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EXCELLENT PULLED QUOTE which proves why civil libertarians shouldn't give up on
contributing to the public policy process just yet:
"For the third report, commissioners are mulling a proposal to establish
a subpanel on civil liberties. Already the commission has set up subpanels for
detailed research on border security, using the military to fight terrorism,
cyber-security, medical and health issues, and the concerns of local responders
to man-made disasters.
"We've obviously interwoven civil liberties throughout all of our
discussions," Wermuth said. "The suggestion on the table is
should we now have a group that gets together and looks across the broad
spectrum of things that we've already recommended -- but more importantly,
perhaps, some of the things that are being considered by the [Bush]
administration and Congress as a result of what happened on Sept. 11 -- to
comment on those specifically from a civil liberties standpoint."
AMEN! Hooray! Hell yeah!!!
A little good news at last... :)
~F.
Here's the whole article:
Inside the Pentagon
Complete report due in December
Date: October 4, 2001 -
GILMORE COMMISSION TO RELEASE KEY RECOMMENDATIONS WITHIN WEEKS
The high-profile Gilmore Commission, a congressionally mandated study
group on terrorism, will release advanced copies this month of findings and
recommendations that the group plans to include in its December report to the
president and lawmakers.
The information will be collected in a document panel members are
calling an "advanced executive summary." All the conclusions and
recommendations adopted by the panel in late August meetings were re-examined
after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade
Center. The group met Sept. 24 at RAND's offices in Arlington, VA, and
decided to release some of its recommendations early to help inform
public debate about how the United States should prepare
for possible future attacks. RAND staffers support the commission's work.
"In our meeting earlier this week, we went back through those [already
approved conclusions and recommendations] to see which of them were still
material, and . . . they all were," Michael Wermuth, RAND project director for
the commission, told Inside the Pentagon in a Sept. 27 interview. "With very
little modification, they will become the essential recommendations in
[this December's] report, but we'll try to publish that list" with some
explanation and background on specific recommendations and findings, he added.
The commission, formally called the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic
Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction,
was established under the fiscal year 1999 Defense Authorization Act. Its
chairman is Virginia Gov. James Gilmore (R), and panel members include former
State Department counterterrorism official Paul Bremer, former Army Secretary
John Marsh, as well as a number of state and local emergency officials.
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), who at the time headed the House Armed Services
research and development subcommittee, called for creating the commission to
examine how the federal government interacts with state and local officials in
preparing for terrorist attacks.
To date, the group has produced two reports and is scheduled to produce
the third in December.
The first report, released in December 1999, assessed the terrorist
threat facing the United States and called for a national
strategy to address it, as well as better cooperation between federal
and state antiterrorism officials (ITP, Dec. 23, 1999, p6).
The second report, released last December, recommended establishing a
"National Office for Combating Terrorism" in the executive office of the
president to plan and synchronize antiterrorism initiatives (ITP, Dec. 14,
2000, p14).
This December's report is scheduled to be the group's final undertaking.
However, the House recently approved an amendment to the FY-02 defense
authorization bill that would extend the life of the commission for another
two years (ITP, Sept. 20, p15). The Senate this week approved its defense
authorization bill without a similar provision, setting it up as a conference
issue.
In another recent development, President Bush has decided to create a
White House Office of Homeland Security (ITP, Sept. 27, p18). The office will
be headed by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge (R), who will resign as governor this
week to take on the new job.
The Gilmore Commission's National Office for Combating Terrorism is the
inspiration and, in some respects, the model for the new White House homeland
security coordinating entity, several sources said this week.
"It may not turn out to be what we proposed in every detail, and not all
the details are available yet," but the new White House office resembles the
Gilmore Commission model, Wermuth said.
"They have some policy decisions" still to make on how the new office
will function, he added.
One critical area that needs to be addressed is research and development
for antiterrorism efforts, according to Wermuth. In its second report, the
Gilmore panel recommended that the National Office for Combating Terrorism
establish priorities for R&D programs related to the terrorist fight. In
addition, the NOCT should focus on the antiterrorism programs and budgets
related to domestic preparedness efforts, intelligence gathering, and health
and medical services.
"I really believe R&D and other essential points will be included in the
kind of structure [the White House] sets up," Wermuth said. "I am convinced
that they already know they have to get their hands around R&D because
everybody's out doing their own thing -- all well-intentioned, but there's no
prioritization."
