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Defeating potential terrorist attacks on U.S. infrastructure and citizens will require careful balancing acts between competing priorities, means and methods, senior business executives and government officials said on Monday as part of a homeland security policy panel.

The panelists said effective security policies will have to balance security, privacy and regulation with self-regulation, while launching new partnerships between government and industry.

Frank Libutti, undersecretary for information analysis and infrastructure protection with the Homeland Security Department, said the department has shown "manifest and tremendous leadership" at every level during the recent heightened security alert, enhanced by the recent creation of the national cyber-security division, a cyber-emergency response team, and partnerships with state and local authorities. He touted more than 50 alerts and bulletins published by his directorate with specific recommendations for infrastructure protection.

Robert Liscouski, Homeland Security's assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, said the department has the extremely challenging mission of conducting initial policy and planning while thwarting real attacks and threats, a process that Secret Service Director Ralph Basham compared with "changing an airplane engine while in mid-flight."

Libutti said despite the U.S government's commitment to homeland security, businesses will need to increase their spending on security. "When necessary, you will need to belly up to put money on the table for readiness," he said. "The terrorist threat is not going away."

Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cyber Security, said Congress must establish metrics to ensure that spending on homeland security is deterring terrorists. "We are spending record amounts of money, but we must decide if we are really becoming safer," he said. "We need to find measurements that matter, and I think that will be hard."

He criticized Homeland Security for delays in integrating its computer networks and intelligence analysis. He also expressed concern that the department's broad mandate could stretch the organization too thin and distract it from "bigger problems," namely the use of weapons of mass destruction in the United States.

Roscoe Howard, a U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and law professor Jeffrey Rosen debated the value of privacy in the age of terrorism. Howard said courts should reassess what constitutes an "unreasonable" search as defined by the Fourth Amendment.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks "redefined what 'reasonable' means," he said. "The public has told us that any further terrorist attacks are unacceptable."

Rosen said leadership on civil-liberties issues must come from Congress. "Congress has said 'no' to bad data-mining programs [and] ID card plans," he noted.

COMMENTS

• Why is Libutti telling private businesses what they need to do? He should be telling his agency what to do. We do need a measure of what to spend and where to spend it and we do not need the courts to redefine reasonable search! The illegal actions of homeland security have far exceeded the reasonable even in the face of terrorists. I think we need to study the policy of placing USA troops in the Middle East and of unreasonable support of Israel. It probably would be a lot cheaper to withdraw from the Middle East and reduce financial support for Israel than to give away our freedoms at home and pay the tremendous bill to fund homeland security, troop action in the Middle East and support of Israel! GovExec.com reader Posted January 13, 2004 7:08 AM