QHSR Dialogue Ending

This is just about one day left on the third and last dialogue on the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. This will be your last chance to have even a small chance to affect the development of the QHSR report that that Secretary Napolitano will be submitting to Congress at the end of the year. This will be both a historic document (the first QHSR) and a blue print on how to conduct future QHSR. Your input in this Dialogue will have a chance to impact both aspects of the QHSR. On a personal note, I would like to see some more responses to the three ideas that I have submitted. I know that there are a large number of regular readers to this blog, but only 8 people have rated the ideas I have submitted. Only four people have responded with written comments. . Those ideas are: “Restricting Access to Dangerous Chemicals” “Self-regulation of Dangerous Chemicals” “Protecting Chemical Facilities” I would like to think that the readers of this blog are people with a personal and professional interest in chemical security matters. DHS is specifically looking for people like you to participate in this dialogue. Your backgrounds and experiences mean that your informed responses will be especially valuable in the development of the strategies that DHS will employ over the next four years.

QHSR Blogger Roundtable

Yesterday I was able to participate in a blogger roundtable with Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Alan Cohn about the 3rd and final Dialogue that DHS, with the assistance of the National Academy of Public Administration, has established to encourage public participation in the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR). A number of bloggers that deal with homeland security issues were invited to a conversation with this conversation with Secretary Cohn to learn what DHS intended when they setup this last dialogue. The first thing that we learned is that the goals, objectives and expected outcomes listed in each of the four operational areas of the dialogue are the final version of these documents that are being submitted by the DHS Study Groups. These documents now go into the final review process that will determine if and how these statements will make it into the final QHSR report that the Secretary is required to submit to Congress by the end of the year. Final Review Process Now, if these are the final version going into that review process, why is DHS using this 3rd Dialogue to ask for public comments? The answer is simple; DHS is using this in a way that is similar to the public comment period found in the regulatory development process. The comments will be used in the review process to affect the final document that will be provided to Congress. This makes it even more important that the public and various homeland security stakeholders get involved in the discussion process. Written comments, or ‘ideas’ (the term used on this site) are even more important in this dialogue. This can take the form of submission of a ‘new idea’ that comments directly on one of the goals, objectives or expected outcomes. The alternative is to provide comments on an ideas submitted by someone else. Importance of Making Comments In any case the comments should be constructive comments, explaining why you support disagree with, or would modify the idea. The comments should not be used to engage in the kind of shouting match that made so much news this past summer during the health care debate. Besides, ‘shouting’ someone down in a written forum like this is counter productive; it tends to make someone skip your comment. If you don’t have the time or inclination to provide written comments on the ideas submitted by others, there is still an effective way that you can participate, you can rate the ideas submitted by others. If you are signed into the site, all it takes is a mouse click on one of five stars to rate the idea. It takes no more time to rate the than it does to proceed to the next one. If you are going to read the idea, the least you can do is to rate it. Today the 3rd Dialogue is just about half over. Personally, I check into the Counterterrorism section at least once a day to read and rate new ideas. Then I go back and check for new comments on the ideas that I have previously identified as being of particular interest to me. Come this weekend, when I have some free time, I will go through the other effective areas reading and rating the ideas. Since those areas lie outside my particular area of expertise, I will be less likely to contribute ideas or directly comment on the ideas of others. If you are an expert or informed person in one of the DHS subject areas you have a special responsibility to contribute to this effort. This is especially true if you work at the point of the spear. Too often people in the government that make decisions about the rules and regulations without hearing from the people that are directly affected by those rules. This dialogue gives people with direct experience in homeland security matters a chance to provide personal input into the regulatory process.

