Homeland Security Watch

On November 17, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and TSA Administrator Kip Hawley convened the next blogger roundtable, this time at TSA Headquarters. Topics covered Secure Flight, general aviation security regulations, holiday security measures, technology investments, and other issues. This may have been the final roundtable Secretary Chertoff convenes with the bloggers. However, it was the first time HLSwatch.com was singled out by the Secretary for a recent post with which he took issue. After the usually round-the-table introductions, S1 said the following with a smile:

Mr. Czerwinski: Jonah Czerwinski. Good to see you again, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary Chertoff: By the way I’m going to call you out on one thing. So you disagree with my saying that when I do risk, I put the most weight on consequence? And you said, but on Wall Street they disagree with that. They think it’s more a matter of probability than consequence. I rest my case.

Mr. Czerwinski: They may not be the people to watch–

Secretary Chertoff: Right. It was my position on consequence, which I’ve articulated for a couple years now, is what I’ve now learned that in the trade they call it the fat tail. If you read Black Swan so it’s inside baseball.

Mr. Czerwinski: I noted that, thank you.

Secretary Chertoff: All right, shoot.

Sheesh. Chertoff was referring to my 29 OCT 08 post entitled Chertoff Addresses the Beta, in which I suggest that he described risk assessment in his speech to the Wharton School in such a way that could trigger extremes of excessive caution or excessive spending. I made the ill-timed analogy of how risk is assessed on Wall Street. Oops. The full roundtable transcript is available on the TSA blog.

Fortunately, we won a small victory after that playful jab at my criticism of the Secretary’s risk assessment formula. The roundtable concluded as follows:

Secretary Chertoff: I have to say, people say, why do you do blogging? I’m not saying this to feed your egos. I said, I thought that by and large, in terms of focused, sustained, engaged, and knowledgeable questions, the bloggers who cover us regularly do a great job, and it is useful for me to get feedback because I actually do read these – I read the good ones, I don’t read the nutty ones – to get feedback about stuff that is working and not working, and I think that it is a great way for us to communicate, because we do get, you know, good questions come from a knowledge base. You guys do follow this stuff on a regular basis.

Mr. Czerwinski: When you hand over the “Leadership Journal,” can we get you to guest blog at some point?

Secretary Chertoff: Yeah, I probably will.

Fellow bloggers in attendance included:

Rich Cooper – Security Debrief

Barbara Peterson – Conde Nast Traveler & Daily Traveler

Matt Phillips – Wall Street Journal & The Middle Seat Terminal

Tom Smith - ACI-NA

Benet Wilson – Aviation Week & Towers and Tarmacs

Chad Wolf – Security Debrief

Have a great Thanksgiving everybody. I’ll keep up with developments and update HLSwatch.com over the long weekend if something is time sensitive. If, however, the next few days are as uneventful as I hope, I’ll see you on DEC 1.

Let’s lighten things up a bit.  Reader DA sent this link to a series of government warnings modified for everyday advice you’ll need.  Set down the HSC national planning scenarios and the DHS National Response Framework.  Pay attention.  These situations are far more likely to happen to YOU.  For example, how would you reprimand a dirty bomb?

And who says we’re not prepared?  In the event of a chemical attack, don’t underestimate the calm, stiff upper lip approach.  All’s not lost:

The New York Times ran a story last week making light fun of certain aviation screening rules (hat tip: Wonkette), one which described some of TSA’s more bizarre screening rules, including rules for snowglobes and most notably, helper monkeys:

Like dogs, some specially trained monkeys are classified as service animals to assist handicapped people. But you really have to wonder if these sample sentences — from the security administration’s rules for how transportation security officers at walk-through metal detectors should handle monkeys — were written with a straight face:

“When the handler and the monkey go through the W.T.M.D. and the W.T.M.D. alarms, both the handler and the monkey must undergo additional screening.” The rules add that security officers “have been trained not to touch the monkey during the screening process” and that “the inspection process may require that the handler take off the monkey’s diaper as part of the visual inspection.”

New on YouTube, a Daily Show oldie-but-goodie on homeland security technology:

Enjoy.

As noted here previously, DHS announced the launch of the Secure Freight Initiative on December 7th. But UPI seems to think that this project has a different name:

The U.S. Departments of Homeland Security and Energy have launched a new Senior Freight Initiative to boost port security.

