Dual-Benefit Solutions

Medical Records Can Help Track Threats and Benefit Research (Government Health IT) “Faster Cures: the Center for Accelerating Medical Solutions, a 2-year-old organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., issued a report [on 20 October] touting the potential benefits of having information about the medical treatment of thousands or millions of patients online and available to researchers,” reports Government Health IT. The report says that “data in medical records can help in identifying emerging health threats, pointing the way to new treatments, evaluating drug effects over a long period of time, and making clinical trials of new drugs less expensive and easier to undertake.” [View article]

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Federal News

Natl. Guard Leaves Equipment Overseas National Guard units returning from overseas operations have left equipment, such as radios and trucks, for follow-on forces, according to David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, who testified before the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform on 20 October. The Army National Guard estimates that its units left over 64,000 items valued at over $1.2 billion overseas. However, the Army cannot account for over half of these items and does not have a plan to replace them, as Defense Department policy requires. Nondeployed Guard units now have only about one-third of the equipment they need for their overseas missions, which hampers their ability to prepare for future missions and conduct domestic operations. [View abstract]

Supporting Plans for the National Maritime Security Strategy The Homeland Security, Defense, and State departments have completed and given final approval for eight plans supporting the National Strategy for Maritime Security: Maritime Commerce Security, Maritime Transportation Systems Security, Maritime Infrastructure Recovery, Maritime Operational Threat Response, Maritime Domain Awareness, Global Maritime Intelligence Integration, and Domestic and International Outreach. The supporting plans work to enhance international cooperation while maximizing domain awareness that will create necessary layers of security intended to stop terrorist and other threats against the United States as far from U.S. shores as possible while assuring continuity of the Marine Transportation System. [View press release]

TSA Federal Security Directors Need Clearer Authority, Says GAO The Transportation Security Administration’s Federal Security Directors oversee security, including the screening of passengers and their baggage, at the nation’s more than 440 commercial airports. “TSA has issued guidance that clearly defines [the directors’] roles and responsibilities. However, TSA’s guidance related to [the directors’] authority is outdated and lacks clarity regarding [their] authority relative to other airport stakeholders,” according to a September Government Accountability Office report to the Ranking Democratic Member of the House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. [View abstract]

U.S. and Canada Sign Container Security Initiative Partnership An agreement signed on 20 October “represents a commitment between the U.S. and Canada to partner in one of the most revolutionary initiatives, CSI, to extend our mutual zones of security outward to foreign seaports,” said Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner. It will “ensure that the North American perimeter remains secure while improving the flow of trade at our maritime ports,” said Canada Border Services Agency President Alain Jolicoeur. [View press release]

FEMA Case-Management Program Assists With Long-Term Recovery A $66 million Federal Emergency Management Agency case management grant, using $35 million in donations from the international community, will employ the United Methodist Committee on Relief and the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster to assist Hurricane Katrina survivors with comprehensive long-term recovery needs. The program will create a nationwide system of 3,000 case managers dedicated to assisting disaster survivors with unmet needs, such as longer-term housing and social services, complementing the existing casework in communities across the nation to help individuals with the most extensive needs rebuild their lives. [View press release]

DHS and EPA Plan Center of Excellence for Research on Microbial Risk Assessment The Department of Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency will establish a jointly funded research center based at Michigan State University to fill critical gaps in microbial risk assessment needed to support homeland security objectives. One grant of $10 million for five years was awarded to establish the center. [View press release]

White House Extends State of Emergency on WMD Proliferation On Tuesday, President Bush extended for one year a state of emergency concerning proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The emergency was declared by President Clinton on 14 November 1994 and amended by two subsequent executive orders. [View notice]

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National News

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Port Authority Found Negligent in 1993 Bombing (New York Times) “A Manhattan jury said [Wednesday] that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was negligent in safeguarding the World Trade Center before the first terror attack on the twin towers, the 1993 bombing that killed six people and injured 1,000,” reports the New York Times. “In a verdict that could prove costly for the Port Authority, the six-member jury in State Supreme Court unanimously found that the agency did not heed warnings that the underground garage was vulnerable to terrorist attack and should be closed to public parking.” [View article]

