by Sam Stein
The Huffington Post

The Department of Homeland Security has wasted and mismanaged billions in taxpayer dollars and is plagued by internal criminal activity, a study released on Wednesday reveals.

Five years after it was created to help coordinate America' security apparatus, the DHS continues to suffer from massive failures. According to a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the department's border agencies are rife with crime, its employee morale is at a dangerous low, information technology is obsolete, and several programs are either mismanaged or overrun.

"The Department of Homeland Security is an embarrassment that would be comical if only our national security were not at stake," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW. "The agency and its leadership must be held accountable for its failures and pushed to do better."

Within DHS, wasteful spending is seen as ubiquitous. CREW highlighted at least $178 million that was spent on a failed Coast Guard Deepwater program, more than $600 million allocated for unworkable radiation border scanners, and $1.3 billion devoted to a US-VISIT program that was never implemented.