Q&A: Robert S. Zitz
Preparedness Leader
Strengthening Homeland Security Through Geospatial Information
Robert S. Zitz
Deputy Undersecretary
for Preparedness
Department of Homeland Security
Robert S. Zitz, deputy undersecretary for preparedness, Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for the planning, programming, analysis and mission performance of all departmental preparedness activities. His efforts span the full spectrum of preparing for, responding to and recovery from natural and manmade disasters, including acts of terrorism against the United States.
Zitz has been at the forefront of many of the people, process and technology changes in military and civilian intelligence during the last two decades. From 2004 to 2005, he served as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s (NGA) technical executive and a member of the NGA Executive Committee. He guided NGA’s transformation activities, including leadership development, technology insertion and objective architecture development.
During 2001-2004, Zitz directed NGA’s InnoVision Directorate, responsible for strategic plans, program analysis, and research and development. He led a 300-person government staff and was responsible for more than $300 million dollars a year in R&D. From 1999 to 2001, he served in the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) as the head of the Director’s Initiatives Group, and participated in the congressionally directed NIMA Commission. During 1997-1999, Zitz was director of the Plans, Programs and Analysis Office in NIMA.
Before joining NIMA in 1997, Zitz served on the Army staff as the director of intelligence program analysis, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence. He was the senior executive responsible for Army programming and budgeting activities related to the National Foreign Intelligence Program. In addition, he was chief of the Army Intelligence Master Plan. In 1995, the Secretary of the Army appointed Zitz to the senior executive ranks as technical adviser to the head of Army Intelligence.
From 1990 to 1995, Zitz was a member of the Central Intelligence Agency, serving with the Intelligence Community Staff and with the Central Imagery Office. He led several interagency studies regarding future national and theater-level imagery intelligence and communications architectures.
Between 1979 and 1990, Zitz served as a civilian intelligence analyst, imagery intelligence production manager, imagery collection manager and intelligence policy officer in Army Intelligence. He was a counterterrorism expert, providing direct support to the Special Forces Operations Division-Delta.
Zitz earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in government from George Mason University in 1979.
Zitz was interviewed by MGT Editor Harrison Donnelly.
Q: In broad terms, what is your vision for the use of geospatial technology in the work of the Department of Homeland Security?
A: The Department of Homeland Security has an enormous job. It is charged with prevention, protection, response and recovery missions across the full spectrum of both manmade and natural disasters that may occur in the United States. To meet this challenge, the department is heavily involved in intelligence analysis, law enforcement, border security, transportation security, critical infrastructure protection, emergency management and disaster response, and many other missions. We work with international, federal, state, local, tribal and private sector partners. It is a continuous, Herculean effort that involves hundreds of thousands of dedicated employees worldwide.
Our vision is to improve all homeland security planning and operations at all levels via the power of geospatial information systems. Every decision-maker and action taker, irrespective of their role, should come to rely on geospatial technologies to help make sense of a situation and determine next steps. Our responsibility is to provide our homeland security professionals with the right information, in the right place, at the right time.
A sage adviser in the intelligence community once told me, “Everything and everybody must be some place.” How true that is, and how important to understanding the need for robust geospatial capabilities. We have all witnessed our defense, security, commercial and even personal entertainment systems’ use of geospatial information explode. This is a perfectly natural and expected occurrence, as humans interact with their surroundings in geospatial terms. It is well documented that we make better decisions faster if information is presented to us geospatially as opposed to text alone.
With recent increases in processor, bandwidth and data storage capacities, we now see military and intelligence activities fielding phenomenal fusion centers to enable more effective, more efficient, and safer planning and operations. These operations and analysis centers meld real time and historical information from all sources, forming a common operating picture. But every COP has at its core two things–databases and geospatial information systems. These provide the context for policy makers and action takers to make decisions. As DHS works to enhance its own National Operations Center [NOC], other component operations and analysis centers, and the State Fusion Centers being fielded across the nation, we will benefit from the geospatial technologies developed and employed in support of military and intelligence operations.
Finally, your readers know it is not just the geospatial technology that is important. It is the meaning derived from use of geospatial tools that is really critical. Because of this, I tend to talk in terms of the “geospatial intelligence” gleaned rather than the technology employed.
Q: How is DHS organized in order to develop and exploit geospatial technology?
