International News

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Martyrdom Video Discovered at UK Suspect’s Home (Madras, India, Hindu) “A ‘martyrdom video’ apparently recorded by a [would-be] suicide bomber was found at one of the raided addresses in the UK as police continued to question 24 terrorist suspects linked to the plot to blow up US-bound flights from London,” reports the Press Trust of India. [View article]

Pakistan Arrests Seven in UK Bomb Plot (Aljazeera) “Pakistan officials say they arrested seven people, including at least two Britons, over an alleged plot to blow up US-bound aeroplanes from Britain,” reports Aljazeera. “Pakistan’s foreign ministry said [last] Friday that arrests made in Pakistan had triggered arrests in Britain on August 9 and 10. It named British national Rashid Rauf as a ‘key person’ who had been arrested in Pakistan. The Britons, both of Pakistani descent, were seized last week and provided vital information that helped to expose the plot while five local ‘facilitators’ were arrested separately.” [View article]

Threat Still ‘Serious’; British Alert Reduced to ‘Severe,’ U.S. to ‘High’ (Scotsman) British “Home Secretary John Reid [on Monday] warned ‘there is still a very serious threat of an attack’ in the UK, despite downgrading the terror risk,” reports the Scotsman. “The UK now faces a ‘severe’ threat from terrorists, the second highest rating, instead of a ‘critical’ threat … It means passengers will again be allowed to take hand luggage on planes, although tight airport restrictions remain in place.” On Sunday, the U.S. Homeland Security Department lowered its threat level from red (“Severe”) to orange (“High”) for flights from the United Kingdom to the United States. [View article] [View DHS press release]

Stakeouts, Tips, and Wiretaps Led to Terror Plot Arrests (Washington Post) “In the aftermath of the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings on London’s transit system, British authorities received a call from a worried member of the Muslim community, reporting general suspicions about an acquaintance,” reports the Washington Post. “From that vague but vital piece of information, according to a senior European intelligence official, British authorities opened the investigation into what they said turned out to be a well-coordinated and long-planned plot to bomb multiple transatlantic flights heading toward the United States … By late 2005, the probe had expanded to involve several hundred investigators on three continents. They kept dozens of suspects under close surveillance for months, even as some of the plotters traveled between Britain and Pakistan to raise money, find recruits and refine their scheme … Investigators eventually pieced together enough information from a blizzard of stakeouts, tips and wiretaps to make clear that something big was in the works, and that the plotters’ preparations were nearing an end.… But U.S. and British investigators made a sudden decision [last] week to close down the operation after they became increasingly worried that there were other bombers they had been unable to locate or identify.” [View article]

Pakistani Charity Funded Airline Bomb Plot (Yahoo! News) “A Pakistani charity that received 10 million dollars from Britain for earthquake relief last year reportedly helped finance the alleged bomb plot to blow up US-bound passenger jets,” reports Agence France-Presse. “… funds traced to it helped investigators uncover the alleged plot … the charity had received some five million pounds (10 million dollars) from Britain, but … less than half was used for relief operations in the October earthquake that killed 73,000 people.… The New York Times on Monday said [that] the British authorities were investigating whether the Jamaat-ud-Dawa Charity, active in the mosques of Britain’s largest cities, had provided money to some of the 23 suspects under arrest for the foiled bomb plot. The charity … is believed to be the successor of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant group which the Pakistani government banned in 2002.” The head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (and founder and former head of Lashkar-e-Taiba), Hafiz Muhammad, is under house arrest “because of some statements he had made,” reports Reuters. “‘Saeed has not been connected to any terrorist plot or terrorist incident,’” the Foreign Ministry said. Jamaat-ud-Dawa is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. [View Yahoo article] [View Reuters article]

Liquid Explosives Expose Aviation Weak Spot (USA Today) Last week’s thwarted terrorist attack “struck at the core of a fundamental weakness in aviation security around the globe: the inability to spot explosives made from seemingly harmless ingredients,” reports USA Today. The explosive the terrorists chose reportedly was “hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMDT) and is based on hydrogen peroxide. Common liquids found in the home, including hair bleach and food preservatives, could be processed, then combined on board a plane after takeoff, to make HMDT. The typical methods used to detect explosives at airports—swabs that test the exterior of luggage and explosive detection machines—would largely be useless against such ingredients. Dogs … can only detect chemicals they have been trained to recognize” and “may not be able to detect chemical components of a bomb.” And “it is likely to be years before a method of detecting liquid explosives is in widespread use at U.S. airports …” according to another USA Today story. “‘The difficulty is not detecting such chemicals at screening checkpoints,’ [Homeland Security Secretary Michael] Chertoff wrote … ‘It’s that existing detection processes either yield substantial false positives or require items to be screened one at a time.’” [View HMDT article] [View detector article]