List of Foiled Plots Puzzles Officials (Washington Post) “A White House list of 10 terrorist plots disrupted by the United States has confused counterterrorism experts and officials, who say they cannot distinguish between the importance of some incidents on the list and others that were left off,” reports the Washington Post. They “said the White House overstated the gravity of the plots by saying that they had been foiled, when most were far from ready to be executed. Others noted that the nation’s color-coded threat index was not raised from yellow, or ‘elevated’ risk of attack, to orange, or ‘high’ risk, for most of the time covered by the incidents on the list.” [View article]

FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations (Washington Post) “The FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to previously classified documents,” reports the Washington Post. “… Although heavily censored, the documents provide a rare glimpse into the world of domestic spying, which is governed by a secret court and overseen by a presidential board that does not publicize its deliberations. The records are also emerging as the House and Senate battle over whether to put new restrictions on the controversial USA Patriot Act.” [View article]

Fast Outlay of FEMA Aid Draws Scrutiny (Seattle Times) In the days after Hurricane Katrina, “the federal government cut red tape to rush $2,000 checks and debit cards to help victims pay for clothes, food, transportation and a place to live. The Federal Emergency Management Agency intended the aid for displaced Gulf Coast families and limited it to one payment per household. But in three Louisiana parishes, FEMA issued more checks than there are households, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $70 million, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation has found. And in 36 parishes and counties in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, FEMA awarded $102 million to at least 51,000 more applicants than local officials said were displaced by the storm.… So far, 14 people have been charged with fraud in connection with the $2,000 aid payments.” [View article]

U.K. Ahead of U.S. in Pandemic Planning (Government Health IT) “The United Kingdom [has] released its second influenza pandemic contingency plan since March, while the United States still works to develop and release its plan to deal with the consequences of a massive outbreak of influenza,” reports Government Health IT. “The United States also lags behind the European Union in the use of surveillance systems to provide early warning of outbreaks that could lead to a pandemic. About 13,000 sentinel physicians in 25 countries, covering a population of 464 million, provide weekly reports to the EU’s European Influenza Surveillance Scheme (EISS). In contrast, in the United States, which has a population of 295 million, only 1,000 doctors provide weekly reports on flu-like symptoms, such as fevers, coughs and sore throats, to the U.S. Influenza Sentinel Providers Surveillance Network.” [View article]

Intl. Conference Calls for Better Global Disease Surveillance (Government Health IT) “Health ministers and delegates from more than 30 countries and international health organizations meeting in Ottawa, Canada, this week called for beefed up efforts, including improved disease surveillance systems, to prepare for a possible flu pandemic,” reports Government Health IT. “… at the end of the two-day ‘Global Pandemic Influenza Readiness’ meeting, delegates, including Mike Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that ‘while at this time, there is no pandemic influenza anywhere in the world, vigilance and surveillance need to remain high.’” [View article]

DHS Inspector General Raps Secret Service’s Network Security (Government Computer News) “The Secret Service is falling short in its efforts to protect sensitive online data about its operations and in securing its IT networks, according to two new reports from Homeland Security Department inspector general Richard L. Skinner,” reports Government Computer News. “The IG’s audit found inadequacies in the security controls for sensitive data about protective operations contained in the Secret Service Web System (SSWeb). A redacted copy of the audit is available on the IG’s Web site.” [View article]

DHS Intelligence Offices Remain Separated (Washington Times) “The Department of Homeland Security is still not close to integrating the 10 separate intelligence offices run by its 22 component agencies,” reports United Press International. “‘We have some way to go before we have a truly unified intelligence enterprise and culture,’ Charlie Allen, the department’s chief intelligence officer, said in an interview last week, after giving testimony about his new role to two House subcommittees. Mr. Allen, a 47-year veteran CIA official, came out of a brief retirement three weeks ago to work as Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s top intelligence adviser. He also has the daunting tasks of defining the department’s role in the increasingly crowded field of U.S. intelligence agencies and managing the department’s eclectic collection of ‘nontraditional’ intelligence-gathering operations, such as mapping trends in document forgery or other kinds of fraud by people trying to enter the country illegally.” [View article]

