Homeland Security Watch

Can a nine-week intern project trump a multi-million dollar DHS project?

That’s the claim that the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) makes today, with the launch of ReallyReady.org, a critique of DHS’s Ready.gov website. FAS writes that they find “numerous shortcomings” in Ready.gov (which they summarize here, and detail in this 38-page report), and undertook this project for two reasons:

• To provide clear and correct information to citizens interested in preparing themselves and their families for an emergency
• To persuade the Department of Homeland Security to take a serious look at Ready.gov and their policy on the accuracy of information and to make important changes that will help Americans to prepare for terrorist attacks or natural disasters.

Ready.gov was recently updated to make the site more user-friendly, winning David Stephenson’s plaudits in a post yesterday. But this FAS project makes some constructive suggestions about how to continue to improve the site, suggestions that DHS should take seriously.