Homeland Security Watch

Perhaps the way we’ve arrived at considering spending billions on missile defense for commercial airliners and monitoring paintball games for signs of extremism is along the appealing path of “it could happen.” In the early days following 9/11, many of us in the policy community worried about the nature of follow-on attacks, which gave way to defensive measures based on scenarios, which led to ever more ominous scenarios, and ever more expensive countermeasures. Is this serving us well as an approach to Homeland Security?

To be sure, we have a lot of work to do and a lot of worthy work is underway at DHS, State, and Defense that is critical to combating terrorism. However, we should beware the tendency to shape our strategy based on the theory that “it could happen.” Could terrorists fire surface to air missiles at airplanes leaving LaGuardia? Yes. Likely? Hard to say. Worth $10 billion to reduce but not eliminate the possibility? Hardly.

So it bothered me when Paul J. Browne, an NYPD police spokesman told the New York Times this week, “One call one day may be the one that stops an attempt to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge.” He was justifying the ubiquitous ad campaign across the City’s subway system urging riders to “say something” if they “see something.” The motive initially makes sense: A complacent ridership risks missing indications of a conspiracy to bomb the subway trains. I suppose the assumption is that had the other riders on Spain’s train to Madrid on the morning of March 11, 2004, noticed the terrorists leaving their bomb-rigged bags, the concerned commuter would have alerted others and possibly avoided the carnage.

Last year, according to NYPD, 1,944 subway riders “said something.” By calling 1-800-NYC-SAFE, subway riders warned of “people seen counting in the subway.” Callers worried this was an antecedent to something nefarious and deadly. In all, the hotline received 13,473 calls in 2007, with 644 of those triggering investigations. (Of these calls, 45 were transit related.)

While some crimes were inadvertently uncovered by the callers – ranging from selling false IDs to illegal fireworks peddling – none of the calls resulted from or discovered actual terrorism threats. NYC’s subway riders were applying their own “no-fly list” to other riders. 13,373 callers would have sent fellow riders to secondary, but would have found no terrorists. This is the trickle down effect of “it could happen.”

The “it could happen” approach results from a steep national learning curve about terrorism that persists more than six years after 9/11. Terrorism is a complicated issue, and one that continually evolves. No doubt the general public has little time to read up on radicalism or studied analyses of terrorist behavior. But if our homeland is secured by an “anything’s possible” strategy, we’ll wind up doing at least one of three things:
– Going broke
– Tying up anti-terrorism assets with non-threats
– Eroding our sense of community and eventually our ability to be resilient if we are attacked again

None of these outcomes will happen quickly. However, the prospect does force a cost-benefit analysis of a new kind. Is it worth $10 billion to reduce the chance of a successful MANPAD launch against an airliner? Does a terrorism hotline make us safer if we don’t know what to look for?

National strategies – from Homeland Security to housing programs – require tradeoffs. But assessing the costs and benefits accurately requires balancing near-term and long-term needs with a sober assessment of the strategic threat. Seven years into the national effort to secure the homeland, we still seem to be struggling to understand this equation.

UPDATE: I will concede this: the terrorism hotline serves another potential benefit beyond empowering subway riders. The notion of an overly alert ridership has the potential to introduce enough uncertainty on the part of a perpetrator to second guess the viability of an operation. The flipside is that terrorists become more covert to further lower their profiles. The most effective measure would force a would-be terrorist to take more steps to avoid detection, thereby providing more indicators of a planned attack.

Polls of adult Americans over the last year show trends in threat perceptions and priorities in the terrorism and homeland security domain. I converted some of the findings from this CNN/Gallup poll into the following charts. These two questions captured an important metric about how a cross-section of the electorate is thinking.  (The poll includes other questions that deal with Iraq, Iran, and Middle East peace specifically.)

When asked how worried they are that they would become a victim of terrorism, most said that they were “not too worried” across the seventeen-month span of the survey ending in December. Being “somewhat worried” ranked second consistently, but those asked were almost twice as likely to be not worried at all as opposed to very worried that they or a family member would be a victim of terrorism. Either there isn’t all that much fear-mongering these days, or it isn’t really registering.

 

And its still the economy, stupid. When asked about the “most important” issue for determining who should be the next president, terrorism and the war in Iraq gradually give way to the economy. In fact, terrorism rarely ranks 12% as the most important issue. Last summer, Iraq dominated with 31% of the voters’ attention. But through the fall and into December, despite the constant debate about funding our troops and whether/when to bring them home, Iraq could not compete with the credit crisis and job losses. The economy is the number one issue.

Happy New Year. What follows is not exactly my list of resolutions for 2008, but rather four consolidated priorities I’d like to see accomplished in order to improve our security at home. Since this blog embraces a broad definition of those factors that contribute to (or further denude) our homeland security, the topics are similarly beyond the normal scope of the homeland security debate (state grants, first responder interoperability, etc.)

Preempt the Terrorists’ Pursuit of WMD
We know that terrorists want them. We know that they are hard to detect when smuggled and to respond to when detonated or released. There’s a lot that can be done in the way of eliminating terrorist access to WMD, but it’ll take a sizeable commitment. While Russia’s military maintains more than 1,000 tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and at least 150 tons of weapons-grade plutonium, even more HEU remains in research reactors in dozens of nations around the world, many with security inadequate to prevent theft.  The “loose geeks” problem is as relevant as the loose nukes threat. According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, thousands of weapons scientists (presumably in Russia) are still without a steady paycheck.

In 2008, let’s ramp up Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) efforts to role back this twin threat and keep WMD out of terrorists hands to begin with. Start with a plus-up for the CTR budget that amounts to a mere 10% of the budget we annually spend on, say, missile defense. That would be $1 billion for CTR, which is quite a jump from the paltry $342 million presently budgeted.

Finish the Job in Afghanistan to Prevent Further Terrorist Support
Focus on al Qaeda and Basic Stability
Our mission there is on a collision course with itself.  What once was the frontline in fighting terrorism is on the backburner while our security gains there erode.  We need a “surge” in Afghanistan to create the kind of political and security environment to enable our (albeit imperfect) reconstruction teams, more effectively distribute aid, provide the running room that nascent government needs in order to assert itself and gain the legitimacy it so sorely lacks in many parts of the country. That the Taliban and al Qaeda are still operating there after the early successes of 2001 and 2002 is utterly regrettable.

Recommit to NATO
Start with Afghanistan and follow up at Bucharest
Rebalancing America’s troop commitments in Afghanistan consistent with our national security goals is only part of the solution there. It is a NATO operation and our national interests are served by NATO’s success. Our Alliance is more than a sunk cost from the Cold War. NATO brings together 26 nations – largely under U.S. leadership – on a strategic security agenda that reflects U.S. national interests in 2008 and far into the future. Coalitions of the willing may actually have their place, but nothing is more valuable than the potential legitimacy generated by almost 50 countries (including NATO Partners).

We’ve known since 9/11 that our national security interests are in the common interest among our allies. It was confirmed when NATO invoked the mutual defense clause for the first time in its history in support of the U.S. on September 12, 2001. Let’s make the next NATO Summit, which is scheduled for the Spring and to be held in Bucharest, the “back-to-the-basics” Summit. There is great potential for NATO’s evolution as a global security forum with teeth, but it is already an asset for our national security efforts that remains largely untapped as a political arrow in our quiver for rallying reluctant allies and creating partners in parts of the world where we need them most . As they say, “Animus In Conulendo Liber.”

