International News

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Hamas and Fatah Reach Agreement but Back Off on Recognizing Israel; Tension With Israel Heightens (BBC; CNN) “Rival Palestinian political factions Fatah and Hamas have reached agreement on a common political strategy to try to end a damaging power struggle,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “However, Hamas negotiators have denied earlier reports that the deal meant the militants would implicitly recognise Israel.” Furthermore, in a military incursion into the Gaza Strip, “Israel rounded up members of the Hamas-led Palestinian government Thursday, arresting Cabinet ministers and parliament members as a crisis over the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier deepened,” according to CNN. [View BBC article] [View CNN article]

Iraq Proposes Amnesty and Compensation Plan (Radio Netherlands) “Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has presented a 24-point plan for National Reconciliation to the Iraqi parliament,” reports Radio Netherlands. “It aims to draw the Sunni community into the political process and isolate the hard core of jihadi terrorists. It offers an amnesty for those who have not committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and terrorist crimes. The plan received a warm welcome in parliament, but the question is: will it be enough for those Iraqi Sunni forces who are not jihadi terrorists, but who remain adamantly opposed to what they see as the US occupation of Iraq?” [View article]

Iran’s Supreme Leader Sees No Need for Nuclear Talks With U.S. (Seattle Times) “Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran does ‘not need’ talks with the United States over its nuclear program because nothing would be gained …” reports the Associated Press. “‘Negotiations with the United States would have no benefit for us, and we do not need them,’ state television quoted Khamenei” as saying. [View article]

UN Inaugurates Peacebuilding Commission The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission held its inaugural meeting on Monday. The commission will marshal international resources to advise and propose integrated strategies for post-conflict recovery, focusing attention on reconstruction, institution-building, and sustainable development in countries emerging from conflict. [View website]

Plans Discovered to Use Children’s Toys to Make Bombs (New Zealand Herald) “Instructions on how to make bombs using parts from children’s toys have been discovered by police during an anti-terrorist operation in the” United Kingdom, reports Independent News & Media. “A suspected terror manual also details the production of poison dust clouds.” The plans were discovered after an eight-house raid on Tuesday “by Greater Manchester Police aimed at suspected al Qaeda supporters.” Computer files contained instructions in Arabic for “using electronic parts from children’s toys to make detonators” and “how to make a chemical bomb. A source said: ‘We do not know at this stage what anyone was planning to do with this information.’” [View article]

U.S. and Australia Hold Nuclear Talks (Melbourne, Australia, Age) Secret “nuclear talks between [Australian] Prime Minister John Howard and American officials” might lead to a multinational system to help control uranium, reports the Age. “The US plan will involve countries with large uranium deposits, such as Australia and Canada, enriching uranium and leasing it out to other countries for civilian power generation. It is proposed that Australia and Canada would then accept shipments of nuclear waste to prevent other countries from using it to develop” nuclear weapons. [View article]

Human-to-Human Infection by Bird Flu Virus Is Almost Certain (New York Times) “An Indonesian who died after catching the A(H5N1) bird flu virus from his 10-year-old son represents the first confirmed case of human-to-human transmission of the disease, a World Health Organization investigation of an unusual family cluster has concluded,” reports the New York Times. “… The W.H.O. investigators also discovered that the virus had mutated slightly when the son had the disease, although not in any way that would allow the virus to pass more readily among people.” The slight mutation “allowed researchers from the W.H.O. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States to document that the virus almost certainly was passed from person to person.” [View article]

Bird Flu Fatalities Almost Triple (Bloomberg) “Bird flu fatalities have almost tripled this year as the lethal virus spread across Asia, Europe and Africa, prompting calls for increased supplies of medicines to fight the virus and any pandemic it might spawn,” reports Bloomberg. “Since January, at least 54 people have died from the H5N1 avian influenza strain in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq and Turkey, according to the World Health Organization.” [View article]

Australian National Security Hotline Gets 60 Calls a Day (Melbourne, Australia, Age) “More than 80,000 people have called Australia’s national security hotline to report suspicious behaviour since it was set up 3½ years ago,” reports the Age. “After its launch amid a blaze of advertising in December 2002—urging people to ‘Be alert, not alarmed’—the hotline has attracted, on average, more than 60 calls a day.” [View article]

