By Tom Ryan, Kansas City Star Reader Advisory Panel

Is homeland security profitable? It seems that former chief of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff thinks so. Tom Ridge
has a company too.

The revolving door seems lubricated and rather attractive at the prospect of a share in the estimated annual revenue of $200 billion per year in government spending.

We have a host of national as well as foreign contracting companies who provide services to the Defense and State Departments, and those and others provide contract security services here at home to businesses and the Department of Homeland security. The revolving door from government service to government contracting is business as usual but the business growth and the stakes for profit have some worrying that the industry’s people, while revolving, will market their wares by perpetuating fear and uncertainty.

This is not the only business that markets using uncertainty.

Chertoff left the job this year and seems poised to dip into the budget he helped to create. Tom Ridge has a new book and his cell phone must be vibrating across the lunch table, into the foie gras. These are but two of many captains of this new industry. This is not a fox in the henhouse worry. There are no foxes, hens, or a henhouse.

Like defense, this is important business. Business here to stay with excellent growth potential, it seems.

We’ll see what Secretary Napolitano pursues after her tenure.

But wait…
Reuters reports today that GE intends to sell its security unit that makes cameras and alarms. This past April, GE sold a majority stake in GE Security's homeland protection business, which sells technology for airports, to Paris-based Safran SA.

Does Jeffery Immelt, GE’s CEO, know something Tom and Mike don’t?