Iraqi Women Take Up Arms (Washington Times) “While most Iraqi women live in fear of terrorists and criminals, one small band of women has taken up arms and is prepared to fight back,” reports the Washington Times. “Employed by a private security company, the women ride in the front passenger seat posing as ordinary housewives when the company’s drivers transport customers around the city in nondescript vehicles. But their firearms are always close at hand, and they are trained to respond with force if they come under attack.” [View article]

Minuteman Volunteers Vow to Secure U.S. Border (Washington Times) A diverse section of Americans make up the “160 Minuteman volunteers who signed up to stand watches along the isolated and often-desolate New Mexico border,” reports the Washington Times. Ever since “Arizona has become the focal point of a law-enforcement initiative by the [U.S.] Border Patrol … more and more illegal aliens--and drug smugglers--[are coming into] New Mexico. The agency recently assigned agents out of El Paso [Texas] to augment the New Mexico effort, but it is a daunting challenge.” The “Minuteman effort here--part of a massive border vigil all along the U.S.-Mexico border and in seven states along the Canadian border--is aimed at persuading the government to provide adequate border security.” [View article]

Spy Agencies Told to ‘Bolster the Growth of Democracy’ (New York Times) “A new strategy document issued Wednesday by the Bush administration ranks efforts to ‘bolster the growth of democracy’ among the three top missions for American intelligence agencies,” reports the New York Times. “John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, said the rankings were intended to align the work of intelligence agencies with the administration’s broader national security goals. The top two ‘mission objectives’ are efforts to counter terrorism and weapons proliferation.” [View article] [View National Intelligence Strategy]

Israel Plans Campaign in Response to Terror Bombing (CNN) “Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has approved a campaign against specific security targets in the wake of a suicide bombing that killed five Israelis and wounded 28 others, a Sharon adviser told CNN on Thursday. The approval came on Wednesday, the same day as the bombing, the adviser said. The campaign is to include arrests, prevention of terror attacks and targeted killings, and does not have a specific time limit.” [View article]

Homeland Security Implements Rule on Digitized Passport Photos (Government Executive) “A Homeland Security Department rule that went into effect Wednesday requires visitors from certain countries to carry passports with digital photos and punishes carriers that transport people to the United States without the new passports,” reports Government Executive. “Under the rule, the 27 countries that are part of the U.S. Visa Waiver Program must issue their citizens passports with digitized photographs, rather than photos that are glued or laminated onto the document. The requirement comes as part of U.S. efforts to crack down on the use of fraudulent passports and close a loophole that DHS officials say could be exploited by terrorists.” [View article]

Stringent New ID Requirements for Govt. Cards (Government Computer News) “Beginning [yesterday], government IDs may be issued only by trusted authorities designated under Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12, and those receiving the cards must meet stringent new identity proofing requirements,” reports Government Computer News. “One year from now, these ID cards must meet technical standards for a governmentwide smart card that can be verified across agency lines for both physical and IT system access. Although agencies appear to be on track for meeting these deadlines, the new requirements may pose headaches for government employees and contractors receiving the cards. Required extensive background checks could delay card issuance for months.” [View article]

Communications Interoperability Issues Dominate Hearing (Government Computer News) “Obstacles to achieving seamless communications between police, fire, ambulance and other first-responder agencies prompted sharp comments from lawmakers during a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing” Wednesday, reports Government Computer News. “Communications interoperability woes were prominent in the analysis of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The recent hurricanes that devastated the Gulf Coast region have brought new attention to the problem. The Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science and Technology heard testimony from witnesses from the Homeland Security Department’s Safecom e-government program and the National Communications System, the Federal Communications Commission, the Pentagon and the Agriculture Department’s Forest Service.” [View article]

