"SSI continues to lead in the field of pertinent, up-to-date, actionable Homeland Security Training!"
- Lt. Fred Bowditch, Columbus Division of Police
(Participant of the Building Safety & Security Engineering Course held in Columbus, Ohio in September, sponsored by the Franklin County Office of Homeland Security & Justice Programs)
Learn from one of the world's experts on threat and risk assessment how to evaluate the security of your buildings for a variety of threats. Find out about technologies that can make your buildings better protected. In an exciting two-day program being held in Chicago and in Washington DC. Find out what you need to know to safeguard your buildings and protect the public.
Space limited for November 14 - 22, 2008 and February 20th - 28th, 2009!
DHS Warns of Potential Terror Attacks on Public Buildings
By Jim Popkin
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives.
Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The DHS analysts--after coordinating with the FBI Threat Analysis Unit--said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and operators to be aware of potential attack tactics."
According to the note obtained by NBC News, a "recently discovered audio recording of al-Qa'ida training sessions conducted several years ago provides instruction to potential suicide terrorists on seizing a publicly accessible building and damaging or destroying it with explosive charges."
BOSTON--At 8:30 every morning at Logan Airport, all of the security practitioners -- among them, TSA security, airport security and local law enforcement -- meet to talk about "what happened yesterday and what we anticipate happening today," said Dennis Treece, director of corporate security for MassPort in Boston.
"We meet seven days a week and we have ever since September 12, 2001," he said.
It's this kind of a close working relationship among the different security entities that makes the complicated process of getting thousands of passengers and their luggage through airports safely possible.
Experts contacted for this story said the process may never be easy, but it can be efficient. Moreover, security practitioners in Boston, Atlanta and Washington told Security Director News that partnerships are well established at their airports, and operations are smoother and more secure than ever. Read on...
Lawfare - Iranians Strike Against Innocent Victim
SSI is well aware of threat of Terror groups using the freedoms, laws and loopholes of the freest nation on Earth against Americans. As victims, we are constantly commited to pointing out predatory law
suits by terror groups.
Recently, we were contacted by the Middle East Legal Forum's, Brooke Goldstein, requesting assistance in securing legal counsel for the latest innocent victim of Islamist lawfare.
This time the Iranians are striking out against respected journalist and Iranian-American activist, Hassan Dai - http://english.iranianlobby.com/ Dai is currently being sued for defamation by the National American Iranian Council (NAIC), the most active organization defending the interests of the Iranian regime in the US, for publicly stating that NAIC is indeed a lobby group for Iran. The litigation against Dai is taking place in the District of Columbia.
It is our opinion that the NAIC is engaged in frivolous and malicious litigation efforts designed at silencing Dai's exercise of free speech on important matters of public concern and national security.
Please contact Brooke Goldstein at <> if you can help or know legal counsel sympathetic to ending these abuses of our constitution and laws by groups that respect neither.
The Counter Terror Expo is a leading counter terrorism conference, workshop and exhibition event. Held annually in London, Counter Terror Expo brings the world's leading terrorism experts together with other specialist practitioners and systems suppliers for two full days of informed debate, designed to facilitate an open exchange of views and drive forward solutions to counter the threat faced from international terrorism. Click Here to Learn More...
Charlie Allen outlines DHS plans for remainder of 2008
Information-sharing between federal, state and local governments at national fusion centers has proven vital to alerting authorities to possible terrorist threats, such as those that might damage supply chain security, Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence Charles Allen told the Maritime Security Council in Washington, DC, Tuesday.
"Our ability to move, analyze and act on information is our greatest strength. We must use the network and the information in that network, to push our defensive perimeter outward," Allen declared.
The network in question--the National Fusion Center network--is staffed with intelligence officers who must pass threat information along to where it is needed, whether at the national level or in a city. To overcome old barriers to communication between federal, state and local analysts, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has worked to strengthen the National Fusion Center Network, deploying 25 officers to fusion centers nationally with 10 more to be assigned by the end of the year. Read on...
Tukwila, WA - November 10-11, 2008 - Hosted by Boeing
Senators propose changes at DHS
By Rebecca Neal
Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins are sponsoring a bill proposing a host of cybersecurity, acquisition and other changes at the Homeland Security Department.
They acknowledge their proposals are likely to get no attention in Congress this session; they hope they will serve as a blueprint for the next administration and Congress.
"I understand there is not time in this session for full consideration and passage of this legislation, but we offer it as a blueprint for the next administration and the 111th Congress outlining key areas of improvement we think can make DHS more efficient and effective in its mission to safeguard our homeland," Lieberman said in a statement.
The proposal may be Lieberman's final say on homeland security policy matters as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. There is wide speculation that Senate Democratic leaders will strip the Connecticut Independent of his committee chairmanship next year because of his active support for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Read on...
By Brian Grow, Chi-Chu Tschang, Cliff Edwards and Brian Burnsed
The American military faces a growing threat of potentially fatal equipment failure-and even foreign espionage-because of counterfeit computer components used in warplanes, ships, and communication networks. Fake microchips flow from unruly bazaars in rural China to dubious kitchen-table brokers in the U.S. and into complex weapons. Senior Pentagon officials publicly play down the danger, but government documents, as well as interviews with insiders, suggest possible connections between phony parts and breakdowns.
