Volume 6, Issue 1

This book report is critical of a recent white paper produced by IHS Global Insight for the DOT/ Maritime Administration. It does not argue the fundamental concept that it is important that our nation maintain the health of its maritime sector for purposes of national security - rather it criticizes some of the white paper's premises, oversights and recommendations.

A copy of the full report is attached as supplemental material, for the convenience of the readers.

Industrialized countries face the challenge of spotting international terrorists at points of entry and homegrown terrorists on their borders. This paper reviews the development of detection programs since 9/11 and identifies three emerging trends that, it argues, will shape the security environment in North America in the years to come. The first trend is a move away from evidence-based detection to rule-based discovery. The second trend is a move away from the observation of actual behaviour to the analysis of electronic records. The third trend is a move away from national discovery systems to multinational structures. The paper will explain each of these three trends and briefly explore their implications for individual privacy.

The National Cyber Security Division (NCSD), under the US Department of Homeland Security oversees the nation-wide effort of securing and ensuring unimpeded use of the cyberspace domain. The NCSD hosts the Cyber Storm series of national cyber security exercises as an important component of the public-private cyber security partnership. This paper uses a case study approach to explore the motivations of private sector actors to contribute to the national cyber security regime by analyzing their participation in Cyber Storm II. This research tests the assumption that the private sector actors can be motivated to participate in the cooperative national security measures by empowering them to contribute to the development of the measures. It contains a literature review of cyber security challenges and current theories on self-regulation that are applicable to this partnership. The results suggest that the Department of Homeland Security has an opportunity to improve collaboration by demonstrating its ability to provide important cyber security information to the private sector.

In the aftermath of public tragedies such as the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, intense scrutiny was placed upon the emergency management community throughout all levels of government. Clearly, it is imperative that emergency managers understand the scope and scale of these events and subsequently the depth of planning required to execute coordinated preparedness, response and relief efforts. However, plans are merely a step in the overarching requirement of coordinating disaster response and delivering relief. One method for emergency managers to achieve success may be through the implementation of a disciplined training methodology, developed in the United States Army, known as the "Eight Step Training Model."At its essence, the eight step training model provides a logical, structured and repeatable framework for developing and executing training that is designed to build confident and competent emergency managers and improve the individual and collective training proficiency of primary and secondary responders (training participants). A time investment in this planning and training methodology will increase preparedness, response and recovery efforts and desired outcomes immeasurably. The model can focus upon local, State or Federal levels, incorporating Private Volunteer Organizations (PVOs), Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) or commercial industry whether local, regional or national. The steps are as follows: 1. Study/Teach the Literature / Doctrine (Certify Leaders); 2. Survey the Training Site; 3. Develop the Training Plan; 4. Issue the Plan; 5. Rehearse the Plan (Tabletop Exercise); 6. Execute the Training; 7. Evaluate the Training; and 8. Retrain as Needed to Meet Goals.At a minimum, the model acquaints participants with divergent organizational roles and missions and at its best instills confidence in participating organizations' ability to work together in a simulated setting before they are forced to collaborate during emergency response. The article seeks to describe the steps in detail and provide the reader with a fundamental understanding of the model as it may relate to their future training needs.

Policies to mitigate natural hazards and terrorism are facing increasing scrutiny, such as the benefit-cost test. The benefits are the losses that can be avoided by the mitigation actions. For sound policy-making, it is therefore necessary that the various types of losses and major factors affecting them be identified and that metrics be established for their measurement in accordance with economic principles. This paper presents a comprehensive framework for the analysis and measurement of ordinary economic impacts and two categories of impacts that have recently gained the attention of analysts and policy makers, but for which operational definitions are lacking. The first is resilience, which refers to how the economy manages to keep functioning and how quickly it recovers. The second major extension of loss estimation pertains to behavioral and systems linkages. These refer to considerations unique to disasters that cause indirect impacts to be orders of magnitude greater than ordinary indirect effects in cases where risks are amplified, systems are overwhelmed, and resilience is eroded. The framework combines a checklist of types of impacts, consistent definitions, metrics, and strategies for estimation. The framework is serving as a template for loss estimation and benefit-cost analysis by several offices of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

During the past fifty years, federal disaster policy in the United States has been shaped by an ongoing conflict between proponents who favor federal intervention following a disaster and those who believe disaster response should be the responsibility of state and local governments and charity. This article explores the existing federal disaster policy landscape within the United States with a focus on the Stafford Act, the cultural and political forces that produced it, and how the current system is ill equipped to aid in the response and recovery from major catastrophes. The Stafford Act defines how federal disasters are declared, determines the types of assistance to be provided by the federal government, and establishes cost sharing arrangements among federal, state, and local governments. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) carries out the provisions of the Stafford Act and distributes much of the assistance provided by the Act. With the establishment of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the threat of domestic terrorism, and large-scale natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, the limits of the Stafford Act and FEMA have been shown. We look at several areas where the shortcomings of the Stafford Act have emerged and propose directions for reform.