Debate Rages in Britain Over Air Passenger Screening Plans (Yahoo! News) “Britain is embroiled in a debate over whether airports should use passenger profiling to detect possible terror suspects rather than impose blanket security curbs, a plan strongly opposed by the British Muslim community,” reports Agence France-Presse. “… officials at the Department for Transport are considering a profiling system to select people behaving suspiciously, who have an unusual travel pattern or a certain ethnic or religious background”—“with ‘young Muslim men’ [as] a focus.” [View article]

Canadian Air Travelers Should Put Electronic Gear in Checked Baggage (Federal Computer Week) In light of the British airline bomb plot, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority “has recommended that air travelers pack electronic items including laptop computers, cell phones, music players and BlackBerry pagers in their checked baggage,” reports Federal Computer Week. “… the agency has not banned electronic devices from carry-on luggage and travelers may still bring them onboard a flight if they consider them essential. The U.K. Department for Transport has severely limited carry-on items to wallets, travel documents, prescription medications, and baby food, breast milk or formula, which must be tasted by the passenger at a security checkpoint. These items must be carried in clear plastic bags.” [View article]

In India and Pakistan, Skepticism of Airliner Plot (Asia Times) “It appears that sources in London have begun distancing themselves from the plot by claiming that the British side was pressured from Washington to go public with the plot despite a lack of evidence and clear and convincing facts whether any conspiracy in fact existed at all,” writes M. K. Bhadrakumar, India’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey, in the Asia Times. “… The skeptics in Pakistan feel that the entire plot is a crudely executed hoax by the Bush administration.” [View commentary]

Iran Says It Will Not Abandon Its Nuclear Program (Yahoo! News) Iranian “President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday Iran could not abandon its nuclear programme while the United States was developing new atomic bombs every year,” reports Reuters. “… Tehran has vowed to expand its atomic fuel activities despite a U.N. Security Council resolution on July 31 demanding it halt nuclear work by August 31 or face the threat of sanctions.’” [View article]

Man Arrested for Shipping Banned Equipment to North Korea (Tokyo Asahi Shimbun) Japanese “police on [August 10] arrested a North Korean man for illegally exporting equipment to his homeland that can be used to make biological weapons,” reports the Asahi Shimbun. “The suspect, Kim Young Gun, is the former president of Meisho Yoko, a Tokyo-based trading company. He said he was aware the freeze-dryer his company shipped to North Korea had military applications.” [View article]

Scares Disrupt Transportation (WCVB-TV, Boston; Seattle Post-Intelligencer; Australian Broadcasting Corporation) A Vermont woman’s “disruptive behavior prompted a London-to-Washington D.C., airplane to be diverted to Boston” on Wednesday, reports WCVB-TV. The same day, Seattle’s “busy Terminal 18 on Harbor Island” was locked down for several hours “when a bomb-sniffing dog suddenly ‘alerted’ on a pair of cargo containers shipped from Pakistan,” reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. And a Virgin Blue flight from Fiji to Sydney, Australia, was evacuated yesterday upon arrival because of a bomb threat hoax, reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. [View Boston article] [View Seattle article] [View Australia article]

Europe Unites on Tougher Airport Security (MSNBC) “Travellers across Europe face tougher airport security and new restrictions on hand luggage after interior ministers from France and Germany on Wednesday supported British calls for tighter standards,” reports the Financial Times. “… The ministers discussed a range of anti-terrorism measures, including unified airport security standards and funding for research into liquid and other explosives.” [View article]

Central Bank of Nigeria Requires Reporting of Suspicious Transactions (AllAfrica) The Central Bank of Nigeria “has said any bank which fails to report any suspicious and unusual transaction relating to terrorism would be charged as an accessory to the offence of terrorism,” reports Lagos, Nigeria, This Day. “According to the apex bank, reports of such transactions must be made to the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.” Suspicious and unusual transactions “include potential financing of terrorism,” and terrorism “financing encompasses the use of legitimate or clean funds to commit or attempt to commit, facilitate or participate in the commission of both national and international terrorism.” [View article]

