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April 29, 2010 ca·tas·tro·phe kuh-tas-truh-fee noun
Filed under: Risk Assessment, Strategy — by Philip J. Palin on April 29, 2010 A great, often sudden calamity.
A complete failure; a fiasco: The food was cold, the guests quarreled—the whole dinner was a catastrophe. The concluding action of a drama, especially a classical tragedy, following the climax and containing a resolution of the plot.
A sudden violent change in the earth’s surface; a cataclysm. Origin in English: 1540, “reversal of what is expected” (especially a fatal turning point in a drama), from Gk. katastrephein “to overturn,” from kata “down” + strephein “turn” (see strophe). Extension to “sudden disaster” is first recorded 1748.
(See more at dictionary.com) Catastrophe is not a synonym for disaster. Nor is it just a really bad disaster. Catastrophe is measured less in lives lost or financial cost and much more in a consensus that the survivors’ future direction has been fundamentally altered.
By objective measure the death, injury, and destruction involved can be little out of the ordinary. But something in the time, place, or means of the event creates a shared sense of profound discontinuity. In a true catastrophe this discontinuity is confirmed by subsequent events. In his analysis of tragedy, Aristotle explains that katastrophe (often translated as reversal of fortune), “is a change by which the action veers round to its opposite… Thus in the Oedipus, the messenger comes to cheer Oedipus and free him from his alarms about his mother, but by revealing who he is, he produces the opposite effect.” (Aristotle, Poetics XI)
Edmund Spenser adapted the Greek into English. For the contemporary of Shakespeare, poet, and critic, catastrophe is a final ending, a closing, and an explanation of what went on before. The theater of Spenser’s period often featured a sudden plot twist (the Greek strophe means to twist, turn, or plait). Spenser’s catastrophe explains the sudden shift. Today we would more likely use denouement – a French loan-word – for this purpose. In 1755 Samuel Johnson explained in his Dictionary that, “catastrophe is the change or revolution which produces the final event of a dramatick piece, a final event, generally unhappy.” Notice the evolution. Catastrophe is no longer the explanation of the change, but the change itself. A change worthy of catastrophe is significant, unexpected, even revolutionary.
More recently Judge Richard Posner has written a catastrophe is, “an event that is believed to have a very low probability of materializing but that if it does materialize will produce harm so great and sudden as to seem discontinuous with the flow of events that preceded it.” (Catastrophe: Risk and Response). While less than elegant, Posner’s definition is helpful in highlighting how catastrophe is different from disaster: “low probability of materializing” and therefore unexpected, most of our disasters are not only expected, but seasonal.
“harm so great and sudden” retrieves the ancient aspect of not just unexpected, but being precipitous and dramatic, and as a result having particular shock value. “as to seem discontinuous with the flow of events that preceded” is especially important in highlighting the key aspect of how the meaning of the event is perceived. Aristotle might ask, “Is the event understood as beginning, middle, or end?”
The National Response Framework defines catastrophe as, “any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions. The NRF definition has preserved some of the dramatic elements of catastrophe in pointing to extraordinary and severe outcomes. The shock value may be embedded in concern for “national morale.” But the NRF’s authors have neglected the role of surprise and the key role of a sudden shift in story-line, the reversal of what has been expected.
My own definition: A catastrophe is an event that involves an unusual scale of death, injury and destruction; experienced – directly or indirectly – across a broad scope of territory and/or by a substantial population; involving wide-spread secondary effects that amplify the original scope and scale of the event; perceived by most as a complete surprise; and which transforms the society’s sense of self (generally unhappy, but I am personally interested in how such reversal-of-fortune might also be for the good). To engage the risk of catastrophe it is necessary to deal effectively with each of these issues: scale, scope, secondary effects, surprise, and the social definition of the event’s meaning. In scanning many so-called catastrophes, it seems to me that surprise and society’s perception of the event have the greatest influence. The less surprise, the more confident the society’s response; the more confident the society’s response, the less catastrophic the perceived results. The less catastrophic the perception, the more complete – and even improved – the recovery.
For further consideration: Earthly Powers: Disasters are about People and Planning (The Economist, April 24, 2010)
Worst-Case Scenarios by Cass Sunstein Catastrophe Theory by Vladimir I. Arnold
Reading List for a graduate course in catastrophe offered by The London Consortium. Share This Post:
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Permalink 9 Comments » April 28, 2010
But Wait, There’s More! Filed under: Border Security, General Homeland Security, Immigration, Strategy — by Mark Chubb on April 28, 2010
Like many other policy wonks, I like few things better than a powerful metaphor that describes the state of thinking on an important issue or question. One of the comments provided in response to Jessica Herrera-Flanagan’s post last week presented just such an opportunity. Defining the mission of the Department of Homeland Security — and possibly by extension all of homeland security — in terms of gatekeeping and coordination gave me just such food for thought. The power of a metaphor is sometimes not what it describes, but what it does not. That was the case for me in this instance.
Having spent most of my career working in or near local government, I have acquired a different, more instrumental view of the role of government as a provider and protector. As such, I usually see the range of options as representing a broad continuum of overlapping alternatives rather than a simple choice between competing conceptions of the good or right. These alternatives almost invariably involve subtle distinctions about the level or nature of the engagement between government and other stakeholders required to achieve a particular set of outcomes. This framing helps me attend to both the means and the ends, because both matter to constituents and citizens. This is important, because it is often difficult to discern which will matter more in any given circumstance until a particular situation arises.
So what does this continuum look like for homeland security? I equate gatekeeping with command/control interventions where the output (keep undocumented an undesirable immigrants from entering the country) substitutes for the intended outcome (protect individual citizens, the society, its culture, and the economy from the adverse effects of illegal immigration). Coordination equates with little more than avoiding or minimizing conflicts rather than sharing the process of making meaning through the definition and resolution of those conflicts that inevitably arise in any complex, interdependent relationship. Gatekeeping, as a command/control strategy, does a good job of avoiding the trap of focusing on inputs or input-output relationship while leaving unexplored the larger question of whether or not the output and outcome (secure borders and unfettered liberty) are related much less the same. Coordination all too often falls into the same trap, by assuming too much about the nature of the ends/means dichotomy and the relationships of these parts and the stakeholders to them. Perhaps this explains why our current approach to homeland security, especially as it relates to immigration control, is such a dismal failure?
communication-inspiration-continuum-b-w1 What then are the alternatives? Before considering alternatives we need to distinguish between means and ends. When we focus on the means, especially when we assume the goals or outcomes are already well-understood and shared by all participants, we may find it both expedient and efficient to focus our energy through command strategies that require little inspiration (especially on the parts of others) and only one-way communication (from us to them).
When the ends are shared, but multiple paths lead to the same destination and there is some risk that participants left to choose their own way will select intersecting paths that create conflicts at key junctions, we may engage strategies that seek to avoid or minimize the potential for such conflicts. Again, these strategies require little inspiration on the part of others. On the other hand, decision-makers and leaders do need sufficient imagination to foresee potential conflicts, especially if you hope to communicate your understanding of the end-game in terms clear enough and compelling enough to gain the parties’ consent to take actions that get everyone to their destination without getting in the each other’s way. When means are scarce or ends require you to mobilize the efforts of others (sound familiar), a cooperation strategy often makes sense. Such a strategy involves commitments, which require a more inspired view of what’s at stake or what’s to be gained by one or all participants. As the number of participants, the complexity of the processes involved, or the scope and scale of the products expected to result from the processes expand, so too does the need for communication among those involved.
Complex problems, especially those that defy straightforward solutions, usually require a more inspired approach, which often if not always, requires participants to share commitments to both the means and the ends. A true collaboration does not require anyone to sacrifice their identity, but it does require them to work together in ways that create shared objectives and meaning, both of which often take the form of sacrifices for the sake of success. Each of these strategies builds on the other. Even in a large and complex collaboration, some elements of a shared program may depend upon simpler strategies that involve cooperation, coordination or even outright command approaches. What gives these tactics meaning is the shared commitment among participants to defining when, where, how and by whom these approaches are employed.
What does all of this have to do with homeland security? Well in the case of border control for just one issue, the nation remains deeply divided about the nature of the problem. With the possible exception of the people of First Nations, we share an immigrant past. Our economy today depends in no small way on the contributions of immigrants, many of whom arrived here legally and others who did not. Even those here without appropriate documentation or legal status often contribute not only their labor, but their wealth to support the state and its citizen even when they themselves can neither access nor enjoy many of these services such as health care, social security, workers’ compensation insurance, and unemployment benefits. The threats posed by illegal immigrants often arise not from their status or their habits, but the criminalization of their status by the host society. When we make it impossible for immigrants to participate freely much less fully in our society, we leave them little choice but to fend for themselves or find another way. All too often, they find the only way open to them is to associate with elements who have no regard for either their welfare or ours.
Applying a different lens to a homeland security issue like immigration and border control allows us to see the folly of our current approach. Gatekeepers can never fully secure our borders. Even if they could, some legal immigrants would find compelling reasons to remain in the country beyond the limits imposed by their visas. Criminalizing their status makes it more difficult to resolve the issues their continued presence presents to both us and them. When people are forced to choose between liberty and security, as we have seen time and again since 9/11, they will almost always choose security. What then would happen if we choose to coordinate, cooperate, or even collaborate to resolve the issues related to immigration and border control?
Working with immigrant communities, immigrants’ home countries, local employers, labor unions, and government officials at every level to provide legal paths to economic participation and citizenship serves everyone’s interests. Such an approach does not involve an open door policy, but neither does it mean closing the gate after the horse bolts. A collaboration would require careful consideration of the needs that inspire immigration and provide a safe haven for undocumented immigrants once they arrive. Such an understanding requires two-way, if not multi-way, communication that creates a clear understanding of the labor markets and conditions among all participants so they can craft safe, secure pathways for participation that not only meet everyone’s needs. Doing so would help temper prospective immigrants’ expectations while affording those who play by the rules appropriate opportunities to climb the ladder toward acquiring citizenship or permanent residence.
Such a process would not eliminate the need to set immigration standards, control borders, or deport those who violate the laws. We would still need to apply command/control and coordination strategies, but their place in striking a balance between security and liberty would be better defined and tied to an understanding of the economic incentives that inspire immigration. Moving toward creating such as system would require us to abandon an approach that does little more than make de facto criminals of those who come here to make a contribution that arguably provides mutual benefits to both them and us. If we want more security when it comes to immigration and border control, we need to acknowledge and accept the inspirational power of liberty, in both an economic and cultural sense. If we take concrete steps to expand access to it among those willing to work with us to build the nation, we will not only expand prosperity but extend the legacy of diversity that immigration has granted us as well. Together these benefits will almost certainly promote more stable, just, and secure borders and border control arrangements in the process.
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April 27, 2010 Homeland Security in states, cities and other locales: a 30,000 foot view
Filed under: State and Local HLS — by Christopher Bellavita on April 27, 2010 Since 2003, a group of my professional colleagues has been conducting half-day seminars on homeland security issues across the country.
To date, over 170 of these seminars have been held in state capitals, and in urban and rural areas. The attendees generally include the jurisdictions’ chief executives and other leaders with homeland security responsibilities. A typical seminar is three to four hours, and is built around one or more incidents. It is similar to a tabletop exercise in many respects. But calling it a seminar is intended to emphasize the educational — as opposed to the training — nature of the conversation.
The objectives of individual seminars differ. But the basic purpose is to take a snapshot of where a particular jurisdiction is with respect to homeland security, and to discuss how to improve its preparedness. Here is a summary of the most recent - early 2010 — aggregate observations from the seminars (provided to me by a colleague who participates in most of the sessions).
What contributes to success. Since 2003, the level of homeland security sophistication at all levels of government has substantially increased. The result is an overall increase in the level of preparedness across the country.
Despite political and bureaucratic rivalries, state and local leaders generally accepted the preparedness challenge following September 11, 2001. While initially cumbersome and sometimes controversial, homeland security grant funds have contributed to enhancing capabilities — equipment, training, and policy. It is unlikely those capabilities would have increased without the grant funds.
State and urban law enforcement executives have made a strong commitment to establish intelligence fusion centers and tactical response teams. This also has enhanced national preparedness. Continuing challenges
Coordination between federal, state and local governments, and private sector partners to prevent, prepare for, and respond to acts of terrorism and other disasters has improved. But in many locales coordination is still problematic. Balancing preparedness for natural disasters versus terrorism related emergencies remains a difficult task.
Protection and resiliency of cyber and other critical infrastructure against acts of terrorism and natural disasters remains insufficient. There is a continuing need to address emerging threats through the development and deployment of nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological detection capabilities.
Sharing information and intelligence between federal, state, local agencies, and the private sector remains a work in progress. While there has been significant success over the past seven years, information sharing requires additional attention. Problem areas related to risk
Eight and a half years after the 2001 attacks, the country still does not have a national prevention strategy or a framework for prevention. Many states lack the baseline knowledge needed to allow them to assess their vulnerabilities.
The nation continues to lack a culture of preventative risk management, where public, private, and nonprofit organizations collaborate in a shared effort to reduce risk. With some exceptions, private and nonprofit organizations are not included in public planning for risk management.
There is a continuing need to identify cost-effective ways for organizations to calibrate their response to risk more appropriately and more efficiently than is currently the case. Attention to food security and safety issues needs to become a higher priority.
Where critical problem areas remain There has been limited success translating emerging threats into state and local actions, primarily because of the many real and perceived limits on states and cities.
State and local budget deficits are likely to affect implementing plans for increased readiness. This is particularly true since many jurisdictions do not perceive the current threat of major terrorist attacks to be high. There remains a lack of substantial progress building adequate medical surge capacity across the nation.
There has been limited success collaboratively addressing the threat of cyber attacks. The response capabilities for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and improvised nuclear devices (INDs) remains inadequate to meet the demands of the changing threat environment.
It is becoming increasingly difficult in cities and states to sustain a commitment to homeland security and to avoid complacency. The future of state and local sustainment
State and local contributions to homeland security spending is at risk. At least 48 states have to address shortfalls in their fiscal year 2010 budgets. As of February 2010, shortfalls exceeded $150 billion.
At least 36 states already anticipate deficits in 2011. By some authoritative estimates, the next fiscal year’s deficits could exceed $180 billion. There will be 37 races for governor in 2010.
Because of term limitations and voluntary decisions not to seek reelection, there will be at least 21 new governors after the November 2010 elections. 2010-governor-race002
New governors and mayors face economic, education, and many other policy demands. How will homeland security stack up against those competing priorities?
Any bets? Now visualize the same bet if there is an attack or a nationally devastating catastrophe.
————————————— In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
He could have been talking about homeland security. Share This Post:
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Permalink 4 Comments » April 26, 2010
Immigration: Front and Center Filed under: Immigration — by Jessica Herrera-Flanigan on April 26, 2010
Immigration reform promises to be the hot topic in the coming weeks as it has moved up the list of policy priorities, thanks in part to a new Arizona law. On Saturday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law SB1070, which requires Arizona police to question anyone “reasonably suspected” of being undocumented. Under existing law, they could only require information on someone’s status if the person is suspected of a crime. Legal immigrants are required to have their immigration paperwork handy. The law is the most restrictive state immigration law in the nation and has generated a great deal of attention, especially for its potential to encourage racial profiling.
