FEMA Slows Search for Kids From Katrina (Washington Post)

[Up2Late]

(I have no words for how I feel about this that I could use here)

FEMA Slows Search for Kids From Katrina

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 23, 2005; Page A06

Efforts to locate 500 children still classified as missing after Hurricane Katrina are stalled because the Federal Emergency Management Agency, citing privacy laws, has refused to share its evacuee database with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to investigators tracking the cases.

Not until the White House and Justice Department intervened earlier this month did Department of Homeland Security officials agree to a compromise that grants FBI agents limited access to information that may provide clues to many of the unresolved cases.

In recent days, FEMA has released data that helped close 15 cases. Yesterday, after inquiries from The Washington Post, the agency sent the FBI a computer disk with the names of 570,000 evacuees....

(clip)

"...We are deeply disappointed by the low priority FEMA assigned to the cases of missing children," Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) wrote yesterday to FEMA's acting director, R. David Paulison. "And while FEMA may not have sole responsibility to investigate cases of missing children, it should do what is in its power to assist other agencies in completing the investigations."

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122202045.html?nav=rss_politics>
(more at link above)

[KT2000]

1. FEMA and obstruction

that is the only thing they are good at anymore. They exist for paperwork and nothing else. Human life just does no equate for them. Fire them all.

[me b zola]

3. They are pretty damned good at obstruction

They wouldn't let any assisstence into New Orleans until king george said it was okay. Those fuckers are so damned culpable in so many murders, it turns my stomache.

[me b zola]

2. I am beyond words myself (allowable or otherwise)

But I have been that way since the levees blew/breeched/whatever.

What I saw perpetrated against American citizens on American soil by the American government, has changed me. The hidious behavior of the federal government against the peope of New Orleans continues, and I continue to weep.

Where are these children? Dead? Child prostitution? Why the fuck doesn't the federal government give a shit? :grr: Oh but wait. Faux newz will be sure to slam a foreign government because a pretty blonde girl got herself dead? there. By all means, as long as the media has their priorities straight. :mad:


WAKE HE FUCK UP, MEDIA!!!!!!!!!!

[EFerrari]

4. 500 children are missing and FEMA is hiding the fact.

We should send this to America's Most Wanted.

How many of us can they disappear before it is too many?

[Up2Late]

6. I hope it's just me being paranoid, but what I fear will happen is...

...they will end up in the hands of the criminals that traffic in child labor and prostitutes, what some call child slavery, but I'm not going to go that far until I see more evidence.

[EFerrari]

7. I'm afraid they are dead. n/t

[pitohui]

9. seems more likely they're dead

some of these are v. small children, i can't believe there is that much interest in child rape that the market could absorb 500 children, at the time some parents reported kids being pulled out of their hands by the tidal surge -- you heard more of that from biloxi than new orleans, admittedly -- but 500 kids don't just disappear, they require care

i think it's all part of the effort to downplay the number of dead, along w. the admitted non-counting of evacuees who died after being removed to other states but not being able to recover from their exposure or injuries

i think the kids are dead, right now, it's easier for the media to admit that 1,000 90somethings have died than to admit than any numbers of small children have died

that said, i'm aware of a 90something couple found dead of drowning after the breach of the london avenue canal whose names still haven't been placed on the list, and it ain't because they haven't been released to family & buried, because they were, 2 months ago

v. few names actually make it on the official list but they're dead all the same

nola.com found a case of an evacuee infant who died in georgia & state of georgia refuses to add her name to the list of katrina dead, even tho it's cut and dried, the baby died as a result of sleeping on an air mattress, if not for katrina, that child would be at home in her crib & just fine

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. A couple of weeks ago, the number of missing children was 1,300.....

...Did they miraculously find 800 of the missing children, or is FEMA trying to minimize the true number to further conceal their total incompetence?

[EFerrari]

13. I thought the article said they found 15? 15, 800, anyone

could make that mistake. :sarcasm:

[Up2Late]

14. I heard one of the guys who runs the National Center for Missing...

...and Exploited Children on NPR tonight, he said they had found , or better to say reunited 4500 of the 5000 or so that had been reported to them in the days after the storm.

He said he thought the last 500 was more a matter of displaced parents not being able to find their displaced children, with a lot of them possibly already in the care of other relatives, but the relative don't know how to contact the parent.

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5069115>

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. I have read that more than twice that many kids are still missing

We got a flyer at school just last week. It said 1200 kids are still missing. Sorry I don't remember who sent us the flyer or who wrote it.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. It's all about keeping the death toll down. nt

[Bush_MUST_Go]

8. Anyone else notice the sheer hypocrisy....

It's ok for this admin. to spy on citizens BUT they drag their feet when it comes to sharing info about missing children? Missing black children.

Their lack of real compassion or regard for using the laws to benefit REGULAR PEOPLE is sickening! And so transparent.

[librechik]

10. I know! I had to stop for a moment to laugh hysterically

-before I could go on reading he rest of the post.


and welcome to DU, BMG!

:hi:

[Bush_MUST_Go]

12. Thanks for the welcome, Impeach Bush. :)

I'm a long time lurker, especially at the breaking news board. It's THE place to go to find out what's going on in the world, imo.

I was a bit surprised that people were rightly outraged about FEMA but nobody mentioned the sickening hypocrisy of this administration.

Just when you think this administration could not sink any lower, they manage to surprise me.

I mean, turning a blind eye to the plight of missing American children.... isn't THAT almost as bad as getting a BJ? Aren't the Conservatives or Republicans ashamed to be aligned with this incompetent :evilfrown: administration...... YET????? :shrug:

[newyawker99]

20. Hi Bush_MUST_Go!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[mom cat]

15. What an outrage!

[area51]

16. Ah, yes.

The "pro-child", "culture of life" republinazi party. </sarcasm>

[merh]

17. How about this article?

Child molestation on FEMA ship alleged
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2006844&mesg_id=2006844

:cry:

[AspenRose]

18. Ah, who cares. I've got to get back to MSGOP and watch the latest

update on the pretty missing white girl du jour. :sarcasm: