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Does TSA's Use of Airport Full Body Scanners Make Sense?
23 Nov 2010 | 9:36 amDespite the current uproar, TSA has imposed many sensible and effective regulations for aviation security and the agency is operating under incredible pressure to help keep the massive U.S. aviation industry both running and secure. Screening of people and bags is better today than it was on 9/11. The increased and strategic use of onboard air marshals, hardened cockpit doors, armed pilots, trained flight attendants, and more vigilant passengers has made it far more difficult for anyone to highjack a U.S. jetliner as occurred on 9/11. However, because of that success, today’s battle to secure aviation is largely focused on preventing planes from being bombed from within by ever more elaborate terrorist methods.As I wrote on this blog after the 2009 Christmas day attempted underwear bombing, full body scanners have a legitimate place in aviation security, assuming proper protocols for their use are in place. The same is even true of enhanced pat downs. With the scanners, so long as the image is viewed by someone who cannot see or know who the individual being scanned is, and the image is not stored on the machine, privacy issues are reduced. In addition, the technology used in Europe that renders the image nothing more than a stick figure is evolving to the point that it may replace the current machines in use by TSA, further reducing privacy issues. Despite all that, there is a fundamental underlying problem with how TSA employed both the new pat downs and the scanners and it's[…]
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Cyber Clash: Your Blackberry, the Law and Homeland Security
3 Oct 2010 | 11:50 amIt has long been the case that technology outpaces the law. When the founders ratified the 4th Amendment in 1791 to protect against unreasonable government searches and seizures, they could not have imagined the use of land line telephones let alone encrypted video teleconferencing. Despite all the changes in technology over the last century, U.S. law has usually caught up ensuring that government’s ability to protect the public through electronic surveillance of criminals and other threats has been consistent with the principles articulated in the 4th Amendment and with private property rights generally.In 2010, technology has once again leaped passed the law, and it has done so in an age of global terrorism and international criminal organizations. Terrorists and criminals now regularly use the internet, including social networking sites, such as Facebook, peer-to-peer messaging, e.g., Skype, and wireless hand-held devices, such as a Blackberry to communicate via encrypted technology making it harder for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to monitor their conversations. As with the advent of the land line telephone, we can and must find the right balance today between public safety, free enterprise and freedom of communication and speech.According to the New York Times, in order to close legal and technical gaps in electronic surveillance, the Obama Administration will propose a series of changes in 2011 to communications law. These include requiring communications services that encrypt messages to provide a way to unscramble them; foreign-based providers doing business inside the U.S. would have to install a domestic office[…]
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Remembering a Fallen Firefighter From September 11, 2001
11 Sep 2010 | 12:47 pmI did not know Brain Cannizzaro in life but I had the privilege of eulogizing him in death. Like so many firefighters on September 11, 2001, Brian died while trying to save others. With so many deaths occurring on that terrible day among firefighters and police officers, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani could not attend all of the funerals in person. As such, he had members of his cabinet attend several of the funerals on his behalf. Brian’s was the funeral I attended and spoke at in Staten Island.Brian was just one month younger than me. He was born in December 1970. He died just a few blocks from me when the twin towers came down. As I spoke at his funeral, I could only imagine the pain his family must be going through. I knew then that it is unnatural for a parent to bury a child, a fact I understand even more having become a parent myself. Brian left behind his wife Jackie and son Christopher. A memorial fund was created in Brian’s honor.What I remember most about the eulogy was what I said about Brian’s character as a firefighter. It was something Mayor Giuliani had spoken of at many firefighter funerals before:Firefighters defy every basic human instinct when they rush into a burning building. As they search for victims, they do not ask what race or nationality you are, what religion you practice, or what income bracket you fall under. Rather, they act simply to save lives while risking[…]
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The Attempted Times Square Bombing – Did the System Work?
10 May 2010 | 10:25 amFaisal Shahzad, a recently naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, has been arrested for the attempted car bombing of Times Square on May 1st. While the investigation is far from over, the attempted terrorist attack raises the question once again of whether our homeland security system worked in this latest case. To answer that question, one must examine the system’s actions through each phase of the homeland security continuum: prevention, protection, response and recovery.PREVENTIONWhen it comes to homeland security and counter-terrorism the most important phase is prevention. While the bombing has been relegated to an “attempt” since the bomb did not actually explode and no one was killed or injured; there can be little doubt the system failed in this phase insofar as it was unable to prevent a terrorist from parking and then igniting a vehicle borne improvised explosive device in the heart of Times Square on a busy Saturday night.Some may argue that it was the alert street vendor who notified police of the smoking SUV that helped prevent this attack. However, had the bomb worked properly inside an SUV with tinted windows, it’s highly unlikely that even the street vendor’s alerting police would have done any good or even if the vendor would have had time to do so. Indeed, the vendor would likely have been the first person killed. In truth, while the vendor’s actions were highly laudable, it was nothing short of the bomb maker’s failure that averted mass carnage.Another element of the system that needs[…]
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Does New York City Receive Enough in Homeland Security Grant Funds?
