National News

School Shootings Decline, Shooters Remain Unpredictable (ABC News) “Contrary to public perception, school shootings declined after 1993, although there were copycat incidents from 1997 to 1999 ‘stimulated’ by unprecedented media coverage, according to the National School Safety Center,” reports ABC News in a series published near the anniversaries of the Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres. And despite years of study, “experts say they can’t predict which teens will go on a suicide-driven rampage.” [View article]

U.S. Power Grid Not So Vulnerable? (Time) “The electricity distribution system is highly decentralized, and there’s no central control system; at worst, cyber-attackers may be able to damage sections of the grid,” reports Time. (See last week’s newsletter.) And “the most critical power users—the military, hospitals, the banking system, phone networks, Google’s server farms—have multiple contingencies for uninterrupted power supply and back-up generation.” [View article]

U.S. Wiretaps Went Beyond the Law (New York Times) “The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year,” reports the New York Times. The NSA “engaged in ‘overcollection’ of domestic communications of Americans. [Officials] described the practice as significant and systemic, although one” believed it was unintentional. [View article]

Obama Administration Tries to Block Suit by Prisoners in Afghanistan (Washington Post) “The Obama administration [on April 10] appealed [U.S. District Judge John D. Bates’s] decision granting three detainees at a U.S. military prison in Afghanistan the right to challenge their detention in U.S. court,” reports the Washington Post. (See the April 3 newsletter.) “… The appeal makes clear that … the Obama administration for now wants to stick with a policy set by President George W. Bush that those incarcerated by U.S. troops in foreign prisons have no U.S. legal rights.” [View article]

International News

Russia Ends Counter-Terror Operations in Chechnya (BBC) “Russia has ended its decade-long ‘counter-terrorism operation’ against separatist rebels in the southern republic of Chechnya,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “… Russian forces have fought two wars in the mainly Muslim republic since 1994.… The Chechen rebels who have been fighting for independence for their republic for 15 years have not been able to carry out any serious attacks since 2004.” But according to “Western governments … Russia has tried to portray all Chechens as Islamist terrorists in order to justify the measures Russian forces use to crush Chechen resistance,” reports the Council on Foreign Relations. “But it is true that Chechen separatists have employed brutal tactics against civilian targets, including, for example, hospitals and theaters.” [View article] [View CFR report]

Canada’s Airports to Beef Up Employee Security Checks (Toronto Globe and Mail) “Canada’s airport workers will have their names run through 10 police databases before they can be assigned to secure areas under new federal regulations designed to root out organized crime,” reports the Globe and Mail. (See the Dec. 19 newsletter.) “… Effective immediately, baggage handlers, caterers and other airport workers will not merely undergo standard criminal background checks through CPIC, the Canadian Police Information Centre, they will face scrutiny under much more obscure databanks,” such as “police intelligence databases, incorporating information not just on known criminals, but also their associates, hangers-on, and even informants.… people who want to work inside secure areas at Canadian airports will be scrutinized for everything from past traffic accidents to links to criminal and terrorist groups. Police can run searches for any warrants outstanding in any of the 187 member countries that form Interpol.… About 100,000 people work at Canada’s airports. Their security clearances are reviewed at least every five years. High turnover in these jobs means that police have to do up to 45,000 security clearances a year.” [View article]

No Evidence Found of ‘Imminent Attack’ on Britain (London Mirror) “Despite [British] security services’ claims about imminent attacks [see last week’s newsletter] no weapons, explosives or bomb factory have been uncovered,” reports the Mirror. [View article]

Obama Imposes Sanctions on Mexican Drug Cartels (Washington Post) President Obama on Wednesday imposed “financial sanctions against three of the most violent Mexican drug cartels and [threatened] to prosecute Americans who do business with them,” reports the Washington Post. “… Obama added the cartels to the list of banned foreign ‘drug kingpins,’ a move that empowers the federal government to seize their assets, estimated to be in the billions of dollars. It also allows the government to seek criminal penalties against U.S. firms or individuals who provide weapons, launder money or transport drugs or cash for the organizations.” [View article]

