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DHS Continues to Study, Suffer from Morale Problems

By
Homeland Security Today
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The Washington Post reported Friday that, "Afflicted with the lowest morale of any large federal agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has done “what comes naturally to many in government. It decided to study the problem. And then study it some more.”

The Post said the initial study cost taxpayers about $1 million, but was shelved when finished. A second study cost a bit less, was duplicative, and also put on a shelf.

“So last year, still stumped about why the employees charged with safeguardingAmericans are so unhappy, the department commissioned two more studies,” the Post reported.

Homeland Security Today reported in December that DHS has long suffered from debilitating morale problems — a problem that’s been stewing for years.

Employee satisfaction at DHS plummeted to a historic low in 2014, with the department falling dead last in the annual, Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings.

The survey, conducted by the Partnership of Public Service, found DHS in last place for the third consecutive year.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called the ranking “unacceptable. It is entirely unacceptable that DHS ranks lowest on the list of large federal agencies on the 2014 Best Places to Work survey. This once again underscores the concerning challenges the department and its components continue to face with morale.”

To put together the rankings, the Partnership of Public Service uses data from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey published by the Office of Personnel Management. Last year’s 2014 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey found morale problems continue to plague DHS despite DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson’s commitment to improve employee satisfaction problems.

“There’s really no excuse for the department expending finite resources on multiple studies, some at the same time, to tell the department pretty much what everyone has concluded: that there are four-to-five things that need to be done for morale,” Chris Cummiskey, who left DHS in November after serving as its third-highest-ranking official, told the Post. “You don’t need $2 million worth of studies to figure that out.”

Cummiskey said DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson “understands this and is focused on delivering meaningful results for DHS employees.”

Catherine Emerson, DHS chief human capital officer, said in a statement late last year that DHS’s senior leadership “recognizes that morale and satisfaction among the agency’s 168,000 full-time, permanent employees are of vital importance and that employees deserve a workplace that acknowledges their efforts, supports their great work and fulfills their highest aspirations.”

“Since Secretary Jeh Johnson and Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assumed office … they have been committed to making our workforce’s professional fulfillment one of their highest priorities,” Emerson said. “A great deal of work is ongoing and there is much more to be done.”

Overall DHS employee satisfaction dropped from 46.8 percent in 2013 to 44 percent in 2014, which represented the biggest decrease among government agencies. The steepest decline in employee satisfaction came from leadership, with DHS ranking dead last in every leadership category.

“Morale has been low within various components of the department. Morale depends in very large measure on good leadership, and by filling the senior level vacancies, I believe we will inject a new energy into the department,” Johnson said in written testimony before a Senate Committee on the Judiciary DHS oversight hearing.

“Deputy Secretary Mayorkas and I also have formed a Steering Committee to identify issues impacting morale and develop discrete plans to address those issues, including the hiring and promotion process, training and professional development, rewards and recognition for employees, performance management, and employee communications," Johnson said. "In May, I presided at the first of our Secretary’s ‘Act of Valor’ awards programs, to acknowledge DHS personnel who commit acts of valor on or off duty.”

Despite these initiatives, DHS continues to suffer morale problems.

More than a year ago, the number of vacancies in the department’s top leadership posts werealso found to impact management, as well as too many “high-risk” areas long in need of urgent attention by permanent DHS leadership.

The third-largest cabinet-level department, DHS admited at the time it has a morale problem. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said it’s because DHS’s ability to assess and address employee morale problems is limited.

GAO said “DHS employee job satisfaction declined in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey [FEVS] results. Specifically, 2013 FEVS data show that DHS employee satisfaction decreased 7 percentage points since 2011, which is more than the government-wide decrease of 4 percentage points over the same time period. As a result, the gap between average DHS employee satisfaction and the government-wide average widened to 7 percentage points.”

GAO also said “DHS has consistently scored lower than the government-wide average on the FEVS Leadership and Knowledge Management index, which indicates the extent to which employees hold their leadership in high regard. Since 2011, DHS’s scores for this index have decreased 5 percentage points, widening the gap between the DHS average and the government-wide average to 9 percentage points.

DHS came in last among the largest federal agencies whose leadership inspires the workforce and spurs their commitment. Slightly more than half of the workforce believes leadership is effective, and 48 percent said the department has the necessary talent to achieve its overall goals.

In separate rankings for agency subcomponents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Technology tied for last place among 315 agency subcomponents.

In addition, less than half of the employees from these DHS agencies gave positive responses regarding job and workplace satisfaction and commitment.

“While Secretary Johnson has made forward strides, DHS must do better,” McCaul said. “It’s time that senior leadership within the department is truly held accountable for improving employee morale.”

House Committee on the Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) last fall sent a  letter to Johnson "regarding the department’s abysmal morale and urged him to rescind policies that prevent DHS employees from doing their jobs," his office said. "Leadership of the unions representing employees at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and Citizenship and Immigration Services have all stated that morale has plummeted as the Obama administration has issued policies that conflict with their congressionally-mandated jobs of securing the border, enforcing our immigration laws and maintaining the integrity of our immigration system."