QHSR Outcome 2.2.3

This morning I posted my third idea to the 3rd Dialogue for the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR). It addresses the Counterterrorism Outcome 2.2.3; “The manufacture, storage, or transfer of dangerous materials is protected by physical, personnel, and cyber security measures commensurate with the risks.” As usual, I urge you to go to the QHSR Dialogue site to look at this idea and rate it while you are there. Comments, pro or con, would be appreciated. I ask not only for myself, but also to solicit your participation in this exercise in public involvement in the policy setting process. While you are there you can also look at the ideas if posted for the other two Outcomes in Goal 2.2 that apply directly to those of us in the chemical security community. They are “Restricting Access to Dangerous Chemicals” and “Self-regulation of Dangerous Chemicals”. Comments have already been posted on those two ideas; join the conversation.

QHSR Outcome 2.2.2

Last night I made my second posting to the QHSR Dialogue about the proposed outcomes for Counterterrorism Objective 2.2. This time I looked at the self-regulation of the potential transfer of dangerous chemicals to terrorists or other malicious actors. Earlier Idea When I posted this second idea, I checked the first idea that I posted yesterday. There were eight responses and four people had rated my idea. I’m not sure that I understand some of the responses that were posted, but I am glad to see that people are taking the time to read and respond. The one interesting comment was from a person that wanted to know what types of readily available chemicals could be used to make toxic or explosive weapons. The commentor noted that only with such a list could an evaluation be made of whether strictly controlling those chemicals would be too intrusive. Any such list would reflect the experience and deviance of the provider. I would include household bleach and ammonia cleaners. Nitrogen trichloride is probably too unstable to be listed as a usable explosive by even terrorists, but as a binary explosive it has interesting capabilities, including the production of a toxic cloud. In any case, join the discussion at Counterterrorism on the QHSR Dialogue.

QHSR Outcome 2.2.1

This morning I posted a cautionary idea to the QHSR Dialogue. The idea deals with Counterterrorism outcome 2.2.1; “Access to dangerous materials is limited to legitimate users.” Feel free to jump in and comment on this, and other ideas posted on this Dialogue. It won’t be a dialogue unless people share their opinions.

QHSR Last Day

Today is the last day to take part in the second QHSR Dialogue. While there will be a third and final Dialogue at the end of the month, today will be the last chance to have your input on this phase of the QHSR process. When the Dialogue closes this evening the QHSR Study Groups will take the Objective Ratings and submitted Ideas into account as they formulate the versions of the goals and objectives that will be submitted to the DHS leadership for final approval. If you haven’t already taken some time out of your busy day to participate, now is the time to suck-it-up and make some time. Complete the registration so that you may rate the objectives for each of the goals listed in the four mission areas. Then go and do a quick look at all of the Ideas that have been submitted to date. These ideas provide input into how various people and groups think that the Department should go about achieving those goals and objectives. Take the time to rate those Ideas that are important to you and provide supporting comments where you think necessary. Chemical Security Issues As of 11:00 pm EDT yesterday there were only three Ideas that were specifically addressed at the chemical security community. Those Ideas were submitted by your friendly blogger. Two are in the Counterterrorism mission area and one is in the Disasters area. The three Ideas are: “Controlling Access to Chemical Agents at Water Treatment Plants” “Interdict Threats to Chemical Facilities” “Catastrophic Chemical Incidents” Needless to say, I would personally appreciate your review, rating and commenting on these three Ideas in particular. I’m not asking for a rubber stamp approval, but an honest consideration of the Ideas submitted. If you think that I’m completely off the mark you owe it to yourself and the country (and me, but that really isn’t that important) to make your opinion known. But, just the act of rating and commenting on these ideas will let the Study Groups know that chemical security is an important area for them to consider as they move forward in developing their recommendations for the leadership of the Department.

QHSR – Chemical Disasters

This last weekend I had a chance to look over the Disasters section of the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) Dialogue. I was surprised to find no mention of the potentially catastrophic disasters that could result from a toxic chemical release from any of a large number of chemical facilities. Such releases could be the result of industrial accidents, adverse weather events, or terrorist attacks. To be fair one of the objectives of the 2nd Goal in the Disasters section would probably include such an event. That objective reads:

“Prepare for Catastrophic Incidents: Recognize the unique characteristics of catastrophic disasters, the requirements those characteristics place on emergency management systems, and the gaps between requirements and capacity.”

