National News

Red Cross Report Confirms Torture (New York Times) A Red Cross report on what the Bush administration called “high-value detainees” tells “what happened to each of the 14 detainees inside the [CIA] black sites,” writes journalism professor Mark Danner in the New York Times. The evidence leads “inexorably to this unequivocal conclusion [by the Red Cross] … ‘the ill treatment to which they were subjected while held in the C.I.A. program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture.’” (See the Quote of the Week.) [View commentary]

Guantánamo Prisoners No Longer Labeled ‘Enemy Combatants’ (New York Times) “The Obama administration said [on March 13] that it would abandon the Bush administration’s term ‘enemy combatant’ as it argues in court for the continued detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,” reports the New York Times. “… The Obama administration said” that in detaining persons “who planned or aided the 2001 terrorist attacks” or supported or were part of al-Qaeda or the Taliban, “it was relying on existing principles of the international law of war.” [View article]

9/11 Commission’s Report Relied on CIA’s ‘Enhanced’ Interrogation (Newsweek) “An analysis by NBC News found that more than a quarter of the [911 Commission] report’s footnotes—441 of some 1,700—referred to detainees who were subjected to the CIA’s ‘enhanced’ interrogation program, including the trio who were waterboarded,” writes Philip Shenon in Newsweek. The methods by which some information was obtained “have troubling implications for the credibility of the commission’s final report.… While he thought the commission’s larger narrative about the September 11 attacks held up, ‘there’s reason now to suspect that we may have gotten some of the details wrong’ about the 9/11 plot and about Al Qaeda’” (said “former senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a Democrat on the commission”). [View commentary]

More Federal Agents Will Try to Block Weapons Flow to Mexico (Houston Chronicle) “The Obama administration plans to deploy additional federal law enforcement agents to the U.S.-Mexico border to choke off southbound shipments of automatic weapons and cash drug proceeds that are fueling the Mexican cartels’ murderous resistance to Mexico President Felipe Calderon,” reports the Chronicle. (See the Jan. 30 newsletter.) “… The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, an arm of the Justice Department, is sending as many as 37 additional ATF officers to augment teams targeting cartel gunrunning operations.” [View article]

CDC Stops TB-Infected Traveler From Germany (Detroit News) “A foreign traveler infected with tuberculosis who traveled to Detroit on a Northwest Airlines flight from Germany last week has health authorities tracking down 17 other passengers who also might be infected,” reports the Detroit News. The passenger “was detained at Detroit Metropolitan Airport” and “remains in care at an unidentified local hospital.” [View article]

International News

British Terror Police Must Pay Victim £60,000 (BBC) “The Metropolitan Police have agreed to pay £60,000 damages to a man arrested during an anti-terror raid,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “The High Court heard that Babar Ahmad was subjected to ‘serious gratuitous prolonged unjustified violence’ and ‘religious abuse’ after his arrest. Mr Ahmad, a 34-year-old IT support analyst, was never charged following the dawn raid at his home in Tooting, south west London, in December 2003. He is now in jail awaiting extradition to the US on separate charges.” [View article]

Britain Will Publish Interrogation Guidelines (London Guardian) The British government on Wednesday promised “to draw up and publish new guidelines for the security and intelligence agencies when they are involved in interrogating detainees abroad,” reports the Guardian. [View article]

Britain’s ‘New Dimensions’ Counterterror Program Comes Up Short, Says Parliamentary Committee (BBC) The £330 million New Dimensions program to improve emergency response in Britain has improved the ability to respond to large-scale emergencies but is vulnerable to fraud and spent too much on consultants, according to the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “Tory chairman Edward Leigh said … [that] the [Department for Communities and Local Government] held no comprehensive data on the availability of emergency equipment or which firefighters were trained to use it. ‘The command and control arrangements are uncertain, with an unacceptable level of confusion among local Fire and Rescue services about who makes the decision to deploy the equipment,’ he said. ‘And many Fire and Rescue Services are remiss at planning for catastrophic incidents.’” [View article]

Iran’s Nuclear Fuel: Enough for a Bomb? (Jerusalem Haaretz) Iran has “more than one ton of low-level [4%] enriched uranium” at the Natanz nuclear plant, which is “under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” reports Haaretz. “… this uranium cannot produce a nuclear weapon.” Iran says the uranium is “to fuel the nuclear power plant built by Russia in the city of Bushehr, which is due to go on-line this year. This amount of uranium, however, is far too small to power the Bushehr reactor, the nuclear fuel for which the Russians have contracted to supply in any event. So there is a justified suspicion that Iran has other intentions. It can take the ton of uranium, run it through the Natanz centrifuges again, at much higher speed, and produce about 20 to 25 kilograms of 90-percent enriched uranium—sufficient fissile material for a nuclear bomb. It would take between a few months and a year to do this, but it would be discovered immediately by international inspectors. Iran could expel the inspectors, but that would cause an acute international crisis, including a confrontation with Russia, which might end its nuclear cooperation with Iran. There is another possibility, that Iran has built an additional, clandestine uranium enrichment facility in which it is already producing highly enriched uranium.” [View article] [View Focus on Iran’s Nuclear Program] [View Focus on the IAEA]

