NEW YORK — A top US domestic security chief announced Wednesday a strategy to make ordinary citizens the first line of defense against an increasingly multi-faceted terrorist threat.
“For too long, we’ve treated the public as a liability to be protected rather than an asset in our nation’s collective security,” Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a speech in New York.
“This approach, unfortunately, has allowed confusion, anxiety and fear to linger.”
Napolitano, who also announced an extra 78 million dollars in anti-terrorism funding for 15 mass transit systems nationwide, said modern communications had increased the sophistication of threats since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
“The tools for creating violence and chaos are as easy to find as the tools to buy music online or restocking inventory,” she said. “If 9/11 happened in a web 1.0 world, terrorists are certainly in a web 2.0 world now.”
Napolitano urged a “much broader society response” in which the public helps curb a growing phenomenon of so-called home-grown terrorism. [ … ]
» Read more: US enlists citizens in anti-terrorism strategy