The U.S. private terrorism-insurance market has failed to develop as hoped under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) of 2002 and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act (TRIEA) of 2005. The principal reason that terrorism risk is viewed as uninsurable in conventional insurance markets is the great difficulty in predicting both its severity and frequency components. While the insurance industry has made some progress in forecasting loss severities, there has been little research on terrorism loss frequency. In this article, we extend the work of Major (2002) by employing a formal Colonel Blotto game to investigate the frequency of terrorist attacks. In two different constant-sum scenarios – simultaneous multiple attacks and single random attacks – our equilibrium solutions demonstrate that both sides (terrorists and counter-terrorists) will choose to allocate their forces to all targets in proportion to the square roots of the targets' physical volumes. In the case of single random attacks, the equilibrium frequency results are consistent with Woo's (2005) "principle of target substitution," and provide guidance for the pricing of terrorism insurance.

This paper describes assessment of the level of the security system of the Slovak Republic and provides clarification on the procedure of increasing its quality. The authors describe the results of their expert activities within the bodies of crisis management on the level of central bodies of state administration, as well as on the level of scientific and research activities of the Department of Crisis Management at the Faculty of Special Engineering of the University of Žilina in Žilina - Slovakia.

This article argues that a fundamental change is taking place in how countries view, approach, and implement strategies to protect their `national security.' In the past, strategies underlying national security narrowly focused on threats that could be addressed by military and/or diplomatic means. Now, however, `national security' is viewed in a much broader context, with the focus on preserving that which makes a country unique, and that includes the intangibles of its culture as well as what physically lies within its borders. The result is that countries are revising existing national security strategies (including those covering homeland security or domestic security) or crafting entirely new ones to address this much broader view of that which is to be protected. Drawing on recent literature and documents addressing diverse national security strategies, this article discusses the following areas: (1) the definition of national security, (2) the purpose of a national security strategy, (3) how a national security strategy is evaluated, and (4) implications for The National Security Strategy of the United States and The National Strategy for Homeland Security as a new Administration governs.

Security focused regulations have been largely exempt from the benefit-cost type of analysis required for major Federal regulations and done routinely in areas such as transportation, environment and safety. Among the reasons offered for exemption are the analytical difficulties of security issues involving complex or poorly understood probabilities and consequences. This paper investigates the magnitude of security focused regulations, a framework for developing an expected cost analysis of regulations, and the current "break-even" analysis used by the Department of Homeland Security. Key assumptions implicit in the current analysis are identified and suggestions are made for the difficult evolution of security regulations toward a more explicit benefit-cost analysis.

Today terrorists usually work in network forms to conduct attacks. Terrorist networks remain active and can still function even after being severely damaged by authorities. Analyzing terrorist networks from a dynamic point of view can provide insights about the mechanisms responsible for the survival of terrorist organizations. This paper studies the dynamics of a major international terrorist organization over a 14-year period – the Global Salafi Jihad (GSJ) terrorist network. We found that a scale-free topology gradually emerged as new members joined the GSJ network based on operational needs. In addition, since the network has been experiencing member losses while it grows, we also studied the robustness of the GSJ network. We used a simulation approach to examine its vulnerability to random failures, targeted attacks, and real world authorities' counterattacks. We found that authorities' counterattacks have been rather ineffective in disrupting the terrorist network.

Federal disaster declarations are authorized by the president under the provisions of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act of 1988 (the Stafford Act). Previous studies pertaining to presidential disaster declarations have found varying levels of political influence associated with the declaration process. Factors including electoral votes, reelection years, congressional committee appointments, geographic location, and party favoritism have been implicated in the selective approval capacity that is designated to the president in issuing federal disaster declarations.This article aims to provide a comparative analysis of emergency and major disaster declaration requests under the Stafford Act from 1989-2005 with attention directed towards political partisanship, biased vote-seeking, and the potential for a state to be overwhelmed by a disaster event. Our study reveals a higher success rate in acquiring major disaster declarations for states with lower total taxable resources and during presidential reelection years. The same findings were not evident in the analysis of emergency disaster declarations where statistically significant observations were limited to events in which recent multiple disasters had occurred and/or senatorial and presidential party similarity existed. There was no statistical evidence to suggest that gubernatorial and presidential party similarity, U.S. House of Representatives and presidential party similarity, FEMA congressional oversight committee membership, electoral votes, or FEMA regional office location influenced success in securing emergency or major disaster declarations. Several aspects of our results differ from prior studies and provide new findings regarding the role of political influence in the disaster declaration process.

The Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS) lacks specific measures for rational decision making, and mathematical modeling has not been applied to capture the interaction between defender and attacker in terrorist attacks. An efficient emergency response system must determine how and when to alert and advise the critical and appropriate response agents to the danger of terrorist attacks, particularly when available resources are limited in an urban environment. We propose a framework for HSAS that incorporates two game theory models designed to advise response agents when raising the threat advisory level. In the first step, the interactive behaviors between the elements or participants of the multi-emergency event and the district response agent are modeled and analyzed as a noncooperative game, after which the terrorist threat value (TTV) is derived from the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium. In the second step, the TTV is used to compute the Shapley value of all district response agents for five different threat levels; a fair allocation of response agents based on the Shapley value creates a minimum set of resource deployment costs. Simulation results show that the emergency manager can use this framework to quantitatively evaluate the terrorist threat to each response agent and easily discover where response agents are most at risk within the five threat levels.

Preparedness for a pandemic of influenza (PI) is a policy issue currently attracting increased attention from international organizations, governments, and private sector businesses. This is due in large part to the absenteeism rates that could be caused by a virulent strain of influenza affecting all demographics in our population, and the impact that would have on society as a whole. It is also an issue whose effects are cross cutting through both the private and public sectors equally making it a critical issue for society as a whole. Either prospectively agreeing when to implement certain strategies or having a process in place for decision making during the event, is an essential element of PI preparedness. One of the most effective and efficient methodologies to ensure readiness and evaluate preparedness is through exercises where different stakeholders are brought together to dialogue on how they will react to a given set of circumstances.Objective: To create awareness among senior policy makers as to the critical role of exercises in societal pandemic influenza (PI) preparedness and the critical process steps.Methods: Taking the collective objective experience from designing and implementing over 100 exercises for senior policy makers, 20 of which were pan flu related, the authors have advanced the science in the field, observed phenomena and drawn conclusions regarding appropriate exercise design, similarities to other forms of research and best practices for PI exercises/all-hazards preparedness.Results: Employing a decision matrix using the following factors: policy, plan, procedure, tactics and skills, an entity can determine the appropriate exercise typology and associated resource requirements. It was important to consistently raise specific issues in order to comprehensively address various preparedness and response issues.Conclusion: Despite a lack of common framework and methodology for the conduct of table top exercises (TTX), discussion based TTX have demonstrated to be an efficacious, effective, and efficient means for identifying policy gaps and fostering pandemic influenza response readiness.

The devastation of the U.S. Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 sparked widespread reconsideration of U.S. disaster management practices. While most of this inquiry has drawn on U.S. disaster experiences, countries throughout the world are also struck by natural disasters. We hypothesized that the disaster management experiences in other countries could represent a potentially valuable source of insight for the United States. Therefore, we identified and examined exemplary practices in disaster prevention/preparedness, response, and recovery/redevelopment from thirteen natural disasters in eleven countries, focusing in particular on areas that were problematic during the Hurricane Katrina response. Interviews with recognized international disaster management experts validated our preliminary assessments from these experiences and provided additional insights not gleaned from the literature. We discuss seven lessons from our analyses: (1) Different models, but common principles, underlie effective coordination; (2) Community participation is critical at all phases of the disaster management cycle; (3) Both technology and public awareness contribute to effective early warning; (4) Disaster management should be evidence-based when possible; (5) An early orientation to long-term recovery can be important; (6) Countries can and should learn from previous disaster experience; and (7) Disaster management solutions must be appropriate to the local setting. We also offer and discuss three recommendations: (1) Institutionalize the process of learning from international disaster management; (2) Apply relevant practices from international experience; and (3) Systematically define, identify, document and archive exemplary practices. We conclude that it is appropriate for the United States to learn from its past experiences, draw on the world of experience across borders, and prepare for the future. Our study offers concrete steps that can be taken in this direction.

Since 9/11, colleges and universities throughout the nation have developed and implemented new courses and degree programs in homeland security and emergency management. A valued learning outcome of these programs, like most university studies in general, is to develop critical thinking skills in students. However, this can be a challenge because the nature of critical thinking and approaches to teaching and assessing it in higher education are debatable. This paper provides a brief overview of the literature on critical thinking, and looks at the importance of developing these skills in students of homeland security programs so that they are able to adapt successfully in a rapidly changing environment. Finally, this paper discusses two teaching strategies, guided class discussions and case studies, to develop critical thinking that have been used by the teacher in undergraduate and gradate level courses in homeland security.

Creating effective disaster and emergency management programs can be an enormously challenging task because of the many difficulties and barriers that present themselves to people and institutions working in this field. The present study addresses two main concerns: (1) what barriers exist within Canadian society to effective disaster risk reduction from the perspective of the emergency management community and (2) what barriers exist within the Canadian emergency management community to effective disaster risk reduction, both from a cultural and institutional perspective? We conducted interviews with emergency management professionals from the public and private sectors as well as some NGOs in order to ascertain their opinions and perspectives with respect to these questions. The results have been analyzed and discussed in this paper.

Local emergency management offices are shouldering an increasingly large share of the responsibility for implementing homeland security policies, in addition to traditional emergency preparedness and response functions. One of the concerns about this devolution of responsibilities is the supposed lack of available funding at the local level. City and county budgets are constrained by anti-property tax revolts and the paradoxical rising expectations of citizens for more and better services. Emergency management offices compete in this milieu for attention from policy makers and adequate funding. Despite the importance of local funding, there is little understanding of how funding decisions are made. Utilizing a nationwide survey of county emergency management officers, this study helps provide some insights by evaluating the impact of subject threat assessments, past disaster experience, emergency management activity, community resources and location factors affecting the variance of emergency management local funding.

The U.S. government has worked to empower states to respond to a pandemic, but there is minimal evaluation to determine the success of such efforts. The purpose of this study was to examine states' preparedness for a pandemic as documented by states' written pandemic plans. The study was a cross-sectional comparative analysis of 50 states' pandemic influenza plans as of March 2008. The CDC's State and Local Pandemic Influenza Planning Checklist was turned into a matrix with each of 85 recommendations making up 10 overarching domains coded as “no mention" = 1, “brief mention but no description or action item" = 2, or “description or action of the item" = 3. Domain scores were constructed by summing each state's factor scores and dividing the sums by the total possible score for that domain. Federal recommendations surrounding leadership, networking and surveillance have been well-integrated, but greater efforts are needed to develop partnerships with health care agencies and focus on antiviral preparedness and infection controls. The use of a clearly defined measurement tool can help states determine their level of preparedness and look to more prepared states for guidance as well as lobby their legislatures for additional resources.

This article evaluates the Federal Response Plan (FRP), the National Response Plan (NRP), and the National Response Framework (NRF) from the perspectives of interorganizational networks and complex adaptive systems. The article uses the theoretical approach of complexity theory and dynamic network analysis to assess the relationships among organizations using the NRP/NRF as the structure that shapes their functional and organizational relationships. It also examines the applicability of concepts from complexity science for emergency and crisis management, to the evolution of NRP/NRF from the earlier FRP. The article uses the network analysis method in evaluating changes from FRP to NRF. The network analysis results demonstrate increases in complexity in the disaster and crises response and recovery plans over time.

This research effort focused on the development of an automatic road incident detection and characterization system which will lead to the reduction of non-recurrent traffic congestion on freeways. An algorithmic methodology was developed for incorporation and enhancement of the existing South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) evacuation analysis system. Analysis of the existing system's input data helped determine the specific model needed. Investigation included a series of traffic analysis algorithms that consider: 1) identification of prevalent traffic flow conditions during a predetermined time window, 2) recognition of incident occurrence, 3) incident characterization, and 4) subsequent routing. The algorithmic methodology initially developed by Sheu (2002) was considerably expanded and adapted to the available SCDOT traffic data. This modified approach was then incorporated into a general system design document to establish definitions and descriptions of the proposed enhanced system. This initiative will provide traffic officials with relevant insights and expertise to detect and characterize emergency situations. It represents a significant improvement over the labor-intensive traffic monitoring systems currently used by many state DOTs, which lack automated capabilities for incident detection and characterization.

Agroterrorism and food terrorism have been identified as important homeland security issues by officials in the public health, government, and food industry sectors of the U.S. Intentional contamination of food has already occurred both abroad and in North America. Outbreak investigation and control measures in response to intentional contamination differ from those employed in cases of naturally occurring contamination. Operations-based exercise efforts specific to bioterrorism events are essential to train public health personnel and first responders to consider the possibility of deliberate contamination during an outbreak investigation. A recent search of the Rand Corporation's Public Health Preparedness database identified no operations-based (functional or full-scale) exercises involving foodborne contamination with a biological or chemical agent.This manuscript describes a functional exercise developed and conducted by the University of Illinois, College of Veterinary Medicine, Section of Community Health and Preventive Medicine. The functional exercise simulated a food-borne terrorism event and was designed to evaluate the efficacy of the Food Emergency Response Plan (FERP) of the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), Division of Food, Drugs and Dairies (DFDD). The exercise was held on November 18th and 19th, 2008 at the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL.Based on this and previous exercises and training programs developed and conducted by CHPM, it is apparent that the more exercise designers, evaluators and public health and support agency participants move away from discussion based exercises and towards operations based exercises, the more strengths and deficiencies in preparation and response of participating agencies are revealed. Although public health agencies have begun training personnel and partner agencies to consider intentional contamination of food during an outbreak investigation, the relative lack of widespread operations-based exercises to assess preparedness in response to an intentional incident of food-borne contamination seems to be an important deficiency in homeland security. Additional funding to create opportunities for public health and first responder personnel to participate in operations-based bioterrorism response exercises is needed.

