General Information and Background:
The
INSTITUTE for GOVERNMENT & PUBLIC SERVICE for Government and Public Policy was the recipient
of a 2004-2005 congressionally-directed grant from the Department of Education
to "expand and enhance its programming activities." Most of the
$250,000 appropriation was designated to develop training programs of emergency
preparedness for the Quad State region.
Mission:
Serve as a catalyst of an ongoing regional effort to coordinate the preparation
for a catastrophic incident in the quad state area. The objectives of the program
were two fold.
Objectives:
1. Provide for the sharing, coordination and use of information and such
other resources as are necessary to prepare for an emergency incident in the
quad state region
2. Provide for the training of quad state officials, elected and administrative,
who are responsible for emergency management and preparedness in their locality
and throughout the region. As part of the program the following ten strategies
will be used to implement the above objectives.
Implementation Strategies:
1. Provided free emergency services training to quad state elected and administrative
officials leading to the awarding of a INSTITUTE for GOVERNMENT & PUBLIC SERVICE Certificate of Emergency
Preparedness.
2. Provided a means of facilitating the coordination of information, training
and such other activities as are important to emergency preparedness in the
region.
3. Conducted mock exercises designed to test emergency preparedness
and response within the region.
4. Provided meetings of local and state officials, both elected and administrative, for the purpose of coordinating preparedness activities in the region.
5. Developed a Quad State Emergency Preparedness Handbook which would serve
to identify the emergency services, resources, officials and providers in
the region.
6. Developed a Quad State Emergency Preparedness Website which would serve
to provide timely information and the exchange of such information as was relevant
to emergency preparedness in the region.
8. Provided regular reports to localities and states in the region on the
status of emergency preparedness in the region.
9. Provided information to the citizens of the quad state area which might
be helpful in preventing and responding to emergency incidents in the region.
NOTE: The quad state region is defined as those counties, cities and towns
which are adjacent to or in close proximity the Interstate 81 corridor running
north from Harrisonburg, Virginia to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
Grant Administrator: Dr. William Shendow (540) 665-4696)
wshendow@su.edu
MARSH SAYS SECURITY HAS A HIGH PREMIUM
Speaking at the annual Quad State Legislative Conference
in Winchester, former Secretary of the Army John “Jack” O. Marsh
said the government’s reaction to the 9/11 events have raised the age-old
constitutional issue of security versus individual liberty. In his remarks
at the conference, Marsh, a former national security adviser to 
President
Gerald Ford, asked, “How much privacy are we giving up to have security?”
He said the United States’ response to the terrorist threat is becoming
an “arsenal” and its seat of government a “citadel.”
Streets and federal buildings in downtown Washington are barricaded.
Mail addressed to congressional offices takes up to four months to reach its
destination due to intense screening and sanitization. While he believes
some of the strict security is needed, Marsh said he is troubled. “We’re
making our public servants hard to access, and access is the cornerstone of
a democracy.”
Marsh, a retired attorney who teaches a course in cyber security law at George Mason University, is scheduled to testify before a Congressional committee on striking a legal balance between the government’s right to know and individuals’ right to privacy.
Ironically, at the center of the debate is a technology bred by the military – the Internet. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Pentagon spearheaded a project known as Total Information Awareness – a centralized database of individuals’ bank accounts, credit charges, medical and academic records, correspondence, cell phone records, and law enforcement and intelligence files. The idea was to program these computers with terrorist plans and then mine the databases to turn up any potential suspects. Congress refused to fund the measure.
In 2002, Marsh was appointed to an outside advisory committee that examined the project from a legal perspective. One of the major findings is that some data mining is necessary. Airlines, for example, use similar databases to screen passengers before they board a plane. At the same time, Marsh said, officials must develop new “pro-privacy” safeguards, including ways to make data anonymous to insure court authorization and congressional oversight. Much of this article is taken from an earlier story by Northern Virginia Daily Staff Writer, James Hefferman
Lectures/Programs |
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| Next lecture
to be announced. For more information call 540-665-4696 or e-mail ssnyder@su.edu
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