Are high-tech devices providing security?

WASHINGTON, May 15 (UPI) -- Many of the high-tech security devices adopted by George W. Bush administration have been expensive flops, government investigators say.

Reports by the Government Accountability Office and other agencies suggest the "virtual fence" on the Mexican border, detectors for nuclear radiation at ports, and machines to detect traces of explosive at airports are prone to false alarms, the Chicago Tribune reported.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has downgraded many of the high-tech programs and delayed the requirement that states adopt tamper-proof driver's licenses, which has turned into an expensive burden in the recession.

Aides to the secretary said officials under Bush were doing the best they could to prevent more terrorist attacks and should not be blamed because some initiatives did not pan out. But Charles Faddis, a former CIA officer who wrote "Willful Neglect: The Dangerous Illusion of Homeland Security," told the newspaper government officials should have made greater use of low-tech methods such as bomb-sniffing dogs at airports.

"We end up in a situation where there's all sorts of very straightforward things that we don't do, because there's no money to be made in it," he said.