Homeland Defense Journal - January 2009 - 4

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Brian Lake “ A I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” dedicated individuals, who, seven years after 9/11, are still trying to come to terms with their role in protecting the nation and how they ﬁt into the larger homeland security enterprise. Homeland security is a vast endeavor encompassing specialists from a diverse array of disciplines and professions. It is vital to the integrity of America’s security that a mutual understanding exists between all of the principle actors, from those who work on the front lines, to those who create policy and everything in between. While ofﬁcial avenues of coordination do exist, what is lacking is a conduit for exchange that is wide-ranging, critical, and which involves representatives from many groups. We see it as our mission to ﬁll this void by serving as a platform of exchange for all of the principle stakeholders. Every month we will be conducting more investigative reporting on current events, issues and technologies. Our aim is to de-sensationalize homeland security and present sober-minded discussions of real threats and countermeasures. Some of our departments have changed names, but the commitment to providing the best news, insight and analysis of homeland security remains the same. We think that we are on the right track and we are asking you to provide your feedback on the new look and feel of the magazine and whether the content meets your needs as a homeland security professional. Please take ten minutes and send me an email to provide us with your opinion. Eventually, we want the Homeland Defense Journal to be a collaborative project between the editorial team and the larger homeland security community. We know how dedicated you are to these issues, and want to match that dedication in providing you with a resource that will allow to effectively complete your mission. We can’t do this without your input. On the following page is our 2009 editorial calendar. Please contact us about ideas, projects, procurements, resources or opinions on any of the topics identiﬁed—or those you believe we’ve missed. In one sentence President-elect Obama will pledge to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. His task is not his alone, however. He, and all Americans alike, will depend on the collective professional experience of the homeland security community to preserve, protect and defend this nation and it’s Constitution. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us change our approach to securing the homeland and together we can develop a new understanding of how to secure our country. We must succeed and, by working together, we shall. n Brian Lake Editorial Director editor@homelanddefensejournal.net FTER 23 MONTHS of campaigning, hundreds of speeches, campaign stops, photo-ops, and after 129 million ballots were cast, President-elect Obama will be at last sworn in by the power of this compact oath. And then the real work begins. From the view of this magazine, that will be the continued question of how to protect this country from within the Constitutional framework that President Obama will swear to defend. From the statements he has made throughout his campaign, we expect that the break he makes from the past administration will be signiﬁcant. What will not change, however, is the mission. The expected Secretary of the DHS, Janet Napolitano, said in her prepared statements to the nominating committee, “To secure the homeland means to ﬁnd and kill the roots of terrorism, to stop those who intend to hurt us, to wisely enforce the rule of law at our borders, to protect our nation’s infrastructure, particularly things like our cyber infrastructure, as you mentioned, and to be prepared for and to respond to homeland disasters with speed, skill, compassion, effectiveness, and common sense.” Over the next few months new appointees will ﬁll vacant leadership positions, and career professional will advance on to new responsibilities. With this transformation past priorities will be discarded or left unattended and new ones will rise to take their place. At the Homeland Defense Journal, we, too, have been undergoing a transformation, even as our essential mission to investigate and report on matters of homeland security will remain unchanged since our founding in 2002. We have followed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and the development of related anti-terrorism legislation, policies and regulations. It has been an exciting and interesting six years. Yet, with a new administration assuming ofﬁce, we wanted to reevaluate our role within the homeland security community. In the following pages we have begun to lay the framework for the new Homeland Defense Journal. As our coverage has sought to capture an evolving DHS, so we are an evolving organization ourselves, and we aspire is to use a new approach in presenting information about the homeland security community. It is our hope that we can begin to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information between all levels of government—not just from the top-down. We are making a concerted effort to present a more holistic view of homeland security and to provide more insight, analysis and debate surrounding this complex subject. I have traveled the country over the past year meeting with federal, state and local homeland security ofﬁcials and practitioners, learning ﬁrsthand what the foremost issues of concern are around our community. In my travels I have met some of the most intelligent and 2 | Homeland Defense Journal Visit www.homelanddefensejournal.com

Homeland Defense Journal - January 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Homeland Defense Journal - January 2009