National Security Infrastructure Takes Shape

Signal, May 2008 by Kenyon, Henry S

After years of development, government information sharing capability and emergency response systems come together.

The United States learned a series of painful lessons in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It became immediately evident that federal, state and government agencies at all levels had to share information more efficiently. The founding of the Department of Homeland Security was a key step toward coordinating communications and cooperation between the various components of the government. But the scale of the effort meant that creating a national information-sharing architecture would take many years to establish.

Officials and experts from across the government discussed the status of the nation's information-sharing systems, continuity planning, interagency cooperation and the technology initiatives supporting these efforts at the annual Homeland Security Conference, "Building on Progress ... A Promising Future," held February 27-28, 2008, in Washington, D.C. During the event, leaders in major government organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Defense Department and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) discussed the status of various security and data-sharing arrangements, the challenges they face and their future outcomes.

Continuity planning in the wake of a disaster remains a key concern for government officials. Maj. Gen. Martha Rainville, USAF (Ret.), assistant administrator for national continuity programs with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, explained that the national plan is to maintain essential functions such as ensuring constitutional government, providing leadership, protecting against threats to the homeland, providing rapid response and recovery and providing essential government services. These goals are outlined in the National Continuity Implementation Plan authorized in August 2007 as Presidential Directive 51/Homeland security Presidential Directive 20, creating a national continuity policy for federal government structures and operations.

Central to these efforts is the ability to plan for a "no warning" emergency. The directive mandates incorporating continuity operations into the daily activities of government departments and agencies. The plan outlines more than 75 activities critical to ensuring the effectiveness and survivability of the nation's continuity plans by setting standards for continuity locations, types and levels of communications.

Technology also plays an important part in continuity planning. Gen. Rainville described the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), a next-generation communications and warning capability under development. The general explained that the current national emergency alert system is built on 20-year-old technology and relies on television and radio, which now reaches a smaller percentage of the U.S. population. IPAWS uses digital emergency alerts that will allow the public to receive messages over a variety of personal electronic devices. It is a geographically focused system that permits alerts to be targeted to specific locations and in different languages. When it is fully implemented, IPAWS will be able to reach more than 90 percent of the U.S. population during an emergency. IPAWS has launched a pilot program in the Gulf Coast states of Alabama, Louisiana and Florida. Gen. Rainville added that the states are now moving to implement the capability formally.

After a disaster or attack has taken place, accurate maps and terrain information provide first responders and government agencies with vital information to plan relief operations and to track events as they occur. The DHS has launched a new capability to help disseminate geographic data, said Timothy Huddleston, deputy director, Infrastructure Information Collection Division, DHS Office of Infrastructure Protection. The Automated Critical Asset Management System (ACAMS) is a secure, Web-based information services portal that supports state and local infrastructure protection efforts. "Without information from the tactical level, we at the federal level would not be able to do our jobs," he said.

A pilot ACAMS program was rolled out in Los Angeles and is now moving across the state of California. Huddleston explained that ACAMS provides access to a range of tools designed to support state and local law enforcement. The system also features a state and local risk-management capability, and he added that the program is currently working to integrate vendors and data sources to reduce the workloads of local and state systems.

John Goolgasian III, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's (NGA's) Office of the Americas, noted that the agency maintains more than 300 map data sets for national security purposes in an annually updated database. The NGA also is working with state governments to share data, and its future goal is to provide improved data access via a Web-based architecture. Goolgasian added that besides disaster readiness, response and recovery, the mapping data has other applications, such as border security.