Statement:
Integrate Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Operations
Description:
Rapidly evolving threats and hazards demand that DHS and our partners continually enhance situational awareness. As noted earlier, DHS is committed to integrating critical data sources while maintaining and safeguarding a culture that preserves privacy and civil rights and civil liberties.
We will pursue the following strategies to integrate intelligence, information sharing, and operations:
- Enhance unity of regional operations coordination and planning by partnering with and supporting the national network of fusion centers in the form of deployed personnel, training, technical assistance, exercise support, security clearances, connectivity to federal systems, technology, and grant funding. DHS will also work to enhance intelligence enterprise support to Component and state, local, tribal, territorial and private sector home-land security missions by developing an integrated set of DHS intelligence enterprise priorities specific to collection and analysis and enhancing coordination among DHS headquarters, Component headquarters, and field elements.
- Share homeland security information and analysis, threats, and risks by providing robust communications, coordination, information sharing, situational awareness capabilities, Department-level planning, and Department-level planning to homeland security partners.
- Integrate counterintelligence, consistent with component and Departmental authorities, into all aspects of Department operations by utilizing the counterintelligence program management, counterintelligence analysis, and counterintelligence support and inquiries functions to safeguard homeland security-related national security information and other sensitive information.
- Establish a common security mindset with domestic and international partners, through initiatives such as the DHS Common Operating Picture and the Homeland Security Information Network, which enable unity of effort with all homeland security partners, and through efforts to facilitate and integrate DHS’s ability to share information with key foreign partners. Note that only trusted and vetted international partners receive access to proper-ly screened sensitive information.
- Preserve civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, oversight, and transparency in the execution of homeland security activities by creating appropriate policy as needed, advising Department leadership and personnel, assuring that the use of technologies sustain, and do not erode, privacy protections relating to the use, collection, and disclosure of personal information, and investigating and resolving any privacy, civil rights, or civil liberties complaints.
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Statement:
Enhance Partnerships and Outreach
Description:
Homeland security is achieved through a shared effort among all partners, from corporations to nonprofits and American families. Recent events, including the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Hurricane Sandy, highlight the fundamentally important relationship that DHS must foster and sustain with the private sector as well as state, local, tribal, territorial, and international partners. In addition, rapidly evolving or emerging operating domains such as cyberspace and the Arctic are demanding new approaches and models for how DHS partners to achieve homeland security objectives.
We will pursue the following strategies to enhance partnerships and outreach:
- Promote regional response capacity and civil support by coordinating and advancing federal interaction with state, local, tribal, and territorial governments and by pursuing the Whole Community approach to build and sustain national preparedness.
- Strengthen the ability of federal agencies to support homeland security missions by working with federal partners to ensure that Departmental roles, responsibilities, and interests are integrated with and incorporated into interagency activities.
- Expand and extend governmental, nongovernmental, domestic, and international partnerships by building a Department-wide Community of Practice to synchronize the identification of potential partnership opportunities, develop a repository of partnerships and best practices, and serve as a consultative body to inform the exploration and formation of new public-private partnerships.
- Further enhance the military-homeland security relationship by collaborating with the Department of Defense to pursue bilateral science and technology agreements; collaborate in information sharing and training; provide support for information systems Law Enforcement, and emergency and disaster response support; and develop international relationships.
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Statement:
Strengthen the DHS International Affairs Enterprise In Support of Homeland Security Missions
Description:
DHS operates within a dynamic environment at home and abroad. The inherently transnational nature of homeland security missions necessitates a strong DHS international affairs enterprise that provides compatible visions of homeland security globally, a consistent and mutually beneficial cooperation with foreign partners, and an international footprint that maximizes mission effectiveness and return on investment.
We will pursue the following strategies to strengthen the DHS international affairs enterprise in support of homeland security missions:
- Establish strategic priorities for the Department’s international affairs enterprise by engaging across Components in areas including policy analysis, cross-regional coordination, and management of international affairs issues, to establish a single, accepted view of DHS international operations and engagements. Implementation plans will be developed to responsibly document how DHS Components will implement these strategic priorities in a unified manner.
