menu

Contributor:

Janice Kephart

Janice Kephart writes on border and identity security and programs, especially as they pertain to terrorist travel, as well as leadership and organizational issues at DHS. Kephart is founder of the Secure Identity and Biometrics Association (SIBA).

She recently returned from a Special Counsel position with the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she was asked to testify and then return to staff to support the national, border and identity security aspects of the now Senate-passed immigration reform legislation.

Prior to 9/11, she was responsible for conducting factual investigations into counter-terrorism issues and conducting oversight of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (before the creation of the Department of Homeland Security) as a counsel to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology and Terrorism. Her successes included drafting and passage of the federal identity theft statute used by US attorneys to prosecute identity thieves and support victims. She also put together the only Congressional hearing and record focusing on the foreign terrorist threat on our homeland prior to 9/11.

As National Security Director at a Washington DC think tank for five years, Kephart’s focus was on assuring implementation of 9/11 Commission border recommendations and practical, operational border security measures which resulted in dozens of backgrounders, memos and blogs, including secure credential programs. She also had her own successful consulting firm, 9/11 Security Solutions, where she spent two years evolving and executing strategies on behalf of 9/11 Commission recommendations pertaining to issuance of secure credentials, as her extensive successes with REAL ID Act appropriations and implementations demonstrates.

At SIBA, she is responsible for the strategic direction, government and public relations, legal matters, logo and website creation, and the go-to on just about any policy or strategy conundrum. Kephart attended Duke University and Villanova Law School, and practiced law in her original hometown of Philadelphia for two years prior to moving to Washington D.C.

Visa and National Security Seriously Impinged by Tourism Bill

|
May 24, 2012

Earlier this month, I testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement on “The Welcoming Business Travelers and Tourists to America Act of 2011.” My testimony makes clear that while tourism is a valid goal, it cannot be done in an atmosphere where immigration law is not being enforced domestically, visa processing becomes a rubber stamping process, and the countries targeted have some of the highest overstay populations in the United States.

▾ Read More

Maps Show 330 Illegal Alien Crossing Ariz. Border in One Night in March, Including Ultralight Incursion

|
May 9, 2012

During the night of March 23, 2012, illegal activity was shockingly high along 12-mile stretch of border in the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation in Arizona and extending into the United States – 330 illegal aliens in one night. Over the course of a year, it can add up to 120,450 illegal entries just along these 12 miles of the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector. The destruction and illegal use of federal taxpayer lands and the great chance of success that the drug cartels and alien smugglers have tell a story of a border where illegal activity is high and the border remains out of control.

▾ Read More

A Savvy Terrorist with a Quality Fake ID Can Breach Airline Security

|
April 17, 2012

Since investigative reporter Josh Bernstein filed his story, “License to Terrorize: Failure to safeguard against sophisticated phony IDs leaves opening for bad guys to slip through air security,” the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has neither responded to nor acknowledged the report, and refused Bernstein an interview. But as much as TSA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) want to hide from the shocking revelations of Bernstein’s investigation — that anyone with a good fake ID can make it through TSA security checkpoints as long as the name on the fake ID matches the name on the boarding pass — ignoring the problem will not make it go away.

▾ Read More

The Homeland Security Show – What You’ve Missed and What’s Coming Up

|
April 13, 2012

For the past month, the Homeland Security Show I host is spotlighting issues in homeland security without the interlude of media packaging stories into three minute segments or subjected to political hyperbole from Capitol Hill. This is not a show about thrillers, even if some of the content is more twisted and strange than most science fiction. Here is a rundown of my guests and show topics and some of our upcoming broadcasts.

▾ Read More

The Homeland Security Show with Janice Kephart

|
March 22, 2012

On Monday, I hosted the premiere of my new international internet radio show, “The Homeland Security Show with Janice Kephart.” My first guest was Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist William LaJeunesse, who has done the most extensive investigative journalism on the federal government’s arms trafficking operation known as Fast and Furious.

▾ Read More

US-VISIT About to Be Another Obama Casualty

|
March 2, 2012

As the Obama administration continues to try to convince the American people they are securing the borders, their most recent budget request makes clear that “Amnesty by Any Means” remains the consistent mission. The latest installment is buried in the president’s homeland security budget, which includes provisions dotted throughout that, put together, would result in the dismantling of arguably the best border-related program that exists in federal government, US-VISIT, burying its capabilities in two of the most politicized of all government agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

▾ Read More

Report Finds Progress in Securing Driver's License Issuance Against Identity Theft and Fraud

|
February 22, 2012

The Center for Immigration Studies has released its second comprehensive assessment of the status of secure driver’s license standards. The report concludes that by the deadline of January 13, 2013, 36 of the 56 jurisdictions will be substantially or materially or fully compliant with REAL ID, even if there remains a wide gap between the strongest of state systems and the weakest.

▾ Read More

Court has ruled Iran, Hezbollah also responsible for 9/11

|
January 4, 2012

A federal judge has issued a final judgment in a plaintiff’s case on behalf of 9/11 victim families ruling that Iran and Hezbollah together materially supported al Qaeda in committing 9/11. The case, Havlish v. Iran, provides overwhelming evidence in hundreds of pages of information, showing step by step Iran’s direct involvement in 9/11, including holding operational meetings inside Iran with al Qaeda and Hezbollah leadership to develop the 9/11 plan.

▾ Read More

Iran, Hezbollah Also Responsible for 9/11, Rules Federal Judge

|
December 16, 2011

Federal Judge George Daniels announced in open court in New York City yesterday, in a case filed by families of 9/11 victims, that he was going to be signing an order within 24 hours stating Iran, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda are responsible for the 9/11 attacks. What we do know publicly is that Iran and Hezbollah not only provided terrorist travel assistance for the 9/11 hijackers to travel through Iran to attend Afghan terror training camps, but also that Hezbollah’s most senior operational leader, and chief liaison with Iran, Imad Mughniyah – and other Hezbollah operatives – traveled with the 9/11 hijackers in and out of Lebanon and in and out of Iran after these same hijackers had been issued visas to visit the United States.

▾ Read More