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International News

Wipe Israel ‘Off the Map,’ Says Iran’s President (International Herald Tribune) “Iran’s conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Wednesday that Israel must be ‘wiped off the map’ and that attacks by Palestinians would destroy it,” the Iranian Students’ News Agency reported, according to the New York Times. “Ahmadinejad was speaking to an audience of about 4,000 students at a program called ‘The World Without Zionism,’ in preparation for an annual anti-Israel demonstration on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.… Ahmadinejad said in his remarks Wednesday that the issue of a Palestinian state would be resolved only when Palestinians took control of all their lands.” [View article]

Al-Zarqawi’s European Conspirators Jailed (London Times) “Four Islamic radicals accused of planning to bomb Jewish targets in Germany were jailed for up to eight years [Wednesday] in a case that exposed the links between the terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and European networks,” reports the Times. “The verdict on the three Jordanian Palestinians and an Algerian puts in place an important cog in international efforts to understand and track down al-Zarqawi, who is behind terror attacks in Iraq. For the first time, a court has established how al-Zarqawi, who has a $25 million (£14 million) bounty on his head, runs his cells in Europe.” [View article]

Men and Weapons Flow Across Border From Syria Into Lebanon (Lebanon Daily Star) “Weapons continue to flow across the Syrian border to Palestinian groups and others in Lebanon, despite the Lebanese government’s efforts to crack down and assert its authority, a new UN report said on Wednesday,” reports the Lebanon Daily Star. “… the report said that Syria acknowledged that arms and people were being smuggled back and forth over the border.” [View article]

Terror Laws Will Apply to Animal Rights Lobby (London Times) “Animal rights activists who glorify militant acts against economic targets and laboratories are to face prosecution under terror laws aimed at al-Qaeda supporters,” reports the Times. “The move, confirmed [on 24 October] by Charles Clarke, [Britain’s] Home Secretary, means that extremists convicted under the new legislation could be jailed for seven years and suspects held without charge for up to three months.” [View article]

Eliminating London Bus Conductors May Help Terrorists (London Times) London’s “buses have become more vulnerable to terrorists since the removal of conductors, according to a senior police officer,” reports the London Times. “No London buses will have conductors after December 9 when the last route served by open-platform Routemasters is switched to driver-only vehicles. Colin Cramphorn, the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, where three of the July 7 bombers were based, said that the attack on the No 30 bus would probably not have happened if a conductor had been on board.” [View article]

Setback for Australia’s New Antiterror Laws (Melbourne, Australia, Age) Australian “Prime Minister John Howard has been forced to agree to further discussions with the states after claims by Queensland and Western Australia that the proposed counter-terrorism laws may be unconstitutional,” reports the Age. On Sunday, “Attorney-General Philip Ruddock … [had] told The Sunday Age it was ‘quite possible’ the new control orders would be used as soon as the legislation was passed in December.” But a “setback for the legislation--due in Parliament next week and to be passed before Christmas--[is] … the alleged problem [that] relates to the judiciary performing executive functions in relation to control orders and preventive detention. Under the constitution, the executive and the judiciary must remain separate.… Mr Howard indicated he may agree to some changes, and said he had asked federal and state legal offices to discuss them. But he insisted: ‘The legal advice we have is that there is nothing unconstitutional.’” [View 23 October article] [View 25 October article] [View 26 October article]

Bush Urges Palestinians to Reject Terror (Lebanon Daily Star) President “Bush pressured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on [20 October] to crack down on ‘armed gangs’ to advance a peace process he said may not create a Palestinian state for years,” reports Reuters. “Speaking at a joint Rose Garden news conference after talks with Abbas, Bush said the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank had created new opportunities and responsibilities for the Palestinians.” [View article]

