2009 April | Security Debrief - a blog of homeland security news and analysis

Archive for April, 2009

Administration needs to name DEA chief

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the surge of drug-related violence on the Mexican border, rightly so. There has also been quite a bit of discussion lately, thanks to a recent GAO study and congressional hearings, about whether the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are allowing turf issues to interfere with an effective U.S. response to that increased violence. Also an appropriate topic of inquiry.

Is anyone else, though, wondering why – if the narco-violence on our southern border is indeed so important (and it is) – why the Administration has yet to announce a nominee to lead the DEA?

The DEA is a rare government bird; it has only one focus. That focus is to combat the large-scale trafficking of illegal narcotics. If you ask anyone at the FBI, he or she will inform you that The Bureau does it all. You got a crime? They got a jurisdiction. They do drugs. They do white collar. They do terrorism. They’d do circus clowns if circus clowning were a federal crime (which, by the way, I am actively lobbying for). Which is why they can sometimes come off as disorganized and thinly stretched.

The DEA, though? Just drugs. The agents of the DEA are trained to go under cover and bust up violent drug cartels. Take down the worst of the worst. In other words, they are made for this kind of job — going after the heads of the Mexican drug cartels.

In the end, though, the DEA is a government organization. Moreover, it is a government organization with a law enforcement culture. That means, nobody is going to start launching any bold initiatives until The Boss arrives. Kicking down the doors of sociopathic criminals is one thing. Stick your neck out in the shark-infested waters of Washington, DC, though? Hey, these guys aren’t crazy. They see what’s happening to the poor SOBs at the CIA.

Even with Michele Leonhart, an aggressive and outstanding leader, as Acting Administrator, the DEA is hampered because Michele doesn’t have the bank to start calling the shots. Unless, that is, President Obama steps up to the plate and nominates her, allowing her to drop the “Acting” from her title. Then the cuffs are off.

Whether its Special Agent Leonhart, or a new man selected by the Attorney General or President to come in from outside the agency, it is past time for this Administration to give DEA some leadership … and allow it to do what it was made to do. Until that happens, all the bold talk in Congress about the need to take action is going to remain mostly … talk.

Posted in Congress, Politics & PR, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Narcotics | Comments

The Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

I have written previously on Security Debrief’s pages about the need to end the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. As the former head of the DEA, this stance may surprise some. However, there are solid reasons, based on the law and justice, as to why this needs to be done.

Yesterday, I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on this matter and explained why I believe this reform is needed. You can read my testimony here.

Posted in Civil liberties & Privacy, Congress, Politics & PR, Law Enforcement, Narcotics | Comments

Pakistan: A Failed State?

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Time Is Running Out

In several Security Debrief posts published on this site in 2007 and 2008, I discussed the great urgency required by the United States to adopt a different strategy towards Pakistan and I also articulated the options and steps necessary to stop Pakistan’s fast slide towards instability. Unfortunately, the United States has already missed the boat and time has run out for any “catching up” in policy and tactics. Today, the world faces the stark and real possibility of Pakistan becoming a failed state and a haven for terrorism with potential nightmarish consequences. Can this be stopped and what should the U.S. do about it?

What Went Wrong?

US policies towards Pakistan have failed and security has deteriorated dramatically in Afghanistan and Pakistan because the United States did not keeping its eye on the ball! The source of terrorism and the threat to the world’s security has been, still is, and will remain for the foreseeable future, Wahhabi Sunni fundamentalism which has produced the Taliban, Al Qaeda and their likes, and has established bases of operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is not Iran.

Instead of focusing on developing strategies to curb and marginalize over time the influence of Wahhabi Sunni fundamentalism (the root cause of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the source of religious extremism that had inspired suicide bombings in Iraq, Israel, India, and Spain for example), the Bush Administration’s main efforts in its second term in office were aimed at isolating and destabilizing Iran while fighting Al Qaeda-in-Iraq. The shift in focus produced confusing policies towards Pakistan and Afghanistan and provided the breathing space for Wahhabi Sunni extremists, the Taliban and Al Qaeda to reorganize their forces and restructure their tactics and engineer a major comeback in both countries.

Mission Focus: Defeat Wahhabi Extremism

Security conditions on the ground in both Pakistan and Afghanistan have reached a critical stage and time is running out. Unless the United States switches gears immediately and adopts an aggressive policy aimed like a laser beam at defeating Wahhabi extremism in both countries, the world better brace itself at having to face two failed states – Pakistan and Afghanistan - in the very near future. The “key” to success will depend on having one integrated regionally-based comprehensive strategy towards both countries, otherwise failure is most certain.

Pakistan

The development of a new integrated strategy requires greater cultural intelligence. In this case, religion plays a paramount role in identifying the solution to the problem. Let me explain.

The overwhelming majority of the people of Pakistan are Moslem or follow Moslem traditions. It is important to note that Islamic values and practices color virtually all aspects of Pakistani life and society with most Pakistanis being Sunni Moslem (there is a Shiite minority comprising approximately 14% of the population). The majority of Sunni Moslems in Pakistan adhere to the Hanafi School of Sunni Islam. There are four major schools of Sunni jurisprudence in Islam namely Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali. The Hanafi School of Islam is “relatively” the most liberal of the four. In addition, many Moslems in Pakistan are influenced by Sufism, a more mystical form of Islam. Although Islam plays a central role in the life of most Pakistanis it was not subverted by violent extremists because of its Hanafi and Sufi influences.

The real problem lies with the spread of the Wahhabi Sunni movement (founded in Arabia) more particularly, among the Pashtun tribes located along the border with Afghanistan. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Saudi Arabia provided relief and humanitarian assistance to Pakistan in order to care for the large number of Afghani refugees who crossed the border into Pakistan in search of safety and shelter. In addition, Saudi Arabia funded the construction of thousands of “madrassas” (religious schools) in those areas which indoctrinated the local population in Wahhabi Sunni Islam. Over time, these schools became the breeding grounds for fanatical ideologies espoused by extremist groups (notably Al Qaeda and the Taliban) in the region of Baluchistan, the North-West Frontier Province, and other parts of the country.

Any strategy aimed at eliminating the threat of Wahhabi Sunni fundamentalism must have a religious component at its core in order to be effective. The United States should do the following:

•    United Pakistan Against Wahhabism: the United States should encourage the formation of a national unity government in Pakistan that represents all non-Wahhabi Moslem components of society including the Pakistan Muslim League (N) led by Nawaz Sharif and declare war on a sect that has infected Pakistani society and is threatening the noble soul of Islam. Under the banner of Pakistani Islam, the country may be better enabled to unite itself and mobilize its population and resources in defense of Pakistan and the Pakistani way of life.
•    US Lower Profile: the United States should lower its military profile and refrain from making statements that are interpreted by Pakistanis as undue interference in their internal affairs. The struggle against Sunni Wahhabism must be based on Pakistani nationalism and driven by Pakistani society and forces. Furthermore, while the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is of real concern to the United States and the world, it is recommended that the Obama Administration address these concerns very quietly with the Pakistani military in order to avoid embarrassing Pakistan on an issue that is of great pride to the Pakistani people.
•    India’s Support: the Obama Administration should discretely secure an understanding with India that provides full support to a national unity government of Pakistan in its push against Sunni Wahhabism. After all, a ‘failed state’ in Pakistan is of greatest concern to India, given the protracted conflict over Kashmir and the infiltration of Wahhabi Sunni fundamentalism in Indian Moslem society. This arrangement would free the hands of the Pakistani government enabling it to employ all of its resources against the Taliban and their allies in the North-West Province and Baluchistan regions of the country.

Afghanistan

The second major part of a new integrated and comprehensive strategy to defeat the real enemy – Sunni Wahhabi fundamentalism – centers on Afghanistan.

Virtually all the people of Afghanistan are Moslem with a 75% majority adhering to the Hanafi School of Sunni Islam and approximately 24% of the population are Shiite Moslems, particularly the Hazara and Kizilbash. Sufism is also widely practiced among Sunnis and Shiites alike in Afghanistan. While at first glance one may be tempted to think that since the majority religion is Hanafi Sunni, maybe a strategy similar to the one being proposed for Pakistan could also be adapted to Afghanistan. The answer is no because conditions in Afghanistan are much more complex than in Pakistan. Although religion holds an important position in the daily life of most Afghanis, divisions along cultural and ethnic lines are quite dominant. Let me explain.

The Pashtun ethnic group heavily centered in the southern province of Kandahar comprises less than two-fifths of the population and does not constitute a majority. Tajiks account for approximately 25 percent of Afghanis, the Hazara comprise nearly 20 percent, and Uzbeks and Chahar Aimaks each account for slightly more than 5 percent of the population. Furthermore, the official languages of Pakistan are Pashto and Persian (Dari). Approximately two-fifths of the population speaks Pashto (the language of the Pashtuns) but more than half of the population speaks some dialect of Persian (Dari).

The complex religious, ethnic and linguistic mosaic of Afghanistan makes the development of a more coherent strategy against Sunni Wahhabism more difficult but not impossible. We need to first understand the status of the Taliban in this complex picture.

