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security beat
April 2008
DHS Aspires To Be More Like Defense
Reported by Stew Magnuson
 When Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff casts his eyes across the Potomac at the Pentagon, apparently he likes what he sees.
Embedded inside the 2009 budget request are several proposals that show just how much DHS wants to emulate Defense.
First up is a $1.65 million request to develop the first “Quadrennial Homeland Security Review.”
“This builds on the process that the Defense Department uses in dealing with national security issues, with a Quadrennial Defense Security Review,” Chertoff said when announcing the 2009 budget proposals.
Next, the department requested $3.1 million for the chief procurement officer to enhance the acquisition intern program, which recruits, trains and certifies the workforce that oversees the development and purchasing of technology.
“I am constantly reminded by Congress of the fact that there’s concern about our over-reliance on contractors to manage contracts,” he said. To remedy this, the department needs to build a corps of acquisition experts, he said.
“We need to have money to hire those people. Continually trying to punish us by cutting our management budget in order to induce us to hire more people is literally working at cross purposes,” he said.
Congress of late has been critical of three technology programs: the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office’s radiation portal monitor program, the Coast Guard’s Deepwater modernization program and the Project 28 demonstration to set up a virtual fence on the Arizona-Mexico border.
A reporter asked Chertoff if he was perhaps mimicking some of the Pentagon’s more notorious business practices when dealing with troubled acquisitions. Namely, sticking with the same contractors while simultaneously giving the programs substantial raises. The radiation portal under the proposed budget would get a $67.7 million boost from the last fiscal year, and Deepwater would rise by $200 million. A pilot program to expand the long-delayed Project 28 to the northern border was funded by Congress. DHS chose to stick with the same contractor, Boeing.
“We’re going to have to move forward with this technology,” he said. “We want to do it intelligently, but we also don’t want to delay it to the point that we wind up risking lives.”
Finally, borrowing from the Pentagon’s jointness doctrine, DHS and the General Services Administration have requested $466 million to build a new homeland security headquarters in Washington, D.C. that would consolidate disparate elements and house the Coast Guard and other components of the department.
“This is critical if we are to foster that ‘one DHS’ culture,” he said.
Don’t be surprised if the architect draws up a blueprint of a five-sided building.
 One of the Department of Homeland Security’s goals is to double the size of the Border Patrol during the remainder of the Bush presidency.
DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said the agency is on track to meet that objective by the end of this year and bring its numbers up to 18,000.
But that may not be enough, he said. The administration requested funding in the 2009 budget to hire, train and equip an additional 2,200 agents.
“That will be more than twice the number that were present on duty when the president took office in 2001,” he said.
The Border Patrol under the proposal will receive an additional $500 million, giving the agency a $3.5 billion budget. The boost in officers is having an effect, he said, and one indication is the increase in crimes perpetrated against agents.
Violence against the Border Patrol increased 31 percent, and in some sectors almost 700 percent in 2007, Chertoff said.
“Unfortunately, this is an all too predictable consequence of cracking down on illegal activity. Those who profit from illegal businesses fight hard to preserve their market share, and fight hard to preserve their illegal activities,” he said. “We will continue to step up the pressure as we gain control of the border,” he added.
Jay Ahern, Customs and Border Protection assistant commissioner, told reporters that most of the proposed 2,200 additional agents would be deployed on the northern border with Canada.
 The demise of analog television broadcasts was supposed to be a boon for public safety agencies that clamored for years for new space on the radio spectrum to call their own.
In 2009, all television broadcasts will convert to digital signals. That opened up five blocks of spectrum that the Federal Communications Commission put up for auction in February. The D Block was reserved for companies who would use the valuable space to provide services to police, fire and other public safety agencies. The vision was to bring first responders into the digital age with better communication devices such as wireless broadband access.
Unfortunately, the FCC only received one bid, which was less than half of the $1.3 billion it was expecting. That did not meet its reserve price, and the D Block remains unsold.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said at a press conference that the commission will have to “reevaluate” the plan.
Juan Deaton, a cellular systems engineer at the Idaho National Laboratory, and an expert on public safety communications, said the other blocks sold at the auction may be adequate to serve the public safety communities.
If an operator wins the C block and specific licenses for A and B, it probably will have enough spectrum for a nationwide market to serve commercial customers and police and fire departments, he said.
Potential bidders may have seen the requirement that the winner work with the Public Safety Spectrum Trust as too costly, he said. The trust is the non-profit license holder of the D Block that would guide the construction and deployment of the broadband network and ensure that it meets the needs of the public safety community.
“Due to the technical prowess of the wireless industry and economic factors, it’s likely that first responders, even though they might not like it, may eventually end up on public wireless networks rather than their own networks to achieve nationwide interoperability,” Deaton said.
 Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wants to make sure the transition from one administration to another next year goes smoothly for the Department of Homeland Security.
And he sent a long checklist for Secretary Michael Chertoff to look over.
“Planning to implement this critical transition process cannot be handled as if it were a routine exercise,” Thompson said in a letter to Chertoff. Thompson reminded him that this will be the department’s first handoff.
Chertoff told reporters that he was worried about the same issues, the chairman noted.
A major terrorist incident or catastrophic natural disaster in the early days on a new administration, if it is not prepared, “can put the security of our nation, the well-being of the people and the functioning of our commercial sectors at risk,” he wrote.
Thompson noted that there have been reports of “burrowing in” — the practice of political appointees snagging career non-political executive positions in the waning months of an administration. He noted that justifying such practices as a way to smooth the transition process was not an acceptable way to deal with the problem. He asked Chertoff to issue by April 7 a policy directive forbidding the practice.
 The Federal Aviation Administration granted an experimental airworthiness certificate to Honeywell International to fly its ducted fan unmanned aerial vehicle in national airspace.
The FAA has been notoriously stingy in granting such licenses in the past. Honeywell’s gasoline powered micro air vehicle is only the fifth to receive such a designation. The agency is responsible for ensuring the national airspace is safe, and is concerned that a pilotless vehicle could cause a deadly accident.
Experimental UAVs are allowed to fly in restricted airspaces such as military bases, but are rarely allowed to venture outside their perimeters.
The wingless UAV has already seen action in Iraq with the Army, according to Honeywell, and was developed under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program.
The license will allow the Miami/Dade County Police Department to conduct law enforcement experiments with the vehicle.
The UAV community has long complained about the slow pace of progress for allowing UAVs to operate in the national airspace. The FAA has countered that collision avoidance systems are not yet advanced enough.
Please email your comments to SMagnuson@ndia.org
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