Ch 12.docx

Chapter 12: Ethics and other important issues in homeland security Learning objectives This chapter will discuss ethical theory as applied to homeland security. The discussion will include the related issues of technology and privacy as well as quality of service delivery through recruitment of pers...

Chapter 12: Ethics and other important issues in homeland security Learning objectives This chapter will discuss ethical theory as applied to homeland security. The discussion will include the related issues of technology and privacy as well as quality of service delivery through recruitment of personnel. Vocabulary Career path Civil Rights Deontological Doctrine of Veracity Ethics and morality Ethics and morality Fidelity Functionalism Gen Z Jeremy Bentham Justice Legitimacy Logic of failure Loyalty Millennial Natural Law Natural Law Rights Obligation Operation Phoenix Paradigm shift Procedural justice Social Contract Substantive justice Teleological Immanuel Kant Third Wave Introduction And so, we reach the final chapter. It is fairly typical in textbooks for the final chapter to follow the lines of ‘the future of…’ whatever the topic of the book may be. The future being an unknown and homeland security being ever evolving in a pattern of sometimes radical change (think the Maui Fire or the Israeli-Hezbollah War during 2023), and it is easy to see the future of homeland security is far from predictable. So, we will not spend much time speculating on the future. This chapter is mainly concerned with ethics and related problems relevant to homeland security. The other topics presented here, such as recruitment and technology have ethical implications which will be noted as we proceed. Before moving into the chapter, we will take just a moment to discuss the future of homeland security. It is a common saying in the military that we are always fighting the previous war; in public safety we are always preparing for the previous emergency. Just as it takes the warfighters time to adapt to new realities, so it takes emergency services to adapt training and equipment to new situations. This leads to what Dietrich Dorner refers to as ‘the logic of failure.’ Dorner posits that human beings are inherently afraid of uncertainty, we afraid of inconsistencies, especially in thinking; and, we cannot help but take short-cuts in thinking. Therefore, we want to see new events as if they were past events thus eliminating uncertainty and inconsistencies enabling us to meet new situations without much thought; certainly, without much depth of thought. As a result, we plan for and prepare to meet not the future, but the past. If preparation is based on past events, we will likely fail to meet the new event with any degree of success until operators can adapt current practice to new realities or formulate a new practice from the old. In effect, we must accept failure as key to the process of learning and adapting. When those failures lead to loss of life and property, it can be pretty hard for the public to accept. We are bound by what we know and can only plan, train, and begin interventions based on the past. The real future of homeland security, then, lies adaptability at the agency as well as individual level. As Darwin said, survival is not to the strongest or the smartest, but to the most adaptable. The future of homeland security should be a matter of teaching practitioners to think and then adapt what they know to meet new, perhaps unimagined situations. As stated earlier in this book, a major tenet of 4GW is adaptability and the ability to do so quickly while fully engaged in the situation. This applies to floods, hazardous materials spills, and epidemics as well as 4GW/terrorism. The Ethics of Homeland Security We will leave the future to the future and proceed with the present. In many textbooks, college classes, and training academy curriculum, it seems fairly usual that presentation or discussion of ethics is put at the end of the book and the course of study. The danger with this is that it may leave the impression with the student that ethics are not important since they were put off to the last. A worse impression may occur when the course ends before the topic of ethics is covered. Although leaving discussion of ethics to the end may leave a negative impression on the student, putting the topic at the end of the course may make sense because one must have an understanding of the many often complex aspects of the particular topic before they are able to fully appreciate the application of ethics to the topic. That is, if your knowledge of homeland security is limited, the ethics of homeland security will mean little. As a practitioner of homeland security, you are bound by oath to protect the public and do so with fundamental human decency; that is, ethically. You must act with equity and fairness and due what you believe to be right regardless of possible personal consequences, which is really the nature of ethical conduct and the essence of morality. Most essentially, ethics is the theoretical study of right and wrong, good and evil, justice and injustice. Morality is the practice of ethically acceptable behavior; that is, the practice of what is right, good, and just. Ethics is theory; morality is practice. Among the concepts making up ethics are: Fidelity Loyalty Obligation Honesty Justice Human Dignity (which requires honoring everyone’s right to self determination as well as their