The Taliban, whose ranks came originally from the Saudi funded Sunni Wahhabi madrassas in northern Pakistan, became a real force in Afghanistan in 1990’s following the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Their main power base within Afghanistan is in the southern province of Kandahar among the Pashtun ethnic group. Having taken over the government of Afghanistan in the nineties, the Taliban provided a safe haven for Sunni Wahhabi militants from around the world, including Al Qaeda headed by exiled Saudi Arabian Osama Bin Laden. Resistance to Taliban power in Afghanistan came primarily from non-Pashtun ethnic groups such as the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras, whose power bases are in the north, west, and central parts of the country. The Northern Alliance, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud (assassinated by Al Qaeda on September 9, 2001, two days before 9/11), grouped local leaders from those regions and ethnic groups of the country in opposition to the Taliban. The alliance was supported: by India because of their rivalry with Pakistan; by Iran because of their opposition to a strong Sunni Taliban government; and, by Russia and Tajikistan because of the growing Islamic movements in Chechnya and Central Asia.

Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Operation Enduring Freedom was launched by the Unites States and NATO aimed at removing the Taliban from power and going after Al Qaeda. Having succeeded in toppling the Taliban government and establishing a new government in Kabul, the Bush Administration ‘lost’ focus in its second term. Instead of pursuing an aggressive policy aimed at neutralizing the long term impact of the Taliban and their Sunni Wahhabi extremist allies, the United States shifted its attention to neutralize Iran’s rising regional influence. This change in policy focus caused a major setback to U.S. interests in Afghanistan and led to the gradual re-emergence of the Taliban as a power and a major threat to stability in that country.

As in the case of Pakistan, the Obama Administration needs to adopt a strategy that has the single aim of defeating Sunni Wahhabi fundamentalism in Afghanistan. Given all the background information provided above, the recommended strategy is as follows:

•    New “Northern Alliance” Against Wahhabism: the United States should encourage the formation of a new ‘Northern Alliance’ made up of all non-Pashtun ethnic groups who are vehemently opposed to the Taliban. A new national government would be formed that brings on board non-Wahhabi Pashtuns and that has at its core this new Northern Alliance. The defeat of the Taliban and Sunni Wahhabism must take precedence and should not be sacrificed for the sake of seeking greater accommodation with the Pashtuns.
•    India and Tajikistan: India and Tajikistan have provided military and logistical support in the past to the old Northern Alliance in its resistance to the Taliban. The Obama Administration should reach out to these two countries and develop a coordinated effort to support the new Afghani government’s policy to defeat the Taliban. It is in both countries’ national interest, and even most especially India, to have Sunni Wahhabism defeated in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
•    Iran: Iran was the one country most actively engaged in supporting the old Northern Alliance in its resistance to the Taliban during the nineties. Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom with the aim of removing the Taliban from power and destroying Al Qaeda. Iran was quite supportive of the American effort:
o    Military and Rescue Support: Iran continued providing weapons to the opposition Northern Alliance, closed its border with Afghanistan, and in response to a request from the Bush Administration, agreed to rescue any American military personnel in distress in its territory.
o    Formation of new Afghanistan Government: after the toppling of the Taliban government, U.S. and Iranian diplomats met together in Bonn to discuss the formation of a new government and constitution for Afghanistan. “None was more [helpful] than the Iranians,” said James Dobbins, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan at the time, writing in the Washington Post. “The original version of the Bonn agreement … neglected to mention either democracy or the war on terrorism. It was the Iranian representative who spotted these omissions and successfully urged that the newly emerging Afghan government be required to commit to both.”

The United States should build on this constructive past experience and engage in a serious dialogue with Iran because the defeat of the Taliban and Sunni Wahhabism are in the interest of both countries, especially Iran.

The Iraq Challenge

An intensified and well-focused effort on defeating Sunni Wahhabism in Pakistan and Afghanistan requires, as stated earlier, the active involvement of regional powers such as India and Iran but also requires a U.S. shift in military, logistical and economic resources away from Iraq towards the Pakistani-Afghani theatre of operations. An orderly and effective drawdown of U.S. military assets in Iraq necessitates a region-based security arrangement with Iraq’s key neighbors namely Iran, Turkey and Syria. Of the three, Iran is most important in order to secure stability in Iraq, post U.S. withdrawal, and to insure the non-resurgence of Sunni Wahhabi fundamentalism and Al Qaeda.

Iran and the Netanyahu Opportunity

In this long term war against Sunni Wahhabism Iran could potentially be one of the most reliable regional partners for the United States. But how can the U.S. engage Iran given past hostilities, the nuclear agenda, Iran’s support to Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iranian leadership threatening to “wipe Israel off the map”?

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has effectively facilitated the opening for the United States to engage Iran. Let me explain.

On March 29, 2009, two days before he was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu in an interview with the Atlantic was quoted as saying “The Obama Presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.” Netanyahu also said in the same interview that he would support President Obama’s decision to engage Iran, so long as negotiations brought about a quick end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “How you achieve this goal is less important than achieving it,” he said.

The Washington Post published an article on April 22, 2009, in which it stated that Israel would not move ahead on the core issues of Palestinian peace talks until it sees progress in U.S. efforts to stop Iran’s suspected pursuit of nuclear arms and to limit Tehran’s rising influence in the region. “It’s a crucial condition if we want to move forward,” Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon, a former ambassador to the United States, told The Washington Post. “If we want to have a real political process with the Palestinians, then you can’t have the Iranians undermining and sabotaging.”

When asked about those Israeli comments at a testimony hearing in front of the House Appropriations Committee on April 23, 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stated “For Israel to get the kind of strong support it’s looking for vis-à-vis Iran it can’t stay on the sideline with respect to the Palestinians and the peace efforts, that they go hand-in-hand.”

Some analysts have interpreted Secretary Clinton’s remarks as implicitly rejecting the emerging position of Netanyahu’s government and others have predicted that American and Israeli priorities were no longer in sync. In reality, however, by putting Iran ahead of Palestinian peace talks on Israel’s list of top priorities, Prime Minister Netanyahu has opened the door for the Obama Administration to move as quickly as possible towards engaging Iran in a serious dialogue that may bring peace of mind and security to Israel.

While it is true that Iran is providing support to Hamas, it is important to keep in mind that this support is based on convenience much more than anything else. Hamas was cut off by Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt after it seized power in Gaza through a military coup and sought support from anywhere, including Iran. This support, can easily end if and when circumstances, vis-à-vis Hamas, were to change. The real long term problem for Israel, however, is the ideology of suicide bombing aimed at killing innocent civilians, which is espoused by core elements of Hamas and other extremist Islamist Palestinian factions.

In other words, while Israel considers Iran’s nuclear agenda its top immediate security priority, Israel also knows that the long term threat to its security comes from the ideology of Sunni Wahhabi fundamentalism that rejects any accommodation with Israel and indoctrinates the hatred of the Jews in its teachings. It is this ideology, and not Iran, that has produced suicide bombings in Israel, Iraq, India, Spain and the United Kingdom.

In summary, the opening presented by Prime Minster Netanyahu must be seized by the Administration with the goal of reaching an arrangement with Iran on multiple fronts that are all inter-related, namely Israel’s security, Iraq’s stability, Pakistan’s recovery and Afghanistan’s liberation.

Eye on the Ball

Stopping Pakistan’s slide into chaos depends on adopting this new integrated comprehensive strategy, and the success of this new strategy depends on keeping two factors constant: preserve mission focus (the defeat of the real enemy – Sunni Wahhabi fundamentalism), and secure regional engagement.

Cultural Intelligence matters!

Posted in Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Intelligence, International, Terror Finance, Terror Strategic Analysis, counterterrorism | Comments

Counternarcotics Offers Chance to Cooperate with Tehran

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

On March 31, Washington took its first step toward engagement with Tehran through a diplomatic encounter with the Iranian government at the Afghanistan conference in the Hague. Even though the initial contact was awkward, it was clearly a step forward for the Obama administration, and both countries agreed that the opium/heroin trade was a destructive force in both the region and the world. As such, the United States should consider using collaboration on counternarcotics as an effective means to jump-start diplomacy with Iran. Although such an approach would be difficult, it could succeed if both sides focused solely on law enforcement, without the intrusion of politicians, intelligence operatives, and diplomats.

Background

Afghanistan produces roughly 90 percent of the world’s opiates — principally opium and heroin — and the resulting drug trade fuels the Taliban’s war effort. The Taliban is becoming increasingly reliant on this illicit multibillion-dollar industry to fund its operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and there is evidence of growing al-Qaeda involvement.

The UN’s 2008 World Drug Report states that more than half of the world’s opiate users — over 9.3 million people — reside in Asia and are found mostly along the major drug trafficking routes from Afghanistan. More than 2.3 million of the users live in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, many in Afghanistan and Iran.

Estimates for the number of Iranian users vary widely. Iranian government sources report that between 1.2 million and 2 million Iranians are addicted to opiates, while other estimates are generally higher, especially when frequent users are added to the figures. In other words, at least 2.5 percent of the adult population is addicted, and since 90 percent of Iranian users are male, 5 to 8 percent of adult men in Iran are using opiates regularly.

Opiates are the traditional intoxicant of choice in Iran, with opium use well established in tradition, in contrast to the negative social image of alcohol consumption. Opium was a significant problem in Iran before World War II, when it was the drug’s leading international producer. In the decades before the revolution, much progress was made in addressing drug addiction, but the problem roared back after 1979.

Part of the problem was government attitude, since not all clerics disapproved of opium. The problem is compounded by geography, since Iran has served for many years as a major transshipment route for opium and heroin to Turkey, Europe, and other international destinations. As in many other countries, outside traffickers, in this case Afghans, work with Iranian organized crime to create the infrastructure necessary within Iran to support the transshipment of Afghan opiates to Western markets. The Afghan traffickers pay their Iranian partners with product rather than cash, thus contributing to the development of markets and increased demand inside Iran.