Australia Won’t Get EU Passenger Data (Melbourne, Australia, Age) The European Union is “barring Australia’s access to information about some passengers because of privacy concerns,” reports the Age. “The European freeze means that critical information obtained by airlines such as British Airways and Virgin is not being passed on to customs before they arrive in Australia. Customs uses the information to decide which passengers should be targeted for questioning and searches, and refers suspicious profiles to the” Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. [View article]

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Federal News

Judge Nixes Warrantless Surveillance (Yahoo! News) U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit “ruled Thursday that the government’s warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it,” reports the Associated Press. “… she says [it] violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.” [View article]

Security Officials Weigh Profiling of Airline Passengers (Government Executive) “Homeland Security officials and Republican lawmakers have begun downplaying the need for more bomb-detection technology, calling instead for expanded government monitoring and airline passenger profiling—including, as House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., now suggests, pulling those of Middle Eastern descent out of airport lines for additional questioning,” reports Government Executive. [View article]

U.S. Officials Say Plot Shows Need to Share More Passenger Data (New York Times) “Britain is among 27 countries whose citizens are not required to obtain visas before traveling to the United States, meaning that the American authorities do not have an opportunity to screen them in advance,” reports the New York Times. “… under current rules, passenger data is sent in the first 15 minutes after a flight takes off.” Since last Thursday’s “plot was disclosed, Homeland Security officials have required that passenger data be provided before planes leave Britain for the United States … airline concerns about flight delays and the difficulties of squaring the access to information with European privacy laws” have hampered “the department’s efforts to permanently require advance information on all passengers of international flights.” [View article]

In Wake of Plot, Justice Dept. Will Study Britain’s Terror Laws (New York Times) “Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on Monday ordered a side-by-side review of American and British counterterrorism laws as a first step toward determining whether further changes in American law are warranted,” reports the New York Times. “… American officials [suggested] that their British counterparts have greater flexibility to prevent attacks. Newly revised British counterterrorism laws, for instance, allow the authorities to hold a suspect for 28 days without charges, where American law generally requires that a suspect held in the civilian court system be charged or released within 48 hours. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said … that he thought bringing American laws more closely into line with Britain’s, particularly regarding the detention of terror suspects without charges, could help deter threats at home.” [View article]

TSA Squad Searches for Suspicious Behavior (New York Times) The Transportation Security Administration “has been experimenting with [a] new squad, whose members do not look for bombs, guns or knives. Instead, the assignment is to find anyone with evil intent,” reports the New York Times. “So far, these specially trained officers are working in only about a dozen airports nationwide … and they represent just a tiny percentage of the transportation agency’s 43,000 screeners. But after the reported liquid bomb plot in Britain, agency officials say they want to have hundreds of behavior detection officers trained by the end of next year and deployed at most of the nation’s biggest airports.” [View article]

Old-School FBI Training in Post-9/11 World (Washington Post) The Federal Bureau of Investigation “has added 37 hours of counterterrorism training at Quantico [VA] for new agents,” reports the Washington Post. “But that represents just 5 percent of the curriculum, and only one hour is about Islam, Arabic culture and understanding the terrorist mind-set.… the majority of the 701.5 hours is devoted, as it has been for decades, to traditional law enforcement skills … 114.5 hours of training are devoted to learning to shoot. Additionally, 78 hours are dedicated to teaching arrest techniques and defensive tactics, and 36 hours to forensics.” [View article]

Can X-ray Machines Detect Explosives in Shoes? (Yahoo! News) “‘Screening shoes by X-ray is an effective method of identifying any type of anomaly, including explosives,’ Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley said.” But “a study by the Homeland Security Department, obtained by The Associated Press, states that X-ray images ‘do not provide the information necessary to effect detection of explosives.’” However, “Richard Lanza, senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the X-ray image doesn’t identify what a gel or a liquid is made of. However, he said, screeners can ‘look at the image and connect regions that look the same in density and shape.’ It’s not a foolproof method, but it is often effective, he said.” [View article]

Bush Sought to Cut $6 Million for Screening Technology (MSNBC) “As the British terror plot was unfolding, the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology,” reports the Associated Press. “Congressional leaders rejected the diversion of funds, the latest in a series of Homeland Security Department steps that have left lawmakers and some of the department’s own experts questioning the commitment to create better antiterror technologies.” [View article]

State Dept. Issues Electronic Passports (Government Computer News) “Electronic passports began flowing to citizens this week in spite of the continuing kerfuffle over a range of technology and policy issues surrounding border security,” reports Government Computer News. One issue was “whether the e-passport could be cloned.” The e-passports each contain “a secure contactless radio frequency smart chip containing the bearer’s name, photograph and a security feature called basic access control.” [View article]

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New this week in the Journal of Homeland Security MI5 as a Model for an American Security Agency. Nigel West asks whether the United States should have a domestic intelligence agency modeled on the British MI5 and concludes that, because of differences in history, culture, and operational environment, MI5 does not offer a practical model.

