The US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform met today in Washington DC.
The House Hearing : ‘Firearms and Munitions at Risk: Examining Inadequate Safeguards’
Today, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, held hearings on the security of the enormous gun and ammunition lockers at Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Prison System (FPS), and Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Open the Books broke the news last week that federal officers have more firepower than the US Marines.
Watch a short clip of the OpenTheBooks data highlights, click here.
Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC) grilled the administrators on their weaponry and coding mistakes:
** 1.7 billion bullets procured by DHS
** Women’s hygiene products mis-coded as body armor at FPS
** Cable TV described as ‘Cable Dude’ and coded by DHS as guns
** 4,700 bayonets flowing to DHS from military surplus – why?
Today, Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of OpenTheBooks, published an editorial in the Washington Times on “Firepower for the Feds?”
Why are there $173,433 in women’s jumpers, sanitary pads, sheets, pillowcases, inmate clothes and shoes, and various beauty supplies tagged as body armor in the prison checkbook?
Did the federal prisons really purchase $1.4 million in “military chemical weapons” since 2006? Or how about $541,351 in purchases under the federal uniform accounting code of “1310: Ammunition, over 30MM up to 75MM”? It’s doubtful that the prison system is buying bunker-busting missiles, so who is auditing the auditors?
Just how many errors have the federal administrative agencies made in the reporting of their guns, ammunition and military-style equipment?
Despite the dirty data and accounting mistakes, our organization at OpenTheBooks.com recently released an oversight report titled “The Militarization of America.” It quantified the escalating size, scope and power of 67 nonmilitary federal agencies, which spent $1.48 billion on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment since 2006. We also found that there are now more federal officers with arrest and firearms power (200,000-plus) than U.S. Marines (182,000).
