CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Friday, June 10, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Family vehicle: "Doomsday Plane," last used by a prez on 9/11, has since become standard carrier for Defense secretaries at $110,000 per hour . . . Secessionists: California likely to join Illinois, New York and Massachusetts in rejecting ICE's Secure Communities program . . . In good hands: Screener's pat-down "so good, I wanted to ask him if he did Thai Massage in the Men's Room on his break." These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- The Air Force offered a rare glimpse inside the $223-million, ultra-secure E-4B "Doomsday Plane," built to protect the commander-in-chief during worst-case scenarios, whose last presidential crisis use fell on Sept. 11, 2001, The Daily Mail's Paul Bentley spotlights. "Since the 9/11 attacks, two successive Pentagon bosses — Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates — have used the E-4B aircraft for official trips," with the meter running at $110,000 an hour, The Air Force Times' Robert F. Dorr wrote last month, positing air chauffeuring as an obvious opportunity for Pentagon cost-cutting. Feds: "Michael Leiter, President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, is stepping down after four years at the helm of the National Counterterrorism Center, The Washington Times' Kara Rowland recounts. The Pentagon can't use certain statements to continue holding a Yemeni Gitmo detainee, Courthouse News Service's Tim Hull hears a federal judge ruling, because they were tainted by years of torture in Jordan and Afghanistan. Thoroughly infiltrated by the FBI and Secret Service, the underground world of computer hackers is "riddled with paranoia and mistrust, with an estimated one in four hackers secretly informing on their peers," The Guardian's Ed Pilkington reveals. Homies: If Osama bin Laden's demise "led anyone to believe the terrorist threat has been extinguished, Janet Napolitano says that is not so," NY1's Bobby Cuza quotes from her NYU address this week. (The Los Angeles Times' Michael Muskal hears Defense Secretary nominee Leon Panetta stating exactly the same at yesterday's confirmation hearing.) The Journal of Commerce's Peter T. Leach, meanwhile, hears Napolitano divulging that DHS "is considering letting most airline passengers go through airport security screening without removing their shoes or taking laptops out of their cases" — while ABC News' Rick Seaney adds: "Not that airport security in other countries is run by the TSA, of course, but apparently we exert a fair amount of influence." State and local: The Golden State may become the fourth to jettison ICE's Secure Communities effort, following bailout bids by Massachusetts, New York and Illinois, California Watch's Ryan Gabrielson forecasts. Texas' governor has added controversial homeland security measures to the special legislative session agenda, The Texas Tribune tells. Texas' Department of Public Safety, meantime, is moving to fire its former administrator of state readiness grants, The Houston Chronicle relays. Alabamans who want a home storm shelter or safe room, even those unaffected by the April 27 twisters, might get help from FEMA, The Birmingham News notes. Connecticut's House has approved a bill requiring annual reports by the state homeland security shop addressing the health needs of children in bioterror and other crises, The Meriden Record-Journal relays. Chasing the dime: A Detroit neighborhood association has hired Recon Security — a paramilitary-style firm owned by a local police lieutenant — to patrol its sidewalks, the Free Press reports. General Dynamics has snatched away from Northrop Grumman a coveted contract to provide the info-tech infrastructure for the DHS HQ rising on the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus, The Washington Post reports. A Lockheed Martin subsidiary will be monitoring illegal activities along the U.S.-Mexico border if a House homeland bill becomes law, The Hill reports. California's Covia Labs has won a DHS contract to devise "public safety mobile broadband applications for mission-critical voice communications," Signal Magazine mentions. In conjunction with the U.K.'s National Counter Terrorism Security Office, local bizzes are being offered training in protecting against terror attacks, The Brentwood (Essex) Weekly News notes. Bugs 'n bombs: The Obama administration says it takes "seriously" an al Qaeda spokesman's urging that sympathizers exploit soft spots in U.S. gun laws, The Huffington Post reports — while The Washington Post, relatedly, editorializes: "There may never be a better spokesman for closing the gun show loophole than Adam Yahiye Gadahn." Bay Area health officials asked for public assistance testing an emergency website aimed at infectious disease or bioterror emergencies, CBS San Francisco recounts. Deficit-driven cuts to border health funding could create a breeding ground for drug-resistant diseases, "and that's even before mentioning bioterrorism," The El Paso Times hears a conference speaker warning. Two MIT buildings were evacuated this week in what proved to be a spurious pipe bomb scare, ABC News notes — while CNS, again, sees a San Diegan convicted in the 2008 bombing of a federal court building. Close air support: If your goal is averting hassles at checkpoints, "you don't want to dodge from eye contact with the security workers," The Consumerist counsels. TSA has deftly handled embarrassing videos and photographs of untoward screener incidents, but may be ready to ratchet up its so-far reasonable checkpoint taping policy, The Economist assesses. A screener's pat-down "was so good, I wanted to