Shoe Checkers Audited

Monkey Bidness Larry, Monkey 7/3/2005

9:00 AM -- On the eve of this busy holiday weekend, the Washington Post reports on "a federal audit that calls into question $303 million of the $741 million spent to assess and hire airport passenger screeners for the newly created Transportation Security Administration after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001":

The money was spent in the name of improving security at the nation's airports:

$526.95 for one phone call from the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Chicago to Iowa City.

$1,180 for 20 gallons of Starbucks Coffee -- $3.69 a cup -- at the Santa Clara Marriott in California.

$1,540 to rent 14 extension cords at $5 each per day for three weeks at the Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colo.

$8,100 for elevator operators at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan.

$5.4 million claimed for nine months' salary for the chief executive of an "event logistics" firm that received a contract before it was incorporated and went out of business after the contract ended.

Feel safer?

— Larry, Attack Monkey, Light Reading