The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA),
which is under the jurisdiction of the
Department of Defense (DoD), was
involved in organizing these scenarios
on behalf of US Southern
Command.(SOUTHCOM).
Defined as a "Combat Support Agency",
DISA has a mandate to provide
IT and
telecommunications, systems, logistics
services in
support of the US military. (See
DISA website:
Defense
Information Systems Agency).
On the
day prior to the earthquake, "on Monday
[January 11, 2010], Jean Demay, DISA's
technical manager for the agency's
Transnational Information Sharing
Cooperation project, happened to
be at the headquarters of the U.S.
Southern Command in Miami preparing for
a test of the system in a scenario that
involved providing relief to Haiti in
the wake of a hurricane." (Bob
Brewin, op cit, emphasis added)
The
Transnational Information Sharing
Cooperation project (TISC) is a
communications-information tool which
"links non-government organizations with
the United States [government and
military] and other nations for
tracking, coordinating and organizing
relief efforts".(Government IT Scrambles
To Help Haiti, TECHWEB January 15,
2010).
The TISC
is an essential component of the
militarization of emergency relief. The
US military through DISA oversees the
information - communications system used
by participating aid agencies.
Essentially, it is a communications
sharing system controlled by the US
military, which is made available to
approved non-governmental partner
organizations. The Defense Information
Systems Agency also "provides bandwidth
to aid organizations involved in Haiti
relief efforts."
There are
no details on the nature of the tests
conducted on January 11 at SOUTHCOM
headquarters.
DISA's
Jean Demay was in charge of coordinating
the tests. There are no reports on the
participants involved in the disaster
relief scenarios.
One would
expect, given DISA's mandate, that the
tests pertained to simulating
communications. logistics and
information systems in the case of a
major emergency relief program in Haiti.
The
fundamental concept underlying DISA's
Transnational Information Sharing
Cooperation project (TISC) is to
"Achieve Interoperability With
Warfighters, Coalition Partners And
NGOs" (Defense Daily, December 19, 2008)
Upon
completing the tests and disaster
scenarios on January 11, TISC was
considered to be, in relation to
Haiti, in "an advanced stage of
readiness". On January 13, the day
following the earthquake, SOUTHCOM took
the decision to implement the TISC
system, which had been rehearsed in
Miami two days earlier:
"After the earthquake hit on Tuesday
[January 12, 2010], Demay said
SOUTHCOM decided to go live with the
system. On [the following day]
Wednesday [January 13, 2010], DISA
opened up its
All Partners
Access Network,
supported by the Transnational
Information Sharing Cooperation
project, to any organization
supporting Haiti relief efforts.
The
information sharing project,
developed with backing from both
SOUTHCOM and the Defense
Department's European Command, has
been in development for three years.
It is
designed to facilitate multilateral
collaboration between federal and
nongovernmental agencies.
Demay said that since
DISA set up a Haiti Humanitarian
Assistance and Disaster Relief
Community of Interest on APAN on
Wednesday [the day following the
earthquake], almost 500
organizations and individuals have
joined, including a range of Defense
units and various nongovernmental
organizations and relief groups.
(Bob
Brewin, Defense launches online
system to coordinate Haiti relief
efforts (1/15/10) -- GovExec.com
emphasis added)
DISA has a Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)
Field Office
in Miami. Under the Haiti Disaster
Emergency Program initiated on January
12, DISA's mandate is described as part
of a carefully planned military
operation:
"DISA
is providing US Southern Command
with information capabilities which
will support our nation in quickly
responding to the critical situation
in
Haiti," said Larry K.
Huffman,
DISA's Principal Director of
Global Information Grid Operations.
"Our experience in providing support
to contingency operations around the
world postures us to be responsive
in meeting USSOUTHCOM's
requirements."
DISA, a Combat Support Agency,
engineers and [sic] provides command
and control capabilities and
enterprise infrastructure to
continuously operate and assure a
global net-centric enterprise
in direct support to joint
warfighters, National level leaders,
and other mission and coalition
partners across the full spectrum of
operations. As DoD's satellite
communications leader, DISA is using
the Defense Satellite Communications
System to provide frequency and
bandwidth support to all
organizations in the Haitian relief
effort. This includes Super High
Frequency missions that are
providing bandwidth for US Navy
ships and one Marine Expeditionary
Unit that will arrive shortly on
station to provide medical help,
security, and helicopters among
other support. This also includes
all satellite communications for the
US Air Force handling
round-the-clock air traffic control
and air freight operations at the
extremely busy Port-Au-Prince
Airport. DISA is also providing
military Ultra High Frequency
channels and contracting for
additional commercial SATCOM
missions that greatly increase this
capability for relief efforts. (DISA
-Press Release,
January 2010, undated, emphasis
added)
In the
immediate wake of the earthquake, DISA
played a key supportive role to SOUTHCOM,
which was designated by the Obama
administration as the de facto "lead
agency" in the US Haitian relief
program. The underlying system consists
in integrating civilian aid agencies
into the orbit of an advanced
communications information system
controlled by the US military.
