International News

Piracy Multiplies Off the Horn of Africa (New York Times; CNN; Christian Science Monitor) “The rise in pirate attacks in a strategic waterway that carries a third of the world’s fuel supplies has captured global attention,” reports the New York Times. “… so far in 2008, there [have] been 95 reports of piracy attacks in the Gulf of Aden and surrounding waters, with 39 of those resulting in the capture of vessels. An estimated 330 sailors from 25 nations remain hostages.… [See the Website of the Week.] Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week that there were legal and military obstacles to combating piracy. ‘One of the challenges that you have in piracy, clearly, is, if you are intervening and you capture pirates, is there a path to prosecute them?’” (See the Quote of the Week.) Still, some nations are responding with military force. “Russia will send additional ships to the Horn of Africa in an effort to crack down on the recent wave of hijackings,” reports CNN. “… The Russian frigate Neustrashimy is already in the region and has helped repel pirate attacks on at least two ships.… A NATO-led international fleet has attempted to crack down on the attacks. An Indian frigate battled a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden on Tuesday, leaving the ship ablaze and likely sunk … The pirates typically hold [captured] ships and their crews for ransom.” What led to this outbreak of piracy? “The problem of piracy in Somalia originated about a decade ago because of disgruntled fishermen,” writes Katie Stuhldreher, a graduate student at George Washington University, in the Christian Science Monitor. “The headless state had no authority to patrol its tuna-rich coastal waters and foreign commercial vessels swooped in to cast their nets.… That prompted local fishermen to attack foreign fishing vessels and demand compensation. The success of these early raids in the mid-1990s persuaded many young men to hang up their nets in favor of AK-47s.” What about terrorist involvement? “Mustafa Alani, director of the Center for Counter-Terrorism at the Gulf Research Center, a Dubai-based think tank, said … that his center has been working … on a report about piracy, which is due out within weeks,” according to the Monitor. “Their research so far, he says, has found ‘no evidence’ of any connection between the pirates, who are mostly Somalis, and any terrorist or political organization.” [View Times article] [View CNN article] [View Monitor commentary] [View Monitor article]

China’s Hackers Stealing U.S. Defense Secrets, Says Congressional Panel (London Guardian) “‘China is stealing vast amounts of sensitive information from US computer networks,’ says Larry Wortzel, chairman of the” U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, reports the Guardian. The commission’s report “alleges that networks and databases used by the US government and American defence contractors are regularly targeted by Chinese hackers.… The commission recommends that the US upgrade its intelligence and homeland security systems protecting computer networks.” [View article] [View report (3.9MB PDF)]

Acid Attacks Keep Afghan Girls Away From Classes (New York Times) “Men on motorcycles attacked 15 girls and teachers with acid” as they were walking to Mirwais Mena girls’ school in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on [November 12],” reports the Associated Press. “… Girls were banned from schools under the rule of the Taliban” but “the country has made a major push to improve access to education for girls since the Taliban ouster” in 2001. [View article]

Siddiqui Incompetent to Stand Trial (Reuters) Aafia Siddiqui—“a Pakistani woman suspected of links to al Qaeda and charged with trying to kill American interrogators in Afghanistan”—“is mentally unfit to stand trial … U.S. District Judge Richard Berman said on Monday,” reports Reuters. (See the Sep. 5 newsletter.) [View article]

British Identities Sold Online (BBC) “Internet fraudsters sell complete financial identities for just £80” ($120), reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “The details packaged and sold online include names, addresses, passport numbers and confidential financial data such as credit card numbers.” [View article]

National News

DHS News

Ariz. official photo

Billions Invested in Major DHS Programs Lack Appropriate Oversight, Says GAO “In fiscal year 2007,” the Homeland Security Department “obligated about $12 billion for acquisitions to support homeland security missions,” reports the Government Accountability Office. “DHS’s major investments include Coast Guard ships and aircraft; border surveillance and screening equipment; nuclear detection equipment; and systems to track finances and human resources.” But “almost a third of DHS’s major investments received funding without having validated mission needs and requirements—which confirm [that] a need is justified—and two-thirds did not have required life-cycle cost estimates.… In July 2008, 15 of the 57 DHS major investments reviewed by GAO were designated by the Office of Management and Budget as poorly planned and by DHS as poorly performing.” [View GAO summary]

DHS Plans to Fix Boarding Pass Loophole (Wired) “There’s a hole in airline security big enough to get Osama bin Laden himself onto a domestic flight, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff acknowledges, but that’s no reason to ditch watch lists or ID checks at the airport, he says,” according to Wired “Threat Level” blogger Ryan Singel. “Chertoff told Threat Level in an interview last week that the government was aware of, and patching, the so-called boarding pass loophole, which just came back into the public eye after a recent Atlantic magazine story where a reporter got though security using a fake boarding pass. That loophole lets a known terrorist who is on a government watch list board a plane without needing a fake ID. All that’s needed is a home computer, a printer, and a little skill at HTML. ‘On the issue of switching boarding passes, that is a loophole we are aware of,’ Chertoff said.” [View article]

DHS Expands Regulations for Private Aircraft Crossing U.S. Borders Beginning December 18, pilots of private aircraft arriving in or departing from the United States must, at least one hour before takeoff, send U.S. Customs and Border Protection their electronic manifest of all people traveling onboard. [View press release]

Visa Waiver Program Goes Paperless January 12 (Federal Computer Week) “Starting Jan. 12, travelers from other nations planning to use the [Visa Waiver Program] to enter the U.S. without a visa and stay for up to 90 days as allowed by the program must use the Homeland Security Department’s Electronic System for Travel Authorization” before traveling, reports Federal Computer Week. “That process replaces the written I-94W form that travelers” now use. [View article]