Win the war on terrorism on the moral front, in addition to the military one.
Rationalize Our Stance on Torture
America cannot sanction torture. While situations may arise wherein we have in our custody a person with knowledge of impending attacks, the United States cannot as a matter of policy advocate for a legal loophole or a moral exception that makes torture a standard operating procedure. Doing so diminishes U.S. credibility, endangers our soldiers overseas, runs contrary to the moral imperative our Fore Fathers set forth, and according to too many who’ve used or witnessed torture, it doesn’t work well enough to justify it as a practice.

Close Guantanamo Bay and Restore Habeas
Straightening out our nation’s position on torture will support our route to the moral high ground in rallying others to our cause against extremist terrorists, but so also will the closing of Guantanamo and the restoring of habeas corpus to prisoners we capture. This would be a basic measure to restore America’s conscience and make her once again consistent with our own Constitution. If those who we apprehend as suspects in supporting or perpetrating terrorism actually are guilty, they should be tried (military courts are fine) and punished.  Let’s use the evidence that convinced us to apprehend them in the first place.  Running prisons that lock people away without ever charging them is simply un-American.

No you didn’t. The Homeland Security appropriations bill started out four years ago as a pork free piece of legislation (no special projects for legislators using federal funds).  By last year’s passage of the FY2007 bill, pork had taken hold, albeit modestly compared to other bills. This time, the FY08 appropriations bill that went to the Senate yesterday from the House includes significantly more pork than there has ever been in the bill. (See last year’s in-depth analysis by Christian Beckner.)

The FEMA Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant program, which has never been earmarked before, is bogged down with 96 earmarks totaling $51.3 million. Earmarks are found in everything from Coast Alteration of Bridges ($19 million) to research projects totaling $150 million, which includes a $27 million research institute courtesy Reps Alexander, Corchran, and Corker. There is also $20 million for interoperable communications for Mississippi, even though the total of unearmarked grants for interoperable communications in the bill is only $50 million.

No time to write more now, but see the full list “projects” is on pages 102-110 of the joint explanatory statement. Earmarks are rarely defensible, but always expected. The Homeland Security bill had been a haven from this kind of selfish spending. Some, like the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, may be worth it. Let’s hope the Senate gives this bill the scrutiny that forces these projects to be defended.

Congress included $13million for the Global Trade Exchange within the spending bill sent to the Senate last night. GTX is the third phase of an effort to bring better security and system visibility to the global maritime shipping supply chains. The bill reads as follows:

$13,000,000 shall be used to procure commercially available technology in order to expand and improve the risk-based approach of the Department of Homeland Security to target and inspect cargo containers under the Secure Freight Initiative and the Global Trade Exchange.

The Department issued an RFQ (thumbnail below) for this effort last week. Criticism of the effort usually revolves around the opaque nature in which it has evolved. Private sector operators whose information would theoretically populate a central data exchange express concern over the potential imposition on their supply chains that would come without sufficient benefit to their operations.

GTX has the potential to become a game-changing new dynamic between the public and private sector. However, much remains to be revealed in terms of the anticipated concept of operations that would create the appropriate mix of incentives to support private sector involvement. It is conceivable that if such a ConOps is crafted – including data privacy assurances, a durable governance framework, and shared risk, among other things – the kind of transparency that could be brought to the global maritime trade domain may generate a great advantage for our Homeland Security efforts to identify threats and for our maritime economic operators to identify and mitigate disruptions to their supply chains.

NOTE:
Singapore is now the seventh international port to join an effort to test scanning capabilities geared toward preventing radioactive material from being smuggled via U.S.-bound shipping containers. Integrated scanning for these purposes includes radiation detection and X-ray imaging of 100 percent of maritime cargo headed to the U.S.

This effort, part of the Secure Freight Initiative run jointly by DHS, Energy, and State, is in response to a Congressional mandate included in the SAFE Port Act. Other recently announced ports that signed up include Port Qasim (Pakistan), Puerto Cortés (Honduras), and the Port of Southampton (UK).

Not much time to write these days, so this will be quick.  These two reports were sent in to the Watch yesterday.  While they were issued to the Department earlier in the year, they were just made public.

Both of these are by the Homeland Security Institute, the FFRDC set up for DHS.  HSI primarily serves the S&T Directorate, but they are a resource for the entire Department.  More on HSI here.

The first report is a study of the factors that contribute to the success or failure of a terrorist attack, as well as measures taken to counter those attacks.  Click here to download the pdf.

The second is a revealing report on the process of strategic planning for DHS.  The report asks a basic question: If the mission is to protect the homeland, how should the mission space really be defined?  The authors take on the scope of sub-missions and begin to identify actionable objectives for each of them.

A seven-year extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, or TRIA is closer to passage in the Congress this week. This will be the result of a compromise between Dems and Repubs, and between the House and the Senate. In general, Dems favor the legislation to enable private insurers to write policies that cover acts of terrorism, which they believe insurers otherwise would not provide out of concern that such a policy would be too risky. Repubs are, in general, unsupportive of extensions for the bill in favor of private sector market solutions that they believe would be less expensive.

The insurance industry paid more than $30 billion in claims as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Afterward, commercial terrorism insurance for businesses became expensive and even impossible to obtain. Congress responded by passing TRIA to provide a financial backstop for the insurance industry so that it would continue to underwrite policies. TRIA is set to expire on December 31.

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank is leading the House charge to bolster TRIA. The Senate is seeking ways to continue TRIA in more modest ways. The White House supports the Senate’s more conservative version of the TRIA bill.

CQ wrote today that Chairman Frank will accept the Senate’s seven-year extension of TRIA, which is shorter than the 15-year extension he sought. The seven-year TRIA extension would increase the deficit by $3 billion over the next five years and $5.1 billion over the next decade, according to CBO estimates. Chairman Frank said he also would step back from requiring an expansion of the program to cover nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological attacks. On the other hand, Frank is committed to reducing the $100 million threshold that would trigger government coverage to $50 million.

The last thing we should want to do is to leave America’s economy hanging without viable insurance coverage that can protect it against losses like those we saw in lower Manhattan on 9/11. However, there comes a time when industry will have to step up to identify the market – or create one – for providing the coverage necessary for confidence in today’s risk-laden environment. TRIA was created as a temporary fix to bridge the tenuous time between 9/11 and a more stable economic landscape that would allow the market to operate effectively in this new terrain. However, the question remains: What if the market sets a price so high for this coverage that demand never takes hold? We run the risk of creating an additional vulnerability in the form of a brittle economy that would likely suffer unnecessary cascading effects from a terrorist attack if the insurance coverage is not in place to buffer the financial impact.

Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff delivered a speech before the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin last Thursday and hit the usual high notes of transatlantic cooperation, which continues to strengthen below the radar of our politically charged policy environment on this side of the Pond.

How the Secretary portrayed that progress was with a lingua franca unfamiliar to the State Department diplomats. For example, he cited three principles on which he believes Americans and Europeans agree.

First, nations “must be willing not only to operate within their own borders and ports of entry, but beyond them as well.” He probably doesn’t mean that the way it sounds. Translation: find effective ways to cooperate with other nations to pursue shared interests in countering terrorism that crosses national boundaries.

