Homeland Security Watch

Wednesday the White House hosted a meeting of 46 senior federal, state and local law enforcement officials.

According to the Associated Press, “The Obama administration is providing senior state and local police officials with its analysis of homegrown terrorism incidents, including common signs law enforcement can use to identify violent extremists… The analysis was conducted by the Homeland Security Department, the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center.”

I was not at the meeting.  But following is an overview of what I am told was briefed.

An interagency team and process examined several cases of Homegrown Violent Extremists (HVEs) that emerged between 2008-2010.  I was not given the precise number of cases, but I have seen reports of  sixty-two cases being considered.  Based on this sample four major “mobilizing patterns” were identified:

Contact with individuals tied to terrorist organizations is one of two indicators that appeared most often in the case studies. This finding is consistent with earlier assessments—based on past cases of domestic and transnational terrorism—that exposure to an extremist with established ties to a terrorist group can be a useful indicator of a radicalized person moving toward violence. More than 90 percent of the subjects examined either communicated directly or had some type of contact with connected extremists as part of their mobilization to violence.

Indicators of ideological commitment also appear frequently in HVE reporting. One of these behaviors—”watching or sharing jihadist videos”—was the second of the two most prevalent indicators noted in the study. Ideological commitment behaviors were observable but at times only in a virtual environment. More than 90 percent of the cases involved HVEs who either watched or shared extremist videos or other propaganda. Just under 90 percent involved HVEs pursuing religious instruction from a person or institution associated with extremist causes.Roughly 80 percent of the cases reflected an individual’s acceptance or approval of violence or martyrdom operations or an intent to engage in them.

Travel or attempted travel in pursuit of a violent agenda was a recurring factor in the HVE cases, also supporting earlier assessments of the importance of foreign travel for violent extremists. Almost 90 percent of  subjects traveled to places with a significant extremist population or to a foreign location explicitly to pursue violence.

Seeking weapons or weapons related training was a common behavior. This more tactically focused aspect of attack planning also entailed online research to acquire technical capabilities, select targets, and plan logistics. Almost 80 percent of subjects pursued weapons training, paramilitary exercises, or the acquisition of related equipment as partof their mobilization. More than half also conducted Internet research to plan their attacks.

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.”

About 5PM Eastern on Wednesday Eileen Sullivan filed an AP story after talking with participants: SEE IT HERE.

While the law enforcement leaders were at the White House, a House Intelligence subcommittee was hearing testimony suggesting big changes in the purpose and role of the DHS intelligence function. According to prepared testimony to me delivered by Philip Mudd,

The growth of our expectations of domestic security, and the evolution of threats away from traditional state actors toward non-state entities — drug cartels, organized crime, and terrorism are prominent examples — suggest that the DHS intelligence mission should be threat agnostic. Though the impetus for creating this new agency, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, was clearly terrorism based, the kinds of tools now deployed, from border security to cyber protection, are equally critical in fights against emerging adversaries. The DHS enterprise is more complex than other agencies responsible for America’s security, and itsintelligence mission is correspondingly multifaceted. Its intelligence missions range from providing homeland security-specific intelligence at the federal level; integrating intelligence vertically through DHS elements; and working with state/local/private sector partners to draw their intelligence capabilities into a national picture and provide them with information.

The testimony, based largely on a recently completed study and set of recommendations from the Aspen Homeland Security Group , especially emphasizes the DHS comparative advantage in working with state, local, and private sector entities in the non-classified domain.

In contrast to intelligence agencies that have responsibilities for more traditional areas of national security, DHS’s mandate should allow for collection, dissemination, and analytic work that is focused on more specific homeward-focused areas. First, the intelligence mission could be directed toward areas where DHS has inherent strengths and unique value (e.g., where its personnel and data are centered) that overlap with its legislative mandate. Second, this mission direction should emphasize areas that are not served by other agencies, particularly state/local partners whose needs are not a primary focus for any other federal agency. In all these domains, public and private, DHS customers will require information with limited classification; in contrast to most other federal intelligence entities, DHS should focus on products that start at lower classification levels, especially unclassified and FOUO, and that can be disseminated by means almost unknown in the federal intelligence community (phone trees, Blackberries, etc.).

There is an obvious tension between an intelligence function that is “threat-agnostic” and one that emerges from “where its personnel and data are centered.”  This could, however, be a very healthy tension if a threat-agnostic — capabilities-based — approach to engaging the risk environment can be effectively used to decide where personnel are focused and data is gathered.

I have wondered before in my posts exactly what it is we suppose we are protecting. And my mind keeps wandering back to this question, especially as the presidential primaries begin.

The Republican candidates have asserted that President Obama is an apologist or worse, and they claim he sees America as a declining or diminished power. They assert that they see America differently. They would have us believe that Americans are innately different from others and somehow special.

They do not agree so much on what it is that makes us different or special though. To some of them we are freer. Others say we have higher morals. Still others say we have a stronger work ethic. If they agree on anything, it is that their leadership — or that of any Republican for that matter — is the key to making us more of these things.

More than one candidate has gone so far as to suggest he or she is running to save the country. They have asserted strongly that President Obama has made us less free, less moral and weaker. The solution, they tell us, is not just to defeat him but to shrink government.

This blog devotes a lot of time to the discussion of what our national security and homeland security investments protect us from, but not so much about what it is that we are protecting. Is that because it doesn’t matter? Or are we of the belief that we really are different and serve something bigger than any candidate or party?

During the Cold War, it was clear to most of us that we were not only protecting the nation from nuclear annihilation but also from the threat of totalitarianism. Our nuclear deterrent capabilities were arrayed against the threat of tyranny, or so we believed.

If that’s true, we could say that we won the battle but lost the war. As communism collapsed we enslaved ourselves to a corporate military-industrial complex that now dominates us in proportion to the extent to which we have allowed it to define, if not dictate, our productive and political potentials.

As a local public safety official, I spend most of my time focused on the homeland defense frontlines. When I look out at my community, I do not see the same thing the candidates do. The people I meet do not talk in terms of the lofty ideals of liberty and free enterprise. They don’t see themselves as all that different from one another or others they do not know.

Instead, they wonder why traffic is so bad or the bus always runs late. They wonder whether their kids are acquiring the skills they need to compete for jobs in the future. They wonder whether they themselves will earn enough to pay the mortgage or tuition bills. They worry incessantly whether they will have enough resources to retire. And they hope like hell that the problem they called us to help them with will not leave them unable to keep on carrying on.

In one way or another, they know that much of what worries them and others arises from anxiety about the future and frustration with the present. They would like to do right. They know they can do better. But they also wonder whether anyone will recognize and whether it will make any difference. Many if not most of them have concluded it will not.

Most of the work done by our frontline first-responders is now about holding a badly broken system together, keeping it from getting worse rather than making it better. We have no confidence that the market will solve these problems. We have little faith that politicians understand the problems, and much less hope that they will give us the resources and support required to address them properly.

That said, many of our first-responders, like the candidates for our nation’s highest office, have a misplaced, if not exaggerated, faith in their own ability to make a difference. They may not trust politicians, but they do believe they are different and special. They have great confidence that they could do better if only they were allowed the resources and opportunity to do so.

I’m not so sure.

Rather than looking for ways to help people avoid trouble and reduce their dependence on our services, we look for ways of getting more resources to expand our services or make better arguments to defend our budgets from those we deem less worthy of public support. The past decade was a Godsend in that respect. But the days of plenty are gone.

Our brute force approach to solving problems only works well when the threat and the capability to effect consequences are tightly coupled. Our contemporary adversaries surprised us with their ability to level the playing field. We managed to counter their threat, but at a cost far out of proportion to any ability they ever had to make us pay.

When it comes to saving lives at the local level, we know that training more people to perform CPR and encouraging healthier lifestyles by promoting development that favors walking and cycling would save more people than reducing EMS response times, but we won’t support the former unless politicians commit to do the latter. The debate at the national level is no more sensible. We are not only told we have to choose between guns and butter, but also that the economic and political system that provides both of them is more essential and therefore more valuable than the people who provide the resources to procure and produce them.