In the face of modern crises, the European Union (EU) has increased its efforts to build common crisis management capacity across the continent. As the EU seeks to both coordinate national crisis and disaster authorities and build its own supranational capacities, it is worth asking whether the EU is capable of designing an effective European homeland security apparatus that will fit member state expectations as well as its unique supranational character. In this article, we apply a bureaucratic politics perspective to explore and assess how the EU's governance structures and policymaking processes constrain and facilitate its efforts to build transnational crisis management capacity. We discuss how institutional and policymaking characteristics may affect the EU's ongoing effort to enhance security and safety for the inhabitants of European states.

In recent years it has become apparent that seaports have the potential to be a prime terrorist target, as the volume of trade that passes through ports is essential to a functioning, healthy and growing economy. Therefore, our research provides an overview of the policies, programs and procedures used to manage the security of containerized freight at U.S. seaports. This analysis is guided by the following questions: How consistent and compatible are efforts to secure the transport of international containerized freight? How systematic are these efforts? What and where are the gaps in security implementation, and how might these gaps be filled? Based on over two years of extensive fieldwork and literary analysis, our article identifies the strengths and weaknesses of existing policies on containerized freight security so as to inform the evolution of such policies. From this, we develop a list of elements relevant for a comprehensive containerized freight security system. These elements serve as an assessment tool for gauging the degree of security at domestic and international seaports. Our findings suggest that the supply chain is much safer today than it was ten years ago. Security measures in the form of advance manifest requirements, threat assessments, and verification protocols have achieved a certain amount of success with freight security and continuing operability. Areas in need of improvement depend on government ability to engage private industries in relevant security policy formulation, and on governmental success in utilizing past cooperative experiences when framing policy implementation internationally.

The emergency management community has widely discussed the long-term implications of global climate change for weather-related hazards such as floods, hurricanes, and droughts, but the community has paid relatively little attention to the connection between these hazards and shorter-term seasonal climate fluctuations (e.g., El Niño). This paper explores the potential for applying recent scientific and technical advances in the use of seasonal climate information to improve how emergency managers address such hazards risks and their associated disaster losses. The preliminary analysis presented here begins with a brief review of evidence from the research literature linking mid- and long-term forecasts to flood planning and management. We report on a small telephone survey of emergency managers involved in flood planning and management in 26 Oregon and Washington counties that experience interannual climate-variation that can increase the frequency or intensity of flooding. Our survey findings help illuminate the opportunities and obstacles for using climate science to inform emergency management. We then present results of a 2008 survey of emergency managers and educators that asks about the use of climate information for a wider range of weather-related hazards. We conclude by summarizing the opportunities for and obstacles to the use of climate information in emergency management.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was born in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and represents one of the largest ever reorganizations of the U.S. government. Although the department's creation precipitated a complex conglomeration of 22 diverse agencies and offices, the institutional response in the U.S. Congress has been similarly complex. Ambiguities in the jurisdictions of congressional committees, exacerbated by the emergence of new homeland security issues, have led to a highly fragmented oversight of the six-year-old department. In the 110th Congress, for example, 86 committees and subcommittees asserted some form of jurisdiction over the DHS. After considering the effects of fragmentation on the DHS, this paper considers the experience of three other, relatively young departments. In doing so, it becomes evident that the DHS' experience is anomalous among executive departments. Analysis of hearing data from 2007-2008 reveals a number of key faultlines in committee jurisdictions over the DHS. After probing those areas of contention between committees, this paper makes recommendations as to what jurisdictional changes can be made to reverse the fragmentation trend in Congress. Lastly, success in consolidating congressional jurisdiction over the DHS must be politically realistic, acknowledging likely institutional resistance. While the ideal strategy would be immediate statutory reforms to committee jurisdictions in the 111th Congress, a more incremental campaign to streamline oversight of the DHS may be necessary in the long run. Through the implementation of these proposals, the debilitating effects of fragmentation on senior department leadership and mission execution can be minimized.

On August 1, 2007 at about 6:05 pm, during the height of the evening rush hour, the I-35W Bridge collapsed into the Mississippi. The collapse was unanticipated, surprising the response community and public alike and robbing them of any warning that would have allowed for the closing of the bridge. Based on the characteristics of the collapse, the response should have been an exceptionally complicated endeavor. However, in spite of the very complicated scene confronting the response community, the response activities have been praised as being very successful. This article examines the literature on emergency response to determine what characteristics are thought to be necessary for success. It then examines the emergency response to the I-35W Bridge collapse based on those criteria. It concludes with an analysis of what failed, met expectations, and really succeeded in the response.