Second, complete safety is out of reach and “the best alternative is a strategy that is governed by risk management.” While it may seem unremarkable by now, that concept will likely leave observers wondering what exactly the U.S. means by it.

Third, security can only be pursued effectively if in partnership with other nations. Put Chertoff on the National Security Council, please. It’s another unremarkable concept, but one that needs to be stated repeatedly.

So risk is inevitable and we should “manage” it. The closest this country has gotten to defining risk at the strategic level is in the context of debating where to apply federal funds, such as UASI grants.  Unfortunately, for all the work DHS and its component agencies have put toward defining risk over the years – since long before 9/11 – the latest Homeland Security Strategy barely addresses the idea.

The National Strategy gets only so close:

“the [National Preparedness Guidelines] constitutes a capabilities-based preparedness process for making informed decisions about managing homeland risk and prioritizing homeland security investments across disciplines, jurisdictions, regions, and levels of government, helping us to answer how prepared we are, how prepared we need to be, and how we prioritize efforts to close the gap.”

That’s what we should get if we manage risk, but what is the nature of risk in a post 9/11 strategic context? Later in the Strategy is a longer paragraph representing the only other description of risk:

“The assessment and management of risk underlies the full spectrum of our homeland security activities, including decisions about when, where, and how to invest in resources that eliminate, control, or mitigate risks. In the face of multiple and diverse catastrophic possibilities, we accept that risk – a function of threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences – is a permanent condition. We must apply a risk-based framework across all homeland security efforts in order to identify and assess potential hazards (including their downstream effects), determine what levels of relative risk are acceptable, and prioritize and allocate resources among all homeland security partners, both public and private, to prevent, protect against, and respond to and recover from all manner of incidents. A disciplined approach to managing risk will help to achieve overall effectiveness and efficiency in securing the Homeland. In order to develop this discipline, we as a Nation must organize and help mature the profession of risk management by adopting common risk analysis principles and standards, as well as a professional lexicon.”

Over 150 words and it still seems as though we’re talking around the concept without really saying what risk is apart from “a function of threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences.” That’s the same way we described risk on September 10, 2001. What we need is a straight forward explanation of risk in the 21st century. Sure its terrorism, but it is also much more if we consider that terrorist targets include almost anything in the civilian and commercial realm.  Risk is therefore a function of how interconnected today’s world has become.  A danger in this hemisphere ripples around the world depending on numerous factors beyond just threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences.

With little else to go on, our allies overseas listening to Secretary Chertoff last week could be forgiven if they walked away from his speech wondering just what it means to choose “a strategy that is governed by risk management.”

The new IBM white paper we wrote and I blogged about earlier offers the following:
“Risk today is characterized by the rise of the individual as well as the rise of small groups as strategic threats and the speed and unpredictability with which the harmful effects of disruptions in one part of the world can spread to other companies, sectors and countries.”

The National Homeland Security Strategy makes a sound point when in another slight reference to risk, it suggests that “companies that minimize risk will be rewarded by the market.” You might say that this maxim applies to the government, too.

While the National Strategy may have prompted more questions than it answered, there is another opportunity for us to get this knotty issue of risk nailed down so that we can plan against it and make wiser investments in both the public and private sector. Recall that Congress mandated that DHS issue a Quadrennial Homeland Security Review along the lines of the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review. This repesents a valuable opportunity for DHS to take this head on. No better document – at this point, anyway – than the first QHSR to put forth a workable concept of risk.

Yesterday I participated in the USCIS E-Verify Evaluation Workshop here in Washington. The purpose of the one-day workshop was to bring together a cross-section of the stakeholder community (employers, contractors, not that many policy folks) to identify and prioritize issues that should be a part of an upcoming evaluation of the USCIS E-Verify program, which remains in design phase. Lisa Roney, Director of Research and Evaluation at the DHS Office of Policy and Strategy, presided over most of the day.

We were broken up into the following working groups:

Using Biometrics (e.g., the Photo Tool) for Verification

Resolving Tentative Non-confirmations

Timing of Employee Verifications

Focusing on Special Employer Types: Designated Agents and the Employers Using Designated Agents

Focusing on Special Employer Types: Employment Agencies and Temporary Help Services

Focusing on Special Employer Types: Infrequent Users (smaller employers and participants rarely or not using E-Verify)

Readers may recall the August 31 post here that covered the announcement by DHS Secretary Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Gutierrez on a series of border security and immigration measures that included e-Verify and the Social Security No-Match rule. The Administration has described these efforts as the next best alternative to legislation that would have reformed several immigration polices had any legislation passed. E-Verify is the current form of a program already underway called the Basic Pilot, which is run by USCIS.

The e-Verify program enables employers to check the work status of their employees online. The-Verify system compares information taken from the I-9 work eligibility verification form and matches it against the Social Security Administration’s database and the DHS immigration databases. An official description of E-verify is available here, along with the agenda from yesterday’s workshop, and a description of the workgroup topics.

We should see a report based on the workshop out around year’s end.

In a CQ story today, Matthew Johnson invokes the perennial question of whether we need a Homeland Security Council in addition to a National Security Council at the White House. The non-government experts interviewed both suggest the HSC’s days are numbered, while Congressman Peter King defends the need for a separate HSC.

P.J. Crowley at the Center for American Progress gets the award for most cutting response:

“… it doesn’t make sense to have an Iraq policy where you are creating terrorists disconnected from a homeland security policy where you are supposed to be able to defend against them.”

Whether one agrees that the Iraq war is making more enemies than friends, it stands to reason that if combating terrorism overseas is a national security concern, why would defending against terrorism at home not be? No one would argue that the two efforts are completely disconnected, but sometimes all it takes is a little extra bureaucracy to install a stovepipe.

Imagine if the next President had a national security advisor with two deputies responsible for different portfolios that required a great degree of coordination and shared assets/resources (like the President’s attention)? One deputy for national security, the other for homeland security. The NSC staff would enlarge enough to accommodate the extra workload and the membership on the NSC would be rebalanced to include some of the members from the former HSC. (The Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Transportation may be the only two members of the HSC who are not also members of the NSC.)

CSIS’s David Heyman agrees. Not to put too fine a point on it, David clarifies that “We should abolish the HSC and it should be subsumed by the National Security Council….”

And in the other corner: Peter T. King of New York, the Ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, opposes the idea of merging the two Councils.

“Just as the president has a secretary of State and needs a national security adviser, he also needs a Homeland Security secretary and a homeland security adviser,” King said.

By this logic, we’ll need a Housing and Urban Development Advisor and a HUD Council at the White House, along with an Education advisor and National Education Council.  You see where I’m going with this.

Determining the HSC-NSC fate requires a different argument from this one.  Consider the unique roles that the HSC carries out that have no obvious overlap with the NSC (i.e. State and Local coordination, Emergency Preparedness and Response, or Critical Infrastructure Protection) and ask the following questions:

“Do these portfolios require a separate structure to serve the President or can they be represented by individual senior directors on an expanded NSC staff?”

“Do these responsibilities require direct White House coordination and guidance in the fist place?”

“Would a double deputy and single National Security Advisor be effective in managing a broadened portfolio?”

“Is homeland security a separate endeavor from national security?”

