This past weekend, the Boston Globe ran a great article by Neil Swidey that begins with a narrative about the late fall snowstorm that caused massive power outages in the Northeast and pivots into an investigative piece examining the fragility of the entire electrical grid.

First, however, comes the personalization:

While most of that northwest-of-Boston community – like much of the region – remained in the dark, the Sargent Memorial Library had been welcoming the biggest crowds of Strapko’s decade-long tenure. That’s mainly because restoring power to key town facilities like the fire and police departments had also turned it back on at the nearby library.

When they returned to the library to retrieve her car, it was about 10 o’clock. Strapko was astonished to see that there were still half a dozen cars, sport utility vehicles and Priuses alike, idling in the parking lot, the drivers’ faces lit by the bluish glow of their laptop and smartphone screens. She later learned that all week long, people had been lingering in the parking lot into the early hours of the morning, unwilling to disconnect from the library’s 24-hour Wi-Fi lifeline. A dozen years into the new century, this is how hopelessly reliant we’ve all become on power.

Swidey builds the case that major disruptions in electricity delivery have been few and far between in the recent American experience:

Yet here in this country, we’ve come to expect that whenever we flip the switch or plug in to the outlet, the juice will be there. The power grid has been so reliable over the years that most of us can count on one hand the number of times in our lives when we’ve been without electricity for any significant stretch.

However, the last large non-storm related blackout in 2003 can be seen as a harbinger of future fragility.

If our society is more reliant on power than at any time in history – without it, we’ve got no commerce, no communications, no clean water – and if power becomes less reliable in the future, the big question is: Will we be able to hack it?

He divides particular threats to the grid into three buckets:

Bucket No. 1 involves what the insurance-policy fine print calls “Acts of God.’’ Here we’re talking about all those “storms of the century’’ that seem to be arriving with unsettling frequency.

And as the Halloween storm showed, even people in neighborhoods with underground power lines won’t necessarily escape outages, because those lines are fed somewhere along the route by aboveground equipment. What’s more, Mother Nature can hit us with a lot more than just high winds and heavy snow. Consider the solar storm.

Let’s call Bucket No. 2 “Acts of Terrorists.’’ Among these, there’s the old-fashioned physical attack on the bulk power system, either at its source of generation or somewhere along its transmission route. There’s the newfangled cyber attack on the computers controlling our interconnected grid. And then there’s the otherworldly-sounding attack by an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, weapon.

Yeah, he went there: EMP.  Luckily, he expends some ink on painting some of the stalwarts of that threat genre as a little extreme and mentions the arguments that paint this as an unlikely event. As a solar storm impacting the Earth is a “when, not if” event, taking the steps to harden the grid that many EMP enthusiasts suggest would seem prudent to me. Trying to build a fanciful missile defense system that would stop any attack conceivable…not so much. Getting back to man-made threats:

But the chairman of the task force, Granger Morgan, says that what continues to worry him the most is the havoc that bad guys could cause with relatively little technological savvy. “If I’m a terrorist, I can shut down the power system in a lot simpler ways than using a valuable nuclear device,’’ says Morgan, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a noted authority on the grid.

Natural and intentional man-made threats to the electrical grid are fairly well known in homeland security circles, but the article brings up several structural facets of the system that at least I hadn’t considered before:

Finally, Bucket No. 3 is the “Ailing Grid’’ itself. In many places, the infrastructure is as old and stooped as a pensioner. As it is upgraded and its capacity is expanded, our rapacious need for more electrical power races to max it out once again.

As our electrical thirst grows, the choices we make today about how to quench it will have lasting consequences.  Not simply some combination of environmental and national security concerns, decisions about fuel type and infrastructure capacity will have unforeseen impacts.

A decade ago, 22 percent of New England’s electrical power came from oil-fired plants and 15 percent came from natural gas-fired ones. Today, about half of our electrical power comes from natural gas, while a fraction of 1 percent comes from oil. And our reliance on natural gas promises to grow even more significantly in coming years.

Second, the natural gas pipelines feeding this region were built to serve our heating – not our electrical – needs. Most of the year, there’s sufficient room in the pipeline to supply both. The danger zone, however, comes when the temperature plummets. During stretches of brutal cold, the pipeline capacity can be quickly used up by the natural gas needed to heat our homes and businesses. And unlike oil and coal, natural gas supplies cannot be easily stored in large quantities.

Yet, some important limitations tend to get lost when people rhapsodize about renewables. Although wind and solar power represent a wonderfully clean source of electricity, in energy parlance, they are not particularly “dispatchable.’’ If the weather doesn’t cooperate, you can’t meet increased demand by simply turning up the power spigot and having renewable energy flow out the tap.

As the price of natural gas continues to either hold steady or decrease due to increasing supplies, new oil and to a lesser extent coal (which releases more pollutants into the air than natural gas) burning plants are not likely to get built.  Older plants will  be decommissioned, renewables may not be dependable, and the nuclear renaissance may run aground on the shore of economics (and a bit of safety post-Fukushima–but impacted to a greater degree by the comparative costs of building a new natural gas vs. nuclear plant). Infrastructure concerns will vary with conditions across the regions of this nation, but so will the long term impacts of deciding what sort of system to build.

With current political pressure to cut government spending, the issue of whether it will get built is just as important as what to build. If that isn’t daunting enough, the provision of electricity is a complicated public-private partnership. The issues raised by Phil’s recent posts on supply chain issues apply to the grid as well.

The answer?

Some will choose to get off the grid, or at least decrease their reliance:

The entire article is well worth reading:

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2012/02/05/what_if_the_lights_go_out/?page=full

Postscript:For good resilience measure, the article includes the standard list of items one should have on hand for blackouts and other types of emergencies.  Strike while the iron is hot, or at least when the reader is concerned.

Post-postscript: For those interested in getting into the weeds of electricity policy, the “Harvard Electricity Policy Group” has been examining these issues since 1993 and allows public access to their extensive research library.

Between Capitol Hill events I sometimes escape to the National Gallery of Art.    The alabaster sculpture shown above is surrounded by much more dramatic Virgins of the late Medieval-early Renaissance.  But this week  St. George caught my attention.

