Protected Critical Infrastructure Information (PCI)

Intelligence and Warning is Border and Transportation Security is responsible for protecting America's borders, territorial waters, and transportation systems by centralizing information-sharing and databases that track and monitor all aspects of border control and America's transportation systems. Domestic Counterterrorism covers a wide variety of activities, ranging from National Security Agency monitoring of telephone conversations to local police monitoring of persons of interest. Protecting Critical Infrastructure and Key Assets identifies a clear set of national goals and objectives and outlines the guiding principles that will underpin our efforts to secure the infrastructures and assets vital to our national security, governance, public health and safety, economy, and public confidence. Defending against Catastrophic Threats reduces vulnerability of the United States to terrorism. Emergency Preparedness and Response will create one emergency response plan to be used at all levels of government and will ensure that first-responders, from the federal government level down to local levels, receive proper training and equipment.

As we move into a new era were a more robust and urgent homeland security program is needed, it is important to talk about how officials are managing all of the risk. There are a multitude of threats; from terrorism, where tactics are all the more unconventional an unpredictable, to climate change, with extreme weather conditions causing severe droughts or other catastrophic storms. The risk accepted by federal officials must be weighed and prioritized in a manner that is conducive to the longevity of the nation but also eliminates political or other personal agenda. To ensure a standardized approach the Department of Homeland Security adopted a risk management. The following will look at defining what risk management is as well as an example of how it is being incorporated within the homeland security enterprise and how doing so is of benefit.

Enrich partnership among Protective Security Advisors, all levels of government, and the private sector to protect critical infrastructure

Among one of the missions of The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is to protect and preserve the security of the Cyberspace in the country. The principal objective of this Security Plan is to give instructions and direction for the Department’s workers and help the Homeland Security to create best practices and strategies in the IT security system.

It is essential to understand America’s critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR) and National Infrastructure Protection Program (NIPP) to ensure survivability of its critical assets, while maintaining security for America. “The plans are carried out in practice by an integrated network of Federal departments and agencies, State and local government agencies, private sector entities, and a growing number of regional consortia (DHS, 2009, p. I).” Several agencies work together to mitigate attacks on CIKR to protect public safety and security of the nation. A terrorist may stop at nothing to carry out an attack on CIKR. If an attack or natural disaster does transpire, each agency working together to restore the damage must be timely. Additionally, NIPP helps to identify hazards associated with the various sectors, and provides necessary security measures to harden resources (DHS,

-To those of you who are still unaware, every day we are under the threat of both external and internal threats to our society. For example many still remember the tragedy of 9/11; many innocent lives were lost that day and many attribute the blame to poor information sharing between agencies. Fusion centers were the answer to prevent

The tragic events of 9/11, have drastically added to the myriad of recognized risk types and threats as well as the security recommended and required to counter those threats. The Security Manager must be aware of current threat trends, as well as mitigation strategies for the risks identified by the stakeholders. The mitigation strategies vary depending on the type of asset, location, threats and level of risk. These risks can include the spectrum of natural events and disasters, human-caused events as well as the secondary events spawned by primary events. This paper will examine special event security, its purpose, and when such security is recommended.

The Department of Homeland Security is liable for establishing the safety and defense of the U.S. from terrorism and natural disasters. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on America by terrorists, Department of Homeland Security’s main concern has been on federal measures to prevent terrorism attacks and handle other crisis situations. When the Department of Homeland Security was created it had four goals: to diminish America’s vulnerability to terrorism by securing the borders, minimizing the damage and speed the recovery from attacks that happen to occur, to develop technologies devices to detect terrorism and to share all intelligence gathered from all federal agencies (Haulley, 2006). These four

Fusion centers receive information from a variety of sources, including SAR from stakeholders within their jurisdictions, as well as federal information and intelligence. They analyze the information and develop relevant products to disseminate to their customers. These products assist homeland security partners at all levels of government to identify and address immediate and emerging threats. “The National Strategy for Information Sharing considers fusion centers to be “vital assets” that provide the federal government with critical information about state and local governments, while the state and local governments obtain information about terrorist-related threats” (White House

