Congressional Hearings Week of 07-19-10

We have two hearings scheduled for the upcoming week that might be of interest to the chemical security community. Neither of them are directly about chemical security, but they are both looking at programs that have some impact on chemical facility security. Both will be held by Senate committees on Wednesday. The Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will be holding a hearing at 2:30 pm EDT the reauthorization of the SAFE Port Act. This legislation addresses security at ports around the nation. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing at 10:00 am EDT will look at the recently released Bottom Up Review of the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. Since the QHSR looks at how the Department will be working for the next four years, this could affect a wide number of chemical security programs.

Admin Review of QHSR Dialogue

Earlier this year I looked at the initial report by DHS on their Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. While we are waiting for the results of the Department’s ‘bottom-up’ review of the QHSR we can now read a review of the process used in the National Dialogue that formed a part of that review. The National Academy of Public Administration (the group that actually ran that ‘National Dialogue’) had a panel take a detailed look at the process and they published their report last week. Rather than looking at the QHSR Dialogue results, this report focuses more on the lessons learned in how to conduct this type of public interaction in the policy development realm. As such I think that this report will be beneficial to DHS and other government organizations at all levels in developing future interactive tools of this sort. Of particular interest to me was the 5th section of the report that dealt with the legal issues surrounding the conduct of this type of review. It includes a discussion of how the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 impedes the formation of this type of information exchange. The bureaucratic rules governing the ‘collection of information’ with its 60-day and 30-day notice requirements for information collection requests was never intended to deal with this type of electronic communications. This report recommends that OMB and the White House Counsel’s Office issue a “issue a legal opinion on the circumstances under which the PRA and similar statutes apply to publicly available collaborative engagement opportunities and such platforms as the National Dialogue on the QHSR” (page 60). I think that it might be more appropriate for Congress to look at updating the 30 year old legislation to bring it into line with the electronic age and Web 2.0 technologies. DISCLOSURE NOTE: One of my blog postings was quoted in this report (page 27, footnote 22), so the report drafters were astute and well read. Unfortunately they got the link wrong; the quote comes from the following blog post: http://chemical-facility-security-news.blogspot.com/2009/09/qhsr-bloggers-round-table-8-31-09.html In any case, this report provides some interesting discussions about the mechanics of last year’s National Dialogue and how to use that technique in the future. Of course, I’m more interested in the DHS report on the bottom-up review…

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

QHSR Dialogue 3 Started

Earlier today DHS and the National Academy of Public Administration started the third and final public dialogue on DHS goals and objectives. These dialogues are part of the first Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR); taking a hard look at where the Department has been and where it is going in the next four years. The QHSR is patterned after the DOD Quadrennial Review, but the public dialogue is something unique to the QHSR. The first Dialogue had the public look at goals that were proposed by a variety of study groups from within the Department. The public was given an opportunity to rate and comment upon those goals and suggest potential objectives that would support the achievement of those goals. The study groups took the feed back from the first dialogue and refined the goals and suggested objectives that would support them. The second Dialogue provided a new public forum to rate the newly developed objectives and suggest ways that those objectives could be achieved. Once again, the information and suggestions developed in that dialogue were given to the study groups to further refine the goals and objectives. Today, as part of the last Dialogue the study groups have provided refined goals and objectives and a series of ‘outcomes’ that would support each of those objectives. Rather than have the public numerically rate each of the potential outcomes as they rated the objectives in the previous Dialogue, DHS is instead asking for comments and suggestions on how those outcomes can be achieved. Chemical Security The term chemical security is not specifically used in any of the Counterterrorism and Domestic Security Management section of the Dialogue. There are, however, a number of objectives and outcomes that are directly related to the chemical security community. The most obvious is Objective 2.2, Control Access. That objective states that terrorists “and other malicious actors are unable to gain access to dangerous materials, technologies and expertise”. There are three proposed outcomes that support that objective; outcomes that are directly related to the chemical security community. They are:

Outcome 2.2.1: Access to dangerous materials is limited to legitimate users. Outcome 2.2.2: A culture of awareness and responsibility exists within industries that manufacture, store or sell potentially dangerous materials and among experts with knowledge of their use. 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.