It is still true that Americans as a whole are wealthier than those of most other nations. We have been better endowed with resources and opportunity than most other nations. And we have had the benefit of many great gifts, often as the result of our openness and accessibility to people and ideas from every corner of the world.

Liberty and free-enterprise have played their parts in the American success story. But so too have access to public education and libraries, enforcement of health and sanitation regulations, and investments in water, sewer, public transit and other essential infrastructure. We will only see America become stronger if we place as much or more emphasis on making these investments as we do in protecting them.

Sadly, that seems less and less likely in the near term at both the national and local levels.

Lately, I’ve been working on a quick turnaround project for a federal agency to develop a course on social media. The intended audience includes state, local, tribal and territorial officials that need to make good decisions quickly to maintain community confidence and avoid or mitigate crises. As I’ve interviewed local experts, I’ve learned that many public officials see social media as a major threat rather than a great opportunity.

As I’ve reflected on these concerns, I’ve come to the conclusion that officials have good cause for concern. Likewise, the public has even better cause to keep pressing its case for more and better engagement by public officials through social media.

Despite the persistent decline of public trust and confidence, or perhaps because of it, the public has increasingly come to expect access. Access to government information. Access to government services. And access to government officials.

In an era when the Supreme Court of the United States equates campaign contributions with free speech and concludes that corporations have the same rights as individuals, its easy to see why people feel so strongly that access should not be restricted to the few who can afford it.

Traditionally, the legitimacy of government officials’ actions have rested on three pillars:

• Authority
• Accuracy
• Accountability

Authority typically takes the form of legal mandates and budgets. Accuracy reflects the presumed rightness of actions judged according to their conformity with the strict limits of statutory authorizations and appropriation limits. Accountability is something largely exercised by political and judicial authorities over executive officials, and too often reflects popular will rather than the public weal.

The ability of social media to democratize civil discourse provokes anxiety among  public officials who fear that accountability to everybody means accountability to anybody. (Oddly enough, no one has expressed a fear that this could lead to accountability to nobody, which I still reckon is one of the possibilites.) These fears may be justified. Complaints that could once be dismissed as narrow interest group politics are no longer restricted to the usual suspects with enough time or money to attend public meetings.

Cops can now expect every action they conduct in public to be recorded by somebody and shared with everybody in minutes. Transportation officials can expect on-the-spot traffic reports from anybody annoyed by delays clearing snow. Building code officials can expect complaints about surly or incompetent inspectors to be communicated to other contractors instantly. Transit operators can expect riders to report rude operators and late-running trains. And health officials can hear about the fly in somebody’s soup while the diner’s still seated at the table and telling the server about it.

With few exceptions, these observations and antipathies are nothing new. What’s new and different is the ability to attract an audience. And more often than not this audience extends well beyond the few people a message might be aimed at influencing.

So far, fears that such open access would lead to something approaching anarchy have proven anything but realistic. To be sure, social media has proven itself a powerful organizing force among protestors aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement. But it has also proven equally adept at affording the movement’s antagonists and opponents a platform too. (Isn’t this what the framers expected?)

As the flow of information accompanying the clearance of Occupy encampments has illustrated, efforts to spread disinformation have been widespread. But the truth has come through clearly enough to anybody willing to pay attention and apply a healthy dose of skepticism to their analysis of who’s saying what.

If those outside government see in social media the promise of access, and with that the democratization of accountability, then public officials should see in social media the promise of awareness that can expand the legitimacy of their authority by safeguarding the accuracy of their actions.

Time and again, interviews I’ve conducted with local officials have demonstrated that the real value of social media to those who have already adopted it comes from acquiring a broader and deeper understanding of what’s going on in their communities. The voices of real people speaking in real-time may not be any louder than those of lobbyists and the other monied interests who have typically monopolized the public discourse. But they do have an unmistakable authenticity that resonates with any official who still believes it’s their job to serve the public interest.

Many police departments have adopted some version of the somewhat standard or all-purpose police motto: “To serve and protect.” Last night, as NYPD officers, some in riot gear, cleared protestors from Zuccotti Park, some bystanders could be heard chanting, “Who Do You Serve! Who Do You Protect!” These are questions worth asking.

A few weeks ago, when I followed Chris Bellavita’s lead and began considering what the Occupy protests might portend for public safety and homeland security, I questioned what we could count on police officers and firefighters to do in the face of mounting public unrest and pressure to restore the status quo ante. My question was predicated on two observations: 1) Many cops and firefighters feel just as alienated and fearful in the current economic climate as many of the protestors do and 2) cops and firefighters, despite their relatively favored standing in public opinion have garned little public support as they have confronted job cuts, threats to collective bargaining rights and the looming prospects pension reform and benefit reductions.

Over the past few days, my questions have been answered. Cops and firefighters in city after city have seen fit to faithfully follow instructions and act against protestors, often upon the slimmest pretexts. Take for instance the characterization of Zuccotti Park and other Occupy encampments as threats to health and safety. In several instances, this was predicated at least in part on the operation of gasoline generators to produce electric power. The exhaust fumes were deemed hazardous sources of the toxic combustion gas carbon monoxide. The hot exhausts and fuel cans were also considered fire hazards. The close quarters in which these operations were conducted was said to compound these risks.

Now let’s consider what usually happens when fire inspectors find such conditions: Essentially nothing. You see, the model fire prevention codes adopted in nearly very city and state in the country, including post-9/11 New York City, do not address these hazards directly in such an environment. They simply do not envision such circumstances or call them out as dangerous. As such, the fire inspectors had to conclude based on the “professional judgment and opinion” that these conditions constituted a danger to life per se.

I’ve spent nearly all of my professional career crafting, interpreting or applying these codes, and I can say with complete confidence that this opinion is both baseless and unwarranted. That is unless you consider the intense political pressure fire officials must have been under to give the mayor and police commissioner the requisite pretext for acting against the occupation.

It saddens me to say this, by I find such behavior sorry and shameful. I reach this conclusion in substantial part because such action is so unprecedented even when it is clearly warranted. A case in point: No action was taken to suspend operations or seize private property in the Deutsche Bank Building when inspectors became aware of dangerous conditions during its demolition following the 9/11 attacks. Two firefighters sent to combat a fire there in August 2007 died, and 46 more suffered serious, career-ending injuries because of confusing and obstructed exit paths, failure to maintain firefighting features, and the use of high flame-spread materials and uncontrolled heat sources during asbestos removal operations. These conditions conspired to allow an otherwise minor fire started by discarded smoking materials  to spread through 10 floors before it was controlled.

In the aftermath of this fire, two very telling truths emerged. First, despite permit conditions that required inspections at least once every 15 days, city authorities had failed to conduct any recorded inspections of the demolition operation between March 2007 and the date the fire occurred.  Second, the city enabled if not facilitated the contractor’s malfeasance by taking a laissez faire approach to overseeing demolition operations despite repeated warnings a disaster could result. (I use the term “malfeasance” advisedly: The demolition contractor- employed by the Lower Manhattan Development Authority–the ironically named John Galt Corporation–was found guilty of reckless endangerment in 2009, although construction supervisors employed by the company were acquitted of involuntary manslaughter charges.)

If inspectors can so willingly look away in the face of clearly dangerous conditions like those present at Deutsche Bank, what makes them so eager to see fire hazards in Zuccotti Park when no such violations exist in fire codes? Is it possible they fear the fate of so many others who are now unemployed if they fail to accede to their superiors’ expectations?

I am reluctant to answer these questions, but I don’t mind asking them of those who made these decisions. In the end, the questions in play here are the same timeless ones we all face when values and principles collide: Who or what do you serve? Who or what are you protecting?

In a soon-to-be-published paper a multinational academic team that was in Japan at the time of the earthquake-and-tsunami credits “a handful of trucking/distribution companies” for saving thousands of lives.  ”Without their timely intervention, the situation in Tohoku would have taken the path of Haiti, where the lack of help from the local business class contributed to a crisis of huge proportions.”

Pause over this finding for just a moment: Without action by five or six key players in the supply chain, a major swath of the third largest economy in the world would have “taken the path of Haiti.”

