Homeland defense strategies and policy

Homeland Defense

Agency Identification: In this paper, the three agencies selected for their involvement in Homeland Defense at the federal, state which is NY and local which is NYPD level are Federal Emergency Management Agency -- FEMA at the federal level, Citywide Incident Management System -- CIMS at the state which is NY level and New York Police Department -- NYPD at the local level.

FEMA (a) Jurisdiction: FEMA:- FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency which is a part of Department of Homeland's Security -- DHS Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate. (About FEMA) b) Size: The workforce of FEMA consists of more than 2,600 employees working full-time at their headquarters in Washington D.C., and also at the regional and area offices throughout the country, the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Centre, and the National Emergency Training Centre in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Besides, FEMA also has 4,000 disaster assistance employees as reserve whose services are available post disaster. More often than not, FEMA discharges its functions as a collaborative effort with other organizations which are a constituent of the nation's emergency management system. FEMA's partners in these efforts include state and local emergency management agencies, 27 federal agencies and the American Red Cross. (About FEMA)

Mission: FEMA became a part of the U.S. Department's DHS on March 1, 2003. FEMA's long-term mission while coming under the fold of the new Department is to spearhead the effort to prepare the country for every type of hazard and efficiently manage federal response and efforts of recovery after any national incident with a vision of 'A Nation Prepared.' FEMA also takes initiatives with regard to proactive alleviation activities, imparts training to first responders, and administrates the National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration. (About FEMA)

CIMS (a) Jurisdiction: The jurisdiction of Citywide Incident Management System -- CIMS was made applicable to the City of New York broadly based on the National Incident Command Model. The outcome of the protocol emerged from a federal mandate that needed NYC to comply with the federal norms as stipulated in the DHS's National Incident Management System -- NIMS. (Citywide Incident Management System) b) Size: The size of CIMS as regards its command structure is concerned is based on the Unified Command protocol supported by 4 major sections i.e. Operations, Planning, Logistics, and Finance/Administration with each Section headed by a Section Chief charged with the management of the tactical operations at the site of the scene. CIMS also foresees two or more Deputy Operations Section Chiefs. Norms of command and control by the various agencies are enforced. Police commanders, Fire Commanders and others are liable to their resources at the site of the incident. (Citywide Incident Management System)

Mission: (i) Defining the manner in which the citywide emergencies or several larger incidents will be tackled (ii) Defining the role of the agency and responsibilities at the time of emergencies (iii) Establishing the NIMS Incident Command Model -- ICS norm as the NYC's incident management system. (iv) Describing the functional execution of CIMS (v) Aligning the manner in which the incident operations, inclusive of Life Safety, investigation, site management and recovery restoration are prioritized and when they can be able to be implemented together. (vi) Setting up of process of post-action review and assessment of emergency responses and implementing the lessons which are learned (vii) Defining ICS execution and training needs if NYC agencies involved in citywide response. (CIMS- Citywide Incident Management System)

NYPD (a) Jurisdiction: NYPD or the New York City Police Department in the United States holds the fundamental responsibility for enforcement of various laws and carrying out investigations within the five regions of NY City. NYPD is regarded as the first police department to function in a modern style in the United States on the lines of Metropolitan Police of London. The chief of NYPD is the New York City Police Commissioner with the senior sworn officer ranked as the Chief of the Department. The Department is divided into 10 bureaus and each being headed by a Bureau Chief, where the Chief of Detectives lies at the apex of the Detective Bureau. The 10 bureaus are "Patrol Services, Detective, Criminal Justice, Organized Crime Patrol, Transportation, Support Services, Housing, Internal Affairs, and Personnel & Training." (New York City Police Department) b) Size: The size of the police force has varied in keeping with the requirements which include crime rates, politics, and sources of funding. On the whole, the trend depicts that the number of its sworn offices is going down. During June 2005 the number of sworn offices is 35,000 whereas the corresponding figure for last year was 40,000. (New York City Police Department)

