International News

No Trespassing, No Hunting bin Laden, Says Pakistan (International Herald Tribune) “The Pakistani foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said” on July 12 “that there are currently no foreign military representatives in Pakistan hunting for Osama bin Laden, and that none would be allowed into the country to search for him,” reports the Associated Press. But “villagers in the border region” which “is a haven for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters have reported seeing U.S. drones fire missiles at suspected militant targets.” [View article]

Four Acquitted of Madrid Train Bombings (New York Times) “A Spanish court on Thursday cleared four of the 21 people charged for crimes related to the 2004 Madrid train bombings,” reports Reuters. “… The court overturned an October 31, 2007 ruling, which found three of the men guilty of being members of the radical Islamist cell that carried out the March 11 bombings that killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800. A fourth man was cleared of trafficking explosives.… The court also upheld the acquittal of” another man and “reduced the sentences of five men.” Last year’s court decision “laid most of the charges at the feet of three men sentenced to thousands of years in prison.” [View article]

40 Nations Agree to Work for a Mideast Zone Free of WMD (USA Today) “More than 40 nations, including Israel and Arab states, agreed Sunday to work for a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East,” reports the Associated Press. “… the Union for the Mediterranean says the members will ‘pursue a mutually and effectively verifiable Middle East Zone free of weapons of mass destruction.’” [View article]

Charity Coalition Banned for Suspected Hamas Support (Jerusalem Haaretz) Israel’s “order banning 36 international Muslim charities” because of their “membership in a consortium called The Charity Coalition,” which “is suspected of funding Hamas, … also fund Arab institutions and non-profits inside Israel, which will also be criminalized if they continue to accept the funding,” reports Haaretz. Although all of the coalition members send aid to the Palestinian territories, some deny supporting Hamas. [View article]

Hungary Battles Illegal Migration (Yahoo! News) “Since Hungary became part of the European Union’s passport-free zone at the end of 2007, the number of illegal migrants caught trying to enter the country from the Balkan region has risen sharply,” reports the Associated Press. “Hungarian police detained some 500 illegal migrants coming from Serbia, Hungary’s southern neighbor, during the first five months of 2008. That compares to around 700 in all of 2007 and just 120 in 2005.” [View article]

Taliban Gets Revenue by Controlling Pakistani Marble Source (New York Times) Thanks to its “takeover of the Ziarat marble quarry, a coveted national asset,” the Taliban is gaining income “to strengthen their hold and turn themselves into a self-sustaining fighting force,” reports the New York Times. “The quarry alone has already brought the Taliban tens of thousands of dollars.” [View article]

Thailand Uses ‘Re-Education’ to Fight Muslim Separatists (Channel NewsAsia) “Thailand’s army is increasingly using controversial ‘re-education’ camps to indoctrinate young Muslim men in the hope of stopping them from joining a bloody insurgency,” giving them “lessons on anything from Thai history to job training …” reports Agence France-Presse. “Judges in October ordered the army to release 85 Muslims … But the rules changed in December” with the new Internal Security Act “that allows the army to detain people without charge for up to six months.” [View article]

National News

Logistics and Secrecy Hamper Guantanamo Trials (Reuters) “Lawyers for the five men accused of plotting the hijacked airliner attacks on the United States say the complaints brought last week before the war court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, exemplify the trouble the men face getting a fair trial before the” U.S. military tribunals, reports Reuters. “… From simple logistics like paper, computers and law libraries to strict secrecy rules that will prevent the five from seeing classified evidence before trial, the defendants and their lawyers say the tribunals are not giving the men a fair chance in a case that could lead to their executions.… Lawyers say it is difficult to even arrange to talk to the men.” [View article]

Former Guantanamo Chief Prosecutor Testifies for the Defense (Naval Institute Proceedings; New York Times) “Air Force Colonel Morris D. Davis, who for two years was the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay,” is now “testifying for the defense in the case of Salim Hamdan”—despite “his certainty of Hamdan’s guilt,” reports the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings in an interview with Davis. He resigned in October after becoming convinced that the tribunals could not provide “full, fair, and open trials.” (See the Quote of the Week.) “Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, faces charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism,” reports the New York Times. Prosecutors acknowledged last week that Hamdan was subjected to 50 days of systematic sleep deprivation, reports the Times. [View Proceedings interview] [View Times article]

