Omss Politics: CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Thursday, June 16, 2011 — 3 P.M.

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Anthropomorphic: "Your associates are obsessed with possible bacteriological warfare by your human enemies," Ralph Nader writes Obama, channeling E. coli 0104:H4 . . . Crafted for confiscation: Getting an MP3 player shaped like a bundle of fused dynamite "past airport security could be an adventure unto itself" . . . Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wants terror-charged Iraqi nationals "out of Kentucky" and off to Guantanamo. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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"A quick tour of the counterterrorism horizon suggests just how unprepared the CIA [and other agencies] are for the post-Arab Spring world, and how hard it will be for them to rehabilitate their old techniques for fighting terrorism," Newsweek's Christopher Dickey essays. To one military intel pro, Osama bin Laden's death was "a painful reminder of what could have been avoided had the government heeded numerous early warnings of an impending attack against the very targets terrorists struck on 9/11," Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold profile for truthout.

Feds: Pakistan's military intel agency has arrested five CIA informants, some of whom helped guide the May 1 raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, The New York Times' Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti relate. House Judiciary chief Lamar Smith, R-Texas, dismisses the notion that Congress should re-examine the nation's gun laws after al Qaeda urged Muslims to exploit loopholes to attack Americans, The Hill's Mike Lillis relates. "The recent rash of disclosures about cyberspying comes as the White House is making its third attempt to push through a historic federal cybersecurity law. The timing is no coincidence," USA Today's Byron Acohido leads.

Judgment calls: At yesterday's House homeland hearing on prison Islamization "some said there are only a few cases in which prison radicalization has been linked to terrorism," CNN's Carol Cratty recounts — and see The Washington Post's Alexander Heffner. A New York state grand jury indictment rejects the most serious charges against two accused of plotting terror against Jewish targets, in a case the FBI declined to join, the Times' William K. Rashbaum and Colin Moynihan mention. A Senate panel Tuesday "took on the thorny dispute of whether to increase railroad security spending after new threats of terrorist attacks or cut it back to reduce the nation's deficit," All Headline News' Tom Ramstack reports.

State and local: Oregon's A.G. has warned residents against scam e-mails, ostensibly from the FBI, demanding a $350 payment to obtain a "Clearance Certificate" exonerating the bearer of taint of terrorism, The Oregonian reports. "Federal and state agents are searching a 30-square-mile swath of rugged Montana forest for a former militia leader [i.e., domestic terrorist] following a shootout with sheriff's deputies," MSNBC leads. Texas' Department of Public Safety has traced at least 22 homicides, 24 assaults, 15 shootings and five kidnappings in Texas over the last 16 months "directly" to Mexican cartels, The Houston Chronicle recounts. FEMA's top man in Alabama would like to see tornado safe rooms become a standard part of any construction project in the state, The Birmingham News notes.

Bugs 'n bombs: "Your associates are obsessed with possible bacteriological warfare by your human enemies. Yet you are hardly doing anything [about preventable disease]," Ralph Nader nags in an "Open Letter to President Obama from E. coli 0104:H4," posted by The Food Poison Journal. "Ironically, non-super-toxic versions of E. coli now cause almost as much damage yearly in the United States as the recent super-toxic strain has in Europe," where its terrorist origins have been mooted, CounterPunch comments. Indonesian police have seized a yellow liquid from terrorism suspects who may have been planning to poison food at cafeterias frequented by police officers, The Jakarta Post updates. Security concerns about the 2012 London Olympics are fed by "fears of attacks by chemical and biological devices — with public transport a likely target," The Sun simmers.

Ivory (Watch) Towers: George Washington University hosted a conference on bioterrorism this week featuring current and former federal lawmakers, The Washington Post reports. Scores of undergrad programs on emergency management and disaster response "have sprung up across the country in recent years at the same unflagging pace as the catastrophes that have inspired them," the Times spotlights. "A Dickinson State University professor is in Israel this month for an intensive course in terrorism studies and how democracies can defeat the worldwide terrorist threat," The Grand Forks Herald relays. "Far from being agents of 'radicalization,' Islamic student societies have often been at the forefront of the fight against violent extremism," a Guardian op-ed assures — as UTV News reports that Nottingham University securicrats "have been filming students on campus as a method of monitoring potential extremists."