North Korea Says It Will Restart Nuclear Weapons Plant (Fox News; Reuters) North Korea said Tuesday that it will “restore its nuclear facilities and boycott international talks on its atomic weapons program to protest [Monday’s] U.N. Security Council’s condemnation of the country’s rocket launch” on April 5, “which Pyongyang says sent a satellite into space but the United States and others say tested long-range missile technology,” reports the Associated Press. But “North Korea cannot resume operations at its ageing Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear plant quickly,” reports Reuters, noting that North Korea “has boycotted the six-country talks aimed at ending its nuclear programmes before.” North Korea “could eventually extract enough material from spent fuel rods cooling at the plant to make one more nuclear bomb, adding to its meagre stockpile of fissile material and making another nuclear test more likely.” [View AP article] [View Reuters article]

European Project to Battle Islamist Extremism Online (UK Register) The United Kingdom “is collaborating with the German, Dutch and Czech governments on a secret research project on how to effectively block the distribution of Islamic extremist material online,” reports the Register. “Officials across Europe are concerned that most jihadi websites are hosted outside the [European Union] and so cannot be taken down from the internet. [Some are hosted in the United States; see last week’s newsletter.] It’s thought governments will explore technical measures such as filtering [technologies], as well as international cooperation on take-down notices issued to” Internet service providers. “The European Commission has agreed to fund a project, entitled ‘Exploring the Islamist Extremist Web of Europe—Analysis and Preventive Approaches.’” [View article]

U.S. Tries to Recruit Militias in Afghanistan (New York Times) “The ambitious American plan … to arm, with minimal training, groups of Afghan men to guard their own neighborhoods” lays “bare the torments facing any Afghan Pashtuns who might be contemplating defying the Taliban—and the extraordinary difficulties facing American officers …” reports the New York Times. The U.S. “military is borrowing a page from a similar program that helped bring about the recent calm to Iraq, where the Americans signed up more than 100,000 Iraqi Sunnis, many of them insurgents, to keep the peace. The hope [in Afghanistan] is that the militias will come to the aid of the overwhelmed Afghan Army and the police, which take longer to train and equip and number only about 160,000. Hundreds were killed last year in Taliban attacks.… The first crop of recruits went through the three-week course—presided over by American Special Forces officers—and graduated three weeks ago. They are now patrolling the dirt roads of Jalrez.” But the elders of “the Pashtun enclave of Zayawalat … said they still were not ready to give up their sons.” [View article]

Ukraine Arrests 3 in Radioactive Material Sale (Yahoo! News) “Ukrainian security agents have arrested a regional lawmaker and two companions for trying to sell a radioactive substance that could be used in making a dirty bomb,” reports the Associated Press. The three men were “trying to sell 8.2 pounds (3.7 kilograms) of radioactive material to an undercover agent of the security service.” [View article]

Top Cyber-Threat Comes From Chinese Computers (Congressional Quarterly) “China surpassed the United States last year as the top country of origin for cyber-attacks targeting governments around the world,” reports Congressional Quarterly, citing a new Symantec report. “In 2008, 22 percent of all attacks on the government sector originated in China … Although it is clear that computers in China are being used for attacks … in some cases the attackers themselves could be based elsewhere.” The United States ranked second with 12%, and Spain was third with 6%. [View article]

Australia Receives Influx of Refugees (Australian) “A rising tide of boatpeople” is heading for Australian shores, reports the Australian. Thirteen boats and 455 unauthorised refugees have arrived since “since September, when the Rudd Government announced measures aimed at softening Australia’s treatment of refugees.” Yesterday, “five boatpeople were killed and 51 people” injured “after a fire that may have been deliberately lit led to an explosion that sank the vessel” near Australia, reports the Australian in a separate article. [View influx article] [View sinking article]

DHS News

TSA Email Compromised Airport Security Test (NextGov) “A Transportation Security Administration official compromised the covert testing of airport security screeners” at 12 airports “by sending out an e-mail about the testing and did not report the compromise, according to … the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general,” reports NextGov. “Kip Hawley [then TSA Administrator] told the House Committee on Homeland Security in November 2007 that the e-mail was a mistake, and [that] there was no intent to alert screeners of the test. The inspector general disputed that conclusion.” [View article] [View report (1MB PDF)]

