menu

Napolitano Is Releasing a Border Strategy Tomorrow; Does Anyone Care?

|
July 6, 2011

Local TV in Arizona has reported that on Thursday, July 7, 2011, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, with Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin and Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, will be announcing the 2011 Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy in Nogales, Ariz. Unless the Attorney General is a surprise guest, I doubt this press conference will be more than the rhetoric the secretary herself complains about incessantly.

▾ Read More

Droning On and On

|
July 6, 2011

John Villasenor at Brookings released “Cyber-Physical Attacks and Drone Strikes: The Next Homeland Security Threat,” that is well-worth the time to digest. While the thrust of the paper was to highlight the potential ability of U.S. adversaries to use UAVs to launch a cyber-physical attack, I could not help but think of how such unmanned vehicles might be used for reconnaissance and surveillance purposes along the border. While CBP pursues a “one size fits all” strategy of using Predator UAVs as their sole unmanned platform, the rest of the world apparently sees the advantages of using a mix of significantly smaller unmanned aircraft for surveillance purposes.

▾ Read More

The Plot Thickens

|
July 5, 2011

If you blinked, you might have missed the news that law enforcement foiled the 40th plot aimed at the United States since 9/11 – two suspects sought to buy weapons for an attack on a military recruiting station in Seattle. Last week, John Brennan unveiled the new counterterrorism strategy. Some may argue that the new strategy shifts appropriate attention to these threats. Certainly, that is what Brennan boasted when he claimed this is the first strategy to really focus on the homeland. I think Brennan is overly enamored with his own talking points.

▾ Read More

ICE's Mission Melt 5: Another No Confidence Vote for Morton

|
July 5, 2011

On June 23, 2011, the union representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees issued a press release stating that ICE “Union leaders around the nation issued a unanimous no confidence vote in ICE Director John Morton on behalf of ICE officers, agents and employees.” The basis for the second no confidence vote in a year was another memo by ICE director John Morton, this time on prosecutorial discretion. The ICE Union is calling this memo a, “law enforcement nightmare developed by the Administration to win votes at the expense of sound and responsible law enforcement policy.”

▾ Read More

Can a Predator Be Used to Deliver Pizza?

|
June 30, 2011

It is a legitimate question to ask what we are getting for our money. An even better question, and one that is not so frequently asked, is “Could we have gotten something better for the money we spent?” CBP celebrated 10,000 hours of Predator UAV flight recently, but bragging about that is similar to a hypothetical pizza parlor owner bragging about how the Humvee his shop uses to deliver pizzas has never failed in delivering pizza to his customers. In my mind, only a foolish person would buy a $20,000 slice of pizza, no matter what toppings were on it. Someone needs to ask if the Predator is CBP’s equivalent of that slice of pizza.

▾ Read More

Building Bridges, Instead of Walls!

|
June 29, 2011

At an airport security checkpoint last week, a TSA officer guided a 95-year-old cancer patient to a private room to investigate “something suspicious on her leg.” It turned out to be a wet adult diaper, which she was asked to remove. TSA offered no apology and stood by protocol. This was another missed opportunity. Sometimes, even when we do the “right” thing, we should apologize. Instead, we now have a “viral” episode that places another brick on the wall between the public and the security agencies charged with protecting them.

▾ Read More

Cybersecurity: Who Is To Blame, Users or Designers?

|
June 29, 2011

I have called many times for better cyber personal hygiene and still believe we need to seek it, teach it, and require it as at least a partial mitigation element. I have even said that “you cannot secure against stupid.” Yet, a colleague argued that technology design should do a better job of protecting users. Here is an article – followed by my colleague’s commentary – on this interesting question: who is to blame for our cyber problems?

▾ Read More

ATF's "Fast and Furious" Speculation and Facts

|
June 29, 2011

If you have been following the news reports concerning ATF’s Operation “Fast and Furious,” you are acutely aware that CBP agent Brian Terry was killed in the line of duty and some of the weapons found at the scene have been traced back to what is now known as “Operation Fast and Furious.” For various political reasons, including conspiracy theories, there has been and continues to be a feeding frenzy by reporters and commentators on both the left and the right. Everyone needs to take a step back, take a deep breath and look at the facts.

▾ Read More

Please Explain This, TSA

|
June 29, 2011

Here is a piece I wrote for the Defense Media Network on the recent TSA incident involving a 95-year-old leukemia patient. This instance, like some of the other eye-popping and jaw-dropping cases of the past few months and years raises a lot of questions – I’d like to know where this woman, in her obvious feeble condition, ranked on the risk scale that warranted such a search?

▾ Read More

Homeland Security Advisory Council: Empowering Critical Infrastructure and National Resilience

|
June 28, 2011

Yesterday, the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) released the recommendations of its Community Resilience Task Force (CRTF), which argue that it is impossible to build a resilient nation upon protected yet aged, overstressed, exploitable and consequence-amplifying infrastructure foundations.

▾ Read More