CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Tuesday, July 26, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly The Right Stuff: "This attack in Norway should be a wake up for our decision makers," extremist-tracker advises. . . Role play: In new DHS video "every terrorist is depicted as white and almost every one who reports the suspicious activity is black, Asian, or Middle Eastern" . . . Have gun, won't travel: Texas student stranded more than a month in India after Mumbai screeners find bullet in her backpack. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- "This attack in Norway should be a wake up for our decision makers," a consultant who tracks extremist activity in the United States tells NBC News' Azriel Relph and Michael Isikoff — as CNN hears analysts describing a "significant and growing" threat of similar domestic terrorism in the United States "The commonly held notion of who a terrorist is means people may lower their guard around [extremists] who look not Arab, but Western," The Daily Beast's Tara McKelvey relates. "When the world believed this to be an act of international Islamist terrorism, leaders from Obama to Cameron all stated that they would stand by Norway in our struggle. Which struggle will that be now?" Aslak Sira Myhre mulls in The Guardian. Homies: In a new DHS video, "every terrorist is depicted as white and almost every one who reports the suspicious activity is black, Asian, or Middle Eastern," InfoWars.com's Paul Joseph Watson protests. To understand the controversy over ICE's Secure Communities, "you have to understand how this program works," NPR's Alex Kellogg tutors. "Clearly the Obama administration isn't taking immigration enforcement seriously," Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla., tells The Tulsa World's Ginnie Graham after she learns that only two Oklahoma bizzes have been rapped by ICE for immigration violations. Feds: A growing group of anti-government extremists — Sovereign Citizens, classified by the FBI as domestic terrorists — has a strong following in Southern Oregon, Katie Conner reports on Medford's KTVL 10 News. During 21 years in Minnesota, special agent Paul McCabe, taking off for an unspecified special assignment "overseas," resisted submitting to a personal profile, The Minneapolis Star Tribune's Jon Tevlin profiles. The United States needs to engage with Arab and Muslim people on broader issues than the war against terrorism, the former head of President Obama's public diplomacy team tells The Washington Times' Shaun Waterman. State and local: A Latino expected to be the subject of an ACLU lawsuit against the Salt Lake County sheriff, accused of holding undocumented immigrants indefinitely, has been turned over to ICE, The Salt Lake Tribune tells. Groups opposed to Alabama's new immigration law seek a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the measure on Sept. 1, The Birmingham News notes. A group that places watering stations in the desert so illegal immigrants don't die while crossing southern Arizona is remaking itself under new leadership, the Republic relays. Amidst dangerously high temperatures in the Northeast, meanwhile, a DHS grant provides relief to Chester County, Pa. responders, The Daily Local News notes. A Tennessee man was busted for lying about being a DHS officer and scuffling with Memphis police, ABC 24 News tells. Bugs 'n bombs: The Norwegian suspected in the Oslo killing spree bought six tons of fertilizer before the massacre, The Associated Press reports — which purchase, apparently, got him placed on a government watch list in March, Sky News notes. "The Wisconsin Hospital Emergency Preparedness Program was forged in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to coordinate a unified hospital response to any catastrophic or mass casualty event," The Green Bay Press-Gazette spotlights. A federal expert observes that only two out of four counter-bioterrorism principles laid out by then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008 have been met, BioPrepWatch relates. Some mice have developed an immunity to the deadly "rat poison," warfarin, "through highly unusual means: horizontal gene transfer," Popular Science spotlights. Bid-ness: "Doing homeland security business at the speed of federal bureaucracy is just plain wrong," Security Debrief admonishes. The share of DHS contracts fulfilling the administration's preference for fixed-price awards has risen steadily over four years to 10.3 percent, Government Executive informs. An upcoming four-city pilot program will be the second test for the Harris Corp.'s multi-band Unity XG-100M radio system, which allows responders using different bandwidths to talk on the same wavelength, The Examiner explains. Boeing Co. has agreed to acquire Solutions Made Simple Inc., a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm, Zacks.com recounts. Biz owners are invited to a hurricane workshop and expo sponsored by the West Volusia (Fla.) Chamber of Commerce, at which DHS and FEMA officials will speak, The Daytona Beach News-Journal notes — while Homeland Security Today reports a recent hearing at which small bizzes rapped the federal response to their needs amidst the spring's slew of natural disasters. Close air support: Some American Airlines passengers faced a security-related disruption yesterday morning at JFK, where a "suspicious bag" led to a partial shutdown of the airline's terminal, USA Today tells. A Baylor University student has been stranded more than a month in India after Mumbai airport screeners found a bullet in her backpack, Waco's KWTX 10 News notes. A