Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector | Security Debrief - a blog of homeland security news and analysis

Archive for the ‘Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector’ Category

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part Four

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Lake Charles, Southwest Louisiana

In a state as disaster prone as Louisiana has been over the past few years, it’s hard to remember that when something bad does occur, it doesn’t impact everyone. I was reminded of this when I sat down for lunch with two friends in Lake Charles, LA. Over bowls of gumbo, I asked Ernie Broussard, the Executive Director for Planning & Development for Cameron Parish, “So how are things with the oil spill and the ruined shore line?”

Before he could answer, George Swift, the President & CEO of the Southwest Louisiana (SWLA) Partnership for Economic Development sat back in his chair, looked at Ernie and just smiled.

“Well gee Rich, I wish I could tell you but that is one problem I don’t have because I don’t have any oil on my shores.”

Expressing surprise, I looked up from my bowl and said, “What do you mean you don’t have any oil on your shoreline?”

“I’m telling you that it didn’t wash up here. We were ready for it with booms and spill response teams, but we didn’t get any of it this far west.”

Ernie and George then asked me why I thought they had oil on their coastline. I explained that based upon maps and the ongoing news reports on the spill, it seemed there was no stretch of Louisiana or Mississippi’s coastline that didn’t have an oil sheen to it. I assumed that they had fallen victim as well. Docks

Both assured me that while they were waiting and ready for it, they never had to release any boom lines to protect their coastline from the mess that BP unleashed earlier in the year. Needless to say, both of these guys couldn’t be happier about it either.

While Ernie and George had significant empathy for their families, friends and neighbors to the east who were dealing with the mess that seems to have no end, they had other problems to contend with. Their problems though are fortunes that that the rest of the state and Gulf Coast would love to have.

Both gentlemen explained that they had the fortune of dealing with communities where growth and opportunity are availing themselves in spades. While the region is still rebuilding from the aftermath of Hurricane Rita, it still was a place where jobs could be found and investments were ripe for the making. Rita Memorial

Southwest Louisiana is truly a world away from the rest of Louisiana. Whether it is the fact that they have a higher elevation from the southeastern part of the state or they are just closer to Texas, this section of the state has always impressed me as having more of its act together than other portions of Louisiana.

When I first met Ernie and George, it was literally just a few weeks following the wrath of Hurricane Rita. That storm, for whatever reason, is often overlooked by the media and general public when recounting the disastrous storms that have struck the United States. For all of the fury, devastation and media savvy-ness that was Katrina, Rita was actually bigger and stronger when it tore into southwest Louisiana.

Why is it overlooked and often forgotten? Probably because it did not kill the hundreds of people that Katrina did. Furthermore, the region did a tremendously better job preparing for and responding to the storm than its brethren in the southeastern part of the state. The regional parish governments, their leaders and emergency services actually had functioning and productive relationships with one another rather than some of the incompetence that other areas had in place. While the parish governments of southwest Louisiana certainly didn’t agree on everything, they certainly knew how to work together, and that is how I found them back in November-December 2005.

Truth be told, this region had essentially dealt with emergency evacuations three times in 2005. The first was when they were bringing in people from the southeastern part of the state who were seeking refuge from Katrina in the Lake Charles Civic Center, as well as their churches and homes. The second time was when they had to evacuate the Katrina evacuees because Hurricane Rita was making a direct beeline for them. The third time was when they had to evacuate themselves from the path of Rita because no one was interested in seeing the scenes of the Louisiana Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center play out in their community. Despite all of this and having areas consumed by 50-plus feet of water and laying waste to town halls, churches, courthouses and multi-generational family-owned homes, this area demonstrated incredible resilience in being able to weather the storm and move forward.

Back in 2005, I met Lakes Charles Mayor Randy Roach who introduced me to a saying that has stuck with me ever since. He said, “Just hand me a piece of plywood, and we’ll take it from there.”

As simple or even trite as that statement might sound, his message was very simple. It meant that while they may need a hand to get up after a storm, as a people and as a region, they were self reliant, entrepreneurial and confident enough to forge ahead.

Just weeks after the destructive winds and surges of water had taken so much from them, the region had put together plans to enhance its port operations; build business incubators; construct a new and sustainable lakeside waterfront in the City of Lake Charles; and more for the region to have for its future. As a community, they decided to take the fury and consequences of Rita and commit to shaping a renaissance that was true to the values and interests of the region’s citizens; this while also inviting the outside world to do business, invest and even make their home in the area.

You couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of confidence and hope residing in the area. It was incredibly awe inspiring. Whereas other portions of the state were still fighting and finger-pointing at one another over the floods of the 1930s, as well as the Katrina aftermath and who did what to whom, this portion of Louisiana skipped the dysfunctional conduct and hand-waving rhetoric and was full speed ahead on its future. That was then and seeing the results now tells me how right those feelings were.

A gleaming new environmentally conscious waterfront along the Lake Charles waterfront is just finishing construction and will be formally dedicated on September 18. A new regional business incubator at McNeese University will soon break ground and host entrepreneurs of all kinds. Regional highways have been widened and improved. The area is also home to the only newly chartered U.S. bank of 2010, Lakeside Bank, and ongoing construction boom. With regional unemployment (7.2 percent) below the national average, the post-Rita vision for the future, started in late 2005, is becoming the promising reality of today.

As George Swift shared with me in his office later that afternoon, “I hate to say it takes a crisis to motivate people, but unfortunately it does. Rita brought us together as a region like never before,” adding, “We took an unfortunate situation and planned for the future.”

While they realize they dodged a bullet in not having any oil on their shores, George, Ernie and many others know they are not out of the woods yet. With fears that spilled oil remains out in the Gulf and could come ashore in the future, and with the Obama Administration’s drilling moratorium still in place, George estimated that upwards of 20,000 jobs could be lost if this situation continues.

Despites these potential dark clouds, southwest Louisiana remains a place where hope and opportunity have taken root. But like any community in America, forces external to it are always present to cause a problem or two. I have no worries though. All they need is a piece of plywood to continue building their future. They’ll take care of the rest and leave you inspired along the way.

Check out the other pieces in this series.

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part One

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part Two

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part Three

Statue

Posted in Critical Infrastructure, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local | Comments

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part Three

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Bay St. Louis, Waveland and Gulfport, Mississippi

It’s hard to say what the real ground zero of Hurricane Katrina was. For most Americans, they think of the City of New Orleans. They remember the raw and emotionally powerful images of human anguish at the Superdome, the Convention Center, the dramatic rooftop rescues by Coast Guard helicopters, as well as the watery carnage of the Lower 9th Ward.

For as awful as each of those events were, similar catastrophes were experienced by St. Bernard and Jefferson Parishes, as well as Plaquemines and Slidell, LA. While the media certainly covered the earth-shattering events that occurred there, it seems to me that the Gulf Coast of Mississippi seems to have been lost in the coverage. Five years ago, I distinctly remember taking a helicopter trip from New Orleans over to Gulfport, MS. As heartbreaking as it was to hover over broken levees and destruction in southeast Louisiana, it could not compare to what I saw in Mississippi. The only word I used to describe what I saw back then was very simply Hiroshima. Areas that I had long known from my time doing work at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, long before 9/11 and DHS ever happened, had literally been wiped from the face of Earth. The destruction was beyond catastrophic.

Catastrophic

From the helicopter, the only discernable structures that you could identify were the makeshift tents that emergency personnel and National Guardsmen had put up. In scanning the area, I wanted to see about one piece of property in particular. The more than century-old bed and breakfast along North Beach Blvd in Bay St. Louis that I used to stay at during my extended stays was nothing but shattered debris. After surviving the “big storm” that everyone in Mississippi had never stopped talking about (Hurricane Camille) and countless other storms in its 100-plus years of existence, Miss Ann’s Bed & Breakfast, like thousands of other homes and businesses, finished their lives in destructive ruin.

In returning there today, the only remnants of one of the storied old homes of the South is the old oak that stood at the corner of North Beach Blvd and deMontluzin.

As sad as it was for me to see that, it can’t compare to the lingering heartbreak that residents there have for their lost homes. A longtime friend of mine who lives in Bay St. Louis, Lynn Francis, took me to the place where the first home she had ever purchased once stood. Turning onto Adrienne Court, Lynn seemed to catch herself becoming emotional and quickly apologized. Telling her to not worry about it, she parked the car and pointed out the car window and said, “This is it.”

Behind the overgrow weeds and shrubbery rested a concrete slap with broken tiles all around it. While the debris of what had once been her home with its inviting screened porch had long since been removed, the place that had once been a source of warmth and pride for Lynn was now a scar upon the land as well as her heart. For as personal as the visit wa Stairs to nowhere s for her, it is the same for any number of residents. It was not an unusual sight to drive around the area and see brick staircases going up to nowhere because there was no porch or home to connect them to.

Driving closer to the beach, steel beams driven into the ground to anchor the frame of the home against the wrath of Mother Nature were all that remained from any number of places residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast called home. Another set of stairs, these being spiral, again led to nowhere.

While barren concrete slabs and stairs to nowhere are around for all to see, there is also tremendous rebirth in the area. The once shattered bridge linking Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian now rises high out of the Gulf with artistic brass plaques at points along the walkway telling the story of the area. Stately homes that had been wiped out have been replaced by gleaming structures that would probably send most of the hosts of Home & Garden Television into utter euphoria. Brightly colored condos and beautiful new Catholic churches rise up across from the beach. It was hard not to be inspired at the turn around for the devastated but for every high there seems to be another low around the corner.

