Cybersecurity: Progress Made but Challenges Remain in Defining and Coordinating the Comprehensive National Initiative

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued this report that claims that the federal government is facing strategic challenges in securing federal information systems. These challenges mainly lie in coordinating efforts with international entities and strategically addressing identity management and authentication.

The report specifically criticizes the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). According to the report, CNCI faces challenges in defing roles and responsibilities for cybersecurity tasks, establishing measures of overall effectiveness, setting an appropriate level of transparency, and reaching agreement on the scope of educational efforts.

"Until these challenges are adequately addressed, there is a risk that CNCI will not fully achieve its goal to reduce vulnerabilities, protect against intrusions, and anticipate future threats against federal executive branch information systems."

The study Health-Related Costs from Foodborne Illness in the United States estimates that foodborne illnesses cost the United States billions of dollars a year. As a result of this study, the FDA has announced that “it will propose before the end of the year mandatory and enforceable safety standards for the growing, harvesting and packing of fresh produce. These will be the first nationwide safety standards for fresh fruits and vegetables.”

This month the Trust for America's Health (TFAH) and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) released a report titled: "Shortchanging America's Health: A State-by-State Look at How Public Health Dollar Are Spent and Key State Health Facts."

The report found that "federal spending for public health has been flat for nearly five years, while states around the country cut nearly $392 million for public health programs in the past year. These cuts leave communities around the country struggling to deliver basic disease prevention and emergency health preparedness services." The report also found that "states are expected to cut budgets even more in the coming year, which will further limit the ability of public health departments to carry out services for: Cancer, diabetes, obesity, and other chronic disease prevention; HIV/AIDS, MRSA, TB, and other infectious disease prevention; Food and water safety; Environmental health improvement; and Bioterrorism and health emergency preparedness."

To find more information on state-by-state key health statistics and funding information click here.

Fatwa on Suicide Bombings and Terrorism

This week, the former Pakistani lawmaker and Islamic scholar, Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri, issued this fatwa that placed "the Islamic stance on terrorism precisely in its proper perspective before the Western and Islamic worlds, in the light of the Holy Qur’an, Prophetic traditions and Books of Jurisprudence and Belief."

According to ul-Qadri: "suicide bombings and attacks against civilian targets are not only condemned by Islam, but render the perpetrators totally out of the fold of Islam, in other words, to be unbelievers."

This historic document will be used as a tool by Muslim communities to guard against radicalization. It will be especially useful to Muslim youth as they seek to gain a greater understanding of Islam. Undoubtedly, this fatwa has struck a vital blow against violent Islamist groups such as Al-Qaeda that seek to twist the doctrines of Islam for their own use.

DHS Progress Report: The Challenge of Reform

In an analysis of the immigration policy of President Barack Obama’s first year, the Immigration Policy Center’s new report “reveals that DHS [Department of Homeland Security] is a department caught between entrenchment on enforcement and the competing priorities of new reforms. “ The report finds that while DHS has failed to meet some key expectations in the areas of due process, enforcement, detention, family immigration, naturalization, immigrant integration, and asylum, “it has also engaged thoughtfully and strategically on others, and has made some fundamental changes in how it conducts its immigration business.”

“The Immigration Policy Center is the research and policy arm of the American Immigration Council. Its mission is to shape a rational conversation on immigration and immigrant integration.”

The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative

President Obama has identified cybersecurity as one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation, but one that we as a government or as a country are not adequately prepared to counter. Last year the President accepted recommendations of the resulting Cyberspace Policy Review which was built on the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), the success of which will largely depend on the strategic foundational capabilities within the Government (including funding within the federal law enforcement, intel, and defense communities to enhance key functions such as criminal investigation, and intelligence gathering, processing, and analysis).

Enhanced information sharing is the cornerstone of this new initiative that carves out extensive provisions to address the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. It is this administration’s goal to improve public understanding of Federal efforts, and in this vein the Cybersecurity Coordinator has released a summary description of the CNCI.

The CNCI is a highly classified program, and only the brief declassified description has been released. Most of the information that is not classified is categorized as 'For Official Use Only'. These restrictions preclude public education, awareness and debate about the policy and legal issues, real or imagined, that the initiative poses in the areas of privacy and civil liberties. (But without a clear delineation of legal authorities and implementation mechanisms, the scope for meaningful public discussion seems limited).

Rage on the Right The Year in Hate and Extremism by Mark Potok is an intelligence report about the recent rise of extremists groups in America.

“The radical right caught fire last year, as broad-based populist anger at political, demographic and economic changes in America ignited an explosion of new extremist groups and activism across the nation.

Hate groups stayed at record levels -- almost 1,000 -- despite the total collapse of the second largest neo-Nazi group in America. Furious anti-immigrant vigilante groups soared by nearly 80%, adding some 136 new groups during 2009. And, most remarkably of all, so-called ‘Patriot’ groups -- militias and other organizations that see the federal government as part of a plot to impose ‘one-world government’ on liberty-loving Americans -- came roaring back after years out of the limelight.

Chair's Report: Trans-Pacific Symposium on Dismantling Transnational Illicit Networks

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) co‐hosted an international symposium November 9‐12, 2009, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The symposium focused on "numerous converging criminal threats that have become increasingly prominent in the trans-Pacific region [including] arms, narcotics, and human smuggling/trafficking, IPR- and cyber-crimes, money-laundering and terrorist financing, environmental crimes, and kleptocracies/corruption. Discussion covered current and emerging threats, vulnerabilities and challenges, as well as opportunities for cooperation in investigations and intelligence sharing." The report includes 16 proposals on ways to move forward.

Pharmaceutical Terror: Getting Health Care Reform Right

According to a recent report from the Henry L. Stimson Center, current health care reform options lack “recognition of the growing link between public health and national security. Legislative decisions being made today on health care reform could have a deleterious impact on US efforts to address the growing threat of bitoterrorism.”

The report discusses how biotechnological innovation has yielded incomparable benefits to humanity. But as these innovations have spread, many governments have been unable to effectively monitor and control these technologies. The report examines current government efforts, opportunities for terrorists, and recently passed legislation.

“When NATO’s founding members signed the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949, they declared themselves ‘resolved to unite their efforts for collective defense and for the preservation of peace and security.’ The greatest threat to these objectives was a military attack by a hostile power—a prospect that led to the treaty’s most famous provision, Article V, which states, ‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.’