| Behind the Lines for Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2010 — 3 P.M. The continuing crisis: Whether Hezbollah cadres or cartel commandos, Mexico border security sparks more anxious specultion . . . Qualification round: Discovery Channel hostage-taking "meets the criteria of a terrorist act -- a rare one for media organizations and the nation's capital region" . . . Customer satisfaction: "Every TSA staff member has been consistently cheerful, friendly, professional and courteous," frequent flyer with metal hip praises. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., bemoans in The Washington Times DHS chief Janet Napolitano’s continuing non-response to a June 23 request for an investigation into Hezbollah activities along the U.S.-Mexico border. “The threat of terrorism is closer than ever,” The Clovis (N.M.) News Journal editorializes, adding that while the cartels have not yet brought “their campaign of violence and instability across the border, the possibility merits concern.” Even with 59 migrants having died in July, would-be border crossers still eagerly embark across Arizona’s harsh desert hinterland, The Associated Press’ Amanda Lee Myers and Julie Watson spotlight. ICE storm: Two top GOP senators warn DHS against breaking the law by acting on a draft guidance directing ICE agents to swoop up fewer illegal immigrants, The Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan relates. As detention facilities and immigration courts burst at the seams, ICE is revamping regs to give amnesty to thousands of undocumented immigrants, Tiffani Helburg reports for Miami’s CBS 4 News — while Geoffrey A. Hoffman agrees in The Houston Chronicle that “prioritizing deportation cases makes sense,” and The Washington Post’s Jennifer Buske hears a Virginia county police chief questioning an ICE policy allowing illegals awaiting deportation to get a permit to work. Feds: The administration plans to increase the frequency, rigor and realism of emergency planning exercises involving senior officials and responders, Secrecy News’ Steven Aftergood sees an internal memo informing. The Pentagon has shifted more than $1 billion out of its WMD defense programs to underwrite a new White House priority on vaccines to combat pandemics, Global Security Newswire’s Elaine M. Grossman notes. “The common thread among DHS’s recent purchases is support for two broader ongoing challenges: border security and immigration,” Government Executive’s Elizabeth Newell surveys. State and local: Despite $7 billion in federal grants nationwide, the local police-fire department comm problems so starkly on display at Ground Zero on 9/11 “still have not been completely resolved,” The New York Times surveys. DHS has expanded its “see something, say something” campaign encouraging travelers to report suspicious activities to fusion centers in the Southeast, SecurityInfoWatch.com recounts — while DHS’s Napolitano assures The Tennessean that the drive is not designed to encourage ethnic or racial profiling. The NYPD, meanwhile, is following new guidelines on handling “chance encounters with terror suspects,” CBS New York relays. Securitizing: Illinois’ Emergency Management Agency has engaged Marion Ross, who played the mom on “Happy Days,” to record eight radio spots encouraging disaster readiness during National Preparedness Month, a/k/a September, The Chicago Tribune tells — as the director of security for this year’s Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pa., discusses the challenges thereof with CSO Magazine. For the 16 days of the World Equestrian Games, “the Kentucky Horse Park should be the safest place in the state outside of Fort Knox,” The Lexington Herald-Leader leads. Bugs ‘n bombs: A U. Maryland report concludes that last week’s deadly Discovery Channel hostage incident “meets the criteria of a terrorist act — a rare one for media organizations and the nation’s capital region,” redOrbit relays. Six U.S. soldiers were quarantined in a Turkish hospital after a suspicious powder was found in a parcel at Istanbul’s airport, Agence France-Presse reports. A research team has published the gene sequence of the castor bean, source of the potential bioweapon ricin, BioPrepWatch reports — while Medical News Today sees Purdue University winning a $1.3 million NIH grant to research IDing harmful pathogens in food to prevent a bioterror attack. Lysozymes, “an enzyme found in human tears and other biological fluids that attacks the cell walls of bacteria, could resist anthrax,” MSNBC sees the National Center for Toxicological Research learning. Gloom and doom: Aussie scientist Frank Fenner, who helped wipe out smallpox, tells The Australian that “humans will probably be extinct within 100 years because of overpopulation, environmental destruction, and climate change” — as AFP hears astrophysicist Stephen Hawking arguing that “humanity must get off planet Earth, and at a relatively hasty timeframe, if it’s to survive in the long term.” The courts have once again rebuffed a Hawaiian botanist who has brought suit arguing that Large Hadron Collider risks bringing about doomsday by creating an Earth-devouring black hole, Homeland Security Newswire notes. What killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was not a major asteroid strike in the Gulf of Mexico, but a subsequent smaller strike in the Ukraine, Sky & Telescope sees a paper in Geology suggesting. Close air support: “Every TSA staff member has been consistently cheerful, friendly, professional and courteous. I have never felt violated,” a