In today’s installment of Cato Unbound, AEI resident scholar (and Cato adjunct scholar) Veronique de Rugy argues that the $271.5 billion devoted by the federal government to homeland security since 9/11 has not been well spent.

“Not only are we over-investing in homeland security,” de Rugy argues, “but most times we spend too much money in the wrong way and on the wrong things.”

The consequence is that we are no safer. “Bad security is often worse than no security at all,” de Rugy writes. “By trying, and failing, to make ourselves more secure, we make ourselves less secure.”