An Insider's Look at Homeland Security and Technology

In the year since September 11, 2001, America's attitude has changed. On that crisp September morning, the nation realized that really bad things can simply happen. Our response to this harsh dose of reality has been swift and significant. We have more security in airports, a greater military presence in our subways and train stations, and a heightened police presence. We have tightened security at our border crossings. We've also become more security conscious on the technology front, working to close egregious holes in everything from our desktops to our handhelds and from wireless networks to local area networks. Essentially, everyone has security on the brain. Earlier this year, President George W. Bush announced the formation of a new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Homeland Defense. If approved and funded by Congress, this department would represent one of the most radical government reorganizations in over 50 years and would bring together roughly 22 distinct agencies under one department.

In the meantime, the Office for Homeland Security (formed just 10 days after the September 11 attacks, and headed by former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge) is currently operating as a considerably smaller department. One of the key members is Steve I. Cooper, special assistant to the president, senior director for information integration, and CIO for the Office of Homeland Security.

Cooper comes to the agency after serving as the CIO for corporate staffs and the executive director of strategic information delivery at Corning. He has a decidedly large job—helping develop the potential department's technology infrastructure, and defining the technologies that will help protect America from further terrorist actions. He recently sat down with PC Magazine to talk about building the department, defining the technology, and protecting America.

PC Magazine: What role should technology play in protecting our country from terrorists?

Technology plays a key role in protecting our country from terrorism, involving a wide variety of technologies. For example, in the intelligence-gathering arena, we can bring hardware and software to bear—intelligence gathering and intelligence fusion and intelligence analysis. Another component area is sensing and detection; a little bit different type of technology. It's not pure software, but it's a hardware/software combination.

We've got all types of sensing for weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological, radiological. We have explosive detection in airports that is increasingly being used.

"We're not going to jeopardize security or safety for the convenience that wireless brings." —Steve I. Cooper

Another component area is integration. In this particular case, we are talking about the tools used in enterprise application integration. That's terribly important for our ability to breakdown the stovepipes, which is the phrase you may have heard. It would be marvelous if we had the time and the money to basically redo everything, and not worry about what's already here, but that's totally unrealistic. What we've got to do, in addition to some of the other things we're doing, is hook legacy environments together. Therefore, we will be using EAI [enterprise application integration] and middleware.

Another component area is information security, or cyber-security. So things like firewalls, things like intelligent agents software, are involved in this case. We'll be using those, and we'll be bringing those to bear from both inside and outside the network. What do I mean by 'inside and outside?' Outside the network, a firewall would prevent access and there are other software agents that we can use as a perimeter type of defense. But increasingly what we're trying to do—a perimeter defense—is not enough, so we need to bring additional capability inside the network. Encryption and tunneling, for example, are a couple of areas of information technology where we're using software to do that.

In addition, we want to increase application security itself, even at the database level. So as we enable software, as vendors help us, we want record- and field-level security.

"We're Knowledge management: ... early attempts were ... probably over hyped and over sold... Now we have the real capability and we are bringing it to bear in this battle against terrorism." —Steve I. Cooper

Another component area: knowledge management. This is kind of a broad bucket where we'd put data mining, information harvesting, data utilization, linkage analysis, and collaboration capability. We in the industry are talking about new ways that knowledge management should be applied as opposed to some of our early attempts at labeling knowledge management which, I'm sure you know, didn't go very well. I think some of the early attempts were a little bit overhyped and oversold the capability of the software a number of years ago. Now we really do have the real capability and we are bringing it to bear in this battle against terrorism.

A slightly different form of information technology, but one that still counts, is the world of wireless devices. We are using those, but as you know, there are security vulnerabilities in using wireless. So we're moving forward cautiously in that arena. We're not going to jeopardize security or safety for the convenience that wireless brings.

Another component area is geospatial technology. This is kind of the combination of geographic information systems that give you spatial representation of data, and imaging. So I am talking about satellite imaging as a key component of this nexus of imagery and geospatial representation of data, or visualization of data. GPS and geographic positioning would fall in this arena as well. So there's a rather quick rundown across a lot of very broad areas, but I think it gives you and your readership a sense of the fact that there are huge opportunities that we will build upon in the use of information technology.

PC Magazine: Which companies have you tapped to help formulate a technology plan?

