Homeland Security: A Joke Held Together by Duct Tape

While this story rarely played outside of DC, an event last week sent all of Capitol Hill running for safety believing that an incoming plane was about to target one of the buildings during Reagan's funeral. People who fell were run over by others.

From yesterday's Washington Post:

The Kentucky State Police aircraft, whose identification transmitter was broken, had properly notified civilian flight controllers of its status throughout its flight. But the FAA's regional control center never relayed the information to a Washington air defense center in Herndon -- formally known as the National Capital Region Coordination Center (NCRCC) -- until after U.S. Capitol Police made the emergency decision at 4:31 p.m. to evacuate the Capitol, according to the "after-action" report.

The order sent hundreds of assembled dignitaries and lawmakers and thousands of staff members running from the Capitol in a frantic exodus...

The episode "raises serious concerns about the government's ability to guard not only the U.S. Capitol but the entire region in the event of another airborne attack," Turner said in a statement yesterday. [Rep. Christopher] Cox [R-CA] said that "we want to protect the capital region and to make sure the procedures in place work to do that."

One of the two major supposed terror targets gets completely out of control because of a Kentucky airplane.