MEDIA ALERT FROM MARKLAND TECHNOLOGIES

Security Association Takes Its Appeal To Capitol Hill

MEDIA ALERT FROM MARKLAND TECHNOLOGIES

Security Association Takes Its Appeal To Capitol Hill
by Bara Vaida of the NationalJournal.com dated January 17, 2003

Congress has yet to clear an omnibus spending bill that would fund
crucial homeland security efforts and other programs, and it is urgent they
do so within the next two months, a group of security and defense
contractors said Thursday during a lobbying day on Capitol Hill.
    
The Homeland Security Industries Association, which was launched last
September, deployed 25 of its company members to meet with lawmakers that
represent the districts where their companies are based and held a morning
breakfast for congressional staffers, with the message that the country is
vulnerable because of the federal budget impasse.
    
"Without funding, you have no homeland security," said Bruce Aitken,
president of the 100-member association, who noted that another aim of the
lobbying day was to introduce his association on the Hill. "If there is
another attack, the American people aren't going to understand why homeland
security wasn't funded."
    
The Senate is debating fiscal 2003 funding for the departments and
agencies covered under the 11 annual spending bills left undone by the 107th
Congress, and Republicans and Democrats are fighting over such issues as
homeland security grants to the states, education and election reform.
Aitken said his members want the government to double the research and
development budget by 2010 and increase funds for teachers in science and
math, among other things.
    
When funding is approved, Aitken said that small and medium businesses
can connect with large government contractors through his association to bid
on homeland security departments. He said that agencies are open to hearing
about new technologies, and "they want contractors to work in teams" with
small and medium businesses. He also said that about 20 percent of all
security contracts are expected to be allocated to women and minority-owned
businesses.
    
Aitken cited maritime, border and information security as three of the
weakest areas and those needing the most funding and attention.
    
Ernie Mercier, chairman of the tech security company Markland
Technologies, said only a fraction of cargo boxes and cars crossing the
border are searched, and those are not searched systematically. And Will
Rodger, director of public policy at the Computer and Communications
Industry Association, said there are no standards for information security
technologies, making it hard for any accountability to exist within the
government for securing its computer networks.
    
"The absence of standards is a theme throughout homeland security,"
Aitken said. "Look at the Brentwood postal facility," which sorted the
anthrax-laced letters that went to Capitol Hill in 2001. "Though it has been
fumigated, it is still closed because no one can decide what standard should
be used to determine that it is safe."
    
The association also is spreading its wings in Europe and expects to
have a branch open and headquartered in Paris within the next few months. He
said many European companies have experience in homeland security that could
help the United States reach its goals.

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