Current Ideas There were two ideas that did touch concepts that would be required to support emergency response activities for such an incident. They were:

“Educate Communities on Actions to be taken during Catastrophic Events” “Supporting locals, securing national infrastructure, and information stewardship”

While neither of these ‘ideas’ specifically addresses chemical facilities, anyone in the chemical security community would do well to look at these two ideas. My New Idea As my readers can probably guess, I came up with and submitted an idea that specifically deals with emergency response planning for high-risk chemical facilities. I won’t go into details of it here as that is the whole point of the Dialogue; an on-site discussion. You can find it at: “Catastrophic Chemical Incidents”. My Other Ideas There was some additional discussion on my “Controlling Access to Chemical Agents at Water Treatment Plants” idea that I submitted earlier. I also had two interesting initial comments on my “Interdict Threats to Chemical Facilities” idea from the weekend. Look forward to more input from the readers of this Blog.

QHSR Dialogue Extended

I’ve done two 8-hour blocks of instruction for Georgia QuickStart in the last two days and have not felt like doing any writing when I got home, especially since it’s an hour drive each way to the training center. That’s why I am personally very happy to see that the end of the Second Dialogue of the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review has been extended until Wednesday, September 9th. They certainly did not do this specifically for me, but it will allow me some additional chances to make some comments in and on the Dialogue. According to an email I received from Graves Spindler from the DHS Office of Strategic Plans, this extension is being done because of “increased participation and the Labor Day Holiday Weekend”. It seems like DHS is getting even more hits on the Dialogue site than they did for the first Dialogue. Even more important they are getting more active participation, more ratings on the goals/objectives and more discussion of the ideas. If you haven’t yet had a chance to leave a comment on the Dialogue site, take advantage of the long weekend to stop by the Dialogue site and look over what some other people have been suggesting the Department do to achieve its goals. Then take part, put in your two cents worth by joining one of the existing discussions or adding your own unique ideas. To help make sure that other members of the chemical security community look at your ideas, drop me an email (pjcoyle@aol.com) with the link to your ‘idea’ or comment and I’ll publicize it on the blog. I’ll also be posting links to my comments. Check back with the blog periodically over the weekend (or watch for notices on Twitter) to keep up with the links. Maybe we can get some active chemical security discussions going on the site.