Experts Say Canadian Security Must Diversify (Toronto Globe and Mail) Canadian “federal security agencies need to recruit more employees from diverse ethnic communities to foster trust and co-operation, says the deputy minister of public safety,” Margaret Bloodworth, according to the Canadian Press. “Security organizations run the risk that some cultural groups will close ranks and stop communicating with the government if support is lacking, [she] told the annual conference of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies.” She “told delegates [that] the intelligence world must ‘more actively’ seek out employees from the numerous and varied communities that make up Canada.” [View article]

State Dept. Urges Preparation for Bioterror Attacks (Manila Times) “All countries need to improve their defenses against terrorist attacks using biological and chemical weapons because terror groups have threatened to use them, … Henry Crumpton, the US State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator,” said Saturday in Manila during a Southeast Asian tour to encourage regional efforts against terrorism. “He said al-Qaeda and its Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiah, have made their intentions to use biological and chemical weapons ‘abundantly clear’ in their statements and training manuals.” [View article]

Philippines Not Prepared for Bioterror (Manila Times) “A chemical or biological attack by terrorists today would leave the country’s security forces completely helpless, a police official said Sunday,” reports the Manila Times. The official “said the police have neither the equipment nor the technology to combat bioterrorism because” they lack “funds to buy them. ‘We need decontamination chambers, suits, gas masks, and training to prepare against such an attack. But we have not invested on such equipment and measures,’ the source said.” [View article]

Scots Warned About Al-Qaeda Attack (Scotsman) As police in London were questioning three men suspected of involvement in terrorism, “Scots were warned that they are not immune from al-Qaeda attacks,” reports the Scotsman. “… Jim Brooks, a vice-president of London-based security consultants Control Risks Group, warned that Edinburgh and Glasgow possessed the kind of internationally famous targets that would attract terrorist attention. Brooks, who served with the US Navy Seals special forces, was in Scotland to address business executives. ‘Terrorists will move out of areas such as London to mount attacks in places they hope will be easier,’ he said.” [View article]

Palestinians Plan to Disarm Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades (Haaretz) “The Palestinians plan to begin disarming the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in the coming weeks by setting up training camps and incorporating its members into the Palestinian security forces, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia announced Sunday,” reports the Associated Press. “Dismantling the Al-Aqsa Brigades, a violent group linked to the ruling Fatah party, would mark a significant step toward restoring law and order in the chaotic Palestinian territories.… [although] previous attempts … have had little success.” [View article]

Terrorists May Exploit Syria Crisis (London Times) “The exposure of an alleged assassination plot by key officials in Syria could cause the regime in Damascus to collapse, undermining America’s efforts to prevent terrorists from slipping across the border with Iraq, US intelligence agencies have warned,” reports the Times. “A United Nations report accusing senior Syrians of complicity in the murder in February of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister, has caused diplomatic dilemmas for President George W Bush and Bashar Assad, the Syrian president. American, British and Israeli intelligence agencies have concluded that Assad’s position has been seriously weakened by the allegations that his powerful brother-in-law, Asef Shawkat, the head of Syria’s military intelligence, plotted to murder Hariri, a prominent opponent of Syrian involvement in Lebanon, who died when his motorcade was blown up in Beirut.” [View article]

China Will Close Borders If Struck by Bird Flu (London Guardian) “China will shut its borders if there is a single case of human-to-human transmission of bird flu in the country, its deputy health minister has said,” reports the London Observer. “As bird flu entered Britain [Saturday] with the discovery of the virus in a parrot in quarantine, Huang Jiefu said saving lives would be Beijing’s main priority even if it meant a slowdown in the economy.” [View article]

Chechen Warlord’s Website Reopens (Moscow Gazette) “A Web site used by a Chechen warlord to claim responsibility for last month’s school siege in Russia has come back online based out of Finland, three weeks after Lithuania shut it down following pressure from Moscow,” reports Reuters. The TeliaSonera “Kavkaz Center site was used by Shamil Basayev to claim responsibility for the Beslan siege” but a TeliaSonera spokesman “said [that] according to Finnish law the site could only be shut [down] if it posted child pornography or racist or bigoted content.” [View article]

