Counter Terrorism just how good is our training

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Counter Terrorism just how good is our training

• Research Paper
• IS3392 Independent Studies II
• Professor Antonio Caruso

Bart R. Heimsness sfdoc_at_hotmail.com March 2, 2007
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Counter Terrorism just how good is our
training

• America is heavily involved in the Global War on
  Terror (GWOT) and has developed some of the best
  training in the world. This training not only
  involves military actions, but from the Federal
  response level from the Department of Homeland
  Security (DHS) all the way down to local city and
  town levels.

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Design Issues involved in Online
Counter-Terrorism Training

• Training is provided for most all levels of
  emergency response
• Training provided for anti / counter-terrorism
• Little or no security for access to web sites
  sponsoring training
• Little or non-existent vetting of personnel
  accessing training

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Purpose of Research

• Determine the feasibility of training being
  online and free is worth the money, time and
  effort to develop and offer such training.

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Thesis Statement

• Courses of how to counter and/or fight
  terrorism are abundant and available online for
  anyone to study. This allows not only those in
  these fields, but the terrorists as well, to
  study our tactics and techniques and allows them
  to develop better tactics. A system must be
  developed to not only train our people in these
  subjects, but it must be secure as well.

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History of Counter-Terrorism Training

• Dates back to the beginning of America
• Barbary Pirates took our merchants and others for
  slaves
• All in the name of ALLAH as we are but INFIDELS
• Long standing history of Terrorist attacks
• America finally starts to wake up to the threat
  after 9/11

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Early Training in CT / AT
Initially Thomas Jefferson had the Koran
interpreted in order to determine why the Muslims
(Barbary Pirates) would use the name of ALAH in
order to kill and or enslave people. Jeffersons
copy (translated) of the Koran equipped him with
everything he needed to know on how to respond to
threats from the caliphates of the early 1800s.
Consisted of mainly military training teams
training different entities in Counter-Terrorism
or Anti-Terrorism subjects. This allowed for only
specific individuals or organizations to acquire
these skills.
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Spread into Civilian Market

• Events of 9/11 have allowed a surge of EXPERTS to
  come into the field of CT / AT

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Explosion of online Training
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Birth of Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

• The United States conceived of the DHS right
  after 9/11 and it was actually activated 24 Jan
  2003. This organization was conceived of in
  response to the consolidation and sharing of
  assets and information between governmental
  organizations from the Federal Emergency
  Management Agency (FEMA) to Federal Bureau of
  Investigations (FBI), Federal Air Marshals (FAM),
  and Department of Energy (DOE) etc. Many other
  Federal entities are also enveloped under DHS
  however, too numerous to address at this point.

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What does Counter-Terrorism Training teach us

• The training that has been developed through all
  of the different entities offering training
  range from individual skills, team building
  skills to departments for local, state and
  federal response activities for not only
  training, but coordination between all entities
  responding to such emergencies or terrorist
  activities.
• In order to better understand each area we will
  take a look at them individually below and how
  they fit into the scheme of offering training
  skills pertinent to the counter-terrorism mission

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Individual skills

• Skills taught to our emergency response
  personnel, law enforcement and military personnel
  is available to potential terrorist personnel as
  well.
• Guard duty procedures
• Surveillance detection techniques
• Personal security awareness
• One of the best examples is the course at
  Emergency Operations Training Academy (EOTA)
  Course number - CIP110DW Titled - Vehicle Bomb
  Search Methods
• Many other individual skills

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Team building skills

• To respond to large terrorist events teams are
  needed
• Team training is readily available online
• Incorporates many of the individual skills into
  collective tasks that are used to accomplish the
  mission of responding to emergencies

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Local, County and State skills

• Training and SOPs are dictated
• at National Level for local,
• County State Emergency
• Response units
• Incident Command System
• (ICS) is to be used by all
• jurisdictions
• Majority of County State
• emergency Response SOPs are
• posted online or are available at
• your local library

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Federal coordination and Emergencies

• Federal coordination and Emergencies At the
  federal level there are a couple of programs or
  directives that guide how emergencies are
  handled. Starting with the National Incident
  Management System (NIMS) which serves as a
  template to assist all governmental, state,
  private-sector and non-governmental organizations
  the ability to work together in incidents of
  national response or security.
• NIMS offers templates or outlines for responses
  at all levels of response as well as guidelines
  for training and inter-agency coordination. This
  allows for much better uniformity in not only
  understanding the problems, but mitigating and
  training for responses to them as well

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How can Terrorists use this information
Is there any doubt that terrorists know how to
utilize the internet? Take a look at the Islamic
Jihadist Training Manuals. They are offered
online for terrorists or potential terrorists
worldwide. Many of these manuals that show
specific training on individual tactics and
techniques are exactly like that of our military
and law enforcement training.
Click on manual to view online
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What is at hand for them now?
What is at hand for them now? With all of the
information literally available right at their
fingertips and the ease of not only finding this
information but spreading that information to
the masses with the internet is immense. Through
proper networking, establishing basic security
procedures their network can grow in leaps and
bounds with very little training. With more and
more terrorist organizations using the internet
to spread their message, data mining about our
culture and training procedures we need to look
at why this would be a problem.
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How can they use our information

• This is actually much easier than we know. Two
  (2) examples will be used to display just how
  easy this can be done.
• Tulane University offers a course on Vehicle Bomb
  Search procedures. It is open for enrollment no
  type of clearance of job requirements are
  necessary to use or take these state of the art
  courses. The training covers the methodologies we
  use to search far and near and also shows the
  most common areas that vehicle borne improvised
  explosive devices (VBIED) are placed and how to
  identify them.
• Now armed with this information our guards can
  definitely perform their jobs better and keep
  us safer. Can they really? No because the
  people building the VBIEDs also have access to
  our training and now teach others different ways
  to hide and or build them so they can not be
  detected by the Americans training.

