A new National Guard role

As U.S. military forces have been called on to increasingly lend a hand during crises unrelated to war, the Department of Defense has created a new designation for National Guard members: Homeland Response Forces. These teams of about 600 guard soldiers and airmen will specialize in responding to domestic attacks and disasters. The first such units, in Washington and Ohio, will be on-line by the end of next month, with an additional eight regional units to be up and running in 2012, according to the DoD. The biggest change the special units will bring about is the speed with which guard members will be able to respond, a Defense Department spokesman wrote in an e-mail. Military leaders expect the Homeland [...]

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How many ways do I scan thee?

The proliferation of scanners at airports continues to build as the Transportation Security Agency works to keep pace with dedicated and increasingly clever attempts to smuggle harmful things onto planes. As of Tuesday, 29 U.S. airports have 93 advanced imaging technology units. Ninety airports are home to 930 advanced technology x-ray devices and over 7,300 chemical detectors known as explosive trace detection systems are in use in airports, according to the Transportation Security Administration. This array of machines peeks under travelers clothing, into their baggage and tastes the chemicals from their hands more than ever before. “If terrorists are going to put bombs in embarrassing places, we have to look in embarrassing places,” said Carey Rappaport, deputy director of the [...]

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FTC may become privacy watchdog

The Federal Trade Commission is seeing increasing pressure to step up its regulation in online privacy issues. A battery of cases brought to the FTC for evaluation have asked the agency to rule on whether businesses are tricking customers into giving up private information and recently proposed bills in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives seek to expand the reach of the commission’s enforcement authority. “The FTC has strangely become this kind of de facto regulating agency for the privacy practices of business and industry,” said Woodrow Hartzog, a fellow at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication who specializes in privacy and online communication. The FTC enforces business regulations and protects consumers from unfair [...]

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Latest anthrax scares don’t scare Postal Inspection; they’re prepared

Several incidents of anthrax scares have been reported around the country, just in the past few days. On Monday, a man in Jacksonville, Fla., found an envelope in his mailbox filled with a powdery white substance. The Florida Department of Health lab tests came back negative, according to local news. A couple of hours later, up three states on the East Coast, an envelope containing suspicious powder surfaced at the North Carolina State Capitol. The building was evacuated, but the substance was deemed harmless after having been tested at the North Carolina Division of Public Health, reported the Raleigh News & Observer. On June 3, a piece of mail suspected of containing anthrax found its way into Washington, D.C.’s Bolling [...]

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DHS develops a good source list — for the private sector

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 [...]

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Federal Protective Service takes tech risks to assess risks

After a year of bad press, the law-enforcement agency responsible for protecting more than 9,000 federal buildings finally earned some good publicity, recently winning an award for technological innovation from Nextgov.com, a media website that covers the federal government’s use of information technology. Nextgov, published by the Atlantic Media Company, on May 27 recognized eight federal agencies for using technology in a risky way to improve their operations. Winners were announced at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington, D.C The Federal Protective Service‘s Susan Burrill won for developing the Risk Assessment and Management Program, or RAMP. The timing of the award coincided with the announcement that FPS Director Gary W. Schenkel is being transferred from this agency to work in [...]

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