portfolio.

Because it is people who vote, it is easy for a politician to argue that people are better than computers, sensors or monitors. The flip argument is that such things as software-driven queries are so thorough at collecting data that they simply eliminate any of the discretionary decisions needed to guarantee civil liberties. Computers, then, either don’t work or work too well.

As it provides grants to states and localities, DHS operates a counter-terrorism formula that seeks to assess a jurisdiction’s grant request and tech plan with factors including population density, preponderance of critical targets within it (iconic locations, utilities, possibly fragile economic systems, etc.), its vulnerability/threat quotient and other issues including how much or little it has been spent to date on security. All of this is done to the purpose of determining where tech dollars should go.

Facing possible cuts this year ranging up to 40 percent as measured against last year’s federal outlay to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg essentially cast aspersion on the entirety of the program when he called the tech spending a “bias.”

“Crime solving is not about using the technology you see on TV shows like ‘CSI'” he said. Instead, he told the House Homeland Security Committee, it is about the “good old-fashioned boots on the ground” that “have protected New York City.”

Simply conceding the truth of Bloomberg’s assertion at a policy level, NYC could re-deploy or sell off the tech-intensive counter terror center it has built and operated since 9/11, and raise a lot more than the $83 million DHS was proposing to cut from NYC’s grant this year.

It is only in a year where NYC and the District are not going to get many tech dollars that the “bias” is noted. In fact, DHS really should not concern itself with how a municipality is going to spend its money but merely shower it upon them if they are more at risk of a terrorist attack than the others-or so has gone Bloomberg’s refrain this year.

But this has, in fact, been the case at least where the regional part of the formula is concerned. NYC and the National Capital Region have consumed about one-third the entire DHS program since 9/11-but of course it could not ever be “enough” no matter how much it was.

Police chiefs in the District and NYC have said they would use extra money to cover such matters as overtime and all the backup required whenever a terror alert creates gaps in routine, daily law enforcement. One presumes that DHS reviewers might be intrigued by a grant application that seeks to develop technologies providing interim support when, for instance, there is a threat of a chemical attack on the subway in either city. But this year, the two cities basically blew off the idea that a program calling for tech-based solutions is worth it at all. They just want to buy boots and hire more men and women to wear them.

Moreover, Bloomberg fell back on classic New York provincialism to bolster his case for open-ended federal dollars, saying that “all Americans would feel it if New York were attacked again.” Whereas, one imagines, only one of three Americans would stress if a nuclear waste plant in Utah was raided by terrorists, or a dirty bomb went off in Chicago.

This is politicking. Get the tech dollars when you can get them, and when you can’t, well, argue that the dollars should still be yours because you are more at risk. If necessary, disparage the tech “bias,” even though it was that same bias that resulted in NYC and National Capital spending more money on counter terror systems than any other regions in the nation. In fact, most who have examined it believe the NYC counter terror center is only rivaled for robustness and efficiency by a similar set-up in Jerusalem operated by the Israelis, who more or less invented these things. This puts the 2006 version of Bloomberg in the strange position of, by default, dismissing as meaningless the very asset his city has otherwise been praised for having built. Would “hypocrisy” be in the dictionary if not for politics and politicians?

The longstanding dispute between “people power” and “technical power” never goes fully away and is always available to be finessed by politicians. The Homeland Security department was formed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. While one might argue about its general worth as an umbrella atop the 22 mainly law enforcement- and public safety-related agencies it encompasses, one can also says this: it was never established as an open conduit for paying the overtime costs of local police.

In fact, mayors such as Bloomberg and the District’s Anthony Williams write these costs into the budget requests they make to their own city councils. Asking the feds to pay it too seems to be tantamount to putting a toll booth at both the entrance and exit to the ultimate bureaucratic tunnel-where you pay to use it and pay again to stop using it.