5 May 2010 | 10:29 amWith last Saturday’s failed bombing in Times Square, the issue of federal funding to support New York City’s homeland security efforts has once again been raised in the news media. What is clear from the events in Times Square is that New York City remains at the top of the terror target list. With the distinction of being target number one comes significant funding needs to enhance and maintain security. The question is, is New York getting enough, and if not, how much federal funding assistance should New York get? The answer is complicated, but in short, the city likely needs more funding and the allowable uses of those funds should be re-examined as should the federal government’s budgeting methods for such grant funds.THE CITY-STATEWhile New York is unique in terms of the level of risk it faces and its resulting security needs, it is also unique in several other respects. The size and density of the city (over 8 million people spread across 305 square miles) and its agencies is simply unprecedented at the local and state level, which also helps drive costs up given the sheer magnitude of resources to be funded. The NYPD’s roughly 34,500 officers is more than double the second largest department in the U.S. in Chicago, which has approximately 13,000 officers. Unlike any other major city, New York is actually comprised of five counties, which are more often referred to as boroughs with each borough a part of the city government. Cities such as[…]
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The Homeland Security Lexicon: How to Define America’s Current Enemy
21 Apr 2010 | 9:37 amDuring the presidential campaign of 2008, then candidate Obama told us words matter. He was right, especially when it comes to providing a clear picture to the American people and the world concerning the nature and objectives of war and homeland security. Now the Obama Administration is updating the National Security Strategy of the United States and in doing so is removing any so-called “offensive” terminology concerning Islam in the hope it will win hearts and minds across the Muslim world. While outreach to the Muslim world is welcome, this particular act is a mistake that displaces facts for feelings.The Obama Administration early on declared the term “War on Terror” inadequately described the nature and focus of the current conflict. This was a fair critique of the Bush Administration’s vague use of language. The new Administration replaced War on Terror with “War against al-Qaeda,” which is a more definitive description of the enemy and the nature of our engagement against it. However, it’s not enough, and it’s the next level of definition, answering who and what is al-Qaeda and why they are fighting us that the Administration now seeks to obfuscate.In answering such questions there are three irrefutable facts. First, every member of al-Qaeda, regardless of race, gender or ethnicity is a Muslim. Second, the religious faith of those members serves as the ideological underpinning in their war against the U.S. and its allies. A simple reading of Usama bin Laden’s 1996 and 1998 fatwas shows a movement steeped in[…]
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Are We Any Better at Information Sharing?
25 Mar 2010 | 10:49 amThat is a question that was posed to me by the editors of Emergency Management Magazine. My answer appears in the March edition of the magazine in an article entitled Analysis: Collecting and Sharing Information Is Not Enough. The article is now available on-line. In reaching my conclusion, I spoke to a number of current and former government officials many of whom now serve in business and academia. What do you think? Are we any better at this?