Former Asst. Attorney General Opposes Watch List (Forbes) “Former Assistant Attorney General Jim Robinson” is “calling for elimination of the list that’s designed to identify suspected terrorists” after his name turned up on the list, reports the Associated Press. (It was a case of mistaken identity.) This summer there are no more than “400,000 individuals [not a million, as some claim] on the consolidated terrorist watch list,” says the Transportation Security Administration. A Government Accountability Office report in October 2007 said there were 755,000 names on the Terrorist Screening Center’s watch list at the time, and “officials at the Terrorist Screening Center told CNN in September that the number of individuals on the list [was] about 300,000.” (See the Oct. 26, 2007, newsletter.) [View Forbes article] [View TSA statement]

Immigration Officials Treat Church Sanctuary Carefully (Google News) “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have arrested illegal immigrants by the hundreds in raids at factories, restaurants, malls, farms and meat packing plants, but they have handled cases involving churches delicately,” reports the Associated Press. “… Avoiding churches is unofficial policy for federal immigration officials … The New Sanctuary Movement, which makes living arrangements for illegal immigrants at churches, is modeled after a similar movement for Central Americans in the 1980s. Its goal is to call attention to immigration reform, but organizers believe sanctuary is a temporary solution.” [View article]

Unsolved Salmonella Case Exposes Chinks in U.S. Safety System (Chicago Tribune) “More than 1,000 people have fallen ill from salmonella, a bacterium that public health officials now believe has been transported by tomatoes, jalapeno and serrano peppers, even cilantro,” reports the Chicago Tribune. “… The vexing nature of the outbreak has revealed serious gaps in America’s food safety system, a loose network of local, state and federal health agencies that trade information when illnesses occur.… Most states learn of food-borne illness outbreaks through a [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] program called PulseNet. The states report cases of food-borne illnesses to the CDC, and they’re tracked on PulseNet.” But the Food and Drug Administration says it is difficult to trace back suspect food, especially produce, to its source. [View article]

U.S. Sees Alarming Rise in Smuggled East African Immigrants (AllAfrica) U.S. intelligence officials are alarmed at the “upsurge in the number of East Africans who have been caught trying to enter the US illegally,” reports the Nairobi, Kenya, East African Standard. “… Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan … are among 35 [countries] confidentially listed by the US Department of Homeland Security as being of ‘special interest’ due to the alleged presence of terrorists in their territories.… 159 citizens of the four East African countries have been captured in the past several months as they tried to enter the US without permission”; “138 came from Eritrea.” [View article]

DHS News

GAO Answers Questions About Emergency Management House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson posed 14 questions about emergency management to the Government Accountability Office this week. Here are abbreviated versions of some of the questions and answers:

• Is there a time when FEMA was more successful at working within the interagency? “We reported favorably on FEMA’s inter-governmental efforts as the lead federal agency responsible for consequence management in 2001 prior to 9/11 and FEMA’s incorporation into DHS.”
• In what areas of needed capabilities are we as a nation most prepared for a catastrophic disaster and why? “One of the key concerns that our work has identified is that DHS, as the federal organization with primary responsibility for assessing and reporting on the status of national capabilities, cannot with any certainty answer that question.”
• Do you believe that DHS is prepared for the 2008 Hurricane season? “Because FEMA has not yet issued its plans or the results of its recent hurricane preparedness exercises, there is no way to objectively determine whether DHS is prepared for the 2008 Hurricane season.”

TSA Publishes Hazmat Trucking Security Guidelines The Transportation Security Administration has published voluntary security guidelines for truckers transporting hazardous materials, covering general security, personnel security, unauthorized access, and en-route security. [View press release] [View guidelines]

DHS Protects Consumers From Pirates “Counterfeit, pirated and substandard products are a transnational threat,” according to Julie Meyers, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. To battle the threat, last week the Homeland Security Department opened the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center “to protect American consumers from potentially harmful trade goods.” The growing world trade in counterfeit and pirated goods threatens America’s economy, says Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. [View press release]

Other Federal News

Civilian Response Corps to Help Restore Fragile Countries The new Civilian Response Corps comprises civilian federal employees who will be trained and equipped to deploy rapidly to countries in crisis or emerging from conflict, in order to assist with reconstruction and stabilization. Eventually, the corps will include a reserve component of volunteers from the private sector and state and local governments. The 250 members of the active component will be ready to deploy on as little as 48 hours’ notice; the standby component will get 30 days’ notice for deployments up to six months. The corps members come from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Departments of State, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice, and the Treasury. [View press release]

Los Alamos Security Plans May Be Ineffective, Says GAO Following “a series of high-profile security incidents” at Los Alamos National Laboratory “spanning almost a decade” (see the Feb. 15 newsletter), the lab has not yet “implemented complete security solutions to … correct security deficiencies,” reports the Government Accountability Office. The lab has undertaken short-term remedies, but long-term efficacy is doubtful. [View GAO summary]

