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What’s New
 Reshape the National Guard?
The National Guard augments the active-duty components of the
military in overseas deployments, serves the states as an
emergency response force, and is now being called on to
provide domestic security. Can, and should, the Guard do all
these things? To explore this question, this week the ANSER
Journal of Homeland Security published two articles:
“The Role of the National Guard in Homeland Security” by Jack
Spencer and Larry M. Wortzel and “The Changing of
the Guard: Evolutionary Alternatives for America’s National
Guard” by John R. Brinkerhoff. [view Spencer-Wortzel article]
[view Brinkerhoff
article]
 Bush Welcomes FBI, CIA Steps to
Better Communication President Bush acknowledged that the
Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation were not sharing information properly at the
time of the 11 September terrorist attacks on the
United States, but said they have taken effective steps since
then to do so. [view State Dept.
report]
 Admiral Loy Becomes Deputy Under
Secretary for Transportation Security Admiral James
M. Loy, who retired on 30 May as Coast
Guard Commandant, has been appointed to the newly created post
of Deputy Under Secretary for Transportation Security and
Chief Operating Officer of the Transportation Security
Administration. [view report]
 Successful Test of New Technology
to Secure Cargo Movement in U.S. Ports The Department of
Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation Systems program
has successfully tested the use of electronic seals,
radio-frequency devices that transmit shipment information as
they pass reader devices and indicate whether a container has
been compromised. The E-seal project is designed
to track commercial inbound container shipments from their
point of inspection at seaports, along trade corridors, to
their point of clearance at U.S. land border
crossings. [view Transportation Dept.
report]
Top News Picks
Bush to Announce Restructuring of
Homeland Security (New York Times) “In a major
restructuring, President Bush will propose
creation of a Cabinet domestic security department to take
over border security, intelligence and other issues now housed
in eight separate federal agencies,” reports
the Associated Press. [view article]
At
World Cup, Terrorism Is Biggest Foe (Washington Post) The World Cup
soccer tournament opened on 31 May in Seoul,
Korea, and “has become a massive security operation. It
involves tens of thousands of police and military in dozens of
nations, at a cost of millions, commanding the resources of
intelligence agencies across the globe,” reports the
Washington Post. Park Jun Young, “the police official
planning security for the World Cup,” has “a
230-page manual of hypothetical scenarios, an anthology
of fright: hostages held, a hijacked ferry … car
bomb … poison gas … anthrax
… suicidal airline pilot. These possibilities don’t
really worry Park; security forces have practiced for them
all. It’s the unknown scheme in the mind of a terrorist that
worries him.” [view article]
Rescuers Ill-Equipped for Bioterror (Sacramento
Bee) “After recent grim predictions by
government leaders of the imminent threat of another terrorist
attack, there are new warnings that firefighters and police on
the front lines remain lacking in training and equipment,”
reports the Sacramento Bee. “There is increasing focus
on the importance of the ‘first responders’ who rush to
disaster scenes like New York’s World Trade
Center, where 450 of them died Sept.
11. According to experts and researchers, 8½
months after the attacks on New York and
Washington too few are adequately trained or equipped to
recognize signs of a biological or chemical terrorist strike,
and federal funding is still lagging.” [view article]
OAS Nations Agree to Antiterrorism Treaty
(Sacramento Bee) The
Organization of American States has approved the
Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism, a treaty
“negotiated as a result of the Sept. 11 attacks
in the United States, [which] requires that each country
create a financial intelligence unit and implement strict
measures to detect cross-border movements of cash that could
be used to fund terrorism,” reports the Associated Press.
Countries “also agree to transfer detainees whose testimony is
needed in anti-terrorism investigations, and to deny asylum or
refugee status to terrorist suspects.” Secretary of State
Colin “Powell said the treaty was ‘the first new international
treaty since Sept. 11 targeted at improving our
ability to combat terrorism.” [view article] [view State Dept.
report]
G-8 Discuss Plan to Make Ports Safer (Daily Yomiuri) The Group of
Eight major nations is working on an action plan to be
presented at the next summit to make international
transportation of people and goods safer from terrorism,
reports the Daily Yomiuri. “The plan is designed to
tighten inspections of freight containers for explosives, make
immigration control stricter and beef up safety measures for
airliners and ships.” The summit convenes in Kananaskis,
Alberta, Canada, on 26 June. [view article]
U.S. Considers Requiring Cameras Providing Aircraft
Cabin Views (New York Times) “The
Transportation Department, with encouragement
from Congress, is considering requiring video cameras that
will provide images of passengers to the cockpit,” reports the
New York Times. “Manufacturers, working to anticipate a
demand, are developing systems, including one that would
transmit images from hidden cameras to the cockpit and to tiny
hand-held screens that air marshals could look at
without blowing their cover.” [view article]
Airports Urge Delay in New Security Rules
(New
York Times) “The top officials of 39
airports, which handle most of the nation’s air
travelers, have warned the secretary of transportation that
air travel will be seriously disrupted in January unless
Congress delays the Dec. 31 deadline for
screening all checked bags, a major defense against
terrorism,” reports the New York Times. “…
the officials said that they did not think the
Transportation Department could hire enough screeners to meet
its goal of a maximum 10-minute wait, and that if the
department failed, ‘the result will be an unaccepta ho stay in the United States 30
days or more, and exit controls that will help the
Immigration and Naturalization Service to remove those aliens
who overstay their visas. [view article]
FBI Practices Protection of Oil Pipeline
(Fairbanks Daily News–Miner)
“The FBI is sponsoring a field training exercise to practice
for a potential terrorist strike along the trans-Alaska oil
pipeline and at the Valdez Marine Terminal,” reports the
Associated Press. “The exercise, known as ‘Arctic Strike,’
involves the Anchorage FBI Field Division and the Los
Angeles FBI Field Division’s Rapid Deployment Team, as
well as other federal and state agencies and the military.…
Also participating in the exercise are the U.S.