On Friday, President Obama criticized the bill and has ordered the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to monitor developments to assure that civil rights are not being violated. On the Hill, the leading players on immigration reform have been Senators Schumer and Graham, who have been working on a bipartisan piece of legislation that addresses the three prongs of immigration: 1) Enforcement, 2) Future Flow, and 3) Pathway to Citizenship. In late March, the Senators announced a framework for their bill, which was endorsed by President Obama. They have been working on gaining additional support, especially from Republicans, when the Arizona law came along.
As the Arizona legislation was considering SB1070, Senators McCain and Kyl released a Ten Point Border Security Action Plan that included the deployment of 3,000 National Guard troops along the border, along with 3,000 Customs and Border Protection agents and lots and lots of miles of fence. Both are advocating a border security first approach to addressing immigration issues. Ironically, both Senators were supportive of past efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform but are now asserting that the federal government is not doing enough to secure the border. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated last week to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that immigration might be next on the agenda for the Senate, ahead of climate change which many thought was next in the queue. His remarks follow similar comments he made in Arizona that he was committed to immigration reform. Senator Schumer is expected to reach out to a number of Republican Senators, including those President Obama called last week - Senators Brown, Murkowski, LeMieux, Lugar, and Gregg - in order to get a deal that can move forward.
Complicating things is that Senator Graham is also the leading Republican on the bipartisan climate change legislation. The unveiling of that bill, which was supposed to be released by Senators Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham today, has temporarily been canceled. While Senator Graham has not walked away from discussions with Senator Schumer, he did send out a letter to many involved in the climate bill process, stating that his participation in climate discussions was being adversely affected by Senator Reid’s decision to move immigration next. In the House, Speaker Pelosi has indicated that the House will move immigration legislation — if the Senate passes something first.
A lot of activity with lots more expected. There is little question that immigration reform is much needed — the question for policymakers is how to do it successfully so as not to replicate the failures of the 2007 attempt to address the issue. Share This Post:
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Permalink 3 Comments » April 23, 2010
Homeland Security - What Is it? Filed under: General Homeland Security — by Jessica Herrera-Flanigan on April 23, 2010
In last Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano offers the “First Person Singular” view of her job at DHS and how she got to it. She recounts her path to Secretary, revealing tidbits of memories from growing up in New Mexico and Arizona. It is an interesting yet short read that gives a personalized view of the Secretary in her own words. Near the end of the piece she writes “There’s almost nothing I’ve done that doesn’t touch upon DHS. The department crosses so many things.” Those two sentences summarizes the struggle that has and will likely to continue to face the fledgling agency. It is a question that many of us working in the space have asked ourselves - what is Homeland Security? Is it anything and/or everything?
Fellow HLSWatch contributor Chris Bellavita wrote an article in June 2008 in Homeland Security Affairs exploring this very question. He asserted that there were seven defensible definitions of homeland security: terrorism, all hazards, terrorism and catastrophes, jurisdictional hazards, meta hazards, national security, and security uber alles. Looking for more of a concrete answer, I turned to the Internet and social media.
In the About the Department section of DHS’s website, we learn that “The Department of Homeland Security has a vital mission: to secure the nation from the many threats we face. This requires the dedication of more than 230,000 employees in jobs that range from aviation and border security to emergency response, from cybersecurity analyst to chemical facility inspector. Our duties are wide-ranging, but our goal is clear – keeping America safe.” Wikipedia tells us that homeland security “is an umbrella term for security efforts to protect the United States against perceived internal and external threats.”
The White House’s homeland security page, has a wide-range of issues listed as areas in which the Administration has made progress, from strategies for Afghanistan and Pakistan, to disaster relief, to border security, to cybersecurity, to surface transportation security. In the Guiding Principles section of the site, we learn that: The President’s highest priority is to keep the American people safe. He is committed to ensuring the United States is true to our values and ideals while also protecting the American people. The President is committed to securing the homeland against 21st century threats by preventing terrorist attacks and other threats against our homeland, preparing and planning for emergencies, and investing in strong response and recovery capabilities. We will help ensure that the Federal Government works with states and local governments, and the private sector as close partners in a national approach to prevention, mitigation, and response.
Still searching for an answer or definition, I took to Facebook and posted the question “What is Homeland Security?” on my status update, soliciting opinions from friends across the geographic and political spectrum. The responses I received were as diverse as the group who responded. On one side, many folks raised concerns that homeland security was often perceived as being just one thing or another -aviation security, border security, or disaster relief, to the detriment of other areas. On the other side, I heard from folks - some who were in the trenches of operational issues - that components under DHS were “distracted” from their original missions. One person wrote about appearance versus security, noting “DHS needs to be less about the appearance of presence and more about the vigorous attention needed to ensure that our ports (both sea and air) and borders are adequately guarded.”
In the end, views from Facebook were as varied as those I had heard from experts and policy wonks inside the beltway, with each focusing on their little part of homeland security or asserting that homeland security had to be a little bit of anything and everything. Of course, the challenge of being anything and everything is that the universe of what is covered is constantly expanding. As we have experienced over the past several years, it is not difficult to add the word “security” to an issue and have a homeland security matter on one’s hands. Add in the possibility that folks will substitute “security” for “safety,” and DHS’ universe could be infinite.
Maybe homeland security is just indicative of today’s busy lifestyles where people are constantly multi-tasking and trying to do anything and everything. I did a search online and found an article entitled “You can do anything - but not everything,” published by Fast Company magazine in 2000. The piece quotes a personal productivity expert who says that the real challenge in life is not managing one’s time, but managing one’s focus: “If you get too wrapped up in all of the stuff coming at you, you lose your ability to respond appropriately and effectively.” The article’s conclusion, echoing its title, is that “You can do anything — but not everything.”
Unfortunately, that simply is not an answer for Secretary Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security. Perhaps it really is about what Chris concluded in his 2008 article: The absence of agreement can be seen as grist for the continued evolution of homeland security as a practice and as an idea.
Even if people did agree to define homeland security with a single voice, there would still be the matter of behavior. What people, organizations, and jurisdictions do is as instructive as what they say. Share This Post:
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Permalink 10 Comments » April 22, 2010
No rush to judgment here Filed under: Organizational Issues, Strategy — by Philip J. Palin on April 22, 2010
Late last week Secretary Napolitano was in the Boston area. She announced a new grant for Logan airport, visited with the Boston police commissioner and Cambridge firefighters, officiated at the swearing-in of new citizens, gave a speech at Harvard, and had a round-table discussion with nine college presidents. (Do you occasionally worry our cabinet secretaries have been remade into little more than mouthpieces, kept busy doing testimony, media interviews, speeches, and announcements?) In a read-out of the closed door session with higher education leaders DHS tells us, “During the meeting, Secretary Napolitano highlighted the Department’s strong partnerships with universities including support for training, coursework in homeland security-related fields and industries, and for research and development in science and technology, such as the DHS Centers of Excellence, which bring together multidisciplinary homeland security research and education assets of more than 200 institutions across the country.”
The Boston Globe reports, “she was in Cambridge meeting with college and university presidents to discuss new courses and majors aimed at preparing graduates to enter the field of cybersecurity.” In remarks at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government the Secretary noted, “Combating the cyber threat is going to require a partnership among government, academia, and the private sector as ambitious and sustained as any our nation has seen before. And I should say to the bright students here that DHS wants the best minds coming out of our universities to come join us in this effort.” I have a second-hand report (good enough for a blog?) that the session with university presidents was mostly about science and technology research grants, not about homeland security education or professional development. This is not a surprise and says much more about the role of modern universities and their presidents, than about homeland security or the Secretary. (And suggests homeland security officials are not the only ones with a serious grants habit, see Dan O’Connor’s Tuesday post.)
On the same day the Secretary of Homeland Security was meeting with higher education leaders in Boston, the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, was in Atlanta. According to Georgia Public Broadcasting, “Duncan paid a visit telling students that America has to educate itself to a better economy by improving science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM subjects.” The Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) released in February emphasizes, “Maturing and strengthening the homeland security enterprise includes enhancing shared awareness of risks and threats, building capable communities, fostering unity of effort, and fostering innovative approaches and solutions through leading-edge science and technology.”
Am I working too hard to connect some dots (smudges?) or might there be a pattern here? Science and technology - like mom and apple pie - attract widespread support. Investments in research and development for these hard-subjects (”hard” as in practical and difficult) are measurable and meaningful… for me too.
But read the QHSR’s paragraph again. What is the role of science and technology in shared awareness of risk and threats? We have lots of technology to gather, sort and display information on risks and threats. What we don’t have is a shared understanding of what is meaningful to gather, what is helpful to sort, and how to interpret the results. That’s a judgment call. How about building capable communities? Science and technology certainly have a role in infrastructure development. But given the QHSR’s attention to psychological and community resilience, I perceive its definition of “capable” goes well beyond the boundaries of science and technology. How do we build a capable community? It depends on the context of the particular community, doesn’t it? It depends on the purposes we seek to advance, doesn’t it? Capable of what? It’s a judgment call.
Scan the QHSR table of contents and there are plenty of opportunities for science and technology to support good judgment. But mostly we are given complex, constantly changing contexts beyond the capacity of precise prediction. Once upon a time, we presumed to teach good judgment. This was always a dicey business. Since the 1960s - after what many saw as a series of profoundly bad judgments - the notion of good judgment has been widely discredited as self-serving fiction.
In this we have neglected to understand how and why well-intentioned men (mostly) made tragically flawed judgments. We are increasingly inclined to ex post facto assessments of every judgment. If we like the results, the judgment is good. If the result is not satisfactory, there can now be a compulsion to uncover deceit and deception. And in any case, the culture insists that threat, vulnerability and consequence should be predictable. In this confidence regarding predictability we are, I perceive, indulging the fatal flaw at the heart of the worst kind of judgment. In those ancient days when we earnestly endeavored to teach good judgment, we learned that hubris - trying to control what is beyond our control - is the tripwire for tragedy. Toward the end of his life Robert McNamara wrote, “…it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate.” This is the beginning of wisdom. McGeorge Bundy, another of the Sixties best and brightest, tells us, “There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.” Two of the tragedy’s main characters seemed to learned its lesson. But those of us in the audience?
How do we choose well when we cannot - when no one can - be sure of the outcome? How do we choose well when the risks of failure are real? How do we choose well when threats are unpredictable, vulnerabilities are inherent to our liberty, and the consequences could be catastrophic? It’s a judgment call. Is it too late to retrieve - or create anew - the teaching and learning of good judgment?
For further consideration: Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
Aristotle’s Ethics by Richard Kraut (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Making a Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue by Nancy Sherman The Aims of Education by Alfred North Whitehead Educating the Reflective Practitioner by Donald A. Schon
Justice: A Journey in Moral Reasoning by Michael J. Sandel (video)Share This Post: Digg
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April 21, 2010 Volunteer Does Not Equal Free
Filed under: Budgets and Spending, General Homeland Security, Organizational Issues, Preparedness and Response, State and Local HLS — by Mark Chubb on April 21, 2010 Monday night, I fronted up to a meeting of my community’s Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) volunteer leaders. (NET is our local implementation of the Community Emergency Response Team concept promoted by FEMA through Citizen Corps). The session was a stark reminder just how far the local emergency management agenda has strayed from the community’s priorities because of federal grant requirements and the expectations of elected officials that we not only seek such grants but use them whenever possible rather than seeking additional support from general fund revenues.
As the senior civil servant in our emergency management agency, I oversee the NET program but sit a couple of levels above the actual program manager. As such, I have relatively little day-to-day contact with our volunteers, who now number more than 1,000 organized into roughly 30 teams spread across the city. Each volunteer receives standard training consistent with the federal CERT curriculum delivered by a cadre of full-time emergency responders and seasoned volunteers. After that, each one is issued a fluorescent vest, hard hat, and ID card and send on her way.
Over the 15 or so years the program has been running, teams have largely been left to organize and administer themselves. Team leaders receive little additional training and no formal mentoring. Anyone who receives training is welcome to play or not play according to their individual willingness to do so. No one is excluded from training due to age, physical ability, prior criminal history, or other limitations or associations. As such, our volunteer corps, although quite diverse, is not necessarily representative of all segments of our community, nor organized to instill confidence in those who do not participate. From the outset, program managers and volunteers alike have assumed that in the event of a serious emergency, such as a major earthquake, the teams would deploy themselves without need of instructions or assignments from a central command authority. Their training would dictate the priorities and rules of engagement as situations warranted: Assess damage, identify and isolate hazards, organize bystanders and others, render assistance when able, communicate conditions and resource requirements to the nearest fire station, and follow the instructions of emergency responders when they arrive.
Until recently, the system managed to get along in spite of itself. But recently, as the community responded to the H1N1 pandemic by establishing community vaccination clinics, it became evident that things were not working as well as some of us had assumed or perhaps simply hoped. For starters, people were reluctant to step forward. This sort of mission was not what they had in mind when they signed up for training. Others expressed concern that they would be exposed to the disease and might become ill themselves or transmit the illness to someone in their household who was otherwise vulnerable. And still others found it difficult to accommodate the commitment in already busy schedules crowded with other obligations.
All of these explanations seemed reasonable enough and were little cause for concern. What we did not expect was a backlash from some quarters that suggested we were taking advantage of our volunteers to provide free labor for something that the government had not adequately prepared for and which they considered could hardly be called an emergency. Others complained that they were being asked to come to the aid of others besides their neighbors since most clinics were organized in poor communities with inadequate access to health care and a high number of uninsured residents. And still others questioned whether we knew what we were doing at all since no one had prepared them for such responsibilities much less organized them to respond to such situations beforehand. The latter group of responses not only raised some eyebrows, but also, when contrasted with the first group of responses, suggested a very real gap had emerged between preparations and expectations. A lack of consistent communication between the agency and its volunteers as well as among the volunteers themselves had left people to make up their own explanations for what they saw heppening in the community.
Recently, evidence of this problem took on new urgency as rifts among volunteers and groups surfaced over even more mundane issues. Emails began flying back and forth among team leaders questioning one another’s motives and the city’s support for the program. In all of these communications, one thing became clear: People felt they had lost control of something valuable and wanted it back. Moreover, they were willing, if the need arose, to fight for it. Others suggested the fight had already begun, and were prepared to make that clear if anyone was in doubt. Now, there are far worse positons to find oneself in than this. People who are passionate about something will sometimes express themselves about it in ways that others find unpleasant, antagonistic, or at least irritating. If you can get past that, though, something positive can happen.
When we got together last night about 50 team leaders assembled to tell us what was on their minds. Some had been building up a head of steam for awhile, others wondered what hit them, and still others simply ducked until the fur stopped flying. In the end, the sideshow issues about ID cards, t-shirts, advanced training opportunities, and other administrivia were pushed aside and people agreed that three things were important above all else: The program is about preparedness not volunteerism.
Our volunteers play a vital role in communicating with our community about risk, readiness, and resilience. And we need to show our volunteers that we value them by communicating consistently about issues of importance.
It will take a lot more than saying these things to make them happen though. Our volunteers and staff both recognize that disaster survivors and neighbors are the real first-responders. They know that investments in preparedness pay big dividends when disaster strikes by minimizing demands on emergency services and expediting the transition to recovery. They understand implicitly that what we can do together makes a bigger difference than what we do alone, and they actively engage others in an ever expanding web of relationships that fosters resilience.
