Dude, where’s my grant?
Everyone knows that federal money is slow in coming but no one was sure exactly where the bottleneck lay. A pair of official studies looked at the problem—and revealed some surprising answers.
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eMerge2 emerges from DHS’s melange of management systems
eMerge2 emerges from DHS’s melange of management systems
Many mergers fail in the private sector because the companies can’t integrate two distinct corporate cultures and two decidedly different budgeting and accounting systems.
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Building a better nose
It was on the Seattle to Banbridge Island ferry that I first got an idea of the magnitude of the challenge facing border security officers. One day in April, a Washington State Patrol trooper surveyed the holding area where dozens of cars waited to board the ferry. He was about to walk his bomb-sniffing dog by the cars in an attempt to screen some of the 12 million or so vehicles that use the Washington ferry system annually.
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General Electric’s planned acquisition to reshape detection market
General Electric Co.’s planned acquisition of InVision Technologies Inc. promises to reshape the explosives detection market, intensifying competition in one of homeland security’s most desirable segments.
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Tom Richey, Microsoft Corp.
Director, Homeland Security, Microsoft Corp.
Redmond has been quiet for a longtime.Microsoft, the Redmond, Wash., software giant that powered the“new economy” of the 1990s, that defined personal computing, whoseoperating system runs roughly 90 percent of all computers in homes andoffices around the world, has been very quiet when it comes to homelandsecurity.
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The Trauma in America’s Trauma Care
In the event of a terrorist attack, America’s emergency healthcare network would constitute the front line—but it’s facing an attack of its own; one that’s quieter and more gradual, but in many ways just as deadly.
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Hackers for Profit
The person breaking into your computer isn’t just doing it for fun anymore—now viruses are becoming big business.
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NASCAR: Securing America’s Mobile City
Every year, the NASCAR Nation arrives at American towns in full force. A look at how HS and local officials protect this exuberant gathering.
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Setting Up the System
Since its inception, contractors have wondered how the Department of Homeland Security would purchase the tools of its trade. Now the chief DHS procurement officer gives some insight into the system, its requirements and the future of the Department’s purchasing.
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The State Defense Forces
Never heard of the state defense forces? You’re not alone, neither have millions of Americans. One Army officer, however, shows how they can fill a critical gap.
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Proximity’s Price
In Oklahoma City and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, terrorists got just close enough to their targets to do terrible damage. Since then officials have tried to learn from the experience—but can they implement the lessons fast enough?
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Rail security: Embryonic and in need of money
Long before the Madrid train bombings that killed 190 people and injured 1,500 on March 11, American counterterrorists whose job is to imagine the most Tom Clancy-like attacks, agreed that Washington, DC’s underground Metro was vulnerable not just to conventional bombings, but to elaborate attacks that could decimate the city’s expansive mass transit system.
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Security holes in aerial advertising
Despite the good intentions of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the agency is hampering the security of aerial advertising operations, General Accounting Office (GAO) auditors told Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in a March 5 report, Aviation Security: Factors Could Limit the Effectiveness of the Transportation Security Administration’s Efforts to Secure Aerial Advertising Operations (http://www. gao.gov/atext/ d04499r.txt).
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First responder grant standards, streamlining get congressional attention
Long-simmering issues regarding federal first responder grants and funding are beginning to boil on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers are frustrated over the amount of funding available for state and local governments, how funds are dispersed and whether cities will be reimbursed for costs when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) raises the threat level.
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Give local government the tools for homeland security
The ultimate goal of homeland security is to prevent terrorist attacks—and should an attack occur, to minimize injuries, loss of life and property damage. If homeland security strategies fail in these goals, the results can be dramatic and catastrophic. The work of homeland security involves a complex partnership between federal, state and local governments.
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State homeland security grants: What constitutes pass-through?
Applications for the 2004 State Homeland Security grants, administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), were due to DHS by November 30, 2003. As most first responders probably know by now, the states are required to pass through 80 percent of these funds to the local level. What you may not know is what exactly “pass-through” means, and what the implications are of your state’s pass-through approach on your ability to seek and obtain funds from the program.
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Don’t Call Us DARPA
DHS’ research chief—and his agency—are trying to carve out their own identities
Dr. David Bolka has a bone to pick with folks who confuse his shop with DARPA.
Spreading a new safety net
An experiment now being conducted in Tennessee could mean greater security for the entire country.
A network of sensors being deployed across the state of Tennessee could prove to be the forerunner of a national defense system alerting authorities to the first signs of a bioterrorism attack.
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Smiths Industries: Explosive growth in a volatile field
A pioneer in homeland security, UK-based Smiths Industries has developed an innovative approach of growing in the homeland security field through an aggressive acquisition drive in the United States and Europe and through careful selection of key growth areas such as a new screening system to detect anthrax in the mail.
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David Zolet, Northrop Grumman Corp.
Vice President of Homeland Security, Northrop Grumman Corp.
In January, Northrop Grumman Corp. scored amajor success when the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service awardedthe company a contract for the Law Enforcement Information Exchange(LInX), a data exchange system for first responders in the Puget Soundarea of Washington state.
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