CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Monday, June 20, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Too much fun: Following on Playmobil's checkpoint figurines, Spy Gear peddles a toy TSA wand that beeps and blinks and actually detects metal . . . Check in, check out: Feds warn major U.S. hostelries after Somali intel shows al Qaeda planning "Mumbai-style attack" on upscale London hotel . . . If you can't take the heat: Chicago celebrity chef unintentionally slips huge kitchen knives past O'Hare airport screeners. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- A toy handheld wand with LED lights that flash and an alarm that sounds when it detects metal "is just like the real tool TSA agents use, allowing kids to pretend they work for Homeland Security," Time Magazine's Alyson Krueger enthuses. "But is it fun?" The Consumerist's Ben Popken asks and answers: "Just look at the box! A cheerful child holds his shirt open for the scanning. His other hand is lofted for a high-five. If that doesn't spell fun, you might be a terrorist." Feds: Federal authorities are warning hotels in major U.S. cities to be vigilant after Somali intel shows al Qaeda perhaps plotting a "Mumbai-style attack" on an upscale hotel in London, FOX News' Mike Levine and Jennifer Griffin relate. A proposal to put under one roof reps of federal agencies involved in thwarting the use of explosives as weapons of terror in the United States has been scrapped, National Defense Magazine's Stew Magnuson quotes an FBI official. Senators have crafted a compromise proposal defining a clearer legal basis for terrorist detention absent more sweeping veto-threatened House-passed language, Politico's Charles Hoskinson recounts. Homies: As Secure Communities faces a barrage of criticism, ICE chief John Morton pledges to refocus the initiative on deporting illegals convicted of serious crimes, the Los Angeles Times' Brian Bennett and Lee Romney report. A routine TSA VIPR operation at the downtown Des Moines Greyhound bus depot sparked complaints that the officers concentrated largely on apparent Latinos, the Register's Jeff Eckhoff recounts. Dem and GOP House homeland chiefs, meantime, want TSA's administrator to explain how racial profiling became a common practice among Newark Liberty behavioral detection officers, the Star-Ledger's Steve Strunsky relates. DHS announced Friday that 1,200 National Guards will stay on the southwest border three months longer than planned, The Houston Chronicle's Stewart Powell recounts. State and local: "Chicago's Big Brother network of more than 10,000 public and private surveillance cameras is already the most extensive and integrated in the nation. But it's about to get even bigger," The Sun-Times leads. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says she's "outraged" over a new congressional report about ATF border weapons stings that contributed to a Border Patroller's death, The Arizona Daily Sun relays. Four hundred security and police officers gathered in southeastern Ohio last week "weren't monitoring a terrorist threat. They were practicing what to do if one really surfaces," The Columbus Dispatch follows up. Fort Benning is doing away with vehicle tags required for drivers on base, "partly to protect military personnel from being targeted because they have a sticker," The Columbus (Ga.) Ledger-Enquirer informs. A 63-year-old who died of lung disease last year has been added to the NYC medical examiner's list of 9/11 victims, The New York Times tells. Bugs 'n bombs: A motorist carrying suspected bomb materials and al Qaeda literature who was detained outside the Pentagon on Friday morning was later identified as an apparently nonthreatening Marine Corps reservist, ABC News reports. A Tennessee man trying to collect $1,200 from the local Social Security office threatened to kill everyone inside and then blow the building up, The Murfreesboro Daily News Journal relates. DHS's planned relocation of a dangerous animal disease lab from an isolated island to the heart of cattle country is too risky for the nation's beef industry, The Billings Gazette hears Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., objecting. A Brit citizen has been arraigned in London after being found carrying a recipe for the lethal toxin and potential bioterror agent ricin on a USB drive, Agence France-Presse reports. WMD Watch: U.S. nuke plant regs don't adequately weigh risks that a single event could knock out power from both the grid and emergency generators, the Times hears NRC regulators privately warning — while The Peekskill (N.Y.) Patch sees Indian Point running an emergency response drill. In addition to to a U.S. official's statement that Hezbollah might possess chemical and biological weapons, Israel's contends that the group has also amassed 50,000-plus missiles, FrontPage Magazine alerts. "There is more risk than ever that smaller nuclear arsenals will be used in a regional context, or even by terrorists. But other threats loom larger," a New Statesman contributor consoles. "Ridding the world of nuclear weapons has long been a cause of the pacifist left. But in the past few years mainstream politicians, retired military leaders and academic strategists have begun to share the same goal," The Economist explores. Close air support: "Stranded overnight at Dallas-Fort Worth, a photographer and his buddy videotaped themselves running wild in the terminal . . . How is this possible in the TSA era?" Jalopnik posts — as CBS Dallas-Fort Worth follows up: "It's meant to be funny, but not everyone