The academic specialists in transportation, urban management, and civil engineering conclude the Japanese firms took the initiative because they “were in a position to know that the private sector supply chains had been severely disrupted, and that that the public sector was not ready to fill the gap.” (my italics)

Based on my own observations, in the first week after the earthquake-and-tsunami the Japanese government was not fully aware of its incapacity to fill the gap.  During the first five to six days, the government’s perimeter control was actually suppressing supply chain resilience.  A first step in restoring essential services to survivors was persuading the government they were incapable of doing so and to get out of the way.

This week Tesco,  the British — but international — grocery opened a new distribution center in Bangkok supplementing two existing DCs that have been impacted by the massive and ongoing floods.  This new site will focus on necessities such as water, instant noodles, and canned fish, importing these and other commodities from Malaysia, Vietnam, China, and elsewhere.   Since the flooding began Tesco has increased its distribution capacity in Thailand by about 40 percent.

Friends in Thailand complain the government’s response to the epic flooding has been totally incompetent.  A Bangkok expat who happened to be Japan during the earthquake-and-tsunami adds, “But the incompetence is so complete the government at least does not get in the way.”

Last week I was in a meeting with a senior officer of a major US food distribution company.   He shared one story after another from the Northridge earthquake, to wildfires in Southern California, to Katrina and more where grocery wholesalers and retailers were ready with product and transport, but were kept away… just as in Japan.

A factoid: the tonnage of food shipped into the typical US metropolitan census area each week exceeds what the US military shipped into Afghanistan during the first year of the war.  The US military’s effort is considered a marvel of modern logistics.  But even the US military does not have the logistics capability to fill the food, pharma, and other essential needs of a major urban area in case of a catastrophe.

Recognizing the challenge there are increasing efforts to facilitate private-public collaboration in advance of a catastrophe.  The FEMA Private Sector Office is hosting meetings, brokering relationships and pushing each state to establish effective public-private partnerships.  So far twenty-two states are in the process of doing so.

Over the last few years several cities (such as Los Angeles)  regions (such as the Bay Area) or states (such as New Jersey) have established Business Operations Centers (BOCs) or Business Emergency Operations Centers (BEOCs) or even Virtual Business Operations Center (VBOCs) to facilitate collaboration during emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes.

In some places a BOC is little more than some business seats in the government’s  Emergency Operations Center.  Several BOCs involve exchanging information and  facilitating resource management. Only a few seem to include common risk assessments, joint training and private-public exercises.

Yesterday (and continuing today) I am at a national conference focusing on the private-public interface in emergencies and establishing BOCs.  Some fly-on-the-wall impressions:

• Lots of good will all around, reflecting a very practical sense of private-public mutual dependence.
• Everyone recognizes that personal trust-building is essential and — given American mobility — not entirely sufficient.
• The common value proposition seems to be information sharing for situational awareness and, if possible, situational analysis.
• Lots of different technological approaches to achieving information sharing, situational awareness, and more.  Reminds me of the online learning market before BlackBoard emerged as the dominant player.  At some point there will be — needs to be — convergence.
• Most innovative, forward-leaning solutions seem to involve some sort of mediator between public and private sectors, such as an educational institution or a not-for-profit operating as host, active party, or actual entity.  This seems to defuse a variety of legal, political, and perhaps command-and-control issues.
• There is an implicit expectation by the public sector involved that when push comes to shove they are in charge.  This is unchallenged by private sector because they know when push comes to shove they will do (or not do) what seems best to them at the time.

In many respects it is amazing this kind of explicit and sustained private-public collaboration is such a recent phenomenon.

A leader of one the BOC’s reported that in his major city the private sector has welcomed the invitation to be involved and quickly taken the initiative to be more involved.

“They seem to think disasters are recurring faster and faster and getting bigger and bad-er.  They are trying to get ahead of the wave,” he explained.

A couple of weeks ago I questioned the meaning of the growing protest movement that started with Occupy Wall Street and its relationship to the economic discontent expressed in other quarters by the Tea Party Movement. This angered at least a few readers who claim to have moved on from reading this forum regularly.

In a follow-up comment, I noted that despite my sympathy for their message, I was less than sanguine about what the rising tide of discontent on display around the country (and now the world for that matter) might portend for the nation as disaffection spreads from those angry with the government to those who work for the government in our public safety services.

Recent media commentary on the Occupy movements has questioned their sustainability in the absence of clear leadership, a coherent direction, and some sort of decisive action beyond sign-waving and chanting. Others have noted that the movement is doing just fine without these things, and, in fact, has articulated a clear and convincing objective: Ending capitalism as we have known it, at least in the United States. This leads some observers, particularly those who see themselves targeted by the movement, to believe the group is anything but benign and probably not as disorganized as it might seem to some.

This makes me wonder, does this make the Occupy protestors economic terrorists? Some might think so, especially if their activities begin having a destabilizing effect on markets or market actors. The Geneva Center for Security Policy defines economic terrorism as, “varied, coordinated and sophisticated, or massive destabilizing actions [undertaken by transnational or non-state actors] to disrupt the economic stability of a state, groups of states, or society.”

Clearly, the Occupy protestors see themselves quite differently. They have been telling us for weeks now that the real terrorists are the bankers, hedge fund managers, and barons of international high finance who have so thoroughly coöpted and corrupted the engine of democracy that it no longer serves the interests of ordinary people.

Occupy protestors and their supporters have noted with disgust that the number of people arrested at rallies now far exceeds the number charged with crimes arising from the financial debacle that has so ruined our economy. The tactics employed to enforce local ordinances against such misdemeanors as curfew, camping in public parks, excessive noise, interfering with traffic, and tramping through flower beds have often involved the application of force to detain or remove protestors. These actions stand in stark contrast to those used in the detention and prosecution of those accused of felony financial crimes.

Despite police actions in quite a few cities, the American protests seem mild compared to the unrest sweeping some European cities as instability accompanying the debt crises in Greece, Italy and other nations continues. As the frequency and intensity of strikes and riots mounts, one can only speculate as to whether the mood here will turn from gloomy and overcast to stormy.

As we watch the drama unfold here and abroad, wondering what will happen next, it’s worth remembering: One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.

More than a few people in the public safety and homeland security sectors are hoping yesterday afternoon’s shallow M5.8 earthquake shook some sense into politicians, bureaucrats and Congressional staffers. The temblor, the largest recorded in the national capitol region in more than a century, caused a large-scale disruption of cellular telephone service when it struck shortly before 2:00 PM EDT. Cellular operators attributed the failure to overloads rather than physical damage to system components. Landline services, including the copper-wire-based public switched telephone network, remained operational and under-utilized.

The growing dependence of Americans on cellular telephone services, especially the extent to which reliance on these devices has displaced older technologies, has raised concerns among regulators and the regulated alike. Phone companies are now having trouble keeping up with the increasing capabilities of the devices we crave. Despite our seemingly elastic appetites for each new generation of wireless technology, our willingness to pay for the infrastructure to support these nifty services has remained relatively constrained. Meanwhile, pressure on companies to improve profitability in an atmosphere of constrained revenues and stiff competition have limited infrastructure spending to such an extent that one wonders whether the price and performance curves will ever be reconciled, even if the economic recovery takes hold.

This harsh reality has fueled pressure from the public safety industry on regulators and legislators to designate and release a large chunk of radio-frequency spectrum known as D-Block for development of a national broadband public safety network. It didn’t take long for advocates of this move to capitalize on the quake to underscore their concerns about the status quo and renew calls for immediate action on the D-Block petition.

You might wonder why overloaded cellular networks are much of a concern to public safety agencies. After all, don’t they have their own radio frequencies already anyway? We’ve invested lots of federal, state, local and tribal government money in the decade since 9/11 improving interoperable communications capabilities. Hasn’t this paid off somehow?