Or could this be some distinct new initiative by DHS? Are the elderly going to inspect cargo? Or is DHS now planning to inspect them? What does the AARP think about this?

The latest in homeland security-related humor, courtesy of Andy Borowitz:

Traveling Liquid and Gel Salespeople Protest FAA Rules

Angry Goo Sellers March on Washington

Two months after the Federal Aviation Administration instituted tough new restrictions on liquids and gels on all domestic flights, traveling liquid and gel salespeople marched on Washington en masse today to protest the FAA’s action.

The National Association of Traveling Liquid and Gel Salespeople, a group which represents over 150,000 of the nation’s itinerant goo sellers, organized today’s march, which began at the Capitol building and ended in front of the White House.

Carol Foyler, the executive director of the liquid and gel salespeople’s group, said that her association’s members were being “unfairly profiled” by the FAA and had every intention of making the “oppressive” regulations a key issue in next week’s midterm elections.

“Liquid and gel salespeople are what made this country great,” Ms. Foyler said. “America’s laborers built the railroad, but it was our moisturizers and hand creams that kept their skin supple and radiant.”

Perhaps true…but alas, they’re less powerful than the resealable quart-size plastic bag lobby…

Thursday night’s edition of Colbert Report had a humorous segment on the use of behavioral profiling in aviation security:

Enjoy.

Somebody at Customs and Border Protection has a good sense of humor about their job. Here’s a CBP press release from earlier today:

Snakes On the Plains! Pythons and Boas ‘Apprehended’ by U.S. Customs and Border Protection

SWEETGRASS, Mont., Sept. 15 — U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers here “apprehended” five snakes Monday after being refused admittance into Canada at the adjoining port of Coutts, Alberta. A 24-year-old male U.S. citizen was attempting to enter Canada via automobile with the snakes in pillowcases when Canada Border Service Agency officers discovered he did not have the required export certificate.

The three Ball Pythons and two Red-Tail Boas are protected under the Endangered Species Act and require a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) permit to export protected species….

This Daily Show clip from Wednesday night delivers a deserved smackdown of CNN’s “Target: USA” day of coverage on Monday in the wake of the aviation security plot:

The media plays a valuable and necessary role in terms of educating the American public about homeland security and highlighting threats and vulnerabilities that the government has not adequately addressed. Often this is the only effective way to spur the government into action in certain areas. But when this news as presented as an endless litany of threats, without due regard for which threats are the greatest priorities from a risk-based perspective, then that only serves to confuse people and inspire fetal position-inducing fear in the general public.

This link contains a collection of editorial cartoons from around the country over the past several days on the UK aviation security plot.

One good one, from the Chattanooga Times:

This article from Unconfirmed Sources is fairly amusing:

Unconfirmed sources report that several major American airlines have teamed up with big time water bottler Spensive to offer a special “Secure Water” on all domestic and international flights. The “Secure Water” will be the only beverage offered in flight and will carry a price of $7.25 per 8oz bottle.

Also, be sure to check out this Daily Show segment with their “Senior Carryonologist” on what actually constitutes a liquid.

After a long day, I need a brief comic respite. Check out this Sierra Mist commercial, which PepsiCo is still airing today:

Also, be sure to check out this Colbert Report shout-out to Port Security News last night.

Wonkette links today to a set of pictures on Flickr showing the covers of obscure, humorously-titled government publications. This recent tome from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) makes the cut:

Distinguishing Bolts from Screws

It’s part of a collection of Informed Compliance Publications for the trade community, with additional titles on gaskets, ribbons & trimmings, mittens & gloves, and mushrooms.

And in case you’re wondering, a screw has a thread form that prohibits assembly with a nut, whereas a bolt must be assembled with a nut. And of course, there are also the nine supplementary criteria, including shank straightness and thread concentricity….

Have you said to yourself lately, “I sure wish I could watch some crude amateur comedy videos about homeland security?” Then video-sharing website YouTube is the place for you. For example, check out this take-off on MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” entitled “Pimp My Homeland Security”:

Or this mock public service announcement on preparedness:

And then there’s this clip from an Australian TV show, looking at security on the Sydney Harbor Bridge:

…keep in mind that these were the funniest clips I could find.

