State and Local Gov’t
No-fly no problem, Chertoff says
October 31st, 2008
No-fly and terrorist watch lists are not the vast and sticky databases of popular imagination, just waiting to ensnare innocent American air travelers.
And if you’ve ever been pulled out of a security line at an airport and made to wait (and wait) while your identification is confirmed, then told that someone with your name is on a watch list and, in future, you’d be well advised to show up hours (and hours) before your flight actually departs, well, that just might become a thing of the past.
The future of homeland security
September 22nd, 2008
The future of homeland security – the concept rather than the huge government agency – was on the mind of DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff when he spoke recently at the Brookings Institution, the well-known Washington think tank. And while it was billed as one of a series of speeches marking DHS’s fifth anniversary, focusing on the vulnerabilities of the nation’s critical infrastructure, it had the feeling both of a valedictory and a defense of the Bush Administration’s free market oriented guiding philosophy.
DHS begins to implement new chemical security regs
September 18th, 2008
More than 29,000 preliminary "Top Screen" forms have been submitted to DHS by companies that store and use any of 322 different "chemicals of interest," in accordance with a new law that mandates stricter security measures at many of the nation’s chemical plants and facilities, according to a panel of three DHS officials at the ASIS show in Atlanta. These forms are the first step in the process of identifying potential security vulnerabilities.
Feds’ IT report card
September 8th, 2008
The Administration’s budget request for FY 2009 includes approximately $71 billion for information technology and related support services, according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). So, how are the various federal agencies doing when it comes to managing their often-huge capital investments in IT?
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Can Osama bin Laden strike in the U.S. again?
August 28th, 2008
With another 9/11 anniversary imminent, the question rises again: Is another al-Qaeda attack inside the U.S. likely?
Expert testimony at a recent hearing of the Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment Subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security was a mix of good news and bad.
Virginia man sentenced to 22 years in prison for Capitol Hill scare
August 19th, 2008
A 38-year-old Virginia man, who was arrested on Capitol Hill last January and charged with manufacturing and possessing a weapon of mass destruction, which he might have used to hurt John Roberts, Jr., the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was convicted last May and sentenced on Aug. 15 to 22 years in prison.
National Forensic Academy plans an explosion
August 12th, 2008
If you’re in the Knoxville, TN, area next Monday afternoon, that sudden BOOM you might hear won’t mark the start of an invasion by neighboring Georgia.
Instead, it will be a ribbon "explosion" ceremony on August 18 to open the new training facility at the University of Tennessee's National Forensic Academy(NFA) in nearby Oak Ridge.
AMA to organize Third National Congress on Health System Readiness
August 12th, 2008
The Department of Health and Human Services will award a contract to the Chicago-based American Medical Association (AMA), so that it can plan and convene the Third National Congress on Health System Readiness, intended to improve the capacity of hospitals and communities across the country to prepare for public health emergencies.
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