self-respect) (Basic Human) Rights We will get to each of these in turn. First, we need to discuss basic ethical theories. In western civilization, there are essentially two schools of ethics, deontological and teleological. Deontological ethics are rules based or duty based. For example, Immanuel Kant, writing near the end of the 18th Century stated that one should act as if their goal was to make such actions a universal law; in effect, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So, Kant’s ethics prohibited lying, even to save an innocent life as one would doubtless not want to be lied to by all people all the time for any reason or no reason. Teleological ethics are results based measuring good and evil, justice and injustice in terms of end product and are exemplified by Jeremy Bentham’s Utility or Utilitarian ethics, also from the 18th Century. Bentham stated that the act was moral which achieved the greatest amount of pleasure or reduced the total amount of pain for the greatest number of people affected by the act. This is usually somewhat misstated as the greatest good for the greatest number. Although not entirely accurate as to what Bentham may have meant, for most purposes ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ is accurate enough. Although the two systems of ethics are opposites, there are situations in which Kant’s system is unworkable; the alluded to refusing to lie even if it were to save an innocent life, for example. Likewise, when applying Utility, there are some things one just can’t do to others. For example, if the death penalty were a deterrent to murder and hypothetically for every execution, we prevented 10 murders; on balance we could justify occasionally executing an innocent person now and then because of the greater benefit to society as a whole. Consider in homeland security, the triage of injured persons; judging who we write off so as to give others a greater chance at life would likely run counter to our beliefs in the value of human life. Consider also sending a group of first responders deeply into harm’s way to save a single endangered person; something that is done on a daily basis; although Kant would likely approve endangering the many to save the one, Bentham would likely not. The Dirty Harry Problem Clint Eastwood’s classic movie Dirty Harry premiered in 1971. Carl Klockars’ classic article, The Dirty Harry Problem appeared 14 year later. Klockars uses the actions of the movie character, Detective ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan to explore the moral issues of using illegal means or at least questionable means to accomplish ‘…a clearly good end.’ A Dirty Harry Problem is a problem from which one cannot escape without doing wrong. You can employ a dirty means or a less dirty means, or you can walk away; but you cannot walk away innocent as walking away in such cases constitutes wrong doing, as well. Klockars states the moral danger of a Dirty Harry Problem is not choosing whether to do wrong, wrong doing in such cases is inevitable. The real danger is the mistaken belief you can walk away and walk away blameless. As Klockars states so well, “One cannot be both just and innocent.” Morally, one must do what they believe to be right and accept the consequences. The Issues of Ethics Fidelity, loyalty, and obligation are closely related; all essentially mean honoring your commitments to your oath of office, institutions, and other people; prioritizing your commitments in terms of your values, and living up to those values. For example, most of us likely prioritize our family over school; simple enough. But in an emergency, would you prioritize your oath to protect the public over the safety of your family? This is admittedly a difficult question and one only you can answer. You should however, consider this question and similar questions when you have the time to think rather than ignoring the issue until the event. Honesty is valued in most if not all ethical systems as we cannot determine the intentions of others towards us unless there is some level of trust. The Doctrine of Veracity is the concept that for society to function, we must work from an assumption that others are being honest with us until we have reason to believe otherwise. If you work in law enforcement, however, you cannot afford to believe that everyone is being honest with you. Criminal justice careers would seem to turn the Doctrine of Veracity around, at least some of the time and the officer learns quickly not to trust the word of even the most seemingly sincere of persons; perhaps especially the most seemingly sincere. Grotius (1583-1645), who developed much of international law, wrote that there was nothing immoral about lying to someone who held ill intentions or who was lying to you. Although his conclusions are debatable, lying in the course of criminal justice practice is seemingly a necessity. Although Kant labeled all lying as wrong and other ethicists have considered it morally dangerous, the utilitarian would advise that lying is often a necessity for the greater good. From the utilitarian view, the issue shifts from lying as always wrong to whether lying in a particular case is indeed the greater good for the society, that is, the greater number. In short, on balance lying is harmful and must therefore be justified leading to the question of who benefits, who suffers harm, and how great are the benefits compared to the harm? To Kant, lying