International News

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Italy Indicts 31 in CIA Kidnapping (USA Today) An Italian judge on Feb. 16 “indicted 26 Americans and five Italians in the abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect on a Milan street in what would be the first criminal trial stemming from the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program,” reports the Associated Press. “The judge set a trial date for June 8, although the Americans, who have all left the country, almost certainly will not be returned to Italy. Prosecutors allege that five Italian intelligence officials worked with the Americans to seize Muslim cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr on Feb. 17, 2003.… All but one of the Americans have been identified as CIA agents.” [View article]

Mauritanian Pilot and Passengers Thwart Hijacker (Boston Globe) “A fast-thinking pilot with passengers in cahoots fooled a hijacker by braking hard upon landing, then accelerating to knock the man down,” upon which “flight attendants threw boiling water in his face, and about 10 people pounced on him,” reports the Associated Press. “The Air Mauritania Boeing 737 carrying 71 passengers and a crew of eight was hijacked by a lone gunman brandishing two pistols [on Feb. 15] shortly after it took off from Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, for Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands.” The hijacker, 32-year-old Mauritanian Mohamed Abderraman, wanted the plane to fly to France so he could request political asylum, and his motive was not terrorism, said officials. [View article]

North Africa Feared as Staging Ground for Terror (New York Times) “Counterterrorism officials on three continents say the trouble in Tunisia is the latest evidence that a brutal Algerian group”—the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French name’s initials GSPC—“with a long history of violence is acting on its promise: to organize extremists across North Africa and join the remnants of Al Qaeda into a new international force for jihad,” reports the New York Times. (See the Jan. 12 newsletter.) American, French, Italian, Algerian, and Tunisian officials “say North Africa … could become an Afghanistan-like terrorist hinterland within easy striking distance of Europe.… ease of travel between the regions” and “visa-free travel to American cities for most European passport holders” make the group a threat to the United States as well. With its hundreds of members, “it is now the best-organized and -financed terrorist group in the region. Last year,” GSPC changed “its name to Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb.” Intelligence suggests “that the network has associates in France, Italy, Turkey and even Greece, which is favored as an entry point to Europe because of its relatively lax immigration controls.” [View article]

Philippines Approves Antiterror Bill (BBC) “The Human Security Act was approved by the [Philippines] House of Representatives late Monday and now goes to President Gloria Arroyo to be signed into law,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “Ms Arroyo hailed the bill as a ‘potent weapon’ to shield the country from the ‘global scourge’ of terrorism.… The bill—which was ratified by the Senate two weeks ago—was watered down after opposition from some politicians and rights groups who feared [that] the legislation would endanger human rights. Under the new law, security forces have the power to detain suspects without warrant or charge for up to three days. It also allows authorities to access bank accounts they believe are being used to launder money for terrorist purposes. A conviction for terror offences could result in a 40-year jail sentence. In a bid to allay fears of rights violations, people who are wrongly detained will be offered compensation.” [View article]

Rail Attack in India Kills Scores (Washington Post) “An explosion on a train headed for Pakistan set off a fire that swept through two cars and killed at least 65 people in an attack that a government minister said was aimed at undermining the peace process between India and Pakistan,” reports the Associated Press. “Authorities said two suitcases packed with unexploded crude bombs and gasoline were found in cars not hit in the attack, leading them to suspect the fire was set off by an identical explosive device.” The attack came “one day before Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri was to arrive in New Delhi for talks on the ongoing peace process.” [View article]

Al Qaeda Chiefs Regaining Power? (New York Times) “Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials,” reports the New York Times. “American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the Bush administration had described Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of Al Qaeda. The United States has also identified several new Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan.” [View article]

Europe Unprepared for Pandemic Flu (MSNBC) “Europe needs at least two more years to be prepared adequately for a pandemic flu outbreak in humans, according to the head of the European Union agency in charge of tackling infectious disease. In an interview with the” Financial Times, “Zsuzsanna Jakab, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said it would take two to three years to be ‘much better prepared to respond’, even if the current political momentum could be maintained.… she warned that countries still needed to do much more to prepare for pressures beyond their health systems and to step up sharply co-operation with each other.… Just 18 countries currently have a national pandemic vaccination strategy developed.” [View article]

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United Nations News

WHO Reports Progress in Bird Flu Vaccine; Indonesia Again Provides Virus Samples The World Health Organization reports “encouraging progress” in producing a vaccine against human bird flu, and Indonesia has agreed to resume supplying virus samples from its bird flu outbreak (see the Feb. 9 newsletter.) [View vaccine press release] [View Indonesia press release]

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National News

New this week in the Journal of Homeland Security In “Improving the Visa Waiver Program,” Richard Weitz discusses the program’s advantages and hazards, as well as ways to improve its security.

