Before, Now, and After the Event of Terror: Situational Terror Awareness for Civilians in US Homeland Security

Abstract

This article examines terror awareness as an individualized security practice that allows civilians to respond to situations of emergent terror as they occur, that is, in real time. It is a practice that targets the "time-space" (Walters in Comp Eur Polit 15(5):794-817, 2016) just before, during, and immediately after an event of terror. In recent years, the notion of "terror awareness" has gained salience in official US homeland security discourses. To protect themselves and their communities from harm and ensure an uninterrupted "way of life," citizens are routinely encouraged to be vigilant and aware to signs of potential terror as they attend to their daily affairs. They are asked to stay informed, remain alert, and be ready to respond to the incipiency of terror so that they may avert-or, at least mitigate-its potentially catastrophic and disruptive consequences. According to the authorities, this kind of habitualized threat awareness can help prevent acts of terror and strengthen community resilience. But what exactly do government and security officials mean when they speak of "terror awareness"? What does this practice of being "terror aware" entail? And how is it supposed to function as a protective mechanism against potential terror? What is its relationship to such abstract concepts as "security," "preparedness," and "resilience"? This article seeks to answer these questions. It is based on a careful reading of official and publicly available texts (press statements, policy documents, reports, training brochures, websites, etc.) about homeland security and anti-terrorism, where the notion of "awareness" finds mention and a specific understanding of it-namely as an individualized security technology-is being communicated to the wider public.

Situational awareness in the identification of abuse – Out-of-hospital emergency care providers’ experiences

“…According to the results, SA is based on a combination of cognitive, emotional and social competence. SA is usually defined as a cognitive concept, [18] but the participants to this study pointed out that the SA required in the identification of abuse was also based on good emotional intelligence and interaction skills. They also repeatedly referred to a "gut feeling" or "intuition" in the identification of abuse that developed through work experience.…”

“…comprehension and prediction-is based on information from multiple sources and essential in managing resources, roles, relationships and emotions at scene. [8] As summarized in a study of Arfsten on civilians' situational terror awareness, [18] in SA, the goal is to gather tactical, actionable information accessible in the immediate environment through purposeful and active perception and to integrate it into a coherent picture for imminent decision-making or action. SA is not a state of knowledge, but a process.…”

“…The widely known definitions do not include an affective ("gut feeling") component, or at least it is not rendered explicit. [18] Last, in the military domain, situational awareness has been presented as a middle layer in a human information model consisting of the horizontal levels of situation picture, situation awareness and situation understanding (the highest level). The top layer of the model developed by Kuusisto contains information most relevant for decision-making, but decisions are made based on information from all layers.…”

Detection of Sensitive Data to Counter Global Terrorism

“…(Terms, Matching Score) (6) where "Term" represents the text used for queries, and "Matching Score" represents the degree to which the terms matched with the queries. If the matching score is "1", this represents complete matching, but if it is "0", this represents no matching at all.…”

“…Terrorism has gained global attention due to its negative impact on the economy [6] and its effect on developing countries. It is also against international law and human rights.…”