DHS Announces HSAC Meeting – March 16th, 2023

DHS published a meeting notice in Tuesday’s (available on line today) Federal Register (88 FR 10529) for a meeting of the Homeland Security Advisory Council on March 16^th, 2023. The meeting will be open to the public via a web conference.

Agenda

The agenda for the meeting includes receipt, discussion and votes on four draft reports:

• Intelligence and Information Sharing Subcommittee,

• Openness and Transparency Subcommittee,

• Homeland Security Technology and Innovation Network Subcommittee, and

• Supply Chain Security Subcommittee

Public Participation

Public wishing to participate in the meeting via web cast needs to contact Rebecca Sternhell of the Council via email to HSAC@hq.dhs.gov by March 15^th, 2023. Personnel wishing to submit written comments on the agenda items may submit them via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; DHS-2023-0008) by March 14^th, 2023.

DHS Announces HSAC Meeting – 12-6-22

Today, DHS published a meeting notice in the Federal Register (87 FR 71348) for a public meeting of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) on December 6^th, 2022 in Washington, DC. The pubic may participate via web conference.

The agenda includes:

• Remarks from Senior DHS leaders,

• Introduction and swearing in of new members,

• Updates from new subcommittees, and

• Receipt of and vote on the draft report from the Customer Experience and Service Delivery Subcommittee.

The ‘new subcommittees’ were announced earlier this month. They include new cybersecurity taskings.

Public wishing to participate in the meeting may register via email to HSAC@hq.dhs.gov by December 2^nd, 2022. Written comments may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2022-0056).

Review - DHS Announces New HSAC Taskings

Today, DHS published a notice in the Federal Register (87 FR 66720-66721) announcing new taskings for the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). The notice also announces the formation of four new subcommittees for HSAC that are related to the new tasking. The notice specifically notes that there are no changes to the membership of the Committee required by the new taskings. The new subcommittee will prepare their recommendations by March 2023.

 

For more details about the new taskings, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/dhs-announces-new-hsac-taskings - subscription required.

DHS Announces HSAC Cybersecurity Subcommittee

Today the DHS Office of Intergovernmental Affairs published a notice in the Federal Register (80 FR 48893-48894) that last week the Secretary had tasked the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) with establishing a new Cybersecurity Committee.

The new committee will address:

∙ Identifying the readiness of the Department's lifeline sectors to meet the emerging cyber threat and provide recommendations for building cross-sector capabilities to rapidly restore critical functions and services following a significant cyber event; and

∙ Providing a more unified approach to support State, Local, Tribal and Territorial cybersecurity.

The HSAC provides the Secretary real-time, real-world, sensing and independent advice to support decision-making across the spectrum of homeland security operations. The new committee will be tasked with providing findings and recommendations that will be submitted to the Homeland Security Advisory Council for their deliberation and vote during a public meeting.

Commentary

There was no specific mention of control system security in this brief notice. Typically what happens is that either the Secretary or the full HSAC would provide specific taskings to the Committee. Those could certainly involve control system security items of interest.

It will be interesting to see who is named to this new Committee. If there is at least one control system vendor or research organization, we can expect to see something specifically addressing control systems issues. If not, it will be catch as catch can and any control system security recommendations will be more generic than useful.

DHS Announces 2-Day HSAC Meeting

DHS announced in today’s Federal Register (77 FR 55218-55219) that the Homeland Security Advisory Council will be conducting a 2-day meeting on September 24^th and 25^th. The portions of the second day of the meeting will be open to public participation by conference call.

Agenda

The public portions of the program will include a briefing from USCIS on the Administration's “deferred action for the childhood arrivals program” and a report from the Sustainability and Efficiency Task Force.

During the closed portions of the meeting the HSAC will receive sensitive operational briefings and updates from senior DHS leadership on the following issues:

• The strategic implementation plan to counter violent extremism domestically;

• The current threat environment;

• Evolving threats in cybersecurity;

• Transportation Security Administration operations;

• DHS transition planning; and

• U.S. Coast Guard counterterrorism efforts around the world.

I’m assuming that the ‘transition planning’ topic is dealing with contingency planning for the possible transition to a new administration in January. This shouldn’t be taken as a sign that DHS or any other part of the Administration has concluded that the President isn’t going to be re-elected. It would just seem prudent DHS would start planning on what actions it would begin to take in November if Romney did win the election.

Public Participation

The public is invited to listen to the open portions of the program via conference call. Registration is required. Personnel wishing to listen in should provide their full legal name, email address and phone number to an HSAC staff member at HSAC@dhs.gov. Registration must be accomplished by September 20^th.

Written comments on the above topics can be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2012-0055). Such comments should be submitted by September 21^st.

HSAC Meeting – 5-24-12

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a notice in today’s Federal Register (77 FR 26774-26775) that the Homeland Security Advisory Council would be holding a somewhat public meeting on May 24^th, 2012. I say ‘somewhat public’ because, while the Council will be meeting in person, public participation will be via a ‘listen only’ phone link and webcast. And a portion will be closed to the public for security reasons in any case.

There is no explanation given for why the public portions of the meeting (the afternoon session) will not be physically open to public participation. While the phone bridge and webcast open the meeting to many people that can’t get to Washington, D.C. on a regular basis (kudos for this), it doesn’t really feel like a public meeting without the groans, applause and occasional heckling that such meetings usually engender. Of course it does provide much more control over the message of the meeting.

BTW: The physical location of the meeting is not provided in this notice. More control?

The Council agenda for this meeting includes:

• CG update on “Counterterrorism Efforts Around the World”;

• TSA update on threats to airport security;

• Observation and remarks from ‘DHS senior leadership’; and

• Recommendations from the HSAC Faith-based Security and Communications Advisory Committee

It’s not hard to guess which of the above topics will include classified information that would be closed to the public. It would be nice to think that the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration could make an unclassified version of their security updates available to the public; nice but not likely.