is laughing." Takeoffs and departures at Reagan National were briefly suspended Sunday as TSA investigated "suspicious activity" on an arriving U.S. Airways flight, USA Today tells. In a "colossal" security failure, an illegal immigrant used the stolen ID of a man with an arrest record to hire on as an American Eagle flight attendant, The New York Post notes. Chicago chef Paul Kahan unwittingly slipped four massive kitchen knives through Chicago O'Hare security, Jaunted tells — Houston's ABC 13 News sees yet another TSA agent, this time at Bush Intercontinental, arrested for theft. Pittsburgh airport is a trial ground for CrewPASS, intended eventually to allow all on-duty crew members to bypass TSA checkpoints, Salon spotlights. All aboard: "Some believe that if airport-style security does make its way into train stations around the country, it will do more harm than good," The Infrastructurist informs. The Boston transit authority's prop heavy, DHS-backed "If you see something, say something" ad campaign is "eye-catching and direct . . . and perhaps worth emulating elsewhere," Homeland Security Watch endorses — and see HSW, again, on a pair of false alarm "say something" episodes. Passengers were evacuated Friday when security personnel discovered an 11-pound bomb concealed in an unattended bag aboard a train arriving in the Indian city of Guwahati, "where an explosion could have caused carnage," The Daily Telegraph tells. Courts and rights: Six weeks after Osama bin Laden's death, a federal judge in Manhattan formally dismissed indictments originally brought more than a decade ago, The New York Times relates. A border-crossing Somali man denied bail (along with his partner) was taped talking about jihad, The San Antonio Express News hears a federal agent testifying. A.G. Eric Holder and top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, in whose state of Kentucky two terror suspects have been arrested, are disputing the vexed civil court versus Guantanamo venue question, the Times, again, tells. Lawyers for Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout contend the United States lacks jurisdiction to prosecute him for meeting outside the country to arrange a sale to terror-listed Colombian rebels, Bloomberg relates. A microbiologist convicted on chemical weapons charges after trying to poison her husband's lover can challenge the federal terror statute on which she was convicted, Courthouse News Service hears the Supremes ruling last week. Over there: Increasingly imbued with Abu Bakir Bashir's radical theology, Indonesian youth are likely to retaliate for the "horrific injustice" of his 15-year terror sentence, The Jakarta Post is told — which is why, Time Magazine suggests, Bashir was smiling leaving the courtroom. Pakistan's army decries as "malicious" charges it tipped off Taliban IED builders to U.S. knowledge of their location, The Express Tribune tells. The U.N. Security Council on Friday split its sanctions list between Taliban and al Qaeda figures so as to induce the former into Afghan peace talks, Reuters reports. "Arshad Khan gave up his aspiration to become a suicide bomber shortly after he barely survived a drone attack in North Waziristan, midway through his militant training. He was 16 years old," a Christian Science Monitor profile opens — and see Reuters on teenage Mexican girls training to become cartel assassins. Three of the four people arrested in Vienna last week on terrorist suspicion have been released, Expatica informs. Qaeda Qorner: "Using facial recognition technology and DNA collected from 'multiple family members,' federal authorities say they have conclusively confirmed that Osama bin Laden was the man killed in the Abbottabad raid," Politico reports. The new al Qaeda leader's deep hatred of the United States is fueled by the deaths of his wife and two children in a U.S. airstrike in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, ABC News notes — as Al Jazeera hears Washington officials warning Ayman al-Zawahiri "to expect a similar fate to his slain predecessor," and the Times describes counterterrorists arguing that his deep flaws are likely to weaken the core of the terrorist network. Zawahiri's late boss, "it turns out, has gifted him a bit of a lemon — while Peter Bergen posits in The Washington Post that in recent years, al Qaeda has become "the Blockbuster Video of global jihad." Al Qaedaites, meanwhile, consider themselves not an organization, but rather "vanguards" of the jihadist movement, Terrorism Monitor muses. Diego Cuervo: "Though Alabama has passed the toughest immigration law in the country, the law had to be substantially rewritten in order to pass the legislature," Unconfirmed Sources confirms. "The original version of the bill called for killing all illegal aliens on sight, burning down their homes and putting any survivors on a boat — then blowing up the boat . . . Gov. Robert Bentley clarified that the new, toned-down immigration laws would apply not only to Mexicans but to all foreigners regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation or country of origin. The toned-down, though still very strict, immigration laws allow police officers to question and detain anyone who speaks with a foreign accent and prevent any child from a foreign country from attending school." And this from The Borowitz Report: "When asked what he will do differently from Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda's new leader said, 'I won't let my iPhone use my current location.'" 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.