| Behind the Lines for Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010 — 3 P.M. Unfueling the flames: 9/11 families urge no anti-mosque rally at Ground Zero on Sept. 11 while Gen. Petraeus warns against Florida Koran burnings . . . Disaster Preparedness Month: "Are we sending the wrong message when we have an emphasis only one twelfth of the year?" . . . Cold dead contractor-hired hands: Discovery Channel hostage taking renews arguments that all building security guards should be armed. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- Families of Sept. 11 victims are arguing whether to call a truce on this Saturday’s 9/11 anniversary as opponents of a Muslim center near Ground Zero plan a rally that day, Reuters’ David Alexander notes. Gen. David H. Petraeus charges that a Florida church’s planned Koran burning on Saturday could “endanger troops” and damage the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, The Washington Post’s David Nakamura and Javed Hamdard report — but The Florida Baptist Witness’ James A. Smith Sr. sees the pastor of that Gainesville house of worship seemingly unconvinced. Persistence of memory: Fearing violence sparked by that auto de fe of Islamic scripture, some Gainesville Muslims are leaving town to avoid problems, The Miami Herald’s Jaweed Kaleem mentions. The Ground Zero mosque to-do “is threatening to sweep away the political detente long reserved for the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” The Hill’s Russell Berman notes — while Deutsche Presse Agentur observes that “unlike past years, when the city was unified while heading into the annual commemoration, this year it is not.” (Check World Webcams this Saturday for an aerial feed from the Ground Zero site.) First Lady Michelle Obama, meantime, will join her predecessor Laura Bush at a Pennsylvania commemoration of the United Flight 93 victims, Politics Daily’s Alex Wagner reports. Feds: “Almost a year after announcing five Sept. 11 plotters would be tried in lower Manhattan for killing 2,973 people, the White House is no closer to bringing them to justice,” The New York Daily News’ James Gordon Meek leads. The ACLU yesterday challenged as unconstitutional CBP’s right to seize and search laptops, smart phones and other electronic devices for any reason, Threat Level’s David Kravets recounts. “Shouldn’t every month be ‘Disaster Preparedness Month?’ Are we sending the wrong message when we have an emphasis only one twelfth of the year?” Emergency Management’s Eric Holdeman questions. State and local: Alabama has been using a program similar to Arizona’s law to fight illegal immigration for years, Gov. Bob Riley tells The Montgomery Advertiser, but his state chose to work with ICE. If it hopes to retain a $427,000 DHS grant, the Pittsfield (Mass.) Fire Department needs to fill four vacancies, The Berkshire Eagle relates. Many Maine agencies have not even started planning to follow the FCC’s 2004 order directing public safety radio users to switch to narrowband frequencies, The Bangor Daily News notes — as The Bozeman Daily Chronicle sees Montana’s Office of Homeland Security disbursing $6.3 million in DHS grants to 30 local responder agencies. Bid-ness: The Florence (S.C.) Chamber of Commerce held a workshop late last month to show bizzes what they need to do to prep for disaster, Myrtle Beach’s WMBF TV News notes. Confronted by Mexico’s vicious cartels, foreign companies are “spending more and in the process charging consumers more to shore up security in a country where killings, kidnappings and extortions have become a part of daily life,” The Dallas Morning News notes (while The Associated Press sees Mexico’s government increasing security after explosive devices were detonated in the border city of Reynosa). Much-assailed private military contractor Blackwater created 30 subsidiary companies to continue seeking government contracts after being accused of misconduct in Iraq, Voice of America relays. 3M has agreed to pay $950 million for all the shares of biometrics manufacturer Cogent, whose top client is DHS, Security Director News notes. Edifice Complex: The Discovery Channel hostage taking renewed arguments that all building security guards should be armed, but those cost roughly $50 per hour, compared with $30 for unarmed sentinels, D.C.’s WUSA 9 News notes — while The Washington Business Journal suggests the incident should prompt companies and building owners to review their emergency evacuation and continuity of operation plans. Costing $17.6 million, McKinney (Texas)’s new public security building is a “bulletproof fortress,” epitomizing the new breed of post-9/11, post-Oklahoma City municipal edifices, The Dallas Morning News spotlights. “The building is a fortress,” the architect of St. Petersburg’s new Salvador Dali Museum assures Tampa’s WTSP 10 News, in re: a glass-clad structure designed to withstand category 5 winds with 18-inch thick walls, storm doors and a vault. Know nukes: The nuclear nonproliferation regime “looks very much like it did before the towers fell, providing surprisingly little room to combat the spread of nuclear weapons,” gripes a Policy Review argument for boarding ships possibly carrying nukes. Iran is steadily stockpiling enriched uranium, even in the face of toughened international sanctions, The Washington Post cites from a U.N. inspection report raising new concerns about the ability to monitor Tehran’s nuclear program — while Agence France-Presse