Patrick appoints a homeland chief

Governor Deval Patrick named a Harvard lecturer who frequently appears on television as a terrorism analyst as the state's new homeland security adviser yesterday.

Juliette Kayyem, 37, will be the only Arab-American to hold a state-level homeland security position, according to a spokesman for the US Department of Homeland Security. She will also be one of a handful of women to hold such a job.

"It's a tremendous opportunity," said Kayyem, who will serve as undersecretary of homeland security, a position that previous administrations did not have. She will be paid $125,000 a year.

"This is not an easy job; conceptually, it's huge. And there are so many competing priorities," Kayyem said.

Kayyem, who has given up her teaching job and her position as a terrorism analyst for NBC News, said Patrick and Kevin Burke , the secretary of public safety, are committed to having one person coordinate all the homeland security functions of state government.

In the mid-1990s, soon after Kayyem graduated from Harvard Law School, Patrick hired her as a trial attorney in the US Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, where she worked on national security and terrorism cases. Under an appointment by Richard A. Gephardt, who was then US House minority leader, she later served on the National Commission on Terrorism, formed after two embassy bombings in Africa.

Kayyem was a member of Patrick's working group on public safety and security transition after he was elected.

Kayyem, a Lebanese-American, said she recognizes the historic significance of her appointment, though she views herself as an American first.

"I don't want to downplay" my ethnicity, she said. "It's clearly part of who I am and reflects some of my concern about the civil liberties and privacy issues. There's no question about that. I think I also have greater respect and confidence in the Arab-American community than probably a lot of other people would."

Two Arab-American leaders hailed Kayyem's appointment.

"This is fantastic," said Ashraf Hegazy , co founder of the Harvard Arab Alumni Association and a member of the National Policy Council of the Arab-American Institute. "The Arab and Muslim communities came out in strong support of Governor Patrick because we felt that he really understood the challenges facing immigrant communities, minorities, and especially our community post 9/11."

Patrick is expected to announce today that he is revoking the policy put in place by former governor Mitt Romney that would have trained state troopers to arrest undocumented immigrants. He has previously said that he would revoke the policy.

"If anyone were putting together a set of universally acknowledged and respected national authorities on the question of counterterrorism, she would be among the names that would crop up at the national level," said Hussein Ibish , executive director of the Foundation for Arab-American Leadership, based in Washington, D.C.

Her appointment, he said, also "shows that society isn't opposed to Arab-American input when it comes to national security."

Kayyem said one of her top priorities will be getting businesses, as well as colleges and universities, involved in security planning. She also said she hopes to demystify the language of homeland security. "The way government talks to the American public about security, it's either 'Be afraid,' or 'Go shopping.' Those are the two extremes. We have to make the secret, scary world of national security more accessible to the public."

Eric Fehrnstrom, spokesman for Romney, said even though Romney did not appoint a homeland security adviser he "took a personal and direct role in addressing the state's homeland security needs" more than any previous governor.

Romney created a homeland security plan that became a national model by directing resources and money to communities based on a threats analysis, not on population, Fehrnstrom said. His public safety secretary, Edward Flynn, was chief of the Arlington County, Virginia, Police Department, which responded when the Pentagon was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, he said.

Kayyem is one of four aides Patrick named yesterday. The others are Mary Elizabeth Heffernan , who was named undersecretary of criminal justice; Kurt N. Schwartz , appointed undersecretary of law enforcement, and LaDonna Hatton , who will continue serving as undersecretary of forensic sciences.