Not only is the Iranian addiction rate extremely high, a number of Iranian military personnel have been killed in the line of duty as a result of drug-related violence. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), whose al-Quds Force is the country’s primary support organization for regional terrorists, is at the same time a main actor in the fight against drug trafficking. A number of IRGC units appear to be involved in both tasks, which poses a significant problem for U.S.-Iranian counternarcotics cooperation.

Another potential obstacle for a collaborative effort is the perception that Washington supports at least one of the major organizations smuggling opiates into Iran, Jundallah, an ethnically Baluch “political” group also known as Iranian People’s Resistance Movement. This organization has engaged in acts of terrorism against the Iranian government, and its leader has spoken on Voice of America.

The Way Forward

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) should be allowed to establish direct communication and cooperation with its Iranian law enforcement counterparts. Iranian officials have sought this kind of arrangement in the past, and some senior U.S. State Department leaders have even lobbied for it; however, previous administrations have prohibited the DEA from moving forward.

This year the DEA is cohosting — with its Mexican counterparts — its twenty-seventh annual International Drug Enforcement Conference (IDEC) in Cancun, Mexico. The IDEC has grown from a five-country, Western-hemisphere-centric endeavor, to a global effort involving approximately one hundred nations. Ninety-one countries participated in the 2008 event in Istanbul, Turkey. The IDEC venue could provide an ideal opportunity to open relations between the DEA and Iranian law enforcement, as well as other law enforcement agencies from around the globe, ultimately paving the way for a new era of cooperation between the United States and Iran.

After initial exchanges, the next step is to share intelligence and evidence, ideally though the establishment of a DEA office in Tehran. The DEA has the largest U.S. law enforcement presence abroad (eighty-six offices in sixty-seven countries), made possible only by the acceptance of DEA agents as federal narcotics officers, not spies. Gaining that acceptance in Iran will be a great challenge, and it certainly would not happen overnight. But it is important to set long-term goals. Although no foreign government has succeeded in working with Iran in this manner — and the recent conviction of a foreign journalist as a spy is alarming — the DEA has been extraordinarily effective in sharing related leads and sensitive drug intelligence with their counterparts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries throughout the region and the world.

The Challenge

Policing is a science, and complex counternarcotics policing is even more challenging. Senior politicians from both countries becoming involved in police business could be disastrous. Since the problem will be compounded by the role of the IRGC, a reflexively anti-American force, the challenge will be to find a way for cooperation among senior law enforcement leaders, working at a “cop-to-cop” level.

From there, law enforcement officials could conduct collaborative work on efforts to address drug demand reduction and treatment, with professionals from those disciplines taking the lead. In this context, it is discouraging that Iran arrested two brothers, Arash and Kamiar Alaei, as they were heading to the 2008 international AIDS conference where they were due to be awarded a prize for their work with mostly drug-addicted AIDS victims. The brothers were convicted as spies on the charge that their foreign collaboration was promoting the “soft overthrow” of the Islamic Republic — a preoccupation of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who sees cooperation with foreigners as potentially dangerous to his regime.

To succeed, any U.S. effort to cooperate with Iran on counternarcotics efforts must draw upon the DEA’s successful and decades-long experience with law enforcement partners from around the globe. Although Iran does not subscribe to U.S. terrorist designations of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, it is nonetheless in Iran’s interest to work aggressively with the United States to target the drug-trafficking activities of these groups, which destabilize Iran and the region.

Michael Braun retired recently from the Drug Enforcement Administration, after a twenty-three-year career with the agency. From 2005 until his retirement, he served as the DEA’s assistant administrator and chief of operations, overseeing the agency’s 227 domestic and 86 foreign offices.

This piece was originally posted Policy Watch/Peace Watch at The Washington Istitute for Near East Policy.

Posted in Intelligence, International, Management & Administration, Narcotics, Smuggling, Terror Finance | Comments

Great Exchanges in the Senate Cyber Hearing

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

While the debate on the future of cyber security has been underway for some time, one of the world’s great deliberative bodies, the US Senate (in the form of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee) brought an elevated and informed discussion in today’s hearing, “Cyber Security: Developing a National Strategy.”

The entire hearing is worth the time to watch/listen to the archived webcast, but there were a couple of points that stood out for me.

Alan Paller, Director of Research for the SANS Institute described the type of cyber attacks that have been unleashed upon the US (and as recently reported on US Senate and US House of Representatives computers) as part of a new “asymmetric warfare” that we have to learn to expect, adjust and respond to accordingly. He then described that when our computers, power grids and other critical infrastructures are attacked by he Chinese (and others), they don’t just come in to steal something and go away. Instead they look to leave something behind (malicious code, trojan horse, etc.), so as to enable future attacks and disruptions to occur at another point in time.

Sen. Snowe (R-ME), Ranking Member of the Committee then shared a discussion that she and Sen. Lieberman (I-CT), Chair of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee, had recently had revolving around what constitutes an “act of war.”

She described the scenario that if the Chinese launched their missiles at our power plants here in the US so as to disrupt and/or destroy our power and energy supplies, it would be interpreted appropriately as “an act of war” and we would undoubtedly mobilize our military and security forces to respond accordingly.

When the Chinese launch a cyber attack upon our power grid using malicious code and other methods coming from their keyboards, it is unclear whether that type of assault is comparable to one coming from incoming missile attack. Even the appropriate measure of response to such an attack is unclear, even if the goal of destruction and disruption is the same as it would be from a missile attack.

In responding to her question, James Lewis, Director and Senior Fellow, Technology and Public Policy Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies shared that cyber is the new weapon of choice of the Chinese and others to attack us and our nation’s political, security, military and economic interests. The challenge before the new Administration is how to respond and what means will be the most effective in responding back to these threats whenever and wherever they occur. He stressed that leadership needed to come from the top and the President needed to very clearly state to the world that our cyber networks are an American national resource and would be protected and defended as such.

His closing sentence in his response brought the issue home though, “It’s time to treat cyber like the grown up national security problem that it is.”

Posted in Counterfeit & IPR, Critical Infrastructure, Cyber Security, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Intelligence, International, Management & Administration, counterterrorism | Comments

The Private Sector Needs to be Prepared — for Swine Flu and other crises

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Corporate America needs to be prepared for all hazards, all the time. The private sector owns 85 percent of the nation’s critical infrastructure and the government simply cannot protect it all –nor should it be expected to.

The hazard landscape is vast and formidable. Within the last month alone, we have watched several hazards unfold on a real-time basis — the piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia, the heightened threat of cyber-spies exploiting computer and network security weaknesses in the U.S. electrical grid and the April Fool’s Day Conficker worm. The latest hazard we all face is the outbreak of Swine influenza, which has the potential to become a pandemic.

Swine flu is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus. Symptoms of swine flu in humans are similar to regular human flu, including fever, lethargy, decreased appetite, coughing, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Significantly, human-to-human spread of swine flu occurs in the same way as regular seasonal flu, through the coughing or sneezing of infected people. Tamiflu and Relenza are commonly used to treat influenza, and the federal government holds millions of doses in the Strategic National Stockpile.

The looming threat of H5N1 (Avian influenza) catalyzed the Bush Administration to develop the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza (“National Strategy”). The National Strategy is not limited to H5N1 and it provides guidance and procedures for the preparation for and response to any pandemic.

Since the initial release of the National Strategy in May 2006, the Homeland Security Council has issued a one-year summary that demonstrates “…much has been accomplished to realize the U.S. Government’s pandemic preparedness and responses goals of:

(1) stopping, slowing, or otherwise limiting the spread of a pandemic to the United States
(2) limiting the domestic spread of a pandemic or mitigating disease, suffering, and death
(3) sustaining the infrastructure and mitigating impact to the economy and the functioning of society.”

It is clear under the national strategy that once an influenza pandemic reaches the United States, the primary focus is safeguarding the health of Americans. There are protocols and trained personnel to support an international effort to contain a pandemic in its earliest stages, including the release of Tamiflu and Relenza from the Strategic National Stockpile. Note that the federal government is releasing 25% of the stockpile in light of the Swine flu.

Local, state and federal authorities cannot effectively prepare for and respond to a pandemic without significant help from the private sector. If your company has not already conducted a pandemic drill now is the time to do so.

Remember that certain fundamental aspects of a business continuity program do not apply during a pandemic. A pandemic requires social distancing — the separation of individuals to ensure proper prevention, detection and treatment of the disease. The use of an alternate site for a company’s key employees is not, therefore, appropriate during a pandemic. A person exposed to Swine flu may not exhibit symptoms for 24 – 48 hours. Though a key employee may appear to be healthy, that employee could be infected with the Swine flu, in turn infect other key employees and risk the company’s ability to continue its mission critical operations and avoid disruption.

Another issue that companies must prepare for is quarantine. The federal government has the ability to stop people from entering the country. However, interior decisions to quarantine are the responsibility of state and local government entities. If your company has operations in multiple places, one may be quarantined. Can you continue to operate if your corporate headquarters is located in a quarantined area? Do you have a clearly defined and robust teleworking policy?