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How can they use our information (Cont)

• Next let us look at our water sources. Our
  Freedom of Information Act and Environmental
  Protection Agency have so many rules and
  regulations involved that all of the information
  has to be made public. Much of this information
  is available right on line if not all of it. It
  will definitely be available in the local
  libraries under the local government section.

Click to play movie
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How can they use our information (Cont)

• Information from location, size of storage or
  processing units, gallons pumped, names,
  addresses, phone numbers of the main personnel
  responsible for the plant and many times the few
  other employees available as well. The terrorists
  already have the methods available to them on how
  to contaminate water. Now they have all of the
  information at their fingertips to contaminate
  our local water sources. If the facility is
  difficult to locate or get into (most can be
  reached simply by tossing it in) they have the
  names, addresses, phone numbers of the main plant
  personnel. With a bit of surveillance the
  terrorists can simply gain access by hurting the
  plant personnel or their families.
• So as can be seen with just a little bit of
  imagination a terrorist can do a lot with just
  a little bit of information. Here in America our
  information is very abundant and very accessible.

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Other potential information available to
terrorists

• is up to the imagination. With the great increase
  of identity theft terrorist rings are known to
  steal mail activate cards and pass the
  information to foreign accounts. Easy for them to
  hide from prosecution when done in another
  country.
• Setting up companies and obtaining contracts for
  our government under the pretense of minority
  owned business. They may end up with sensitive or
  semi-sensitive jobs interfacing with the
  government. They can list jobs on major job
  search engines. They can search major job search
  engines and find personnel with specific training
  or security clearances. The information available
  is amazing. Can you imagine having a top secret
  clearance only to have a local Jihadist stop by
  and see your family? Think about it it really
  is that easy. All it takes is a little time and
  some effort.

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Proposal for dealing with security of online
training

• The events of 9/11 have finally pulled America
  into the Global War on Terror. At the current
  time it is unknown if America has the resolve
  to fight such an enemy but at least the ground
  work has been laid in order to do such a job.
• Actions have been taken in order to enhance
  Americas efforts in GWOT by replacing or
  replenishing many of the missing elements taken
  away over the years by government. One of the
  biggest changes is the development of the
  Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which acts
  as an umbrella not only for training, but
  intelligence and many other functions of the
  government as well.

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Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

• (DHS) is a governmental organization that has
  been given extremely broad powers. With these
  broad powers of all of the different governmental
  organizations from FEMA, FBI etc. the role in
  developing and presenting training is immense.
• With this immense role in providing training
  should come the actual security of such training
  not only for the organizations of which operate
  under its umbrella of influence, but to the
  general public and first responder organizations
  as well.

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Federal Registry

• All companies on Federal Registry the U.S.
  Government has made many more steps in the
  Centralized Contractor Registration (CCR) which
  gives companies a place to find and learn all of
  the information they need to not only establish
  their business(s), but in order to do business
  with the government as well.
• This is an invaluable tool and could easily be
  used to ensure that these companies have the
  proper security clearances for particular types
  of work as well as holding these companies
  responsible for their employees and their
  security clearances as well.

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How employees can be given access

• This is not as complicated as it seems.
  Given the vetting process of the new employment
  form (Form I-9 (Rev. 05/31/05)) (see Fig 5.1)
  that require particular series or combination of
  identifications to verify the person being
  employed with a little government supervision
  employees can be verified relatively quickly.
  This form allows for the proper documentation to
  be checked rather easily and employers should
  have their feet held to the fire so to speak
  in order to do the right thing.

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How employees can be given access(Cont)

• Additionally anyone working in the field of law
  enforcement, first responders or government type
  jobs should certainly be free from different
  criminal backgrounds which could potentially be a
  liability to the positions in which they work.
• Submitting the extra paperwork for security
  clearances is an extra expense of time and effort
  however, it is a necessary expense that would
  allow these personnel to obtain access to the
  system. Employees as well as Employers need to be
  held accountable in addition to those granting
  any type of clearance to any of these personnel.

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Solutions to Security Problems

• As with any problem the problem has to be
  identified. This particular problem is definitely
  identified. The proposed solution is to implement
  the steps from the top down as well as bottom up
  approaches in order to ensure everyones security
  as well as privacy.
• Individuals could apply for U.S. Passports.
• Department of Justice (DOJ) can use the
  information form I-9
• DHS is the starting area for securing the
  training environments.
• CCR would be responsible for ensuring that all
  government contractors
• are eligible for any training they may have
  access to.
• Department of the military would handle military
  access.
• FEMA and like State agencies would handle the
  accessibility of their
• individual state emergency responders and law
  enforcement personnel
• by granting them access to applicable training.

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Conclusion

• Developing and deploying the best training in the
  world that is accessible to anyone is a superb
  idea when the information is not potentially
  harmful to the people of which it is helpful. The
  GWOT is such an environment where it makes no
  sense to have tactics, techniques and modalities
  taught to anyone that has an internet connection.
  It is the same as giving away all of your plays
  to the opposing team who will decimate you when
  you actually play the game.
• A method of controlling who gets the training and
  how it is taught only makes perfect sense in the
  Global War on Terrorism, however giving that
  same information to the people we are fighting
  makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever. A much
  more serious look needs to be done in this matter
  by all involved.

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Questions

• For further information contact
• Bart R. Heimsness
• sfdoc_at_hotmail.com