A: At the formation of DHS, operating components brought their existing capabilities. Some organizations had limited geospatial tools that were not interoperable; others were far more developed. The chief information officer began to lay out the department’s enterprise architecture approach for information systems, including geospatial information systems. He established the Geospatial Management Office [GMO] to exercise leadership in establishing departmentwide geospatial information and technology programs, directives, initiatives, standards, and techniques, and to ensure the security of geospatial data, geographic information systems software and hardware and geospatial applications. The GMO has established working groups that include membership from the mission specific elements to address imagery, data, metadata and analysis for the department.
Q: What are the most important geospatial-related programs within DHS?
A: There are many critical geospatial programs within the department. The Federal Emergency Management Administration [FEMA] Mapping & Analysis Center’s Map Modernization Program has a huge role in disaster planning, response and recovery. Customs and Border Protection [CBP] is including geospatial tools as an integral part of the Secure Border Initiative Network [SBINet], and uses both manned and unmanned aircraft collecting geospatial information to protect our borders. DHS Operations uses geospatial tools for its COP. The Coast Guard, Secret Service and other DHS organizations rely on geospatial intelligence for their planning and operations. The Coast Guard also operates the LORAN geospatial navigation system, which can serve as a back up to the Global Positioning System [GPS]. In addition, DHS has a critical role in detection and mitigation of both intentional and unintentional interference of GPS. The DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis relies on geospatial intelligence as part of its production activities, and partners very closely with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
My own Preparedness Directorate makes heavy use of geospatial tools and information to conduct infrastructure protection, national communications systems, and US-VISIT programs’ analyses. We developed the iCAV system inside the Office of Infrastructure Protection. Preparedness is also responsible for coordinating the vision and plans for modernizing the department’s geospatial Tasking, Collection, Processing, and Dissemination [TCPED] programs.
Q: How are you working with NGA and other government agencies to take advantage of geospatial technology?
A: We are leveraging NGA-developed geospatial technology to support standup of Web-enabled capabilities on all three security networks to satisfy the geospatial requirements outlined in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7. These requirements direct the department to geospatially image, map, analyze and sort the nation’s infrastructure. We rely on NGA and U.S. Geological Survey [USGS] partnerships for commercial imagery collection. This makes maximum use of commercial imagery being collected in support of the homeland security and homeland defense communities. It means buy once and use multiple times, and is a great example of “good government.” CBP is working with NGA to develop a concept of operations, and tactics, techniques and procedures [TTP] for Predator-B unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicles. We are also in early dialogue with the National Reconnaissance Office [NRO] regarding architecture analysis and automated image processing routines.
Q: In general, how is the use of geospatial technology for homeland security similar to its uses by the military?
A: I continue to be amazed by the similarities between support to homeland security users and the traditional military and intelligence users. Everyone needs it for planning—that is obvious. What may not be as obvious is how similar the geospatial information needs are for tactical military forces and first responders, including law enforcement officers. They both require highly accurate, extremely timely information. For both customer sets, seconds literally matter. Neither can afford being inundated with data. Both operate in dangerous situations where mistakes can cost lives. Neither can expect to have robust infrastructure available; they must be ready to operate in difficult circumstances where the only information technology available is what they bring with them.
Q: How does the use of geospatial technology for homeland security differ in its uses by the military?
A: First, there is much more data available to homeland security officers from many more sources. These sources are both government at all levels, and commercial services. It always surprises my national intelligence organization brethren when they are introduced to the breadth of sources and sensors available to DHS. Second, these myriad sources are many times more difficult to verify and validate. In other words, are the data sources authoritative? Third, we need to provide information in open, unclassified environments. Security classification- any level of classification-can be an impediment.
Q: What is a “National Special Security Event,” and how does geospatial support them?
A: HSPD-7 makes the Secretary of Homeland Security, after consultation with the Homeland Security Council, responsible for designating events as National Special Security Events [NSSEs]. When an event is designated a NSSE, the Secret Service assumes its mandated role as the lead federal agency for the design and implementation of the operational security plan, and federal resources are deployed to maintain the level of security needed for the event and the area. DHS, in partnership with NGA, supports NSSEs and other special events with geoint to provide a common context for understanding incidents, analyzing threat information and performing specialized analysis in support of field operations. Geoint analysis includes:
• Situational awareness through real-time incident tracking and incident management.