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The Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Trial and the Absence of State and Local Coordination
22 Mar 2010 | 8:27 amIt’s becoming increasingly clear that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and his al-Qaeda cohorts will not be tried in New York City and may not be tried in a civilian court at all. This is welcome news to many of us, but clearly not to the Justice Department’s leadership, which has been reportedly sidelined from the process of devising an alternative trial venue and forum. As we look back on the process that got us to this moment, there is a powerful lesson to be learned beyond the fact the decision on the merits was a bad one to begin with. That lesson being, federal officials should reach out and talk to state and local officials before the feds make monumental decisions that must be implemented largely by those state and local officials.One of the most striking elements of the process that led to Attorney General Eric Holder announcing his decision to move KSM into the civilian justice system in New York was that his agency never consulted with city officials in New York, most notably the NYPD. This is truly unbelievable for the obvious reason that this was not going to be a typical trial or even a typical high profile trial for a mafia don or a drug kingpin. The trial of KSM in New York would require a security apparatus the likes of which this country had never seen before.The NYPD’s $200 million annual security bill for the trial is massive by any standard and who would not[…]
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What The Najibullah Zazi Terror Case Teaches Us
1 Mar 2010 | 9:27 amWould be terrorist Najibullah Zazi has cut a deal with federal prosecutors. In his allocution last week in federal court, Zazi described his plan to carry out a “martyrdom operation” against the New York City subway system. While one can still question whether civilian plea bargaining with Zazi, a non U.S. citizen who originally traveled overseas to wage war against the U.S., is the best method for preventing future terrorist attacks; the CIA, FBI, NYPD and others deserve credit for disrupting this plot. The Zazi case teaches us once again that when it comes to protecting critical infrastructure, such as mass transit systems, intelligence is the key.Mass transit remains among the most likely terrorist targets inside the U.S. generally and the New York City metro region in particular. Attacks in London, Madrid, Moscow, Mumbai and Tokyo, and previous plots against the New York City transit system and the New York/New Jersey Port Authority Trans-Hudson commuter train, provide stark evidence of this fact. In addition to the 2006 train bombings in Mumbai, the terrorist assault of 2008 in that city involved an attack on the transit passenger hall at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus killing fifty people.By their very nature, mass transit systems are extremely vulnerable to attack, whether by suicide bombers, as was done in the first London bombing, or by timed improvised explosive devices in back-packs left on trains, as was done in Madrid, or by assault team, as was done in Mumbai in 2008. The reasons for this are obvious[…]
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The Austin Plane Crash: Crime or Terrorism?
22 Feb 2010 | 6:15 pmLast week’s shocking site of a commercial office building in Austin, Texas engulfed in flames and thick black smoke, after having a small plane intentionally slam into it, provided a chilling reminder of the 9/11 attacks. Given the similarities between 9/11 and what happened in Austin, this most recent incident has caused many to ask if the crash was an act of terrorism or a crime. The White House has taken a wait-and-see approach depending on the outcome of the investigation, while the chief of police in Austin has called it a crime and not an act of terrorism.The debate over crime versus terrorism misses the larger point and distinguishing factor between September 11, 2001 and Austin, Texas, February 18, 2010. The attack in Austin that killed one, in addition to the attacker, appears to be an act of terrorism. However, unlike the 9/11 attacks, the incident in Austin was likely not an act of war or war crime signaling a strategic threat to U.S. security at home and abroad. While all terrorism is a crime, every crime is not act of terrorism, nor is every act of terrorism an act of war or war crime, just as every act of war is not an act of terrorism.Federal law defines an act of war, in part, as “armed conflict between military forces of any origin” and the term "domestic terrorism" as activities that occur primarily inside the U.S. that involve “acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of[…]
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The Disconnect between DHS and the Homeland Security Mission
15 Feb 2010 | 10:28 amRecently, Dr. James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation wrote a piece entitled Lay off Napolitano and the Homeland Security Department, which includes a run down of which federal agencies dropped the ball in the Christmas Day flight 253 “panty bomber” case. In his analysis, Carafano concludes that “none of the responsibility for keeping the attempted killer [Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] off the plane rests with the Department of Homeland Security.” This is a remarkable statement primarily because it’s true, which raises a serious question: How is it we have a Department of Homeland Security that is not actually responsible for much of our homeland security?When DHS was created it was marketed as a consolidation of key counter-terrorism agencies and functions that had previously been spread incoherently throughout the government. However, in the end, while several agencies and functions did come into DHS, as outlined in Carafano’s article, all too many did not. This includes issuing visas, (State Department), managing the No Fly List, (FBI), and serving as the hub for homeland security intelligence, (National Counter Terrorism Center). All of this has caused confusion from the start, which Congress and both the Bush and Obama Administration’s have compounded by making the DHS Secretary the face of homeland security for appearances, but in function relegating DHS to junior partner in the conglomerate of federal counter-terrorism agencies.Perhaps no case better exemplifies the disconnect between DHS and the larger homeland security mission than the decision to keep the FBI out of the new department. Even[…]
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The Flight 253 Terror Bomber Speaks