Walking along the beach were BP crews looking for oil. With screened shovels, rakes and buckets, nearly a dozen people with bright neon vests and rubber boots and gloves were combing the sand for any remnants of the event that truly ruined the entire region’s summer. What they found appeared to be minuscule, but it was enough to remind me as a visitor of what these people have been through. In speaking with restaurant owners, wait staff and others during my visit, any lingering angst they may have had about Katrina and the area’s recovery was replaced by pure venom for BP.

BP Clean up

No one I spoke to believes any of the promises that BP has made in their television and radio ads. Mississippi residents, like their Louisiana neighbors, fully expect BP to find every possible way of getting out of their responsibilities to the region. They see the oil spill as one more knife into the heart of an economy that depends on fishing and tourism. As to the forthcoming claims process being led by Ken Feinberg, the people I spoke with echoed complaints that I heard in Louisiana about what value a forthcoming damages payment for this year’s losses would be if the oil still in the Gulf prevents people from coming to vacation or eat the fish in their restaurants in future years. If the oil washes up again in future years, residents and business owners fear what they have left will become a waterfront ghost town.

As Jimmy Trapani, the owner of Bay St. Louis’ famous Trapani’s Eatery shared during lunch: “I can handle a storm and move on from that but there’s no moving on when that stuff [the oil] is still out there and people won’t come here to eat in restaurants, go into the water or visit here. What the hell am I supposed to do to prepare this place [his restaurant] for that?”

Trapani's Eatery

Despite his frustrations and those of other MS residents, the citizens of the Magnolia State have proven their abilities to reclaim what was lost as their own. They are one with the coastline and have built smarter and stronger as a result of the lessons learned from the natural fury five years ago. As they look west to their Louisiana neighbors, many take great pride that their recovery seems to be coming along at a better pace, even if they are not receiving the lion’s share of media attention and recognition. Many of them are OK with that, but others fear they will remain overlooked by their noisier next-door neighbors.

Louisiana, and New Orleans in particular, has always made for more compelling media attention than the people of the Magnolia State. In the end though, everyone knows that it’s the end results that matter. The Mississippi Gulf Coast has come back from oblivion before, and the residents there are more than confident in their ability to remain steadfast against lingering threats. They’ve done so in a fairly quieter fashion for some time now, and that’s OK.

Check out the other pieces in this series.

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part One

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part Two

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part Four

Posted in Critical Infrastructure, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local, Management & Administration, Maritime & Seaport Security | Comments

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part Two

Friday, August 27th, 2010

Plaquemines Parish

Other than cruising along a major piece of highway, there are few places that you can drive in America where you can go 50+ miles and not hit a traffic light. Such is the stretch of highway along Louisiana Highway 23, running straight through the center of Plaquemines Parish. Located just south of New Orleans, Plaquemines is literally a peninsula with the mighty Mississippi River going right through the center of it.

Where most of America has trains, large trucks and airplanes darting in and out of its boundaries, Plaquemines has large cargo ships, super tankers and even cruise ships sailing right down the center of it. It is not at all unusual to be cruising along in your car going 65 and look over and see one of these monstrosities sailing along or stopping alongside the levee walls to wait before they head up or out of the Mississippi.

River

Plaquemines is also a very rural community. With Mississippi River-rich soil, orange and other citrus groves, and grazing cattle dot the landscape. Further adding to the Parish’s landscape are small harbors of fishing boats that venture out into the Gulf for the day’s catch. Despite all of this Mark Twain-like tranquility, it is safe to say that Plaquemines has been through the ringer for the past five years.

When Katrina struck, surges of water in excess of 50 feet crossed over the levees, parking shrimp boats in the center of the Highway 23 and farmer’s fields while cattle and other farm animals were left dangling in the surrounding trees. It also wiped away hundreds of homes and businesses and put the lives of several thousand of the Parish’s residents in scenarios few of us could imagine. It was in many ways an almost Salvador Dali painting of oddball images to comprehend, but they were very real to the region.

For as stark as it was for a number of Plaquemines residents to live in tents with their families for just over six months (until FEMA trailers were put in place and power and water lines were installed), like the area they call home, they were rustic and stuck it out knowing that things could and would get better.

While the communities of tents may be gone, they have been replaced with larger mobile homes, larger travel trailers as well as reinforced steel structures. The few single family homes that you do see are raised up twelve to fifteen feet so as to give them a sense of protection from the water, should it ever arrive again in such an unwanted fashion.

For as bad as Katrina may have “knocked them on their ass,” as one long time resident described to me, “it is BP that has driven the knife into their hearts” and may have given them what several residents believe to be a truly fatal blow.

Not far from the rustic harbors that are home to shrimpers, oystermen and other fisherman are the shorelines and marshes that were stained by the BP oil spill. Tar balls and oil-soaked marshes and beaches became part of the Plaquemines world this year. As a result, part of the professional and personal livelihoods of many in this community – fishing – ceased to exist. To only make matters worse for many of them, the Obama Administration’s moratorium against new oil drilling projects in the Gulf put even more professional livelihoods and their personal economic recovery on hold.

It’s an open debate by many Plaquemines residents as to what is worse: the impact of Katrina, the BP oil spill or the drilling moratorium. One thing they can all agree on is their concern about their future. Boat

Despite its physical limits in land (some areas of the Parish are only a mile wide), Plaquemines is a gold mine when it comes to fishing, hunting and as every Louisiana license plate reminds you, “Sportsman’s Paradise.” It is also home to one of the country’s and world’s largest estuaries, where crab, oysters, ducks, migratory birds, shrimp and more make their homes. The water and land are truly intermingled into the way of life here, and many residents fear the oil-soaked marshes and recently cleaned beaches contain an environmental time bomb just below the surface that will go off in the coming years. Fears are genuine that the ecosystem will be radically altered in such a way that it will destroy not just the nature they dearly love but the way of life that has been with them for generations.

Compounding the fear is the belief, already echoed by new Mayor of New Orleans Mitch Landrieu that BP is “poised to cut and run.” The constant BP media advertisements about “being here to make things right” rings hollow for the vast majority of the people I have met with this week. They’ve heard all the promises before. With Ken Fienberg taking over the BP-funded $20B compensation and clean-up fund and offering the region’s affected residents and businesses six months to take a settlement or go to court, a number of the Parish’s business owners and residents feel like they’ve another potential disaster on their hands.

If they take the settlement money, they give up their rights to sue BP for future damages. The funds they take from BP may or may not help them out, especially if years from now problems with the environment negatively impact the fishing, business operations and way of life they cherish.

marsh

To date, over 28,000 tests have been done by government and independent researchers on the Gulf’s seafood, and the tests declare it safe to eat. The White House, along with the Louisiana Seafood Promotion & Marketing Board, are doing everything they can to assure the American public (and world) of the safety of the Gulf’s natural bounty. Despite those assurances, the perception problem for Gulf seafood harvests is enormous. Those fears will only be compounded if the seafood-loving public turns its back on purchasing Gulf shrimp, oysters, redfish and more. That will be just another blow to people who have had more than their fair share of pounding over the past five years.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, but then again, life in Plaquemines has never been simple or easy.

Check out the other pieces in this series.

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part One

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part Three

Five Years Later, Gulf Coast Reflections – Part Four

Cyberspy Hunting al Qaeda Speaks to Security Debrief

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Over the last decade, America and her allies have done a solid job of beating al Qaeda to a bloody pulp. We’ve hit them with everything we’ve got: troops on the ground; Predator drones in the sky; missiles from the sea; and we’re taking them apart piece by piece on the Web.

But it’s not just the government that’s running down al Qaeda. Even U.S. citizens are using some good-ol’-fashioned American initiative; citizens like Shannen Rossmiller, a citizen cyber spy.

A what?

Rossmiller’s no government agent. She’s just your average citizen with an extraordinary conviction to bring al Qaeda to its knees. Online she sounds like a terrorist, looks like a terrorist and walks like a terrorist, but in reality, she is anything but. Since 9/11, Rossmiller has been on the cutting edge of cyber counterterrorism, hunting and tracking terrorists online and sharing her findings with federal authorities.

Given that we are hunting al Qaeda relentlessly, one might think terrorists would take extra steps to hide their identity on the Internet. Rossmiller said no.

“People still believe they have anonymity online,” she said. “They don’t realize you can trace them and figure out who they are, using IP addresses and other means.”

And because of that belief, they’re willing to talk openly, she said. That’s how she gets them.

So what is cyber counterterrorism? It isn’t yet a defined practice area, though Rossmiller is making strides in that direction. She told us all about it when she spoke to a small gathering of industry specialists, a discussion hosted by Security Debrief and homeland security consulting firm Catalyst Partners.

Take the case of Ryan Anderson, an American National Guardsman who on the verge of deployment to Iraq was also online, using a different name and talking about jihad. Rossmiller identified him as a threat, and posing as an Algerian sympathizer, lured Anderson, over the course of numerous e-mails, into revealing details of his plans.

Rossmiller provided this evidence to the FBI, and with Rossmiller serving as a key witness for the prosecution, Anderson was convicted of attempting to aid and provide information to al Qaeda. He is spending the rest of his life in prison.

