DHS News

Real ID on the Back Burner (NextGov) Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on March 27 described the 2005 Real ID “legislation as ‘enormously expensive,’ ‘containing a lot of uncertainly,’ and lacking adequate ‘constitutional governance,’” reports NextGov. “DHS will be going ‘back to the drawing board,’ to figure out whether an enhanced driver’s license is feasible, Napolitano said, but in the meantime the existing law will intentionally remain on the back burner.… Napolitano’s office is participating in a working group established by the National Governors Association to review the Real ID law and determine whether statutory changes need to be made.” [View article]

DHS Will Increase Inspection of Vehicles Leaving for Mexico (San Diego Union-Tribune) “Inspections of vehicles crossing into Mexico will be stepped up under a $400 million effort to improve security on the border, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said Wednesday,” reports the Union-Tribune. “… The southbound inspections will include canine teams trained to sniff out weapons and cash [and] the deployment of 100 Border Patrol agents borderwide to inspect vehicles headed into Mexico.” [View article]

TSA Begins ‘Secure Flight’ The Transportation Security Administration, under its Secure Flight program, has assumed predeparture watch-list matching responsibilities for passengers on domestic commercial flights with four volunteer aircraft operators. Under Secure Flight, airlines will gather a passenger’s full name, date of birth, and sex when making a reservation to determine whether the passenger matches the No Fly or Selectee lists. Secure Flight should help prevent misidentification of passengers. In the second stage, the TSA will match names against the watch lists for passengers on international flights—currently a function of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and international air carriers. [View press release]

DHS Falls Short on Immigration Benefits Processing, Says Inspector General (Government Executive) “Management shortcomings at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Homeland Security Department agency responsible for administering immigration benefits, have undermined efforts to eliminate the backlog of benefit applications, according to a new report by the department’s inspector general,” Richard Skinner, reports Government Executive. “The report said [that the agency] lacked adequate baseline data to measure performance, failed to oversee or document lessons from pilot programs and other initiatives being executed by field offices, and lacked a formal agreement with the State Department to ensure timely processing of immigration benefits.” [View article]

Napolitano Will Review National Applications Office (Federal Computer Week) “Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will review her department’s controversial National Applications Office (NAO), which is designed to use imagery from the country’s spy satellites for domestic security and law enforcement purposes,” reports Federal Computer Week. “The office has raised concerns among members of Congress, civil liberties advocates and the Government Accountability Office.” [View article]

DHS Seeks Advice on Common Operational Picture (Federal Computer Week) “The Homeland Security Department is seeking advice from industry on how to improve its national Common Operational Picture (COP), which is used to provide situational awareness for federal, state and local officials during disasters,” reports Federal Computer Week. “DHS activated COP in May 2006 and uses it for strategic, operational and tactical purposes at the department’s National Operations Center. Officials plan to upgrade COP, refresh technology, and eventually build a new version that would accommodate improved visualization and more users. DHS has asked companies with experience in refreshing COP technology and building a decision support system for advice. Officials want to see how difficult it would be to get the capabilities they want from the planned upgrades.” [View article]

Departmentwide Software Purchase Will Save $47 Million a Year, Says Napolitano (Government Technology; NextGov) “‘Within the next 60 days,’ said [Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano [on Monday], ‘we’re going to improve how we acquire new software licenses for the department’s computers and IT systems,’” reports Government Technology. “‘Right now, our components purchase computer software and negotiate contracts independently … By using strategic sourcing—in other words, buying these licenses as one department—we expect to save over $47 million per year and $283 million over the next six years.’” This step is among “more than 700 initiatives that are expected to save millions of dollars, including a shift from paper to electronic documents,” reports NextGov. (See the Statistics of the Week.) [View Government Technology article] [View NextGov article]

Other Federal News

FBI’s Most-Wanted Lists Get a High-Tech Makeover (Fox News) The Federal Bureau of Investigation is using “high-tech tools to capture fugitives—and to find missing persons, too,” reports Fox News. The FBI uses “mini-applications that can be added to a Web page or a PC’s desktop and updated remotely by simply copying and pasting Web code,” along with “interactive iPhone-looking posters that bloggers and MySpace and Facebook users can embed on their pages … There are weekly podcasts, e-mail alerts and digital billboards posted across the country that have directly led to the capture of at least 70 fugitives.” [View article]

