The Counter Terrorist Your bi-monthly update on Homeland Security
STAYING VIGILANT
As we go to Press with this issue of the Counter Terrorist, the news is breaking about the German Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms stating that three men were arrested Wednesday near Frankfort that were plotting a terror attack against US locations. Harms said the terror plot could have been more deadly than the Madrid and London bombings. Harms said two of the men were Germans and the third was a Turkish national. The two Germans had converted to Islam and the three terror suspects were believed to be part of an al Qaeda terrorist group that grew out of Uzbekistan, the "Islamic Jihad Union". The modus was liquid explosives and the death toll could have been very high. This is just another, in an increasing shrill warning that attacks could be made at any time. Stay safe but stay vigilant on the grim upcoming anniversary of 9/11.
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U.S. Sponsors Islamic Convention
The Justice Department is co-sponsoring a convention held by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) - an unindicted co-conspirator in an ongoing federal terrorist funding case - a move that is raising concerns among the Justice's rank and file.
Justice lawyers have objected to the affiliation with ISNA, fearing it will undermine the case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Dallas.
"There is outrage among lawyers that the Department of Justice is funding a group named as a co-conspirator in a terrorist financing case," said a Justice lawyer who spoke to The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity.
According to an e-mail from Susana Lorenzo-Giguere, acting deputy chief of the Voting Rights Division, the sponsorship will involve sending government lawyers to man a booth for the Labor Day weekend event in Illinois.
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Homeland Security to Broaden Sharing of Visitor Data
The Homeland Security Department on Wednesday announced broad changes for using a database that collects and stores information on foreign travelers to the United States.
In one of the biggest changes, the department plans to regularly share information with U.S. intelligence agencies, department officials said in an interview Thursday. "This is a first step to make it clear that we do have the authority to conduct this type of sharing and to make the public know that we do plan to do so in the future," one official said on condition of anonymity.
The database, called the arrival-and-departure information system, contains information collected at U.S. ports of entry and departure on all foreigners who enter, travel within or leave the United States. It was created in 2003 as part of the US-VISIT foreigner-tracking program and does not contain information on U.S. citizens.
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Everything We Know About Security Is Wrong
By Jonathan Kaminsky
In late July, Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley announced a change in his agency's air travel screening policy: Effective August 4, cigarette lighters would no longer be banned from airplanes.
Explaining the measure in an interview with the New York Times, Hawley acknowledged that confiscating lighters at security checkpoints-the TSA's policy for the last two years in the wake of a failed shoe-bombing attempt-had been a waste of resources. Terrorists, he noted, might just as well ignite bombs on airplanes using small batteries (or, as he didn't note, matches).
"Taking lighters away is security theater," Hawley told the Times. "It trivializes the security process."
Among those struck by Hawley's about-face was Bruce Schneier, a Minneapolis man alternately called a "security guru" (The Economist), "the smartest guy in the room on security" (the ACLU), and "unquestionably the world's foremost security technologist" (Connections). Schneier, who wears the graying beard and thinning ponytail of a computer geek chieftain, didn't earn such accolades by mincing words.
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The Valley of Surveillance By Ellen Perlman
Phoenix is on the cutting edge when it comes to using wireless cameras to catch criminals.
You can find practically anything you need along Indian School and Thomas roads in Phoenix - at the tortillerias, the pharmacies, the supermarkets, the auto parts stores, the Laundromats and the carry-outs. Between those busy boulevards lined with strip shopping centers sit quiet blocks of modest homes with palm trees, prickly pear cacti and a stunning view of the mountains.
But last summer, residents weren't enjoying the peace and quiet of their neighborhoods. They were fearful of what was lurking outside. For more than a year, the Valley of the Sun had been terrorized by a serial killer who had been on the loose wearing a disguise of dreadlocks and a fishing hat. What's more, a pair of other killers was also shooting at random victims.
Sky Harbor adds Black Lights, Magnifying Glasses to Security By Donna Hogan
You may not have noticed, but the person who checks your boarding pass and driver's license before letting you queue up at a Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport checkpoint is now a trained Transportation Security Administration inspector.
