New TWIC Web Site

Laurie Thomas, on her MTSA News blog, points out that the Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC) program has a new web site that is obviously part of the DHS general web site revamp. This new page was apparently just established (it has a ‘last revision’ date of ’28 September 2012’; note the military dating protocol). The TSA folks seem to have the same IT problems that the CFATS folks had with their new page; there are lots of dead links on the page.

I haven’t spend a lot of time on the TWIC sites so I can’t tell how much of the available information is really new but I did run across some interesting information as I was clicking through some of the active links.

TWIC Enrollment Centers

There is a nice search tool for TWIC Enrollment Centers. You can search by Port or by State. A quick check of land-locked states shows what should have been obvious; there are plenty of states where you cannot get a TWIC. These states include:

• Arizona

• Colorado

• Idaho

• Montana

• Nebraska

• Nevada

• New Mexico

• North Dakota

• South Dakota

• Utah

• Wyoming

People who think that the CFATS program ought to adopt the TWIC as the personnel surety vetting system need to keep in mind that people in these 11 states do not have reasonable access to a TWIC Enrollment Center.

More on New DHS Web Site

Last week I noted that DHS had done an across the board upgrade of their web site. Most of the pages just had their content copied into a new format, so there was no real change in information. The concept of landing pages appears to have been done away with; two that I tracked in particular on chemical security and cybersecurity have disappeared.

Change Notification

As I noted earlier, DHS has done away with the update dates on the bottom of pages that allowed viewers to quickly determine if changes had been made to a page since it was last visited. DHS has continued to make email notification of page changes available on a limited number of pages. In the chemical security arena those pages include:

Critical Infrastructure – Chemical Security - http://www.dhs.gov/critical-infrastructure-chemical-security 

2012 Chemical Sector Security Summit - http://www.dhs.gov/2012-chemical-sector-security-summit

If you have an interest in either of these pages you should certainly sign up for this free service. The only problem that I have seen in the past is that it only provides notification for changes on the specific pages listed. It does not provide notice of changes made on linked pages.

Chemical Security Assessment Tool

The one page that I am extremely disappointed about the lack of email notification for changes is the page dealing with the Chemical Security Assessment Tool (CSAT). This is the single most important part of the CFATS web site for the regulated community and there appears to be no method of communicating changes to this portion of the site.

I am providing the listing of the CSAT web pages below. It includes the links to the latest versions of the various supporting documents (and those links are now active).

Chemical Security Assessment Tool - http://www.dhs.gov/chemical-security-assessment-tool  -

Register to Access CSAT - http://www.dhs.gov/register-access-csat

CSAT User Registration .PDF [10-11 V 5.1] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_csatuserregismanual.pdf

Update My Information - http://www.dhs.gov/update-my-information

CSAT Account Management .PDF [04-11 V 2.1] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_csatuseraccountmanage.pdf

CSAT Top Screen - http://www.dhs.gov/csat-top-screen

Appendix A [FR] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_appendixa-chemicalofinterestlist.pdf

Top Screen for Fuels - http://www.dhs.gov/top-screen-submittal-requirements-fuels-except-propane-0

Top Screen for Propane [FR] - http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2008-03-21/html/08-1059.htm

Top Screen Questions .PDF [01-09 V 2.8] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_csattopscreenquestions.pdf

Top Screen Users Manual .PDF [09-10 V 1.99] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_csattopscreenusersmanual.pdf

CSAT Security Vulnerability Assessment - http://www.dhs.gov/csat-security-vulnerability-assessment

SVA Questions .PDF [06-08 V 1.0] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_csat_sva_questions.pdf

SVA Instructions .PDF [01-11 V 2.1] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec-csatsva-instructions.pdf

CSAT Site Security Plan - http://www.dhs.gov/csat-site-security-plan

RBPS Guidance .PDF [05-09] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec-csatsva-instructions.pdf

RBPS Response to Comments .PDF - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_cfats_riskbased_performance_standards_comments_received.pdf

SSP Questions .PDF [06-11 V 2.0] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_csat_ssp_questions.pdf

SSP Instructions .PDF [05-09 V 1.0] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_csat_ssp_instructions.pdf

SSP Screen Shots .PDF - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_csat_ssp_screenshots.pdf

SSP Edit Process User Guide .PDF [10-10 V 0.7] - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/chemsec_csatsspedit_userguide.pdf

Public Comments

DHS is using their successful public feedback program on IdeaScale.com. Comments can be submitted by joining the DHS Redesign community. The same site allows you to look at all of the comments on the design, report issues, and to suggest improvements (I just submitted asuggestion [NOTE: Link added 12:50 EDT 8-13-12] to add the review dates to each page).

These IdeaScale discussions have been very interesting in the past and I expect to see a lot of interesting ideas brought up. I just hope that DHS does a better job in responding to the ideas and suggestions about their web site than they have done in their previous projects on this site.

DHS Updates (Almost) Web Site

A week or so ago DHS announced that they would be upgrading their web site. I glanced at the announcement and sample web pages and hoped that it wouldn’t affect the chemical security web sites. Too bad. This evening  the changes are being applied to the whole of the DHS web site including the CFATS sites.

All of the old links that I have for the various pages are dead with no links to the new sites. Here is a quick list of the major sites that will be of interest to the chemical security community:

Critical Infrastructure – Chemical Security - http://www.dhs.gov/critical-infrastructure-chemical-security

Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards - http://www.dhs.gov/chemical-facility-anti-terrorism-standards

2012 Chemical Sector Security Summit - http://www.dhs.gov/2012-chemical-sector-security-summit

Chemical Sector: Critical Infrastructure - http://www.dhs.gov/chemical-sector

Chemical Sector Training and Resources - http://www.dhs.gov/chemical-sector-training-and-resources

Chemical Security Laws and Regulations - https://www.dhs.gov/chemical-security-laws-and-regulations

CFATS Knowledge Center - http://csat-help.dhs.gov/

Chemical Security Assessment Tool - http://www.dhs.gov/chemical-security-assessment-tool

Register to Access CSAT - http://www.dhs.gov/register-access-csat

Update My Information - http://www.dhs.gov/update-my-information

CSAT Site Security Plan - http://www.dhs.gov/csat-site-security-plan

CSAT Security Vulnerability Assessment - http://www.dhs.gov/csat-security-vulnerability-assessment

CSAT Top Screen - http://www.dhs.gov/csat-top-screen

As one might expect there are some problems with the change-over; we’ll just have to wait and see how long they take to correct. The major problem that I find right now is that none of the links to any of the CFATS manuals on the new pages work. [Note: As of 12:00 EDT 8-10-12 this problem appears to have been corrected.] The old links are also dead. Hopefully this will be a problem that gets corrected quickly.

My major problem with the new design is that the designers have done away with the “Last reviewed on” date on the bottom of the pages. For someone like me that likes to quickly check to see if there have been any changes to the web site this is a terrible move. And since DHS doesn’t advertise when they make changes to the web site, there is little to bring people back to the site.

Oh well, we can always hope that they will correct this as well.