White House to Keep Agencies’ Focus on Terrorism (New York Times) “The Obama administration is moving to solidify one of the most significant shifts of resources put into place under President George W. Bush: the transformation of the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into agencies where the top priority is counterterrorism rather than conventional law enforcement,” reports the New York Times. “… officials acknowledge … that the shift of agents to counterterrorism and intelligence duties after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has seriously complicated other efforts.” [View article]

White House Will Coordinate Cybersecurity (NextGov) “The White House will coordinate the national cybersecurity strategy but without creating a separate office,” reports NextGov. [View article]

State and Local News

Illegal Immigrants Arrested in Bellingham, WA, Workplace Raid Go Free (Seattle Times) Most of the “28 illegal immigrants” arrested “at Yamato Engine Specialists on Feb. 24 … were either released for humanitarian reasons or after posting bond,” reports the Seattle Times. “At least one was deported. And the remaining workers still in custody were freed without bail last week and offered legal permission to work in the United States.” On the day after the raid, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano “ordered a probe into the actions of the Seattle-based ICE team that conducted the raid.… Napolitano also has delayed raids planned for other work sites, while she reviews policies under which ICE agents carry out these actions.” [View article]

Easy-to-Get Licenses Expose Maryland to Fraud (Washington Post) “Maryland—the last holdout east of the Colorado Rockies in the nationwide effort to tighten rules on how states issue driver’s licenses—has become a magnet for illegal immigrants from Georgia to Delaware seeking driving privileges,” reports the Washington Post. “Along with New Mexico, Hawaii and Washington state, Maryland does not check the immigration status of drivers when they apply for a license. The policy has made the state vulnerable to widespread fraud by illegal immigrants living outside Maryland—as well as to criminals seeking to create false identities—according to court records and interviews with state officials. And in some cases, state workers who issue licenses have run sophisticated schemes right out of Motor Vehicle Administration branches.” [View article]

Texas Funds Counter-Bioterror Center (Government Computer News) “Texas will spend $50 million to develop a new center to protect against bioterrorism attacks,” reports Government Computer News. “It also will be used to research and develop medications to combat diseases such as cancer, diabetes and influenza. The first of its kind in the United States, the National Center for Therapeutics Manufacturing is funded through the Texas Emerging Technology program [of] the Texas A&M University System.” [View article]

National News

Uncertain Fate for Chinese at Guantánamo (New York Times) The 17 Chinese Uighurs held at Guantánamo have nowhere to go if they are released, reports the New York Times. They are “hapless refugees to some, dangerous plotters to others.… The Bush administration conceded last fall that none of the men were enemy combatants. Then the Justice Department argued that they should never be admitted into this country because they ‘sought to wage terror’ in China.… a Uighur resistance group”—the East Turkistan Islamic Movement—“was listed by the State Department in 2002 as a terrorist group … at China’s urging,” but the department “has acknowledged that the Chinese used the terrorist listing to justify a harsh crackdown on Uighur separatists … The United States has said it would not release the men to China, which has demanded their return, because it fears mistreatment or torture.” [View article]

Afghanistan Prisoners Can Challenge Detention in U.S. Courts (Washington Post) “A federal judge [yesterday] cleared the way for three detainees at a U.S. military prison in Afghanistan to challenge their confinements in the federal courts,” reports the Washington Post. “The ruling came in a series of lawsuits brought by detainees held at the prison at the Bagram Air Force Base. The detainees had been captured elsewhere in the world and brought to Bagram by U.S. authorities, their lawyers say. Some have been held there for at least six years. U.S. District Judge John Bates ruled … that three of four men suing the U.S. government may proceed with their cases under the centuries-old legal doctrine of habeas corpus.… Bates deferred ruling whether the fourth detainee, an Afghan citizen, can also challenge his detention. There are about 650 people detained at the Bagram prison, and Bates’s ruling would probably not pertain to those picked up in Afghanistan and held there.” [View article]

DHS Guards Against a Quiet Conficker (PC World) “The Conficker worm” on Wednesday began “to phone home for instructions but has done little else.…” reports PC World. “Security experts at Symantec, the maker of Norton Antivirus, … believe the threat is overblown.” DHS released a Conficker detector so that the federal government, commercial vendors, state and local governments, and critical infrastructure owners and operators could scan their networks for the Conficker/Downadup computer worm. [View article] [View DHS press release]

