Cq Behind the Lines

BE HIN D TH E LIN E S FOR FRID A Y , JU L Y 13, 2012 — 3 P.M . By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

IN THIS ISSUE: Do nothing government: Should “the sun unleash a violent wave of plasma towards Earth triggering a disruptive geomagnetic storm,” feds have no “actionable plan” . . . By their tats ye shall know them: Loath to naturalize gang members, USCIS denying Green Cards to suspiciously inked applicants . . . Slippery slope: “What happens to a bottle of shampoo surrendered at airport security because it’s too big to carry on?” These and other stories lead today’s homeland security coverage.

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There is no actionable federal plan to prevent paralysis of the national electric power grid should “the sun unleash a violent wave of plasma towards Earth triggering a disruptive geomagnetic storm,” Washington Post weatherman Steve Tracton alerts — while Newt Gingrich warns in a Post op-ed that a nuclear EMP blast could wreak the same devastation. A D.C. police officer working as a White House motorcycle escort is benched after being overheard threatening Michelle Obama, Clarence Williams and Mary Pat Flaherty report in, again, the Post.

HOMIES: Concern about foreign gangs entering the U.S. has USCIS delaying or denying legal permanent residency to some applicants with tattoos, The Wall Street Journal’s Miriam Jordan is told. President Obama has “expanded the powers” of DHS by granting it authority to control communication networks in a crisis, Andra Varin frets for Newsmax — and see Diana West in Right Side News: “Is Janet Napolitano Gunning for Rush Limbaugh’s Job by Executive Order?” As to whom, the DHS chief today wraps up three days of talks in Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, Domincan Today tells.

FEDS: A fugitive murderer from New Jersey resisting extradition from Portugal could be tried as a terrorist today because he helped hijack an airliner in 1972, The Associated Press’ Larry Margasak hears an ex-FBI agent testifying. Italy’s Supreme Court convenes today to weigh overturning the 2009 conviction in Milan of 23 American intel agents for the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian imam, Ian Shapira curtain-raises in, once more, the Post. The U S. Bureau of Reclamation, meantime, is considering permitting renewed walleye fishing in the spillway of Montana’s Fresno Dam, forbidden since the 9/11 attacks, The Havre Daily News’ Tim Leeds relates.

STATE AND LOCAL: “It took a graffiti artist to expose a gaping security lapse in [Gotham police commish] Ray Kelly’s vaunted plan to protect the city against terrorism,” NYPD Confidential nags. California’s Senate has passed a so-called Anti-Arizona law under which police could no longer detain lower-level offenders over their undocumented status, Homeland Security News Wire notes. Two Colorado officials are again asking DHS to help verify the citizenship status of some 5,000 enrolled voters, The Denver Post reports. U.S. Border Patrol stations in Amarillo and Lubbock will close in six months and have their agents shipped to border areas, the Avalanche-Journal relates — while Lubbock’s KCBD 11 News sees Lone Star lawmakers seeking to convince CBP not to close nine internal immigration stations.

BUGS ’N’ BOMBS: The U.S. Geological Survey has begun mapping the fault underlying the Virginia earthquake that rattled the National Capital Region last August, Charlottesville’s WVIR 29 News notes. Loaded with high-tech detection gear, the NYPD’s $10 million new Bell 412 helicopter’s “job is to keep a nuclear bomb out of the city,” CBS News notes. Guards working for a private contractor securing Britain’s borders during the Olympics have failed to screen entering vehicles for dirty bombs, The Guardian relates. A draft law approved by the European Parliament would restrict public access to substances usable for homemade explosives, New Europe notes. Northrop Grumman’s fully automated biological detection system “has completed a rigorous field test,” United Press International informs.