was a sin; to Bentham, lying was merely a tool to be used when it was the most appropriate tool for accomplishing the job at hand which was producing the greatest good for society. Undercover operations are built on lies. Agents working undercover are telling the most fundamental lie of all; they are lying about their very personhood. Other types of intelligence operations rely on deception in many forms. The goal of such lies is to protect the many at the expense of the few; the many are presumed to be innocent persons while the few are presumed to be acting criminally. On balance, the undercover operation, or lies used to collect information through deception are based on such an analysis are presumed therefore to be morally justifiable. Where undercover operations can become unethical (and illegal) is cases that began or end in entrapment or in which the costs are high and the return negligible. Perjury, lying under oath, is never acceptable legally or morally as such lying undermines the legitimacy of the justice system itself. Perjury to obtain a warrant, for example, is legally and morally wrong it destroys the people’s faith and trust in the system, itself which will ultimately cause the system to fail in the ideal of equal justice under law. Thus, perjury is unacceptable as any positive benefits are offset by the damage done to the legitimacy of the system. System legitimacy, simply put, means that people obey the law and the law enforcers from a sense of respect and the belief that they gain more from obedience than they give up. That is, people obey the law because they believe in the law and the system that enforces the law. Whatever freedom or other rights they give up in the process are more than regained through safety, security, and justice. Justice, simply put, may be defined as everyone getting what they deserve. Since this definition is very subjective, for our purposes we will add that justice refers to equal justice under law; that is, justice is defined in terms of written law and due process which may differ from our personal perception of what is fair. Procedural justice and procedural due process refer to the process and stages of System operation. Substantive justice and substantive due process refer to theories of justice to determine what is fundamentally fair. One could say the substantive justice was theory and procedural justice is the practice; similar to ethics versus morality. To Kant, justice was a matter of protecting the individual’s dignity and autonomy. People were an end in themselves and were never to be used as a means to an end regardless of the who might benefit. To Bentham, justice was simply the public good; the rights and needs of individuals was secondary at best. Dignity is inherent to who we are. Dignity is in part a matter of self-respect including how we see ourselves and in part a matter of how others see us and behave towards us. Dignity assumes free will and therefore personal responsibility. It also means that we have innate value and that we are more than a way for others to get what they want; but it means rather Kant’s ideal that each person is an end in themselves and should be treated on that basis regardless of the needs of society as a whole. Admittedly, this is an oversimplification of Kant (and Bentham) but a full application and explanation is beyond the scope of this book. Although not a separate concept on our list, privacy is closely related to dignity, and is also considered a right. Not everyone needs to know our inmost thoughts and desires and some of these, if known to others would likely prove quite embarrassing to us and perhaps them. Many of us doubtless would rather others not know some of the TV shows we watch or how we spend our money. In terms of homeland security, privacy becomes an issue if government agencies are monitoring behavior of suspected terrorists, but also ’spying’ on us using artificial intelligence or other means to sift through large amounts of social media postings, emails, or on-line searches. Although not intrusive, most of us would rather the government not know that much about us If government agents are randomly or using ‘a wide net’ to collect information, this is an ethical and a legal issue we have not as a society come to grips with as yet. However, if Google, for example, ‘spies’ on consumers for purposes of selling advertising, many if not most of us seem to have no problem other than occasionally annoyance from pop-ups related to our search activity. And most search engines, social media platforms etc do monitor your activity and do sell your information to advertisers. If in the process monitoring internet activity for commercial purposes, AI or other means identifies ‘suspicious’ activity and then reports it to the government, this is likely perfectly legal, although the ethical question regarding privacy remains; however, the consumer should recognize they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in any internet activity (read the terms of use next time). On the other hand, if government agents ask, for example Google, to conduct surveillance for them, then Google would be acting as a government agent and would come under the same legal and ethical restrictions as the agents prompting them. Again, you signed away your privacy rights when you joined a social media site, created an email account, and in some cases, made on-line purchases. Legally, you have no expectation of privacy