02 December 2003

The Department

I rose in the darkness and screwed around withthe coffee maker and the bacon. I like the baon crisp and as flat as possible, probably a raction to the tangled mass that my Mother used to serve up when we were kids. The rich smells rose from the kitchen and wafted around me as I turned on the comouter and tried to get interested in the topic de jour. The Spansih are burying their seven dead intelligence agents this morning. They were murdered over the weekend. I'm glad I am no longer a deployable asset for my Service.

But I wonder at the fact that I am not there. Being a civilian is still a strange feeling.

I begin to peck at the keys, attempting to focus a proposal for the people at the Department, what we in industry call a White Paper, a think-peice intended to cause motion in the bureacracy. They are too busy to think in the Government, and they wind up paying us to do it for them. I am trying to fix something I could not when I was inside it. I start with the executive sumary, writing that first to see where I have to go with the longer paper.

It is supposed to be cold today, and as I smoke on the balcony and think about the public health I feel it starting to come together in my mind.

"The Department of Health and Human Services is confronted by an urgent challenge for which it is ill equipped to deal."

Duh! I thought. But be nice. Don't insult them.

"While much progress has been made in preparing the public health sector to confront the threat of the domestic use of weapons of mass destruction, there remains a significant gap in the Department of Health and Human Service's ability to receive, analyze and disseminate classified threat warning information. The role of the Department as Lead Federal Agency for public health response and its position as a non-traditional consumer of National Foreign Intelligence and information acquired through Law Enforcement sources are incompatible and must be remedied. Failure to do so could result in the needless death of thousands of American citizens in the event of the use of a weapon of mass destruction."

Like we could even imagine the consequences of that. It will make the Twin Towers falling look like a picnic. This is going to happen, as surely as Hitler tried to turn St. Paul's into an infurno. I gritted my teeth and kept typing.

"The Department, its components and government partners in the Health Sector comprise a discrete and significant customer base for classified information produced by the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the Intelligence Community. This is a new development, and one for which there is only a limited support infrastructure."

"Prior to the terrorist attacks of 2001 there was only a modest requirement for classified information, a limited capability to store such material and only a rudimentary method of sharing it. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, it was assumed that those personnel who retained security clearances would have little use for them, and the number of routinely granted clearances plummeted, producing cost savings. Until September 2001, only a handful of the Secretary's personal staff (HHS/OS) had either a need-to-know or access to classified data, and the Secretariat required intelligence support primarily by virtue of the role of the office in Presidential succession."

"After the attack, there was recognition that as the lead federal agency for public health emergencies the Department had a primary responsibility for readiness and agile response. Accordingly, the indications-and-warnings which could presage an attack assumed a vital importance. The Government decision-makers in the capital normally work in an all-source environment, one in which open discussion of sensitive source intelligence and law enforcement information may be considered. The Department is not well postured to deal in these discussions, since there is a shortage of cleared personnel and no culture familiar with the handling, protection and appropriate dissemination of classified material."

"Based on a lack of an established internal capability to accomplish these critical tasks, it appears that the quickest and most effective remedy is to out-source the requirement. The Commercial sector can provide cleared analysts well experienced in the rapid integration of disparate streams of information and the intimate familiarity with the government security system and classification levels.. Acquisition of such a capability is readily available from the commercial sector, which has a proven track record of providing classified capabilities to the government, in the Defense Department, Homeland Security and other non-traditional intelligence consumers who are involved in response to the Global War on Terrorism."

I ran out of time. That was going to have to do for now. I dispair sometime that I can get anything at all to happen. I dispair that I can even find my way to the shower sometimes. But that is where I have to go.