In the school of hard knocks, Koss's chief executive has made a $4.5 million tuition payment. The lesson in return? Don't exempt your financial executive from oversight, and she won't get to take millions out of your business account to pay her personal American Express bill. What if Koss fails to learn this lesson? Then what started out as a one-time expense will turn into a downpayment on institutional folly. For details, see yesterday's Wall Street Journal article, http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/12/23/koss-executive-accused-of-embezzling-company-funds-to-pay-off-shopping-spree/
Pitfalls like these occur more frequently than most people realize, with many top managers opting to make their tuition payments quietly to avoid embarrassment and loss of investor or consumer confidence. Such faux pas typically trigger an overreaction: a new audit or ethics program, an unleashing of hated sentinels who see catastrophe lurking around every corner. What is a more reasonable answer?
A simple No Dark Corners approach can redesign work flow to reduce opportunities for any individual to go astray. Everyone follows the rules. The workplace puts a premium on transparency, and no one-- no matter how senior or privileged-- gets a blank check to commit significant funds without some kind of witness and authorization. If the leadership at Koss balks about such basics, one can only wonder what other questionable activities may be eluding scrutiny in some accidental or contrived dark corner.
- Nick Catrantzos
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
How close is too close?
Two recent events illustrate the predicament that torments defenders daily but otherwise eludes executive attention -- until an adverse consequence, that is. Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, controversial and flamboyant, liked to mingle with crowds, keeping a Kiplingesque common touch. But after an unstable member of the crowd exhibited an unsophisticated knack for Berlusconi bashing with a blunt object at close range, blood and broken incisors will now make the PM rethink his priorities for personal protection.
The White House party crasher incident with more minor miscreant social climbers deserves rethinking through the same lens. While defenders step up to take the blame the way they take a bullet, part of the ultimate responsibility for such security failures invariably traces to the top. Usually, a rung on that ladder to the top is a social secretary or image handler whose intense focus on photo ops creates or widens the exposure. But, most of the time, it is the protectee who calls the shots and decides when to ignore defender advice and protection.
Ours is a troubled, volatile world. All leaders need to think seriously about their personal security, not just for themselves but for their fellow citizens who placed them in office for a reason. Part of honoring one's constituency and office is being around to do the job. And that means taking security very seriously when in crowds or exposed venues.
- Nick Catrantzos
The White House party crasher incident with more minor miscreant social climbers deserves rethinking through the same lens. While defenders step up to take the blame the way they take a bullet, part of the ultimate responsibility for such security failures invariably traces to the top. Usually, a rung on that ladder to the top is a social secretary or image handler whose intense focus on photo ops creates or widens the exposure. But, most of the time, it is the protectee who calls the shots and decides when to ignore defender advice and protection.
Ours is a troubled, volatile world. All leaders need to think seriously about their personal security, not just for themselves but for their fellow citizens who placed them in office for a reason. Part of honoring one's constituency and office is being around to do the job. And that means taking security very seriously when in crowds or exposed venues.
- Nick Catrantzos
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Not Every Attack a Game Changer
Recent portrayals of body cavity bombs as game changers that may present a new means of delivering a devastating Bojinka-plot-style attack against commercial aviation are more knee-jerk over-reaction than thoughtful security guidance.
One such article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1218562/Bombers-hide-devices-inside-bodies-Travellers-Europe-face-body-X-rays.html#
My rationale for taking this with a grain of salt is that there are a lot of experiments that terrorist groups have tried out and then just given up for one main reason: they didn't work. The recently reported body cavity bomb killed the suicide bomber but not his target. Now the details of this kind of attack are coming out on radical web sites. Is it because the terrorists are bragging about it and trying to show off, or is it because this was a failed experiment and they are trying to get some bit of mileage out of it? I suspect the latter.
I see this phenomenon as analagous to the chlorine weaponization fears we witnessed in the opening months of 2007 in Iraq. It became almost a fad, until about March or April 2007, to throw a chlorine cylinder into the back of a pick-up that had been turned into a truck bomb. While the handful of cases of this action created a lot of fears of chlorine weaponization and new WMD attacks in the U.S., the reality proved otherwise. Fatalities came not from chlorine gas attacks, but from the explosions. Moreover, the bombs themselves consumed most of the chlorine released from cylinders. By November of that year, the trend had gone the opposite way. Too much control of chlorine out of fears of weaponization led to delays in delivering it for water disinfection, and cholera outbreaks in Iraq started to occur, as a result.
My sense is that the same kind of phenomenon is taking place with these body cavity bombs. So if the terrorists can't use the tactic effectively to attack targets, they seem to be trying to get mileage out of it to force the rest of us to overspend on new defenses.
What to do as a defender? Take a page from California's Office of Emergency Services of the 1990s and from TSA's current playbook that allows some flexibility in implementing random, enhanced security measures. OES did this during the first Gulf War when shadowy threats of Iraqi agents in California left private and public entities clamoring for advice about what to do. In addition to feasible countermeasures, an OES instructor recommended placing visible signs saying things more or less like, "We are sorry for the inconvenience caused by our extra security during these times of heightened alert." This tactic gave pause to potential attackers, even when the defenders had not yet implemented a single extra security measure. Such measures remain in our current playbook, and it makes no sense to scrap them or to treat one more botched attack as a game changer. Used judiciously, tactics already in hand are not a bad way of turning the tables on adversaries who would try to scare us as their consolation prize for not being able to blow us up with something pulled from their ... nether regions.
PS: The Bojinka plot to blow up multiple airplanes at the same time failed.
- Nick Catrantzos
One such article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1218562/Bombers-hide-devices-inside-bodies-Travellers-Europe-face-body-X-rays.html#
My rationale for taking this with a grain of salt is that there are a lot of experiments that terrorist groups have tried out and then just given up for one main reason: they didn't work. The recently reported body cavity bomb killed the suicide bomber but not his target. Now the details of this kind of attack are coming out on radical web sites. Is it because the terrorists are bragging about it and trying to show off, or is it because this was a failed experiment and they are trying to get some bit of mileage out of it? I suspect the latter.
I see this phenomenon as analagous to the chlorine weaponization fears we witnessed in the opening months of 2007 in Iraq. It became almost a fad, until about March or April 2007, to throw a chlorine cylinder into the back of a pick-up that had been turned into a truck bomb. While the handful of cases of this action created a lot of fears of chlorine weaponization and new WMD attacks in the U.S., the reality proved otherwise. Fatalities came not from chlorine gas attacks, but from the explosions. Moreover, the bombs themselves consumed most of the chlorine released from cylinders. By November of that year, the trend had gone the opposite way. Too much control of chlorine out of fears of weaponization led to delays in delivering it for water disinfection, and cholera outbreaks in Iraq started to occur, as a result.
My sense is that the same kind of phenomenon is taking place with these body cavity bombs. So if the terrorists can't use the tactic effectively to attack targets, they seem to be trying to get mileage out of it to force the rest of us to overspend on new defenses.
What to do as a defender? Take a page from California's Office of Emergency Services of the 1990s and from TSA's current playbook that allows some flexibility in implementing random, enhanced security measures. OES did this during the first Gulf War when shadowy threats of Iraqi agents in California left private and public entities clamoring for advice about what to do. In addition to feasible countermeasures, an OES instructor recommended placing visible signs saying things more or less like, "We are sorry for the inconvenience caused by our extra security during these times of heightened alert." This tactic gave pause to potential attackers, even when the defenders had not yet implemented a single extra security measure. Such measures remain in our current playbook, and it makes no sense to scrap them or to treat one more botched attack as a game changer. Used judiciously, tactics already in hand are not a bad way of turning the tables on adversaries who would try to scare us as their consolation prize for not being able to blow us up with something pulled from their ... nether regions.
PS: The Bojinka plot to blow up multiple airplanes at the same time failed.
- Nick Catrantzos
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Ft. Hood: Workplace Violence vs. Terror
The Ft. Hood shooting is a better candidate for categorization as workplace violence rather than terror. But this does not mean that the shooter won't join the popular rush to align himself with jihad or a more spectacular cause to somehow try to dignify his villainy. He may be nothing but a cowardly loser, yet he will most likely chase recognition and respect of a kind by trying to elevate his deplorable actions as something more than what they truly were. Here is the rationale for identifying him more with workplace violence than terror:
- Relatively few signs of planning other than giving away furniture -- at least based on what is in the media so far. Also, no sign of a Plan B, in case the shooting did not cause enough fatalities in his estimation.
- No apparent escape plan, although terrorists and rampage killers have been known to carry out one-way missions.
- Death toll comparable to Columbine, the work of unsophisticated kids, whereas this shooter was apparently a well educated individual who would have been able to plan for more casualties, particularly if under the control of a terror cell.
- Weapons choice: handguns vs. automatic weapons, explosives, or combination of both. Also, he would have been in a better position than most to unleash a biological weapon, particularly if he had returned to the good graces of his medical community. Historically and statistically, the bomb remains the terrorist weapon of choice and, given this individual's access, would have been easy to place strategically and in quantity in multiple areas on post to increase damage and fatalities. A modestly planned attack would have one explosion triggering evacuations right into the line of fire, for example. But this didn't happen.