Over the next couple of days, I will be posting some ideas to address how I think that these outcomes can become reality. The suggestions will be directed at both DHS and the chemical security community. I would hope that readers would also have, and share, ideas about these specific outcomes. As I did in the previous Dialogue, I will be limiting the discussion of these ideas to the QHSR site. That is where the comments will serve the greater purpose. That is where this discussion needs to take place if this portion of the QHSR is to succeed. I look forward to seeing your ideas and your comments on my ideas posted on the QHSR site. When you post your ideas, drop me an email or post a comment to the blog point me and the rest of our community at your ideas.

Reader Comment – 08-31-09 – QHSR Dialogue

Reader Laurie Thomas, a maritime security professional, has posted a comment to yesterday’s blog about the start of the second stage of the QHSR Dialogue. Readers might remember that Laurie was not too thrilled with the first Dialogue; well her opinion has not changed too awfully much. While some of her earlier comments have been partially addressed in this version, Laurie has some additional critical observations that are worth reading and discussing. Inadequate Instructions Laurie writes that: “Maybe it's just me, but I find it distressing that the agency that is in charge of the internal security of my country produces a paragraph of directions that needs to be read three times before comprehension can occur.” I think that Laurie is referring to the instructions for conducting the ratings of the goals and objectives within those goals. The instructions were less than clear and I found it easier to play with the colored slides on the diagrams to figure out what was going on. Now I have spent a great deal of time in my professional life writing instructions for complex chemical operations. One of the things that I learned early on was that easy to understand instructions are anything but easy to write. Laurie points out another thing that I learned the hard way, beta-testing certainly helps make instructions clearer. One interesting thing is that Laurie took advantage of the discussion tool available on the site to provide detailed comments about the problems that she identified. The discussion of her ‘idea’ has proved to have some popularity with at least 10 participants rating her idea and a total of 7 comments having been posted to date. While this discussion is not directly related to the goals and objectives ideas, it is important to DHS and the web site ‘owners’ the National Academy of Public Administration. I learned yesterday that DHS and NAPA took similar comments made in the earlier dialogue to heart when they were making changes to the system used in the current Dilogue. So Laurie, take heart your comments will be heard. In the ongoing discussion Laurie notes that this topic is not really about Counterterrorism, but that there is no heading to place a discussion about the site itself. While this is true, there is a way to address site problems to NAPA. At the bottom of every page is a ‘Contact’ link. This will take one to a page where site complaints and comments can be filed. Control of Content Laurie also notes that “the comment function seems to be open to any kind of interchange between dialogue participants, including off-topic statements like ‘Get off my planet’.” The Dialogue was designed to allow for free flowing discussion of ideas. Unfortunately this may result in off-subject, off-color or just plain inappropriate remarks. Users of this site do need to remember that this is a public discussion and a certain amount of decorum is necessary for a real exchange of ideas to take place. NAPA does note that this is a moderated web site and they do reserve the right to remove inappropriate comments from the system. Their five deadly sins, according to their Moderation Policy page are:

“Threats or incitements to violence “Use of obscenity “Duplicative or substantially duplicative postings by the same person or entity “Postings seeking employment or containing advertisements for a commercial product or service “Information posted in violation of law, including libel, condoning or encouraging illegal activity, revealing classified information, or infringing on a copyright or trademark”

Specific complaints about inappropriate remarks or complaints about having remarks improperly removed from the site may be addressed by clicking on the ‘Contact’ link on the bottom of any page. Do Not Be Discouraged I would like to remind everyone concerned that this is a new and unique social networking tool being developed by a semi-governmental agency (NAPA). It does take a lot of work to make such a tool readily useable. While there are many problems with the site, I am very well pleased with the progress that has been made to date and I think NAPA is to be thanked for their efforts. More importantly though, everyone needs to remember that the goal of this site is to seek public participation in a very unusual process. We have a unique chance to help to influence in some small way the course of DHS over the next four years. To fail to avail ourselves of that chance because of a less than perfectly designed tool seems to be more than a little short sighted. I urge Laurie and all readers of this blog to take the time to contribute from your store of knowledge and experience to this Dialogue. It may take time that is in short supply, but the government has a great need for our insight. This small contribution will help to make this world a better place.

