Quantified Perception Blog

The Language of Homeland Security

One of the essentials of successful Federal business is to understand your customer. The objectives, the priorities, and the policies of an agency are key factors in successfully aligning your approach to their requirements. A winning company will read the Agency Strategic Plan, their IT Strategy, and other fundamental statements found on the Agency website. Meeting with key personnel to elicit their views is one way to get a handle on the agency’s foundations.
Another is to analyze those key documents that are found on the agency Homepage. The Department of Homeland Security, like most agencies, posts not only the policy documents mentioned above, but also speeches by senior officials as well as testimony delivered to Congress. Quantified Perception has analyzed the major documents on the DHS site, and has developed a vocabulary for the department, including identifying key phrases used frequently. This “language of DHS” can assist you in positioning your company and honing your message to fit the Department’s own musings.

DHS Vocabulary
Although skewed slightly due to the number of agency heads testifying on the budget submission, this list spans most of DHS’s major components and includes speeches by the Secretary and other senior officials.

The ten most frequently used words across all documents are:

CIKR

information

protection

sector

risk

management

planning

programs

border

partners

“CIKR” refers to the critical infrastructure and key resources, a frequent reference in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), which is the longest document included in this analysis. The other top ten words give more insight. “Sector” tells you that DHS divides their world into component areas, generally by agency responsibility, and looks at government as a series of interrelated entities. This will be confirmed when we examine phrases. “Risk” and “management” are an integral part of the process of security, and we can expect their frequencies to be related. Ignoring “border” for a moment, “planning”, programs”, and “partners” indicate the Department’s penchant for organization and structure. “Border[s]” are clearly a major concern of the Department, but this may be exaggerated due to a speech on Southwest border protection, which increases the frequency of the use of this word.

By just looking at the most frequently used words in the Department’s web documents tells you that DHS is inclined towards process and structure – with five of the ten words indicative of relationships and actions: sector, planning, programs, border, and partners, and arguably , management as well.

What happens when we look at repeated phrases?


DHS Phrases
“CIKR” continues to be highlighted, as a key term within the NIPP, now accompanied by “protection.” But there is common “CIKR protection…” consistency (beyond two words.) The focus on structure and process continues, with multiple levels of government – federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial – used repetitively. As expected, “risk management” is a common phrasing, as is “information sharing” [across government levels?] “Southwest border” is a topic discussed in 10 of the 30 documents analyzed, including speeches and a speech on the specific topic plus budget testimony on the Southwest Border Initiative. It is also noteworthy that there is reference to “public and private [sector]” and “private sector partners”, indicating an inclusive approach and recognition that not all homeland security is Departmental.
There is a penchant for conjunctive formations that a company should be aware of and perhaps mirror in its writing to DHS. “Departments and agencies”, “systems and networks”, “response and recovery” and others provide a cadence to DHS writing (and speaking) that you would want to emulate in a proposal or whitepaper.

2 Word Phrases	Count		3 Word Phrases	Count
CIKR protection	668		owners and operators	138
private sector	410		state local tribal	105
law enforcement	261		risk management framework	101
information sharing	238		infrastructure protection plan	84
risk management	227		departments and agencies	80
urban areas	194		systems and networks	72
coast guard	170		private sector partners	71
southwest border	153		response and recovery	70
			levels of government	60
4 Word Phrases	Count		public and private	57
states and urban areas	96
national infrastructure protection plan	84		5 Word Phrases	Count
state local and tribal	78		federal state local and tribal	30
assets systems and networks	64		respond to and recover from	27
NIPP risk management framework	54		state and local law enforcement	27
CIKR owners and operators	53		steps of the risk management	27
all levels of government	40		other federal departments and agencies	25
public and private sector	40		private sector owners and operators	20
along the southwest border	38		protective programs and resiliency strategies	20
CIKR protection and resiliency	31		identify assets systems and networks	19
government and private sector	28		national CIKR protection annual report	19
respond to and recover	27		public and private sector partners	18
			government and the private sector	17
			at all levels of government	15
			civil rights and civil liberties	15
			national strategy to secure cyberspace	15