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Designing trouble away: Palm trees and Jogging Paths Pave way for Subtle Security. (Physical Security).

Article Excerpt
SECURITY IS IN THE FOREFRONT of national attention as a result of the September u, 2001, terrorist attacks, especially within the government. But federal facilities had already been ratcheting up security following earlier incidents, such as the attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma in 1995, the bomb attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and the attacks on the embassies in Africa in 1998.

The challenge for government--as for private industry--is to reach the desired level of protection without turning every facility into a bunker or fortress. Achieving that goal can be difficult when the typical quick solutions to threats are Jersey barriers and guardrails. One solution that has been successfully implemented at the Joint Interagency Task Force East (JIATF East) site in Key West, Florida, is the application of the principles of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) to provide subtle yet effective defenses. JIATF East's application of CPTED principles grew out of an innovative partnership with a state university The partnership offered the federal facility a cost-effective way to achieve its objectives.

Critical mission. The JIATF facility serves as a command, control, communications, and intelligence center for the U.S. military's drug interdiction efforts. Formed in 1989 by the DoD as Joint Task Force Four, with the goal of using military assets for the detection and monitoring of aerial and maritime drug smuggling activities, today JIATF East comprises active and reserve service members from the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, and the Coast Guard; government representatives from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Treasury Department; and liaison officers from Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands. It also includes representatives from nine Latin and Central American countries.

This organization is committed to disrupting the flow of illicit drugs: Last year, more than So metric tons of cocaine were seized, destroyed, or disrupted while in transit by direct or indirect JIATF East efforts. Translated into a dollar figure, JIATF East has prevented $34 million in trafficking of cocaine per day.

Sharing the Key West facility with JIATF East is the Joint Southern Surveillance Reconnaissance Operation Center (JSSROC). The organization provides crucial intelligence about air activities of drug smugglers in Central and South America and the Caribbean, including Cuba.

JSSROC tracks civilian and military flight activity for purposes of national security. It provides this information to the White House situation room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other command centers where information is delivered to decision-makers to act on world events or situations, and any disruption of this service would adversely affect the information available and the ability to respond promptly. In addition to JSSROC, several national agencies use JIATF East facilities to operate classified projects.

Site configuration. Based on Truman Annex on Key West, more than 400 JIATF East and JSSROC employees occupy a 30-acre site comprising four buildings with approximately 160,000 square feet of office space. Truman Annex is a satellite base of the Naval Air Station (NAS) Key West, located eight miles north on Boca Chica Key. NAS Key West is the landlord, and JIATF East and JSSROC are tenant units that have use of the buildings.

On Truman Annex, the Navy area's boundaries are separated from a civilian area with cyclone fencing, with two entry points. The annex also includes a pier that a large number of cruise ships use for passengers to disembark...