hears Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowing to sidestep sanctions. Close air support: “I know that the craziness of the airport security is to keep us safe, but doesn’t most of it seem the teeniest bit bizarre?” The Ridgecrest (Calif.) Daily Independent inquires.The terror alert level for U.S. airline flights is at orange, indicating a high risk of attack, but officials tell The Detroit Free Press that most American travelers ignore it and don’t find it credible. With as many as 80 security personnel on the chopping block, New Brunswick’s main airport is just one of many Atlantic province Canadian air hubs facing checkpoint-choking cutbacks, Global Maritimes mentions. Trails and rails: Just days after a New York man stole a Trailways bus from a maintenance terminal in New Jersey, a N.Y. Daily News reporter returned to the depot and found underguarded buses, doors open, keys in the ignition. School buses transporting Detroit public school students are now outfitted with video cameras and GPS location devices, the Free Press reports. Thousands of Amtrak passengers have been detained by onboard Border Patrollers “because they . . . could not show immigration documents that satisfied the agents,” a New York Times blog noted last week. “People simply have to understand that discarding any item on or near trains isn’t merely littering. It can wreak major [security-related] havoc, causing public-transportation shutdowns that last hours,” The Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal pleads. Courts and rights: A U.S. appeals court last week upheld a Florida law prohibiting universities from using state funds to pay for faculty traveling to countries designated sponsors of terrorism, i.e. Cuba, The National Law Journal notes — as The Orange County Record sees an FBI informant who infiltrated a Southern California mosque filing a new complaint against the U.S. government. Instead of pursuing a legal career, Penn Law grad Evan Kohlmann “has become one of the nation’s leading consultants on terrorism and fundamentalist Islam,” The Philadelphia Inquirer profiles. The U.K. is poised to boost its powers to rebuff extradition of Britons, a move especially consequent for U.S. bids to try British terror suspects, The Daily Telegraph tells. Talking terror: “While considered the yin and yang of homeland security, those trying to mitigate the harm of a hurricane and those trying to prevent a terrorist attack [both worry that] if they cannot maintain sufficient control, all hell will break loose,” Homeland Security Watch’s Philip J. Palin ponders. “Tea Party principles are inherently peaceful, but this isn’t true of the environmental left. So long as this movement portrays mankind as a parasite and a danger, more Unabombers and Silver Spring gunmen will follow,” a Washington Times editorial advises. “The fact is that al Qaeda has always been a small organization [but Osama] bin Laden remains important as the guiding icon that is drawing [recruits] to jihad,” Peter Bergen judges in Newsweek. “Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat?” Fareed Zakaria leads in another Newsweek essay. “So close to the anniversary of the most painful event in recent American history, [Zakaria’s piece] borders on the callous,” Mediaite’s Frances Martel maintains. Home Front, redux: This Saturday, American Muslims “are preparing for anti-Islamic acts, encouraging adherents to participate in 9/11 remembrance ceremonies, and changing how they celebrate the end of Ramadan,” The Christian Science Monitor surveys. (With Eid al-Fitr falling near Sept. 11 this year, Muslims fear festivities being misinterpreted as celebrating the 9/11 strikes, World News explains.) Experts tell The Miami Herald the nation’s collective instincts toward Islam have been shaped over decades by a patchwork of factors.” The “loathsome” term “Islamophobia” is merely “a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics,” Abdur-Rahman Muhammad adjures in The N.Y. Daily News. Over there: Thousands of Indonesians protested a U.S. church’s planned Koran burning this Sept. 11, Voice of America relates — while AP covers another such rally in Afghanistan. Canadian authorities are holding on to 492 Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka who landed in British Columbia last month because they pose a possible security threat, The Vancouver Sun says. Control orders and secret judicial proceedings must be abandoned in the British government’s continuing review of counterterrorism powers, The Guardian hears Amnesty International U.K. urging. Herd on the Street: “Nearly 25 years after the nuclear power plant disaster in Chernobyl, Germany is faced with a booming population of irradiated boars. What do you think?” The Onion’s relentless questioning street photographer inquires of average Americans. “It’s just a matter of time before someone gets bitten and becomes a superhero with the proportional strength and burrowing instinct of a boar,” cabinet maker Jay Shepard suggests. “It’s probably a good idea to give the Germans something to cull every once in a while, so that urge doesn’t get out of control again,” Alexander Mattingly, unemployed, replies. “Wow, that’s . . . Schadenfreude? Weltschmerz? Verfremdungseffekt? What’s the German word for being scared s***less?” float builder Sophia Roosa asks. See, also, in The Onion: “Spy Drone Taken Out Of Service After Returning With Creepy Photos Of Insurgents Changing.” |
CQ Behind the Lines
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