Opening of Protective Systems new facility at China Lake, Mojave Desert
Henry Morgenstern was the guest of Protective Systems and ISG (Intelligence Support Group) for the opening of the new training and manufacturing facilty. While there, Henry was able to see the Protective Systems products in action and was very impressed with the care and concern for saving life that Protective Systems embodies, and incorporates this into its innovative IED and EOD products.
The Protective Systems line was researched and developed over three years in Iraq's Red Zone where James Cornwell put his equipment to the real test of the most recent IED threats by taking convoy after convoy with men serving in Iraq, in Iraq's worst sectors. This is real belief in your own equipment. Some weeks, incidents totaled 1800 plus. The Red Report, a detailed survey of the mayhem and havoc wreaked by these Improvised Explosive Devices - including Improvised projectiles made from a sheet of copper over a pipe bomb or other launching device that penetrate armor and are devastating for the vehicle occupants - has been incorporated into such products as the Bishop and the Checkmate series. Because Jim has taken into account the urban environment, these countermeasures work well in Urban environments without some of the problems in both function and RF disturbances that are typical of Jammers and EOD equipment.
Cornwell freely shared his experiences with the SSI president and Henry came away with the idea to hold several joint training sessions with Protective Systems for bomb techs and other counter terror experts. These will enable US Bomb Techs to anticipate the developments in Iraq and hopefully avoid them in the USA. Both SSI and Protective Systems are commited to saving lives in dangerous circumstances and both companies are experts in their fields - countering terrorism.
Now taking applications for February 2008 - 11th Mission to Israel _____________________________________
International Center for the Study of Terrorism Pennsylvania State University: Getting in the Minds of Terrorists
The serious study of the mind-set of terrorists is an essential component of successful counter terror. This excellent program at the University of Pennsylvania looks in depth into the terrorist mindset and is being organized by Kevin R. Murphy of the Penn State Center and Dr. Boaz Ganor of the ICT in Hertzlia, Israel. On the program are very well-known names such as Marc Sageman, Mia Bloom and Joel Rodriquez of the FBI. The PowerPoint that you can read on the workshop's findings is good material.
Krav Maga - Courses in Miami in November: Expert coming from
Israel: Call 1-866-573-3999 and speak to Henry Morgenstern
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Finding That Nuclear Needle in a Vast Cargo Haystack
The next time you are waiting for your luggage at the airport baggage carousel and marveling at the security challenge posed by those hundreds of bags, consider this: somewhere between 9 and 11 million cargo containers come into the United States through its 361 seaports annually, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That's roughly 2 billion tons of freight, making up 95 percent of the nation's overseas trade. Anyway you look at it, port security represents a major vulnerability in the fight against terrorism. And today, some six years after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, unlike that airport luggage (as you've no doubt heard) only a fraction of the shipping containers entering the United States are fully inspected to make sure they aren't carrying weapons of mass destruction or other contraband.
That's where a fast-growing, Acton, MA-based startup called Passport Systems comes in. The company is designing and building new cargo screening detection devices with technology developed at MIT. Its first target: the nation's seaports. The privately held firm was founded nearly five years ago, in 2002, by a group led by well-known venture capital investor Gordon Baty, a retired director and co-founder of ZeroStage Capital (all told it has raised some $3.4 million in two rounds of venture financing). To date, the firm has also garnered more than $15 million in U.S. government contracts to develop two related detection systems that can automatically determine the "nuclear fingerprint" of a shipping container's contents within 20 seconds.
The Bishop, a Time Domain Reduction System, is a unique directed energy platform designed specifically for EOD operations and bomb technicians. The high-frequency generator produces a continuous elctromagnetic wave which is focused on the target circuitry. The Bishop serves as a front line tool in Render Safe operations. Learn More... _______________________________________
Intelligence chief scolded for being 'disingenuous' By Andrew Noyes
Policy watchers at the latest in a string of hearings about anti-terrorism surveillance might have experienced some deja vu Tuesday when the nation's top intelligence official appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Echoing testimony from his House Judiciary Committee last week, National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell told the panel that recent, temporary changes to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act were vital in light of technological advances. Updates to electronic spying provisions that were rushed through Congress in August addressed deficiencies because "FISA was enacted before cell phones, before e-mail and before the Internet," he said.
When the law was originally enacted, McConnell said, "almost all local calls were on a wire and almost all international communications were in the air, but today, most overseas calls using wire and local calls pass through the air.