Commission Finds Prison-Like Detention Facilities for Immigrant Families Locking Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families, a report published yesterday by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, “found prison-like conditions at” Homeland Security Department “facilities that house immigrant families, including asylum seekers, who are in immigration proceedings.” A delegation that visited the facilities and interviewed the detainees “found families, many with young children, detained in harsh conditions, for days, months and sometimes years. These families are held in penal settings where residents are deprived of the right to live as a family unit, denied adequate medical and mental health care, and face overly harsh disciplinary tactics.” [View press release] [View report]

‘Mother of Satan’ Explosives Most Likely to Be Used by Terrorists (Washington Times) “‘Mother of Satan’ explosives are considered the most likely weapon that terrorists will use against the U.S., more so than a nuclear or radiological ‘dirty’ bomb,” according to FBI forensic scientist Kirk Yeager, reports the Associated Press. “The bombs are made by mixing chemicals that are used in common household items, including hydrogen peroxide and paint thinner, and easily found at drugstores or hardware stores. Scientists know them as TATP, short for triacetone triperoxide, and HMTD, or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine.… Until recently, authorities knew little about peroxide-based bombs because they are too volatile to handle casually. Moreover, TATP in particular is hard for dogs to detect. In the past year, the FBI and Transportation Security Administration have trained dog teams to sniff out the chemical cocktails at 75 airports and on subway, train and bus systems in 13 cities.… TATP and other varieties of peroxide-based bombs are most likely to show up in the hands of homegrown extremists and other splinter sympathizers of international terrorist groups.” [View article]

Homeland Security Hassle Discourages Business Travel to the U.S. (MSNBC) “The Arab and American Action Forum, launched last September at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York, is an exercise in soft power, bringing together 100 young Arab leaders from all walks of life and introducing them to a similar group of Americans,” reports Newsweek. But “the first group of participants, mostly CEOs of large companies, were pulled out of the regular immigration lines and made to stand for two to five hours while Department of Homeland Security officials grilled them as to why they were coming to America, whether they had any experience using weapons, what they thought of the Iraq war and other such questions. Half a day into their trip, before they had even left the airport, they were angry and humiliated.… The State Department insists that things have improved, but incremental changes have not altered the basic picture.… This is not simply an Arab problem. Conferences in several industries and academic specialties are being moved out of the United States because of the hassle and humiliation factor.” [View article]

Antiterror Laws Exclude Vietnam Allies (USA Today) “Sept. 11-era laws aimed at keeping terrorists out of the United States have disqualified many Hmong refugees, the very people specially recognized by Congress for helping American troops in the Vietnam war,” reports the Associated Press. “Under provisions of the USA Patriot Act and the Real ID Act, the Hmong who fought alongside the Americans in the ‘secret war’ against communists in Laos are considered terrorists and are therefore ineligible for asylum or green cards. These are laws from the same Congress that in 2000 passed a law easing the citizenship requirements for the Hmong in recognition of their Vietnam era efforts.… The anti-terror restrictions, which have ensnared other groups as well [see the April 21, 2006, newsletter], also bar people who provided ‘material support’ to terrorist organizations. Last month the Bush administration announced it was granting waivers of that restriction to eight groups, but the Hmong was not among them.” [View article]

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DHS News

DHS Asks Research Community for Help Detecting Tunnels (Government Computer News) “The Homeland Security Department has asked the research community to propose innovative methods that would enable the use of sensors and [information technology] to detect tunnels, especially those beneath U.S. borders,” reports Government Computer News. “The department’s Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency plans to issue $1 million to $2 million in contracts or grants this year to push tunnel detection technology forward.” This “funding could be a harbinger of additional research funding, as well as increased spending to deploy tunnel detection systems.” [View article]

Photo courtesy of Steve Dunham

DHS and National Science Foundation Offer Grants for Nuclear Detection Research The Homeland Security Department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and the National Science Foundation are offering up to $58 million in grants for colleges and universities that will focus on detection systems, individual sensors, or other research relevant to detecting nuclear weapons, special nuclear material, radiation dispersal devices, and related threats. The Academic Research Initiative and “will foster frontier research and build the nation’s intellectual capital in nuclear sciences.” [View press release]

