June 4, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

The latest issue of the Homeland Security Report is available at:

http://www.homelandsecuritygroup.info/reports/HSR198.pdf

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June 4, 2009 by Tim McDowell.

The Homeland Security Digital Library (HSDL) is the nation’s premier collection of documents related to homeland security policy, strategy, and organizational management. The HSDL is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate, FEMA and the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security.

Our Mission

Our mission is to strengthen national security of the United States by supporting federal, state, local, and tribal analysis, debate, and decision-making needs and to assist academics of all disciplines in homeland defense and security related research.

The Homeland Security Digital Library Collection

The Homeland Security Digital Library is composed of homeland security related documents collected from a wide variety of sources. These include federal, state, tribal, and local government agencies, professional organizations, think tanks, academic institutions, and international governing bodies. Resources are carefully selected and evaluated by a team of librarians and subject-matter specialists.

https://www.hsdl.org/?about

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November 13, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

On 13 November 2008 a group of gunmen abducted an Iranian diplomat in the city of Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan. Authorities stated that the suspected militants stopped the diplomat’s vehicle in the Hayatabad neighborhood and killed his bodyguard before quickly leaving the scene. Police investigators cordoned off the area and shut down surrounding streets in an attempt to track down the perpetrators. Representatives of the Iranian Consulate confirmed that the attack occurred and stated that no group has claimed responsibility. The abduction came one day after a U.S. humanitarian aid worker was shot and killed in Peshawar.

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July 9, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

FEMA course IS 860

Course Overview

Protecting the critical infrastructure and key resources (CI/KR) of the United States is essential to the Nation’s security, public health and safety, economic vitality, and way of life.  The purpose of this course is to introduce the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP).

Course Objectives

• Explain the importance of protecting critical infrastructure and key resources (CI/KR).
• Identify the relevant authorities and roles for CI/KR protection efforts.
• Describe the NIPP unifying structure for the integration of CI/KR protection efforts, including:
  • Sector security partnership model.
  • Risk management framework.
  • Information sharing process

http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is860.asp

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June 30, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

Strong Angel III: Integrated disaster response demonstration

Working together to save lives by improving information flow across boundaries

In 2006, more than 800 volunteers from a diverse group of organizations gathered in San Diego, California, to undertake Strong Angel III, a disaster response demonstration. The demonstration explored how military, humanitarian, local government, and private organizations work together during man-made or natural disasters. Strong Angel III focused on simulating those aspects of post-disaster conditions that specifically impact communication, information-sharing, and coordination. Through this intense exercise, team members from different organizations were able to work together more effectively, improve individual impact from the field, and more easily fuse data from various sources, strengthening situational awareness and creating more useful information for decision-making. Watch the video • Strong Angel III: Disaster response demonstration 5:08 Min; Windows Media file On This Page The challenge The challenge Simulating a lethal pandemic and cyber-terrorist attack, Strong Angel III addressed common communication and collaboration challenges that cross-organizational teams experience when working together during the plan, respond, and recover cycles, including: • Easily working together when systems are incompatible. • Coordinating roles and responsibilities across discrete organizations. • Providing one central place to access and share information for situational awareness. • Supporting and maintaining continuity of operations. • Remaining effective offline or in bandwidth-constrained environments. • Easily and rapidly communicating field intelligence back to the command center. Top of page The participants Participants in and sponsors of Strong Angel III came from military, humanitarian, and private organizations that included the U.S. Navy, the American Red Cross, Microsoft, and ESRI. • See a detailed list of participants and sponsors Top of page The results Using available technologies from Microsoft, the Strong Angel III team was able to: • Easily communicate and collaborate across geographic, technical, and environmental boundaries before, during, and after an event. • Improve bidirectional data flow by building bridges between applications, devices, and operating systems. • Help mobile first responders to act immediately with instant alerts and notifications. • Address issues more quickly and directly by sharing and working with dynamic information, geographically represented on detailed digital maps. • Coordinate faster and more effectively, with the right tools, people, and information available in one place. • Remain productive and effective throughout the simulation with the ability to continue working from the field when offline or in a bandwidth-constrained environment. Top of page The technologies Microsoft technologies highlighted in the Strong Angel III demonstration include: • Microsoft Office Groove 2007 • Microsoft Virtual Earth • Microsoft Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT)

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May 2, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

“Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as jihadists or mujahedeen,” reports the Associated Press. “… The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.” [View article]

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February 29, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

By Matt Korade, CQ Staff

David Cid thinks he knows how to protect

The former FBI agent and current deputy director of the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism said intelligence, especially human intelligence, is the key to battling ne’er-do-wells at home and abroad.