Rossmiller is many people in cyberspace, all of them supposedly eager to wage violent jihad. But they’re constructs, built through research and trial and error. She engages radicalized and potentially violent individuals in online forums and websites, slowly but surely writing in Arabic (not her native tongue). The lingo she uses smacks of al Qaeda-speak (whatever that sounds like), and clearly her efforts are effective as she’s pulling would-be terrorists into the open, teeing them up for our federal forces to finish the job.

Ready to sign up? Vigilantes beware. Rossmiller is particularly effective because she understands the law. As the youngest female judge in U.S. history, she has a keen awareness of what constitutes entrapment and what is needed for a conviction. Other well-intentioned but less legal-minded individuals may not be as effective in finding evidence that leads to convictions.

The discussion was moderated by Dr. David McWhorter, principal at Catalyst Partners and a former analyst with the Institute for Defense Analyses. Also helping lead the discussion was Security Debrief’s Steve Bucci, Cyber Security Lead, Global Leadership Initiative at IBM Global Services.

Posted in Cyber Security, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Science & Technology, counterterrorism | Comments

A Mosque of a Mess – Absence of Candor at Ground Zero

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Twenty years ago, I graduated from college as a double major in political science and religion. When asked by family and friends what I intended to do with those degrees, I explained that I wasn’t quite sure, but I knew whatever I did I was pretty sure to tick someone off by something I said at a dinner table when either subject came up.

Politics and religion have always been lightening rods in life, and the twisting of both issues in the current debate over the proposed mosque two blocks from Ground Zero has proven true the standing axiom that you shouldn’t mix the two.

The debate being fought on cable news shows, talk radio, the blogosphere and water coolers has put America’s always restless role in religion front and center. For a country that believes in the separation of church and state and was founded on the principal of being able to worship or not worship the religion of your choice, our country has long segregated faiths and religions by geography, education and societal norms. While our country has certainly “evolved” in recognizing all people’s civil rights, we can be downright primitive in our categorization of one another’s ways of worship.

Let me state very clearly I am not one of these people that believes the Muslim faith preaches hate, murder and intolerance. Now, there are undeniably elements within Islam that preach and live by such putrid codes, but there are just as many people in the Christian, Jewish, Hindu and other religions that are in lock step with such less-than-reverent behavior.

Sadly, there is not a religion on the planet that has not been victimized by extremists of some sort, who have taken whatever religious text they deem holy and twisted it into some sort of holier-than-thou justification for violence, murder or other nefarious purposes. Furthermore, every religion preaches respect and tolerance of others, and this is another area where we all fall remarkably short.

Such is the debate we have today.

In the sweeping rhetoric that has gripped the recent mosque debate, I’ve sadly not heard much distinction between those who are fighting for the soul of Islam against the extremist elements as those who seek to perpetuate it. For many in this debate, they’ve created a simple equation that Islam = anti-everything we stand for and have fanned whatever flames they’ve wanted to fan.

The fault for this condition lies in the hands of everyone involved in the current debate. From those who are against it, because they believe the mosque will be a trophy center paying homage to the 9/11 attackers, to the organizers/developers behind the project.

If the mosque organizers had proactively come forward at the beginning of this national debate to say their facility was about reclaiming their faith from those who bastardized it to justify mass murder, while also educating the public about the widely practiced non-violent aspects of Islam, the tenor of our national conversation on this subject would be remarkably different.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. The lack of candor and disclosure by the mosque organizers/developers about what they stand for, who is funding the project and what they believe has only created an information vacuum that has been filled with inflammatory rumors and rhetoric from every corner.

For as much as I believe that there is a right for the organizers and developers to have a mosque in lower Manhattan, I also believe the organizers and developers have failed in appreciating the sensitivities that people have for blood-stained soil. They have fallen into the same traps that Wal-Mart has fallen into time and again when it tries to build stores near historic properties; that a group of Catholic nuns fell into when they wanted to build a chapel adjacent to a Nazi concentration camp; that Disney ran into when it wanted to build a theme park near some of Virginia’s hallowed Civil War battlefields; and so on.

Any piece of land where blood has been spilled has a cultural radioactivity to it that cannot be appreciated until someone steps on it for purposes other than homage to those who died on it. Once tread upon, emotions become raw and reasonable dialogue and understanding is often the first thing out the window.

That’s where we are today.

It is my hope that the developers/organizers will select another site that will enable them to tell the world what Islam is really about, what they stand for, and so forth. By doing so, they can demonstrate that their faith has tolerance and respect for others. An actionable demonstration of that respect and tolerance for what has been deemed by many as “hallowed ground” would go a long way in muting some of the rhetoric of the past few weeks.

Unfortunately, the developers/organizers current practice of silence and lack of candor plays to the worst of fears and suspicions of people and that allows the anger and hostility to perpetuate even further.

Politics and religion have always found ways of doing that, but that is something I learned a long time ago.

Posted in Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, International, Management & Administration | Comments

Arizona Worksite Statistics an indicator of ICE Audits

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

By Dawn M. Lurie and Kevin Lashus

Interestingly, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Office of Investigations (OI) in Arizona released a snap-shot of its weekly operations. No other ICE office has provided such statistics. It is clear that politics played a significant role in prompting the release of this snap-shot, considering the amount of scrutiny Arizona’s SB1070 has undergone in the past couple of weeks and with mid-term elections two months away. Regardless of ICE’s motives, the report provides evidence of the increasing worksite enforcement activity affecting employers. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been following our postings and alerts.

OI has twenty-six Special Agents in Charge (SACs) at its principal field offices throughout the United States. These offices are responsible for the administration and management of all investigative and enforcement activities within the office’s geographic boundaries. The Arizona snap-shot of the enforcement activity in one Area of Responsibility (AOR) provides insight into the kind of activity being experienced in other AORs throughout the country.

The Arizona report definitely supports the proposition that ICE is aggressively executing its mission. Administrative and criminal investigations have resulted in significant numbers of successful criminal prosecutions, civil monetary penalties, administrative arrests, and civil forfeitures.

But what employers should be focused on are the details of the report that relate to OI’s worksite enforcement and how those statistics may be interpreted alongside the 25 additional offices in the country to provide a clearer picture of audit activity and stepped-up administrative efforts. The report states that:

ICE audited 59 Arizona businesses, resulting in the inspection of 21,587 Forms I-9. Of the 21,587 Forms I-9 inspected, agents determined that 2,177 employees presented “Suspect Documents.” 25 businesses were served a Warning Notice and 23 were served a Notice of Compliance based upon the results of the Form I-9 audits. ICE is currently preparing several Notices of Intent to Fine for other business[es] audited in FY10. In FY09, ICE fined six Arizona companies with fine notices totaling more than $270,000.

Some may be questioning whether the snap-shot is representative of national trends: we are of the opinion that it is. At the recent ICE training, the enforcement division reported fine assessments greater than $4M against 164 employers throughout the country and noted that 147 employers have been criminally convicted or cited with worksite violations during the calendar year. With increases to the forensic auditor core and a new centralized Auditing Center opening up to assist with administrative reviews, ICE is poised to increase administrative investigations in an effort to continue to remind employers that the culture of compliance is something to take very seriously.

The number of criminal investigations is also surely to rise. The recent statistics are certainly impressive, but we are still willing to wager that the agency will issue another round of Notices of Inspection (NOI) to employers in the next month or so. The SACs with larger resources will certainly be held responsible for more of these anticipated audits; we guesstimate another 500 to 750 audits will be announced. The number of NOIs may exceed 2300 by the end of 2010. Companies located in the larger SAC jurisdictions including Atlanta, New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco are among the favored for the clusters in numbers.

While the metrics for audit selection are not disclosed, ICE appears not to be discriminatory, and clearly each SAC has a generous amount of latitude, both in selecting companies for audits as well as for settlements. Generally, investigations are based on leads, targets and other factors. The required number of audits for each SAC will vary with the size of the AOR, the number of auditors assigned to the SAC and those internal guidelines that ICE utilizes. No quotas, of course, but reports are publicized within the agency and “stats” are reviewed, need we say more? While we also have plenty of ideas on those metrics, nothing is concrete.

Folks, to be clear, this was not discussed during the IMAGE conference last week. But alas, we are not true psychics – fair warning was given to companies by Senior Special Agent Todd Johnson and other ICE Representatives: take action, review your I-9-related compliance and institute a compliance plan NOW. Taking such corrective action after ICE serves an NOI just doesn’t count as much.

What was not discussed during last week’s meetings with ICE, but what is identified in the snap-shot, is the number of “Suspect Documents” identified during the inspections – 2,177 out of the 21,587 Forms I-9 inspected. “Suspect Documents” is a phrase that relates to the number of employees who have presented documents to employers that cannot be verified by the government without further review; often, fraudulent documents are in play.

Upon receipt of a Notice of Suspect Documents, employers are required to request alternative documents, and if the issue cannot be resolved, they are referred to ICE. While a number of Suspect Documents issues can be resolved, the vast majority of workers receiving such notices are eventually terminated due to their inability to provide valid work authorization. Based on rough math, SAC Arizona has inspected employers with workforces that are comprised of almost 10 percent unauthorized individuals.

Now, some may argue that the number is already high and reflects the composition of a workforce in a border state. That may be the case. But, even if the average is closer to 5 percent, even the most compliance-driven employers will have some exposure to “knowingly hire” and “continuing to employ” allegations.