A well-designed business continuity program will enhance internal credibility (with employees) and external credibility and goodwill (with regulators, stockholders, customers, suppliers and the community at large). The National Fire Protection Association is a non-profit organization that develops consensus codes and standards that address hazard preparation and mitigation. The association developed Standard 1600, which was endorsed by the American National Standards Institute and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Standard 1600 defines business continuity as “an ongoing process supported by senior management and funded to ensure that the necessary steps are taken to identify the impact of potential losses, maintain viable recovery strategies and recovery plans, and ensure continuity of services through personnel training, plan testing, and maintenance.”

It provides an “all hazards” approach (identifying over 45 hazards and categories of hazards like pandemic disease, cyber-attack, flood, and biological agent attack) and establishes a common set of criteria for disaster management, emergency management and business continuity program. The standards provide the criteria to assess current programs and to develop, implement and maintain a program to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters.

In today’s legal landscape, it is clear that senior managers, officers and directors have an affirmative obligation to take a substantive role in a company’s formal response planning and actively participate in the frequent and regular testing and exercising of a company’s program.

It is not optional; rather, the responsibilities of a company — and the duties of a company’s senior managers, officers and directors — are often heightened and tested during times of crisis, like a pandemic. As stated by the Homeland Security Council, “No prior generation has ever anticipated and prepared for a pandemic. We have the opportunity to be the first generation to use our collective knowledge, determination, and resources to take on this task.”

Don’t become a test case for failure.

For detailed information on how to protect your company using an all-hazards approach, see the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security website or www.ready.gov and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website.

Scott Louis Weber is a partner at the law firm Patton Boggs LLP and is the former Senior Counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Posted in Border Security, Critical Infrastructure, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Private and Physical Security, counterterrorism | Comments

Mission: Intangible

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Here’s the question – who pays for the protection afforded to private companies engaged in protecting America’s critical assets? The answer is: it depends.

Chemical plants, nuclear power plants, airlines, telecommunications companies, transportation companies, you name it – most of the costs associated with protecting private companies are borne by the companies, their shareholders and when possible, their customers. With a glaring exception – if you are a foreign shipping company and one of your ships transits the Gulf of Aden and is hijacked by four criminals intent on gaining ransom money – the US Navy and insurance companies are happy to pick up the tab for the rescue and protection of the crew, the ship and its cargo.

One might think this is a justifiable national security response because the shipping company is threatened from conducting its operations. However, these pirates are common criminals, not terrorists and the shipping companies are choosing to undertake the risk but not take appropriate measures to prevent the hijackings because they can rely on the US and other navies for protection – at the cost of the US taxpayer. So the US taxpayer is not only burdened with failed management of US financial institutions and auto makers, along with irresponsible credit card and mortgage holders, but now we’re subsidizing foreign companies who refuse to implement solutions to minimize or avoid the risk to their ships and their clients’ cargo.

Which brings forth the question, why are shippers deferring to the navies of the world? The easy answer is the US Navy isn’t going to charge the shipping companies. However, there is more – the shippers, as a group, have failed to grasp the reputation benefits associated with improved security, reduced risk and better service. Some companies do understand the value of protecting their reputation – contrast Dry Ships Inc. (NASDAQ:DRYS) vs. Diana Shipping Inc. (NYSE:DSX). Since experiencing a hijacking in February 2009 Dry Ships Inc., the company’s reputation as measured by the Steel City Re IA index has tumbled from the 80th percentile to 36th percentile, based on the market’s perception that they are not managing security issues well. Diana by contrast has gained on the Steel City Re reputation index moving from the 30th percentile to the 80th. Click here to see the charts on the Intangible Asset Finance Society blog, MISSION:INTANGIBLE

Diana has out performed its peers by 24% while Dry Shipping has under performed by 18%. Why do these percentages matter? Because they demonstrate the value of good security programs, their recognition by the markets and the impact on their shareholder value.

This is something our government needs to underscore with the private sector – good security is good for business. And by security, I don’t mean staffing the ships with heavily armed mercenaries. As romantic an alternative that as that might be against romanticized criminals, it isn’t a practical solution. A meaningful security solution entails planning, analysis, and risk mitigation and avoidance to keep ships out of harms way. The US Navy, while fully capable of such a task, neither has the time or resources in its current configuration to deal with seaborne criminals.

We need to rethink our policy and its implication for Homeland Security. Security is key function to businesses and there are measures shipping companies (foreign and domestic) can take to reduce the burden on the US and the US Government should have other priorities than to once again bail out more unwilling or irresponsible managers.

Posted in Critical Infrastructure, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Featured Feed, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Maritime & Seaport Security, Transportation Security, counterterrorism | Comments

CDC and AMA Update Webpages for Swine Flu Public Information

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a webpage dedicated to the latest information, updates and safety measures the public can take related to Swine Flu.

The American Medical Association does the same.

Posted in Congress, Politics & PR, Emergency Preparedness & Response, WMD, Chemical & Biological | Comments

A Leader to Watch – Dr. Richard Besser

Monday, April 27th, 2009

With the declaration of a Public Health Emergency from the recent outbreak of Swine Flu, the nation’s eyes will be turning towards the White House, Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security and others to examine how they perform under pressure. One of the people to keep your eyes on is Dr. Richard Besser, the Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control. (FYI – Dr. Besser appeared at yesterday’s White House Press Conference with Robert Gibbs, the President’s Press Secretary, DHS Sec. Napolitano and John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.)

For the majority of Americans this was their first exposure to Dr. Besser. I had the fortune of meeting him in 2006 as part of Harvard sponsored program, the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI) which assembled leaders from across the country from the federal, state, local and tribal governments to educate them about the various leadership skills necessary to succeed in some of the most pressure filled environments.

In spending time with him in that program, you got the feeling that if we ever had a really bad day in this country, he’s was a guy you wanted to have around. I could say that about many of the people who were part of the NPLI Program that I was fortunate to study with, but in the field of public health, you want to have an individual who can deliver the facts in terms that are understandable to all; convey strong measures of confidence (not the usual medical arrogance) while relaying a sense of proactive calm that the bet people are working on the situation whatever it is and will make whatever they can available to you and your family.

Dr. Besser has all of those qualities and more.

While I was driving in this morning I heard the WTOP News guys ask one of their reporters whether the fact that the new Administration does not have an HHS Secretary (and other senior USG Health positions) in office right now as it impeding the response to the Swine Flu outbreak.

After uttering a word my mother and wife would chew me out for saying out loud in the car or any other place, I couldn’t help but think that these folks and for that matter the rest of the country don’t know people like Dr. Besser and the many like him at the CDC, HHS, DHS and elsewhere that are working triple overtime to tackle this situation.

While I am concerned about the outbreak, I have the comfort of getting to know and study with one of our country’s most impressive leaders. Knowing he’s on the job tells me one of the country’s best doctors and leaders is going to make it right. He will be straightforward; he won’t play games and he will not stop until the situation is addressed completely.

He’s a leader to watch and the Administration and nation is very fortunate to have him on call.

Posted in Critical Infrastructure, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, International, Management & Administration, WMD, Chemical & Biological | Comments

FEMA: Looking Forward

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Craig Fugate reflected his penchant for thoughtful and forward looking thinking April 22nd during his appearance before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in support of his nomination to be the next Administrator of FEMA. During the hearing he underscored that vision, talent and leadership is needed to create a stronger national, and not simply, federal capacity to meet obligations to the American people in times of crisis.

Craig also undertook a refreshing approach to the continuing debate of re-drawing organizational boxes and pulling FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as well as how we should measure national effectiveness and progress to dealing with emergencies and disasters. He was clear in his belief that FEMA should remain part of DHS. He was equally clear in noting that the nation simply doing better than Katrina is not anywhere close to good enough. In a time in our nation’s history where clarity of purpose and intention are both more important than ever, Craig provided both on the critical issues of how best to ready America for the inevitability of the next emergency or disaster.

There was much debate in the aftermath of Katrina about the importance of having skilled and experienced leadership in FEMA. Craig’s background and experience makes him an ideal choice. If confirmed, he will have both the responsibility and accountability for helping to lead and facilitate the transformation of both FEMA and the non-federal aspects of America’s emergency management system, into a comprehensive 21st Century approach. Congress owes accountability to the American people to make sure this goal is met. Congress also has a critical role in working with the President, Secretary Napolitano and Mr. Fugate to make sure that any impediments to success are eliminated. A place to begin may be by stopping further debate in Congress about whether FEMA should be removed from DHS. There is also merit with encouraging Members to not use Katrina as the benchmark to measure future FEMA’s progress, but instead to work with Secretary Napolitano, Craig and all relevant stakeholders to develop a comprehensive set of forward thinking and aggressive goals for our national emergency management system. There is greater potential for success by measuring progress towards where you WANT TO BE, and not by measuring it towards where you DON’T WANT TO BE.

President Obama assumed the mantles of the Presidency during a period of great instability. At home and abroad, America’s interests are threatened in a variety of ways. The President has made a very wise selection in Craig Fugate to lead FEMA. Hopefully the Senate will rapidly confirm Craig so he can add another dimension of stability to the broader Administration’s efforts to deal with the crisis of today, but also to be ready for the crisis of tomorrow.

Posted in Congress, Politics & PR, Critical Infrastructure, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration | Comments

Another View on TSA’s Risk Assessment Methodology

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recently published a year long study on the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) use of risk assessment methodologies to drive resource allocations. The bottom line, according to GAO, is that TSA’s risk assessment capabilities are found wanting. But instead of being defensive about the findings, all of us should feel pretty good about how TSA has proceeded to determine risk priorities thus far.