- Multiple signs of volatility and instability, whereas an agent of a terror network would be selected and trained to avoid drawing attention and to blend until directed to strike. An unstable individual, on the other hand, would make a lousy recruit and threaten to compromise the network through ill-considered actions and
inattention to operational security. Even the Al Qaeda Manual that the British captured in Manchester in 2002 advised would-be agents of jihad to fit in, blend, and avoid overly ostensible identification with their true cause and ideology.
- In The Islamist as well as in other studies on the unconventional threat, I seem to recall that the more normal pattern of radicalization is to stop attending mosque and instead turn to a clandestine cell for social identity reinforcement and validation as one becomes more radicalized. Didn't this fellow go the opposite way?
- Triggering events consistent with last straws typically found in workplace violence cases: bad performance review(s), stymied in attaining personal goals (to avoid impending combat deployment),increasingly alienated without spouse or close personal anchors, most likely facing negative career events (court martial? loss of
professional licenses?), seeing no way out of self-created predicament.
- Nick Catrantzos
- Relatively few signs of planning other than giving away furniture -- at least based on what is in the media so far. Also, no sign of a Plan B, in case the shooting did not cause enough fatalities in his estimation.
- No apparent escape plan, although terrorists and rampage killers have been known to carry out one-way missions.
- Death toll comparable to Columbine, the work of unsophisticated kids, whereas this shooter was apparently a well educated individual who would have been able to plan for more casualties, particularly if under the control of a terror cell.
- Weapons choice: handguns vs. automatic weapons, explosives, or combination of both. Also, he would have been in a better position than most to unleash a biological weapon, particularly if he had returned to the good graces of his medical community. Historically and statistically, the bomb remains the terrorist weapon of choice and, given this individual's access, would have been easy to place strategically and in quantity in multiple areas on post to increase damage and fatalities. A modestly planned attack would have one explosion triggering evacuations right into the line of fire, for example. But this didn't happen.
- Multiple signs of volatility and instability, whereas an agent of a terror network would be selected and trained to avoid drawing attention and to blend until directed to strike. An unstable individual, on the other hand, would make a lousy recruit and threaten to compromise the network through ill-considered actions and
inattention to operational security. Even the Al Qaeda Manual that the British captured in Manchester in 2002 advised would-be agents of jihad to fit in, blend, and avoid overly ostensible identification with their true cause and ideology.
- In The Islamist as well as in other studies on the unconventional threat, I seem to recall that the more normal pattern of radicalization is to stop attending mosque and instead turn to a clandestine cell for social identity reinforcement and validation as one becomes more radicalized. Didn't this fellow go the opposite way?
- Triggering events consistent with last straws typically found in workplace violence cases: bad performance review(s), stymied in attaining personal goals (to avoid impending combat deployment),increasingly alienated without spouse or close personal anchors, most likely facing negative career events (court martial? loss of
professional licenses?), seeing no way out of self-created predicament.
- Nick Catrantzos
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The Ft. Hood Columbine
Modern society faces tragedy by rushing to point the accusing finger of blame. Adaptive society faces tragedy by learning from it, to prevent if possible and mitigate if not. The Ft. Hood, Texas, shooting of November 5, 2009 left 13 victims dead and 42 wounded. The Columbine High School shooting at Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999, left 13 dead and 21 wounded.
No sooner had the Ft. Hood carnage surfaced in the media than reporter speculation began about whether all those casualties were simply too many for the single shooter to cause with the guns he had and to start asking questions about friendly fire. Similarly, anecdotes about the shooter fueled the usual speculation about clear signals that should have been recognized and acted upon. All this is to be expected. Scapegoating, embroidery, and finger-pointing fill gaps if reporters find themselves short of facts.
What, however, will be the adaptive lesson of Fort Hood? Look for better assessment protocols to emerge on earlier identification and containment of unstable characters and for more studies on how to counter self-radicalization. This is the Columbine moment of the Fort Hood catastrophe. Just as Columbine spawned the active shooter protocol, Fort Hood will ultimately give defenders new tools in their protective toolbox. Perhaps the lessons will include insights about the dark corners where dangerous, unstable insiders lurk and better ways to intervene before they attack.
The active shooter lessons of Columbine were that the only way to minimize casualties is to engage the shooter without delay, a lesson proven at individual peril by the by Fort Hood Police Sergeant Kimberly Munley, who exchanged gunfire with the shooter and stopped the casualty count, even as she sustained serious wounds in the exchange. Somewhere in her tactical training, Sgt. Munley may well have absorbed a Columbine lesson about how to handle an active shooter. Unscathed soldiers and civilians at that Army post benefited from the lesson and Munley’s application of it that prevented additional casualties. Before Columbine, the preoccupation would have been with evacuation, treatment, and searching while waiting for a SWAT team or other specialized unit to set up and confront the shooter – despite the likelihood of having more lives lost or risked in the process. Now, active shooters get engaged instantly by courageous, come-as-you-are defenders like Sgt. Munley.
We don’t yet know all the lessons Fort Hood will teach us. But they will evolve and they will inevitably make their way into the defender’s arsenal. If only such lessons did not come at so high a cost …
- Nick Catrantzos
No sooner had the Ft. Hood carnage surfaced in the media than reporter speculation began about whether all those casualties were simply too many for the single shooter to cause with the guns he had and to start asking questions about friendly fire. Similarly, anecdotes about the shooter fueled the usual speculation about clear signals that should have been recognized and acted upon. All this is to be expected. Scapegoating, embroidery, and finger-pointing fill gaps if reporters find themselves short of facts.
What, however, will be the adaptive lesson of Fort Hood? Look for better assessment protocols to emerge on earlier identification and containment of unstable characters and for more studies on how to counter self-radicalization. This is the Columbine moment of the Fort Hood catastrophe. Just as Columbine spawned the active shooter protocol, Fort Hood will ultimately give defenders new tools in their protective toolbox. Perhaps the lessons will include insights about the dark corners where dangerous, unstable insiders lurk and better ways to intervene before they attack.
The active shooter lessons of Columbine were that the only way to minimize casualties is to engage the shooter without delay, a lesson proven at individual peril by the by Fort Hood Police Sergeant Kimberly Munley, who exchanged gunfire with the shooter and stopped the casualty count, even as she sustained serious wounds in the exchange. Somewhere in her tactical training, Sgt. Munley may well have absorbed a Columbine lesson about how to handle an active shooter. Unscathed soldiers and civilians at that Army post benefited from the lesson and Munley’s application of it that prevented additional casualties. Before Columbine, the preoccupation would have been with evacuation, treatment, and searching while waiting for a SWAT team or other specialized unit to set up and confront the shooter – despite the likelihood of having more lives lost or risked in the process. Now, active shooters get engaged instantly by courageous, come-as-you-are defenders like Sgt. Munley.
We don’t yet know all the lessons Fort Hood will teach us. But they will evolve and they will inevitably make their way into the defender’s arsenal. If only such lessons did not come at so high a cost …
- Nick Catrantzos
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Instant News and Insecurity
"True, you guys in Intel can't ever match the news wires," the general said, "but they don't have to get it right, or stand tall in front of a commander who sends troops into harm's way based on bad information."
That statement -- a surprise endorsement of military intelligence by a career warrior when his staff were piling abuse onto an intelligence unit for lagging behind the media -- retains its currency today. Even more so, if one looks at a Washington Post article proclaiming, "The news is broken" (http://mobile.washingtonpost.com//rss.jsp?rssid=597&item=+http%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fwp-syndication%2farticle%2f2009%2f10%2f19%2fAR2009101902988_mobile.xml+&cid=1).
The article's theme that getting it first supersedes getting it right may not be new. But in a world of Internet access and high-bandwidth communications, it is unconscionable to forego the most elemental fact-checking if one is in the business of spreading information. Two enabling forces, though, oppose truth in favor of expediency. The first is agenda-filtered data collection. This bias magnetizes reporter and unvetted story like iron filings to a magnet. They lean to the story that leans with their political and social presets. But the second force is even stronger: inertia. Accept what's handed out. It beats working for a story.
All of this is mildly interesting as long as unfiltered news feeds no important decision or action. The challenge to intelligence agencies and other dealers in corroborated, analytically supported information remains today what it was over 20 years ago when that general spoke those words to this young captain. Don't rush to be the first at the expense of accuracy, but also don't lag so far behind the sound biters that you leave decision makers no alternative to rely on.
- Nick Catrantzos
That statement -- a surprise endorsement of military intelligence by a career warrior when his staff were piling abuse onto an intelligence unit for lagging behind the media -- retains its currency today. Even more so, if one looks at a Washington Post article proclaiming, "The news is broken" (http://mobile.washingtonpost.com//rss.jsp?rssid=597&item=+http%3a%2f%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fwp-syndication%2farticle%2f2009%2f10%2f19%2fAR2009101902988_mobile.xml+&cid=1).