National News

We Need Our Own MI5, Says Judge (Washington Post) “We do not have a counterpart to MI5. This is a serious gap in our defenses,” writes Richard Posner, U.S. appeals court judge and author of Uncertain Shield, in the Washington Post. “… MI5, in contrast to the FBI (and to Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, with which MI5 works), has no arrest powers and no responsibilities for criminal investigation, and it has none of the institutional hang-ups that go with such responsibilities. Had the British authorities proceeded in the FBI way—rather than continuing the investigation until virtually the last minute, which enabled them to roll up (with Pakistan’s help) more than 40 plotters—most of the conspirators might still be at large, and the exact nature and danger of the plot might not have been discovered. We need our own MI5, not to supplant but to supplement the FBI.” [View commentary]

All 11 Missing Egyptian Students Now in Custody U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested the last two of the 11 Egyptian nationals who were part of a group that entered the United States last month (see last week’s newsletter) and who failed to show up for a scheduled academic program at Montana State University. They were charged with immigration violations as out-of-status students. Preliminary investigation has not identified any credible threat posed by the students. [View press release]

Terror Charges Dropped Against Men Who Bought 1,000 Cell Phones (Atlantic City [NJ] Press) Tuscola County, Michigan, Prosecutor Mark Reene “asked a judge Wednesday to dismiss the terror charges filed against three Texas men who sparked a security scare after they were arrested with nearly 1,000 cell phones in their van,” reports the Associated Press. “… Reene’s office [had] charged the three with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target [the Mackinac Bridge] for terrorist purposes.” The men still face federal counterfeiting charges. [View article]

Who Guards the National Guard? The Border Patrol (Washington Times) “National Guard troops deployed along the U.S.-Mexico border as part of President Bush’s plan to free U.S. Border Patrol agents have been assigned bodyguards—some of the same agents the soldiers were sent to relieve,” reports the Washington Times. Some agents “were issued standing orders to be within five minutes of National Guard troops along the border and that Border Patrol units were pulled from other regions to protect the Guard units—leaving their own areas short-handed. The agents … refer to the assignment as ‘the nanny patrol.’” [View article]

Photo courtesy of Steve Dunham

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State and Local News

Governors Resist Shifting Authority Over Guard (New York Times) “In an unusual act of bipartisan and regional unanimity, 51 governors have joined to voice their strong opposition to legislation to let the president federalize National Guard troops in a disaster without local authorities’ consent,” reports the New York Times. “In a letter to Congressional leaders last week, the governors detailed their argument that the measure, drawn up after Hurricane Katrina and tucked into a military authorization bill that the House recently passed, would undermine their authority and autonomy.… Although the president already has the authority to call up any branch of the reserves into involuntary service in the case of a terrorist attack overseas or the use of unconventional weapons, that power does not extend to natural or man-made disasters. The bill in Congress would extend the president’s power.” [View article]

U.S. Appeals Court Upholds New York City Subway Bag Searches (Bloomberg) “A federal appeals court said” last Friday that “random police searches of passengers’ bags and backpacks outside New York subway entrances are legal,” reports Bloomberg. “The searches were instituted July 21, 2005, weeks after terrorist bombings of London’s public transport system killed 52 people. The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the police commissioner and the city on behalf of five New Yorkers, claiming the searches violated their right to privacy. The police argued that the search program was narrowly tailored to prevent or detect terrorist attacks.… The court also noted that passengers can refuse to be searched and that the officers limit the inspections to bags big enough to carry explosives.” [View article]

New York City Releases More 9/11 Calls (New York Times) “The city plans to release a new avalanche of documentary records from Sept. 11, including more than 1,600 phone calls made to emergency services that morning,” reports the New York Times. “… about 31 were from people who were part of the morning’s narrative of struggle and loss: 21 firefighters who died and 10 civilians who were also in the World Trade Center towers.” [View article]