Mission: NYPD is guided by the mission to improve the quality of life of the residents of NY City through collaborative efforts in partnership with the community and in harmony with the constitutional rights to enforce the laws, maintain peace, instill a sense of security among the residents and provide for a secured environment. (About NYPD)

2) Role in Homeland Defense:

FEMA: Undoubtedly, among the functionaries engaged in disaster preparedness, FEMA's role is more encompassing than others and covers a broad spectrum of activities. FEMA's role in homeland defense lies in (i) providing consultation in building codes and flood plain management (ii) educating people in tiding over a disaster (iii) capacity building in local and state emergency preparedness (iv) co-ordinating the federal response in case of a disaster (v) ensuring that disaster assistance is made available to the states, communities, businesses and individuals (vi) providing training to emergency managers (vii) rendering support to the country's fire service (viii) managing the national flood and crime insurance programs. FEMA has a major role to play in disaster mitigation, which can be better explained by studying the life cycle of disasters. The disaster life cycle defines a procedure through which the Emergency Managers of FEMA ready themselves for emergencies and disasters, react to them during their incidence, render assistance to people and also other institutions, recover from them, alleviate their impact, lower the danger of losses, and curb disasters like fire from happening. In every stage of the continuum, FEMA's responsibility lies with building and supporting the nation's emergency management system. (About FEMA: What We Do)

Since its humble beginning through the Congressional Act of 1803, FEMA, which was earlier an independent body became a part of the newly formed Department of Homeland Security in March 2003; which is mandated with the responsibility of responding to, recovering from and mitigating from disasters. FEMA was engaged in major disaster recovery operations in the past in the events like Hurricane Carla in 1962, Besty in 1965, Camila in 1969, Anges in 1972 and more recently in the 9/11 event of terrorist attack. The 9/11 events focused the agency on matters of national preparedness and homeland security, and challenged the agency like never before. FEMA aligned its operations with the Homeland Security and its own office of National Preparedness was assigned the responsibility for helping to guarantee that the country's first responders were properly given training and also prepared to deal with WMD. FEMA has received billions of dollars by way of new funding to help communities encounter the threat of terrorism. Barely past its 20th foundation day FEMA was engaged in spearheading its foolproof approach to disasters concerning homeland security matters. After its joining the Department of Home Security -DHS, it signaled a coordinated approach to national security from emergencies and disasters consisting of natural as well as man-made. Currently, FEMA is acknowledged as one of the four major wings of DHS armed with a 2500 strong full-time employees in the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate with more than 5000 reserve staff. (FEMA History)

This apart, FEMA is a member of several interagency groups linked to preparedness for domestic terrorism. It takes part with the National Security Council's WMD Preparedness Group and also two of its sub-groups i.e. The Assistance to State and Local Authorities Group and the Contingency Planning & Exercises Group. FEMA extends it support and coordinates with the Department of Justice on its program for preparedness training for terrorism activities, the state and local capabilities assessment project, and the equipment grant program. FEMA also serves on the Secretary of Defense's WMD Advisory panel. The organization also discharges an active leadership role in terrorism consequence planning. (Combating Terrorism: FEMA Continues to Make Progress in Coordinating Preparedness and Response: Participation in Interagency and Intra-agency Groups and Committees)

FEMA coordinates federal response, at the national level through the Emergency Support Function Leaders Group, the Catastrophic Disaster Response Group consisting of 27 signatories of the Federal Response Plan, and the Concept Plan Working Group. FEMA brings out the National Exercise Schedule following compilation and coordinating information from federal departments and agencies with emergency management responsibilities. In association with the relevant federal departments and agencies, FEMA also evaluated the potential of federal agencies to provide consequence management in an incident pertaining to WMD. FEMA and the other agencies found out important areas which required to be dealt, including the requirement for baseline information on capabilities; joint federal, state, and local planning; and timely federal increase of local authorities. (Combating Terrorism: FEMA Continues to Make Progress in Coordinating Preparedness and Response: Participation in Interagency and Intra-agency Groups and Committees)

