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Immigration Report Shows Continued DHS Enforcement Successes

Friday, August 20th, 2010

This week’s release of the DHS Office of Immigration Statistics report “Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2009” is a must read for those interested in immigration enforcement. The report sheds an interesting light on the federal government’s argument against portions of Arizona law, S.B. 1070, and also contains some positive long-term metrics that demonstrate the sustained work of law enforcement in this area.

Consider Table 4 of the FY 2009 report, which details ICE’s progress in removing criminal aliens. The report shows that ICE removed 128,345 criminal aliens in FY 2009. This is a substantial improvement over FY 2008, consistent with the agency’s commitment to the Secure Communities program and its 287(g) partnerships.

The report gives a breakdown of the types of convictions these criminal aliens had, including convictions for dangerous drugs, immigration-related offenses, assault, larceny, fraud, burglary, sexual assault and family offenses. Of note for FY 2009, the second most common criminal conviction was “traffic offenses,” accounting for over 20,000 (15.9%) of ICE’s criminal alien removals. This is new. Traffic offenses did not comprise a separate category in the FY 2006, 2007 or 2008 Immigration Enforcement Reports, but were merely listed in the catch-all “other” category, which primarily includes less serious crimes, as well as crime categories that represent less than 2% of the total removals.

With traffic offenses taken out of the “other crimes” category for FY 2009, one would expect the “other crimes” percentage to be significantly down. It is not – removals attributed to the “other” crimes category are nearly the same for this year and previous years. This suggests that in FY 2009, ICE had a significant spike in removals for traffic convictions or “other” minor offenses when compared to previous years, rather than a spike based on removals for more serious criminal categories.

Arizonans take note. Given the Administration’s position on the Arizona law, it is remarkable that broken tail lights, speeding and other minor crimes appear to be such a significant part of the Administration’s criminal alien initiative. How can the federal government criticize Arizona for wanting to process criminal aliens who have been arrested for “minor” traffic offenses when its own statistics for criminal alien removals demonstrate that the Administration has ramped up removals for the same offenses?

In the litigation on S.B. 1070, the district court’s opinion relied heavily on the federal government’s declarations and assurances regarding federal priorities and targeting of significant criminal offenders. Unfortunately, those assurances appear to be inconsistent with actual statistics, at least for FY 2009.

Even with these inconsistencies, however, DHS has much to highlight in the FY 2009 report. The report reveals some significant positive metrics, including an odd couple of successes: fewer CBP apprehensions and more ICE apprehensions and removals. Moreover, the long-term data is worth analyzing. When you compare the removals in fiscal year 2001 to the removals in fiscal year 2009, for example, it is apparent that the government is making a concerted, longer-term effort to address the problem of illegal immigration.

The American public’s view that the government does not have a long-term commitment to enforcement has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks to immigration reform. As the FY 2009 report demonstrates, however, the federal government has removed more individuals for seven consecutive years. That’s more than a blip – these results demonstrate some progress and a bipartisan commitment to starting to secure our borders after the neglect of the late 1990s.

These results have not been enough for the citizens of Arizona and many other states, but they do show progress. DHS should use the FY 2009 report to help convey all that has been done.

Posted in Border Security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Congress, Politics & PR, Homeland State & Local, Immigration & Visa Policy, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration | Comments

Let’s Not Talk Nonsense About Cyber

Friday, August 20th, 2010

A recent blog post on Wire.com by Kevin Poulsen, “Cyberwar Against Wikileaks? Good Luck With That” was brought to my attention by a good friend. She nominally just wanted my thoughts on the provocative article, but in effect, challenged me to blog on the subject. So here goes.

The genesis of the “controversy” was not the release of the mountain of leaked documents by the WikiLeaks folks, but rather, some of the response it had provoked, and that created a connection to cyber. A pundit had opined in the Washington Post that the U.S. Government had the cyber capability to “prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials.” He was referring to the slightly smaller mountain of documents that have been so far held back (on the advice of newspaper leadership types). These specific articles are apparently potentially more injurious to innocent folks than those already released.

OK, so the pundit was suggesting that President Obama authorize government entities to turn WikiLeaks computers into silicon bricks? Come on folks, educated people should not talk nonsense. Could we “attack” the website’s servers, computers, and other digital infrastructure? Yes, we probably could. That defined a target is well within the capabilities of several different parts of the government, but why in the name of all that is anchored in reality would any President ever do it?!?

Even if you skip right over that pesky free speech and freedom of the press stuff, just from a policy standpoint, it would be entirely self defeating. Using cyber capabilities to silence those with whom we disagree is exactly what privacy and civil liberties advocates fear most about the development of our cyber defenses. If anyone in the administration convinced the President to do this, it would forever torpedo the efforts to husband these capabilities for use in protecting the nation from our external enemies.

Was the release of the Afghanistan documents harmful? Yes, but not hugely so. The documents are for the most part low-level tactical reports at the SECRET level – not exactly the Pentagon Papers of this generation.

What the young soldier who released the documents did was illegal. He had a security clearance and had signed numerous non-disclosure agreements that go with official access to classified material. He knowingly broke federal law and the Uniformed Code of Military Justice. He should and will be prosecuted. But the military failed in its screening of this individual and in its supervision of him. As a result, he took actions that he may regret in the future.

WikiLeaks, however, made no such non-disclosure agreements. I am not defending what they did, and I wish they had not done it. Their actions have hurt the reputation of this country, our efforts to free the Afghan People from an oppressive ideology (however imperfect those efforts may be), and may in the long run get innocent people killed. If the online outlet’s ambitions to publish the documents in full had not been tempered by more mature and experienced news people, it would have been worse.

Basically, the U.S. Military must suck this one up and do a better job of securing its classified documents (they are far easier to steal and transfer than ever before). Clearly, if we have legal recourse to keep other documents from being leaked, we should take them, but nothing more. We must also work even harder at screening our personnel and then monitoring them for signs (public Web postings for example) that they might be considering illegal actions. If anyone is considering taking extra-legal actions involving our cyber capabilities, PLEASE put that option aside. Nothing good would come of it, and lots of damage would be done.

Posted in Civil liberties & Privacy, Cyber Security, Homeland Security & the Internet; Gov't 2.0, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Science & Technology, counterterrorism | Comments

Ted Alden on U.S. Competitive Immigration

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Every now and then you come across an article that cuts through the surface layer of superficial, short-term issues and illuminates the long-term challenges. Ted Alden’s thinking has always been this way, and he nails it in his recent article “U.S. Losing Ground in Competitive Immigration.” Ted lays out a cogent argument for encouraging the world’s brightest to study and stay in the United States.

Attracting skilled immigrants to maintain our intellectual and entrepreneurial edge may seem like an economic issue, but it is also a key national security issue. Economic and entrepreneurial dominance clearly strengthens our security. We have that dominance today, but, as Ted points out, there are several factors undermining our ability to maintain that dominance. While we can’t control all the factors, we can ensure that we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot with bad policy.

This article, published in World Politics Review on July 27, 2010, is the best I’ve read on the topic.