QHSR Bloggers Round Table – 8-31-09

Yesterday afternoon I took part in a Bloggers Round Table with DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary Alan Cohn discussing the QHSR Dialogue that re-started yesterday. This round table was part of the Department’s public outreach program trying to encourage public participation in the Dialogue. QHSR Dialogue Background Secretary Cohn started out the conversation with a review of the first Dialogue that took part in early August. In that Dialogue the QHSR Study Groups provided some draft goals for the Department and the public was asked to rate and comment upon those goals. During the registration process the visitors self-identified themselves as to their background. The largest group identified was ‘General Public’ followed closely by ‘Federal Government’. While Cohn did not give us the exact numbers (which I have been hoping to see on their web site) it does seem that the Department has at least partially achieved its goal of gaining public participation in the QHSR process. According to Cohn there were over 8200 ‘unique visitors’ to the QHSR Dialogue site during the first week. It did not look like most of those visitors were active participants. In a quick review of the voting on the Counterterrorism and Domestic Security ideas showed a maximum of 13 ‘votes’ for any one of the ideas. Combine that with the fact that there was only a total of about 200 ‘ideas’ submitted to the site and you see that while there was wide spread participation, the depth of that participation was lacking. Goals for 2nd Dialogue Secretary Cohn addressed this situation by noting that the Department was trying to get even wider and significantly more participative public involvement in the 2nd Dialogue this week. As I noted in yesterday’s blog this Dialogue involves rating the goals and objectives that were winnowed from the first Dialogue. The Department is also actively looking for ‘ideas’ on how the Department and the country can achieve those goals. This goals and objectives in this Dialogue definitely show the effects of comments received during the first iteration. Goals were re-worded to be clearer and more explicit. According to Cohn the Department made a specific attempt to tighten up the ‘lexicon’ used in the various sections so that the same words and phrases mean the same thing across the site. My least favorite weasel-worded phrase ‘man made hazards’ was removed completely. There was one area where the lexicon was deliberately not ‘tightened-up’ was with the term ‘resiliency’. DHS would like to see a discussion of what resiliency means to the various communities served by the Department. Since it is such a popular political term it is one that does need to discussed. Improving the Tool Secretary Cohn told us that the Department was actively reading what is being written in the blogosphere about the Dialogue. One of the reasons for this is that they are looking for the feedback that bloggers and their readers have provided to improve the site. One of the problems identified in this blog (the inability to cut and paste comments from word processing programs) has been specifically addressed in the latest version of the web site. DHS has also provided a direct feed back mechanism, so that complaints, comments and suggestions can be sent directly to the Department by clicking on the ‘Comments’ link on the bottom of each page. This takes one to a form that can be filled out by commenter. It will probably not result in changes to this week’s Dialogue (changes do take time after all), but there is still a third Dialogue to come and DHS intends to use this type tool in future QHSR’s. DHS Shill While not wanting to sound like part of the DHS PR department, I certainly recommend that anyone with an interest in any of the extended activities of the Department log onto the Dialogue web site and participate in both rating the goals/objectives listed and participate in the various discussions. It is not often that an individual or private company gets a chance, however small, in helping a cabinet level Department of the Federal Government set it’s goals and objectives for the next four years. If you don’t participate in the current QHSR it will be four years before you get your next chance. Readers of this blog, in particular, need to participate. The Department is in the process of putting together and implementing a number of chemical security programs across the wide scope of the Department’s enforcement authority. Take advantage of this opportunity to discuss how you would like to see the Department operate in these areas. I certainly have/will.

First Phase of Dialogue Complete

Yesterday was the last day of the first phase of the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Dialogue; an effort to bring a wide variety of participants from outside of the government sector into the Quadrennial Review process. According to the Dialogue web site today over “10,000 people — stakeholders and partners — joined in this first ever outreach effort by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)”. From what I saw that number seems a little bit high, but I (like most of the participants) could only see the number of people that posted comments or the tallies of the people that voted on the various ‘ideas’ on the site. There was no way for the participants to gauge how many people actually viewed the site or registered with the Dialogue. What would be interesting to see is the publication of the registration information of the participants. No, not the individual registrations, but the number of people that registered on the site and their background as noted in the information they provided during the registration process. What would also be interesting is to see a listing of the ideas submitted during this phase of the Dialogue as well as the rating information provided by the participants. This could provide fodder for those of us in the blogosphere to continue to keep the dialogue in the public view while the DHS working groups are looking at the results of the dialogue and preparing things for the next phase of the Dialogue that will start at the end of this month. In any case, I am looking forward to August 31st when the Dialogue opens for the phase II discussion.

QHSR Dialogue and Security

I ran into an interesting ‘idea’ yesterday posted on the QHSR Dialogue web site under the Counterterrorism and Domestic Security Management topic. If you remember from yesterday’s QHSR post, an ‘idea’ is any comment, information, or other posting made to the QHSR site by one of the participants. One thing that struck me about this ‘idea’ was the level of emotional content that was included in the description of the problem that platinum5152 identified in this idea. The other ideas that I have read are much more dispassionate. While I do not personally agree with the degree of the problem identified in this idea, it is refreshing to see that real passionate people with personal stakes in security issues feel free to involve themselves in this dialogue. You’ll note that I have completely danced around the actual issue involved here. The reason for that is that I want to separate out just a portion of identified idea for consideration in this posting. In fact, I want to just focus on just the first three sentences of the idea that platinum5152 posted and leave the rest of that posting to the QHSR Dialogue. Lack of Cyber Security Platinum5152 started off the idea by writing that:

“This DHS Quadrennial Homeland Security review website is not secure. When users are logging in and registering to put their ideas out here, the userids and passwords are being transmitted in the CLEAR! Anyone can sniff the line and get everyone's userid and password. DHS needs to focus more on cyber security!”