The article's theme that getting it first supersedes getting it right may not be new. But in a world of Internet access and high-bandwidth communications, it is unconscionable to forego the most elemental fact-checking if one is in the business of spreading information. Two enabling forces, though, oppose truth in favor of expediency. The first is agenda-filtered data collection. This bias magnetizes reporter and unvetted story like iron filings to a magnet. They lean to the story that leans with their political and social presets. But the second force is even stronger: inertia. Accept what's handed out. It beats working for a story.
All of this is mildly interesting as long as unfiltered news feeds no important decision or action. The challenge to intelligence agencies and other dealers in corroborated, analytically supported information remains today what it was over 20 years ago when that general spoke those words to this young captain. Don't rush to be the first at the expense of accuracy, but also don't lag so far behind the sound biters that you leave decision makers no alternative to rely on.
- Nick Catrantzos
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Review: An Excellent Reference on Countering Terrorism
The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers (Hardcover)
Boaz Ganor
New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005
This is the most thorough, cogent, and intelligently written work on terrorism and the ways to defeat it to grace the open literature in recent times. Unlike the more common offerings in this field, Ganor's work goes to great lengths to avoid or at least identify potential bias and to present opposing views. Nor does the author shy away from tough issues. Deterrence is one such topic. While noting that deterrence can be a matter of image (p. 63), he also recognizes the difference between deterring nations or terrorist organizations vs. deterring individuals or networks (p.64). He analyzes measures intended to deter terrorists, concluding that, ultimately, the attacker becomes used to a given measure and learns to live with it or overcome it (p.74). Yet he also addresses the complexities inherent in making public the thresholds set for deterrents (p.94).
Another example is his thoughtful note that public warnings should only be issued when accompanied by concrete guidelines to follow that are directly related to the warning (p. 260) -- a welcome contrast to the post-9/11 proliferation of nonspecific warnings that often give the appearance of emerging to offset future claims of failing to alert the public.
For clarity, analysis, and insight, Ganor's book is without peer.
- Nick Catrantzos
Also posted on Amazon.com as a book review found useful by 100% of individuals reading it:
http://www.amazon.com/Counter-Terrorism-Puzzle-Guide-Decision-Makers/dp/0765802988/ref=sr_oe_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255322883&sr=1-1
Boaz Ganor
New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005
This is the most thorough, cogent, and intelligently written work on terrorism and the ways to defeat it to grace the open literature in recent times. Unlike the more common offerings in this field, Ganor's work goes to great lengths to avoid or at least identify potential bias and to present opposing views. Nor does the author shy away from tough issues. Deterrence is one such topic. While noting that deterrence can be a matter of image (p. 63), he also recognizes the difference between deterring nations or terrorist organizations vs. deterring individuals or networks (p.64). He analyzes measures intended to deter terrorists, concluding that, ultimately, the attacker becomes used to a given measure and learns to live with it or overcome it (p.74). Yet he also addresses the complexities inherent in making public the thresholds set for deterrents (p.94).
Another example is his thoughtful note that public warnings should only be issued when accompanied by concrete guidelines to follow that are directly related to the warning (p. 260) -- a welcome contrast to the post-9/11 proliferation of nonspecific warnings that often give the appearance of emerging to offset future claims of failing to alert the public.
For clarity, analysis, and insight, Ganor's book is without peer.
- Nick Catrantzos
Also posted on Amazon.com as a book review found useful by 100% of individuals reading it:
http://www.amazon.com/Counter-Terrorism-Puzzle-Guide-Decision-Makers/dp/0765802988/ref=sr_oe_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255322883&sr=1-1
Review: Thinking Sort of Like a Terrorist
Thinking Like a Terrorist
Mike German
Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2008
In Thinking Like a Terrorist former FBI agent Mike German applies his undercover experience infiltrating domestic white supremacists to offering universal truths and policy advice for a country he considers misguided in the war on terror. The author begins with a definitional arabesque about how one country’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Eventually, though, he produces food for thought.
This is the meat. German argues that the end game for terrorists is not spectacular massacres but a political victory attained by maneuvering their targets into oppressive measures that ultimately turn popular sympathy in the terrorists’ favor. This strategy is a contest for legitimacy. The terrorists’ audience begins with its own constituency, or identity group, blending the radicalized and the indifferent majority of a group sharing a religion, ethnicity, or other unifying feature. As the targeted government overreacts to terrorist attack, it institutes more and more repressive measures, often at the expense of the identity group. Ultimately, the government cedes legitimacy, yielding the moral high ground to the terrorists, who exploit the situation to prove their case and appear as the more injured party before an increasingly hospitable world stage. The targeted government falling into this trap may win battles but, ultimately, the terrorists win the war. The only way to avoid this pitfall, as German has it, is to investigate and prosecute terrorists as criminals, thereby denying them a platform and the legitimacy they crave.
This reasoning avails, up to a point. That point is where the author saturates every dish with this same sauce: investigate and prosecute. Having investigated and supported prosecution of white supremacists before they carried out domestic attacks, German makes this approach his only hammer and sees every terrorist as a nail.
German concedes little previous exposure to counterintelligence or classified information. So how does he address their role in the war on terror? He dismisses them. Everything done in secret must lack sufficient oversight. Another analyst, Benjamin Netanyahu, anticipated German by a dozen years but thought otherwise. Netanyahu credited successful defenses against terrorist groups by European countries which had to resort temporarily to secret tribunals and special police powers without jeopardizing the civil liberties that German holds dear.[1] In France, for example, secret tribunals to judge terrorists proved more useful than dead or intimidated judges and juries.
German’s offhand dismissal of security measures as wasteful (p. 181) is equally one-sided. He dwells on poor security spending without addressing the value of engaging the public in its own defense. By contrast, others who share German’s concerns instead counsel public awareness and involvement in meeting security threats, declaring, “We are all citizen soldiers.”[2] Similarly, Israeli security specialists like Tomer Benito, having defended critical infrastructure and airliners from Palestinian terrorists, now teach Americans to detect and deter possible terror attacks at the early phase of target selection – without waiting to investigate and prosecute, as German would prefer.[3]
Thinking Like a Terrorist offers food for thought, not a complete meal.
- Nick Catrantzos
Notes: 1. Benjamin Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism (Collingdale: Diane Publishing Company, 1995) pp7-10. Netanyahu, publishing the book shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing and before his rise to Prime Minister of Israel, also explains how Baader-Meinhof, Red Brigades, and Japanese Red Army terrorists remained marginalized in their respective societies, without gaining public sympathy. Evidently, the author’s interest in terrorism is rooted in personal tragedy and his founding of the Jonathan Institute in Israel to study terrorism. Jonathan Netanyahu, Benjamin’s brother, led the raid to Entebbe, Uganda, which succeeded in freeing Israeli hostages with only a single Israeli casualty, Jonathan Netanyahu himself.
2. Joseph A. Ruffini, When Terror Comes to Main Street, (Denver: Archangel Group, 2006) p. 183.
3. From “Art of Deterrence” workshop, February 27 – March 1, 2007, Los Angeles, by Tomer Benito, principal, Synergy. A former El Al security officer, Benito now teaches target selection, protective response, and anti-terrorist approaches from the Israeli point of view.
Mike German
Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2008
In Thinking Like a Terrorist former FBI agent Mike German applies his undercover experience infiltrating domestic white supremacists to offering universal truths and policy advice for a country he considers misguided in the war on terror. The author begins with a definitional arabesque about how one country’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Eventually, though, he produces food for thought.
This is the meat. German argues that the end game for terrorists is not spectacular massacres but a political victory attained by maneuvering their targets into oppressive measures that ultimately turn popular sympathy in the terrorists’ favor. This strategy is a contest for legitimacy. The terrorists’ audience begins with its own constituency, or identity group, blending the radicalized and the indifferent majority of a group sharing a religion, ethnicity, or other unifying feature. As the targeted government overreacts to terrorist attack, it institutes more and more repressive measures, often at the expense of the identity group. Ultimately, the government cedes legitimacy, yielding the moral high ground to the terrorists, who exploit the situation to prove their case and appear as the more injured party before an increasingly hospitable world stage. The targeted government falling into this trap may win battles but, ultimately, the terrorists win the war. The only way to avoid this pitfall, as German has it, is to investigate and prosecute terrorists as criminals, thereby denying them a platform and the legitimacy they crave.
This reasoning avails, up to a point. That point is where the author saturates every dish with this same sauce: investigate and prosecute. Having investigated and supported prosecution of white supremacists before they carried out domestic attacks, German makes this approach his only hammer and sees every terrorist as a nail.
German concedes little previous exposure to counterintelligence or classified information. So how does he address their role in the war on terror? He dismisses them. Everything done in secret must lack sufficient oversight. Another analyst, Benjamin Netanyahu, anticipated German by a dozen years but thought otherwise. Netanyahu credited successful defenses against terrorist groups by European countries which had to resort temporarily to secret tribunals and special police powers without jeopardizing the civil liberties that German holds dear.[1] In France, for example, secret tribunals to judge terrorists proved more useful than dead or intimidated judges and juries.