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State and Local News

Photo courtesy of Steve Dunham

Moorish Temple Denies Link to Sears Tower Plotters (Chicago Tribune) “The seven men charged with plotting to blow up the Sears Tower were not members of the Moorish Science Temple of America Inc., leaders of two of the movement’s temples said Tuesday … saying none was a member and the organization doesn’t condone terrorist acts,” reports the Chicago Tribune. (“Family members of one of the seven” said “he had been studying the religious movement with the other men in a Miami warehouse.”) The temple “helped form the foundation of early Black Muslim ideology.” Members use a book called the Holy Koran, “which bears no relation to the Koran of traditional Islam.” [View article]

States Target Employers of Aliens (Stateline) “Frustrated by Congress’ inability to adopt major immigration reform, states are opening a new assault on illegal immigrants by passing laws targeting employers who hire undocumented workers,” reports Stateline. “Colorado became the first state to empower its Department of Labor and Employment to investigate contractors working for the state government for violating federal laws against hiring illegal aliens. Pennsylvania has stiffened penalties for employers who receive government grants or loans and hire illegal aliens, and state lawmakers are debating legislation to target all employers statewide. And Georgia and Massachusetts, along with Colorado, now require all public employers to use a federal work authorization program to verify that no illegal aliens have been hired. At least 30 states have considered more than 75 bills targeting employers of illegal immigrants this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.” [View article] [View list of legislation]

Govt. Abandons Connecticut Library Case (New York Times) “After fighting for nearly a year to keep details of a counterterrorism investigation secret, the federal government has abandoned efforts to obtain library records in Connecticut, concluding that the implied threat had no merit,” reports the New York Times. “… Though the government, by some estimates, issues 30,000 similar requests a year to companies and other keepers of sensitive records without encountering much resistance, the four librarians cited their duty to protect patron privacy and support intellectual freedom as reasons to resist turning over the requested records. They especially objected to an order not to talk about the case with anyone, under threat of prosecution.” (See the June 2 newsletter) [View article]

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National News

Financial Search Raises Privacy Fears (Washington Post; Washington Times) “Questions of privacy arose” on June 23 “after revelations that the Bush administration has been tracking clues about terrorists by searching the records of a Belgium-based banking consortium that handles millions of financial transactions daily across national borders,” reports the Washington Post. “… the revelations underscore the degree to which the government is obtaining more financial information that used to be treated as confidential.” Administration officials “had hoped to keep the newly disclosed program under wraps because of its value in thwarting terrorism. They said they were forced to go public because the New York Times had made clear that it was publishing a major story about it.” Now “the Belgian government says it will look into U.S. data mining of private financial records held by SWIFT—a Brussels-based global banking entity,” reports United Press International. [View Post article] [View UPI article]

Supreme Court Rejects Guantanamo War Crimes Trials (Washington Post) “The Supreme Court [yesterday] delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions are unconstitutional,” reports the Washington Post. “… The ruling … overturned a federal appeals court decision.” [View article]

Released Documents Show Little Abuse of Detainees (Los Angeles Times) “Reports (by Brig. Gens. Richard Formica and Charles Jacoby)” released to the American Civil Liberties Union “show a Pentagon open to criticism and change, and determined to guarantee detainees the humane treatment promised by President Bush when the war on terror began,” according to David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, writing in the Los Angeles Times. “Genuine instances of abuse are noted, but these are very much the exception and not the rule. The reports indicate that many allegations of abuse simply are unsubstantiated—or that the ‘victim’s’ story changes once carefully examined.” [View commentary]

High-Profile Terror Arrests Yield Small Sentences (MSNBC) “Some legal experts accuse the Justice Department [of] overselling” so-called terrorism cases, which generate “dramatic headlines” but “actually end very differently,” reports NBC News. “… last week, the Justice Department said 261 people have been convicted in terror-related prosecutions since 2001.” However, “the average sentence is only around a year,” owing to plea agreements on “charges like immigration or document fraud. And sometimes the threat may seem remote.” But Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty “said all are examples of a new approach—prevention through prosecution.” [View article]

U.S. Vulnerable to ‘Cyber Katrina’ (Government Computer News) “The United States is poorly prepared for a ‘cyber Katrina,’ with no coordinated plan for restoring and recovering the Internet after a major disruption, according to a new Business Roundtable report,” reports Government Computer News. “… Despite efforts to address the problem, the federal government and private sector have not developed a coordinated plan for restoring the Internet and maintaining confidence in financial markets following a major breach in functioning. The gaps identified include no cyberattack early warning system, unclear and overlapping responsibilities for responding to Internet disruptions, and no sufficient resources.” [View article] [View report]

