-
DHS adds $10 million to antiterror programs of NYC transportation system
DHS received a lot of criticism for cutting more than $80 million from New York City’s antiterrorism grants; the department has now added $10 million to the city’s transportation system’s security plan
-
-
Construction begins on DHS’s NBACC at Ft. Detrick
In several states — Kentucky, Missouri, Massachusetts — there are heated debates about construction of level 3 BioLabs: There is a lot of money and many jobs in these projects, but citizens are worried about lethal pathogens escaping the labs; while these debates go on, the plans for building a large, multi-agency biolab in Fort Detrick, Maryland, are on schedule, and DHS has began construction of its own, $130 million component of the project
-
-
HSIEC awards grants to three innovative Illinois companies
Northwestern University’s center for homeland security entrepreneurship awards three grants to innovative Chicago-area companies
-
-
Globecomm Systems awarded GSA schedule
A specialist in satellite-based communications solutions receives GSA schedule
-
-
UNLV counterterrorism institute spends $9 million with little to show for it
More problems for UNLV — but for a change not with its men’s basketball team: A mysterious counterterrorism institute on campus has spent nearly $9 million with but little to show for it
-
-
Engineering partnership in $750 million FEMA housing inspection contract
FEMA has awarded a new $750 million contract to a joint engineering venture to provide housing inspection services — on short notice — to the U.S. government in areas affected by disasters
-
-
U.S. to buy $165 million worth of anthrax medicine from HGS
After fourteen years, HGS has their first product sale; the company is experimenting in anthrax therapies and the U.S. government is buying; 20,000 doses to be exact
-
-
DHS on SBInet RFP: "Transformational," "audaciously ambitious"
DHS issues its long-awaited SBInet RFP accompanying the release with language some industry insiders consider a bit over-drawn
-
-
-
-
-
DHS identifies 5 companies for SBI short list
DHS has selected the short list companies for its SBI project — and these companies are already forming coalitions with small and mid-size firms better to prepare themselves for a successful bid
-
-
DHS IG slams Unisys for shoddy performance on $1 billion TSA contract
Few government programs were as thoroughly botched as Unisys’ handling of a 2002 $1 billion TSA airport communication contract; the DHS IG has just completed his report on this sorry saga, and Unisys does not look any better for it; what does not help, at least on the PR front, is the fact that on-his-way-to-jail Jack Abramoff helped Unisys get the contract in the first place
-
-
Transportation, border security largest homeland security allocations in proposed budget
An analysis of government-wide homeland security allocations in President Bush’s proposed budget shows that transportation and border security will receive the most money
-
-
The long view
Americas’ Longest-Running Insurgency: Lessons for U.S. Longest-Running War
In 2016, Colombia achieved a remarkable success by seemingly bringing to an end the Western Hemisphere’s longest-running insurgency. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has been at war with government forces for more than fifty years. And yet here was a negotiated settlement by which two parties that had been fighting for generations agreed to lay down their arms—by which the guerrilla organization itself would be brought into the government’s formal power structures. The case raises important questions—not least for a U.S. government that watches the clock on its own counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan tick ever closer to two decades. How was this possible? And are there lessons that can be exported and applied to other intransigent conflicts, like Afghanistan?
Polarization versus Democracy
When can we realistically expect ordinary people to check the authoritarian ambitions of elected politicians? An answer to this question is key to understanding the most prominent development in the dynamic of democratic survival since the end of the Cold War: the subversion of democracy by elected incumbents and its emergence as the most common form of democratic breakdown.
U.S. Election Infrastructure: Troubling Bipartisan Conclusions
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) released its first of several bipartisan reports about its own investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference on Thursday. This one focused on Russian efforts against U.S. election infrastructure. The finding that dominated headlines was that Russia targeted election systems in all 50 states in 2016. This meant the Russian effort reached far deeper into the U.S. than previously understood by officials. What also caught people’s attention about the report was how heavily redacted it was. The report, with its worrying conclusions, provokes one overwhelming question: What can be done to stop this from happening again?
Sounding the Alarm about Another Kind of 9/11
Richard Clarke knows some things about clear and present dangers. As the first U.S. counterterrorism czar, he tried to alert important White House decision-makers before September 11 about the threat of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, but those warnings were largely ignored; afterwards, he famously apologized publicly for the government’s failures. These days, Clarke is trying to get people to think hard about the next big attack—the cyber version—and all the ones that have already happened.
Jettisoning Arms Control Endangers America’s Edge in Great-Power Politics
The Trump administration’s National Defense Strategy identified the “reemergence of long-term, strategic competition” with China and Russia as the foremost threat to U.S. national security. Both the White House and Pentagon insist that the U.S. military needs enhanced capabilities to counter growing threats such as Russian hypersonic missiles and new Chinese warships and submarines. Yet, as the Trump administration escalates its hard-power focus, it is systematically eroding the restrictions on hard power that historically have limited the strength of potential great-power challengers.
Upholding Scientific Integrity at Federal Agencies
Republicans and Democrats on a House subcommittee on Thursday agreed that science-related policy decisions should be based on facts, but differed on how to protect the federal scientists who gather and analyze those facts from undue influence.