From NPR:

Listener Glenn Weyant lets us listen to his performance of music on the wall that divides Mexico from the United States. Weyant put contact microphones on a section of the wall near Nogales, Ariz., then uses a cello bow against metal on the wall.

Definitely listen to the full clip.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart offered its take the homeland security grant controversy last night. You can watch the clip here.

Choice quotes:

So, if New York’s funding is being slashed, where is all the money going? Well apparently it’s being used to boost the defense budgets of terrorist hotspots like Charlotte, Louisville, and Omaha, Nebraska.

Apparently Homeland Security distributes the terror funds on the basis of what item your city has the world’s largest ball of.

…..Adding insult to injury, one of the reasons New York’s funding was cut, is that according to Homeland Security’s analysis of potential terror targets, the number of New York’s national icons and monuments is ZERO. We have zero national icons or monuments. In the report, this is true, the Brooklyn Bridge, the world’s first steel-wire suspension bridge, was classified merely as a quote, “bridge”. The Empire State Building is referred to simply as quote, “tall office building.” And as for the Statue of Liberty, the Department of Homeland Security has recently classified her as a “giant green water whore.”

Update (6/7): More humor, in a similar vein, from Andy Borowitz.

In a commencement speech yesterday, Stephen Colbert weighs in on the immigration and border security debate:

And when you enter the workforce, you will find competition from those crossing our all-too-poorest borders. Now I know you’re all going to say, “Stephen, Stephen, immigrants built America.” Yes, but here’s the thing—it’s built now. I think it was finished in the mid-70s sometime. At this point it’s a touch-up and repair job. But thankfully Congress is acting and soon English will be the official language of America. Because if we surrender the national anthem to Spanish, the next thing you know, they’ll be translating the Bible. God wrote it in English for a reason! So it could be taught in our public schools.

So we must build walls. A wall obviously across the entire southern border. That’s the answer. That may not be enough—maybe a moat in front of it, or a fire-pit. Maybe a flaming moat, filled with fire-proof crocodiles. And we should probably wall off the northern border as well. Keep those Canadians with their socialized medicine and their skunky beer out. And because immigrants can swim, we’ll probably want to wall off the coasts as well. And while we’re at it, we need to put up a dome, in case they have catapults. And we’ll punch some holes in it so we can breathe. Breathe free. It’s time for illegal immigrants to go—right after they finish building those walls. Yes, yes, I agree with me.

Good stuff.

From yesterday’s Miami Herald:

The 2006 hurricane season is here, and if you’re a resident of Florida, you know what that means: It means you have the IQ of bean dip. If you had any working brain cells, by now you’d have moved to some less risky place, such as Iraq. This is especially true after last hurricane season, which was so bad that we went all the way through the alphabet of official names and had to refer to the last batch of hurricanes by making primitive grunting sounds.

Read the whole thing.

Jon Stewart’s take on Bush’s immigration speech is available at the clip at this link labelled “Mexican Standoff.”

What do the following things have in common?

Rapper Q-Tip
Composer Jacques Offenbach
The College Republican National Committee
Human rights in North Korea
Sylvester Stallone
The Berdan Rifle
The herpes simplex virus
Joseph McCarthy
The Porsche 550
The history of Azerbaijan
Michael Chertoff

The answer: they’re all pages on Wikipedia that have been edited from DHS’s main web server.

Of special note is this edit of NFL player Kyle Boller’s page, on the day after the levees broke in New Orleans.

Andy Borowitz’s take on the latest NSA revelations:

NSA REPORTS INCREASED PHONE USAGE ON MOTHER’S DAY

Heightened Levels of Chatter Trouble Intelligence Officials

The National Security Agency reported a sharp increase in long distance telephone usage yesterday, causing high-ranking intelligence officers in the Bush administration to fear that al-Qaeda might be planning a terror plot to coincide with Mother’s Day.

Beginning Sunday morning and continuing throughout the day, Americans’ long distance usage surged well beyond normal levels, sparking concerns that a terrorist event was either being planned or moving into an operational phase….

From the (satirical) whitehouse.org site:

http://www.whitehouse.org/ask/doyle.asp

Andy Borowitz puts forward a grand unified theory of disaster prevention in his latest column:

In testimony before Congress today, the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said that the United States could handle both an outbreak of bird flu and a major hurricane as long as the hurricane successfully eradicated the bird population.

Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison said that the agency was putting a series of plans in place to deal with a possible bird flu pandemic, but added, “We’re really counting on a major hurricane to do the heavy lifting for us, bird-killing-wise.”

Mr. Paulison outlined a series of scenarios his agency has been developing in which birds are wiped out by other natural disasters such as tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

“These birds think they’re pretty tough, but just you wait,” he said. “They’re no match for molten lava.”

The BBC reports on the latest aviation security threat in Europe:

Sweden’s national dish is an acquired taste, to say the least.

Some say surstromming, a fermented herring, smells like rubbish left out in the sun for days.

But now the fish has been banned from several major airlines, classified along with dangerous weapons like shoe bombs and firearms….

…now major airlines like British Airways and Air France argue the cans are pressurised goods, and must be classified as potentially explosive.

The dish is no longer allowed on their flights, and the sale of the delicacy from Stockholm’s international airport has been stopped.

That has made producers of the surstromming choke on their fermented fish, calling the airlines’ decision “culturally illiterate”.

It is a myth, they say, that the tinned fish can explode.

They admit, however, that a punctured tin would emit a foul smell, and that the content might spill quite forcefully, like a punctured can of beer.

As noted at Wonkette, FEMA has a rap song for kids on its website, which has evidently been there for a while but has escaped my notice until now. It’s a must-listen, and mercifully only 50 seconds long. The lyrics:

Disaster . . . it can happen anywhere,
But we’ve got a few tips, so you can be prepared
For floods, tornadoes, or even a ‘quake,
You’ve got to be ready - so your heart don’t break.

Disaster prep is your responsibility
And mitigation is important to our agency.

People helping people is what we do
And FEMA is there to help see you through
When disaster strikes, we are at our best
But we’re ready all the time, ’cause disasters don’t rest.

See here for The Onion’s take on the current national debate over immigration:

In response to criticism over World Wrestling Entertainment hiring policies, World Wrestling Entertainment Chairman Vince McMahon defended the league’s reliance on Mexican wrestlers as “the only way fans can witness the grueling, bone-crunching maneuvers that American wrestlers want nothing to do with.”

McMahon made the remarks after the Border Patrol, an unaffiliated Texas-based tag team known for wrestling masked Mexicans and then reporting them to Immigration and Naturalization Service officials, revealed that dozens of illegal Mexican wrestlers join the WWE each year….

It is not known exactly how many Mexican wrestlers are on the WWE payroll, since many lack Social Security numbers, or even clear and verifiable identities, as McMahon himself admitted Monday. “I know as much about these masked wrestlers as the fans do,” McMahon said. “What’s certain is, they often seem marvelous and mysterious, saintly, and even rude.”

Yet some American-born wrestlers say they see the influx of Mexicans as a threat to current titleholders, with some going so far as to start on-camera feuds and challenge the Mexicans to special “Retirement Matches.”

From a cheeky Washington Post story today:

A strikingly thin man with a high-pitched voice, pointy ears and droopy eyelids, Chertoff speaks of “the critical points of triangulation” and calls for a “properly risk-managed approach to critical infrastructure.” He talks about the need for “total assets visibility” and favors “an integrated, sensible, systems-based approach.” He desires “better information about the constituents of the supply chain.” And instead of telling people that he’s protecting them, he says that his department has “done a lot to elevate the general baseline of security in this country.”

The author of the piece, Dana Milbank, uses these examples to suggest that Sec. Chertoff operates in some ethereal plane of wonkitude, and is out of touch with the on-the-ground realities of homeland security. Such a suggestion is perhaps amusing in the way Milbank presented it, but it’s unfair. (Full disclosure: I’ve been known to slip into wonkspeak from time to time myself). You know what? Homeland security is a complex business. There are a number of aspects of it that are difficult to explain in laymen’s terms. These quotes are taken from a speech at a think tank (the Heritage Foundation), not a speech at the local Rotary Club, where presumably the DHS speechwriters would take a different and less academic tone. Finally, he’s absolutely correct on the substance of each of these points.

And anyway, Chertoff got the last laugh at his speech this morning:

Now of course, chemistry is a little bit of a technical subject, and I read in The Washington Post this morning that I was being a little bit too technical in the words I was using when I spoke yesterday. This is a group that I think will understand big words. If members of the press need help in translation afterwards, I’ll be happy to do that.