‘Protecting the Nation’s Seaports: Balancing Security and Cost’ “The government should focus its efforts on sealing the supply chain and improving” the ability to identify containers deserving scrutiny, “while not neglecting lower-cost actions to make the ports and their perimeters more difficult targets,” according to this new report by the Public Policy Institute of California. “Furthermore, a rapid response and economic reconstitution plan could minimize damage from either an attack on a port or an attack using the maritime supply chain.… ” The report considers “the likely economic effects of a terrorist attack on a port, best practices in key areas of port security, how well government programs respond to major challenges in port security, and how port security should be financed.” [View report]

Book Describes War on Terror According to the 1% Doctrine (Washington Post) In The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (see the June 23 newsletter), author Ron Suskind describes incidents in “the Bush administration’s war on terror,” according to a review by Barton Gellman in the Washington Post. The title comes from Vice President Cheney’s assertion that “‘If there’s a one percent chance’” of a high-impact terrorist act (such as al-Qaeda’s obtaining enriched uranium), “‘we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.’ This ‘Cheney Doctrine’ let Bush evade analytic debate, Suskind writes, and ‘rely on impulse and improvisation.’” One result described by Suskind was the imaginary plots tortured out of a mentally ill prisoner, Abu Zubaydah. [View article]

Identifying Terrorists Is a Basic Problem (CNN) Even something as basic as identifying who is a named terrorist has plagued the U.S. government, reports CNN. One example is the identity of the man who is supposed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. After Zarqawi’s death, information led the U.S. military to believe that Abu Ayyub al-Masri was the new al-Qaeda leader in Iraq. But al-Qaeda issued a statement naming someone else as the new leader. “And then a statement appeared signed by ‘Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajer,’ saying he was al-Zarqawi’s successor.” One expert said “that Abu Ayyub al-Masri was al-Muhajer and that his real name was Yousef al-Durairi.” [View article]

FEMA Bulks Up on Supplies and Systems for Tracking Them (Government Executive) “Officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency have invested millions of dollars in equipment and supply upgrades to try to ensure a smoother flow of supplies to, and communications at, the site of the next disaster,” reports the National Journal. “State emergency-response officials applaud these investments but warn that the upgrades may have done little to repair underlying flaws in FEMA’s operations—a loss of experienced staff and a strategy that emphasizes federal decision-making in disasters that are primarily local events.” [View article]

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Federal News

Bush Orders Overhaul of Public Alert System (Federal Computer Week) “President Bush has directed the secretary of the Homeland Security Department to develop a public alert and warning system that uses the latest communications technology,” reports Federal Computer Week. “The current Emergency Alert System, which relies primarily on broadcast television and radio to inform the public about threats such as terrorist attacks, natural disasters and other emergencies, will be a component of the new system,” which “will allow emergency managers more flexibility in how they alert the public and what information they disseminate. The system should be able to target specific geographic locations and deliver alerts in various formats, based on personal user preference, and in multiple languages.” [View article]

Special Report on DHS—Part 2 (Government Computer News) Government Computer News has published the second part of a special report on Homeland Security Department activity, with these articles:

Coast Guard Secures Facilities With Biometrics and RFID (Government Computer News) Using a voluntary biometric identification card program called RapidGate, the Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, DC, has identified “three potential vendor employees who had served time for murder, one registered sex offender, two working under false names and others with multiple identities or who had lied about their criminal history,” reports Government Computer News. The Coast Guard’s Fort Lewis, WA, facility uses RapidGate’s “biometrics to authenticate and identify vendors” and radio-frequency identification “to track vehicles.” The RapidGate program “likely will be expanded to other facilities.” [View article]

Border Security: From Gizmos to Tactical Infrastructure (Government Computer News) “From the recent America’s Shield Initiative—dismissed by” Homeland Security Department “leadership as technological ‘gizmos’—to consistent problems with the existing Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System … the government has yet to find an effective and comprehensive means of securing the borders,” reports Government Computer News. “But DHS officials are convinced that this time, the Secure Border Initiative-Net program will succeed … But some experts are concerned that SBInet, bigger and broader than America’s Shield, may be too open-ended and could crash under its heightened expectations.” [View article]

SBInet Depends on Communication (Government Computer News) “While the Homeland Security Department seeks innovative surveillance solutions that can weather different climates and terrain, the Secure Border Initiative-Net [SIBnet] procurement focuses on better informing and linking border patrol agents,” reports Government Computer News. “… Border surveillance now consists of more than 200 cameras sending images back to border patrol stations, but the system is inconsistent at best and gives agents no analytical information to determine threats. For SBInet to have any real impact, the system needs to mix the surveillance equipment with a real-time communications element that lets border patrol agents respond quickly to incursions.” [View article]

