The lay observer never sees this. Even those holding a basic security clearance to grant access up to Top Secret material seldom gain visibility into the arcane aspects of defense contracting. Specifically, this contracting starts in the millions of dollars and eludes normal scrutiny and traditional contracting oversight because of its involvement of sophisticated technology we must keep under wraps in order to preserve our lead over present and future adversaries. This is the world of carve-out and special access programs whose price of admission is a Top Secret clearance and whose secrecy historically extends to masking what standard classified programs will not bother to conceal: the actual application of the technology and even the identification of the specific, government customer.
As a little heralded legal action reveals, however, there is more at stake in this world than national security. As today's inside look at legal wrangling suggests (available at http://mw.cnn.com/snarticle?c=cnnd_us&p=0&aId=20110118:scotus.state.secrets:1), artful use of secrecy covers mistakes. The government can use this device to cancel expensive contracts capriciously while foreclosing normal contractor rights to recover losses incurred in good faith. Similarly, contractors can play this secrecy card to claim important technical details were withheld, hence justifying cost and schedule overruns. In practice, as Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts noted in hearing arguments about the cancelled A-12 fighter program, the use of existing secrecy laws this way makes it nearly impossible for an impartial arbiter to affix blame on one party or the other. Compounding this case, its 20-year latency makes it highly likely that principals from either litigating camp are long gone or have already answered to a higher court for any manipulation of the system. In the case of this ill-fated fighter program, its use of stealth technology probably supplied the justification for moving out of the normal contracting arena and into the more recondite subworld governed by secrecy laws.
What is the point? Secrecy and the security apparatus erected to preserve it lose credibility and user acceptance when abused for ulterior motives like this. It should be no surprise, then, for security professionals to encounter a certain degree of jaded questioning or doubt when working with special access program veterans -- from the public or private sector -- who still wear the burn marks from being professionally disadvantaged by abuse of secrecy to advance or cancel a major program that affected their livelihood. Sometimes security is left to absorb the counterpunch of the unfairly bruised.
-- Nick Catrantzos
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Chew-without-Swallowing Terrorism Defense
What's in a lead about suspicious activity, and whence the gulf between how defenders and official lead processors react to it? The answer says a great deal about how far our homeland security partners have advanced in gearing their efforts for preventing terrorist attacks instead of focusing top priority on prosecuting attackers. The way one answers also reveals instantly whether one is a defender or an official unburdened by direct responsibility for protecting a target of terrorist attack. Take this example and follow its course to appreciate the difference.
EVENT: A person drives up to a fenced facility whose purpose is to control electricity, water, or telecommunications serving millions of citizens. This person then takes several photographs of that facility and of the entrance to it before driving away. Staff or security cameras at the facility capture the photographer's description and license plate number. An employee from that facility then reports these details through channels that ultimately reach the local fusion center. This center is where homeland security partners take in and presumably do something with all the information generated by their bosses' "See something? Say something!" campaigns. What should happen next? It depends.
IF YOU ARE A DEFENDER ...
An analyst or duty officer calls up the license plate number and hands the details to a law enforcement officer on duty. This officer immediately calls the registered owner of the vehicle driven by the photographer, communicates official interest and concern over the actions of the photographer, and ascertains the photographer's intent while clearly signalling that such activity is monitored, acted upon, and taken very seriously. Result? Deterrence. Even if the photographer's actions trace to some innocent, plausible explanation, a clear message goes out that somebody is watching and that suspicious actions trigger real time response. If a terrorist was taking pictures as part of a target selection or pre-strike surveillance operation, the dividend is greater. The same message goes out disrupting the attack and in effect causing the would-be attacker to pick a softer target.
But there is an alternative reaction which misses this deterrent effect while consuming much more time and resources.
IF YOU ARE A LEAD PROCESSOR ...
You see the situation differently. You see your job not as deterring attack but as launching investigations that take attackers down and put them behind bars. So, what happens? Well, you evaluate the lead. Let's see, there's not too much there to justify an investigation. There are more of these leads than investigators to handle them. Besides, you probably need a supervisor to authorize an investigation. This means more processing delay. Net result? Note and file. Thank the defender for the lead. Not enough to go on, though. Maybe next time ...
What signal does the latter approach transmit? To the photographer -- innocent or nefarious -- it says no one will stop or question you or stand in your way. To the defender, it communicates indifference and bureaucracy that disincentivizes future participation in passive or one-sided homeland security "partnerships."
To the public at large, the handling of such events reveals just how much our organs of homeland security have in reality taken to heart the message of the Attorney General in November 2001 when he announced that, henceforth the new priority would be prevention, not prosecution. If the second approach is crowding out the first, this is not necessarily the fault of fusion centers and lead processors. It is a failure of leadership to incentivize timely responsiveness for deterrence that is hard to measure over traditional investigative case handling that lends itself better to metrics but not to the object sought. And so we chew and chew on the very leads that a quick bite and swallow would handle better, leaving our vaunted partnerships infused with a bovine incapacity to deliver the value they were created to produce.
-- Nick Catrantzos
EVENT: A person drives up to a fenced facility whose purpose is to control electricity, water, or telecommunications serving millions of citizens. This person then takes several photographs of that facility and of the entrance to it before driving away. Staff or security cameras at the facility capture the photographer's description and license plate number. An employee from that facility then reports these details through channels that ultimately reach the local fusion center. This center is where homeland security partners take in and presumably do something with all the information generated by their bosses' "See something? Say something!" campaigns. What should happen next? It depends.
IF YOU ARE A DEFENDER ...
An analyst or duty officer calls up the license plate number and hands the details to a law enforcement officer on duty. This officer immediately calls the registered owner of the vehicle driven by the photographer, communicates official interest and concern over the actions of the photographer, and ascertains the photographer's intent while clearly signalling that such activity is monitored, acted upon, and taken very seriously. Result? Deterrence. Even if the photographer's actions trace to some innocent, plausible explanation, a clear message goes out that somebody is watching and that suspicious actions trigger real time response. If a terrorist was taking pictures as part of a target selection or pre-strike surveillance operation, the dividend is greater. The same message goes out disrupting the attack and in effect causing the would-be attacker to pick a softer target.
But there is an alternative reaction which misses this deterrent effect while consuming much more time and resources.
IF YOU ARE A LEAD PROCESSOR ...
You see the situation differently. You see your job not as deterring attack but as launching investigations that take attackers down and put them behind bars. So, what happens? Well, you evaluate the lead. Let's see, there's not too much there to justify an investigation. There are more of these leads than investigators to handle them. Besides, you probably need a supervisor to authorize an investigation. This means more processing delay. Net result? Note and file. Thank the defender for the lead. Not enough to go on, though. Maybe next time ...
What signal does the latter approach transmit? To the photographer -- innocent or nefarious -- it says no one will stop or question you or stand in your way. To the defender, it communicates indifference and bureaucracy that disincentivizes future participation in passive or one-sided homeland security "partnerships."
To the public at large, the handling of such events reveals just how much our organs of homeland security have in reality taken to heart the message of the Attorney General in November 2001 when he announced that, henceforth the new priority would be prevention, not prosecution. If the second approach is crowding out the first, this is not necessarily the fault of fusion centers and lead processors. It is a failure of leadership to incentivize timely responsiveness for deterrence that is hard to measure over traditional investigative case handling that lends itself better to metrics but not to the object sought. And so we chew and chew on the very leads that a quick bite and swallow would handle better, leaving our vaunted partnerships infused with a bovine incapacity to deliver the value they were created to produce.
-- Nick Catrantzos
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