New Homeland Security Technologies in Demand

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has published a new backgrounder on emerging technological advances being used to ensure the security of the United States. The backgrounder, authored by CFR Associate Editor Eben Kaplan and published November 19, is titled "Homeland Security Technologies" and is available on the CFR web site.

CFR says, citing the Homeland Security Research Corporation, that the market for products and services used for homeland security was more than $23 billion last year, a dollar amount that is expected to rise continually at least through 2011.

Based on projected spending figures provided by the Civitas Group, the backgrounder says domestic and foreign intelligence products will lead the homeland security technology market. According to CFR, industry analysts expect data mining software and communications signal interceptors to be hot items over the next few years. Following domestic and foreign intelligence equipment, experts says that law enforcement and counterterrorism products, which were highlighted by the 9/11 commission, to be in high demand. Specifically, technologies that improve communications interoperability among law enforcement and first responder organizations were cited in the backgrounder.

Next on the list of emerging technologies in demand in the homeland security market are items focused on border and physical security, followed by biological, radiological, and chemical agent prevention products. For emergency preparedness and response technologies, the backgrounder says that there is a requirement for better command and control capabilities for emergency response personnel dealing with a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Two other hot fields within the homeland security technologies market noted by CFR include aviation security products and port security products.