Honoring Our Veterans

As we honor the service and sacrifice of our nation’s veterans on this Veteran’s Day, I hope you’ll join me in honoring the tens of thousands of veterans who serve our country as members of Department of Homeland Security.

DHS’ civilian workforce includes approximately 47,000 veterans, comprising 25 percent of all employees—including Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute—in addition to the 42,000 active duty members of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Every day, these men and women play a critical role in our nation’s security – guarding against terrorism, securing our borders, enforcing immigration laws, preparing for and responding to disasters, and strengthening our Department’s operations.

Monday, I joined President Obama as he signed an Executive Order establishing the Veterans Employment Initiative to increase employment opportunities in the federal government and help recently hired veterans succeed in their jobs.

Engaging veterans and veterans’ organizations at the Department continues to be one of my top priorities. We want and need veterans to lend their unique skills, experience, and clear commitment to service to our mission. That’s why we have set a goal to have 50,000 veterans on-board at the Department by 2012.

To help us achieve that goal, today we launched a new website specifically for veterans – www.dhs.gov/veterans. This one-stop-shop contains information about hiring and business opportunities for veterans, ways to get involved in community-based efforts like Citizen Corps, and special veteran programs such as Operation Warfighter and Wounded Warrior, which provide employment opportunities for severely wounded or recovering service members to assist their transition back to the military or civilian workforce.

We’re proud to have so many veterans at DHS contributing to our mission every day. On Veterans Day and every day throughout the year, let’s continue to give thanks to veterans, both inside and outside the Department, for all they've done to serve our country.

Janet Napolitano

Operation ATLAS: Targeting Illegal Cash Couriers Worldwide

Today Secretary Napolitano and World Customs Organization Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya joined together in Brussels to announce the results of an unprecedented international law enforcement operation that led to the seizure of more than $3.5 million in smuggled cash over a five day period.

Dubbed Operation ATLAS (Assess, Target, Link, Analyze and Share), this groundbreaking investigation brought together law enforcement agencies from over 80 countries worldwide to target and disrupt cash couriers--people employed by criminal organizations to move their illicit funds across international borders.

Operation ATLAS focused on identifying these illicit cash couriers by employing several different methods to detect cash carried in baggage, on travelers and in shipments aboard commercial flights at designated airports. ATLAS also promoted the sharing of information and intelligence among customs agencies. In the United States, this operation was led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with participation from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and coordinated by the World Customs Organization.

Operation ATLAS is the latest and largest example of how increased international cooperation among law enforcement and customs agencies has resulted in the identification of new smuggling routes and methods used by criminal organizations throughout the world.

In September, ICE worked closely with law enforcement partners in Colombia and Mexico to uncover more than $41 million smuggled in shipping containers bound for Colombia. And in July, an ICE-led multilateral operation targeting cash couriers seized more than $3.5 million and detected an additional $4.2 million in undeclared currency at ports of entry around the globe.

This level of multilateral coordination is truly unprecedented and illustrates how the Department and our international allies are working together to shut down criminal organizations’ old ways of doing business.

John Morton
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

U.S. and EU Agree on Data Protection Principles

This week the United States and European Union achieved a major milestone in data protection and data sharing. The U.S. – EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministerial completed a set of common principles that unite our approaches to protecting personal data when exchanging information for law enforcement and security purposes.

The Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State have worked with experts from the EU Presidency and Commission for the past three years to develop these principles. Leadership on both sides of the Atlantic share a deeply rooted commitment to the protection of personal data and privacy when it comes to information sharing. This practical approach will enable Europe and the United States to remain global leaders in privacy protection as we work to protect our citizens from common threats to our security.

The next step is negotiating a binding international EU-U.S. agreement based on these common principles to facilitate further cooperation while ensuring the availability of full protection for our citizens. The Department of Homeland Security looks forward to being a part of those efforts in the months ahead.

Mary Ellen Callahan
Chief Privacy Officer
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

EU-US Joint Statement on "Enhancing transatlantic cooperation in the area of Justice, Freedom and Security" (PDF, 7 pages - 116KB)