German’s offhand dismissal of security measures as wasteful (p. 181) is equally one-sided. He dwells on poor security spending without addressing the value of engaging the public in its own defense. By contrast, others who share German’s concerns instead counsel public awareness and involvement in meeting security threats, declaring, “We are all citizen soldiers.”[2] Similarly, Israeli security specialists like Tomer Benito, having defended critical infrastructure and airliners from Palestinian terrorists, now teach Americans to detect and deter possible terror attacks at the early phase of target selection – without waiting to investigate and prosecute, as German would prefer.[3]
Thinking Like a Terrorist offers food for thought, not a complete meal.
- Nick Catrantzos
Notes: 1. Benjamin Netanyahu, Fighting Terrorism (Collingdale: Diane Publishing Company, 1995) pp7-10. Netanyahu, publishing the book shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing and before his rise to Prime Minister of Israel, also explains how Baader-Meinhof, Red Brigades, and Japanese Red Army terrorists remained marginalized in their respective societies, without gaining public sympathy. Evidently, the author’s interest in terrorism is rooted in personal tragedy and his founding of the Jonathan Institute in Israel to study terrorism. Jonathan Netanyahu, Benjamin’s brother, led the raid to Entebbe, Uganda, which succeeded in freeing Israeli hostages with only a single Israeli casualty, Jonathan Netanyahu himself.
2. Joseph A. Ruffini, When Terror Comes to Main Street, (Denver: Archangel Group, 2006) p. 183.
3. From “Art of Deterrence” workshop, February 27 – March 1, 2007, Los Angeles, by Tomer Benito, principal, Synergy. A former El Al security officer, Benito now teaches target selection, protective response, and anti-terrorist approaches from the Israeli point of view.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Dark Side of Subsidized Security
In a culture where more is automatically better, it may seem blasphemous to suggest that too much funding undermines security. Counterintuitive, perhaps. Even scandalous. Yet, sadly, true.
Anyone in the protection business has by now accumulated at least a handful of war stories about pet projects funded under the banner of Homeland Security, whether via federal grant or misguided private sector largesse. The insidious nature of subsidized security, however, extends far beyond the Homeland Security realm. Yet the pattern is often common, regardless of the circumstances. A security practitioner championing a worthy cause discovers a funding stream. With a combination of skill and luck, the practitioner obtains outside funding to jumpstart his or her program. What was a one-time windfall begins to feel like an entitlement. It becomes indispensable, and so the primary focus begins to shift away from the original security objective. Soon, the focus becomes grantsmanship and the best efforts go to capture strategies for that next grant check. In the process, security suffers. Reputations suffer and careers end abruptly when abuses surface.
Case in Point: A violence prevention program at a northern campus of the University of California earned a million dollars in federal funding. In order to obtain this funding, an aggressive program manager apparently felt obligated to falsify official crime statistics. Else, how does one account for a campus in the Sacramento suburb of Davis having twice the sexual assaults of its counterpart UC campus in Los Angeles? Details are in this expose' http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2227823.html?mi_rss=Our%2520Region
Such misconduct is not original. What makes this story interesting is a subtle indicator of institutional complicity or lack of due diligence and reasonable scrutiny. How do we know? As the article reveals, "UC Davis officials said they didn't know why the longtime employee would do it. On Friday, they made it clear they had not asked her to explain her actions." Moreover, the same officials first suspended the individual behind the falsification of crime statistics and then retroactively changed the suspension into medical leave, after which the shamed program manager was able to retire. An attentive reporter figured out that employees suspended on medical leave are immune from disciplinary action unless they return to work. Since this employee did not return to work but retired, the institutional beneficiaries of the grant money were spared the discomfort of the investigation that would be necessary to support any discipline of one employee.
Did the university at least initiate the suspension based on the falsification of crime statistics -- a federal offense? No. As it happens, the misconduct that triggered the suspension (that later became medical leave) was overbilling on travel expenses. Thus we find that cheating in one area offers no immunity from cheating in another. And it now falls to the non-abusers to remove the tarnish from what is otherwise reportedly a commendable program.
- Nick Catrantzos
Anyone in the protection business has by now accumulated at least a handful of war stories about pet projects funded under the banner of Homeland Security, whether via federal grant or misguided private sector largesse. The insidious nature of subsidized security, however, extends far beyond the Homeland Security realm. Yet the pattern is often common, regardless of the circumstances. A security practitioner championing a worthy cause discovers a funding stream. With a combination of skill and luck, the practitioner obtains outside funding to jumpstart his or her program. What was a one-time windfall begins to feel like an entitlement. It becomes indispensable, and so the primary focus begins to shift away from the original security objective. Soon, the focus becomes grantsmanship and the best efforts go to capture strategies for that next grant check. In the process, security suffers. Reputations suffer and careers end abruptly when abuses surface.
Case in Point: A violence prevention program at a northern campus of the University of California earned a million dollars in federal funding. In order to obtain this funding, an aggressive program manager apparently felt obligated to falsify official crime statistics. Else, how does one account for a campus in the Sacramento suburb of Davis having twice the sexual assaults of its counterpart UC campus in Los Angeles? Details are in this expose' http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2227823.html?mi_rss=Our%2520Region
Such misconduct is not original. What makes this story interesting is a subtle indicator of institutional complicity or lack of due diligence and reasonable scrutiny. How do we know? As the article reveals, "UC Davis officials said they didn't know why the longtime employee would do it. On Friday, they made it clear they had not asked her to explain her actions." Moreover, the same officials first suspended the individual behind the falsification of crime statistics and then retroactively changed the suspension into medical leave, after which the shamed program manager was able to retire. An attentive reporter figured out that employees suspended on medical leave are immune from disciplinary action unless they return to work. Since this employee did not return to work but retired, the institutional beneficiaries of the grant money were spared the discomfort of the investigation that would be necessary to support any discipline of one employee.
Did the university at least initiate the suspension based on the falsification of crime statistics -- a federal offense? No. As it happens, the misconduct that triggered the suspension (that later became medical leave) was overbilling on travel expenses. Thus we find that cheating in one area offers no immunity from cheating in another. And it now falls to the non-abusers to remove the tarnish from what is otherwise reportedly a commendable program.
- Nick Catrantzos
Monday, August 31, 2009
The Notorious Army Field Manual on Interrogation
In line with a current national penchant for passing legislation without reading all the language, it might be acceptable to pass judgment on the Army Field Manual on Interrogation (Army FM 2-22.3, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTOR OPERATIONS) without actually bothering to read the September 2006 document. It would even be tempting, as the 384-page tome is not about to rival a Danielle Steel romance novel or Que-vintage Excel for Dummies book as a true page turner. However, assessing its value without reading it takes the kind of double standard that only a political being could manage with a straight face.
As a practitioner of many of the arts that this manual purports to frame and bound within a sphere of political delicacy inflamed by the events of Abu Ghraib, I rate it mostly useful for evaluators, overseers, and distant observers of interrogation and debriefing operations. For such panjandrums of the periphery, the manual does its job. It catalogues, in yeoman fashion, all the prohibitions against stepping out of line while also presenting an aspirational model of what the ideal intelligence collector should possess in personality traits, education, and mastery of coordination processes. The first two-thirds of the manual deal mainly with such intricacies, offering enough jargon and acronyms to deter political staffers and dilettantes from reading too intently while convincing them that it is, after all, a serious military document.
What does this manual do for the collector, however? Not much at all. Eventually, it recounts standard interrogation techniques, such as file-and-dossier, Mutt-and-Jeff, rapid fire, and "We know all" -- none of which have changed substantially in a half century. This particular manual does a little more justice to the art of drawing intelligence from willing and unwilling sources by discussing the value of elicitation and the importance of building rapport. While interrogators and debriefers must learn these points in order to succeed, in the past, much of this knowledge was passed down like tribal ritual uttered only before trusted stalwarts over the battlefield campfire. So there is value in the manual. And it spells out most clearly the roles of all who interact with enemy prisoners of war, detainees, and other potential human intelligence sources. A key point is that military police serving as prisoner handlers and wardens are never to assume interrogation-related tasks, such as "softening up" the people in their custody prior to a questioning session. Nor is anyone ever to be allowed to treat such people inhumanely or to interact with them out of view and earshot of assigned military custodians. While this material may appease politicians looking for reassurance that America does not sanction prisoner abuse, none of it is new. The same rules have been in place for generations. This manual only draws more emphasis to them.
On the whole, the manual is a compendium of do-not instructions and laundry lists of coordination mandates and prohibitions geared more for commanders seeking to bring their intelligence collectors up on charges of misconduct than for intelligence gatherers seeking instructional material. This may be good in that the manual does serve a purpose. But no one will learn the craft of interviewing people and deriving intelligence from the interview by reading this manual alone. It would be like expecting to learn how to drive by paging through the vehicle code.
