The Politics of Homeland Security and the Real Threat Written by Paul Barrow Thursday, 10 February 2011 09:07 Janet Napolitano, United States Secretary of Homeland Security, meeting with the House Homeland Security Committee yesterday, which I attended, says that the terrorist threat is at its most heightened state since 2001. "The terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly in the last 10 years - and continues to evolve - so that, in some ways, the threat facing us is at its most heightened state since those attacks," Napolitano said. She added: "One of the most striking elements of today's threat picture is that plots to attack America increasingly involve American residents and citizens."
The hearing was called by Committee chairman Peter King, a New York Republican, to examine the threat of Islamic radicalization. "Islamic radicalization" was not on Napolitino's mind, however. In fact, Homeland Security has instituted a policy to avoid using "religious" characterisations of acts or individuals deemed to be a threat.
When pressed to characterize actual events representing the current threat, Napolitano dragged out the dried up bones of the Oklahoma bombing attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 by Timothy McVeigh sixteen years ago. She also pointed to the backpack discovered in Spokane by the FBI shortly before the Martin Luther King Day parade was scheduled
this past month, which, according to Rachel Maddow, sat conspicuously on a bench along the parade route with wires sticking out of it --- amazingly discovered by three route workers, which the FBI claimed, without a specific description, could have done great harm and proceeded to apparently blow it up. There's clearly widespread suspicion that this was set up by the FBI themselves, politically motivated by a need to ramp up fears and perhaps increase funding from the legislature. And, oh, yes, remember the plane crash into the IRS building in Austin, TX, in February 2010?
The hearing itself may very likely have been politically motivated by an attempt to have certann provisions of the Patriot Act extended, which are due to expire on February 27. National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter, a witness along with Napolitano, said that the proportion of American Muslims who are involved in extremism is “absolutely tiny.”
“If you look at the numbers, they are significant in terms of the attacks we have, but in terms of the broader Muslim community throughout the United States, it is a minute percentage of that population,” he said.
Perhaps even more to the point, the largest population of Muslims in the United States is in Michigan, which shares a border with Canada. Yet a report last week from the Government Accountability Office said the U.S. has "operational control" over less than one per cent of America's 6,400-kilometre border with Canada. America's focus on terrorism has obviously been to our south, along the Mexican border, where we have 44% operational control and have a greater fear, it seems, of the "Mexicanization" of America.
While the examples mentioned were conducted apparently by individuals acting alone, Napolitano declared that this kind of terrorism is virtually impossible to prevent. The more overriding concern, which the uprising in Tunisia and Egypt provide clear evidence of, is that the threat is not from extremist groups having direct control over cells in America but simply influence and inspiration, such as from a glossy publication frequently mentioned at the hearing called Inspire, alleged to be the product of Anwar al-Awlaki (a/k/a Anwar Nasser Abdulla Aulaqi), who, as stated by an article in Canada Free Press, is "a U.S. born al Qaeda terrorist and the facilitator for at least two of the 9/11 hijackers. He is also the inspiration behind Fort Hood killer Nidal Malik Hassan, the guidance counselor to the attempted Christmas Day airline bomber, the thwarted Times Square bomber, and at least two other Islamic terrorists in the U.S. It has been touted as the first magazine to be issued by al Qaeda in English."
As such, while there are efforts to create "partnerships" with the American Muslim community and public vigilance through a program called See Something, Say Something, the real focus of Homeland Security is not on prevention but on management of disasters, which, like the Katrina debacle, have created immense political backlash. Along with FEMA, every fire department, police department, and every state agency involved in emergency management across the country is being urged to purchase a software system that will link agencies together through centralized command systems called "fusion centers." Napolitano didn't identify the software or go beyond indicating that this effort was central to domestic counter-terrorism efforts, but I've learned through other sources who are directly involved in managing the system that the software called WebEOC can cost anywhere from $20,000 for a basic set of tools to several hundred thousand, depending upon the perimeters. Fundamentally, it is is a database which can be accessed by all these agencies independently, which all share and monitor it, if properly trained. Like any corporate multiuser database, there are different tiers or levels in which participants are grouped who share varying degrees of intelligence. Basic events from traffic accidents to suspicious packages left on bridges to hurricanes are tracked, and those who need to respond are prompted by a change of color to a set of links on a sidebar that immediately let the responder know to go deeper into the system to identify and evaluate the need. Understanding how the system works is critical, and that in itself appears to be a major obstacle, since The Maryland Emergency Management Agency, MEMA, was "voted off the island" just a day or so ago, i.e., kicked off the fusion center it created itself in June of 2008, because its level of cooperation and training was regarded by others on the Mid-Atlantic regional system around Washington DC as "inadequate." What is obviously interagency feuding and conflict over the level of cooperation is obviously going to create nightmares one would guess would be on par with the mess that occurred with Hurricane Katrina. Training is absolutely fundamental to such a sophisticated system, but I've been advised that ESI, the software manufacturer, does not provide it and is so secure in its monopoly that it doesn't even maintain a sales force. You know where to get it if you want it. When you purchase WebEOC, it's delivered, you get a brief outline of how it operates, and that's it. Good luck, Homeland Security.
Paul Barrow is Director of Policy and Communications for United Progressives.
