Domestic Terrorism
Order Instructions:
This SLP assumes that you have a background in emergency management (mitigation, preparation, response and recovery), knowledge of the incident response system (ICS) from local to national level
Background:
1. You are the Principal the local Shining Star Elementary School. Your school contains 400 students and is part of a four-school cluster. Your cluster is part of a school district that contains over 100 schools from all levels.
2. You are the emergency manager for this county of over 300,000 people. Your position is to prepare the county for disasters in an area where the worst expected disaster is fire from storms or drought. Wind storms are the next worst expected disaster. Your county is surrounded by counties of equal or larger sizes in a larger city with a population of five million persons. Shining Star Elementary School is in your county.
3. You are the Mayor of a town within the county that contains the Shining Star Elementary School. The city police and fire department work for you.
4. You are the Chairman of the County Supervisors in the county that contains the Shining Star Elementary School. The county sheriff, fire department, health department, and county support offices work for you.
Scenario A:
1. A GROUP OF ARMED PERSONS HAS INVADED THE SHINING STAR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!
2. THE PRINCIPAL HAS CALLED 911 FOR HELP.
And then Scenario B happens only 15 minutes later:
1.THE GROUP DEMANDS ACCESS TO THE MEDIA TO STATE THEIR DEMANDS
2. THE GROUP KILLS FIVE ELEMENTARY STUDENTS AND ONE TEACHER TO PROVE THEY ARE SERIOUS
For each of the four positions, explain what you would do and expect for each of the scenarios. Your actions for the initial scenario should be different from the second. Consider the following in each of your answers:
1. WHAT ASSETS DO YOU HAVE?
2. WHAT AGENCIES NEED TO BE INVOLVED?
3. WHO DO YOU NEED TO COORDINATE WITH?
4. WHAT ACTIONS CAN YOU TAKE?
Length: This SLP Assignment should be at least 4 pages not counting the title page and references.
References: At least two references should be included from academic sources listed below (e.g. peer-reviewed journal articles). Required readings are included. Quoted material should not exceed 10% of the total paper (since the focus of these assignments is critical thinking).
Organization: Subheadings should be used to organize your paper.
Academic sources required readings:
D’Angelo, A. P. (2007). Strategic change and the Joint Terrorism Task Force: Ideas and recommendations. Naval Postgraduate School. Monterey. Retrieved November 13, 2012, from: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA477108&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
Facts and figures: Today’s FBI (2011). FBI. Retrieved November 13, 2012, from: http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/facts-and-figures-2010-2011
McNeill, J. B. (2011). The PATRIOT Act and the Constitution: Five key points. Retrieved November 13, 2012, from: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/02/the-patriot-act-and-the-constitution-five-key-points
Progress made in implementation of management and mission functions, but more work remains. (2008), GAO-08-457T. Department of Homeland Security, Retrieved November 13, 2012, from: http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08457thigh.pdf
SAMPLE ANSWER
Introduction
Domestic terrorism is the aggressive act of violence by the citizens of a particular country against their own countrymen. The violence can be perpetrated against the people or the infrastructure that serves the people of a particular nation. This act of terrorism is often conducted by the citizens of a particular state with the aim of promoting social or a political cause. The activities of domestic terrorist are wide and may involves related to cyber-crime, bank robbery, kidnapping, violent crimes, organized crime, among others (FBI, 2011).
The United States PATRIOTIC Act gives directions on how those responsible for security matters can track down terror suspects in order to disorganize their plots before they subject the people to unnecessary danger. In fighting domestic terrorism, the PATRIOTIC Act helps to protect civil liberties and provide common defense by weighing heavily on the civil liberties and matters of national security. According to McNeil (2012), this Act also explains that the American expectation of privacy is not unlimited since they enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy. Therefore, anything one exposes to voluntary to the third party is not considered protected and each and every individual has the right to report any issues that appears to be amount to terrorism. However, this Act ensures that the security investigators have the necessary tools at their disposal to track and prosecute all acts of terrorism against the American citizens. Therefore, the PATRIOTIC Act is a reliable legislation for fighting domestic terrorism since it has passed the constitutional muster and controls all aspects of disagreements over the role of government and the actual abuse. Moreover, this Act empowers the government agencies to perform their duties diligently and encourages oversight to prevent them from abusing the powers that come with their authority (McNeill, 2011).
