CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Monday, June 13, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Hitting the fan: Moscow installs terror-proof porta-potties, realizing Vladimir Putin's pledge: " If we find them in a toilet, we'll kill them in the outhouse" . . . What we're worrying about this week: " I wouldn't be surprised if terrorism shifts to climatic manipulation" . . . Sickcom: "Files taken from Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound reveal that relationships within al Qaeda sometimes resembled an episode of The Office." These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- "City Hall is considering public toilet cabins that are self-maintaining, solar-powered and terrorist-proof to replace the not-so-ubiquitous blue cabins that now line public venues," The Moscow Times alerts — while The Moscow News' Alina Lobzina, pertinently, recalls Russian strongman Vladimir Putin's 1999 vow warning terrorists they have nowhere to hide: "If we find them in a toilet, we'll kill them in the outhouse." As the self-proclaimed emir of the Caucasus Emirate, Chechen insurgent Doku Umarov has been dubbed "Russia's Osama bin Laden," and the United States has put a $5 million bounty on his head, GlobalPost's Miriam Elder profiles. Feds: "As millions flock to summer vacations at national landmarks — particularly those that are embedded in our culture as symbols of the American spirit — the level of post-Sept. 11 security often depends on the symbolism," The Associated Press' Tamara Lush surveys. "House Republicans talk tough on terrorism. So we can find no explanation — other than irresponsibility — for their vote to slash financing for eight anti-terrorist programs," The New York Times chides — which editorial, Benjamin H. Friedman critiques for Cato @ Liberty, "has trouble worse than hypocrisy. For starters, it's light on facts." An Iranian-born Texas police officer who wanted to join the FBI has been charged with lying about his citizenship to get hired, The San Antonio Express-News' Guillermo Contreras recounts — and see, from CRS: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Terrorism Investigations." Homies: Jewish community officials met at the White House on Friday with Janet Napolitano to discuss, inter alia, a "new partnership with DHS . . . dedicated mainly to the state of threats posed to American Jewish institutions," Haaretz's Natasha Mozgovaya mentions — and see Jim Kouri's Examiner take on Jewish "mixed reactions." FOX News and other conservative outlets, meantime, are attacking Napolitano for recently stating that it is "not good logic" to target Muslim men younger than 35 for airport security screenings, Media Matters' J.V.B. updates. House Homeland chairman Peter T. King, R-N.Y., has slated a hearing on "The Threat of Muslim-American Radicalization in U.S. Prisons" for this Wednesday, the second in a controversial series of such sessions, The Hill's Jordy Yager relates. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell maintains ICE is taking too long to decide on approving Virginia police officers to deport illegal immigrants, The Washington Times' Paige Winfield Cunningham recounts. State and local: Touting DHS's E-Verify database, North Texas Tea Party adherents say Plano absolutely must keep illegal immigrants off the city's workforce, the Star Courier recounts. As in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia, myriad court challenges face Alabama's just-signed illegal immigration law, which is heralded as the nation's toughest, The Birmingham News notes. ("Another state, another law cracking down on illegal immigration with an assist from Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach," The Lawrence Journal-World relatedly profiles.) A building in Fort Myers, Fla. will house ICE and Homeland Security offices, ABC 7 News notes — while The Toledo Blade sees CBP breaking ground for a $25 million port of entry that for a first, will house all three branches of the agency in the same building. Bugs 'n bombs: Thanks to DHS dollars, Ayer (Mass.) firefighters have taken delivery of a 500-gallon-per-minute foam trailer, the Public Spirit reports. The United States was the source of at least 70 percent of the 29,000 firearms recovered by authorities in Mexico in 2009 and 2010, The Wall Street Journal sees new U.S. government figures showing. A so-called a "Point of Distribution" exercise staged last week in Trenton, N.J. "challenged local health officials to dispense 'medications' to volunteer 'patients' in a two-hour span," Wayne Today tells. "I wouldn't be surprised if terrorism shifts to climatic manipulation," a conspiracist Canadian fruit and vegetable grower tells Farm Focus. "Terrorists have been striking the food system for decades now. They're just not the cave-dwellers we've been conditioned to fear," Farm Wars similarly fumes. Know nukes: "Thwarting all attempts of terrorists to gain possession of nuclear materials is the major goal of an international campaign that is to be spearheaded by Russia and the United States," The Voice of Russia hears a new report recommending. By showing how some nuclear plants are vulnerable to cooling-system failures, the Fukushima meltdown might be of interest to al Qaeda, which considered attacking U.S. nuclear facilities after 9/11, The Christian Science Monitor mentions. The IAEA will report Syria to the U.N. Security Council, citing its undeclared construction of a covert nuclear reactor and refusal to answer questions about it, All Headline News notes. "Western experts aren't sure why Iran is speeding up its nuclear enrichment. Is it bravado for domestic political consumption or a genuine move toward developing weapons that can be hidden from attack?" the Monitor, again, muses. Close air support: TSA has terminated 36 Honolulu airport screeners, including the federal security director, and suspended a dozen more because of an alleged failure to screen checked-in