But they are also torn by what they must do. Our small agency has 15 full-time staff, but only one works directly with these volunteers. And even that position has responsibilities beyond training and supporting the NET volunteers. Ensuring the effectiveness of this program requires substantial investments in relationships with agencies and community partners who support the training our volunteers receive. Volunteers too have competing demands on their time and attentions. Some would become full-time volunteers if we asked them. Others only want to get involved when the need is urgent. Most will do what they can when they can, often with a smile. But none of them will do any of this for long unless someone at least acknowledges what they are doing and encourages them to keep it up.
We know our NET program works. We can tell anytime our volunteers get together just by the passion they display and the skills they exhibit. But this program still receives less support than almost any other program we deliver. Aside from the funds allocated to developing the training materials themselves and running a few exercises, the cost of delivering the NET training and managing the teams receives no ongoing grant support. Investments made with grant funds in other projects may help leverage the support of our partners in the fire department and other agencies by freeing their resources to support our needs, but these scarce funds are drying up as the fiscal crisis persists. Besides, their support does translate into assistance with the day-to-day operation of the program. So, what does this say about our priorities? I can only answer this question by looking at the gap between our assumptions and our expectations. Judging by that, we as a larger community of emergency management and homeland security professionals and policy-makers have assumed for far too long that volunteer means free. This can be taken one or both of two ways: 1) free as in without cost and 2) without responsibility or accountability. As it turns out, neither assumption is correct.
The opportunity cost of ignoring volunteers in exchange for making investments in hardware and software rears its ugly head sooner or later. Eventually, disgruntled if not disorganized volunteers will, as ours did Monday night, remind you that the liveware — the people and relationships that make up a community — are assets to be invested in not just protected or neglected. Share This Post:
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Permalink 6 Comments » April 20, 2010
Smarting from grant crack Filed under: General Homeland Security — by Christopher Bellavita on April 20, 2010
Today’s post was written by Daniel W. O’Connor ———————
What is the value of education? With respect to my valued friends in academia, in my perhaps ill informed opinion, the standard education track(s) create a subject matter myopia that blinds one to ancillary domains and data. You get good at really deep introspection on one topic; but there is no lateral pollination.
There are some amazingly brilliant people working in and on homeland security issues. But does all this expertise create gaps in our observed reality and therefore pushes us to focus on the wrong issues? What kind of knowledge worker/leader do we want in Homeland Security? Do we want experts or polymaths? Do we want specialists or generalists? Is it an education issue or simply a leadership one? Where does ideology come into play?
Recently two high profile positions in homeland security arenas in a large state were in the news. One gentlemen was leaving and one coming aboard. Highly educated, both these gentlemen talked about their accomplishments and the challenges ahead. Their concerns were practically identical and mirrored a focus on one particular homeland security function: grants.
One said his primary concerns when he took his job were dealing with a major reduction in the state’s largest homeland security grant and getting more funding. The other gentleman said he was looking forward to managing federal homeland security grants. Here’s Statement Analysis 101: first thoughts are usually their most pressing concerns.
Is this what Homeland Security has become? I mean is it all about the money? Where’s the depth, the knowledge, and understanding of the complexity and intricacy of homeland security? I don’t see it.
Does the leadership these people represent either oversimplify their mission or simply want someone else to pay for their experiments and readiness? Our security seems not hinge on behavior change or resilience, but on money. How much money will it take?
Grants are much like insurance. Those who have it and can get it take more risks than those who do not. The expectation that grants are the panacea for risk mitigation is miserably false, dangerous, and leads to elevated expectations. How much money does it take to effectively secure a nation?
Does using the funds for more M4 rifles or computer terminals make us safer? What about the training required? What about their application? The requirement is never ending. Is this simply the homeland security manifestation of the military industrial congressional complex? In homeland security, why don’t we talk about our risk acceptance index? What is our turbulence tolerance? Why don’t we talk about our economy as a risk? Why don’t we talk about our current immigration policy as a risk? What about our energy policy? What about our personal debt, housing, and of course, our expectations?
How smart do you have to be to see the trance-like focus on grants is wrong? I see grants sort of like overtime pay. Some people become overly accustomed to overtime and create an elevated and false pay scale. Since overtime is not typically a budgeted item, paying it creates organizational shortfalls. Shortfalls create deficits. Then costs have to be trimmed. Since workers are the most expensive and easiest way to reduce budgets, they get axed — creating the need for more overtime. This is cyclical mania.
Grants are the crack of homeland security. If grants were reduced to near zero, what would the safety/security landscape look like? How smart to you have to be to see grants aren’t too effective in meeting the expectations of the citizenry?
Perhaps a study is in order. Share This Post:
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Permalink 4 Comments » April 19, 2010
15 Years Later: Remembering Oklahoma City… Filed under: Events — by Jessica Herrera-Flanigan on April 19, 2010
Today marks the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. At 9:01 am on April 19, 1995, a 20-foot Ryder truck filled with approximately 5,000 pounds of explosives blew up outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. One hundred and sixty eight people, including several children, died. Almost 700 people were injured. President Obama has signed a proclamation designating today as the National Day of Service and Remembrance for Victims and Survivors of Terrorism. Sadly, in looking through this morning’s homeland security news and summaries, there was scant mention of the attack or today’s anniversary. Online, there were a few analysis, but it took some searching to find, with the exception of CNN, which ran a front page analysis and commentary on the attack. Over the weekend, some stories picked up tidbits from an interview from former President Bill Clinton, who noted that today’s political and cultural environment mirrors that that existed in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols carried out their attack.
What does this all mean? Have we forgotten Oklahoma City or have we, nine years after 9/11, after Ford Hood, the Austin IRS plane crash, and numerous-failed attempts and threats, become less sensitized to attacks? At least some polls would say differently. A CBS News poll found that “nearly 40 percent of Americans now believe domestic terrorism is a bigger threat than international terrorism.” The definition of domestic terrorism, as this blog has explored in the past, remains one that is not easily defined. The line between criminal act and terrorism, especially when dealing with lone wolf types, is not easily defined.
That said, there are many lessons learned from the Oklahoma City bombing that we cannot forget if we are to advance our nation’s homeland security efforts. The threat of domestic terrorism remains as real as international terrorism. The threat from domestic extremists - whether left, right, or center is real. The bombing fifteen years ago made that clear. The arrest several weeks ago of members of the Michigan supremacist Militia group “Hutaree,” which had planned to kill police officers and then attack again at their funerals, tell us that the threat remains.
Whether one agrees with Clinton on the parallels between now and 1995, we know that there has been a dramatic growth of hate groups and anti-government groups, brought on in part by the nation’s economic turmoil and an outside-the-beltway frustration with Washington, D.C. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of paramilitary patriot groups increased from 42 to 127 between 2008 and 2009. The number of hate groups grew to 932 in 2009. First Preventers and Responders are Critical. As much funding we put into our national and federal homeland security efforts, terrorism is local. The first individuals on the scene will be the fire fighters and EMTs who live in the community, who will be the hardest hit as the victims will likely be family or friends. The investigators who will likely gather the first pieces of evidence are likely to be the local cops on the beat. Preparing these individuals with the intelligence, communications tools, cooperation capabilities, and knowledge to combat terrorism - regardless of its origin - is critical.
Awareness is Still Key. While none of us should live in a state of panic or full of anxiety over potential attacks, we all must balance staying aware and being prepared with the daily things we do. It is a balance that is not easily found but one that is necessary. About an hour ago, the Annual Remembrance Ceremony at the Oklahoma City National Memorial began. The name of the 168 people who perished that day will be read. Secretary Napolitano will offer remarks about the state of the nation’s terrorism efforts. Hopefully all of us will remember the lessons learned and honor the lives of those affected that day.
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April 19, 1995 Filed under: Terrorist Threats & Attacks — by Philip J. Palin on April 19, 2010
murrahcharles-porter Purposeful abuse of the innocent by the proud calls us to humility and justice.
The image is that of Oklahoma City firefighter Chris Fields cradling Baylee Almon. On April 19, 1995 an attack on the Murrah Federal Building killed 168, including Baylee. The original photograph by Charles Porter won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize.
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April 15, 2010 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Homeland Security TV
Filed under: General Homeland Security, Humor — by Jessica Herrera-Flanigan on April 15, 2010 Every time a lawyer show comes on television, my husband likes to remind that there are no shows that focus on engineers, his chosen profession. He concedes that there are a number of shows on channels like Discovery, History, and Science, but argues that those are not the same as being featured as a wheeler and dealer or hero on prime time. Phil Palin’s post yesterday, Farewell Jack. Welcome to Treme, got me thinking about what my husband has said about engineer-hero shows and whether, beyond 24 and Jack Bauer, any shows exist out there that show the best and worst of homeland security.
The result: a list of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Homeland Security-inspired television. In compiling this list, I have left out made-for-TV movies or mini-series. A few reality shows sneaked on the list, but not in a good way. I did not limit the possible candidates to contemporary programs or programs focused on counterterrorism, choosing instead to include programs that date back more than 40 years and focus on homeland security as broadly defined. I have also included series that have significantly dealt with homeland security issues but may not be solely focused on them. The Good - 10 Shows That Matter
Fringe - A show that features “mad” scientist Walter Bishop, civilian DHS consultant Peter Bishop, FBI agent Olivia Dunham, and DHS Special-Agent-in Charge Phillip Broyles, and their investigations into fringe science occurrences and an alternate universe. The show has featured the pseudo-terrorist organization ZFT, aka Zerstörung durch Fortschritte der Technologie (Destruction Through Technological Progress), which has cells throughout the globe that trade science and technology secrets. In the first episode, Broyles makes the proclamation “Although this is a joint task force, you are all reporting to the Department of Homeland Security.” The Law And Order Franchise- The three NY-based shows making up the franchise, Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, have all addressed terrorism and homeland security in significant ways. Law & Order features Detective Cyrus Lupo, who previously worked in the intelligence division of the NYPD. In addition, it routinely addresses terrorism, privacy, and issues relating to Muslim civil rights. In one episode, it even attempted to put on trial a lawyer/scholar who had written memos while employed at the Justice Department that were used to justify torture in the Middle East. Special Victims had a series of episodes in Season 8 revolving around Detective Olivia Benson and ecoterrorists and several of its episodes have featured Immigration & Customs Enforcement, though usually in a manner that is interfering with the NYPD’s investigations. In its latest episodes, Criminal Intent focused on piracy, Somalia, and attempts to arm possible terrorist cells in Africa.
Lie to Me - Featuring the Lightman Group, the program focuses on a consulting firm that uses microexpressions and body language to determine whether people are telling the truth. Granted, the series is more of a police drama, but it makes the list because it features Ria Torres, who honed her skills at perceiving deception while working as a TSA agent. Her natural ability to tell the good from the bad travelers led to her being recruited to join the mostly high-brow intellectual types at the firm. Third Watch - Running from 1999 to 2005, the show featured first responders and preventers in New York City who worked the “third watch” shift (3pm-11pm). Unlike many programs that featured only one type of first responder, the program had the triumvirate - police, EMTs, and firefighters. The show received wide acclaim for its programming portraying the 9/11 attacks and how it affected the NY first responder/preventer community.
The Agency - Airing from 2001-2003, the program featured real footage of the CIA and focused on the agency’s mission in modern times. Terrorism, Anthrax, Assassinations, Leaked Classified Information, Congressional Inquiries - the show featured many of the same issues that Washington D.C. has tackled post-9/11. Rescue Me - A series on the FX network, Rescue Me focuses on the Ladder 62/Engine 99 firehouse in New York City. In its early days, the show dealt with the emotional effects of the 9/11 attacks on the firefighters at the firehouse. The show is scheduled to end next year, around the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Emergency! - Reaching back into the archives, I would be remiss to not include Emergency!, the first program (that I know of it) to feature paramedics and their work. Airing from 1972 to 1977, the show featured firefighters and hospital emergency room staff in Los Angeles. The show featured its first responders doing their thing with a number of real-world disasters, including the 1971 Sylmar earthquake and the 1973 Palos Verdes fire. Mission: Impossible - Before there was Jack Bauer, there was Jim Phelps and the Impossible Mission Forces. While very Cold War-influenced, the show features secret agents taking covert assignments against global bad guys, including corrupt dictators and evil organizations.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - Another early spy program, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. looked to the remnants of the Nazi empire for its bad guy. U.N.C.L.E. (the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) is a global international law-enforcement agency (Interpol, anyone?) fighting against THRUSH (the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity) and its efforts to take over the world. The series makes the list as it is a favorite of the government. Allegedly, the show has a spot at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the CIA’s museum. Tiger Team - This short-lived (2 episode) series from TruTV (better known as Court TV) probably is better classified as a mini-series or special but there has been constant chatter about its possible re-birth so I decided to include it on my list. The show followed a team that is hired to test the IT security of various organizations. The ethical hackers demonstrated weaknesses in security using social engineering, hard core hacking, and breaking into buildings physically. The show allowed geeks around the world to be proud of their own kind.
The Bad - 3 Shows That We Could Have Done Without Homeland Security USA - Only 13 episodes of this reality tv show featuring DHS employees doing their job to protect the nation aired. The show featured real employees from CBP, ICE, TSA, and the Coast Guard and was shot in coordination with DHS. Low ratings and claims that the show was no more than propaganda led to its demise. A good premise - highlighting those on the front line - but bad execution.
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero - Some may be surprised that I’ve put one of American’s favorite children icons on the list of bad tv. G.I. Joe is as American as apple pie and how could anyone be against an animated series that began each episode with: G.I. Joe is the code name for America’s daring, highly-trained, Special Mission force. Its purpose: To defend human freedom against Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world.
Like almost every kid out there, I played with my share of G.I. Joe action figures, borrowing them from my brother’s collection. That said, a television show designed mostly if not solely to peddle children’s toys rightly deserves a spot on the bad list. A Man Called Sloane- Since the “good” list featured some classics, I had to dig back to find a show from earlier eras that could made the not-so-good list. A Man Called Sloane, which aired in 1979-80 and was canceled after a few episodes seemed to fit in well with this category. The show attempted to be a combination of every spy show that preceded it and featured Thomas R. Sloane III, a spy who kind of worked for UNIT, a secret American intelligence operation run by someone called the Director. As with all spy shows, the UNIT had an evil counterpart - the KARTEL. The show just never took off, though a made-for-tv movie called Death Ray 2000, featuring the never-aired pilot of the show did make it on the air a year or two later.
The Ugly - Who Could Have Possibly Thought This Was A Good Idea? Gana la Verde or Win the Green - The winner of the ugly homeland security-inspired program award goes hands down to this program. A reality show that aired on Spanish television stations in the Southwest in 2004-2005, Gana featured immigrants competing in “Fear Factor” inspired contests in the hopes of gaining immigration advice. At one point, the show suggested that the winner would receive a green card, a claim that led ICE to point out that the program is not sanctioned by or connected to the agency. Among the challenges given to contestants - eating cockroaches and worms, being attacked by dogs, cleaning the windows of a high-rise building, and running in between semi-trucks. The show was largely criticized by immigration groups, who argued that the program was humiliating and gave false hopes of citizenship to contestants.
