Sharing Information to Counter Terrorism...
and Protect People and Property
Since the World Trade Center attacks in September 2001, high-profile office properties, apartment buildings, shopping malls and hotels all have been identified as potential terrorist targets at one time or another. In response, industry organizations have worked with government officials to prevent, detect and respond to terrorist threats and malicious incidents.
The Real Estate Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a not-for-profit organized by The Real Estate Roundtable and announced in February 2003, represents both a coordinated and an elevated response to these issues.
The Real Estate ISAC is a public-private partnership between the U.S. real estate industry and federal homeland security officials.
The partnership facilitates information sharing on terrorist threats, warnings, incidents, vulnerabilities and response planning - to counter terrorism and protect buildings and the people who occupy and use them.
By bringing together industry representatives and the government to aggregate, share and assess information on terrorism, the quality, quantity, relevance and overall value of the information increases exponentially. As a result, the ISAC and its members are able to achieve objectives that no single industry organization could accomplish alone. This benefits the industry, government and the nation as a whole.
The ISAC's Role
Principally, the Real Estate ISAC serves three roles:
- Disseminate information from the federal government, including terrorist alerts and advisories, to real estate industry participants, and bring government officials and building owners and operators together to assess and evaluate the information so it's more useful and actionable for real estate. (With the latest validated intelligence, building owners and operators are better prepared to develop and activate their own counter-terrorism activities, including steps to protect people and property.)
- Facilitate the industry's reporting to government authorities of credible threats to real estate assets, and enable analysis of the information to detect patterns or trends, and to develop potentially coordinated action steps
- Bring private- and public-sector experts together to share useful information, and discuss and develop "best" practices and solutions on sub-sector specific issues (such as matters affecting retail or office property owners) or cross-sector issues such as risk assessment, asset fortification/hardening, building security and emergency-response planning.
To learn more about the Real Estate ISAC and the context in which it's been established, view this presentation ("Why An ISAC?").
More Information on ISACs
Other industries operate ISACs in partnership with the federal government. These include the financial services, electric power, oil and gas, water, telecommunications, information technology, chemical and food sectors.
These centers were established as a result of government-led efforts to protect America's "critical infrastructures" from terrorist and other malicious attacks. A Presidential Decision Directive signed in 1998 created the framework for this public-private response; an Executive Order issued by President George W. Bush extended and amplified the earlier order.