The White House announced today that Francis Fragos Townsend, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, resigned.  She served as head of the President’s Homeland Security Council for the last nearly five years and oversaw the development of the recent update to the National Strategy for Homeland Security, the lessons learned report on the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and the fires on the west coast. 

No word yet on who will replace Ms. Townsend.  Her recently appointed deputy, Joel Bagnal, stepped in for former Deputy HLS Advisor Ken Rapuano after he deployed for a tour in Afghanistan.  Will Mr. Bagnal step in for Townsend?The President reportedly asked all senior political appointees nearly a year ago to decide promptly if they’ll stay until the end of his term.  If not, they were to step down soon to be replaced.  Every President faces an exodus near the end of the second term, and that makes the request sensible.  That Townsend is leaving now — and without an immediate replacement — prompts questions about that wing of the White House.  Who fills that job takes up a great task of shepherding a homeland security mission during very difficult times, and does so by inheriting a new strategy he or she may or may not have had a hand in writing.  Given these circumstances, expect an insider like Bagnal to be named. 

I sure could be wrong on Townsend’s replacement.  Readers are encouraged to comment on who they think will be the new Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

Reader Michael Stanton-Geddes sent in word from Brussels that the European Commission is evolving its counterterrorism (CT) strategy. Commissioner Franco Frattini, who has the Justice, Freedom and Security portfolio for the EC, rolled out the new CT “package” last week as we continue to review the Homeland Security strategy recently released on this side of the Pond. There are some similarities, but differences are apparent in substance as well as style.

Like the U.S. strategy, this EU document begins with an assessment of the threat. Both acknowledge that terrorism poses an evolving risk to respective civilian populations and both consider the potential threat of chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons sought by terrorist groups. The threat assessments differ mostly at this point.

The U.S. is chiefly focused on al-Qaeda, whereas the EC doesn’t mention this group. Ours goes on to cite Hizbollah, al-Qaeda in Iraq, and even the threat of “homegrown terrorists.” The Europeans are surely aware of this last possibility, but they do not mention it in thier description of the threat. Of course, the potential audience on the Continent is far more heterogeneous than ours and the EC therefore faces a more daunting communications challenge in describing this difficult subject.

Europe’s more discrete efforts under this strategy reveal more similarities:

• Stopping violent radicalization;
• Protecting our critical infrastructure;
• Improving the exchange of information between national authorities and cooperation between all stakeholders when appropriate;
• Reacting to non conventional threats;
• Improving the detection of threats;
• Depriving terrorists of financial resources;
• Supporting victims;
• Research and technological development

The U.S. Strategy organizes its goals as follows:

• Prevent and disrupt terrorist attacks
• Protect the American people, critical infrastructure, and key resources
• Respond to and recover from incidents

It is important to note the similarities across the Atlantic when considering big-picture approaches such as those we’ll find in strategy documents. It is also important to note that the big picture is defined differently by the U.S. than by our allies overseas. While the EC document reaches beyond combating terrorists to more long term preventative measures (e.g. radicalization in general), the U.S. invests in management challenges (homeland securty management system) and cultural issues (preparedness, radicalization at home) to support its strategy.

Future posts will look into this ongoing update of Europe’s counterterrorism strategies. For more on this topic in the meantime, CDI published a detailed paper last year on EU CT efforts.  A CRS study released this summer provides a very helpful distillation of US-EU CT cooperation.  Finally, these recent posts offer relevant links and information:

“9/11 Is Over?”

“Hearts, Minds, and the Homeland”

Other HLSWatch posts on international HLS issues.

DHS leadership flung across the country for a very high profile week of events:

Monday, November 12

8:00 AM PST
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator David Paulison will deliver remarks to the International Association of Emergency Managers Annual Conference
Silver Legacy Hotel
Exposition Hall A
407 North Virginia Street
Reno, NV
OPEN PRESS

11:00 AM EST
U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad W. Allen will participate in the annual Coast Guard Veterans’ Day Wreath-layering Ceremony on Coast Guard hill
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington, VA
OPEN PRESS

Tuesday, November 13

9:00 AM EST
U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad W. Allen will deliver remarks and participate in a ground breaking ceremony for a new Landfill Gas Co-Generation Plant at the U.S. Coast Guard Yard
2401 Hawkins Point Road
Baltimore, MD
OPEN PRESS

9:30 AM MST
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator David Paulison will deliver remarks to the National Congress of American Indians Annual Conference 64th Annual Convention
Hyatt Regency
650 15th Street
Denver, CO
OPEN PRESS

10:00 AM EST
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations Admissibility Requirements and Migration Control Executive Director Paul Morris will testify before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight, Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia on human capital needs of the CBP “One Face at the Border” initiative.
342 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC
OPEN PRESS

2:00 PM EST
Management Chief Human Capital Officer Marta Pérez will testify before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight on Department of Homeland Security efforts to recruit, hire and promote veterans.
311 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC
OPEN PRESS

Wednesday, November 14

8:00 AM HST
Under Secretary for Science and Technology Jay M. Cohen will address the 2007 International Test and Evaluation Association Symposium
The Kauai Marriott Resort
3610 Rice Street
Lihue, HI
OPEN PRESS

9:00 AM EST
Screening Coordination Office Director Kathleen Kraninger will provide an overview on the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative at the Changing Borders Conference
Washington County Community College
US Route 1 South
Calais, ME
OPEN PRESS

10:00 AM EST
Transportation Security Administration Assistant Secretary Kip Hawley will testify before the House Committee on Homeland Security on covert testing practices.
311 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC
OPEN PRESS

10:30 AM EST
US-VISIT Director Robert Mocny, U.S. Coast Guard Assistant Commandant for Response Operation RDML Wayne Justice and U.S. Coast Guard Seventh District Commander RADM Dave Kunkel will participate in a media event announcing the success of the US-VISIT/U.S. Coast Guard Biometrics at Sea Initiative.
100 MacArthur Causeway
Miami Beach, FL
OPEN PRESS

11:00 AM EST
Federal Emergency Management Agency Director of Management and Chief Acquisition Officer Deidre Lee will testify before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management on the use of contract workers.
2167 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC
OPEN PRESS

11:00 AM CST
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Office of Citizenship Chief Alfonso Aguilar will participate in a press conference to introduce the Polish version of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services publication, “Welcome to the United States: A Guide for New Immigrants”
Copernicus Center
5216 West Lawrence Avenue
Chicago, IL
OPEN PRESS

1:45 PM EST
Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications Greg Garcia will participate on the Securing Cyberspace Panel at the TechNet North 2007 Conference
John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center
900 Boylston Street
Room 302
Boston, MA
OPEN PRESS

Thursday, November 15

10:00 AM EST
Transportation Security Administration Assistant Secretary Kip Hawley will testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on GAO Investigation of Airport Security Checkpoints
2154 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC
OPEN PRESS

10:00 AM EST
Federal Emergency Management Agency Disaster Operations Directorate Assistant Administrator Glenn Cannon will testify before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia, and Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness on the status of U.S. response following a radiological dispersal devices attack
342 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC
OPEN PRESS

12:30 PM EST
Secretary Michael Chertoff will deliver remarks at the 8th Annual U.S. Customs and Border Protection 2007 Trade Symposium
Ronald Reagan Building
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Atrium Hall
Washington, DC
OPEN PRESS

2:00 PM EST
Federal Emergency Management Agency Policy and Program Analysis Director Marko Bourne will testify before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response on leveraging mutual aid for effective emergency response
311 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC
OPEN PRESS

8:30 PM EST
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Emilio Gonzalez will provide the keynote address at the VISTA Magazine Awards Dinner
Biltmore Hotel
1200 Anastasia Avenue
Coral Gables, FL
OPEN PRESS

Friday, November 16

2:00 PM GMT
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Office of Policy and Strategy Chief Carlos Iturregui will deliver remarks on the “U.S. Immigration Landscape – 2007 and Beyond” at the International Bar Association 3rd Biennial Global Immigration Conference
Renaissance Chancery Court
London, England
OPEN PRESS

The Pelindaba nuclear facility in South Africa was the target of an armed assault yesterday. Nevermind the talk of flying airplanes into reactors, this is a real world case wherein armed men were able to penetrate a series of security measures and actually enter the control room. This article was sent in by reader Steve Bogden.

