Chemical Facility Security News

As I mentioned last week (see: "Update of CSAT Web Page and Manuals"), DHS has revised their four published CSAT manuals, two dealing with facility registration and two dealing with the Top Screen. I had more of a chance to review the changes and found that the Top Screen changes are more extensive so I will review those separately. Today we will look at the changes made to the two registration manuals.

As I noted in a blog earlier this year (see: "Change to CSAT Registration Manual") DHS had changed the security settings on the newest versions of their manuals so they could neither be printed or abstracted (sections electronically copied from the text). On the newest version of the Registration Manual this has been changed to allow local printing.

Since many people still prefer hard copies of manuals this is a beneficial change. I still don’t understand why DHS does not allow electronic copying of passages from these manuals. It certainly makes it easier for reporters and explicators such as my self to quote from the manuals; simply cut and past. Now I have to actually re-type the passages; how 20th Century.

Two other changes to this manual were even less earth shattering. The OMB Approval Expiration date shown in one of the screen shots (and presumably on the actual web site) was changed from 2008 to 2011. It is a tad bit ironic that the OMB approval expires well after the legal authority for the site expires in 2009.

This used to be called the Change Request Users Guide; the new name reflects the increased capabilities added to this portion of the CSAT registration site. It now allows an almost one stop site for making changes to current user information, changing roles, and adding new users to the system.

A big part of this change is the addition of the "Update My Information" option on the web site. In addition to allowing the updating of passwords (see: "Potential DHS PHISHING Alert"), it allows for updating the personal information of currently registered users. It allows users to edit name, address, phone-number, email-address and organization name without involving the Help Desk.

The new system also has increased capabilities to change the roles of registered users and to add new users to the system. The system now can handle transferring specific facility roles of a registered user instead of only being able to transfer all roles. Again, this makes it easier to facilities to adapt their systems as they evolve without having to go through the Help Desk personnel.

One last revision updates this manual for a change made in the previous Registration Manual. This manual now explains that the Submitter and Authorizer must be employees of the organization that owns or operates the facility. This change had actually been made to the system earlier this year.

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