CIMS: The Office of Emergency Management --OEM who has been collaborating with NYPD & FDNY and other City agencies to develop the CIMS, the adoption of which was declared by Mayor Bloomberg in March, 2004. CIMS makes a uniform incident management structure for every City agency that is broadly based on the Incident Command System model. The setting up of CIMS ensures a system for management of emergencies with a universal understanding of terminologies and roles and responsibilities among all agencies. CIMS makes use of the combined lead agency/unified operations section. In case of the majority of the incidents where multiple agencies are needed to act on several emergency situations, a unified operations post is made. The core competencies of the primary agencies will establish command of authority for immediate decision-making and will constitute the basis for pre-implementation training. Currently, with the introduction of CIMS, New York City -- NYC has an Incident Management System in place which fulfils every federal mandate. Even though the complete implementation of this type of system will take sufficient time and proper training, introduction of CIMS in NYC marks an epoch making step in improvement of the City's capability to react to and recover from every category of emergency. (New York City Office of Emergency Management)

NYPD: Due to presence of NYPD, NYC has witnessed a large-scale reduction in the amount of crime. Whereas a lot of theories abound attributing the reduction in the city and nation's crime rate, several people credit the NYPD's CompStat or Computerized Database of Crime Statistics for this achievement. COMPSTAT helps the Department in understanding the locations where the majority of crimes take place and this assists them to devote more resources to that area. (New York City Police Department) NYPD has launched a new program for combating terrorism- the NYPD Shield. This is a blanket program for a chain of current and forthcoming Police Department's endeavor involving private sector security and counter terrorism. This effort is a joint partnership between the public and private based on extending the best practices, experiences achieved, counter-terrorism opportunities and sharing of information. NYPD Shield looks forward to collaborate with security managers in the private sector with the objective of safeguarding New York from assaults by the terrorists. (NYPD Shield: Public-private Sector Security Partnership)

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, NYPD has redesigned its mission to include counter terrorism and safeguarding of critical infrastructure. NYPD practically finds out and evaluates the sites and targets in NYC which are most susceptible to a terrorist onslaught. It also collaborates with important private and legal-enforcement employees for safeguarding the assets of the City. The NYPD Counter Terrorism Division's Threat Reduction and Infrastructure Protection Section -- TRIPS is in charge of supervision of private sector consultations and evaluation of threats for possible terrorist's targets. TRIPS were introduced during the spring of 2002 with a view to create a competence in protection of infrastructure protection and physical security. (Counter Terrorism: NYPD Shield Security Information)

3) Summarization and Discussion of 3 cases of Homeland Defense Issues:

FEMA: As regards policy and practice, FEMA has normally tackled the important lessons learned from its experience while coordinating federal consequence management activities following the Oklahoma City bombings. After evaluating the lessons learned following the bombings, FEMA identified three important actions which were needed to be taken up. (i) Make guidance to help agencies synchronized reaction to incidents by the terrorists (ii) make sure that state and local emergency plans are identical to the Federal Response Plan and (iii) set up an sufficient number of emergency response teams to handle incidents mass casualties. There has been massive improvement in these spheres. FEMA has updated the Federal Response Plan to handle the manner in which federal agencies, states and communities would collaborate to react to acts of terrorism and state are more and more typifying their emergency operations plans on the federal plans. On the top of it, the number of teams available for emergency response to tackle cases of large-scale casualties has gone up more than two times since 1995. FEMA has also augmented terrorism preparedness training grants and included terrorism in a systematic manner into its emergency management curriculum. (Combating Terrorism: FEMA Continues to Make Progress in Coordinating Preparedness and Response: Participation in Interagency and Intra-agency Groups and Committees)

At the federal level, FEMA coordinates on a massive scale with other involved agencies on important, national level terrorism preparedness guidance and policy documents and on operations. FEMA also involves itself in several exercises and special events devised to improve upon the security of domestic events. The principal mechanism for testing the plan of the states in by way of exercises, several of which FEMA participates in funding. For instance from 1996 till 2000, FEMA sponsored 22 of the 28 terrorism preparedness exercises that took place in Washington state. It is through collaborative efforts of FEMA and those of other agencies, the types, numbers, and intricacy of terrorism preparedness exercises have risen considerably. Besides, the terrorism preparedness of the states are coming of age and they are close to reflecting the awareness if federal and states roles in terrorism preparedness and response. (Combating Terrorism: FEMA Continues to Make Progress in Coordinating Preparedness and Response: Participation in Interagency and Intra-agency Groups and Committees)