CHASING THE DIME: Two senators seeking to build support for a compromise cybersecurity proposal have dropped a key provision requiring third-party audits for companies operating critical infrastructure, The Hill relates — but see Nextgov on a poll in which 63 percent of respondents oppose info sharing between gov and biz, citing civil liberties concerns. DHS is looking to fund private industry solutions to confront “a multitude of terrorist threats, including remote power sources for detection alerts on the Canadian border,” The Examiner examines — while Washington Technology sees General Dynamics’ C4 Systems division and EADS North America forming a team to pursue border security contracts.

CLOSE AIR SUPPORT: “What happens to a bottle of shampoo surrendered at airport security because it’s too big to carry on? The answer: not so simple,” Forbes asks and answers. United Airlines and TSA plan to invest more than $40 million in O’Hare International improvements, NBC Chicago recounts. Extra security is being drafted into Heathrow arrival halls over fears of public disorder after staff complained of slow hand-clapping by passengers in long queues, The Daily Telegraph tells. “Eagle-eyed airport staff and travelers are being recruited to help police keep Australia’s airports safe,” The Australian leads, in re: Airport Watch — while The Sun Daily assures that Malaysia Airport Holdings, the country’s airport operator, “will continue to beef [sic] its security.” Rugby star “Rob Kearney’s girlfriend Susie Amy raised a minor security alert in Dublin airport when her bra wire triggered the alarm,” The Irish Independent

SERIOUSLY OFF TRACK: A security guard at a Metrorail station in Hialeah had her gun and gun belt stolen Tuesday morning, Miami New Times tells. The Fitchburg (Mass.) Police Department is asking Boston’s transit authority to tighten up security, possibly by installing fencing along its tracks, the Sentinel & Enterprise says. A freight train derailment and explosion prompted evacuation of a mile-wide swath of Columbus, Ohio Wednesday as 90,000 gallons of ethanol blazed, the Dispatch records. Thousands of commuters endured a grueling commute Wednesday thanks to an exercise testing London’s Olympic rail capacity, The Guardian relates.

COURTS AND RIGHTS: At a status hearing in Chicago yesterday, attorneys said that a man accused of plotting to become an overseas suicide bomber will change his plea to guilty week, AP reports. Lawyers for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four co-defendants seek to postpone an Aug. 8-12 tribunal hearing because it falls during the Ramadan fast, The Miami Herald relates — while Truthout learns from a Pentagon I.G. report that Guantanamo detainees were forcibly given “mind altering drugs.” A federal judge has agreed to add the possibility of terror attack to the list of objections in a legal battle over a proposal to build the Navy Broadway Complex in San Diego, the Reader

OVER THERE: Obama’s assertion in an America TeVe interview that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez poses no “serious” security threat to the U.S. has elicited howls of Republican outrage, FOX News notes. The Daily Mail accuses a British policeman and part-time Prince William look-alike of publicizing by Twitter “secret info about Olympics preparedness that could be helpful to would-be terrorists” — as Sky News hears the Home Secretary denying that Games security is “a shambles.” One of the Taliban’s top commanders tells The New Statesman that the insurgents cannot win the war in Afghanistan and terms al Qaeda “a plague,” The Guardian relates. India’s elite counterterror force is shifting 900 commandos from VIP security duties to counterterror ops, The Press Trust of India informs.

THE SILVER SCREAM: Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport has reopened its gates to Hollywood for the first time in more than a decade, having prohibited film shoots there since the 9/11 attacks, the L.A. Times spotlights. A Brit cinema worker in Stratford-upon-Avon dressed as Batman was quizzed by anti-terror police as a “security risk” because the Olympic torch relay was due in town, The Daily Mirror mentions. CBS Films is in the early stages of developing a film version of the hit videogame series, “Deus Ex” (Eidos), “set in a future world rife with terrorism, intrigue, moral ambiguity and cybernetic enhancements,” Boomtron tells. George Mendeluk’s “The Terror Experiment” (Freefall Films) involves a terrorist bombing at a non-descript federal building that releases “a pathogen that turns anyone who comes into contact with it into a kind of rage zombie,” Flix 66 reminds in a Blu-ray review of this 2010 stinker.