This article presents a conceptual model that illustrates problematic linkages between organizational and inter-organizational learning and the effectiveness of networks of voluntary and public organizations that offer emergency and disaster management services. We believe that network effectiveness looks quite different under the turbulent environmental conditions of emergency management, and that the sorts of structures presumed to create network effectiveness under more stable institutional conditions may not necessarily operate in emergency management. The problematics of the inter-organizational learning cycle are illustrated with examples from emergency management, and we conclude with implications for studying and training for the relationships illuminated in the article.

Public information officers and FEMA external affairs personnel routinely monitor online media reports in times of crises and disaster events. Online news sources now include citizen driven social media such as blogs, i-reports, photo and video sharing and networked information and communication technologies such as Facebook, MySpace, and the microblogging network, Twitter. While these communication mechanisms are increasing, little is known about the attention public officials devote to accessing, monitoring, and addressing public communication through social media. Utilizing data gathered through observations, interviews, and document analysis, this study concentrates on the new task of social media monitoring and the emergent processes used by public officials during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Although some strategies were developed to monitor and utilize social media, there was a tendency to fall back upon standard operating procedures, limiting the emergence of new processes. Recommendations are provided for media monitoring activities in future crisis and disaster response.

The terrorist attacks on America are seen as a pivotal period for the nation and for policing. They have thrust policing into a new mission that will have a wide ranging impact on the police role, organizational strategies, staffing, training and policy. State, local and tribal police are now at the forefront of Homeland Security activities, yet there remains a great deal of uncertainty about their mission.The ramp-up efforts by federal and state government are reminiscent of the staging for civil defense in the 1960's. As a result of 9/11, there has been an invigoration for cities and towns to develop response plans for any localized terrorist incidents. The safety of the public is important and falls to government agencies.Community policing was intended to encourage community input and involvement. As communities and our country attempt to put safeguards in place and raise awareness, community and business leaders, and neighborhood groups should be enlisted to assist. The tenets of community policing can be utilized to plan and engage the community as police agencies endeavor to respond to a new mission.Using a sample of New England police agencies and police practitioners, this research will query whether police agencies are changing their organizational mission to integrate Homeland Security activities. The researchers used several methods to analyze police agencies and their role in Homeland Security. First, examining police agency mission statements through content analysis, the authors found little evidence of a formal Homeland Security focus. This research utilized a web-based survey tool to elicit officer perspectives on Homeland Security objectives.

The aim of this study is to develop and formatively evaluate a method of eliciting health care workers' understanding of pandemics and their forecasted behaviors during an outbreak. Qualitative methods were used for the evaluation. The results demonstrate that it was possible to identify specific points during the subject interviews when the health care worker seemed to turn from provision of frank data on self-efficacy to that of speculation. Considering this observation, the re-designed method allowed collection and analysis of data critical for pandemic planning. The results imply that more reliable predictions of health care workers' behavior during a pandemic are possible, albeit sensitive to elicit. Use of realistic mental exercises can provide important insights into the level of pandemic preparedness, but these methods will require additional research to reliably differentiate between prediction and speculation.

In May 2009, the Obama administration released its, Cyberspace Policy Review: Assuring a Trusted and Resilient Information and Communications Infrastructure, which it expected would lay the groundwork for a new national cybersecurity strategy. Staking out separate policy development space, Congressional leaders began hearings and introduced legislation. The most significant – the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 – proposed major changes in current federal government approaches. The common starting point of all of these reform efforts is that current federal organization and current national cybersecurity policy is inadequate for the task of securing cyberspace.This article analyzes past federal reorganization efforts in response to the last technological revolution with serious national security implications – nuclear technology -- and the more recent response to homeland security. While much of the current cybersecurity debate leans toward radical reforming, we counsel an incremental approach to reorganization that builds on the hard work of the last decade combined with a genuine reconceptualization of the threat solution set. Borrowing from the language of the nuclear era, we call for cybersecurity to rest on a balanced triad of intergovernmental relations, private corporate involvement, and active cyber citizenship as a resilient model that can manage this new and challenging security environment. In particular, we introduce the third leg as a critical new concept that has been absent from standard policy debate. The road to cybersecurity is destined to be long, circuitous, and difficult. Extensive negotiations between federal, state, local, and private sector leaders loom. No truly significant federal policy reform can be achieved without considering the intergovernmental policy dimensions combined with the overall threat perception driving those reforms. Success will remain elusive if government to private business relations do not improve and much will be undermined if the general public remains inactive in contributing to national cybersecurity.

The article explores the use of analogical reasoning to understand homeland defense and security issues. Analogical reasoning relies on the analysis of historical precedents. While much value can be inferred from examining historical precedents, accelerated change in contemporary societies decrease its relevance for understanding future events. This article considers whether complexity theory can complement the analogical approach. We formulate a theory of global violence and instability based on analogical reasoning and complexity theory to explicate why violent events persist despite countermeasures taken to contain them. This theory elucidates the phenomenon of escalating violence and explains why movements that perpetrate violence do not quickly mellow. We conclude with testable propositions and suggestions about the practical relevance of the theoretical framework for containing contemporary violence.