- Nick Catrantzos
As a practitioner of many of the arts that this manual purports to frame and bound within a sphere of political delicacy inflamed by the events of Abu Ghraib, I rate it mostly useful for evaluators, overseers, and distant observers of interrogation and debriefing operations. For such panjandrums of the periphery, the manual does its job. It catalogues, in yeoman fashion, all the prohibitions against stepping out of line while also presenting an aspirational model of what the ideal intelligence collector should possess in personality traits, education, and mastery of coordination processes. The first two-thirds of the manual deal mainly with such intricacies, offering enough jargon and acronyms to deter political staffers and dilettantes from reading too intently while convincing them that it is, after all, a serious military document.
What does this manual do for the collector, however? Not much at all. Eventually, it recounts standard interrogation techniques, such as file-and-dossier, Mutt-and-Jeff, rapid fire, and "We know all" -- none of which have changed substantially in a half century. This particular manual does a little more justice to the art of drawing intelligence from willing and unwilling sources by discussing the value of elicitation and the importance of building rapport. While interrogators and debriefers must learn these points in order to succeed, in the past, much of this knowledge was passed down like tribal ritual uttered only before trusted stalwarts over the battlefield campfire. So there is value in the manual. And it spells out most clearly the roles of all who interact with enemy prisoners of war, detainees, and other potential human intelligence sources. A key point is that military police serving as prisoner handlers and wardens are never to assume interrogation-related tasks, such as "softening up" the people in their custody prior to a questioning session. Nor is anyone ever to be allowed to treat such people inhumanely or to interact with them out of view and earshot of assigned military custodians. While this material may appease politicians looking for reassurance that America does not sanction prisoner abuse, none of it is new. The same rules have been in place for generations. This manual only draws more emphasis to them.
On the whole, the manual is a compendium of do-not instructions and laundry lists of coordination mandates and prohibitions geared more for commanders seeking to bring their intelligence collectors up on charges of misconduct than for intelligence gatherers seeking instructional material. This may be good in that the manual does serve a purpose. But no one will learn the craft of interviewing people and deriving intelligence from the interview by reading this manual alone. It would be like expecting to learn how to drive by paging through the vehicle code.
- Nick Catrantzos
Thursday, August 6, 2009
The Burger Scale for Burgher Bratton
A burgher is both citizen and representative of the mercantile class, something Chief Bratton is poised to become once he steps down as Los Angeles police chief to succumb to the blandishments of the private sector. Is he as wonderful as his well packaged image proclaims, or as suspect as skeptics peering behind the veneer suggest? There is a scale which will soon point to a credible answer. But, first, here are the poles that define the spectrum.
Says James Q. Wilson, co-author of the important "Broken Windows" essay:
" ... William J. Bratton has been the best thing that happened to the LAPD since William H. Parker, the man who created our modern Police Department over half a century ago. Bratton came to a city plagued by high rates of crime, rampant gang violence, the unhappy memory of the Rodney King riots, deep distrust between the police and the black community and a consent decree in which a federal judge made clear his intention to make wholesale changes in how we were policed ... "
Read more ...
Goodbye to the chief - Los Angeles Times
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Says Tim Rutten, L.A. Times author of When the going got tough, Bratton got gone www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten7-2009aug07,0,440561.column
"The lasting impression created by Bratton's abrupt departure is of a leader who was happy to occupy the spotlight when his department was riding high, wide and handsome, but unwilling to get his hands dirty -- and perhaps to dent his reputation -- when the going got institutionally tough."
Working level insiders affirm Bratton's talent for self-promotion and teflon-like resistance to bad press. The chief has been said to seldom resist hijacking a subordinate's achievements as his own. Jack Maple, for example, invented Compstat. Even the television program starring Craig T. Nelson that featured that innovation in D.C., The District, acknowledged Maple more than Bratton does when he allows the innovation to surface in his resume. But Maple is deceased and unlikely to complain. Moreover, Bratton seldom appears to take as much credit for the rain as for the sunshine. Witness the LAPD after-action report on mishandled MacArthur Park protests a couple of years ago. Its tone? These lousy commanders let the chief down. Right.
Now for the scale. The LAPD Academy coffee shop has on its menu a Bratton Burger. How long will that item stay on the menu? If the chief is indeed the greatest boon to policing since badges and billy clubs, the answer is indefinitely. But, according to one former city employee with law enforcement credentials, "I give it three months" before this informal tribute fades away.
- Nick Catrantzos
Says James Q. Wilson, co-author of the important "Broken Windows" essay:
" ... William J. Bratton has been the best thing that happened to the LAPD since William H. Parker, the man who created our modern Police Department over half a century ago. Bratton came to a city plagued by high rates of crime, rampant gang violence, the unhappy memory of the Rodney King riots, deep distrust between the police and the black community and a consent decree in which a federal judge made clear his intention to make wholesale changes in how we were policed ... "
Read more ...
Goodbye to the chief - Los Angeles Times
Posted using ShareThis
Says Tim Rutten, L.A. Times author of When the going got tough, Bratton got gone www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten7-2009aug07,0,440561.column
"The lasting impression created by Bratton's abrupt departure is of a leader who was happy to occupy the spotlight when his department was riding high, wide and handsome, but unwilling to get his hands dirty -- and perhaps to dent his reputation -- when the going got institutionally tough."
Working level insiders affirm Bratton's talent for self-promotion and teflon-like resistance to bad press. The chief has been said to seldom resist hijacking a subordinate's achievements as his own. Jack Maple, for example, invented Compstat. Even the television program starring Craig T. Nelson that featured that innovation in D.C., The District, acknowledged Maple more than Bratton does when he allows the innovation to surface in his resume. But Maple is deceased and unlikely to complain. Moreover, Bratton seldom appears to take as much credit for the rain as for the sunshine. Witness the LAPD after-action report on mishandled MacArthur Park protests a couple of years ago. Its tone? These lousy commanders let the chief down. Right.
Now for the scale. The LAPD Academy coffee shop has on its menu a Bratton Burger. How long will that item stay on the menu? If the chief is indeed the greatest boon to policing since badges and billy clubs, the answer is indefinitely. But, according to one former city employee with law enforcement credentials, "I give it three months" before this informal tribute fades away.
- Nick Catrantzos
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Shorts: CEOs Out of The Loop on Security?
CEOs are often never told by their IT chiefs about many significant cyber threats, says a major new study released this week by Ounce Labs and Ponemon Institute and covered in the current issue of Forbes, in an article, “What CEOs Don't Know About Cybersecurity,” written by Andy Greenberg. About half the companies were under daily and sometimes hourly assault, and all are regular targets, but almost half the CEOs believed they were “rarely attacked” …
New Hampshire consumers aren’t doing any better, it seems. LexisNexis sent out you’ve-been-hacked letters to 1,600 users in the “Live Free or Die” state in June, months after the actual data theft. However, according to the Nashua Telegraph’s Ashley Smith reports today, “Data Breach Finally Made Known in NH,” the media and other LexisNexis users first learned of the data theft problem last week – and then only because the state’s Attorney General decided to make the on-line scam attack public. 13,000 nationwide were affected by the data thieves, one of whom has pled guilty to the crime …
U.S. road warriors may get a security break, reports Bloomberg’s Bill Schmick, in yesterday’s article, “Homeland Security to Reconsider Color-Coded Terror-Alert System.” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano intends to simplify the elaborate five-color alert disclosure system which has been disclosing mostly nothing at all. The threat level has never been blue (guarded) or green, and is almost always and inexplicably stuck on yellow (elevated) or orange (high). The alert level was at red only once – in August 2002 – but was back to orange just six days later.
New Hampshire consumers aren’t doing any better, it seems. LexisNexis sent out you’ve-been-hacked letters to 1,600 users in the “Live Free or Die” state in June, months after the actual data theft. However, according to the Nashua Telegraph’s Ashley Smith reports today, “Data Breach Finally Made Known in NH,” the media and other LexisNexis users first learned of the data theft problem last week – and then only because the state’s Attorney General decided to make the on-line scam attack public. 13,000 nationwide were affected by the data thieves, one of whom has pled guilty to the crime …
U.S. road warriors may get a security break, reports Bloomberg’s Bill Schmick, in yesterday’s article, “Homeland Security to Reconsider Color-Coded Terror-Alert System.” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano intends to simplify the elaborate five-color alert disclosure system which has been disclosing mostly nothing at all. The threat level has never been blue (guarded) or green, and is almost always and inexplicably stuck on yellow (elevated) or orange (high). The alert level was at red only once – in August 2002 – but was back to orange just six days later.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
A Modest Gitmo Send-off
Repatriating Guantanamo detainees remains a troubling predicament on many levels. The expense of closing down their current home and finding a new one on the continental United States is prohibitive. It is also politically radioactive, as even the most liberal, tolerant, kindly disposed, and forgiving souls do not want detainees in their communities, prison bars not being enough of a separator. Sending them to their country of origin or declared affiliation is compounded by two difficulties. First, many nations have proven much more disposed to criticize the Guantanamo operation than to assist in dismantling it. They don't want these detainees on their turf, either. Second, we have a nagging fear that sending these people to certain countries may only speed their return to declared and undeclared battlefields where they may be more inclined than ever to spill American blood. What to do?