First, GAO makes an important stipulation: “We must understand and accept a certain level of risk as a permanent condition.” This is included in the report and is the baseline for all our security efforts that should never be forgotten. So let’s dispense with the notion that TSA’s failure to have a robust risk assessment process has left us all more vulnerable than we would otherwise be. The GAO acknowledges that TSA has used an intelligence based approach to setting priorities and allocating resources. Who says this is ineffective or hasn’t served the objectives of America’s homeland security?

This is not to denigrate the risk assessment process initiated in 2002 when President Bush issued HSPD-7. This Presidential Directive required close collaboration on a Sector Specific Plan (SSP) between the DOT and the DHS. The process to create the SSP was arduous, controversial and exasperating. I have some first hand knowledge of how this all unfolded. Such exercises involve sacrifice of one agency’s “turf” to another and can have the effect of levying new costs on private sector constituencies. In short, this breaks china and upsets the status quo. TSA is to be congratulated for its completion of the SSP.

The overall point is that identifying all the Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources (CIKR) in the country across all transportation modes is a fairly daunting assignment. But TSA pretty much got that done. Now, getting all the way to the process standards set in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) is a challenge given the agency’s overall resource constraints. Who wants to be responsible for spending resources on risk assessment as opposed to more Federal Air Marshals?

The real question for the American people is whether or not the agency entrusted with preserving the nation’s transportation infrastructure is applying a quality analytical regime starting with identification of threat, analysis of vulnerability and definition of consequence. The TSA is doing that in its own effective way, accomplished in the context of available resources.

In these times, who could ask more?

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Congress, Politics & PR, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Law Enforcement | Comments

FLUX UNVEILED

Friday, April 24th, 2009

I was fortunate enough to attend the joint announcement yesterday ay JFK International Airport with CBP and the Dutch government of the FLUX Alliance, the new joint international trusted traveler program. The brand name links CBP’s Global Entry program and the Dutch Privium program into a unified application process with reciprocal privileges for U.S. and Dutch citizens. It’s a great development.

First, governments must accelerate developments to facilitate low-risk, frequent travelers willing to be vetted continuously for security risks, and the policy deliberations between governments sharing law enforcement information are complicated and messy. Hopefully FLUX will be the first step on a web of such programs around the world between cooperative governments. Second, the message – we want travelers to come to the U.S. – is essential in these tough economic and diplomatic times. Yesterday’s announcement was unfortunately four years after then-Secretary Ridge’s agreement to a FLUX-like program with the Dutch that fell into a policy cul-de-sac while the new Chertoff team deliberated about a series of travel and identification programs. The good news is that the actual date ended up falling on the 400th anniversary of the Dutch exploration under British explorer Henry Hudson so yesterday’s event had a little more symbolism than normal.

CBP has now made it about halfway down a checklist for the launch of Global Entry, with enrollment available, 7 operational locations up and running, and the first international partnership in place. Still on the to-do list: 1) Agreement between the DHS General Counsel and OMB on the formal regulatory framework for Global Entry; 2) expansion to 13 additional airports to create a critical mass of useful locations; 3) combining Global Entry with land border trusted traveler programs and the US-Canadian Air Nexus program; 4) allowing private sector registered traveler firms to submit applications on behalf of their hundreds of thousands of members who have already provided most of the information necessary for Global Entry; 5) more creative marketing including enrollment at trade shows and corporations and working with the existing registered traveler marketplace on marketing; 6) using multiple biometrics like iris scanning at the kiosks to alleviate the occasional delays for enrollees whose fingerprints cannot be confirmed; and 7) additional international agreements with the UK, Germany, the APEC trading region, and hopefully other countries.

Kudos to CBP’s Acting Commissioner Jay Ahern and Director of Trusted Traveler Programs John Wagner for their dogged efforts to make FLUX a reality, and they are itching to make 2009 the year when international trusted traveler programs really become an integral part of CBP’s facilitation and security mission.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Border Security, Congress, Politics & PR, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, International, Management & Administration, counterterrorism | Comments

Candor and Communications – Chicago Style, Part 3

Friday, April 24th, 2009

Darell Darnell, Director of DC’s EMS presented on Friday at the conference to share the use of social networking media during the 2009 Inauguration. He offered personal and anecdotal evidence as to the impact and effectiveness of this new tool. In his words, “The elephant is in the room [social networking media] and we better figure out how to use it. Its here to stay.”

He offered that with IMF meetings in DC this weekend this is a tool they expect to use and learn from again.

Needless to say the OEC Conference organizers saved the best for last. His presentation, done without notes, was outstanding.

If the Obama Administration doesn’t find somewhere to plug this guy in, they’re missing out on an enormous talent.

Posted in Featured Feed | Comments

Candor and Communications – Chicago Style, Part 2

Friday, April 24th, 2009

Picking up where Day One of DHS’ Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) first National Conference left off the organizers continued their efforts on Day Two (April 23, 2009) to keep momentum going. By continuing to utilize their “open mic” style and taking questions from a texting audience the push for using Twitter was made in earnest. It was surmised by the organizers that this was probably a first for DHS to utilize Twitter at one of their sponsored conference programs. The words “progressive” and “cutting-edge” are not the first ones that come to mind when you think of DHS, but the OEC Team took a leap of faith by trying to be forward leaning in connecting those outside of the confines of the Chicago Hilton to the day’s activities.

Most of the second day program was spent with concurrent breakout sessions occurring. This allowed the attendees to hear from their counterparts around the country on everything from the Value of Statewide Governance; Public Safety Interoperable Communications (PSIC) Grants; Statewide Communications Interoperability Plans (SCIPs) and more. I’m sure to many people these topics are probably about as exciting as getting front row seats to observe a paint drying marathon, but each of the selected topics addressed core essentials to the planning, execution and funding associated with connecting first responders and more to emergencies and wide scale events.

I had the chance to attend several of the panels and rather than give a blow by blow report on what each one covered I thought I’d offer a summary of some of the “quotable quotes” that some of the speakers offered. These included:

“Persistence pays off in collaboration”

“This is not rocket science. You have to bring people to the table if you want to succeed.”

“Remember the simple rule of KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid!”

“You have to get to know who is doing what if you expect your plan to work!”

“Your plans must be stakeholder driven.”

“You can’t say you’re a regional effort if you are the only one saying what you need.”

“You need to be able to express your vision and mission simply and succinctly. Geek speak won’t do.”

“I’m not a beeps and squeaks kind of guy.”

Featured Speakers

Juliette Kayyem, DHS’ new Assistant Secretary of Intergovernmental Programs and Ross Ashley, FEMA’s Assistant Administrator for Grant Program attended and offered their respective views from Washington – both cognizant that the real work of the homeland occurs outside the Beltway.

Kayyem opened her remarks recounting her tenure as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Undersecretary for Homeland Security. With 351 independent municipalities scattered around the State, the challenge of getting buy-in from all of them into a uniform statewide communications plan was a challenge. While it is still a work in progress, the communications plan that was being put into place had put Massachusetts in a greatly improved posture from where it had once been.

While her remarks were devoid of significant details about policy and programmatic changes that would occur under Sec. Napolitano’s leadership, she did seem to make efforts to distinguish what would be different about DHS from its previous leadership. A couple of lines from her remarks that caught my attention included:

“The Department [DHS] needs to recognize that ‘homeland’ is in its title.” [This seemed to infer that the previous leadership of DHS believed in solely a top down approach to state, local and tribal governments.]

“Having a Governor [former AZ Gov. and now DHS Sec., Napolitano] running the Department helps in recasting how DHS engages its partners.”

[The new DHS leadership] “will be looking to correct policies and programs that the previous leadership put into place.” [This comment really caught my attention, especially after reading the CNN story Thursday morning about Sec. Napolitano’s remarks about wanting to repeal REAL-ID. In a speech earlier this week, Sec. Napolitano stated that she wants to repeal legislation that her Department is assigned direct responsibility for implementing. Such a bold move certainly demonstrates that it hasn’t taken the new DHS leadership long to identify one of the policies or programs it wants “to correct.”]

“The narrative for interoperability needs work.”

“You need to be able to tell a story; a narrative about what you do, what you buy and tell us what difference it makes.”

“We need to make some final calls on governance on interoperability and we need to get it right.”

Immediately following her remarks, Ross Ashley presented an overview of the grant programs that state, local and tribal sector members can use to pay for equipment, training, personnel and more. Remarking that communications interoperability “is probably the number one investment of grant dollars” that DHS has provided for he noted the transition that had occurred under Sec. Napolitano taking the reigns of the Department.

Echoing a point made by Assistant Secretary Kayyem about having a Governor leading DHS now and the importance of connecting to state and local government, he described the shift from Chertoff to Napolitano as a “huge effort” to reengage state and local constituents and build effective partnerships with them.

Another point he mentioned that echoed the previous days remarks by OEC Director, Chris Essid as well as Juliette Kayyem’s was “technology is no longer an excuse for being interoperable.”

“The number one excuse [for not being interoperable] is governance and people.”

“There’s lots of money; we’re buying lots of stuff but we’re not investing in the planning and protocols to bring them all together. That’s where we should be spending money.”

Ashley also encouraged the attending state, local and tribal leaders to build relationships with their respective State Administrative Agents (SAA) as they are the persons who ultimately hold the purse strings for the grant dollars that each state are awarded.

