International News

UN photo

France Declares War Against al-Qaeda (Yahoo! News) “France has declared war on al-Qaida, and matched its fighting words with a first attack on a base camp of the terror network’s North African branch, after the terror network killed a French aid worker it took hostage in April,” reports the Associated Press. “The declaration and attack marked a shift in strategy for France, usually [discreet] about its behind-the-scenes battle against terrorism.” French “officials suggest [that] France will activate accords with [Mauritania, Mali and Niger] to stop the terrorists in their tracks.… The United States said it would help the French ‘in any way that we can’ … according to [the] U.S. State Dept.” View article

Congo Armed Group ADF-NALU Implicated in Uganda Bombings (Christian Science Monitor) “Numerous sources in Ugandan intelligence have placed the blame for the Kampala bombings of July 11 [see the July 16 newsletter] on the ADF-NALU, an armed group based in the Ruwenzori mountains in eastern Congo,” reports the Monitor. “… Others have placed the blame solely on the Somali Al-Shabab group, which claimed responsibility for the attack.” But although ADF-NALU has “been relatively dormant … Training sites have allegedly been set up for special forces … Raids of ADF-NALU camps have reportedly yielded instruction manuals on how to build makeshift bombs and … The ADF-NALU have carried out bombings in the past.” View article

Russia Blocks Airliner Hijacking (Houston Chronicle) “Russian special forces quickly overpowered a man after he … seized a plane with 105 passengers onboard at a Moscow airport” and held them hostage for two hours, reports the Associated Press. View article

Control Orders on Three Britons Were Wrongly Imposed, Judges Rule (London Guardian) “A court of appeal ruling [Wednesday] cleared the way for two international terrorism suspects to claim damages for having control orders wrongly imposed on them for three and a half years,” reports the Guardian. “The judgment also raises the prospect that a third suspect will not be prosecuted for breaching the terms of his control order, which has also been quashed.” The court ruled “that the control orders … should never have been made … because they were largely based on secret intelligence that had been kept from the suspects.” View article

Two Muslim Extremist Groups Are Not Gateways to Terrorism, Says British Govt. Report (London Telegraph) The British “government has opened the way for official links with Muslim extremists after civil servants said radical groups could be a ‘safety valve’ for those tempted by terrorism. The groups specifically named—in documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph—include al-Muhajiroun, which has praised 9/11 as ‘magnificent’ and Hizb ut Tahrir, which wants to turn Britain into an Islamic dictatorship under sharia law. In the classified papers, presented last week to Coalition ministers on the Cabinet’s home affairs committee, officials say a ‘clear assessment’ has been made that individuals ‘do not progress’ to violence through such groups.… In fact, at least 19 terrorists convicted in Britain have had links with al-Muhajiroun, including Omar Khayam, sentenced to life imprisonment as leader of the ‘fertiliser bomb’ plot, and Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the ringleader of the airliner ‘liquid bomb’ plot, who is also serving life.” View article

China Holds Large Emergency Drill at Sea (China Daily) China held “a large joint maritime rescue drill … near Port of Qingdao in East China’s Shandong province on July 27,” reports China Daily. Participating were “the North Sea Fleet, Qingdao Army Equipment Support Base, Qingdao 401 Hospital, Shandong Provincial Maritime Affair, Beihai Rescue Bureau and Beihai No 1 Rescue Flying Squad.” The drill “involved 12 fleets, 2 helicopters and 5 emergency teams with nearly 800 staff members. The drill was not only carried out on the surface of the water, but also underwater, on land and in the air.” View article

State and Local News

Federal Judge Blocks Arizona’s Immigration Law (Tuscon [AZ] Sentinel) “U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday morning preventing sections of the anti-illegal immigration law from taking effect,” reports the Sentinel. She blocked

• “The section that requires a reasonable attempt to determine the immigration status of a person stopped, detained or arrested if there’s reasonable suspicion” that the person is “in the country illegally, and the section requiring that anyone arrested have” his or her “immigration status verified.”
• “The section that creates a state crime of failure to apply for or carry ‘alien-registration papers.’”
• “The section that makes it a crime for illegal immigrants to solicit, apply for or perform work.”
• “The section that allows for a warrantless arrest of a person where there is probable cause to believe” that the person has “committed a public offense that makes” the person “removable from the United States”

Crime Drops in Southwest Border Cities (BBC; Global Post) Juarez, Mexico, “is the murder capital of the world,” according to the Global Post, but El Paso, TX, just across the border, “is the second safest city in America,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “Crime rates there have dropped 36% over the past 10 years. Other cities close to the border, including San Diego in California and Phoenix in Arizona, have similarly experienced declines in violent crime.” View BBC article • View Post article