‘US-VISIT Has Not Fully Met Expectations,’ Says GAO (Government Computer News) “After spending almost 4 years and more than $1 billion” on its U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) “program to collect, maintain, and share information on selected foreign nationals who enter and exit the United States,” the Homeland Security Department “has implemented entry capabilities at most ports of entry; however, it has not implemented a biometric exit capability or a suitable alternative,” according to the Government Accountability Office. Randolph C. Hite, GAO Director of Information Technology Architecture and Systems Issues, and Richard M. Stana, GAO Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues, testified on Feb. 16 before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Homeland Security (Appropriations Committee). DHS will strengthen oversight of the US-VISIT program, reports Government Computer News. [View abstract] [View article] [View Focus on US-VISIT]

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Other Federal News

Army Chem-Bio Homeland Defense Units Are ‘at a Low State of Readiness’ “Most Army units tasked with providing chemical and biological defense support are not adequately staffed, equipped, or trained to perform their missions,” even though “the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review and current operational plans highlight the need to mitigate” weapons of mass destruction “attacks at home and abroad and” the Defense Department “has doubled its investment in chemical and biological defenses since 2001,” reports the Government Accountability Office. [View abstract]

Court Backs Administration on Detainee Issue (New York Times) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 on “Tuesday that Guantanamo Bay detainees cannot use the U.S. court system to challenge their indefinite imprisonment,” reports the Associated Press. The decision “dismisses hundreds of cases filed by foreign-born detainees in federal court and also threatens to strip away court access to millions of lawful permanent residents currently in the United States [see the Quote of the Week]. It upholds a key provision of the Military Commissions Act.” [View article]

FBI, DHS Launch Third Fingerprint Data-Sharing System (Government Computer News) “The government’s massive, technologically ambitious project to achieve connectivity between two critical biometric databases took a step forward as the Homeland Security Department and the FBI unveiled an additional pilot project,” reports Government Computer News. “The project to achieve information sharing between the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System … and the [Department of] Homeland Security’s Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) database dates back in various forms for many years and is planned to extend forward for several years.… Two existing pilots, in the Boston Police Department and the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, started testing the data exchange technology last year. The new pilot, which started operation on Feb. 1, will allow the sheriff’s office in Harris County, Texas, to tap into additional IDENT records.” [View article]

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State and Local News

Almost Half of States Have High-Tech Driver’s Licenses (Stateline) “Driver’s licenses across the country are going high-tech, with invisible features to stop identity thieves scheming to commit credit card fraud or just hoping to buy a beer before turning 21,” reports Stateline. “Almost half of the states now use specialized technology to make driver’s licenses more secure, spelling an end to the days when the most personal information they carried was a driver’s name, age and weight.” Iowa has joined Georgia, Massachusetts, Texas, and West Virginia in adopting “biometric facial-recognition technology to defend against identity theft” and “at least 12 states use a verification mechanism called digital watermarking to store personalized information within the license.” [View article]

Immigration Raid Leaves Texas Town Empty (Washington Post) Ever since Dec. 12, when “hundreds of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents clad in riot gear and armed with assault rifles descended on the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant [in Cactus, TX] in a coordinated raid of six of the company’s facilities nationwide,” the town has been “virtually empty,” reports the Washington Post. And “an estimated 12 to 18 children are now living with only one parent since the other was arrested in a massive immigration raid at the biggest employer in town.” [View article]

Arizona Farmers Are Short on Field Hands (Christian Science Monitor) “Empty stations on the harvest lines are more common this year” in “Arizona farm country,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. “… The reasons are many: a 40,000-person limit on the number of foreign guest workers allowed into the US, tighter borders that are discouraging illegal crossings, and rising demand for day laborers in other industries, such as higher-paying construction work. The shortage of farm workers has been driving wages higher.” [View article]

Arlington, VA, Prepares for Pets in Evacuations (Washington Post) Arlington County “this week unveiled a mobile emergency pet shelter, a 20-foot trailer that will be stocked with food, animal crates and other supplies to create ‘pet-friendly’ wings at local community centers and schools used as shelters during floods or other emergencies,” reports the Washington Post. “The county purchased the trailer and contents with $20,000 in federal homeland security money.” [View article]

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Private-Sector News

Grocery Industry Prepares for Bird Flu (Yahoo! News) “Unlike other critical infrastructure sectors [such as] water, energy and health care, the food industry isn’t getting much help from state and federal governments when it comes to disaster planning,” reports the Associated Press. “That puts the burden on individual supermarket chains and wholesalers to deal with a potentially large number of sick workers that could affect store operations and disrupt the food supply.… The Food Marketing Institute’s [president Tim] Hammonds said a widespread pandemic will likely cause food consumption to shift away from restaurants and fast-food establishments and toward in-home eating, causing a greater demand for groceries.… The federal government and public health agencies are urging people to stock up on nonperishable food, like canned goods and dried fruit, to ensure they have … food to eat during a pandemic.” [View article]