International News

Pakistani Taliban Claim Attack on Police Academy in Pakistan (Yahoo! News; Economist) “The commander of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Tuesday for a deadly assault on a Pakistani police academy” in Lahore, reports the Associated Press. “Police commandos … recaptured [the] police-training centre which militants had stormed eight hours earlier on Monday,” reports the Economist. But “lax security at the ramshackle academy allowed a dozen militants to rampage among 800 or more mostly unarmed police recruits” that “left eight police cadets and two civilians dead and over 90 trainees wounded.” [View AP article] [View Economist article]

Hezbollah Uses Mexican Drug Routes Into U.S. (Washington Times) “Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security,” reports the Washington Times. “… The Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America’s tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Increasingly, however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the” United States. [View article]

Most Mexican Guns Are Not Traced to the U.S. (Fox News) The claim that 90% “of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States” has been made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and William Hoover of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, reports Fox News. “It’s just not true.” Actually, 90% “of the traced firearms originate from the U.S.,” Fox News quoted a BATF spokeswoman as saying. (See the Jan. 30 newsletter.) But 68% “of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing,” says Fox News, so 83% “of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.” Instead, they more likely came from the black market, “Russian crime organizations,” South America, Asia, the Mexican Army, and Guatemala. [View article]

British Police Identify 200 Teens as Potential Terrorists (London Independent) Two hundred British students, “some as young as 13, have been identified as potential terrorists by a police scheme that aims to spot youngsters who are ‘vulnerable’ to Islamic radicalisation,” reports the Independent. The Channel project, which “began 18 months ago,” intervenes in the cases of those “thought to be at risk of extremism.” [View article]

Khmer Rouge Trial Opens (New York Times) “Testimony opened Monday at the first trial of a Khmer Rouge official, with a detailed description of the internal workings and methods of interrogation in the regime’s central torture house,” reports the New York Times. The bloody regime in Cambodia was deposed 30 years ago, but until now no one has stood trial to “answer for one of the most horrific episodes of mass killing in the past century, in which 1.7 million people are estimated to have died from 1975 to ’79 of starvation, overwork, disease or execution.” [View article]

Hundreds of Migrants Missing at Sea Off Libya (CNN) “High winds and heavy seas capsized a boat filled with African migrants heading for Europe off the coast of Libya Monday—with more than 200 feared dead,” reports CNN. Tens of thousands of migrants per year cross the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe. (See the July 11, 2008, newsletter.) [View article]

Taliban Rejects U.S. Olive Branch (Toronto Globe and Mail) “Taliban fighters in Afghanistan who abandon extremism must be granted an ‘honourable form of reconciliation,’ U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said” Tuesday, reports Reuters. “Taliban insurgents” rejected the U.S. offer “as a ‘lunatic idea’ and said the withdrawal of foreign troops was the only way to end the war in Afghanistan,” reports Reuters in a separate article. [View olive branch article] [View rejection article]

Afghanistan Conference Draws 80 Countries (Voice of America) “Representatives from more than 80 nations, including the United States and Iran,” gathered this week “in the Hague [Holland] for a key conference focusing on Afghanistan at a time when NATO and U.S. forces there are fighting a rising insurgency,” reports the Voice of America. “The Afghanistan conference follows the unveiling of a new U.S. strategy that calls for sending more aid and additional troops to [the] conflict-torn country and to focus more on al-Qaida terrorists operating there.” [View article]

Germany Bans Nazi Youth Group (BBC) “The German interior ministry has banned a far-right group”—the Homeland-Faithful German Youth—“for allegedly organising activities promoting racist and Nazi ideology among young children,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. [View article]

IRA Dissidents Burn Cars and Block Belfast Roads (Yahoo! News) “Suspected IRA dissidents and their supporters hijacked cars Monday in working-class Catholic areas of Northern Ireland in a coordinated effort to block roads and threaten police stations,” reports the Associated Press. “… Some vehicles were being set on fire in roads to disrupt traffic at rush hour, while others were abandoned near four Belfast police stations and on Northern Ireland’s major motorway near Lurgan.” [View article]

Iraq Plans to Relocate Iran Opposition Group (Washington Post) “Iraq’s national security adviser”—Mowaffak al-Rubaie—“said [last] Friday that the government intends to move an Iranian opposition group”—the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)—“from its sanctuary near the Iranian border to a location where leaders and ‘brainwashed cult members’ will be separated and the latter ‘detoxified,’” reports the Washington Post. “… The group received support from Saddam Hussein’s government and has been designated a terrorist organization by the State Department, but U.S. officials credit the MEK with providing information about Iran’s nuclear program.… The U.S. military has protected the group’s camp in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.” [View article]

