March 2007

Broadcast on www.FederalNewsRadio.com
Recorded at the AFCEA Homeland Security Conference

Listen To Audio/Watch Video

 

Moderator/Host

Jim Flyzik, The Flyzik Group

Panel

Keith Jones, Deputy CIO, Immigration & Customs Enforcement, DHS

Lorraine Leithiser, Deputy CIO, Customs & Border Protection, DHS
Frank Moss, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Consular Affairs & Passport Services, Department of State
Bob Mocny, Acting Director, US VISIT Program, DHS
Kathy Kraninger, Director of the Screening and Coordination Office, DHS
Liz Schmelzinger, Secure Border Coordination Office, DHS

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

We are taping our show in front of a live audience at the AFCEA Homeland Security conference. During today’s show we will discuss critical issues facing government leaders as we move forward to secure our nation’s borders.

Let’s get right into the issues and questions with our guest panelists here.  I’m going to ask each of our panelists to first let the audience know what their role is, their respective role, on working immigration and border initiatives.  Let’s start with Kathy Kraninger. Kathy, could you tell us about your role in this area?

KATHY KRANINGER, DHS

Certainly Jim. The secretary created the Screen Coordination Office last summer to bring together all the programs in the department that work on people screening and the objective of the office is to assist the programs that are lodged in the operational components with program delivery. At the same time we are looking at how to integrate our operations from both the IT investment standpoint, because many of these programs are major IT and acquisition programs, as well as looking at security customer service and how these programs could be better integrated to better serve those needs.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Thank you. Bob Mocny, Bob, the US VISIT program is one, I guess, one of the early initiatives in the department, one that has a number of years of experience around it, it has moved round a few times. Can you give us your role in what is going on there?

BOB MOCNY, DHS

Absolutely US VISIT represents or is the department’s biometric program. It was the program that was really put together to enact a lot of mandates that Congress had authorized in 1996 so we started the program introducing the concept of biometrics to border security, but from there we’ve evolved.

And where we were established again to provide some of these immediate needs that customs and border protection officers needed, we also support the state department in their visa issuance process, but the program has now evolved to basically being the identity services organization for the entire department and then some. So we service the coast guard, we service TSA, and we service of course CBP. We provide data to the ICE agents so that they can respond accordingly to overstays and such.

And now we will be working on some programs that we will talk about later on, we are now servicing state and local police officers too, so we have evolved from a border control program into a program that really provides identity services to a much wider audience.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

We were hearing a lot about identity services this morning at the conference too. Hopefully we’ll have some time to come back and explore that in a little more depth. Lorraine, Customs of course has been involved in borders for a long, long time, well before 9/11 and the current initiatives. What is your role in your office Lorraine?

LORRAINE LEITHISER, DHS

Well CBP has the dual mission of preventing entry of terrorists and terrorist weapons and also facilitating legitimate trade and travel so we have a number of initiatives that support that dual mission and support border and immigration initiatives. Within the office of information and technology we have six program offices: passenger systems, cargo systems, targeting and analysis, border enforcement management, enterprise infrastructure projects, and laboratory scientific services, that all focus on supporting that mission and the front line users. The CBP officers, border patrol agents and air and marine officers who carry out that mission.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. Thanks Lorraine. Keith Jones over at ICE. ICE is I guess the old INS was broken up into ICE and CIS, breaking those things up now on the investigative and law enforcement side of that. Can you tell us a little bit about your involvement in border issues and immigration issues?

KEITH JONES, DHS

Sure, at ICE what we do now is work closely with the CIO Council and that’s on a weekly basis where we meet with the council and discuss SBI issues things like that. In addition we have close coordination with both Customs and Border Protection and also Citizenship and Immigration Services and going over any requirements that come up relating to SBI.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. Frank, over at state department I know that the state department has been involved  for a long, long time on issues, especially in passports and passport services and I know that you have a well known name around town as being the key player in that area. Can you give us some of your insights from your office?

FRANK MOSS, STATE

Sure. What we really at in the State Department is we are the bridge between the practical world with travel documents that are needed by people in order to travel to the United States or for Americans to return, as well as obviously some of these policy issues. At the State Department over the past four years we’ve seen demand for US passports go from 7 million a year to about 17 million this year. At the same time we’ve introduced new policy initiatives such as the US electronic passport and a total redesign of our book to ensure that is has global interoperability and global acceptability to facilitate the travel of Americans as they move around the world.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Great, thanks Frank. Liz Schmelzinger, I know SBInet for example has been a hot topic around town, it is one of the big ones and there’s an awful lot of money and effort and congress is working a lot of issues around border issues. Can you give us an idea of your role over in your area at the Secure Border Coordination Council Office?

LIZ SCHMELZINGER, DHS

Thank you Jim, I’d be happy to. In November of 2005, Secretary Chertoff announced the Secure Border Initiative (SBI). And there are three pillars to that initiative and those of you who had the opportunity to see Deputy Secretary Jackson this morning, he explained the three pillars as well, which are: taking control of borders, facilitate the flow of legal traffic and trade, while at the same time keeping bad people and bad things out of the United States; the second pillar is increase interior enforcement and compliance with customs and immigration laws. It is very important for us to understand that in order to really truly control the borders and increase enforcement efforts, we need to increase compliance with our laws as well.