on-line. Ethically, that would depend on a number of factors, but if you read the privacy agreement before checking the little box, you really have no grounds for complaint. Before we leave the concept of privacy, the Internal Revenue Service has a great deal of power to audit your banking transactions in some cases and banks are required to report some transactions to the government; all without probable cause. It bears noting as we move on, that the Constitution nowhere explicitly states you have a right to privacy; such a right may be implied but speaking of a ‘Constitutional right to privacy’ is a bit of a misstatement. And finally, here, we come to rights. Rights are most simply defined as moral entitlements. They are statements of what is owed from whom to whom. Standing up for one’s rights may be regarded as integral to dignity. There are two basic theories of rights, Natural Law Rights and Social Contract Rights. The opening words of the Declaration of Independence are a concise statement of Natural Law Rights. Jefferson wrote that we are all endowed with ‘certain unalienable rights’. The concept of such rights, be they ‘unalienable’ or ‘inalienable’, means there are certain rights that cannot be taken from us, by government or any other entity. Natural Law Theory and the concept of Natural Law Rights acknowledges that these rights can be violated; but they cannot be taken from you. Therefore, violation of Natural Law Rights, if they exist and are truly inalienable, must be justified; otherwise, the violation is immoral. In the Declaration, Jefferson referred to rights as coming from “…the laws of nature and of Nature’s God…”. The belief there is ‘Natural Law’ and Natural Law Rights is perhaps 3,000 years old, or older. Natural Law Theory holds that Natural Rights are unchangeable. However, the meaning or defining of Natural Law and Natural Rights does evolve over time. Natural Law and attendant rights themselves never change; only interpretation changes. For example, slavery was always a violation of Natural Law, but it took several thousand years for most societies to accept that fact. As the Industrial Revolution advanced with the 19th Century, theories of rights based on the existence of Natural Law began to change. The idea of universal rights based in Natural Law was replaced with the idea that rights are specific to a society and change as that society changes; not the understanding, but the rights themselves change with societal need. This led to the theory there is a social contract that forms the basis of all societies. In effect, under a social contract we compromise with others as it is in our best interest to do so. We give up some freedom for increased security. We delegate law enforcement, fire protection, and emergency medicine to government agencies as we could hardly do these things ourselves. We give up part of our income and give our cooperation to these agencies in return for the services they provide us. The sociological perspective of Functionalism supports the idea that all social institutions and phenomenon exist because a particular society values those institutions and phenomena; that is, they fulfill a necessary or at least respected function. We have government to ensure social order by enforcing a social contract. To paraphrase Russell Kirk, human beings cannot exist without social order (1991). In his book on government written during the mid-17th Century, Thomas Hobbes opined that without a social contract enforced by governments, life would be ‘Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ (Leviathan). The theory of a hypothetical Social Contract means there are Social Contract Rights or rights inherent to organized society. Coming from Social Contract Rights are Civil Rights which are granted by the civil authority, that is, government; government being needed to enforce a social contract. As mentioned, if there are such a thing as Natural Law Rights, they can be violated but not taken and violation requires justification to be moral. Civil rights, granted by government can be annulled or modified at the will of the government; hopefully at least for the greater good. Annulment or modification may or may not require justification for societal members to accept (legitimacy), but justification would be political more so than moral. And that leads to today. Our modern concept of rights, while based in theories of natural law and social contract, is mostly a product of the industrial revolution. We have moved on from the Industrial Era. In his landmark book, The Third Wave, Allen Toffler (1980) wrote there have been three waves of society. The first wave was the Agricultural Revolution which started about 6,000 years ago. The Industrial Revolution was the second wave, starting about 250 years ago. The Third Wave is the Information Revolution, which began about 1950. Toffler cited 1950 as the year the Information Revolution began because that year’s US census showed more Americans employed in information related jobs than agriculture and industry combined. Each wave represented a paradigm shift; that is, a complete change in the way human beings viewed the world resulting in a shift with the way human beings interacted with the world and each other. The Second Wave brought in ideas of rights, equality, and the individual as individual. Our current understanding of the ideas of dignity, privacy, honesty between all persons, and loyalty to others are