KULTUR KANYON: Set thirty or so year’s hence, “Existence” (Tor Books), the long-awaited next novel from sci-fi master David Brin, posits an Earth where “the seas have risen, nuclear terrorism has been perpetrated and the Yellowstone supervolcano has burped,” a ZDNet review parses. “The New Republic” (Harper), Lionel Shriver’s “clumsy” latest novel concerns a fictitious Portuguese peninsula where a terror group, under the smirky acronym SOB, “has claimed any number of atrocities in the name of independence,” The Belfast Telegraph pans. Cardiff theater company Dirty Protest’s first full-length production will be Dennis Kelly’s “After the End,” a post-atomic drama that “explores terrorism in its many brutal forms,” WalesOnline relates. An Islamabad theater group, finally, delivers “a very strong message against the ongoing terrorism” in Pakistan with its staging of Bushra Nosheen’s “Matti Ke Khushboo,” The Daily

OUR BAD: In an overlooked typo, Thursday’s BTL column shorthanded the author of an IPT News op-ed as an “anti-Islam Muslim” when, of course, she referenced herself as an “anti-Islamist Muslim.” We recognize the cultural gulf between the two adjectives, and apologize for any confusion.

TO PERPLEX AND TO SWERVE: “Out of jail after posting a $1 million bond, George Zimmerman told reporters he remained firmly committed to community safety and had no intention of letting a single unpleasant episode prevent him from fulfilling his regular neighborhood watch duties,” The Onion reports. “‘Just because I had one little setback doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to forget my pledge to keep the Retreat at Twin Lakes safe and crime-free,’ said Zimmerman, adding that his arrest on charges of murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was just a ‘single crummy day,’ and he was eager to get back to patrolling his gated subdivision of townhouses for suspicious activity. ‘So I had a bad experience and it spooked me. So what? I’ve got to dust myself off and try again. After all, they need me out there.’ At press time, Zimmerman reported that being back behind the wheel of his SUV and quietly scanning his darkened neighborhood streets again ‘feels good. Feels right.’”

Source: CQ Homeland Security

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Rob Margetta, CQ Homeland Security Editor

O

CQWW 4 o’clock

FROM CQ HOMELAND SECURITY

BEHIND THE LINES FOR FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012 — 3 P.M.
By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly
Barbarians at the Gates: U.S. Border Patrol agents last year arrested 164 illegal aliens from terror-tainted lands along the northern border . . . Zeitgeist Watch: Spoof «National Agency for Ethical Drone-Human Interaction» posts online «Do Not Kill Registry» . . . Wake up America: New poll uncovers «shocking lack of knowledge — and even indifference — surrounding emergency alerts and notifications.»
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Planning for a possible trial is moving ahead in the case against two elderly Georgia men accused of plotting to use ricin and explosives against federal officials, The Gainesville Times tells. Jury selection opened in Texas yesterday in the trial of a Saudi-born student charged with scheming to bomb various U.S. targets, including ex-prez George W. Bush, The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Walt Nett relates. Under newly laid federal charges, a man authorities say rammed his SUV through a Philly International security gate and onto the tarmac could face 20 years behind bars, NBC 10 News’s Dan Stamm and Teresa Masterson relate.

Obama-Nation: His administration’s “use of drones to kill suspected terrorists in foreign countries may be President Obama’s biggest legacy in the fight against terrorism,” NPR’s Ari Shapiro suggests — as The Christian Post’s David Kennedy wonders: “Is it Christian to Support President Obama’s Terrorism Hit List?” As to which, a spoof “National Agency for Ethical Drone-Human Interaction” has posted a “Do Not Kill Registry,” USA Today’s Michael Winter mentions. Polling well on security, Obama’s aggressive counterterror tactics have deprived the GOP of a time-tested election year cudgel for belaboring the Dems, The Associated Press’s Donna Cassata surveys.

