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Contributor:

Chris Battle

Yellow is the New Blue: Why DHS Must Revise Its Color Coded Advisory System

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July 14, 2009

The United States of America has been in a state of uninterrupted “elevated” alertness – or Yellow on the Department of Homeland Security’s color coded national advisory system – for nearly seven years now. Seven years straight of strained, eyeballing-fellow-passengers-on-airplanes, nerve-jangling elevated alertness. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. I can barely handle uninterrupted parenting for seven years straight, but looking down the grim kaleidoscope of yellows and oranges and reds – the primary colors of terrorism – is just too much. Will the government ever tell us we can relax?

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The homegrown face of regime change: Social media's influence in public diplomacy

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July 10, 2009

One has come to expect the standard assertions from apologists for Middle Eastern autocrats that American media are controlled by the U.S. government. And certainly CNN and the New York Times take their hits in this article. What is fascinating, however, is how quickly new media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have achieved the same level of fear and loathing from these apologists in such a short amount of time.

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DHS launches new blog

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June 15, 2009

The Department of Homeland Security today launched a new blog called “The Blog @ Homeland Security.” For those of you who follow the Department’s current blog, Leadership Journal, you will be pleased to hear that this blog will offer a different perspective, tone and content base than Leadership Journal.

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Can We Return to Sanity? A Plea for Risk-Based Security

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June 9, 2009

Ted Alden of the Council on Foreign Relations offers an excellent analysis of what’s wrong with our immigration process – or at least, one of the things that is wrong with our broken immigration process. In a nutshell, his is an argument – a desperate plea really – for a return to risk-based security procedures that use intelligence and information to prioritize threats rather than the hopelessly ineffective but increasingly popular notion on Capitol Hill that we can prevent 100 percent of all threats we may face.

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The importance of online media for public communication during crises

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June 4, 2009

It is a critical development that organizations comprising DHS, especially FEMA, which are responsible for communicating with the public during periods of crisis, are succesfully adopting the modes of communications increasingly embraced by the public at large. There is no effectrive crisis response without effective crisis communications, and there can be no effective crisis communications without making use of these new tools. They are the reality of a rapidly changing media landscape.

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The Government to the Public: Shaddup Already

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June 3, 2009

Despite President Obama’s call for the government to embrace social media tools to create greater transparency and interaction with the public, he is finding that turning the vast federal bureaucracy around is a lot harder than getting a campaign team to follow his direction. Among too many, there’s still the mistaken belief that the government can Control The Message. Some even prophesy that if you lose that control, it could result in nuclear Armageddon. (No, seriously.)

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Al Qaeda Bids for Gitmo Prisoners

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May 22, 2009

A controversial new letter surfaces from Osama bin Laden suggesting that since President Obama must shut down Gitmo but no one will take the terrorists, he will do so. “You have a need and I have a need. You need to get rid of these Martyrs-In-Waiting, and I need more Martyrs!” writes the Terrorist In Chief.

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Secure Communities: Smart Politics and Sound Policy

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May 20, 2009

Secure Communities, the newish program at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to track and deport criminal aliens, is getting a sudden burst of media attention. In part, the attention being given to criminal aliens (by both the Administration and the Democratic-led Congress) has a political undertone. That said, political motivations don’t change the fact that Secure Communities is a good program, and deporting criminal aliens is good policy.

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Administration needs to name DEA chief

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April 30, 2009

Is anyone else wondering why – if the narco-violence on our southern border is so important (and indeed it is) – why the Administration has yet to announce a nominee to lead the DEA?

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