And then all this, the third pillar of the stool if you will, is in preparation for us to work with congress and develop an enforceable temporary worker program, something that allows for a legitimate workforce to be obtained by businesses of the United States but one that obtains security as well. The Secure Border Coordination Council Office within the department is that opportunity, that place where the secretary pulls all of the leadership of the department together on the border security mission, it’s where we have those conversations, where we try to integrate that policy and move forward and build a strategy that encompasses a systems view of the border mission for DHS.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. I actually enjoyed listening to the Deputy Secretary. He kind of simplified the idea. Border security in my mind is real easy, you keep the bad people, things, and bits out and you let the good people, things, and bits in. It’s simple. There are a few complexities around that subject as, in his words, you unpack it and get into it. But anyway, let’s shift gears and talk a little bit about things you are doing. Some of your current ongoing efforts and things that you are undertaking to actually move your programs forward. Let’s start with Keith at ICE. Keith, what are some of the key issues that you are facing right now and things you are trying to move forward on?

KEITH JONES, DHS

One of the things we are doing at ICE is making sure that we can really track that immigration life cycle. And that is one of the biggest challenges that we have there. And being able to track the entry of the person, and that tracks across DHS components and making sure that we can do that and we are improving our systems, making sure that they are complying and working closely with customs and border protection and US VISIT and other DHS components including states and locals, and how we can further that effort.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Great. Hopefully if we have some time, we can re-explore some of those issues of the coordination and the difficulty. Deputy Secretary Jackson talked about that this morning too, the difficulty of pulling something of the size and complexity of DHS together. Kathy, the Screening and Coordination Office is one of the newer entities and my simple view when it was stood up is you do have a responsibility to try and look across a breadth look across the programs and look at ways to pull together things. Can you tell us a little bit about some of your key initiatives and things you are working on and things maybe that this audience can help you make progress with?

KATHY KRANINGER, DHS

Absolutely. A few key things at least in the last six months that we have made significant progress on that I can highlight. One is called DHS Trip. It actually is the result of the Secretary’s announcement with Secretary Rice under the Rice/Chertoff initiative to enhance the experience for travelers who are coming into the United States. And we have stood up DHS Trip as the one stop redress website. It’s been up now for one week, so it is fairly new but the promise to the traveling public, international and domestic, is that when they apply for redress through DHS Trip due to an adverse screening experience that they had as they were traveling, that they will get one answer back from the Department of Homeland Security, and that will address any future challenges that they have, be it with being referred to secondary screening at the port of entry, or while they were flying domestically right now with the watch matching process that the air carriers run for us.

It’s obviously a first step, it is not a comprehensive solution, it just applies to travelers, and it’s a website right now. We do expect, there are some challenges here, one being that again with domestic travel air carriers are still responsible for that watch matching process and for then taking the results of our redress, which is the cleared list, and matching that against the no-fly list as well, while they are running that against the passenger name record information. So we still have some challenges but those are happening individually by carrier and when we move to the next level, which I’ll talk about in a moment as well, that will be addressed at a future iteration. So it is not a perfect solution but it is a big step forward and we’ve been recognized for that.

The other thing that is a high priority that my office has been very involved in is the facilitation and development of the western hemisphere travel initiative and Frank Moss and I have spent a lot of time together on how we implement that. We have successfully implemented at CBP. Clearly the State Department can take a lot of credit for that. The SCO has been strongly supporting them but we have significant statistics that tell us people traveling into the United State by air since January 23 have been properly documented. They all have their passports and that is a tremendous step forward for security and it is a facilitation improvement as well. So we are very proud of those two things.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. This conference today has been sort of a feel good kind of day. We’ve been hearing a lot about some really exciting things going on and progress being made.

KATHY KRANINGER, DHS

I could add too, on the RCI initiative, I’d be remiss if I didn’t recognize Bob who is sitting next to me who was very involved as well in delivering one-step redress.   

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. I love that coordination and collaboration. We talked collaboration here this morning.  With that Bob I think we are going to lead right into you to tell us about US VISIT and how things are going there and what are the key issues and priorities that you have right now in front of you.

BOB MOCNY, DHS

Thanks Jim, we have a few things that we are working on US VISIT. A couple of things come to mind and one in particular is our transition from two prints to ten prints. We are now implementing something that we believe that we would have had to do a long time ago but we now have the technology to advance that process here. So we started with two prints because we could and it was available to us, I have to say working with the industry has been a real treat with this whole issue here.

We went out in November 2005 with some requirements; in fact we went out there with the State Department, with the Department of Justice, with the Department of Defense and others, went out there in a unified manner, went to industry and said we need something that doesn’t exist right now. We need a temperate (sounds like) device that’s fast, that’s small, that’s quick, that’s user friendly and in about 8 months we had some of the first prototypes that showed up with those temperate devices and we’ve got some refining, had a couple of other industry days where we’ve put out the requirements there, refined requirements. In fact we’ve just awarded to two companies a couple of weeks ago to Crosscatch and Identis (sounds like - company names) and we are already now getting ready for some pilots that we are going to have at about ten ports of entry.

