Incident Background
It has come to the attention of the facility’s security management team that there is a plan to steal a portion of the facility’s nuclear waste and release it into the community. We believed that the threat is credible. Naturally, if such a release of nuclear waste were to occur, the potential loss of life and damage to the environment would be substantial. Accordingly, we have developed this incident action plan in order to effectively deal with the risk by either stopping it from ever happening or mitigating its effect and quickly resolving and problems in the event that it actually takes place.
Incident Purpose
First and foremost, the incident purpose is to stop the plan from ever occurring. In order, the first step is to implement a counter-terrorist plan that is focused on identifying the employee(s) that are planning to steal and release the waste and detaining them before that can begin. If this cannot be achieved, a supplementary goal would be to identify and stop the perpetrators as close to after they initiated the plan that no harmful results have or will occur. Second, in the event that the plan is or has been initiated, the incident purpose is to stop the leak from causing any harm or damage to the public. These two purposes are both joint and severally applicable.
Incident Objectives
As discussed above there are two parts to this incident action plan, namely prevent the incident from happening, and/or mitigating any harmful results in the event that the incident is carried out. Accordingly the incident objectives include: identifying the person(s) planning on carrying out the attack, arresting and detaining anyone involved in the planning and carry out the attack, securing the facility’s nuclear waste from unauthorized access or transport; ensure the safety of the community from exposure to the nuclear waste, identify any persons that may have been exposed to the nuclear waste, provide those exposed to the nuclear waste with the necessary medical and health support services, and recover any and all nuclear waste that has been leaked.
Incident Participants
There are a number of relevant organizations whose mandate includes or is focused on the prevention of, preparation for and response to an incident such as this one, namely a possible terrorist threat against a nuclear facility or a terrorist attack that makes use of nuclear materials. These organizations include: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), generally, and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) specifically; the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); the Department of Energy; and state and local law enforcement agencies, state and local health agencies. These agencies along with the facility security management team would form the Incident Command System (ICS). As a result of the number of parties involved in the incident, there is no single party that bears overall responsibility. Rather, different parties, according to the specifics of the situation will be required to take a leadership and coordinating role.
Incident Operations: Part I: Counter-Terrorist Prevention
The primary actions in preventing the incident from occurring should begin with the facility’s security management team. Indeed, as the party that not only discovered the threat but also has access to a range of useful data including: who accessed the computer where the plans were found, employee login histories, and facility surveillance tools, the facility security management team is in the best possible position to identify the person(s) planning the attack. If or when the facility security team has identified the perpetrator(s), they should notify the FBI. The FBI serves as the nation’s lead organization responsible to deterring and responding to domestic terrorist incidents. One benefit of having the counter-terrorist effort handles by the facility security team, is that as long as no nuclear waste has been taken yet, they could in essence “lock it down” from further access. This is so because they would have the ability to understand how the facility stores its waste and provide the necessary precautions, from more armed security surrounding the waste center to limiting access to only a few personnel, to eliminate any unauthorized access to the waste. There are limits, however, to how comprehensive the facility security team can go in its investigation of the threat. For instance, it can only research areas that it has a right to do such as office equipment, facilities, and networks. It would not the ability to search or surveil a suspect employee outside of the facility or their personal, private items.
Accordingly, if no information could be obtained by the security team from the work related environment; the next logical party to lead the counter-terrorist effort would be the FBI. The FBI, as mentioned above, is the lead US agency responsible for preventing and responding to counter-terrorism. The FBI would have the power to follow up any potential leads with legal investigatory actions including requesting search warrants, wiretaps and other electronic surveillance as well as criminal background checks. In addition, the FBI has access to its complete repertoire of counter-terrorist expertise, such as cyber-tools to help trace who was using the computer and were the information displayed was sent to or retrieved from; that could be leveraged to “connect the dots” and discover the identities of the employee(s) that were involved in the planning of the nuclear leak. As with a counter-terrorist effort lead by the facility security team, there are limitations to the FBI’s effort. Those limitations are governed by the Constitution and federal law. In other words, the FBI would not be able to do or take any action that would violate the Constitution such as preform an “unreasonable search or seizure” against a suspect. Although, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); a legitimate terrorist threat would allow the FBI some flexibility to take more extensive actions before seeking court approval.
Consequently, the best counter-terrorist prevention effort would include both the facility security team working in cooperation with the FBI. This would provide the most comprehensive and extensive effort in identifying and apprehended the planners of the attack before the attack is actually conducted. The facility security team could coordinate any private inputs that would be necessary to the investigation, while the FBI would coordinate any necessary law enforcement inputs. Accordingly, it would be essential that a facility security team-FBI liaison is established as soon as possible to coordinate both parties’ efforts.
Incident Operations: Part II: Mitigation of Leak Waste
If the attack actually occurs, the lead agency tasked with the response would be FEMA. FEMA is the lead federal agency for consequence management, and since this attack would involve nuclear waste, a federal effort is the appropriate level of response. As is necessary FEMA would need the assistance of: (1) the DNDO, to determine the extent of the nuclear waste leak, (2) the DOE to craft an effective and appropriate response to control the leak, (3) state and local law enforcement authorities to provide security and crowd management, and (4) state and local health authorities to coordinate the provision of any necessary medical and health care related resources. As with the counter-terrorist effort, there would be a vital need to establish as early as possible a liaison unit that could coordinate and facilitate cooperation between the parties
