Article in today's Wall Street Journal about a little-known federal agency known as the TSWG:
Americans worried about terrorism on their home turf will soon be able to buy a $3 sensor the size of a credit card that will show whether they have been exposed to a dirty radioactive bomb. Behind the development of the tiny dosimeter, which features a baby blue or pink stripe that blushes deeper the greater the radiation exposure, is a tiny government agency that labored in obscurity — until now.The 70 employees of the Technical Support Working Group are the nation's talent scouts for antiterrorism gadgets. Their job is not to build the stuff but to fund it and ensure that gizmos find their way out of the laboratory, onto the market and into the hands of those who may need them. That, of course, became all the more pressing after Sept. 11. Since then, some 16,000 proposals have landed on the desks of the group's staffers. Only 120 made the cut. But now the agency is preparing for a new onslaught of proposals. It expects this week to issue its first public call for antiterrorism gadgets on behalf of the new Department of Homeland Security, which has promised to kick $30 million into the group's budget.
Link to WSJ article (subscription required), link to agency website, Discuss