A CRS study in 2005 entitled “Nuclear Power Plants: Vulnerability to Terrorist Attack,” argues that despite the heightened security measures imposed on nuclear facilities in the U.S. by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, industry has been slow to implement them.

The NRC explains its position on protecting nuclear facilities here with its three phase plan that was to be completed by now. I do not know where this effort stands.

In the past, security measures known as “buffers” or “layers” were considered the best way to restrict unauthorized access to such crucial infrastructure as a nuclear power plant’s control panel. Earlier this month, a man was discovered to be bringing a pipe bomb into a nuclear plant in Arizona – the largest one in the country in fact.  If the perpetrators of the break-in at Pelindaba had been armed with such a bomb, it is doubtful that any existing buffers would have stopped a terrible outcome.

Here is the article:

Attack at Pelindaba nuclear facility
By Graeme Hosken
The Pretoria News
November 09, 2007

A brazen attack by four gunmen on the Pelindaba nuclear facility has left a senior emergency officer seriously injured.

Anton Gerber, Necsa emergency services operational officer spoke to the Pretoria News from his hospital bed hours after the attack.

He was shot in the chest when the gunmen stormed the facility’s emergency response control room in the early hours of Thursday morning.

The shooting comes four months after Necsa’s newly appointed services general manager Eric Lerata, 43, was gunned down in front of his Montana home after returning from a business trip in France.

‘one of them attacked me with a screwdriver’
Pelindaba is regarded as one of the country’s most secure national key points.

It is surrounded by electric fencing, has 24-hour CCTV surveillance, security guards and security controls and checkpoints.

The attack comes as the country prepares to preside over an International Atomic Energy Agency convention on nuclear safety.

The convention is aimed at achieving a high level of global nuclear safety via safety related technical co-operation; establishing and maintaining effective defences in nuclear installations against potential radiological hazards and preventing accidents with radiological consequences.

A visibly shaken Gerber, who was rushed to Eugene Marais hospital, on Thursday said that he was sitting in the control room with his fiancée Ria Meiring when he heard a loud bang.

‘I could not let anything like that happen’
Meiring, who was working nightshift, is the supervisor of the control room.

Gerber said he kept Meiring company. “I do not like it when she is at work at night and I go with her to keep her company and ensure that she is safe,” he said.

Describing the attack Gerber said they were inside the electronically sealed control room when they heard a loud bang.

They then spotted the gunmen coming into the facility’s eastern block.

It is believed that the attackers gained access to the building by using a ladder from Pelindaba’s fire brigade and scaling a wall.

The men are thought to have forced open a window by pulling out several louvers.

Pushing Meiring underneath a desk, Gerber attacked two of the gunmen as they forced their way into the control room and ran straight for the control panel.

“I did not know what they were going to do. I just kept on hitting them even when one of them attacked me with a screwdriver.

“I knew that if I stopped they would attack Ria or do something to the panel.

“I could not let anything like that happen,” he said.

Unbeknownst to Gerber one of the robbers had shot him in the chest as he fought them off.

The bullet narrowly missed his heart breaking a rib before puncturing his lung. Doctors said the bullet missed his spine by 2cm.

Gerber, who at one stage thought he was going to die, said he had been very scared.

“The facility is meant to be safe. There are security guards, electric fences and security control points. These things are not meant to happen,” he said.

Necsa spokesperson Chantal Janneker confirmed the attack.

She declined to say how the gunmen had gained access to the facility or whether they had stolen anything.

Janneker said Necsa was conducting an internal investigation into the attack.

Once the police investigation was complete Necsa would divulge what happened, she said.

Later in the afternoon, Pretoria News was phoned by a man identifying himself as a Necsa legal adviser, saying the newspaper will be breaching the National Keypoints Act by publishing the story.

He said that Necsa may seek a court order preventing dissemination of the story.

He claimed that the interview with Gerber was “unethical” as “he was under sedation and thus incoherent” when it was conducted.

Pretoria News sought and was granted permission to interview Gerber, by hospital management, and Gerber himself. While he was obviously in pain, he appeared coherent and made sense throughout the interview.

His recall of the events was sequential and to the point. He also agreed to have his picture taken in his hospital bed.

North West police spokesperson Superintendent Louis Jacobs said that no arrests had been made.

“A case of armed robbery and attempted murder are being investigated,” he said.

Cybersecurity just got a $154 million boost as part of a seven-year Presidential initiative that may reach into the billions of dollars according to a White House whisper yesterday.  It is hard to know why the Presidential peep about such a major undertaking didn’t warrant more of a podium.  I couldn’t even find a press release.

Siobhan Gorman at the Baltimore Sun, always plugged in to the intel community, was among the first to report on the non-announcement.  The president requested the funds in a letter to Speaker Pelosi.  Tracking threats in cyberspace on both government and private networks is what the White House promised to do in more than one national strategy document.  There is a National Cyber Security Division at DHS. (See HSPD-7, section 16 for more detail.)  The PATRIOT Act (love it or hate it) extends authorities to combat terrorist activities on the Internet.  Few would suggest that the job is done.  Yet, why the mere murmur?

Perhaps because there are so few details settled.  The initiative would be led by DHS with support from the National Security Agency, the Office of the Director of National  Intelligence, and other intelligence community members, including the FBI.  Another touchy aspect may be the financing of this effort.  According to Siobhan’s story and the OMB documents attached to the president’s letter, funds for the “Cyber Initiative” will be redirected from such things as the Coast Guard, Hurricane Katrina rebuilding, border security, the Inspector General’s office, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Whoa.  I wouldn’t broadcast that either.  Cutting funds for the Coast Guard is unpopular everywhere.  I’m pretty sure the Lower Ninth hasn’t been rebuilt since the last time I was there after Katrina.  Just wait until Lou Dobbs hears about the border security.  The Inspector General?  He might actually need a boost.  And FEMA.  That may actually be warranted.  (I can hear reader WRC’s keyboard already.)

Update: Further funding details are in Jason Miller’s story at FCW.com, wherein he specifies that the president recommends using unobligated funds from a number of different DHS offices, including the chief information officer ($873,000), the Customs an Border Protection automation modernization project ($6.1 million) and the Science and Technology Directorate ($216,000). All such details can be read in this attachment.

