Getting a piece of terror pie

Getting a piece of terror pie
Homeland agency tells tech firms how

Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, August 1, 2003

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An overflow crowd filled the conference hall at Mountain View's Veritas Software Corp. Thursday to hear the Department of Homeland Security's new technology guru explain how Bay Area firms can tap into an anti-terrorism research budget that could reach the $1 billion range in the next few years.

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With corporate spending still sluggish, government contracting has taken up a more prominent position in Silicon Valley -- a corporate culture that has traditionally relied primarily on private funding and public markets. The interest in Alexander's visit was underscored by a Commerce Department report that attributed the economy's second-quarter growth, in part, to the biggest rise in defense spending since 1951.

The Department of Homeland Security was formed in 2002 by uniting 22 federal agencies -- including the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- in one department charged with preventing terrorist attacks, reducing the vulnerability of the nation's people and vital arteries, and bolstering recovery efforts in the event attacks should occur.

Alexander, a physicist with a career in defense research, was recently tapped to head the newly formed Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency. It is modeled after the Defense Research Projects Agency, renowned for helping spawn the Internet but ridiculed recently for backing a controversial plan to create an Internet betting parlor where people could wager on terrorism targets.


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Alexander said the agency is racing to hire program managers and getting ready to publish a series of solicitations that will provide a more detailed idea of what the Department of Homeland Security considers its top needs in terms of anti-terrorism technology. But the new agency is still ironing out details of how it will publicize its needs and accept and review queries, she said.

For now, interested parties should check the department's Web site www.dhs.gov to stay abreast of developments. The agency has also been using a Defense Department Web site www.bids.tswg.gov to solicit and review proposals, Alexander said

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/01/BU33046.DTL

Then we can issue visas and outsource them in 2 months. But for two months we feed Americans.

my favorite.