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While much progress has been made since 9/11 in the critically-important area of intelligence and information sharing, most of us would agree there is still much work to be done. Past Conventions have highlighted these challenges, but our intent in this year's Convention is to "take it to the next level."
In addition to the traditional federal agency and industry attendees and participants, we plan to be more inclusive during this year's Convention by bringing in state and local constituencies - clearly our largest customer-base for fused, coordinated, integrated, and analyzed information in the fight against Terrorism.
Also, while prevention of …. and reaction to …. terrorist threats and actions are both critically important … our main focus during this Convention will be on Prevention.
The conference will begin with former Governor Jim Gilmore (R-VA) providing his assessment of our current status. Governor Gilmore and his team just completed the Gilmore Commission Report - a multi-year study on the status of our HLS efforts. We will then profile the Homeland Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security in describing their roles and focus on "Who's in charge?" The rest of the first day is primarily focused on how the federal government supports state and local agencies.
Our second day will focus on successful law enforcement efforts and we will profile the "tactics, techniques, and procedures" used by several states and localities (NY, FL, and CA) in fighting the war on terrorism.
Our third day will convene for the morning session only -- allowing attendees to either return home later that day or to transition to a 4th of July vacation in the "World's leading resort destination." On this last day, we will address the sensitive issue of balancing national security with individual privacy rights, and we will profile the long-standing experiences of the interagency community in the fight against drugs as a model of cooperation in the war on Terrorism.
We are taking special pains this year to ensure we bring the right functional expertise to the podium and that they are engaging, interesting, and interactive.
Finally, it is our intent to ensure threads of consistency - in both the design and conduct of our Convention -- are maintained year-to-year such that we are able to carry forward to the appropriate agencies the main points identified in the Convention and that we are able to "pick up where we left off" in subsequent year's
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