in at least some degree products of the social changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. The social changes caused by the Industrial Revolution did not occur over night; in fact, it has taken the better part of the past 250 years. And, no; much of the world still does not recognize these changes. However, these changes have driven the Western World’s understanding of the value of human life, individuality, and general morality for the better part of those 250 years. But as stated, we have moved on from there; we are well into the Third Wave and Fourth Generation Warfare. We may need to re-think our Second Wave ideas about ethics and rights. In other words, our ideas of privacy, due process, and individuality may no longer be viable. One force driving this is of course technology which allows a level of surveillance unthinkable a few years ago. The fact this surveillance can occur with little to no intrusion on the individual would make it more agreeable under the idea that if one is not doing anything wrong, they have nothing to be concerned with. As a society, we have already accepted if not embraced the loss of privacy caused by cell phones, the internet, and monitoring of our credit cards and bank accounts. A second factor driving a change in the view of fundamental rights is 4th generation warfare. This makes all of us potential targets where ever we might be. Concerts, sporting events; any mass attendance event, even religious services, provide the 4th generation warrior a target rich environment. As such, greatly enhanced security must accompany these events and attendees must simply learn to deal with the attendant loss of privacy. Aside from mass events is the security now needed simply in crowded streets and shopping districts. Anyone going to the business district of a large city or a city park must expect to be observed by CCTV, drones, and facial recognition technology. In terms of due process, a warrant supported by oath or affirmation attesting to the existence of probable cause must support an arrest or search, unless exigent circumstances exist. The amount of time someone can be detained without probable cause (reasonable suspicion) is quite limited. One can only be arrested or detained for a crime they have committed and when probable cause exist that they did so. To charge someone with attempt, they have to have advanced beyond ‘mere preparation’. Theoretically, theoretically artificial intelligence could be used to justify detention of persons for something they might do. Consider that in many states, sex offenders can serve a prison term and then be committed to a mental health facility of treatment on the grounds they still pose a danger to society (Miller, J., 2010). Such arrangements are justified legally on the grounds that prisons are for punishment whereas mental hospitals are for treatment; one detention is criminal court and the other is civil court. Based perhaps on an algorithm analyzing social media posts, a case could be made that a person is a clear and present danger to society and therefore they should be detained pending investigation although they have committed no offense. So-called ‘red flag laws’ allow one’s property to be confiscated (firearms) based on a complaint the person posed a danger to themselves or others. Some states allow such a seizure of property to occur with somewhat minimal due process with a standard lower than probable cause and missing such niceties as the burden of proof being on the state; rather, the burden of proof is on the individual that they do not pose a danger. Although these laws are quite controversial, many people approve of them on the grounds of public safety, especially in the age of mass shootings in schools. Another change occurring may be in what we will call the philosophy of the individual; that is the value of individuals as individuals and the attendant value placed on human life in general. Consider that during the Vietnam War, the United States operated a program of targeted assassinations of enemy leaders (Rosenau & Long, 2009). The program was called Operation Phoenix. This form of state sponsored 4GW was outlawed by Congress when this program came to light. In high tech warfare, essentially the same program has been revived in the form of targeted drone strikes. Operation Phoenix assassinations usually killed only the intended victim. Drone strikes, even those considered ‘surgical’ are known to cause ‘collateral damage’ including the deaths of non-combatants some of whom are children. The objection to Operation Phoenix seems to have been based on the idea that such actions were little better than murder. Drone strikes against individuals seem to have generated relatively few protests even when such strikes have caused non-combatant deaths and injuries. Such is the difference in societal values over 50 years. Essentially, Operation Phoenix was preemptive action. Preemptive action is accepted in the international law of war. Thus, Israel’s preemptive strikes starting the Six Day War of 1967, were legal even though there was no formal state of war between Israel and surrounding belligerent nations. Preemptive law enforcement activity has not been acceptable in the United States. Preemptive law enforcement operations, when they have occurred in the US, have been widely condemned as unconstitutional; we’re not talking assassination, certainly, but arrests or long-term detention such as is practiced