Advanced registration is required. That registration can be accomplished by sending an email to HSAC@dhs.gov. Registrants will be provided with phone-bridge or webcast access details as well as a copy of the report from Faith-based Security and Communications Advisory Committee.

Written comments on the topics listed above can be submitted by the public via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket # DHS-2012-0021). Such submissions must be made by May 22^nd, 2012.

HSAC Teleconference 09-16-10

DHS announced in today’s Federal Register that the Homeland Security Advisory Committee (HSAC) would be hosting a teleconference to review the latest report of the Southwest Border Task Force (SWBTF) that will include findings and recommendations for future actions made by that Task Force. Public participation is provided for in this notice, though there is no description of the limits of that participation. This is a follow-up to their report from last year.

Members of the public wishing to participate must register by submitting full legal name, email address and phone number to the HSAC via e-mail at HSAC@dhs.gov or via phone at (202) 447-3135 by September 14th. Access details will be provided to those registrants.

Trans-border IED Attacks

I keep hoping that someone looking at security issues associated with the border with Mexico will look at the potential problems with railcar loads of hazardous chemicals that come northward across that border on a regular basis. There are no requirements for detailed checks of TIH containing railcars for potential improvised explosive devices until they are switched to another rail carrier or arrive at their destination. In fact, the current automated railroad security inspections take place while trains are moving at 5 to 10 MPH according to last year’s SWBTF report.

With the increasing drug cartel violence in the northern Mexican border states, the potential increases every day for the cartels to retaliate against the US for our assistance to the Mexican government in their counter-cartel campaign. Attaching IED’s to these railcars would provide a high profile response.

DHS HSAC Teleconference 05-27-10

The Department of Homeland Security posted a notice in today’s Federal register that the Homeland Security Advisory Council will be holding a teleconference on May 27th to receive and discuss the final report of their DHS Quadrennial Review Advisory Committee. Pre-registered public participation in the teleconference is authorized. To register, individuals must submit their full legal name, email number, and phone number to a HSAC staff member by email (HSAC@dhs.gov) or phone {(202) 447-3135} no later than 5:00 pm EDT on May 25th. Written comments can be submitted via www.Regulations.gov (Docket Number DHS-2010-0039).

Countering Violent Extremism

The Federal Register for May 19th contained a notice posted by DHS that the Homeland Security Advisory Committee (HSAC) would be holding a teleconference on May 13th to discuss the initial report of the Countering Violent Extremism Working Group. This task force was formed at the request of Secretary Napolitano at the February 3rd HSAC meeting. The following comment was posted to the written comments docket for this meeting (www.Regulations.gov; Docket Number DHS-2010-0030). This comment was listed at DHS-2010-0030-0002.1 on that site. Extremists and Critical Infrastructure I commend Secretary Napolitano for tasking the Homeland Security Advisory Committee with looking at the issue of countering violent extremists. Anyone with access to the national news must be concerned about the apparent increase in the number of violent extremist organizations from a wide variety of political, racial and religious backgrounds in the United States that seem to becoming more dangerous every day. Any assistance that the HSAC can provide to the Secretary in developing a comprehensive plan to counter this trend would certainly be beneficial to the Department and the country as a whole. While we have yet to see any chemical worker, transit employee, airline pilot, or nuclear power plant attendant involved in any of the publicly acknowledged terror plots, anyone with a background in security knows that it is just a matter of time before someone working at a publicly-owned critical-infrastructure facility will be identified as a member of one of the increasing number of radical groups found in the United States. Hopefully that identification will be made before they are involved in a successful attack on the facility at which they work. Any program developed to counter the growth of violent extremism will have to be two fold. One phase of the program will have to address the jump from legally protected political extremism to the illegal acts violent extremism; identifying the motivation for that transition and pre-empting that move. The second phase will have to deal with the identification of those individuals who have made the transition before they can consummate their illegal acts. That second phase will be especially important for critical infrastructure employees. Any terrorist plot needs to be disrupted, but a terrorist plot against critical infrastructure with active insider support is one with an especially high probability of success. This makes identifying those potential perpetrators a very high priority. Any efficient identification of transitioned extremists at critical infrastructure facilities will inevitably involve the management of those facilities. This will require that the management of those facilities be trained to recognize the individuals that are potentially violent extremists. Since the easiest to identify precursor to violent extremism is extreme political views, we need to be especially careful that any such training program be clear in its delineation of the difference between legally protected extreme political views and violent extremist actions. I think that it is especially important that the Countering Violent Extremism Working Group specifically address this issue in their report to the Secretary.

HSAC Meeting 02-03-10

According to a notice posted in the January 19th Federal Register, the DHS Homeland Security Advisory Committee will be conducting a meeting on February 3rd, 2010 at Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Only a portion of the meeting will be open to the public. New members will be sworn in and the Committee will receive updated briefings on the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review and consider recommendations made by the Committee’s Sustainability and Efficiency Task Force. During the closed portion of the meeting the Committee will receive intelligence briefings and updates on operational issues. Pre-registration for attendance at the open portion of the meeting is required. Personnel wishing to attend need to send an email to HSAC@dhs.gov. The mail should include full legal name, date of birth, e-mail, and phone number. This information will be used for security purposes. Emails should be sent to DHS before 5 pm EST on January 25th. Personnel wishing to have written materials considered by the HSAC should send to DHS before January 25th. Submitted materials should be marked “Department of Homeland Security” and “Docket DHS-2009-0160”. Material may be sent by email or by mail to: Homeland Security Advisory Council 1100 Hampton Park Boulevard Mailstop 0850 Capitol Heights, MD 20745