Feds: A U.N. human rights expert accuses the U.S. government of sidestepping questions on CIA use of armed drones in targeted killings overseas, The Washington Post’s Frank Jordans recounts. In fiscal 2011, the Border Patrol arrested 164 illegal aliens along the northern border from countries “that have shown a tendency to promote, produce, or protect terrorist organizations or their members,” Cybercast News Service’s Edwin Mora mentions — as Gadi Schwartz details on Albuquerque’s KOB 4 News ICE’s disruption of yet another fraudulent driver’s license ring, with indictments unsealed against 30 defendants in four states.

State and local: Bayonne officials will borrow $84,000 from the City Employees Credit Union to round out DHS moneys for the purchase a $305,000 “WMD rescue vessel,” The Jersey Journal relates. Montana’s Occupy Helena is asking city police to explain why they need a $430,000 DHS-sponsored armored vehicle, KXLH 9 News notes — while Arizona Range News spots the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office acquiring two Starchase Pursuit Management System units for planting GPS trackers on fleeing cars. Des Moines cops last week briefed the Indianola (Iowa) City Council regarding the town’s 28E agreement with the department’s Homeland Security Bureau for provision of terror response services, the Register reports. Access to the Platte County Courthouse will soon be restricted to a single entrance guarded by a metal detector, as recommended by DHS, The Columbus (Neb.) Telegram recounts.

Bugs ’n bombs: A new poll uncovers “a shocking lack of knowledge — and even indifference — surrounding emergency alerts and notifications,” Government Security News relays. “An Oregon man is in critical condition after apparently contracting the plague. Yes, the plague generally associated with the Middle Ages,” The Hollywood Gossip gasps. Minnesota’s only public health biosafety lab is “absolutely very secure,” notwithstanding a similar CDC lab in Atlanta having suffered alleged “major violations” of containment, Alexandria’s KSAX News reassures. The more controversial of two papers describing how the H5N1 bird flu could be made more contagious was published in Science yesterday, six months after a science board suggested censoring the most potentially dangerous data, The New York Times tells. After the discovery of explosives on the premises of a Swedish nuclear generator Wednesday authorities raised the threat level at all Swedish nuclear facilities, The Local relates.

Chasing the dime: A-T Solutions, a privately held company that offers counterterrorism services, has retained investment bank Stone Key Partners to guide a possible sale, Reuters reports. General Dynamics has won a potentially five-year, $3-billion contract to support DHS’ tactical communications program, MarketWatch relays. Emergent BioSolutions is partnering with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority on one of three innovative centers developing countermeasures against bioterror attacks and pandemics. The Lansing State Journal relates. The Kenyan economy is under serious threat following a sustained spate of terrorist bombings, the most recent in the heart of the Nairobi Central Business District, East African Business Week surveys.

Close air support: A passenger boarding a flight at Newark Liberty International was taken to a hospital for evaluation after screeners found a large canister of tear gas in his sock, the Star-Ledger relays. Some United Airlines passengers will soon have the option of expediting security clearance at O’Hare International, The Chicago Tribune updates. The first or last major airport in the U.S. for the hundreds of flights crossing the Atlantic, Maine’s Bangor International has to be “prepared for almost anything,” The Wall Street Journal spotlights. At a terminal being renovated at Dallas’ Love Field, contractors are installing 500 high-definition cameras sharp enough to read a license plate or a shirt logo while tracking targets from parking lot to concourse to tarmac, USA Today spotlights. Without saying why, the FBI has placed five men tied to a Portland mosque on the federal no-fly list in the past two years, The Oregonian spotlights.

Troubled waters: CBP is now flying Predator surveillance drones over the Caribbean to hunt narcotics-laden submarines and speedboats, DHS officials tell Nextgov — while Tactical Life hears CBP announcing that its “Unmanned Aircraft System program has achieved a historic milestone, exceeding 10,000 flight hours.” Louisiana’s Greater Lafourche Port Commission recently partnered with Crescent Guardian, Inc. to install a best-of-breed of video surveillance system at Port Fourchon, Security InfoWatch informs. U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service personnel shared port security tactics and training with officers in Mozambique this month, AllAfrica relays — as The Canton Repository sees 60 members of an Ohio Coast Guard Reserve port security unit sailing off to the Middle East.

