ARTICLE

August 2004

Security Beat

Homeland Defense Briefs

by Joe Pappalardo

Congress Rejects Post-Disaster Continuity Amendment
Planning for the unthinkable, but rejecting the abandonment of direct elections, the House of Representatives voted against changing the Constitution to allow appointments if half or more of its members are killed.

The House voted 63-353, defeating the measure written by Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash. The proposed amendment allowed temporary House appointments by state governors as part of a succession plan to avoid a power vacuum during a manmade or natural disaster. Special elections would be held to restore representatives.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, offered a similar constitutional amendment to the judiciary committee in the Senate. However, without corresponding House approval the issue is effectively shelved until next year.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, Congress has been reconsidering disaster planning, dusting off Cold War worries about mass casualty “decapitation strikes” aimed at the federal government. The 17th amendment provides for direct elections of senators, but allows governors to install replacements for empty seats until special elections are arranged. House vacancies can only be filled via special elections.

The idea of an amendment that usurps voting has not sat well with many politicians, and alternatives have been put forward. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., sponsored a bill that required states to hold special elections within 45 days if one of their representatives were among the fatalities of a disaster. The House approved that bill, 306 to 97.

Homeland Defense War Game Tests Interoperability
The U.S. Coast Guard and National Guard participated for the first time in a homeland defense war game that melded domestic and international participants. The exercise, called the joint warrior interoperability demonstration, tested communications and command and control systems.

In the scenario, a fictional, terrorist-harboring African nation revealed intelligence about a radiological bomb threat against Detroit. Information had to move from European agencies that discovered the plot on the ground in Africa to the U.S. Northern Command and from there, information had to be distributed to domestic U.S. agencies.

The intent of the war game was to find the best ways to share information from different agencies. “We have always worked closely with local agencies. The biggest struggle we’re having now is how to integrate data networks,” said Coast Guard Lt. Al Yelvington, a JWID participant at Dahlgren Naval Surface Warfare Center, Va.

The National Guard had participated in earlier JWIDs but never in a homeland defense role. The exercise solidified its coordination with other agencies and tested the tools members would share to get the job done. “The stuff that’s here is more mature. These systems are ready to be fielded,” said Randy Bryant, chief of the information technology strategy and plans division of the National Guard Bureau. “But if it doesn’t work in this building it probably won’t work in an operations environment.”

Information sharing is an oft-stated goal, but for federal/local liaison agencies, such as the Coast Guard, it comes with its own set of risks and hassles, from the dissemination of classified information to securing networks from prying eyes and computer viruses. “If we open up a network and you sneeze, we don’t want to catch a cold,” Yelvington said.

“JWID is a great opportunity to test drive new applications, and then stress test them in an exercise environment where mistakes don’t hurt anyone,” Yelvington added.

Truck Detector Test Program Underway in El Paso
A truck screening system designed to inspect containers for illicit cargo is being tested at the Ysleta Border Station in El Paso. The system will use pulsed fast neutron analysis to inspect the cargo, according to Joseph Gotto of the Transportation Systems Laboratory. The method bounces neutrons off targets inside containers, and measures the reflected gamma wave signatures to identify contents. “We chose samples of a broad spectrum of threats,” Gotto said. The machines will be rigged to find marijuana, cocaine, money, as well as various explosives and chemical gasses.

Drivers will exit their vehicles, which are then towed through the neutron scanner.

The facility is scheduled to start testing 10 to 15 trucks a day in September, with an analytical report of the machine’s effectiveness due in January 2005.

The effort is part of a wider trend to bring investments in new screening technologies to transportation hubs other than airports. “Last year it was still all about aviation security,” said Susan Hallowell, technical director of the TSL. “This year we’re really looking at other modalities.”

The TSL also is evaluating document scanners that can detect residues of illicit materials, body-shape imaging cameras designed to detect strange bulges in travelers’ clothes and new uses for scanners across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Intelligence Center Collates Transportation Data
An operations center that collects and collates intelligence between industry and government officials in the transportation sector is nearing completion at the Department of Homeland Security, officials said.