Well, Virginia, thanks for asking. Yes, public safety does have a lot of spectrum and some pretty fancy equipment. This equipment and the slices of spectrum already allocated do a pretty good job of relaying voice communications and a small amount of data. But because of the limitations of these proprietary technologies and the institutional inertia of the agencies who own and operate it, police, fire-rescue and EMS services rely pretty heavily on the same cellular services the rest of us do for high-speed, broadband data applications and services. And like the rest of us, they often use cellular telephones when they only need to relay a message to a single person. That means when we lose cellular service they do too.

But wait a minute, don’t public safety officials have priority access to cellular telephone services? Clever girl, Virginia. Yes, they do. But that doesn’t help much when the number of priority calls alone are sufficient to swamp the system. Imagine, if you will, how many people in Washington, D.C. and along the eastern seaboard consider their need to communicate with someone right this second more important than anyone else’s. Besides not every public safety agency has configured its equipment and paid the fees necessary to obtain this sort of priority access.

Cellular network operators say most services returned to normal within about 20 minutes of the earthquake. One suspects that the decision to release many (so-called) non-essential government workers early was predicated at least in part on a desire to alleviate further strain on the region’s already overburdened systems and services. At the same time, one has to wonder what this cost both in terms of lost productivity and public image.

By most accounts, the earthquake, despite its surprising intensity and duration, caused relatively little physical damage. But the fiscal damage of the decisions yet to come remains to be seen.

I am fortunate to work with creative and committed public servants.  Today’s post was written by one such person, John L. Farrell, Deputy Managing Director, City of Philadelphia.

In this essay, John links prevention, de-radicalization and community development in a way I have not seen done before.

The usual caveat: The views are John’s and do not necessarily represent the views of any organization.

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US counterterrorism, military, and police forces are focused on executing tactics to disrupt activities that pose a threat to public safety.  These strategies have become increasingly effective and efficient, but they have a common shortcoming – they are all reactive.  The US lacks a strategy aimed at prevention – one that seeks to stop individuals from choosing an extremist path before they are fully committed.  However, the need for such efforts is recognized in the National Strategy for Counterterrorism (2011).

The Cities of Philadelphia and Chicago have developed engagement strategies that aim to empower residents to make their communities safer.  I believe that these strategies can be applied to the larger homeland security (HS) enterprise, and that HS systems can operate more effectively by involving underrepresented communities in their processes.

The Rising System

To improve HS, the US should develop a domestic coordination and engagement system (“Rising System”) to link federal, state, and local governments (collectively, “government”).  The process would begin with the identification of communities that pose potential threats to public safety.  Local government officials would then begin dialogue to gain a deeper understanding of the targeted community, led by a single point of contact (“coordinator”).  The coordinator would lead the development of strategies through which the government and the group could work together to address issues identified by the community.

Though a simple idea, this runs counter to the traditional theory of government as a service provider.  Instead of “big brother” knowing what is best for a community, the community would prioritize its needs, and the coordinator would facilitate the delivery of resources.  The goal of this process would be to build trust with the targeted community.  By listening to community members and delivering on promises, government representatives may be able to develop relationships that help these communities identify themselves as partners rather than adversaries.

This strategy would not demand a large amount of new funding, an important aspect for two reasons.  First, significant financial investments are not practical or feasible for cash-strapped governments across the US.  Second, directing money to specific groups could reward negative behaviors (i.e. if a group wants money from the government, they should threaten public safety).  Instead, coordinators would be responsible for identifying existing organizations and programs (both inside and outside of government) that provide the services necessary to address the community’s needs.  Focusing existing resources and implementing policy changes could prove to be small investments with a large return on improved security.

Local governments are the logical choice to lead dialogue because in many cases they already have ties to either the targeted groups, or second level connections through credible sources that could provide introductions.  To support local efforts, the federal government would need to develop structures to organize the resources of various agencies involved.  In Robert Deardorff’s thesis Countering Violent Extremism: the Challenge and the Opportunity, he suggests the federal government develop Regional Outreach and Operational Coordination Centers (ROOCC) to help coordinate engagement activities.  Essentially, Deardorff envisions ROOCC as housing a wide variety of specialists to conduct outreach missions within the US.  The ROOCC could serve as the overarching mechanism to unite local outreach representatives with federal support in Rising Systems.

Defining the Problem

The Rising System would be geared toward developing a true prevention element for the HS enterprise.  Current US HS practices are primarily focused on disruption, not prevention – intelligence analysts and investigators seek connections to learn about terror plots and stop them before implementation.  True prevention, however, occurs long before this stage.  True prevention involves stopping individuals from becoming extremists in the first place.

Nolan, Conti, and McDevitt suggest there is a direct correlation between the level of crime in a community and the degree to which members of that community are organized.  They place neighborhoods in one of four types – Strong (low crime and high organization), Vulnerable (low crime and low organization), Anomic (high crime and low organization) or Responsive (high crime and high organization).  The primary goal of the Rising System, then, would be twofold:  to help Anomic neighborhoods become Responsive, if not Strong; and for government to gain access to Strong and Responsive communities that may not trust them.

Conducted properly, the Rising System can also help the US address the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation to counter the terrorist narrative.  By bringing communities such as American Muslims into a partnership with the government, the US will have subject matter experts to help refine how its message is conveyed.  As is the case with deradicalization strategies, the use of respected members of targeted groups to convey a message will be critical to this program’s success. These practices should ultimately lead to closer ties between US Muslims and the government, which will eventually work to debunk myths that the government is anti-Muslim.  Countering extremist ideology may help eliminate the flow of recruits to extremist organizations, which will contribute to their demise.

An engagement strategy that builds relationships can also help to reduce the impact of several of the antinomies that Philip Bobbitt describes in Terror and Consent, namely “the separation between the domestic and the international,” “the different rules we apply to law enforcement and intelligence operations,” and “the different reliance we place on secret as opposed to open sources.” Relationships with leaders in local communities can build trust, which may encourage them to volunteer sensitive information.  This may help to eliminate, or at least reduce, the need for more invasive monitoring methods.  In cases where more invasive monitoring is necessary, the volunteered information may provide the probable cause needed to justify such actions in a criminal or FISA court, alleviating a concern associated with intelligence collection  standards usually applied to foreign agents.

The Rising System will also help to inform government about how to best deploy resources in a difficult fiscal environment.  By conducting the proper analysis of where grievances exist, government can provide opportunities where citizens leverage existing resources to improve their standing, and contribute to American society.  Implementation of the Rising System may thus aid in the shift to what Bobbitt describes as a government in a “market state” rather than a “nation state.” As community members use these resources and contribute to their neighborhood, they may also take ownership of their neighborhood, hopefully making them less likely to shield threats to security.

Whom Would the Rising System Benefit?

Those who stand to gain the most from such a program are the members of the targeted communities.  They will see an improved level of service in areas that may be described as underserved, poor, or forgotten.  Local elected officials will benefit, as their knowledge of the community will play an important role in lending legitimacy to the program.  A Rising System’s success will in turn lend local elected officials political capital as they bring improved quality of life to their community.

The HS enterprise in general will benefit, but certain organizations may oppose the idea.  In theory, everyone in the public safety and HS realms benefits from anything that reduces the number of threats.  However, the proposal itself could be intimidating to some agencies, as it will force them to either evolve their missions, or reduce the need for their services.  There will always be a need for enforcement, intelligence sharing, and most other aspects of the HS enterprise.  However, the reduced demand for service may also result in reduced levels of funding, a proposition that few agencies appreciate.  This may also be true for those receiving funding from the federal government that is not community-based, as a change in strategy may interfere with their funding streams.

A strong opposition for this process could come from civil libertarians.  They may be able to argue that the Rising System could lead communities to conduct witch-hunts for suspects, especially those who they may want to ostracize for reasons other than public safety.  The judiciary would need to be properly briefed on the process, and help create safeguards to prevent relationships from being exploited in this manner.

The Next Steps to Implement the Rising System

Versions of the Rising System are already being implemented at a local level in Philadelphia and Chicago, but without the connection to the federal government.  Philadelphia’s PhillyRising Collaborative is a geographically-based system for coordinating the services of the City government and outside organizations. Similarly, the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) has conducted local coordination and outreach since 1993. PhillyRising and CAPS both rely on engagement and citizen participation to drive change in troubled neighborhoods, and have demonstrated success in their respective jurisdictions.

