Salient Point 1 Snake Oil A holistic review of homeland security field and its conceptual elements will help

lp inform an effective operational strategy and roadmap. (Chapter 37, Page 865) Correctly identify key stakeholders whose understanding, corporation and commitment is required for successful resolution of key homeland security problems is but one area to successfully and effectively manage the homeland security enterprise (Kamien, 2012, p. 865). Kamien states that the lack of proper coordination and effective execution are indicative of insufficient systems perspective between differently layers and levels of government and private and public sectors. I believe this attributed to all of these sectors still attempting to hold whatever information they may have, close to the vest, but I see the biggest culprit being the government agencies. Why the government agencies? Because they have a larger pool of databases to choose and query from, especially within different security classification levels, which are not purvey to most local municipalities and law enforcement agencies. Kamien also sees this deficiency when he identifies the implementation of sharing information between entities as a discrepancy between conceptual boundaries and stakeholder boundaries. Salient Point 2 Bringing the Lens into Focus in developing homeland security policy, three conceptual lenses were identified in the literature from criminology and criminal justice: (I) Homeland Security as a Criminal Justice Problem / Terrorism as a Crime, (II) Homeland Security as an International Relations Problem / Terrorism as War, and (III) Homeland Security as an Organization Design Problem / Terrorism as a Network . (Chapter 38, Page 881) The focusing of these three key areas was instrumental in what would become the foundation of the Department of Homeland Security, as these key areas would be leaned on extensively throughout every administration that has used it. Terrorism will be my example for all three of these topics, since terrorism the primary reason the DHS was stood up in the first place. Terrorism as a crime looks at the actual criminal aspect of terrorism and how it is employed to make a statement and the associated acts that can and are used to make their statements. This is also looked at from a standpoint of jurisdictions and responsibilities according to policies and procedures. The second area is terrorism as war and how it goes hand-in-hand with international relations due to the fact that the vast majority of terrorists are from countries other than the United States and that coordination is must between the US and countries that possibly harbor terrorist. As recently as 2010, this policy has been merged between the concepts of national security and homeland security with the focus of using intelligence and other assets to protect and deter against threats and natural disasters. The last area is terrorism as a network and how it differs from those of a hierarchical model, where a hierarchical model have a single authority structure that operate within a chain of command, the network model has divided authority among the network. Also, the hierarchical model has clear, well-defined goals, where the network is often ambiguous and ever-changing, making the network model harder to predict.

Salient Point 3 Its An Emergency! Emergency exercises are vital to the effective performance of emergency teams, staff and support personal for at least five primary reasons. (Chapter 39, Page 905) 1.) 2.) 3.) 4.) 5.) It sizes up the overall readiness of state and local emergency components Establishes how effective those response elements perform their tasks Gauges the proper utilization of technology to aid in a crisis Proves the accuracy of emergency plans Observe the overall effectiveness of crisis management tasks and how they are employed

Emergency exercises, while attempting to portray real-life scenarios, enable decision-makers to observe the overall effectiveness of their plans along with the ability to modify, alter and refine emergency plans so they current and more effective. These exercises also allow decision-makers to look at technology and advances in technology to see how more effective they can be in emergencies. Salient Point 4 Technology No longer are the technologies of the twentieth century adequate to the challenges of the twenty-first century. (Chapter 41, Page 943) With the disbanding of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2002, the Bureau of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was now burdened with a two-and-a-half year backlog of 3,500,000 applicants trying to citizenship in the United States. This backlog was created due to the frustrations of caseworkers by their inability to resolve citizenship and residency application issues themselves. With the implementation of enterprise service bus (ESB) the USCIS has taken the two-and-a-half year backlog down to less than three months. The results of this implementation allows USCIS to be flexible to mandates that come down the pike and also results in better customer satisfaction and helped resolve a $460 million annual budget deficit (Kamien, 2012, p. 947). Salient Point 5 I Get the GIS of It - GIS is used to capture, store, check, integrate, manipulate, analyze and display data related to positions on the Earths surface. (Chapter 42, Page 983) When one thinks of geographical information systems (GIS), they make think of something like Google Earth, where the Earth can be manipulated by rotating it to any destination and then it can be zoomed into for greater detail such as roads, buildings and houses. While this data can be very useful and effective to most people and their interests, there are systems out there taken on a plethora of different metadata to build a robust and more defined picture of the landscape whether for farming and agricultural purposes, climate evaluations, housing development, erosion identification or topography, the utility is endless. When combining additional sets of data, you get a better overall picture and a better understanding of the environment, literally. Elements that were once only scene in a two-dimension view can be seen in three-dimensions allowing for greater decision-making and understanding. This ability of greater decision-making

