National Level Exercise 2012

National Level Exercise (NLE) is a yearly event that evaluates how the US' emergency services deal and manage with circumstances of an extreme fashion. Whether it be a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, these practice drills are carried out so that when the New World Order does actually carry out a grand-scale false flag incident, government divisions such as FEMA (Federal Emergency and Management Agency) and the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) are fully prepared to use the said crisis to take away civilians' constitutional freedoms and liberties from them and lead them to the internment camps / fusion centres for either extermination or dehumanized control; whichever the tyrannical fascists see fit.

This year's NLE takes a more virtual form, as there's an internet-based catastrophe to cope with. Below is the official description of NLE 12, which can be found on FEMA's site:

"National Level Exercise (NLE) 2012 is part of a series of congressionally mandated preparedness exercises designed to educate and prepare participants for potential catastrophic events. The NLE 2012 process will examine the nation’s ability to coordinate and implement prevention, preparedness, response and recovery plans and capabilities pertaining to a significant cyber event or a series of events. NLE 2012 will examine national response plans and procedures, including the National Response Framework (NRF), NRF Cyber Incident Annex, Interim National Cyber Incident Response Plan (NCIRP) and the International Strategy for Cyberspace. Unique to NLE 2012 will be an emphasis on the shared responsibility among all levels of government, the private sector and the international community to secure cyberspace and respond together to a significant cyber incident.
 
Major Exercises

NLE 2012 will include four major exercises, including a capstone exercise. These exercises will share common scenario elements, planning efforts and governance structure. Participation in each exercise will be determined individually but overall, NLE 2012 participation includes the Executive Office of the President, federal, state, local, tribal and territorial department and agency officials and emergency operations elements, nongovernmental and private sector organizations and international partners. The four major exercises are:

Information Exchange: This discussion-based exercise is designed to evaluate the sharing of cyber‐related information among the intelligence community, law enforcement, federal, state, tribal and local governments, the private sector and international partners, as appropriate.

Cyber Incident Management/Virtual Effects: This exercise will examine the coordination and communication processes between public and private stakeholders in response to a significant cyber incident. This will include examining challenges related to managing a cyber event with national security implications.

NLE Capstone/Cyber Physical Effects: This functional exercise will examine challenges related to managing a cyber event with physical consequences and national security implications. This will include addressing cyber and physical interdependencies and impacts while coordinating a Whole Community response.  
  
      Whole Community approach encompasses understanding and meeting the true needs of the entire affected community; engaging all aspects of the community (public, private, and civic) in defining those needs and devising ways to meet them; and strengthening the assets, institutions, and social processes that work well to improve resilience and emergency management outcomes.

Continuity Exercise/Eagle Horizon: This operations-based exercise will evaluate the continuity capability of federal departments and agencies. A component will include a nationwide exercise examining communications capability of the homeland security enterprise under conditions in which critical systems have been degraded or lost.

In addition to the major exercises, the NLE 2012 process will include senior level exercises, building-block events (i.e., seminars, tabletop exercises, and training) and routine exercise planning conferences."

No specific date has been given as to when NLE 12 will take place, but as mentioned over at ASDWA (Association of State Drinking Water Administrators), it "will be “played” in FEMA Regions 1, 2, 3, and 5 during the spring and summer of this year.".

So; just what sort of cyber attack can we expect? Well, as we have seen in recent years, various websites have been hacked into which allows for unauthorised access to a wide array of personal and sensitive information. Online protesters Anonymous are are at the forefront at making their their voices heard on the web, from taking down major corporate services such as Sony's PSN (PlayStation Network) in April 2011, to breaching Sarah Palin's Yahoo! account and parts of the Tunisian, Brazilian, Zimbabwean, Turkish, and Australian government's sites in a move known as "Operation Anti-Security". Whilst not directly known for hacking into websites, Wikileaks has released numerous classified political documents that were formely held in apparently protected and secure servers. There have been concerns that social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are being subverted in use as hubs for virtual scamming and for other malicious forms of unsavoury activity. Perhaps this cyber-attack will have adverse effects on more tangible equipment? One comment on Theintelhub suggests: "I would think that “a cyber event with physical consequences ” is refering to cyber attacks on infrastructure control systems ie. nuclear power plant controls, electric grid management, air traffic controls, etc., all those things that are internet connected and therefor vulnerable to hacked access.". This could be where the link to where ASDWA is in place; as again their page states "Some impact or connection to the Water Sector is also expected." ...

Stay tuned; National Level Exercise 2012 is underway.