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Farewell Jack. Welcome to Treme. Filed under: Preparedness and Response, State and Local HLS, Strategy — by Philip J. Palin on April 15, 2010
Fox has canceled 24, its counter-terrorism drama. The show debuted in November 2001 featuring Jack Bauer as a fearless, selfless, and sometimes reckless undercover catcher and killer of bad guys. The final episode will run in May. A movie is under development. On Sunday, April 11, HBO introduced Treme, a post-Katrina New Orleans neighborhood. The ensemble cast includes, “an eclectic group of locals — among them a trombone player, a chef, a civil rights lawyer, a disc jockey and a displaced Mardi Gras chief — as they struggle to repair their lives after the storm.” (New York Times)
Sic transit homeland security? The Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning 24 features a covert Counter Terrorism Unit. But there is really only one hero. “When Kiefer Sutherland’s 24 superagent barks “Dammit, Chloe–we’re running out of time!” America’s ass is about to be saved in some new, heart-stopping way.” (Entertainment Weekly) Assassins, kidnappers, suicide bombers, bio-terrorists, nuclear weapons, sundry colleagues, adversaries, and victims co-star.
Treme is not saved, but neither does it succumb. The levee breaks are called a “federally induced catastrophe.” MTV’s Ben Collins tells us Treme is about “death, resilience, and broken hearts.” “Treme uses sound and imagery to suggest that even the worst damage and disruption can’t extinguish the joie de vivre, and that is found in the pearly gleam of fresh oysters, the high notes of Antoine’s trombone, the crunch of barbecue, a glistening bottle of French wine, the feathers on a Mardi Gras costume and, most simply, laughter.” (New York Times)
Last Friday I told residents of a dense urban neighborhood they should not depend on much official guidance or help in the first 72 minutes of a local emergency or 72 hours of a wide-spread emergency. About one-third were astonished. Others were pretty sanguine. Those who were astonished insisted someone must be “in charge.” Surely there’s a courageous and capable Jack Bauer nearby.
The majority did not expect a hero to save them. But they quickly recognized their own lack of readiness. “Not knowing each other is our greatest vulnerability,” one participant offered. “No offence, but I don’t know if in an emergency I would trust information from anyone in this room,” another said. In Treme the neighbors come together around a shared love affair with music. In too many American cities (and towns, villages, and more) neighbors do not come together at all. They share a place and that is about all they share.
The good news is that the neighbors-in-name-only whom I met last week seemed to enjoy being together and agreed there was good cause to meet again. The risk of disaster gave them a good excuse to do so. I had the sense they would have welcomed almost any excuse. We need our Jack Bauers. He is a flawed, but well-intentioned guard-dog. Even more we need herds that are less like sheep, more like American Bison. Or even better: neighborhoods of full-fledged neighbors who know each other and – despite all our eccentric differences – care for each other. This is the foundation of resilience… and, probably, the Republic.
Further Reading: A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit
In the Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street by Peter Lovenheim Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrom
The Idea of Fraternity in America by Wilson Carey McWilliams Share This Post:
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Permalink 6 Comments » April 14, 2010
Preparedness: The Missing Link Filed under: General Homeland Security — by Mark Chubb on April 14, 2010
Last week Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the appointment of 35 individuals to a newly formed task force on preparedness. The panel was appointed pursuant to provisions of the 2010 DHS Appropriations Act, which called for its creation to make, “recommendations for all levels of government regarding: disaster and emergency guidance and policy; federal grants; and federal requirements.” The announcement indicated that the task force would conduct its business with an “emphasis on identifying preparedness policies, guidelines and grant programs that should be updated and recommending paths forward to improve the nation’s collective capabilities for preparing for disasters.” After reviewing the list of appointees and their affiliations, all I can say is hold onto your wallets folks.
If anything has distinguished the allocation of grant funds for homeland security and emergency preparedness more than the ad hoc nature of the enterprise as a whole, it has been the tendency of grant recipients to spend vast sums on seldom-used, specialized hardware and highly-paid consultants with very little evidence of progress building capacity or engaging communities in collaborative efforts to improve resilience. Four separate Government Accountability Office reports issued since December 2008 highlight just a few of the issues to which the task force should devote some of its attention:
Fire Grants: FEMA Has Met Most Requirements for Awarding Fire Grants, but Additional Actions Would Improve Its Grant Process, GAO-10-64, Cotober 30, 2009. Urban Area Security Initiative: FEMA Lacks Measures to Assess How Regional Collaboration Efforts Build Preparedness Capabilities, GAO-09-651, July 2, 2009.
Transit Security Grants: DHS Allocates Grants Based on Risk, but Its Risk Methodology, Management Controls, and Grant Oversight Can Be Strengthened, GAO-09-491, June 8, 2009. Homeland Security Grant Program Risk-Based Distribution Methods: Presentation to Congressional Committees - November 14, 2008 and December 15, 2008, GAO-09-168R, December 23, 2008.
These are only the most recent but certainly not the only GAO reports that offer a critical perspective on DHS grant-making activities. Others focus on the evolving understanding of the role of risk assessment and risk management principles in prioritizing these programs. The individuals appointed to the task force reflect a diverse cross-section of public officials from state, county, local, and tribal governments across the United States. I am familiar with many of those appointed, and can say with certainty that they seem well-qualified.
Nevertheless, a couple of things stand out upon scrutinizing the list further, which trouble me more than a little. First, officials with affiliations to the fire-rescue and law enforcement communities seem particularly well-represented, perhaps too much so. Second, rust-belt states and communities in the Midwest and Great Plains are under-represented. And, third, the private, community, and voluntary sectors, upon which any successful response and recovery operation ultimately depends, are essentially unrepresented. If, as it seems, questions persist concerning what sort of bang we are managing to get for the many bucks spent since 2001 on preparedness, one might reasonably consider it worthwhile to appoint someone other than representatives of recipients to investigate what all this money has bought us. Instead, if the secretary really intents to implement the task force recommendations rather than simply going through the exercise for purely political purposes, she would do well to share the terms of reference they will operate under so we can be sure the kids have not just been put in charge of the candy store.
It has been my experience that no fire service or law enforcement chief executive will ever tell you his or her budget is adequate. Everyone wants more. And with few exceptions, everyone will happily accept someone else’s money if they can get it. When I served as the executive director of the Southeastern Association of Fire Chiefs in the early 1990s, the association and its regional peers were actively advocating for federal grants that would eventually take the form of the Assistant to Firefighters Grant (AFG) program and the SAFER grants. Their argument went something like this, “Our cities and their citizens are strapped for cash. We are finding it harder to deliver service while competing with other programs that must fulfill federal mandates. At the same time, we are falling under new and increasing pressures from regulators to provide personnel protective equipment and training. Besides, law enforcement receives about $11 billion a year in federal assistance, and we get none.” This argument when examined closely amounted to little more than, “They got theirs, we want ours.”
Law enforcement has since the 1970s (at least) received federal assistance to foster interstate cooperation. The logic seems sound enough, criminals do not respect state and local boundaries even though cops must. If we want to help cops cope with wandering criminals, we need to help them cooperate across these imaginary lines at least as well as the criminals tend to do. Most of these investments recognize the importance of collecting, analyzing and sharing information about criminals and crime-fighting strategies. Fire, unlike crime, does not tend to wander across jurisdictional boundaries, and even when it does, it tends not to travel very far. (When fire does cross such lines and travel far and fast, it tends to be on federal lands or under federal jurisdiction for other reasons already.) Until 9/11 firefighters had no sound interstate nexus argument to bolster their claims for federal support. Indeed, even the argument that national standards were impacting their cost of doing business failed under close scrutiny. The standards to which they referred (especially those applicable to staffing and response times) were often applicable only when adopted by individual states or localities, and were often drafted by the firefighters’ unions and their bosses through so-called consensus standards bodies in an effort to circumvent the local democratic process. In other words, before we needed to equip firefighters to help protect us from terrorists, we really did not have much of an argument to spend federal dollars on their needs.
As we like to say in homeland security circles, 9/11 changed everything. With the threat of attack by foreign extremists on American soil a proven fact, no community could be expected to shoulder the burden alone. Protecting everyone meant protecting anyone. For local communities, who had largely shouldered the preparedness burden alone, this was a windfall. And nobody benefited more from it than those who were already best organized: cops and firefighters. But disasters, like terrorists, rarely target firefighters and cops, at least not to the exclusion of everyone else. Rather, they tend to operate indiscriminately or with the intention of causing the greatest damage and disruption possible to the community as a whole or at least something very important to it.
This suggests that any effort to assess the state of our preparedness should probably ask not what we have managed to achieve already, but rather what readiness would look like if we actually achieved it. I use the term readiness, rather than preparedness, advisedly. The concept of readiness raises, at least for me, questions about the condition of my resources and what I can do with them, rather than focusing primarily on their availability, which has regretfully become the all-t00-common custom when assessing preparedness in this country. Any assessment of readiness should begin by asking not simply what fiscal resources and policies are in place, how they are performing, and how we might improve their allocation to satisfy the common good, but should also question how our communities’ stocks of human, social, natural, and political capital informs those decisions. I find it hard to believe we can have that sort of conversation with the people the secretary has assembled around the table to advise her on this issue.
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April 13, 2010 Homeland security futures worth creating
Filed under: General Homeland Security — by Christopher Bellavita on April 13, 2010 On Wednesday, while world leaders meet for the last day of the Global Nuclear Security Summit, there will be another meeting.
For this meeting,“…participants from a wide cross-section of the emergency management community, select subject matter experts in relevant academic areas, select federal agencies, and other key stakeholders … will begin to identify, define, and refine key issues and drivers that may impact the future of emergency management over the next 15-20 years.” One meeting aims to “develop a plan of action to secure loose nuclear materials, prevent nuclear material smuggling, and deter, detect and disrupt attempts at nuclear terrorism.”
The other gathering wants to explore “issues, trends, and other factors that could impact the future emergency management environment, and to support expanded strategic thinking and planning for the future.” One meeting deals with today’s threats. The other meeting seeks to create a better understanding of homeland security’s future context.
—————————- A central justification for speculating about homeland security futures is to “make strategic decisions today that will be sound for all plausible futures.” That’s the view of Peter Schwartz, one of the country’s best-known futurists.
There is a contrary perspective that argues the homeland security policy space is too undefined, too broad, too complex to allow any intentional journey into the future. From this perspective, thinking strategically about the future of homeland security is similar to what George Bernard Shaw said about chess: a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever. Abraham Lincoln was clever. He is quoted as believing “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Neat bumper sticker, but what does that have to do with anything real? —————————-
What is a homeland security future worth creating (to paraphrase Thomas P. Barnett)? During homeland security’s early days, the people doing the work used to describe the challenge of creating organizations, policies, and programs, as “building an airplane while we’re flying it.”
The multibillion-dollar aircraft is now airborne. Maybe now is an appropriate time to think deliberately and systematically about the kind of world that plane is flying toward.
That’s what the people in FEMA’s long-range planning initiatives are starting to do. Here is the context for Wednesday’s strategic foresight meeting:
Overview The world around us is changing in ways that may have profound effects on the emergency management enterprise. Collectively, we must begin to think more broadly and over a longer-timeframe if we are to understand these changes and their potential impacts. To this end, FEMA has launched a Strategic Foresight initiative, the objective of which is straight-forward: to seek to understand how the world around us is changing, and how those changes may affect the future of emergency management and our community.
Our approach is rooted in an explicit attempt to innovate and move beyond the constraints of existing planning efforts. FEMA recognizes that it is only a single member of the national emergency management enterprise. Alongside other federal partners, states, nongovernmental organizations, community based organizations, and especially neighborhoods, towns and cities that do most of the work, the scale and coverage of the emergency management community comprises a broad and complex network of interdependencies and overlapping vital interests. Our goal is to engage this diverse community in a collective exploration of issues, trends, and other factors that could impact the future emergency management environment, and to support expanded strategic thinking and planning for the future. We intend to further this goal by participating actively, sharing our own questions, directions, concerns, and decisions, and helping bring together people from various disciplines to engage in the discussion.
The Big Questions Three guiding questions to consider are:
(1) What are the drivers of change (e.g., demographics, climate change) that may “dial up” or “dial down” systemic risk in the future? (2) What has the potential to transform emergency management in the future?
(3) What should we do now to better align our missions and capabilities to our future needs? Engagement
In the coming weeks FEMA will take steps to create space for collaboration and dialog on these issues across the emergency management community. We will facilitate engagement through various media, including workshops, online collaboration tools, individual meetings and conferences. More specifically, the first phase of key events will include three primary engagement opportunities: · APRIL 14, 2010: Scoping Workshop This workshop will include participants from a wide cross-section of the emergency management community, select subject matter experts in relevant academic areas, select federal agencies, and other key stakeholders. At this event participants will begin to identify, define, and refine key issues and drivers that may impact the future of emergency management.
· MAY 2010-JULY 2010: Online Collaboration Diverse participants from many disciplines and fields will join in moderated discussion through easy-to-access, easy-to-use online communities. Dialog will focus on better understanding emerging trends and future directions in key issue areas, and the potential implications for emergency management. · AUGUST 2010: Future Strategic Needs Workshop This workshop will synthesize the results of the online collaboration, leverage expert contributions in each area, and consider key issues and drivers in combination, examining their implications. The result of this workshop will be an emergent picture of future strategic needs for the field of emergency management.
( You can find out more details by contacting the FEMA Office of Policy and Program Analysis.) —————————-
I am agnostic about the utility of spending too much time looking into the future, particularly in the surprise ridden warren of homeland security. The planner in me hopes there are trends that can be identified and incorporated into strategic design and implementation.
The realist part of me considers underwear bombers, predictable hurricanes that were ignored, and fanatics awash with unreason and recalls the Yiddish proverb: Man plans; God laughs. Peter Schwartz tells the following story in his book Inevitable Surprises:
Pierre Wack used to compare his futures work to the prediction of floods on the Ganges River in India. “From source to mouth,” he would say, “the Ganges is an extraordinary river, some 1500 miles long. If you notice extraordinarily heavy monsoon rains at the upper part of the basin, you can anticipate with certainty that within two days something extraordinary is going to happen at Rishikesh, at the foot of the Himalayas.” Three days later, he would add, one could expect a flood at Allahabad, which is southeast of Delhi; five days after that, one could expect a flood in Benares, at the river’s Delta. “Now, the people down here in Benares don’t know that this flood is on its way,” he would conclude, “but I do. Because I’ve been at this spring where it comes from. I’ve seen it! This is not fortune telling. This is not crystal ball gazing. This is merely describing future implications of something that has already happened.” The people putting Wednesday’s meeting together have looked at analyses that purport to see the spring “at the upper part of the basin.” Those documents share a common view of “what has already happened: ” 10 trends and drivers shaping the future of emergency management and homeland security.
1. U.S. Economic Strength 2. Climate Change
3. Rapid Technological Change 4. Demographics
5. Terrorism and Transnational Crime 6. Proliferation of WMD
7. Natural Resource Scarcity and Competition 8. Pandemic
9. Weak/Failed States and Ungoverned Spaces 10. Rise of New Powers/Weakening of U.S.
I hope to write more about these in future posts. —————————-
More than three dozen world leaders are talking about the possibility of reducing nuclear weapons. That seems very idealistic. But I believe even the realist Lincoln would approve.