We've probably talked to—collectively now—about 1,000 companies. What I mean when I say "we" is myself and other senior directors in the Office of Homeland Security. There are a handful of us. I wish there were more with the time and ability to do this, but we're moving as quickly as we can. I wish the number of companies we've talked to could be higher, quite honestly. It's not a complaint though, like I said. And we're moving as quickly as we can. The companies range from very, very large companies—the ones you would automatically think of, like Lockheed Martin, Grumman, Boeing, the largest defense contractors, and SAIC—all the way down to small companies that literally may have five or six people, but have what we think may be cutting-edge or leading-edge technology that's not necessarily owned or in the mainstream yet. We are very interested in exploring pretty much any and all solutions sets that vendors may bring to bear.

In some cases, the federal government is investing in some of these new emerging technologies from very small companies.

In-Q-Tel is actually a government-supported, government-funded venture-capital type of organization. It invests, through funding that's approved and given to In-Q-Tel by Congress, in small companies—startup companies where we think that there are viable technologies that we might want to bring to bear. In this case, the technologies are primarily in the intelligence area. Similarly, the Department of Defense invests in new and emerging technologies through an organization called DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.)

DARPA's precursor was ARPA, and ARPA was the organizational unit that funded the Internet.

PC Magazine: How do you balance the security threats and holes often opened by technological advances with technology's ability to help protect us?

There are several mechanisms that we're actually using and that are in use and run down in no particular order.

The first is the most obvious. We work pretty closely with software vendors who have supplied software to federal agencies, and where we find vulnerabilities or security risks, we have pretty good mechanisms in relaying that back to the vendor. There are IT folks in the various federal agencies who sometimes, though not in every case, can assist the vendor in building a solution and applying a patch that the vendor may have helped develop.

"We have people in key government agencies whose job is to ...basically do everything they can, thinking like a terrorist, to try to breach security." —Steve I. Cooper

A second way that we're doing this is through the use of Red Teams. That's a concept that came out of the Department of Defense. But we actually have people in key government agencies whose job is to go break stuff. In this case, they target information technologies, basically doing everything they can to think like a terrorist, to try to breach security and/or circumvent security and/or penetrate or intrude into stuff that we would prefer not to have people intrude on. And when they're successful—and they are—we then work [with them]. People in this case are usually carrying clearances, and we then work with those folks who can bring talent and expertise to bear to address whatever vulnerability has been discovered.

A third important form of overcoming security threats involves what are called the ISACs (information sharing and analysis centers). There are currently 13 ISACs and they parallel the 13 sectors or segments that we have identified under what we term critical infrastructure. The ISACs have actually been chartered by Congress and they are populated by mostly private-sector organizations. As an example, energy is a critical infrastructure sector. So those companies that are key in the energy community are members of an energy ISAC. Financial banking transactions is another ISAC. I admit, I don't recall all 13 of them, but they share a significant amount of information. The telecommunications sector is the one ISAC that's been in place the longest, and companies within it are very successful in actually sharing with one another risks and vulnerabilities. They work to address and actually close any security breaches that are identified. Where appropriate, they have the cooperation and various resources from federal agencies.

So those are three major ways that the federal government is working to address some of the security threats that are often introduced with new technologies.

PC Magazine: In what ways could technology have helped prevent 9/11?

This is kind of a difficult question to answer because it asks us to speculate about "if we had certain things in place might something have been prevented?" And I think answering that is probably not necessarily something that any of us can do. I think it's very important to understand that while we can speculate with hindsight, it doesn't mean that had we had all these things in place, 9/11 could have been prevented.

"I think it's very important to understand that while we can speculate with hindsight, it doesn't mean that had we had all these things in place, 9/11 could have been prevented." —Steve I. Cooper

With that preface in place, what we're trying to do to prevent another incident might be more beneficial. One example that I will give you is that there are multiple watch lists or lookout lists that exist across the federal environment. One of the things that we are working to do is to ensure that any names or people identified on any single watch list are represented on all watch lists. This is so that we do not have a situation where one watch list didn't contain a name of an individual that did appear on our other watch list. So there is work underway to basically create a virtual consolidation of these multiple watch lists.