We are going to be working with the CBP on this issue. Of course we are working with the State Department to start the process overseas by taking finger prints when the person applies for a visa and they are in the middle of a transition from a two print process to a ten print process, and so we are going to be doing so at the ports of entry, so that’s a big issue that we are going to have.

Let me tell you briefly why we are doing this. Number one is to advance the security. Obviously if we are taking two we are missing the other eight, so we are collecting a lot of fingerprints from all over the world Afghanistan to Madras and other locations and crime scenes all over the world as well. Again another idea here to get information. If we have time I’d like to talk about some of the global issues that we have.

The idea of information sharing is getting this data from other sources including the FBI, a terrific partner with us in getting all of this data, so that we can put it in our system and then match those ten prints against ten prints and not just two against two. There’s a lot of processing with that and a lot greater security. And the other big issue is the accuracy. We now have 80 million fingerprints. We started back in January 2004 and we are now at 80 million fingerprints so we are adding about 20 million a year. So you can imagine where US VISIT is going to be in the year 2050. It’s going to be a huge system and it’s going to have to operate as efficiently as it does today then.

But with the ten prints you get better accuracy, you are obviously getting more data that you can match more easily. That may not be true for all but it is a feature of the matching process, so by moving to ten fingerprints you create a better accurate picture of that individual. We are sending enough people back into secondary because those machines aren’t saying this may be the person, or it may not, so you get an accuracy issue, less false positives. I don’t want to get too technical here, but for two main reasons, for the security aspect of it and the accuracy that we are going to move from two prints to ten prints.

And if I can real quickly another issue that we are pretty proud of is our support for the Coast Guard. I mentioned identity services that we provide to the various Department of Homeland Security components. The Coast Guard has an area that they monitor and it’s called the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. A lot of people get into these rickety old boats and 10, 20, 30 people can get into one of those small boats and they often perish out there in the open water because you get these smugglers trying to get into the Puerto Rico area.

Last year the Coast Guard encountered about 5000 people, they had one prosecution the entire year. We started a pilot program with the Coast Guard where they are now taking biometrics of anyone they encounter in these rickety old boats and they have had about 24 prosecutions now.

So the idea that biometrics, if there was a question about whether or not biometrics works, perhaps US VISIT at one end yes it does work, and for those folks that are being encountered in the Mona Passage masquerading as someone else when the Coast Guard goes by and picks them up, they can’t do that any longer. They are being warned the first time and then you get that person from here on out. So the power of biometrics and the idea that we area trying to achieve now the certain identity of individuals and this should help the border patrol and help with a whole lot of other things as well.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. Fantastic. I want to hear from the other panelists too on this same subject about what are your key initiatives that are facing you today, but we are going to take a short break.

Break.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

We are talking about border security and some of the challenges facing our country and what these individuals are doing in their respective areas to address those challenges. When we left off we were talking about the key priorities in each of the respective areas.

I’d like to jump over to Liz. Liz, can you give us what are the kinds of priorities and issues that you are working on today or that are in front of you today over at the Secure Border Coordination Council Office?

LIZ SCHMELZINGER, DHS

Well SBI represents a transformation as much about the thinking process within DHS as it does a product. And part of that is the understanding that you take a systems view of the border.

And to do that there are a couple of challenges. The first of course I think from our perspective is to educate both the public and congress and help them understand that the border is a very complex system of activities. It starts way beyond our shores, it occurs at the line, the physical border, and it extends deep into the United States. The issues and nuances of each of those activities really in order to affect real border security you have to understand all that activity, and why people come, why do they want to be here, etc. So SBI represents for DHS an opportunity to build a strategy and create synergy within the department to really come up with some transformational resolutions to those longstanding issues.

In addition to that I just want to talk for a second about one of the things we are doing that’s concrete that a lot of people know about which is SBInet. SBI net represents that tool set within SBI for the department to provide our officers on the front line with the ability to identify, classify, and respond to and interdict cross border violations. Critical in any solution for border security is that we have the right combination of people, infrastructure, and technology. And they all work in tandem with each other to provide our officers on the front line with the right tool sets to be effective.

The SBI net contract vehicle was awarded to Boeing in September 2006 and we are very excited to say that in October they had announced Project 28 which is the first demonstration of that solution on the ground. That Project 28 will be in Arizona and it will run, the first operational test will run on either side of the border in Arizona.

That will be our first opportunity to see the deployment of a number of technological solutions in addition to an outlay of people and infrastructure to begin to test and see how that actually works on the ground. The combination of all those things working in tandem with each other including policies and the opportunity to educate people about the continuum of activity that represents the border security for the United States is probably one of the greatest opportunities that we have had at DHS since we have become a department.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

I think if anything we are learning the complexities around the border and border issues and the magnitude of scale and political issues and cultural issues and interoperability issues. The magnitude is almost daunting. But the good news is that we are attacking them one by one, or trying to attack them one by one. Frank, how about over at the State Department, what are the key initiatives in front of you right now, key priorities, things that you are trying to accomplish?

