The Department of Homeland Security's Office of State and Local Government Coordination is set to pay the Associated Press some $266,000 to provide real-time coverage of stories for every state in the nation, including "breaking news, national security issues, world news, national news, news alerts, business news, and regional weather forecasts" and a "complete monitoring of the Homeland Security news," according to Homeland Security Watch's Christian Beckner.
Beckner is no fan of the idea:
I'm going to have disagree.
DHS and other agencies such as the FBI have long used such services, and $266,000 for two years just ain't that much money for that kind of service.
For a long time, for example, you could go to www.bulletinnews.com/dhs/ and find a very good compilation of news about terrorism investigations, news stories from around the country and world and a rundown of the most interesting House and Senate hearings.
Sadly, both DHS and the FBI locked these down with passwords a year or so ago.
There's still at least one Bulletin News service that's open to the public (unfortunately, not one that covers my beat), but I won't publish the URL since doing so will likely ruin it for some other reporter out there.
These services are way better than a standing Yahoo News or Google News alert. The problem isn't the money, the problem is that only the government gets access to a useful news service paid for with taxpayer money.
Photo: Ben Cumming
