Adfero Group HSPI

What is going on in this country? I see that TSA and Secretary Napolitano are being sued for doing their jobs. One-time wrestler and former-Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura has filed a law suit for screening him at airports as a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. Funny, for a person who made a living running around without a shirt on TV and in movies, why would he be so concerned about someone screening him?

By Doug Doan
Like many of you, I am often gobsmacked by the silly decisions coming out of our federal government. For every politician or senior government official with the courage and insight to focus national attention on the most pressing problems, there are many more, determined to push idiotic policies that erode American economic power and national security. Then I had a moment of epiphany. Instead of grousing about a politician, I needed to find a way to benefit from the consistent stupidity. Why not profit from boneheaded policies with a few selective trades?

As Egypt enters its fourth day of large scale protests and serious rioting, it is becoming increasingly likely that the Egyptian Government may fall in the same way that the Tunisian Government fell two weeks ago. Protests in Jordan have been better managed than those in Egypt, revealing important lessons for policing protest.

George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) had the honor of hosting DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano for what was billed as the First Annual Homeland Security Address. It was clear the Secretary has a new passion for delivering her remarks, but as polished as she may have been in presenting new material, her remarks were remarkably devoid of anything groundbreaking.

Every man, or nation, for themselves might be the best mantra for cybersecurity. The recently released results of a cyber summit organized by the EastWest Institute concluded as much. In short, an international treaty might be unattainable. The right approach to cyber governance is to begin with the premise that all national security challenges are a series of actions and counteractions between competitors, and inquiring how these competitions might progress in the future.

As a number of commentators and political pundits have opined this week, State of the Union’s are often unmemorable affairs where the words and substance are quickly forgotten in favor of some other major remarks by the President and Congressional leaders. It’s too early to say where President Obama’s remarks will measure in history, but there were still a couple of points that I thought worthy of highlighting.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, today announced the ranking members for the six subcommittees.

Where you sit often defines how you look at the world around you, and last week I got to spend some brief, albeit quality time in the United Kingdom. Much has been written over the past few years about the decay of the “special relationship” that exists between England and her former American colonies. In meetings with various UK government personnel and businesses, it was interesting to hear their perspective on a range of items. Here are some points that I took away from last week’s visit.

The Cyber Market writ large is well over $15 billion. Despite the seemingly well-informed and well-intentioned efforts of the Obama Administration, the large contracts (or lots of medium sized ones) most of the experts thought would begin to flow in 2010 quite simply did not happen. I expect this to break lose this year.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is informing industry that the requirement to screen 100 percent of cargo on passenger planes inbound to the United States will be met by December 31, 2011. Did I miss something? What has happened over the last six months that makes TSA think inbound cargo will be 100 percent screened by the end of the year? There’s aggressive action and then there’s unrealistic optimism.

GAO recommends, among other things, that USCIS disseminate information to employees on the importance of consistently recording their names, DHS components develop procedures to help employees correct inaccurate personal information, USCIS develop reliable cost estimates for E-Verify, and SSA assess risks associated with its E-Verify workload costs.

Throughout my 25-year career as a sworn law enforcement officer, and having worked for the past five years internationally with law enforcement agencies on their intelligence management initiatives, I have challenged police executives to understand the key elements of Intelligence-Led Policing (ILP) and to employ this approach systematically. Today, as I travel around North America, I still find police agencies collecting volumes of information and – shockingly – not conducting the required analysis to incorporate this information into their strategic responses.

A public forum will be hosted Tuesday on Capitol Hill discussing Attorney General guidelines for law enforcement domestic intelligence as it relates to homegrown radicalism. Participants include Rep. Rush Hold, Chairman of House Intelligence and Michael Isikoff, national investigative correspondent for NBC, among others.

In Washington, some things never change. There are and always will be vigorous debates about policies, programs and of course money. What does change are the names and faces of the people who make many of those decisions, and unless you’ve totally tuned out on the comings and goings in town, here’s a rundown of some things you should know.

On January 14, the Breakfast of Leaders forum will hold a roundtable, “Knowing What it Takes to Create a Prepared and Resilient Organization: A Leader’s Responsibility.” The roundtable will feature a panel of private sector security leaders, moderated by Dave McWhorter of Catalyst Partners.

I hope Americans are awake and trying to obtain information from REAL news sources. At what point in our history did we rewrite the role of the press? For most of my life (and that has been a good while), their role was to report the facts of the news and confirm them before they are broadcast to the world. Clearly some have gone to sleep at the switch and believe that writing an editorial or “opinion piece” is now the news.

In an article published today in CQ Homeland Security, Security Debrief Contributors Rich Cooper, Sam Rosenfeld, James Carafano and Security Debrief founder Chris Battle weighed in on how the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others impacts DHS.

To express their discontent, “the people” tossed out many of the old congressional leaders in the hopes of something new. Two weeks into the New Year, I’d say they haven’t exactly found the change they were looking for. If the election taught us anything, it’s that, as a nation, we’ve grown tired of the rhetoric.

Like the majority of the country, I’ve found myself moved by the tragic events of this past weekend’s shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and more than dozen others outside a Safeway in Tucson, AZ. With breaking news reports coming over the car radio on the car ride home, my 10-year-old son listened intently and asked a question that I think all of us asked ourselves in one shape or another: “Dad why would this guy just starting shooting at people? It’s bad enough he shot that lady but a 9 year old girl? Why?”

What kind of law enforcement professional would blithely discuss possible motives about a heinous and shocking crime to the media, to national television, while the investigation was ongoing? What kind of law enforcement professional would do such things without a shred of evidence? And, most important, what kind of man would make such an incendiary, partisan and politicized charges in the midst of chaos and grief when nineteen people had been killed or wounded during a tragedy that has led to national mourning?