Access Control
& Security Systems

The General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, estimates it would take five to 10 years before the new Department of Homeland Security could provide any "meaningful results."

While the bill to create the department sets an effective date of Jan. 1, 2003, the department would exist only on paper at that point. Experts contend it will take years for the department to merge four agencies - Customs, Coast Guard, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and Transportation Security Administration.

"I had hoped that the Secretary of Homeland Security could coordinate, rather than have to manage and administer staff," says Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the House Democratic whip. "The very size is alarming. It will have by low estimate 170,000 employees, and only 120 of the cities in our country have a larger population than the Department of Homeland Security.

"What we have now is a department the GAO says will take five to 10 years to be up and running, and that it will cost $4.5 billion dollars to set up," Pelosi continues. "We will spend any amount of money to protect the American people - but is that four and half billion dollars being spent in the best way?"

This month in Access Control

• Opening Up About Door Closers
• An Enterprise Approach
• The Framework For Open Systems
• On A Higher Plane
• More from April's issue