The Politics of Homeland Security and the Real Threat
ReplyDeleteWritten by Paul Barrow
Thursday, 10 February 2011 09:07
Janet Napolitano, United States Secretary of Homeland Security, meeting with the House Homeland Security Committee yesterday, which I attended, says that the terrorist threat is at its most heightened state since 2001. "The terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly in the last 10 years - and continues to evolve - so that, in some ways, the threat facing us is at its most heightened state since those attacks," Napolitano said. She added: "One of the most striking elements of today's threat picture is that plots to attack America increasingly involve American residents and citizens."
The hearing was called by Committee chairman Peter King, a New York Republican, to examine the threat of Islamic radicalization. "Islamic radicalization" was not on Napolitino's mind, however. In fact, Homeland Security has instituted a policy to avoid using "religious" characterisations of acts or individuals deemed to be a threat.
When pressed to characterize actual events representing the current threat, Napolitano dragged out the dried up bones of the Oklahoma bombing attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 by Timothy McVeigh sixteen years ago. She also pointed to the backpack discovered in Spokane by the FBI shortly before the Martin Luther King Day parade was scheduled
this past month, which, according to Rachel Maddow, sat conspicuously on a bench along the parade route with wires sticking out of it --- amazingly discovered by three route workers, which the FBI claimed, without a specific description, could have done great harm and proceeded to apparently blow it up. There's clearly widespread suspicion that this was set up by the FBI themselves, politically motivated by a need to ramp up fears and perhaps increase funding from the legislature. And, oh, yes, remember the plane crash into the IRS building in Austin, TX, in February 2010?
The hearing itself may very likely have been politically motivated by an attempt to have certann provisions of the Patriot Act extended, which are due to expire on February 27. National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter, a witness along with Napolitano, said that the proportion of American Muslims who are involved in extremism is “absolutely tiny.”
“If you look at the numbers, they are significant in terms of the attacks we have, but in terms of the broader Muslim community throughout the United States, it is a minute percentage of that population,” he said.
Perhaps even more to the point, the largest population of Muslims in the United States is in Michigan, which shares a border with Canada. Yet a report last week from the Government Accountability Office said the U.S. has "operational control" over less than one per cent of America's 6,400-kilometre border with Canada. America's focus on terrorism has obviously been to our south, along the Mexican border, where we have 44% operational control and have a greater fear, it seems, of the "Mexicanization" of America.
While the examples mentioned were conducted apparently by individuals acting alone, Napolitano declared that this kind of terrorism is virtually impossible to prevent. The more overriding concern, which the uprising in Tunisia and Egypt provide clear evidence of, is that the threat is not from extremist groups having direct control over cells in America but simply influence and inspiration, such as from a glossy publication frequently mentioned at the hearing called Inspire, alleged to be the product of Anwar al-Awlaki (a/k/a Anwar Nasser Abdulla Aulaqi), who, as stated by an article in Canada Free Press, is "a U.S. born al Qaeda terrorist and the facilitator for at least two of the 9/11 hijackers. He is also the inspiration behind Fort Hood killer Nidal Malik Hassan, the guidance counselor to the attempted Christmas Day airline bomber, the thwarted Times Square bomber, and at least two other Islamic terrorists in the U.S. It has been touted as the first magazine to be issued by al Qaeda in English."
ReplyDeleteAs such, while there are efforts to create "partnerships" with the American Muslim community and public vigilance through a program called See Something, Say Something, the real focus of Homeland Security is not on prevention but on management of disasters, which, like the Katrina debacle, have created immense political backlash. Along with FEMA, every fire department, police department, and every state agency involved in emergency management across the country is being urged to purchase a software system that will link agencies together through centralized command systems called "fusion centers." Napolitano didn't identify the software or go beyond indicating that this effort was central to domestic counter-terrorism efforts, but I've learned through other sources who are directly involved in managing the system that the software called WebEOC can cost anywhere from $20,000 for a basic set of tools to several hundred thousand, depending upon the perimeters. Fundamentally, it is is a database which can be accessed by all these agencies independently, which all share and monitor it, if properly trained. Like any corporate multiuser database, there are different tiers or levels in which participants are grouped who share varying degrees of intelligence. Basic events from traffic accidents to suspicious packages left on bridges to hurricanes are tracked, and those who need to respond are prompted by a change of color to a set of links on a sidebar that immediately let the responder know to go deeper into the system to identify and evaluate the need. Understanding how the system works is critical, and that in itself appears to be a major obstacle, since The Maryland Emergency Management Agency, MEMA, was "voted off the island" just a day or so ago, i.e., kicked off the fusion center it created itself in June of 2008, because its level of cooperation and training was regarded by others on the Mid-Atlantic regional system around Washington DC as "inadequate." What is obviously interagency feuding and conflict over the level of cooperation is obviously going to create nightmares one would guess would be on par with the mess that occurred with Hurricane Katrina. Training is absolutely fundamental to such a sophisticated system, but I've been advised that ESI, the software manufacturer, does not provide it and is so secure in its monopoly that it doesn't even maintain a sales force. You know where to get it if you want it. When you purchase WebEOC, it's delivered, you get a brief outline of how it operates, and that's it. Good luck, Homeland Security.
Paul Barrow is Director of Policy and Communications for United Progressives.