Assuming Philadelphia and/or Chicago were used as a pilot, the next immediate steps would be for the federal government to develop a formal support mechanism.  This could be done through the establishment of Deardorff’s ROOCC, but could also be less formal.  It could simply involve a high-level executive from the federal government conducting regular meetings with local representatives from PhillyRising and CAPS to gather information and coordinate resources.

There is a great need for this program to have support from the highest levels.  Though the operations are predicated on a bottom-up approach for determining strategies for each targeted community, support from the top is necessary to make implementation successful.

Outcomes of a Successful Implementation

In a successful implementation, governments at all levels would establish new relationships in communities where they previously had little access.  These relationships would inform civil servants and elected officials in a way that would make government more responsive to citizens’ needs.  While data analysis can provide a baseline for certain factors in a community, it cannot always determine which issues are the most significant to the everyday lives of residents.

If the Rising System were implemented correctly: government at all levels would be more responsive; communities would build capacity for assuring internal public safety; partnerships would develop sustainable solutions to local problems that produce opportunities for residents; governments would enhance intelligence capabilities; and governments would utilize resources more efficiently by gaining a better understanding of where funding is needed most.  The Rising System could lead governments to operate smarter, faster, and better:

Smarter Government – The Rising System would encourage agency representatives to meet regularly to identify overlapping problems and develop and deliver collaborative solutions to long-term, complex issues.  As officials adapt to serving residents in this manner, the Rising System would create a means for right-sizing resources as well as agency structures.

Faster Government – By improving front-line coordination among officials, service delivery would become more efficient.  As the system progresses, integration of technology systems would facilitate information-sharing, joint planning, and delivery of services.

Better Government – The Rising System would shift the determination for success from strictly agency-based measures to actual outcomes seen in targeted communities.  The Rising System would create a mechanism for regional accountability for public safety, and help define the public safety role of organizations outside of the traditional HS field.  On an external level, the Rising System would reform the governments’ relationship with targeted communities by fostering involvement by local groups to help continue progress.

While a successful implementation would bring many positive aspects, the relationship developed between the government and the community should also involve a degree of debate.  Discussion surrounding strategies, perceptions, and messaging is a healthy exercise that can lead to the improvement of government operations.  This is particularly true in the case of the “narrative” that the 9/11 Commission suggested is needed to counter recruitment efforts by terrorist organizations.

Measuring Success

There are many statistics that could be used to determine the success or failure of such an endeavor, and each stakeholder would likely have their own metrics to determine success.  Agencies such as the FBI, for instance, may evaluate success by the number of tips received from the targeted community, or the number of plots they are able to disrupt due to such information.  The local police department could measure success by the change in crime rate for the targeted community, as is the case for the Philadelphia Police Department’s evaluation of PhillyRising. Residents or members of the community may determine success by their perception of their quality of life, something that may need to be determined in a survey.

There are some factors that may be useful to evaluate for all stakeholders involved.  The first is the number of potential recruits who are dissuaded from taking an extremist path.  The number of people stopped shows that the program is credible and effective, and benefits every group involved.  It is a statistic that will also impact almost all of the others mentioned – if FBI does not have to disrupt a plot, no crime was committed, and the community can feel safer having that person as a productive member of society, rather than a fringe element determined to attack it.  A principal difficulty may come in measuring this number beyond those affected by direct intervention.

The Rising System would also track changes to the relationship between community members and agencies.  This may be measured by factors such as increases in the community’s faith that their requests will not only be heard, but completed to the greatest extent possible.  These responses, though difficult to quantify, will determine an initial acceptance of the Rising System by the local community.  Their acceptance is absolutely necessary for the positive changes in the targeted area to occur and continue.

Ultimately, a successful neighborhood will be one where the Rising System’s coordinated approach is no longer needed – the community members will have taken over the process themselves, and developed relationships with the government that no longer require a central coordinator.

We already know that existing US HS measures to disrupt terrorist/public safety activities are not always successful.  While our tactics for operations have become outstanding, they rely on the premise of detecting a threat before it is executed.  Because knowledge is inherently limited, this strategy cannot always be successful.  However, by developing a strategy that prevents at least some plots from reaching the point of execution, public safety officials may become more effective by focusing resources on a smaller number of threats.  Violent crime and terrorist activities in the US may never end, but by bringing more people into the government’s decision making process, and by providing more opportunities to those who may otherwise slip between the cracks, the US can develop more friends than enemies.

As deliberations over the debt limit become increasingly mired in the debate over strategies to reduce the federal debt, the previously unthinkable possibility of a U.S. government default looms larger by the day. Up until now, homeland security practitioners seem to have been more concerned with whether or not negotiators would touch their pet programs than whether the damage caused by a prolonged impasse could threaten the safety and security of our communities.

In homeland security and emergency management circles, talk of the unthinkable usually revolves around complex hazards that produce a cascade of failures resulting in ripples of consequences. This time around we are talking about a cascade of failures that will produce a complex hazard the likes of which we have no way of really knowing until they emerge. What is certain is that some effects will be immediate and others will take years to appreciate. Regardless what time scale their emergence or our awareness of them adheres to, one thing is certain: Most of the worst consequences will never go away.

Those who argue that the debt limit does not matter seem to believe in a myth of American exceptionalism that suggests we can do no wrong, that our decisions and actions will not produce the consequences for us that others have suffered, often at our hands. The opposite is more likely true. Our security could be threatened in previously unimagined ways by creditors who force us to swallow the bitter pills we have dispensed so earnestly and eagerly to others.

Nowhere is this more likely than in the developing world. China and India are rapidly approaching the points where their roles will shift from risk takers to risk makers. And those left vulnerable to the risks created by their rising dominance will surely be us.

China’s military and political might worries some. But its economic ambitions, borne as they are of a desire to keep pace with the burgeoning aspirations of the Chinese people, are greater cause for concern if only for the consequences of their pursuit on the climate and therefore our own ecology and environment.

Others who see little urgency in the current situation may fear the economic effects of others’ decisions and actions but gleefully imagine an America whose government can no longer afford to inhibit or interfere with the decisions and actions of her own citizens. These same people apparently see little difference between a natural person and a corporation when it comes to fundamental liberties. Sadly, the same cannot be said of these same individuals’ assessments of the responsibilities of each to the other.

It’s worth reiterating that U.S. government default is unprecedented. This is important for two reasons: First, the effects are not simply unknowable because we haven’t witnessed such an event before, but because we have no clear idea what ripple effects will result. Second, unlike other disasters that involve underlying processes that we do not fully understand and therefore cannot predict, we know with certainty that the effects of this disaster are entirely preventable.

We cannot and should not assume that the sovereign debt crises resulting from other countries’ fiscal and monetary failures presage the effects should Congress and the White House fail in their duties to resolve the current crisis. Our economy is not just the biggest, it is also intimately connected with every other economy on the planet. Several economists have warned that default would not only delay recovery from the recent recession, but could actually trigger a worldwide depression. We cannot assume an economic calamity of this sort would resemble previous economic depressions.

A devaluation of the U.S. dollar and higher interest rates resulting from default would hit pocketbooks and balance sheets immediately. Reluctance of foreign buyers to invest in U.S. treasury bills would require the government to suspend activities almost immediately to meet interest payments rather than risk further defaults. As government dollars began flowing out of the county to repay foreign creditors, job losses would rise almost as fast as the prices of basic goods and services.

Already stressed state and local governments would be hit hardest after a default. The effects of the recent recession emerged there last and have lingered far longer than elsewhere in the economy. The need for structural and systemic reforms rather than simple shifts in emphasis have already become apparent to many public safety executives as evidenced by the recent legislative initiatives to repeal collective bargaining rights and restructure public employee pension obligations.

As Chris Bellavita’s holiday post reminds us, our leaders have to work if they are to preserve our republic. Their deeds must match their words.

