ARTICLE

April 2003

Security Beat

by Elizabeth Book

Pentagon Defining Homeland Security Role
The Defense Department continues to focus and clarify its role in homeland security, said Peter Verga, special assistant to the secretary of defense for homeland security. The department contributes to homeland security in two ways, he said. “First, we guard against threats and aggression, and we provide support for civil authorities,” he said. The Defense Department “effectively bridges the divide between homeland security and national security,” said Verga.

Speaking at a conference of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Verga said that the Defense Department has a history of involvement in domestic security matters, providing civil support to communities in three ways. First, in extraordinary circumstances, there has been a need for the deployment of Defense Department air combat power in the continental United States. Second, in emergency circumstances, the Defense Department has assisted a lead federal agency, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), by providing military resources for projects, such as an environmental or hazardous material clean-up.

Verga said the Defense Department most recently partnered with FEMA (one of 22 agencies absorbed into the Department of Homeland Security), to pick up the scattered pieces of the Space Shuttle Columbia in Texas and Louisiana.

Third, the Defense Department provides support and assistance to states or localities for temporary security situations, when the resources of the department are made available to a lead federal agency.

TSA Builds Homeland Security Command Center
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is home to a new command center, according to Terry Maynard, assistant undersecretary for intelligence at TSA. Maynard was part of a panel discussion at a conference of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Maynard, who came to TSA from the Central Intelligence Agency, said the command center “provides a single voice to the [transportation] secretary, who can speak authoritatively to the president, and then to the nation,” he said.

The center, which collects and synthesizes information from transportation entities around the country, can hold as many as 400 people. It is currently functioning on an interim basis at the TSA’s offices on Nebraska Avenue, in Washington, D.C., Maynard said.

Though the command center was conceived by, and initially, for, the TSA, it was to serve the entire Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as its central command center, after DHS stood up on March 1, Maynard said.

Northcom ‘Different From Other Commands’
The Northern Command will focus on sharing information with other agencies so it can better execute its homeland security mission, said Lt. Gen. Edward Anderson, deputy director of Northern Command, or Northcom.

Anderson noted there are two main parts to Northcom’s mission. The first is “deterring, preventing and destroying threats within our area of responsibility,” and the second is, “when directed, we are to provide military assistance to civil authorities,” he said.

Several military units are organic to Northcom. There is a joint command at Norfolk, Va.; a unit at Fort Monroe, Va., and a JT-F6 unit, based at Fort Bliss, in El Paso, Texas.

But, Anderson said, Northcom is “a multi-layered team,” involving local, state, federal and military units. Northcom operates “in support of, not in lead of,” homeland security missions, he said.

“Information sharing and information fusion” with local, state and federal authorities, “will be key to mission success,” said Anderson.

Customs Service Fights Terrorism
The U.S. Customs Service “has done great things for our country since 1789, but they are lousy marketers,” said William Parrish, who is executive director of the Office of Anti-Terrorism at the service.

Customs houses a massive database of information about people, goods, materials and finance, said Parrish. Parrish explained that Customs does not need warrants to search people, baggage or shipments, “though we do our best not to impede the flow of commerce,” he said.

Customs has several anti-terrorism projects it has been working on since 9/11. It runs an advanced passenger system checklist every two hours, on every international flight, ostensibly to match up names of terrorists with flight passenger lists. Shield America is a Customs program “to go out to businesses and teach them what to watch for, what is suspicious,” Parrish said.

Also, Operation Greenquest is a project that works to identify money that supports terrorist operations, Parrish said.

Parrish relayed a recent situation that occurred during Operation Greenquest. He said that a name of a person who went to a terrorist training camp “sounded similar” to a name that appeared on an international flight’s passenger log. “We questioned the person… and eventually asked to search his bags…finding $12 million in counterfeit checks,” he said.

However, Parrish said it takes more than computers to catch terrorists, and the watchful eyes of experienced staff have been the service’s most effective tool in catching terrorists. “Sometimes, it takes 20 years to get 20 years of experience,” Parrish joked.