U.S. Losing Ground in Competitive Immigration – World Politics Review

By Edward Alden

At the 2008 summer Olympic Games in Beijing, the New York Times columnist Tom Friedman observed something intriguing about the powerful American team, which won the overall medal count for the games. After wandering through the athletes’ village, he noted, “The Russian team all looks Russian; the African teams all look African; the Chinese team all looks Chinese; and the American team looks like all of them.” The United States, Friedman said, is the clearest example of a nation whose “strength comes from diversity.”

The most powerful nations in history have all followed a similar formula. In “Day of Empire,” a masterful survey of the rise and fall of empires from Ancient Rome to the contemporary United States, Yale law professor Amy Chua writes, “At any given historical moment, the most valuable human capital the world has to offer — whether in the form of intelligence, physical strength, skill, knowledge, creativity, networks, commercial innovation or technological invention — is never to be found in any one locale or within any one ethnic or religious group. To pull away from its rivals on a global scale, a society must pull into itself and motivate the world’s best and brightest, regardless of ethnicity, religion or background.”

In the contemporary world, no country has done this better than the United States. The U.S. remains more successful than any other nation in recruiting and retaining talented individuals from around the world — in sports, in entertainment, and most importantly in the scientific and technological fields that drive modern economies. But that lead has shrunk significantly over the past decade, with potentially serious implications for U.S. global leadership. The best university students, who once flocked to the United States, are finding other attractive options in the U.K., Australia and Canada — and even in long-closed Japan. Skilled workers, frustrated by the tight U.S. quotas on work visas and the long waits for permanent residency, are being lured by other countries that have overhauled their immigration laws and promise a smoother transition to a new life. And Chinese and Indians, the two largest groups of skilled migrants, have seen new job possibilities emerge in their own fast-growing economies, leading more to stay put or to come back home.

These trends have alarmed U.S. businesses, and some political leaders as well. Michael Bloomberg, the media magnate and outspoken mayor of New York, has warned that restrictive laws and a stifling immigration bureaucracy that drive away immigrant entrepreneurs and other skilled migrants are a policy of “national suicide.” He added, “I can’t think of any ways to destroy this country quite as direct and impactful as our immigration policy. We educate the best and the brightest, and then we don’t give them a green card.”

Read the piece in its entirety on World Politics Review.

Posted in Civil liberties & Privacy, Congress, Politics & PR, Immigration & Visa Policy, International, Management & Administration | Comments

UAE Blocks BlackBerry for the Sake of Security, at the Cost of Liberty

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

By Justin Hienz

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is home to bizarre sights. Man-made islands shaped like palm trees; the tallest building in the world literally reaching the clouds in Dubai; vending machines offering gold bars; 16 year olds driving the newest Mercedes, BMW or Jaguar. It is a strange place, and the veneer of extreme luxury certainly impresses (or fools) most tourists.

But when you pull back the curtain (and it doesn’t take much), the UAE is revealed as a developing country with many challenges, such as a rigid class system, pollution and of course, security. Don’t forget that the UAE is a stone’s throw from Iran, has hundreds of miles of unsecured coastline and is one of the few GCC States to have escaped an al Qaeda attack thus far. That is no easy security situation, and one that merits as much preparation, vigilance and strategy as the country can muster.

Yet, the Emirates’ approach to securing the country is not bound by the same rights as those granted to U.S. citizens – the UAE is a not a democracy, and what the ruling sheikhs say, goes.

On Sunday, UAE officials announced that it would block BlackBerry mobile services. The rationale: to improve security. Apparently, the experts at Research in Motion (RIM), the producers of the BlackBerry, have done an excellent job encrypting information sent to and from the smart phone. The encryption is so effective in fact that UAE security services can’t hack it, meaning they can’t monitor it in search of potential threats – hence the block on BB mobile services. Clearly, the UAE is striving for security in every way, but at what cost?

When I worked in the UAE, I became familiar with threats in the region and the steps needed to secure the country. A mighty task but one the Emirates take seriously. But this move to block BB services comes at a high cost to those seeking information in the UAE. Here is an example.

Currently, if you access the Internet in the Emirates and you are looking for information about human rights abuses that occur there, a quick Google search reveals that the Human Rights Watch website has a page dedicated to the UAE. Click the link, but whoops:

“We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.”

I did this exact search while living in Abu Dhabi, and when I received that message, I went straight for my BlackBerry. The state-owned communications giant Etisalat can monitor and control Internet servers, but my BB helped me find the information the UAE government didn’t want me to.

It’s a fact of life in most Middle Eastern countries (and others around the world) that communications are monitored by the state. Looking at this from the Land of the Free, one might feel a sense of relief that we enjoy liberty and the right to read, write and say anything we like (within the law, that is) without fear of government intervention. But we must remember that maintaining our individual freedoms is a never-ending struggle.

A Washington Post article this week quotes the U.S. State Department, which is criticizing the UAE’s decision. Yet, as the reporter notes, in another Post article from last week we find that the Administration is attempting to provide the FBI with more authority to demand “electronic communication transactional records” without a court order.

Though our governing styles are starkly different, are our approaches to security really that dissimilar?

We’ve had our challenges reconciling security needs with individual freedom and right to privacy. I need not review the public reactions to the Patriot Act or other instances in our history where elements of the government have sought information to the perceived detriment of the American people.

Should al Qaeda land another blow, whispers of a right to privacy would likely die out quickly amidst voices shouting that we must do more to defeat our enemies. In this way, the ban on BB mobile services in the UAE is not as far from U.S. practice as it might seem.

Both countries are pursuing security for the sake of its citizens. But at what point does this good intention cross the line into excessive intrusion? And if undemocratic countries are levying security tactics that violate a right to freedom and privacy, and similar efforts are pursued here in America, what does that say about the legitimacy of our freedom?

Justin Hienz is Managing Editor for Security Debrief and a Senior Account Executive at Adfero Group.

Posted in Civil liberties & Privacy, Cyber Security, Homeland Security & the Internet; Gov't 2.0, Intelligence, International, Private and Physical Security, Science & Technology, counterterrorism | Comments

Congress has already passed a law allowing state and local law enforcement to enforce immigration

Friday, July 30th, 2010

This morning I published a piece in US News & World Report about the controversy over Arizona’s immigration law and the fight between the federal and state governments. The federal government asserts that Arizona is usurping the exclusive authority of the federal government to enforce immigration law.

To me, what has been curiously missing from the debate is that back in 1996 Congress passed a federal law giving state and local governments (and their law enforcement organizations) the right to enforce immigration law.

On the one hand the federal government is suing Arizona for authorizing local law enforcement to coordinate with federal authorities regarding illegal immigration; on the other hand, the federal government is simultaneously requesting such assistance from local governments.

Below is a brief excerpt. To read the full article, go to: Congress Passed an Arizona-Like Immigration Law in 1996 – Chris Battle (usnews.com)

Back in 1996 it was time to get tough on immigration, and an interesting little law known as 287g was passed. This federal law deemed it appropriate for state and local law enforcement to enforce immigration law.

Want to know what 287g says? Well, just read the law in Arizona. Yes, that law. The one causing protests in the streets of Phoenix, hysteria on cable talk shows and confusion in the courts. The one that empowers state and local law enforcement to enforce immigration law.