An American Intelligence Reorganization Not All That Smart (Lebanon Daily Star) The U.S. “intelligence reshuffle was the product of two warring impulses that have been apparent in this administration’s foreign policy from the start—a ‘realist’ support for strong, independent spy agencies, and a ‘neoconservative’ mistrust, bordering on outright hatred, of the CIA as a supposed obstacle to the president’s goals,” says columnist David Ignatius in the Lebanon Daily Star. The restructuring’s “aim was to revitalize U.S. intelligence. But rather than consolidate and streamline the overlapping agencies, the new system has added even more boxes to the organization chart. The result has been a further layering of the intelligence community’s bureaucracy, and further demoralization among career intelligence officers.” [View article]

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State and Local News

Local Officials Say Govt. Role in Bird-Flu Response Is Limited (Government Executive) “If a bird-flu pandemic hits the United States, don’t expect to see the federal government riding to the rescue,” reports the National Journal. “‘Communities, in large part, will be on their own,’ predicts Pat Libbey, the executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.… The federal role in such a pandemic would be largely policy-oriented and advisory, Libbey and local health officials explain.” [View article]

Mayors’ Group Urges Bigger Military Role in Emergency Response (Government Executive) “The U.S. Conference of Mayors on Monday recommended changes to the federal government’s procedures for responding to emergencies, including greater military assistance and ‘fixing’ the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” reports National Journal’s Technology Daily. “The current legal paradigm is that the military is viewed as the ‘resource of last resort’ deployed to restore order, the group said in a statement. ‘Because of the sheer magnitude of the hurricane events recently experienced, and because acts of terrorism may spring up during or in the wake of such natural disasters, it is advantageous to consider an increased role for the military in disaster response.’… The group announced the recommendations after a closed-door meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff where they discussed their proposals and asked for a seat at the table as President Bush and the secretary discuss the military’s role and other issues after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.” [View article]

Officials Meet in L.A. to Discuss Quarantine (Los Angeles Times) “Seventy-five officials from 30 local, federal and state agencies met [on 20 October] to plan what to do if a passenger with a communicable disease arrives at Los Angeles International Airport,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “Officials are devising the plan because health officials fear that a deadly strain of bird flu could mutate into a form that could be transmitted among humans.” The “closed-door session helped health, law enforcement and airport authorities develop a plan for how” the airport “would quarantine arriving passengers for at least 48 hours. The plan is scheduled to be finished next month.” [View article]

Taliban-Linked Drug Kingpin Extradited to NY (USA Today) “A Taliban-linked drug lord who allegedly sought to poison U.S. streets with millions of dollars of heroin in a deadly ‘American jihad’ has become the first person extradited from Afghanistan to face federal charges,” reports the Associated Press. “… Haji Baz Mohammad, one of the world’s ‘most wanted, most powerful and most dangerous’ drug kingpins, had helped finance the Taliban by selling opium since 1990, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrator Karen Tandy said.… According to the indictment, Mohammad told associates … in 1990 that selling heroin was a form of jihad, or Islamic holy war, because they were taking money from Americans while giving them something that was killing them.” [View article]

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Private-Sector News

Portland, OR, Businesses Plan Downtown Security Coordination (Portland Business Journal) “The Portland Business Alliance wants to convert a small downtown security specialists’ group into a league of tech-equipped sentries,” reports the Portland Business Journal. “The alliance hopes to fortify membership in the Downtown Security Network, which consists of companies that oversee central-district buildings, and outfit security officers with communication devices, such as walkie-talkies. The devices would help security guards better corral prowlers and alert each other of potential real-time problems.” [View article]

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Education Programs

The Homeland Security Institute lists these educational programs as a service to readers who may be interested; it does not endorse them or their courses.