CBP Didn’t Give Enough Privacy Data to Auditors (Federal Computer Week) “The Customs and Border Protection agency did not provide enough information to Homeland Security Department auditors to enable them to conduct a full review of CBP’s largest passenger information database for privacy and security compliance, according to … DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner,” reports Federal Computer Week. [View article] [View IG report (265KB PDF)]

TSA Lacks TWIC Readers (USA Today) The Transportation Worker Identification Credential program is being “delayed for at least two more years because the government lacks machines to read fingerprint ID cards issued to more than 1 million workers,” reports USA Today. “Truckers, deckhands and others requiring access to secure areas at ports paid $132 apiece for the high-tech ID cards that have their fingerprints embedded in them. But the Homeland Security Department, which is overseeing the program, says it still lacks fingerprint readers that can be used reliably in harsh weather.” [View article] [View Focus on TWIC]

DHS Report Warns of U.S. Right-Wing Extremists (Los Angeles Times; CNN) “The economic downturn and the election of the nation’s first black president are contributing to a resurgence of right-wing extremist groups, which had been on the wane since the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, according to a U.S. intelligence assessment distributed to state and local authorities last week,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “The report, produced by the Department of Homeland Security, has triggered a backlash among conservatives because it also raised the specter that disgruntled veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might ‘boost the capabilities of extremists … to carry out violence.’ The assessment noted that domestic security officials had seen no evidence that such groups were planning attacks in the” United States. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee Chairman Benny Thompson wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressing alarm that the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis “‘will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months … with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive rightwing extremist radicalization.’ [emphasis added]. I would like more information about what types of activities I&A intends to undertake.” Napolitano defended the report, saying, “We monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States.… We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not—nor will we ever—monitor ideology or political beliefs.” But “some veterans groups were offended by the fact that veterans were mentioned in this assessment, so I apologize for that,” Napolitano told CNN yesterday. [View article] [View report] [View Thompson letter] [View Napolitano defense] [View CNN article]

Obama Picks Alan Bersin as New ‘Border Czar’ (Time) “Alan Bersin, President Obama’s pick for ‘border czar,’” will be expected “to handle illegal immigration and drug violence issues along the Mexican-American border,” reports Time. [View article]

DHS Offers Grants to Firefighters Through May 20, the Homeland Security Department is accepting applications for Assistance to Firefighters Grants. The awards will provide $510 million to fire departments and nonaffiliated emergency medical service organizations for training, health and safety programs, and equipment and response vehicles. [View press release]

Other Federal News

Obama Administration Won’t Prosecute CIA Interrogators (Washington Post) “The Justice Department will not prosecute CIA officers who used harsh interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects with the blessing of lawyers,” reports the Washington Post. At the same time, the government “issued long-sought documents that catalogue a list of tactics—from sleep- and food-deprivation to beatings—that Bush lawyers said comported with the law. The memos … date to 2002.” [View article]

CIA Bars Private Contractors From Questioning Terror Suspects (San Luis Obispo, CA, Tribune) “Private contractors will no longer be permitted to interrogate suspected” terrorists, and the Central Intelligence Agency “is seeking to close down what remains of its secret network of detention centers,” report the McClatchy Newspapers. CIA Director Leon “Panetta said no prisoners were being housed at the facilities but that private security companies were still guarding the facilities.” [View article]

Check Passport Applicants Against List of Dead, Says GAO (Federal Computer Week) “The State Department should check all U.S. passport applications against a federal database of deaths to ensure that passports are not issued to individuals who use the identities of dead people, the Government Accountability Office recommends,” according to Federal Computer Week. (See the March 20 newsletter.) [View article] [View GAO summary]