Better Detection and Tracking of Radioactive Materials Needed (Washington Post) The Homeland Security Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission need to take additional steps to better track and detect radioactive materials, reports the Government Accountability Office. The commission “has made limited progress”; its new tracking and licensing systems are “more than 3 years behind schedule.” And while DHS Customs and Border Protection “has a comprehensive system in place to detect radioactive materials entering the United States at land borders, some equipment that is used to protect CBP officers is in short supply” and the agency “has not effectively communicated to officers at the borders when they must contact officials to verify the license for a given sealed source.… some potentially dangerous radioactive materials have entered the country without license verification.” Also, the five-year-old BioWatch “program to detect the airborne release of biological warfare agents such as anthrax, plague and smallpox in more than 30 major U.S. cities still lacks basic technical data to help medical officials determine how to respond to an alert triggered by the sensors,” reports the Washington Post, citing a report by “congressional investigators and state and local officials” to the House Homeland Security Committee. The reports “widely miss the mark,” says Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. [View GAO radiation summary] [View Post article] [View GAO biosurveillance summary] [View GAO nuclear detection summary] [View DHS blog]

United Nations News

Ethiopian Crisis Worsens (AllAfrica) “Worsening malnutrition and the threat of disease outbreaks are compounding Ethiopia’s [food] crisis, according to the World Health Organization,” reports the Catholic Information Service for Africa. WHO, UNICEF and nongovernmental organizations are “working with Ethiopia … to support some 4.6 million people in need [of] urgent emergency food relief.” The problem is compounded by “lack of access to safe drinking water [and] shortages of drugs and medical supplies.” [View article]

IAEA Leads Drill at Mexican Nuclear Plant Some 74 member countries of the International Atomic Energy Agency and 10 international organizations participated in a 48-hour drill at Mexico’s Laguna Verde nuclear power plant on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico last week to test national and international emergency response systems. As the emergency drill progressed, the simulated accident escalated in severity, ultimately rated as a Level 5 “Accident with Wider Consequences” on the International Nuclear Event Scale because of its potential effects outside the plant site. [View press release]

State and Local News

Deportations Up 40% in Northwest (Tacoma, WA, News Tribune) “Deportations from Washington, Oregon and Alaska have spiked by nearly 40 percent,” reports the Associated Press. “… the number of illegal immigrants deported from those three states was 7,345 for the first nine months of the fiscal year. That number was up from 5,256 for the same period last year.… Officials credit the increase in part to expansion of the Criminal Alien Program, in which immigration officers hone in on illegal immigrants with criminal records and work with law enforcement to process them. Those deportations increased by 26 percent … more than 2,000 had prior criminal convictions.” [View article]

Mass-Casualty Exercise at U. of Delaware (Wilmington, DE, News Journal) “Fourteen fire and [emergency medical services] companies from Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania participated in a full-scale mass casualty disaster exercise Sunday morning at the University of Delaware,” reports the News Journal. More than 100 simulated victims had to be rescued. The university has implemented “new alert systems and conducts [its] own ‘tabletop’ drills, where university officials brainstorm how they would react and take action in case of fire or a shooter on campus.” [View article]

Oklahoma City Wireless Network Links 300 Surveillance Cameras (MuniWireless) Last month, Oklahoma City launched “what it claims to be the largest city-owned municipal Wi-Fi mesh network in the world,” reports MuniWireless. It “will be used only for public safety and municipal applications; it is not open to the public for Internet access.” The network “covers 555 square miles with 95 percent coverage in urban areas and” connects “to the 300 video surveillance cameras that are installed throughout the city.” [View article]

Misdemeanor Immigration Cases Crowd Courts and Jails in Southern Border States (Dallas Morning News) “A zero-tolerance approach to illegal border crossings has produced a record number of immigration prosecutions in Texas and other border states, swamping federal courthouses with misdemeanor cases and landing many immigrants in local jails,” reports the Dallas Morning News. “… Analysts attribute the surge in prosecutions to Operation Streamline, a Bush administration program that began in Del Rio [TX] and now includes virtually every mile of the border except near Big Bend National Park.… New immigration cases, many of them stemming from misdemeanor arrests, represented 58 percent of all new federal prosecutions in April.” [View article]

