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Homeland Securitys Fundamental Weaknesses

Were all victims when the agency lacks the necessary personnel or structure to carry out its mission.

By Jim Giermanski

May 04, 2006 — CSO —

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is like the proverbial gift that keeps on giving: Its disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, the gaping holes in the security of our transportation networks, its inability to secure our borders, and the recent arrest of a DHS employee for allegedly conducting sexual online conversations with a child provide critics with a steady supply of ammunition.

What is the basis of the departments poor performance? DHS was organized primarily to protect the United States from terrorism. But the agency may not have the necessary personnel or structure to carry out its mission. DHSs apparently inexperienced management appointees have exacerbated the departments three fundamental weaknesses: a lack of expertise in technology, supply-chain operations and security tradecraft (the gathering and analysis of intelligence). Its dangerously high level of amateurism has compromised its ability to keep our seaports and land ports of entry safe.

Technology

Congress has instructed DHS to evaluate and promote the development of container security technology, such as electronic seals and detection equipment. Because it does not have its own laboratories, R&D or adequate numbers of scientists on staff, DHS must look outside for help in evaluating the hundreds of devices now being touted as cargo security solutions.

The department has chosen to contract with universities to conduct those evaluations. As an academic myself, I know that the problem with hiring academics to test new technologies is that they are dedicated to discovery and often lack real-world experience with which to effectively evaluate technologies that must work "on the street," not just in the lab. This is especially true in the area of cargo security; the critically important human element is absent in the lab.

An example of an ineffective technology decision by DHS is the requirement for "smart" container doors instead of a "smart" container. That decision, coupled with industrys reliance on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, actually makes it easier for a terrorist to enter a sealed container through someplace other than the doors (by cutting a hole in the side, for example). The terrorist could then place an explosive device that is armed to detonate when triggered by an RFID signal at a U.S. port. This is not some far-fetched scenario: During a container security program held last year at the college where I teach near Charlotte, N.C., a housewife and a philosophy professorwith less than 10 minutes trainingwere able to surreptitiously enter and place a make-believe bomb in a sealed ocean container.