2nd QHSR Dialogue Starts Monday

I got a TWIT the other day from qhsrdialogue to remind me that the second Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) Dialogue will start on Monday, August 31st. The QHSR Dialogue staff at the National Academy of Public Administration promise that the web site has been improved for the Second Dialogue and it will be even more interactive. This dialogue will focus more on helping to set priorities for DHS. If you signed up for the First Dialogue, you should continue to receive notices about the 2nd. If you are not already signed up you can sign up at http://homelandsecuritydialogue.org/. They have already made one improvement they no longer require you to provide any personal information beyond your email address.

QHSR – First Dialogue

Yesterday DHS started the public discussion of the first of three public discussions that will form the dialogue portion of the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR). To join in the discussion go to the Homeland Security Dialogue web page and log in. If you signed up for the dialogue when that function was still being handled by the third party website, Scribd.com, like I did, then you might find that you are not registered on the site. Don’t worry about it, you can register on the Dialogue web page. Remember that both your username and password are case sensitive so make sure that your CAPS LOCK key is not engaged when you register. Topic Areas There are six topic areas on this first dialogue and you will find them in prominent colored blocks on the Dialogue web page. The six topic areas are: Counterterrorism and Domestic Security Management Securing Our Borders Smart and Tough Enforcement of Immigration Laws Preparing for, Responding to, and Recovering from Disasters Homeland Security National Risk Assessment Homeland Security Planning and Capabilities There is nothing that says that you have to limit your participation to just one or two of the topic areas. I plan of focusing on the Counterterrorism and Domestic Security Management (CDSM) topic since that will contain most of my interests in chemical security matters, but I also plan on visiting each of the other topics at least once during this first dialogue. These topic areas will carry through each of the three planned dialogues. If this program works the way that it is intended by DHS you should be able to follow the development of the mission, goals and priorities for each of these topic areas through the three dialogues over the next two months. Mission and Goals The first thing that you are going to see in each of the topic areas is a mission statement and a set of goals that support that mission. These have been formulated by study groups formed within DHS. These are the first pass of what some people in DHS think is a description of what DHS should be accomplishing in the topic area and the goals it needs to meet to properly accomplish that mission. Typically these draft statements would be reviewed by the Department leadership who would provide feedback to the study groups who would revise and resubmit the draft statements. After some number of iterations the Department would have an approved mission statement with supporting goals. What QHSR is doing with these dialogues is asking for input from the affected community as part of the review, re-write cycle. The final decision will still be made by the political leadership at DHS, but they will have a wider range of inputs and evaluations to consider. Hopefully, this will provide a better final product. The question that must be asked is why missions and goals? Why isn’t the discussion about policy or regulations? The simple answer is that the development of regulations is controlled by an existing political process that already includes provisions for public input and participation. Missions and goals will guide the department in the development and implementation of future policies that will color the enforcement of those regulations. Finally, the discussion of past, current and future policies will almost certainly become involved in the discussion of mission and goals. After all, how better to illustrate ones arguments than to illustrate them with contemporary examples. The Dialogue The ‘interactive dialogue’ comes in a variety of flavors on each topic page. First one gets to rate the ‘idea’ provided either by the DHS Study Group or one of the other participants in the dialogue. The rating is a simple selection of stars, one to five with five being the highest rating. As is typical for this type of rating (found on a wide variety of web pages) the site automatically tabulates and displays the average rating and the number of ‘votes’. As implied by the description above, the site also provides for the submission of additional ‘ideas’ by the community. These can take the form of comments about, or critiques of the study group provided information, in this case the mission statement and goals. Alternatively, the idea can be suggested alternatives to the study group provided wording or even just a discussion of the issues raised by the study group or one of the other participants. When I looked over the CDSM topic yesterday morning, the number of comments was somewhat manageable and I had the opportunity to review most of the comments that had been posted. With the aggressive way that QHSR Dialogue is advertising the dialogue on Twitter and the support they are getting from bloggers (like myself), DHS agencies and other interested parties, the number of comments will certainly grow well beyond the number that can be casually browsed. The managers of the site have provided a search tool and allow the comment poster and reviewers of comments to ‘tag’ the comments with descriptive terms that should allow for easy review of similar comments. Even so, as new ‘ideas’ are posted to the site they will displace older comments from the more easily browsed section of the site. If the rate of posting new ideas is relatively constant, the number of reviews posted for each new ‘idea’ posted to the site should vary within a fairly narrow range. The original postings by the study group always remain on the page so they will have a significantly larger number of reviews. Manipulating the Dialogue I am not sure why the site organizers included the rating system. I’m sure that they know how easy it is to manipulate such a system. A person or organization that wants to inflate the appearance of support for their position need only record the URL where their comment is posted. Then, they would share that URL with a community of like-minded individuals who would rate that idea exclusively, inflating the number of individuals responding to that particular idea as well as skewing the average rating value. More manipulative commentors would ensure that the members of their community would each have multiple registrations further inflating the numbers. Since there were no ‘humanity checks’ on the registration, a completely shameless manipulation of ratings could be conducted with a bot network owned or operated by a single individual. These manipulations of the dialogue rating system would only affect that system, so an informed observer can ignore obviously inflated ratings. The actual ideas presented are the real key to this process and are much less subject to manipulation. Multiple submissions of the same idea are more difficult to hide; obvious duplication will simply be ignored. A more effective technique would be to use multiple submissions in the form of a discussion or dialogue about the idea. An organization could submit an idea using one registration and then have other members submit weak, straw man arguments against the idea. Strong counter arguments would then be presented. While a discussion of the ideas is what DHS is looking for in this dialogue, a manipulated discussion of this sort may make an idea look better than it really is. The manipulator does need to insure that the straw man arguments are weak and the response is strong or else the observer will be lead to the deficiencies in the argument. Future Discussions I’ll continue to watch this process as it develops this week and post blogs as appropriate. I doubt that I will cover specific issues that are raised here in the blog; instead I’ll provide my input related to issues in the Dialogue. If you’re interested in following those comments you can search ‘PJCoyle’ or ‘Chemical Facility Security News’. Here on this blog I’ll be more focused on process issues. One thing that I will continue to do is to encourage readers to take part in the Dialogue. It isn’t often that individuals can watch and participate in the development of the mission and goals of a Cabinet Department, especially one as important as DHS. Take the opportunity, provide some input, participate.