- Establish coordination and communication mechanisms across the DHS international affairs enterprise to ensure national, Departmental and Component priorities are synchronized and DHS’s international engagements are fully utilized to achieve common objectives.
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Statement:
Conduct Homeland Security Research and Development
Description:
Technology and homeland security are inextricably linked. A vast array of interdependent information technology networks, systems, services, and resources enable communication, facilitate travel, power our homes, run our economy and provide essential government services. These systems provide enormous benefits to our society and economy, but they also create new risks and vulnerabilities. DHS must endeavor to keep pace with technology and leverage research and development toward homeland security goals.
We will pursue the following strategies to conduct homeland security research and development:
- Employ scientific study to understand homeland security threats and vulnerabilities by pursuing a research and development strategy that is operationally focused, highly innovative, and founded on building partnerships among operators, scientists, and engineers, and by providing operational support, timely experiments, measurements, testing, evaluation, and analyses of homeland security significance.
- Develop innovative approaches and effective solutions to mitigate threats and vulnerabilities by: 1) providing new capabilities through new technologies and operational process enhancements; 2) offering innovative systems-based solutions to complex problems; and 3) delivering the technical depth and reach to discover, adapt, and leverage scientific and engineering solutions developed by federal agencies and laboratories, state, local, and tribal governments, universities, and the private sector—across the United States and internationally.
- Leverage the depth of capacity in national labs, universities, and research centers by pursuing a mix of basic and applied research to deliver practical tools and analytic products that increase the effectiveness of components and save taxpayer dollars.
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Statement:
Ensure Readiness of Frontline Operators and First Responders
Description:
In an era of decreasing budgets and resources, partners across the Department must strive to find and develop innovative solutions for training, exercising, and evaluating capabilities. Achieving baseline proficiency and maintaining high levels of readiness in homeland security-related individual and collective skills and knowledge are critical to a unified partnership of law enforcement, first responders, and other front-line operators.
We will pursue the following strategies to train and exercise frontline operators and first responders:
- Support systems for training, exercising, and evaluating capabilities by pursuing integrated and cohesive cross-component training and evaluation.
- Support law enforcement, first responder, and risk management training by providing coordinated, interoperable, and standardized law enforcement training to DHS and non-DHS federal agents/officers as well as to state, local, tribal and territorial and international entities.
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Statement:
Strengthen Service Delivery and Manage DHS Resources
Description:
To support priority security requirements in a sustainable way, we must become more efficient and effective across a large and federated structure. As a Department, we must eliminate duplicative processes, develop common platforms, and purchase single solutions. In addition, the safety and security of our country can only be achieved through the hard work and dedication of our employees, with a diverse array of backgrounds, experiences, skills, and ideas. Our workforce serves as the foundation to ensure continued growth of our collective ability to prevent and respond to the threats facing the nation.
We will pursue the following strategies to strengthen service delivery and manage DHS resources:
- Recruit, hire, retain, and develop a highly qualified, diverse, effective, mission-focused, and resilient workforce by implementing programs and resources that focus on four key objectives: 1) building an effective, mission-focused, diverse, and inspiring cadre of leaders; 2) recruiting a highly qualified and diverse workforce; 3) retaining an engaged workforce; and 4) solidifying a DHS culture of mission performance, adaptability, accountability, equity, and results.
- Manage the integrated investment life cycle to ensure that strategic and analytically based decisions optimize mission performance by integrating performance with program plans and budgets that are well justified and balanced to support DHS priorities.
- Manage and optimize financial resources, property/assets, procurements, security, and DHS IT by: 1) strengthening department service delivery in partnership with all components through integration teams to achieve affordable readiness; 2) pursuing strategic sourcing, small business utilization, and acquisition workforce management; and 3) maintaining a Department-wide IT infrastructure that is reliable, scalable, flexible, maintainable, accessible, secure, meets users’ needs, and ensures operational excellence—from the workstation to the data center to the mission application.
- Establish and execute a comprehensive and coordinated DHS health and medical system by providing medical guidance and Department-wide solutions to mitigate adverse health impacts and work-related health risks to support DHS employees and by embedding senior medical advisors with select operational components to develop and implement policies and procedures to improve force health protection, emergency medical services, global health security, and occupational health and wellness.
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