security beat

November 2007

Defense Department task forces to beef up disaster response

Reported by Stew Magnuson and Breanne Wagner

The Defense Department is creating special units to assist state and local governments in the event of a major catastrophe, said Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and America’s security affairs.

The department is establishing task forces to respond to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, high-yield explosive attacks or accidents. McHale said previously that the Defense Department will step in to assist when the homeland suffers “catastrophic” events similar to Hurricane Katrina or a terrorist attack where a weapon of mass destruction is used.

These task forces will comprise more than 15,000 military personnel from the active, Reserve and National Guard forces, McHale said at a National Defense Industrial Association homeland security conference.

Units will rotate through and be assigned, trained and deployed for the CBRNE mission, McHale said. Officials will divide the forces if needed to respond to multiple, simultaneous events.

One year ago, McHale bluntly stated the Defense Department and other federal agencies were woefully unprepared to respond to 13 of 15 homeland disaster scenarios — most of which are related to weapons of mass destruction. Hurricane response and pandemic flu were the only areas where he believed adequate plans were in place.

Called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive consequence management response force, or CCMRF, the team will assist and respond in the event of a major attack only when called up by the president or requested by a governor, a fact sheet said. The majority of personnel will come from the National Guard, McHale added.

Local emergency teams will be the first to respond to a CBRNE incident, followed by state agencies, the document said. The state response would include the National Guard’s weapons of mass destruction civil support teams. A second National Guard group, called the enhanced response force package teams, will reinforce the first if needed, the document said. If all these forces are overwhelmed by an incident or attack, the new group could then be called to assist.

“The CCMRF would augment existing on-scene local, state, tribal and federal capabilities,” the document said.

The new response force’s capabilities will include command and control, search and rescue, explosive ordnance disposal, aviation evacuation, medical response and decontamination.

Coast Guard Program Successfully Collecting Biometric Data at Sea

BALTIMORE — The Coast Guard is claiming success in a pilot program that allows it to collect fingerprints from would-be illegal migrants interdicted at sea, check them against on-shore databases and then prosecute repeat offenders to dissuade others from making the same journey.

The maritime biometric identification program began in November last year and has captured and collected information of more than 1,000 migrants during its first 10 months in the Mona Pass, a 90-mile stretch of water between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

About 200 suspects showed up on databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. Of those, 70 were turned over to a Puerto Rico-based U.S. attorney’s office prosecutor dedicated to the project, said Lt. Mario Teixeira, an officer with the Coast Guard’s research and development center in Groton, Conn., who spoke at the Biometric Consortium conference here.

Prior to the program, such interdictions resulted in about two convictions per year, he said. Would-be migrants repatriated to the Dominican Republic got on a “revolving door” and simply tried to cross again, he said.

“Without delivered consequences, there was no deterrent for the migrant flow,” he said. Since the service couldn’t verify and collect identities, there was no way to stop wanted felons or repeat offenders, he said.

Migrants caught at sea have their boat scuttled and are then taken aboard a Coast Guard cutter for processing. A portable collection system takes fingerprints from their index fingers and a digital mug shot. The data are relayed back to DHS via satellite links. If they are felons or have attempted multiple entries, they are turned over to Border Patrol agents in Puerto Rico. Others are returned to the Dominican navy, he said.

The program required extensive coordination between the Justice Department, the State Department — which is running a public information campaign to dissuade would-be crossers — and the Dominican Republic navy, said Christina O’Laughlin, a security analyst and contractor on the project for Science Applications International Corp.

“We have not found any terrorists on the watch list, but hope to one day,” she said.

Coast Guard headquarters is looking to expand the program into other areas, she said. The service conducts about 70,000 boardings each year, Teixiera added.

The pilot has wider applications for other agencies that may need to collect biometric data in harsh environments, O’Laughlin said. The Mona Pass is both remote and in the middle of rough seas. “This is really the cutting edge of mobile biometrics,” she added.

Immigration’s Computer System Emerging From ‘Stone Age’

Non-Mexican illegal immigrants nabbed at the border spend about 30 days in detention, but Department of Homeland Security officials hope to whittle that time in half with more efficient computer programs.