I think he would also support FEMA’s idealistic effort to help shape — if not create – the future of homeland security. ————
Clarification (4.13.10 @11:22 PST) — The person who provided me with the list of drivers suggests the following clarification: “The 10 trends and drivers you mention at the end of the post … are not emergency management/homeland security specific. They were common themes … found when reviewing futures literature from a variety of sources that mostly had a global/international flavor to them. The goal of the workshop tomorrow is to begin the process of identifying and defining what those drivers are for emergency management.” Share This Post:
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Permalink 9 Comments » April 12, 2010
Threat of Nuclear Terrorism Filed under: Radiological & Nuclear Threats — by Jessica Herrera-Flanigan on April 12, 2010
Downtown Washington D.C. braced this morning for traffic and business disruptions resulting from this week’s Nuclear Security Summit, where leaders of 47 nations are gathering to discuss how to keep nukes away from terrorists. The meeting comes less than a week after the United States and Russia, which currently hold 95% of existing nukes, signed a treaty that would reduce the two nations’ stockpile of weapons significantly. The treaty would reduce the number of nuclear weapons each country would have to a maximum of 3100 (1,550 each) by 2017.
This number doesn’t include exceptions- including the tactical/battlefield nukes, “reserve” weapons, and those waiting for dismantling, which account for approximately 12,000 more warheads. That said, the number is significantly lower than the 60,000 nuclear weapons that were floating around during the height of the Cold War. The treaty, which gained a significant amount of attention last week, left untouched a more frightening issue that is the subject of this week’s summit- what to do about terrorists and rogue actors who might be intent on gaining access to and using nuclear weapons. The summit will specifically focus on two areas of concern:
How to secure nuclear materials (i.e. the “loose nukes” problem) How to prevent nuclear smuggling
Both of these threats potentially can allow terrorists to gain access to separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium, both of which are critical to nuclear bombmaking. Unfortunately, achieving success against these threats is easier said than done, especially since each country had different regimes for handling the materials and, in many cases, the materials reside with private individuals instead of government agencies. In some instances, the materials and the scientific skills to use them are for sale on various black markets, awaiting the highest bidder. According to a recent Christian Science Monitor report, between 1993 and 2008, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) clocked 336 confirmed reports of criminal activity involving nuclear material, including 421 incidents of stolen or lost nuclear material.
Lost materials have been a significant concern since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, a situation that only worsened after economic turmoil hit the nation. Much of the Soviet’s stockpile was stored in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, where large amounts of uranium and plutonium may still exist. The U.S. made earlier strides to secure those materials through the Nunn-Lugar program, but much remains to be done. The Summit this week could be important in addressing the non-state actor threat and for setting the stage for the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), scheduled for May 3-28, 2010 at the United Nations headquarters in New York. That review will address a number of key issues including:
universality of the Treaty; nuclear disarmament, including specific practical measures;
nuclear non-proliferation, including the promoting and strengthening of safeguards; measures to advance the peaceful use of nuclear energy, safety and security;
regional disarmament and non-proliferation; implementation of the 1995 resolution on the Middle East;
measures to address withdrawal from the Treaty; measures to further strengthen the review process; and
ways to promote engagement with civil society in strengthening NPT norms and in promoting disarmament education. As for the summit this week, success can be found if the participating nations reaffirm their commitment to secure nuclear materials within their jurisdiction and agree to help other nations who cannot afford or do not have the capability to secure their materials. It would also be useful to come away with an agreement to take strong legal stances against smugglers and rogue nuclear scientists willing to sell their bombmaking expertise to the highest bidders. Also, a commitment to develop uniform security standards for non-weaponized nuclear materials, including medical and energy uses, to assure that those materials cannot be used for wrongdoing, would be a big success.
Of course, even if 47 nations agree this week to do all of the above there are nations not at the table whose efforts will be critical to any attempts to achieve global nuclear security. Neither Iran and North Korea were invited to the conference, as they have violated the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. In any event, Iran has already said that it will not be bound by any agreements made this week. Among the meetings scheduled for this week, is a bilateral meeting between President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, where President Obama is expected to press his counterpart to support the United Nations Security Council’s efforts to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. Also worth noting is that Israel is not participating in the Summit. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu withdrew last week as he believed that a number of nations - including Turkey and Egypt - planned to raises questions about Israel’s nuclear arsenal and its refusal to sign the NPT.
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April 8, 2010 First reports about a 20-something, nicotine-addicted, sandal-wearing, low-level diplomat are usually wrong
Filed under: Aviation Security, Border Security, General Homeland Security — by Christopher Bellavita on April 8, 2010 I was going to write about the future of homeland security today. But the present got in the way.
—————————– The story is still unfolding. But as I write this late on April 7th, here is the timeline of what the social network and other media were/are reporting.
Between 6 and 7 PM, Pacific Time A passenger attempted to light an explosive device on board an aircraft from Washington to Denver, sources tell NBC News
Update: Air marshals subdued passenger on Denver-bound 757 jet. Plane is parked in remote area of airport - NBC News Update: Passenger detained after ’shoe bomb’ incident aboard Denver-bound plane is identified as Qatari diplomat - ABC News
Between 7 and 8 PM, Pacific Time Update: Unclear if passenger tied to shoe incident aboard Denver-bound flight had explosives – NBC News
Between 8 and 9 PM, Pacific Time Update: Qatar diplomat subdued on United flight may have been smoking in bathroom - NBC News
Between 9 and 10 PM, Pacific Time From the Denver Post, reported by Felisa Cardona and Jeffrey Leib :
A United Airlines flight from Washington was escorted by fighter jets to Denver International Airport after a diplomat on board from Qatar may have tried to light his shoes on fire…. More than two hours after the incident, it still wasn’t clear whether the incident was an actual threat or a misunderstanding because al-Modadi attempted to smoke a cigarette on the plane, according to numerous law enforcement sources….
ABC News and other outlets reported that no explosives have been found on the plane, which was still being searched at 9:45 p.m… Approximately 25 minutes outside of Denver the air marshal, who was not immediately identified, confronted al-Modadi after smelling smoke.
From NBC – …Federal officials told NBC News that a half hour before the jet landed, a flight attendant smelled smoke just as a passenger was coming out of a restroom and alerted an air marshal. The marshal confronted the man, and there were initial reports that the man said he was trying to light his shoe.
But NBC News reported that the man said he was putting out a cigarette, which he smoked in the restroom, on the sole of his shoe. No explosives were found on the man, and a search of the plane with bomb-detecting dogs also turned up no explosives. And a federal official said the man was wearing sandals….
From the AP (by writers Eileen Sullivan, Matthew Lee, Matt Apuzzo, Joan Lowy, Pauline Jelinek and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and Judith Kohler and David Zalubowski in Denver) A Qatari diplomat trying to sneak a smoke in an airplane bathroom sparked a bomb scare Wednesday night on a flight from Washington to Denver, with fighter jets scrambled and law enforcement put on high alert, officials said.
No explosives were found on the man, and officials do not believe he was trying to harm anyone, according to a senior law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity… An Arab diplomat briefed on the matter identified the diplomat as Mohammed Al-Madadi.
Two law enforcement officials said investigators were told the man was asked about the smell of smoke in the bathroom and he made a joke that he had been trying to light his shoes — an apparent reference to the 2001 so-called ‘’shoe bomber” Richard Reid… A senior State Department official said the agency was aware of the tentative identification of the man as a Qatari diplomat and that there would be ”consequences, diplomatic and otherwise” if he had committed a crime.
The latest edition of department’s Diplomatic List, a registry of foreign diplomats working in the United States, identifies a man named Mohammed Yaaqob Y.M. Al-Madadi as the third secretary for the Qatari Embassy in Washington. Third secretary is a relatively low-ranking position at any diplomatic post and it was not immediately clear what his responsibilities would have been. Foreign diplomats in the United States, like American diplomats posted abroad, have broad immunity from prosecution. The official said if the man’s identity as a Qatari diplomat was confirmed and if it was found that he may have committed a crime, U.S. authorities would have to decide whether to ask Qatar to waive his diplomatic immunity so he could be charged and tried. Qatar could decline, the official said, and the man would likely be expelled from the United States.
Qatar, about the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, is an oil- and gas-rich monarchy and close U.S. ally of about 1.4 million people on the Arabian peninsula, surrounded by three sides by the Persian Gulf and to the south by Saudi Arabia….. From the innocuously uninformative TSA site
TSA Statement on United Flight 663 News & Happenings On Wednesday, April 7 TSA responded to an incident on board United Airlines flight 663 from DCA to DEN after Federal Air Marshals responded to a passenger causing a disturbance on board the aircraft. The flight landed safely at Denver International Airport at approximately 8:50 p.m. EDT.
Law enforcement and TSA responded to the scene and the passenger is currently being interviewed by law enforcement. All steps are being taken to ensure the safety of the traveling public. —————————–
By the time I wake up tomorrow, I’m guessing there will be a clearer picture of this currently bizarre incident. Based on the evolving first reports, I go to sleep tonight thinking a 20-something, nicotine-addicted, sandal-wearing, low-level diplomat was smoking a cigarette in an airplane toilet-sink room. He put out the smoke by grinding it into his shoe. A flight attendant smelled smoke and notified a federal air marshal. At that point, Mohammed Al-Madadi — if that is really his name — stopped enjoying what in the 1980s used to be called “the friendly skies.”
Airplane, shoes, smoke, Al-Madadi… the first reports write themselves. —————————–
What ripples — if any — will this event stir in homeland security? Do passengers with diplomatic immunity create another vulnerability in the US aviation security system?
Will cigarettes now have to go into checked baggage? Is health care reform to blame?
Is this yet one more example of how America is turning socialist? What will the story line be that places blame for this event on Secretary Napolitano?
—————————– I wanted to write about the future of homeland security. But the present is way too weird to be thinking about the future.
Maybe tomorrow. —————————–
Update: 20 seconds after I posted the above: BreakingNews
“Qatari diplomat who sparked bomb scare by trying to smoke aboard Denver-bound jet won’t face criminal charges, official tells AP” Oh well, who knows whether that’s true or not. First reports are almost always wrong.
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April 7, 2010 The New Game in Town
Filed under: General Homeland Security — by Mark Chubb on April 7, 2010 Game theory has long informed U.S. nuclear strategy and the strategies of many of our nuclear-armed adversaries. Armed deterrence and the theory of mutual assured destruction relies upon a fundamental assumption that any adversary amoral enough to use such fearsome weapons nevertheless remains sufficiently rational not to wish the suffering of retaliation upon itself and its people by launching a pre-emptive strike.
The Nuclear Posture Review released this week and the agreement to enter into a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia reflect the realization that the rules of the nuclear arms game have changed, not just for the U.S. but for all nuclear-armed nations. The real potential of nuclear weapons to influence strategy and policy today rests not upon the awesome power they pose for adversaries to annihilate one another, but the more practical moral and political consequences of possessing them in the first place. These consequences include both the rewards of deterrence and the risks associated with the possibility nuclear weapons technology will fall into the wrong hands. The more terrifying threat facing nuclear armed nations today is not the menace their weapons pose to one another, but the risk their nuclear programs pose if the technology or know-how they possess comes under the control of unscrupulous or unchecked states or worse, non-state actors. Unlike the Cold War anxieties that led to the arms race and proxy fights that nearly bankrupted both sides, the new game revolves around a different and much more complex set of assumptions.
Game theory relies upon the possibility of predictability not just plausibility. Imagining a threat is not enough. How do we predict the appropriate posture for an adversary that behaves in ways that do not respond to conventional incentives or conform to our expectations of rationality? How should the assumption that this adversary subscribes to an inflexible moral code that dismisses recognized notions of right and wrong influence our decisions and actions? By the time the destructive potential of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals exceeded the level each side needed to achieve mutually assured destruction, the symbolic power of these weapon systems began to rival the real power of their substance. Today, the substantive threat posed by nuclear proliferation rests upon the symbolic value of acquiring the same toys the big boys play with not achieving the same results.
Nuclear strategy and deterrence are no longer questions of who can deliver the most firepower more accurately or with the shortest time to target. Today, we must consider the consequences of small strikes against unsecured targets that inflict limited rather than catastrophic casualties against innocent civilians or noncombatants. The costs of this new arms race are neither defined by the scale nor scope of the consequences or the comparative costs of developing the capabilities to counter an attack, but rather by the investments expected or demanded to prevent it from happening in the first place. This thinking represents the ultimate in asymmetric warfare because it reflects a different calculus driven by the value and purpose we see in human life. The danger posed by the new generation of nuclear wannabes does not represent the sort of existential threat that served as the basis for our previous policies. Today we face an ontological threat that redefines our relationships not only with the technology and those who possess it, but also with the way we organize and think about the capabilities and threats these weapons present.
We may no longer fear the prospect that we will destroy one another or end all life on earth through a nuclear exchange. But we just might achieve the same end more slowly by making decisions and taking actions that produce misguided or misplaced investments in security as opposed to more productive and farsighted investments in human development. The Nuclear Posture Review is a step in the direction of a more enlightened and responsible strategy, albeit a very small one. It recognizes that the only surefire way to keep nuclear technology and know how from falling into the wrong hands is to eventually get rid of them altogether.
At the same time, it recognizes that we cannot un-ring the nuclear bell or put the atomic genie back inside the bottle. Only by choosing a new game can we change the rules that really matter, the ones that lead us to make positive rather than negative investments in human security. This new game involves new rules. If we want to ensure this does not become the zero sum game we have come to expect from our nuclear policy, we have to re-imagine and redefine the relationship between development and security. We can only claim a victory when the number of nuclear weapons in the world and those prepared to use them equals zero.
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April 6, 2010 Does the nation need a national level exercise program?
Filed under: Preparedness and Response — by Christopher Bellavita on April 6, 2010 Imagine a 7.8 Richter Scale earthquake near St. Louis, MO, on the New Madrid fault line. Assume the earthquake causes extreme damage in 8 states along the Mississippi River. This includes over 89,000 dead, nearly half a million people injured, more than 5 million people homeless, loss of numerous bridges crossing the Mississippi, as well as destruction of major oil, gasoline, and natural gas pipelines that serve much of the Eastern Seaboard.
One might think this high consequence (low probability or high probability — take your pick) event would make a natural subject for a national level homeland security exercise. Maybe not.
Perhaps there are some extreme homeland security events — call them catastrophes – where the value of exercising top officials is more symbolic than sensible. —————————————————-
The Vacation Lane Blog — written by William Cumming (a frequent writer in hlswatch) — began its internet life on Saturday with commentary about the postponement of the national level exercise program. Cumming argues in “The Sinews of Preparedness,”
… this Administration, like all before it, fails to understand that the sinews of preparedness are built with exercises, from table tops to full scale exercises, and with the personnel including appointees that will actually be called on to run the civil domestic crisis management system or be in the chain of command for civil crisis events. Failure to be prepared only makes it more likely that military dominated organizations, which tend to ad hoc despite extraordinary funding, will drive the crisis response with huge implications for the civil sector and federalism.” my emphasis On its face, the author’s recommendation seems sensible: training and exercises will make for a more effective response when something real happens.
Why should anyone believe that claim? Aristotle said, “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
One need look no further for evidence about the correctness of this belief than the professional experiences of police, fire fighters, emergency medical professionals, emergency managers, and other responders. The lessons from Aristotle, Mr. Cumming, and first responder experiences may be true for “normal” disasters — earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, floods, tornadoes, and so on.