This study deals with the relationship between organizational flexibility, crisis response and learning. As a point of departure we use previous research from the field of crisis management which tells us that experience can shape crisis responses in two ways: as a way of repeating former routines or as a precondition for improvisation. Based on an abductive study we argue that the mandates of top-managerial teams, where we differentiate between centralized and decentralized, are closely connected to the way organizations learn – in behavioral or cognitive modes. Our findings from two case studies show how the decentralized managerial group learned in a behavioral fashion by creating new formal policies and structures, while organizational members in the centralized managerial group relied on individual cognitive structures as a way of 'storing' lessons learned. The study ends by discussing the findings from a crisis management perspective, where we propose that the two modes of learning profoundly affect the crucial issue of flexibility in organizational crisis response.

The development of effective and reliable methods to defend the nation against biological terrorism remains an urgent challenge to researchers in the areas of risk, bio-defense, public health, and emergency medicine. The emerging threat of the avian flu pandemic also highlights the unpreparedness of our nation's health care system to meet a highly contagious and infectious disease outbreak. The implementation of a rapid sensor technology for early detection of influenza-like-illness provides possible opportunities, as well as problems. Bounding and defining such a complex problem is one of the first challenges this research addresses. Approaching this problem from various perspectives such as risk management, critical infrastructures and emergency medicine proves to be a valid strategy for an efficient solution. After defining the problem and laying out a strategy, discussions on possible tools and techniques for the solution of the problem is presented in this paper, together with the compounding sources of and issues with complexity.

Timely detection of a bioterrorist attack is of profound significance for efficient emergency public health management. Various systems currently exist which are capable of detecting the biologic agents prior to (e.g. biosensors) and after exposure (syndromic surveillance) but suffer from limitations like high cost and false positives (Stoto et al., Williams). In this paper, we use novel dynamic graph matching and gravity models to formulate a more precise and efficient methodology for detection. The problem is complicated by the similarity of anthrax and small pox symptoms to common diseases like influenza, chickenpox, airborne characteristics of these agents (that increases the risk of infection spreading to proximal regions), and non uniform distribution of terrorism risk among areas belonging to the same region. Our methodology will analyze patient symptom data available at hospitals using dynamic graph matching algorithms. We propose a heuristic that dynamically updates the template graphs based on patient data before applying matching algorithms, a unique feature of this study. Successful matches will be used to update counters that generate alerts once the counters surpass the threshold values. We develop a heuristic that uses a gravity model to group hospitals in a region into clusters based on the population they serve. Hospitals grouped together as a cluster affect counters that are local to the population they serve and generate alarms to the Public Health Department when they surpass the set threshold values. In addition, we use the fact that some symptoms are unique to these agents to make our algorithms more robust. These models could be used to develop practical applications for agencies such as DHS due to its ability to increase not just the likelihood of detection of a bioterrorism attack but also to identify with greater precision the location(s) of the attack. With minor modification they could also be used to plan for other disasters/epidemics such as SARS, and bird flu.

This piece contains information on an upcoming conference on seismic safety.

Nanotechnology is an emerging science with numerous potential applications to the food and water critical infrastructures. Vulnerabilities of both infrastructures are addressed. Additionally, this paper will examine sensors, chemical delivery systems, bioactive agents, remote camera design, nano-emulsions, remediation, filtration, coding, computation, and dual-use applications in as they apply to the protection and exploitation of the food and water infrastructures.

Content analysis of two years of articles and reviews published in JHSEM (2006-2008).

An Early Warning System (EWS) is the first line of defense against hazards of all kinds. EWS supports mitigations capabilities and plays a vital role in minimizing human and monetary losses due to natural and man-made disasters. In this paper current and future trends for EWS implementation in Jordan are discussed. An integrated Early Warning System for Jordan (JoEWS) is proposed to enhance mitigation and response capabilities for future disasters in Jordan.

This paper proposes the "spider-web approach" as a new principle to draw implications on emergency management in Korea. The approach includes: 1) four overlapping phases of emergency management lifecycle, 2) horizontal and vertical networking, and 3) functional and hazard-specific approaches in the field of emergency management. Korea has only partially used these three factors in its three major programs, such as the Basic Plan on National Safety Management (BPNSM), the Guide on How to Set Up Emergency Operations Plans (GHSUEOPR), and the National Infrastructure Protection System (NIPS). Thus, the major tenet of this paper is the need for Korea to adopt the spider-web approach and then use it to the full extent for emergency management.