His lance has already pierced the dragon’s breast.  Angry jaws and claws are tearing just above the spear-point.  The arm which thrust the lance is missing.  So is his sword.

My subconscious immediately identified this St. George with homeland security.  Brave, knows his duty, has done a great deal, even while key capabilities are broken. The dragon still lives.  What does this analogy say about this week’s meetings or, for that matter, my subconscious?

But what really stopped me in my tracks is the headless damsel.

Last week a friend told me about a FEMA “think tank” website (thanks, Sam).

The site, located at http://fema.ideascale.com, looks to be an open-to-the-world (once you register) version of TSA’s “idea factory.”

According to FEMA, the agency is

…reaching out to state, local, and tribal governments, and to all members of the public, including the private sector, the disability community, and volunteer community, to seek their input on how to improve the emergency management system.

No doubt you’ve heard that language before.  But this effort looks like a significant improvement over initial DHS efforts (e.g., Quadrennial Homeland  Security Review) to incorporate stakeholder ideas through wisdom-of-the-crowd-like social networking.

After you register for the FEMA think tank site, you can submit an idea, or comment and vote for or against other ideas.  According to the website, “The best ideas bubble up to the top.” The voting (agree/disagree) option helps moderate entries from the good idea fairy.

It looks as if the site has been operating since mid-November.  Starting last Thursday, FEMA hosts a monthly conference call, open to the public, to discuss some of the ideas and what to do about them.

The site is hosted by a private sector web-based product called IdeaScale. The Comments and Privacy Policy contain quasi-draconian cautions, augmented by FEMA’s reminder that IdeaScale is “a private entity whose server is not under the control of FEMA and whose collection of information is not protected by the Privacy Act of 1974″ and so on.

IdeaScale claims it can use Think Tank ideas almost anyway it wants to.

For this and several other reasons, perhaps FEMA’s Think Tank can be criticised for not being perfect. Using IdeaScale’s off the shelf (or technically off the web) product is a public/private partnership for a cyber world. And there is a lot we have not discovered about those partnerships.

FEMA is taking a risk here. But increasingly the world’s complexity demands intelligent trial and error initiatives, like FEMA’s Think Tank.  It seems like a good example of what David Snowden has written about as a safe fail probe.

Reading through the ideas and the comments, it looks like FEMA may be on to something with the Think Tank.

As of January 30th, there were over 1300 registered users, 296 ideas, 1371 comments, and 5515 votes helping ideas “bubble to the top.”

The ideas and comments were almost always thoughtful and improvement oriented.  I did not see one “let’s flood the border with land mines” suggestion.  The extended discussion about PPD 8 is especially worthwhile.

—————–

Here are the top 20 ideas — and partial descriptions taken from the website — discussed on the FEMA Think Tank (as of last night):

1. U.S. National Grid as the Response Language of Location: Through NIMS and ICS, the leadership of DHS and FEMA have directed the phased introduction of numerous operational standards designed to promote and facilitate interoperability for the Emergency Services Sector. Yet, to date, they are without voice when it comes to the single most important element of response – the ability to communicate “where”…. Long ago, the U.S. Armed Forces realized that effective delivery of mission required every part of a “response force” in an operational realm (air, land, sea) had to use the same language of location…. It’s now long past due that the executive leadership of DHS and FEMA do the same thing through a national policy directive.
2. Incorporate Preparedness in School Curriculums: Disaster preparedness should be taught as part of the school curriculum for children of all ages.
3. EM [Emergency Management] Coffee Break Training: … The EM Coffee Break Training could provide this platform through weekly dessimination of one page lectures that would roughly take 5-10 minutes (long enough to finish a cup of coffee) to read. Each lesson could be reviewed individually or as a group and could provide supplemental information for further research or suggestions.
4. School issues: In an emergency everyone turns to the schools, unfortunately most are not prepared, not trained, and emergency responders run up against rules that are frustrating at the least and life threatening at the worse. It would be nice if some how FEMA could offer the training because it won’t be done at the school level, not because it isn’t needed, but because of drastic budget cuts in education.
5. Let the locals do the thinking: I have been involved with Emer. Mgt. for 20 years. I have managed 7 Presidential disasters and many more local emergencies. My biggest problem is FEMA/Homeland Security and the State. The federal and state government has placed a mountain of paperwork on my desk that restricts my ability to complete the real work within my community. A 10 minute piece of paperwork to report an exercise 20 years ago has escalated into the HSEEP monster with days of work and for what?…. I think if FEMA would really like to know what is best for the country and the local programs they first need to consider what would help the locals by asking for our input before they issued another mandate. We know what is best for our community because we live here.
6. Mobile Apps For FEMA Employees And The Public Utilizing GPS: An app that utilizes GPS coordinates to aid in disaster response, send relevant emergency alerts to the user, and ability to locate loved ones by last known location.
7. EAS [Emergency Alert System: The EAS should include all cell phones.
8. "Be Prepared" campaign: One of the things I heard from the leaders of FEMA was: the citizens need to be ready to help themselves. Not just that, but specifically stated: the federal government is not going to be there for you right away. Unfortunately, I only heard this for about a week before it was abandoned. You can spend all you want on CERTs, exercises, equipment, etc, etc. You can spend fractions of that money on an information campaign and have the citizenry help themselves.
9. Bring Back Project Impact: Former FEMA Director James Lee Witt created Project Impact in 1997 with the goal to create “disaster resilient communities”. Overall the program was considered a resounding success; not only did it help communities become more disaster resilient, but it also was a success at “bringing people from diverse sectors of the community together to address mitigation issues”.
10. Utilize resources already in disaster zone: During Hurricane Katrina, Wal-Mart gave their employees approval days in advance to do "whatever they had to help the citizens". I think to help with disaster relief at any level, the government should partner up with larger community based retailers that are already in the areas.
11. Utilizing 2-1-1 in Disasters: I work for an NGO in Columbus, Ohio. One of the greatest skills we can bring to a disaster is assistance in Emergency Public Informaiton via our 24/7/365 Information and Referral line, 2-1-1. 2-1-1 is an easy, three digit number for citizens to call to get assistance with rent, utilities, food, etc. (during normal operations).
12. Corporate America Planning: As the Emergency Manager for a fortune 25 company with over 400 active facilities to manage. It's difficult to find any formal Emergency Management training that includes office buildings, clinics, data centers, etc.
13. Community Mapping to implement the Whole Community Concept: In addition to mapping of risk and protective factors, [community mapping] makes the whole community more resilient by…Bringing the community together to collectively plan, which increases the sense of ownership and responsibility on the disaster response and recovery activities….
14. Preparedness and Sustainability Linkage: Many sustainable practices pay dividends in a disaster. Bicycle transportation, gardening, water catchment, canning, solar power etc are all examples of activities which make communities better places to live AND make communities more self-relient when infrastructure and critical supplies are halted.
15. Federal Disaster Management Externship program: … a large percentage of the existing Emergency Management leaders [will] be retiring beginning in the next 5 years. The question, we the students, no matter the level of education [asked] is “How are we to gain experience in the field in the next five years while we wait our turn at the few existing emergency management positions?”
16. Preliminary Damage Assessments by Smartphone: FEMA should produce a smart phone application that allows the capture and upload of georeferenced text and photo’s during a disaster.
17. 24/7 Field Triage Preparedness: The recognition & adoption of a standardized national illuminated color coded system for triaging MCI patients 24/7. Today different States & organizations use different triage cards and tapes for triaging patients.
18. Alert Systems: Many cities have or belong to an Emergency Alert system. I did not see any alerts during your testing. … Nor did I see anything on facebook or twitter until the test was over and everyone was asking if it worked.
19. ICS / NIMS Training: Whether by DHS or FEMA or the CDP, I think all involved need to re-think the limited training opportunities for ICS and NIMS training.
20. Hazard Reporting – All-Hazards Feedback: USGS has a website for “Did you feel it” to allow people to report on earthquakes that were felt – http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/. A similar type of approach from other hazard partners would be helpful (NWS, USGS, NOAA, etc).