In a letter to Obama, Goodlatte said, "I am concerned because DHS was just ranked last on the list of large federal agencies on the 2014 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government Survey. Further, a Washington Post article, Top-level Turnover Makes it Harder for DHS to Stay on Top of Evolving Threats, makes clear that Department of Homeland Security employees in particular experience ‘abysmal morale’ and that this has been happening for ‘quite a number of years.’"

"The article report[ed] that DHS Deputy Secretary Ali Mayorkas said the department has hired a consulting firm ‘to develop recommendations to improve morale,’" Goodlatte said. "This is a gross waste of taxpayer dollars. The way to improve morale at DHS is to simply let DHS employees do their jobs …”

Editor’s note: We inadvertently cited The Washington Times rather than The Washington Post in the original version of this report.

FBI Offers $30,000 Reward for Help Catching ‘Black Hat Bandits’

By
Homeland Security Today
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The FBI is offering a $30,000 reward to anyone who can help them catch the so-called "Black Hat Bandits."

Read complete report here.

DHS Chief Suggests Term ‘Violent Extremism’ Used at Behest of Muslim Leaders

By
Homeland Security Today
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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on Sunday that President Obama’s decision not to say the actions of the Islamic State is a form of “radical Islam” is at the behest of the Muslim community.

Read complete report here.

DHS Rushing Amnesty Contracts at ‘Full-Throttle Pace,’ Source Says

By
Homeland Security Today
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A government watchdog says the Obama administration is continuing to award multi-million-dollar contracts to firms to quickly process millions of illegal immigrants, despite a federal court’s decision to put a stay on the president’s amnesty order.

Read complete report here.

President Obama’s Cyber Pitch Misses Mark in Silicon Valley

By
Homeland Security Today
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The Obama administration is stumbling in its cybersecurity message to Silicon Valley, according to tech executives and a former White House official.

Read complete report here.

Nearly 5,000 Illegal Immigrants Absconded or Committed Crimes under ICE’s Supervision

By
Homeland Security Today
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Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claims few illegal immigrants commit crimes or flee by participating in their alternative to detention program, a recent audit by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) found ICE lacks the performance metrics to determine whether the program has actually been effective.

ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) offers an alternative to detention. ICE is responsible for tracking the more than 1.8 million aliens in immigration removal proceedings. However, because ICE’s budget only funds 34,000 detention beds, ICE cannot detain all aliens who are waiting to appear in immigration courts or waiting for removal.

ISAP was created in 2003 to solve this problem. Under the program, ICE supervises aliens it has released from detention, and monitors them electronically. As a condition of release, ICE requires aliens to appear in immigration court for removal proceedings and comply with removal orders from the United States.

ICE claims the program is effective, reporting that the rates at which ISAP participants absconded and were arrested for criminal acts declined each year between 2010 and 2012. However, after changing the program to no longer supervise some participants through their immigration proceedings, ICE never updated its performance metrics.

As a result, ICE did not account for former ISAP program participants who had absconded or were arrested for criminal acts after their participation in the program ended.

According to the IG’s audit report, failure to update the performance metrics has made it impossible to determine “whether transitory participation in ISAP contributes over time to reducing the rate at which aliens abscond or are arrested for criminal acts.”

In reviewing the rate at which individuals in ISAP have absconded or committed criminal acts, the IG discovered 2,010 program participants were arrested for committing crimes between 2010 and 2012. Moreover, during that same period, 2,760 aliens absconded while enrolled in the program — 2010 (927), 2011 (982), and 2012 (851).

The IG determined ICE cannot definitively determine whether “ISAP has reduced the rate at which aliens, who were once in the program but who are no longer participating, have absconded or been arrested for criminal acts.”

In addition, the IG determined ICE does not have sufficient resources to re-detain non-compliant participants who willfully violate ISAP’s terms of supervision. ICE said “dedicating funding for approximately 150 to 200 detention beds nationally, to re-detain program violators as necessary, would discourage willful noncompliance.”

President Obama’s original DHS budget request for Fiscal Year 2015 included a reduction of -3,461 detention beds, or a -10.2 percent reduction to ICE’s detention capacity; as compared to fiscal year 2014 enacted levels. Obama’s FY 2015 DHS budget also called for a -2 percent reduction in ICE’s investigative capacity; a nearly -18 percent reduction of ICE’s transportation capacity; and a reduction of -12 percent to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations, including a more than -30 percent reduction in flight hours.

Beyond these proposed resource reductions, further analysis of Obama’s FY 2015 DHS budget request revealed the following performance impacts, according to the House Committee on Appropriations’ FY 2015 DHS budget report:

  • An inability of ICE to sustain detention capacity, which would prevent ICE from fully complying with statutory mandates to detain criminal immigration law violators and detaining all other aliens in removal proceedings who are likely to abscond or pose threats  to community safety;
  • A significant deterioration of ICE’s capacity to investigate severe transnational crimes, such as illegal weapons exportation, narcotics trafficking, human trafficking and smuggling, intellectual property theft and cyber crime, including child exploitation; and no investigative or financial support to long-standing, authorized programs that address missing and exploited children.

