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Mobilizing to Improve Local Readiness to Threats March 2005
In the post-Sept. 11 world, local public safety and emergency response authorities have to be ready for anything—even the possibility that a benign-looking bass boat in Boston Harbor might have a dirty bomb somewhere on board. In such a scenario, local officials need to be able to connect the dots before they can act. First, they need to know about dirty bombs themselves. What are they? What materials do they consist of? What are the most common methods terrorists might use to deploy them? And if such a bomb is aboard the aforementioned bass boat, it might be helpful to know whether the boat has been stolen, or whether suspicious people have been staking out boat dealerships in the area. The problem is that the many bits and pieces of information they need to fight terrorism may come from military intelligence, and it hasn't traditionally been shared with local authorities. "Normally, the military would not give out information like this," said Major Ken Prewitt of the U.S. Army, who was a police officer before returning to active military duty prior to the Sept. 11 attacks. "Pre-9/11, this would not be shared, except perhaps if it involved drug smugglers. Now, it's being shared more and more so we can fight terrorism, because we can see how spread out it is." MITRE, with its technical expertise and long history of working with the Department of Defense (DOD), is in a good position to help bridge the information gap. We are working on several promising ideas that could solve the problem. One of the ideas is called the Regional Threat Analysis Cell (RTAC), a Web-based system for aggregating existing information on potential terrorist threats and putting it into a format that can be read, understood, and used at the state and local level. We built the system using existing technology and resources, working with the military and local officials to develop the concept. RTAC was showcased at last June's Joint Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (JWID), held at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford, Massachusetts. It gave observers a chance to see how this tool could help thwart the hypothetical dirty bomb on the bass boat. The response, among local officials who saw RTAC being demonstrated, was enthusiastic. "The RTAC intelligence feed would be the real utility of this tool, because it provides up-to-date information and we could think ahead and prepare," said James Doherty, metropolitan medical response system project officer with the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the Department of Homeland Security. "It would enable us to do better pre-planning and exercise planning because we'd have a better picture of what the threats were. The more information we get up front, the better able we are to design scenarios that would tax the system and tell us where the holes are and what we need to be thinking about for additional resources." Bridging the Pentagon and Main Street RTAC is the latest in a series of projects in which MITRE has used its knowledge of technology and military command and control to help local authorities address public safety and emergency response issues. We have a track record in this area; we created a system, allowing multiple agencies to share information, that was used during President George W. Bush's first inauguration and at the 2002 Boston Marathon. This system also applied existing technology in ways that helped agencies pinpoint and address incidents much more quickly. MITRE's IT expertise yielded insight on what technologies would best fit the needs of local officials and first responders. Although many of these efforts predated 9/11, the threat of terrorism on U.S. soil has brought the military and state and local authorities together to find new ways of countering the threat. The U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), set up after 9/11 to bolster the U.S.'s homeland defense, hosted the most recent JWID, making it the first such session to include homeland security scenarios. That theme reflected NORTHCOM's interest in technologies that will get information on potential threats to local authorities more quickly. That's also of high interest to local authorities, many of whom told Congress after 9/11 that they lacked adequate information on possible terrorist threats. "There are thousands—and that's not an exaggeration—of terrorism analysts all inside the D.C. Beltway," said Thomas Howley, leader of the MITRE team that worked on the RTAC concept. "NORTHCOM sits out in Colorado Springs. But in Boise, Idaho, or even in Boston, Massachusetts, there is not much of a federal analytical presence. The intent of the RTAC is to have an analytical presence where you have local knowledge." A MITRE team began working with the DOD in early 2002 to develop a pilot program called the New England Regional Threat Analysis Cell, which was the forerunner of RTAC. Following a pilot, the team sent a report to NORTHCOM recommending the establishment of regionally based threat analysis cells. The team also suggested that NORTHCOM staff these cells with existing trained personnel, such as military reservists and National Guard members, to take advantage of their familiarity with their communities in ways that would speed up the process of detecting and deterring threats. Moreover, it recommended basing the RTACs in facilities called joint reserve intelligence centers, in which reservists often do their tours of duty. There are more than 20 such facilities across the continental United States, and they are already equipped with the equipment needed to collect and disseminate information. Underlying these recommendations is the knowledge that many state and local governments don't have IT infrastructures adequate for this kind of information sharing or the funds to upgrade. Our employees working on homeland security issues know this from prior efforts to bolster first-response capacity at the local level. "State and local governments certainly don't have the budgets of the Department of Defense, nor do they necessarily have the requirements," said Russell Graves, associate head of MITRE's Homeland Security and Information Technologies Department. "In many cases, they've been hesitant to invest in technology because they didn't have the expertise to assess the technology against their specific needs." MITRE has contributed this kind of technical advice to the RTAC pilot. RTAC contains security software that allows the military to grant local officials certain levels of access to information about a serious threat. To keep sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands, the system also includes an e-mail encrypter, which will make e-mail unreadable if it appears on the computer of an individual or agency the e-mail wasn't intended for. Also, RTAC shares information only on foreign terrorists, not domestic threats. This is to ensure the military stays within the boundaries of the Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878 to prohibit soldiers from exercising civilian police powers unless specifically authorized to do so by Congress. "There are no federal agents being sent into the streets because of RTAC," said Howley. "We're assembling existing information and putting it into a form that's usable by local officials." An Ongoing Dialogue With so many entities carrying out emergency management responsibilities, any search for a "one-size-fits-all" technological breakthrough would likely be fruitless. So the success of MITRE's efforts in homeland security and emergency response depends not only on technological expertise, but on open channels of communication with agencies and individuals at the local level. To that end, forums like JWID help MITRE representatives keep in regular contact with local officials. As the RTAC concept is refined further, those associated with the project —like Navy Commander Rob Hill, Navy liaison to the Combatant Command Interoperability Program Office—believe MITRE's expertise, reputation, and ability to get others to consider new approaches to homeland security will be pivotal. "It's amazing to me that no matter how great an idea might seem, it really needs to be 'sold' to people," Hill said. "MITRE already works with many of these agencies and with senior decision makers and MITRE has the trust and respect of these people. Therefore, when MITRE recommends something, these people set aside time to discuss these new ideas. That gets us in the door." As for RTAC itself, Howley said, "The Electronic Systems Center/MITRE team is now actively working with NORTHCOM to establish an RTAC-like presence at the regional level in the near term." —by W. Russell Woolard Related Information Articles and News |
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