A second arena: We have technology that we are bringing to bear—this is not technology that we had in place or necessarily could have had in place prior to 9/11—but we're working to bring a certain intelligent software to bear that will enable us to basically connect what are called non-obvious relationships. This is leading-edge, and it is, we think, very promising. And by proper deployment of this type of software, we believe that we can make great strides in identifying activity and or people that become suspect, if you will, and that we would then want to turn over to proper enforcement authorities for further investigation.

There are some smaller examples, and they're the ones that I think become more obvious.

For example, I'm sure everyone has been through some airport where your nail file sets off an alarm or something. There are some advanced detection technologies that the transportation security administration is working on to bring into the screening process in airports. Right now it is heavily based upon magnetic type of detection of metal. But there are additional technologies that do a pretty good job of sensing non-metal types of things. In specific cases, some people have experienced sensing technology where they take a little round pad, which looks a little like a white filter and rub it over where you hold a bag or [they] rub it around the bag. Well, that technology is actually part of the sensing equipment that seeks chemical traces. Additionally there are some biological sensing capabilities and radiological sensing capabilities that we want to introduce at border crossings, for example, and at airports.

So there are a handful of technologies that we are moving quickly to deploy to provide a greater capability to detect and prevent any kind of terrorist incident.

PC Magazine: In what ways did technology help identify the 9/11 terrorists?

Well, in fact, as I'm sure you may recall, literally within about 24 to 48 hours most if not all of the terrorists on the planes were identified. And that was done through some of the technologies that I actually have talked about. Much of the capability to integrate and to link the information that we have across federal-agency databases and private-sector databases enabled us to identify the terrorists very quickly. Specific information technologies used included data mining, linkage analysis, and non-obvious relationship analysis. The key difference in this case was that we could start with a list of known names—passenger lists—rather than not knowing any name or alias, which is the case before an incident has occurred. So we had certain names to begin with, and the information technologies that were brought to bear could be leveraged more quickly. It's very different if I have a name to begin that search, as compared to not having any name, to detect someone who is in no database and is not on any "watch-out" list.

PC Magazine: Does the Internet pose a great benefit or a threat in the fight against terrorism?

This is a tough question, and I'm sure that if you talk to different people you may get slightly different answers. So I'm going to answer from my perspective. I believe that the Internet actually poses a greater benefit. And I think that it is indeed a double-edged sword. The same Internet that we use to share appropriate information—not classified information but often sensitive information [such as] sensitive law-enforcement and homeland-security information—can be used by terrorist cells to communicate among themselves. Because the Internet basically carries what is referred to as open-source information, it is accessible by virtually anybody. Federal government does not have the capability to, nor would it ever attempt to, impose any kind of limitations on the use of the Internet. I think most of us believe that the Internet can be used to significant advantage, and it can and is used for intelligence gathering. It is used for communications. One particular thing, interestingly enough, emerged after 9/11. One of the few communications channels that continued to work right up until the towers collapsed was e-mailing by the Internet, messaging via the Internet. So that's a huge plus capability.

"most believe the Internet is a huge benefit, in spite of the fact that it has vulnerabilities" —Steve I. Cooper

In incident management and response and recovery we're usually not dealing with classified information, and as a result we can use the Internet to communicate, for example, to handheld or wireless devices to guide emergency responders and actually share visual information, geographic and geospatial info, in addition to text. So, far and away, most of us believe the Internet is a huge benefit, in spite of the fact that it has vulnerabilities.

PC Magazine: Have you spoken directly to the president about technology's role in Homeland Security?

Once or twice I have been included in a group that has done that.

PC Magazine: Can you characterize those discussions?

"[The president, vice president and Governor Ridge] continue to communicate internally the importance of information technology, particularly in combating terrorism" —Steve I. Cooper

I can't really characterize the discussions that we had because it was considered what's called pre-presidential advice, guiding him in decision-making. But the President, Vice President, and Governor Ridge have, in their various roles prior to coming into office, been huge proponents of the use of technology across all types of arenas to improve and enhance America's capabilities. That hasn't changed. As each one of them has come into their internal roles, they have continued to communicate internally the importance of information technology, particularly in combating terrorism.

PC Magazine: You talked generally about the kinds of tools you'll be using. Are they all enterprise-class, or are there any that our readers might more readily recognize that are for use in security or the cross-department exchange of information?

Oh, sure, absolutely. I'll give you a couple of examples.

One of the things that we're actually exploring and evaluating for use is instant messaging.

