U. S. Department of Defense Guidance for Security Engineering

Abstract

Prior to September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense and other agencies of the U.S. Government had developed a number of engineering design documents that provided guidance for protection of government assets against terrorist and criminal acts. Almost all of those manuals were exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Historically, that was not a serious concern because there was relatively little interest in such design guidance outside the government. In a new initiative, DoD is updating and expanding a number of its manuals as Unified Facilities Criteria, combining the design guidance used by the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines into a coordinated series of Security Engineering Manuals. Those manuals are being developed through the inter-service DoD Security Engineering Working Group. The current plan is to exclude distribution limitations from those manuals so they can be made available to the public. This paper will describe the Security Engineering series of Unified Facilities Criteria manuals and the DoD Minimum Antiterrorism Standards for Buildings, which the manuals are being designed to support and supplement. This paper will also describe other support publications such as Unified Facilities Guide Specifications and related initiatives to develop state of the art tools for designing to protect people and property against terrorist and criminal acts.