Armed with magnifying glasses to spot doctored IDs and black lights to examine holograms on driver's licenses or passports, the inspectors are looking for suspicious boarding pass holders.
Until a few months ago, airline contract workers were gatekeepers at the security checkpoints, said Nico Melendez, TSA spokesman.
The government watchdogs decided to pilot a program in Phoenix to fill the jobs with their own inspectors, Melendez said.
Jacksonville Sheriff's Office November 15th and 16th, 2007
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Another Terrorist Attack Could Cost U.S. Commercial Aviation Up to $420 Billion, Risk Analysis Study Shows
MCLEAN, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Based on the scenario thought most likely, another attack on U.S. commercial aviation could cost as much as $420 billion, according to a new study appearing in the current issue of the scientific journal Risk Analysis. The authors conducted their research on the basis that the attack would shut the entire system down for seven days and require a two-year recovery period.
"The Economic Impacts of a Terrorist Attack on the U.S. Commercial Aviation System" by four scientists at the University of Southern California Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events appears in a special homeland security issue of the peer-reviewed journal (Vol. 27, No. 3, 2007), which is published by the McLean-based Society for Risk Analysis (www.sra.org). As the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, approaches, the conclusions from this study should help commercial aviation authorities with their emergency planning.
Peter Gordon, James E. Moore II, Ji Young Park and Harry W. Richardson used a careful, conservative analysis of the after-effects of September 11 to model a single attack on a major airport, causing an initial shut-down of the entire U.S. commercial air transport system followed by a recovery period. Their key findings are:
The Middle East Media Research Institute has a disturbing and interesting new report on an Islamist website hosted in Minnesota telling people how to join al Qaeda, how to attack high value targets and how to form a functioning cell.
As has previously been discussed here and elsewhere, the decentralized nature of the current incarnation of al Qaeda is stressed, including the ability to form a jihad cell wherever one is, without ever meeting anyone from the formal al Qaeda structure. The document is aimed at recruits outside the United States, possibly those seeking to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan.
"You feel that you want to carry a weapon, fight, and kill the occupiers, and that it is our duty to call for jihad as much as to call for prayer... All that is required is a firm personal decision to fulfill this obligation, and participation in jihad and the resistance," the document says.
Traditional Defenses aren't Enough By Paul A Henry
Another View-Guest commentary: It's time to replace traditional signature-based defenses with heuristics-based programs The recent penetration of government networks and those of our allies raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of traditional malware defenses. These breaches suggest the need to reevaluate many of the antivirus methodologies now in use. Among the considerations:
SIGNATURE. This is probably the oldest method in use to stop virus-laden traffic. It is an exact science, producing definitive results - the virus matches a known signature, or it doesn't - but it cannot protect against new or unknown threats.
ADVANCED SIGNATURE. By focusing on a smaller segment of malicious code within a piece of malware, antivirus vendors have improved traditional methods of protecting against variants of known threats. This methodology focuses only on the probability of a threat, though, and is prone to false positives. It also suffers from the same inability to protect against new threats.
Homeland Security Management Institute November 1st and 2nd, 2007
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Jose Padilla Makes Bad Law: Terror Trials Hurt the Nation Even When They Lead to Convictions
By Michael B Mukasey
The apparently conventional ending to Jose Padilla's trial last week--conviction on charges of conspiring to commit violence abroad and providing material assistance to a terrorist organization--gives only the coldest of comfort to anyone concerned about how our legal system deals with the threat he and his co-conspirators represent. He will be sentenced--likely to a long if not a life-long term of imprisonment. He will appeal. By the time his appeals run out he will have engaged the attention of three federal district courts, three courts of appeal and on at least one occasion the Supreme Court of the United States.
It may be claimed that Padilla's odyssey is a triumph for due process and the rule of law in wartime. Instead, when it is examined closely, this case shows why current institutions and statutes are not well suited to even the limited task of supplementing what became, after Sept. 11, 2001, principally a military effort to combat Islamic terrorism. Read on... ___________________________________________________________
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Henry Morgenstern Security Solutions International
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