“For the first time, we’re generating operational dots that can start to be used for analysis and to spot pre-operation patterns,” said Chet Lunner, assistant administrator at the Transportation Safety Administration’s office of maritime and land security.

Transportation industry contacts will report suspicious activity to the center, where officials will match the data with classified information from other agencies. In return, Lunner said, the center will disseminate any relevant unclassified data to the appropriate agencies or companies.

The new center will be added on to an existing facility in suburban Washington D.C., which currently houses an aviation security center and the headquarters of the federal air marshals, who often deploy based on intelligence. That concept will be expanded to other modes of transportation, as well as key national infrastructure assets. Housing them in one place, Lunner said, will foster better communication, information sharing and integration of security plans.

“It’s really what the department (of homeland security) was created to do,” he said.

Gilmore Urges Rational Response to Terror
The danger of terrorism is real but requires a rational response, said James Gilmore, former Virginia governor and chairman of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction.

“Threat means the capabilities and intentions of the enemy,” Gilmore said at a recent homeland security conference. “Vulnerability is not [the same as] threat.”

He also warned against allowing terrorists to unduly influence the nation’s civil liberties and “turn our society around based on fear.” Gilmore cited “sneak-and-peak” warrants and attempts to bolster the law, such as a rejected attempt to allow the revocation of U.S. citizenship of those who support terrorist organizations, as areas of potential abuse.

“The Patriot Act by and large is inoffensive, but it was passed in haste so you have to make sure we didn’t do anything stupid,” he told attendees of a recent homeland security conference. “Our duty as citizens is to watch the Patriot Act very carefully.”

Justice Dept. Crafts Standards for Robots
The National Institute of Justice is in the process of developing voluntary standards for robots used in law enforcement applications, according to Justice Department officials.

“We expect to have the robot standard completed in 2006,” said Chris Tillery, senior program manager for the NIJ’s office of science and technology. “Three to four years is the standard gestation period.”

Crafting standards begins with collecting the requirements of the users, then refining those requirements into testable specifications. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a Commerce Department appendage that serves as the go-between for industry, foreign governments, and myriad interested federal agencies, reviews existing standards as a starting point. As progress is made, drafts are provided to the user, technical experts and industry for comment.

Tillery said the NIJ allocated $200,000 for the project for 2004, with a projected out-year cost of $400,000.

Guard Eyes Changes in Military Liaison Program
The National Guard’s effort to create joint forces headquarters may include permanently assigned military liaison officers from each service, according to National Guard officials.

The emergency preparedness liaison officers would be assigned to the guard’s headquarters to help spotlight and coordinate military assets and capabilities during national crises, and be organized in a single, horizontally-integrated unit within the proposed headquarter, said Maj. Gen. Timothy Lowenberg, adjutant general for the State of Washington and the homeland security chair at the Adjutant General Association, during congressional testimony in late April.

“The liaison officers should work together as an integrated joint unit…and report to and operate under the overall direction of NORTHCOM,” he said.

The change, part of the wider reorganization of the National Guard’s regional command structure, would replace a weaker version of the program that often brought reservists close to retirement into National Guard offices on a temporary basis, according to Col. Richard Patterson, spokesman for Lowenberg.

“We’d get a real good Army reserve officer who would either be transferred or would retire,” Patterson said. “We’d lose the continuity of that officer’s ideas.”

Currently, the liaison offices appear during contingency planning but do not have a permanent home in National Guard headquarters. If the liaison officer idea is adopted, each service would have an assigned slot in each states’ joint headquarters. In a similar fashion, reservists would find permanent positions as regional emergency preparedness liaison officers at Federal Emergency Management Agency regional headquarters.

Details of the reorganization and Pentagon approval won’t be finalized until 2005, Patterson said.

—Reported by Joe Pappalardo

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