Phil Palin for his part reminded us that our forebears equated the ideals of the republic with the pursuit of eudaimonia. How one attains such an ideal was as troublesome to the ancients as it is for us today. Then as now, much of the disagreement centered on the importance of attaining wealth and exchanging external goods.

Agreeing on the virtue of reducing the debt is meaningless if we are not prepared to meet our obligations. Others can only ever truly judge our intentions by our actions. And even the mere suggestion that the unthinkable is now thinkable has had a negative effect on confidence in our government and its leaders.

Emerging from the current crisis, whether it deepens into downright default or not, will depend on how we respond not just to our situation but to one another. When cities and states can no longer afford to provide essential public safety services who will notice? And what will they do about it?

Friday evening on CNN, John King interviewed FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate on the ground in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  The rather long interview included the following:

KING: All around the region we’re speaking to mayors and governors and the like and hear a lot of praise and compliments saying everybody seems to be working well together. As you know that’s not always the case in the past. Have there been any hiccups or unanticipated whether a supply shortage or chain of command issue?

FUGATE: No. Chain of command is easy. We’re in support of the governors. They’re in charge.Their state teams were up and running. Our job is to support them and in this case, particularly in Alabama, it’s really going to be supporting them in the recovery operation.

In the typical rhythm of news coverage, the stories emphasizing neglect, incompetence, and such generally do not begin for about 48 hours after the disaster.  Still, this early positive framing is worth noting.

An Associated Press story filed early Saturday may signal the usual pivot to the attack.  See: Southerners see their emergency safety net shredded.  The story certainly highlights how local capabilities have in several instances been overwhelmed by the impact.

Substantively, this week’s extraordinary long-line tornadoes had a much more than typical impact on housing stock.  This was especially the case because of the direct hit on Tuscaloosa, population 90,000.  I have not yet seen a credible projection, but several hundred replacement homes and apartments will certainly be needed, the sooner the better.

The Alabama Emergency Management Agency released a new situation report shortly after 7:00 local time on Saturday.   It is a pdf and, at least this morning, requires significant time to load, but is accessible at: http://ema.alabama.gov/filelibrary/SituationReport/SitRep8complete.pdf

SUNDAY UPDATE:

Housing issues nagging at tornado victims (Los Angeles Times)

Power back for roughly two-thirds (Birmingham News)

Five federal agency chiefs in disaster zone (Politico)

Government’s disaster response wins praise (New York Times)

Is FEMA bold enough to get it right? (Delaware Online Editorial on FEMA’s role and Wicked Problems)

The University of Alabama student newspaper, The Crimson White, is providing detailed reporting and sometimes different angles on the situation in hard-hit Tuscaloosa, including FEMA on the Ground.

FEMA is looking for ideas about how to increase public participation in emergency management and homeland security. As a part of that search they’ve made available a paper describing some of the policy challenges associated with creating resilient communities.

As described in an email from a colleague:

Over the last several months, we have engaged a diverse range of people, organizations, and professions from across the Nation. Our goal is to learn what works well in local communities before an incident occurs and to connect these successful activities, networks, assets, and processes to preparations to withstand, respond, mitigate, and recover from emergencies.

…We would like your comments on a working paper, Policy Challenges in Supporting Community Resilience. (The 29 page paper can be downloaded at this link.) This paper explores how governments can better engage with the public to increase locally-organized disaster resilience and empower citizens and local institutions to take an active role in protecting themselves and their communities.

In particular, we would appreciate your thoughts on the following questions:

• Do the themes and concepts outlined in this paper resonate with you? Please describe.
• Are there additional characteristics (i.e. themes) that are important to consider?
• Have you seen greater resilience in places where communities have been engaged in emergency management activities? Please share examples.

Please submit your reactions and comments on the themes, challenges, and overall approach presented in this paper by Monday, February 11, 2011 to “FEMA-Community-Engagement@dhs.gov”.

The paper also asks for comments on such policy issues as:

• What are the best and smart practices among government and private sector agencies and social sector organizations in listening to, learning from, and engaging with community groups (including the general public) in local neighborhoods?
• What experiences at the local level activate and sustain local residents? interest and involvement in resilience activities? What information do they need to motivate behavioral change and trigger preparedness activities? How are these activities organized? How do these resilience-oriented activities compare with insights from other research and policy literature on why and how communities engage in non-emergency, non-security related activities?
• What specific barriers do diverse communities face in participating in resilience activities? What types of support do communities need once they have decided to ‘do something,’ including access to sources of expertise (people and guidance documents) or equipment and other assets? Who do they think this should come from?
• What “entry points? exist for building an effective exchange between communities and national governments on resilience policies?
• In what ways is each country [the paper describes UK and US experiences] working to build support for action on community resilience among various levels of society and policy makers, ranging from officials and political leaders to citizens and local responder organizations?
• How might a whole community approach to emergency management work in your community?

Again, if you have any reactions to the ideas in the paper, please email them to “FEMA-Community-Engagement@dhs.gov”.

Last week President Obama signed into law a bill extending benefits to certain 9/11 attack responders presumed to have incurred illnesses as a result of their service. Much of the media coverage accompanying this legislation focused on efforts to delay or prevent its passage by Congress, not the legitimacy of the claims themselves.

After 9/11, politicians were all too happy to be seen standing alongside public safety officers extending gratitude for their service. It would be easy but incorrect to assume that the benevolence they displayed then by increasing the lump sum benefit for public safety officers’ survivors was the result of enlightenment much less an accumulation of factual evidence that such awards were scientifically or fiscally justified.

Benefits for public safety officers who become disabled due to injuries or illnesses incurred in the line of duty have usually been accompanied by controversy and disagreement. The original Public Safety Officer Benefit Act became law in 1976. The inclusion of firefighters alongside police officers was seen by many as an afterthought in the interests of comity if not some semblance of parity among the professions. The Act’s passage, according to some, marked an effort to make these risky professions more attractive at a time when public service was held in particularly low esteem. You may be saying to yourself right now that at least some things have changed since then.

Most career firefighters and police officers, if not other public safety officers and their non-uniformed and volunteer colleagues, are paid comparatively attractive salaries and enjoy much better benefits and job security than many private sector workers with similar levels of skill and experience. Despite that advantage, many are now experiencing many of the same uncertainties confronting the rest of the workforce.

It should come as no surprise that in the midst of the current economic and fiscal crises that some citizens and interest groups see survivor benefits as simply another perk lavished upon public employees that remains well beyond their reach. This is particularly true of those who lack employment or any prospect of employment in the near term.

This skepticism is understandable enough but still overlooks another important consideration. The justifications for these benefits lacks much if any sound scientific or economic basis. This is particularly true in the case of my own profession as it relates to qualifying victims of cardiovascular ailments or cancer for benefits. The decisions to recognize these ailments as qualifying conditions for survivor benefits is more representative of the growing political influence of firefighters than recognition the dangers associated with their occupation.

That said, the value of extending such benefits has become very clear and personal for me this week as my own agency has prepared for a memorial service for a fallen comrade who succumbed to malignant melanoma on December 30 leaving behond a young wife and two sons.

Matt Durham (pictured above) was a firefighter for 15 years. During that time he had accumulated an exemplary service record. His personnel file was chock full of letters of appreciation and commendation from colleagues and citizens and glowing performance appraisals from supervisors. He routinely went the extra mile serving on several specialist teams, including the regional hazardous materials team and the Puget Sound Urban Search and Rescue Task Force. Besides being a skilled emergency services professional, Matt was a remarkable photojournalist whose work was widely published and heralded by colleagues in California and Washington.

When I worked on the initial efforts to develop a firefighter autopsy protocol as a federal contractor in the early 1990s, firefighters argued that they were at higher risk than others of contracting cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers and felt certain that higher incidence was related to on-the-job exposures and stress. Few studies over the years have borne out these concerns or provided consistent much less solid evidence to support them. Nevertheless a growing list of states recognize at least some cancers as job-related for firefighters and amendments to the Public Safety Officer Benefits Act after 9/11 expanded compensation and added coverage for deaths due to certain cardiovascular ailments.

