December 16, 2003  --  Volume 1, Number 8

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View from the HSTC

Standards Optimize Efficiency

By

Thomas R. Coughlin, Jr., M.D.

Director

Homeland Security Technology Council of the United States

This is a second in a series of articles by HSTC leaders.

The necessity for standards is imperative.  The magnitude of the task and the significant expenditures required to achieve a viable Homeland Security program demand that a major degree of economy be achieved in spending the limited resources available.  Accepted national standards, especially in the technology arena, would help optimize the efficiency of Homeland Security spending, and organizations such as the HSTC can help coordinate these efforts.

Existing Standards and Where New Standards Are Needed

Many areas of concern where both technological standards and protocol or procedural standards are necessary are discussed below, but this discussion is not complete and only addresses some of the more blatant needs.  While several of the areas discussed are not completely devoid of standards, the necessity for uniform national standards is almost universal in each of these Homeland Security fields.

An example of attempts to provide some semblance of standardization is the Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).  The charge of this office is to develop minimum performance standards, test methods and procedures for evaluating technologies used by the criminal justice and public safety communities.  Those communities include law enforcement, corrections, forensic science, and fire services.

For equipment deemed especially critical, the OLES sets up compliance testing programs that use qualified independent laboratories to evaluate items that manufacturers submit for certification testing.  This office also publishes technical reports and user guides that give equipment manufacturers the information they need to understand the standards—like Consumer Reports gives end users the information they need to make smart buying decisions. 

The OLES has also assisted in the development of a series of equipment guides published through the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) on chemical and bio detection, decontamination and protective equipment, and communications equipment.  However, these are only equipment guides and do little to establish uniform equipment performance, commonality, and interoperability codes.

OLES and the IAB

One organization that OLES is intimately involved with that addresses some of the needs for standards in these areas is the IAB—the Inter Agency Board for Equipment Standardization and InterOperability.  The IAB was established in 1998 by the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense to help state and local law enforcement and public safety organizations equip themselves to protect their own personnel and to minimize the impact on the public in the event of a terrorist incident.

One of the IAB’s core missions is to develop and maintain a Standard Equipment List, or SEL.  The SEL includes hundreds of equipment items considered essential for responding to CBRNE attacks – that is attacks involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or explosive agents or devices.  Items range from detection, communications and personal protection equipment, to decontamination gear, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals.  The list is updated and published annually, but it is just a list and there are no set standards or detailed criteria for a particular item to make it on to the SEL.

Very early on, the IAB recognized that there is some equipment available on the market that simply isn't good enough, but the IAB possessed no standards by which to measure performance and no authority to censure such equipment.  This is a very serious problem and exists to some degree across the entire spectrum of Homeland Security technology.  There’s plenty of equipment out there, but no one really knows which items –if any– will perform as needed when the time comes.

Execution of an Effective Standards Policy

There are several measurement and standards issues that must be addressed in the CBRNE area for effective standards to be implemented.  One of these is a standardized method of hazard analysis.  This set of standards would provide a method to assess information regarding the potential for a specific CBRNE event, and the hazards that could be encountered by the responders to such an incident.  A job hazard analysis for responders would help integrate accepted safety and health principles and practices into a particular operation.  In a job hazard analysis, each basic step of the job is examined to identify potential hazards and to determine the safest way to do the job and the critical equipment that would be required.

Once an assessment of the hazard has been obtained, measurement and standards issues must address technical specifications for equipment and devices used either to mitigate or to respond to a terrorist attack.  These standards would need to be applied to such diverse areas as digital security and information technology, defense and disaster communications, emergency preparedness protocols and equipment, bioterror, chemical and other WMD disaster response, digital defense technologies, and both civil and military command and control.  With this wide breadth of applications, standards necessarily must be grouped into specific areas in order to organize and simplify their effective utilization.

Areas to initially be addressed include research and development of all CBRNE detector and communication technologies.  If the standardization is addressed in the research and development phases, then in all likelihood, the resulting commercial equipment will meet or exceed those requirements.

Standards for calibration of all equipment should be addressed so that subsequent sensitivity testing, which itself would be subject to standards, can be uniform and comparable.

Interoperability standards for all Homeland Security equipment are a necessity, especially in the areas of communications and IT technologies.  Currently, local police and fire departments, National Guard Units, FEMA, FBI, emergency medical responders, hospitals and other local and federal emergency response agencies have no secure communications frequencies over which they can all communicate in the event of a terrorist attack.  An emergency response communications center is currently necessary to coordinate and facilitate such communication between agencies in the event of a disaster.

Nationally accepted standard operational or response protocols must also be implemented so that the approach to specific type of attack will become uniform regardless of whether the attack occurs in New York or Tulsa.  These protocols would help insure that terrorist attacks are handled in a uniform and organized fashion in any venue.  Existing HAZMAT protocols could be used as initial models to help structure the organization and sequencing of the new CBRNE response standards.

Additional Benefits

Nationally accepted Homeland Security standards, as outlined above, would yield additional benefits for the Homeland Security initiative.  Once equipment standards are in place, operator or end user training becomes much easier, more uniform and simpler. Accreditation of end users would become faster and more valid.

As mentioned above, the intercomparison of similar equipment becomes more logical since, with uniform standards, agencies and end users wouldn’t be comparing “apples and oranges”.  The field testing of each technology would yield data that could be more easily assimilated, analyzed, and compared.

Nationally accepted Homeland Security standards would also aid individual manufacturers in establishing their own internal quality assurance/quality control programs (QA/QC).  Once manufacturers have a clear delineation of what is expected of the equipment they produce, they can more easily design QA/QC programs that assure the expected functionality.

Additionally, national Homeland Security technology standards would help to expedite the functions of local or regional reference laboratories.  In many instances, results or measurements obtained in the field need to be verified by a reference laboratory in order to confirm or further clarify the field data.  Reference standards for the field equipment would simplify verification process.

Lastly, as implied above, national standards would simplify equipment procurement.  Test data results could be utilized to insure that the specified equipment performs the functions required at the levels necessary, and would make purchasing new equipment more cost efficient.

The Bottom Line

The development and implementation of acceptable Homeland Security standards is obviously a daunting task.  Additionally, once in place, these standards will need to be continuously reviewed and updated to keep up with new and emerging technologies.  Ultimately, the standards issue cannot be ignored if an effective and efficient national Homeland Security program is to be instituted.  Without standards such a program would only be expensive, ineffective and chaotic.

Join The HSTC

The Homeland Security Technology Council of the United States is an industry organization of Homeland Security and Defense technology business leaders, scientists and public officials whose purpose is to facilitate the adoption of effective Homeland Security/Defense technologies. 

The Council provides an active forum for technology users, manufacturers, and suppliers to evaluate technologies, develop standards and communicate with government, industry, and the public.  Members of the council seek to improve our domestic security through the application of new and innovative technologies. For more information on the HSTC visit www.thehstc.us. 

To help us communicate on a regular basis with both government and private sector on this important topic, the HSTC has named Homeland Security Strategies (HSS) as our official publication.  In HSS future issues, we will present information we hope will help you implement your own organizational and personal homeland security strategies.