I wonder if that truth about exercise has much value when it comes to getting “top officials” ready for catastrophes. —————————————————-
For FEMA/DHS, a catastrophe is any incident “that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions.” Catastrophes, as a colleague has written “are the nightmare scenarios that can bring the nation to its knees.”
There do not appear to have been that many catastrophes in the past half century of our history. The colleague I just mentioned recently completed a study of the federal part of the post 9/11 emergency planning and response system. As a tangential part of his work, he noted there have been around 1900 presidential disaster declarations since 1953. He found only four of the 1900 events were (definitional) catastrophes: Three Mile Island, and Hurricanes Hugo, Andrew and Katrina.
You might add a few more to his list — like 9/11/01 in New York City, Arlington, and Shanksville. But the number of catastrophes remains small. My colleague found that federal agencies played major “supporting” roles in all of those catastrophes. But governors — maybe a mayor or two — always retained control of what was going on in their jurisdictions.
It’s my understanding (aided by experiences with early versions of TOPOFF) that national level exercises have some play for state and local officials, but for the most part, the general intention of the exercises is to: Support U.S. Government Officers’ preparation for managing national crises, and accountability of those who support them.
I have no idea what role training and exercising state, city, or federal officials — especially political officials — played in successful or unsuccessful catastrophic response. I’ve looked for data that sheds light on the utility of exercising for catastrophes, but so far I’ve come up largely empty. (There is the 2004 “Hurricane Pam” exercise example for New Orleans, of course. But that mostly suggests preparedness requires something more than exercises.) My understanding is the average tenure for a federal political appointee — a top official — is between 18 months and 2 years. How does one train and exercise federal appointed and elected officials for an incident where there are “over 89,000 dead, nearly half a million people injured, more than 5 million people homeless?”
Is there any evidence that justifies spending money on those officials for such training and exercises? Since 2005, the federal government has spent more than 200 million dollars on national level exercises. Have those expenditures come anywhere close to providing commensurate benefits? If those data are not available, could the 200 million have been spent on some other homeland security-related activities, including local exercises, that might have increased the nation’s preparedness?
I suspect those are largely rhetorical questions, lost somewhere inside the conventional wisdom that worships any homeland security training and exercise as an unquestioningly good thing. —————————————————-
One of the homeland security goals described in the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review is to: Foster Innovative Approaches and Solutions Through Leading-Edge Science and Technology: Ensure scientifically informed analysis and decisions are coupled to innovative and effective technological solutions.
I like the sound of that goal. It says science matters. I like the objectives of the goal even more:
Scientifically study threats and vulnerabilities: Pursue a rigorous scientific understanding of current and future threats to homeland security and the possible means to their prevention and mitigation. Develop innovative approaches and effective solutions: Encourage and enable innovative approaches
Both objectives suggest we should look to science to validate our prevention and mitigation efforts, and to lead the nation toward new ways to think about what we do under the banner of homeland security. —————————————————-
The National Exercise Program is a process technology, intended to prepare mostly federal leaders for catastrophic events. I wonder if there is any science undergirding that exercise program technology. The national exercise program has been described recently as “unrealistic, costly, and overscripted productions … an ‘elaborate game’’ rather than opportunities for officials to work through problems.”
I have personal anecdotes from TOPOFF 1, 2 and 3 that support the accuracy of those views , at least for the early days of the exercise program. I’ve also heard that — like many things in homeland security — they have become better over time. I am not arguing against a national exercise program. I do think, however, it makes sense to ask about the “science” (in whatever sense one wishes to use that term) that supports the benefit of national level exercises.
I think it is fair to ask whether there are better uses for the money allocated to national exercises. My internet colleague William Cumming is worried that the
Failure to be prepared only makes it more likely that military dominated organizations, which tend to ad hoc despite extraordinary funding, will drive the crisis response with huge implications for the civil sector and federalism. If true catastrophes are as rare as the data suggests, perhaps there is logic in purposively integrating the “military dominated organizations” into civilian catastrophic planning.
If a catastrophe is an event that can bring the nation to its knees, we might want to make sure the military is ready to help out. It’s my understanding they are on the same side as the rest of us.
———————————————————————– The paragraph that starts this post is from slides developed by Dr. Rick Bissell, Department of Emergency Health Services, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
—————- Usually the comments start in a different section of the blog. Bill and I corresponded over the weekend about his “The Sinews of Preparedness,” post. Here is the exchange we had:
Me to Bill: nice title. i disagree with your claim and am writing something for homeland security watch about it now. nice to see your own blog. ———
Bill to me: Hey disagreement is good. Of course no way I can remove the head of the messenger either.———Me to Bill: disagreement in a good way, of course. i believe objectivity (and truth) do not reside in one person, but in the community of people who care about issues and who talk with each other about them. i don’t think there is either science or experience to support the idea that national level exercises built on catastrophic scenarios are worth the money. i think a catastrophe means all the rules change and people have to improvise around their existing relationships and expertise and experience. i’d much rather have a no-notice national exercise (like Christine Wormuth and CSIS recommended - -among other people) than the security theater that TOPOFF turned into. I can easily envision scenarios where the military will be our best option: e.g. – Imagine a 7.8 Richter Scale earthquake near St. Louis, MO, on the New Madrid fault line. Assume the earthquake causes extreme damage in 8 states along the Mississippi River. This includes over 89,000 dead, nearly half a million people injured, more than 5 million people homeless, loss of numerous bridges crossing the Mississippi, as well as destruction of major oil, gasoline, and natural gas pipelines that serve much of the Eastern Seaboard.Who is ever going to be “prepared” for that? I think we need new rules that incorporates military — in support to civilian authority, maybe under national guard command — into the civilian apparatus.I defer to your much more extensive experience with these issues than i have. But I think science matters, and we only have claims about the value of national level exercises. no real data (at least that i’m aware of)———Bill to me: Well certainly agree in the no-notice principal and that was statutorily mandated but never done for TOPOFF. Do hoping you post a substantially similar entry on the blog. Would be interested to see the comments. Since many exercises are classified or have classified elements probably difficult to be examined by outsiders. But the failure to have effective lessons learned systems and processes does largely waste the efforts.Hey so you come down on the side of science and ad hockery! And here I thought science was built on reason and rationality. should have know we can just guess and by golly our way through catastrophes. It does seem to be the way DOD does things even though they want people to believe otherwise. Certain ad hoc solutions allow maximum political pressure to be asserted whatever with issues of equal protection, due process, or even just basic social justice.Your argument speaks to the system as is and mine speaks to the system as I believe it should be.Time will tell and render the verdict whatever. Share This Post:
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Permalink 17 Comments » April 3, 2010
TSA: Turning to Mass Transit & Passenger Rail Filed under: Ground Transport Security, Mass Transit & Rail Security, Terrorist Threats & Attacks — by Jessica Herrera-Flanigan on April 3, 2010
Monday’s suicide bombing in Moscow’s subway system reminded us of the threat to subway and train systems. While much of our attention has focused on aviation security in recent months, the bombing reminds us that rail systems remain an easy target for terrorists and militant groups hoping to cause damage. While the U.S. has avoided such an attack, the last fifteen years have seen several attacks carried out around the world against such systems, as well as one thwarted attack here in the U.S., including the following incidents: 1995: Sarin gas is released by members of Aum Shinrkyo on several lines of the Tokyo Metro that were passing through key areas of the Japanese government, killing 13 people and injuring countless others.
1995: Over a period of four months, several gas bottles exploded on the RER and the Metro in Paris, killing 8 and wounding more than 100 people. The attacks were attributed to the Armed Islamic Group. 2004: In February, a suicide bomber killed 41 people and injured more than 120 in an explosion on the Moscow metro system. Individuals linked to the militant Nikolai Kipkeyev were found guilty. In August, Kipkeyev died when a female suicide bomber he was escorting into a Moscow subway panicked upon seeing a police officer and detonated her bomb, killing 8 people and wounding 50 others.
2004: A series of coordinated bombings take place on Madrid’s Cercanias commuter train, killing 191 people and wounding 1800 others. A direct connection to Al Qaeda is not found, though Spanish authorities determine that the attacks were done by by an Al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell. 2005: A series of coordinated suicide attacks occur on London’s mass transit system, carried out by four British Muslim men, killing 52 people and injuring more than 700.
2006: Seven bombs explode on the Suburban Railway in Mumbai, killing 209 and injuring more than 700. The bombings were believed to be carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Students Islamic Movement of India. 2009: Najibullah Zazi is arrested in Denver for planning suicide bombings on the New York City subway system. On February 22, 2010 he pled guilty and admitted that he was recruited by Al-Qaeda in Pakistan to blow up the New York City subway.
So who is responsible for coordinating the U.S. rail and subway security systems here in the U.S.? The Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Not only must TSA focus on aviation security (without an Administrator in place), it must also focus on mass transit and passenger rail security. According to the TSA’s website, it does so by seeking to: advance mass transit and passenger rail security through a comprehensive strategic approach that enhances capabilities to detect, deter, and prevent terrorist attacks and respond to and recover from attacks and security incidents, should they occur. TSA’s strategic priorities for mass transit and passenger rail security are:
Focus efforts to mitigate high consequence risk to transit assets and systems, particularly underwater and underground infrastructure; Expand employment of random, unpredictable deterrence; and
Build security force multipliers with training, drills and exercises, and public awareness According to the FY 2011 DHS Budget Request, TSA is undertaking the following activities to secure mass transit, passenger rail, and bus:
shareholder collaboration with key stakeholders through its Regional Transit Security Working Group, which identifies regional priorities and resolves security needs. Much of TSA’s regional work is focused on Tier 1 Transit Security Grant Program cities, including New York City, Boston, D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. working with the American Public Transportation Association to develop consensus-based security standards for mass transit.
engaging in its “layered security operational test bed” to test operational and technological solutions for mass transit and passenger rail facilities. In FY 2011, TSA requested $97.6 million to support its Surface Transportation Inspection Program and explosive detection canine program, a $29.4 million increase from FY 2010.
In terms of funding support for local mass transit areas, the Transportation Security Grant Program has requested $300 million for FY 2011. This money is allocated on a risk-based approach to eligible mass transit and bus systems, as well as to Amtrak, to enhance security measures on critical transit infrastructure. Guidelines for the distribution of these funds are given in the DHS Appropriations bills, as well as in the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007. So how well is TSA doing on its efforts to better secure rail and and subway systems? In a report entitled Transportation Security: Key Actions Have Been Taken to Enhance Mass Transit and Passenger Rail Security, but Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Federal Strategy and Programs released last June, the Government Accountability Office commended TSA for taking key steps to strengthen the systems. At the same time, it noted that TSA faced a number of challenges hindering its success. Specifically, GAO found that TSA had not fully combined its assessments of threat, vulnerability, and consequence to conduct its risk assessments. The GAO also noted that TSA faced a number of coordination challenges- both with industry and other agencies at the state, local, and federal levels. Information sharing of security information remained a challenge, as did concerns regarding “potential costs and the feasibility of implementing pending employee security training requirements.”
The need to strengthen the federal relationships with transit agency officials across the country is one that also appeared in another June 2009 GAO report entitled, Transit Security Grant Program: DHS Allocates Grants Based on Risk, but Its Risk Methodology, Management Controls, and Grant Oversight Can Be Strengthened. In the report, the GAO noted that management and resource issues have resulted in delays in approving projects and distributing funds. According to the report, as of February 2009, transit agencies having spent only $21 million of the $755 million that had been awarded between 2006 and 2008. To correct the shortcomings, GAO recommended that DHS strengthen its methodology for determining risk by developing a “cost-effective method for incorporating vulnerability information into future iterations of the” Transportation Security Grant Program. It is safe to say that like much of TSA’s efforts on aviation security, its mass transit and passenger rail efforts remain a work in progress - showing some movement forward and continually evolving but in need of improvement. Unfortunately, like our efforts in aviation security, many efforts remain reactionary in nature. After the bombing in Moscow, a number of transit agencies across the nation beefed up their security, assigning more police, increasing K-9 teams, and conducting random station sweeps. During those efforts, vulnerabilities were uncovered. For example, in New York City, the Associated Press reported that more than 4,000 security cameras in its subways were not working and that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had cut the number of police patrols throughout its systems.
While the U.S. has been fortunate to not have seen a successful attack carried out on a domestic mass transit and passenger rail system, its efforts to secure such systems should be prioritized and expanded. In particular, an increased focus on risk-based grants, information sharing of key intelligence with relevant stakeholders, and identifying and deploying preventive technologies are key to strengthening our mass transit and passenger rail systems. Share This Post:
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Permalink 3 Comments » April 1, 2010
What zombies can teach homeland security. Filed under: Biosecurity, General Homeland Security, Preparedness and Response, Terrorist Threats & Attacks — by Christopher Bellavita on April 1, 2010
A zombie is a “re-animated human corpse that feeds on living human flesh.” Mostly they serve as fodder for popular entertainment. But an attack by real zombies would be anything but entertaining.
Four Canadian mathematicians who wrote “When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modeling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection” warn, “… if zombies arise, we must act quickly and decisively to eradicate them before they eradicate us.”
The scholars — Philip Munz, Ioan Hudea, Joe Imad, and Robert J. Smith — are from Carlton University and the University of Ottawa. They developed what is surprisingly “the first mathematical analysis of an outbreak of zombie infection.” The article will be published as Chapter 4 in the soon to be released book “Infectious Disease Modeling Research Progress.” While obviously not realistic, their analysis “demonstrates… how modeling can respond to a wide variety of challenges in biology.”
The link between their work and biological attacks, pandemics, and related public health threats to the United States is an obvious one. Why zombies matter to homeland security
The authors describe their basic model for zombie infection, discuss equilibria and stability issues, and then suggest conditions under which eradication of the zombie infection can occur. Based on their analysis, they conclude “only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all.” The chapter starts by discussing the origins of zombies in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of “Vodou.” But the idea of the zombie dates back at least to the Middle Ages, and has appeared in the cultures of China, Japan, the Pacific, India, Persia, Arabia, and the Americas.
As the reader familiar with the concept may recall, zombies have no will of their own. Their heart and lungs and all their body functions operate at minimal levels, at least according to the traditional view. Modern zombies are very different from voodoo and folklore zombies. Contemporary zombies are mindless monsters who do not feel pain and who have an immense appetite for flesh. They have a particular hunger for human brains (as the disturbing video at this link illustrates).
A zombie’s objective is to kill, eat or infect people. When a susceptible person is bitten by a zombie, it leaves an open wound contaminated by saliva, thus infecting the susceptible individual. Informed speculation suggests the saliva disrupts oxygen flow to the brain. The lack of oxygen seems to be the specific mechanism that turns otherwise normal people into zombies.
Consequently in the few cases of zombie-ism that have been adjudicated by courts, authorities have concluded that because the zombies suffer from brain damage, they cannot be held accountable for the havoc they cause. This clearly has hampered — but not eliminated — the search for effective prevention and mitigation strategies. Here is where the Canadian team makes its, probably inadvertent, but still foundational contribution to Homeland Security
Summary of the argument In Section 2 of their paper, the authors outline the basic model describing how — like a deadly virus — zombies grow and increase (please see Figure 1, where S are those who are susceptible to attack, Z are the zombies, and R are those who have been “removed” but who can return to the arena after an encounter with Z). The authors correctly note their model is “slightly more complicated than the basic SIR susceptible, infected, and removed models that usually characterize infectious diseases.”
basic-zombie-model The authors discouragingly find that from the perspective of their basic model, “In a short outbreak, zombies will likely infect everyone.”