Seattle Cameras Record License Plates at Ferry Docks (Seattle Times) The Washington “State Patrol has begun testing a camera system at two ferry docks that automatically snaps photographs of license plates and checks the numbers against lists compiled by the FBI,” reports the Seattle Times. The “plates of all vehicles driven aboard ferries at Seattle’s Colman Dock and the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal are being checked against lists of vehicles that were reported stolen; the subject of an Amber Alert; connected to suspected terrorists; or associated with felony arrest warrants.… If a license plate matches one on the list, an alarm goes off at a State Patrol command center.” [View article]

Private-Sector News

Terrorism Insurance Is Generally Available, Says GAO “Commercial property terrorism insurance coverage appears to be available nationwide at rates policyholders view as reasonable,” reports the Government Accountability Office, but owners of “large, high-value properties in areas where many large buildings are clustered, particularly in urban areas viewed as at high risk of attack, such as Manhattan,” may have trouble “obtaining desired amounts of coverage or obtaining coverage at prices they view as reasonable.” However, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 generally appears to have stabilized the “markets for commercial property insurance.” [View GAO summary]

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. Disaster Animal Response Training (August 15-17, San ***, CA; August 25-27, Phoenix; October 7-9, Everett, WA; October 24-26, Salt Lake City; November 7-9, Leesburg, VA) The Humane Society University course familiarizes participants with disasters and provides the background necessary to become effective emergency animal relief responders. The class includes two days of mixed classroom and hands-on instruction and a long half-day of specialized tabletop exercises. [View course website] Security Specialist Course (August 19-22, Huntsville, AL) This course teaches the security specialist how to properly protect classified information (including intelligence information related to the terrorist threat) in accordance with Executive Order 12958 and Information Security Oversight Office Directive One and addresses additional areas of personnel security, information security, and information systems security. [View course website]

New Upcoming Events (After four weeks, events are moved to the Upcoming Events page) (July 21-24; Washington, DC) Attendees of this event will gain a clear understanding of key biometric objectives and take home a series of proven methods, processes, and approaches for achieving desired results from their biometric initiatives. They will hear about real biometric applications and best practices from those who have successfully implemented biometric systems in government. [View conference website] Implementing Privacy Protections in Government Data Mining (July 24-25; Washington, DC) The Homeland Security Department’s Privacy Office is presenting a public workshop to bring together academic, policy, and technology experts to explore the privacy impacts of government data mining, methods of validating the accuracy and effectiveness of data-mining models and rules, along with the role of anonymization tools, automated audit controls, and other privacy-protective strategies. Panelists will discuss the best practices for government data mining. [View event website] 2nd Annual Missouri Conference on Coordinated School & College Safety & Security (August 14-15; Branson, MO) The conference will feature lessons from Breslan and Columbine and workshops on topics such as school shootings, surveillance cameras, bullying, and gangs. [View event website] 2008 Homeland Security Symposium and Exhibition (September 9-10; Arlington, VA) The conference will cover new directions in protecting infrastructure systems, FEMA policy and management, presidential candidates’ vision for homeland security, immigration, procurement, and small business. [View event website] Virginia Hazardous Materials Conference and Expo (October 13-17; Hampton, VA) This event, sponsored by the Virginia Association of Hazardous Materials Response Specialists in conjunction with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, features over 60 educational workshops and an exhibition area featuring the latest products and technology for the hazardous materials industry. [View event website] 2008 Tactical World Cup (October 18-23; Camp Bullis, TX) Elite special operations teams from around the world will participate in this international SWAT competition, which is designed to closely mirror real-life crises on a realistic training ground. [View event website] American Public Health Assn. Annual Meeting & Expo (October 25-29; San Diego) This year’s theme is “public health without borders.” The meeting will address current and emerging health science, policy, and practice issues in an effort to prevent disease and promote health. [View event website] U.S. EPA Emergency Preparedness and Prevention & Hazmat Spills Conference (October 26-29; Richmond, VA) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency presents an all-hazards conference for government and industry with education, training, and networking. [View event website] (October 28-30; San Antonio) The conference will address emergency planning, prevention, and response in the energy and maritime industries, including oil and hazmat spills, environmental concerns, port security, and marine fire and salvage. [View event website] Fourth NBC International Conference & Exhibition (October 28-30; Brno, Czech Republic) The conference will cover both military and civil response to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents, discussing the strategic and practical issues and challenges. [View event website] 3rd System of Systems Conference (December 9-10; Gaithersburg, MD) The conference will stimulate scientific, technical, and professional interest in systems of systems and bring together members of the system-of-systems community including acquisition professionals, program managers, scientists, engineers, and policy makers spanning government, academia, and industry and provide a forum to share experiences, best practices, and research in the management, engineering, and support of system-of-systems solutions. [View event website]