much-patted-down frequent flyer with a metal hip writes The Arizona Republic. “At Logan Airport, what had been a light patdown has become a more thorough experience, one that involves some palms-forward, over-the-clothing contact,” The Boston Globe relatedly relates. CBP officers are taking up posts at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport to help ID potential terrorists or high-risk others heading to the United States, AP reports. The brief detention of two Yemenis wrongly suspected of rehearsing a terror strike “exposed both strengths and weaknesses of U.S. aviation security,” The Chicago Tribune assesses — as The Detroit Free Press sees the incident underlining the question, “if no explosives are found, but strange things are in someone’s luggage, what’s the policy?” Airport alarums: A luggage handler late for work at Nashville’s airport forced evacuation of a flight and rescreening of 30 passengers, The Tennessean tells — while the Los Angeles Times sees an LAX terminal shuttered and eight flights delayed after a contract worker left an exit unattended. A microbiologist was briefly detained and the Miami air hub evacuated after screeners mistook a metal canister for a pipe bomb, NBC News notes — as The Miami Herald details the scientist’s much-remarked-upon previous conviction for improperly shipping plague bacteria. A father and daughter were charged when Denver airport screeners spotted a .22 handgun in her purse, ABC 7 News notes — and Justice News Flash reports a JetBlue flight evacuated at Palm Beach Airport due to two “suspicious phone calls.” Coming and going: A man who commandeered a subway train at age 15 and has repeatedly posed as a transit worker was rearrested last week for stealing a Trailways bus in New Jersey and driving it to JFK airport, The New York Daily News notes. Railroads do not share info about schedules for and contents of hazmat cargo with emergency responders in the towns they transit so they cannot prepare for catastrophe, HSNW, again, notes. For Labor Day weekend, CBP descended on specific South Florida marinas to process small vessel arrivals, The Miami Herald mentions. The number of Predator drone aircraft flying surveillance along the Southwest border will double by Jan. 1, The Arizona Republic hears DHS’s Napolitano pledging last week. Courts and rights: Activists can’t be charged with littering for leaving bottles of water for heat-stroked illegal migrants on U.S. government property, Capitol Media Services has a federal appeals court ruling — while The Arizona Republic, yet again, sees that state’s legal tab for defending its controversial immigration law hitting “an excess of $1 million or more.” Sharif Mobley, a New Jersey man on trial in Yemen this month for killing a prison guard there, “is one of a growing cadre of native-born Americans who are drawn to violent jihad,” the Post profiles. Five defendants in the Fort Dix terror case seek to have their convictions overturned, The Cherry Hill (N.J.) Courier-Post recounts — while Dayton’s WHIO TV News sees an Ohio man charged along with his wife with plotting to finance Hezbollah released on bond. Over there: Amidst a renewal of militant violence, Pakistan’s Taliban threatened on Friday to launch attacks in the United States and Europe “very soon,” The Gulf Daily News notes. A German-born Islamist arrested in Afghanistan warns of possible terror attacks in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, Deutsche Welle relays. The armed Basque separatist group ETA, guilty of numerous terror attacks, declared another unconvincing “ceasefire” on Sunday, CNN notes — as another CNN item sees Bahrain charging 23 with terrorist activities. The Philippine Marines have activated a special unit “of freshly trained Belgian Malinois and Labradors . . . that will be used in the campaign against terrorists,” GMANews.TV tells. Qaeda Qorner: “Fighters on the run, hunted by drones, diminished in numbers . . . al Qaeda’s allure remains intense,” a Newsweek report, “Inside al Qaeda,” notes.“Critics fail to realize that a single al Qaeda operative’s knowledge and experience in guerrilla and terror tactics is of incalculable value as a force multiplier to the Taliban,” The Counterterrorism Blog counters. Pakistan-Saudi security cooperation poses a real threat to al Qaeda operatives in the region, Central Asia Online relates. Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq plans to target that country’s oil infrastructure after the completion of U.S. troop withdrawals, Asharq Alawsat confirms. The Man Who Wasn’t There: “In what might be the most serious challenge to Barack Obama’s legitimacy as president, a new poll shows that one out of five Americans are not convinced that Obama exists,” The Borowitz Report reports. “The poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, reveals that 23 percent of those surveyed ‘strongly agreed’ with the statement, ‘I believe that Barack Obama’s birth was faked, just like the moon landing,’” Andy Borowitz writes. “The poll results coincide with the recent rise of the so-called ‘Exister’ movement, a group who believes that Obama is an optical illusion created by the Democratic Party to raise taxes and bail out banks. Appearing Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made comments about Obama’s existence that only stoked the controversy. ‘I’ve spoken to him face-to-face, and I take him at his word that he exists,’ he said. ‘Unless of course I was talking to a hologram.’” |
CQ Behind the Lines
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