The DoD released the interim recommendations yesterday in a press release.
(1) Expand the pilot program to fully deploy eGuardian as the DoD-wide force protection threat reporting system to handle suspicious incident activities. The eGuardian system, which is FBI-owned and maintained, will safeguard civil liberties, while enabling information sharing among Federal, State, local, and tribal law enforcement partners, including interagency fusion centers.
(2) Complete the deployment of the Law Enforcement Defense Data Exchange system (D-DEx) allowing all DoD law enforcement agencies to share criminal investigation as well as other law enforcement data as appropriate. D-DEx will be a consolidated database to enable organizations across the Department to query, retrieve, and post criminal investigation and law enforcement data in a single repository.
(3) Establish the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs as the DoD lead for the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force program.
(4) Strengthen DoD’s antiterrorism training program by incorporating lessons learned from the Fort Hood incident, Department of Homeland Security best practices on workplace violence, and civilian law enforcement active shooter awareness training.
Now what is interesting about the release of the recommendations isn’t necessarily the recommendations themselves, but the timing of the release along with this charge and threat by Senator Joe Lieberman.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) accused the Obama administration of stalling a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood shootings and threatened to start issuing subpoenas.
I heard about rumblings coming from Congress a couple of months ago. The word then was just as it is now; the Administration isn’t playing very nice. I quite frankly don’t blame Senator Lieberman for being frustrated and threatening to use his subpoena powers.
Normally I would support the military completing it’s investigation and asking Congress to just stand by until the prosecution was complete, but I trust Lieberman. He has been tough during the War on Terror and hasn’t backed down to the Democrats. He will ensure that the men and women killed and injured receive justice.
