Department of Homeland Security on the right track.

• Author: Farrell, Lawrence P., Jr.
• Position: President's Perspective

As the nation prepares to cope with what could be a flurry of terrorist alerts between now and the November elections, it seems appropriate to ask what the government is doing to protect us from potentially devastating terrorist attacks.

Although questions remain concerning the accuracy of the intelligence about these threats, it is nevertheless reassuring to see that the Department of Homeland Security is taking aggressive steps to help the nation's state and local governments, as well as first responders, prepare for the worst-case scenario.

Among the top priorities at DHS is the need to acquire and field advanced technologies for homeland defense. With a budget of about $1 billion a year for the Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate, DHS is actively reaching out to industry for their innovations and technical wizardry.

The outreach effort was in full swing last month at a DHS conference in San Diego, organized by NDIA, where Dr. Charles McQueary, DHS undersecretary for science and technology, outlined the department's key goals, and challenged industry to deliver the needed technologies.

DHS has put a lot of effort into analyzing threats and determining its S&T requirements. Officials who spoke at the conference acknowledged that they have a tough challenge, because they are seeking revolutionary technologies and attempting to satisfy a long list of urgent emergency responder needs that can be fielded in the near term. Some technologies, such as chemical detectors and surveillance sensors, are widely available in the marketplace. Others, such as systems that help agencies share intelligence on a national level and missile-defense systems for airliners, are more complex and will require more work, as well as closer collaboration with our nation's laboratories. To foster innovation, the department engages the entire private sector as well as small businesses, under the SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) program.

One organization in McQueary's S&T Directorate that manages science and technology efforts within DHS is the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency. Although its name resembles the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, this agency is quite different in its approach to developing technologies. While most of DARPA's efforts focus on long-term research, 85 percent of HSARPA's funds target immediate research requirements, and only 15 percent address revolutionary concepts. Unlike the Defense...