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy interrupted McConnell's opening statement to complain about his recurring "disingenuous" references to the 1978 law. "It has been amended about 30 times since then," the Vermont Democrat said. "It has been dramatically changed."
Homeland Stupidity: Security policies that place the public at risk
Homeland security officials seem to have adopted a naive and dangerous standard to detect bombs: Devices sold by major corporations that come packaged in logo-adorned, mass produced containers are perfectly safe, while those made by hobbyists and tinkerers with exposed wires and batteries are potential bombs or at least hoax devices.
The problem with this approach is that in many past cases of successful terrorism, especially those committed by state-sponsored groups, the bombs were actually hidden in fully-functioning mass-market electronic devices: personal stereos and mobile phones. Smart terrorists, the ones we should be trying to thwart, do not walk into an airport with LED lights and a 9-volt battery dangling from their sweatshirt.
Jacksonville Sheriff's Office November 15th and 16th, 2007 _______________________________
FBI Reorganizes Effort to Uncover Terror Groups' Global Ties
The FBI has begun the most comprehensive realignments of its counterterrorism division in six years so it can better detect the growing global collaborations by terrorists and dismantle larger terrorist enterprises, according to senior bureau officials.
The bureau will merge its two international terrorism units -- one for Osama bin Laden's followers and the other for more established groups such as Hezbollah -- into a new structure that borrows both from Britain's MI5 domestic intelligence agency and the bureau's own successful efforts against organized-crime families, Joseph Billy Jr., the FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism, said in an interview.
The new approach is meant to channel raw intelligence and threat information through "desk officers" with expertise on specific world regions or terrorist groups, allowing those experts to spot trends and set investigative strategies for field agents and joint terrorism task forces that collaborate with local law enforcement, Billy said.
PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Panamanian police arrested seven people, mostly Syrians, reported to have been acting suspiciously on a Copa Airlines plane from Cuba, but civil aviation authorities said the incident was not a hijacking.
Passengers on Copa flight 231 from Havana to Panama City feared the suspects were going to storm the cockpit armed with cutlery and told the crew, who alerted the Panamanian airport shortly before landing.
"This happened after flight personnel checked the metal utensils in the first class section and noticed that some were missing," the civil aviation authority said. "We want to deny that this was an attempted hijack."
WASHINGTON - A report showed up on a password-protected terrorist Web site in the summer of 2006 detailing the supposed susceptibility of the Army's Stryker vehicles to rocket-propelled grenades.
The terrorists found it on a think tank's Web site, downloaded it to their own site and urged fellow mujahadeen to study it and use what they learned in attacking the U.S. combat vehicles in Iraq.
Though the report had been discredited, its posting on a jihadist Web site shows how dogged terrorists have become in using the Internet.
From "Jihad University" to "Terrorists 007" to 5,000 or more other sites, terrorists are using cyberspace to spread their propaganda, recruit members, raise money, offer training and instruction, and conduct operational planning. It's become a vital front in the war on terror, and some lawmakers on Capitol Hill and independent experts feel the United States could be doing a better job of countering the threat.
"They are very sophisticated," Rep. Adam Smith, D-Tacoma, chairman of the House Armed Services terrorism subcommittee, said recently of the terrorists' use of the Internet. "It has become a crucial battleground in this struggle, and if we do not treat it as such, we will not defeat these terrorists."
Homeland Security Management Institute November 1st and 2nd, 2007
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The Blue Front Line in the War on Terror
For cops, crime fighting and counterterrorism go hand in hand.
Lately, a growing chorus has charged that terrorist threats are overblown and make local police waste limited resources chasing nonexistent bogeymen-even as traditional crime ticks upward in many American cities. This line of thinking is misguided for two reasons. First, as the recently foiled plot to attack U.S. targets in Germany shows, the terrorist threat remains very real. Second, the choice between counterterrorism and traditional crime fighting is a false one. In fact, good police work is good counterterrorism. For example, in 2005, in Torrance, California, police arrested two men for robbing a gas station-and wound up uncovering a militant Islamic plot to attack Los Angeles-area synagogues and military installations.
About SSI 
Henry Morgenstern was the guest of Protective Systems and ISG (Intelligence Support Group) for the opening of the new training and manufacturing facilty. While there, Henry was able to see the Protective Systems products in action and was very impressed with the care and concern for saving life that Protective Systems embodies, and incorporates this into its innovative IED and EOD products.