The RAND official also talked about a number of issues to be covered by
the commission's advanced executive summary and third report. Earlier this
year, commissioners said they plan to focus on the following topics in the
December document: border security, using the military for combating terrorism,
cyber-security and engaging the public and private medical communities to
prepare for terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction (ITP,
April 19, p1).
The advanced executive summary could include more than 30 recommendations on
those subjects, Wermuth said.
Results from the commission's national survey of first-responders on how
the federal government is doing when it comes to supporting state and local
entities in the terrorist fight is still scheduled to be published in December.
But the advanced executive summary will include "the top five things that
survey provided to us in terms of information," the project director said.
For the third report, commissioners are mulling a proposal to establish
a subpanel on civil liberties. Already the commission has set up subpanels for
detailed research on border security, using the military to fight terrorism,
cyber-security, medical and health issues, and the concerns of local responders
to man-made disasters.
"We've obviously interwoven civil liberties throughout all of our
discussions," Wermuth said. "The suggestion on the table is
should we now have a group that gets together and looks across the broad
spectrum of things that we've already recommended -- but more importantly,
perhaps, some of the things that are being considered by the [Bush]
administration and Congress as a result of what happened on Sept. 11 -- to
comment on those specifically from a civil liberties standpoint."
Another proposal raised at the Sept. 24 panel meeting involves the expansion of
the group's focus to include terrorist strikes on various modes of
transportation.
"The panel concluded we didn't have anywhere near enough research in
that area for this third report, and if, in fact, we are extended -- which now
looks more likely -- we'll take that under consideration in the next round,"
Wermuth said.
The advanced executive summary will also cover critical infrastructure
protection.
The commission will recommend placing state and local government
representatives on a new interagency Critical Infrastructure Protection and
Continuity Board, which is expected to be set up by executive order.
According to a draft copy of the executive order ITP obtained earlier
this year, the board would be headed by a new White House cyber-security chief
and would include officials from the Defense, State, Commerce, Justice, Energy,
Treasury and Transportation departments, as well as the director of central
intelligence and the deputy director of the National Security
Agency (ITP, July 26, p17). The cyber-security chief would serve as the
administration's liaison with industry on issues under the board's purview.
"We believe any entity established to advise the president, or the president
and Congress, on issues involving critical infrastructure protection, [must] have representation from state and local governments," Wermuth said. And just
as importantly, he added, the board should include representation from private
industry:
"They own most of the systems; they have to be an
integral part of anything dealing with cyber-security."
At its recent meeting, the commission decided to change the name of the
third report's section on border security to immigration and border control.
"They decided to rename it because border security doesn't necessarily
indicate all the things that we think need to be addressed," according to
Wermuth. "Border security sounds like doing things at the border as people or
things are coming in. Immigration reform may very well have to do with people
who are dangerous and already here."
A concern is how to deal with people who come to the United States on visas and
overstay their time in the country. "There are not any good control mechanisms
to deal with that situation," the project director said. "For example, we don't
have an exit program. We don't know when or if people who are supposed to leave
for one reason or another actually have actually left.
"We've got to have an exit control program," he added. The Immigration
and Naturalization Service "knows that this is a problem," but lacks resources
to solve it. "That is a data-intensive effort, but let's face it, it needs to
be done. We don't need any more reminders that it needs to be done."
In addition to INS, the commission's recommendations on immigration and
border control will touch upon Coast Guard, Customs Service, Border Patrol and
Federal Aviation Administration activities.
Agencies that deal with border control must do a better job of sharing
intelligence information to interdict threats to the homeland, those associated
with the commission say.
"All of the various agencies that have border control responsibilities are not
currently in a wide-reaching, consolidated, information-sharing database
network. It's got to happen," Wermuth said.
"All of those agencies have pieces of information on the movement of
people and things," he added. "We have to figure out a way to consolidate all
that and sift through it to find out what all that data means."
By using information on people and goods moving across borders, and
comparing that information with other intelligence collected by the federal
government, a picture can be drawn about potential threats to the United
States, Wermuth said.
Therefore, federal border control entities must be recognized as "full
partners" in the overall intelligence community to the extent
that available intel information can support the government's homeland
security mission. -- Keith J. Costa
_source: Inside the Pentagon
_date: October 4, 2001
_issue: Vol. 17, No. 40
_title: GILMORE COMMISSION TO RELEASE KEY RECOMMENDATIONS WITHIN WEEKS
) Inside Washington Publishers
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