Category Archives: accountability

Lack of Security Risk Assessments cited as Contributing to Benghazi Embassy Attack

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Just two weeks ago, we were talking about the lack of coordination between DHS agencies and known intelligence on the brothers responsible.

Now we have the Benghazi Senate hearings, and here is the same problem again – lack of coordination between different parts of the State Department, and with the Defense Department, AND with the CIA and the intelligence community.

Add to this, the appalling cuts in funding for diplomatic security, and a flawed process about what needs to be done about security and protection to our embassies around the world.

“In these tight budget times, the committee has had to make some tough choices to prioritize funding.”, said a GOP aide in The Hill article (GOP cuts to embassy security draw scrutiny), by Alexander Bolton on September 18, 2012.   In spite of the uncertainly of the Arab Spring, the demonstrations every Friday in streets from Bahrain to Tunesia, the embassies had their budgets cut.

Of course, security experts are used to this, security doesn’t directly generate revenue, and it is often one of the first functions on the chopping block.  However, to cut funding to the critical embassy functions in this volatile environment, is obviously a very bad decision on the part of the GOP.

For example, the security risk assessment which are routinely done on these embassies are not done on a systematic basis.  As a risk expert, these security risk assessments should be done WEEKLY, and they should be automated so they can instantly be compared to environments in other embassies, and comparisons made by month, by year, and trends can be tracked.

If we can’t afford to do these assessments and just as important, if we can’t afford to fix the problems that assessments reveal, then we should not have embassies in these places.

The security risk assessments that are done properly must also include complete threat assessments.  ”We need to develop a paradigm for managing risk“, said Gregory Hicks, a Foreign Service Officer who testified today on Capitol Hill.

These paradigms for managing risk already exist and they have been totally ignored by the State Department, which makes it almost impossible to get a clear, unfiltered view of the security situation at any embassy, at any point in time.

At least both sides of the political aisle agree, we do not want this to happen again!  Benghazi is not a political problem, it is a massive security failure problem!

 

3 Cleveland Women -The New Front Line of the War on Women

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For the past 4 days, media attention has been focused on the three Cleveland girls who were abducted close to their homes and kept as prisoners in an old run-down house with neighbors on all sides.

NOW, neighbors tell how they broke down the door to free the women, the little 6-year old girl who came out with them, presumably the child of their abductor, and stories of screams coming from the house over the LAST TEN YEARS.

Besides the obvious curiosity about how they are, how this happened, how they were subdued for so long, and all the salient details, my question is WHY DID THIS HAPPEN, AND WHAT DO WE NEED TO CHANGE TO MAKE SURE IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN!

As a security analyst, I have to place some of the blame at the door of the Cleveland police, not that they are different from any other police department in the U.S.  Police are trained to catch criminals – that is their reason for being.   But it seems that, increasingly, in crimes where women go missing, even a 16-year-old, the search for them never really gets underway.  With no speeding car to chase, no easy suspicious person to detain, they stop looking.

Statistics say that about 2300 people go missing every day, over half are men, so that
leaves about 1000 females, and of these, about 70% are young women. so that easy math – about 700 A DAY! or 255,500 EVERY YEAR!

My point is just that the Cleveland Triple Abduction should be a wake up call for parents, citizens AND law enforcement to find a better way to search for these missing girls.

The world has changed – we have cameras, social media, facebook pages, and we need for all of these to be routinely used to find missing girls before we see another case exactly like this one.

 

 

Wondering Which Security Controls Offer the Highest Protection for the Least Money?

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Or, put another way – how to get the Best Bang for the Buck with security.

Security Controls can be incredibly cost effective or astronomically expensive.  And when you’re faced with a facility or a school campus, or a system that has to be secured, but you also have a budget to keep in mind – what do you do?

The simple answer is ROI – Return on Investment.  This simple calculation compares the Cost of the Proposed Control to the Protection is Provides and that creates the magic ROI Number.

Here’s an example:   A hospital near the New Jersey shore wants to create a new emergency ops center.  They have the space,
but it would cost about $250,000 to build it out.  Here’s what we look at – how often would they use an emergency ops center?

Threat data shows that they would need to use it about 3-6

Operations Center (OPS)
Operations Center (OPS)

times a year, including severe storms, thunderstorms and hurricanes.

(After Hurricane Sandy, the hospital was closed for two days because they were not able to resume service right away.  As a result, the hospital lost about $2,000,000 per day because it could not bill for any services, none could be provided.)