FRANK MOSS, STATE

Jim it seems to me that we have about four that we are working on right now. One is strictly an operational issue, how do you go in a period of four years from adjudicating seven million passports a year to adjudicating 17 million. That has enormous human implications, operational implications; you can’t build new facilities so how do you make your facilities operate more intensively. In order to produce the quality travel documents that everyone on this panel recognizes that are needed to make the border not just more secure but also to facilitate the movement of people through that border? I think that is challenge number one.

The second, which is closely linked to that, is completing our migration to the US electronic passport. We are about 60% of the way through that migration right now. We are just waiting on our friends in the government printing office to continue to ramp up their production so that we can get across the finish line here. But again, a tremendous improvement in US border security simply by giving everyone a document that not only is well adjudicated across the board but which tampering with it is almost impossible. That is breaking the link between the bearer and the document.

Then there are two other issues that we are just working hand in glove with our friends and colleagues at DHS. These are both under the rubric of the WHTI program. As Kathy said in her remarks we’ve had a tremendously successful phase one. That has established the basis for which we will now do Phase Two, which is the land and maritime environments coming in the 2008 – 2009 period. That will have enormous operational implications in terms of the number of people who need documentation, which we are dealing with right now. The second element of that, or subset if you will, is coming up with the coming into production of what we call the passport card.

This will be a portable wallet sized proof of identity and nationality. We are working through in conjunction with DHS the technical issues associated with that just as rapidly as we can so that we can get into production so that we can therefore open the door to implementing phase 2 of WHTI and really take another step, not only towards making our borders more secure but facilitating the movement of people across those borders as well as doing the implementation in a phrase I’ve used often which is called humanely and intelligently. We did phase 1 that way, we’ll do phase 2 that way.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Thanks Frank. The theme that’s coming across from this morning and from this panel is that I hear individuals saying I am working with, they are talking about others they are working with, and they are sitting there at the table with the folks. I think if you go back a few years you didn’t hear that working with or collaborating with on these kinds of issues. So I think one thing we are doing well with the homeland security concept is this idea that we need to start branching out.

Lorraine, customs has had many, many years of experience. It is one of the oldest law enforcement agencies I believe, if I remember correctly, before it became CBP and through working those border issues a long time. What are things in front of you now in terms of priorities and things that you are trying to get accomplished?

LORRAINE LEITHISER, DHS

Obviously the things we’ve heard about so far are also a priority for CBP in terms of working with US VISIT on supporting the ten print requirements, working with the Department of State on the WHTI initiative. We are actually right now involved in planning two northern border and two southern border pilots in anticipation of that. We work very closely with the SBI net program office. We actually have people from the CBP office of information and technology in the program office coordinate at least weekly sometimes seems like daily.

So in addition to all of those things going on we are also involved with the double letter big initiatives right now that are starting. There is something called, an enhancement to our APIS, our Advanced Passenger Information System, it includes a real time component called APIS quick query. It’s intended to prevent a non cleared passenger from being issued a boarding pass at check in. This is something that we are doing in support of the 60 minute rule that will give aircraft operators a real time option to process passengers right up to final boarding.

So carriers that don’t participate in the AQQ program are required to close up flights 30 minutes before departure and transmit the complete manifest to CBP using the existing APIS batch system. And so we are coordinating that closely with TSA on a consolidated user guide for industry so that you don’t have one set of rules for working with CBP and a different set of rules for domestic flights with TSA. So that’s something that…..anything that gives us more information in advance helps us screen through the bad people and facilitate getting the others through as quickly as possible.

Another initiative that I wanted to mention was the secure freight initiative. This is a joint initiative with Homeland Security, the Department of Energy and the State Department. SFI will leverage information, trade partnerships and the latest technology to validate the security of goods and the maritime shipping containers and reduce the risk of terrorism. SFI really enhances our layered approach to securing the borders by giving us a foundation for integrating all of the currently mandated shipping data that we get in the maritime environment along with the additional information that we will receive through advanced scanning technology to renew regulations and expand trade partnerships.

Right now we are rolling out the first phase which involves testing container scanning technology at six overseas ports with various capacities and different container traffic contents and different container flows. So as soon as the first phase is done we will make an assessment to determine if the scanning capabilities are successful on to the impact degrees and type of operations.

So there are three ports that are going to scan 100% of the US bound maritime cargo, which will meet the compliance requirement for the safe port act, and then there are three additional ports that are going to implement scanning on a more limited basis.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Wow, you certainly have a lot on your plate there. If you have a lot of challenges, there are also a lot of opportunities. Talking about those challenges, I’d like to focus a little bit on that. We’ve talked about the programs that you are doing. What are some of the really toughest things that you are facing today in terms of like what are the challenges? Are they technology, culture, money, politics, where ever you want to go with this question? Kathy, what are some of the most difficult challenges you face day to day in your job?

