What is Preventing Homeland Security?

Abstract

Almost four years have gone by since the United States formally joined the Global War on Terrorism. Yet something stops us from giving as much attention to preventing terrorism as we give to preparing to respond to the next attack. One reason is a homeland security system that is designed for response rather than prevention. Three fears hamper efforts to reconfigure that system: the fear of new behaviors, the fear of imagination, and the fear of emergence. Despite these barriers, we know more about prevention than most people in Homeland Security are aware of. The "Preparedness Guidelines for Homeland Security," issued in 2003 by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), identifies five elements of a cohesive prevention strategy: collaboration, information sharing, threat recognition, risk management, and intervention. These "Guidelines" provide a good initial framework for effective prevention. We can continuously improve the "Guidelines" by transforming them from a proprietary to an "open source" project within the public safety community.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2005
Accession Number
ADA484161

Entities

People

  • Christopher Bellavita

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Computers
  • Congress
  • Counterterrorism
  • Department Of Homeland Security
  • First Responders
  • Game Theory
  • Governments
  • Homeland Defense
  • Homeland Security
  • Information Exchange
  • Law
  • National Governments
  • Operating Systems
  • Public Safety
  • Second World War
  • Security
  • United States

Readers

  • Cybersecurity.
  • Strategic Security Studies