CIMS: The emergency response plan was adopted by NYC under CIMS which needed a joint operations between the police and fire departments instead of a unified command which received enough criticism by the 9/11 commission. The authority of the CIMS was transferred away from the Fire and Police Department. In place of awarding the Police with the task for responding to crime scenes and giving fire with the duty for commanding response operations, CIMS permits the NYPD to render the initial determination if a hazardous material is considered a crime or terrorism. (Public Safety: Battle of the Badges)

NYPD: In a major breakthrough, NYPD has unraveled the secrets of the July 7 London bombings. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly cautioned that the substances used in the London attacks could be adaptable to NYC with ease. In the first place it was believed that the materials consisted of superior grade military explosives that might have been secretly taken away, but it was revealed that the attackers collected it from a hardware store or a beauty supply store, as the material was just ordinary hydrogen peroxide. It was revealed by the NYPD officials that the investigators believe that the bomb attackers used a peroxide-based explosive known as HMDT or hexmethylene triperoxide diamine which can be prepared using ordinary ingredients such as hydrogen peroxide found in hair bleach, citric acid which is a common food preservative and heat tablets used by military people for cooking purposes. Among the other details pointed out by the NYPD officials are (i) The bombers took the explosives in beverage coolers hidden inside the back of two cars to the countryside of the London (ii) Investigators think the three bombs which blasted in the subway were detonated by cell phones with alarm settings (iii) Such types of explosive compounds were utilized during the attempted attack in London on July 21. (NYPD officials reveal details of London Bombings)

4) Core Values:- a. What are the Core Values of each of your agencies?

FEMA: FEMA is guided by 10 core values which not just guide the Agency but also every individual functioning within the agency. These are (i) Accountability: Individual accountability for the decisions and the results while acknowledging mistakes and attempting to rectify these mistakes. (ii) Compassion: Expressing concern to the customers and also among each other in the hour of need. (iii) Customer Focus: Seeing to it that customers and their needs become the primary main concern (iv) Diversity: Enriching the work environment at FEMA and also the capability to perform through multiplicity in backgrounds, experience, skills, and respect for those differences. (v) Innovation: Looking for creative and novel ways to deliver in a better manner the services of FEMA and meet the challenges that might arise. (vi) Integrity: Observing the highest ethical standards and being honest with the customers and colleagues. (vii) Partnership: Working jointly manner with the external partners in a collaborative manner and also with one another to accomplish the common goals. (viii) Public Stewardship: Managing the resources carefully and extending the highest quality of service. (ix) Respect: Hearing the problems and treating the customers and colleagues with dignity. (x) Trust: Mutual dependence between themselves and also the external partners to act in the best interest of the customers and earning that confidence through their behavior. (A Nation Prepared FEMA Strategic Plan 2003-08)

CIMS: The mission statement of CIMS are (i) Expanding the present system which functions well on a daily basis (ii) Acknowledging the capability for terrorism in CBRN incidents and assign specific responsibilities in case of primary agencies (iii) Fulfilling the needs of the federal government (iv) Improve communication within the agency and decision making (v) Providing for a joint post-action review to constantly review progress. (Testimony of OEM Commissioner Joseph F. Bruno before the National Commission on Terrorist attacks upon the United States)

NYPD: The values supported by NYPD in partnership with the community are (i) safeguarding the lives of the people of the city and enforcement of the law with prejudice to anybody. (ii) Combating the crime both through prevention and assertively tackling the people who infringe upon the law. (iii) Maintain an increased standard of uprightness compared to what is normally expected of others. (iv)According value to human life, respecting the dignity of every individual and extend the services with due courtesy and civility. (About NYPD) b) How do the Core Values affect the balancing of the agencies' missions to safeguard our nation with America's traditional and constitutional respect for individual liberties?