—————–

TL; DR: FEMA is soliciting ideas online about how to improve emergency management. Some of the ideas are intriguing.

In a post last week, Phil brought to our attention a White House meeting where local law enforcement officials were presented with a framework for identifying “Homegrown Violent Extremists” that included four major mobilizing patterns:

Contact with individuals tied to terrorist organizations

Indicators of ideological commitment

Travel or attempted travel in pursuit of a violent agenda

Seeking weapons or weapons related training

All very sensible, though perhaps seemingly so after the fact. Perhaps at the briefing methodology was shared for determining in advance when these or similar indicators might lead to violence.  Hopefully it was more than what Phil’s brief contained:

According to my sources the law enforcement officials were, “cautioned against adopting a checklist-like mentality incountering the HVE threat. Simplistically interpreting any single indicator as a confirmation of mobilization probably will lead to ineffective and counterproductive efforts to identify and defeat Homegrown Violent Extremists.”

That quote reminded me of the following quote from a not-so-recent blog post at Security Debrief:

Ask yourself, would an artist draw what you see them sketching? Are the photos a person is taking something you would place in your vacation or family photo album? Give yourself the “reasonableness” test. Is it reasonable that the activity is likely tourist or terrorist in nature? Trust your intuition.

The author is Erroll Southers, according to his Security Debrief Blog bio a former FBI Special Agent, President Barack Obama’s first nominee for Assistant Secretary of the Transportation Security Administration, and Assistant Chief of Homeland Security and Intelligence at the Los Angeles World Airports Police Department.

Reasonable advice from a homeland security professional, right?

Perhaps only after the fact.  Not to pick on Mr. Southers, but I’m guessing he rarely if ever visits small art galleries or has participated in “open studios” (these are usually weekends when a number of artists in particular neighborhoods open up their studios–often their homes–to the public to view and perhaps purchase their work) in any of the cities in which he has lived.  I enjoy these events and could not count on my hands the number of photographers I’ve encountered who take pictures of what is considered critical infrastructure.  Dams, electrical grids, nuclear power stations, public transportation, etc.  Not something you might place in your vacation (Hoover Dam anyone?) or family photo albums perhaps, but absolutely striking physical objects that can be rendered quite beautifully by any number of artists.

I have noticed this general extension of “see something, say something” in other venues, numerous papers, and by many a speaker. The unoriginal thinking and lack of imagination is disheartening.  How will the public become true partners in homeland security if the level of engagement largely remains at this level?  Does the whole of community only count those who have the same aesthetic views as homeland security professionals?  And will JIC (just in case) be the enduring legacy of 9/11?

Maybe not, at least if noted baseball writer George Will and others have anything to say about it:

Quentin, who finds aesthetic — and occasional monetary — value in photographs of industrial scenery at night, was equally persistent when deputies ordered him to stop taking pictures, lest they put his name on a troublesome FBI list. He was on a public sidewalk, using a large camera on a tripod, photographing an oil refinery at 1 a.m. He has a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of California at Irvine, so there.

It has become conventional wisdom in national security circles (and among some of the regular commentators on this blog) that the United States is on the decline–economically, socially/culturally, and perhaps even militarily.  This is made even more stark by comparison to China’s meteoric rise over the last couple of decades.

But is it true?  Hat tip to Daniel Drezner’s blogging at Foreign Policy for highlighting the recent work of  Michael Beckley, a Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He frames the issue in the most recent issue of International Security:

Two assumptions dominate current foreign policy debates in the United States and China. First, the United States is in decline relative to China. Second, much of this decline is the result of globalization and the hegemonic burdens the United States bears to sustain globalization. Both of these assumptions are wrong. The United States is not in decline; in fact, it is now wealthier, more innovative, and more militarily powerful compared to China than it was in 1991. Moreover, globalization and hegemony do not erode U.S. power; they reinforce it. The United States derives competitive advantages from its hegemonic position, and globalization allows it to exploit these advantages, attracting economic activity and manipulating the international system to its benefit. The United States should therefore continue to prop up the global economy and maintain a robust diplomatic and military presence abroad.

You can read the entire article here: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Chinas_Century.pdf

Drezner adds some positive points of his own (fleshed out in his blog post):

1)  The United States is successfully deleveraging.

2) Manufacturing is on the mend.

3) A predicted decline in energy insecurity.

For some strange reason, I am guessing that these views haven’t been aired at any of the recent Republican primary debates….

