Vital Systems Security

Props to Elaine Grossman over at GSN for a fascinating story on Congressional concerns with the recently unveiled (Draft) National Response Framework. You might have to scroll down a bit to find it. We had a bit of chatter about the NRF on this blog, and perhaps this story will spark further discussion. The gist of the concerns about the plan — oops, sorry, “framework” — is that, well, it is not a plan but rather it is only a framework(!) And a not-so-clear one at that. Familiar critiques include: lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities — even duplication and overlap; the use of ambiguous terminology and concepts; and a conspicuous absence of operational details which could provide useful guidance about implementation… DHS is also facing criticism for the lack of transparency in drafting/writing process for the document, which it vociferously denies, claiming that expertise and personnel across disciplines and agencies were brought to the table in crafting the NRF. Unless I’m misreading things, I do believe the general sense is that DHS has messed something up!

This might be a good time, by the bye, to refer the, um, five of us to an informative report put out by NYU which highlights some of the legal and organizational incongruities cropping up as a result of recent legislation and an orientation towards the catastrophic. I bring it up here because it is an interesting piece to this changing puzzle we’re dealing with, and for me anyway helps to clarify how it is that FEMA is really getting pushed and shoved all over the place in terms of its responsibilities, and equally: its capabilities.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 3:12 pm and is filed under DHS, emergency response, preparedness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.