and understanding was not always there, since most GIS systems were proprietary and did not share a common formatting, which was called stove piping, as it did not allow for data and information to be shared or incorporated into other systems for analysis or comparative coverage. Salient Point 6 Why Reinvent the Wheel? Technology Foraging (TF) is a means of actively seeking out rather mature technology solutions to address defined capability needs or problems. (Chapter 43, Page 1019) While TF is a new and novel approach to satisfy government needs, it is by no means new to mankind, as man has always looked for ways to use existing ways, means and technology to solve problems or issues. It is only until recent times that the US government has looked to this type of thinking to problem-solve instead of instituting a stove pipe solution as has been practiced for decades. This approach also is way more cost effective, then implementing a ground-up solution that may take years to be developed, installed and implemented. Why it took the government this long to look for these types of solutions is unknown, but changing time and reduced budgets may have led to this way of out-of-the-box thinking. Salient Point 7 Emergency Information Sharing Responding to an emergency has never been easy. (Chapter 45, Page 1050) Everyone can agree the more information you have about a situation the better you can plan, prepare and make better decisions about. The attacks on 9/11 opened our eyes that our existing technology could not bridge the gap of information sharing and therefore hampered a myriad of operations and problems before us. Part of the solution for this problem was the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, with its primary mission of bridging the information gap not only between technologies but between agencies and establishments. One concept of sharing information was developed by John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory which revolved around a layers system. These three layers were considered the linchpin of information sharing; data layer, integration layer and the presentation layer. The data layer is where all of the different data sets and applications extend across various agencies, disciplines and jurisdictions. The integration layer allows for the connecting of proprietary and legacy systems which are pooled by common protocols such as internet protocols. The presentation layer allows for the publication of these pooled systems to build a better picture for everyone involved to see. Part II: Research Assignment: Research the WWW/Internet, the SC Online library and/or local libraries to locate reports, articles, web sites, etc. that specifically relate to this weeks reading. Thoroughly report and discuss the salient points of your research and ensure that you relate the research to a specific chapter of this weeks reading. Ensure you cite and reference your sources per the APA. This week I looked at the Department of Homeland Securitys Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and how it works and is integrated with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), which took over for the defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2002.

The ESB consists of various off-the-self commercial products that work together to provide an easy to use interface that hides the complexity of the legacy systems. For example, the initial service that will be hosted by the ESB is the Person Centric Query (PCQ) Service (Hopkins, 2007). Also, the PCQ will be an interface to nine (9) existing systems and will gather and present the resulting data as a consolidated set. The nine underlying systems from which the data is gathered are implemented in a variety of different technologies including legacy mainframe database systems; Oracle based server systems, and newer service oriented systems (Hopkins, 2007). This COTS system bridges and integrates the information and data gaps that would be inherent in these otherwise stand along systems, cultivating data and information from a myriad of servers and databases to present a current and comprehensive picture. Another feature of the ESB is that the current and comprehensive picture that is displayed to the end user(s), is raw. The ESB does not analyze or change the data it presents, other than to display the time and date it is being retrieved. Another feature of the ESB is it uses a secured means of transportation and delivery to the end user(s). The data delivered by the ESB have numerous security controls implemented to ensure that the data from the underlying connected systems remains intact from when it is first queried from the original underlying source system until it is delivered to the consuming application or end user. The primary method of this control is the use of secure socket layer (SSL) processing between all components that do not reside on the same physical machine (Hopkins, 2007). References Kamien, D. (2012). Homeland security handbook: Strategic guidance for a coordinated approach to effective security and emergency management. (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Hopkins, H. (2007). Privacy impact assessment for the united states citizenship and immigration services (uscis) enterprise service bus (esb). Wahington DC: Department of Homeland Security. DOI www.dhs.gov xlibrary assets privacy privacy pia uscis esb.pdf