Study Predicts Impact of Nuclear Attack on Long Beach, CA (San Diego Union-Tribune) “A nuclear explosion at the Port of Long Beach could kill 60,000 people immediately, expose 150,000 more to hazardous radiation and cause 10 times more economic loss than the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a new study by the Rand Corp.,” reports the Associated Press. “… It analyzed the possible effects of terrorists detonating a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb in a shipping container after it’s unloaded onto a pier at Long Beach, about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.” [View article]

Washington, DC, Has Overweight Command Truck (Washington Examiner) “U.S. Capitol Police spent $1.6 million developing a state-of-the-art command truck … But when they tried to use the truck, it collapsed under its own weight,” reports the Examiner. “… Capitol Police bought the vehicle four years ago. It was furnished with communications and computer technology to be used as a self-sufficient command post for emergencies or large-scale events such as the State of the Union address. But by Nov. 1, 2004, the unit couldn’t hold all the equipment and the structure became so unsound that it broke off from its chassis and Capitol Police simply left it in a government garage, according to a congressional report.” [View article]

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Private-Sector News

Alerts Threaten Discount Travel (CNN) “Last week’s terrorist alert has cast a shadow over the era of budget flying, with fears that no-frills airlines won’t be able to avoid passing on to their customers the costs of tougher long-term security measures,” reports the Associated Press. “‘The situation as it is at the moment is unsustainable,’ David Bryon, an industry consultant and former managing director of low-cost airline bmibaby, said.” [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.

8570 Cyber Defense Initiative Fall 2006 (October 16-21; Silver Spring, MD) The SANS Institute will provide weeklong intensive classes followed by exams in the following subjects: SEC309: Intro to Information Security (GISF) SEC401: SANS Security Essentials Bootcamp Style (GSEC) MGT414: SANS(R) +S(TM) Training Program for the CISSP(R) Certification Exam MGT 512: SANS Security Leadership Essentials for Managers This event is targeted specifically for the Defense Department’s needs in meeting five out of the six baseline certifications on the 8570 initiative. This new Department-wide policy mandates that any full- or part-time military service member, contractor, or foreign employee with privileged access to a Defense Department information system, regardless of job or occupational series, obtain a commercial information security credential. [View conference website] Master of Science Degree in Intelligence Analysis (Spring 2007; Baltimore) The Division of Public Safety Leadership of the Johns Hopkins University School of Professional Studies in Business and Education offers the master of science degree in intelligence analysis to enhance the nation’s capabilities in analyzing strategic and tactical information collected from open and closed sources. This is an intense course of study for current intelligence analysts who are or aspire to be among the leaders of the Intelligence Community. [View conference website]

Upcoming Events

New Events (After four weeks, new events will be moved to the list below, in chronological order) Infragard 2006 National Conference (August 22-24; Washington, DC) Infragard gathers the nation’s top security thought leaders from government, law enforcement, and private industry to discuss the latest strategies, technologies, and tools directly shaping the course and nature of our nation’s critical infrastructure protection, security, emergency response and continuity planning. Featured speakers are Mike Johanns, Secretary of Agriculture; Tommy G. Thompson, Independent Chairman of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions and former Secretary of Health and Human Services; and John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company. [View conference website] Border Trade Alliance 2006 International Conference (September 25-26; Austin, TX) The conference will explore the movement of a product from origin to destination, following it as it is loaded onto a truck, driven to the border, processed through customs, and delivered to its destination. [View conference website] Descartes Conference on Mathematical Models in Counterterrorism (September 28-29; Washington, DC) This conference addresses some of the latest developments in the application of mathematics to the development of counterterrorism, defense and security methods. Among the main themes of the conference: Cognitive psychology, models, and reflexive control Order structures, graph theory, lattice theory, and formal concept analysis Cognitive linguistics Information retrieval, and knowledge discovery Imaging science and surveillance Modeling and agent-based simulation [View conference website] SANS Network Security 2006 (October 1-9; Las Vegas) The conference will feature 20 hands-on immersion courses and 16 shorter courses, with opportunities to earn SANS Platinum Certifications. [View conference website] Homeland Security: The Ripple Effect (February 6-7; Washington, DC) Participants will mix practice with policy through lively and informed exchange among politicians, planners, emergency managers, and scholars. The goal: develop a systematic approach that will assist communities in responding to disasters. [View conference website]

August 21-25; Baltimore: Raising the Bar for Security

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

September 12-13; Long Beach, CA: Prevention First Biennial Symposium

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 26; London: Global Security Challenge

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

December 3-6; Baltimore: Society for Risk Analysis

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Calls for Papers

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