Today’s post was written by Fred Stein.  It is based on his recently completed homeland security master’s degree thesis.

Fred’s central conclusion — a surprising one to me — is the U.S. would basically become energy independent if we stopped using gasoline to power our automobiles.

Information about obtaining the complete thesis (including the evidence supporting his argument) can be found at the end of this post.

Fred’s analysis begins with a look at some common perceptions about this country’s dependence on foreign oil.

——————–

Dependence on foreign oil is the Achilles heal of the United States’ security.

While the direct economic costs are staggering with an oil trade deficit of $1 billion per day, the security threat posed by that dependence is an even greater disaster waiting to happen.

Hugo Chavez has threatened to cut supplies of oil to the United States.  Al Qaeda and other Islamic radicals have identified the world oil supply as a prime target.  As Iran proceeds inexorably towards nuclear weapons, U.S. and European policy makers must temper their responses to counter this threat for fear of driving up oil prices.  Iran has the ability, and espouses rhetoric about its desire, to close the straits of Hormuz to interrupt the supply of oil in certain circumstances.

Every U.S. President since Richard Nixon has denounced America’s dependence on foreign oil.  Discussions abound regarding increasing U.S. oil production or efficiencies, but no real measures have been seriously considered that would truly end America’s dependence on foreign oil by simply eliminating the need for that oil.

Though the consequences of energy dependence are complex, the solution is simple.  The amount of oil used by the U.S. for motor gasoline, about 50% of total oil consumption, is the same as the net amount of oil imported by the U.S., about 50% of total oil consumption.

If the U.S. stopped using gasoline to power its automobiles, it would essentially become energy independent.

Adding nuclear or clean coal facilities, building wind farms, installing solar panel fields, etc., would do little to foster energy independence.  Those technologies increase the generation of electricity, but not in a manner that can currently be utilized by most of the transportation sector that depends almost exclusively on the combustion of oil.

Electric vehicles (EVs) bridge that gap. The price of EVs and the lack of a recharge infrastructure is all that stands in the way of their full integration into the automobile market.

It has been demonstrated before that as the price of gasoline increases, consumers respond in large part by purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles.  A detailed analysis of historical gasoline prices, car prices, car sales, and other factors, allows for creation of a model that predicts the EV car sales as it relates to the price of gasoline.

A model developed here, predicts the rapid growth of EV sales if an excise tax on gasoline of $2/gallon, incrementally rising to $5/gallon were to be imposed on the retail sale of gasoline, and simultaneously a $15,000 rebate on the sale of new EVs were to be introduced.  The results are illustrated graphically below.

An excise tax of that magnitude would raise sufficient funds to provide for the EV tax rebate, to mitigate the effects from the regressive nature of the tax, and to provide monetary incentive for the development of a nation wide recharge infrastructure.   The funds that would be collected under such a scenario are described in the table below.

There is a cost to achieving energy independence.  That cost is two to five dollars on each gallon of retail gasoline sold, paid by drivers continue using internal combustion vehicles.  With conviction and determination, the United States can achieve energy independence in a few short years.

For a copy of Fred Stein’s thesis providing in-depth analysis of the ideas expressed in this paper, go to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security in February 2012.  You can also contact Fred Stein at chdsstein[at]gmail.com

Some votes were taken, a document was signed.  Nothing really happened.  Nothing actually changed.  Did it?

The indefinite detention of citizens by the military, authorized by the National Defense Authorization Act, is perceived by most of those who voted for it — and that small proportion of citizens who have noticed — as a narrowly targeted expediency to be used in extraordinary cases against very bad guys.

Besides the President has stated,

I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law.

Nothing has changed, the President assures us.  Just words on paper and his words protect us from their words.

What about the next administration?  Or the one after that?

Did you notice the arrest of an Ottumwa Iowa sixteen-year-old just before Christmas?  She’s been charged with terrorist conspiracy.  The charge conforms with the letter-of-the-law.  I expect most of those who originally crafted the law did not anticipate it would be applied in this sort of circumstance.

Have you noticed meaning tends to morph over time?

Three days after the arrest of the Ottumwa teenager, Congressman Ron Paul told supporters in a teleconference:

The founders wanted to set a high bar for the government to overcome in order to deprive an individual of life or liberty. To lower that bar is to endanger everyone. When the bar is low enough to include political enemies, our descent into totalitarianism is virtually assured. The Patriot Act, as bad as its violations against the Fourth Amendment was, was just one step down the slippery slope. The recently passed National Defense Authorization Act continues that slip into tyranny, and in fact, accelerates it significantly.

Tuesday night, Congressman Paul did very well at the Wapello County Republican Caucus.   The caucus was held at the high school in which the alleged terrorist is enrolled.

I wonder if the caucus goers noticed any connection between the local arrest and what the Congressman had to say.

Did you notice the January 2 death of Gordon Hirabayahsi?  Here are a few paragraphs from the NYT obit:

In February 1942, two months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in the name of protecting the nation against espionage and sabotage, authorized the designation of areas from which anyone could be excluded. One month later, a curfew was imposed along the West Coast on people of Japanese ancestry, and in May 1942, the West Coast military command ordered their removal to inland camps in harsh and isolated terrain.

Mr. Hirabayashi, a son of Japanese immigrants, was a senior at the University of Washington when the United States entered World War II. He adhered to the pacifist principles of his parents, who had once belonged to a Japanese religious sect similar to the Quakers.

When the West Coast curfew was imposed, ordering people of Japanese background to be home by 8 p.m., Mr. Hirabayashi ignored it. When the internment directive was put in place, he refused to register at a processing center and was jailed.

Contending that the government’s actions were racially discriminatory, Mr. Hirabayashi proved unyielding. He refused to post $500 bail because he would have been transferred to an internment camp while awaiting trial. He remained in jail from May 1942 until October of that year, when his case was heard before a federal jury in Seattle.

Found guilty of violating both the curfew and internment orders, he was sentenced to concurrent three-month prison terms. While his appeal was pending, he remained at the local jail for an additional four months, then was released and sent to Spokane, Wash., to work on plans to relocate internees when they were finally released.