In November 2005, a confidential Pentagon-industry program that tracks counterfeits issued an alert that "BAE Systems experienced field failures," meaning military equipment malfunctions, which the large defense contractor traced to fake microchips. Chips are the tiny electronic circuits found in computers and other gear.
The alert from the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP), reviewed by BusinessWeek (MHP), said two batches of chips "were never shipped" by their supposed manufacturer, Maxim Integrated Products in Sunnyvale, Calif. "Maxim considers these parts to be counterfeit," the alert states. (In response to BusinessWeek's questions, BAE said the alert had referred erroneously to field failures. The company denied there were any malfunctions.) Read on...
Neither Snow, nor Rain, nor Anthrax
By Lawrence M. Wein
IMPORTANT planning for responding to a future anthrax attack has quietly been under way since the last attacks seven years ago. A key part of this effort has been figuring out how best to deliver prophylactic antibiotics quickly to the people living in the city that is attacked.
This is at least as difficult and complicated as it might seem. First, an attack must be detected, either by one of the BioWatch air monitors that have been placed in many cities or by finding symptoms of anthrax poisoning in a victim. Either way, this can take at least 12 to 30 hours. Next, an adequate supply of antibiotics must be sent from the Strategic National Stockpile (held at 12 sites around the country) to the affected city, ideally within 12 hours.
Finally, the city must get the drugs out to its population. This third step is potentially the most time-consuming of all. But it can be speeded up - and made twice as effective in preventing deaths - by strategically involving the United States Postal Service and by greatly increasing the amount of medicine initially sent out to the affected city.
FBI Terrorism Unit to Treat Letter Found in Palm Desert Theater as a Threat
By John Asbury
An FBI terrorism division is investigating as a credible threat a letter that contained a suspicious substance found at a Palm Desert theater.
Initial analysis by the FBI tested negative for biological or chemical hazards. Tests also indicated that the substance was not harmful.
The discovery of the substance at about 2 p.m. prompted authorities to evacuate about 20 employees of the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert after a theater worker opened the envelope. The theater was then sealed, Riverside County Fire Capt. Fernando Herrera said.
Four employees came in contact with the substance and were quarantined for decontamination, Riverside County sheriff's Deputy Herlinda Valenzuela said. The employees were treated by the Riverside County Fire Department's Hazardous Material team, where they were stripped and cleansed with water and their clothes bagged and confiscated.
MILFORD - Just outside Milford Regional Medical Center, men covered from head to toe in protective suits, gloves, rubber boots and breathing apparatus had already decontaminated several victims of a mock terrorist attack when Fire. Lt. Patrick Salmon got a message over his walkie-talkie.
A voice on the other end said the state was reporting: "It may be a terror attack with sarin gas," a nerve agent used in chemical warfare.
Around 7:35 p.m., 55 minutes into a drill mimicking a terrorist incident on a commuter train arriving in Franklin, emergency workers were prepping the third and final victim to bring to the hospital.
"So far, it's good. It's dark out, so we had some issues until we got the lights set up, but now we can keep taking patients" if necessary, Salmon said.
Emergency workers kicked into high gear when the hospital received a call about an explosion around 6:45 last night, Salmon said. Milford Fire Department had Engine 3 out within four minutes, followed by an "MDU," or Milford Decontamination Unit, four minutes later.
Homeland Security communications network at risk of delays
By Jill R. Aituro
Poor management increases the risk that cost overruns, schedule delays and performance shortfalls will stall the Homeland Security Department's deployment of a new counterterrorism communications system, the Government Accountability Office concluded in a report released on Wednesday.
DHS has failed to fully implement its plans for the launch of the new version of its computer-based Homeland Security Information Network, which will connect all states, territories and major urban areas, GAO reported. For instance, the department has yet to create a program office and assign staff roles and responsibilities. It also has not gathered, analyzed and validated the needs of network users, or managed risk appropriately, according to the report.
As a result the effort "will be at increased risk of operating in an ad hoc and chaotic manner," GAO stated.
The scope of this training is to teach SWAT team members how to conduct an operation with the special characteristics peculiar to terrorist incidents and accomplish the mission, whether there are hostages involved, IED's, booby traps, or suicide terrorists with maximum safety for: citizens, team members and surrounding assets. By nature, the operation may become more similar to a military operation because, as mentioned above, this is a criminal act with a strategic goal. It is part of an ideological struggle against a state or population and may be carried out by a professional team of well equipped terrorist subjects.
Included in the scope are the goals of integrating Bomb technicians/ EOD personnel and K9 units effectively into the operational planning and training for such an incident. Medical, and other support personnel are required to respond to a terrorist incident and should be integrated for training also.
Another important feature in mitigating risk is ensuring each and every team member gains an awareness of: Improvised Explosive Devices, and terrorist methods of operation. It is essential to understand the danger posed by the terrorist methodologies: the prolific use of explosives, networked use of heavy weapons (firearms), concurrent operational acts and motivational factors that make a terrorist incident unique from other criminal acts.
This course showcases tactics, techniques and procedures that have been used successfully throughout the world to resolve terrorist incidents. US, Israeli and many other units have utilized these techniques. This material is not exhaustive. Terrorist techniques evolve and as such Counter-Terrorism Operations must evolve. This course provides proven concepts and ideas. Each agency trained will gain tremendous incite and a platform from which to begin an effective Counter-Terrorism program. Each agency must evaluate and adapt the techniques presented for use within their use-of-force policies and departmental SOPs.
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