But as anyone who has followed the controversies over prewar intelligence or the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program knows, intelligence is never perfect.

Those who gather human intelligence are “the best, but they’re difficult to deal with,” Cid said, speaking at an International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals on Thursday at Alion Science & Technology’s headquarters in Washington.

The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism provides free Web access to its online database of terrorism cases, the “terrorism knowledge base,” a resource for security officials and others that was funded with grant money from the Department of Homeland Security, Cid said.

The reason intelligence is critically important is that the spectrum of terrorist threats is so broad, he said. At the high-end is al Qaeda and other state-sponsored terrorist organizations, whose destructive-potential is well known.

On the low end are people like Leroy Charles Wheeler and Douglas Allen Baker. Wheeler and Baker were members of the Patriots Council, a right-wing, anti-government group that abhorred paying taxes, according to records on the MIPT site.

Despite the fact that “their collective IQs” would barely break 100, Cid said, the two were able to get their hands on ricin, a lethal poison derived from castor beans, which they were planning to use as a weapon. After an informant turned them in, the pair were charged under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 (PL 101-298) and sentenced to brief prison terms.

“So we’re static, and he’s not,” Cid said, referring to the terrorists. And the more that dichotomy continues, the more Cid believes there will be another major terrorist attack on

In fact, the

“The ideal operational environment for a terrorist,” Cid said, reading a quote that was written on the overhead projection, “is a republic grounded in a constitution, guaranteeing he will enjoy privacy, freedom of movement and a vigorous defense if arrested.”

Another perceived weakness is the public’s supposed aversion to suffering mass casualties, an idea that ultimately prompted Osama bin Laden to reject the admonitions of traditional terrorist thinkers, such as Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine tactician George Habash, who died last month.

Habash once said terrorism was “a thinking man’s game.” What that meant, Cid said, was that a terrorist should kill only enough people to be taken seriously, or he runs the risk of invoking the enmity of the local population.

The Domestic Front

Even small-scale terrorist activities can be extremely disruptive.

“Terrorism is theater,” Cid said, quoting counterterrorism expert Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corp. In most cases it’s directed at the viewer as much as the victim.

Domestically, the most immediate danger is from conventional weapons, Cid said, like that used in the

The Klan has become politicized today over issues such as border control, immigration and eminent domain; “this is good,” Cid said, “because when they’re political, they’re not killing people.”

The Animal Liberation Front could resort to violence if it perceived its message wasn’t getting out — a possibility, considering a burger joint opens up about “every 15 seconds,” Cid said. When a group believes its goals are being frustrated, its zealots take command, negating the influence of “active and concerned” members who usually exert a moderating effect on the membership.

But that membership is hard to penetrate, because terrorist groups by definition tend to share the same values and beliefs, form strong personal bonds among members, and rely on previously tested relationships.

So, how can they be deterred? The best method is to form small, highly mobile, intelligence driven, self-contained units – much like the FBI has created with in its Joint Terrorism Task Forces. These small cells of highly trained, locally based investigators, analysts, SWAT experts and other specialists from dozens of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, have proven effective, Cid said.

The challenge of counterterrorists is to determine which groups like to stockpile weapons and badmouth the government and which plan to act on those criticisms, he said. That requires actionable intelligence, and that’s best gleaned from human contacts.

As imperfect as pre-Iraq-war intelligence showed them to be, they’re necessary, Cid said.

Matt Korade can be reached at mkorade@cq.com.

Source: CQ Homeland Security
© 2008 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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January 24, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

Barry Kellman describes the underestimated danger of biological agents falling into the hands of those who would be inclined to use them, and provides a wide-ranging and detailed policy analysis on how to prevent this from happening. As he puts it, “This book is a brief—an argument— that: 1) bioviolence is a threat that merits serious attention; 2) there are wise strategies that can reduce bioviolence threats; and 3) those strategies have serious ramifications that demand important changes in global governance.” Paul Higgins reviews the book

http://www.homelandsecurity.org/newjournal/BookReviews/displayBookReview2.asp?review=71

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