Posted in Border Security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Congress, Politics & PR, Featured Feed, Immigration & Visa Policy | Comments

Is the NSA’s “Perfect Citizen” Really Big Brother?

Monday, July 12th, 2010

OK, let me get this straight: a private sector company INVITES the National Security Agency (NSA) to place sensors on its privately owned network to help the company protect itself from unauthorized and unwanted cyber intrusions. Perfect Citizen, as it is called, is a program to detect cyber assaults on critical infrastructure, be they publically or privately held. The NSA will deploy sensors in critical infrastructure computer networks to detect a cyber attack.

With the U.S.’s eavesdropping agency working in private sector networks, some have worried that Perfect Citizen (a hideous name by the way) constitutes too much government monitoring in the private sector, conjuring comparisons to George Orwell’s 1984.

But how in the world does Perfect Citizen constitute “Big Brother”?!?

It still amazes me that the only entity that some American citizens seem to be afraid of in the cyber realm is own government. Yet, the same people demand that the government protect them from cyber attacks.

Come on folks, you are asking the impossible. When anyone says “security,” these individuals (and organizations) scream “Privacy!” What they really mean is privacy from the government. They do not seem to give a hoot about marketers, criminals or intelligence organizations from other countries reading anything and everything they have in digital format.

However, I do get the feeling that if these individuals’ identities were stolen, a bank account emptied, or their computer used in a BotNet to support a crime or terrorist incident, they will scream just as loudly that “the government should have done something!”

I am sorry that the NSA’s activities scare people. Much of the agency’s “scary” reputation is due to overblown Hollywood depictions of the organization (thank you “Enemy of the State” and other like films). I have worked with the NSA as an Intel Collector and while in the Pentagon’s Front Office. There are few organizations in the Federal Structure as obsessive about following the rules as the people at the Fort. These people are true patriots who do what they do to protect the Constitution and the American people, not to threaten them. The NSA is an American treasure, and we should be giving them raises, not attacking their integrity.

Perfect Citizen is NOT Big Brother. It is a program that is done only at the request of the people who own the infrastructure on which it resides. I predict that as this program goes forward, more firms will opt to join in. In fact, I also predict that once it starts to work for the Defense Industrial Base companies (which already have the best public/private info sharing arrangements in industry), others will clamor to join. Cyber Industrial Espionage is killing American businesses and will continue to do so until we can put effective monitoring capabilities in place. Perfect Citizen is good first step.

Posted in Civil liberties & Privacy, Critical Infrastructure, Cyber Security, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Science & Technology, counterterrorism | Comments

“Riot” Provokes Long Overdue Discussion on Appropriate Use of Force

Friday, April 16th, 2010

There are instances in crowd management situations where force is appropriate, but simply because it’s a crowd management situation doesn’t mean that force is automatically appropriate. The University of Maryland incident last month wasn’t a riot; it was a celebration, but a college student was severely beaten by police officers nevertheless. The long-term implications of the ongoing investigation must be a rethink of crowd management in the United States, because the current systems predispose police officers towards violence and the abrogation of First Amendment rights where neither is appropriate. The most urgent capability gap is an understanding of, and means to manage, people who are non-violent and non-compliant.

Four Prince George’s County Police officers have been suspended for the misuse of force on a University of Maryland student. While I wholly believe that such abuses by police must be investigated, it is a critical failure to concentrate just on the officer(s) rather than the system; the officers involved are not unlike many officers placed in similar situations, where police officers assault assembled students who are non-compliant but non-violent.

There are myriad examples over the past ten years of police officers conducting activities that if conducted by civilians would have been construed as assault or worse. For some reason, because students are assembled or people were protesting they somehow “deserved it” when police used violence against them.

This incident highlights a moral failure among police departments and city leaders to execute their duty of care, not only to property owners but to those seeking to protest or celebrate. Someone not acting as police wants them to is not a justification for violence, let alone baton strikes to the head. There is every justification for those causing damage to be arrested, and those clearly threatening violence to be arrested; force is appropriate where it is necessary to subdue a suspect demonstrating a threat.

Every arrest must be followed by a prosecution, just as every use of force absolutely must be followed by a prosecution. To use force, there must be imminent danger and a crime. Effective crowd management is achieved by targeting individuals and successfully prosecuting them for their crimes.

It is regrettable that this event is being investigated because one of the victims is related to lawyers; an outraged family with the clout to achieve an investigation should be the last reason that a use of force is investigated. This incident and the many others like it should spark outrage and a top-to-bottom review of the systems in place that drive crowd management among most police forces in the United States. Often, the students simply did not deserve it, regardless of what the police department spokespeople say afterwards.

The other implication of this incident is that the likelihood of protest-related violence being challenged by the public, and particularly by those upon whom violence was used, is rising exponentially. As of today, police departments must be sure that their accountability chain for use of force is rock solid – the value of a police officer’s word in a crowd management situation has dropped dramatically in the last 24 hours.

The firm that I have the pleasure of leading, The Densus Group, publishes a Demonstration Report and Threat Analysis every two weeks. We described the incident and accurately predicted the likely fall-out at the time in this way:

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND – DISTURBANCE AFTER SPORTS EVENT

SUMMARY OF EVENTS. On March 3 students from the University of Maryland gathered in the street after watching a basket ball game in local bars. The crowd grew until approximately 1,500 people were blocking a major street. Some elements of the crowd became unruly, a street sign was pulled down and there were reports of trash cans being set alight.

Police deployed to disperse the crowd using horses, batons, pepper spray and pepper balls. 27 arrests were made

COMMENT. Police actions have come in for a great deal of criticism from students who were present and a number of videos have been released on the internet showing police using batons outside the proscribed manner including multiple strikes to individuals on the ground.

Although the event has been widely described by the press as a riot there appears to have been very little property damage and almost no violence from the students towards the police.

RECOMMENDATION. Incidents such as this where crowds are non-compliant but are also non-violent are amongst the hardest types of crowd situation for police to deal with. Deploying the same tactics and weapon systems to deal with a non-violent crowd as would be used against a violent crowd will always lead to criticism, damage to the reputation of the police and it is highly likely to lead to expensive lawsuits.

It is therefore vital that police have a variety of tactical options for dealing with different levels of aggression from the crowd. The level of force used on those who fail to comply with commands from officers needs to be carefully considered. Baton strikes and the use of less lethal weapons against individuals who are not posing a violent threat will be seen as an over use of force by most people and the legality of the action may be called into question.

The Demonstration Report and Threat Analysis is available to law enforcement free of charge by e-mailing DemonstratorThreat@densusgroup.com.

Posted in Civil liberties & Privacy, Homeland State & Local, Law Enforcement, Private and Physical Security | Comments

The Airport Security Process: Learning the Hard Way

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Last week, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers at the Philadelphia airport grossly mistreated Ryan Thomas, a 4-year-old boy who has intellectual and physical disabilities, and his parents. Headed for an Orlando-bound flight to celebrate Ryan’s birthday at Disney World, TSA security screeners forced Ryan’s parents to strip off his leg braces to clear security. Refusing to allow Ryan to be carried through the metal detector, he was literally dropped from his father’s arms on one side of the machine into his mother’s arms on the opposite side. Turns out he was unarmed – who could have known?!