Other Federal News

ICE Lawyer and Wife Indicted for Taking Bribes From Immigrants A federal grand jury last week returned a 75-count indictment charging Constantine Peter Kallas, an Assistant Chief Counsel with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and his wife, Maria Kallas, with bribery, money laundering, federal worker’s compensation fraud, and other federal charges in connection with accepting payments to adjust the immigration status of aliens. The couple used two companies they had set up—Botno Inc. and Mississippi Valley Consulting Inc.—to file employment petitions with the Labor Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. [View FBI press release]

HHS and DHS Have Made Progress in Restricting Travelers With TB, Says GAO “Various factors—a lack of comprehensive procedures for information sharing and coordination and border inspection shortfalls—hindered the federal response to the two” incidents in 2007 when the government had difficulty inderdicting “two individuals with drug-resistant infectious tuberculosis” before they could cross U.S. borders, reports the Government Accountability Office. The Homeland Security and the Health and Human Services departments “have subsequently implemented procedures and tools intended to address deficiencies identified by the incidents, consistent with GAO’s past work and internal control standards, but the departments could take additional steps to enhance their ability to respond to future TB incidents.” [View GAO summary]

FDA Opens Offices in China The U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week opened offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shangai in the People’s Republic of China “to ensure that FDA standards for safety and manufacturing quality are met before products ship to the United States,” said FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach. [View press release]

Private-Sector News

Avwatch Offers Real-Time Video Surveillance A new company, Avwatch, offers real-time aerial imagery and data for private and government homeland security operations, which can interact directly with the aircraft, generate requested flight routes, specify the data to be collected, and precisely control the onboard camera sensors. Communications between the ground user and aircraft are provided via the Internet, permitting real-time communications, immediate aircraft tasking, and retrieval of data and imagery updates from anywhere in the world at any time. [View press release]

State and Local News

New York Police Fight With Federal Government on Surveillance (New York Times; Yahoo! News) The New York “Police Department, with the largest municipal counterterrorism operation in the country, wants the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to loosen their approach to the federal law that governs electronic surveillance,” reports the New York Times. “But federal officials have refused to relax the standards, and have said requests submitted by the department could actually jeopardize surveillance efforts by casting doubt on their legality. Under the law, the government must in most cases obtain a warrant from the special Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before it can begin electronic monitoring of people suspected of spying or terrorism.” Counterterrorism officers are working with the New York Police Department in the city’s “new nerve center”—in an undisclosed location—that “quietly began operating earlier this month,” reports the Associated Press. “… The project will rely largely on 3,000 closed-circuit security cameras covering roughly 1.7 square miles in and around the financial district.” Police officers “monitor the live feeds round-the-clock” and “police cars with two roof-mounted cameras have begun reading license plates of passing and parked cars … The command center eventually will also receive data from devices designed to detect any radiological and biological threats posed by cars and trucks crossing through the neighborhood on Canal Street or entering the 16 bridges and four tunnels serving Manhattan.” [View NY Times article] [View Yahoo article]

Maryland Teen Indicted for Having Bomb and False ID A federal grand jury has indicted Collin McKenzie-Gude, age 19, of Bethesda, MD, for possession of an unregistered explosive device and production of false identification documents. A July search of McKenzie-Gude’s home turned up assault rifles, shotguns, a handgun, bomb components, a CIA ID badge, a Defense Department Common Access Card, and documents marked Top Secret. [View press release]

Dual-Benefit Solutions

Firefighter Tracker Wins Global Security Challenge (Wired) “Startup firm TRX Systems—the designer of a personnel tracking system for first responders—has won the prize for the most promising security technology in a contest sponsored by the Pentagon’s Technical Support Working Group,” writes Wired “Danger Room” blogger Nathan Hodge. “TRX Systems beat out five other finalists in the third annual Global Security Challenge, walking away with a $500,000 grant for developing a system to track firefighters in a burning building.” The system uses “inertial tracking—the same system used to track missiles in flight or satellites in orbit—in combination with networking wireless radios.” [View blog]

Balloons Tested for Emergency Communications (Government Computer News) On September 24, a “consortium of federal agencies, universities and private companies tested communication payloads on a 75-foot long Army-owned aerostat” in Sandusky, OH, reports Government Computer News. “Tethered blimp-shaped balloons” could “provide temporary wide-area communications when disaster wipes out fixed towers.” [View article]

Dual-benefit news archive

New Upcoming Events (After four weeks, events are moved to the Upcoming Events page) Counter IED (January 27-29; Washington, DC) This second annual summit presented by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement will present the latest developments and discuss opportunities for industry involvement in programs to counter improvised explosive devices. [View event website] Biometrics Conference 2009 (January 27-28; Arlington, VA) This National Defense Industrial Association Conference will discuss policy development, existing and planned U.S. government programs, commercial application of biometrics to business goals, enabling technologies, international initiatives, and challenges to interoperability and information sharing. [View event website] (February 9-11; Washington, DC) The conference will bring together developers, users, and decision makers to discuss chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear protection, detection, and defense in the homeland, as well as information sharing and medical countermeasures. [View event website] Terrorism, Crime & Business Symposium (March 5-6; Houston) The symposium will address civil liability lawsuits brought by victims of terror or crime against an “affected target”—that is, a particular business. Internationally recognized subject matter experts in law and security will discuss the latest developments, and participants will learn specific ways that businesses can mitigate potential legal liability as a result of acts of terrorism or crime in both cyberspace and the physical world. [View event website]