CFATS and the ‘Insurrection’

While Wednesday’s incident at the Capital in Washington D.C. was a relatively low-level personal violence event with no ‘weapons of mass destruction’ employed (there have been reports of some pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails discovered, none were actually used), there have been increasing concerns expressed in the media (see here, here and here for example) about the potential for violence next week in the days surrounding the inauguration of President-Elect Biden.

I have seen nothing from CISA expressing any specific concerns, nor has there been any advisories published on the National Terrorism Advisory System. There have been, however, two rather innocuous tweets (here and here) from the @cisa.gov account about improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Facilities that store, use or manufacture IED precursor chemicals (many regulated under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards as Theft/Diversion IED chemicals) should probably take a quick look at their security and shipping procedures related to those chemicals and take action to insure that their facility is not linked to any news reports next week about the use of IEDs.

Chemical facilities regulated under the CFATS program for such IED precursors should already have approved security measures in place to protect those chemicals from theft or diversion. Such facilities should probably conduct a inventory review to insure that none of their regulated chemicals are missing as well as a review of recent shipping records to determine if any of those chemicals were shipped to unusual customers or delivery addresses. Any discrepancies should be reported to the FBI and CISA’s Infrastructure Security Compliance Division.

 While many extremists of various right-wing groups were identified in the January 6^th event, a very large number of the protestors involved were ordinary Americans, many in positions of trust (see here for example). Facility management must realize that they almost certainly have employees and contractors working at their facilities who have some level of sympathy for President Trump and some may actively support the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement. That is not to say that these employees would necessarily support the employment of IEDs or the theft/diversion of precursor chemicals, but prudence would suggest that companies keep a closer than normal look at security and inventory control measures that could be easily circumvented by insiders.