Take a lesson from American Street Cop 101. Transfer these people to a U.S. embassy or consulate in a Middle Eastern country likely to have spawned them. Clean them up, feed and water them to the point of satiety or languor, take a picture with a U.S. military officer shaking hands and smiling broadly. Then walk them out the gate, hand them some American greenbacks, and be heard thanking them in English and in their own language for "all your help." Wave goodbye and shut the gate.
The innocuous among these liberated detainees will be staggered but will amble off and set themselves to picking up the pieces of their lives. They will move on. The haters and hooligans will seek out their like-minded compatriots to return to the struggle. Only their reputations will have been indelibly changed. Word will travel that they are in the employ of the Americans. Who will trust them?
The more professional of the cutthroat classes so treated will size up the situation and ask for a deal. They will quickly calculate that sudden release with the trappings of being in good graces with the Americans marks them for, shall we say, negative scrutiny among their former colleagues. It should be just like a crook arrested by police only to be returned to the street a couple of hours later with money in his pocket and a fond pat on the back by a plainclothes detective everyone in the neighborhood recognizes as a cop. The crook may have kept silent and refused to rat out his buddies. But he knows no one will trust him 100% after this little bit of street theater.
- Nick Catrantzos
Take a lesson from American Street Cop 101. Transfer these people to a U.S. embassy or consulate in a Middle Eastern country likely to have spawned them. Clean them up, feed and water them to the point of satiety or languor, take a picture with a U.S. military officer shaking hands and smiling broadly. Then walk them out the gate, hand them some American greenbacks, and be heard thanking them in English and in their own language for "all your help." Wave goodbye and shut the gate.
The innocuous among these liberated detainees will be staggered but will amble off and set themselves to picking up the pieces of their lives. They will move on. The haters and hooligans will seek out their like-minded compatriots to return to the struggle. Only their reputations will have been indelibly changed. Word will travel that they are in the employ of the Americans. Who will trust them?
The more professional of the cutthroat classes so treated will size up the situation and ask for a deal. They will quickly calculate that sudden release with the trappings of being in good graces with the Americans marks them for, shall we say, negative scrutiny among their former colleagues. It should be just like a crook arrested by police only to be returned to the street a couple of hours later with money in his pocket and a fond pat on the back by a plainclothes detective everyone in the neighborhood recognizes as a cop. The crook may have kept silent and refused to rat out his buddies. But he knows no one will trust him 100% after this little bit of street theater.
- Nick Catrantzos
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Fine Tune Shooter Response
The details of the rage killings in Bingampton, NY, have yet to surface or solidify since the event occurred yesterday. (See "http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Shooter-Blocked-Door-Hostages-Hid.html">). But to a security professional, there is always room for evaluating response protocols to see where they lend themselves to fine tuning.
All accounts of the event, so far, indicate that the shooting was over within moments of police arrival on scene. This is good. Police across America have adopted the Active Shooter protocol in the aftermath of the Columbine High School carnage in Littleton, CO, some years ago. Recall that in Columbine, responding law enforcement followed standard procedure of the day, which reflected fundamental assumptions of how to make order out of chaos: set up a perimeter, minimize exposure to risk, and let the trained and equipped entry team (i.e. SWAT) lead the way in. Reasonable as this sounds, the fundamental faux pas in this procedure was that it creates a space for killers to murder more victims and to make their last stand. Hence the Active Shooter variation which now encourages the first police on site to make immediate entry to neutralize the threat. And it works,as shown at the Santee High School shooting in the San Diego area in 2000. Two cops, an off-duty officer dropping his daughter at school, and a local policeman heard the shooting, went right in, cornered the shooter in the boys' restroom and even brought him out alive. Point: they didn't wait for SWAT and thus saved more students from getting shot.
So what is wrong now? Early indications are that the police in Bingamton took hours to clear the targeted people from the shooting site. By some accounts, police even placed restraints (flex cuffs) on some of these people, watching them closely, at gun point, in an abundance of caution. It is time to update these tactics. What we see in such approaches, though conducive to officer safety, is the perpetuation of the same kind of pre-Columbine reflex that outlasted its usefulness until the Active Shooter protocol emerged as the new de facto standard. Once the shooting stops, the first priority should be making entry and getting emergency assistance for the wounded. The second priority should be assisting survivors without adding to their terror. How many rage killers have concealed themselves among the survivors to elude police in such situations? This was not a hostage-barricade situation or terrorist standoff where the shooter had other objectives and was using hostages as a means to an end. This was a situation where the killer was on a one-way shooting spree. The police need to update their tactics to take this into account.
Surely the means exist to bring people out of this kind of situation more rapidly while still capturing their contact details and identity for futher investigation. How? Bring them over to a seating area, take down their names and, if necessary, a photo with a cell phone camera. If you want to get clever, offer a cup of water and then keep the cup for fingerprints or DNA. But is it really necessary to antagonize a traumatized group by treating them all like potential assailants after the shooting has ended and the guns are recovered from the clutches of the only fatality that looks self-inflicted and has extra ammunition? Not only do such tactics hurt police public relations. They also reduce cooperation of victims who might otherwise be more forthcoming in the investigation which follows.
-- Nick Catrantzos
All accounts of the event, so far, indicate that the shooting was over within moments of police arrival on scene. This is good. Police across America have adopted the Active Shooter protocol in the aftermath of the Columbine High School carnage in Littleton, CO, some years ago. Recall that in Columbine, responding law enforcement followed standard procedure of the day, which reflected fundamental assumptions of how to make order out of chaos: set up a perimeter, minimize exposure to risk, and let the trained and equipped entry team (i.e. SWAT) lead the way in. Reasonable as this sounds, the fundamental faux pas in this procedure was that it creates a space for killers to murder more victims and to make their last stand. Hence the Active Shooter variation which now encourages the first police on site to make immediate entry to neutralize the threat. And it works,as shown at the Santee High School shooting in the San Diego area in 2000. Two cops, an off-duty officer dropping his daughter at school, and a local policeman heard the shooting, went right in, cornered the shooter in the boys' restroom and even brought him out alive. Point: they didn't wait for SWAT and thus saved more students from getting shot.
So what is wrong now? Early indications are that the police in Bingamton took hours to clear the targeted people from the shooting site. By some accounts, police even placed restraints (flex cuffs) on some of these people, watching them closely, at gun point, in an abundance of caution. It is time to update these tactics. What we see in such approaches, though conducive to officer safety, is the perpetuation of the same kind of pre-Columbine reflex that outlasted its usefulness until the Active Shooter protocol emerged as the new de facto standard. Once the shooting stops, the first priority should be making entry and getting emergency assistance for the wounded. The second priority should be assisting survivors without adding to their terror. How many rage killers have concealed themselves among the survivors to elude police in such situations? This was not a hostage-barricade situation or terrorist standoff where the shooter had other objectives and was using hostages as a means to an end. This was a situation where the killer was on a one-way shooting spree. The police need to update their tactics to take this into account.
Surely the means exist to bring people out of this kind of situation more rapidly while still capturing their contact details and identity for futher investigation. How? Bring them over to a seating area, take down their names and, if necessary, a photo with a cell phone camera. If you want to get clever, offer a cup of water and then keep the cup for fingerprints or DNA. But is it really necessary to antagonize a traumatized group by treating them all like potential assailants after the shooting has ended and the guns are recovered from the clutches of the only fatality that looks self-inflicted and has extra ammunition? Not only do such tactics hurt police public relations. They also reduce cooperation of victims who might otherwise be more forthcoming in the investigation which follows.
-- Nick Catrantzos
Sunday, March 22, 2009
When Glowing Answers Are No Answer
Homicide is down 15% in Los Angeles County, and homicide investigations are down 12.2%. These statistics from a recent newspaper report, http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_11968942 , would be encouraging -- if only accompanied by more analysis than speculation. Only the police agencies compiling the data know better. They know that comparing a snapshot of time against an equivalent period last year offers no great insights or conclusive victories based on such thin statistics. Any number of less than glowing factors could account for such trends. Perhaps murderers, lacking in target practice and shooting discipline, are missing more targets this year than they are striking. Then again, timely access to trauma wards could be saving victims that would otherwise have expired. So, when officials rise to the reporters' bait to offer reasons for the good news, the wise do so with caution and with more of a sense of speculation than bluster. They opine that the reductions in homicide are the result of more aggressive law enforcement, of taking guns and gangs off the street. The accepted logic is that more police resources necessarily result in lower crime.
This is a bold statement, however. It says nothing about what other contributing or inhibiting factors may be at work. A more vigilant citizenry may be observing and reporting crime and suspicious activity in time for a diligent law enforcement cadre to respond proactively. Surveillance cameras, DNA evidence exploitation, news and reality TV programs and tip lines may be making it harder for villains to get away with the worst of crimes. Then again, changing demographic factors may be sliding us all into one of those periodic sweet spots where one criminal class is retiring from center stage before the next generation has grown old and lethal enough to assume the baton. There is also the phenomenon of displacement, whereby hardening of targets in one area simply pushed out crime and criminals to another, less defended area where malefactors face lower risk -- a reminder that the business of crime is like any other business, with risk considerations factoring into the decision about whom to victimize where and when.
