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Last week, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee held a hearing reviewing TSA screening procedures 10 years after 9/11. The buzz word of the hearing was “risk-based.” This has been characterized in some reporting as TSA’s newest screening strategy. In fact, risk-based screening has been attempted at TSA and DHS for years. The “news” is TSA’s public re-commitment to risk-based screening after several check-point screening miscues went viral.

When he was running for the presidency in 2007-08, there were not so subtle whispers and inferences made about whether a not-even-one-term U.S. senator from Illinois with no significant executive or security experience was up to the task of being Commander in Chief in a post-9/11 era. There is plenty to debate about the President’s leadership in other areas, but his critics of this area of his job performance look very small and at times, very petty. Through the use of SEAL Team Six, UAVs and other strategic military and intelligence assets, he’s sent an impressive list of bad guys to their ultimate judgment.

The Obama administration has made admirable and high-profile efforts toward export control reform. The President issued a November 2010 Executive Order establishing an Export Enforcement Coordination Center (EECC), to be housed within the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate the efforts of the multiple federal agencies responsible for enforcing our export control laws. Despite this, the EECC still has no apparent public presence.

According to Reuters, President Obama was briefed on the Iranian bomb plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in June. The White House released its strategy to combat terrorism on June 28. While the White House knew the Iranians had active operations on-going in the United States, it intentionally side-stepped the issue of state-sponsored terrorism in its strategy. How can that make sense?

As they walked out onto the stage at George Washington University, it was almost a Mount Rushmore moment. Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, Janet Napolitano and Thad Allen. Four individuals who by the nature of their respective careers, experiences and positions have become the most recognizable faces associated with homeland security. In a dialogue sponsored by GW’s Homeland Security Policy Institute and the Homeland Security & Defense Business Council, the three DHS Secretaries were “interviewed” by Adm. Allen. If there was any one message the event drove home, it was civil, principled and cooperative leadership exists at the core of the Department and the larger homeland security community.

Please join The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute today at 5:00 pm for a webcasted event featuring the Hon. Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Hon. Michael Chertoff, Former Secretary of Homeland Security, and Hon. Tom Ridge, Former Secretary of Homeland Security. The secretaries will partake in a conversation about the future of homeland security, discussing how the nature of their work has evolved since the creation of the Department, and how to best move forward in this ever-evolving threat environment.

The Principal Federal Official (PFO) was a post-9/11 initiative designed to put a senior official on top of the operational response to major disasters. Apparently, the idea of a PFO has fallen on hard times. If the word on the street is right, the current thinking in DHS is that if there is a really big oh-my-God event, the secretary will be the PFO and we’ll leave it at that. That is frankly a really bad idea. Who runs the department while the secretary is acting as PFO, and what happens if there is more than one OMG event at a time?

In the wake of “National Preparedness Month,” over the weekend the first edition of the National Preparedness Goal (NPG) was released. The NPG correctly recognizes resilience as a fundamental component of national preparedness – a desired outcome. The issue, however, is not what America can do but rather what America will do. There can be little doubt that since 9/11, America is far more physically protected. However, contrary to the assertion in the NPG, and as protected infrastructure failures and nature-driven consequences continue to demonstrate, America is anything but more prepared.

Though the near-insolvency of FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) is top news today, the situation should hardly come as a surprise. For the past several months, NPR has been following the looming crisis, and I’ve been commenting along the way. The challenge that now confronts FEMA isn’t something that Administrator Fugate can fix: either he provides funding to disaster victims (and in doing so, violates federal law) or he watches those in need go without the assistance they require.

When the Aspen Institute does something, they do it exceptionally well. Last week, they announced the formal establishment of the Aspen Homeland Security Group, a reason for optimism about thinking and scholarship on homeland issues. Their membership is literally a “who’s who” on homeland issues. It was mentioned that this group would be available to DHS Secretary Napolitano and her successors to obtain strategic counsel on a range of matters. She certainly could not have asked for a better “kitchen cabinet” of people to talk to or meet with and that unfortunately is where there is a problem.

