In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

Since the Times Square bombing attempt, I have been writing about the role of the citizen in homeland security and in particular the use (and potential) of “See Something, Say Something”-type campaigns. In the aftermath of the New York incident and the ‘Christmas Day bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – both foiled with the help of average [...]

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Via the National Terror Alert Twitter feed, I just watched an interesting video produced by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), “What’s in Store: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Events,” aimed at helping retail employees spot suspicious activity. According to the video’s transcript:
“We all share the responsibility to fight terror and criminal misconduct. But as someone [...]

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As part of its public outreach, the Department of Homeland Security has launched the National Cybersecurity Awareness Campaign Challenge whose goal is “to get the best ideas from organizations and individuals for clearly and comprehensively communicating about cybersecurity with the American public.” (I’m a little late on this, but it was announced while the blog was [...]

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In a speech aimed at the public and delivered last night at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said U.S. citizens deserve a “clear appraisement” of the terror threats and challenged Americans that “every single one of us can become smarter, can become better informed, and better prepared.”
At the beginning [...]

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The Department of Homeland Security’s most significant policy outreach to the public in its six-year history has been the National Dialogue on the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. The Dialogue was an innovative web-based outreach tool created by DHS and the National Academy of Public Administration(NAPA) last year to help solicit stakeholder input on the “Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR). (The QHSR [...]

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Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday announced the formation of “the local, state, tribal, and federal Preparedness Task Force—a council of experts charged with assessing the state of the nation’s disaster preparedness and making recommendations to Secretary Napolitano about ways to build resiliency in communities across America.”
This blog has recommended that the [...]

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The Washington Post’s Spencer Hsu reported Friday that the Obama Administration is reevaluating the nation’s policy on large-scale national disaster exercises. In the article, “National Disaster Exercises, Called Too Costly And Scripted, May Be Scaled Back,” Hsu writes that the Administration is:
considering whether to scale back next year’s National Level Exercise, the annual drill [previously [...]

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To all veterans, thank you. I had the great opportunity to attend today’s Veterans Day parade on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.

MARCHERS AT TODAY’S VETERANS DAY PARADE ON FIFTH AVENUE IN NEW YORK CITY
A relatively big (though not nearly big enough) and emotional crowd lined the parade route shouting “thank you” to the marching veterans, young and old. [...]

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In a speech at the London School Economics last week, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano brought her theme of “shared responsibility” across the Atlantic. She told the audience — which included a number of American students — that as part of U.S. homeland security, ”individuals have responsibilities, families have responsibilities to be prepared…to have thought what they would [...]

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In an effort to reach out to its stakeholders, including the public, FEMA has announced outreach initiatives on business preparedness and flood insurance.
First, the agency will be holding a series of public meetings throughout the U.S. on the Department of Homeland Security’s Voluntary Private Sector Preparedness Accreditation and Certification Program (PS-Prep). PS-Prep is a partnership between DHS [...]

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