FBI Chemical Industry Outreach

The FBI, as part of its outreach program to the American chemical industry, is offering a one-day workshop in New Orleans, LA on July 30th, 2010. This is part of the FBI’s Chemical Counterterrorism Program which, according to the outreach program web site, “provides a framework within the public domain for education, programmatic development, and policy matters in furtherance of identifying, assessing, and responding to potential chemical threats such as explosives and use of chemicals as weapons.’ This workshop, according to an FBI email, “is an all day event with the morning session focused on FBI initiatives, capabilities, and the chemical threat, followed by a lecture from an FBI Special Agent Bomb Technician on Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).” The agenda for the workshop includes:

● FBI WMD Chemical Outreach Program Overview ● Threat Briefing ● DEA Briefing ● Chemical Precursors/IEDs

The lecture on IEDs is followed by a trip to a local range where live IEDs will be demonstrated. This is probably the best way to become familiar with IED effects short of accidentally detonating one at your facility. There are only a limited number of openings available for this program in New Orleans. If you are interested in attending you need to register as soon as possible. There is another iteration of this workshop scheduled for August 3rd in Portland, OR; you can register for that workshop here. These workshops certainly sound like they would be worth the time and travel to attend. There are very few opportunities to actually see a live IED detonated in safety. If that were all that were available this would be worth attending. Probably more important would be the chance for chemical facility security managers to meet with FBI agents working in this area. Those contacts could become invaluable, if and when.