DHS’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is in the process of acquiring new computer systems that will allow it to process immigrants within 15 days, said John Torres, director of the office of detention and removal at ICE. “We’re moving from the stone ages to modern technology.”

The updated case management software will replace a 25-year-old disk operating system, Torres explained at a National Defense Industrial Association homeland security conference. The outdated system required personnel to obtain specific design code from the contractor, which significantly slowed investigations.

The software will provide real-time information and situational awareness to allow personnel to locate immigrants in custody, as well as ICE assets, like buses, airplanes and detention facilities, Torres said.

For example, if officials estimate that 1,000 arrests will be made in one particular day, they can look at a computer screen to track the availability of the agency’s aircraft and buses using the Global Positioning System, he explained. They can also keep tabs on free bed space to know where to house detainees.

“Managers will know who they have in custody, who’s coming into custody, where they’re going at any given moment … as opposed to looking at old data that may be 30, 60, 90 days old,” Torres said. Plans call for the software to be set up by January, he said.

Medical Device Being Marketed for Homeland Security Applications

A medical instrument commonly used to peer inside the human body is finding new applications in the homeland security and law enforcement worlds.

Customs and Border Protection recently purchased 78 endoscopes that were manufactured by Optim Incorporated of Sturbridge, Mass., to look inside gas tanks and other hard to reach spots where smugglers may hide contraband. CBP’s northern counterpart, Canada Border Services Agency, is also using the instruments.

The FreedomView 680 endoscope is a hand-held, portable device that combines a high intensity LED light source with a flexible, insertion shaft that can be fully immersed in water, gasoline and diesel fuel, according to the company. It can provide images inside car engines, gas tanks, jet engine turbines, piping and storage compartments like cargo holds.

The Department of Homeland Security recently endorsed the device for local law enforcement agencies that are participating in the commercial equipment direct assistance program. CEDAP grants are designed to help local first responder agencies with small budgets purchase cutting-edge equipment and training to be used in homeland security applications. DHS is distributing $33.7 million in such grants this year.

Physical, Privacy Limits of domestic spy Satellites Questioned

The newly created National Applications Office has a rather mundane, almost Orwellian name, especially since the “application” being referred to is the employment of U.S. military and spy agency satellites in the domestic arena.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of the new office during Congress’ August recess. One of its duties will be to serve as a clearinghouse for requests from U.S. law enforcement agencies that want to task remote sensing satellites to gather information on potential terrorists or criminals. Members of the House Homeland Security Committee found out about the office from the pages of the Wall Street Journal instead of department officials, which prompted a hearing on the program within days of their return.

DHS Chief Intelligence Officer Charles Allen attempted to placate lawmakers who were both irked that they weren’t briefed on the program and fearful that the executive branch would step on the Fourth Amendment’s guarantees of privacy.

Part of the problem DHS faces is that the general public doesn’t really know what so-called spy satellites can or cannot do. Hollywood scriptwriters feel no compunction about giving the spacecraft nearly omniscient capabilities. Jack Bauer on the television show 24 — with a few keystrokes — can call up satellites that provide up-close, real-time streaming video.

That is fanciful writing. What they actually can do is classified, though. That, coupled with several high-profile controversies on whether the executive branch has overstepped legal boundaries on domestic surveillance, caused a great deal of consternation at the hearing.

“There are limits of physics,” Allen said “We’re talking about space systems here.”

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), whose 36th district hosts manufacturers of top secret space systems, knows more than the average citizen. She sat for eight years on the House Select Intelligence Committee and was briefed on space-based intelligence gathering systems.

It would “terrify you if you really understood the capability of these satellites,” she said.

Several members speculated that infrared sensors would be used to peer inside citizens’ homes. Police agencies have used land-based infrared devices to carry out random searches for drug labs in the past, but the courts have generally ruled against such tactics.

Allen insisted that only imaging satellites would be used. “It does not penetrate buildings. It does not penetrate homes,” he insisted.

Please email your comments to SMagnuson@ndia.org

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