"To the best of my knowledge ... no Federal agency is using Instant Messaging" —Steve I. Cooper

I have to be careful, because I've been on board five months and I just haven't talked to every federal agency yet, but to the best of my knowledge, across the major cabinet agencies, no federal agency is using instant messaging. As a result, we are interested in exploring that.

Look, I have young daughters, and my youngest is 15. Her ability to have 18 IM windows open at once is just fascinating to watch. But for every kid that has grown up digital, this is second nature. It's like using the telephone to them. We believe that, in fact, there are significant advantages that could be leveraged with instant messaging —that is, if, in fact, we have the ability to use instant messaging within a secure environment. Now that's the key, and that's why we're moving a little slowly to kind of explore how could we leverage this and how we could use it appropriately. Some of the pilot tests we're doing are going to sit kind of inside firewalls. But we think we're actually going to figure out how to take advantage of instant messaging.

PC Magazine: But it might be a little premature for me to ask you for your AIM handle?

[Cooper laughs.] Uh, yeah. I—yeah, you're right. I prefer not to.

"The government agencies use Outlook, Outlook Express and Lotus Notes, for the most part." —Steve I. Cooper

There are other important technologies that are very well known. We're using Microsoft's suite of products. Believe it or not, some of the collaboration capability is very, very important. So is e-mail. The government agencies use Outlook, Outlook Express, and Lotus Notes, for the most part. Those are very widespread and very, very heavily used. We use Lotus Notes in some cases as kind of both a server and a client, and we use Outlook and Exchange—mostly Exchange at this point in time. There are migrations that are underway to Outlook.

We're working very closely with Microsoft to improve and correct some of the security deficiencies that we've found and that I'm sure your readers have found with Microsoft's products. It's not a secret. Microsoft knows it. And they've actually engaged very cooperatively in working collaboratively with the federal environment to fix these things.

"We're working very closely with Microsoft to improve and correct some of the security deficiencies that we've found…, with Microsoft's products. It's not a secret. Microsoft knows it. And they've actually engaged very cooperatively in working collaboratively with the Federal environment?? to fix these things." —Steve I. Cooper

We are using EAI software. And this is done under competitive types of procurement. I think most of your readers are probably familiar with the fact that the government goes though a procurement process. It can be very quick. We define requirements and then request proposals from the private sector. Those companies that wish to propose a solution—such as Web Methods—respond, and then an evaluation and selection is made.

A significant amount of the application software that's used is what's referred to as commercial off-the-shelf software. Oftentimes, the acronym that's used is COTS. If your readers work in corporations, then they're very familiar with the software used around human-resources management, financial management, and procurement types of activities. The federal government uses Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP, to name the three major vendors in that arena. There is also software that's produced by Sybase, Symantec, Network Associates, Verisign, Veritas, and Checkpoint.

"...as we're moving forward, we're bringing many of the agencies in the Federal government together and we are looking for...enterprise-wide licensing where [the] enterprise becomes more and more of the Federal Departments." —Steve I. Cooper

Now all of that various software that I've mentioned is in use in one or more agencies. But at the moment, the federal government doesn't license software on a federal-wide basis. In most cases, up until this point in time various agencies or departments have made their own decisions and acquired some or all of that software as appropriate to their requirements. However, as we're moving forward, increasingly we're bringing many, many of the agencies in the federal government together and we are looking for what I would label enterprise-wide licensing.

PC Magazine: And that's the kind of thing that can help to break down information stovepipes.

Exactly, exactly. As I'm sure you know, it's simply easier and less complex if I'm trying to hook things together that are that are running on the same software or on the same software/hardware platform, than if I'm running different applications on different hardware platforms. We can do the latter, and we clearly have the technology and the ability and the expertise to integrate, but it takes more time and it's more complex. So as we can move to have fewer things that we have to hook together, it makes life easier. And we can move faster, which in combating terrorism is very, very important.

PC Magazine: Is it safe to assume that much of the government is on Wintel boxes?

I would say that probably the majority of us, pretty much like the rest of the world, are on Wintel boxes. However, there is an awful lot of technology around. Remember, the federal government is a big place, so you name it and we've probably got it. In fact, we have, to the best of my understanding, the only remaining operational IBM 370 machine in existence. I think the rest of those machines have all long since died and I think there might be one in the Smithsonian. We're working pretty quickly to see if we can't migrate off of that.