What is the reality? Without better data and analysis, declaring any kind of victory over crime based on meager statistics is imprudent on many levels. Not only does it yield an inaccurate picture of what is really going on, it also gives naysayers and budget overseers the ammunition to demand that police cut staff or other resources on the theory that they must not need so many of either any longer. Such cuts would be most unwise, particularly in uncertain economic times when growing discontent in government, business, and American institutions in general may well exacerbate volatile conditions that would be conducive to more outbreaks of workplace violence on the individual level or even civil unrest on a larger scale. Now is neither the time to declare premature successes nor to trim police departments.
-- Nick Catrantzos
This is a bold statement, however. It says nothing about what other contributing or inhibiting factors may be at work. A more vigilant citizenry may be observing and reporting crime and suspicious activity in time for a diligent law enforcement cadre to respond proactively. Surveillance cameras, DNA evidence exploitation, news and reality TV programs and tip lines may be making it harder for villains to get away with the worst of crimes. Then again, changing demographic factors may be sliding us all into one of those periodic sweet spots where one criminal class is retiring from center stage before the next generation has grown old and lethal enough to assume the baton. There is also the phenomenon of displacement, whereby hardening of targets in one area simply pushed out crime and criminals to another, less defended area where malefactors face lower risk -- a reminder that the business of crime is like any other business, with risk considerations factoring into the decision about whom to victimize where and when.
What is the reality? Without better data and analysis, declaring any kind of victory over crime based on meager statistics is imprudent on many levels. Not only does it yield an inaccurate picture of what is really going on, it also gives naysayers and budget overseers the ammunition to demand that police cut staff or other resources on the theory that they must not need so many of either any longer. Such cuts would be most unwise, particularly in uncertain economic times when growing discontent in government, business, and American institutions in general may well exacerbate volatile conditions that would be conducive to more outbreaks of workplace violence on the individual level or even civil unrest on a larger scale. Now is neither the time to declare premature successes nor to trim police departments.
-- Nick Catrantzos
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Hijinks or Apprenticeship for Anarchists?
The latest cultural phenomenon whose trajectory bears watching: the flash mob.
In a March 9 article from the San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/03/09/BA4D169H59.DTL, one of America's most liberal cities says enough is enough. The article was a bit startling. It was little surprise to hear of groups Twittering each other and converging at San Francisco venues on no-notice to engage in things like pillow fights. Nor was it astonishing to learn that these spirited maneuvers ended up costing thousands of dollars to businesses when feathers from the pillow fight clogged drains and resulted in flooding of a restaurant. Nor for that matter was it earthshaking to learn that city workers had to handle significant clean-up work at public expense. But San Francisco is actually on the verge of limiting such activities? Amazing.
What might be another way of looking at this flash mob phenomenon? Well, remember the Fort Dix Six and how they trained with paintball fights as a surrogate for a more thorough boot camp experience in Pakistan? Could these kinds of activities, on the surface more nuisance than threat, ultimately serve as a stepping stone for advancing to more virulent protests and direct action?
Indeed, security practitioners see such measures as challenging on multiple fronts. Not only do they permit adversaries to test communications, logistics, and local police response through a seemingly harmless, socially forgiven operation under the guise of youthful hijinks, they offer other benefits. One is decoy or diversion -- of police, rescue, and public works resources from an actual attack site. Another is spotting -- a way to eye potential recruits while gauging them in action, to see who is a leader, who is able to follow instructions and elude police, who is hotheaded and who is calm, who is reliable and who is out of control. Still another benefit to would-be attackers is the opportunity such events present for observing and studying the media response, as today's terrorist attacks need the accelerant of media attention to blaze their way into the public consciousness.
Recall that in the Battle for Seattle protests at the turn of the century, activists arranged their movements through text messaging and cellular telephone calls. Now they use Twitter and, thanks to flash mobs, they can build up their skill in a way that may be sophisticated without having to be complex.
-- Nick Catrantzos
In a March 9 article from the San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/03/09/BA4D169H59.DTL, one of America's most liberal cities says enough is enough. The article was a bit startling. It was little surprise to hear of groups Twittering each other and converging at San Francisco venues on no-notice to engage in things like pillow fights. Nor was it astonishing to learn that these spirited maneuvers ended up costing thousands of dollars to businesses when feathers from the pillow fight clogged drains and resulted in flooding of a restaurant. Nor for that matter was it earthshaking to learn that city workers had to handle significant clean-up work at public expense. But San Francisco is actually on the verge of limiting such activities? Amazing.
What might be another way of looking at this flash mob phenomenon? Well, remember the Fort Dix Six and how they trained with paintball fights as a surrogate for a more thorough boot camp experience in Pakistan? Could these kinds of activities, on the surface more nuisance than threat, ultimately serve as a stepping stone for advancing to more virulent protests and direct action?
Indeed, security practitioners see such measures as challenging on multiple fronts. Not only do they permit adversaries to test communications, logistics, and local police response through a seemingly harmless, socially forgiven operation under the guise of youthful hijinks, they offer other benefits. One is decoy or diversion -- of police, rescue, and public works resources from an actual attack site. Another is spotting -- a way to eye potential recruits while gauging them in action, to see who is a leader, who is able to follow instructions and elude police, who is hotheaded and who is calm, who is reliable and who is out of control. Still another benefit to would-be attackers is the opportunity such events present for observing and studying the media response, as today's terrorist attacks need the accelerant of media attention to blaze their way into the public consciousness.
Recall that in the Battle for Seattle protests at the turn of the century, activists arranged their movements through text messaging and cellular telephone calls. Now they use Twitter and, thanks to flash mobs, they can build up their skill in a way that may be sophisticated without having to be complex.
-- Nick Catrantzos
Friday, March 6, 2009
Overhauling Homeland Security Alert Conditions
The Homeland Security Advisory (HSAS) system introduced in 2002 has consistently earned criticism and scorn from onlookers and end-users. It no longer offers value and, instead, erodes credibility in those parts of the public sector responsible for issuing changes in alert conditions. Other Western countries facing similar terrorist threats have experimented with their own idiosyncratic systems, and offer lessons of value for American homeland security policy makers and practitioners.
Britain rivals the United States among Western countries whose advisory system garnered attention and negative publicity in the aftermath of a mass casualty terror attack. Both the U.S. and Britain share multiple levels within their advisory systems and have earned public scorn for being confusing and of doubtful value to their public constituents. Thus, after the London train bombings, the British went from seven alert levels kept out of public view, to a streamlined system with five levels that are now accessible to a British public which suspects the new approach of being too similar to ours. The French system shares some HSAS features, notably its reliance on a color scheme, that at times rivals the confusion attributed to the American version. Not only does the French Vigipirate color scheme have a yellow and orange next to each other, it also has crimson and red adjoining each other, too. Spain, however, has a simpler system with only three levels, and manages to use it to good effect in mobilizing forces to defend against potential attacks. Israel, with more experience of terrorist attack than any of the others, avoids alert levels altogether in public advisories. Instead, the Israelis provide focus, specific information to key responders and only release information to the public when it is in a form that dispenses actionable guidance that applies to the recipient.
While modifications are clearly necessary to the American system and the timing for making a change is auspicious, some aspects of the international models will not apply in an American setting. Extending an advisory system in a way that can rival Israel’s coordination and centralized direction of police and military forces to an American playing field presents insurmountable challenges, particularly as American law and tradition of federalism limit the ability to unify command and direction between the federal government and states. Under the circumstances, the Spanish model offers promise for American adaptation, particularly if blended with a traffic signal color code that is already recognized as being intuitive within the popular culture.
So, let us overhaul HSAS by eliminating the unused Conditions Green and Blue, renaming today’s Conditions Yellow and Orange to correspond to traffic light colors, and keeping Condition Red fundamentally intact. The new system would begin with Green as the default, or green light that signals a condition of vigilance incorporated into performing business as usual. Next, Yellow would signify a heightened alert level consistent with the previous Condition Orange. Finally Red would be the condition representing impending attack and the corresponding need to maximize defenses to the fullest extent for what would necessarily be a short period.
While making any change would invite review and debate, the foregoing recommendation would be feasible within the context of the likely threat, legal and operational environment, and public relations milieu. The change would reinvigorate a system that is otherwise failing and lacking in credibility and usefulness. It is also simpler and more intuitive. Win-win.