Before opening the floor to questions from the audience, Ashley looked to address an issue before it could be asked about and that was the timing of grant guidance materials. He explained the challenges that he and his grants team have to deal with as it pertains to issuing grant guidance. He is prevented from issuing any type of guidance on a normal cycle because they don’t know when they will be getting their annual appropriation. Until those dollars are signed into law, he can’t do anything. Once signed though he has twenty-five days to get the materials out the door.

After Ashley’s remarks, another round of breakout sessions occurred that again tried to expose the attendees to various grant programs and planning efforts underway around the US.

Final Thoughts

All-in-all the two-days in Chicago have been very rewarding and time well spent.

If I have any disappointment whatsoever it is that I did not hear the words “satellite” or “back-up systems” mentioned except in the one on one discussions I had with other attendees. (Granted I was not in all of the breakout sessions and unfortunately missed the plenary panel on Federal Partners Advancing Emergency Communications in Disaster Response because of a meeting I had where those words could have been discussed.) When you consider our nation’s disaster experiences (large and small), be it an act of terror or wrath of Mother Nature, those events have destroyed or severely compromised terrestrial systems and architectures making communications either non-existent or extremely limited when it needed be functioning at full capacity.

Whether it is preconceived attitudes or prejudice against satellite communications due to its perceived costs, complexities or its limitations, or just plain timing issues from putting it on the program agenda, satellite communications is the one communications tool that has been there and performed on our country’s disaster days. Costs, complexities, performance and availability have all improved dramatically in satellite communications from what they were ten-years ago but that message was not delivered here.

I would hope that as future conferences by OEC and others are planned there will be an opportunity to highlight the achievements these technologies and its providers have offered over the past several years. They have made a tremendous difference and those contributions should be highlighted alongside the other communications providers that serve our communities around the US.

Other than that complaint, OEC made the trip to Chicago a very informative and productive occasion. They should be commended for bringing America’s emergency communicators together to talk and listen to one another. This conference was indeed a first of its type and OEC has now raised the expectation to keep the conversation and engagement going.

We will all be better off as they do that going forward.

Posted in Congress, Politics & PR, Critical Infrastructure, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland Security & the Internet; Gov't 2.0, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Management & Administration, counterterrorism | Comments

House Homeland Security Chairman Expresses Concern over DHS “Rightwing Extremist” Report

Friday, April 24th, 2009

Committee on Homeland Security

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security sent a letter to Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, inquiring about and expressing concern over the recently released report from the Department on rightwing extremism entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

Read a copy of Thompson’s letter.

On a related note, Napolitano will meet today with David Rehbein, commander of the American Legion, to discuss the report’s assertion that disgruntled veterans returning from the Middle East are likely recruting targets for righwing extremists, which caused a bit of an uproar among veterans who felt that the assertion negatively portrayed men and women who have served in combat.

Posted in Civil liberties & Privacy, Congress, Politics & PR, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Intelligence, Radicalization, counterterrorism | Comments

Peter Pan Lives in Washington, D.C.

Friday, April 24th, 2009

For a group that’s dangerously close to being branded as the ‘party of no,’ Republicans have a funny way of showing they can lead. Republican leaders – spearheaded by Congressman John Carter of Texas – are calling for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to step down or be fired. This reaction, in response to the Department’s over-hyped report on extremism, shows that today’s Republican Party has about as much political savvy as Miss California at a gay rights’ rally. My how far the mighty have fallen.

Wednesday night Carter orchestrated an hour of ‘anti-Napolitano’ speeches from the House floor and called on House Minority Leader John Boehner to take the issue to the White House.

Dear Congressman Carter: try using the House floor for introducing, explaining and debating quality legislative proposals; use it to call attention to how conservative values can benefit small businesses and restore the national economy; use it to contribute real homeland security issues like cyber security, aging infrastructure, and immigration reform; use it to add to the conversation of rebuilding America. Be surprised, but it may actually help the country AND the party may actually win back some seats in the next election. Crazy stuff, right?

We all love the story of Peter Pan, the boy who never aged, but lately Republican antics like what Carter pulled have soured the tale. Maybe Peter Pan grew up, but never matured. Maybe he got elected to Congress, but never lost his penchant for hurling spitballs. Maybe, just maybe Wendy will show up any day now to save him from himself.

24 hours after the ‘oust Napolitano’ rally on the House floor Leader Boehner proved that even in DC, cooler heads can prevail. He met with President Obama, but neglected to call for Napolitano’s head on a platter. Well done.

Next time skip the bitter diatribes, focus on some real issues, and head to the White House with enough substantive solutions to move our nation forward or enough pixie dust to make our problems float away – whichever you think is more realistic.

Posted in Congress, Politics & PR, Ideology & Public Diplomacy | Comments

Security Debrief Debate: How Should DHS Safeguard the Border With Mexico – Updated

Friday, April 24th, 2009

Security Debrief is hosting its first online debate after an announcement by the Department of Homeland Security on their plan to secure the border with Mexico. The Fact Sheet, Southwest Border: The Way Ahead, outlines the new activities and spending for specific departments and locations.

Debating the topic will be Contributor, Chad Wolf, along with Guest Contributor Douglas Doan (read his most recent post here). The debate will be in a point-counterpoint style, with Douglas Doan taking the lead and Chad Wolf offering the rebuttal.

Check back often for updates on the debate. And let the debate begin!

Argument by Douglas Doan:

When President Obama pressed for a huge $ 787 billion stimulus, he declared that the government would especially focus on building and infrastructure projects that would help spur economic growth. High on that list was a promise of $720 million in new spending for Ports of Entry (POE) along our nation’s borders. For good reason too, POEs are the nation’s cash registers where nearly $2 billion in trade passes EACH DAY.

Unfortunately, because of years of underinvestment in the new roads, bridges, and primary inspection booths manned by CBP officers, those cash registers have been clogged and long lines, excessive wait times, and lost productivity have become endemic. Not too surprisingly, the trade community, border regions, exporters, and Chambers of Commerce, were wildly supportive of the President’s decision to dedicate nearly $1 billion to building more infrastructure at the nation’s POEs.
But those early joys are fading fast. It has becoming increasingly clear that DHS intends to divert most of the federal funds intended to help alleviate the congestion and long wait times at POEs to other internal priorities.

Acting Commissioner Jayson Ahern fanned the flames of discontent by indicating that little of the stimulus funding will flow to the busiest POEs with the longest lines and most frustrated travelers. Instead, Ahern implied that much of the funding will be directed towards new inspection technologies, communications systems, and other border technology.
Put bluntly, for those that hope to see new roads, bridges, and more primary inspection lanes, to handle the nearly tenfold increase in traffic across the border during the last 10 years, there was nothing new.
In his announcement, Ahern did highlight improvements at Nogales, Arizona, and Otay Mesa California, but failed to mention that plans and most of the funding for improvements at those particular POEs was approved by Congress long ago.

What keen observers where hoping to see was an indication that new huge new stimulus funding would result in the construction of new lanes bridges and inspection booths, not just a reminder that projects established long ago will continue. Adding salt to the wound, Ahern implied that that CBP will concentrate on the smallest POEs, on the Northern border, where traffic is minimal and the impact on trade and commerce is zilch.

The growing realization that little if any of the $720 million dollars reserved for improving border infrastructure is going to add new capacity at our POEs and reduce the long wait times for legitimate trade and travel is a particular blow to the busiest border crossings like those near Detroit or Buffalo. These crossings are among the most important trade arteries in the world linking our largest trade partner, Canada, and feature a huge volume of daily trade.

Not long ago, long wait times and traffic snarls of 20 or more miles prompted one frustrated Canadian operator of the Blue Water Bridge called it simply “the Summer from Hell”. But apparently, no new stimulus funding will be spent in Detroit to help move beleaguered trade, much of it associated with the automobile industry, more quickly.

Instead, almost as a cruel joke, CBP has indicated that improvements to the POE at Los Ebanos are to be anticipated. Los Ebanos, located in Texas, is a wonderful piece of history, a hand operated ferry. But there is almost no trade that crosses, and the place is essential a quaint tourist destination, where travelers can get a kick out of riding on the last hand operated ferry across the Rio Grande.

And yet, as our auto industry teeters on insolvency, there was no urgent desire within CBP to help improve Detroit productivity be reducing the long wait times and border frustrations which are especially damaging to the automobile industry. With auto parts and components crossing the border sometimes 20-30 times before final installation, even small improvements at the border would have been economically meaningful. Instead, CBP indicated that improvements, perhaps new rope and pontoons for the ferry at Los Ebanos were more of a priority. Go figure.

My colleague, Chad Wolf, argued in a previous conversation, that stimulus spending on new border technology and inspection equipment is not all bad, and once this equipment is installed, technology will speed the transit times. I understand the argument. But more importantly, I understand the history.
For the past 20 years, senior CBP officials, including Jayson Ahern, have testified to Congress that new funding and technology at the borders would do exactly that, facilitate the flow of legitimate trade and travel. Congress has almost always approved every spending program requested and we have seen a virtual alphabet soup of DHS programs (ACE, SBI, C-TPAT, USVISIT, et. al).
And yet, wait times at the border continue to plague honest trade and travelers. Long lines not only endure, but have grown. This growth occurs despite the fact these DHS technology programs have consumed billions in taxpayer funds.

