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Federal Computer Week says the Homeland Security Department wants to gauge public credibility of information DHS releases electronically in TopOff 4.
The fourth Top Officials (TopOff) exercise is intended to test the nation’s readiness to deal with a large-scale terrorist attacks. This exercise will test the department’s public communications strategy and will run from June 21 and 22, 2007.
The TopOff 4 exercise will be held in Portland, Oregon and Guam and follows a preliminary exercise held in June last year called TopOff 4 Command Post Exercise (TopOff 4 CPX), which involved more than 4,000 people from more than 85 federal, state, local and private industry organizations.
DHS will provide information in two formats: a live video feed and a Web site. The live feed will resemble a newscast, according to DHS, featuring interviews with public officials and other experts, while the Web site will function more like a newspaper.
TopOff is a congressionally mandated counterterrorism program, and exercises are held every two years. TopOff 3, held in April 2005, involved the United Kingdom, Canada and U.S. participants. TopOff 2 involved a hypothetical attack by a radiological “dirty bomb” in Seattle and a biological attack via infectious pneumonic plague in Chicago.
In other news, the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) has developed a new top-secret network and multimedia Crisis Management System, reports Federal Computer News. It’s designed to operate in High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP), generated by a nuclear blast, which can knock out most forms of radio communications.
It was disclosed in the fiscal 2008 budget and will provide the president, cabinet secretaries, and designated agency directors and their staffs with a secure, dedicated network capable of handling full motion video, voice graphics and data at 64 fixed and mobile locations.
Posted by samc on Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 5:05 am.
portland.bizjournals.com/portl...1.html
Portland picked as site for terror exercise
..Portland Business Journal - March 4, 2005....by Andy Giegerich.. ..Business Journal staff writer..
The national lens will focus on Portland's streets, bridges and port as the region serves as a major Homeland Security test laboratory in May 2007.
The Department of Homeland Security has chosen Portland and Phoenix as the two sites for "TopOff 4," a shorthand term for tests that ascertain ways that top federal, state and local officials handle major security-breaching events.
The designation means that several drills -- testing preparedness for attacks involving biological, radiological and various explosives -- could occur in and around Portland, said Miguel Ascarrunz, the city's Office of Emergency Management director.
The Homeland Security Department has yet to determine exactly which tests will occur in Portland.
It selects only two test sites each year -- 15 cities applied for the 2007 program. Former Portland Mayor Vera Katz and Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski had applied to DHS in early 2004 to serve as a test site.
The test-site designation still requires formal go-aheads from Portland Mayor Tom Potter and Kulongoski. Ascarrunz said his office may need to seek state and local funds to accommodate the tests; federal grants will contribute at least some of the necessary money, he said.
"The ball is in our court," he said. "It's a lot of work, there's a lot of funding that's thrown at it, but it's good in that it will foster relations between federal and local emergency response systems."
Ascarrunz said the TopOff 2 exercise held in King County in 2003 cost the Seattle area some $1.5 million. Oregon hopes to fund the drills with various Homeland Security grants targeted for local exercises, as well as corporate donors. The feds will also pay for various planning costs -- including flying officials to and lodging them in Washington, D.C. to discuss preparations for the event -- and provide five staffers who'll work on the project's Portland logistics.
The state has received an estimated $30 million over the past few years in Homeland Security monies for equipment and smaller-scale exercises.
John Doussard, a spokesman for Potter, said his office "is very excited about the whole thing, and won't do anything to impede it."
Anna Richter Taylor, a spokeswoman for Kulongoski, said the upcoming test-site announcement pleased the governor.
"It's an opportunity for the city and state to collaborate and assure that policies and systems we have in place can respond to any terrorism or bioterrorism threats," Taylor said. "It's also a great opportunity for us to offer something that will help other states learn from us, to see what we've done is successful and identify what we need to do to be as prepared as possible."
Portland is also still awaiting an official letter from Homeland Security officials confirming its selection as the TopOff 4 site. Ascarrunz was in Washington, D.C., this week meeting with department leaders to discuss Portland's logistics.