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Dual-Benefit Solutions

Serious Use of Silly String for U.S. Soldiers (Fredericksburg, VA, Free Lance–Star) Zeke Peterson of Maryland “is a 14-year-old … collecting money to buy Silly String for troops in Iraq,” reports the Free Lance–Star. “Some Marines and soldiers apparently use the party favor for a serious purpose: to detect trip wires on bombs and booby traps. They spray the neon-colored strands into an area they’re about to enter. If there are trip wires—which are almost impossible to see—the string gets caught on them.” Peterson “put out collection boxes at schools and visited businesses … asking for donations. He got $6,000—enough to buy 4,400 cans.” [View article]

Dual-benefit news archive

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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. New education listings are posted for four weeks.

DHS Summer Research Team Program for Institutions Serving Minorities The Homeland Security Department’s Office of University Programs has opened the 2007 competition cycle for qualified faculty members and students from colleges and universities serving minorities to conduct research at a university-based Center of Excellence. Research appointments will be for 10 to 12 weeks during the summer. Follow-on research funds may be available for eligible teams to continue their projects into the 2007-2008 school year. Information and application materials are available online. The application deadline is February 26. [View program website] Medical Corps Combat Medicine Class (April 20-22; Caldwell, OH) An intensive, 3-day classroom and field training program taught by doctors, nurses, and Navy combat corpsmen. The class teaches how to disinfect serious wounds in the field, how to suture wounds under mass-casualty field conditions, how to set broken bones, how to perform minor emergency surgery, mass-casualty triage techniques, shock and trauma management, and how to protect yourself from nuclear, biological, and chemical agents. [View conference website] Executive Master of Science Degree in Crisis and Emergency Management (July; University of Nevada, Las Vegas) The university is offering an Executive Master of Science Degree in Crisis and Emergency Management beginning in July 2007. Graduates will be equipped with the knowledge and ability to apply important competencies for addressing natural, intentional, and technical disasters. The degree program lasts about 18 months, requires successful completion of 12 three-credit courses, and offers a combined in-class and distance-learning environment. Application deadline is May 18. [View conference website]

Upcoming Events

New Events (After four weeks, new events will be moved to the list below, in chronological order) (Feb. 27-28; Washington DC) This conference will assess the state of homeland security and defense education, discuss research and accreditation issues, give academic institutions the opportunity to share highlights of their programs, and hear top policy authorities in the Homeland Security and Defense departments discuss future directions. The summit is hosted by the Naval Postgraduate School (Center for Homeland Defense and Security), the North American Aerospace Defense Command–Northern Command Homeland Security/Defense Education Consortium, the Homeland Security Department (Grants and Training and the Chief Learning Officer), and George Mason University. [View conference website] (Feb. 28–March 1; Washington, DC) “Intelligence and Information Fusion … Beyond Sharing” is the theme of this year’s Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Homeland Security Conference. Numerous leaders in government have been invited to speak. Panel sessions will focus on “Fusion Centers,” “Border Fusion,” “Enabling Fusion: Survivable/Interoperable,” and “Cyber Fusion: National Cyber Defense.” [View conference website] Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education Conference (June 2-4; Emmitsburg, MD) This 9th annual conference is for those active in fire service professional development or with an interest in the field of fire and emergency services professional development. [View conference website] 2007 National Conference on Community Preparedness (June 10-13; Alexandria, VA) “Partnerships and Collaboration Through Citizen Corps” is the theme of this year’s conference, hosted by the International Association of Emergency Managers and the National Emergency Management Association. It is open to all who are interested in making their communities safer, stronger, and better prepared for all types of hazards. [View conference website] Interdisciplinary Analyses of Aggression & Terrorism (Sep. 27-30; Madrid, Spain) This conference of the International Colloquium on Conflict and Aggression and the Society for Terrorism Research is open to all interested persons. [View conference website] The Emergency Management and Homeland Security Expo of the International Association of Emergency Managers provides a forum for current trends and topics, along with the latest tools and technology in emergency management and homeland security. Sessions encourage stakeholders at all levels of government, the private sector, public health, and related professions to exchange ideas on collaborating to protect lives and property from disaster. [View conference website]

February 24; Tonawanda, NY: DHS WMD Awareness Training Course

March 15-16; Washington, DC: University Network Summit on Research and Education

March 28-29; Arlington, VA: 6th Annual Infrastructure Security Partnership Congress

March 29–April 5; San Diego: SANS 2007

April 11-12; San Pedro, CA: Sayres Response 2 Terrorism

June 5-8, 2007; Trogir, Croatia: The 14th TIEMS (International Emergency Management Society) International Conference

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Calls for Papers

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