KATHY KRANINGER, DHS

I would have to say all of the above. It’s clearly a challenge to change the way that people think about their business. And the creation of the Department of Homeland Security certainly changed the way the federal government does business, bringing these agencies together, looking at what people’s strengths and weaknesses are and how they work together. And obviously as the head of the immigration office it’s something that I’m dealing with every day. I do spend a lot of time with all of the folks at the table here as well as other offices within the agencies.

But I guess one thing to highlight this and fundamentally what my vision is making sure that the right information gets to the right people at the right time so they can make their screening decision, whether that’s a CBP office or an ICE investigator or through the US VISIT program in all those locations, TSA in determining whether or not an individual meets a background check requirement to work in a port and receive a TWIC card.

So all these things are related and we are dealing with a lot of IT and it is investments that have some costs, whether or not we should integrate those things. How we can establish services within the department and Bob certainly talked about US VISIT as an identity service and that is certainly where my office is coming into play as well in supporting them There is no reason why the department should have multiple biometric data bases which makes the screening process more challenging, which really is a serious investment in multiple places. How do we manage that information, how do we get it to the right place and enable the decision? So there are a lot of programs in this area and a lot of requirements frankly and we are just figuring out how to best service those needs and as quickly as possible given the security imperative.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. In some ways rather daunting but in other ways we are moving forward. Frank Moss, what about at the State Department? What are some of the biggest challenges that you face each day in trying to make progress?

FRANK MOSS, STATE

I think we have a number that are unique to the State Department and others that we share with other government agencies. But I think one thing that we have to recognize, and try to recognize at the State Department, is as we implement our border improvements be it the US Electronic Passport or the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), we really have one opportunity to do it right and we have to make certain it works right from the beginning. Some people would probably say I’ve been scarred by the experience but I was basically the program manager at the highest level for the US electronic passport issue, and that really did open my eyes about the role of the privacy community and things of this nature and how you have to take extraordinary steps to ensure people’s personal privacy of the information even though the only thing being written into the chip was the same data found on the actual data page of the passport.

Other issues we clearly have to deal with, and this gets into some of the hearts of the WHTI program, let’s face it WHTI is not terribly popular especially in some border communities, is just the role of outreach. And it’s outreach not just to groups here in Washington, it’s outreach down at the municipal and local level in the field to explain to people getting back to what I said earlier that we would implement this in a humane and intelligent fashion.

We were recognizing that we were changing people’s way of life but we could do so in a way that we could really make our borders work more smoothly. People are stunned when they find out that there are 8,000 different types of birth certificates in circulation in the United States that can be presented to any customs and border protection officer today. So those are issues.

I think the other one too is just dealing with the information. Just the question of getting the correct information out to people. Some of the statements we’ve had as we have worked with WHTI have been rather remarkable. As well as with something like WHTI, not only worrying about how it works within the United States but our work especially with our Canadian partners in this. WHTI affects Canadian citizens just like it does in the United States.

We have had full and robust exchanges with the Canadian government over this program. We think they understand where we are coming from, what we are trying to do, but this is an ongoing effort because WHTI effects not just American citizens but also the travel here of Canadian citizens as well. Much less of a problem with Mexicans because Mexicans already need formal documentation to enter the United States.

But those are some of the challenges. We are working through them we are trying to get it right and we always enjoy conferences like this because sometimes people are willing to point out to us when we didn’t get it right and what we need to do to get it better.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. Liz, a challenge that seems obvious to me with SBI world anyway, is the amount of people with opinions about what should be done and not done. We have it seems like a lot of legislation, a lot of folks up on the hill, everyone seems to have an opinion on the subject, but what are some of the challenges that you see from your perspective that you face day to day that you are trying to overcome?

LIZ SCHMELZINGER, DHS

Well, if I can I want to give a nod to and offer one of the things that we don’t have a challenge with in border security, and that is the hard work and dedication of the men and women that serve us every day keeping us safe. They work on the line, the officers, agents, even the adjudicators at CIS the assignment of refugee officers, the Coast Guard, all of those men and women serve us very well and they are very dedicated to the mission of protecting the United States. So thankfully that is not where most of our challenges lie.

I can reiterate what I said before; part of the challenge is educating both congress and the public that border security is not simply a line on the border. A fence is not going to secure the United States. We really need to understand from a corporate systems perspective what it is that border security means to the country. And that means again outside the United States, the goods, the people that want to come here, on the line, the physical infrastructure that we provide our agents and officers, the information systems, the cooperation, the programs that we run. Do they make sense; are we making these jobs easier? At the end of the day if all we are doing is not making the job of those individuals easier to do then we are failing them and hopefully we are not doing that.

And then of course inside the United States there is a large draw for people to come here and build a better life and the reality of that is we need immigration reform and a temporary worker program that is reasonable and secure. We want people in businesses to have their employees and have their work force. We have a need as a sovereign nation, as a country, to be able to affirmatively identify each individual that comes here and that they get here lawfully in a way that is safe and secure. So in short those are just some of the challenges.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

I think you have it right. On a prior show we talked about oversight and all the opinions, but the idea of reaching out and performance based approach, laying out objectives and harnessing the creativeness and the innovation in industry to bring world class solutions to the table I think is right and I like the idea that we are moving in that direction. I want to hear from the other three panelists on this question.