in some European countries under various anti-terror statutes would be a hard sell in the US. Much of the controversy related to terror suspects detained at the Guantanamo Naval Base has been related to detaining people for crimes they may commit; that is, preventive detention or preemptive detention. However, these detainees are foreign nationals ‘arrested’ overseas by US Military forces. As non-state actors, they are not prisoners of war but as foreign national detained overseas, the belief is their dure process rights are limited. If transported to the United States they would be subject to habeas corpus and other due process. However, the ‘Gitmo’ detainees and their legal limbo does little to clarify the use of preventive detention or proactive law enforcement in general. Modern technology make preemptive law enforcement operations quite feasible, if not practical; but the constitutionality and morality are quite complex. Charging people with crimes of conspiracy and attempt, as discussed in Chapter Two, are problematic enough; preemptive detention based on social media posts would require a new dimension of our understanding of law and the role of law enforcement in a free society. Among other issues is the ever-present possibility of false positives and the use of preventive detention raises numerous problems as in effect people are being detained not for what they have done or even planning, but what they might do. No technology is perfect and justification of ‘pre-crime units’ such as those in the movie Minority Report are technologically feasible; however, they represent a major expansion of government control that could cause more harm than good. There is a very old argument among philosophers as to whether there is such a thing as the individual or rather, is there only the group? That is, do we have an existence in and of ourselves or is our existence, purely existence as a member of a group or groups? Kant would doubtless argue the former; a utilitarian the latter. As human interaction mediated through technology increasingly replaces face-to-face interaction and as society seemingly places more value on us as members of a group over any value as individuals, it is likely the utilitarian argument will increasingly become the fundamental ethic of homeland security. As such, some ‘right’ considered inherent to the individual can be modified or eliminated and made morally acceptable under the justification of group survival. Ben Franklin famously stated that, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety” (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0107). Franklin lived in a society slowly moving from the First into the Second Wave. As Justice Robert Jackson who lived in a society rapidly moving from Second into Third Wave noted in 1949, the Constitution is not a suicide pact (https://www.americanbar.org/groups/senior_lawyers/publications/voice_of_experience/2022/july-2022/quarantine-masks-and-the-constitution/). In short, American society is moving increasingly into a morality of a social contract based in utility placing more emphasis on group security at the expense of individual rights. As such, to ensure security for ourselves, we must accept diminishing rights and freedoms to ensure the level of safety that once existed with those rights firmly and more broadly defined. In short, we live in a more dangerous age than Franklin, or Justice Jackson for that matter, and must accept more limits on our rights to ensure the security that existed in Franklin or Jackson’s time. Put another way, we must all expect to take a harder hit for the team. These changes will make an already complex society more so. As social relations and the relationship of people and government shifts to an increasing level of government control, the majority of the burden of enforcement will of course fall on law enforcement. With 4GW a fact of life, and as more people concentrate into urban areas thus making natural and other disasters more deadly and destructive, the job of police, fire, and EMS will require more education and training. The level of danger to first responders is likely to increase, as well. The oath of office for these careers includes a promise to go in harm’s way. Not everyone is willing to do that, even for the greater good, and it seems the number of those willing to do so is decreasing. Recruitment A major issue in policing is recruitment; the same applies to the fire service and EMS. Traditionally, people were attracted to these careers because they represented action, excitement, as well as a heightened level of job security. Traditionally, these jobs were not particularly well paid, although benefits such as medical insurance and retirement were decent. For some, job security was a major motivation for such employment. Currently, pay scales have risen and benefits, particularly retirement benefits have improved. And yet, many agencies are working shorthanded can fill open positions only with difficulty. Jobs that don’t carry the risks of policing or firefighting also pay well and offer attractive benefits although perhaps not the same level of job security. Risk aversion may be a factor here and may be generational. Most law enforcement agencies recruit from the pool of 21–35-year-olds with fire departments often starting with a bit younger group. Thus the labor pool mostly consist of Millennials and Gen Zers (Zoomers). The society in which Millenials (born between 1981 