Border Security: Understanding Threats at U.S. Borders

[Excerpt] The United States confronts a wide array of threats at U.S. borders, ranging from terrorists who may have weapons of mass destruction, to transnational criminals smuggling drugs or counterfeit goods, to unauthorized migrants intending to live and work in the United States. Given this diversity of threats, how may Congress and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) set border security priorities and allocate scarce enforcement resources? In general, DHS’s answer to this question is organized around risk management, a process that involves risk assessment and the allocation of resources based on a cost-benefit analysis. This report focuses on the first part of this process by identifying border threats and describing a framework for understanding risks at U.S. borders. DHS employs models to classify threats as relatively high- or low-risk for certain planning and budgeting exercises and to implement certain border security programs. Members of Congress may wish to use similar models to evaluate the costs and benefits of potential border security policies and to allocate border enforcement resources. This report discusses some of the issues involved in modeling border-related threats

Emergency Management Training and Exercises for Transportation Agency Operations, MTI Report 09-17

Training and exercises are an important part of emergency management. Plans are developed based on threat assessment, but they are not useful unless staff members are trained on how to use the plan, and then practice that training. Exercises are also essential for ensuring that the plan is effective, and outcomes from exercises are used to improve the plan. Exercises have been an important part of gauging the preparedness of response organizations since Civil Defense days when full-scale exercises often included the community. Today there are various types of exercises that can be used to evaluate the preparedness of public agencies and communities: seminars, drills, tabletop exercises, functional exercises, facilitated exercises and full-scale exercises. Police and fire agencies have long used drills and full-scale exercises to evaluate the ability of staff to use equipment, protocols and plans. Transit and transportation agencies have seldom been included in these plans, and have little guidance for their participation in the exercises. A research plan was designed to determine whether urban transit systems are holding exercises, and whether they have the training and guidance documents that they need to be successful. The main research question was whether there was a need for a practical handbook to guide the development of transit system exercises

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree - Member States' Indirect Use of Extraordinary Rendition and the EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy. CEPS Working Document, No. 263, 3 April 2007

Recent investigations, not least by the EP Temporary Committee, have shed light on the illegal practice of extraordinary renditions and unlawful detentions by foreign security services on European territory with the alleged involvement of certain member states, which suggests that the line between cooperation and complicity has become blurred. This paper addresses the issue of how EU member states could not resist taking advantage of extraordinary renditions and unlawful detentions and how they still profit from such practice. Recent examples of this kind of profiteering are provided, together with an assessment of their legality. The paper also addresses the issue from an EU perspective and evaluates implications of and for EU counter-terrorism policies, in particular the question of how these policies might be tainted by the counter-terrorism behaviour of member states. A concrete set of policy recommendations is proposed in the last chapter

The power of creative thinking in situations of uncertainties: the almost impossible task of protecting critical infrastructures

A good and scientific analysis starts with a closer look at the conceptualisation at hand. The definition of CIP is not easy because of its wide range. This paper examines infrastructures that are critical and need protection. Each word entails a specific connotation and is characterized by several components

Applied Research Exemplars

The Center for Homeland Defense and Security’s unique academic environment brings together mid- and senior-level government officials with world-renowned faculty and experts in the diverse disciplines that comprise homeland security. The CHDS classroom is a place where participants think critically about homeland security issues and work collaboratively to develop strategic solutions. Master’s degree participants research and write course papers along with a final thesis. These original works concentrate on proposing creative policies, strategies and approaches to the public safety challenges facing their agencies and the broader homeland security community

A conceptual information sharing framework to improve supply chain security collaboration

Modern Supply Chains are critical in terms of efficiency, economic activities and commercial impact, particularly in case of security incidents. Inland terminals, commercial ports and dry ports constitute key gateways for the transportation flows in these modern supply chains and are require enhanced security procedures. This paper develops a framework that facilitates the sharing of information among various supply chain stakeholders, which is expected to improve the security level from a value chain perspective. In this context, we propose the upgrade of the current security strategies utilizing existing processes, equipment in order to minimise time and cost currently needed but more importantly improving the level of security in the supply chain. A conceptual rule and role-based data fusion framework is developed enabling the seamless and timely exchange of messages. The proposed Data Fusion Framework has a simple architecture that supports quick integration to either network-based, distributed systems or conventional stand-alone systems and adheres to common data fusion principles. The proposed framework considers different components (e.g. sensors, algorithms and fusing procedures) in an equipment agnostic approach so as to enable easy access and easy usage of security information.N/

The Economics of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: A Survey (Part II)

This survey provides an in-depth analysis of existing research on the economic analysis of terrorism and counter-terrorist measures. First the existing evidence on the causes of terrorism is analyzed, then we consider the evidence of the consequences of terrorism and we demonstrate why it is important to regarding of the issue of counter-terrorism policy. Moreover the survey presents the existing knowledge on the interrelation between the economy and the issue of security and it incorporates analysis the level of knowledge about the causal chains between security and the economy. Also it focuses on perspective and methodologies from the discipline of economics but also refers to research from related disciplines (sociology, political science). It also assembles the knowledge on the impact of terrorism on the economy as reflected in macro-economic variables and its impact on specific sectors. Furthermore it assesses how potential an actual terrorist event determine consumer and producer behaviour, public policy, as well as terrorist responses to these policies. Finally a European perspective on the terrorism security annexes is discussed and here we analyze the causes of terrorism in Europe.risk, insecurity, survey, terrorism, counter-terrorism, security economics