As a physically disabled frequent flyer, I am stunned by what happened to Ryan and am fully supportive of him and his family. As a homeland security expert, however, I view this sad experience through a broader lens. What happened to Ryan is a symptom of what’s wrong with the airport security process, and it should be leveraged to enhance safety while improving the airport experience for all flyers. In order for that to happen, the following needs to take place:

The at-fault screeners need to be fired. After making Ryan’s parents remove his leg braces, the screening supervisor tried justifying his actions by saying, “You know why we’re doing this.” The implication here is that because of the underwear bomber, TSA should treat every passenger (no matter how vulnerable) like a terror suspect. This attitude cannot be allowed to permeate the Agency. Rules and protocols were violated, and the screeners need to be held accountable.

President Obama needs a TSA Administrator. This incident represents a significant breakdown between the Agency’s leadership office and its boots on the ground. How else could such a thing occur? TSA has been diligent about working with the disabled community to develop training programs, guidelines and operating procedures specifically designed to address screening individuals with special needs. The longer the White House takes to check this box, the worse the breakdown will become.

Congress needs to hold hearings. It’s time to take a fresh look at how and why we screen people. Because of Richard Reid, we all have to remove our Nikes to board a flight; a plot to down transatlantic flights by mixing commonly found liquids to create explosives resulted in a ban on all liquids in excess of 3.4 ounces; and because of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called “underwear bomber,” people like Ryan and I are at greater risk of being treated like terrorists by overzealous screeners. Knee-jerk reactions do not equate to effective security practices. Congress needs to revisit how TSA is tasked with securing the “friendly skies” by revisiting the debate over total screening verses risk-based screening. How much time and energy do you suppose was wasted bothering this boy when efforts could have been more focused on those who more likely pose a serious risk?

As sorry as I am for Ryan and his parents, I’ll feel even worse for the nation as a whole if we don’t learn from this and improve our security practices.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Private and Physical Security, counterterrorism | Comments

Immigration Protests Show Crowd Management Failures and Lessons

Monday, January 25th, 2010

An immigration protest against Sheriff Joe Arpaio was a timely reminder of an issue that while quiet at the moment, threatens to return. The protest also demonstrates the effect a few agitators can have in provoking police/crowd tension and violence. An effective crowd management and public order system would have prevented much of the confrontation.

There is no rocket science to the fundamentals of policing a protest – police proactively work towards order, rather than reactively policing disorder. They target individual offenders with evidence gathering, arrest and successful prosecution while protecting First Amendment rights. This is achievable, and yet, the widespread preference among U.S. law enforcement is to rely less on lethal weapons and confrontation, and simply pay out on the law suits afterwards. The sheer fiduciary neglect – for it can be regarded as nothing else – with which law enforcement treat crowd management continues to astound.

Significant points to note from this protest:

• Sheriff’s Deputies played music (Linda Rodstadt) in the jail to drown out the protest.
• A 2-year-old was pepper sprayed.
• A horse was “assaulted.”
• An apparent lack of video evidence to secure convictions.

Under a properly designed crowd management regime, none of these would have happened; playing music was inflammatory, although the intention behind playing it remains unclear; the horse and rider were exposed to agitators (if that is indeed what they were); pepper spray was used despite the possibility for it to affect people other than the intended target.

The lessons for the future are not only those above; there are people in the United States who are willing to become more confrontational with police, evidenced by protestors wearing goggles and wrapping bandanas around their mouths to defeat pepper spray. Police will be hard pressed to deal with those individuals under much of the common tactics. Rather, they will react to and arrest many in the crowd, creating conditions for ongoing lawsuits.

There is little to admire in the incident in Maricopa last Sunday, but there is a lot to learn. One can only hope that the fiduciary risks will cause an institutional rethink because little else has been successful thus far.

Posted in Border Security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Homeland State & Local, Immigration & Visa Policy, Law Enforcement | Comments

Do We Have Your Attention Now? – Google’s Roar to Exit China

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

It’s been no secret that our various cyber networks have been susceptible to attack. Whether by basement-dwelling hackers, international spies, criminal enterprises, vengeful employees or nation-states, the growth rate of cyber attacks has been exploding exponentially for years. As a result, we’ve all heard the FBI, DHS, the Pentagon and even the White House chime in on how serious this problem is. All of those efforts have basically been greeted by the conventional up and down head-bob followed by the expedited and innocuous statement, “Yes, this is serious.”

While there is nothing wrong with those reactions and the attention is surely warranted, something has dramatically changed, and it’s screaming on headlines across the country.

Take a good look at the front pages of the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Besides offering coverage of the devastation in Haiti, each is offering front page coverage of Google’s threat to leave the Chinese market rather than submit to censorship of its Chinese-language Web site and continue to endure coordinated cyber attacks from a yet unidentified source in China.

This is the first time I can recall that anything on cyber security has received this type of across-the-board, front-page media coverage. Even President Obama’s announcement in May 2009 of his 60-day Cyber Review didn’t garner attention like this.

This is a moment that bears acknowledgment.

For all the tireless and often under-acknowledged work our government and private sector has done in this area, all it took was one of the world’s largest and most innovative companies to roar, “We’re outta here if you keep this up!” to wake the world up to the seriousness of this problem.

To be fair, Google’s message to the media has consistently focused on the issue of censorship. Yet, the company also said that cyber attacks on certain e-mail accounts were part of the problem.

CNN quoted David Drummond, Google’s senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer, stating:

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered — combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web — have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.”

Chinese human rights activists’ Google e-mail accounts were compromised, Google said. But where did the threat originate? This has not been definitively proven, although all signs point to the Chinese government. An absence of proof could account for Google’s focus on Chinese censorship rather than cyber threats. What is more, it would be bad business to openly state that Google’s e-mail services are unsecured. Thus, despite Google’s crafted statements, it seems cyber security is really the crux of the matter.

But what’s unique here is that the private sector giant – not the government, mind you – was able to bring the issue of cyber security to the front page.

As the most popular and most used Internet search engine with offerings in e-mail, mapping and more – when they speak, people listen. (It should be noted that Google holds only a third of Chinese searches, while the Chinese-run company Baidu holds the majority)

It’s a tremendously bold move Google made, and we should all be applauding them for it. It took a lot of guts to confront one of the world’s biggest bullies and literally threaten to take their ball and go home – but they’ve done it. The question now is, “will they follow through?”

The Chinese are not taking this sitting quietly (and aren’t necessarily willing to change their behavior), but the world is paying attention to this issue like no other time before.

I’m anxious to see what happens next.

Posted in Civil liberties & Privacy, Cyber Security, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, International, Science & Technology | Comments

TSA’s Decision to Intrusively Screen Every Passenger from ‘Countries of Interest’ Ill-Considered

Monday, January 4th, 2010

By Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

The TSA’s decision to begin intrusive screenings of every passenger boarding a U.S.-bound flight from so-called “countries of interest” is an ill-considered response to the failed Christmas bombing attempt, and one that will do more to discourage friends of the United States than to deter its enemies.

Al-Qaeda is an adaptable enemy, and patting down every grandmother arriving from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan is not likely to be much of a deterrent. Have we already forgotten that Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, carried a British passport and would not have been picked out under such a scheme?