The remainder of the article discusses strategies available for dealing with a zombie attack: Section 3 (The basic model, with time latency),
Section 4 (The model, plus quarantine), Section 5 (The model incorporating a cure for zombie-ism), and
Section 6 (Rapid and aggressively escalated destruction of zombies) The interested reader can view the full analysis of each variation by downloading the original paper here. I found the math to be slightly impenetrable (see the figure below for an example). But the authors’ conclusions are starkly clear:
“An outbreak of zombies infecting humans is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead. While aggressive quarantine may eradicate the infection, this is unlikely to happen in practice. A cure would only result in some humans surviving the outbreak, although they will still coexist with zombies. Only sufficiently frequent attacks, with increasing force, will result in eradication, assuming the available resources can be mustered in time.” zombie-figure-2
The authors acknowledge the key difference between their model and traditional views of infectious disease is in their model “the dead can come back to life.” They admit their scenario is unrealistic if taken literally, “but possible real-life applications of their model may include allegiance to political parties,… diseases with a dormant infection,” and — one might add — a zombie-like commitment to certain beliefs, attitudes, policies, and organizational arrangements.
The article ends by summarizing the strategic implications of the analysis: “A zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilization, unless it is dealt with quickly. While aggressive quarantine may contain the epidemic, or a cure may lead to coexistence of humans and zombies, the most affective way to contain the rise of the undead is to hit hard and hit often. As seen in the movies, it is imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly, or else we are all in a great deal of trouble.”
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March 30, 2010 The Open Question
Filed under: General Homeland Security, Intelligence and Info-Sharing, State and Local HLS, Technology for HLS — by Mark Chubb on March 30, 2010 The open source intelligence debate took on new meaning for me on Sunday night. Shortly after 8:00 PM a loud explosion shook houses all across the east side of Portland, Oregon. What ensued afterwards provides new insights not only into how intelligence is generated, but also illustrates some of the new challenges we face in managing the collection and analysis process.
Within minutes, more than 50 calls reporting the explosion came into the local 911 center. Police and fire units responded to investigate, but found nothing to indicate an emergency. No burning or collapsed buildings, no casualties, no obvious signs of damage or disruption were evident anywhere. Public safety officials’ prompt response to this incident, like their response to another big boom about two weeks earlier in the same area, provided little comfort though because no one could confirm what had caused the explosion. As you might expect, this opened the to door to speculation as much as it opened the door to investigation.
Within minutes subscribers to the microblogging service Twitter had invented and agreed to use the #pdxboom hashtag to track reports. Within half-an-hour, an ad hoc collaboration started on Google Maps was tracking and color-coding these reports in an effort to locate the source of the noise. And more than 20 wiseguys had even created and logged into an event marking the occasion on the social networking site Foursquare using their wireless mobile devices. The theories spawned by these efforts ran the gamut from the serious (an earthquake boom) to the nonsensical (unicorns fighting or a house falling on a wicked witch). But the map generated by the more serious reports painted a much more compelling picture of the event. Efforts by local officials and media outlets to isolate the source by consulting the National Weather Service, the local Air National Guard fighter wing and NORAD, the U.S. Geological Survey and various utilities likewise proved fruitless.
Yet the public remained undeterred. Hundreds of people logged in over the next several hours to record their experience of the event. Before long some patterns became evident. The next day, aided by daylight, armed with these online contributions, information from the initial 911 reports and information gathered following the previous incident, investigators located the site of the explosion along a riverbank near downtown. Fragments of a PVC pipe bomb were also recovered.
What did we learn from this incident? Well for starters, people want to be of assistance, even in a town where the police are not currently held in very high esteem due to two recent officer-involved shootings. Second, they will seek out ways to make sense of confusing experiences, which more often than not includes sharing their personal observations and perspectives in a way that gives them meaning whether or not they produce a plausible explanation. Finally, the speed with which this process of sharing information about our common experience advances will exceed anything we saw before the dawn of the Information Age. When we speak of intelligence we often conflate its epistemic and ontological meanings. From an epistemic perspective, intelligence involves identifying what we know, filling in gaps and discovering missing elements that will help us build a coherent picture of the situation. Interpreting this picture involves another aspect of intelligence. Ontology addresses how we synthesize data by dictating the sorts of frames we apply to create a shared sense of understanding.
Neither of these approaches alone, however, answers for us the bigger and as yet unanswered and therefore open question: “What was the intention or purpose of the person who built and detonated this device?” We often assume that analysis and synthesis will lead us to the answers we seek to teleological (thanks Phil) — as opposed to epistemic or ontological — questions. Knowing what’s on the minds of those who seek to disrupt our lives, not in some abstract ideological or theological sense, but in the very tangible sense that links their intentions and actions, might actually help us interdict such threats before they emerge. If someone figures out a way to answer this question through crowdsourcing, we could make real progress against the threats we face.
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85% More From The Private Sector About Critical Infrastructure Filed under: Infrastructure Protection — by Christopher Bellavita on March 30, 2010
I was reading a paper by my colleague Nick Catrantzos yesterday when I came across this sentence: “…infrastructure defense is assumed to fall primarily into the hands of the private sector, which operates 85% of critical infrastructure.”
I ranted a year ago about the 85% number in a post that appeared on this blog. The Number simply won’t die. It lives beyond truth or lie. Its reality is independent of time and space.
So I wrote back to Nick summarizing what I believe is the problem with The Number. Nick — who loves the English language as a gardener treasures orchids — once presented me with a knit picker. So he is aware of my tendency to occasionally pole vault over mouse turds.
Nick also has spent time in the same Circus and has been known to pick a nit or two, so he responded back with some evidence about the 85% number. I pushed back. He returned fire. As did I. Then he wrote something that shined a light on a bias I did not see I had.
A year ago, I wrote: …the 85% figure has been used to justify a laissez fair critical infrastructure strategy. Private sector “ownership and control” has been interpreted to mean government frequently has to ask politely before it tries to do anything to improve safety and security.
If the 85% figure is wrong — or at least unsupported by any empirical basis — maybe the policies derived from that belief are also wrong. Basically, I thought the 85% number was used to justify the government not pushing the private sector hard enough when it comes to protecting critical infrastructure.
Nick — who is a security manager and former security consultant for public and private organizations — described how this “who owns what” issue looks from the private sector. My dilemma, perhaps a distant cousin to your own, has been in encountering an obdurate, logic-proof insistence by cops, fire fighters, emergency managers, fusion center staff, and DHS minions to define my employer and all critical infrastructure stewards as private sector entities.
It does not matter how much we demonstrate that we are a public agency and a regional extension of government. As far as these people are concerned, we are private, hence unworthy of sensitive information (even if we were the ones to originate it) and inherently suspect of being profit driven (no matter how many wasteful, feel-good programs we underwrite for some avowed public good). Even being part of the same retirement system and driving vehicles with tax-exempt license plates — two surefire convincers everywhere else — have no impact in shaking the conviction that we are infrastructure stewards, hence private sector mercenaries. My unproven suspicion is that much of what is at the bottom of this categorization is a sort of tribal urge to satisfy two unstated objectives:
1. Limit the in-group to an established comfort zone and organizationally and traditionally familiar faces. 2. Assure that the existing in-group gains and keeps primacy at the trough of grants and other funding destined for public sector actors who are new both to homeland security and critical infrastructure protection.
If there are points to this fugue that resonate with me as an infrastructure steward, they are these: A. Critical infrastructure is definitely in both public and private hands. Given the types of infrastructure that exist, it is reasonable and credible to accept that they are mainly privately owned and operated.
B. Whether that percentage figure of 85% is anything more than an approximation or an archly crafted statistic meant to advance an ulterior agenda is mildly interesting to an infrastructure steward. At the end of the day, the hand on the wrench or on the SCADA system comes from the same gene pool, skill set, and population. C. Even a critical infrastructure operation that is entirely managed by a public agency is going to have some private sector involvement and exposure. Construction comes to mind. We are always building or modifying facilities and upgrading systems. Contrary to popular belief, even the wealthiest of public agencies cannot hire everyone they meet. Contractors and subcontractors are as ubiquitous as they are indispensable.
D. The original point of emphasizing private ownership and operation, to the extent I absorbed one, seemed to be as a means of emphasizing that protecting critical infrastructure is a shared responsibility and one that would be imperiled by ignoring private sector stakeholders. That point still makes sense to me. Share This Post:
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Permalink 3 Comments » March 29, 2010
Did DHS Get It Right? Filed under: General Homeland Security — by Mark Chubb on March 29, 2010
CNN’s AC360º news magazine focused its Keeping Them Honest segment Monday night on the question of whether or not political criticism of the Department of Homeland Security’s ill-fated April 2009 report on the rise right-wing extremism led to its withdrawal. As we like to say in academic circles, “Duuuhh!” Sadly, no one questioned whether the report was original work. I attended an educational conference organized by the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) hosted by George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute in March 2009 during which Dr. Dave Brannan used almost identical language to describe the threat posed by rising right-wing militancy. He spoke plainly and passionately about signs he was witnessing that suggested the country’s deteriorating economy, the election of the nation’s first African-American president, the increasing disillusionment of the evangelical right, and the difficulties faced by veterans seeking to reintegrate following their return from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan created a perfect storm for ideologically motivated violence.
Today’s arrest of nine suspects in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio on charges of seditious conspiracy is only the most recent evidence that some of our fellow citizens may be moved to violence. Whether they are linked to or took comfort from the overheated rhetoric surrounding the Tea Party Movement and mainstream opposition to the Obama Administration’s health insurance reform bill remains unclear, but it probably did not discourage them. Other media outlets have questioned whether the steeped rhetoric of the right has become too astringent. At a minimum, some mainstream commentators have suggested, the right’s conspiracy of silence when it comes to disavowing extreme views, including those espousing violence, may all too easily be taken for silent assent.
What should we make of all the chest-beating and gnashing of teeth about the decision to withdraw the DHS report? Well, we are all familiar with 20/20 hindsight. Rather than questioning whether DHS was influenced to withdraw the report by political criticism or was motivated to issue it as a way of currying political favor with the new administration, we should question why its sources and methods could not withstand the scrutiny to which this work was subjected when it came to light. We desperately need honest assessments of this sort and open sharing of information with state and local officials to detect and interdict genuine threats. But no one will condone the efforts required to produce such intelligence unless we can have confidence in the competence and independence of those those responsible for collecting the information and conducting the analysis.
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March 26, 2010 Breaking News: Harding withdraws at TSA…
Filed under: Aviation Security — by Jessica Herrera-Flanigan on March 26, 2010 Despite what seemed like a rather smooth nomination hearing process this week, Retired Army Major General Robert Harding has withdrawn from consideration as the nominee for Administrator at the Transportation Security Administration. Gen. Harding becomes the second nominee to withdraw his name from consideration. Erroll Southers, formerly with the Los Angeles World Airport Police Department, withdrew his name in January 2010 amidst opposition from Republican lawmakers in Congress.
And the search for one of the nation’s most critical security jobs begins again… Share This Post:
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Permalink 1 Comment » Immigration- In the Background
Filed under: Immigration — by Jessica Herrera-Flanigan on March 26, 2010 While health care may have been grabbing most of the headlines, the last two weeks have been busy on the immigration front. Just over a week ago, Senators Schumer and Graham released an framework for immigration legislation that they would like to move forward with in the near future. Last Sunday, somewhere between “tens of thousands to more than 200,000″ people descended on the National Mall for the “March for America: Change Takes Courage” to promote immigration reform.
On Tuesday, the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law held an oversight hearing on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), touching upon a number of programs including E-Verify and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, as well as the agency’s Transformation Program, designed to “transition the agency from a paper-based business model to a centralized and consolidated electronic environment.” Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee marked up two bills - S. 2960 and S. 2974 - that would allow immigrants living in the U.S. legally to work overseas without harming their immigration status. The first bill would exempt immigrants who are refugees or asylum grantees who are working for the federal government oversees to have their immigration status adjusted to permanent resident without being required to be physically in the U.S. for a year. The second would allow permanent residents to go home to assist in recovery efforts in their native country in the time of a disaster without an adverse effect on their opportunity for naturalization here in the U.S.
Also held yesterday was a hearing in the House Homeland Security Committee entitled “Visa Overstays: Can They be Eliminated?” Much of that hearing focused on the development and implementation of a biometric air exit system. Congress first requested an automated entry/exit system in 1996 as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA).. The 9/11 Commission, in its final report, called for the creation of such a system. In 2007, congress mandated the use a system to biometrically track the exit of all foreign visitors from US. Airports by June 30, 2009. That deadline was not met. During the hearing, Committee Members posed a number of questions to the witnesses, specifically DHS National Protection & Programs Directorate Undersecretary Rand Beers about the future of a biometric air exit system. Members specifically asked why the Department did not request any funding for the air exit program in its Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Request. In response, Beers stated that since no decisions have been made on moving forward with a biometric exist system, it was impossible for the Department to predict costs. He did say that DHS would likely request funds in 2012 and that the estimates for the cost of any exit program could top $1 billion over 10 years. The decision on whether to continue with the program rests with Secretary Napolitano, who is evaluating its future.
Interestingly, even if a program was implemented, the Department - through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) - would still have to track those who have overstayed their visas and not left the country. This effort is tremendous, according to testimony given by the DHS IG Richard Skinner and ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton. ICE, for its part, has focused on the biggest risks - fugitives, potential terrorists and criminals - in its efforts to track down those who have overstayed. It is very likely, whatever happens on the comprehensive immigration reform front, that immigration and border security will remain a significant issue for the next several months. Among the things to look out for:
Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Will Senators Schumer and Graham’s bill, in the current toxic environment in D.C., be able to garner support this year and be considered?
If something goes through the Senate, how will the House respond? What role will the White House play in shepherding the issue through Congress?
Border Security: SBINet- what is its future?
Air Exit - what is its future? How will the increasing violence along the U.S.-Mexico border affect our nation’s border security efforts?
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March 25, 2010 Cyber security and the two homelands hypothesis
Filed under: Cybersecurity — by Christopher Bellavita on March 25, 2010 The deputy assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, Steven Chabinsky, told a conference on Tuesday:
“The cyber threat can be an existential threat — meaning it can challenge our country’s very existence, or significantly alter our nation’s potential…. How we rise to the cybersecurity challenge will determine whether our nation’s best days are ahead of us or behind us.” That’s serious language.
Several weeks ago I was with a group of homeland security executives who agreed the cyber threat was really important. They were equally in agreement the nation would not get serious about the threat until we experienced the cyber equivalent of Pearl Harbor. Why is that?
Beyond the usual “human nature” kinds of hypotheses, I think part of the answer has to do with the difficulty understanding what the cyber threat actually is. Why should it have the same fear status as, say, a biological attack on the nation, a nuclear detonation in an American city, a Mumbai-style attack on multiple-cities — pick your own “challenge to our country’s existence” scenario? Chabinsky talks about cyber terrorism, the theft of state and corporate secrets, and cybercrime. I am sure there are detailed reports available that give more information about why cyber is a serious threat. And I mean to find and read them.