Break.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

We are talking securing our nation’s borders. When we left off we had heard from some of the panelists about major challenges and we wanted to pick that up and hear from the other three panelists. Let’s start with Keith Jones over at ICE. What Keith from your perspective are some of the tough challenges that you face every day, things that you are trying to overcome to more forward?

KEITH JONES, DHS

Well not so much a challenge at ICE but making sure that we are providing with data. Accurate data, data integrity. We start to report out on events that go on and going back and touching on the immigration life cycle. As an immigration violator progresses through the immigration life cycle they move in several different endings within the department.

Historically there have been systems that track those individuals. Now we are looking into more of a shared information approach where we can then report accurately on what the status is of an immigration violator. And that is something that we look to improve upon and consistently challenge our folks within the agency to make sure we provide the accurate data that we are reporting in a timely fashion and make sure we communicate across the DHS components.  

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. Thanks Keith. Lorraine at CBP what are some of the major challenges in front of you today and things that when you go to work every day that you are trying to get done, those hurdles you are trying to get over in order to move your programs forward?

LORRAINE LEITHISER, DHS

We have numerous modernization initiatives that we are trying to undertake that we are pretty excited about. The biggest challenge is doing that in an environment that’s 24 by 7 by 365 as my friends in the border patrol like to remind me, the border never closes. I brought some statistics because I like to keep up with them just because it reminds me why I get out of bed every morning. Putting the vast technology infrastructure in place to support all this is enough of a challenge, but when you think of all that the mission people face on a daily basis and with CBP there is 1.4 million passengers and pedestrians and that includes 680,000 aliens there are 70,900 truck, rail, and sea containers that have to be inspected, there are 327,000 incoming privately owned vehicles, 85,000 shipments of girds (sounds like) of proof for entry and over $84 million every day in fees, duties and tariffs collected, over 3,500 arrests and over 600,000 pounds of illegal drugs seized every single day.

In order to be able to support all of that, we are trying to put more and more services out there to make the mission folks more productive, let them spend less time behind the computer, provide solutions that they can take with them and just doing that in a way that doesn’t disrupt operations is probably the biggest challenge.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

I’m sure from the IT perspective I’m always remembering the mission role. I know from my days in government I was always learned quickly, I remember the day when somebody gave me this really neat software to find radio and you push all these buttons and get all this neat interoperability stuff and I went back and showed it to the head of security detail for the president, and he looked at me and said Jim, people are going to be shooting at me and you want me to push these buttons here in order to work this; I quickly realized that you really need to listen to your customer and get their perspective before you make any assumptions about technology.

Bob Mocny at US VISIT, we’ve read great stuff about VISIT. It has it’s traits out there like all programs and so forth. But give us your assessment. What do you think are your biggest challenges in front of you that you need to overcome to get the ball over the goal line for this program?

BOB MOCNY, DHS

I think most of it has been said. I think one of the big issues, and I’ll highlight a couple of them, is public perception. Like it or not we are living in a post 9/11 world; if we didn’t have a Department of Homeland Security before we had 9/11 it would be created because of 9/11. I think one of our biggest challenges, I think I speak for most of us here and I know I do for ourselves, is that public perception. When I say public, I know that is it world wide public attention as well.

What is the United States doing? Is it still the country I knew it to be so many years ago? I understand the challenges but at the end of the day, people still want to come to visit Disneyland and go to theme parks, they want to go to school here, to visit our great hospitals, they want to visit their families and friends. So we have to make sure that we find that balance and so it is one thing to be secure, and we are, and we are getting more secure every single day. It’s easier to get through the TSA lines now but it is still secure, they are using new technologies out there, CBP officers are out there every single day at the border.

So we have made some tremendous progress and Jim, you mentioned the idea of breaking down barriers and another challenge here, yes our partners is at the FBI and our partners at State, you didn’t hear that before. Information was power, or is power and to hoard that information is a really neat thing to do, not really. It’s not a very smart thing to do and I think we are beginning to realize that and so now that I have information and as Kathy was saying we have to make sure that it gets into the right hands.

So the idea and again going back to the idea of public perception and making sure that we have the right balance and we often say not to sacrifice our privacy and civil liberties are not altered and are secure. That’s one thing we are getting carried away with having very secure borders we have to remember that we have an economy here that is based on just in time delivery.

We have billions of dollars that flow across our borders every single day. The travel and tourism industry, billions and billions of dollars that we are dependant on here. So it’s that challenge to find the right balance between security and facilitation, and I think that’s something that we look to live for every single day and make sure that I think as Frank mentioned before too, talking to people I appreciate conferences like this when we can get out and talk to people and hear their questions and hear their concerns, take that back, put it into the mix and make changes as appropriate.

Get the public involved and make sure they are just as engaged as we are in to make sure we have the right product at the end of the day. And again at the end of the day it’s about a secure nation but it’s also about a prosperous nation as well.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Well said Bob, I appreciate that a lot. We’ve got about 12 minutes left in our show today, and what we always like to do at the end of the show is try to talk a little bit about a vision for the future. Some of your final thoughts on where all this is going and thoughts for the country and the future and where we are going with border security and so forth. We’ve got about two minutes for each of the panelists. I’ll start with Liz and just come right down the table and get your thoughts. Where are we going to be three years out, five years out, ten years out? What is your vision for where all this will go for our country? Liz?

