Work
DHS is plagued by excessive bureaucracy, waste, ineffectiveness and lack of transparency. A House of Representatives subcommittee estimated that as of September 2008 the department has wasted roughly $15 billion in failed contracts. In 2003, the department came under fire after the media revealed that Laura Callahan, Deputy chief information officer at DHS with responsibilities for sensitive national security databases, had obtained her advanced computer science degrees through a diploma mill in a small town in Wyoming. The department was blamed for up to $2 billion of waste and fraud after audits by the Government Accountability Office revealed widespread misuse of government credit cards by DHS employees, with purchases including beer brewing kits, $70,000 of plastic dog booties that were later deemed unusable, boats purchased at double the retail price (many of which later could not be found), and iPods ostensibly for use in "data storage". In 2009 it was revealed that anonymous Homeland Security employees in Indiana had collaborated on an artwork by Cindy Hinant by cutting out paper hearts while on paid time.
-Caraccio, Joseph, “Is It Time to Dissolve DHS?” New York Immigration Lawyers, February 2015