The tests involve hundreds of senior-level federal officials, and will include heavy input from the Department of Homeland Security Administrator Michael Chertoff, Ascarrunz said.
------------------------------------
US to stage world's largest anti-terrorism exercise on Guam
AFP
Monday, February 19, 2007
The world's biggest anti-terrorism exercise will be held this year on Guam, underscoring the Pacific island's growing importance to Washington.
Exercise TopOff4 is part of a series of large-scale manoeuvres established to strengthen the United States? ability to respond to terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction.
US Coast Guard commander in Guam, William Marhoffer, said the TopOff4 exercise would be bigger than last year's Valiant Shield war games, in which the US mobilised 30 ships, 280 aircraft and 22,000 military personnel.
"It will be bigger in some ways. Valiant Shield was a military exercise. It was a show of force. It was the first time we had three carrier strike groups in combined operations in the Pacific since the Vietnam War.
"Top Officials (TopOff4) is a domestic counter-terrorism exercise ... it involves the intelligence communities, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Defense, the US Coast Guard."
The exercise is expected to centre around a maritime terrorist attack.
US Vice President Dick Cheney is to visit Guam later this week.
"This exercise highlights Guam?s strategic value and will show the world that we are prepared to defend our island and our nation from any threat of terrorism," Governor Felix Comacho said in his State of the Island address.
Guam and neighbouring US territories including the Northern Mariana Islands are considered by the US as strategic locations in the Asia-Pacific region.
Guam is home to one of the largest US military naval bases in the region and 8,000 marines will soon be relocated there from Japan.
The island, with a population of 170,000, is banking on the US military buildup to bail it out of its economic woes.
The US and Japan are spending 15 billion dollars on the relocation of the marines from Japan, which is expected to further boost Washington's military strength in the Asia-Pacific.
The fourth Top Officials (TopOff) exercise is intended to test the nation’s readiness to deal with a large-scale terrorist attacks. This exercise will test the department’s public communications strategy and will run from June 21 and 22, 2007.
The TopOff 4 exercise will be held in Portland, Oregon and Guam and follows a preliminary exercise held in June last year called TopOff 4 Command Post Exercise (TopOff 4 CPX), which involved more than 4,000 people from more than 85 federal, state, local and private industry organizations.
DHS will provide information in two formats: a live video feed and a Web site. The live feed will resemble a newscast, according to DHS, featuring interviews with public officials and other experts, while the Web site will function more like a newspaper.
TopOff is a congressionally mandated counterterrorism program, and exercises are held every two years. TopOff 3, held in April 2005, involved the United Kingdom, Canada and U.S. participants. TopOff 2 involved a hypothetical attack by a radiological “dirty bomb” in Seattle and a biological attack via infectious pneumonic plague in Chicago.
In other news, the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) has developed a new top-secret network and multimedia Crisis Management System, reports Federal Computer News. It’s designed to operate in High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP), generated by a nuclear blast, which can knock out most forms of radio communications.
It was disclosed in the fiscal 2008 budget and will provide the president, cabinet secretaries, and designated agency directors and their staffs with a secure, dedicated network capable of handling full motion video, voice graphics and data at 64 fixed and mobile locations.
Posted by samc on Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 5:05 am.
portland.bizjournals.com/portl...1.html
Portland picked as site for terror exercise
..Portland Business Journal - March 4, 2005....by Andy Giegerich.. ..Business Journal staff writer..
The national lens will focus on Portland's streets, bridges and port as the region serves as a major Homeland Security test laboratory in May 2007.
The Department of Homeland Security has chosen Portland and Phoenix as the two sites for "TopOff 4," a shorthand term for tests that ascertain ways that top federal, state and local officials handle major security-breaching events.
The designation means that several drills -- testing preparedness for attacks involving biological, radiological and various explosives -- could occur in and around Portland, said Miguel Ascarrunz, the city's Office of Emergency Management director.