We've got a very large deployed base of Sun equipment, Unix-based equipment, in addition to Wintel equipment.

Suffice to say that we've got a little bit of everything.

PC Magazine: Are handhelds/PDAs used in government?

Actually, a number of folks do use them. They're used pretty much for the same things that your readership would use them for. They're used for wireless e-mail in many cases. A lot of us have Blackberries, for example. A lot of people carry some kind of PDA like Compaq's. That's not an endorsement of either one—either RIM or Compaq—just examples. They're used for calendaring, communication, and making little lists of "What do I need to do today?" We view them as productivity tools. And they are extremely valuable, in many cases, for staying in touch with one another. Particularly for those of us who are basically on 24-hour call, they are very, very useful in real-time communication or very near real-time communication. It's not instant messaging, but you can get an e-mail back and forth pretty quickly if you're carrying a handheld device.

PC Magazine: Can you give an example of a current information stovepipe within our government?

Let me go back to a very real one that we are working on. That's, as I mentioned, the watch-out list.

"We have to break down the 14 stovepipes, but even more complex, we've got to integrate the 50-plus databases to get to a virtual, single "Watch out" list." —Steve I. Cooper

There are 14 major lists that are maintained by 14 agencies that have key roles to play involving the identification of individuals that we consider bad guys. There are over 50 databases that feed those 14 watch-out lists. And that's too many. In this case, you can consider each watch-out list a stovepipe. It's very important [to realize] this is not a situation where people did something incorrect or did something wrong. Those different watch-out lists were developed over various stages of time to meet the mission and the charter of the appropriate agencies. So nobody did anything wrong, but we haven't connected those working watch lists. Now we are working very quickly to create the virtual consolidation of those. That means that not only do we have to break down the 14 stovepipes, but we've got to integrate the 50-plus databases to get to a virtual, single watch-out list. We can do it. It is complex and we're kind of underway.

PC Magazine: Is there any timeframe for when you will finish this project?

As quickly as we can.

PC Magazine: The budgets of all the agencies that fall under Homeland Security are frozen until a technology framework can be put in place. What kind of a framework are you trying to put in place?

Here's what's actually going on. We're moving forward in two parallel paths. A set of memoranda temporarily halted further IT investment, and this came from Mitch Daniels, who is the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Those memoranda created or charted an IT investment review group. Or review board is actually what we call it. Currently that investment review board is comprised of the chief information officers of each of the affected agencies. Affected agencies are those that will become part of the proposed Department of Homeland Security, and affected individuals include the agency's chief financial officer, its principle human resources professional, and its principal procurement professional. So in addition to the technology representation through the CIOs, we have line-of-business representation in the finance, human resource, and procurement arenas, which are the areas that we're initially looking at. That group basically is meeting each week, and one of the first things we are doing is to create the decision process and the evaluation criteria that will be used in determining whether we allow something to move forward or stop something from moving forward. We expect to have that set of criteria and process finalized by next week [the week of August 26].

The second component of that is that the CIOs themselves comprise a subgroup that is focused on IT infrastructure. This is where [we look at] local area networks, communication protocols, metadata, standardization—that type of thing.

To assist both of these groups, we have begun work on a national enterprise architecture for homeland security. It's a big undertaking. It's never been attempted before. But we are building upon the methodologies that have been used very successfully across the private sector and increasingly successfully in the federal sector. We know how to construct this, and we have embarked upon constructing it. While most of the work that we have done to date is in the federal sector, we've actually reached out to the private sector and the state and local governments to include them in the mechanism and process to build this national enterprise architecture. They have responded very well. We have a state working group that has been chartered under the auspices of the National Association of State CIOs that has begun working with the federal team that's at work on the national enterprise architecture.

"We have begun work on national enterprise architecture for homeland security. It's a big undertaking. It's never been attempted before." —Steve I. Cooper

Now here's the tough part in this. It takes a little bit of time for us to populate this national enterprise architecture because we have real missions and programs that need to be carried out in federal agencies today. We aren't going to have the luxury of waiting for the full population of the national enterprise architecture before we have to make some decisions about investments in information technology to sustain and support a lot of the mission-critical activity that is going [on] in the government.

So part of that decision process that I mentioned and the evaluation criteria will enable us to make appropriate decisions about things that come before the board before we've fully populated key component layers of the national enterprise architecture.

