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GCN Home > 11/06/06 issue

Rush week

Desperate hours in the race to meet HSPD-12’s card deadline.

By Rob Thormeyer, GCN Staff

All-nighters, a kidnapping, dilated pupils and road trips. For federal officials responsible for bringing their agencies into compliance with Homeland Security Presidential Directive-12, the month of October resembled their college days, when cramming for final exams and other deadlines meant staying up all night and forcing the last bit of data into their heads.

But instead of trying to boost that grade-point-average, officials charged with implementing HSPD-12 had a higher calling—bolstering the security of federal physical and logical assets by starting to issue new smart identification cards to all government workers and contractors.

“This is our little miracle,” said Doug Bourgeios, director of the Interior Department’s National Business Center, one of two HSPD-12 shared-services pro- viders. “We’ve been clear all along that to us, this is not just about issuing a card. This is a bigger part of HSPD-12 and we’re just pleased” to have gotten this far.

And while issuing that first card may not necessarily make the country safer today, officials involved said it is perhaps the most critical step in reaching that goal. “HSPD-12 is a journey,” said Mary Dixon, director of the Defense Department’s Defense Manpower Data Center. “One card isn’t going to help us [become more secure], but I’m not going to issue that four millionth card until I issue the first one.” Under HSPD-12, agencies were required to begin issuing the new ID cards Oct. 27, and the Office of Management and Budget is checking compliance by collecting copies of cards produced by each agency.

The cards, eventually, will replace existing government IDs and let employees use one card for physical and logical access. All government workers must have a new ID by October 2008.

While the General Services Administration did issue a handful of cards by the end of Oct. 27 to their 38 SSP customers, no one involved could deny that it was an extremely close call.

"We made it,” said one official involved, who requested anonymity. But Oct. 27 “was just a flurry.”

More news on related topics: Authentication / Identity Management, Homeland Security, Management, IT Management



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