What Silicon Valley Can Do For Homeland Security

An anonymous reader writes "Small, agile development firms are just what security in the United States needs, argues an article on Ars Technica. The piece compares the processes used in small Silicon Valley firms to those used in security contractors retained by the U.S. Government. Mr. Stokes' conclusion? The U.S. has a lot to learn from small companies." From the article: "Whether it's nuke detection technology at ports, computer automated wiretapping and data traffic snooping, or massive government data mining operations, our present approach to homeland security is embodied for me in those 14-foot pillars: ponderous, expensive technologies designed by government-funded teams of scientists who're working in vain to outmaneuver not just the terrorists, but the surging global market for technological innovation in which those terrorists thrive. By way of contrast, the Sandia group's DIY nuke detector represents an attempt to fight fire with fire by harnessing the same market forces and entrepreneurial spirit that terrorists have learned to use so effectively."

Comments

Re:Not the right approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Great idea! We should have responded to Pearl Harbor with happy flower sprinkles! We should have sent Osama a caring, well-intentioned care-package. Look at me, I'm the perfect utopian America! Everyone laughs at me, but that's ok, I'm irrelevant on global issues!

</sarcasm>

No thanks. One France is enough for the world.

Re:Not the right approach

[peterpressure]

Pearl harbor = unprovoked?
I would assume the japanese at the time would not think so,
Peace Negogiations prior to pearl harbor had fell apart 30 minutes before the attack...
DO SOME RESEARCH B4 U LOOK DUM!!
Your correct though, Pearl Harbo and 9/11 are different, More died on 9/11...

Homeland Insecurity - Exxon

[__aaykqx8915]

What can SV do for HS? Probably not much. Unless HS is serious about stopping terrorists which it appears they aren't: http://www.gregpalast.com/palast-charged-with-jour nalism-in-the-first-degree#more-1487 Boy I feel so much safer now that Exxon can call the department of Homeland Insecurity and have journalists arrested. Detective Pananepinto confirmed that, "Louisiana is still part of the United States," subject to the first amendment and he was therefore required to divulge my accuser. Not surprisingly, it was Exxon Corporation, one of a handful of companies not in love with my investigations: http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=269 What a wonderful way to protect us from terrorists. Round up all the journalists at the behest of big corporations. Of course they won't do anything about the thousands of people walking into the USA over the open border with Mexico because no muslim terrorist would ever think of doing that. They are too busy eating pork, drinking booze, paying prostitutes for services and going to strip clubs when they aren't flunking flying lessons.

Prevention doesn't further Bush's Goals

[billstewart]

Bush's goals are domestic and international power, and preventing terrorism in the ways you describe are absolutely Not With The Program. Bush, Cheney, his core neocon advisors want a strong government with unlimited domestic powers and a strong military projecting power around the world, regardless of the cost to the US economy. If you don't have enemies, you don't need to have a strong government protecting the public from them, and enemies like big hurricanes and global warming are simply *not* an adequate replacement for Communism. Hussein's been extremely valuable for the enemy-centric foreign policies - we got to spend a lot of money helping him in the fight against Iran, and then Bush's father got to have a big war that he didn't finish, and hand it to Clinton (along with Yugoslavia and Somalia) to make sure Clinton didn't de-emphasize the military, and Bush got to pick it up again for reasons entirely unrelated to terrorism.

There's a theory of government called the "Unitary Executive" that a lot of them like, where the military and civilian power are controlled by a strong leader and supported by Congress, as opposed to the model where the Parliament tells the civil service and military what to do and the courts limit the scope of their actions, and many of Bush's supporters stronly believe in that. American used to have a governmental system like that; we dumped it in 1776 and the following years of the revolution, though the executive branch got some of its power back with the current Constitution adopted in 1787-1789.

The Bush administration may not be very competent, but one thing they've been extremely good at is managing their Message, staying strongly focused on whatever political goals they're trying to accomplish. The two big failures that are hurting them right now are Hurricane Katrina and Abu Ghraib, the first because it was extremely obvious that The Strong Leader was totally incompetent at protecting the Homeland, which is what you *want* a strong leader for, and the second because it was so appallingly over-the-top wrong that even Bush's right-wing supporters couldn't support it (plus the sexual element annoyed his religious supporters.) Cindy Sheehan was a big problem for a long time, because she represented an archetypal Mother whose child had not been protected by Stong Father Leader, and because Bush absolutely would not take Responsibility for it. He's probably successfully outlasted her; she got far more than her 15 minutes of fame.