With cameras rolling, lights blaring and an intent audience before me, I took to the stage at FEMA’s National Recovery and Resiliency Exercise Conference last Wednesday, ready to rock that crowd. That is until an ordinary-looking 23-year-old guy named Dakota Meyer grabbed the microphone and shook me (and everyone else in the room) to my core. This Mr. “Ordinary” is a decent-looking blond dude, but like each of us, it’s what he’s got on the inside that makes his story exceptional. He drove into battle to save his fellow soldiers, saving lives and winning the Medal of Honor in the process.

There has been a great deal of intellectual froth over the subject of the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Numerous editorials cover the entire intellectual waterfront. Most focus on the continuing sense of loss and grief we feel and ask us to never forget. There is a different group I have a problem with, those who say America “overreacted” to 9/11. I was in the Pentagon on 9/11, and so was my wife. I know in my heart as well as my head. Our leaders didn’t overreact; they did exactly what was needed.

The attacks of September 11 are full of many amazing and heartbreaking stories of loss, heartbreak and heroism. Frank Culbertson was the Commander of Expedition 3, a three-man crew on board the International Space Station when then attacks occurred. Frank recorded his thoughts and experiences at the time in an open letter that was circulated shortly after the attacks. With the ten-year anniversary observances underway, deserved attention is finally being given to Frank, his unique letter and his one in 250 million American experiences.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued a statement urging the public to remain vigilant throughout the 9/11 anniversary weekend.

The attacks on September 11 resulted in a decade-long Global War on Terror, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and expenditure of billions of dollars to secure our country, which have all had a significant impact on our current economic crisis. President Obama’s Job Creation Plan is an opportunity to actively link our economic security with our nation’s security. The plan should not only focus on “shovel ready jobs” and infrastructure but should also help this nation build the long-term capacity to protect itself in a sustainable way.

We are still more than a year out from the next Presidential election (and the accompanying Congressional races), and the level of discourse is so divorced from reality that I am a little nervous about our ability to govern effectively. Both sides are so unwilling to act like adults, to compromise, to build consensus, that many folks are assuming we’ll get nothing done for the next year plus. If that happens, we will have some big problems. America’s networks experience intrusions pretty much continuously, and nearly everyone agrees we have a problem. The bad part is that Washington is not in a problem-solving mood.

The Homeland Security Policy Institute’s Preparedness, Response and Resilience Task Force just released its comments on the Draft National Preparedness Goal, which is called for in Presidential Policy Directive 8 (PPD-8). The Task Force argues that the Draft National Preparedness Goal isn’t much of an improvement over past versions, and to truly advance national preparedness doctrine, a new National Preparedness Goal must include a more robust recognition of the importance of risk management, among other things.

As America approaches the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, DHS veterans and homeland security practitioners are reassessing the Department’s performance and the direction the Department must take to continuously improve its operations and address the security and operational resilience challenges before the nation. At DHS, two cultures (one mission focused and one organizationally focused) remain operative. These near mutually exclusive and competing cultures are responsible for the historic and continuing “challenges” facing DHS.

Just in case anyone missed the news in the past week, the eastern U.S. experienced the shaking of an earthquake followed by torrential rains and winds associated with Hurricane Irene. By all accounts, local, state and federal officials along with their brethren in the non-governmental and private sectors performed well during their preparation and response. In between TV pundits, we caught glimpses of ordinary Americans talking in serious terms about what they, their families and their communities were doing to be prepared. It was the type of informed talk that has been a long time coming and is sweet to hear.

Earlier this month, Cecelia Munoz, White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and formerly of the National Council of La Raza, where she openly embraced amnesty for illegal aliens, announced a groundbreaking turn of events: for the first time ever, the White House is usurping congressional constitutional authority to determine immigration law and policy. Not only is the White House granting amnesty, but they are also making sure that immigration law only applies to those illegal aliens convicted of serious crimes.