Kevin Knopf EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Terrorists throughout the world use vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) to attack targets. The availability of fully autonomous vehicles (FAVs) will change terrorism tactics by eliminating the need for martyrdom when delivering VBIEDs. As such, counter-terrorism forces must ask: What FAV technologies can be adapted to mitigate the threat of…
CHDS Theses: Executive Summaries
Applying Technology Acceptance Research to Information Systems Implementation in the Fire Service
John Steward EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The role of a firefighter has remained relatively static over the years, but the way a firefighter documents an incident and accesses logs, maps, and a range of forms is changing from existing paper-based practices to digital media and its related systems. Staffing, incident reporting, response mapping, resource allocation, supply tracking,…
Punching above Their Weight: The Homeland Security Contributions of the U.S. Pacific Territories
Colby Stanton EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It seems today that little attention is paid to the United States’ Pacific territories by those outside the Pacific. Indeed, while the U.S. Caribbean territory of Puerto Rico has received considerable media attention since Hurricane Maria struck, it seems that the United States’ Pacific territories—this thesis focuses on Guam, the Commonwealth…
Autonomous Police Vehicles: The Impact on Law Enforcement
Andrew Gregg EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Technology, like art, is a soaring exercise of the human imagination. —Daniel Bell In the past several years, the autonomous vehicle has evolved from a possibility to an inevitability. AV technology will undoubtedly impact public safety services, including law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement can embrace AV technology with the advent of…
Legal Weed: A Lifesaver?
Michael Schaub EXECUTIVE SUMMARY At the OxyContin launch party in the mid-1990s, Richard Sackler, a member of the family that owns Purdue Pharma, stepped up to the podium to address the audience. Sackler, then senior vice president for sales, proclaimed that the launch party would be “followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury…
You Can’t Always Get What You Want: Employee and Organizational Responses to Perceived Workplace Injustices and their Relationship to Insider Attacks
Tracey Reed EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Insider threats are a wicked problem because of the definition of an insider and the varied threats such insiders pose. Insiders are people with increased access, knowledge, and trust due to their relationship with an organization. They can be current or former employees, contractors, volunteers, or another affiliate of the organization.…
Social Identity Theory and Intergroup Conflict in Israel/Palestine
Stephen Felty EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Intergroup dynamics have been a central vector in lasting identity conflicts around the globe. In Israel/Palestine, the conflict has not been reduced to the same level of sustained peace as it has in other countries. The conflicting groups often participate in increasingly destructive forms of reciprocating violence, which fuels narratives that…
Parity Avoidance: A Proactive Analysis of the Obsolescence of the Third Offset Strategy
Aaron Wellman EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This thesis answers the question: How can the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) determine if the Third Offset Strategy is obsolete? Within the DoD, offset strategies are policies of competition that mandate efforts to maintain technological superiority to generate or sustain a strategic advantage over near-peer competitor adversaries of the state.…
Crisis Communication for Law Enforcement: Crafting a Successful Strategy Using Social Media
Angela Coonce EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The police-involved shooting that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri in the summer of 2014 was a watershed moment that launched the national Black Lives Matter movement into the public spotlight around the world. The depth and breadth of the influence of social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube on the…
21st Century Crime: How Malicious Artificial Intelligence Will Impact Homeland Security
Kevin Peters EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to dramatically transform how society interacts with information technology, particularly how personal information will interconnect with the hardware and software systems people use on a daily basis. The combination of developing AI systems and a digitally connected society could transform our culture in a manner…