Dan Verton

 

Posts by Dan Verton

Is It Time For The Feds To Rein In the NYPD?

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When it comes to proactive law enforcement, intelligence and counterterrorism operations, the New York City Police Department – the NYPD – is viewed by many of its counterparts as one of the most innovative and successful police departments in the nation’s history.

However, the NYPD has also gained another, more insidious reputation in recent years for what many regard as an unprecedented challenge to privacy and civil liberties in America and what others regard as overreach internationally. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 13, 2011 at 8:01 AM

House GOP Task Force Issues Cybersecurity ‘Blueprint’; Favors Private Sector Incentives

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A group of 12 Republican lawmakers issued a detailed set of recommendations Wednesday on how the federal government should work with private sector owners and operators of the nation’s critical infrastructures to enhance cybersecurity.

The long-awaited 20-page report by the House Republican Cybersecurity Task Force, led by Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX, pictured center above), strikes a similar chord to plans currently being worked on by Senate Democrats and the Obama administration but takes a significantly different philosophical approach, calling for limits on federal regulations, tax credits for companies that improve cybersecurity and a third-party, private-sector run “clearing house” of real-time information on cyber threats. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 6, 2011 at 2:23 PM

Patent Reform Elicits Cheers From Business, But USPTO Faces Big Challenges

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The passage last week of sweeping patent reforms may have finally given American businesses and innovators the boost they need to stay competitive in a global economy. But analysts and observers, including a former Under Secretary of Commerce, say it will take a lot more than the America Invents Act of 2011 to ensure the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) can become a facilitator of growth in a stalled economy.

The Senate on Sept. 8 passed the America Invents Act by an overwhelming 89-9 vote, ushering in an era of patent reform that American businesses have been urging for the better part of the past decade. Keep reading →

 /  Published September 12, 2011 at 4:14 PM

DHS Still Hobbled By Congress; Its Mission Misunderstood: Former CIA Head Who Led DHS Transition Team

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In December of 2000, John Gannon signed his name to a document that is almost prophetic in its analysis of global security trends.

From the potential impacts of a U.S. economic downturn to the various drivers of what we now know as the Arab Spring throughout the Middle East, and the rise of extremist terrorist organizations in safe-havens like Afghanistan, the National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2015 study warns of almost every major international security issue faced by the United States during the last 10 years. Keep reading →

 /  Published September 9, 2011 at 9:06 AM

DHS’ Major Progress Endangered By Lack of Strategic Oversight

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Far from the “boondoggle” that some have called it, the Department of Homeland Security has made significant progress integrating 22 separate agencies and nearly 200,000 employees since its creation in 2003. But that continued upward trajectory of progress seems anything but certain if senior managers remain unable to conduct a strategic pause amid ongoing threats and security events to ensure major acquisition programs and department-wide policies are executed properly.

That’s the underlying conclusion of the most recent study released September 7 of the DHS by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress. Keep reading →

 /  Published September 8, 2011 at 12:05 PM

Ten Years After 9/11 – Three Perspectives On Homeland Security’s Mission

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Roger Cressey can recall with great precision the moment, ten years ago, when the homeland security mission came to life out of the rubble of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.

“It was the magnitude and the gravity of what we were dealing with, literally when the towers were crumbling, realizing that the world had changed and that our government – our nation – had changed,” said Cressey, who served as the Deputy for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council on 9/11. Keep reading →

 /  Published September 7, 2011 at 12:15 PM

Ten Years After 9/11: Three Eyewitness Perspectives On DHS’s Creation

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About This Program:
In this mini-documentary exclusive for Breaking Gov, award-winning journalist Dan Verton brings us back to the day that changed the world and traces the evolution of the homeland security mission through the eyes of three men who were present at its creation.

This is the story of the birth and evolution of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as told by the nation’s first secretary of Homeland Security, the deputy for counterterrorism on the National Security Council, and the CIA’s deputy director of intelligence, who would go on to become the first Staff Director for the House Select Committee on Homeland Security. Keep reading →

 /  Published September 7, 2011 at 12:01 PM

Q&A: Symantec’s Approach To Security – “Eat Your Own Cooking”

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Federal IT managers often look to leading technology suppliers to discover what they have learned to protect their own enterprises. Breaking Gov sat down with Symantec Corp.’s Vice President and General Manager for Public Sector, Gigi Schumm, to discuss what federal IT managers can learn from Symantec’s own approach to security and how those lessons are incorporated into the company’s products.

Breaking Gov: If federal IT managers wanted to look inside Symantec to see how security is managed and baked into your products, what would they see? Keep reading →

 /  Published September 2, 2011 at 2:01 PM

Symantec Preparing Cloud Security Components For Federal Agencies

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Cyber security powerhouse Symantec Corp. plans to release a new product within the next 12 months that it believes will deliver the necessary identity management and information protections that many federal agencies are looking for before they make the leap to cloud computing, a senior Symantec official said.

Many federal enterprises, particularly those in the defense, intelligence and homeland security arenas, have been slow to move to cloud-based services because of the security concerns that arise from moving an organization’s servers, software and data into a shared cloud environment. But with its new O3 (a.k.a. Ozone) product, which will combine identity management with policy controls, information inspection and encryption, Symantec officials believe they have the answer that the government has been looking for. Keep reading →

 /  Published September 1, 2011 at 7:00 AM

Symantec May Offer Federal Cybersecurity Solution

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Cybersecurity powerhouse Symantec Corp. plans to release a new product within the next 12 months that it believes will deliver the necessary identity management and information protections that many federal agencies are looking for before they make the leap to cloud computing, a senior Symantec official said.

Many federal enterprises, particularly those in the defense, intelligence and homeland security arenas, have been slow to move to cloud-based services because of the security concerns that arise from moving an organization’s servers, software and data into a shared cloud environment. But with its new O3 (a.k.a. Ozone) product, which will combine identity management with policy controls, information inspection and encryption, Symantec officials believe they have the answer that the government has been looking for. Keep reading →

 /  Published September 1, 2011 at 6:59 AM
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