NRC Orders Greater Security for Cesium Chloride The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has directed the agency staff to continue enhancing the security of cesium chloride radiation sources, while encouraging research and further technological developments for alternative chemical forms of the radioactive substance and noting that controls implemented over the past several years have significantly improved security. Cesium chloride is widely used in irradiators to sterilize human blood, in biomedical and industrial research, and for calibration of radiation instrumentation and dosimetry, but it could also be employed in an improvised radioactive weapon. [View press release]

United Nations News

‘Terrorism’ Undefined Releases Governments From Accountability, Says UN Lawyer (Christian Science Monitor) “As the concept [of terrorism] currently is defined in international law, it is not at all clear,” writes Noah Bialostozky of the United Nations Law Committee in the Christian Science Monitor. “Despite numerous attempts to reach consensus, there are 12 different definitions in various international treaties. Failure to reach consensus, combined with the US ‘war on terror,’ has left the term ripe for unchecked use.” [View article]

World Food Programme Aims to Reach 8.8 Million Afghans Almost 9 million people in Afghanistan will benefit from the United Nations’ World Food Programme aid this year. Over 1.5 million were reached in March, and the program’s food-for-work plan has already helped over 500,000 people with irrigation canals, ponds, water channels, and roads. [View press release]

State and Local News

Illegal Immigrants Settling in Different States (Stateline) “The estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States are settling in states such as Georgia and North Carolina where relatively few lived 20 years ago, according to” the Pew Hispanic Center, reports Stateline. “… larger numbers of illegal immigrants are scattering to … the Southeast, Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and Mountain states.” But “overall, the report said, the rapid growth of illegal immigrant workers has come to a halt.” (See the Statistics of the Week.) [View article] [View Pew report]

CapMetro photo

NJ Police Exceed Rules on Questioning Immigrants (Philadelphia Inquirer) “State, local and county police have abused a two-year-old directive that empowers them to question suspects in serious crimes about their immigration status,” reports the Inquirer, citing a new report by the Seton Hall University School of Law, which found that “police exceed their authority by questioning individuals involved in even minor infractions.” [View article]

Some Ignore Siren as Tornado Kills Three in Mena, Ark. (USA Today) “The sirens sounded three times across” Mena, “and residents watched several funnel clouds pass harmlessly over the town”—but “the fourth siren was for another twister that ended up being a killer,” reports the Associated Press. “While many took cover immediately” on the night of April 9 “in the basement of the county courthouse, others stayed home, only to glance out their windows just in time to see the black funnel descend on the community … At least three people were killed, at least 30 others injured and 600 homes were damaged or destroyed.” [View article]

MBTA photo

Dual-Benefit Solutions

7 (Crazy) Civilian Uses for Nuclear Bombs (Wired) Citing U.S. Operation Plowshare and the Russian “Program No. 7—Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy,” Wired looks at the ways nuclear weapons have been “used throughout the last 50 years for a variety of civilian purposes … tried or just proposed:”

1. Creating a harbor, or just a hole
2. Creating a new Panama Canal
3. Natural gas exploration
4. Mining oil shale
5. Disposing of nuclear waste (“What could possibly go wrong?” asks Wired science writer Alexis Madrigal)
6. Human spaceflight
7. Defending earth from an asteroid

Dual-benefit news archive

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] 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) U.S. Public Health Service Scientific and Training Symposium (June 1-4; Atlanta) The theme for the 2009 symposium is “Leading a Strong Public Health Workforce for a Healthy America.” The conference will address a broad range of emerging trends, research breakthroughs, and critical issues in public health. The symposium helps attendees stay current on emerging preparedness challenges, evolving best practices in prevention and care strategies for fundamental public health concerns, ethics, leadership, and much more. [View event website] Sensors Expo & Conference (June 1-8; Rosemont, IL) The in-depth 18-track conference program features the world’s leading authorities, who will examine the most up-to-date innovations in measurement and detection. [View event website] National Environmental Health Association Conference & Exhibition (June 21-14; Atlanta) The conference will explore the evolution of the environmental health profession, address present concerns and future issues, and start to pave new avenues to ensure the positive growth of the profession. It will cover environmental health in climate change, built communities, sustainable development, and all-hazards preparedness; food safety; and where environmental health fits into the “New Government Structure.” [View event website]