The value of these provisions is not so much the recognition they provide fallen firefighters or the financial security they afford bereaved families, although these are both obviously significant. Rather the presumption that their service led to the deaths of firefighters in such cases advances the cause of managing these exposures in meaningful ways by promoting wellness and fitness while honoring the ideals of service and sacrifice for their own sake.

Before the recognition of these ailments, most qualifying firefighters’ deaths resulted from catastrophic injuries sustained during firefighting and rescue operations or training for such operations. Unfortunately, an unsettling proportion of these deaths resulted from serious lapses in judgment or failures of operational discipline and oversight, often on the part of the deceased members themselves.

Recognizing the deaths of colleagues afflicted by cancer and cardiovascular diseases has had two significant positive effects on the profession: 1) it has encouraged firefighters to take more responsibility for their own wellness and fitness rather than chalking up their fate to the dangers and rigors of their jobs, and 2) it has recognized that some catastrophic risks, whether job-related or not, are simply beyond the control of individuals or organizations, especially when we know so little about how they develop in the first place.

For me, these benefits would be enough if that’s all they accomplished. But I have seen something else significant this week that further inclines me to think these benefits are not only justified but should be extended to most if not all workers as a matter of public policy.

A growing body of evidence suggests that people need three things in order to thrive: 1) the ability to feel they make a difference bigger than themselves, 2) the ability to share their successes with others who mean something to them, and 3) the ability to receive meaningful recognition (not necessarily reward) for their efforts, which often involves a combination of the first two elements by allowing them to form meaningful relationships with others through the shared experience of hard work and sometimes personal sacrifice.

This week, my colleagues and I have seen this dynamic at work as we come together to recognize Matt Durham, support his family and share our recollections of a valued friend and colleague. In the absence of financial hardships to the family, we have seen people step up in ways that impress and inspire others, more often than not without any expectation of compensation or recognition for themselves. If we can in some small way make this experience real for others, we will all feel we have done something truly special not just for Matt but as a legacy to his and others’ service to our communities.

Today I am starting a new job as a deputy fire chief in a fire district near Seattle. As such, I have been pretty consumed with the details of moving and starting a new job rather than keeping up with my homeland security reading and preparing this week’s post. Nevertheless, it strikes me that the odyssey upon which I am embarking offers a new prism through which to observe what’s happening in our field at the state and local levels.

Over the past several months, I have commented often about the importance of leadership in dealing with the challenges we face. As such, it should come as no surprise that I was attracted to my new position by a charismatic fire chief with a reputation for innovation and integrity. During the interview process, his commitment to these ideals became more than evident.

The commitment of the community and the firefighters to his success was also evident. This is not to say he has enjoyed a smooth tenure since taking up the position a bit less than a year ago. Indeed, the burgeoning fiscal crisis, the annexation of a portion of his district by a neighboring city and a campaign by the union local representing firefighters from his last department to pass a vote of no-confidence in his leadership have presented personal and professional challenges. Fully aware of these issues when I applied, it was was his pleasant (cheerful really) demeanor and ability to see the opportunities in these challenges that convinced me to join his team.

From what I can see so far, the community, the elected fire commission and the firefighters themselves see in their chief the hope of a better future despite the challenges they face as well. His ability to articulate a clear and shared vision, involve others in charting a way forward, give the work back and manage the pace of change so the challenges remain manageable have given people tangible evidence of his commitment to their welfare as well as that of the organization and the community.

One of the things that seems to distinguish the agency I am joining from some of its peers is its commitment to learning. My role comes with an unusual and unexpected title for a fire department: chief learning officer. Besides overseeing training, I am responsible for the fire district’s emergency management, risk management, research and development, and safety and wellness programs. The combination of these portfolios reflects an appreciation of the changing nature of fire and rescue services and a desire to shape the service in ways that reflect the relative shift in emphasis away from fire-related services to other activities that address risks arising from natural and technological hazards.

I have a lot to learn about my new community, the fire district, my new colleagues and my new role. In the process of getting settled, I will undoubtedly learn a great deal about myself and my capacity to endure change. One of the most important things I have learned from past moves is the importance of accepting both my limitations and the assistance of others. In the process I have become much more aware that when I recognize and maximize others’ strengths by asking for their help we both get something valuable in return.

What are the most important lessons you have learned from the experience of taking a new job or assuming a new role in homeland security? How have you shared these lessons with others and how did you benefit from that experience? How can we maximize the strengths of others to benefit the whole of the homeland security enterprise?

A couple of weeks ago, in a comment prompted by Arnold Bogis’ inaugural weekly post to this website, Phil Palin recounted a conversation with an unnamed colleague whom he quoted as having said, “With the best of intentions — but worst of results — our current emergency management mentality systematically breeds dependence. We are our own worst enemy.” All I can say is Pogo would be proud.

Princeton professor Robert Wuthnow probably would be as well. In his recent book, Be Very Afraid,Wuthnow critically examines the cultural roots of the American obsession with Armageddon and the always just impending threat of self-annihilation. It does not diminish his argument or its thoroughly scholarly presentation to say his summation is not so far from that of Phil’s friend. In short, Wuthnow concludes that our efforts to put people at ease are largely responsible for their inexorable anxiety about the future.

The threats we face are real enough. But the ways we try to reassure people, Wuthnow tells us, leave them wondering whether we really have matters in hand. After all, many of the threats we warn them about are of our own making.

It is fair enough to say that we are not personally responsible for creating the threats, but the governmental, technocratic tribe to which we belong does bear  responsibility both for the decisions and actions that render us vulnerable while simultaneously directing other members to find remedies for these unsavory yet entirely foreseeable situations. Schizophrenic does not even begin to describe the situation.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald so aptly noted, intelligent people may be able to hold two contradictory notions in mind at once, but surely both arguments must have some particular appeal to them for this to be the case without the anxiety becoming apparent to them if not downright unbearable. When we confront people with evidence of their mortality, make it clear that they cannot depend upon government alone to rescue them and then implore them to trust that we know what we are doing when it comes to managing the threats we face they rightly wonder whether we are the crazy ones.

Maybe we are. Focusing on pathological thinking leaves unanswered an important question: “What would it look like if we we were healthy, happy and safe? How would we know if we were in such a state?”

Phil’s post over the weekend cites a Wall Street Journal essay by University of Virginia professor Jonathan Haidt. His research focuses on the nexus between moral beliefs and political behavior. In Haidt’s most recent published book, The Happiness Hypothesis, he suggests that the virtues we practice not only reveal the values we hold but inform them as well. In other words, we are — at least in part — what we do, and these actions are usually motivated by our comfort if not our interests.

To the extent the things we are doing strike many citizens as inconsistent if not necessarily insane should come as no big surprise. The public’s behavior may be little more than an outward sign of the internal anxiety caused by watching what we are doing. If either their behavior or our reaction to them makes us uneasy too, then perhaps we should take Haidt’s WSJ diagnosis as a challenge. Are we willing to something about it?

I’ve watched for years as local public safety executives and unions have expressed their anger and frustration with the level of support they get locally (which is formidable by anyone else’s reckoning, dwarfing all but education, health and welfare spending it its magnitude) to demand federal interventions and funding support. The chiefs’ and unions’ obsessions with what they are not getting has all but overwhelmed their ability to appreciate what can be done with what they already have. As such, I wonder whether their apparent anger masks something deeper and darker: An insidious fear that people might not notice if the money was spent elsewhere or not at all.

Police chiefs, fire chiefs and other public safety executives wield considerable influence over their organizations and in the community at-large. They occupy positions typically associated with power. Stanford business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer reminds us that those who hold positions of power are not always the most able, best loved or for that matter all that empathetic. Rather they are the ones most adept at playing the game. In his book, Power, Pfeffer notes without the least hint of cynicism that those in power accept three things others find it hard to swallow: 1) they accept that life is not just, 2) they relate to the world as it is (or as they perceive it to be) rather than as others wish it to be, and 3) they don’t base their definition of themselves or the best course of action in a given situation on how others see them.

We like to believe that others think the way we do. We want to believe that they want the same things we want. But that’s clearly not the case most if not all of the time. If it were, we would not find ourselves faced with the soaring levels of distrust in government and disagreement about priorities so obviously evident across our society.