PC Magazine: When do you think you'll have it completed?

We've got a challenge here, because this has never been done.

"If congress doesn't fund or doesn't fulfill the request that we've made, it will cause us to work much more slowly." —Steve I. Cooper

We need to bring a few more resources to bear. As I mentioned, we want to get a little more involvement from the private sector and state and local government. In order to do that, we have requested funding from Congress. We had made a request [$8.7 million] in the emergency supplemental budget that was not approved by Congress, and so our particular request for funding was not approved. We have requested money [$20 million] in the fiscal year 2003 budget and we are hoping that Congress will act favorably on that request as it acts upon the President's budget submission for 2003. So we do need funding and are dependent upon Congress to approve that funding for us to move forward with a fully-staffed team that will enable us to move more quickly. If we are enabled to move more quickly, our target is to have about 70 percent of the national enterprise architecture populated by the end of December 2002.

If Congress doesn't fund or doesn't fulfill the request that we've made, it will cause us to work much more slowly, and may jeopardize our ability to have all of the data that we'd like to have while making key decisions.

PC Magazine: How will the framework for the Homeland Security Department deviate—if at all—from the Federal Enterprise Architecture outlined by the OMB?

It doesn't deviate. In fact, Dr. Robert Haycock is the program manager for the Federal Enterprise Architecture. He is working very closely with Lee Holcomb and Bob Shepherd. Bob Haycock is part of the federal team, as I mentioned, Bob Shepherd and Lee are part of the office of homeland security. They are working together. And the National Enterprise Architecture for Homeland Security is using the same methodology and is following all of the OMB guidelines. So in fact we basically have the homeland-security architecture linked to the Federal Enterprise Architecture. It's a win-win for everybody.

PC Magazine: However long it takes to get the architecture in place, do we have time? Don't all agencies related to Homeland Security need to collect, analyze, and disseminate information now? Won't holding up their IT plans slow down, or hamper, critical information sharing that's needed now to combat terrorism?

I believe the answer to these questions is yes in every case.

What we clearly recognize is that we have to move forward at the same time that we're building the National Enterprise Architecture. So we will use all the information available to us to make the best decision.. We will also, in parallel, continue to build the National Enterprise Architecture as quickly as funding permits us to. So these are parallel types of activities.

The other thing that's important to note is that the temporary halt on IT investment is focused, at the moment, only on IT infrastructure and back-office applications. It is not focused on mission-critical applications. So there are no steps that we are taking that prevent any of the federal agencies from continuing to carry out their critical missions or that prevent the intelligence gathering and intelligence analysis that is already going on. We will not jeopardize that. We'll do all of this work in parallel.

PC Magazine: Is there any formal information sharing going on now between the agencies that fall under the Homeland Security umbrella? How is it being shared?

"The temporary halt on IT investment is focused, at the moment, only on IT infrastructure and back office applications. It is not focused on mission critical applications." —Steve I. Cooper

Yeah, there is. Up until a few months ago, the agencies were still operating as independent agencies. About six or seven weeks ago, we chartered three working groups. They are comprised of the CIOs of the agencies that are proposed to move to the new Department of Homeland Security. The first group that was chartered was to focus on process and information sharing around border security and transportation, and that group has been at work for six or seven weeks. They are doing a couple of things. First, they rapidly began to identify key or critical information products that could or should be shared and they began to collaborate on how best to enable that quickly.

The second thing they were focused on was the development of this National Enterprise Architecture, and they began their activity by sharing each of their agency architectures, because the agencies had done a lot of work around their own enterprise architecture for their specific agencies, like Customs or INS. By sharing their enterprise architectures, they could identify the points of integration in the information products that were most beneficial to share very quickly. And they were then able to say, "Okay, here are key things we want to connect," and they are working to define how we're going to connect those. And in some cases, as you mentioned, some informal sharing has begun, meaning communities of practice are being brought together. In some cases we've actually begun, on a very small basis, to hook some things together, but we're not real far along in a digital connection, just yet.

The second working group that was chartered about midway over the past six to seven weeks began to focus on basically the processes that support the first-responder community. So that's primarily focused on alerts and warning, incident management and response, and recovery types of capabilities.

And the third group, which is just getting underway, is beginning to focus on, unfortunately, weapons of mass destruction. So processes around detection and prevention, and alerts and warnings related to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. That's the third group and that will be their area of focus.

