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The Homeland Security muddle: a year later, Tom Ridge''s department still lacks a coherent strategy or adequate authority. His critics need to get serious about domestic preparedness.

Article Excerpt
When word leaked that the Department of Defense had funded a scheme to allow investors to use futures-market analysis to predict the likelihood of terrorist acts or international incidents--and to profit if their predictions were correct--the public reacted with both shock and awe. The $8 million idea, known as the Futures Markets Applied to Prediction (FutureMAP), was the brainchild of retired Adm. John Poindexter, an indicted figure in the Iran-Contra scandal. The plan would have allowed online betting by terrorism specialists regarding the likelihood of, for example, another attack in Israel or the overthrow of the Jordanian monarchy. The idea was to use a bettors' market to provide government specialists access to what the best thinkers were anticipating. Not surprisingly, it was quickly canceled. Poindexter soon thereafter resigned his post as head of the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency's Terrorism Information Awareness program--the same program that previously had drawn fire for its proposal to track potential terrorists via broadly scouring Americans' credit-card records, driver's licenses and passport applications.

For Democrats, FutureMAP was an obvious target. "The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it's grotesque," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). But when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld concurred-even if it had been a brilliant idea, which I doubt, it would not have been able to function in the environment that it was created--FutureMAP became just a lively August imbroglio. The story was over.

It shouldn't be. Behind FutureMAP lie the broader flaws in the administration's domestic-preparedness policy. An effective national preparedness policy requires three things. First, a coordinating agency with authority to set comprehensive federal policy; second, an agency willing to use that authority to establish clear and effective strategies; and, finally, a recognition that a domestic-preparedness policy must not only prepare for and prevent terrorist attacks but also ensure that such efforts don't threaten a free society. The FutureMAP story reveals that this administration's policy lacks all three elements.

At first blush, it might seem like the administration has in place an effective coordinating agency. When President Bush switched gears in June 2002 and accepted Democratic congressional proposals...