LIZ SCHMELZINGER, DHS

Jim, I have to say that I think from an SBI perspective from a DHS perspective, we will be well on our way to securing our borders to actually achieving some of the goals of the SBI strategy to have control of the southwest border, specifically, and in addition to just having physical control of it, having an awful lot of integration work done and building a system of border security and a culture that understands the nuances and complexities of a border control security system that is enormous. And that has an enormous complexity to it.

But also the achievement of these goals is one of the reasons, one of the good reasons, why DHS was formed in the first place. In order to take missions that make sense, put them together and have them support each other in a way that makes us smarter, more flexible and more nimble in our response to threats. September 11 was, I happened to be serving in Tucson, Arizona in what was then the customs service at the time, but I was never more proud to serve in that capacity than I was on that day.

And I know that the officers and agents feel the same way today. So that hasn’t changed. What is changing and what will change in the future is our ability to support those agents and officers in a way that makes the job easier, that makes the use of the technology and infrastructure smarter and that makes DHS a more powerful entity in securing the American people.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. Thank you very much Liz. Frank, what is your vision for the future.

FRANK MOSS, STATE

Well I think that over the next three to five years we will really see the concept that’s talked about secure borders yet providing open doors really come to fruition. I think we are well on the way there already; we still have some more work to do. We can make our borders more secure. We can move our borders into the 21^st century. But do so in a way that does not shut down the movement of people and good across those borders. That has to be our overarching objective in this process.

The third point I’ll make is that we have to really see this all being underpinned by a seamless exchange of information. If you think about border security, it’s not just about what happens to the customs and border protection officer at an inspection point on a land border or at an airport, it really starts with that consular officer at a post abroad interviewing a foreign national, or a passport specialist at one of our agencies here in the United States adjudicating a passport application.

So that we have the information we need to make the best decision about that foreign national, about that person seeking a US passport and have that seamless flow of information so that information moves not just from the consular office through US VISIT, and through there to our internal enforcement mechanisms, but then back to that consular officer so we really have a better idea of who is entering our country, who is leaving our country and what the statistics are that go with them so that we can make better decisions that underpin the security of this country.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. Obviously well thought out in terms of strategy. Keith over at ICE, what are your thoughts about all this? Where is this all going to be down the road and how long will it take us to get to the point where we can declare victory or feel like we have gotten to the point where we have secured our nation’s borders?

KEITH JONES, DHS

Well, at ICE we have already started our Atlas program where we have already started deploying desktops to our work force, something we are planning to complete early next year. In addition we want to make sure that we equip our agents and mission support staff with the tools they need in order to do the job. Our belief is that we can achieve these goals and freely provide information across the department. We have a cadre of dedicated professionals in our organization who believe in ICE and what ICE stands for.

In addition our law enforcement posture and approach to violations of the nation are robust, a far concept from the previous legacy agency that make up ICE today.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific. Thanks Keith, we’ll switch over to Lorraine at CBP, your thoughts on where CBP has come from and progress made and what you see towards the future in terms of a vision for where this is all going in the future for our country?

LORRAINE LEITHISER, DHS

Like Keith I’m also from the IT side of the house so I probably have a little bit different view from some of the other panelists. I joined what was then customs about 6 months before September 11, so right around the time that I actually felt like I knew what was going on, what I was supposed to do, as we said the world changed. And the one thing that’s been constant since then is that the more measures that we put into place to combat threats, the more those threats just continue to adapt to those measures, so this is just a continuum of how we position ourselves to detect those threats, to get out ahead of them, respond to them more efficiently, more effectively, that old IT mantra, better, cheaper, faster. So I think one of the things that’s really a bright spot for how we address this in the future is that even with the onslaught of new initiatives that just don’t ever seem to end, we are out there making sure that we meet the dates, meet the challenges, but we are really paying attention to not just what we do but how we do it.

Across the department we really are paying attention to building a good common architectural framework for getting us into the future. We are converging into a common network, to common operating environments, to developing shared services, to moving out on to a service oriented architecture. So while, I don’t know if we will ever win the war or not, but in terms of keeping up with it and keeping ahead of it, I feel like we are moving along the right path to respond to it.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Thanks very much Lorraine. I know in light of Deputy Secretary Jackson’s comments, he talked about the five pillars and management and IT programs being one. Obviously a number of the folks at the table, Keith and yourself in particular, have the IT pieces to keep the technology in front of the bad guys, try to stay one step in front of the power curve there.

Bob Mocny of VISIT, I guess you’ve thought through some milestones for the future, probably got a lot of them drawn out on boards all over the place in your war rooms and so forth, but what is your vision for the future in terms of border crossings, people entering and leaving the country, is there a time when you will say, boy, we did it? What are your thoughts about a vision for the future?