What should employers do? Be proactive. At a minimum, review and correct your I-9s before ICE does. Go further, take the Arizona statistics seriously – implement standard operating procedures and trainings designed to improve immigration compliance, employ comprehensive identity and work eligibility verification mechanisms, and consider rolling-out verification compliance software as well, to establish a “good faith defense.”

Now is the time to consider implementing best practices. Enforcement activity will continue to increase prior to the adoption of minor, let alone true, comprehensive reform.

Posted in Border Security, Congress, Politics & PR, Featured Feed, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local, Immigration & Visa Policy, International, Law Enforcement | Comments

Hertiage’s Homeland Security Panels – Bucci Speaking on Cyber and Maritime

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

Next week, the Heritage Foundation will host “Homeland Security 2010: The Future of Defending the Homeland.” This will be a week-long series of panels aimed at providing a good background for Congressional Staffers new to Homeland Security issues. Heritage did this last year, and it was an excellent event. It should be informative and helpful for the folks who provide the leg work for our Legislative Branch.

This program is diverse. The event begins on Monday, August 23, focusing on maritime security. Two panels will look at this huge area from the civilian and military standpoints.

I will sit on one of the panels and will look at the immense task of achieving maritime security and what has been done so far in pursuit of it. My time as the Deputy Assistant SecDef for Homeland Defense included a great deal of focus on this crucial defense domain.

On Tuesday, the attention will shift to Science and Technology, with two panels looking at the role of fundamental science in security, specifically bioterrorism. Day Three’s panel reaches out to the private sector on its pivotal roll in Homeland Security. It will cover Critical Infrastructure Protection (most of which is privately owned), and the expanding role of the private sector in response since 9/11, Katrina, and the Gulf Oil Spill.

Thursday turns to my favorite – cybersecurity. The actual titles of these panels are intriguing: “Big Brother and the Civilian Network” and “Cyber Nukes: War and Terrorism in the Cyber Domain.” I will be presenting on the latter panel and will look at one of my pet subjects, the growing potential for cyber terrorism once terrorists are enabled by cyber criminal networks.

The five-day program is rounded out with panels looking at the role of state and local government in our response to terrorism and the overall preparedness, response and recovery system.

This outreach to the Staffers is a laudable and worthy task. These (mostly) young citizens are highly educated and very motivated to serve their members in the task of creating an effective legal underpinning for our Homeland Security efforts. By gathering together a diverse group of academics, practitioners, industry types and pundits, Heritage provides an excellent menu of topics from which the staff personnel can choose to augment their knowledge, and with whom they can debate and discuss the issues.

I am very happy to have been asked to participate, and I will be prepared for a great deal of learning and free flowing discourse. The panels are open to the public and all are welcome. I highly recommend it.

You can RSVP for the panels and find out more by visiting The Heritage Foundation’s website.

Posted in Critical Infrastructure, Cyber Security, Homeland Security & the Internet; Gov't 2.0, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Maritime & Seaport Security, Military & Homeland Defense, Science & Technology, counterterrorism | Comments

Seriously? Congress is still pushing for 100 percent maritime scanning?

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

Below is an excerpt of a piece I wrote for US News & World Report about members of Congress, including the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, calling for Customs and Border Protection to get in gear and meet their crazy congressional mandate of scanning 100 percent of all maritime cargo. They claim TSA did it with air cargo, so why can’t they do it?

Seriously?

Back in 2006, before George W. Bush’s approval ratings dropped through the basement into somewhere around the fourth circle of hell, it made political sense for the congressional Democrats to attack the Republican administration on cargo security. They were fighting to regain control of Congress and had to show that they, too, were capable of protecting the American people from another terrorist attack. They found themselves an effective–if inaccurate–sound bite in accusing the administration of screening a mere 5 percent of cargo coming into the country.

Now that the 100 percent screening mandate for air cargo has come and gone, the usual suspects are turning their attention to maritime scanning. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (again) accuses the department of ignoring the will of Congress and not even trying to meet the requirement to scan all cargo coming into the country.

The effort to ignore the ludicrous intent of Congress has been bipartisan, starting with both secretaries under President Bush (Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff) and now Napolitano under President Obama. The reason for trying to ignore the congressional mandate–according to all three secretaries, the thousands and thousands of professional security officers working in DHS, and most independent security experts–is that it is impossible to meet and, more importantly, less effective than the risk-based, layered security model on which the Department of Homeland Security was founded.

But why let most of the security experts in the world get in the way of the will and superior wisdom of Congress?

Read the full story at US News & World Report.

Posted in Congress, Politics & PR, Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, International, Maritime & Seaport Security, Science & Technology, Supply Chain Security, WMD, Chemical & Biological | Comments

Potential Change in the Nature of TSA Enforcement?

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Since its inception in 2001, the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) approach to enforcing its rules generally has been a cooperative one. Recognizing the burdens on industry from new security regulations and a difficult economic environment, and understanding that harsh enforcement actions can be counterproductive, TSA generally has sought to educate and train rather than punish. Monetary fines have been uncommon, and serious punishment – steep fines or greater severity – have been rare. While this approach has worked reasonably well, there is reason to believe it will not last forever.

A common catalyst to a “harder” enforcement approach (e.g., more frequent and larger fines) is public focus on instances of noncompliance.

A recent example of such a catalyst is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which has transformed the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service into the new “Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement” – enforcement is now part of the name.

The likelihood of public focus on noncompliance is related to at least two factors: the passage of time and the industry’s ability to affect a broad cross-section of the public.

Both factors weigh in favor of an eventual turn toward harder enforcement. First, TSA is still a new agency but, as time passes, the likelihood of a significant rule violation by the regulated industry increases. Second, TSA interacts constantly with a broad cross-section of the public, which is one of the reasons that TSA problems quickly draw broad public attention.

Another possible catalyst to a harder enforcement approach is the growth or diversification of the regulated industry.

When the regulated industry grows and/or diversifies, regulators may be more inclined to take a harder approach to enforcement as a way of signaling seriousness to industry participants.

Hard enforcement actions are often an efficient way for regulators to deliver a message to a large or diverse set of industry participants. When the participants are few in number or homogenous, education and training by the regulators may be sufficient, but a “severe fine” warning message is more likely to be carried quickly (by the trade press, lawyers and others) to a large or diverse set of industry participants.

The industry regulated by TSA has been growing and diversifying quickly. Among the recent additions are businesses newly regulated under the Certified Cargo Screening Program (CCSP). These businesses, now approaching 1,000 in number, have to be regulated by TSA without a proportional increase in TSA resources, making an eventual resort to a harder enforcement approach more likely.

For all of these reasons, TSA-regulated companies would be wise to focus on compliance efforts as though TSA were going to take a harder approach to enforcement.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Congress, Politics & PR, Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, counterterrorism | Comments

The Battling Bills of Chemical Security – Much Ado About Nothing?

Friday, August 6th, 2010

Late last week, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) unanimously approved a bill to extend the DHS Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program for an additional three years. The bill will next move to the Senate floor sometime before the end of this congress for a showdown with a bill passed out of the House sponsored by Congressman Bennie Thompson, Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. At that point, you’ll probably see some additional amendments that could change the current complexion of the bill to make it more palatable to draw more votes. What the senate bill doesn’t presently incorporate are many of the features of the House bill. The Thompson bill includes several contentious provisions, including “inherently safer technology (IST)” review, chief among the attention-getters.

IST is great idea in theory – and is actually a fairly straightforward and simple concept. You take one chemical process that involves a “high-risk” chemical, you identify a “lower risk” chemical that provides a similar functionality, and you do a switcheroo. Disregarding the costs of the lower risk chemical as well as the costs associated with re-engineering the process to accept the new chemical, IST sounds pretty simple, right?

Maybe, maybe not – here’s an example that illustrates the additional costs and considerations of chemical process re-engineering that should hit home for those in the National Capital Region (or the DMV, as I’ve recently learned).

DC’s Blue Plains Water Treatment Facility, one of the nation’s largest water treatment facilities, elected to change its disinfection mechanism from gaseous chlorine to sodium hypochlorite after an evaluation of the unique operational and risk characteristics of the facility. The utility’s process change did not come cheaply, perhaps as much as (if not more than) $12.5 million in capital expenditures and an annual chemical cost increase from $600,000 (for chlorine) to $2 million (for sodium hypochlorite). But the Blue Plains folks did not make this decision because they were forced under a regulatory program – they made the decision based on an evaluation of the threat, vulnerabilities and potential consequences of a chemical release. And the most interesting wrinkle to this process change? The decision to switch was made before September 11, 2001.

Looking at IST in the larger scheme of chemical facility issues, IST is really just a component of a more complex trade off assessment, going well beyond merely switching out chemicals. Internal business decisions happen every day that include a variety of factors – including process evaluations – that ultimately consider the true “cost” (whether directly financial or indirectly risk-driven) associated with an action or process. Essentially, when costs are too high, they are addressed.

For example, following the enactment of CFATS and the passage of the Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate Act of 2007 (DHS is in the final stages of developing a regulatory program for AN), a not-to-be-named-company in the farm supply business ran the numbers and determined that the cost of compliance with the two DHS programs was just too great, so they stopped selling AN in bagged form. They just stopped selling it and consequently removed the regulatory exposure entirely. Now there’s a business decision – just drop the product because the margin that was previously thin in an unregulated environment evaporated. Net effect? The end user is going to have to find another company that has either accepted the reduced or non-existent margins, or they’ll just have to find a replacement chemical. That’s what I call a “top-down” approach to IST.

