DHS gives Biowatch high marks

A homeland security program that guards 30 cities against possible biological attack represents the high standards the Homeland Security Department wants from its projects, an agency official said this month.The Biowatch program has not had a single false alarm since it was established a year ago, Charles McQueary, DHS undersecretary for science and technology, told attendees at the department's first industry forum in Washington. Although the monitoring installations have not detected any biological attacks by terrorists, they have detected naturally occurring agents, McQueary said. Biowatch "is an example of a [DHS] system ... with low false alarms," he said.