Sniper Malvo Says There Were Accomplices and Other Killings (Christian Science Monitor) “Convicted [Washington] DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo [told] actor William Shatner on a cable TV special that he and his partner tried to recruit fellow shooters for their 2002 spree and that his accomplice killed one man for backing out,” reports the Monitor. A “psychiatrist, Neil Blumberg, who worked with Malvo before his trial, also said Malvo had confessed to more shootings in addition to the spree that terrorized the Washington region in 2002, when 13 people were hit and 10 of them died.” In 2003, both Malvo and his partner, John A. Muhammad, were convicted of terrorism. View article

New Jersey Registry Helps Responders Aid Those With Special Needs (Emergency Management) “New Jersey has launched a statewide online registry for emergency responders to serve residents with special needs,” reports Emergency Management. “Developed by the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management … the Web-based database, Register Ready, collects information confidentially from special-needs residents and their families and friends to be used only for emergency response and planning.” View article

Should Emergency Managers Be in Touch on Vacation? (Emergency Management) Should an emergency manager take a BlackBerry on vacation? That’s what Eric Holdeman asks in Emergency Management. “Vacations are meant to be times of renewal,” but “disasters don’t take a holiday.… Directors of emergency management programs carry a special burden.” Holdeman prefers to “stay connected and actively monitor e-mail traffic” because emergency managers “can’t delegate responsibility for what happens—when you’re there or on vacation, you’re responsible for what gets done or is left undone.” View commentary

Penn State Hosts Homeland Security Summer Camp (State College, PA, Centre Daily Times) Last week “nine middle and high school students” attended “a summer camp on national security at Penn State Harrisburg,” reports the Times. “The camp was Penn State Harrisburg’s way of meeting a requirement for summer ‘pre-college’ programming in return for receiving a $1 million federal grant to expand national security initiatives.” The university “has joined with other schools in the Penn State system to create an online master’s degree in homeland security, which will be offered this fall. A base program for the online degree is a four-course, post-bachelor’s degree certificate in homeland security that Penn State Harrisburg began offering last fall.” View article

National News

WikiLeaks Publishes Classified Reports From the Afghan War (Washington Post; Wired) “More than 91,000 classified documents—most of which consist of low-level field reports—” were released Sunday by WikiLeaks, reports the Post. “The documents disclose for the first time that Taliban insurgents appear to have used portable, heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles to shoot down U.S. helicopters.… Many of the documents … suggest that Pakistan’s spy service might be helping Afghan insurgents plan and carry out attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and their Afghan government allies.” Most of the reports reflect “the daily grind of life in Afghanistan.” Others “give accounts of police chiefs skimming the pay of their patrol officers or placing nonexistent ‘ghost’ troops on their rolls so that they could pocket the additional salaries.” They also “highlight how civilian casualties resulting from mistakes on the battlefield have alienated Afghans.” But Wired “Danger Room” blogger Noah Shachtman wants to caution “those who think they can discover the capital-T truth about the Afghanistan conflict solely through the WikiLeaks war logs.” He cites “a gunfight in August 2009 in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.” The leaked log doesn’t tell the whole story, he says—because he was there. “Those officers in military headquarters who count on these updates to learn about what’s happening on the front lines” should also be careful, he says. View Post article • View Wired blog

Many Hospital Workers Would Not Report for Duty in a Pandemic “Over a quarter (28%) of the hospital staff surveyed indicated they are unlikely to respond to a pandemic if asked to report to duty,” according to a study published this week in BMC Public Health. “If the workers were required (and not just asked) to report to duty, the unwillingness to respond rate decreased to 18% … at a time they would be most needed in their respective work roles. When further probed if they would respond to a pandemic ‘regardless of severity’, almost one third (32%) of surveyed staff indicated they are unlikely to do so.” View report (163KB PDF)

Photo courtesy of Steve Dunham

3D Scanning for Biometric Identification and Verification This new research brief from the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions says that a relatively new biometric, 3D facial recognition, holds great promise. This brief presents the technical background of the 3D scanning technologies, briefly surveys related biometrics that may be combined with 3D recognition, provides an overview of the major technical issues, and highlights research opportunities to overcome those issues. View research brief (467KB PDF)

DHS News

Coast Guard photo

Mérida Initiative Needs Performance Metrics, Says GAO (Homeland Security Today) “The Mérida Initiative, a linchpin of US counter-narcotics and counter-terror strategy in Mexico and Central America [see the April 10, 2009, newsletter], lacks key elements to facilitate accountability and management, according to … the Government Accountability Office,” reports Homeland Security Today. “… the report notes that the program’s ‘strategic documents do not include performance measures that indicate progress toward achieving the four strategic goals or timelines for all future deliveries and completion of Mérida programs.’ … Additionally, the report notes, ‘almost all the performance measures do not provide specific measurable targets with milestones to indicate success.’” View article • View GAO summary

