President Obama recently released an implementation plan for efforts to counter "homegrown" violent extremism within the United States. The document known as the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) is a follow-up to the National Strategy on Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, which was released by the White House in August 2011.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is helping, through the Office of Emergency Communications (OEC), to set the broad policy framework for the nationwide public safety broadband network to ensure it meets the needs of its users and aligns with existing emergency communications policy. This guidance document is designed to help educate the public safety community, describe the evolution of emergency communications, and discuss some of the important requirements that must be met to achieve the long-term state of convergence.
Dr. Nicole Lurie, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), issues an important statement on the significant progress made over the past decade to prepare and respond to biological and other emergency events.
Over the last decade, the United States has responded to deliberate biological attacks - e.g., the mailing of anthrax-laden letters, as well as naturally occurring disease outbreaks including SARS and the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has issued the BARDA Strategic Plan for 2011-2016, which articulates the guiding principles, goals, and strategies it will implement to enhance the capability of the U.S. government to develop medical countermeasures (MCMs) to these and other natural as well as intentional threats to the nation's health.
The idea for this report card project began late last year, when the Bipartisan WMD Terrorism Research Center asked the question, "If the nation is unprepared for a biological attack, what more can we do?" This report card provides a strategic end-to-end assessment of America's bio-response capabilities.
The National Preparedness Goal sets the vision for preparedness nationwide and identifies the core capabilities and capability targets necessary to achieve that vision across the five mission areas: prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery. The first edition of the Goal builds extensively on the prior work completed by various stakeholder groups from around the nation.
This report is the culmination of numerous efforts that started with rural farmers and ranchers calling for a more secure border. The report offers a military perspective on how to best incorporate strategic, operational, and tactical measures to secure the increasingly hostile U.S./Mexican border along the Rio Grande River.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has just released its newly updated and organized Private Sector Resource Catalog, which will help private sector partners carry out their essential roles in the Homeland Security Enterprise. Future updates, issued on a regular basis, will help ensure that the private sector has all the resources needed to carry out its own responsibilities in protecting the nation.
On 22 May 2011, one of the most devastating tornadoes in the nation's history killed 159 people and injured over 1,000 more in Joplin, Missouri. From a National Weather Service (NWS) perspective, this was essentially a "warned" event in light of the fact that: (a) advance notice of the tornado was given; (b) critical information was communicated and received; and (c) most of the people warned sought the best shelter available to them. Still, there is more to learn and to help reduce fatalities; to help accomplish this the NWS has conducted over 100 interviews to find out what worked and what did not. The key findings are included in this report.
The Task Force on Secure Communities, a subcommittee of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) created at the request of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano, was asked: (a) to consider how Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) may improve the Secure Communities Program; (b) to address some of the concerns that relate to the program's impact on community policing & the possibility of racial profiling; and (c) to make recommendations on how ICE can adjust and improve the program.