Coast Guard, the U.S. Air Force, the
Alaska Command, the Alaska National Guard, the Alaska
State Troopers, [and] the Anchorage and Valdez police
departments.” [view article]
Fighters Defeat Hijackers in Drill (Sacramento
Bee) “Two jets packed with military personnel
pretending to be civilians took off from airports in the West
on Tuesday in a twin hijacking drill designed to improve
coordination among American and Canadian agencies,” reports
the Associated Press. “About a dozen fighter jets from the
North American Aerospace Defense Command scrambled to respond
to the simulated hijackings, and ran through several
scenarios.” [view article]
Officials Try to Ease Sum Fears (USA
Today) Customs officials are showing off their
bomb detection abilities “because they are worried that the
Hollywood film The Sum of all Fears will cause people
to panic about the possibility of a terrorist nuclear attack,”
reports USA Today. Customs spokesman Dennis “Murphy
said characters in the movie took steps that would trigger
Customs response long before the nuclear device got to the
USA. Among other things, Customs screens the shipping
manifests, routing information and ownership of all 5.7
million cargo containers that arrive in the USA each
year.” [view article]
Congress Takes a First Leap Into Biometrics (Government
Computer News) After completing a four-month pilot
project, “the House Office of the Legislative Counsel” last
week “began using iris recognition technology for network
access,” reports Government Computer News. [view article]
The Hijackers We Let Escape (MSNBC)
“The many questions about intelligence shortcomings leading up
to the [Sept. 11] attacks have focused on the FBI’s clear
failure to connect various vague clues that might have put
them on the trail of the terrorists,” reports Newsweek.
“… All along, however, the CIA’s Counterterrorism
Center—base camp for the agency’s war on bin Laden—was sitting
on information that could have led federal agents right to the
terrorists’ doorstep.” [view
article]
Intelligence Failures and Blame (MSN)
“Everybody tells the same basic story: If only so-and-so had
done this or that, Sept. 11 wouldn’t have
happened,” says William Saletan in an opinion piece for MSN’s
Slate. “… It’s doubtful that erasing any
one of the admitted failures, by itself, would have averted
the attacks altogether.… So if having enough
information to stop the crime is the standard of culpability,
no one is culpable. If we’re going to learn anything from
Sept. 11, we need to talk less about what would
have been sufficient to avert the attacks, and more about what
would have been necessary.” [view article]
State and Local News L.A.
Officials Train for Terror (Miami
Herald, Sacramento Bee) “Los Angeles
law enforcement officials have begun preparing for possible
suicide bomber attacks by traveling to Israel for training and
passing along what they learn to other agencies,” reports the
Associated Press. “… Officers were taught to keep
bombers outside of confined areas like shopping malls, movie
theaters and amusement parks. Israeli experts also said it was
important to quickly investigate, clean up and return to
normal life.” [view Miami Herald
article] [view Sacramento Bee
article]
PA Spends $6 Million for Bioterror Alerts
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) “The
University of Pittsburgh is receiving a three-year grant of
more than $6 million to develop a statewide
system that could provide an early warning of bioterrorism
events,” reports the Post-Gazette. The computer
system—the Real-time Outbreak Disease Surveillance system—will
run in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University and Siemens
Medical Solutions Health Services. “The statewide surveillance
system will allow the state Department of Health to analyze
data from hospitals, poison centers, pharmacies and other
industries to look for patterns that indicate an
infectious-disease outbreak.” [view article]
Weblinks
 Emergency.com provides 24-hour news,
information, analysis and coverage of disasters and major
emergency events. [view
site]
 The State Department Office of
Counterterrorism coordinates all U.S. Government
efforts to improve counterterrorism cooperation with foreign
governments. The site features pages on countering terrorism
globally, patterns of global terrorism, and diplomacy and the
global campaign against terrorism. [view
site]
Upcoming Events
 Homeland Security 2002: Evolving the
Infrastructure for National Defense (25-26 June,
Renaissance Hotel, Washington, DC) This conference, sponsored
by E-Gov, will focus on the evolving infrastructure for
national homeland defense, including the current technologies
and emerging strategies for improved communications,
information assurance, and ongoing homeland security
applications. The 2-day event features three keynote speakers,
including former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; 12
conference sessions; and admission to the E-Gov 2002
Exposition, featuring a new venue, the Homeland Security
Pavilion. [view
conference website]
Government Security Expo and
Conference (23–25 July; Washington,
DC) This event brings together physical security and
information security vendors with users from the federal,
state, and local governments. It consists of two conferences,
one addressing physical security issues and one addressing
information security issues, as well as joint sessions. The
conferences will teach attendees best practices that are
immediately applicable. Each conference has multiple tracks
and sessions dedicated to the most relevant and timely topics.
[view conference
website]  CDC Smallpox Forum The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are hosting public
forums to provide health professionals and the general public
with information about smallpox and smallpox vaccine and to
solicit comments on the use of smallpox vaccine before and
after a potential smallpox outbreak or bioterroist attack. The
CDC has already held forums in New York and San Francisco; the
next two will be 8 June in St. Louis
and 11 June in San Antonio.
[view CDC
site]
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copyright 2002. The Newsletter of Homeland Security,
ANSER Inc. All rights reserved.