I'm no expert

But it seems to me that looking for IEDs in Massechusetts could be considered a futile expense.

Ok, so for better or worse, we have a gigantic agency called the DHS. It controls, among other things, FEMA, and counter-terrorism budgets for cities and states.

I'm thinking that if I were setting departmental goals, they'd look relatively simple:
- Cities have a clear reporting structure which is comminicated to all first responder agencies and employees: police, fire, hospitals and medical providers, water and power employees, and of course city and county government employees.
- Cities have communications systems for first responder teams which are demonstrated to be effective, and which will work in the event a disaster.
- Cities have evacuation plans for either natural disaster or attack, including alternate routes and means.
- Cities have rescue and recovery plans for situations not addressed by evacuation plans.
- City medical facilities have plans in place for receiving patients, triage, power interruptions, that they are fully linked to first responder communications.

I recently put together OSHA compliant programs for two divisions at my company, one in California and one in Florida. The OSHA and CALOSHA websites provided me with very clear guidelines and requirements, and lots of training tools. And an 800 number one could call if they wanted an OSHA rep to come review the program for compliance. Which I didn't need to use.

It was really pretty simple to decide a few things: who in each office is responsible for various record keeping duties, who does an employee report an injury or a hazard to? Put together the important training materials and give managers a schedule for training their teams. Post info and evacuation maps, and train people on how to use fire extinguishers.

Beyond that, each dept is responsible for having working safety equipment and tools, if required, and for not huffing dangerous chemicals, etc.

It seems to me that this is what local DHS efforts should map out like, on a larger and more complex scale. The DHS should have clear guidelines as to what teams need to know and what sort of plans need to be in place to comply. Like the list I posted above.

Yes, law enforcement needs to understand what an improvised explosive device might look like, but I'll warrant that's not a huge step for them as it is. They do need to have direct lines to the appropriate federal agencies, and FBI needs to be working with everyone and demonstrate the cobwebbed maze where information went to die before 9/11.

And this was a ridiculously long post where all I really wanted to say was that I'm not a small-government reactionary type, but if we're going to invest the money in a broad-based federal agency which often manages life and death in a very immediate sense, well then I would like it to be a smart agency.