Now, from the remainder of the posted idea we can tell that our writer is an IT specialist with a background in security. Platinum5152 caught something that all internet users (myself included) are supposed to be alert for, the absence of the LOCK. Think about it, the little padlock in the corner of the browser that lets you know if it is safe to type your credit card number into the browser to buy whatever online fancy caught your attention. The writer noticed that the padlock was missing from both the registration and sign-in screens; not unlocked, but completely missing. Now that does not mean that those pages were not adequately protected; the person who designed those pages may simply have decided not included the security symbol on the page. It’s possible… not very likely… but possible. No, it is much more likely that no one considered the need for security on these pages. After all no credit card numbers, no social security numbers, nothing requiring security is being posted to these pages. But they did require passwords…interesting. No, I think that platinum5152 was correct, DHS does need to focus more on cyber security, as does everyone else connected to the Internet. Now to be fair, DHS did not set up the QHSR Dialogue site, they contracted with the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). So that means that DHS is not at fault for the lack of security, they are just responsible for it. Failure of Execution Unfortunately, this continues a pattern that I identified in my first posting about the QHSR Dialogue web site. The NAPA operators of this site have claimed that they are protecting the data posted to the site, promising that the information “will not be shared with any third parties or government organizations”. Again, I do believe their intentions are good. It is just their performance that is failing miserably. Again, I am torn between recommending participation and recommending that anyone that has not yet signed up for participation stay well away from the web site. I do think that the intent of this site is important and there is only limited personal identifying information being placed at risk. Those of us who have already posted our information on the registration page must consider that information to be compromised. The one thing that would be of the greatest concern for most people is the inadequate password security on the site. For those currently registered, if you use the same User ID and password combination on any other web site change the password on the other site(s) immediately. And don’t use your typical password generation techniques, those techniques are basically compromised through this NAPA tool leakage as well. Those who have not yet signed up for the page, but want to participate in the dialogue you have a couple of options. First ignore the warning, come on in, the water is fine. Actually, if you are careful about what information you disclose on the registration page, select a unique User Id for just this site and don’t forget to use a unique password you should be fine. Caveat Emptor. Or you could just wait for the second Dialogue at the end of August; just watch for the padlock. NAPA should have secure registration and sign-in set up by then. Finally, you could ignore the whole exercise and continue to curse the darkness. It is your decision; I’ll be here.

QHSR Now on Twitter

This is just a very quick note that you can now follow the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review on Twitter at QHSR Dialogue. Also, please remember that the first dialogue starts on Monday, August 3rd. So, if you want to participate go to the QHSR Dialogue Homepage and sign-up.

Signup for QHSR Dialogs

The DHS Blog had a brief piece yesterday about the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR). It addressed a subject that has already been covered here, the public dialog that DHS is including as an integral part of their review. What is new in this piece is that DHS is announcing the web site where we can sign-up to take part in the review. The web site is being hosted by the National Academy of Public Administration and I have a significant complaint about how they are dealing with things. First off, rather than keep things on the web site set up for this project, HomelandSecurityDialogue.org they have farmed out the hosting of documents to a separate web site Scribd.com. To view or download documents from this site you must register with Scribd.com. Now, I don’t know anything about this website or the people that run it, but this seems to be a crazy way to run a government sponsored dialogue. The one thing that really bothers me is that the privacy disclaimer on the HomelandSecurityDialogue.org web site specifically says that “Information collected through this page will only be used to contact you about this National Dialogue, and will not be shared with any third parties or government organizations, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.” Having to go through Scribd.com and register there makes that claim patently false. Now I have signed up, with some reluctance to be sure, with this mishmash of web sites to that I’ll be involved in the ‘dialogue’. I cannot, however, in good conscience recommend that anyone else do so. I will report on what ever kind of problems (or possibly the lack there of) that comes from signing up with this mess. I would certainly be willing to bet that my incoming spam rate is going to go way up. Buyer be ware and proceed with caution.