and 1996) and Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012) seems on average to be more risk averse than the society in which Gen X (1965-1980) and the Baby Boomers (1946-1964) grew up. Aversion to risk may be a factor, although the evidence to support this conclusion is lacking. That said, much of the problem with police recruiting has been blamed on the small number of incidents that incited a national pushback against the police. Media portrayals of police as racists (among other things) and a seeming disenchantment with the current social order have led to radical demands ‘defund the police; that is, eliminate policing, altogether. In short, the public image of the police has been at a low point during recent years, although this is nothing new to those who remember or have studied the social history of the 1960s. These factors, however do not explain the recruitment problems of fire departments and EMS. Although intensely debated, there is simply no answer to the ‘why’ part of this problem and the why is beyond the scope of this book, anyway. We will try to address a few of the issues related to the ‘what’. Police, firefighters, and EMS personnel are homeland security as well as safety and security in general. There is no research that states clearly the number of police and other public safety personnel that are actually needed per 1,000 population; most agencies rely on regional averages to set their minimum number of employees. This minimum will be divided by the number of shifts that need to be covered and further divided by availability of personnel after allowing for days off, vacations, training, sick leave etc. From this, agencies may be able to establish a minimum number of persons on duty at a given time and this can be reconciled with actual service demand based on time and location. That of course is for normal operations; a major emergency will require all available agency personnel to respond regardless of duty status. Agencies hire based on need; need to replace persons who leave through the normal attrition process and need to expand the agency based on an increase in calls for service and other factors such as population growth and availability of tax money. Regardless of need, most agencies are having difficulties finding qualified applicants to meet their personnel needs. Hiring is further complicated due to the fact that agencies have continually raised standards over the past 50 or so years thus shrinking an already limited pool of applicants as higher standards mean fewer minimally qualified applicants. Standards have been raised due to a number of factors; among these is civil liability holding agencies accountable for making ‘bad’ hires as well as the increased demands of policing a free society. An increasingly diverse population in a society that values diversity requires first responders who are able to interact professionally with all community members. An increased reliance on technology also requires a better educated operator. Although training can mitigate issues related to personal bias it cannot eliminate them. Likewise, a lack of education can be fixed; but only to a point. These are main concerns; there are certainly others such as marijuana use and a history of violence, including fights during high school. The main point is that lowering standards at this point in time is widely considered to result in a poorer quality end product; community safety. Lowering standards will undoubtedly increase the civil liability of agencies as those persons bringing suit for civil rights violations often cite negligence in hiring as a key factor in such cases. Consider also that as less qualified officers weed themselves out due to boredom or inability to cope with the job and as agencies weed out others who are low performing or unable to cope the job, the rapid turnover in itself will reduce the quality of agency service. Additionally, rapid turnover is expensive as the cost to recruit, hire and train police, fire, and EMS personnel at the local level can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars per person hired; for a federal agency the cost is far more. Monetary costs are insignificant compared to the cost of the damage to an agency’s reputation and the loss of legitimacy to the homeland security career fields caused by a small number of inept, poorly qualified, or perhaps unethical employees. This leaves public safety agencies with a dilemma for which there are few solutions. Ethically, if the government has assumed responsibility for the safety and security of the governed, at least to some degree, government is obligated to fulfill that responsibility at, at least a minimal level. The author has no solutions to propose other than a ‘wait and see’ response hoping that society will change to promote a more positive view of public service or that the effects related to recent social history will play themselves out. Hiring qualified people, quality of service, and avoidance of liability through negligent hiring are closely related to providing appropriate training based on evolving knowledge of evolving threats and properly supervising personal. Agencies can be held liable for failure to train and failure to supervise. Legally, this would fall under negligence, but for our purposes these are also ethical issues. If the mandate of government is to secure social order through protection of life and property as well as keeping the peace while