Coast Guard photo

DHS Offers Detainee Locator The Homeland Security Department last week introduced its public, Internet-based Online Detainee Locator System, designed to assist family members, attorneys and other interested parties in locating detained aliens in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. It provides the location of the detention facility where a person is held, a phone number to the facility, and contact information for the appropriate regional ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations office. View press release

DHS Seeks Detailed, Advanced Research on the Effects of a Nuclear Attack (Government Security News) The Homeland Security Department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office “is requesting information from government agencies, national labs and commercial businesses about their advanced research capabilities related to the response and recovery from a nuclear or radiological attack,” reports Government Security News. The research will focus “on six specific areas:” prompt effect, electromagnetic pulse, fallout, situational assessment, medical response and evacuee care, and recovery and restoration. “Research organizations have until August 23 to submit the description of their advanced capabilities.” View article

Border Patrol Seeks Strategic Consultants (Government Security News) The Border Patrol is looking for a “consulting firm to assist with virtually all of the top-level deliberations normally associated with an agency’s own senior management team,” reports Government Security News. The contractor would “facilitate discussion with senior Border Patrol leaders,” deliver “a strategic planning conference,” provide “‘insight, thought leadership, and high quality strategic advice’ to senior Border Patrol leaders ‘on an array of homeland security matters,’” develop “risk-assessment systems,” implement “concepts of operations … for controlling and securing the borders,” and develop “immigration control solutions.” View article • View solicitation

$1.8 Billion in FEMA Preparedness Grants On July 15, $1.8 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency preparedness grants were announced for fiscal year 2010 (which began on October 1, 2009). The grants help states, urban areas, tribal governments, and nonprofit organizations improve their protection, prevention, response, and recovery capabilities for risks associated with potential terrorist attacks and other hazards. (See the Statistics of the Week.) View DHS press release

Other Federal News

Deportation of Illegal Immigrants Increases Under Obama Administration (Washington Post) “In a bid to remake the enforcement of federal immigration laws, the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers,” reports the Post. “The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year [which ends Sept. 30], nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration’s 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since President George W. Bush’s final year in office.” View article

Treasury Dept. Freezes al-Awlaki’s U.S. Assets (Government Security News) On July 23, the Treasury Department’s “Office of Foreign Assets Control [announced] that ‘all property and interests in property’ of [Anwar] al-Awlaki [see the March 19 newsletter] that are in the possession or control of any U.S. person—or come within the United States—are blocked,” reports Government Security News. View article

White House Opposed Destroying CIA Torture Tapes (Washington Post) After “the CIA’s top clandestine officer, Jose Rodriguez, told a colleague at the agency’s secret prison in Thailand to destroy interrogation videos” in 2005, “the destruction of the tapes wiped away the most graphic evidence of the CIA’s now-shuttered network of overseas prisons, where suspected terrorists were interrogated for information using some of the most aggressive tactics in U.S. history,” reports the Associated Press. “… Rodriguez’s order was at odds with years of directives from CIA lawyers and the White House.” In 2004, after “CIA general counsel Scott Muller” met with “David Addington, a former CIA lawyer who was Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel,” Addington “told Muller not to destroy them.” View article

Private-Sector News

Recorded Future Plots Trends (Wired) “The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time—and says it uses that information to predict the future,” writes Wired “Danger Room” blogger Noah Shachtman. “The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents—both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine ‘goes beyond search’ by ‘looking at the “invisible links” between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.’ The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online ‘momentum’ for any given event.” View blog • View white paper

United Nations News

UN Tribunal Sentences Khmer Rouge Leader Three decades after nearly 2 million people perished under Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia, the trial chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, backed by the United Nations, issued its first verdict Monday, finding Kaing Guek Eav, the former head of a notorious detention camp, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He headed the S-21 camp, also known as Tuol Sleng, where numerous Cambodians were unlawfully detained, subjected to inhumane conditions and forced labor, tortured, and executed in the late 1970s. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison. View UN press release