Nuclear Forensics Could Deter Proliferation to Terrorists (Newsweek) “The only thing that can keep nuclear bombs out of the hands of terrorists is a brand-new science of nuclear forensics,” reports Newsweek. “… What if Osama bin Laden offered to pay Kim Jong Il $10 million, say, for a nuclear bomb to be exploded in New York City and $20 million for a second bomb destined for Tel Aviv?… The key to a new deterrent is coming up with some way of tracing the nuclear material backward from the explosion in New York City to the [Pyongyang] reactors that forged the fissile material, even to the mines in Sunchon-Wolbingson that yielded the original uranium ore.” [View article]

41 Iraqi Women Quit al-Qaeda Suicide Cell but Remain Outside Society (Newsweek) Women who “once belonged to Al Khansaa—an all-female suicide-bomber wing of Al Qaeda in Iraq”—are ostracized even though “months have passed since the women publicly renounced Al Qaeda,” reports Newsweek. Since their leader, Sana Alwan, killed herself in a suicide attack in September, 41 women have turned themselves in. [View article]

Colombia’s FARC Targets Cities (Christian Science Monitor) FARC’s “embattled guerrillas are attacking urban areas that they had been pushed out of by a sustained military campaign under President Uribe,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. By bombing pipelines, FARC cut off “the flow of water to Villavicencio, a city of 300,000.” FARC also has bombed stores and a police office in the cities of Cali, Neiva, and Bogotà. [View article]

German Teens Drawn to Neo-Nazi Groups (Reuters) “Roughly one in twenty 15-year-old German males is a member of a neo-Nazi group,” according to a “report issued by Lower Saxony’s criminal research” institute, reports Reuters. “… The highest proportion of neo-Nazis was in former communist eastern Germany, where almost one in eight youths were in such groups. More than 14 percent of those questioned were described as racist, and anti-Semitism was rife. More than 14 percent of those asked were inclined to brush off the Holocaust as ‘not awful.’” [View article]

U.S. Will Share Counterterror Research With Germany The United States and Germany this week agreed to facilitate science and technology research collaboration in homeland and civil security matters. The United States already has similar arrangements in place with the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Sweden, Mexico, Israel, and France. [View press release]

Justice and Forgiveness Are Needed to Defeat Terrorism, Says Indian Bishop (Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India) “Thomas Dabre, bishop of Vasai” (India), “is convinced that … to deal with a ‘complex’ and ‘diabolic’ phenomenon like terrorism a ‘politics of forgiveness’ is needed,” reports AsiaNews. “… it is not enough to condemn these deeds. ‘What is needed is a particular commitment at the political and educational levels to resolve, with courage and determination, the problems that in certain dramatic circumstances can foster terrorism,’ he said.… Defeating terrorists, who consider ‘human life as an object to do with as we please,’ is a task that falls on public institutions, but is also a responsibility which everyone must assume as well.” [View article]

DHS News

Photo courtesy of Steve Dunham

TSA to Search More Air Passengers at the Gate (USA Today) “A new, more aggressive effort by airport screeners aims to halt randomly selected passengers for a security check just before they step onto their departing plane,” reports USA Today. “… Scores of passengers have already been pulled aside for searches as they waited in line at airport gates for boarding calls. Each of the passengers had already passed through security checkpoints when a uniformed Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer asked them to step out of line to check their IDs or search their carry-on bags. Passengers can be selected at random or for suspicious behavior, according to a TSA memo dated last Thursday.” [View article]

Auditors Find FEMA Contract Documents in Disarray (Federal Computer Week) “Contracting documents are in disarray at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s headquarters office, with the agency unable to find two-thirds of the files requested during a recent audit,” reports Federal Computer Week. “… the files FEMA did find were not in good shape, the auditors said.” [View article]

Other Federal News

GAO Investigators Get U.S. Passports Using Fake IDs (Federal Computer Week) “People using counterfeit identification documents can easily obtain official United States passports from the State Department, according to a new investigation by the Government Accountability Office,” reports Federal Computer Week. “… GAO undercover investigators were successful in obtaining four passports by using counterfeit identity documents and Social Security numbers from people who were fictitious or deceased, and an investigator was able to use one of those passports to buy an airline ticket, pass through airport security and board a plane.” [View article] [View GAO summary]