protecting civil rights, deliberate or negligent failure to do so could be regarded as morally wrong as it produces unnecessary suffering or suffering to no good or necessary end. High Tech/Low Tech Technology applied to 4GW allows anyone to wage war. In such an application, technology quickly becomes an evolutionary game with both sides seeking an evolutionary advantage. As bad actors accept and utilize a new technology, counter actors will seek and achieve a temporary advantage. Military based monitors can detect terrorists’ cell phone traffic and use that communication band or frequency to guide a drone strike. Terrorists will counter by using codes and apps to keep air time minimal to prevent monitors from locking onto their location. Law enforcement can obtain a roving wire tap to monitor a suspect’s cell phone communication over any phone. The suspect then loads up on disposable cell phones and tosses each of them after making a single call. As counter terrorists develop better technology, the terrorists can seek better technology, or revert to lower technology, rendering new technology of limited use. For example, two terrorists can share access to an email account. Terrorist 1 can create a message in the common account and rather than sending it, can save it to drafts. Terrorist 2 can access the common account and read and respond, again leaving the message in drafts. Physical activity can easily be hidden from drones or other high tech surveillance, or at least disguised as activity normal for a particular time and place. Night vision and thermal imaging technology can be fooled. Likewise, terrorists need not use advanced technology of their own for surveillance, but can simply post observers, dressed and trained to blend in with the neighborhood or installation and who then report in person to coordinators or handlers. Or observers may simply trust their information to runners to carry information where needed. Although limited by time and space, runners are probably the most secure form of communication for localized operations. Along those lines, terrorists can use to numerous low tech Cold War Era techniques such as dead drops; leaving coded communication in a predetermined location for pick up by a messenger who could be a child or other person unlikely to arouse suspicion. In October of 2023, the terrorist group Hamas launched a series of deadly attacks against Israel. These attacks caught the Israelis largely off guard. The famous Israeli security agencies were expecting high levels of cell phone ‘chatter’ as a sign of an impending terror attack and expected to observe physical preparations through high tech surveillance; none of which occurred. Hamas was operating in a relatively limited geographical area and was able to conceal their preparations with deadly efficiency. The result was a series of massacres and Israel was forced to counter using third generation warfare tactics. Such tactics invariably produce collateral damage, and Hamas using 4GW tactics was able to use the Israeli response for propaganda purposes. The fact is no intelligence system will operate without failures. Agencies cannot rely on high tech spying, but must balance technology with human assets, infiltrators, informants, and undercover observers. Human assets are problematic. Terrorists tend to be selective in inducting new people into their groups and cultural and language barriers further complicate infiltration. Informants can never be completely trusted and may be double agents or plants. Undercover observers, those who merely blend in and observe but avoid interaction (think ‘stakeout’) may still be limited in their role due to culture and language and may spend a lot of time in the wrong place. The bottom line is that counterterrorism is a complicated business and overreliance on any technique will increase the likelihood of simple human fallibility. Complacency The greatest danger to homeland security, but it related to terrorism, weather, or human action is the belief that because it has not happened, it’s not going to happen. The purpose of homeland security is to prepare for and respond to extraordinary events. It is the low probability of such events that leads to complacency. After a major event, the analysts analyze, the trainers train, and everyone is on-board with the latest and greatest plan. But nothing happens and so training lapses and vigilance decreases. At best, we are prepared for the past; but as time passes, we are less able to respond to events much like those of the past. Source Material and Further Reading Kirk, R. (1991). The roots of American order. Regnery Gateway Publishing. Washington, D.C. Klockars, C. (1980). The Dirty Harry problem. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 452(1). (pages 33-47). Miller, J. (2010). Sex offender civil commitment: The treatment paradox. California Law Review. Vol. 98, No. 6. (pages 2093-2128). Rosenau, W & A. Long. (2009). The Phoenix Program and Contemporary Counterinsurgency. RAND Corporation. Santa Monica, CA. https://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP258.html. Toffler, A. (1980). The third wave. Morrow Publishing. NY Ben Franklin quotation from page11: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0107 Justice Robert Jackson quotation from page 11: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/senior_lawyers/publications/voice_of_experience/2022/july-2022/quarantine-masks-and-the-constitution/