Courts and rights: A New Jersey man stands charged with making terroristic threats because of messages on his car denoting a hit list of specific local police officers, Passaic Valley Today tells. A defense attorney argued in a South Florida court that Taliban-funding charges against a young imam are “baseless and should be dismissed . . . in much the same way as the case against his brother collapsed,” the Sun-Sentinel says. An ex-TSA agent in Florida, meanwhile, is legally challenging battery charges brought after she demonstrated on a Fort Myers security supervisor the “inappropriate” pat-down she complained of receiving, ABC News reports. Lawyers for convicted war criminal Omar Khadr are renewing their calls to have him transferred to Canada from his cell at Guantanamo, The Canadian Press recounts.

Over there: An Indonesian Islamist accused of building the massive explosive used in the 2002 Bali disco bombing was given 20 years in prison yesterday, The Jakarta Post reports. The Canadian P.M.’s security could have been compromised by a “disturbing” pattern of “harassment, intimidation and discrimination” fostered by the agent directing his protection detail, The National Post sees RCMP docs showing. A legless survivor of the July 2007 London bombings has been selected for the U.K.’s sitting volleyball team at this summer’s Paralympics, ITV News profiles. Pakistani security forces arrested a French man accused of being a top al Qaeda leader near the nation’s border with Iran, CNN says. State yesterday formally designated as “foreign terrorists” three leading figures in Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Reuters reports.

Kultur Kanyon: A Gotham artist charged last month with reckless endangerment and “planting a false bomb” after a guerilla public art project went badly awry is back out on the mean streets, Boing Boing reports. A man who filed more than 5,000 frivolous lawsuits was denied a restraining order against reality star Kim Kardashian, who he claims “terrorized” him on Disney’s Tower of Terror ride, Courthouse News Service says. Asif Akbar’s documentary: “Top Priority: The Terror Within” (Fleur De Lis) tells the true story of Julia Davis who faced “outrageous” DHS retaliation for exposing “glaring shortcomings in the processing of aliens from terrorist countries,” MMD Newswire touts. “Young Victoria” star Rupert Friend will play a straitlaced CIA analyst on the second season of Showtime’s hit terror series, “Homeland,” The Wrap relates.

Book Nook: Novelist Alice Walker, who has termed Israel “the greatest terrorist” in the Middle East, won’t authorize a Hebrew edition of “The Color Purple” because “Israeli apartheid is worse” than the Jim Crow segregation under which she grew up, The Jewocity Blog relates. Joshua Henkin’s third novel, “The World Without You” (Pantheon), is set in 2005 on the first anniversary of the death in Iraq of “Leo Frankel,” whose story closely mirrors Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl’s, Tablet Magazine relates. Hometown author Steven R. Roberts’ “Honor Bound, Terror on the F Train” (Rogue River Press) follows two Vietnam vets who “team up to stop a major terrorist plot to kill thousands in the U.S.,” The Dearborn Patch curtain-raises — while The Daily Advertiser touts Australian wordsmith Greg Barron’s “Rotten Gods” (HarperCollins), “a thriller set in the near future when a new wave of terror threatens a world already stricken by storms and supertides.”

RIP: “Friends, family, and colleagues of 19-year-old U.S. Marine Alex Penzerton were saddened upon learning he had been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan and was thus deprived of the life-changing opportunity a few years in the military might have afforded him,” The Onion reports. “‘Alex was a troubled kid who really could have benefited from the kind of structured environment an organization like the Marines provides,’ said Penzerton’s father, David, holding the flag the Corps had shipped home to him. ’I’m sure he would have straightened himself out if he’d just had a few more months in the service and survived into his 20s.’ Also killed in the attack was 26-year-old Cpl. Damon Siggs, who sources said was in his fourth tour of duty and had really turned his life around with the discipline he learned as a Marine.”

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