Critical Releases in Homeland Security: June 16, 2021

From the Introductory Note: "The enclosed reports assess supply chain vulnerabilities across four key products that [the President] directed [his] Administration to review within 100 days: semiconductor manufacturing and advanced packaging; large capacity batteries, like those for electric vehicles; critical minerals and materials; and pharmaceuticals and advanced pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The enclosed reports are the work of a task force that we convened across more than a dozen departments and agencies, consultations with hundreds of stakeholders, public comments submitted by industry and experts, and deep analytic research by experts from across the government."

From the Executive Summary: "On January 6, 2021, the world witnessed a violent and unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol, the Vice President, Members of Congress, and the democratic process. Rioters, attempting to disrupt the Joint Session of Congress, broke into the Capitol building, vandalized and stole property, and ransacked offices. They attacked members of law enforcement and threatened the safety and lives of our nation's elected leaders. Tragically, seven individuals, including three law enforcement officers, ultimately lost their lives. [...] This report addresses the security, planning, and response failures of the entities directly responsible for Capitol security--USCP [United States Capitol Police] and the Capitol Police Board, which is comprised of the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms and the Architect of the Capitol as voting members, and the USCP Chief as a non-voting member--along with critical breakdowns involving several federal agencies, particularly the Federal Bureau of Investigation ('FBI'), Department of Homeland Security ('DHS'), and Department of Defense ('DOD'). The Committees also made a series of recommendations for the Capitol Police Board, USCP, federal intelligence agencies, DOD, and other Capital region law enforcement agencies to address the intelligence and security failures."

From the Introduction: "This National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism provides an overarching approach to address today's manifestation of the domestic terrorism threat as well as the evolving forms that the threat may take in the years ahead. [...] This Strategy is organized around four pillars - the core elements of how the U.S. Government will tackle the threat posed by domestic terrorism today. First are efforts to understand and share information regarding the full range of domestic terrorism threats. Second are efforts to prevent domestic terrorists from successfully recruiting, inciting, and mobilizing Americans to violence. Third are efforts to deter and disrupt domestic terrorist activity before it yields violence. Finally, the long-term issues that contribute to domestic terrorism in our country must be addressed to ensure that this threat diminishes over generations to come. [...] All told, today's domestic terrorism threat poses a danger to Americans, our democratic society, and our national security that we must counter aggressively, comprehensively, and responsibly. Doing so will make America not just safer, but also stronger - and more unified. What follows is America's first government-wide national Strategy to do so."

From the Abstract: "During a health pandemic health workers have to balance two competing objectives: their own welfare vs. that of their patients. Intuitively, attending to sick patients during a pandemic poses risks to health workers because some of these patients could be infected. One way to reduce risk is by reducing contact with patients. These changes could be on the extensive margin, e.g., seeing fewer patients; or, more insidiously, on the intensive margin, by reducing the duration/intensity of contact. This paper studies risk avoidance behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic and examines implications for patient welfare. Using primary data on thousands of patient-provider interactions between January 2019 and October 2020 in Nigeria, I present evidence of risk compensation by health workers along the intensive margin. For example, the probability that a patient receives a physical examination has dropped by about a third. I find suggestive evidence of negative effects on health outcomes."