Michael Sheehan, the Pentagon’s chief of irregular warfare, caused some consternation at a U.S. Senate hearing recently by stating, when asked, that the war on terrorism – that is, against Al-Qaeda – could last “at least 10 to 20 years” from now.

While other U.S. officials have said that Al-Qaeda is greatly battered, Sheehan, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, noted there is no geographical limitation to the war that began after 9/11 with passage of the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF).

“Thanks to that relatively terse authorization,” Wired.com reports, “U.S. counterterrorism stretches ‘from Boston to the FATA,’ Sheehan said, using the acronym for Pakistan’s tribal areas. Sheehan told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he believed ‘associated forces’ of Al-Qaeda can be targeted anywhere around the world, including inside Syria, where the rebel Nusra Front recently allied itself with Al-Qaeda’s Iraq affiliate, or even what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called ‘boots on the ground in Congo.’”

Members of the Armed Services Committee appeared chagrined that AUMF was being given such an extended prospect.

Accuweather is predicting an active hurricane season with three U.S. landfalls, one less than last year. The hurricane season begins June 1st.

A concern about this year’s hurricane season is the vulnerability of East Coast areas that were hit last year by Hurricane Sandy. By contrast, Florida residents are said to be feeling “overdue” for a big storm. They were last hit by Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Jack Thomas Tomarchio is a former official of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and currently a board member of the sightlogix outdoor video company. Here, he reviews what’s being learned in security/technology terms about the Boston bombings.

“Well certainly,” he says, ” that (video surveillance) was a huge game changer for law enforcement. The use of cameras here obviously identified the faces of these two suspects. I actually went on TV the day that those photographs were released by the FBI and said that these two men had about 12 to 24 hours of freedom or life left. That turned out to be true, because once video from the surveillance cameras fixed to buildings, along with images from people’s cell phones at the event and other videos of the event that were harvested captured these two men, they really had no place to go and no place to hide — their time was up.”

Here’s a program announcement for the 59th annual ASIS Seminar and Exhibits September 24-27 in Chicago. ASIS meetings are a premier place for getting, and staying, connected with  the security industry. ASIS says Information on this year’s sessions will be available in June.

A Pro Barrier colleague notes, not without some privacy misgivings, one of the latest approaches to camera security – flying “eyes in the sky”.  Instead of, or along with, fixed cameras, the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) campus is testing unmanned aerial vehicles – UAVs – as “eyes in the sky” to spot campus security threats.

A  local TV channel’s video debuts the flying cameras. They’re a larger, more intricate version of the controller-operated helicopters you can buy for kids. “The UAVs will buzz up to 400 feet above the UAH campus as an extra ‘eye in the sky,’” says a university official. “You can put the thing up there and it’s almost invisible to the person who’s maybe doing something they shouldn’t be doing.”

Neat, but keep being mindful of the sky, students.

Here’s a place that people interested in the security of business or government facilities probably ought to be – the Homeland Security Department’s Collaboration Community.  You need to register for IdeaScale to get there, but Homeland Security’s description of the service makes it sound like a Web suggestion and response box.

“DHS,” the site notes, “coordinates the national protection, prevention, mitigation, and recovery from cyber incidents and works regularly with business owners and operators to take steps to strengthen their facilities and communities.”  Sounds like a good listening/learning post, indeed.

In case you haven’t noticed, May 14 is the second annual “World Risk Day,” according to the Risk Management Monitor blog. Both concepts, the day and the blog, are creations of Risk Management magazine, and helpful ones at that.

“World Risk Day is open to anyone who wants to learn how taking smarter risks can drive their business,” notes Emily Holbrook, editor of Risk Management. The Resource Center for the occasion includes a host of reports and white papers minimizing risk. It’s worth checking out.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a “lessons learned” website where it shares information both publicly and to registered users only. FEMA says the site is intended to provide “lessons learned, best practices, and innovative ideas for the emergency management and homeland security communities.”

This site looks as though it can be a great resource for keeping abreast of developments in the disaster and security areas. Open source and non-sensitive documents are available without logging in; others require a site registration for access. The site that led us to FEMA’s is HSToday.us, posted by Homeland Security magazine.

Bruce Schneier has a public service announcement for computer users in the security business and everywhere else: Don’t forget the importance of backups! Duh! Self-evident, huh? But when’s the last time you backed up your system? If you have a regular routine for doing that, great. If not, consider Schneier’s dictum: “No one ever wants backups, but everyone always wants restores.”

Or this comment on Schneier’s post: “There are two types of computer users: Those who’ve lost their data, and those who will.”

You don’t often hear of a museum managing its fleet of motor vehicles impressively to save gasoline and dollars. How many museums even have fleets? Well, Nextgov.com advises, the Smithsonian Institution does – 1,500 vehicles to go with facilities in more than 80 countries. And in 2006 it decided to manage them aggressively via a fleet management information system and vehicle telematics.

The result has been impressive – an 18 percent reduction in light-duty vehicles and a 44 percent decrease in petroleum consumption.  The heart of the program is effective measurement of vehicle use – “You can’t manage what you don’t measure” has become a Smithsonian  byword, at least in the fleet department.

Always and everywhere, attentiveness pays.