ask him if he did Thai massage in the Men's Room on his break," a Queerty blogger posts. A New York woman was arrested at Stewart Airport after a loaded handgun was found in her luggage, The Poughkeepsie Journal reports — as a former county prosecutor tells Atlanta's WSBV 2 News how a "memory lapse" got him busted at Hartsfield-Jackson last week carrying a pistol in his fanny pack, and the Star sees a motorist fleeing police plowing through an Indianapolis International security gate. Coming and going: Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., plans to hold a hearing next week on rail safety to examine reports that bin Laden was planning to target American railways at the time of his death, The Hill relates. New Jersey Transit Corporation, the nation's third largest commuter system, "ramped up its efforts to guard against terrorism by asking passengers to text about suspicious behaviors or unattended packages," Reuters reports. Upgrades to the Lynn, Mass. commuter-rail station include "20 networked security cameras offering live viewing capacity to MBTA police and the Operations Control Center," Progressive Railroading briefs. Courts and rights: In a split verdict yesterday, a Chicago jury found Tahawwur Rana guilty of plotting a terror attack in Denmark, but acquitted him in relation to the 2008 Mumbai massacre, the Tribune tells. Another Somali man has been charged in Minnesota with providing assistance to al Shabaab, which has been recruiting young men from the state, The Minneapolis Star Tribune relays. Two Iraqi refugees facing federal terror charges in Kentucky have waived their rights to a detention hearing, The Bowling Green Daily News notes. Probable cause was found in a terroristic threat complaint filed by the mayor of Wyckoff, N.J., regarding a statement made at a zoning board meeting, The Hawthorne Gazette relates. Over there: Al Qaeda and its franchises remain the world's biggest security threat despite bin Laden's obliteration, Reuters hears the head of Interpol proclaiming. The Obama administration has intensified its covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum to strike at militant suspects, The New York Times tells. NATO and Russia teamed this week, for the first time, to exercise their terror-fighting chops, using a military transport plane to simulate a hijacking over Poland, The Associated Press reports. Money from Britain's $100-million-a-year anti-radicalization budget has been given to the very extremist organizations it should have been confronting, Sky News leads. Kulture Kanyon: "I love the idea of The Rock joining the cast of 'G.I. Joe 2' (Paramount). After all, the Joes are a larger-than-life anti-terrorism unit with larger-than-life characters," Bleacher Report's Josh McCain enthuses. "Most of the Middle East gets mad when America releases any film about terrorism. If you want to be completely PC, you just can't have bad guys," critic David McVay tells FOX News, in re: the military villain in J.J. Abrams' "Super 8" (Paramount, too). An online exhibit at Dearborn's Arab American National Museum "aims to explore — and overcome — Arab stereotypes that have influenced popular culture for more than a century," AP spotlights. Rapper Lupe Fiasco was on "What's Trending" this week, in a "bombastic interview" touching on why President Obama is America's "biggest terrorist," CBS News touts. "Mad Bomber," Charles Monagan's musical about George Metesky, who terrified New York in the 1950s, is enjoying its world premiere at Waterbury's Seven Angels Theater, The Connecticut Post reports. Between the Covers: Ex-Sen. Bob Graham's "Keys to the Kingdom" (Vanguard) fictionalizes his years on the Senate intel committee, while airing "his belief that the American government covered up Saudi Arabian involvement in terrorism," The Tallahassee Democrat profiles. Michael M. Pacheco's "Seeking Tierra Santa: Summer Terror in Texas" (Amazon), meanwhile, "discusses the internationally hot topic of religious extremism and its relationship to terrorism," The Okanogan County (Wash.) Herald heralds — as Pete Hamill's "Tabloid City" (Little Brown) sees a dying tabloid's reporters scrambling to cover a socialite's murder "while the police hunt down a homegrown terrorist bent on going out in a blaze of jihadist glory," The Newark Star-Ledger relates. In "The Next Wave: On the Hunt for Al Qaeda's American Recruits" (Crown Forum), FOX News' Catherine Herridge "surveys terrorist incidents involving U.S. citizens and raises questions about failures in U.S. intelligence," MinnPost.com mentions. Old and in the way: "According to colleagues, 87-year-old senile Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., has been allowed to believe he permanently solved the nation's immigration crisis in 2007," The Onion reports. "'What's the harm?' Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., asked reporters Thursday. 'He comes up and says, "It takes a lot to strike a bipartisan compromise on an issue as contentious as immigration, but I did it," and I just say, "You sure did, big guy!" It makes him feel good.' Critics have argued that this is just another example of partisan favoritism, and that former Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore., should be allowed to think he is still a voting member of the Senate, or at least have access to the cafeteria." See also, in The Spoof: "Decommissioned Drone Trying to Get Used to Civilian Life: UAV #5987-D/A, ejected from the U.S. Army in February after several months of tireless work scouting Pakistan and Afghanistan in surveillance operations, still hasn't gotten used to living life in the civilian world . . . 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