The Homeland Security Department has yet to determine exactly which tests will occur in Portland.
It selects only two test sites each year -- 15 cities applied for the 2007 program. Former Portland Mayor Vera Katz and Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski had applied to DHS in early 2004 to serve as a test site.
The test-site designation still requires formal go-aheads from Portland Mayor Tom Potter and Kulongoski. Ascarrunz said his office may need to seek state and local funds to accommodate the tests; federal grants will contribute at least some of the necessary money, he said.
"The ball is in our court," he said. "It's a lot of work, there's a lot of funding that's thrown at it, but it's good in that it will foster relations between federal and local emergency response systems."
Ascarrunz said the TopOff 2 exercise held in King County in 2003 cost the Seattle area some $1.5 million. Oregon hopes to fund the drills with various Homeland Security grants targeted for local exercises, as well as corporate donors. The feds will also pay for various planning costs -- including flying officials to and lodging them in Washington, D.C. to discuss preparations for the event -- and provide five staffers who'll work on the project's Portland logistics.
The state has received an estimated $30 million over the past few years in Homeland Security monies for equipment and smaller-scale exercises.
John Doussard, a spokesman for Potter, said his office "is very excited about the whole thing, and won't do anything to impede it."
Anna Richter Taylor, a spokeswoman for Kulongoski, said the upcoming test-site announcement pleased the governor.
"It's an opportunity for the city and state to collaborate and assure that policies and systems we have in place can respond to any terrorism or bioterrorism threats," Taylor said. "It's also a great opportunity for us to offer something that will help other states learn from us, to see what we've done is successful and identify what we need to do to be as prepared as possible."
Portland is also still awaiting an official letter from Homeland Security officials confirming its selection as the TopOff 4 site. Ascarrunz was in Washington, D.C., this week meeting with department leaders to discuss Portland's logistics.
The tests involve hundreds of senior-level federal officials, and will include heavy input from the Department of Homeland Security Administrator Michael Chertoff, Ascarrunz said.
------------------------------------
US to stage world's largest anti-terrorism exercise on Guam
AFP
Monday, February 19, 2007
The world's biggest anti-terrorism exercise will be held this year on Guam, underscoring the Pacific island's growing importance to Washington.
Exercise TopOff4 is part of a series of large-scale manoeuvres established to strengthen the United States? ability to respond to terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction.
US Coast Guard commander in Guam, William Marhoffer, said the TopOff4 exercise would be bigger than last year's Valiant Shield war games, in which the US mobilised 30 ships, 280 aircraft and 22,000 military personnel.
"It will be bigger in some ways. Valiant Shield was a military exercise. It was a show of force. It was the first time we had three carrier strike groups in combined operations in the Pacific since the Vietnam War.
"Top Officials (TopOff4) is a domestic counter-terrorism exercise ... it involves the intelligence communities, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Defense, the US Coast Guard."
The exercise is expected to centre around a maritime terrorist attack.
US Vice President Dick Cheney is to visit Guam later this week.
"This exercise highlights Guam?s strategic value and will show the world that we are prepared to defend our island and our nation from any threat of terrorism," Governor Felix Comacho said in his State of the Island address.
Guam and neighbouring US territories including the Northern Mariana Islands are considered by the US as strategic locations in the Asia-Pacific region.
Guam is home to one of the largest US military naval bases in the region and 8,000 marines will soon be relocated there from Japan.
The island, with a population of 170,000, is banking on the US military buildup to bail it out of its economic woes.
The US and Japan are spending 15 billion dollars on the relocation of the marines from Japan, which is expected to further boost Washington's military strength in the Asia-Pacific.
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Re: There's a terror drill coming to Portland
Thu, February 22, 2007 - 4:29 PMGreat heads up.....Alex
I would like you to repost this on my tribe....if you want....
The Prophecy of Magog - tribe.net:
tribes.tribe.net/d64e82b0-...9383c1d4e0
