Previous IFPA-Fletcher Conferences

National Security Strategy and Policy:
Planning for and Responding to Threats to the U.S. Homeland

October 28-29, 2004
Ronald Reagan Building
and International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.

Shana Dale
Chief of Staff and General Counsel
Office of Science and Technology Policy

Introduction By: Dr. Dale Klein

Shana Dale: Thank you, Dale, it’s a pleasure to be here today. This is a pictorial representation of the agencies that OSTP deals with primarily. OSTP is the main liaison between the Executive Office of the President and the S&T programs within the federal government. Most of the agencies that are represented here have at least a piece of homeland security-related research and development work.

Our primary mission within the Office of Science and Technology Policy is to provide scientific and technical expertise to the President, as well as the senior officials within the White House. We also lead the interagency process to look at S&T programs throughout the federal government.

Just to give you a sense of how we’re organized within OSTP, the Director, Dr. Marburger, is also the Science Advisor to the President. On the left-hand side of the screen you’ll see the yellow boxes; that’s science. Blue boxes are technology. Pink boxes on the right, that’s me, Chief of Staff and General Counsel, as well as Head of Homeland and National Security.

Now, I do have to say this. I'm not sure who put this chart together, but I saw it last night and I said, why did I get to be pink, why do I have the pink boxes here? I have to talk to somebody about that.

One of the most important joint products that comes out yearly from OMB and OSTP is our budget guidance out to the agencies. This OSTP/OMB guidance memo goes out on a yearly basis and helps guide the different federal agencies on their submit on research and development. As you can see here, the topics-- and the memo is posted on our website in case you want to look at it, get some more information on it. As you can see, homeland security research and development is the first priority.

The National Science and Technology Council, known as NSTC, is a Cabinet-level council to the President and is the principal means by which OSTP coordinates the activities of the federal agencies in science and technology. This gives a representation of the different areas that we’re involved in within the National Science and Technology Council -- environment and natural resources, science, technology, and then the fourth box on the right-hand side is Committee on Homeland and National Security. This Committee I co-chair with Mike Winn from DoD and Chuck McQueary from DHS, and you can see the areas that we’re engaged in right now -- the subcommittees of National Security Research and Development, international including biometrics, WMD medical countermeasures, standards, infrastructure, aeronautics, social behavioral and economic sciences, and also health and the environment.

To give you a feel for the work that is done within NSTC, I will use the WMD medical countermeasures subcommittee as an example. This subcommittee establishes the priorities for BioShield finding, the first priority with the development of a next-generation anthrax vaccine, which the Secretaries of HHS and DHS recommended to the President. On January 20, 2004, the President signed a letter that authorized the Secretary of HHS to begin procurement of 75 million doses. That authorization permitted the first expenditure of BioShield appropriations and the vaccine will begin entering the strategic national stockpile during the second quarter of fiscal year 2005.

Guiding not only OSTP, but the rest of the federal government in terms of homeland security-related work is the National Strategy for Homeland Security that was released by the President in July of 2002. The three overarching strategic priorities laid out in that document are, one, prevent terrorist attacks within the US; two, reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism; and three, minimize damage and recover from attacks that do occur.

These objectives apply across critical mission areas, and you can see the list here. Obviously, I have pointed out defending against catastrophic threats. There are also four foundations that are cross-cutting themes across all of these critical mission areas, and science and technology in particular is pointed out. These are the S&T priorities that are actually laid out in the S&T foundation’s chapter.

In the ongoing and evolving effort to defend against biological weapons of mass destruction, the President’s Bio Surveillance Initiative is a $274 million government-wide effort to integrate real time information on the health of the nation’s human and agricultural populations. This information is combined with environmental monitoring of food, air and water, as well as threat intelligence data. Key elements of the Bio Surveillance Initiative include the national bio surveillance integration system. DHS is charged with creating this system to integrate and fuse data from sensors throughout the country, as well as human health information, agricultural health surveillance and terrorist threat information.

Project BioWatch. Since 2003, Project BioWatch has monitored atmospheric samples in approximately 30 cities around the country, around the clock, and we are expecting further deployment of BioWatch.

BioSense is a CDC effort that was initiated in FY 2003 to enhance our ability to monitor human health events. And they will be monitoring the status of human populations by analyzing diagnoses of ambulatory care sites, laboratory testing orders, over-the-counter drug sales and other select data sources.

This Administration is aggressively pursuing the development and acquisition of medical countermeasures to safeguard US citizens in the event of an attack using WMD. Under the President’s direction, a comprehensive, end-to-end review of the nation’s bio defense capabilities culminated in the National Strategy for Bio Defense in the 21st Century, and this charts our course in terms of development of countermeasures against attacks using CBRN agents.

I think you heard earlier today from Fran Townsend about Project BioShield. That is the effort to spur development and acquisition of medical countermeasures, and the President has committed $5.6 billion over the next ten years to fight things like anthrax, smallpox, and other potential CBRN threats.

