| Behind the Lines for Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2010 — 3 P.M. Bankers hours: Proposed anti-terrorism financing law overhaul could include allowing bankers limited access to classified records . . . Good news for modern woman: Emergency Bra, which quickly converts into two gas masks, now available online for $29.95 . . . Breathless: Paparazzi shots show reality superstar Kim Kardashian "assuming the position" at LAX checkpoint, while other top celeb pat-downs are ranked. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- Fraud investigator Eric Lewis warned a House Financial Affairs Committee hearing yesterday “that America’s policing of money laundering is wide open to abuse,” with billions of dollars slipping through the banking system, BBC News notes. A Treasury proposal would require U.S. banks to report all electronic money transfers into and out of the United States, a “dramatic expansion” in counterterror finance powers, The Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima notes. “Here’s a conundrum for tea party types and others who want less regulation over businesses but want to spare no expense in bolstering U.S. national security,” Forbes’ Brian Wingfield relatedly leads. Follow the money: A group of money laundering and national security experts are pressing Congress for major overhaul of anti-terrorism financing laws, including a controversial measure allowing bankers limited access to classified records, The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Palazzolo leads. Records show that Hatem Abudayyeh, director of the Arab American Action Network, one of the activists raided by the FBI last week, “is also a recipient of government funds,” Chuck Goudie breaks for Chicago’s ABC 7 News. Narcotics trafficking and compromised charities are key bankrollers of international terrorist activities, The Ottawa Citizen’s Ian Macleod quotes the head of Canada’s financial intelligence agency. A radical Islamist group raided following an Indonesian bank robbery last month had planned to rob three state bank branch offices, three motor showrooms and a money changer, The Jakarta Post reports. Feds: DHS kicked off its third large-scale three-day cybersecurity drill Tuesday to test government and industry response to hackers hijacking Web content, Nextgov’s Jill Aitoro relates. The CIA has drastically increased covert drone attacks in the mountains of Pakistan in an effort by military and intel operatives to cripple the Taliban in Afghanistan, The New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt spotlight. Justice’s Suspicious Activity Reporting program “recognizes both the necessity for a focus on precursor conduct and the potential for abuse,” Rutgers law dean John Farmer Jr. defends in a Times op-ed. The House homeland panel, meantime, is pressuring White House officials over a DHS enterprise resource planning project that some members say could cost $ 1 billion, FierceGovernmentIT’s David Perera reports. State and local: This Saturday, voters in New Orleans’ French Quarter will decide whether to tax themselves to pay for private security patrols, WWLT Eyewitness News notes — as The Arizona Republic sees the union representing some grocery workers nationwide calling off its boycott of Arizona over the state’s new immigration law. Most Texans, relatedly, back an Arizona-type crackdown and many favor a constitutional amendment discouraging women from entering the country to give birth, a Dallas Morning News poll finds. Moving into an office located at Ionia County (Mich.) Central Dispatch, amateur radio operators are receiving gear from a DHS grant, the Sentinel-Standard says. New York State’s Dem A.G. candidate pledges to create a task force to investigate companies trading or investing with hostile countries or terror groups, Capitol Confidential recounts. Bugs ‘n bombs: A search and rescue exercise was held Fayette County, W.Va., last weekend “to train volunteers on methods relating to thick vegetation,” The Charleston Daily Mail mentions — as The Dayton Daily News spotlights a full-scale training exercise mounted by Ohio’s Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management. HHS chief Kathleen Sebelius will testify before a Senate panel today on her agency’s readiness to respond to bioterrorism attacks, The Hill reminds. Aethlon Medical has renewed efforts to market its Hemopurifier to Uncle Sam as a countermeasure against bioterror threats, The Medical News relays — while BioPrepWatch sees a CDC report finding, inter alia, “that all 50 states have the ability to investigate urgent disease reports, including bioterror attacks, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” Coming and going: “An automated license plate reader on Marion County [Ohio] roads aims to make deputies safer and more efficient,” The Marion Star leads. French authorities temporarily evacuated a Parisian rail station Monday after receiving a spurious bomb alert, Reuters reports — while @ TBD On Foot hears D.C. Metro announcing that new signs going up at the Pentagon station will guide pedestrians through new patterns dictated by security changes. “New federal regulations have increased security on selected ferries in Canada, but are the measures enough?” The Halifax (N.S.) Chronicle Herald asks and answers. A Kenyan judge last week sentenced seven Somalis to five years in jail for attempting to hijack a cargo vessel last year, Bloomberg recounts — and check The New York Review of Books: “The Pirates Are Winning!” Close air support: Paparazzi shots reveal uninhibited TV reality star Kim Kardashian “assuming the position” at a LAX security checkpoint Sunday, AllYourTV.com relates — while Momento 24 headlines: “Awkward situation: The groping of Kim Kardashian.” The Stir, meanwhile, ranks top celeb pat-downs — as The Daily Express sees an unfamous flyer with a metal plate in his leg forced to drop trou at an unnamed Brit air hub to show surgical scars to security staff. “High resolution surveillance cameras, full-body scanners and explosives detection units are only the beginning,” an Examiner contributor leads, eagerly anticipating a November homeland security tech expo. A six-month test run of the controversial naked body scanner began at Germany’s Hamburg Airport this week, DAPD notifies — while Security Park hears an expert warning that inadequate perimeter security at New Delhi’s airport could compromise athlete and visitor security at the Commonwealth Games. Terror tech: “While biometric systems are effective at certain specific tasks, the promise of biometrics has surpassed the actual technological delivery,” Popular Science sees an NRC report judging. A nanowire sensor that picks up minute explosive traces within seconds is “a thousand times more sensitive than the current gold standard in explosives detection: the sniffer dog, Technology Review reports. A new method of detecting illegal drugs and super bugs will power a government-backed handheld device that analyzes saliva, The Engineer informs. The Emergency Bra, which quickly converts into two gas masks, winning its inventor the 2009 Ig Nobel Public Health Prize, is available online for $29.95, Salon spotlights. To address Guam’s problem with invasive brown tree snakes, researchers are exploring “mouse bombs,” poisoned dead mice parachuted from helicopters into the rain forest, The New Republic relays. Cyberia: “Cyber-espionage has surged against governments and companies around the world in the past year, and cyber-attacks have become a staple of conflict among states,” The Wall Street Journal surveys at length. Even if the Stuxnet computer worm wasn’t a state cyberstrike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, “hard-to-trace computer attacks look set to be a feature of 21st-century warfare,” Reuters echoes — while All Headline News hears Iranian officials denouncing this viral penetration as “cyberterrorism.” Military officials assume that during a real cyber-attack, the Pentagon’s Cyber Command “would take the lead in a federal government response. In reality, it remains far from clear who will be in charge,” Stars and Stripes suggests. A new Microsoft interface allows multiple operators to control a robot swarm, “affording new means of managing search-and-rescue robots through a touch screen interface, while integrating with virtual maps,” Tech Review also relates. Over there: A CIA drone strike apparently aborted a plot by British Muslims training with al Qaeda to mount an armed rampage through London as part of a terrorist spectacular aimed at European capitals, The Daily Telegraph tells. Three terror suspects arrested in an alleged al Qaeda plot in Norway likely were plotting against a Danish newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, The Associated Press reports. Military chiefs from four Saharan countries met last weekend to set a joint strategy for fighting al Qaeda’s North African wing, which holds seven foreigners hostage in the Sahara, Reuters reports — as The Daily Telegraph hears al-Qaeda-in-the-Islamic-Maghreb warning Paris in an Internet video not to try to rescue five French nationals kidnapped in Niger. The sharp growth in extremist websites greatly facilitates al Qaeda’s recruitment of fresh martyrs, BBC News hears Interpol head Ronald Noble stating. Courts and rights: The just-opened trial of the al Qaedaite allegedly behind the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings “will be the most visible demonstration” of Obama’s belief that criminal courts can convict terrorists, NPR spotlights. Prosecutors in the Bronx synagogue bomb plot trail are intent this week on rehabbing the image of the FBI informant in the case, the Times tells. “Judge Richard Berman set a terrific benchmark for sentencing Islamist fanatics: He slammed Aafia Siddiqui, the infamous Lady al Qaeda, with 86 years in prison,” a New York Daily News editorial enthuses. Life at the Guantanamo terror prison “which once shocked the world with allegations of torture of convicts, is not what you’d expect,” Istanbul’s Today’s Zaman concludes after a tour. Bad dictator, no donut: “The reclusive leaders of North Korea sent perennial international bad boy, Kim Jong Il, to bed last night without his supper,” Spoof Times reports. “The action was partially for his belligerent behavior against the world community and mostly because there’s really no food left in the country. It seems Kim Jong Il, who is in charge of the country’s checkbook, had spent his country’s riches on very expensive things like nuclear bomb research, ICBM rockets, fighter planes, expensive French cognac, and a really big parade that lasted 14 days and had every single North Korean citizen marching in a starched uniform while holding a ‘We Love Dear Leader’ sign. For a country whose principal exports are beach sand and 1950s era weapons, there is little in the way of incoming monies that allow enough for food purchases. His latest action of sinking a South Korean warship has pissed off the world community because they understand it was an attempt by Jong-Il to shift his people’s attention away from thinking about hunger.” |
CQ Behind the Lines
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