If insanity can be defined as doing the same things over and over and expecting different results, what should we be doing differently? If local public safety officials are really committed to building stronger, safer communities what actions should they be taking instead of the ones we are seeing? What role, if any, should federal officials play in promoting ideals consistent with these actions? Do standards or mandates have a place in bringing this about?

Did you know that September was “National Preparedness Month?”  Well, considering the readership of this blog I am sure you did.  But more importantly, did the general public?  I’ll go out on a limb and guess that the answer is no.

Building off of Mark’s earlier post, I would like to take the discussion of preparedness in a slightly different direction.  As someone speaking from the perspective of a citizen rather than an emergency management official, I have to say that current efforts to engage the public are failing.  I do not know personally anyone that realized it was “National Preparedness Month,” or took it upon themselves in the last month to get a kit, make a plan, or become informed about any threat.

This despite the fact that I live in Boston, Massachusetts and our summer was bookended by events that presented teachable moments that seemed perfect for promoting preparedness.  Yet unfortunately these opportunities were wasted by officials.

The first was what became known as the “Aquapocalypse:” on an unseasonably warm May afternoon there was a sudden break in a water pipe supplying water to Boston and much of eastern Massachusetts.  As Governor Deval Patrick described it, “a catastrophic disaster” leading to a “boil water” order that meant that two million affected residents would have to either boil their tap water for drinking and cooking, or use bottled water.  The reaction was predictable, a mad dash across the region to buy water.  Police were needed to restore order at several stores.  What might have been different if more people had several days of water already stockpiled in their homes?

The second was Hurricane Earl, roaring up the waters off the East Coast threatening to be the first hurricane to make landfall in New England in almost two decades.  Fortunately for the residents of the Cape and Islands, this unwanted Labor Day weekend guest weakened and drifted eastward.  Unfortunately for the residents of Massachusetts, this is the second missed opportunity this year to promote a message of preparedness for future disasters.

Why wasn’t there a vigorous campaign by public officials to promote disaster preparedness in the wake of both the “Aquapocalypse” and Hurricane Earl?

Disaster preparedness can have a cascading effect.  Using the Aquapocalypse for example, as the number of people scrambling for bottled water decreases, it provides opportunity for less fortunate members of the community.  For every individual with a middle class and higher lifestyle that bought up water, there were those less privileged and unable to engage in consumer combat, such as the elderly and sick, that were at greater risk of going without clean water.  Those that can prepare should, not only for their loved ones but the farther reaching affects on those in their communities who have a much harder time dealing with catastrophe.

As it gets further from both events, it is understandable yet still troubling that officials missed the opportunities to use these events as teachable moments.  Obviously the first priority for officials during these types of events is immediate public safety. When the backup water supply’s safety was unknown, it was prudent to call for boiling tap water or using the bottled variety.  In the case of Earl, the potential for landfall required the vigorous preparations made by local, state, and federal agencies.  Officials at all levels reacted correctly to both events.  At least in regards to the short term issues.

I cannot be certain, but I would guess that such reactions are more common than not across this country.  If so, what kind of steps can be taken to move preparedness forward?

First, don’t let near-disasters pass without taking advantage of them.  For example, immediately following Aquapocalypse officials should have stressed that the water bought by the public should be saved as part of a disaster kit instead of being consumed, and those who strictly boiled tap water should have been encouraged to go out and buy a three day supply of water for themselves.

Second, preparedness activities should leverage community resources, contacts, and interactions.  Direct messages from the government at every level to citizens have met with mixed, at best, success.  Instead, neighborhood meetings concerning crime or business matters can also include reminders about preparedness.  Religious and secular groups should be engaged so that they reach out to their members with preparedness messages.

Third, government officials must include the private sector in this outreach.  For example, Harvard University provides information regarding criminal activities near campus.  Why not include regular preparedness messages?  Another option would be for large educational institutions and businesses to offer discounts on disaster kits as they currently do for computers and other items.

Increasing preparedness is a long term goal and one that will not be visible until the next catastrophe.  Yet teachable moments should not be wasted and preparedness messages not concentrated within one month a year.

Source: Andertoons http://andertoons.com/

When emergency managers get together to talk about the state of their profession, the discussion often turns to preparedness, or rather the lack of it. In any conversation about this topic, it usually becomes clear before long that whether or not emergency managers consider their own agencies and partners ready, they almost universally consider the public at-large uninformed about hazards and uninterested in preparing for disasters.

I am sad to say this recurrent theme came through loud and clear when staff from my office assembled at the end of last week for a strategic planning retreat. People in every section echoed concerns that the community takes the threats we face too lightly. They complained that many of those who do recognize the hazards in our environment still rely too heavily on government and NGOs to come to their aid. And, they added, of those few in our community  who do “get it” and give of their time and effort as volunteers in programs like Community Emergency Response Teams, a small number of outsized egos require constant reassurance that their commitment is valued and suck up too much time and energy to make the effort worthwhile.

If you took their assessment at face value, you would have a hard time being hopeful. That is why its so important to listen to more than one side of the story, question your assumptions and the conventional wisdom, and reflect on the things you see and hear without undue regard for the opinions of others.

When I look at the community, I see something very different. People clearly understand that the situation is changing, and have already begun to adapt in ways that would have been unthinkable not so long ago.

When I spoke at a recent community meeting organized by a couple of citizens and attended by about 125 of their neighbors (something interesting and remarkable on its own, I’d say), I asked the crowd a couple of questions. How many people recycled at home? How about composting their food waste? And installing energy efficient lighting? Or adding a little more insulation to their walls or attic? Or bicycling and walking more often for short trips? In each case, an overwhelming majority of those in the room admitted they were engaged in these activities.

Then I asked, “How many of you, to your knowledge, have been personally and directly affected by climate change?” Maybe a quarter of the crowd was brave enough to indicate in the affirmative.

I suggested to them that the reasons so many of them engage in activities to reduce their carbon footprints, like the reasons so many of them attended the meeting that night, was due in part to the expectations that these were the right thing to do. And it helped that others thought so do. In other words, they had reflected on their own situations, the expectations of others and the potential future harm resulting from inaction and decided that they could justify small steps if they might contribute to avoiding some very large, even catastrophic consequences at some point in the future. What’s more, they could justify doing this even if they did not benefit much from their efforts personally. This, they agreed, was probably the case.

It remains to be seen whether individual efforts to reduce carbon footprints can arrest or reverse the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere or they effects of escalating concentrations of carbon dioxide and other emissions on ecosystems, but it is clear that these efforts have effects on what others think and do. And these efforts can and do move markets and policymakers.

What’s this have to do with emergency preparedness you ask? Everything.

Emergency managers need to banish the word preparedness from their vocabularies. As an adjective, it conveys the wrong sense of things. As a verb, however, and especially as a transitive verb, preparing conveys specific and meaningful actions on someone’s part for some specific purpose. And it is this sense of purpose and the personalization of intention that make a difference.

Emergency managers, preoccupied as we with the scope and scale or hazards and vulnerabilities and the attendant consequences of not preparing, pay too much attention to the gap and miss altogether the small, simple steps being taken with considerable consistency toward making our communities more resilient. It’s just that many of these actions are informed by a purpose other than preparing ourselves for disasters rather than climate change.

When I look at my own community, I see people investing increasing effort in making their neighborhoods and the city better places to live. And their actions are shaping expectations and decisions in powerful and positive ways.

More people are planting gardens. More people are taking an interest in where and how the food they eat is produced. More people are making purchasing decisions based on the contents rather than the packaging. More people are saving than spending.

Okay, I’ll admit that last one might be a bit problematic at the moment, but the intention clearly reflects a realization that the excesses of the past are no longer sustainable and a new approach is required. The challenge then for emergency managers is not convincing people to do something, it is seeing that the things people are willing to do are small, simple, sensible and socially reinforced.

Preparing communities for disasters could become sexy if we could just settle for evolution rather than revolution. Community resilience should be a question of “ready for what?” rather than a question of “ready or not?”