DHS develops a good source list — for the private sector

June 11, 2010 by Sofia Resnick  
Filed under National Security Reporting

Fresh off the presses — electronically speaking — is the Department of Homeland Security’s brand-new Private Sector Resources Catalog.

In late 2009, the DHS’s  Private Sector Office, which “promotes public-private partnerships and best practices to improve the nation’s homeland security,” decided to gather training publications, newsletters, and information and contacts for all departments within the Department of Homeland Security and stuff them into one 52-page catalog.

It’s basically a white pages on the DHS for its “private sector” partners, which a DHS official says includes small and large businesses, nonprofits, NGOs, and academia. The catalog, which was completed in May, is not being mailed to targeted partners but rather e-mailed as a PDF, in the interest of efficiency and environmental friendliness.

It includes information, contact numbers, e-mail addresses and websites for almost every program, office, and component within DHS, along with an A to Z appendix of key program office and component contacts from around the department.

In the introduction letter, Douglas A. Smith, assistant secretary for the Private Sector Office, writes that the catalog’s intent is to: “better facilitate your organization’s access to the resources you need to help keep our country secure.”

Basically, the purpose of this new resource is to connect what the DHS sees as its private sector partners with tools that will allow them to “participate in the homeland security mission” –  meaning provide the department with intelligence and information.

Though this tool is publicly available on the DHS’s website, it was not designed for public or media use, a DHS official said — but both groups are free to use it. Whether intelligence and information will flow both ways when a journalist begins dialing numbers on that handy “Key Contacts” list remains to be seen.

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