The failure to identify Adbulmutallab before he boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 resulted from a breakdown in intelligence and targeting schemes that should have led to his visa being revoked and to his name being placed on the “no-fly” or “selectee” lists for special scrutiny by TSA. The administration needs to review what went wrong in this case and enhance its ability to target those who pose a terrorist threat.

Instead, these new measures are crude ones will simply give students and business travelers and tourists from these countries one more reason not to come to the United States. In a long struggle that requires winning friends as well as defeating enemies, such a response will do far more harm than good.

Edward Alden is the author of The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration and Security Since 9/11, which tells the story of the development and impact of U.S. visa and border security measures since the 9/11 attacks.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Immigration & Visa Policy, Law Enforcement, Transportation Security, counterterrorism | Comments

The System Worked? Government Blinders on Homeland Security

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

I was dismayed by the Obama Administration’s claim that our security apparatus worked in terms of foiling the intended attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Detroit-bound Northwest Flight 253. To quote Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, “One thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked.”

The system most assuredly did not work.

I am disappointed to have to take this stance. As I have watched gotcha media stories over the years about how the Department of Homeland Security “failed” because a reporter or GAO analyst snuck through one layer of security, I have become increasingly frustrated by the media’s lack of awareness that the nation’s homeland security strategy is based upon multiple layers of security. Getting through one layer doesn’t mean you’ll get through the next. Getting through even two layers still doesn’t mean you’ll be so lucky to get through a third. There is no such thing as 100 percent protection, which is why we need multiple layers of security.

However, in this case the system failed repeatedly. It shattered the confidence that the public should have that a layered system of security is at play. And for the Administration to come out and say that the “system worked” is to deepen – not strengthen – our sense of insecurity because of the outright foolishness of such a claim.

Let us count the ways in which the system failed:

The father of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab reported to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria that his son was becoming increasingly radicalized and might pose a threat to the United States, the information was entered into the system at the National Counterterrorism Center and then largely dismissed with no follow up.

Next the terrorist was given a visa by the State Department, despite his name now being on a terrorist watch list. How that is even possible is beyond me. We interrogate and delay students simply looking to come to the United States to study in graduate school, but we hand out visas to individuals actually on a terrorist watch list?

Next the terrorist breezed through airport security with incendiary materials stitched into his underwear. One wonders where all the privacy groups are now. Probably hanging thinly to the Administration’s claim that everything worked great and there is nothing to see here. Napolitano actually went so far as to say, “There is no suggestion that he [Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] was improperly screened.”

Huh? There is every suggestion that he was improperly screened.

Finally, the Administration falls back upon its now-trite argument that this was somehow the Bush Administration’s fault. The Washington Post reports on White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs comment that “White House officials struggled to explain the complicated system of centralized terrorist data and watch lists, stressing that they were put in place years ago by the Bush administration.” Good grief. At some point, the Administration is going to have to take responsibility for its own government.

Perhaps Napolitano meant that the “system worked” because this idiot managed to set himself on fire and several passengers leaped on him. Is this what we have come to? The government will no longer protect us from terrorists but we will have to protect it? There’s a confidence builder.

What we have here is a monumental failure of “the system.” This Administration’s claim to the contrary assumes that the American public is remarkably ignorant or that it simply isn’t worried about another terrorist attack and will accept such lame explanations.

Either of these suppositions is a dangerous place for the Administration. Dangerous for our country, from a counterterrorism perspective, at a time when international terrorists still view the United States as their greatest enemy. And, frankly, dangerous for the Obama team, from a political perspective, to assume that citizens and voters are intellectual slobs, which may create a lack of confidence by the public in this Administration’s grip on the terrorist threat to America.

After all, as this particular failed terrorist boasted: “There are many more like me.”

Update: On December 28th, Secretary Napolitano took back her claim that the system. See NPR’s report: “Our System Did Not Work,” Napolitano Concedes.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Congress, Politics & PR, Featured Feed, Immigration & Visa Policy, Intelligence, Radicalization, Transportation Security, counterterrorism | Comments

RT = Revived Traveler?

Friday, October 16th, 2009

During his confirmation hearing Thursday, the nominee for Administrator for the Transportation Security Administration Erroll Southers indicated his strong support for a risk-based Registered Traveler program. His confirmation appears pretty likely so hopefully his arrival at TSA will signal a new willingness to consider RT and other risk-based programs at the TSA checkpoint.

The tortured saga of RT is pretty well known. Just as private sector providers had built out a promising network of airport locations, over 200,000 loyal subscribers, and an impressive regime to biometrically-verify pre-approved travelers at the checkpoint, TSA pulled the rug out from RT in the summer of 2008. Then Administrator Kip Hawley discontinued the security background check of the program, meaning applicants were providing both biometric and biographic information that was never even reviewed by DHS for security risks. Viewing RT as solely a front-of-the-line program, investors grew increasingly skeptical of the financial viability of RT as month after month went by at the end of the Bush Administration and then as the Obama Administration waited eight months to nominate Southers. Finally, in June, investors in the major RT provider, Verified Identity Pass, pulled the plug on VIP’s CLEAR service and the collapse of their RT network brought down other smaller players as well.

The reluctance of TSA to support the RT program came during a time when TSA made great strides in strengthening the other aspects of its layered security regime for aviation. RT applicants still would be operating in an environment where TSA is deploying a myriad of counter-terrorism programs including: Secure Flight pre-flight watchlist reviews, behavorial profiling teams, checkpoint security equipment, baggage screening equipment, canine teams, air marshals, trained flight attendants, strengthened cockpit doors, and armed pilots. The RT security background check would be just one aspect of vetting RT applicants flying aboard commercial aircraft.

Of course TSA has made a reasonable argument in warning against turning off portions of the security process that might detect a “clean skin” terrorist with no record. However, TSA needs to review what changes at the security checkpoint can be made if they have the impact of having millions of travelers provide significant assurance that they are not a threat by passing an initial and daily background checks and confirming their identity at the checkpoint. The current TSA position requires even individuals with the broadest security clearance possible to get in the same line, see the same screeners, and utilize the same machines as a transiting load of international passengers who just arrived from a country know to host Al-Queda cells. This makes no sense. Congress appears to agree, including language in the House-passed TSA Reauthorization bill that would require TSA to review the viability of RT.

While airport wait times have decreased in past year due to declines in travel and improvements in TSA processes, TSA should look to RT as a powerful tool when the economy recovers and our airports and skies are more crowded than ever before. There is also a powerful linkage with the CBP Global Entry expedited entry program that could be developed to maximize travel facilitation and demonstrate a unified DHS agenda.

The comments of Mr. Southers are a promising start to a reevaluation of RT. The private sector is ready to provide the funding and marketing to build an effective security partnership if TSA and DHS are willing to rethink this important issue.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Border Security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Immigration & Visa Policy, International, Management & Administration, counterterrorism | Comments

Changes Afoot on the Border

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

This week has been a telling one for those of us who follow border security closely. Congress and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have made a series of bold moves that arguably make our borders less secure. At the same time, the changes will be hailed by some as overdue upgrades to a flawed border management policy that built fences between neighbors and sought to imprison illegal aliens for ‘just’ entering the country.

