The entire county is without power. Driving, hard rain fills an already burgeoning dam and planes await landing without the benefit of air traffic control. Generators are down, the media are out of the loop and so are residents, many
The entire county is without power. Driving, hard rain fills an already burgeoning dam and planes await landing without the benefit of air traffic control. Generators are down, the media are out of the loop and so are residents, many still asleep at this early hour, 4:30 a.m.
Soon, all eyes will be on federal, state and local leaders to usher in a safety plan.
What should happen next?
That was one of many hypothetical questions posed to local officials at the fifth annual Hawai‘i State Law Enforcement Officials Association conference, which was hosted at the Hilton Kauai Beach Resort this week.
The four-day conference ended yesterday, with one of its highlights, according to attendees, being the discourse by keynote speaker Winn Schwartau’s address.
Schwartau, considered to be an authority on the evolving technological threats from global terrorism, has authored several books, including “Information Warfare.”
Focusing on the growing number of crimes that involve computers and networks, he painted a frightening scenario when he coupled communication vulnerabilities compounded by an unexpected natural disaster.
Police Commissioner Leon Gonsalves, who was role-playing as a public utilities official during the scenario, said the situation itself posed questions.
“Even the emergency power source went down — Why?” he said. “Could it be an act of terrorism?”
Suggesting running systems checks to find out whether it was a tree branch or a sleeper cell that caused the power outage, Gonsalves said, “At this point, you don’t know if it’s terrorist or act of God.”
Though Mother Nature can’t be controlled by terrorists, he added, inclement weather — be it torrential rains, tsunami or a hurricane — could turn into a terror cell’s ideal time to activate.
“The whole concept with this type of war-terrorist, you don’t know your enemy,” he said.
“But (the enemy) can affect you in many ways. It’s not like the old tradition of war, where we take a plane and bomb. … It makes you think. Everything could go to hell in a hand basket.”
Other speakers such as Lei Reiber covered the issue of GPS “forensics,” or cell phone tracking.
Using “satellite triangulation,” law enforcement can track civilians; however, vulnerabilities lie with overburdened cell towers or phones on “roam” that can throw off coordinates. Such gathering of “mobile evidence” is an up-and-coming, controversial method.
Other conference speakers such as Dave Corey, a psychologist who specializes in screening candidates in law enforcement positions, addressed the non-universal approaches that should be taken when training, recruiting and retaining police.
Simply put, the differing ideologies within each generation should take into consideration when dealing with employees or candidates.
Corey argued that those born from 1930 to 1945, dubbed “the silent generation,” as well as baby boomers born between 1946 to 1960 differ greatly from those commonly known as “Gen-X-ers” and those that hail from Generation Y, born between 1961 to 1980 and 1984 to present, respectively.
Police Commissioner Alfredo Nebre said that topic was one of his favorites during the conference.
“Generation X, the kids want an explanation of scolding from parents,” Nebre explained. “When these kids usually go to police training boot camp training they want to know why it is they have to listen.”
The idea is one of cause and effect, as baby boomers wanted to give everything they could to generations X and Y that they didn’t have.
The varying ideologies that span the generation gap need to be taken into consideration when addressing the new recruit classes of the KPD, Gonsalves said.
“If you tell a Gen X or Generation Y ‘That’s the way it is,’ they say, “Can you explain to me?” Gonsalves said. “When you say, ‘If you don’t comply, there’s the door,’ they’ll take the door.”
Other topics discussed included time-based security, in which math is used to determine the security of an agency or business. Though Schwartau said the United States is losing its “cyber war,” he said we no longer have to.
“We are at war, and we can win.” he said.