On the flip side, here’s a “bottom-up” example of IST. As it stands now, there’s a chemical covered by CFATS that has a very close “chemical family” relative (so to speak) not covered by CFATS. The folks that manufacture and sell that unregulated chemical are having a field day with this competitive advantage.

Think about it, the costs of compliance have to be recouped somewhere. They’re not going to be internalized, so the regulated product price goes up and the consumer bears the burden of compliance. The unregulated chemical? No compliance costs, no burden on the consumer, so the consumer is going to make a decision on its own and go buy the unregulated chemical. Not because it’s necessarily safer but because it’s cheaper.

So what does the company selling the regulated chemical do? Probably go out of business or stop selling that chemical, as in the example above. The most interesting thing about the entire situation? There’s empirical evidence indicating the two chemicals are pretty darn close when it comes to explosive energy, so while the chemicals are essentially interchangeable from an application standpoint, they’re also theoretically interchangeable as an IED precursor.

What’s my point? IST happens every day; process decisions are made every day out in the chemical supply chain. Despite Congressman Thompson’s position on whether the Senate did the country a disservice (and to be fair, he could have been referring to the other provisions, like closing the water security and maritime security gaps), IST decisions happen right now without any regulatory requirements and are a natural result of the mere existence of CFATS. And to be clear, the IST provision in the House bill doesn’t mandate IST in most cases; the bill just requires IST reviews for the higher-risk facilities and provides the Secretary authority to direct an IST in certain highest of high risk cases.

The higher level message here is that you don’t have to bake an IST requirement into the regulatory structure to ensure chemical companies make trade off assessments and the corresponding decisions. So there’s no real loss by not having a stringent IST requirement included in the Senate bill. Companies are going to make IST-like decisions anyway in order to cut costs and reduce regulatory exposure; in fact it’s already being done!

As soon as you introduce a regimented process that requires a third party to assess an internal IST evaluation, you further handcuff the process. Not to mention the fact that there are other mechanisms already in the CFATS program that can ensure the security of those high-risk chemicals, namely the security standards. On that note, if DHS is concerned about certain high risk chemicals at certain sites, they can leverage the ambiguity of the security performance standards to set a security bar so high for the facility of concern that the costs of compliance for physical security will be overly burdensome. Once it’s too costly to secure, the facility will identify an alternative process with less burdensome security measures. The net effect is an IST decision. That right there is an IST lesson learned from CFATS compliance to date – companies will drop chemicals if they can avoid compliance costs.

To wrap this whole thing up, for those out there sitting on pins and needles as the CFATS expiration deadline looms – CFATS isn’t going anywhere. Besides, too much effort has been put into building the program, both in the public sector (inclusive of the Executive and the Legislative Branches) and in the private sector (inclusive of the regulated companies and the cottage consulting industry resulting from the program).

If you think there’s a lobbying effort out there that’s trying to water down CFATS, there would be another lobbying effort to ensure that CFATS remains and the cottage consulting and compliance assistance industry it generated doesn’t go anywhere. Which brings up an interesting point: after whatever law is enacted that extends CFATS, can the White House claim that it saved or created the jobs of all those CFATS consultants?

Posted in Congress, Politics & PR, Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Science & Technology, WMD, Chemical & Biological, counterterrorism | Comments

Connecticut Active Shooter Hammers Home Lessons for Companies and Law Enforcement

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

The active shooter who killed eight people at Hartford Distributors in Manchester, Conn., Omar Thornton, revives sentiments among the employers and co-workers that come with every active shooter: how could this happen and why couldn’t we foresee it?

It concerns me just as much that such questions within the community are joined by a predictable refrain from the likes of me: Now that there has been one, expect others. An active shooter incident lowers the emotional burden for others to do the same, and both employers and law enforcement must be proactive in managing this low probability, high impact risk.

Local law enforcement agencies should be supporting efforts by their local companies by driving awareness and advising on how to manage the risks associated with workplace violence. If ever there was an instance where an “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” this is it. Workplace violence is an issue often understood with the attitude of “it can never happen here,” and yet those firms that do engage the problem often find that while there aren’t active shooter incidents, there are lower level instances of bullying, harassment and other issues that should be prevented.

Employers should actively manage employees who are going through negative events; this most recent active shooter was being given the choice to resign or be fired, and at the University of Alabama shooting earlier this year the college professor was being denied tenure. These are stressful events, and it is true that everyone has a threshold for violence. Negative events in a person’s career or employment have to be proactively managed and assessed jointly by Human Resources, the Legal Department and a senior-level security person. This enables the company to be pro-actively aware of internal situations that may escalate so they can take preemptive measures to protect their employees, customers and brand reputation. These measures range from something as simple as HR or a supervisor talking with the employee to a controlled termination of the employee with an escort out of the building by security personnel.

Systems must be in place for employees to raise concerns about their co-workers, not only concerns regarding their co-workers having a propensity for violence, but something as simple as a colleague who is clearly under stress. It is a purely personal opinion that employers have a duty to care for their employees. By their very status, employers occupy a role in their employees’ lives that significantly affect the employee and are in a position to do significant harm or good. A level of knowledge about employees that enables them to either act or provide support is both a necessary risk management measure to manage workplace violence and an investment in employee satisfaction, and therefore productivity.

The immediate action for all businesses must be to increase their internal awareness and security; one active shooter breeds others. Once this has been accomplished, firms must begin assessing whether their employee relations, duty of care, and support to their employees is of the necessary standard to reflect themselves as a business, as well as to protect their workers and brand in today’s uncertain economic times.

Posted in Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local, Private and Physical Security | Comments

Raising Caps, Killing Industry and Holding America Hostage

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

First off, let me state for the record that I am not taking a page out of the Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) book of apologies. I may have said some humdingers in the past, but I am not about to apologize to BP for events for which they are ultimately responsible.

That leads me to my second point. BP’s leadership (former and current) have publicly declared in every way imaginable that they will pay for the Gulf oil spill clean up and “make things right” for the people, businesses and environment impacted by what can only be described as a national nightmare. I take them at their word.

No company in the world has a worse brand image than BP, and the only way to restore the name and brand’s integrity is to literally do everything imaginable and unimaginable to make things right. BP’s new leadership, Robert Dudley, has made that pledge, and I also take him at his word.

With these two statements as a backdrop, every business leader in America, large or small, should be scared out of their mind at the actions of the U.S. House of Representatives this past week.

With a vote of 209 members for and 193 against, the House passed a bill to eliminate any and all liability caps for actions resulting from an oil spill or related mishap. While at first glance there may be reason to cheer our elected leaders for putting the screws to fat cat oil companies with monstrous profits and excessive salaries to make them pay for the mess they caused, these actions play right into the hands of people who are not necessarily our friends.

By eliminating the liability cap, small to mid-size oil companies (and yes there are small to mid-size oil companies) will find themselves operating in an area where they can no longer afford to do business. The costs and exposed risk is too high, and as a result, they will either have to close down or be bought up by other companies to do business. Even successful, large-scale companies may find these conditions perilous.

For as much as we may want to make sure that BP and others like them pay for their messes, imposing post-disaster reactionary measures without looking at the short and long-term consequences is almost as dangerous.

By no means am I am an apologist for oil or insurance industries, but the actions of the House this past week display a punitive, knee-jerk reaction to a very complex disaster that deserves a deeper breath of analysis by Congress and the Administration before any final decisions are made.

In a June 9 hearing before the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, industry experts and representatives of the insurance industry warned that with raised caps or no liability caps at all, petroleum industry members could be uninsurable. They additionally warned of the reinsurance pressures that would be required if such a scenario were to play out, as the existing insurance industry could not adequately cover the exposed liability. These experts also warned that the only oil industry operations that could possibly operate in these conditions and cover such exposed risks would be those oil companies entirely backed by nation states.

Under this scenario, it means the only companies our nation could depend on for oil would be companies owned and operated by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.

While the Saudi Kingdom may technically be a U.S. ally, they are not one of the first nations I think we can depend on when things get dicey. Furthermore, having American interests held captive by Aramco, the Saudi-owned and largest oil company in the world and Citgo, the Venezuela-owned company, is in no one’s national security interests.

For all of the warm fuzzies that Joe Kennedy’s TV ads may put on our TV screens, I think the anti-American, megalomania rants of Venezuela’s dictator, Hugo Chavez, are testament enough that he doesn’t care one bit about our oil needs or paying for any mess Citgo might be involved with in the future.

The House’s reactions are another classic move by Congress following a disaster of imposing sweeping and far-reaching decisions without examining the strategic implications of their legislated moves. Despite the counsel of hearing witnesses and others, House members (wanting to show the good people of their Districts that they are responsive and are on top of things by tarring and feathering the boogie men of the moment) have proven again that they have earned the full rights and privileges of their dismal approval ratings.

I want BP to pay for their mess. I also want other companies, governments and organizations that are at similar fault for future incidents to be held accountable for their screw-ups. But in a society that is already over-litigious to where we sue over spilled hot coffee and the emotional distress caused by certain paint colors, the House’s measures cause potentially greater peril than the original disaster.

Putting American companies and workers out of business because the risk can’t be adequately covered while leaving our energy needs beholden to people who don’t have our interests at heart is not a strategic solution. More thought, innovation and leadership are required to address these very complex problems, but those traits have been missing in Congress for a while now. With any luck, the Senate and future Congresses will provide those for us.