America’s Sheriff Demoted

The first of these changes was the revelation that DHS has taken steps to revoke Maricopa, AZ, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s ability to arrest and detain under federal law illegal immigrants encountered in the course of his normal law enforcement activities. This authority, known as the 287(g) program, was aggressively promoted by the Bush Administration and state and local law enforcement advocates (including former Governor Napolitano) as a relatively low cost way to increase manpower intended to address illegal immigration.

While critics have always stated concerns that 287(g) could be used by some law enforcement officials to harass anyone they think could be an illegal alien, the program was considered highly successful and resulted in few tangible complaints. The popularity of the program, in the eyes of federal officials, appears to have eroded under a steady stream of pressure from illegal immigrant advocates who want all enforcement efforts stopped. It looks like America’s Toughest Sheriff, as he likes to be called, has become one of the first casualties in rolling back the previously successful enforcement activities. Ironically, Sheriff Joe will be able to continue detaining illegal immigrants under an Arizona state law advocated and signed by Governor Napolitano that makes being in the country illegally a state crime. The only difference appears to be that he will have to, in his own words, “drive them back to the border [him]self” instead of handing them over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for prosecution and removal.

Motel Napolitano

Also this week DHS announced that they would begin housing so-called low-risk illegal immigrants in refurbished hotels instead of prisons. This change arises from a myriad of complaints over the now shuttered T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Texas which was created to house families and small children who illegally enter the United States. Prior to the establishment of the Hutto facility, DHS was forced to release illegal immigrants traveling with children due to a lack of adequate detention space. Therefore, the ever crafty and ruthless smugglers decided to place the lives of children in danger by using them as decoys in border crossings to evade detention if apprehended. While the intention behind the Hutto facility was noble, it was universally panned by immigration and child advocates alike.

Hopefully the change announced by DHS is intended to create an alternative holding facility to protect children. However, the additional cost incurred by such a ‘posh’ program could result in significantly fewer detention beds available to ICE. The loss of one detention bed is exacerbated because most detainees only spend a fraction of a year in detention – as little as 20 days. This means the loss of one bed could mean 18 additional illegal immigrants being released each year without removal.

No Mas Fence

It is hardly a surprise that Congress recently voted to knock down an amendment by South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint that would have required the construction of an additional 300 miles of border fence in Texas. Given the ongoing interest in stimulus projects, I am a little shocked that the idea of essentially digging a ditch and building a fence in it did not appeal to the same people in Congress who gave billions to the auto industry and millions to shady community organizers.

I do believe that tactical infrastructure (what we like to call border fence and vehicle barriers) is a useful deterrent in certain border situations. However, it is just that – tactical. It is intended to be used only where it gains an advantage: generally in urban areas where the ability of an illegal immigrant to abscond once detected crossing the border is measured in seconds. These urban areas are where most of the fencing built in the last three years has been placed – on the borders near El Paso, Yuma, San Diego, and Nogales. Much of the fence in the DeMint amendment would have gone to areas where the gained tactical advantage would be minimal given the Rio Grande River and barren inhospitable terrain.

Posted in Border Security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Immigration & Visa Policy, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Smuggling | Comments

U.S. Should Drop the “Exit” from Its Entry-Exit System

Monday, October 12th, 2009

By Edward Alden

The front page of the New York Times this week (Oct. 12) has re-launched the debate over whether the United States should finally complete the long promised comprehensive entry-exit system as a tool for preventing terrorist attacks. It should be a short debate: the answer is no.

Congress mandated the creation of such a system in 1996, but the first phase was not deployed until the launch of US-VISIT in 2004. The entry system, which added biometric checks, has unquestionably been a positive addition to border security and counter-terrorism, by reducing fraudulent entry and allowing for individuals to be checked against terrorist and criminal watch lists. But an exit system is another matter.

Let’s leave aside the economic impact of exit controls, particularly a biometric, real-time system to match the entry component of US-VISIT. With southbound traffic across the Canadian border already at its lowest level since the 1970s, however, the economic impact of adding exit controls on top of all the other measures is certainly a legitimate issue.

Let’s also set aside the fact that the vast majority of conspirators in terrorist plots aimed at the U.S. homeland have been legal U.S. residents, not illegal immigrants. The Times story focuses on the case of Hosam Maher Hussein Smadi, a 19-year-old Jordanian who came to the United States in 2007 and remained in violation of his visa. Smadi was arrested after he failed to notice that his co-conspirators in a plot to detonate a truck bomb under a Dallas skyscraper were FBI agents posing as al-Qaeda operatives. The story makes no mention of the more serious allegations against Najibullah Zazi of Denver, who is alleged to have trained with Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and been at the center of a plot to emulate the Madrid train bombings in New York City. Zazi is a legal immigrant who has lived in the United States since 1999.

Rather, the biggest question is this: What would authorities do with the overstay information if they had it? There are three possibilities.

First, they could launch a manhunt for everyone who fails to “check out” of the country when their visas expire. That would be an extraordinary undertaking for already overstretched Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who can’t currently manage the nearly 400,000 illegal immigrants being detained each year. ICE doesn’t even pursue the much smaller population for which an entry-exit system actually exists. In Smadi’s case, DHS would have been aware that he had overstayed since, as a Jordanian, he would have been enrolled as a special interest alien under the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, or NSEERS. Those who are registered in NSEERS when they arrive are required to leave through a limited number of major airports and record their exit when they depart.

Second, and more plausibly, Washington could develop a comprehensive database so that the record of every visa overstayer is entered into the watch lists or criminal databases available to local law enforcement authorities. That could have some value, but, again, what should local police do with that information? The so-called 287 (g) program which deputizes some local police for immigration duties is already hugely controversial, and most police departments see it as harming their core mission of local crime-fighting.

In Smadi’s case, according to the Times story, he was pulled over early last month in Texas with a broken tail light. When his name was checked, it showed up on a terrorist watch list, but there was no mention of his visa violation. Advocates of entry-exit would argue that U.S. security would have been served had he been arrested and deported. Yet Smadi had been under FBI surveillance since earlier this year. Clearly the reason his immigration status was not divulged in the watch list entry is that the FBI didn’t want some gung-ho Sheriff Arpaio arresting him and screwing up the investigation.

Finally, and most plausibly, a comprehensive entry-exit system could be a useful investigative tool for the FBI. That is, if a name came up in a terrorism investigation, and it was known that the individual had entered the United States on a legal visa, it would be helpful for authorities to know whether he had left the country or not.

But to confront the enormous logistical difficulties of creating a comprehensive entry-exit system for such minimal investigative benefits doesn’t make a shred of sense. When Michael Chertoff was DHS secretary, he looked at the problems and concluded that it simply wasn’t worth the costs. And Chertoff was no softie on terrorism. Chertoff’s policy chief, Stewart Baker, put it correctly in an interview with me last year. Exit controls, he said, are about creating “an immigration accounting system. It’s less about safety and more about immigration record-keeping.”

There can certainly be reasonable arguments that the integrity of our immigration system requires such rules. But this shouldn’t be confused with preventing terrorist attacks. An exit system will contribute nothing to that goal.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration and Security Since 9/11.