Engineers Use Space Age Coating to Protect Forces
In response to global terrorist threats to U.S. forces, engineers from the materials and manufacturing directorate at the Air Force Research Laboratory have developed a method for providing crucial protection: a polyurethane, elastomer coating suitable to strengthen concrete block walls, reinforced concrete and lightweight, manufactured structures, such as trailers.

The Defense Department has faced the threat of terrorist bombings for a long tim. During the last 15 years, 80 percent of the department’s total casualties have resulted from terrorist activity, said Al Nease, chief of the force protection branch at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida.

“In the past, Air Force engineers thought hardened structures were the best protection against the damaging and deadly effects of an explosion,” said Nease.

“Historically, the mindset of civil engineers has been to make buildings stronger so they can withstand a blast,” said Jon Porter, branch senior research engineer. However, “all that’s changing today,” he said.

Engineers have recently developed methods to retrofit existing, conventionally-built structures with spray-on, elastomeric coatings to provide protection from explosions, Porter explained.

Using strong, stiff composite materials, the engineers began retrofitting existing structures, but soon discovered they were too stiff and brittle under dynamic loads.

Engineers investigated a spray-on elastomer without the reinforcement provided by high-strength fabrics.

After completing full-scale, explosive testing on concrete block wall and lightweight trailers at Tyndall’s test range and in overseas locations, Porter said tests revealed the elastomeric retrofit was capable of providing adequate protection without any fiber reinforcement.

During tensile tests, researchers discovered that elastomeric samples expanded to twice their original length before rupturing. This characteristic allows a retrofitted wall to flex and keeps blast fragments and pieces of a wall from harming personnel inside a structure.

“Our primary concern was that the structure hold up well enough for people to get out safely following an explosion,” Porter said. “The elastomer retrofit will do that.”

‘Brain Fingerprinting’ Could Change Lie-Detector Tests
The Farwell method of brain fingerprinting is a new technology applicable for investigating crimes and exonerating innocent suspects, with a record of 100 percent accuracy in research on FBI agents, U.S. government agencies and field applications, said officials.

Brain fingerprinting determines scientifically whether a suspect has the details of a crime stored in his brain. The system watches for a particular brain response that happens automatically whenever the person sees something familiar.

The technology is ready for implementation by government, military and industrial organizations, in the areas of counter terrorism, counter intelligence, counter espionage, counter-industrial espionage and other crimes, said Nash Thompson, of Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories’ international operations department.

“Brain Fingerprinting technology can assist government, military and corporate authorities in the implementation of scientific, external and internal, criminal and non-criminal investigations for various purposes,” Thompson said. For example, “this technology can be particularly relevant in the detection and the identification of hostile espionage agents, or moles, who might be obtaining government, military and/or industrial secrets concerning the program management and manufacturing processes of key defense systems,” he said.

‘Total Information Awareness’ System: Threat to Privacy?
Americans shouldn’t worry too much about the Defense Department’s controversial plans for a Total Information Awareness (TIA) System, according to Amitai Etzioni, a professor at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., and author of “The Limits of Privacy.”

The TIA system—now being developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—is an experimental project attempting to search vast quantities of everyday commercial transactions, looking for links and patterns related to terrorist activities. The system would wade through electronic records of such transactions as applications for passports, visas and drivers licenses; reservations for airline tickets and rental cars; credit card purchases, and even medical data.

Civil rights advocates complain that TIA would intrude unnecessarily into the personal privacy of ordinary citizens. But Etzioni, speaking at a forum sponsored by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, said that personal privacy is much better protected in electronic communications, with its encryption technology, than it is in the traditional postal system. “Steaming open envelopes is an ancient art of espionage, well known to spies and mistresses,” he said.

But Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, was not persuaded. The danger was very real, he told the forum, that sooner or later, TIA would trample on privacy rights. “These things take on a life of their own,” he said. “It will be very hard to control the evolution of this system.” His fear, he said, is that it will end up “being used for entirely different purposes than it was intended.”

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