Why Arab Leaders Embrace Sudan’s Indicted President (Christian Science Monitor) Despite Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s indictment by the International Criminal Court on March 4 “for seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity” (see the March 6 newsletter), “he has defied the standing international warrant for his arrest,” visiting Qatar and “the neighboring countries of Eritrea, Egypt, and Libya,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. “Bashir … has enjoyed an outpouring of support from Arab and African leaders. Their hostile reaction to the indictment of one of their own, say diplomats and analysts, is driven by a combination of concern for the indictment’s consequences for Sudan’s stability, resentment of the selective precedent it sets, and worries about national sovereignty.” [View article]

Obama Outlines Afghan Strategy of Stability and Partnerships (Washington Post) “President Obama introduced his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan [on March 27] with a threat assessment familiar from the Bush administration. ‘The terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks,’ he said, are continuing to devise plots designed to ‘kill as many of our people as they possibly can,’” reports the Washington Post. The “Obama plan [is] to ‘disrupt, dismantle and defeat’ al-Qaeda in Pakistan and vanquish its Taliban allies in Afghanistan … Obama pledged to tighten U.S. focus on Pakistan and build a better ‘partnership’ with its government and military.… Obama said that he would send 4,000 U.S. troops—beyond the additional 17,000 he authorized last month—to work as trainers and advisers to the Afghan army, and hundreds more civilian officials and diplomats to help improve governance and the country’s economy.” [View article]

United Nations News

UN Forum Addresses Nuclear Security Delegates from more than 90 countries began a three-day meeting in Vienna Monday to assess seven years of global efforts to improve the protection and control of radioactive material, and to discuss ways to strengthen nuclear security. The International Symposium on Nuclear Security, organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency, brings together policymakers and experts to also discuss issues such as managing radioactive sources and combating nuclear terrorism. [View press release]

UN Gives Nuclear Technical Assistance to Terror Sponsors, Says GAO The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Technical Cooperation program “provides equipment, training, fellowships, and other services to its member states,” notes the Government Accountability Office, but neither the U.S. State Department nor the UN has sought to systematically limit the assistance going “to countries the United States has designated as state sponsors of terrorism—Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria.” Also, “funding has been provided to states that are not party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons”: India, Israel, and Pakistan. Neither the United States nor the UN “has sought to exclude these countries from participating in the” Technical Cooperation program. “Member states are not required to complete comprehensive safeguards or additional protocol agreements with the” agency. [View GAO summary]

Private-Sector News

Boeing Gets Northern Border SBInet Contract (NextGov) “The Homeland Security Department awarded a $20 million contract”—the Secure Border Initiative Network Northern Border Project—“to Boeing Co. to develop video surveillance systems in Buffalo, N.Y., and Detroit and will evaluate the systems during the next year to determine enhancements that should be made to support agents patrolling the U.S.-Canada border,” reports NextGov. “… Border Patrol agents will evaluate the systems through March 30, 2010.” Boeing already has been creating SBInet along the Southwest border, and a year ago DHS accepted the first 28 miles of virtual fence and other technology, known as Project 28 (see the March 7, 2008, newsletter). [View article]

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. Free DHS-Certified Courses (Online; ongoing) The National Center for Biomedical Research and Training (NCBRT) is a DHS training partner providing high-quality training to emergency responders throughout the United States and its territories under the NCBRT’s Homeland Security National Training Cooperative Agreement. The NCBRT offers e-learning courses as challenging as those taught onsite. [View course website] 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] 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 course website] Executive Program in Counter-Terrorism (July 19-24; Los Angeles) This course is designed to challenge international counter-terrorism leaders—specifically public-sector professionals and policymakers—and enhance their analysis, coordination, and response capabilities. It employs an interdisciplinary academic and experiential learning environment. Participants will strengthen their cross-functional skills through immersion in key issues and best practices presented by world-class research and public policy experts. The program will foster academic, professional, and personal development amid a diverse group of peers from around the world. The application deadline is May 15. [View course website] Pandemics and Bioterrorism: From Realistic Threats to Effective Policies (July 27-29; Cambridge, MA) The threats of bioterrorism and global pandemics pose new challenges, yet security and public health agencies have deeply embedded professional norms and organizational cultures, which resist change. This course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explores the obstacles to implementation and strategies to overcome them. [View course website]

New Upcoming Events (After four weeks, events are moved to the Upcoming Events page) 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] (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]