Also, the strategic and national stockpile, as you know, consists of drugs, vaccines and medical equipment that are stored at multiple sites throughout the United States, and as I mentioned, we were very happy to have the first BioShield appropriation, 75 million doses, for the next-generation anthrax vaccine. Under BioShield, we’re also moving forward with plans to acquire and improve smallpox vaccine, and with better options for treatment of anthrax.

Another area called out in the President’s National Strategy for Homeland Security, and listed as a topic for this panel, is biometrics technology. Biometrics has become an important technology for many applications, including the positive identification of individuals coming across our borders. In addition to positive identification, this technology, once matured and fully integrated, will result in increased efficiency at our borders. My office has been heavily involved in this effort, and we created the NSTC’s interagency working group on biometric that is fostering US government collaboration and minimizing duplication on biometrics RTD&E by developing and implementing interagency coordination plans. It also functions as the federal government’s focal point and clearinghouse for information on biometrics research, technologies and technical policy issues. If you want to visit that website, it’s www.biometricscatalog.org.

They have also been working on international working groups on biometric technologies, developing common US government positions when possible. This group also initiated a face recognition grand challenge where agencies will join forces toward the goal to achieve an order of magnitude improvement in the performance of face recognition systems. On January 5, 2004, US Visit biometric entry procedures were deployed at 116 airports and 14 seaports. By the end of this year, US Visit will be expanded to the 50 busiest land ports of entry, and by the end of 2005, to all 165 land ports of entry.

US Visit is an integrated set of security measures that will control the pre-entry/entry status and exit of foreign nationals who travel to the United States. In its first six months of operation, 559 individuals were identified by biometrics alone as being the subject of a lookout. Today, all US Visa-issuing posts have begun to capture digital fingerprints and photographs of foreign nationals when they apply for Visas, regardless of their country of origin.

There are also numerous areas of biometrics testing that’s going on, and that includes DHS issuing 200,000 prototype transportation worker identification credentials. The airport access control program is to verify the identify of airport employees. Five airport sites are evaluating the TSA registered traveler pilot program, and that’s for biometrics to identify frequent travelers who have voluntarily submitted to a background check. And the TSA biometric device operational evaluation evaluating nine biometric products, including fingerprints, hand shape, iris recognition and face recognition systems in a fully operational setting.

Developing systems to detect hostile intent is a subject that OSTP has been interested in and engaged in early on in the process. Clearly, our ability to prevent a terrorist attack is enhanced by the ability to identify groups or individuals who threaten us. Research in this area includes examination of cultural and sociological factors that may give rise to an environment conducive to terrorism, as well as individual biological and behavioral indicators, which may correlate with intent to harm.

NSF has initiated a new five-year research program in human and social dynamics. DHS, the intelligence agencies and others are investing in research and technology to detect deception. On July 6, 2004, DHS released a call for proposals for a university-based center of excellence in behavioral and social aspects of terrorism and counterterrorism.

As you can tell, I'm trying to trip through this pretty quickly; I know my time is almost up. The NST social behavioral and economic sciences subcommittee will soon release its report combating terrorism, research priorities in the social behavioral and economic sciences. This report emphasizes the SBE science’s role in predicting, preventing, preparing and recovering from terrorist attacks. It outline research priorities such development of datasets, application of modeling to complex problems, enhancement of public health capabilities, application of decision science methods to risk communication strategies, development of biometric and bio imaging capabilities, elucidation of the basic neuro mechanisms of fear and anxiety, development of robust valid models of the psychobiological and psychosocial mechanisms of distress and resilience, and the development of robust valid cross-cultural models of social behavior, social prejudice and stigmatization.

Given the fact that I think I'm at the end of my talk, I'm not going to go into this very much, but suffice to say on first responder technology, we are obviously working very hard within the federal government to speed existing technology to the field, as well as developing standards and engaging in research and technology development, as well as medical emergency preparedness and emergency planning.

I want to leave you with a quote by the President, which describes this Administration’s philosophy regarding the importance of science and technology and preventing attacks reducing vulnerabilities and effectively responding to terrorist events. “We refuse to remain idle while modern technology might be turned against us. We will rally the great promise of American science and innovation to confront the greatest danger of our time.”

We have been, and will continue to aggressively pursue research and technology to keep our homeland safe. Thank you. [Applause]

Questions and Answers

ED LABUDA: Ed Labuda with Battelle for Shana Dale. The Interagency Board and the National Institute of Justice has developed, at least started a catalogue of first responder equipment; will you be working with them at all to combine your catalogue with theirs?

MS. DALE: I'd love to hear about it, so we should set up a meeting so we can hear more about it. I'd love to hear more about it.

MR. LABUDA: Again, the Interagency Board is made up of first responders. I believe right now it’s headed up by the chief of fire for the City of Seattle and it involves people from Dallas, several first responders from around the country, working with the Department of Justice on biosensors, chemical detectors, what have you, a lot of the JS-LIST suits, protective equipment, so on and so forth.

MS. DALE: Maybe you could contact my office because I'd like to hear more about this off line.