Scenario A
When terrorists invade such a large population of people, it is prudent to identify and implement best practices, policies, and procedures that ensure that the skills, experience and expertise of our security team are maximized and integrated with other security teams (D’Angelo, 2007). I request the school security team not to counter the terrorist until they receive support from external law enforcement agencies like the FBI, the police, and the CTU.
In combating domestic terrorism, we need some assets to help us track and prosecute the criminal. First of all, we need human capital to help in coordinating the various activities aimed at countering the terrorist. This will comprise of trained security personnel with the capabilities of dealing with the criminals. Secondly, we need proper IT infrastructure to help coordinate various activities of the security personnel. In addition, we need readily available finances to support the activities of the security personnel. The security team must be equipped with proper tools and equipments that can effectively be used to fight the terrorist (GAO, 2008).
In fighting terrorism, some government agencies must be involved since terrorism is a complicated act. The first agency that needs to be involved is the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU) since they are heavily involved in domestic terrorism matters. We believe that the CTU will use their experience in handling terrorism matters to provide an emergency solution in accordance with our scenario. The next agency we will involve is the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) The FBI will provide us with ideas as well as the human capital to help track and prosecute the terrorist. The FBI can also provide us with critical infrastructure and technology that can be used in our situation. The next agency that we need to consult is the multidisciplinary Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) so that they provide us with the necessary tools and equipments to help investigate the motive and the background of these terrorists. Since we are caught in an emergency situation, the JTTF will help to analyze and identify specific actions that will prevent the terrorist from causing more damage to the school. We also expect the JTTF members to support us with strategic change and innovation that will help us overcome any obstacle during the rescue operation. We will ensure that all the above agencies get access to our database in order to access the risk and possible rescue channels available in our institution.
Since fighting terrorism is a collaborative task, we need to involve the police in arresting and prosecuting the terrorist. The police will provide us with human capital and the necessary tools that are needed in our situation. In addition, the police will help us establish the law broken and help to prosecute the terrorist. We also need to coordinate with the health bodies so that they can take care of the persons who have been injured or killed during the terrorist attack.
Scenario B
When the terrorist demand access to the media, their demands should be accepted since defiance may result in more deaths. We will use the IT infrastructure at our disposal to ensure that they access the media. The information that will be circulated in the media will enable us to attract more sympathy from the general public leading to possible rescue operation. The information that will be aired by the terrorist through the media will also enable our collaborators and agencies involved to assess the real situation on the ground. We will need to coordinate with the media houses so that the terrorists stop their ruthless killings since their demands. Moreover, we will use all the communications assets at our disposal to ensure that necessary information is circulated to all relevant stakeholders. At this stage, we will be keen and ensure that we meet all the media demands and behave in accordance with their demands. By allowing the tourist access to the media, we will be saving more life since the relevant authority may decide to relent to their demands. Refusing to relent to the demands to the terrorist is very risky since they may decide to kill the remaining lives since most of these terrorists are very dangerous.
After providing the terrorist with the access to the media, we will try to launch negotiations with the terrorist to see if they agree to free the enslaved persons. Our argument points will be based on the basis that we are very cooperative and still willing meet their demands. If they refuse, we will urge the terrorist to release a portion of the captured persons, mostly the students, remain with the teachers to give them some leverage. This is because students are still young in age and such ruthless acts may negatively impact their psychology in the future. Meanwhile, as we are in the process of negotiating with the terrorist, we will be buying enough time for the national security agencies to reorganize themselves and possible launch their rescue operations. After some time, we believe the police, FBI, CTU, and JFFT, together with our local security team shall have come up with the rescue operation that they will launch against the terrorist and rescue the lives of both the students and their teachers.
References
D’Angelo, A. P. (2007). Strategic change and the Joint Terrorism Task Force: Ideas and recommendations. Naval Postgraduate School. Monterey. Retrieved November 13,
2012, from: http://www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA477108&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
Federal Bureau of Investigations. (2011). Facts and figures: Today’s FBI. FBI. Retrieved November 13, 2012, from: http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/facts-and-figures-2010-2011
McNeill, J. B. (2011). The PATRIOT Act and the Constitution: Five key points. Retrieved November 13, 2012, from: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/02/the-
Government Accountability Office. (2008). Progress made in implementation of management and mission functions, but more work remains, GAO-08-457T. Department of Homeland Security, Retrieved November 13, 2012, from: http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d08457thigh.pdf
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