baggage for explosives as required, the Star-Advertiser relates — while FOX News reports TSA officials admitting that Detroit screeners displayed "bad judgment" in putting a mentally disabled flyer through an enhanced pat-down and impounding his toy plastic hammer. "The actions of a man who breached security outside San Antonio International Airport on Friday morning barely affected the plans of people inside the terminals," KSAT 12 News leads. A hoax bomb threat Friday turned India's Chennai (i.e., Madras) airport upside down, The Times of India informs. Troubled waters: A decade after 9/11, Hudson River boaters and marine bizzes gripe about continually being stopped and questioned by security officers, The New York Times spotlights. Florida's repeal of an 11-year-old law requiring state criminal background checks for maritime workers is "a huge step backwards" for port security, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel is told. It seems to have been a CBP glitch that caused 2,000 elderly British cruise passengers to miss a daytime excursion during a recent Port of Los Angeles docking, The Torrance Daily Breeze follows up. At first, only struggling Somali fishermen felt forced into piracy, "but now nearly anyone and everyone are drawn to the lucrative life of riches and relative job security," The Real Truth spotlights — as The Manila Bulletin hears Asian ship owners venting "impatience, anger and frustration at the ever-increasing number of attacks on ships and seafarers by Somali pirates." Courts and rights: Lubbock, Texas, terror suspect Khalid Aldawsari will not be in open court today, KCBD 11 News briefs. Federal prosecutors say they've returned from an overseas fact-finding trip carrying new evidence against a Brooklyn man charged with trying to join a mujahadeen group to attack U.S. armed forces, The New York Post notes. A federal appeals court on Friday overturned an order releasing a Yemeni detainee from Guantanamo, ruling that circumstantial evidence of terrorist ties can be enough to keep a prisoner behind bars, AP reports. Although it ended Thursday in a split verdict, the Chicago terror trial "left enduring mysteries," The Daily Beast broods. A decorated former Marine captain and longtime FBI supervisory agent, meantime, starts today as chief of security at Las Vegas' local and state courthouses, KVVU 5 News notes. Over there: U.S. intel "is engaged in a quiet and largely fruitless effort to persuade Egypt's security services to arrest scores of terrorists who were released or escaped from prisons during the country's recent revolution," The Washington Times tells. Somali government forces says they have killed a Canadian member of al Shabaab, The Toronto Globe and Mail mentions — as The Minneapolis Star Tribune spotlights a Minnesota family whose son died a suicide bomber in Somalia — as Agence France-Presse sees Egypt questioning seven alleged Somali terrorists plotting against Western interests in Egypt and Israel. Russian officials claim to have prevented a major terror attack in the volatile southern republic of Kabardino-Balkaria by killing six militants, RIA Novosti notes. Twice in recent weeks, the United States has provided Pakistani authorities specific info on bomb-making factories, but the raids came up empty after militants "somehow" learned they were in the crosshairs, The New York Times spotlights. Qaeda Qorner: U.S. authorities believe the presumed al Qaeda chief of East Africa, wanted for masterminding the deadly 1998 U.S. embassy blasts, has been killed in Somalia, AFP, again, reports. "Files taken from Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound reveal that relationships within al Qaeda sometimes resembled an episode of 'The Office,'" The Daily Mail mentions. In testimony last week, outgoing CIA chief Leon Panetta estimated that 1,000 al Qaeda fighters remain in Iraq, Foreign Policy reports. Al Qaeda is assisting the Taliban in Afghanistan to continue the U.S. occupation there "as an indispensable condition for the success of al Qaeda's global strategy of polarizing the Islamic world," a recently murdered Asia Times writer assessed. The United States is asking the U.N. Security Council to distinguish between Taliban and al Qaeda adherents in enforcing sanctions, to encourage Taliban reconciliation with the Afghan government, Bloomberg relates. With friends like these: "Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency restated yesterday its commitment to the fight against terrorism, pledging full cooperation with U.S. forces during the upcoming strike on an al Qaeda safe house on June 15 at 5:23 a.m. near the small town of Razmani in the remote tribal region of North Waziristan," The Onion reports. "At a hastily convened press conference, ISI chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha called Pakistan's longstanding partnership with the United States 'stronger than ever,' explaining that both countries share an interest in rooting out al Qaeda before its leaders have time to gather their secret cache of hidden weapons and move to a new location, possibly a tribal area in northwest Pakistan where Pasha said U.S. intelligence is limited in both its sophistication and reach . . . 'These are highly dangerous men,' he stressed, 'who will be taken out at 5:23 a.m. I repeat: The strike begins at 5:23 a.m.'" Source: CQ Homeland Security --------------------------------- Other CQ Roll Call Products CQ Floor Video CQ.com CQ Weekly CQ Today CQ Amendment Text CQ BillTrack CQ Budget Tracker CQ Energy & Climate CQ HealthBeat CQ Homeland Security CQ Hot Docs CQ House Action Reports CQ LawTrack CQ MoneyLine CQ StateTrack CQ Politics Roll Call See all CQ Roll Call products Rob Margetta, CQ Homeland Security Editor Arwen Bicknell, Behind the Lines Editor Published by CQ Roll Call To sign up for CQ Roll Call's free newsletters, click here. Source: CQ Homeland Security Copyright © 2011 CQ Roll Call. All rights reserved.