Now I don’t want to be critical of the hardworking men and women of the Customs and Border Patrol Agency.  They have an impossible task — trying to keep out hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants — without all the necessary resources.  However, it seems that they are, at least somewhat, part of the problem.  According to a new investigative report from Independence Institute report and founder of Complete Colorado Todd Shepherd, Customs and Border Patrol has a difficult time keeping track of its own equipment.

The Customs and Border Patrol agency is tasked with tracking things as diverse as goods coming into the country, as well as the entry of persons (both legal and illegal) into the U.S. But according to documents obtained by the Independence Institute, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has a difficult time keeping possession of the very assets that enable them to do their job, items like computers, digital cameras, and night-vision goggles. This massive, 59 page document from the Department of Homeland Security details property that became “Lost, Stolen or Damaged” in the CBP’s control during the calendar year 2007. (The 2007 inventory is the most recently available from the Department of Homeland Security.)

A few of the missing items include:

Seems this is just another reason to embrace transparency in government – at least if we can’t get the items back maybe we will know where they go.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 9:31 pm and is filed under general, transparency. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.