Is Anyone Out There Listening?

Like the politician she is, Republican Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, who represents the swamps and woods of Hernando, Citrus, Sumter and parts of Pasco counties, sent out news releases to the media the other day, attacking Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee and his office for not digging into the identity of Rigoberto Moron Martinez, a suspect in a series of violent attacks across the Tampa Bay region.

Being an elected politician, Gee fired right back, accusing Brown-Waite of being naive and grandstanding.

Both politicians then took the opportunity to fire off some salvos at other government agencies, pointing fingers left and right.

The rest of us could only sit to the side and wonder how it is possible that government has become so completely dysfunctional in so many ways.

It was only two weeks after Martinez posted bail and was released for the second time from Hillsborough County Jail that authorities now say he and two accomplices were responsible for abducting two women in Apollo Beach, raping both and setting fire to one of the women's cars.

Following the attacks it has been reported that St. Petersburg police followed Martinez, suspecting his involvement in a Pinellas robbery earlier this month. It was apparently the St. Petersburg police who had Hillsborough deputies pick up Martinez on an outstanding warrant the first time, where he spent five hours in jail. Hillsborough authorities say they were never told that Martinez was a suspect in the rape and robbery in St. Petersburg and he was shortly released.

Immigration Status Questioned

But that's not even the crux of the issue. Martinez is an illegal alien. There is now the question of whether that was reported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) people and whether they bothered to do anything about it or it just got caught up in the mountains of electronic paperwork.

Brown-Waite, apparently looking for quick political fodder, picked the overwhelmed Hillsborough sheriff's office for her target, but could have just as easily gone after ICE, or her do-nothing colleagues in Congress.

All Of The Above

The truth is closer to all of the above, but it is more than that.

You would have thought that after, say Pearl Harbor, we might have learned a little more about the importance of communication and just talking to each other.

We haven't.

Instead, we have spent heaven only knows how many billions on advances in communications technology.

It's not just the government. Down where I work, someone might be sitting two feet away but instead of getting up to ask a question, will fire off an e-mail of some kind.

Our governments have hundreds of overstaffed, over-sophisticated and highly skilled agencies that don't bother talking to each other.

I think part of it is a growing inability in our culture to listen to what someone else is saying.

In the world of law enforcement and national security, that is not a good thing.

If Brown-Waite, who is a member of the Homeland Security Committee, really wanted to do something useful, she might work to ensure that all of those departments and agencies work a little harder at listening to each other.

They might learn something.