• Tactical operations support to field operators, such as SWAT and HAZMAT teams.
• Specialized high-fidelity analysis such as complex 3-D modeling, vulnerability analysis, line-of-sight and so on.
• Consolidation of all available information into a common visual framework.
The most recent NSSE was the funeral of President Ford. The most recent special security event, not designated as a national event, was the Super Bowl. Geospatial technology and analysis supported both of these events.
Q: What are the key technical issues, such as geospatial open standards and data models, that the department is working on?
A: We, like others, focus hard on technical interoperability. The GMO is working to ensure the department adheres to common data information sharing standards within an approved data utilization structure. It is a credit to Scott Charbo, the DHS CIO, and Dan Cotter, chief of GMO, that they put so much emphasis on the need for interoperability and rigorous adherence to our enterprise architecture. The other key areas involve ensuring we have access to sources, and validating sources as authoritative.
Q: What is the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, how is your office involved in that initiative, and what benefits does it offer for homeland security?
A: Executive Order 12906 calls for the establishment of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure [NSDI]. It is defined as the technologies, policies and people necessary to promote sharing of geospatial data throughout all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and the academic community. This provides a consistent means to share geographic data among all users, producing significant savings for data collection and use and enhancing decision-making.
The goal of this infrastructure is to reduce duplication of effort among agencies, improve quality and reduce costs related to geographic information, make geographic data more accessible to the public, increase the benefits of using available data, and establish key partnerships with states, counties, cities, tribal nations, academia and the private sector to increase data availability.
The NSDI has come to be seen as the technology, policies, criteria, standards and people necessary to promote geospatial data sharing throughout all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and academia. The DHS involvement is to ensure the collection of geospatial information in a standard interoperable approach by actively participating in creating a homeland security Data Reference Model [DRM]. The DRM will not only support the collection of data, but also foster the interoperable sharing relationship within the homeland security community.
Q: We’ve heard a lot about the “iCAV” sysQ: How does the use of geospatial technology for homeland security differ in its uses by the military?
A: Based on NGA’s Palanterra capability, the Integrated Common Analytical Viewer [iCAV] delivers a geospatial context to a wide variety of information systems. It facilitates the fusion of information from everything from “suspicious activity” sources, commercial and government video sources, to commercial and intelligence satellite sources. Using an enterprise service bus, service-oriented architecture approach, it can incorporate and integrate virtually any data that can be given a geo-reference. It provides situational awareness for tracking disasters such as hurricanes and other real-time events. This fusion provides DHS, state, local jurisdictions and the private sector with a rapid common understanding of the relationships between these events that support coordinated preparedness, response and recovery.
iCAV is truly innovative because its interface points were designed as technology-neutral Web services. iCAV’s strategy has been to provide a Geospatial Information Infrastructure [GII] consisting of infrastructure data, dynamic data, imagery and geospatial view/analytic capability to mission partners with those needs, all within the vision of preparedness.
Q: What new geospatial technologies coming down the road do you see as offering promise for homeland security?
A: DHS has procured and is implementing a relatively new technology that focuses on storing the image in a way that drastically reduces the time of retrieval for end user access. We are also leveraging technology advances in data edge services. We have recently implemented technology that supports full motion video from manned and unmanned aircraft, still monitoring video, traffic cams and so on. The idea is to standardize the source data for exploitation, storage and retrieval in a managed and maintained operational environment–all included in a geospatial context.
Q: What are your goals for 2007 and beyond?
A: During the coming months, all COP-reference data will be housed and accessible within the DHS Enterprise Architecture. The NOC will migrate its COP “views” to iCAV for data viewing and dissemination throughout the Homeland Security Information Network [HSIN]. In addition, the NOC has identified a set of government-owned and maintained Common Operating Data [COD], as well as a list of data feeds and services that will be required from commercial and/or other external sources. We will work to gain access to all of these sources during this year.
In the longer term, we have drafted and are reviewing our strategic plan for geospatial modernization. The Tasking, Collection, Production, Exploitation and Dissemination [TCPED] Modernization Plan outlines our vision, concept of operations, requirements, objective architecture and preliminary cost estimates to implement a robust, end-to-end geospatial capability in DHS. We expect to use the modernization plan to help define our fiscal year 2009-2013 budget programs. ♦