The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, released by the White House in 2006, cites a “Freedom Agenda” as the basis for pursing the following goals:

• Advance effective democracies as the long–term antidote to the ideology of terrorism;

• Prevent attacks by terrorist networks;

• Deny terrorists the support and sanctuary of rogue states;

• Deny terrorists control of any nation they would use as a base and launching pad for terror; and

• Lay the foundations and build the institutions and structures we need to carry the fight forward against terror and help ensure our ultimate success.

Last week, Raphael Perl of the Congressional Research Service published what I believe is his final work in a long list of valuable analyses while at CRS. Raphael reports November 12 for a new post at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The November 1 paper from CRS examines the National Strategy and suggests a series of issues that Congress may want to address in overseeing the execution of that strategy.

It is an ambitious one. Accomplishing those five bullets above represents a task that requires the combined effort of the entire Executive Branch and a generation or two of committed Americans. However, this new study by Raphael suggests a few areas that remain unfinished or flawed. He identifies seven areas that could pose challenges for the U.S. if the Strategy isn’t augmented. In classic CRS style, the following are listed as “issues for Congress”:

• Democratization as a counterterrorism strategy

• Assumptions about terrorist adversaries

• The role of the U.S. invasion of and continued presence in Iraq in spreading terrorism

• How the National Strategy addresses the threat of rogue states

• How the National Strategy addresses certain threats raised in recent National Intelligence Estimates

• Reducing radicalization and extremist indoctrination, particularly among the young

• The effectiveness of public diplomacy

This is not a criticism of the National Strategy. It is a useful analysis that deserves a broader audience than Congress. (CRS reports are not normally distributed to the public, but FAS and CQ made this one available.) Ultimately, the paper suggests that a core challenge that may need to be addressed by the next Administration in revisiting this Strategy is the fundamental way in which it characterizes the nature of the threat of terrorism, including its primary drivers.

DHS has formed a new Task Force under the Advisory Council Act to assess the ways in which the Department of Homeland Security can improve its acquisition of essential technologies. Under the auspices of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, the Essential Technologies Task Force, as it is called, is sponsored mainly by Under Secretary for Management Paul Schneider, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley, and Chief Information Officer Scott Charbo.

With very explicit terms of reference, and a very short amount of time to do its work, this may be one of the better run advisory councils yet for DHS. The topics under discussion ranged into critical areas of strategy, process, and leadership during the Task Force’s first hearing this past Thursday.

Both Scott Gould, VP of Strategy & Change at IBM Public Sector, and I were invited to testify before the Task Force to address a number of issues we believe ought to inform the process of improving DHS decision making in this area, as well as a number of options for immediate, near term, and long term improvements to DHS technology acquisition. The hearing was closed and so I’ll refrain from uploading our comments here or those of others who appeared before the panel. However, the Task Force’s final report will be made public. Following are the members of the Essential Technologies Task Force for DHS.

George A. Vradenburg III, President, Vradenberg Foundation - Chairman

Joseph White, CEO, American Red Cross, St. Luis MO - Co-Vice Chair

John L. Skolds, President, Exelon Energy Delivery and Exelon Generation - Co-Vice Chair

Dr. Richard Andrews, Senior Director, National Center for Crisis and Continuity Coordination

Nelson Balido, President and CEO, Balido &Associates

Elliott Broidy, Commissioner, Los Angeles City Fire and Police Pension Fund

Dan Corsentino, Former Sheriff, Pueblo County, Colorado

Dr. Ruth David, President & CEO, Analytic Services, Inc. (Arlington, VA)

Dr. Victoria F. Haynes, President, Research Triangle Institute (Research Triangle, NC)

Phillip E. Keith, Former Chief of the Knoxville Tennessee Police Dept. (Knoxville, TN)

Stephen Payne, President of Worldwide Strategic Partners and Worldwide Strategic Energy

Richard “Rick” Stephens, Senior VP, Human Resources and Admin., The Boeing Company

Dr. Lydia C. Thomas, President and CEO (Ret.), Noblis

David Wallace, Mayor of Sugarland, Texas

Allen Zenowitz, Retired General and FEMA Senior Official

Ex-Officio: Judge William Webster, HSAC Chair, Partner, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, LLP

Ex-Officio: Dr. James Schlesinger, HSAC Vice Chair, Chairman, Board of Trustees, The MITRE Corporation

DHS today released an additional appendix to the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS). Section 550 of the DHS Appropriations Act of 2007 gives DHS the authority to regulate high risk chemical facilities. At risk facilities fall into one of three main categories:
• chemical manufacturing, storage and distribution facilities;
• petroleum refineries, and
• liquefied natural gas storage (peak shaving) facilities.

The CFATS is part of the growing library of what DHS calls Chemical-terrorism Vulnerability Information (CVI). Chemical-terrorism Vulnerability Information includes the following according to DHS documentation:

• Security Vulnerability Assessments (SVA);
• Site Security Plans (SSP);
• Documents relating to the Department’s review and approval of SVAs and SSPs, including Letters of Authorization, Letters of Approval, and responses to them;
• Written notices and other documents developed to comply with the interim final rule;
• Alternative Security Programs;
• Documents related to inspections and audits;
• Notices of deficiency;
• Records of training, exercises, and drills;
• Incidents and security breaches;
• Maintenance, calibration and testing of security equipment;
• Objections and appeals;
• Records required to be created and maintained by regulated facilities;
• Sensitive portions of orders, notices, or letters;
• Information developed pursuant to the Top-Screen process; and
• Other information designated as Chemical-terrorism Vulnerability Information by the Secretary.

Appendix A lists about 300 “chemicals of interest,” including common ones such as chlorine, propane, and anhydrous ammonia.  Possession of certain levels of these chemicals requires the submission of what DHS calls a “Top-Screen.” This is an online questionnaire that chemical facility owners and operators submit to DHS, which it uses to determine whether the facility presents a high level of security risk. The Top-Screen is part of the Chemical Security Assessment Tool (CSAT). More about it can be found here.

Three security concerns dictate whether a certain type and quantity of chemicals require a facility to complete the Top-Screen. They are:

• Release: quantities of toxic, flammable, or explosive chemicals that have the potential to create significant adverse consequences for human life or health if intentionally released or detonated.
• Theft or Diversion: chemicals that have the potential, if stolen or diverted, to be used as weapons or easily converted into weapons, in order to create significant adverse consequences for human life or health.
• Sabotage or Contamination: chemicals that, if mixed with other readily available materials, have the potential to create significant adverse consequences for human health or life.

Update:
Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection Bob Stephan will host a pen and pad media briefing on the release of Appendix A of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards at 2PM today at CBP Headquarters in the Commissioner’s Large Conference Room located at:
Ronald Reagan Building
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
OPEN PRESS

Washington-based think tank CSIS is joined by Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cyber Security and Science and Technology; and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the ranking Republican on the subcommittee to launch a cybersecurity commission of top experts in the field charged with putting forth recommendations for the next U.S. president.

The 32-member commission plans to finish its work by the end of 2008. Co-chairmen of the commission are retired Admiral Bobby Inman, former director of the U.S. National Security Agency; Scott Charney, corporate vice president for trustworthy computing at Microsoft Corp.; Rep. Langevin and Rep. McCaul.