While, it would be nice to believe that this time might be different, the past is prologue. The sad truth is that not a single one of CBP’s most touted programs has achieved the desired results. All have overrun their budgets by several billion in taxpayer dollars and none of the programs were delivered on time.

But what is most perplexing about the DHS indifference to towards speeding the flow of legitimate trade and commerce across the border is that Secretary Napolitano, who when she served as Governor of Arizona, was one of the strongest advocates for building more lanes, bridges and inspection booths.

Indeed, several years ago, while serving in the Office of the Private Sector at DHS, I launched a project to build additional lanes across the border at the port of Nogales in Arizona. What made this project unusual is that we intended to do it without any federal funds at all, and would instead leverage the resources of the private sector and attempt to build the lanes at a 10th of the normal cost and do it all in less than 2 years.

Then-Governor Napolitano jumped on the idea like a dog on a bone, energized her staff, and helped push the bureaucracy. The new lanes in Nogales were built in less than two years, and relieved congestion that had plagued legitimate trade for years.

What then-Governor Napolitano must have learned from this experience in Nogales is that if the government is wise, it can leverage huge resources and additional capital to build more capacity at our borders and do it quickly. Indeed, private investors are even now ready to build a new POE some 10 miles from Otay Mesa which would more than double the capacity and provide an economic stimulus to the State of California that Governor Schwarzenegger has estimated to be in the $ billions/ per year. In Detroit, private investors are ready to build new and expanded plazas with more than 25 new inspection lanes to facilitate the traffic demands. The same is true in Buffalo New York, one of the busiest POEs in the nation.

And yet, DHS stumbles around in a curious way, determined to avoid making the very changes that would yield the largest possible economic impacts. Partners at the state and local levels of government along with private investors, who understand the economic benefits that could be gained by getting legitimate trade and travelers moving more quickly across the border, are left scratching their head and wondering why the government decided to invest most of this money to make changes that are not needed and in places that don’t matter.

Let’s hope there is still time for Secretary Napolitano to get a grip on the DHS policy and make some badly needed changes. Otherwise, honest trade and travelers expecting to cross the border need to be prepared for many more summers from hell.

Argument by Chad Wolf:

Before we begin an all out assault on CBP for how the agency is spending its stimulus funds, we need to take a deep breath and fully understand Congressional direction in the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

Some have criticized CBP for ignoring land Ports of Entry (POE) modernization needs and requirements in favor of new border security technologies. I don’t necessarily disagree that our major POEs desperately need updating and enhancements to handle increased traffic they are now experiencing. There’s no doubt that should be a priority. But I don’t think that it’s a zero sum game.

It’s been suggested that CBP is using much of the $720 million it received in ARRA to procure new inspection technologies, communications systems and other border technology at the expense of POE modernization. That’s simply not the case (at this time).

Under ARRA CBP received, in addition to the $720 million, approximately $260 million for non-intrusive technology, tactical communications equipment and radios and border technology (SBInet) on the southwest border. This money, and not the $720 million, was exactly what Acting CBP Commissioner Ahern alluded to during recent remarks touting the benefits of new technology along the border.

Let us not forget that we are in the midst of a serious fight along the southern border with the Mexican drug cartels. Increased security is what is needed and the Congress provided a down payment toward that end in ARRA. Border security technology not only increases the security of the region but, if deployed successfully, can help reduce congestion and wait times at POEs and free up CBP resources for other critical purposes. The technology CBP is procuring has tried and true performance capabilities and is currently deployed on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan where it has saved countless lives by detecting IEDs. We can be assured that it will find contraband (such as guns) going south as well as contraband (such as drugs, money and illegal aliens) coming north.

When I take a look at what CBP is doing with its $720 million for POEs I also disagree with some that the agency is ignoring the busiest POEs. Again, let’s take a look at how Congress allocated the $720 million. $420 million is allocated to CBP-owned land ports of entry. These are some of the smallest and most remote POEs that exist to be sure. Perhaps they don’t offer the most bang-for-the buck, but CBP doesn’t have flexibility to reallocate this money. It must spend it on CBP-owned POEs.

The remaining $300 million was appropriated for GSA-owned POEs. These are the large POEs that many of us are aware of and perhaps have traveled through. While $300 million sounds like a significant amount of money, it really just represents an initial down payment for these high-traffic POEs. Just recently Secretary Napolitano announced that $200 million of ARRA funding would go toward “a major overhaul of the Nogales [Ariz.] port of entry.” In addition, the Secretary indicated that CBP would be installing improvements at Otay Mesa [California] and redesigning Columbus [New Mexico]. All three of these POEs are GSA-owned and represent some of the largest crossings.

To this author it appears that CBP is implementing ARRA funding in a responsible manner. But perhaps most importantly, the agency is implementing the funding in manner in which the Congress directed it to do so. If there’s an argument to be made about the allocation of these funds and the re-setting of priorities, that’s a discussion to have with Congress and not CBP.

Argument by Sam Rosenfeld:

The recent decision to reallocate Point of Entry improvement funds to security spending is prioritizing security above livelihoods, and appears to demonstrate a disconnect between big picture and tactical thinking within the Administration. This comment examines the decision from a government decision-making and prioritization perspective.

The Obama Administration promised Congress that they would allocate $1 billion to infrastructure improvement at Points of Entry (POEs); that money is now being reallocated to improving security technology and communications. The reallocation of funds around the POEs demonstrates department-level bureaucratic imperatives are being prioritized over the fundamental, macro-economic needs of the United States, and possibly leading to the ceding of control of important functions of government.

Mazlov’s personal hierarchy of needs is informative here; a human must have water, food and shelter before they can go on to do other things. Note that this list does not include security as a fundamental priority for survival. This list is equally applicable to the nation-state: countries have hierarchies of needs too, and the very first must be to meet those Mazlovian needs of their people – the bite of the economy is surely demonstrating that without national and personal economic survival and prosperity, all else is window dressing. There are risks we must take, and risks we need not take; in the current climate, assessing these risks must be conducted by those who sit above individual departments, not by the departments themselves; that is what our leaders are for. Once those decisions are taken, they must be communicated clearly to the individual departments. This reprioritization of the use of the funds demonstrates the prioritizing of security over the economy – blood over lifeblood.

One argument being fielded is that the money must be used to make the borders more secure, and that in doing so the technology will increase the flow rate of traffic across the border. That may be so, but increasing the rate of drips from a tap doesn’t substantially increase the speed with which the bucket gets filled; not when the tap can be repaired and turned on full. If we examine the alternatives from a economic perspective, the spending on increased technology and communications will direct funds to technology companies. There will be spending on the manufacture of electronics of various natures. Much of the cost of electronic devices is spent to recompense these companies for research and development costs; generally, of the monies spent by the government some of the funds will go to employees involved in manufacture, some will go to the operating margin of the company, some to future R&D, and some to the shareholders. The result of the spending will be greater efficiency at the checkpoints and a ‘higher’ (unspecified) level of security. Alternatively, by investing in infrastructure improvements money will be spent on construction, distributing a greater percentage of funds directly to workers; there is more discretion for spending with small businesses and other disadvantaged companies on a local basis, ensuring that funds are disbursed locally. The improvements to the POEs will ensure much higher flow-rate of goods and services across the border. I am not suggesting which alternative is better, rather I am outlining the two options. Only the members of the DHS will be able to tell us what the facts and figures are when one compares the two alternatives; what the economic impacts are, what the value of the security spending is in terms of efficiency as well as security, etc. My concern is whether such an assessment was done at all, and that the comparative assessment makes clear distinctions between economics and security, and clearly explains the value of the increase in technology.

What is really interesting is that DHS is effectively forcing private enterprise to improve the POEs because ‘it is in their own interest to do so’. Not only are taxes going to increase, but the government is simultaneously encouraging private enterprise to pick up the bill for improvements not in the budget. This is effectively an aggrandized ‘pay to play’ scheme, shifting responsibility for government infrastructure onto private enterprise. While arguably this is not a bad thing – it can be argued that those who want the improvements will pay for them, while no-one is going to pay for increased security and so the government must address that issue – the wholesale ceding of responsibility for the POEs raises concerns about where the Obama Administration draws the line between private and public enterprise; my particular concern is whether there has been a line identified, or whether the discreet parts of the Administration is simply making up policy on the fly, without thought for the wider implications of their decisions.

Now is the time for Congress to prove that it is closely monitoring the new government, by seeking the proof that DHS took into account ALL factors, and not just security factors, when making this decision, and that the decision was influenced by what is best for the nation as a whole, not just what is the best security decision. If this was not done, then the White House staff must take a long look at their performance thus far in ensuring an integrated approach to government, because they have failed this test.

Posted in Border Security, Critical Infrastructure, Featured Feed, Immigration & Visa Policy, Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Narcotics, Smuggling, counterterrorism | Comments

Candor and Communications – Chicago Style

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

Greetings from sunny and very warm Chicago where the first ever, DHS Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) National Conference is underway. With more than 500+ attendees assembled at the Chicago Hilton, the program has assembled first responders, emergency managers and industry members from around the US (and world) to share, discuss and learn from one another what it takes to be interoperable with one another.

Below are some observations from the first day of the program (Wednesday, April 22nd).

Program Format

All of us are used to conference formats that are risk free and lets just say…predictable. Not this one. This program did something fairly novel – it opened the floor with open microphones to let the people on the front lines of every type of imaginable emergency to share success stories as well as their frank, blunt and very direct questions to the people at DHS (OEC, FEMA, etc.) that run the communications show. That threw ”safe” and plain vanilla agenda out the window. It was a tremendous risk and it paid off for them as it opened the program up to areas that might otherwise go unaddressed.