His appeal, along with one by Mr. Yasui, a lawyer from Hood River, Ore., who had been jailed for nine months for curfew defiance, made its way to the Supreme Court. In 1943, ruling unanimously, the court upheld the curfew as a constitutional exercise of the government’s war powers. Mr. Hirabayashi served out his three-month prison term at a work camp near Tucson.

The Supreme Court declined to rule at the time on Mr. Hirabayashi’s challenge to internment as well. (Mr. Yasui had contested only the curfew.) But in December 1944, in a case brought by Mr. Korematsu, a welder from Oakland, Calif., the court upheld the constitutionality of internment in a 6-to-3 vote.

Mr. Hirabayashi later spent a year in federal prison for refusing induction into the armed forces, contending that a questionnaire sent to Japanese-Americans by draft officials demanding a renunciation of any allegiance to the emperor of Japan was racially discriminatory because other ethnic groups were not asked about adherence to foreign leaders.

The Hirabayashi, Yasui and Korematsu cases were revisited in the 1980s after Peter Irons, a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, found documents indicating that the federal government, in coming before the Supreme Court, had suppressed its own finding that Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were not, in fact, threats to national security.

In September 1987, a three-member panel of a federal appeals court in San Francisco unanimously overturned Mr. Hirabayashi’s conviction for failing to register for evacuation to an internment camp and for ignoring a curfew. The convictions of Mr. Korematsu and Mr. Yasui had been overturned earlier.

Have you noticed that individuals, neighborhoods, and nations can react to surprise and stress in unexpected ways?  Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

The President is not a tyrant.  The members of Congress who crafted and voted for the NDAA were motivated to protect citizens, not oppress citizens.

Have you noticed the best intentions do not always deflect bad consequences?

The language and structure of the NDAA in regard to military detention of citizens is dangerously ambiguous.

In this ambiguity we have chosen to leave a path on which we have been progressing for a considerable period.  This new path may be a brief diversion that soon rejoins the old path.  Our choice might also be taking us in a very different direction.  We don’t know yet.  It probably depends on something ahead that we cannot yet see… something that will either cause the paths to cross or further diverge.

I regret this departure from the old path.  But what concerns me even more is the sense that most of those on the path don’t seem to notice there was a fork in the road and we made a choice.

Major flooding in the ______________ watershed has displaced ____ people.

Explosions at the facility have killed ___ and prompted the evacuation of approximately ____.

The shooter killed ___ before apparently killing himself.

The wildfire jumped containment lines and destroyed roughly $_____________ in property.

Officials say there is no evidence of a radioactive release.

The coordinated attacks killed at least ____.

Three aftershocks each measuring above 6.8 on the Richter scale have threatened survivors.

The chemicals released are each highly toxic.  Experts are uncertain of their combined effect on the environment and long-term impact on human health.

According to intelligence sources speaking off-the-record, the apparent sale of ____________ to ____________ significantly increases the terrorist threat to ______________.

_______ Corporation has announced losses of $___ billion due to extraordinary flooding in ________.  Disruption in the supply chain is expected to continue for ___ months.  In response to the announcement investors sold-off over $ ________ in stock market value.

The unprecedented failure has confounded safety experts.

The spokesman promised retaliation against the “enemies of ________.”

The hurricane is expected to produce sustained winds of ___ mile per hour as it slams into the coast near ______________. The storm surge will be felt between ____________ and ___________.

According to ______________ at the University of ___________ this is the worst such accident since ____ when ___ were killed and property damage exceeded $_________ in a similar tragedy at the __________ in ____________.

“This is a significant new development in terrorist tactics,” he told the Senate committee.

“I’ve never seen it this bad before,” the life-time resident reported.

Recovery has been slow, some say non-existent. “We are sliding backward, not moving forward,” according to the Mayor.

“We don’t know yet if the loss of data was intentional or accidental, but in either case for the system to be compromised in this way is cause for serious concern.”

“Budget available for this purpose has been cut each year for five years running and has been zeroed-out in several categories.  This undoubtedly has had some impact on our readiness for an event of this magnitude.”

“This was entirely foreseeable and we will hold accountable those who failed to do their job,” the Congressman said.

The unusually heavy snow, ice, and wind has resulted in widespread power outages between ________ and ________.

“These outcomes far exceed any reasonable expectations based on the historical record.”

“There have been some very tough days.  But this is a stronger, safer, and more beautiful community than before.”

There is increasing concern that humans are now susceptible to the previously unknown virus.

While Homeland Security has not been a top tier issue in the Presidential campaign, the recent series of attacks in _______ has increased concern regarding an “October Surprise.”

Nicholas Burns, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, poses a great question for the start of the New Year:

“Is the word “peace’’ disappearing from our national conversation?”

To explain:

Armies of talking heads, bloggers, and op-ed opinionators assault us daily on every subject . . . but rarely on peace. When was the last time we heard a national leader of either party, especially one running for president, put the goal of peace at the center of a political platform or place it among our highest national aspirations?

Lamenting the absence of discussion about peace by current candidates for the Republican nomination and the lack of focus by President Obama, Burns shares what he considers among the best of presidential calls for peace:

In perhaps the most eloquent evocation of peace by an American president, John F. Kennedy described it this way to students at American University in 1963: “Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children . . . not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.’’

Taking a step back, our reaction to 9/11 and the meaning of the term “homeland security” itself can be a bit jarring:

Contrast FDR and Truman’s sheer optimism in launching the United Nations and Marshall Plan after World War II with the principal monuments we have built since 9/11: the Department of Homeland Security and its legions of security personnel at airports. We now deploy the words “defense,’’ “protect,’’ and “security’’ to illustrate the national purpose. Is this sufficient? Peace is often unattainable, but has the 9/11 decade made us so fearful that we no longer believe it can be the guiding star that makes us a better nation.”

That last question is likely the most important. It is popular in homeland security-related fields to throw around terms such as “resilience,” “need to share,” and “whole of _________ (insert term-of-the-moment here).” These speak to concepts of inclusion and confidence.  However, the policy and funding choices tell a different story–Citizen Corps and other related concepts are underfunded and likely soon to lose all support, while a pilot project involving radiation detectors ringing the New York City metropolitan area is likely to continue. The vaguest of reports are stamped “For Official Use Only” while private citizens, like those in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami, are left to determine the best source of information in the aftermath of a disaster themselves.  Basing post-disaster planning on the fact that the affected community may actually do something instead of simply waiting for instructions from authorities is an important recognition of reality, but the lack of threat information or after-action reports from previous government exercises available to the general public leads one to believe that ingrained culture and SOPs will be very hard to change.