Close air support: An Ohio couple missed a honeymoon flight when Columbus screeners freaked out over a bottle of contact lens solution, NBC 4 News notes. "We've come to expect hair-raising headlines [about screeners at] Newark Liberty, which has been sullied by several security-related mishaps in recent years," The Bergen County (N.J.) Record rebukes. Perennial prez contender Ron Paul, R-Texas, wants to "gradually close down the TSA and give private airlines responsibility for airport security," he tells The Des Moines Register. As to which, the first airport federal security director in Rhode Island is stepping down nearly 10 years after 9/11 brought him out of retirement, The Providence Journal relays. Getting the USB Bombshell MP3 Player, shaped like a bundle of fused dynamite, "past airport security could be an adventure unto itself," Engadget acknowledges. A Sydney man is charged with forging national airport security cards, a key component of Australia's security regime, the Morning Herald mentions.

Railroaded: Warning that cuts to transit security could derail gains made in the wake of 9/11, two New Jersey lawmakers visited the Trenton Transit Center on Tuesday to lobby for more federal dollars to secure the country's rails, The Trenton Times tells. "A fiery train disaster was narrowly averted last weekend in Iowa," when sabotage — not terror-related, the FBI judges — nearly derailed a train carrying highly flammable ethanol, ABC News notes — while CBN News sees "authorities on high alert" over the incident. The Virginia Railway Express commuter line has received an award from the Virginia Transit Association for its campaign on rail security, the Post reports.

Guantanamo Bay Watch: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wants two Iraqi nationals arrested on allegations of terror plotting consigned to Guantanamo and "out of Kentucky," The Louisville Courier-Journal recounts. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., is sponsoring legislation to keep Guantanamo "open permanently to detain prisoners of war and people suspected of terrorism," The Grand Forks Herald relays. An Egyptian Gitmo detainee, cleared of terror charges and released to Slovakia for fear of torture in his native country, was arrested by Egyptian authorities upon his return this week after a decade abroad, United Press International informs.

Over there: A British terror suspect exiled to another city to separate him from his radicalized friends has lost his High Court challenge to the restrictions thus imposed, BBC News notes. The South African government is investigating how a most-wanted al Qaeda mastermind shot dead in Somalia came to be carrying a South African passport, BusinessDay reports. State warns travelers of terror risks on the Philippine island of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, but says even Manila could be subject to attacks, The Straits Times tells. The Pakistani government has addressed all leading mosques in Islamabad and elsewhere seeking public help in curbing terror plots, Central Asia Online relates. Australia's A.G. reports that 38 people have been prosecuted and 23 convicted as a result of counterterrorism operations, and that 37 of them are Australian citizens, of whom 21 were born there, The Australian assesses.

Over here: "The next president may well preside over a terrorist attack by Islamist extremists, so the last thing we need is an Oval Office occupant prepared to target innocent Muslims with discriminatory policies should doing so happen to poll well," The Atlantic assails. As a consequence of the 9/11 attacks, 25 percent of New Yorkers "say they are always or often suspicious of passersby they believe to be Muslim," a New York Daily News poll finds. "Justice has become as unattainable for Muslim activists in the United States as it was for Kafka's frustrated petitioner" in his short story "Before The Law," Truthout asserts.

Holy Wars: "The inaptly dubbed 'War on Terror' continues to run up an ever-higher body count. In the nearly 10 years since 9/11, the so-called 'Religion of Peace' has racked up over 17,000 deadly attacks," FrontPage Magazine frowns. Radical Islam "is a toxic ideology that wants America and Americans dead. There is nothing we can do to pacify them," Seth Leibsohn tells The Oregon Faith Report. "The truth is that the war on terrorism is a myth of conflict, and one of the great illusions of history. Sane and rational people agree that the war should have never been waged," Saman Mohammadi maintains in OpEdNews.com — and see Hossein Askari in The National Interest on why Iran's Shia fundamentalist mullahs and the Wahhabist Saudi royal family "are almost as bad for Islam as the bin Ladens of the world."

Creeping Sharia: "After reading an article about Muslim rituals, curious homemaker Frances Parker decided to give bowing toward Mecca a shot Tuesday," The Onion reports. "'I guess I just wanted to see what it'd feel like,' Parker said of the few minutes she set aside to lay a colorful blanket on the ground, draw the curtains, and look up which direction Mecca was from her house in Boise. 'It was kind of neat.' While she admitted performing the ritual five times a day seemed 'a bit much,' the mother of two told reporters she might try to work in another bow tomorrow and see how that goes." See also, from CAP News: "Following meetings in Cairo and Gaza City to finalize the terms of a recording deal, Fatah and Hamas officials met in Turkey's capital yesterday to announce that the two groups would be collaborating on a new rap album to be released next month. Proceeds from music downloads will go toward the Gaza Strip Rebeautification Project."