Cellphone Records Not Constitutionally Protected, Says White House (Wired) “The Obama administration says the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures does not apply to cell-site information [that] mobile phone carriers retain on their customers,” writes Wired “Threat Level” blogger David Kravets. “The position is being staked out in a little-noticed surveillance case pending before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.… At issue is whether the government can require federal judges to order mobile phone companies to release historical cell-tower information of a phone number without probable cause—the standard required for a search warrant.” [View blog]

FDA Studies Nanotechnology to Detect Anthrax The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has completed a proof-of-concept study of a test that quickly and accurately detects the presence of even the smallest amount of the deadly anthrax toxin. The europium nanoparticle-based immunoassay, built from molecular-sized particles, can detect the presence of a protein known as protective antigen (made by the anthrax bacteria) in quantities 100 times lower than current tests. [View press release]

State and Local News

Reno, NV, 911 System Stayed Online in Phone Outage (Government Technology) “Emergency planning and cooperative agreements paid off [Wednesday] to keep the Reno, Nev., region’s emergency 9-1-1 system operating when phone service was disrupted about 12:30 p.m. at the Regional Emergency Communications Center,” reports Government Technology. The center “immediately implemented its emergency communications plan … in cooperation with the Sparks [NV] Public Safety Center,” using “personal cell phones to” reroute “the system through AT&T, and to send” Emergency Communications Center “call takers to Sparks to staff phone lines.” [View article]

Summit County, UT, Tests Antibiotic Distribution Via Banks (Salt Lake Tribune) “For two hours” on March 7, “hundreds poured into Zions Bank in Kamas and Coalville to practice how to cope with bioterrorism or another public-health emergency,” reports the Salt Lake Tribune. The exercise simulated the distribution of “nearly 2,300 antiviral or antibiotic kits.… Fliers were distributed in churches and schools to prepare the communities for the exercise, said to be the first of its kind in the nation.” Gold dollar coins were handed out to participants. [View article]

Baton Rouge, LA, Tests Wireless Link Between Hospitals and EMS (Government Technology) Baton Rouge “last week introduced a telemedicine pilot program that provides a wireless video and data link between” emergency medical services “and local hospitals …” reports Government Technology. “‘With this technology, Emergency Room physicians can begin working with our paramedics to evaluate patients’ needs even before they reach the hospital’ [said Mayor Kip Holden] … ‘BR Med-Connect’ provides a video and data computer system that utilizes high-quality cameras, advanced cardiac monitors and other diagnostic devices transmitted over the city’s high-speed wireless mesh network.” [View article]

Indiana Uses Facial-Recognition Software for Driver’s License Security (Government Technology) “The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) has taken another step toward warding off identity theft by deploying facial-recognition technology in all its 140 branches,” reports Government Technology. “In 2007, the BMV began issuing digitally produced drivers’ licenses with bar codes and holograms. Then the BMV joined most states by connecting to the Social Security Administration to check Social Security numbers online. Now, the BMV joins more than 20 states by adding facial-recognition features to new licenses. The BMV launched a pilot project in November 2008 in three branches to develop procedures, then went live statewide only a month later.” [View article]

Georgia Uses Bar Codes to Secure IDs (Federal Computer Week) “The Georgia Technology Authority will be using identification card–reading technology to prevent people from using fraudulent state driver’s licenses or ID cards to access services,” reports Federal Computer Week. “The technology, from Intellicheck Mobilisa, scans the bar code on an identity card such as a driver’s license and uses the encoded information to pre-populate forms or applications, protecting against data entry errors and increasing productivity. Such information will go into a database for the state’s License Match program, which enables businesses to verify driver’s license information against the state database to prevent fraud, minimize loss and allow document verification.” [View article]

Private-Sector News

Justice Dept. Sues Union Pacific Railroad Over Drug Smuggling on Freight Trains From Mexico The U.S. government has filed two lawsuits against the Union Pacific Railroad Company for allegedly failing to prevent the use of its rail cars to smuggle large quantities of narcotics into the United States at the Calexico, CA, and Brownsville, TX, ports of entry. Union Pacific has a substantial ownership-interest in the privatized Mexican railroad company Ferrocarril Mexicano. The complaint alleges that on 37 occasions from 2001 to 2006, after Union Pacific submitted its manifests, Customs and Border Protection officials found over 4,000 pounds of marijuana on Union Pacific rail cars northbound from Mexico. The government assessed over $33,000 in penalties, which Union Pacific refused to pay. [View Justice Dept. press release]