I am hopeful yet pessimistic.  The lack of engagement with homeland security issues by the candidates is likely a negative, yet could positively allow the enterprise to mature unimpeded by political posturing.  The cuts in funding at all levels of government will lead to a degradation of capacity and capability, but could also spur creative thinking and true engagement of communities out of necessity.  But anyway one looks at it if peace is not deemed an appropriate alternative to the use of force, this year may be worse than the last.

I saw the following letter in the paper yesterday:

Dear Diary:

At the American Museum of Natural History, I was charmed to see how even the youngest visitors were happy to cooperate with new, tightened procedures at security checkpoints.

Waiting in line to be cleared at the pavilion entrance was a very serious young lady of perhaps 3 or 4 years old, all dressed up for a day of visiting the butterflies and the dinosaurs.

Accompanied by her nanny, she carried by its chain a shiny little pocketbook about the size of a playing card.

When her turn came, she stepped up and solemnly handed this to the security guard. He hesitated, and then bent down and opened the tiny bag. Making a show of searching it, he handed it back, thanked her and told her she was cleared to come in.

The sight of her, walking off down the corridor with the pocketbook in her hand, put a very human face on how quickly we [Americans] adapt and move on in our new world.

“That certainly shook the tree,” she pronounced brightly.

“What do you mean?” said I.

“The apple hit his head,” she said.

“Who? What?” I laughed.

“Newton,” she smiled.

We had just finished presenting the results of a minor study to a Board of Directors.  I found their response impenetrable, much more a non-response.

But within nine months nearly everything we proposed had been implemented.  The firm thrived from the changes.

I was an outsider.  She was very much inside.  She needed me to say aloud what she already knew.  She needed me to shake the tree.

–+–

In the Quran’s story of Jesus’ nativity, Mary shakes a tree (19:22-26):

The pain is real. The isolation is real. The anxious suffering has good cause.

The cool stream is also real, but unseen. The ripe dates are as real, but neglected.

Our needs can be fulfilled. Opportunities are within reach. To claim them we must notice and be willing to shake the tree.

The Quran continues: “So eat and drink and be contented.” (19:27)

Listen. Look. Rejoice.

–+–

Most do not argue that as the Roman Republic collapsed into the Empire a Jewish baby was born and came to be called Jesus.

There is considerable disagreement regarding nearly every other aspect of the boy’s life and death.

Over the centuries these disagreements have been used to justify horrible violence.  It will happen again today.

Sunday hundreds of millions will celebrate the Jewish boy’s birth.  Another 300 million will wait until January 7.  Two billion Muslims do not celebrate Christmas, but honor Jesus and most anticipate he will return in the last days to reconcile the earth to God’s intention.

No matter what else, perhaps we can agree this man knew how to shake a tree.

And most of us are blind to the ripe fruit his shaking has scattered all about us.

May these next days help us to see and even to taste.

Merry Christmas.

Jane Holl Lute is the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security.  On December 2, she spoke to the American Bar Association’s 21st Annual Review of the Field of National Security. Her presentation included a perspective about homeland security I had not heard before.

According to Secretary Lute, “National security is strategic… Homeland security is operational….”

From a social construction perspective, this is another claim in a crowded semantic field asserting what homeland security is.  I think it’s an innovative construction that deserves discussion.

For that view to persist in the homeland security ecosystem, there needs to be more evidence and more acolytes to support and nurture Secretary Lute’s claim. One also needs to demonstrate what value the perspective contributes to making the nation more secure.

An mp3 podcast of the 30 minute speech can be found here.  I do not know if there is an official transcript of her remarks.

A colleage who provided information about the speech shared an unofficial transcript of the relevant portion of the speech, reprinted below. (Thank you for the tip.)

[Starting at the 13:45 mark]

I told you I would give you my reflections on how homeland security differs from national security, and I’ve been doing national security for a long time.

National security is strategic, it’s centralized, it’s top-driven. Homeland security is operational, it’s transactional, it’s decentralized, it’s bottom-driven. It’s driven by the grassroots of this country, by the states, by the municipalities, by the cities and towns that experience these issues first-hand, day to day. It’s driven by the nearly two million people that pass through the TSA systems every day – every day pass through these systems.

We have global connections in this country, and we manage them in a transactional way, in an operational way, in homeland security. So unlike national security – strategic, centralized, top-driven; it’s about all of us – homeland security is operational, decentralized, bottom-driven; it’s about each of us.

The national security culture has very strong influences from the military and the intelligence community. Homeland security, it’s law enforcement, emergency management, and the political environment that is the vibrancy of this country.

In national security there is a culture of confidentiality, the need to protect the nation’s most sensitive information.

In homeland security there’s an expectation of transparency: it’s not a need to know, it’s a duty to share, it’s an expectation to share.

In national security there’s unity of command. In homeland security, it’s a unity of effort.

It’s a different model. It’s a different model. And we need to understand the things that we deal with from the differences that that model represents.

Homeland security of course is a part of national security, but it’s different.

[ Excerpt concluded at the 15:27 mark]

Which is more important or valuable to you: being right or doing right? Take care, your answer may say more than you think.

This has been an interesting week for science news. On Tuesday, particle physicists revealed tantalizing evidence that suggests their search for the mysterious Higgs boson is bringing them ever closer to discovering direct evidence of the so-called God particle. Over the weekend, a few media carried news from the other end of the scientific spectrum about an article in the journal Science reporting evidence of altruistic behavior in rats.

The existence (or not) of the Higgs boson has little or nothing to do with theology. You can believe it exists without following the tenets any particular faith tradition. But the finding that altruism is not confined to higher primates, much less humans, calls into question a cornerstone of much of what passes for dogma in both religious and secular society.

Faith and reason alike have been used to justify arguments about the central role of altruism in defining what makes us distinctly human. Any news that this may not be the case begs at least a moment of pause for philosophic reflection.

