Comments on: A Review: Skating on Stilts: Why We Aren’t Stopping Tomorrow’s Terrorism http://www.hlswatch.com/2010/06/04/a-review-skating-on-stilts-why-we-aren%e2%80%99t-stopping-tomorrow%e2%80%99s-terrorism/ News and analysis of critical issues in homeland security today. Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:07:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: William R. Cumming http://www.hlswatch.com/2010/06/04/a-review-skating-on-stilts-why-we-aren%e2%80%99t-stopping-tomorrow%e2%80%99s-terrorism/comment-page-1/#comment-139199 William R. Cumming Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:08:07 +0000 http://www.hlswatch.com/?p=9766#comment-139199 This is a very very important post and sounds like a very very important book. The post raises several questions in my mind? Funding and staffing of the policy sections in DHS and its components would be interesting to see if they match the subjects importance or not! for example, FEMA alone has a 40 FTE policy shop under David Kaufman, a non-career SES. His deputy, a retired Coast Guard officer I believe is also SES. Do any of these sections have statisticians or duties to develop or help develp matrics for DHS or its components? Do any have economic analysis capability for cost/benefit analysis? Do any have other disciplines other than 301 series that might be of use in developing policies? And of course how exactly do they relate to policy development activities in the components? And finally of course how do DHS and its components define policy and identify existing policy or policies? In a way even the lowest level of the civil service makes policy if they make a decision unguided by higher levels of the department or agency. If that happens do they then document that decision in a fashion reviewable by other higher authority and if reviewed adopted or rejected and that adoption or rejection explained? How is the decision to proivide a public explanation of the policy or not explained internally and externally. Policy formulation and adoption is a very difficult arena and often handed to those who really don't understand its difficulties. Sounds like Stewart Baker and of course Jessica do understand the difficulties. Policy formulation and staffing of that activity is somewhat a lost art in Washington as choosing sides on an issues (and hoping of course to pick the right [correct] side for political or bureacratic advancement is the game. Thus policy shop incumbents want to get into issue analysis to promote their careers and really have no interest in policy development and its adoption or rejection. Probably will have further thoughts on this post but need more coffee first. This is a very very important post and sounds like a very very important book. The post raises several questions in my mind? Funding and staffing of the policy sections in DHS and its components would be interesting to see if they match the subjects importance or not! for example, FEMA alone has a 40 FTE policy shop under David Kaufman, a non-career SES. His deputy, a retired Coast Guard officer I believe is also SES. Do any of these sections have statisticians or duties to develop or help develp matrics for DHS or its components? Do any have economic analysis capability for cost/benefit analysis? Do any have other disciplines other than 301 series that might be of use in developing policies? And of course how exactly do they relate to policy development activities in the components?
And finally of course how do DHS and its components define policy and identify existing policy or policies?

In a way even the lowest level of the civil service makes policy if they make a decision unguided by higher levels of the department or agency. If that happens do they then document that decision in a fashion reviewable by other higher authority and if reviewed adopted or rejected and that adoption or rejection explained? How is the decision to proivide a public explanation of the policy or not explained internally and externally.

Policy formulation and adoption is a very difficult arena and often handed to those who really don’t understand its difficulties. Sounds like Stewart Baker and of course Jessica do understand the difficulties. Policy formulation and staffing of that activity is somewhat a lost art in Washington as choosing sides on an issues (and hoping of course to pick the right [correct] side for political or bureacratic advancement is the game. Thus policy shop incumbents want to get into issue analysis to promote their careers and really have no interest in policy development and its adoption or rejection.

Probably will have further thoughts on this post but need more coffee first.

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