woman who refused a full body pat-down at Austin-Bergstrom International in December has been found guilty of failing to follow police orders, Austin's YNN News relates. "Besides doing away with the peep-show element," the TSA's new, less-revealing "naked scanner" software will eliminate the need for remote screener viewing, "which should make the security lines move more rapidly," The Chicago Tribune applauds. Rail-roaded: Norfolk Southern and Amtrak police have been patrolling track near Reading, Pa., in SUVs equipped with rail wheels scouting for trespassers, the Eagle informs."Though there have never been any terrorism-related incidents on any NJ Transit lines . . . prevention remains key," The Eatontown Patch opines. Mini-stun guns and pepper spray have become best-sellers among female Shanghainese commuters bedeviled by "subway creeps," but both those weapons are likely to be interdicted at tough subway security checkpoints, China Daily leads. Belarus's prosecutor general has finally disclosed the names of the suspects in April's Minsk metro bombings, The Kyiv Post reports. Courts and rights: The Muslim-convert Little Rock recruiter shooter pleaded guilty yesterday to killing one and injuring another and will serve life in prison, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette relates. The convictions of five Somali pirates sentenced to life in prison should be upheld because the definition of piracy under international law includes failed attempts, AP hears Justice pleading. "If lawyers fail to persuade a federal judge to release Massport from a negligence case filed by a Boston family, Logan International Airport could be exposed to its first liability claim in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks," the Globe follows up. "As federal criminal statutes have ballooned, it has become increasingly easy for Americans to end up on the wrong side of the law," even as the feds set a lower bar for conviction, The Wall Street Journal, relatedly, leads. Parsing homeland security: "When al Qaeda sent its deadly arrows into the heart of America, it was striking at a country that seemed invulnerable . . . Suddenly it felt besieged, wounded and alone, caught unawares [by] a ragtag band of cave-dwellers," The Toronto Star's Olivia Ward over-writes. "The attacks also showed people around the world what the warrior spirit was about," but over the past decade "our tolerance for the term warrior . . . and the power of the warrior spirit has faded," Brian Willis broods in PoliceOne.com. "It is a bit amazing that it is now ten years after 9/11 and it is not clear what the relationship is between emergency management and homeland security — even at the professional and practitioner level," Emergency Management's Eric Holdeman exclaims. "Most terrorists are stupid: e.g., theshoe bomber and theunderwear bomber. But surely there are better ways to catch these morons than building a vastly expensive and dehumanizing panopticon surveillance state," TechCrunch's Jon Evans inveighs. Talking terror: "Sure, bin Laden's dead. But he already prompted the United States to spend itself into the economic abyss on endless wars, a bloated surveillance and intelligence apparat, and [divisive] homeland security measures," Danger Room hears Daveed Gartenstein-Ross arguing. "The Obama administration has been roundly criticized for ignoring the ideology that animates Islamic terrorism. Now a Muslim organization is taking [it] to task," The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin scolds, in re: the American Islamic Leadership Coalition's critique of Obama's terror strategy. "In Iraq and Afghanistan, we have now reverted to the expensive counterterrorism tactics used by liberal Democrats in Vietnam... We are engaged in social work with guns," Jan C. Ting chides for NewsWorks. Immediately after the grisly Norwegian attacks, "German media analysts assumed that radical Islamists were to blame," which Deutsche Welle's Felix Steiner views as "a sign that acts of terror poison our thinking." Over there: A terror suspect and father of five has been ordered to move to a city outside London because of the risk that he might participate in fundraising for Pakistani militant s, The Guardian reports. "Tehran is increasing its diplomatic response to world terrorism with some urgency as the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan prompts Israel and Saudi Arabia to press Washington to return to an aggressive stance on Iran," Asia Times assesses. Amnesty International accuses the Saudis of stifling dissent with draft antiterror legislation it denounces as a cover to squelch further pro-democracy protests in that absolute monarchy, Reuters reports. The friendliest of fire: "U.S. Army Gen. James David Thurman admitted Thursday that he felt extremely jealous of the Syrian military's ability to relentlessly attack its own citizens," The Onion reports. "'When I saw footage of Syrian forces at a protest gunning down their fellow countrymen with total impunity, I thought, man, what I wouldn't give to roll into Dayton, Ohio with 10,000 troops and take a few hundred people out,' said Thurman, who later called Syrian Gen. Abdul Fatah Qudsiya 'the luckiest guy in the world.' 'You don't know how many times I've thought about driving a tank up to a packed movie theater and firing indiscriminately at American men, women, and children without any repercussions. But I can't do that because we have all these stupid rules.' As of press time, Thurman had formally requested permission for 'one little air strike' on Houston." 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