For example, when Chris Essid, OEC’s Director made his opening remarks, he invited the audience to share any recent success stories with the attendees. After calling upon officials from Ohio and Chicago (who evidently he had met earlier in the morning) to stand up in the audience to talk about improvements they had made to respond to emergencies back home, he invited anyone from the audience to do the same.

Huh?

You could see attendees looking at one another and thinking, “What is this guy doing?”

Well it worked.

An attendee from Arkansas stood up, got a microphone and recounted some of the challenges they had encountered in recent ice storms and how they adjusted to the situation.

She was followed by a gentleman from Baton Rouge, Louisiana who stood up and mentioned some of the improvements his community had made following Hurricane Katrina and how they had been tested this past year with Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

It was a refreshing change of pace to the conventional conference format to put part of the program solely in the laps of its attendees.

It’s always a risk when you have “open mic” night at any event because truly anything can happen. You could end up with a Jerry Springer Show ranting; someone delivering a long sermon on the mount and never gets to their point; someone saying something that makes no sense and becomes a confrontational, conspiracy-minded idiot or you could end up with a Susan Boyle moment.

While none of those things happened yesterday, Essid and the organizers showed tremendous respect and confidence in the audience that they would do the right thing when offered the opportunity to contribute directly to the program. When given the opportunity, the attendees offered legitimate value and insights on one of the most challenging and contentious issues facing homeland security and public safety at large.

It was a very refreshing change of pace to the traditional homeland security conference format.

National Emergency Communications Plan

When the program turned to addressing the National Emergency Communications Plan, attendees were invited to assemble at their respective tables the questions and areas they wanted answered by DHS’ assembled leadership. Again utilizing the open mic, they also invited the audience to text questions to them.

Instead of just taking the assembled questions for reference and saying, “We’ll get back to you,” they actually responded back with real answers.

Imagine…getting real answers to your questions. Sort of novel don’t you think?

Sharing Success Stories

In his opening remarks, OEC Director Chris Essid described the interoperability challenge “as 10% challenge and 90% coordination.” Critical to any type of improvements in communications interoperability was the willingness of parties to build bridges and relationships with various constituencies that previously did not exist. When it came to the media headlines that covered the events and emergencies of the day, it was Essid’s view (as well as a number of attendees) that the media all too often focused on the negative; the “what has failed now” part of response rather than what works or has improved.

To counter that coverage, Essid invited attendees to share with OEC their success stories either by the open mic (as previously described) or by texting/emailing them to oec@hq.dhs.gov so that they could be shared with him, his staff, the Department’s leadership and others. It was a proactive move on his part to again build buy-in from the audience and larger communications stakeholders.

It also will give him and his OEC Team a reservoir of case studies to counter the arm-chair critics who all too often bemoan that nothing has been done to improve things in interoperability.

The use of the words “Terrorism” and “All-Hazards”

Of late there has been a lot of squabbles over the numbers of time the word “terrorism” is used in congressional testimony, speeches, etc. With the 9/11 attacks occurring nearly 8 years ago and no major terror incidents happening in the US since then, there is a belief by some that terrorism as a threat has been forgotten about by the public at large.

I think it is safe to say that for these conference attendees, terrorism has not been forgotten. I did find it interesting that it wasn’t until late in the afternoon program that Scott Wiggins, Director of Minnesota’s Division of Emergency Communication Networks remarks recounting the I-35W Bridge collapse in Minneapolis on August 1, 2007 that the word “terrorism” was first used.

Instead, the words “all-hazards” permeated the all of the remarks delivered yesterday.

That’s a pretty amazing and evolutionary shift in the communications history of talking about homeland security.

Upon the Department’s creation and for its first couple of years, all anyone seemed to stress from the podium and conference presentations was the threat of terrorism. Following Katrina in 2005 and all of the other major regional events since then (fires, floods, other hurricanes, etc.), the larger homeland community has firmly embraced the term “all-hazards” to reference their challenges.

Needless to say it is an accurate and appropriate evolution in word usage and communicating the environment at hand and I think it is here to stay.

That says as much about the evolution of thinking at DHS as it does its national stakeholders in the public and private sectors. We are all getting smarter and recognize that none of us can succeed alone.

I will have more updates from Chicago tomorrow….

Follow the conference on Twitter – @NCOEC. This is a first for DHS.

Posted in Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration | Comments

Significant terror trial gets underway in Germany today

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

With all this talk of declassified interrogation memos and whether or not to prosecute, it is worth noting that today in Germany the trial of Fritz Gelowicz and three others begins. Who is Fritz Gelowicz, you may ask?

He is an accused terrorist who’s been jailed in Germany since September 2007. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he doesn’t fit the stereotypical mold of Islamic extremism we came to picture after 9/11. Yet he and his cohorts, the Sauerland group, were trained in Pakistan and arrested 19 months ago for plotting terror attacks in Germany using liquid hydrogen peroxide bombs.

According to German publication “Speigel Online,” the radicalized German natives were targeting “discos and bars “with American sluts” and the “prestige target” of the US air base Ramstein.”

Spiegel refers to the trial as “Germany’s biggest terror trial since the 9/11 attacks.”

This trial is a success story about a real plot disrupted. It is the story of teamwork and traditional intelligence and law enforcement. The CIA played a major role as did the rest of the counterterrorism community. The Transportation Security Administration, for instance, deployed more teams of air marshals to cover select trans-Atlantic flights, just as it had done in the summer of 2006, when the London liquid bomb plot was a national security concern.

It is worth remembering amid all the abstract policy discussion that terrorism is a real and continuing concern. It is also worth remembering this success in Germany.

Ellen Howe is a Vice President at Adfero Group. She formerly served as Assistant Administrator of Strategic Communications & Public Affairs at the Transportation Security Administration.

Posted in Featured Feed | Comments

“FEMA, ICE Nominees’ Backgrounds Promise Little Controversy”

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Today, CQ Homeland Security published a story with quotes from three Security Debrief contributors. Chris Battle, former director of public affairs at ICE and Security Debrief Editor spoke to John Morton’s prosecution background as an asset for his confirmation as assistant secretary at ICE. Further, Julie Myers Wood, former assistant secretary at ICE, said that Morton’s unique understanding of communications and law enforcement from his days at the Justice department will be a useful skill for the work that lays ahead. And, Rich Cooper, contributor and principal at Catalyst Partners, felt that Craig Fugate’s experience in leadership of Florida’s emergency management system would make him an excellent candidate for the position of FEMA administrator.

Partial excerpts below:

FEMA, ICE Nominees’ Backgrounds Promise Little Controversy – CQ Homeland Security
By Rob Margetta and Daniel Fowler

President Obama’s nominees for two of the most important and high-profile jobs at the Department of Homeland Security will face questions from a Senate panel Wednesday.

Although the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Emergency Management Agency can stir political controversy, the nominees to lead the agencies aren’t likely to spark any fireworks at their confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

W. Craig Fugate, nominee for FEMA administrator, and John T. Morton, nominee for ICE assistant secretary, appear qualified for the work that would lie ahead of them, experts said Tuesday.

The emergency management community and elected officials seemed pleased at the nomination of Fugate, Florida’s top emergency management official.

Rich Cooper, a principal at the homeland security consulting firm Catalyst Partners, awaits Fugate, however: whether he thinks FEMA should remain within DHS.

“That question’s going to come right out of the box,” Cooper said, adding that he doesn’t expect a simple “yes” or “no” answer, especially because DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has not weighed in publicly on the issue. Obama also has not issued a firm opinion.

Morton’s career at the Department of Justice makes him a perfect candidate to head ICE, said Julie Myers Wood, that agency’s former head.

“I think it’s very helpful to have a prosecutor in the top ICE job,” Wood said. “A lot of the issues that came to me involved legal decisions, and, being a prosecutor, you’re used to asking the tough questions, you’re used to looking all around the issue. That’s something I found useful, my predecessor found useful, and I think John Morton will find useful.”

Chris Battle, the former director of public affairs at ICE who now manages homeland security issues for the Adfero Group, a Washington, D.C.,-based public relations firm, said Morton seems to have the right experience for the job, including prosecutions for human smuggling, passport fraud and other immigration-related crimes.

“As a former federal prosecutor, he brings the understanding of law enforcement and interaction with law enforcement,” Battle said, “but also brings the packaging and communications skills of a trial lawyer, someone who has to convince an audience, whether it’s a jury or Congress, on the justice of his position.”

Still, immigration will be a huge issue at the hearing — and a potential land mine for Morton, Battle said. Members in several congressional committees have already begun to question whether immigration enforcement, such as workplace raids, will change under the Obama administration.

“I think [Morton] would be very wise to take a restrained position on work-site enforcement and internal-immigration enforcement until he’s officially on board and has had a chance to sit down with the secretary and members of Congress,” Battle said. “This is a politically explosive issue, and ICE has become a political football.”

Congress has been “practically schizophrenic” in its enforcement guidance for ICE, Battle said; expressing the wrong opinion in front of the wrong official could spell trouble for the nominee.

“On the one side they’re told to perform work-site enforcement, on the other side they’re called the Gestapo for doing it,” Battle said, adding, “Congress needs to come up with a coherent immigration strategy.”

Read the full story here.

Posted in Featured Feed | Comments