More than 200 security professionals from various backgrounds, (antiterrorism, intelligence, OPSEC, cyber defense, law enforcement, emergency management) met at the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall Spates Hall Community Club to discuss this year's theme "Enhancing an All Hazards Approach," to national emergency management in the Nation's Capital, Sept. 7 and 8, 2011.
The Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region and the U.S. Army Military District of Washington (JFHQ-NCR/MDW) hosted its second annual Force Protection Seminar featuring presentations and discussions with various subject-matter experts in an effort to enhance information sharing and best practices among all DoD agencies and inter-agency partners throughout the National Capital Region (NCR).
"One goal of the Force Protection mission is to develop partnerships between state and local governments that is comprehensive, risk based, and all-hazard in approach," said seminar coordinator Marvin Solomon, JFHQ-NCR/MDW Force Protection Division. "At JFHQ-NCR/MDW that means we are constantly meeting face to face with our protection partners to ensure information sharing continues throughout the National Capital Region."
Striking a nerve of many attendees with teenage children at home Dr. Robert E. Young, director of the National Defense University Information Assurance Lab, described the dangers of downloading from the web.
"The number one way a person gets access to your computer is through the downloading of stolen music from the internet," said Young. "It takes just six minutes for a person to break into your computer and steal your information if you download the wrong thing. You have to watch what you are doing, and that means watching what everybody in your house is doing on your computer."
Young also stressed that achieving Information Assurance (IA), requires more than possessing leading edge technologies and superior operational capabilities. It requires well educated, highly skilled, and technically savvy people in a variety of IA related disciplines. To assist finding an adequate number of such trained individuals, DoD has developed the Information Assurance Scholarship program, which enables government employees a chance to earn graduate degrees pertinent to IA free of charge. Read more on this program at: http://cio-nii.defense.gov/sites/iasp2/
During both days of the seminar, working lunches featured panel discussions on such topics as protection of military installations, recruiting and medical facilities, as well as possible evacuation plans for the NCR.
Also held on JBM-HH in the parking lot across the street from Spates Hall was the JFHQ-NCR/MDW Emergency Preparedness EXPO 2011. The rainy weather didn't deter a number of seminar attendees as they viewed static displays and learned of ways to enhance DoD military and civilian awareness of the All Hazards Approach to office and home safety. The EXPO ran from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 8.
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