Posted in Border Security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Homeland State & Local, Immigration & Visa Policy, International, Law Enforcement, Science & Technology, counterterrorism | Comments

Capabilities, Not Uniforms, Are What Matter on the Border

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Jurisdictional in-fighting has a lot to answer for. The pursuit of bureaucratic dominance after 9/11 gave us the divorce of counter-terror from counter-crime, creating a duopoly that is massively expensive in terms of money, manpower and effectiveness. Illegal immigration and smuggling are becoming a major focus of manpower, and runs the risk of the same bureaucratic wrangling that sacrifices effect and efficiency in the name of departmental primacy.

Let me be clear – it’s of less importance which department protects the border – what matters is that the border is effectively protected.

This isn’t a question of the military versus law enforcement in terms of managing the border – this is about the fundamental principles of how the US Government addresses and solves problems.

I certainly understand Wendell Shingler’s argument that policing the border is a law enforcement responsibility, and don’t disagree with that fact. However, the question should be whether law enforcement, under their current manpower, structure and budget, are able to fulfill the role. If they cannot, then they have to be given support until they are able to build sufficient internal capacity to manage on their own.

This blog focuses on the discussion of capabilities – a capability is the integration of doctrine, policy, training, personnel, equipment, equipment support, logistics, media operations, political effort, intelligence operations and any other considerations required to “close a capability gap.” In other words, all the pieces of the puzzle needed to solve a problem.

The perceived requirement to decide between a military or law enforcement solution is a completely false one, and must be examined at length. Posse Commitatus, like so many laws, had its time and its place. However, here it complicates the situation without adding operational or political value, and this debate is going to recur as the discussion develops about the military brigade tasked with domestic operations in support of disaster relief or other tasks.

Anywhere else in the world there would not be an argument about whether the military or the police should take responsibility for this type of problem. Instead, the military would be tasked to support law enforcement as part of their responsibility to support the civil authorities in achieving a task of national security. The military would allocate the specialist capabilities that are far more appropriate to the role than law enforcement currently has in order to allow law enforcement to achieve their mission. If the problem is seen to be a long-term, and if military capability is under pressure and must be released as soon as possible, a capability development program to assess the problem and then allocate integrated training programs and equipment procurement strategies should be put in place to provide the necessary capabilities for the law enforcement community.

The bottom line is that we should always be thinking of what effect we wish to achieve, and the best manner to achieve that effect given the resources to hand. Where there is Department lead, as there always should be, the question should be about how to best manage that problem in the immediate, short, medium and long term in the most effective and efficient manner possible.

The Department of Homeland Security should step up, identify what they want to achieve, where they think they have issues and sit down with the military for a no-holds barred “here’s the problem, how can you help us fix it until we’re fully capable ourselves” session.

Government co-operation, not competition, is critical in serving the citizens. Without cooperation, the eventual resolution of this issue will resemble the bureaucratic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Posted in Border Security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Congress, Politics & PR, Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Immigration & Visa Policy, Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, counterterrorism | Comments

No Gold Medal in Trade and Tourism

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

By Douglas Doan

The White House says that President Obama is taking the unusual step of personally lobbying the international Olympic committee in order to help create jobs, spur tourism and promote economic growth for the US and especially his home town of Chicago. Certainly, the President should promote trade and tourism, but it is a pity that he can’t get DHS fully on board and willing to make a similar commitment.

Trade and tourism to the US have never returned to pre-9/11 levels, and foreign tourists cite the tedious, inefficient, and frustrating DHS policies at our airports and ports of entry as the biggest turn offs, resulting in several billion dollars a year in lost US revenues. And yet, most curious of all, fixing the problem is not a DHS priority. In fact, DHS is busy making the problem even worse.

DHS has spent all of its time and effort aimed at the security side of the equation and has lost no opportunity to bring new and expanded security processes and equipment to airports and official ports of entry. These accumulative efforts have, without question, tightened security. But at the same time, they have caused additional problems and created new frustrations for legitimate trade and travelers.

Take for example what happens at the airport. International arrivals are immediately queued up to clear CBP passport and documentation checks. Most often, CBP does not have enough inspectors manning the inspection lanes (despite a nearly 100% increase in operating budget over the past 6 years), so travelers are queued up into longer than necessary lanes. Once they get through that gauntlet, it’s time to pick up the luggage and then negotiate the next line formed up for baggage control.

Get through that wicket and then it’s time to, once again, get into the TSA line, take off your shoes, belts, put the little bottles in the plastic bin, and move through the TSA gauntlet before hustling down to the gate to catch your connecting flight to Disneyland. Assuming that a tourist is able to get through all of this without missing a flight, by the time they arrive, the kids are exhausted, and quite often folks start to wonder why they didn’t stay home and escape the aggravation.

Making DHS activities at airports and ports of entry more efficient is not that difficult. CBP and TSA officers at airports could easily be cross trained in airport operations, allowing DHS to move needed officers to wherever they were needed most to help keep travelers moving. Our current operations are essentially large stovepipes, with TSA officers doing their thing, CBP officers doing something else, and not a lick of cooperation or resource-sharing between the two. What a waste.

Unfortunately, neither Secretary Ridge, Chertoff, nor Napolitano has ever expressed much interest (at least yet) in forcing sub-agencies to work together, share resources, and cooperate towards a common goal. TSA and CBP remain rigid, standalone stovepipes determined to operate as independent agencies. Equally frustrating, contracts and IT upgrades at our airports and ports of entry are rolled out with a complete disregard towards improving inefficiencies and speeding the flow of legitimate trade and travelers. The one and only concern is improving security at all and any costs.

Of course, the real irony is that one of the stated goals of Osama-bin laden was to get the US to panic and impose economically, self-defeating policies and procedures on itself. For those that have forgotten, the Bin Laden specifically targeted American economic might and power. The World Trade Centers were, above all else, symbols of American economic power that he hope to destroy and “bleed” the American economy. “Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs,” he said In subsequent rants, Obama went on to talk about how Americans could be scared into adopting policies and procedures that would lead to our own economic ruin.

Sadly, Bin Laden’s strategy has largely been successful. The economic damage caused by long lines of stalled trade at our borders, frustrated travelers, and foreign tourists and visitors that have given up on making trips to America, has probably now exceeded the economic damage caused by 9/11. And we did it to ourselves, giving Bin Laden a victory he did not deserve.

Restoring some sort of balance between the legitimate needs to secure the borders with the simultaneous need to restore the United States position as a nation that welcomes and respects legitimate trade and travel is not going to be an easy undertaking. In places, like Detroit, Buffalo and southern Texas, foreign visitors once made frequent trips across the border from Canada and Mexico to shop, take in a meal, or go to a sports event. These frequent crossers are disappearing. Turns out the hassle, long lines, and aggravation in crossing the border are no longer worth the effort, and these tourists are just staying home. It will not be easy to change those perceptions.

