Return-Path: <sentto-279987-2506-1001719241-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.1.0) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Fri, 28 Sep 2001 16:22:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 17260 invoked by uid 510); 28 Sep 2001 23:20:55 -0000 Received: from n7.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.57) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 28 Sep 2001 23:20:55 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-2506-1001719241-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.4.55] by fj.egroups.com with NNFMP; 28 Sep 2001 23:20:41 -0000 X-Sender: fc@big.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_4_1); 28 Sep 2001 23:20:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 50343 invoked from network); 28 Sep 2001 23:20:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 28 Sep 2001 23:20:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO big.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta1 with SMTP; 28 Sep 2001 23:20:40 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by big.all.net (8.9.3/8.7.3) id QAA17816 for iwar@onelist.com; Fri, 28 Sep 2001 16:20:40 -0700 Message-Id: <200109282320.QAA17816@big.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL1] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 16:20:40 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] [fc:HOMELAND.DEFENSE:.Homeland.Defense.Won't.Start.from.Scratch] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit HOMELAND DEFENSE: Homeland Defense Won't Start from Scratch By Andrew Schneider Sept. 27, 2001 State and local officials looking to beef up efforts to protect citizens and workers from future terrorist attacks and other emergencies will have plenty of solid resources to draw on. Many of these have operated quietly until now-but no more. Suddenly, they have everybody's attention. One model well worth a look is Los Angeles County's Terrorism Early Warning Group. Created in the wake of a series of anthrax poison scares in late 1998, it is a well-coordinated collaboration of a number of public and private entities aimed at providing a rapid and effective first response. It includes large-scale evacuation procedures and other forms of consequence management. The group includes the city and county police and fire departments, the California Office of Emergency Services and the Los Angeles field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation plus a dozen other local, federal and nongovernmental bodies. It is coordinated by Sgt. John Sullivan of the LA County Sheriff's Department. Moreover, the LA group is plugged into a network of science and medical experts that can be tapped at moment's notice for advice. The network includes experts at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and the U.S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command. Already, San Diego, Sacramento and Orange County, Calif., are in various stages of developing similar teams based on the LA model. Seattle and Salt Lake City plus the states of New Mexico, South Carolina and Delaware also are studying what LA can teach them. Another program geared toward helping cities jump-start their civil defense teams-particularly as they deal with chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons-is the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Domestic Preparedness Program. The program, launched as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1997, mandated Defense Department training for first responders in 157 cities and counties around the country. Significantly, among the first cities to receive training under the program were New York City, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. All participating cities and counties are scheduled to complete training by the end of this year. The program also subsidizes the purchase of personal protection, decontamination and detection equipment. Multistate compacts can also help to fill emergency response gaps, particularly when one member's first responders are overwhelmed by the demand an attack places on its personnel or supplies. The Emergency Management Assistance Compact provides a legal framework for such mutual aid among 42 member states and two member territories. A smaller New England and Eastern Canada Mutual Assistance Compact also binds the six states and five provinces of that region. Look for such compacts to be expanded to include areas where domestic preparedness falls considerably short. Roughly half the nation's smaller cities and towns-those with populations of less than 100,000-have no terrorism response and prevention plans in place, and more than half have had no antiterrorist training. Besides allying themselves with larger regional neighbors, many such areas will also receive more federal funding to bolster their defenses. The Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, Ala., will get a big boost. Started in 1998, the center teaches police officers, firefighters and health care providers on issues from how to deal with bombs and toxic weapons to how to handle large numbers of patients in emergency hospital situations. Up until now, it has been largely unnoticed and sparsely attended. Not anymore. Congress will likely double its budget to $30 million next year, and enrollment is expected to quadruple to 10,000. There will be an expanded role in civil defense for the military as well. Military police and National Guard units already supplement local law enforcement for security and support operations in the aftermath of a terrorist attack that involves a "conventional" explosion. They'll play a much larger part, though, in the event of a CBRN attack, taking the lead in decontaminating large numbers of people and providing additional medical care and facilities to supplement local hospitals. Likewise, first responders-police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and local officials-will themselves start to emulate intelligence services and the military. Local emergency operations centers will perform much the same way as an army's general staff. Their responsibilities will range from stepping up human intelligence at the local level-possibly at the expense of some loss of privacy by citizens-to developing operational plans for responding to CBRN attacks and threats to water infrastructure and food supplies. They'll also provide operational intelligence and analysis to the official commanding the emergency response as that emergency unfolds. And they'll need to do all this while coordinating the efforts of their separate agencies to function as a single unit-in and of itself, not an easy task. Local employers should not take anything for granted. Often civil support planning overlooks what local businesses can bring to the table. The best way for companies to stay in the loop is to designate someone at the firm to coordinate emergency efforts and to make sure that person stays in touch with the local public response team coordinators. Researcher-Reporter: Nicole Bonnell ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get your FREE VeriSign guide to security solutions for your web site: encrypting transactions, securing intranets, and more! http://us.click.yahoo.com/UnN2wB/m5_CAA/yigFAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-09-29 21:08:51 PDT