There is growing interest in the subject of resilience on the part of President Obama's Administration, as well as lively discussion regarding this issue in academic, business, and governmental circles. This article offers an operational framework that can prove useful to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and stakeholders at all levels, both public and private, as a basis for incorporating resilience into our infrastructure and society in order to make the nation safer.Three interrelated, mutually reinforcing objectives or end-states shape the approach to resilience: resistance, absorption, and restoration. If these objectives are realized as part of applying practical programs to critical systems and key functions, then these systems and functions will reflect resilience features appropriate to their individual needs.Resilience needs to be planned in advance—before systems are damaged and undesired consequences occur. Such planning can be challenging, given the different interpretations currently attached to “resilience," and the complexity inherent in the concept. Planners need to account for the fact that resilience is both broad and deep. It encompasses “hard" systems (such as infrastructure and assets) as well as “soft" systems (such as communities and individuals).A visually direct technique for assisting resilience planners is to establish a “resilience profile" for key functions within critical systems. Such a profile is delimited by three design parameters: function, latency limit, and minimum performance boundary. Investment strategies can be developed using these profiles to identify cost-effective ways and means to incorporate resilience capabilities across the homeland security mission spectrum for the system in question. Solutions need to be practiced and tested.Operationalizing the resilience framework presented in this article will not be easy. The potential payoff, however, in terms of the enhanced economic, individual, and societal security that such resilience provides can be immense.

Access to evidence-based literature in a timely and efficient manner is critical in a situation involving a terrorism incident. The purpose of this project was to develop a method that provides rapid access to key biological, chemical, and radiological terrorism literature for poison information specialists, working in either the poison center or as remote agents, during a terrorism incident.Various electronic document management systems were evaluated and compared based on the cost of implementation and maintenance, ease of use, capabilities, and efficiency. After a thorough evaluation of these systems, it was determined that Adobe Acrobat Professional software met the needs of the center, with minimal expense. The implementation process involved scanning selected biological, chemical, and radiological terrorism literature via an HP Digital Sender 9250c scanner. The Adobe Acrobat Professional software was used to enter the author, title, and assigned keywords for searching.Total cost of implementation was approximately $4,500. The full software version was necessary for a minimal number of users, while the searching component for specialists in poison information was available through Adobe Acrobat Reader. A majority of the staff was satisfied with the new system and felt it was user friendly.The described system allows specialists rapid access to key papers, whether they are working in the center or remotely. This improves efficiency when surge capacity is compromised, which can occur during a terrorism incident.

Robert McCreight of George Washington University suggests it is time to initiate a constructive debate on the necessary core curriculum, educational requirements, and delivery mechanisms for career seekers in emergency management and homeland security. Citing a general lack of consensus within the higher education and professional communities, he raises a number of issues and professional challenges for consideration by the JHSEM readership. We thank Dr. McCreight for initiating the conversation, and look forward to reader comments on this very important topic.

This paper stems from my presentation on long-term recovery given at the 2009 All-Hazards Higher Education Conference, sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security at its Emergency Management Institute, June 2-4, 2009.

There is an alternative to the Federal role in disaster relief as specified in the Disaster Relief Act (PL 93-288 as amended). This alternative would be infinitely more effective in reducing the costs of disasters and would be much fairer to the tax payers.As the FEMA Regional Director in Chicago during the 1993 Mississippi floods, my mitigation division director groused over the fact that many of the same people in the lines were there after the previous floods (plural). While we shouldn't tell people where to live, they shouldn't come to us for money when they get hit by a predictable disaster without the necessary insurance.The requirements for making this alternative a reality are threefold:a. Set actuarially correct premiums for individuals, municipalities and states based on the risk; an outline for how the Federal government can build a risk model is discussed. b. Have the Federal government serve as the "reinsurer" for losses that exceed those projected by its model; an approach is provided. c. Change the legislation and insist that the congress not bail out people who didn't get the insurance or otherwise reduce their risk by moving out of the high risk area.The point of this approach is to force individuals, municipalities and states to stop doing dumb things and accept responsibility for their decisions. The benefits to the tax payers who are subsidizing these bad decisions would be huge.

(Canada's) Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence Report entitled: “Emergency Preparedness in Canada: How the fine arts of bafflegab and procrastination hobble the people who will be trying to save you when things get really bad..." was released for public consumption on September 2, 2008.The title clearly gives the substance of the report away. This article is meant to provide a general comment on the Report's recommendations 6, 8, and 9 in two parts, namely: “Lessons Learned" and “First Responder." Finally, this article offers an opinion on “Competencies."

This response to Robert McCreight argues that the discourse on homeland security curriculum has narrowly viewed education as merely a vocational stepping stone to prepare students for a specific profession. This article argues that we need to focus on the civic mission of higher education. A primary mission of homeland security education should be to develop leaders with a public service ethos and citizens that embody civic virtues.