OMB Emphasizes Data Security Guidance (Government Computer News) “The Office of Management and Budget [on Monday] provided a checklist of best practices that agencies must have in place in 45 days to compensate for the absence of physical security controls when employees remove information or access it from outside of agency premises,” reports Government Computer News. Agencies will also have to “encrypt all data on mobile devices that carry sensitive data and allow remote access only with two-factor authentication.” [View article]

GAO Pulls Archived Personal Data Off Web (Government Computer News) “The Government Accountability Office has pulled from its Web site personal information on certain government employees after discovering that the archived data had been inadvertently posted online,” reports Government Computer News. The “GAO said the data came from audit reports on Defense Department travel vouchers from the 1970s and included some service members’ names, Social Security numbers and addresses. GAO estimates that fewer than 1,000 people were impacted.” [View article]

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Private-Sector News

New Strategies for Real Estate Terror Insurance (Reuters) “The Real Estate Roundtable lobbying group says instead of seeking another extension of” a 2002 law under which the government would “act as reinsurer of last resort if insurers cannot handle massive damages from terrorism attacks … Congress might want to pass a law embracing the pool approach,” reports Reuters. Britain, France, and Australia each have a “government-backed insurance pool to pick up damage costs.” [View article]

Emergency Communications Planning Enables Disaster Recovery (Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal) “The core of any contingency planning/disaster recovery plan is emergency communications,” according to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. “… A technology-based emergency-notification system is central to efficient emergency communications. This system will provide senior leadership with the ability to respond, direct and manage during a time of crisis.… Automated emergency notification systems enable fast, accurate strategic communication delivery that is documented, auditable and repeatable. Employees are notified in the manner they’ve chosen to be contacted—on their office phones, cell phones, pagers, PDAs and other wireless devices. If one method doesn’t get through, the system automatically attempts a back-up channel. And the system documents which employees were reached and the channels used.” [View article]

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Education

The Homeland Security Institute lists these education programs as a service to readers who may be interested; it does not endorse them or their courses.

Terrorism: Threats, Training, Tactics and Technology (August 7-9; Los Angeles) Nationally renowned experts will explore terrorism, emerging threats, training, tactics, and technology issues. Military, law enforcement, intelligence, security professionals, first responders, emergency managers, government leaders, and academics can explore some of the challenges and gain a comprehensive understanding of issues related to terrorism. [View conference website] Certificate in Homeland Security (Fall semester; Texas A&M University) This online, graduate-level Certificate in Homeland Security is intended for professionals in government, nonprofit, and private sectors seeking to plan and execute homeland security–related strategies and policies for their organization. The program is 5 courses or 15 credit hours total that can stand alone or be applied towards a master’s degree. Flexible scheduling, courses, and projects are shaped to meet individual interests and needs. The application deadline is July 7. [View course website] Master of Science Degree in Homeland Security Management (Fall semester; Long Island [NY] University) In this 12-course, 36-credit online program, students will complete their course work through assigned reading and writing and participation in threaded Internet discussion boards. [View announcement]

Upcoming Events

New Events (After four weeks, new events will be moved to the list below, in chronological order) Whatever It Takes (August 9; Rochester, NY) Homeland Security Management Institute’s 2006 National Conference at Monroe Community College will feature national experts discussing topics of concern to the homeland security, health care, education, and business communities: preparing for and responding to pandemic flu outbreaks, New York state’s pandemic flu plan, evolving terrorist threats inside the United States, homeland security in New York state, and how businesses can access homeland security funding. [View conference website]

July 5-13; Washington, DC: SANSFire

July 11-13; Richmond, VA: 4th TICs and TIMs Symposium

July 18-19; Washington, DC: Government Conference on Information Sharing and Homeland Security

July 24-26; Mystic, CT: INFORMS Military Applications Society

September 6-8; Atlanta: Technologies for Critical Incident Preparedness Conference & Expo

September 13-14; Brussels, Belgium: Air & Port Security Expo Europe

September 19-20; New York: U.S. Maritime Security Expo

September 19-21; Baltimore: Biometric Consortium Conference

October 2-5; Colorado Springs, CO: Homeland Defense Symposium

October 25-27; New York: Environmental Sampling and Detection for Bio-Threat Agents

December 3-6; Baltimore: Society for Risk Analysis