Last week the Science and Technology Directorate held another session in its series of Stakeholders’ Conference here in Washington DC. The attendance appeared to be down from last year’s event, although there was a lot of “meat” to digest by those who attended the conference. One of the most significant things to come out of the conference is the new S&T High Priority Technology Needs booklet.

New patrol car designed by and for law enforcement, and being built by new American automaker Carbon Motors, challenges the status quo to provide support for police.
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As the GAO report shows, C-TPAT is not perfect. As with so many areas of homeland security, there are still a number of challenges that must be addressed and improved. Most critical among them is the lack of systematic follow-up by Customs and Border Protection officials to ensure that full implementation of their security requirements are met before granting benefits. Anyone who reads this report, however, will be struck by the degree of improvement C-TPAT has undergone since it was formally adopted, as well as the sophistication of DHS’s overarching risk-based approach to security. It is the very opposite of the model called for by some critics, who want to replace this model with the so-called 100 Percent model.

One of the great things about the Internet is that anyone with anything on their mind can say anything they want, regardless of how informed and insightful they might be. To illustrate this point I present Exhibit A – David Axe of Wired Magazine’s latest posting, “It’s a Major Prize,” attacking Admiral Allen and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Below is an excerpt of an opinion article published in today’s Washington Times. To read the article in full, visit the Times website. The article discusses the ongoing need to protect U.S. financial infrastructures as part of the overall homeland security strategy.

And another one bites the dust…This morning, Denver-based Frontier Airlines announced it was filing for bankruptcy protection - less than 24 hours after Oasis Hong Kong Airlines canceled all flights amid an unexpected liquidation process that became public on Wednesday. Oasis and Frontier are just the latest casualties in what has become a freefall within the rapidly collapsing airline industry.

The benefits afforded by the SAFETY Act protect not only the enterprise, the “Seller” but also the Seller’s suppliers, contractors, and “downstream users” (i.e., customers). This creates a valuable market advantage over competitors that do not have SAFETY Act protections. As of early 2008, there were more than 200 products and services that had received SAFETY Act protections.

There are many levels of government and countless private sector groups that own or have great influence over the assets of this nation and play a role in determining what level of defense or security they need. As result of recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission that were reinforced in the aftermath of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Congress has actively developed and passed Public Law 110-53 (9/11 Commission Act 2007). As part of the new law, DHS will soon develop a business continuity accreditation and certification program for use by the private sector.

The Terror Finance blog has a fascinating piece on the growing practice of “libel tourism,” where individuals linked to terrorism in books and articles sue the authors in British courts because the Brits lack any serious freedom-of-speech protections in such cases.

Stories in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, along with congressional testimony by the GAO, caused a frenzy in the media and blogosphere this week with suggestions that the Department of Homeland Security was “mothballing” the effort to build a virtual fence along the southern border. After millions spent and high expectations set, the idea that the Department was dropping the effort — known in typical government bureaucratese as “P28″ — caused quite a stir. However, Secretary Michael Chertoff responded assertively in a post on the DHS Leadership Journal, saying that the idea that the virtual fence is being dropped is simply inaccurate.

Having DHS S&T look at technology that will assist local homeowners in the event of natural disasters may seem like heresy to those who believe that DHS should be solely focused on anti-terrorism programs, but DHS was intended to be an all-hazards agency, and this is one of the first bits of evidence that S&T is serious about helping protect lives and property irrespective of the cause.

Security DeBrief contributor David Venturella, the current director of business development at L-3 and former Acting Director of the Office of Detention and Removal Operations at ICE, discusses how chemical facilities can be prepared to deal with terrorist attacks and comply with recently created DHS regulations. Listen to his interview here.

Federal News Radio interviews Security Debrief blogger David Olive, who is also the moderator of the Washington Homeland Security Roundtable, about the big projects ahead this year, and how the private sector and public sector should work together to get these projects done.

Passed in 2002 by one vote, the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies (SAFETY) Act provides limited liability protection to companies and/or organizations that have technologies, products or services that could be used to combat terrorism. The rationale was to protect providers from being disemboweled by a litany of lawsuits should a product or service fail during a terrorist event.