Chertoff said that last week's air crash in New York City pointed out the importance of working with local first responders. "I'm particularly delighted about the fact that a New York Police Department official in our National Operations Center at the Department of Homeland Security was immediately in touch with his counterpart at the city Emergency Operations Center, so we had real-time visibility into what was happening on the ground, and were able immediately to respond with whatever we could bring to the scene, and take the steps we needed to take to make sure that we were not in a situation where others would be put at risk.
"That's a great example of the kind of coordination and information sharing which is increasingly the hallmark of our relationship with local police," said Chertoff. "You, police officers in the communities all across this country and all around the world, are the front line of our defense against terror, because the fact is, you know your communities better than anybody else. You are the most likely to detect the beginning phases of a possible plot, particularly a homegrown plot."
Then Chertoff talked plans to increase the federal-local partnership, including the Securing the Cities Initiative that will soon launch in New York and two other cities not yet selected; a next-generation of biological detectors to be deployed in major cities; and the threat of "home-grown" terror plots.
Click here for the complete text of Chertoff's presentation.
