Though respected as a former congressman and governor of Pennsylvania, Mr. Ridge has marginalized himself by shrinking from some of the tough work required to coordinate the government's disparate domestic security functions.
Mr. Catta said, however, that since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the government had taken over many airport security functions that used to be the airlines' responsibility.
And we did not have a plan to provide the most basic function of any government — security for the population.
In 2003, the U.S. government handed out 3,512 contracts to companies to perform security functions; in the twenty-two-month period ending in August 2006, the Department of Homeland Security had issued more than 115,000 such contracts.
Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, said that one reason for the bill, which puts most security functions in the hands of the federal government, was to increase public confidence in aviation and thus encourage people to return to flying.
By the early 1930s the OGPU controlled all Soviet security functions, directing a vast army of informers in factories, government offices, and the Red Army.
The case between Apple and the government became public last month, when a federal magistrate judge in California ordered the company to bypass the security functions on the iPhone.
Government security, by comparison, is surprisingly lax.
It served no security function.
As stocks rose, government securities fell.
