National Dialogue on Preparedness

I got an interesting email the other day from DHS Asst. Sec Juliette Kayyem (I am on the most interesting mailing lists…) about the Department’s new National Dialogue on Preparedness. This is yet another of the DHS attempt to engage the public in identifying solutions to homeland security issues; this one is supporting the efforts of the DHS Local, State, Tribal, and Federal Preparedness Task Force. Outside of the QHSR effort, we have yet to see anything other than allowing citizens to vent to come out these programs. Well, maybe this one will be different. As readers of this blog might expect I have already put my two-cents worth in on this Dialogue. I added my thoughts on “Counter-Terrorism Emergency Response Plan – CFATS”. It was idea #45 in submission and #42 on the site (meaning I suppose that they took off three ‘inappropriate’ ideas). The ideas can be submitted in seven different categories. Those categories are:

· General Preparedness · Preparedness Capabilities and Assessments · Preparedness Policy and Guidance · Preparedness Grant Programs and Incentives · Individual/Community Preparedness · Private Sector Preparedness · Nongovernmental and Volunteer Organization Preparedness

Provisions are made for voting on ideas; +1 for ‘agree, -1 for ‘disagree’. Votes are automatically tallied to allow for ranking ideas on their levels of acceptance or popularity. There is also a means to append comments to the various ideas. Idea submission, voting and commenting all require registration. Apparently, if you were registered on one of the other DHS Dialogues, the registration does not carry over to this one. If you have a cute nome de guerre that you had previously registered, you might want to act fast to keep it for this dialogue.

I will watch this Dialogue to see if anything interesting comes of it. While I don’t expect DHS to put much effort into using the results of this citizen participation, I will recommend that people take the time and effort to put out their two cents worth. At least that way when you complain about the governments lack of action you can point out that you made your effort.