U.S. News and World Report has a story on the distribution of homeland security grants and the controversy surrounding the distribution of that money. DHS grant proposals have angered many officials in urban areas who had anticipated more generous federal grants.

Despite the anger among many, the changes in grant distribution do represent some progress, according to experts cited in the article, including Heritage's Jim Carafano. Until 2006, grants were distributed according to a formula by which, the article notes, "Wyoming got seven times as much per capita as New York." Now, grants are distributed according to risk. More, however, needs to be done.

Last month, Carafano and Jamie Metzl laid out a plan for reforming federal grants. "Homeland security grant funding is a means to an end, not an end in itself," they wrote. "Continuing to throw federal dollars at states in the name of homeland security without a strategy for building a national capacity for disaster response will leave America at square one, with pre-9/11 effectiveness and a grow­ing, yet ineffective, homeland security budget."

Posted by J. Lawrence Scholer at 10:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

DHS has faced a firestorm of criticism since late last week when it announced recipients of its Urban Areas Security Initiative grants. New York and Washington both received last money than last year. Less-prominent cities, in the Heartland and other non-coastal areas, won much more than they had in the past--but still, altogether, not all that much, relative to more prominent cities. New Yorkers, all the way up to the mayor, and some Washingtonians were outraged--and weren't shy about expressing it.

But were they too quick to criticize?

This year's Urban Areas Security Initiative awards marked the first time that DHS applied a comprehensive risk-based approach to disbursing homeland security grants, with a focus on building a national infrastructure to respond to events. Homeland security experts have been calling for this kind of targeted approach the creation of DHS. That DHS is awarding money in this way is a good thing.

That's not to say that DHS got all the details right. It may not have. It could have given undue weight to some criteria or passed over others. As Jim Carafano points out, though, DHS should be able to explain (for the first time) how it arrived its allocations, thanks to the new risk-based process.

As well, no one seriously expects the federal government to monopolize homeland security. There's are major roles for state and local governments, and the federal government doesn't have enough money to pay for everything, anyway. In an op-ed in today's New York Times, Secretary Michael Chertoff shows that DHS understands this:

There is a more fundamental point about these security grants. The Urban Areas Security Initiative awards are designed as capacity building investments. We are looking to pay for new equipment and projects that increase the nation's overall preparedness. They are not for routine and recurring operating expenses like salaries and overtime.

Therefore, while New York and Washington will continue to receive the majority of the money because of the heightened threat they face, future grants will also go to other, less populated areas that have not received much help in building even basic security capacities.

The big cities have already made some progress in organizing disaster response, giving them a base level of capability, at least. They still have much work to do, certainly, but the biggest bang for the buck now may come from building up capabilities in smaller cities. Again, if this is the case, DHS, with its new allocation system, should be able to explain it.

And then there's a more pedestrian matter: Chertoff points out that DHS received $125 million less from Congress for its grant programs than it did last year. Oh, and New York is still the top grant recipient, taking in about the same percentage of the funds as it had in the past.

But all that's really secondary. Homeland security grants shouldn't be driven by who howls the loudest for federal funds or whether a city's take is up or down in any given year. The important thing is that DHS disburse its limited funds as efficiently as possible. And DHS should have no problem describing what it did so that Congress can determine whether the latest Urban Areas Security Initiative grants measure up to that standard.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 09:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, USA Today broke the news that the National Security Agency is collecting and analyzing information on telephone calls made within the United States as part of what is apparently a data-mining program to detect threats.

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

The story was leaked to USA Today by officials who “declined to be identified by name or affiliation.” Leaking information about top-secret national security programs is a poor idea, during wartime especially: if our enemies know how we operate, they can better evade detection. For that reason, leaking of this sort is very illegal.

Despite the article’s hysterical tone, the program seems to be completely within the bounds of the Constitution. “We can always dream up a constitutional angle,” Heritage legal scholar Todd Gaziano told Voice of America, “but there’s no serious constitutional problem with obtaining telephone numbers that are not personally identifiable, especially when they’re being used in this way, an aggregate way, to come up with sort of normal caller profiles.”

Based on what limited knowledge we have, the NSA’s telephone data collection seems to serve an essential national security function. Like the NSA program which monitors calls from overseas terrorists to domestic contacts, this data-mining operation is designed to detect otherwise hidden terrorist activities by examining communications patterns. As blogger Glenn Reynolds noted, “if we’d had a terror attack since 9/11 and didn’t have a program like that, people would be complaining.”