Altruism is important to emergency managers in much the same way its absence is to homeland security practitioners. On one hand, altruism helps emergency managers understand and explain why people do better than expected in coping with the effects of devastating events. On the other hand, the absence of altruism, call it evil or what have you, is often used to explain the motivations of those who would do harm to others whom they do not know.

Thinking of these two things as polar opposites suggests a sort of binary symmetry exists between them. Some might even be tempted to assume a sort of randomness to the emergence of one behavior as opposed to the other, which ends up evening out the score over the long run. But this new research seems to suggest something else entirely.

Instead of seeing altruism as a hallmark of human-ness, we might now have to accept just the opposite. If rats can demonstrate altruistic behavior toward one another, then it might be hardwired into mammalian brains as a default mechanism for alleviating pain. This in turn, would make the contrary behavior–willfully evoking pain in others, especially when it involves calculation, forethought and planning, the far more exceptional class of conduct.

Rats hardly have a good reputation in polite society. We apply the “rat” label to conduct considered venal, self-serving, conniving and anything but altruistic. At the same time, we consider evidence of altruism the virtuous epitome of humane behavior. The evidence, however, suggests just the opposite may be true.

Rats it should be said in their defense do not conspire with one another to spread disease. Something tells me they would say, “sorry,” if they could, for passing the plague. But humans, especially those willing and able to coöpt and conspire with one another to do harm, often display in such deeds either an inability to distinguish the wrongness of their actions or at the every least a wanton disregard for notions or right and wrong. The sophisticated nature of such rationalizations, whether they rely on faith or reason, strike me as more distinctively human than anything we now know even rats to be capable of.

As physicists continue the hunt for the Higgs boson and proof of the Standard Model, we would do well to consider anew our model of human behavior and how important altruism and the lack of it are to our understanding of what makes us who we are. If acting in a humane fashion toward one another is at once less distinctive of our human-ness and more common to the condition of simply being alive than we previously imagined, we might want to reconsider how we treat the rats among us.

As the assiduous and incredibly expensive search for the God particle aptly illustrates, concerted, intentional human effort reveals a powerful need we have, as humans, to acquire knowledge not for its sake but rather for our own. It’s not that we need to know, but that we need to know we are right, to confirm our hunches or faith is justified. Rats, it seems, are happy simply doing right for its own sake. I wonder which is happier?

Not knowing whether Homeland Security Watch’s domain would come back to life in time for my weekly rant had a soporific effect on my thinking about what to write. Then I read Chris Bellavita’s reflection on complexity and came back to life — a little.

One commenter called Chris’s post a fugue. I rather liken it to a comic opera though. That is to say: not depressing or morose. I found it entertaining in the sense that it shed light on foibles we all share.

Chris’s effort follows the common thread of complexity as weaves its way through our lives and unravels them in unexpected ways. His analysis suggests, as Carl Sagan put it, that our ignorance of science or at least scientific principles renders us vulnerable to disaster.

For years now, I have been intrigued by a very different argument about the root causes of the dilemmas Chris’s examples illustrated so aptly and which now confront us in abundance. That view, put forward by Canadian economist and political philosopher John Ralston Saul, argues it is not ignorance of science but a misplaced faith in science or the scientific method that has led us to the brink of environmental, economic, and political catastrophe. Saul is less concerned with knowing (or not) than with believing.

I am sympathetic to both arguments for different reasons. As Chris notes, those who don’t understand science can satisfy themselves that someone else does. Those who do understand science, or think they do, are all too willing to assure us they know more than they really do. So, which is more dangerous, not knowing or trusting too much?

Several months ago, I posted a link to New Zealand political scientist Bronwyn Hayward’s brief video on resilient citizenship, which argued something I think bridges the apparent gap between Sagan’s argument (the one articulated by Chris) and Saul’s. Hayward argues among other things that resilient citizens have a strong sense of and a connection to the natural world.

This connection may or may not include a detailed understanding of plant biology, cosmology, quantum mechanics or physical chemistry, but it must allow for a innate understanding of the cycles of life and death, ebb and flow, accretion and decay, chaos and order. Awareness and acceptance of these dichotomies requires a very different mindset than the one that sees the world in terms of  black and white, good and evil, pass and fail, profit and loss.

Natural dichotomies make us aware that most of our time is spent somewhere in between the extremes, making our way from one point to another and back again. The lucky and happy among us learn to enjoy the journey.

Too many of us though become fixated on one destination or the other at one time or another. The most desperate among us live this reality all the time, enjoying each brief respite at their preferred destination less and less as time passes, yet nevertheless clinging to the hope that something better and more complete awaits them at the end of their next journey.

A few of us are confused enough to believe it would be better to stop anywhere rather than continuing the journey regardless of where we end up. Stasis, or at least the longing for it, is to them anything but a fate worse than death.

The complexity of our world, as Chris pointed out, lies not so much in the reality of the world we live in but the way we choose to embrace it. If we are willing to accept this complexity neither at face value nor as something unknowable, but rather as something worthy of our attention, if not intellection, then we can find solace if not agency in our engagement with that world and those with whom we share it.

As 2011 comes to a close, the world faces many challenges and opportunities. Individuals with different mindsets will see in the same situations very different circumstances. As we wonder what it all means, we would do well to ask ourselves not what we can do about it, but rather what we can learn from it.

When I tried to visit Homeland Security Watch on December 3rd, I saw a colorful but impersonal web page from the largest ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) accredited registrar in the world yelling, like a Depression-era sheriff’s deputy at the front door of the farmhouse,

“NOTICE: This domain name expired on 12/02/2011 and is pending renewal or deletion.”

I do not pretend to understand how this whole domain name registration business works, or why one company can be worth 2 billion dollars registering domain names. I think I could find out. There’s lots of information on the internet, so the explanation is there somewhere. But I’m resigned to just letting that bit of knowledge go.

Turns out the credit card used to pay for this domain expired. Once that oversight was corrected, something or someone somewhere did something “technical” and Homeland Security Watch got out of  internet purgatory to be given yet another opportunity to provide “News and analysis of critical issues in homeland security.”

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In 2010 the the United Kingdom version of CNET reported

“A would-be saboteur [who was] arrested … at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland made the bizarre claim that he was from the future. Eloi Cole, a strangely dressed young man, said that he had travelled back in time to prevent the [Large Hadron Collider] from destroying the world.