- Nick Catrantzos
Britain rivals the United States among Western countries whose advisory system garnered attention and negative publicity in the aftermath of a mass casualty terror attack. Both the U.S. and Britain share multiple levels within their advisory systems and have earned public scorn for being confusing and of doubtful value to their public constituents. Thus, after the London train bombings, the British went from seven alert levels kept out of public view, to a streamlined system with five levels that are now accessible to a British public which suspects the new approach of being too similar to ours. The French system shares some HSAS features, notably its reliance on a color scheme, that at times rivals the confusion attributed to the American version. Not only does the French Vigipirate color scheme have a yellow and orange next to each other, it also has crimson and red adjoining each other, too. Spain, however, has a simpler system with only three levels, and manages to use it to good effect in mobilizing forces to defend against potential attacks. Israel, with more experience of terrorist attack than any of the others, avoids alert levels altogether in public advisories. Instead, the Israelis provide focus, specific information to key responders and only release information to the public when it is in a form that dispenses actionable guidance that applies to the recipient.
While modifications are clearly necessary to the American system and the timing for making a change is auspicious, some aspects of the international models will not apply in an American setting. Extending an advisory system in a way that can rival Israel’s coordination and centralized direction of police and military forces to an American playing field presents insurmountable challenges, particularly as American law and tradition of federalism limit the ability to unify command and direction between the federal government and states. Under the circumstances, the Spanish model offers promise for American adaptation, particularly if blended with a traffic signal color code that is already recognized as being intuitive within the popular culture.
So, let us overhaul HSAS by eliminating the unused Conditions Green and Blue, renaming today’s Conditions Yellow and Orange to correspond to traffic light colors, and keeping Condition Red fundamentally intact. The new system would begin with Green as the default, or green light that signals a condition of vigilance incorporated into performing business as usual. Next, Yellow would signify a heightened alert level consistent with the previous Condition Orange. Finally Red would be the condition representing impending attack and the corresponding need to maximize defenses to the fullest extent for what would necessarily be a short period.
While making any change would invite review and debate, the foregoing recommendation would be feasible within the context of the likely threat, legal and operational environment, and public relations milieu. The change would reinvigorate a system that is otherwise failing and lacking in credibility and usefulness. It is also simpler and more intuitive. Win-win.
- Nick Catrantzos
Saturday, January 31, 2009
The Global Business of Crime
Take one part economic downturn. Add another part unspectacular terrorist movement. Then mix with cache of weapons and whatever tactical training remains from previous visits to radical camps in the mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan. Let fester overnight, figuratively. Then, in the cold bitter morning of discontent, add to this mixture a combination of nothing-to-lose boldness and a smidgeon of any lessons learned from the FARC in Colombia about how best to extort money from multinationals. What does this recipe produce? Somali pirate hostage-taking and hijacking. A look at this Wall Street Journal article on a recent case (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123335651246634995.html) yields some insight into how to run these operations with businesslike efficiency.
Why assume that these activities are informed by the FARC or any other international experiences? True, the article makes no such claim. Nevertheless, the article does reveal that the firms victimized in this case made use of British security guards and of crisis management advisors. The first company to go into business in this specialized world of responding to international kidnap for ransom and negotiating with the hostage-takers was a British firm with close ties to the insurance industry, specifically with one or more syndicates of Lloyd’s of London. And how did Lloyd’s get its start? Insuring international shipments. It should thus come as no surprise that if the shipping industry now being victimized by Somali pirates is looking to specialists to advise it in both securing its shipments and in managing hijackings and ransom payments, that the hijackers are also using their own jungle drums to share tribal knowledge within the ranks of like-minded villains.
If there is any good news about all this, it is that putting this crime and its response on a business footing this way is much less dangerous to human life. The pirates, as the article underscores, wanted only money. Their corporate victim wanted the release of both crew and cargo. By working to negotiate resolution professionally, both parties arrived at an understanding they could live with and no lives were lost – at least this time.
In a world overshadowed by the fear of terrorism and acts of carnage and brutality, it is occasionally refreshing to see even a bad thing resolve itself without bloodshed by being run on a business footing. This is what one British security service officer has referred to as, “ordinary, decent crime” as contrasted with terrorism. Both sides know what to expect, and the event follows a certain pas-de-deux from overture to denouement. Eventually, the victimized firms learn how to make it too unprofitable for the pirates to hijack freighters. Then the pirates move onto other criminal opportunities with a better payoff.
- Nick Catrantzos
Why assume that these activities are informed by the FARC or any other international experiences? True, the article makes no such claim. Nevertheless, the article does reveal that the firms victimized in this case made use of British security guards and of crisis management advisors. The first company to go into business in this specialized world of responding to international kidnap for ransom and negotiating with the hostage-takers was a British firm with close ties to the insurance industry, specifically with one or more syndicates of Lloyd’s of London. And how did Lloyd’s get its start? Insuring international shipments. It should thus come as no surprise that if the shipping industry now being victimized by Somali pirates is looking to specialists to advise it in both securing its shipments and in managing hijackings and ransom payments, that the hijackers are also using their own jungle drums to share tribal knowledge within the ranks of like-minded villains.
If there is any good news about all this, it is that putting this crime and its response on a business footing this way is much less dangerous to human life. The pirates, as the article underscores, wanted only money. Their corporate victim wanted the release of both crew and cargo. By working to negotiate resolution professionally, both parties arrived at an understanding they could live with and no lives were lost – at least this time.
In a world overshadowed by the fear of terrorism and acts of carnage and brutality, it is occasionally refreshing to see even a bad thing resolve itself without bloodshed by being run on a business footing. This is what one British security service officer has referred to as, “ordinary, decent crime” as contrasted with terrorism. Both sides know what to expect, and the event follows a certain pas-de-deux from overture to denouement. Eventually, the victimized firms learn how to make it too unprofitable for the pirates to hijack freighters. Then the pirates move onto other criminal opportunities with a better payoff.
- Nick Catrantzos
Saturday, January 10, 2009
A Troubling, One-off Appointment
There are times when filling the less visible, low-marquis-value vacancies tell more about a leader's judgment than more prominent selections for his high profile cabinet. The Obama selection of Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel for the executive branch supplies one such time. It sends a signal of an executive branch poised to be hesitant, anemic, tentative, self-limiting, and more inclined to dithering that action when the hour of crisis arrives. Mark this down as a moment for intense scrutiny and debate that will form a chapter in some eventual successor to the present 9/11 Commission Report. In placing the activist, executive-hobbling, and sanctimonious academic, Johnsen, at the head of the office that is supposed to defend the executive branch in its legal tugs of war with the legislative and judicial branches, Obama has hobbled himself. Instead of carrying forward the robust dynamic tension which the founding fathers felt necessary for sustaining a balance of power among the three branches, Mr. Obama has entered this fray limping and apologetic. Having bought himself a crutch, he seems about to break his leg in order to get full use of it.
This is discouraging news for homeland security. Starting an administration faced with seemingly limitless challenges is no small undertaking. One of those challenges is to deter adventurism and cutthroat initiative on the part of adversaries. This is best done through presenting a consistent image of strength and just enough of a hint of menace to suggest that villains who dare to attack would definitely end up worse off than they started. One does not achieve this end by elevating an inveterate and emotive second-guesser to a position where she can spay and neuter every executive branch dog before it enters the fight. And this is precisely what Ms. Johnsen will do. Her programming makes it inevitable. So now, when Sheriff Obama one day decides to pin on his star in the morning and clean up the saloon in Dodge City where the cow hands are mixing whisky and weapons, he will have to first take certain steps.
1. He will have to see Judge Johnsen for his gun.
2. He will have to show cause why she should let him have the gun at all.
3. Ditto for each bullet to go with the gun.
4. If Judge J disagrees or wants to deliberate, Sheriff O cannot even approach the saloon unarmed until she has had a chance to puzzle the matter out.
5. If the saloon ends up burned to the ground and its owner and bartender shot dead, well, that's the price Dodge will have to pay for its civilized self restraint.
But don't take my word for this. See what the Wall Street Journal says on the matter ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123154838577269937.html.)
- Nick Catrantzos
This is discouraging news for homeland security. Starting an administration faced with seemingly limitless challenges is no small undertaking. One of those challenges is to deter adventurism and cutthroat initiative on the part of adversaries. This is best done through presenting a consistent image of strength and just enough of a hint of menace to suggest that villains who dare to attack would definitely end up worse off than they started. One does not achieve this end by elevating an inveterate and emotive second-guesser to a position where she can spay and neuter every executive branch dog before it enters the fight. And this is precisely what Ms. Johnsen will do. Her programming makes it inevitable. So now, when Sheriff Obama one day decides to pin on his star in the morning and clean up the saloon in Dodge City where the cow hands are mixing whisky and weapons, he will have to first take certain steps.
1. He will have to see Judge Johnsen for his gun.
2. He will have to show cause why she should let him have the gun at all.
3. Ditto for each bullet to go with the gun.
4. If Judge J disagrees or wants to deliberate, Sheriff O cannot even approach the saloon unarmed until she has had a chance to puzzle the matter out.
5. If the saloon ends up burned to the ground and its owner and bartender shot dead, well, that's the price Dodge will have to pay for its civilized self restraint.
But don't take my word for this. See what the Wall Street Journal says on the matter ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123154838577269937.html.)
- Nick Catrantzos
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