One bright spot has been the recent unexpected decision by Secretary Napolitano to recruit Maria Louisa O’Connell as an Asst Commissioner of CBP. O’Connell brings real experience with the trade and travel industry and knows all too well the problems and frustrations, having served previously as the President of the Border Trade Association. It was a brilliant move and was cheered by trade and travel experts all along the border. It’s a good start in the right direction.
Too bad that the President did not take some of the DHS officers with him to Copenhagen to press the case for tourism and trade to America. Now that’s a story that they need to hear.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Border Security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland State & Local, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Immigration & Visa Policy, International, Management & Administration, counterterrorism | Comments

G20 Protests – ”It won’t happen here”

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Perhaps the most compelling feature of the Pittsburgh preparations for G20 has been the apparent attitude in Pittsburgh of, “It won’t happen here,” characterized by a range of people I have spoken to in that town as the local government’s approach of ”dancing through the raindrops.” Obviously we will know whether that risk management strategy will have been effective by Saturday.

This attitude is dangerous – the local government can argue that it took all necessary precautions to warn people of the threat, but even with less than a month to go the warnings and preparation advice was basically to, “prepare as though it’s a snow day,” and to “have pre-drilled boards available for the windows” just in case. Whether you subscribe to the idea that there will be significant direct action protest in Pittsburgh or not, underplaying to the population the seriousness of the disruption is simply not meeting the duty to care for one’s citizens.

Monitoring blogs, vox-pops and other media has been illustrative. It’s clear that generally the population of Pittsburgh believe that there will be some home-grown protesting and maybe a few out of towners, but nothing like the trouble nor the numbers for London. While there are unlikely to be the absolute numbers, total numbers are almost irrelevant. I understand that there’s a government estimate that there will be between, “40 to 60 rock-throwers” in Pittsburgh. Using that figure and applying the standard math that in any crowd up to 5% are prepared to be violent and that an additional 20% will participate if there are no apparent consequences to their action, that gives us a minimum of 160 people ready to act violently given the chance. 160 people whose actions will be planned and coordinated in advance, exacerbated by all those prepared to conduct direct actions not involving violence. 160 people for whom the very best result will be to create violence with the police and to lead the police to over-react and act against whole crowds as though they are all violent protestors.

By the time the next 96 hours are over we will know whether the direct actions forecast for Pittsburgh eventuate, and whether the Pittsburgh PD and their volunteer attachments manage to engage, maintain a de-escalated posture and focus on those with violent or vandalism-based tendencies, or whether they repeat the mistakes of their predecessors at other NSSEs.

The last six months have seen a lot of changes that will affect how Pittsburgh is judged. St Paul’s RNC, the last NSSE, was an example of how not to do it, and yet the violence there received comparatively little attention or post event coverage, let alone ”lessons learned.” So what has changed?

• The protests in Tehran, the suppression of non-violent protestors by violent means and the President’s statement relating to the violent suppression of peaceful protestors.

• The pushing of civil rights back into prominence, not least by the Attorney General. Widespread perceptions of civil rights abuses are likely to force an investigation, and a properly conducted investigation must include examining the role of the DHS as being at least a contributory cause of the problems.

The global financial crisis continues to bite, and protests in response have grown. Those protesting the “GFC” are not the “wild hippy protestors” that mainstream America are not too fussed about if they are suppressed, rather, there will be an element of the protestors who will be “middle America.” These are the law-enforcement supporting population who will take being suppressed by the police badly. They are not experienced at protesting, and so their responses if there is trouble will be unpredictable. This happened in London in 1991 when the Metropolitan Police underestimated the anarchists and over-reacted against their tactics, which were to cause an over-reaction against the whole crowd. This duly happened.

I have waxed lyrical about the factors that have contributed to the bad handling of protests in the past, and the solutions that are needed for the future. In a nutshell, these are engagement, transparency, accountability and responsibility taken by all parties. There remains little signal that this will happen in Pittsburgh; while I hope that all goes well, I have little confidence at this stage that anything but a broad streak of luck will lead to that outcome.

I can only hope that the next sponsors of a NSSE will have the foresight to see what went wrong in St Paul, Denver, LA, New York, Miami and potentially Pittsburgh, and to learn from those mistakes.

Posted in Civil liberties & Privacy, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration | Comments

The Credibility Gap and WHTI

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Yesterday there was a front page story in USAToday about the plunging legal border traffic. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), cross border traffic is down 12.5% over the last year. The article makes the argument that the implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) – which requires U.S. citizens as well as Canadian and Bermudans to possess a passport or similar document when entering the country – is responsible for the bulk of the decrease.

Granted, WHTI was a dramatic change for those Americans who live and work on either side of the border as well as for Canadians near the border. Gone are the days of driving back and forth with little more than your word. WHTI took away the absurd reality that people could cross the U.S. border with no documentation attesting to nationality by simply verbally declaring themselves U.S. citizens.

Alternatively, CBP throws out a list of reasons for the slowdown. “There is the recession, exchange rates, gas prices. There’s border violence, there’s weather,” a CBP official is quoted as saying. All of these are legitimate and likely have a good deal of impact on the rates. But there is really no denying that forcing people who have never had a passport to get one has somewhat affected their travel plans.

While program compliance has been high, there are still grumblings about the program. When WHTI was first implemented, the number of apocalyptic predictions was alarming. The simple act of asking people to prove both identity and citizenship (a standard long required by law for all travelers and enforced along the southern border for Mexicans) was deemed impractical and reactionary.

To accommodate the naysayers, CBP spent millions of dollars in advertising to make the public aware of the requirements and then implemented the program in steps over a number of years (phased compliance). It took almost eight years after 9/11 to fully implement the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Despite the rational approach of CBP, powerful members of Congress, Canadian diplomats, and northern border state officials fought the requirements tooth and nail – for every compromise in timing and additional allowable documents there were three new requests for delay or repeal.

The bottom line is that the WHTI program – although an additional burden – is necessary. It is absurd for a nation to spend billions of dollars preventing illegal immigration on one border and obtaining visa and passenger information for all air travelers, to turn around and allow anyone who is smart enough to say they are a U.S. citizen to cross our northern border through our ports of entry.

Not only is the change about safety (take for example the Millennium Bomber and the much looser Canadian immigration and anti-terrorism measures) but it is about credibility and the rule of law. A basic tenant (and responsibility) of a nation is the ability to determine who, and under what terms, someone enters our country. To build trust with the American people to reform our hopelessly confused and antiquated immigration system – not to say anything about addressing the 12 million plus illegal immigrants in the United States already – the national government must possess a certain level of credibility with its citizens; credibility that was lacking during recent failed reform efforts. Although contentious, that is what the government is doing by building the border fence, deploying the National Guard, penalizing exploitative employers and requiring secure travel documents at all ports of entry – earning credibility to one day have the right to fix the system.

I expect over time, as more people become aware of the WHIT requirements and make the decision to obtain a passport, a trusted traveler card, an enhanced driver’s license or a passport card, the cross border travel numbers will rebound. After all, as CBP points out in the article, the document requirement is not the only force that is affecting international travel, and as the economy recovers so will travel.

For now though, it is disappointing that U.S. and Canadian travelers along our northern border do not feel the need to obtain the necessary travel documents to cross the border for a night of gambling in Windsor or a day at an amusement park in Buffalo, but it really is not too much to ask as it has been the law for decades now, it is now just being enforced.

Posted in Border Security, Civil liberties & Privacy, Critical Infrastructure, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Immigration & Visa Policy, counterterrorism | Comments