United States’ national infrastructure are resources that are vital to keep commerce operating. Technology have allowed the governments and the private sector to share vital information with them. The nation well-being depend on each of the critical infrastructures, the big question is on how to maintain all of our infrastructure sectors operative without any problem. There a big wave of threats to our nation and if one of this threads go through, it can created a multidimensional problem to the infrastructure system of the country. The main concerns that exist in protecting the U.S. against any attacks to any U.S. infrastructure and in the same time on how to have a system that work well with other agencies. For example; is important to

The Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience advances a national unity of effort to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure (The White House Office of the Press Secretary, February 2013). It is imperative for every nation to develop a critical infrastructure protection plan that will provide the essential services to its society. To archive this, a government must be proactive and coordinate its efforts that will reinforce and maintain secure, functioning, and

The private sector plays a vital role in carrying out the objectives within all 16 sector specific plans. The Emergency Services Sector includes but is not limited to first responding services such as; public work, fire, medical or police services. The goals and objectives of ESS specific plans are to provide first responder services as one of their main missions is the prevention to life. This sector is extremely important as they are the first responders to any type of incident that may even be impacted to other sectors. The National Infrastructure Protection Plan for this sector describes the tasks, duties and responsibilities that the private sector has in order to effectively and successfully operate this types of critical infrastructures. Just like any other sector, this sector requires the private sector to have a good relationship with state, local, tribal, territorial governments, Federal Government and outside organizations as well. Threats, risks, and vulnerabilities are acknowledged and analyzed in every respective infrastructure as they are all different. All factors are then prioritized in order to prevent the best security and mitigate the possible consequences. Public and private sectors must have the ability to continue their businesses and operations after an event has occurred. When an incident of event occur, operating plans must be created and established in order to prevent stoppages or deterrence to the operations. This helps reduce the

Nearly every community has some sort of community risk, threat, and assessment plan that takes into account one of the six potential risks that are of concern to homeland security. Though each of these plans will likely differ from one another, many communities will have the same types of information in their plans. This essay will look at the Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment Guide (THIRA), the Community Risk Reduction Planning Guide, as well as FEMA’s National Preparedness plan. Any combination of these guides are a good starting point for every community in America. At top of every communities list as well as the nation is the protection of the critical infrastructure. Loss of infrastructure regardless of how big or small the community is could have very crippling effects on that community.

Fusion centers were created to improve the efficiency of the state and local level of homeland security. "Fusion centers are owned and operated by state and local entities with support from federal partners in the form of deployed personnel, training, technical assistance, exercise support, security clearances, connectivity to federal systems, technology, and grant funding." (U.S. National Intelligence, 2013, p. 20). This initiative is extremely beneficial, because the state level does not always have the means to comb through data. Training also proves to be a costly burden the state cannot always fund. At the national and international level, the country utilizes the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Fusion centers are been extremely effective, because the intelligence gathered in this manner is much more relevant in terms of locale. For example, if the FBI acquires some intelligence about New York City, it does not do much good for California. If California focuses more on itself with the fusion

The distinction between homeland security and homeland defense is pivotal in gaining a better understanding of how these agencies work and how they correlate to our nations infrastructure. We must understand the designated missions set forth for both these agencies while learning how they meet the tasks appointed to them and resources utilized to accomplish the mission. Learning the fundamentals of our nations infrastructure information must be provided to showcase how these agencies utilize the appropriate resources to guarantee the security of these critical infrastructures. Offering an opinion in the definition of homeland security and how resources are being utilized to fix vulnerabilities is vital to showcase what is being distributed and learned on a researchers and readers level. Homeland security and homeland defense play a pivotal role in ensuring our borders are protected.