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The Homeland Security Working Group

The Homeland Security Working Group (charter) ensures that the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) supports the preparation for, prevention of, protection against, response to, and recovery from (1) threats to the nation's population centers and critical infrastructures that are of terrorist, criminal, accidental, or natural origin and (2) related adverse events.

The working group has regular participation from the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, the Interior, and Transportation; the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Communications Commission, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and National Capital Planning Commission; and the National States Geographic Information Council.

Major activities include:

Policy support:

  • The geospatial data community’s use of a common, standardized approach to identify data sets that have sensitive content and to provide appropriate access to such information will increase the effectiveness of individual organization’s actions. The "Guidelines for Providing Appropriate Access to Geospatial Data in Response to Security Concerns" provide procedures to identify sensitive information content of geospatial data sets. Should such content be identified, the guidelines help organizations provide appropriate access to the data and still protect sensitive information content.

    The interim version of the guidelines is available at http://www.fgdc.gov/fgdc/homeland/revised_access_guidelines.pdf. This version is based on comments received during a public review held from May 3 through June 2, 2004. A companion document that summarizes significant comments received during the public review and responses to the comments is available at http://www.fgdc.gov/fgdc/homeland/response_to_comments.pdf. The working group is submitting the guidelines for adoption by the steering committee.

    A related work that the working group found useful is the RAND Corporation report "Mapping the Risks: Assessing the Homeland Security Implications of Publicly Available Geospatial Information." (Report # MG-142). The report is available through: http://www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG142/ (by following this link you will leave the FGDC web site).

  • Homeland Security and Geographic Information Systems describes how geographic information system and mapping technologies can help save lives and protect property.

Map symbology: Use of different map symbols for the same information slows and degrades communication, especially when many organizations need to work together. The working group is compiling a set of standard map symbols to support homeland security applications. A revised symbol set for emergency response applications is available at http://www.fgdc.gov/HSWG. A summary of comments on which the changes were based and responses to the comments is available under the “Evaluation Results” tab. The symbols were changed based on comments received during a community review held from December 2003 through January 2004. The working group plans to submit the revised symbol set for formal adoption through the FGDC and ANSI INCITS L1 standards processes.

The 2003 report to the FGDC provides the status of these activities. The working group's fact sheet provides information from this web site that can be shared with others.

Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader

For more information:

  • Michael Domaratz, Co-Chair, U.S. Geological Survey, Phone (703) 648-4434 or mdomarat@usgs.gov

FGDC, USGS, 590 National Center, Reston, VA 20192
URL: http://www.fgdc.gov /fgdc/homeland/index.html
Updated: Monday, 13-Sep-2004 09:44:30 GMT
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