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Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Obama Administration to Announce Their Anti-Terror Approach

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to outline Wednesday the Obama administration's domestic approach to preventing terrorist attacks -- a strategy that will rely in large measure on refining and expanding initiatives launched under President George W. Bush.

How to keep the U.S. safe and foil terrorists are charged issues that took a central role in last year's presidential campaign, when then-Sen. Barack Obama criticized the Bush administration's tactics. But Napolitano, in an interview this week, signaled that the Obama administration isn't contemplating a wholesale revision of the agencies or programs created under Bush to further anti-terrorism efforts.

One element of Napolitano's approach, for example, will be the expansion of a pilot program started during the Bush administration to train police to report such suspicious behavior as the theft of keys from a facility that keeps radiological waste.

It is part of a much broader effort to significantly increase cooperation between her agency and state and local governments across the nation. Her aides say this is one area where her efforts will significantly exceed those of her predecessors in the Bush administration.

Napolitano also will call for deeper civic involvement and awareness to prevent attacks. She is also expected to discuss efforts to work more closely with foreign governments, from sharing airline-passenger data to intelligence about potential plots.

"We live in a world now where no one department of government can be held to be the sole repository of protecting security," Napolitano said in an interview Monday night. "There is a role to be played at every level." - FOX News

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