Cross-Disciplinary Master of Science Degree The Rochester, NY, Institute of Technology, in conjunction with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, has begun offering a cross-disciplinary master of science degree that allows students to choose their focus along three tracks: counterterrorism, cyber-security, or chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive defense. The courses are taught in Washington, DC, by computer-aided design system experts and faculty members, featuring distinguished guest speakers from the government, academic, and private sectors. A series of weeklong and weekend courses will be taught in a blended format: in person in Washington, DC, and via distance learning. The accelerated format is challenging, but courses can be taken at a slower pace if desired. To earn a Rochester Institute of Technology master’s degree in cross-disciplinary professional studies, students will complete 12 courses and 48 credit hours during 18 months of part-time studies. For more information call (202) 256-3332, or email education@c4ads.org, or visit www.c4ads.org/rit_programs.

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Upcoming Events

October

Technologies for Critical Incident Preparedness Conference & Exposition 2005 (31 October–2 November; San Diego) The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, this year in collaboration with the Department of Defense, present this 7th annual conference that will allow these departments to highlight the technology and training tools available and being developed for first responders. This conference offers an opportunity for first responders, business and industry, academia, and elected federal, state, local, and tribal stakeholders to network, exchange ideas, and address common critical incident technology and preparedness needs and solutions. [View conference website]

November

Homeland Security Procurement 101 (17 November; Washington, DC) The Department of Homeland Security will award billions of dollars in procurement contracts this year. Which companies will receive these awards, and what products will DHS purchase from them? Hear the answers at these daylong Defense Today sessions designed to help you and your team understand and participate in homeland security procurement. For more information visit www.kingpublishing.com/conferences or contact Melissa Monk by telephone at (202) 662-9732 or send an email to mmonk@kingpublishing.com.

2005 Corporate Security, Business Continuity and Crisis Management Conference: Emerging Threats to the Corporation--Strategies to Detect, Deter and Defuse Crises (17-18 November; New York) The Conference Board is hosting its fifth annual conference where the private sector can find ways to protect companies against terrorism. This event will benefit senior executives, government officials, policy experts, and other thought leaders who want to examine strategies to limit risk, control damage, maintain critical operations, and effect recovery. [View conference website]

December

2005 ThinkTEC Homeland Security Innovation Conference (1-2 December; Charleston, SC) This conference is for government contractors, military or security leaders, business executives, or community professionals who want to explore the latest innovations in port security and detection of biological, chemical, and nuclear threats. It will offer businesses the tools to prepare for avoiding security threats, preventing any impact on operations, and protecting assets in a crisis. A tour of regional homeland security facilities is also available on 30 November. [View conference website]

U.S. National Security Policy Issues (13-14 December; Washington, DC) This program examines the key national security challenges confronting the United States: what the trends are and where scarce resources will go. Will homeland security stay in the spotlight? Where will the Department of Defense focus its budget: cyber-war or overseas terrorism? Will trade and export controls be tightened to help fight possible proliferation of weapons of mass destruction? For more information, contact Peter Schoettle at the Brookings Institution at (202) 797-6094 or pschoettle@brookings.edu. To register, visit www.brookings.edu/cppe/register.htm. [View conference website]

4th North American Cargo Security Forum (5-6 December; Washington, DC) Attendees will hear the latest government updates and regulations compliance, loss prevention strategies, and how to develop a comprehensive security program to reduce their exposure to terrorist threats and cargo crime. The latest technological and physical security solutions will be on show in a dedicated exhibition. Security and loss-prevention executives from Fortune 1000 retailers and manufacturers, cargo security executives from all modes of transport, freight forwarders, port authorities and terminal and warehouse operators, government officials, and federal state law enforcement will be there. [View conference website]

Airport Security Planning Courses for General Aviation (13-14 February, Columbus, OH) Ohio University and Robinson Aviation will hold two courses for general aviation facilities. For further information, please visit www.ohiou.edu/gasecurity/. [View course website]

5th Annual Critical Infrastructure Resilience & Infrastructure Security for the Built Environment Congress & Expo (15-17 February 2006; Washington, DC) This event will bring together government and industry officials from around the world to discuss and formulate solutions to protect the homeland. Issues such as physical security, cyber-security, standards, interoperability, biometrics, threat and vulnerability assessments, research and development efforts, and first responder requirements will be discussed. [View conference website]

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