UPDATE:

IBM Plans Major Security Initiative
Thursday November 1, 6:29 am ET
By Brian Bergstein, AP Technology Writer

IBM Says It Will Spend $1.5 Billion on Computer Security-Related Products in 2008

BOSTON (AP) — IBM Corp. plans to announce Thursday that it will boost what it spends developing computer security products to $1.5 billion in 2008, reflecting an intensifying focus for the company.

IBM executives would not say how much they used to spend. But analyst Charles King of Pund-IT Research said he believes $1.5 billion would be twice what IBM traditionally spends on security research and product development each year.

The figure is separate from IBM’s spending on acquisitions that bring in new technology. In the past year IBM has bought several security companies, including Internet Security Systems Inc. for $1.3 billion and Watchfire Corp. for at least $100 million.

Now IBM says it is integrating technologies from its acquisitions with security software and services developed in house. It expects to offer broader security packages so customers can reduce the number of providers they hire to protect their data.

“We believe there’s a crisis in the marketplace right now,” said Val Rahmani, who heads IBM’s infrastructure management services.

Even with this sharper focus, IBM will encounter tough competition from security specialists and other information-technology vendors such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and EMC Corp., which have also been spending heavily to bolster their offerings.

“Maritime Security: The Port Act: Status and Implementation One Year Later” was released yesterday by the GAO. The report assess several challenges DHS faces, including the 100% screening mandate, and makes recommendations to DHS to develop strategic plans, better plan the use of its human capital, establish performance measures, among other operational improvements. Top-level highlights are available here.

DHS announced it has contracted California-based Computer Sciences Corp. for information-technology support. Under the $53 million contract CSC will provide desk support, systems training and security and strategic business system planning among other business intelligence analysis support services for USCIS.

USCIS announced that it has selected a team that includes Northrop Grumman Corporation to provide large operations management services at the USCIS California and Vermont service centers. The three-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract has a total ceiling value of $225 million to the team, on which Northrop Grumman will be a subcontractor to Stanley, Inc.

A $357 million contract from USCIS went to Northrop Grumman to continue providing biometric capture services in support of U.S. citizenship applications and green card renewals. Biometric capture services involve electronic scanning and recording of fingerprints, and photograph and signature collection, for identification purposes. Under Northrop Grumman’s management of the biometric program, USCIS has reduced its fingerprint rejection rate from 20 to 1.5 percent.

A $225 million contract supporting USCIS Service Center Operations in Nebraska and Texas went to SI International. The company also supports USCIS Office of Records services with the tracking and accounting of more than 62 million immigration files.

In a letter to the outgoing Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Jackson, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson chose to focus on the low lights of Jackson’s tenure. Thompson’s letter is a response to Jackson’s October 19 letter highlighting the efforts to fill vacancies at DHS.

The response takes issue with Jackson’s positive spin on filling vacancies (“filled, selected, or formally advertised” to be exact).  Thompson takes the opportunity to list a number of programs failing to meet expectations that may indicate a pretty clear agenda for the Dems to start critiquing the Repub’s homeland security record.

The programs identified in Chairman Thompson’s letter include:

• The Transportation Worker Identification Card program

• Secure Border Initiative and Project 28

• US-VISIT (biometric exit capability)

• National Infrastructure Protection Plan and the corresponding Sector-Specific Plans

• DHS Office of Health Affairs

• Surface Transportation Security (mass transit)

• FEMA (brain drain)

• Office of Emergency Communications

Of course, the Thompson letter could have highlighted some positive accomplishments by the Department.  But the Chairman closes his missive with a reference to a recent hearing that the DepSec did not to attend. Thompson suggests that the hearing, “Holding the Department of Homeland Security Accountable for Security Gaps,” was a missed opportunity for Jackson to defend the Department’s record. With a hearing title like that, I suppose its no surprise the DepSec had somewhere else to be.

Port terminals at the UK, Pakistan, and Honduras are the first of a batch of countries to sign up for DHS’s current phase of the Secure Freight Initiative (SFI). SFI screens US-bound maritime containers for nuclear or other radiological materials. It is unclear whether the agreements, protocols, equipment, and other requirements put in place to screen for nuclear threats will be put to use for other valuable security and trade purposes.

SFI is part of the DHS response to fulfilling the Security and Accountability For Every (SAFE) Port Act of 2006, which requires non-intrusive scanning for nuclear material on 100% of all maritime containers headed for the U.S. Data from these inspection systems informs the National Targeting Center in its assessment of what seems threatening enough to warrant added scrutiny. SFI almost entirely focuses on the nuclear threat. Jay Ahern, CBP Deputy Commissioner, said “…preventing a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb attack has to be one of our highest priorities. This initiative (SFI) advances a comprehensive strategy to secure the global supply chain and substantially limits the potential for terrorist threats,” said CBP Deputy Commissioner Jayson Ahern.

The “comprehensive strategy to secure the global supply chain” suggests much more than just detecting smuggled nuclear material. Subsequent phases of SFI may reveal a more robust – and much needed – program to view the global supply chain more strategically. The tools being developed and put in place for the nuclear threat, including bilateral and multilateral agreements, can provide significant leverage for bringing more security to the global trade flows. Illicit trafficking – not only of nuclear material – is always a threat in some way to some legitimate party. And the transparency that a program like SFI could generate promises the potential to do much more that detect loose nucs.

The kind of vulnerability these global flows confront carry with them a global concern for their resilience and protection, as well as their economic viability. Imagine if the Secure Freight Initiative and the Advanced Trade Data System were combined with the Proliferation Security Initiative. That would align many of the efforts and interests of DHS, DOD, DOE, State, and the Department of Commerce. It would also reflect a more “comprehensive” approach to a shared concern between the U.S. and her overseas partners – many of whom are reluctant partners – in securing global trade against both terrorism and general threats to economic efficiencies that these global flows attempt to maximize.

NOTE: Thank you for accommodating my absence while I was away. HLSWatch is back up and running.

I had the honor of working with two great colleagues in producing the next IBM white paper on Homeland Security issues. I will be off-line until November 1 and wanted to introduce this new study before I sign off to get married next week.

The new paper — by Scott Gould, Dan Prieto, and me — is entitled “Global Movement Management: Commerce, Security, and Resiliency in Today’s Networked World.”  As IBM’s most recent thought leadership piece on homeland security, the paper offers a perspective on challenges shared by a broad community of interest that includes governments, corporations, NGOs, and individuals.

 

The report is to be rolled out on October 16th in Vancouver at IBM’s Global Executive Forum on Customs, Ports, and Border Management.  You may download the Executive Summary here. By month’s end (possibly sooner), readers will be able to click through here to request a copy of the full report.

The key ideas presented in this paper focus on:
• The networked nature of 21st century risk
• A new concept of security we call “Intelligent Immunity”
• A revised and extended Global Movement Management analytical framework
• Strategic human capital
• Unique data assets and skills to be leveraged through technology in new ways
• A challenge we call the “governance gap” that currently limits progress in these areas

IBM first introduced its global movement management strategy in 2005 with “Global Movement Management: Securing the Global Economy.” Chris Beckner, the founder of this blog, co-wrote that piece with Scott Gould.

Both GMM papers explain how the health and well-being of modern society depend on highly integrated, complex economic systems that serve to move people, goods, conveyances, money and information around the world. These systems include, for example, immigration, aviation and transit systems for the movement of people; maritime, trucking and air cargo for the movement of goods; pipelines and electric grids to transport fuels and energy; and the Internet and other communications networks to move information and to enable financial flows. Collectively, these comprise the “global movement system.”