Posted in Congress, Politics & PR, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Management & Administration | Comments

If the Cargo is not Screened, It Does Not Fly

Friday, July 30th, 2010

By Adam Salerno

Businesses Reengineering the Supply Chain for 100 Percent Screening

When Congress passed the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, the law mandated 100 Percent Screening of cargo onboard passenger aircraft “commensurate with checked baggage.” The deadline for that mandate is this weekend, August 1, 2010. The law seeks to ensure that all 20 million lbs. of cargo is screened in advance of flights for explosive detection prior to transport. As Douglas Brittin, the Director of Cargo Security at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says, “On August 1, if the cargo is not screened, it does not fly”.

In today’s economy, a vibrant supply chain can ensure that companies have instant access to overnight delivery to nearly 85 percent of the world’s population. While a changing world dictates new necessities to secure the supply chain, the need for expedited trade is an important priority that must be maintained. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recognizes this fact, which is why we support a multi layered risk based approach to security which maximizes effectiveness and minimizes impact on businesses.

As with any unfunded mandate, the private sector was tasked with financing this effort and working with TSA to ensure this goal is accomplished. The cost has been dramatic. Most air carriers estimate their costs to be in the tens of millions of dollars range. That figure does not include delays or increasing lead time in the supply chain. To add complexity to the issue, the mandate also included all incoming cargo from around the globe be screened. In short, the law forced companies to completely reengineer their supply chain.

To push the mandate out of the confines of the airport, TSA developed the Certified Cargo Screening Program (CCSP). CCSP allows other trusted shippers in the supply chain to participate in the screening process, by securing their facilities, and the chain of custody from manufacturing to the belly of the aircraft. This too proved extremely costly for industry, but something that businesses in all modes of transportation have stepped up for.

Once the domestic deadline is hit, the focus will shift to international inbound flights. TSA needs to step forward at this point and begin to recognize foreign screening methods. Again, because of the nature of the unfunded mandate, it is clear that TSA has not had the resources to pursue this goal yet. However, programs like the German Aviation Security Program or the newly released European Union Framework 300, Rule 185 are comprehensive programs that mirror the basic fundamentals of the TSA program domestically. Working with the international community to ensure that our programs are mutually accepted is essential to ensure that businesses are not duplicating an already burdensome process.

It has been a long and costly road for industry, but with the August 1, 2010 deadline just days away, many are feeling cautiously optimistic that the deadline will be met. Thanks to the ingenuity of the freight forwarders, the airlines, and participants in CCSP, because without their time, effort, and serious investment, a dramatic halt of trade would have become reality. Their investment in security ensured that commerce will continue to move forward at the speed businesses rely on in the air environment.

Adam Salerno is a Senior Manager in the National Security and Emergency Preparedness Department at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He also manages the Chamber’s Global Supply Chain Security Working Group.

This piece was originally posted on The ChamberPost, the blog for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Congress, Politics & PR, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local, International, Management & Administration, Science & Technology, Supply Chain Security, WMD, Chemical & Biological, counterterrorism | Comments

The New Face of Aviation Security?

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

The hunt for someone to lead the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began in 2009, but it wasn’t until June this year that the Senate confirmed John Pistole as administrator. Pistole was the third nominee for the job, after two earlier hopefuls pulled out (see Southers and Harding). Security Debrief followed the confirmation process every step of the way and found the latest development in this week’s Air Cargo Week.

If you visit TSA’s website, you’ll find Pistole’s photo, which looks like this:

In Air Cargo Week’s Arrivals & Departures section, there is a note on Pistole’s confirmation (first bullet, right column). But the photo referenced is clearly not John Pistole.

Who is this man? Nominee #4? A hero cargo pilot? The publisher’s cousin?

It’s Chris Battle, Security Debrief’s founder and editor.

That’s some good PR.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Congress, Politics & PR, Critical Infrastructure, Featured Feed, Homeland Security & the Internet; Gov't 2.0, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Maritime & Seaport Security, Military & Homeland Defense, Narcotics, counterterrorism | Comments

Did Richard Clarke’s Cyber Book Miss It?

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

You always feel a little shaky when you are planning on asserting that someone else is wrong. You feel more so when it is someone who is known as darn near a prophet in the particular field. However, no one has ever said that I was unwilling to express my opinions, so here goes.

Richard Clarke, former adviser to multiple presidents, the Cassandra who warned of a coming attack before 9/11, now has a hit book out on the threat of a coming cyber war, why we are unprepared for it and what we must do. The book, “Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to do About It” (written with Robert Knake), is now being widely read. One recent attendee at a major one-day cyber security symposium in Washington opined that it seemed every one of the speakers had referred to the book. I was there too, and this is a bit of hyperbole, but several did mention it. While not everyone agrees with Clarke, his opinions in the areas of infrastructure and cyber security cannot be easily discounted.

I will not attempt to do a complete review of the book, because several others have already done so and because so many people have already read it. I do want to point out, however, two areas where I think Clarke missed the mark in his thinking. I am also adding to the mix remarks and Q&A Clarke did at the very fine Aspen Security Forum at the end of June, which I had the pleasure of attending.

Truth in writing: these are two areas which might be considered my pet rocks. I have written and spoken on both, and while it is daunting to disagree with a “big guy,” in this case, I cannot be intellectually honest if I just let it go.

The first area is the usefulness of wide-spread cyber education and awareness for the American people. Clarke basically discounts this as a waste of time. He says the benefit of such an effort is about nil. You cannot properly train every grandmother and retired auto worker to be a computer scientist. Clearly he is right, but just as clearly (to me anyway), that is not the point.

Right now, experts say that nearly 80 percent of cyber incidents could be stopped if people would merely have good cyber personal hygiene. In other words, if they would understand where not to go, what in general not to open, why they should have protective software, and why it must be updated regularly, many would do it. Also, many of those same “everyman” folks could apply the same hygiene principles they would use at home in their jobs, thus giving us improvements on two fronts.

Look, we are obviously never going to stop the big sophisticated penetrations simply by intellectually arming the masses. The high-end 20 percent require a completely different approach. Nor are we going to get everyone who uses a computer to do all the “right things” anymore than we can get every driver to stop speeding or rolling through stop signs. People are people, and many will do unhelpful things, even if they are told how to avoid them. However, to give up on this front and dismiss all education and awareness efforts as of no use is intellectual conceit. We can better “arm” our population, and most of them will respond. Let’s close the doors we can and at least shrink the opportunities the bad guys have to attack. This is NOT a battle that will only be fought by our high-end “mounted cyber knights.” We have to engage all our citizen yeoman as well.

The second area Clarke dismisses is the possibility of a significant terrorist cyber event. He, like many other experts, seem to think that it is simply impossible for a terrorist organization to have the wherewithal to pull off a “real” cyber event. Well, if you define it as only so large as to be an all-out cyber war, his position has validity. If you think, as I have written and spoken about, that a terrorist attack could focus on a specific geographic and single sector target, it is indeed quite feasible.

Terrorists no longer have to develop their own cyber army; they can rent one from the multiple criminal networks that exist and who regularly sell their services. By keeping their target restricted enough (one small city, the electrical grid in one part of the country, one specific bank, etc.), terrorists could pull it off. Terrorists do not have to bring down our entire system but only do enough to provoke fear and reaction. They could also use cyber as a significant enhancer for a more traditional attack. Police in many cities worry that someone will hack their dispatch systems and route responders to an ambush or route them away from real events, a tactic that might ensure more people die from an attack and one that will truly shake public confidence.

Clarke is “right” when he says public education will not solve the cyber problem and when he says that no terrorist group is capable of conducting cyber war on America. He is wrong to dismiss the value of that education and awareness in mitigating everyday dangers and difficulties, and he is wrong to give the impression that a terrorist cyber event would be of no consequence.

We cannot throw these babies out with the bathwater. Read Clarke’s book, particularly if you need to get a better understanding of the cyber threats we face. It is well written and a fairly easy read for a tough subject. But please do not think that because Clarke gives the two areas of education and terror short shrift that they are not significant. That would be a costly mistake.

Posted in Critical Infrastructure, Cyber Security, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local, Management & Administration, Science & Technology, Terror Strategic Analysis, counterterrorism | Comments

The Disturbing Value of the Washington Post’s Work

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

There is always something in the media that captures the conversation of people in Washington, whether it is some unfortunate gaffe that a political figure makes, some new gossip about a government official’s missteps, or the latest poll numbers identifying the rising and falling fortunes of one political power over another. This week seems to be different though.

In a series of front-page exposes entitled, “Top Secret America,” the Washington Post has essentially blown the cover off a number of classified programs and their geographic locations around the country. Using public sources and their own talents as investigative journalists, Post reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin have put together a very impressive piece of work that raises a number of important questions about the explosive growth of the intelligence community since 9/11.

These questions (most notably, “What are we spending billions of tax dollars on?” and “What difference are these investments making?”) echo questions that have been raised by both sides of the political aisles over the past few years. The ability to spend money without thinking or an overarching strategy is a skill that Washington has long perfected to the detriment of American taxpayers. Priest and Arkin’s work highlights some of the waste of tax dollars, particularly those instances where multiple intelligence players are conducting the same intelligence analysis work as their peers.

Shining a light on those actions and raising the questions of why we are doing the same thing multiple times over is certainly of value. But Priest and Arkin and their employer, the Washington Post, have also done something of disturbing value that benefits no one but those persons foreign or domestic that wish to do us harm.

