“Siebel Systems is hardly the only company to recognise the War on Terrorism’s lucrative promise. For this year alone, the US government has allocated nearly $30bn for the overhaul of airport security and hacker-proofing software for government computers. Many of these expenditures may soon be controlled by the Department of Homeland Security, the new agency being created as part of the US’s biggest bureaucratic reorganisation since the late 1940s. Under President Bush’s plan, the department would be second in manpower only to the Pentagon. Fulfilling such an expansive mission will clearly include disbursing tens of billions of dollars to the private sector.”Industry players are looking to the federal government as their salvation,” says Peter Swire, an Ohio State University law professor who advised President Clinton on privacy issues. “Many companies that rode the dot.com boom need to find big new sources of income. One is direct sales to the federal government; another is federal mandates. If we have a big federal push for new security spending, that could prop up the sagging market.””
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