This thumbnail is a sneak preview of the revised GMM framework illustration (click to enlarge):

“Global Movement Management: Commerce, Security and Resiliency in Today’s Networked World” asserts that, despite the complexity of today’s global economy, movement systems are more alike than they are different. The basis for the GMM initiative is a belief that policymakers, business leaders, and security professionals should focus on these similarities as the keys to developing sound strategies for improving the performance, security and resilience of global movement systems, while also seeking to preserve core societal values.

NOTE: I may be recruiting a guest blogger or two for the next couple weeks.  If interested, email jonah.hlswatch [at] gmail [dot] com.

The Washington Post ran a story today about the new National Strategy for Homeland Security that emphasizes the timing chosen for the new document. The article misses some important points.

The President’s homeland security advisor, Fran Townsend, is quoted as suggesting that “Homeland security both as a policy matter and as a concept didn’t exist prior to 9/11 and prior to…President Bush assuming office.” We may have called it “homeland defense” or “anti-terrorism” before, but it sure isn’t the sole product of 9/11 or this Administration. Whether it was the Gilmore Commission (1999-2004) or the Hart-Rudman Commission (1998-2001), or one of several other high-level efforts, that concept long predates the authors of the 2002 and 2007 Homeland Security Strategy documents.

The Post writers go on to quote Frank Cilluffo and David Heyman. Frank is candid in proposing that the new Strategy is more rearview mirror that proactive. Less than a contribution to the next Administration, he suggests it’s an effort to preserve the Bush Administration’s legacy. One would get that impression from the fact sheet put out by the White House Press Office. A full third of that document is dedicated to past successes and advice for the Congress.

David Heyman’s analysis is focused on one of the elephants in the room: How do you carry out a strategy – old or new – if you have a depleted workforce? But the Post story quotes him as though the problem is a lack of “processes and operations to support” the Strategy. This seems odd since a major highlight in the new document, also explained in this earlier post that broke the story of the Strategy being revised, that shows a very detailed process for policy, operations, and support.

The story did not point out that the timing of this new Strategy may just be overdue. After the first Strategy in 2002, there was the 2003 Iraq invasion and the creation of a whole new enemy called “al Qaeda in Iraq,” the Madrid bombings in 2004, London bombings in July 2005, and the Bali bombings later that same year. The Department of Homeland Security had only been around for six months at the time the first Strategy was issued.

I can understand why the re-election effort in 2004 may have slowed things down in the policy shop, but why not issue a new Strategy in 2005? That would have given this Administration four years to carry it out. Did we have to wait to have the concept of natural disasters included more prominently into our Homeland Security doctrine until after Hurricane Katrina?

Readers will recall the post we had here on September 25 introducing the presentation slides being used by White House officials to brief Congressional, State, and Local stakeholders about changes to be made to the nation’s homeland security strategy. It revealed a broadened focus that emphasized both natural disasters as a risk and offensive measures as a resource in protecting the homeland. The White House issued a statement today that describes those changes as:

Acknowledging that while we must continue to focus on the persistent and evolving terrorist threat, we also must recognize that certain non-terrorist events that reach catastrophic levels can have significant implications for homeland security.

Emphasizing that as we secure the Homeland we cannot simply rely on defensive approaches and well-planned response and recovery measures. We recognize that our efforts also must involve offense at home and abroad.

A full third of this fact sheet lists accomplishments by the Administration since 9/11 and suggests what Congress should do on secret surveillance laws, Committee jurisdictions, and grant allocations.  The entire strategy is available for download here. 

Leaving aside for the moment the question of “Why now,” the “national information management system” cited in the Strategy peaks my interest. Since there’s little on it in the document, perhaps this refers to something already underway. It may be the Interagency Incident Management Group. Readers of this blog usually have all the answers so please comment.

Other highlights include the following:

Situational Awareness & Information management
Maintaining situational awareness requires “prioritiz[ing] information and develop[ing] a common operating picture, both of which require a well-developed national information management system and effective multi-agency coordination centers to support decision-making during incidents.” The concept of situational awareness is identified as the fifth core principle of incident management and defined as

“continuous sharing, monitoring, verification, and synthesis of information to support informed decisions on how to best manage threats, potential threats, disasters, or events of concern.”

The Strategy acknowledges that while timely information is valuable, it also can be overwhelming. Situational awareness and decision-making, therefore, demands that incident information be effectively prioritized. The Strategy refers again to a “national information management system.” That system’s role is to “integrate key information and define national information requirements.” Not a bad job to have. This type of role would amount to the czar of all czars.

Cyber Security: A Special Consideration
The Strategy asserts that in order to secure the nation’s cyber infrastructure against man-made and natural threats, Federal, State, and local governments, along with the private sector, must work together to prevent damage to, and the unauthorized use and exploitation of, cyber systems.

The Secure Freight Initiative is called out specifically as a “comprehensive model for securing the global supply chain that seeks to enhance security while keeping legitimate trade flowing.” The Secure Initiative, it explains, “leverages shipper information, host country government partnerships, and trade partnerships to scan cargo containers bound for the United States.” Nothing further about the Global Trade Exchange or other phases of this Initiative can be found in the Strategy.

Interoperable and Resilient Communications
The Strategy identifies two distinct communications challenges: interoperability and survivability. Interoperability, according to the Strategy requires “compatible equipment, standard operating procedures, planning, mature governance structures, and a collaborative culture that enables all necessary parties to work together seamlessly.” Survivable communications infrastructure requires that the nation’s “communications systems [are] resilient – either able to withstand destructive forces regardless of cause or sufficiently redundant to suffer damage and remain reliable.”

GAO released a statement this week on the SAFE Port Act. The Act covered a range of policies focused on maritime security, but may be best known for its mandate to scan 100% of all incoming maritime cargo. DHS is principally responsible for executing on the Act, but relevant component agencies include the U.S Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, and the Transportation Security Agency.

GAO delved into this one. They “visited domestic and overseas ports; reviewed agency program documents, port security plans, and post-exercise reports; and interviewed officials from the federal, state, local, private, and international sectors.” GAO’s recommendations focus on the need to develop strategic plans, better plan the use of DHS human capital, and establish performance measures. The programs addressed in this document can be organized as follows:

CBP announced the dates of its 2007 trade symposium. To be held on November, 14th and 15th of November, topics include the following:
• Cargo Security
• Trade Issues
• ACE / ITDS
• Post-Incident Business Resumption
• Global Issues

The Trade Symposium will be held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC. CBP set up a website dedicated to the event at which updates can be found.

I couldn’t find much more than this for the agenda:

Wednesday, November 14, 2007
• Registration/Exhibition – 10:30am
• Opening and Symposium Panels – 1:00pm – 5:30pm
• Review Exhibits 5:30pm – 6:00pm
• Open Forum with Senior Management – 6:00 pm – 8:00pm

Thursday, November 15, 2007
• Continental Breakfast – 7:30am
• Symposium Panels – 8:15am – 11:45am
• Luncheon – 11:45am – 1:15pm
• Symposium Panels – 1:30pm – 4:45pm
• Closing Remarks – 4:45pm – 5:00pm