By identifying the geographic locations of some of our country’s top secret facilities (government and private sector) and surmising who does what and where at those spots, the Post reporters created an operative target list that is literally synthesized and ready for use by people whose allegiances are not in American’s best interest. While they used publicly available sources and had the cooperation of the public affairs offices of many of the federal intelligence pieces highlighted in the article, the authors seem to have taken the extra mile to share things that frankly need not be shared.

In the Editor’s note about the series, the Post does share that the newspaper removed from their map graphic the geographic locations of several sensitive facilities. As commendable as that may be, that which the Post details has potentially grave consequences for the men and women who work at those facilities. The fact is that every one of those facilities had a bull’s eye on their front door last week. After this series and its wide online dissemination, that bull’s eye just got a whole lot bigger.

There are very good reasons you are not allowed to photograph inside security screening areas (e.g. airport screening areas).

There are very good reasons that the President and other dignitaries’ motorcade routes are not published in the newspaper.

There are very good reasons that when you go to Google Earth or other digital map services some areas are not available for downloading and printing (e.g. Camp David, MD; Area 51; etc.).

There are also some very good reasons that organizations like the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial Information Agency, and others in the public and private sector do not actively place neon marquee signs outside their locations and say “WE DO INTELLIGENCE WORK HERE!”

Is there signage outside many of these facilities to denote who they are?

For many of these structures there is, but that does not mean any of them want to be featured on a local Chamber of Commerce tourism map. Each of those facilities is spread out around the country for reasons of politics, duplicity, expertise and assignments. None of them has made it a policy of publicly waving a flag to say, “Hey look at me” to draw attention to themselves or the people who work there.

Maybe the Post forgot about the 1993 shootings outside of the CIA’s Langley Headquarters, when Mir Amal Khasi got out of his car with an assault rifle and fired away at CIA employees killing two and injuring three more.

Maybe they’ve forgotten about the numerous shootings that have occurred at the Pentagon over the years by those individuals, whatever their grievance, who decided to open fire or display some type of weapon.

While CIA HQ and the Pentagon are much more publicly known (and accessible structures) than many of those identified by the Post series, the fact remains that the people who work at these lesser known facilities are much more vulnerable for potential harm than they were before. Lesser-known targets are easier to strike than the higher value and publicly recognizable ones. Those structures often have their own security forces to safeguard the perimeter. Some of these others facilities may not. As this series continues to be shared by friend and foe alike, the security posture at those locations is certain to change as terrorists, lunatics and the disenfranchised have been given a hefty menu of targets of opportunity.

According to the Editor’s note, as well as the reporters’ public comments, the Post is not interested in causing any personal harm. Unfortunately, their actions speak louder than their words.

Posted in Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Military & Homeland Defense, Private and Physical Security, counterterrorism | Comments

GAO says TSA May Miss Air Cargo Screening Mandate

Friday, July 16th, 2010

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released its review of the Transportation Security Administration’s Air Cargo Screening program. The report, requested by several members of Congress, audits the TSA’s program for achieving the Congressional mandate to screen 100 percent of all cargo carried on passenger aircraft by August 2010. For anyone in the business or closely following the issue, the report offers no surprises. (For those unfamiliar with this security challenge, check out the roundtable discussion on air cargo screening that I moderated in May.) If anything, the report illuminates the major hurdles TSA continues to face in achieving the 100 percent screening threshold.

What the report doesn’t do – what it wasn’t intended to do – is determine whether TSA’s program to screen all air cargo improves security. Assuming that the directive to screen every single piece of cargo improves aviation security may be a misplaced assumption.

What the report doesn’t conclude may be more illustrative of the problem with our government’s attitude towards homeland security. A more instructive use of the time and resources that went into generating this report would have been for the GAO to audit the quality of the nation’s air cargo screening program.

One way to accomplish this would be to start with a risk assessment – threat, vulnerability and consequence. Indentifying the weaknesses in the existing process for sending freight by air on passenger aircraft would instruct TSA where to focus its resources. It would also ensure that any weaknesses could be strengthened. And it could also help to develop objective metrics to test the security measures’ effectiveness.

Of course, the law is the law, and GAO’s audit merely considered whether TSA would meet the mandate. Not surprisingly, TSA most likely will not meet the mandate. And even if it does, there are still problems with key areas of the program, like the certification of screening technology, the authenticity of the methodology for calculating the percentage of cargo screened, and the screening of cargo coming from outside the United States.

The report found that TSA’s voluntary Certified Cargo Screening Program (CCSP) has failed to attract most of the shippers that would benefit from participation. The CCSP isn’t well populated and participation levels aren’t what they should be to inoculate the industry against more invasive and harmful regulations. A strong showing by shippers over the next several months will be needed to provide evidence that the industry is serious about achieving the mandate.

The report certainly hits on all the areas where TSA needs to make improvements to satisfy the law. Overall, this is instructive for complying with the law. Whether each of these efforts reduces the risk of passenger’s being harmed is uncertain.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Congress, Politics & PR, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, International, Management & Administration, Supply Chain Security, Transportation Security, counterterrorism | Comments

The Earth-Moving Message Not Heard

Friday, July 16th, 2010

Like much of the National Capital Region, I am shocked we had an earthquake this morning. For people in Washington, DC, an earthquake is usually a shocking news story – like when a President has an intern do more than sharpen pencils; someone changes political parties and changes the balance of power; or when there is a major budget announcement and you find your life’s work is no longer funded.

But we had an honest to goodness 3.6-on-the-Richter-Scale-earth-moving experience. In typical DC fashion, this has generated the usual Beltway news hysteria. On the ride in this morning, radio stations of every genre were taking callers describing how the baseball caps fell off their TV; how their dog started barking uncontrollably; and their fears that construction workers had hit a gas-line in their neighborhood.

I thought the reactions I heard were hilarious, but they reminded me a lot of the reactions that most people in this area have when there is a forecast for snow. At the drop of a hat, people seem to run straight to the grocery and hardware stores to stock up on bread, milk, eggs and toilet paper while fighting with someone over the last available snow shovel in a 50 mile radius.

Now, our Nation’s Capital is built on a swamp; a fact proven by some of our wretched summers and watching some of the behavior captured on C-Span. But just because we live in an area were awful humidity, murky ground and mosquitoes find favor does not mean we are immune from all of Mother Nature’s furies. From the record snowfalls of earlier this year; oppressive humidity; destructive thunderstorms; flash flooding and more, our area is full of hazards. [And notice I didn’t even mention the threats associated with terrorism, our horrible traffic or riding Metro!]

This area has plenty of reasons to be on edge, and this morning’s earthquake gives us another. That’s where I thought this morning’s media failed us. While they all accurately described the events of 5 AM and what impacts the earthquake did or did not cause, I did not hear one of them talk about PREPAREDNESS.

Today’s earthquake is another one of those teachable moments when our media sources, public officials and more can be talking about having a plan, making a kit and being prepared. As fun as it is to hear the anecdotal stories of who did what when the Earth moved, none of those stories will save a live or make a positive difference if we don’t take the individual positive steps for our families and our businesses – if we don’t do the basics of being ready. That’s a message that needs to be reinforced at every available moment, and I hope people wake up to that fact and start talking about it.

Posted in Critical Infrastructure, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Homeland State & Local, Management & Administration | 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

The Value of Aspen

Friday, July 9th, 2010

As we continue to swelter in the ongoing summer heat wave, it is easy for me to reminisce about my recent visit to Aspen, Colo. Tucked amongst the Rockies with its clean air, fervent green and majestic views, a town known primarily for its skiing with the rich and famous was home to what was, simply put, the best conference program I have ever attended.

The first annual Aspen Security Forum put forward a program that I can only describe as pleasant, informational waterboarding. By the time each of the presenters and panelists were done, my hand was dead from writing so much and my head hurt from being given the firehouse treatment of a candor and content overload.

With a venerable “who’s who” of notable names in the national security arena attending the two and a half day program, attendees had the opportunity to hear first-hand from the men and women who have served or continue to serve in some of the most demanding positions in the world. It was literally very hard to turn around and not see a face that you did not recognize from some recent event or news program, sharing insights on our country’s national and homeland security challenges.

While the presented content was outstanding, the best part about the entire program was that the overwhelming majority of notable speakers and presenters made themselves available to engage with the attendees. All too often, speakers rush in, deliver their canned pitch, say thanks to the crowd and are whisked away by their aides to get back to the office, leaving actual human contact an afterthought. To have the many distinguished speakers stick around and engage in that lost art-form of “CONVERSATION” was an absolute pleasure.

Hosted by Clark Ervin and the Aspen Institute, this was the first time they had put on a program with this particular focus. You can call it beginner’s luck if you want, but they put together a top notch effort that literally became a “must attend” for anyone who is interested in national and homeland security issues. Fortunately, for those who weren’t able to attend the program, it was taped for later broadcast by C-Span, hopefully sometime this summer. I have to tell you, there is a significant portion of C-Span’s programming that can cure insomnia, but when they broadcast the presenters and panels from the Aspen Security Forum, it will be as NBC used to call it, “Must See TV!”

