Today's Wall Street Journal has an article on the catastrophic clusterfuck that is the 'terrorist watch' database (hat tip: Atrios). A choice excerpt:

The government's main terrorist-watch-list system is hobbled by technology challenges, and the $500 million program designed to upgrade it is on the verge of collapse, according to a preliminary congressional investigation....

Among the flaws in the database, which was quickly built by Lockheed Martin Corp. in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, is its inability to do key-word searches.

So one of the key tools meant to keep us all safe from Terra is grossly inadequate, and unlikely to be fixed anytime soon. And I think it's pretty clear that the technical incompetence of the execution flows directly from the technical ignorance of the people in charge.

Which is why this is as scary as it is funny:

Something tells me we'll be getting a lot more stories like the WSJ piece if McCain is in charge.