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. Certificate in Terrorism Studies (May 1 and September 1; online) This 16-week program of study from the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) introduces the fundamental issues behind terrorism and the motivations, methodology, and modus operandi of the various strains of terrorism in the world today: how and why terrorists plot against civilians, governments, corporations, commercial operations, transport, or information technology networks, providing context for the operational duties of military, police, or security personnel. [View course website] Crisis Leadership for Local Officials (May 8-9, Chicago; July 13-14, Mobile, AL; September 21-22, Bismarck, ND) The National League of Cities, with a grant from DHS and in cooperation with the International City/County Management Association, offers this in-depth crisis management training for elected and appointed municipal officials who are members of the National League of Cities, have taken IS 700–IS 100, and are familiar with their local emergency operations plan. The seminar will educate them about their role in emergency management and support the National Preparedness Goal of expanded regional collaboration, strengthening information sharing and collaboration, and interoperable communications. [View event website] Managing the Threat of Suicide Bombers and Improvised Explosive Devices (May 13-14; Las Vegas) This workshop provides background on the bombing methods employed by different terror groups, assists with detection techniques for suicide terrorists, helps with understanding what an effective protective policy might look like, and gives considerable detail about attempted and actual incidents that have occurred in the United States and overseas. It also teaches how to conduct building and vehicle searches and evacuations, mitigate bombing attacks, and understand the sources, costs, and evaluation of physical security enhancements. [View event website]

New Upcoming Events (After four weeks, events are moved to the Upcoming Events page) Combined Joint Operations From the Sea Maritime Security Conference (March 31–April 2; Sorrento, Italy) The theme of this year’s Combined Joint Operations From the Sea Center of Excellence conference is “Delivering Maritime Security in Global Partnership: Improving Collective Capabilities.” It will highlight developments in regional maritime security partnerships around the world and focus on the information-sharing standardization initiatives under way. [View event website] Defense Industrial Base Critical Infrastructure Protection Conference & Technology Exhibition (March 31–April 3; San Antonio, TX) This year’s theme is sector resiliency, providing defense industrial base critical infrastructure and key resources owners and operators (small business through major corporations), their subcontractors, vendors, and other security partners with insightful information for implementing the critical infrastructure and national preparedness-resiliency concept with sustainable results. The conference will bring together national and local experts and practitioners to discuss the full spectrum of natural and man-made events and the impact those events have on government and commerce. [View event website] Fifth World Congress on Chemical, Biological and Radiological Terrorism (April 5-10; Dubrovnik, Croatia) This symposium will explore the scientific, medical, and policy aspects as well as the effects of terrorism on the community and the individual and on each layer of infrastructure and each echelon of government, along with a look at proliferation. [View event website] Cyberspace Symposium (April 7-8; Omaha, NE) This year’s theme is “Advancing Cyberspace Capabilities to Deliver Integrated Effects.” The symposium is intended as an information exchange and collaboration among the Defense Department, the U.S. government, industry, academia, and international partners to facilitate resolution of key cyber issues. Symposium sessions will include speakers and workshops. [View event website] Law Enforcement Intelligence Units Training Conference (April 20-24; Las Vegas) The theme of this year’s conference is “Criminal Intelligence: Improving the Odds.” Training topics include legal issues, domestic and international terrorism, analytic writing and presentation, data mining, open-source research and analysis, and critical thinking. [View event website] (April 27-30; Ponta Vedra Beach, FL) This conference brings together policy makers, Defense Department and Homeland Security Department leaders, law enforcement, and solutions providers to exchange and share best practices and opportunities to improve the security of our nation’s maritime borders. [View event website] Are We Prepared? Four WMD Crises That Could Transform U.S. Security (May 6-7; Washington, DC) This symposium, which requires Secret clearance, will examine the nation’s preparedness to prevent or manage four crises involving weapons of mass destruction: (1) Collapse of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, in which a number of current, unresolved nuclear proliferation challenges threaten to unleash a sudden and destabilizing wave of proliferation. (2) Failure of a WMD-armed state, creating unprecedented risks that radical actors will obtain WMD and unprecedented challenges for prevention. (3) A biological terror campaign, in which terrorists employ deadly biological pathogens to strike at multiple cities. (4) A nuclear detonation in a U.S. city, delivered covertly and leaving great uncertainty about who did it, whether it will happen again, and how we should respond. [View event website] (June 25-26; Baltimore) This conference will address such topics as threat detection and identification, nanotechnology, bioinformatics, detector sensitivity, and field-deployable devices. [View event website] National Conference on Community Preparedness (Aug. 9-12; Arlington, Virginia) This year’s theme is “The Power of Citizen Corps.” The conference is open to all who are interested in making their communities safer, stronger, and better prepared for all types of hazards. [View event website]

Calls for Papers Contingency Planning & Management East 2009 (October 28-30; Orlando, FL) This training conference on business continuity, security, and emergency management is seeking faculty members. Desired topics include standards, private- and public-sector collaboration, physical and IT security, risk, loss prevention, evacuation, and recovery. The deadline for submissions is April 30. [View call for papers]