To understand why I write that, here’s a rundown of some sessions (with video hyperlinks):

Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

When your opening speaker travels all the way from Kabul to Tel Aviv to Aspen to take part in the program, it’s a pretty good indicator that the organizers are up to something big. That was especially true with Adm. Mullen. Coming off a week where Gen. McChrystal was taken out by a large Rolling Stone and replaced by Gen. Petraeus, and then traveling to Afghanistan and Israel to assuage any fears and concerns they may have about the big changes, Mullen made news by essentially not making news. While his comments about the state of the nation’s counter insurgency policy dovetailed those of the White House’s, the plainspoken manner in which they were delivered conveyed the gravity of the situation our military forces are faced with in Afghanistan. His comments about Iran’s nuclear ambitions – “They’ve given us no reason to trust them” – also spoke volumes about what few measures the Administration has left at its disposal in dealing with them.

Aviation Security Panel

There is probably no other facet of the post-9/11 world that Americans gripe about more than dealing with aviation security, but as the CEO of the Air Transport Association (ATA), Jim May, said, “What’s your alternative?” Joined by Erroll Southers of USC’s CREATE Program (and the first Obama Administration nominee to lead TSA) and Christopher Bidwell of the Airport Council International, this panel laid on the table the very real threats and frustrations that accompany this portion of the security environment. One of the most interesting things discussed was the use of full-body imaging devices by airports to screen passengers. While recognizing the civil rights and privacy concerns that people have about them, Jim May of ATA shared that he thought they should be mandatory. When it came to addressing the Government Accountability Office’s recently issued criticisms of TSA’s Behavioral Detection efforts, May and the other panelists pointed out that this program was part of many layers of security, and there was no one-size-fits-all solution or silver bullet that would reduce the aviation risks faced today.

Fran Townsend, former Homeland Security Advisor to President Bush

There are many things that have been written and said about Fran Townsend, the former Homeland Security Advisor to President Bush (43), but the word “shy” is not one that would be used to describe her. The only thing that could possibly surpass the candor of her public comments when she was working as a government employee was her candor in being a former government employee. With no holds barred, Townsend explained that, “We have a reason to expect we can connect the dots this time” given all of the post 9/11 work that has been done.

In a more than hour-long conversation with Walter Isaccson, the CEO of the Aspen Institute, and the Security Forum audience, Townsend pounded on the fact that much still needs to be done to improve information sharing amongst intelligence and law enforcement agencies across the board. Her declaration that there still needed to be a senior level official or “Cabinet Agency,” but “not a czar,” to “pound these government agencies into submission to do information sharing.” Her proposal that an NGO, public-private partnership, rather than a solely government-led approach to address the growing cyber security risks, was also interesting.

Bill Bratton, former Chief, Los Angeles Police Department

Dubbed by many media outlets as “America’s Top Cop” for having led the police departments of Boston, New York City and Los Angeles, I think Bill Bratton surprised everyone at the program when he explained how the terror attacks in Mumbai, India caused him to change the entire structure of the LAPD. His interview with CNN’s Jeanne Meserve detailed how 60 days after those attacks, he was able to transform his police department with new training, exercises and more. The relatively simply trained Mumbai terrorists were not interested in holding hostages; in fact, they were using so-called negotiations to buy time to kill more people. This showed Bratton that he had to change how his department was positioned to respond to a similar event, should it occur in Los Angeles.

Michael Leiter, Director of the National Counter Terrorism Center

For a man that much of Washington thought would have his head handed to him following the failed information sharing efforts surrounding the failed Christmas Day attack, Michael Leiter, the Director of the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC), displayed all of the skill and confidence that make him one of a few Bush Administration appointees to successfully transition into the Obama Administration. His description of his job, his work with the President to report on the range of threats to the country and how he thinks information sharing needs to work made this particular presentation one of the most revealing and compelling of the entire program. Interviewed by Michael Isikoff, a former Newsweek reporter and now Chief Investigative Correspondent for NBC News, ended up producing some great back and forth between the two men that was as revealing as it was humorous. This session again explained more about Leiter’s job and the mission of the NCTC than any government report or Congressional hearing to date.

Border Security Panel

Despite the countless GAO and IG reports and the many hearings before the U.S. House and Senate, there was no better overview of America’s border security than a panel made up of:

Bob Mocny, Director of DHS’ US VISIT Program;
Mark Borkowski, Director of CBP’s Secure Border Initiative (SBI); and
Steve Oswald, Vice President of Boeing.

These three gentlemen described what worked, what didn’t, what could be better and what the future may look like on programs that have regularly been making news for years. In presenting the details of these newsworthy programs, they did so with none of the drama or hysterics that are so often associated with the Congressional hearings that have exhaustively covered the respective programs. What each of them said frankly offered more substantive insight than any of the previous Congressional hearings have produced to date. That was an observation made not just by the conference attendees but also by the first-tier media, congressional staff and others who have observed each of these respective programs closely. Truth be told, if you want to know what is really happening with US VISIT and the Secure Border Initiative (minus the belligerent questions and political posturing), spending 90 minutes watching this panel when it is aired on C-Span will be time well spent.

Attending News Media

As I mentioned, the conference was a literal “who’s who” of notable current and former national and homeland security leaders, and the same could be said for the attending members of the media. With CNN’s Jeanne Meserve, Fox News’ Catherine Herridge, the Washington Post’s Spencer Hsu, Newsweek’s/NBC News’ Michael Isikoff, and more, it seemed as if there was a representative from every major news outlet, print and broadcast media in attendance. While many of them were there to serve as session/panel moderators for the various parts of the program, the entire forum was a reservoir of information for them on today’s security concerns and a background on the actions of the past. It was also a treasure trove for journalists in developing future sources for national and homeland security news stories.

Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security

After consecutive 12-hour days of literally (albeit pleasantly) waterboarding attendees with tons of substantive content, it’s hard to figure out how to end a program such as that in Aspen, but they picked a great closer in former DHS Secretary Chertoff. Whether it was the fact that he’s been out of office for almost a year and half and doesn’t have to worry about a 2 AM phone call from National Operations Center about someone doing something vile to the homeland, Chertoff’s candor and demeanor crystallized for everyone the seriousness of the threats we face while also assuring we should continue to go about our regular lives. As one of the very few “senior statesmen” on homeland issues that we have in this country, his conversation with Fox News’ Catherine Herridge conveyed the balance that we need to have when planning for and operating against the range of risks we face.

A wondering disappointment

I can say without doubt that I loved every moment at the Aspen Institute, but I can’t sign off without discussing the one disappointment that I and many others had in the presentation by DHS Deputy Secretary, Jane Holl Lute. Whether it was her discomfort at the conversational interview format led by CNN’s Jeanne Meserve, her fear in the week after the McChrystal debacle, not wanting to say anything to cause problems for herself or the Administration, or the fact that maybe she was having a bad day, her presentation left the overwhelming majority of attendees scratching their heads in wonder as to the real story at the Department.

All of the questions that were asked by Meserve were fair and nothing was out of the ordinary, but Lute’s responses were defensive, sometimes evasive and could have been dramatically better. Time and time again in her hour long session there were questions to which she could have responded with hard and fast examples of the Department’s accomplishments. Instead, she offered simplistic, almost apple-pie like anecdotal responses that left the audience wondering why she wouldn’t answer the most basic of questions.

When she stated, “the [U.S.] border has never been more secure,” and offered no facts to prove that statement, portions of the audience looked around at one another in shock while others openly chortled at the declaration.

When it came time for Q&A with the audience, the tenor of her responses seemed to be even more defensive. When Michael Isikoff asked her about her statement on the border’s security and her metrics to prove that it had never been more secure, Lute seemed to bristle at the question. She firmly retorted, “The Secretary has been very clear on what those metrics are,” and effectively cut him off.

Lute’s response referred to the speech Secretary Napolitano delivered at CSIS the week before, when she declared, “the U.S. border has never been more secure…but there is more work to be done” and that “no one is satisfied with the status quo.”

In that speech, Secretary Napolitano detailed a series of metrics to back up her statement, but none of those were shared by Lute with Isikoff or the observing audience. In speaking with Isikoff and some of the other attendees after her remarks, none of them were aware of the CSIS speech and the metrics behind the powerful declaration. To the credit of the Department, Bob Mocny and Mark Borkowski did an exceptional job during their joint appearance on the Border Security panel explaining why DHS leadership is stating things have improved on the border.

It is certainly a debatable point to make a declaration like the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary have made in recent forums about border security. When you back it up with information and facts, it provides some measure of credibility and fosters informed debate. When you state it and don’t want to defend it with facts, it leaves people wondering why you would state something like that and not be able to prove it. After her appearance in Aspen, a lot of people were left wondering about the Deputy Secretary, and after viewing her session either on-line or on C-Span, I expect there will be a lot more.

Final thoughts

All of our time is valuable, and God knows we don’t have enough of it, but if you can set your DVRs to record the Aspen Security Forum or go to the Aspen Institute webpage and download panels for your Ipod/MP3 player – DO IT. Think of each of the respective sessions as graduate level courses shared by esteemed faculty who have the real life scar tissue and experiences to tell you what happened and what we can all do better. If you do, I’m confident you will walk away from each session with a lot more knowledge and a bit of a mild headache too. That’s what pleasant informational waterboarding will do to you, but I have to say, it is much more enjoyable amongst the mountains and beautiful vistas of Aspen.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Border Security, Congress, Politics & PR, Critical Infrastructure, Cyber Security, Homeland Security & the Internet; Gov't 2.0, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Immigration & Visa Policy, Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Military & Homeland Defense, Private and Physical Security, Science & Technology, Supply Chain Security, Terror Finance, Terror Strategic Analysis, Transportation Security, WMD, Chemical & Biological, counterterrorism | Comments