I also mean to track down a copy of CNN’s “We Were Warned: Cyber Shockwave” attack simulation. I hear two stories about it: On the one hand, the “presentation was excellent and it highlighted some very real vulnerabilities.” On the other hand, “This scenario is removed from reality. This could have possibly happened 9 years ago. The pillars of the private sector have developed contingency plans just in case of this type of “event”. At best this is a poorly constructed “war game” at worst this is a piece of think tank propaganda.” I am confused. So I am looking to learn about the cyber threat and understand why it should be a high priority homeland security issue.
As a part of my education, I came across an out-of-frame essay in the Financial Times free, but registration is required that sees cyber space not as a way to exchange information, but as a “new continent,” rich in both resources and peril. And before too long, many of us will spend so much time living in the new continent that, “… almost any human interaction of any kind will require use of the internet.” From this perspective, we will have two homelands: the United States and the Internet.
States embark on a scramble for cyberspace By Misha Glenny Published: March 17 2010 23:20 It is time to stop thinking of cyberspace as a new medium or an agglomeration of new media. It is a new continent, rich in resources but in parts most perilous. Until 30 years ago, it had lain undiscovered, unmined and uninhabited.
The first settlers were idealists and pioneers who set out from San José, Boston and Seattle before sending back messages about the exciting virgin lands that awaited humanity in the realm of the net. They were quickly followed by chancers and adventurers who were able to make fortunes by devising their own version of the South Sea Bubble. It was inevitable that the wondrous materials found all over this territory would attract the interest of nation states. Now, the scramble for cyberspace has begun. Military and intelligence agencies are already staking their claim for the web’s high ground as civilian powers lay down boundaries to define what belongs to whom and who is allowed to wander where.
Cyberspace is being nationalised rapidly. In some parts of the world, this has been going on for a while. Russia has been running a programme known by the delightfully sinister acronym Sorm-2 (System of operational investigative activities) since the late 1990s. This ensures that a copy of every single data byte that goes into, out of or around the country ends up in a vast storage vault run by the Federal Security Service. You can read about atrocities committed in Chechnya if you wish but you can be confident that somebody will be looking over your digital shoulder. China, of course, has its “great firewall”, filtering politically incorrect sites along with pornography and other forms of cultural contamination. But of even greater import is China’s demand, effectively conceded, that the US relinquish control of the internet’s language and domain names through the Californian non-profit organisation Icann. This is being transformed into a United Nations-style regulatory operation. China will soon have absolute say over the internet’s structure within its borders. Note: this was written before this week's skirmish in the first war between nation states and virtual states: i.e., China v. Google.
The legal mapping of cyberspace in the west is more chaotic. But we are now witnessing the establishment of myriad laws and rules by legislators and in the courts. In a hearing this week … in London following a major cybercrime trial, an attorney put his finger on it when he argued that “we are entering a world where almost any human interaction of any kind will require use of the internet”. So while there is clearly a pressing need to define rules that apply in cyberspace, they are emerging at speed with little coherent strategy behind them. Nobody knows where this process will lead for two central reasons. The speed of technological change means that the traditional tools of state used to carve up the world in the 19th century, such as laws and treaties, are often inadequate, if not entirely irrelevant, when applied to this new domain.
Law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and the Serious Organised Crime Agency in Britain have invested considerable time and money in bringing down criminal networks on the web. But as the Internet Crime Complaints Centre in the US has just reported, the losses from cybercrime continue to climb at a staggering rate because criminals adapt at lightning speed to new policing methods. In the commercial world, major legislation concerning copyright … is unlikely to withstand the second great variable – the coming of age of the net generation. Laws banning file-sharing are likely to prove as unpopular as the poll tax that helped bring down the Thatcher government. They also look utterly unenforceable.
As a harbinger of change, we are seeing political parties springing up throughout Europe with names such as the Internet party or the Pirate party, which understand the web as simply part of human DNA. “In the collision between the old and the new on the web,” argues Rex Hughes, a Chatham House fellow who is leading a cybersecurity project, “the old always wins the first few rounds but eventually they die off.” my emphasis But the greatest battle is happening in the area of cyberwarfare and cyberespionage. Symbolically, the US designated cyberspace as the “Fifth Domain” last June and the first man-made one after land, sea, air and space. Nato lawyers are trying to work out how the laws of war operate in cyberspace. Hysteria is accompanying this new arms race, as when Admiral Mike McConnell, former director of US National Intelligence, claimed at a Senate hearing last month that “if the nation went to war today in a cyberwar, we would lose”.
Meanwhile, the phenomenon of “anonymisation”, so useful for cybercrime, is a gift to intelligence agencies as they sniff into every corner of the web to find out who is up to what. None of this would amount to a hill of beans were it not for the attorney cited above’s point that everything we do is somehow mediated by the web. Governments are becoming obsessed about the need to control the internet but have yet to work out how to do this without suffocating the noble goal of those pioneers who merely wanted to facilitate communication between ordinary people. Heaven forbid!
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March 24, 2010 Failure is Fertilizer
Filed under: General Homeland Security — by Mark Chubb on March 24, 2010 Much of what passes for recovery falls under the broad heading “learning from our mistakes.” This approach to learning leaves a lot to be desired.
For starters, when we examine our failures, we almost inevitably focus more on the consequences than the causes. When we do consider causes, we tend to focus only on execution errors, forgetting that mistakes arise from failures of intention, failures of execution, or both. And, finally, our efforts to address failures all too often tempt us to look for someone to blame before we have identified something we should change. When problems that lead us down the path to failure have no simple or clearly identifiable solutions, we often assume that no one is to blame. This overlooks the fact that we often had a choice over the path we took, or whether to embark on the journey at all.
Accepting responsibility for recovery begins by acknowledging that failure is like fertilizer. A little bit can help us grow. But too much can kill us. A good gardener only applies fertilizer when it is indicated, and, even then, she carefully selects the fertilizer to match the soil conditions, climate and a host of other variables. When we look to learn from failure, it would behoove us to take similar care and exercise considerable discretion.
Here are ten principles that can help us approach recovery from a more positive and productive perspective: 1. Acknowledge the loss. Do not start by assuming the future will be better simply because the worst has already happened. Allow people time to grieve and take note of the things they valued about the people and places they lost. These values figure prominently when it comes to deciding a vision of the future.
2. Avoid the temptation to blame others. We would all like to believe someone else is responsible for our misfortune. When we treat those affected by disaster like victims rather than recognizing them as resources, that is effectively what we are doing. It is too easy and far too convenient to assume anyone experiencing a disaster either had it coming or is no longer capable of taking care of himself. No single decision or action produces a disaster; it takes a community. Leave it to the community to decide when (or even if) it’s appropriate to lay blame. In the immediate aftermath of an event, those directly affected by a disaster usually have much higher priorities and would rather get to work rebuilding their lives. 3. Question assumptions. When we look at the effects of a disaster, it is far too easy to allow ourselves to assume others could see it coming as clearly as we see it after the fact. Even well-prepared communities that have carefully assessed their hazards and vulnerabilities cannot foresee with accuracy or precision how any particular part of the community or its infrastructure will perform when disaster strikes. Anyone who thinks otherwise is itching for a fight.
4. Account for the effects of actions and intentions. Our assumptions tend to inform our intentions. When our assumptions prove incorrect, we should consider the untoward consequences unexpected only insofar as they are unwanted. Unless we recognize and take responsibility for our original intentions and the latent effects of the decisions and actions they influenced, we are liable to lose the respect of others even if we do not repeat our mistakes. 5. Assess what worked. Murphy may be an optimist, but he is not an emergency manager. Even when it seems that everything that could go wrong did go wrong, a surprising number of things probably worked well or at least better than expected in light of what happened. In fact, most disasters result from a series or chain of small errors the absence of any one of which could either have prevented or at least minimized the subsequent consequences. Many big things often go right even when the tumblers fall into place and allow a small error to unlock the door opening everyone up to a major disaster. When the cause or consequences were foreseen or even voiced but not acted upon, it can be especially important to acknowledge the courage of those who came forward and the correctness of their actions.
6. Analyze alternatives. In the heat of disaster response, officials rarely consider multiple possibilities or competing courses of action. Even when the situation seems clear and everyone agrees on the goals, the stakes are often too high, the resources too constrained, and the time pressure too great to make good the enemy of good enough. As the dust settles, literally, and ambiguity gives way to awareness of the task ahead, decision-makers must avoid falling into the trap of making decisions about recovery the same way they made them during response. If alternatives are not immediately apparent, it is almost always a sign that we are trying to move too quickly or have too few people involved in framing the problem, much less offering potential solutions. 7. Access local knowledge and listen to aspirations. Like a family confronting the grieving process, communities often need rituals and structure to help them embrace the changes that come from the passing of a loved one. The early phases of a disaster response are too hectic to provide this structure, but as the response winds down and recovery begins, officials need to recognize that involving the people affected by the disaster in decisions about their future begins with simple questions. Many of these are mundane questions like those surrounding a funeral such as burial or cremation, the location of a memorial plot, picking songs for the funeral or memorial service and a designating a charity to receive memorial gifts. The answers guiding individual preferences about such matters often reflect the local culture and customs. As time goes by, people will begin to take charge of their lives again, and they should be encouraged to do so at their own pace. If you listen carefully, you can tell how far long they have come by the sorts of aspirations they express for their futures.
8. Act with local assent. Aside from the stark reminder of our vulnerability to forces greater than ourselves, disasters remind us how much we depend on one another for the simplest things. When an individual or community asks for help, it does not give up its right to make decisions for itself, especially about matters that have a direct impact on its safety, health or welfare. Too much aid is conditioned either on evidence of need or donor expectations. Giving should make both the donor and the recipient feel good about themselves. Real giving comes not from an open hand, but from an open mind and an open heart. Leaving decisions about how aid is dispensed and what it gets spent on with those who receive the help rather than those who lend a hand should go without saying, but it doesn’t. If we are wise enough to leave well enough alone and let people make decisions for themselves, they will often surprise us by asking for less than we are prepared to give, using it more widely than we could, doing better work than we expect and in the end getting back on their feet faster and fitter. 9. Anchor all changes in community capital. One of the best ways to assure donors that their resources will be used wisely is to leverage community capital. Even the poorest communities have vast and diverse stores of capital, many of which remain under appreciated before a disaster and therefore unrecognized after one occurs. Almost everyone appreciates the importance of financial and material capital, and the importance of natural capital to the development of communities and their economies is well known. But none of these resources will produce meaningful gains in community welfare without robust stores of human and social capital. If nothing else, disasters present an ideal opportunity to develop people and rally them around a cause bigger than themselves. Sustainable development cannot occur unless communities use their resources to become more resilient.
10. Atone and attest. Even when communities see no value in laying blame for a disaster at the feet or any one person or institution, they cannot move on without accepting individual and collective responsibility for the failures that left them vulnerable in the first place. Any successful recovery requires people to make amends for such errors and affirm their intention to do things that reflect the lessons they learned from the last disaster. If failure in the form of disaster is like fertilizer, then disaster recovery must take account of the additional steps required to grow more resilient communities. With these ten principles in mind, it should be clear that aerating the ground, selecting our seeds carefully, casting them freely, watering them regularly and sharing responsibility for the weeding and the harvesting are essential to success.
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March 23, 2010 The reflective practitioner in homeland security
Filed under: General Homeland Security — by Christopher Bellavita on March 23, 2010 The reflective homeland security practitioner is someone who does daily battle in the messy world of the real, while not losing sight of what might be.
The reflective practitioner is the man or woman with the guts and skill to use power, and the contemplative patience to wait for opportunity. The reflective practitioner in homeland security combines the insight to know what should be done, with the genius to know he or she is not the only one in the arena with insight.
The reflective practitioner is someone who knows many things, the first of which is how much more there is to learn. ———————————
On Friday, the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security — sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security — will graduate another cohort of reflective practitioners. I am posting the titles of their master’s degree theses to illustrate the range of topics covered by their reflective interest. Many of the theses — adding to what we know, think, and believe about homeland security — will be available through the NPS Dudley Knox library in a few weeks. The Naval Postgraduate School is not the only place homeland security professionals systematically reflect on their practice. There are hundreds of other academic programs — some small, some quite large — that encourage reflection about homeland security.
One need not be a registered student to be a reflective homeland security practitioner. Reflection also takes place in scholarship, at conferences, on blogs, and (I am informed by mostly reliable sources) in bars. I am further informed that reflecting is bars is a long honored tradition among practitioners.
Tacitus, a Roman historian, wrote about council meetings where the participants drank massive quantities of wine, believing one could not lie very well if one were drunk. Hence the doctrine: in vino veritas. A few years after Tacitus, another reflective practitioner, Marcus Aurelius, said “‘Wrestle to be the man philosophy wished to make you.”
The authors of the works described below each wrestled — with ideas, work pressures, family pressures, and life — to add light to the still forming world of homeland security. Their efforts hint at how much more there remains to learn. ———————————
Prostitution as a Possible Funding Mechanism for Terrorism Interagency Modeling Atmospheric Assessment Center: Operations Framework Model
An Epidemiological Approach to the Radicalization Process Enhancing Unity of Effort in Homeland Defense, Homeland Security and Civil Support Through Interdisciplinary Education
The Contribution of Police and Fire Consolidation to the Homeland Security Mission Applying a Community Policing Strategy to the Aviation Domain
Achieving Shared Situational Awareness During Steady-State Operations in New York State: A Model for Success Ensuring the Endgame: Facilitating the Use of Classified Evidence in the Prosecution of Terrorist Subjects
Synchronizing Federal Operational Planning for National Catastrophes Homeland Security Advisory System: An Assessment of its Ability to Communicate A Risk Message
Are the Means of the Next Terrorist Attack Already in the Country? An Analytical Examination of Cargo Containers That Have Entered the United States Validation of Rational Deterrence Theory: Analysis of U.S. Government and Adversary Risk Propensity and Relative Emphasis on Gain or Loss
Fusion 2.0: The Next Generation of Fusion in California: Aligning State and Regional Fusion Centers Effective State, Local, and Tribal Police Intelligence: The New York City Police Department’s Intelligence Enterprise — A Smart Practice
Collaboration in the Metropolitan Medical Response System Should Cops be Spies? Evaluating the Collection of National Security Intelligence by State, Local and Tribal Law Enforcement
Arizona Law Enforcement Biometrics Identification and Information Sharing Technology Framework Leveraging Rural America in the Fight Against Terrorism in America through the use of Conservation Districts
Improbable Success: Risk Communication and the Terrorism Hazard Homeland Security: The President Has No Clothes — The Case for Broader Application of Redteaming within DHS.
Succession Planning in Homeland Security — How Can We Ensure the Effective Transfer of Knowledge to a New Generation of Employees? Leveraging Successful Collaborative Processes to Improve Performance Outcomes in Large-Scale Event Planning: Superbowl — A Planned Homeland Security Event
Defining the Role and Responsibility of the Fire Service within the Homeland Security Discipline The Collaborative Capacity of the NYPD, FDNY and EMS in New York City: A Focus on the First Line Officer
Community Preparedness: Creating a Model for Change Share This Post:
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