8 Feb 2010 | 8:50 amSix weeks after being interrogated for 50 minutes, would-be Northwest Flight 253 bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has once again started talking to the FBI. This is good news, sort of. While getting information from Abdulmutallab is far better than his silence, there are three reasons not to cheer too loudly.First, the fact that Abdulmutallab is talking now is the best evidence we have that he did not tell us everything six weeks ago before he was read his Miranda rights. Hopefully, the next time we capture foreign al-Qaeda operatives sent to the U.S. to wage illegal war we will not repeat the mistake of bestowing the right to remain silent upon our enemy at capture. In fact, that time may be upon us as senior intelligence officials warned Congress last week that an attempted attack against the homeland over the next three to six months was “certain.”Second, whatever Abdulmutallab is telling the FBI may or may not be still valid. Information has a shelf life and Abdulmutallab’s capture six weeks ago was known worldwide. Therefore, those who sent him to the U.S. knew immediately that he was compromised and could respond accordingly. That is why it was so important to interrogate Abdulmutallab immediately and at length with U.S. intelligence operatives steeped in the knowledge of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and not for 50 minutes by a few local FBI agents who happened to be the first on scene.Third, the fact that we all know he is speaking again means[…]
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An Analysis of the Fiscal Year 2011 Homeland Security Grants
3 Feb 2010 | 6:39 amOn Monday, the Obama Administration released its proposed 3.8 trillion FY 2011 budget of which roughly $4 billion is slated for state and local homeland security grants and programs. What is obvious from the start is how little the Administration proposes to cut from these state and local programs. Many expected deep cuts given the huge $1.6 trillion federal deficit projected for FY 2011. The Administration proposes to cut $164 million from last year’s total of $4.165 billion leaving just over $4 billion for FY 2011.Despite the limited overall cuts, there are several programs that are slated for termination including, Citizen Corps, Metropolitan Medical Response System, Interoperable Emergency Communications Grants and Real ID grants. However, virtually all of the activities funded by these grants are eligible under other grant programs that are set to receive an increase in funding such as the Urban Areas Security Initiative and State Homeland Security Program.At $1.1 billion, the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) is set to receive a $213 million plus-up from last year, but before anyone gets too exited read the fine print. $200 million of the new UASI funding is set for “security resulting from terror-related trials.” That turns out to be roughly the same number the NYPD has said it will cost to secure one year of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial in lower Manhattan. However, as of now, it seems highly unlikely such a trial will occur in New York City if it occurs in the U.S. at all. What[…]
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Who’s in Charge in a Disaster?
1 Feb 2010 | 5:00 amThe crisis in Haiti has left many wondering who’s in charge down there when it comes to responding to the earthquake that struck the island nation just under three weeks ago. It’s a legitimate question given that the Haitian government and infrastructure collapsed as a result of the disaster. It also raises questions about how the United States would manage such a catastrophe. Who would be in charge?The answer to the question of “who’s in charge?” during a major disaster in the United States is no one person or agency is ever in charge of all aspects of responding to a catastrophe whether it be an attack similar to 9/11 or a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina. When the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and later established the Constitution, one of their fundamental objectives was to ensure that no one person was ever “in charge” in the United States. The founders set up numerous roadblocks to central power by spreading power and authority within and across multiple levels of government and directly to the people. It is a masterpiece in limited government, but it also raises serious challenges when a major domestic crisis hits.It is odd that we should expect a federal democracy to suddenly pivot into a quasi central dictatorship during major disaster operations. Attempts to centralize power often create more problems than they solve. The post Katrina expansion of the President’s power to federalize the National Guard during a natural disaster or other emergency without[…]
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From 9/11 to Haiti: Executive Communications in a Crisis
19 Jan 2010 | 11:20 amWhen a crisis arises, the public wants and expects to hear from its leaders. The timing, tone and information provided by a chief executive will have a dramatic impact on how the public perceives how the government (local, state and federal) is responding to a crisis. Indeed, effective communications is one of the most important responsibilities a chief executive has in managing a crisis. Recent events from the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti to the attempted terror bombing of Northwest Flight 253 to the Fort Hood attack have provided situations where executive communications have been essential and sometimes lacking.The role of the chief executive, whether an elected or an appointed official, is not to turn into a public information officer. There are systems in place under the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the incident command system (ICS) to handle that. In fact, executive communications must be integrated into that framework. However, just as a Mayor should not do the job of a press officer by trying to brief on the daily, intimate details of an incident, neither can a public information officer communicate in place of a Mayor, Governor or President of the United States.The Northwest Flight 253 incident saw President Obama wait three days to speak and instead delegate the role of communicator-in-chief to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the White House Press Secretary both of whom used the now infamous phrase “the system worked” relative to security and response to the attempted bombing. This approach violated two[…]
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