Some politicians are nevertheless seeking to use the program, which came shortly after President Bush nominated Gen. Michael Hayden to Director of Central Intelligence, to score political points. The Washington Post reports:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) vowed to haul telephone companies before his committee under oath to ferret out details the Bush administration refuses to supply, and more than 50 House Democrats signed a letter demanding a criminal investigation by a special counsel.

While Congress may certainly use its oversight powers to ascertain that this program is not violating any laws or Constitutional protections, it is also incumbent upon members not to play politics with national security.

Posted by Nathaniel Ward at 02:39 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The media have been abuzz over intelligence allegedly leaked by CIA agent Mary McCarthy to the Washington Post. McCarthy told Post reporter Dana Priest about “a covert prison system set up by the CIA after Sept. 11, 2001, that at various times included sites in eight countries. The story caused an international uproar, and government officials have said it did significant damage to relationships between the U.S. and allied intelligence agencies.” Priest later won a Pulitzer for the story.

Some say the leak was no big deal or even laudatory. But over at NRO, Heritage’s Peter Brookes, a former intelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Operations, disagrees vehemently:

The fact that McCarthy is accused of leaking operational (as opposed to analytical intelligence such as that which was contained in the Iraq NIE) is especially egregious. Most serious: The disclosure of operational information (e.g., intelligence sources and methods) can put American operatives as well as our foreign agents in danger. The bad guys read the press, especially the American press, which — unfortunately — is rife with sensitive information.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, in a lecture at Heritage last year, discussed secrets and leaks and confirmed al-Qaida’s use of the U.S. media:

A June 2002 memo from the CIA discusses the damage caused when classified information is reported in the media. It reads in part, “Information obtained from captured detainees has revealed that al-Qaida operatives are extremely security-conscious and have altered their practices in response to what they have learned from the press about our capabilities. A growing body of reporting indicates that al-Qaida planners have learned much about our counter-terrorist capabilities from U.S. and foreign media.” By combining traditional open source materials with leaked classified materials our opponents have gained powerful insights into what our plans, capabilities and intentions are.

On McCarthy, Brookes concludes:

The accused is not a hero as some would suggest. She not only broke the law, but she violated the special trust that comes with a security clearance and access to sensitive intelligence.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 03:08 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday's Washington Post reports on improvements in federal intelligence-sharing since 9/11:

Despite more than four years of legislation, executive orders and presidential directives, the Bush administration has yet to comprehensively improve sharing of counterterrorism information among dozens of federal agencies -- and between them and thousands of nonfederal partners, government investigators have concluded.

This is not good news.

Those “nonfederal partners” include state and local governments, NGOs, and sometimes the private sector. Depending on the threat, each can have a vital role to play in homeland security--but only if they are properly prepared and working well as part of an integrated national response system--and that includes intelligence-sharing.

Leveraging federalism is key. But federal protocols still need to be modified to make the information flow more seamless:

The federal government should work to declassify as much information as possible instead of requiring security clearances for intelligence consumers. Forcing states and localities to incur the costs of the security clearance process is an undue burden since these entities are helping the federal government to protect the nation. In addition, there need to be protocols to protect sensitive business information if the private sector is to be involved.

By removing barriers to intelligence sharing, “95 percent of America’s law enforcement counterterrorism capability” can be more effectively utilized, making intelligence gathering, and action on that intelligence, immeasurably more powerful.

More cohesive federal/state/local/private-sector organization can also strengthen the response to a disaster. “Significant local capabilities already exist, including those of domestic military, state, and local first responders, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations.” Combining these abilities with federal resources and assistance, a strong, targeted response can be mounted to the calamity, whether it is a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. A Heritage/GWU task force recently suggested how these abilities might be successfully merged to improve preparedness, with new DHS regional offices playing a coordinating role.

After Katrina, "disaster preparedness" leads many to think only of natural disasters. But think back to 9/11, and it's clear that preparedness includes much more. Intelligence-sharing is a part of creating a truly national disaster response system. This is not an area where we can afford to slack.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 11:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Red Cross is restructuring to respond better to local disasters. There's a lot in the Red Cross's approach that should be instructive to DHS and Congress. For example, don't federalize disaster response. Instead, rely on federalism and so make the best use of all available assets and capabilities.

The focus right now should be on enhancing regional preparedness, and in this task, state, local, and private-sector involvement is crucial. A new report by a joint Heritage Foundation / George Wash­ington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute task force outlines how DHS should structure its new regional offices to maximize preparedness.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 12:11 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)