PC Magazine: How do you balance Homeland Security needs with privacy and civil liberties?

Carefully.

"The administration has gone on record...that they are not willing to sacrifice civil liberties and privacy for security." —Steve I. Cooper

The administration has gone on record and President Bush and Governor Ridge have been very clear that they are not willing to sacrifice civil liberties and privacy for security. We have to get the balance right. It is difficult. We are involving a whole host of experts—legal experts, privacy experts—in this discussion and we'll work very carefully and very diligently to get that balance correct. These are tough times. This is a real threat. The media has not overhyped this at all. We have a real threat and there is a very real sense of urgency. The administration has gone on record, for example, that it's not going to support a national ID. I think that's a very real indication that the president is very serious, and Governor Ridge is very serious when they say that we're not going to violate civil liberties and we're not going to violate the trust and the principles that our country was founded [on].

PC Magazine: But it often seems that the technologies that can most help us combat terrorism are by nature intrusive. There is nanotechnology, for example, that can make devices small enough to avoid discovery that can track someone or something anywhere around the world. Do you think that there's a side of this that the public cannot know about?

Again, I'll come back to the fact that the administration is committed to getting this balance right and in conducting open dialogue. I do not believe, and certainly am not aware, that we have things going on in backrooms that are big brother types of activities that we're gonna hide from the public. That's not the way we operate, and that's not the way the administration operates, and that's not the way the federal government operates.

Having said that, are there intelligence-gathering activities in the intelligence community that the public does not know about and will not know about? Yes. But that's not the same thing we're talking about when we're talking about civil liberties and monitoring devices and things like that.

"These are tough times. [Terrorism] is a real threat. The media has not over-hyped this at all." —Steve I. Cooper

Let me give you an example. We were actually approached by a company that has technology that's used to track various animals for legitimate purposes, for scientific research and monitoring. And they were curious about if we'd be interested in using this technology. For example, they could take their little chip and it could be surgically implanted in somebody's shoulder. Well, we politely and respectfully indicated that that's probably not something we are interested in pursuing.

There are technologies that, absolutely, I think all of us know—those of us in the technology industry—can be used to monitor you every place you go.

Look at one of the things that we're also paying attention to. If I have a handheld device, I've got an IP address attached to it. Suppose I hooked the IP address to a GPS type of capability. I could track the individual, or at least the device, anywhere on the planet. Now figuring out if that's a positive thing or not so positive thing is part of our dialogue.

PC Magazine: There's been talk of adopting a meta-standard for keeping track of the data that's stored in databases across the government. What type of a meta standard are we talking about?

This is most likely going to be some type of XML tag, some type of XML data set. We're looking to a number of the standards organizations. We're not going to cook up our own standards. We're going to look to many of the working groups that already exist across the industry. We're going to look to the National Institute of Standards and Technology to help guide us. We're going to look to ANSI (American National Standards Institute) and ISO (International Standards Organization). What we are going to do is to encourage them to speed up their work. Those agencies do very good work and have the right type of broad, national and international cooperation. They tend to move slower than we would like to see them move. So what we're trying to do is to encourage those groups—'Hey, do good work. Could you do it a little bit quicker?' And we think that will actually get us where we need to be.

"I do not believe...that we have things going on in backrooms that are big brother-types of activities...That's not the way we operate." —Steve I. Cooper

Now in some cases, we may have to move a little bit faster. So what we're going to do there is, we'll take work that already exists in these various working groups and use that as the basis of, perhaps, forming an additional group with the appropriate representation across federal, state, and local governments and the private sector.

An area that I would point to is in the taxonomy and tagging of law-enforcement–based, sensitive information. We really do want to share information with the 750,000 law enforcement officers across the United States. And we believe that if we waited fully for the working groups that are working off that type of information, it's probably going to be longer than we really prefer to wait. So that's an area where, in all likelihood, we're going to move a little bit ahead of the national and international crowds.

PC Magazine: What kind of PC do you use?

[Cooper laughs.] I know this sounds like a cop-out, but I'm going to back off because, as you may be aware, there are some vulnerabilities that someone could take advantage of if the person knows the type of machine. So I'm going to have to politely back off from answering that.

I'll tell you what, though, I'll give you a helpful answer that doesn't hurt anything. We actually do use, for the most part, machines from one of the major suppliers of PCs.