New Upcoming Events (Events are listed for four weeks; after that, they are still on the Upcoming Events page) Avoiding a Nuclear Catastrophe (August 18-19; Maxwell Air Force Base, AL) The conference is sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, U.S. Air Force Counterproliferation Center, Air Force Research Institute, Air University, and Headquarters Air Force Strategic Security Directorate. It provides a forum for government, military, academic, and industry leaders to discuss current and future issues concerning weapons of mass destruction. The focus of this year’s conference is on the global nuclear landscape, including the Nuclear Posture Review, Nuclear Security Summit, New START treaty, and Nonproliferation Treaty Conference. View event website Natural Disaster Youth Summit (August 23-27; Bursa, Turkey) In this project, students learn the importance of human lives and how to cope with natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, floods, hurricanes, landslides, tsunamis, and droughts by communicating and collaborating with global friends. Students will acquire the knowledge of systems of disasters and skills to reduce future disasters. This year’s theme is “Disaster Reduction and Climate Change.” View event website Social Media 4 Responders (September 13-14; Charlotte, NC) Practitioners from the fire service, law enforcement, public health, and crisis and disaster response will present how and why their agencies and others are going directly to their communities using the Internet. They will walk participants through the latest developments in Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs to help participants’ organizations communicate with their target audiences. View event website California Emergency Services Assn. Conference and Training (September 14-17; Monterey, CA) This year’s theme is “Emergency Management—The Next Generation.” The gathering includes representatives from government agencies, utilities, academic institutions, and businesses of all types, nonprofits and faith agencies, as well as media, funders, and elected officials—leaders and practitioners in preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation, and protection in California. People with diverse expertise and interest in law, fire, public information, care and shelter, animal care, finance, logistics, public works, utilities, public policy, medical, public health, and volunteers are all welcome. View event website Homeland Security for Networked Industries (September 20-21; Washington, DC) This conference draws together network security professionals with a common purpose of protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure networks, focusing on telecommunications, utilities, and transportation. Keynote sessions will focus on major weaknesses and opportunities for improved security and spending in the area of network security. Breakout sessions will address all areas of network security, including information technology investment, government- and industry-specific solutions, policy, and the latest technology trends. View event website Homeland Security Symposium and Exhibition (September 28-29; Arlington, VA) This year’s theme is “America’s Homeland Leaders Talk Risk.” Among the symposium sessions: International Terrorism—The Threat from Abroad; Domestic Terrorism—The Threat at Home; The Wrath and Consequences of “Mother Nature”; Border Security; Cyber Threats and Enhancing Security of the IT Infrastructure; Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience; and a media panel on Covering Risks and Disasters. View event website (October 11-12; Sydney, Australia) This year’s program is based on “Building Solutions for a Global Community.” It offers sponsors showcasing their products and solutions, 10 hours of peer-to-peer networking, and over 20 hours of dedicated education focused on business continuity, emergency management, business resiliency, risk management, pandemic planning, natural disasters, emergency response, and emergency health. View event website Water Contamination Emergencies International Conference (October 11-13; Mülheim-an-der-Ruhr, Germany) The conference will deal with four principal themes: monitoring, understanding, acting, and lessons learned, with particular emphasis on prevention and how water companies prepare a strategy, and on unusual or unpredictable emergency situations. View event website Intl. Assn. of Emergency Managers Conference & Emex (October 29–November 4; San Antonio) The conference provides a forum for current trends and topics, offers information about the latest tools and technology in emergency management and homeland security, and advances the association’s committee work. Sessions encourage stakeholders at all levels of government and in the private sector, public health, and related professions to exchange ideas on collaborating to protect lives and property from disaster. View event website CBRNe Convergence (November 2-5; Orlando, FL) With the theme of “growing closer, staying distinct: merging civilian and military response” to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and improvised explosive device threats, the symposium will bring together over 30 experts from 12 countries in a streamed conference and accompanying exhibition, plus a pre-conference workshop and a dynamic demonstration of U.S. military and civil capabilities. View event website Counter Terrorism Conference and Exhibition (November 10-11; London) This event offers a chance to take part in dynamic discussions and debates on transnational terrorism, internal and external threats, airport security, cyber-terrorism, financing terrorism, and securing major international events. A new networking forum offers interaction with distinguished professionals and decision makers from across the international counterterrorism community. View event website International Symposium on Development of CBRN Defence Capabilities (November 30–December 1; Berlin) The symposium will present the German comprehensive and overarching approach to developing chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense capabilities, along with those of other European and non-European countries. It will highlight the multinational environment in which German military forces are operating and in which the development of these defense capabilities is embedded, with special attention to NATO and the European Union; it will also reflect on the development of civil CBRN defense capabilities. The entire spectrum from threat assessment through policy and concepts and finally to industrial solutions will be demonstrated. View event website

Calls for Papers (Calls for papers are listed for four weeks; after that, they are still on the Calls for Papers page) Virginia Hazardous Materials Conference and Expo (October 18-22; Hampton, VA) This year’s theme is “Moving Forward With Renewed Commitment.” The conference is soliciting proposals for presentations. View call for papers 2011 International Conference on Security Science and Technology (January 21-23; Chongqing, China) Among the topics of interest: authentication and authorization, biometrics, critical infrastructure protection, interoperability and standardization, and vulnerability and threat analysis. The submission deadline is September 10. View call for papers IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence for Security and Defence Applications (April 11-15, 2011; Paris) The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is soliciting papers on these security topics for this symposium: surveillance; suspect behavior profiling; automated handling of dangerous situations or people; stationary or mobile object detection, recognition, and classification; air, maritime, and land security; and network security, biometrics security, and authentication technologies. The submission deadline is October 31. View call for papers