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Release Date: 06/23/04 00:00:00
Dallas, Texas
Homeland Security Information Network
June 23, 2004
(Remarks as Prepared)
Good morning and thank you for that wonderful Texas welcome. Did Roger Staubach just walk in the room? Speaking of Dallas Cowboys, I hope you will be much kinder to me than you will be to another native of Pittsburgh visiting soon – my Steelers will be in town October 17th.
I’d like to give special thanks to Special Agent in Charge Lupe Gonzalez of the Dallas FBI Field Office. Lupe has played a key role in our homeland security efforts in the Dallas area, providing personnel, office space, resources, and his time.
Over two hundred years ago, our Founding Fathers became the first patriots. At great personal risk, they nursed a new nation from the bonds of a tyrant…and we became a people with a common destiny of liberty and opportunity.
You know the story of our Founders. I’d like to share with you a story that you may not know so well…a story that tells as well as any what it means to be an American.
A girl grew up in Chicago, the youngest child in a family with twelve children. Her cousins and uncles and godparents worked the sweaty, hard jobs of Chicago cops and firefighters, and two of her brothers went away to Vietnam with the Marine Corps. She grew up, married, and stayed home to raise three kids of her own. Then she taught herself computers and the technology necessary to use them. Then she started her own company with her son – a company that had software that, among other things, helped talent agencies conduct talent searches.
And this software, this technology with a robust search capability, was the type of technology that the FBI desperately needed after September 11th. On September 12, it took 2 ½ hours to reach 540 local law enforcement organizations in Dallas to stand up multi-agency command posts.
We needed a better, faster tool to disseminate and collect information, and connect people.
When Art Fierro, Special Agent with the Dallas FBI, called this woman, she took down all the FBI’s requirements and redeployed her existing technology to fulfill our country’s needs.
The FBI told her that they could not pay her very much money. She said not to worry about the money, the country faced a national emergency and she would do whatever it took to help.
Sacrifice on behalf of our country often requires us to forfeit self interest and private goals for the sake of the common interest and public good. For her sacrifice and patriotism, today I’d like to recognize and thank Jo Balderas. I’d also like to recognize Art Fierro for his tireless efforts to help develop this great tool that the private sector can use to communicate with each other and with the Department.
Jo and Art are not only pioneers of this excellent program that I am here to announce today, but they also help answer the question: What is at stake, why must we win this war?
Our survival is at stake. Our way of life that allows a young girl in Chicago to dream about becoming a CEO of her own company -- and know that the realization of that dream is entirely up to her – is at stake. And our commitment to uphold the values for which our Founders and all those who came after fought, is at stake.
I remember when the Twin Towers crumbled to the ground…and smoke and dust covered everything… and the Pentagon burned…and heroes were born over the Pennsylvania skies.
I knew – we all knew – that the people who did this did not care who they killed -- moms, dads, kids, Muslims, Christians, Americans, non-Americans. They did not care because life means nothing to them.
Well, here in the United States we care about life, we care about each other, and we care about this great nation. And so we came together and said collectively…never again.
We know that freedom’s greatest companion is fellowship – unity, the integration of a nation, everyone pledged to freedom’s cause, everyone its protector, everyone its beneficiary.
All of you in this room understand the importance of that type of partnership as we work to provide the highest standard of protection for our nation and citizens.
The threat is wide in scope, and requires bold and innovative solutions, as well as a shared commitment, working from the ground up – using local knowledge to build regional strength to develop a robust national security.
One of these solutions is the Homeland Security Information Network Critical Infrastructure Pilot Program (HSIN-CI). A program forged by the strong partnership not only between the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, but also with the private sector, our local leaders, law enforcement and first responders.
It is a cross-agency, cross-sector, cross discipline, public and private information-sharing and alert notification system. And it is locally governed and administered by knowledgeable, respected domain experts and decision makers from the private and public sectors.
I would like to acknowledge the members of this local governance – the Infrastructure Advisory Panel. This volunteer group of private sector business security professionals has dedicated their personal time, experience, and energy to the success of this program.
Dedication demonstrated by their success developing this grass-roots effort that now is a national pilot program.
Indeed, the name Homeland Security Information Network - Critical Infrastructure almost seems too limiting – it is really an information network for community infrastructure.
When we talk about developing a national strategy that incorporates a regional approach and an entire community’s shared responsibility -- integrating a nation – this is what we mean.
Through HSIN-CI, the Dallas community – and soon the communities of Seattle, Atlanta and Indianapolis – will have a real-time mechanism to share information locally – across the public and private sector.
And they will also have the capability to quickly push this information to Homeland Security using a link on the publicly accessible FBI Tips reporting program.
HSIN-CI will provide unobstructed information sharing to the right people – those who need to know and those who need to act.
And it will provide it quickly, with the capability to make 10,000 calls per minute and send 3,000 faxes simultaneously. Notifications can also be sent out by e-mail and text messaging.
I tell you, if we had this type of communication and information-sharing 20 years ago, we would not have had to wait until next season to know who shot J.R!
We are driven by a sense of urgency and national importance unprecedented in modern times…and our work together has resulted in a country more secure and better prepared than it has ever been.
And that urgency does not diminish. We know we must stay ahead of those who seek to destroy us and our way of life.
Along with that urgency, this Department has a clear mission statement that we will lead the unified national effort to secure America.
But let me state clearly: Homeland Security is a national strategy. And while Washington can be expected to lead, we cannot nor should not, micro-manage the protection of an entire nation.
Instead, it must be a priority in every city, every neighborhood, every business across America.
You and your colleagues – business leaders, governors, mayors, county officials, tribal leaders, airline personnel, border patrol agents, the intelligence community – citizens and freedom-loving people everywhere – all have a stake in this challenge.
And our private sector partners should know – the citizens of this country rely on you for your resources – but they depend on you, too, for their protection.
The vast, rich information sharing tool that is HSIN-CI will be yet another way for you to help protect them -- sharing real-time situational awareness with each other and with us.
We need you, and expect you, to take the initiative, as so many of you have rightly done, to strengthen the security of our country. I encourage you to participate in this pilot program and to participate in other Department programs designed to help us protect America.
There is a great challenge here. But Americans respond to a challenge. And I know Texans certainly respond to challenge – our President comes to mind --“Don’t Mess with Texas!” right?
Throughout our history, we have seen that freedom is an unyielding principle. It knits every heart and mind together – so strong that it will endure so that we as a nation will endure…so deeply felt that, through its grace and guidance, future generations of Americans will feel it too.
And they will meet future challenges with the same purpose that we do today.
Thank you.
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This page was last reviewed/modified on 06/23/04 00:00:00.