"DISA is also leveraging a
new technology in
Haiti that is already linking
NGOs, other nations and US forces
together to track, coordinate and
better organize relief efforts"
(Ibid)
ANNEX
Defense launches online system to
coordinate Haiti relief efforts
By Bob Brewin,
Govexec.com
01/15/2010
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=44407&dcn=e_gvetwww
As
personnel representing hundreds of
government and nongovernmental agencies
from around the world rush to the aid of
earthquake-devastated Haiti, the
Defense
Information Systems Agency
has launched a Web portal with multiple
social networking tools to aid in
coordinating their efforts.
On Monday
[January 11, 2010, a day before the
earthquake], Jean Demay, DISA's
technical manager for the agency's
Transnational Information Sharing
Cooperation project, happened to be at
the headquarters of the U.S. Southern
Command in Miami preparing for a test of
the system in a scenario that involved
providing relief to Haiti in the wake of
a hurricane. After the earthquake hit on
Tuesday [January 12, 2010], Demay said
SOUTHCOM decided to go live with the
system. On Wednesday [January 13, 2010],
DISA opened up its
All Partners
Access Network,
supported by the Transnational
Information Sharing Cooperation project,
to any organization supporting Haiti
relief efforts.
The
information sharing project, developed
with backing from both SOUTHCOM and the
Defense Department's European Command,
has been in development for three years.
It is designed to facilitate
multilateral collaboration between
federal and nongovernmental agencies.
Demay
said that since DISA set up a Haiti
Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster
Relief Community of Interest on APAN on
Wednesday, almost 500 organizations and
individuals have joined, including a
range of Defense units and various
nongovernmental organizations and relief
groups.
APAN provides a
series of
collaboration tools,
including geographical information
systems, wikis, YouTube and MySpace-like
pages and multilingual chat rooms.
Meanwhile, other organizations are
tackling different technological
challenges. Gianluca Bruni, the
Dubai-based information technology chief
for emergency preparedness and response
for the World Food Programme, is setting
up networks and systems to support
United Nations and nongovernmental
organizations in Haiti. WFP already has
dispatched two communications kits to
Haiti, with satellite systems that
operate at 1 megabit per second and can
support up to 100 users. It also has
sent laptop computers, Wi-Fi access
points and long-range point-to-point
wireless systems to connect remote users
to the satellite terminals. Bruni said
eventually WFP plans to set up cyber
cafés in Haiti for use all relief
workers in the country.
Jon
Anderson, a DISA spokesman, said the
agency is supplying 10 megabits of
satellite capacity to Navy, Marine and
Air Force units engaged in the Haiti
relief operation.
Many of
the relief organizations and agencies in
Haiti are bringing their own radio
systems to the country. DISA has
deployed a three-person team from its
Joint Spectrum Management Element to
help manage radio frequency spectrum.
The Joint
Forces Command's
Joint
Communications Support Element
deployed two teams equipped with
satellite systems and VoIP phones to
support SOUTCOM in Port-au-Prince late
Wednesday. Those systems were
operational "in a matter of hours," said
JCSE Chief of Staff Chris Wilson. The
organization will send another team to
Haiti in the next few days.
Wilson
said JCSE was able to get its gear into
Haiti quickly because the systems
already were loaded on pallets in Miami
in preparation for an exercise that has
been canceled.
So many
governments and agencies from around the
world have responded to the crisis in
Haiti that they have overwhelmed the
ability of the Port-au-Prince airport to
handle incoming relief flights. The
Federal Aviation Administration has had
a ground-stop on aircraft headed for
Haiti for much of the past two days.
FAA
warned in an
advisory
Friday that "due to limited ramp space
at Port-au-Prince airport," with the
exception of international cargo
flights, "the Haitians are not accepting
any aircraft into their airspace."
The
advisory added that domestic U.S.
military and civilian flights to Haiti
must be first be cleared by its command
center. Exemptions will be based solely
on the basis of ramp space. The agency
also starkly warned "there is no
available fuel" at the Port-au-Prince
airport.
Copyright Bob Brewin, Govexec.com,
2010.