Although ICE developed a Risk Classification Assessment to assist its release and custody classification decisions, the IG determined the “tool is time consuming, resource intensive, and not effective in determining which aliens to release or under whatconditions.”

Moreover, the IG believes the RCA does not improve field office release decisions. For example, of the 228,095 RCA decisions made between July 30, 2012, and December 31, 2013, the RCA made no recommendation for 41,971, or 18.4 percent of cases. In addition, of the 228,095 RCA recommendations between July 30, 2012, and December 31, 2013, ERO officers overrode 49,861, or 21.9 percent of the RCA recommendations.

In turn, the IG recommended ICE revise the RCA tool, as well as develop and implement performance metrics to evaluate ISAP effectiveness. ICE concurred with the recommendations.

Months Later, Hackers Still Inside State Department’s Network

By
Homeland Security Today
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Three months after the Department of State acknowledged that hackers breached its unclassified email system, government cybersecurity investigators still haven’t been able “to evict them from the department’s network, according to three people familiar with the investigation,” the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The newspaper said that despite the efforts of federal cyber sleuths, outside contractors and the National Security Agency who have repeatedly scanned the State Department’s network and taken some systems offline, “investigators still see signs of the hackers on State Department computers … Each time investigators find a hacker tool and block it … the intruders tweak it slightly to attemptto sneak past defenses,” the newspaper reported.

It hasn’t been disclosed just how much data the hackers have purloined, but unclassified emails and accompanying materials such as attached reports, etc. can still contain sensitive intelligence and other information the State Department would rather not be made public.

Senior counterintelligence and other intelligence officials told Homeland Security Today on background that “a great deal of insight can be gleaned from [the] compromised emails, including following the email threads and identifying other individuals’ emails the hackers might want also want to take a look at,” one of the officials said.

Continuing, the official said the hackers still lurking in the State Department’s network also “might be able to identify [through references] to important activities, reports, intelligence and what not, even though these are notclassified emails. Why, because these are internal emails containing all sorts of correspondence between department officials and personnel.”

“There is the potential that sensitive but not formally classified information is contained in these emails that, from an espionage or foreign policy context, could be extremely valuable – even embarrassing,” another official agreed.

“Given the size and complexity of the State Department, the task at hand becomes even more challenging,” said Darren Hayes, a leading expert in computer forensics and security who has been a consultant on legal cases involving digital evidence. Hayes is assistant professor and director of cybersecurity at Pace University’s Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems in New York.

“Many successful breaches today are initiated by an employee clicking on a link in an email. Think about how difficult it must be to prevent employees doing this in an organization with thousands of workers,” Hayes said, adding, “The use of unofficial hacker groups by the Russian government is nothing new, and cyber warfare is often the weapon of choice. It is perhaps no coincidence that this breach occurred when US-Russian relations are at an all-time low with broader sanctions looming.”

“When an organization is hacked — especially by a more sophisticated state-sponsored group — it is problematic to determine when their network was breached and the scope of that breach. Moreover, it may take months for an organization to purge themselves of that compromise,” Hayes explained.

“The disclosure that the State Department can’t easily remove a recent malware infestation is an object lesson for all organizations as they scale up – size is a serious problem. Ask any public health official – to quarantine one house is easy enough, but to root out a disease across a city is far harder," said Dr. Mike Lloyd, CTO at RedSeal, a security analytics company.

"The Department of State has special pressures, since embassies operate in almost every country in the world, but any large company suffers similar problems. Many modern attacks start by fooling a human – well-crafted phishing attacks are the new normal. But compromising one laptop doesn’t generally get the attacker what they want, so they move laterally, looking for a solid hand-hold beyond the initial toe-hold," Lloyd said.

"In fast-moving, modern infrastructure," Lloyd continued, "there is always a weakest server for them to find, and attackers can search for whatever is maintained the least well. This fan-out creates real headaches for defenders, even after a breach is confirmed. The only practical response is to map out weaknesses ahead of a breach – to know where the pockets of infection are likely to be, so that you can efficiently root them out.”

‘Patriot Hackers’ Claim to Fight Cyber War Against Terrorists

By
Homeland Security Today
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There’s a new group of soldiers in the cyber war against terrorism. They operate online, on their own and follow a unique set of rules.

They call themselves patriotic hackers. They claim they are doing what the Government does not do—taking down terrorist-run websites that recruit Westerners and support Jihadi propaganda.

Read complete report here.

DHS Stalemate Leaves Local Governments Hanging

By
Homeland Security Today
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If all politics is truly local, the big sleeper in Washington’s fight over the Homeland Security budget could be the city and county agencies that depend on the same bill to help finance their emergency response teams.

Read complete report here.

Obama Says World Should Address ‘Grievances’ Terrorists Exploit

By
Homeland Security Today
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President Obama defended his administration’s approach to the terror threat at a White House summit Wednesday, standing by claims that groups like the Islamic State do not represent Islam — as well as assertions that job creation could help combat extremism.

Obama, addressing the Washington audience on the second day of the summit, said the international community needs to address “grievances” that terrorists exploit, including economic and political issues.

Read complete report here.

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