Homeland Security Priorities to Watch in 2016 by Chuck Brooks, Federal Times
http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/dhs/blog/2015/12/15/key-homeland-security-priorities-watch-2016/77368604/
Key homeland security priorities to watch in 2016
Charles (Chuck) Brooks serves as the vice president for government relations & marketing for Sutherland Government Solutions. He served at the Department of Homeland Security as the first director of legislative affairs for the Science & Technology Directorate.
2015 was a year that brought homeland security back into the limelight, with increased terror threats both domestic and globally, and alarmingly sophisticated cyberattacks against government, its workforce and citizens. Readiness levels are again paralleling the post 9/11 environment.
So where shall the Department of Homeland Security focus its efforts in 2016?
Counterterrorism
A top priority of DHS, along with law enforcement, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community, will be to preempt and monitor potential terrorists. The change in risk environments necessitates greater DHS collaboration with these agencies, and will include more outreach to the private sector stakeholders who owns most of the nation’s vital infrastructure.
Secretary Jeh Johnson already announced that DHS will unveil a new situational awareness terror alert system that will reflect the current security environment when “not having a specific credible piece of intelligence specifying a plot isn’t the end of the story.” All areas of transportation, including maritime, rails, and aviation will received increased monitoring.
In conjunction, the Transportation Security Administration has been evaluating the travel threat environment in view of recent events and upgrades are being planned for detection technologies both for passengers and baggage. Look for more accurate, explosive detection technologies with some stand-off capabilities to be integrated into the security systems. There is also talk of biometric processing of visa waiver applicants to strengthen border security.
Cybersecurity
And then there’s cybersecurity. The 2015 DHS budget directed more than $1.25 billion to cybersecurity and that trend will continue in 2016. Cybersecurity and IT have moved to the forefront since DHS’s inception as we have become a more interconnected world. New legislation pending in Congress formalizes the increased DHS role in public/private partnering. New legislation also would update the 12-year-old Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and delineate DHS’s role in guarding government networks and websites.
A priority for 2016 will be to accelerate rollout of Einstein III Accelerated (E3A), the latest phase of DHS’s automated network-security correcting systems. DHS has established memoranda of agreement with 55 federal agencies to implement Einstein to provide horizon scanning and automated monitoring, detection, and remediation of government networks. DHS is also planning for new cyber technologies that provide advanced defense of network framework layers, including authentication, better encryption, biometrics, and data analytical tools.
http://www.federaltimes.com/videos/government/omr/cybercon/2015/11/19/76008462/
FEDERAL TIMES
DHS Secretary Johnson: Cyber as important as counterterrorism at DHS
Disaster preparedness
Responding and preparing for disasters is always a challenge because of the unpredictability of events. There has been significant advances in materials science for reinforced building structures as well as geolocation capabilities when hurricanes and other natural disasters hit. One area to watch in 2016 will be emergency preparedness communications. Over a decade in the making, a unified communications solution called FirstNet will be implemented with a goal to build, operate and maintain the first high-speed, nationwide wireless broadband network dedicated to public safety. This will provide first responders with state of the art communication tools that they desperately lacked during the Hurricane Katrina. This too is a public/private effort overseen by the Department of Commerce and carried out under DHS.
R&D
A more under the radar initiative will be increased research & development and prototyping of national security technologies, collaboratively by the public and private sectors. The Science & Technology Directorate at DHS has a robust program to commercialize technologies from other government agencies, the DOE national labs, federally funded research and development centers, academia and the private sector. The Transition to Practice Program helps identify mature technologies that address an existing or imminent cybersecurity gap in public or private systems that impacts national security. The program has already reaped technological benefits in cybersecurity capabilities and I expect it to grow in 2016 – enabling progress in all of the aforementioned priorities of the department.
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