So we take that lost $2,000,000 per day and say that if we could keep the facility open because we had a better operational center, we could easily save 2 days of revenue which is $4,000,000 for the 2 days, and if it cost us only $ 250,000, and saves us $ 4,000,000, that’s a Return on Investment of SIXTEEN to ONE, 16:1.

Say it saved us 3 days of revenue a year - that’s a ROI of TWENTY-FOUR to ONE, 24:1!

You can get more info by writing to me directly at caroline@riskandsecurityllc.com and requesting a webinar invitation,
or a copy of the video.

 

The Effect of the Sequester on Security Budgets

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Every time the TV is on, every anchor is crying about the dreaded Sequester.

Will it have an impact on security budgets?  I have seen security budgets, especially for the facilities security departments, swing from almost unlimited budgets after 2001, to bare bones in 2009 and 2010, and thought they were trending back up for 2013.

Now, with the uncertainty about what a Sequester  actually is, (please note my use of the capital “S”), how will it affect our security departments?

Obviously, the most obvious casualty are the government contractors who’s contracts may be arbitrarily cut, and civilian managers of federal programs will see lost days and furloughs.

The trickle-down effect will probably extend to state, county and municipal governments, too.   So that means it’s even more important to start budgeting new security controls so that the most important get the funding!

One of the themes we go over in our webinar programs is how important it is to create a COST JUSTIFICATION and Return on Investment information so that you can create a business case for every control you need to improve security.

And one more thought on the Sequester – we often see an increase in crime, white collar crime and fraud when things are unsettled and people aren’t sure what’s going to happen next.

Maybe it’s a good time to do another risk assessment?  Maybe the Sequester is the next new Threat!

 

Why Giving Oscar Pistorius Bail Today in a South African Court is another blow against Women

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Violence, assault, battery, and homicide is always more of a problem for women than for men.

Statistics show that men are more likely to BE VIOLENT, and more apt to be aggressive toward women.  Because men are the world’s power brokers, and sometimes they try to use that power to dominate the women that they imagine they should be able to control.

The term War On Women is accurate, if you review the facts, and also the sensational details. The Scott Peterson’s murder of his 9-month pregnant wife carrying his unborn son, Connor, and just yesterday, Drew Peterson sentenced for murder of his 3rd wife, while wife number 4, Stacy, has been missing since 2007.

Remember  Josh and Susan Powell?   Josh, who killed both his young sons and himself, even though he was never convicted of Susan’s disappearance.  And the terrible thing about these high profile crimes is these women were attacked and killed at their most vulnerable, by someone who, at least, initially, loved them.

Even worse, in countries like South Africa, or India, rape is something that happens many times every day.  And the rich white guys aren’t the only perps.  It’s angry people — no matter how much money they have, where they live, or what their backgrounds are, or their education level.

Certain men seem to regard women as their possessions, like their dogs, or their household help, and so they feel free to abuse them, kick them, break their arms, intimidate them, control them, and if the woman tries to fight back, she is often killed.

No matter how rich Oscar Pistorius is, how great he is for overcoming such a profound handicap, how many medals he won, he, like OJ Simpson, will now be judged for losing his temper and murdering a beautiful young model – who loved him!

And obviously, the Magistrate didn’t agree, because if he did – he would never have granted him bail.

 

Assessing School Security Takes on New Dimensions after Sandy Hook Tragedy

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After 30 years of security risk assessment experience and working with hundreds of schools, hospitals, facilities, I have to say that schools have not taken school security seriously.

Obviously there are the social pressures including mental health screening, proposed assault weapons bans, gun owner screening, etc., but these are the thing that won’t change overnight.  EVEN IF THEY ARE LEGISLATED, it takes time to implement, and
implementation may not be perfect.

TODAY IS THE DAY TO DO A SCHOOL VIOLENCE ASSESSMENT – not tomorrow, not after new gun laws, not after the holidays — TODAY.

There are indicators you can look for to see if your school is at risk of an active shooter incident.  And ways to be prepared if the unthinkable happens and an active shooter comes to your school.

Strong, simple access control is the most effective solution, and yes, this may mean that
a plain glass front door or window is not enough.  Glass is easily broken, and yes, it means that all staff must be a little more accountable, and it probably means a red phone or connection to the local police.

There is a simple school risk assessment program that will give guidance on what you need to do TODAY, what controls you need to implement, what threats are most likely to occur.  These can be accessed on the www.riskandsecurityllc.com website.