BOB MOCNY, DHS

I think as US VISIT introduces the concept of biometrics to the world, certainly it has been used in so many other venues with the FBI and others, but now there are other biometrics, not just finger printing and finger scans, you are going to see a proliferation of biometric scans across the board, not just in border security but in the interior of the US and active in ways that we haven’t thought about before. I think you will see the multi mode concept come to fruition very quickly here. We started with fingerprints and will remain generally with fingerprints because that’s how you determine generally the risk of an individual because that’s what you generate at the scene of the crime, but beyond that we want to have a quick through put, so iris scans and facial recognition are going to be moving forward in ways that it hasn’t yet to date. So we are going to see a lot of that multi mode biometrics. I’m hoping we will have the program where we are getting people, perhaps some of the people here in this room, perhaps all of the people in this room, very quickly through the process so that we can focus on the very few bad people.

I think you are also going to see a world in three to five years where people who need the information can act on the information and can have that information and that is the state and local police officers. Right now we have three pilots, four pilots now, where we are providing DHS data to state and local police officers so that they can make a determination. We are trying to level the playing field. The person that the police officer pulls over and subsequently books for a particular crime doesn’t know, but he does.

We’ve provide that information appropriately to the appropriate decision makers to make sure that the approximately 12 million people who are living here illegally know that there are consequences to that. And by providing this information to the state and local police officers ultimately they make the decision. But we are going to provide that data to the state and local police officers so that they can have the data so that they can make the right decision. So providing more information on the appropriate immigration violators to more and more state and local decision makers, I think you are going to see that in the next couple of years and also the whole idea of globalization of biometrics and border control.

We have an employee in the UK helping them build UK Visas, their version of US VISIT. Japan of course recently passed some legislation and they are going to be taking finger scans as part of the immigration border management process. The EU is working very closely with the State Department, as they begin to build a biometric based border and immigration management system. So you will see a lot more countries doing what we have tested and tried and now we’ve been pretty successful on the entry side.

We’ve got exit to worry about too and we are going to work with that. We are working with the airlines already to learn how we can meld the exit part of the travel experience with the airline industry so that as a person moves through an airport or a seaport  they can seamlessly check out, whether it’s at the counter with the TSA, at the actual boarding gate or some kind of combination thereof. We are going to have some form of exit.

We are certainly going to have that in the air and sea environment because we can; we have the infrastructure to do that. Land is a whole other issue so we will be coming back to the table looking for the technology and processes to help us with that. But I think within the next three to five years you are going to see some or all of this if not all underway, then some underway.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Terrific, thanks. I feel better already in terms of where this is all going. Kathy I know when the Screening and Coordination Office was set up it took a while, I know there was debate about it, but there were high expectations for it, you’ve got a real challenge in front of you, it’s one of those positions that I think the congress believe is real necessary in order to make progress and get DHS where they need to go in the future. What is that future from your perspective? How do you see all this playing out?

KATHY KRANINGER, DHS

Well I think the 9/11 Commission report actually gave us a good road map from a macro perspective and that was a comprehensive screening system and what the border security and interior enforcement and travel security should look like for the United States. And I hope that everyone who listens to this show and is at the conference this week can come away with the sense that we are really building on a strategic vision. This is very much pieces and how they weave together how we want to build on this for the future. Lorraine said it very well from the IT world and I am also looking at it from the business side of our operations, but how do we make sure that we are building upon the services here and thinking about not just the threat that we face today but the threat that we face tomorrow. The threat to the homeland is not going away any time soon.

We won’t be able to declare victory. There are new programs and new mandates coming appropriately down the pike. One example is obviously chemical security. The department’s working on a notice for proposed rule making pursuant to the law that passed last year, and we really are looking at again new sectors, new threats, new areas where we need to spend time. And my vision at least by the time I leave the department we have a framework in place that people can build upon. That we have the services that we have thought about how we are vetting these programs and what the risks are associated with that vetting and we’ve thought through how we are credentialing individuals based on again that background check and that assurance level and the technology we apply to those credentials so that they are able to be used at a border or elsewhere to facilitate the movement of people. So again, thinking more strategically building those service capabilities and really positioning ourselves not just for today’s threat but for tomorrow’s threat.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Well said as our final word. In just a brief summary here, I think what we’ve heard here today is collaboration, a lot more collaboration going on here. We’ve heard about balance, balance between national security and law enforcement issues and privacy and civil liberties issues and we need to find that happy medium that is acceptable to the American people as we move forward with these programs. But it is critical that we do find that balance to move forward because our national security as well as our international competitiveness and other issues such as that are dependant on it.

And the other thing I just have to say here to close the show as we heard again Deputy Secretary Jackson talk about despite some of the HR studies that say people at DHS perhaps the morale is not the greatest but if you ask any individual or you find any individual you will find people that are working day and night and long hours and dedicated to securing our country. And I think we’ve got six of them sitting here right at this table, people that are dedicated and working every day to make us safe and our children and grandchildren safe, and I want to thank these individuals for taking time from their very, very busy schedules to come and be here and share your thoughts and ideas and I challenge this audience here today to rise up and find ways to help make these people successful because their success, our country is dependent on their success.