Adfero Group HSPI

Change is in the air at the House Homeland Security Committee. While its Chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), is firmly in place, the people running his Subcommittees are going through a round of musical chairs.

The late, legendary comedian Rodney Dangerfield long complained about getting “no respect.” After attending Wednesday morning’s Government Executive Leadership Series breakfast, “Cyber Security: Who Leads,” DHS may feel like using Rodney’s most memorable line to describe its placement in the federal cyber world. In what was a first-class discussion of the challenges and issues compounding the federal and international cyber-security environment, nary a word was mentioned about DHS and the role they play in leading the country’s cyber security efforts.

Among the many important findings in the Report Card issued by the co-chairs of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Commission, Congress’s failure to consolidate oversight of homeland security received a big fat “F.” The co-chairs, former senators Graham and Talent do not make this finding lightly given their years of elected service on the Hill. It is a bipartisan finding that should get attention, but it appears to keep falling on deaf ears inside the Capitol.

During his formative years, Founding Father Ben Franklin is reputed to have said, “out of adversity comes opportunity.” From a homeland security standpoint, we saw this parable in operation over the past week. DHS Secretary Napolitano traveled to Europe to meet with colleagues in Spain. It appears that the International Air Transport Association, in conjunction with the CEOs of 20 international airlines, has agreed to enter into global public-private collaboration to strengthen security. This is an epoch event and a solid-gold opportunity to cease an initiative long over due.

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

With the nomination of Erroll Southers to be the next Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) now in tatters, the question has to be raised, “Now what?” f we do the forensics on why Southers will remain in Southern California instead of TSA Headquarters in Arlington, VA, I think it is safe to say that for all of his testimony faults and the petty politics that caused his nomination to collapse, its more than apparent that it was the White House that doomed the nomination from the start. If we’ve seen anything of their first year in office, this is not an Administration with much ability to make unpopular or tough positions, let alone a willingness to fight to put people into positions that serve the nation’s interests. Rather than actually leading and staking positions beyond rhetorical campaign platitudes or using the powers and authorities they have, the Obama Administration is apparently unable or unwilling to answer tough questions or lacks the ability to fight for people who are willing to serve.

Today, we tend to conflate cyber crime with cyber espionage and cyber warfare. We call all of them attacks, and this confuses an issue that is already complicated and hard to understand. Cyber crime is basically a commercial endeavor, designed to make money. The others are intended to gain advantage or cause mischief. So, what are some cyber crime examples?

The recent earthquake in Haiti has been tragic, with the numbers of those dead and missing constantly rising. Many countries have answered the call for aid, the U.S. second to none. As a former U.S. Coast Guard officer, this e-mail from Admiral Thad Allen, Coast Guard commandant, is a fine example of why I am so proud of the USCG.

Erroll Southers became a political scapegoat for Senator DeMint to send a message to the White House. It’s unfortunate. Southers has more than thirty years of experience in the law enforcement and homeland security environment. Unfortunately – and ironically – he is too apolitical to know how to expertly maneuver through Washington’s often perilous political landscape. He’s a law enforcement professional, not a politician.

By Justin Hienz
Perhaps America’s most critical infrastructure is its national electrical grid. It has served us well to this point, supporting all our grandiose and astounding technological innovations. But the grid is getting old, and it doesn’t keep up with our innovations (and electronic appetites) as well as it should. So, we’re upgrading – to a Smart Grid. It is clear the Smart Grid touches on every aspect of homeland security, and the time to improve Smart Grid security is now, while we are developing it.

The January 12, 2010 headline of The Washington Examiner was irresponsible, reckless, and salacious. Splashed across the front page read: “Terror threat to city water.” As a water security guy, I was sucked in. After reading the informative (if not boring) article about DC water’s switch in disinfection processes, a change that was publicly announced three years ago, I realized I had been Rickrolled by a dying paper’s feeble attempt to increase its dwindling circulation.

It’s been no secret that our various cyber networks have been susceptible to attack, and public reports on this have basically been greeted by the conventional up and down head-bob followed by the expedited and innocuous statement, “Yes, this is serious.” While there is nothing wrong with those reactions and the attention is surely warranted, something has dramatically changed, and it’s screaming on headlines across the country – Google is threatening to leave China.

As the country’s various homeland and intelligence agencies begin to implement the post-Delta Flight 253 changes ordered by the President, it is becoming painfully obvious that we are falling into the same post-9/11 reaction – we are federalizing a national moment. If we are to be a resilient and resourceful nation, the private sector must play a key role in the strategic response and corrective actions following an event such as that on Flight 253.

The news cycles, talking heads and many elected officials seem to be in a bit of a tizzy over the images created Whole Body Imaging (WBI) systems. Solutions to enhance security through the use of WBI will become more effective when the data is synthesized to produce a depiction of the entire situation on a generic form, enabling real-time interpretation without the distraction of raw data. If we take a moment to consider the efficacy of WBI and the invested public and private funds, we are likely to witness a clear example of Moore’s law.

Recently, an official of the National Security Agency stated that the shortage of highly talented information security professionals had not yet hurt our security, but that it sure made the job more of a challenge. The operative word here is “yet.” Thank God for those professionals manning the terminals across all of our diverse infrastructure sectors. They are holding off the growing tide of cyber threats, and they need help.

Last Friday, the editorial board of the New York Times added its considerable weight to the growing list of thought leaders advocating the completion of the 9-11 Commission recommendations – namely, the consolidation of congressional oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. Entitled “88, Count ‘Em,” the Times editors called the 88 committees and subcommittees who claim a piece of DHS oversight “little more than a competitive rush for headlines.”

By Edward Alden
The failed Christmas bombing plot has been called, by everyone up to President Obama, a massive failure of the intelligence and targeting systems that are supposed to identify would-be terrorists before they come so close to succeeding. But the more we have learned about what the government knew before the attacks, the more it looks like this was instead a very near miss by agencies that were doing most of the right things.

Many commentators (including me) have called Cloud Computing the way of the future. Indeed, I still believe that is true; however, a new wrinkle has come up with regard to the cloud’s security. It seems hackers are using the computing power of the cloud to do bad things. Instead of laboriously working through passwords trying to crack them, hackers have used cloud providers’ linked virtual networks to apply enormous computing power to break codes and perform attacks.

Now that the Administration has fully engaged in evaluating the systems failures, which allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian Islamic terrorist, to board a US airliner with a bomb concealed in his underwear, I feel compelled to contribute my insight. Based on 33 years flying large transport aircraft worldwide for both the US Air Force and a major US airline and concurrently being an aviation security and operations expert, I see the return of many old issues.

In this second installment of Congressional Quarterly’s survey of homeland security experts, a number of contributors to Security Debrief consider the Obama administration’s largest error in 2009. Some of the responses are provided below.