Some things are preventable, some aren’t.  But lockdown drills, alarm systems, and active monitoring of cameras are just a few of the 60 controls every school should have in place to protect our precious children.

And this comes from the grandmother who’s 3-year old twins turned 3 yesterday!

 

Chemical Weapons – the True December 21st Potential Disaster

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Maybe the Mayan Calendar has forecast a deadly chemical attack that would poison the world, not a pole shift after all.

Know much about chemical weapons?  They are semi-easily dispersed. They can decimate a population in the time it takes a plane to fly overhead.  They are gruesome death.

The U.S. actually keeps track of all chemical weapons – and biologic weapons, too.  Did you know that inspectors all over the world fan out when a nation state fails (and sometime before) and can tell you exactly what it is and where it is kept.

My friends in this business have traveled all over the former Soviet Union, counting the anthrax vials in a deserted laboratory in the middle of a forest, for example, and making careful notes, not just on the location of the now-deserted laboratory, but also checking the state of security for those sites.

Is the facility secured? Is there a guard service?  Are there card access or cypher locks on the doors?  Are the windows locked and secured?  Is there access from the roof?

Is there a tree too close to the roof that could be used for access?

All these plans and assessments can be hauled out at times like these, helping to keep the world safe from chemical and biological weapons.  At least, that’s what we are all hoping, and counting on.

Happy Saturday!!

After The Surgeon Kills Girlfriend at the Hospital – what next?

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Time for a Workplace Violence Assessment? You think?

The shooting death of 33-year-old Jacqueline Wisniewski at Erie County Medical Center left the community in shock last week, especially since the shooter was a surgeon!

The surgeon’s body was found Friday, near his home, with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. And this tragedy illustrates why EVERY hospital and medical center should be required to do a Baseline Workplace Violence Assessment.

The warning signs were there, the surgeon had lost weight, had become moody and distant, and also had advanced special forces weapons training in his background.

That’s exactly why he passed a background check, but after that initial check, his blatant symptoms of personal problems were ignored, even by the very people who observed them.

Now the hospital staff is traumatized, a beautiful young nurse is dead, the Eric County Medical Center administrators can look forward to an in-depth OSHA investigation, with possible fines and even more disruption.

Don’t let your hospital be a victim of this kind of incident. A Workplace Violence Assessment can be completed in just 5 days, and will reduce the chance of a potential violent incident by over 75%.

Email me directly to get the new white paper on how to prevent workplace violence incidents at caroline-hamilton@att.net.

How long does it take for OSHA to develop standards – like for Workplace Violence?

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Why OSHA standards take so long to develop

The Government Accountability office reports to Congress on items of interest to Congress and their constituents.  One area that was recently examined was how long it takes OSHA to update standards, or develop new standards.  Here’s a look at the results:

By: David LaHoda, April 30th, 2012

A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on why OSHA standards take, on average, more than seven years to complete found that “increased procedural requirements, shifting priorities, and a rigorous standard of judicial review” contributed to the lengthy time frame.

In responding to the GAO report, Randy Rabinowitz, OMB Watch’s director of regulatory policy said: “In the years since its creation, OSHA’s charge to protect workers from harm has been undermined by Kafkaesque demands for additional reviews of existing rules mandated by new statutes and executive orders,” according to The Hill. While OSHA’s internal inability to remain focused on priorities and regulatory follow-through was the counter argument presented by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“While some of the changes, such as improving coordination with other agencies to leverage expertise, are within OSHA’s authority, others call for significant procedural changes that would require amending existing laws,” according tot he GAO report.

The GAO report recommended that that OSHA and NIOSH improve collaboration on researching occupational hazards. In that way OSHA could better “leverage NIOSH expertise in determining the needs for new standards and developing them.”

For the entire 55-page report go to http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-330

April is Workplace Violence Awareness Month

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The American Association of Workplace Violence Prevention (www.aawvp.org) has designated April 2012 as official Workplace Violence Awareness Month!

You can celebrate in your office by suggesting ways to reduce workplace violence in your own environment.  At AAWVP, they stress that workplace violence also happens to you, not just at work, but at the late-night grocery store or convenience store, in the hospital where you’re visiting your father, and even in your own home.

As part of the awareness raising event, the Association has invited me to participate in a special webinars about workplace violence at 2:00 pm Eastern Time, on April 18th.

You can join us by registering at http://tinyurl.com/85e33h8