The future “is a communist chocolate hellhole and I’m here to stop it ever happening,” the obviously deluded man told police.

I do not pretend to understand how the Large Hadron Collider works or how, even in theory, its efforts to demonstrate the reality of the Higgs boson particle have any chance of succeeding.  I could learn. But I have to leave this to someone else to figure out.

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Trevor Eckhart is someone who took it upon himself to figure out something that bothered him.

A few days ago, this Eagle Scout, rock/roller, system administrator from Connecticut posted a video about something called Carrier IQ.

Carrier IQ — depending on who and what you read — is either a way for phone companies to help you get better cell phone service, or a way for a third party to monitor just about anything you do on a smart phone.

Trevor Eckhart wanted to know what the Carrier IQ software – “installed by default on many mobile devices, unbeknownst to most consumers” – did. He conducted some research and published his results on a website called Android Security Test .

The Carrier IQ company sent him a nasty letter, threatening that lots of very bad and expensive things would happen to him if he didn’t immediately get rid of his research, acknowledge it was all lies, and basically just go away. Here’s a copy of that letter:  eckhart_cease_desist_demand_redacted.

Trevor contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation who sent a scholarly WTF letter back to Carrier IQ. Here’s a copy of that letter: eckhart_c&d_response.

Carrier IQ read the letter then hit the delete button on their threat.  They “withdrew” the cease and desist order and have been doing damage control ever since.

I do not pretend to understand how rootkit software works, whether Carrier IQ is rootkit, whether their software simply helps improve performance or eavesdrops on smart phones; whether it’s the phone companies snooping, the smart phone manufacturers, or — “the gov’ment.” Or maybe it’s just the technologically paranoid or illiterate overblowing the threat. I could learn, I suppose. But I’m just going to have to leave that to someone else — like Trevor — to figure out.

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In his book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark” Carl Sagan wrote something I’ve used before on this website:

“We’ve arranged a global civilization in which the most crucial elements … profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

I think Sagan is correct.  Absent a maoist reeducation initiative, I wonder what can be done to improve national understanding of science and technology.

Some people believe it’s too late for us to do much of anything about it.

Ignorance generated by the complexity of everything is a ground truth growing like kudzu.

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“One morning last [May], to the surprise of many denizens of the Internet, when they rose from their beds and padded to their PCs in their pajamas many of their favorite online haunts simply weren’t there. From Reddit to patient-monitoring systems, every website running on one section of Amazon’s Cloud Services had vanished.”

Amazon responded with its message 65648:

We now understand the amount of capacity needed for large recovery events and will be modifying our capacity planning and alarming so that we carry the additional safety capacity that is needed for large scale failures.

Peter Bright at Arstechnica puts his explanation of the outage — essentially Amazon initiated a denial of service attack against itself — under the headline “Amazon’s lengthy cloud outage shows the danger of complexity.”

He also noted the larger problem with complex phenomena:

“[The] company won’t know for certain if the problem is solved unless it suffers a similar failure in the future, and even if this particular problem is solved there may well be similar issues lying latent.”

Or, as someone named Petrarch summarizes,

“…not only does Amazon not know if they’ve properly fixed things, they cannot know it. Their cloud is just too complex.”

Petrarch could also have been describing the complexity of homeland security – writ in its globalized majesty:

Even in the early technological era, the reach of any one disaster wasn’t too great. A railway bridge collapse could cut off a town for a few weeks, or a failed telegraph cable disconnect Europe and America from instant communications, but there were other ways around. Famines were purely local and were made less severe with improved transportation and better farming technology.

Today, however, “the world is flat” and everything is interconnected. The American housing bubble spread economic havoc over the entire world. Nobody knows why it happened, so there’s no guarantee that the recent changes in laws and regulations will do any good at all.

… when food runs short due to bad weather in Russia or Americans turning too much corn into gasoline, food prices rise everywhere. All the world’s poor are priced out of eating at the same time.

… New England stood still for days in the Northeast Blackout of 2003; a century ago this wouldn’t have been possible since the various city grids weren’t connected. Good news: plans are in place to tie the national grid closer together, so we can take down the whole country all at once.

Grids and interconnected networks appear all over the place where you’d never expect them. The recent Japanese earthquake disasters wreaked havoc on Toyota and Honda’s manufacturing supply chain. No surprise there; they’re Japanese companies.

Time for American car makers to rake in the dough, right? Nope: GM had to shut down American plants because they buy parts from Japan, and GM can’t make American cars without Japanese parts.

As the world ties closer and closer together, we become more vulnerable to failures on the other side of the globe that we can’t control or even see.

In past times, there were potential disasters that could destroy an individual, town, or country, but at least people knew what they were and could pray to their God for protection from famine, pestilence, or whatever. Now, totally unimagined technological failures can foul up or, conceivably, take down our entire global society. Our technology is so complicated, so interconnected, and so hidden that we don’t even know what to pray for protection from.

We’ll have to upgrade the traditional Scottish prayer:

From ghoulies and ghosties

And long-leggedy beasties

And things that go glitch in the night,

Good Lord, deliver us!

And, Lord, while you’re at it, please help Homeland Security Watch remember when its credit card expires.

The year opened with President Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. Early in the Spring fighting season three days of battle at Chancellorsville killed more than 3000. In late April General Grant initiated the campaign that eventually captured Vicksburg.  Over the first days of July the Union prevailed at Gettysburg, but like most great battles it might easily have gone the other way.

In mid-July several days of draft riots and racial attacks rocked New York City. Some historians claim 2000 were killed. Order was restored using artillery and fixed bayonets. In late August irregulars massacred 183 civilian men and boys in Lawrence, Kansas. Americans would continue to kill Americans for two more years. More than 600,000 died on the battlefield or a bit later of wounds.  The total population — North and South — was 34.4 million.

In the midst of this relentlessly bloody struggle of brother against brother, Lincoln called for giving thanks.   Even as the very existence of the United States was  reasonably in doubt, the President pointed to progress.  While our great-grandfathers on each side were often consumed by self-righteous anger, Lincoln invited the whole people to acknowledge our national perverseness and pray for peace, harmony, tranquillity and union.

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day

October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.  To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.  Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people.  I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.   And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.