QHSR ICR Redux 06-30-09

DHS published a second 30-day information collection request (ICR) notice in today’s Federal Register for their new public information collection effort for the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. As I promised in my blog posting about the first ICR (published on June 2nd) I am providing additional information as it becomes available. According to this latest ICR notice DHS is currently planning on holding three ‘collaboration events’ on-line. They will be ‘held’ for five days on July 16-20, August 13-17, and September 17-21. The public will be invited to provide input on Homeland Security topics in which they are interested. Participants input will include (74 FR 31287):

“Comment and rate phase I solicited input, thereby prioritizing those concepts and suggestions they deem critical and which should be considered by the study groups during their respective reviews. “Comment on and rate proposed strategic objectives and key strategic outcome statements for the homeland security mission areas under review. “Vote on proposed mission objectives and outcome statements as to whether they agree or disagree with the proposed content.”

QHSR Study Groups will prepare input for the first two collaborative events and the feedback from each will be included in subsequent Study Group deliberations. The final Study Group reports will be ‘evaluated’ and voted upon by the public in the final collaborative event in September. The public will be notified of the actual content that will be included in the collaborative events on the QHSR web site. Additional communications options being considered include announcements via the FedBiz network and a variety of social networking site/tools such as Facebook and Twitter. I will certainly include such announcements in my blog postings. Again, this sounds like it may be a very good tool for the government to get detailed public input into the policy development process. For this to work effectively, it will require a lot of detailed input from a wide variety of people. I certainly encourage all members of the chemical security community to participate in this process.