Council Fights Terrorism With Technology

The Homeland Security Council is seeking recommendations from the nation's top technology, intelligence and justice agencies for using advanced technology to enforce immigration laws and prevent terrorists from entering the United States.John Marburger, the new director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Attorney General John Ashcroft are to recommend ways government databases can be used to help detect, identify, locate and apprehend potential terrorists in the United States under a presidential directive issued Oct. 29. The use of advanced datamining software should also be addressed, the directive said. Other goals of such database mining are to find ways to cut down on abuses of international student visas, including banning certain students from receiving education and training in sensitive areas and sharing immigration and customs information with Canada and Mexico. The recommendations are due to the council within 60 days. Datamining and data sharing initiatives are needed to support several working groups tasked with specific homeland security responsibilities.One of those working groups, the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, is to coordinate programs that deny entry into the United States of aliens associated with terrorists and to find, arrest, prosecute or deport any such aliens already in the country. The Office of Management and Budget is responsible for reviewing and recommending budgets and identifying legislative changes needed to implement these and other tasks to be carried out by the Homeland Security Council and its offshoots. Mitch Daniels Jr., director of OMB, is to submit an interim report on these recommendations within 30 days. A final report is due in 60 days. In a separate presidential directive, the Homeland Security Council also established 11 coordination committees to manage the development and implementation of policies by federal agencies and coordinate them with state and local governments. These committees are the main, day-to-day groups handling interagency coordination of homeland security policy. They include: *Detection, surveillance and intelligence;*Plans, training, exercises and evaluation;*Law enforcement and investigation;*Weapons of mass destruction and consequence management;*Key asset, border, territorial waters and airspace security;*Domestic transportation security;*Research and development;*Medical and public health preparedness;*Domestic threat response and incident management;*Economic consequences;*Public affairs.