CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Monday, Aug. 15, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Patent on mayhem: A quarter-century before Sept. 11, cult leader Jim Jones contemplated crashing a jetliner carrying 200 passengers into San Francisco target . . . Heavy metal: DHS finds "no indication that terrorists are using copper thefts in the homeland to fund terrorist activity" . . . Government sissies: Screeners at Newport News balk when confronted with "lifelike human head" in carry-on bag. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- Twenty-five years before the Sept. 11 attacks, 1970s cult leader and Jonestown mass suicide orchestrator Jim Jones "plotted to hijack a commercial airliner — filled with 200 or so unsuspecting passengers — and deliberately crash it" into San Francisco, The Bay Citizen 's Scott James sees a pending memoir reporting. In a new radio doc, meantime, ex-White House anti-terror czar Richard Clarke suggests that the CIA tried to recruit the Sept. 11 hijackers and then covered it up, The Daily Beast 's Philip Shenon reports — an assertion then-CIA officials now term "wild speculation." Feds: Citing a DHS warning , Sen. Charles E. Schumer , D-N.Y., eyes legislation requiring major utilities to run background checks on employees to help prevent security threats against power facilities, Reuters ' Chris Michaud recounts. Since May 2010, the CIA says , its armed drones have killed more than 600 Islamist militants and not one noncombatant, an assessment not shared by others , The New York Times ' Scott Shane spotlights — as a Times editorial adjures: "The United States needs to be honest." Top officers worry they are ordering troops to hunt down terror suspects with no clear national policy about what to do with captives, The Wall Street Journal 's Julian E. Barnes and Evan Perez report — while the Times ' Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker reveal U.S. intel fretting that Yemen's al Qaeda franchise is plotting to pack ricin into grenades for attacks against the homeland. Homies: Chicago's National Immigrant Justice Center has filed a class-action suit against ICE , "charging that its practice of asking local police to detain immigrants when there's no evidence of illegal activity is unconstitutional," the Los Angeles Times ' Andrew Seidman relates. A DHS Homeland Security Note sees "no indication that terrorists are using copper thefts in the homeland as a tactic to damage or destroy [critical infrastructure] or to fund terrorist activity," Public Intelligence informs. A Washington State CBP officer has pleaded guilty to threatening to kill a British Columbia teenager during a road rage incident, CBC News notes. Summer recess or not, a House Homeland subpanel will convene Aug. 24 in Houston for a field hearing on "Securing the Port of Houston from a Terrorist Attack," The Hill 's Pete Kasperowicz reports. 9/11 Now: A new poll pegs anxiety about another terrorist assault in Gotham at its lowest ebb since Sept. 11, NBC New York notes. The Florida pastor who garnered world headlines by burning a Koran will be in the Big Apple denouncing radical Islam for this year's tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, The Washington Times tells. Ten years on, The New York Times revisits the subjects of its late 2001 " Portraits of Grief " series, profiling those who lost loved ones at Ground Zero — while The Associated Press features memories of those whose Sept. 11 experience was largely mediated via television, either as broadcasters or viewers . "9/11," the very term "is a line of demarcation. Among the things that changed after Sept. 11, 2001, was our very language: our words, acronyms and catch phrases . Combined, they help illuminate the history of a decade," Gannett News Service surveys. State and local: State legislators introduced 1,592 immigration-related bills and resolutions in the first half of 2011, the L.A. Times sees a National Conference of State Legislatures report finding. So far, only about 15 percent of the immigrant driver's license holders who were sent letters last month by the New Mexico DMV have made appointments to verify their residency , The Santa Fe New Mexican mentions. Now that the concrete bollards are gone, work resumes on the remainder of a $459,000 project to secure the West Virginia Capitol Complex 's perimeter, The Charleston Gazette relates — as The Shawano (Wis.) Leader sees "the question of funding for a new courthouse security officer rearing its head again," and The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports security upgrades at the Louisiana State Capitol being delayed by budget woes. Bugs 'n bombs: " DHS regularly visits chemical facilities to ensure they are implementing robust security programs to protect the critical infrastructure of the facility, its employees and the general public," SecurityInfoWatch spotlights. "The Ammonium Nitrate Security Program seeks to reduce the likelihood of a terrorist attack involving misused ammonium nitrate ," Fire Engineering explains — as The Watertown (N.Y.) Daily Times hears farm groups supporting the buyer-seller registration program. Although science can find no link between Ground Zero dust and cancer, " politicians want to pay for treatment anyway," Reason rebukes. A federal grand jury has indicted a man suspected of causing a bomb hoax at a downtown Miami building housing the Israeli and German consulates, the Herald relays — while The Chicago Tribune sees a bomb threat Friday forcing evacuations of a Mt. Sinai Hospital building. Police, meantime, say a "suspicious powder" that hospitalized 10 people Friday was an accidentally released battery chemical, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recounts. Close air support: "Never did I expect that one day I would be one of the many who complain of airport security passenger inspections," a Denver Post scribe confesses. As a rabies precaution, the CDC wants to contact all 50 passengers aboard last week's notorious Delta flight carrying a trapped bat that boarded without a pass, USA Today tells — as The Orlando Sentinel spots screeners at Newport News initially balking upon discovering a lifelike human head in the carry-on bag of a man who works for a firm that makes 3-D images of the deceased for grave markers. A Swiss couple has accused security staff at Zurich airport of swiping $220 from their baggage during a routine check, The Local relates — as The Royal Gazette hears Bermuda authorities swearing up and down they have "no intention" of installing full-body scanners. Troubled waters: Since Sept. 11, DHS has spent $2.5 billion on a sweeping security overhaul of seaports, funding everything from perimeter fencing to security officer training, AP surveys. Santa Rosa Beachers can learn more about port and vessel security at a DHS-certified course next week delivered by the Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium , The Walton (Fla.) Sun says. "Just because we're a smaller port, doesn't mean we're any less important when it comes to security," the Port of Oswego 's director defensively tells Syracuse's YNN . The E.U.'s naval coalition off Somali wants "to hire a ' pirate cultural adviser 'to help them get inside the heads of the Indian Ocean's most annoying seafarers," Danger Room reports — while Agence France-Presse sees a Dutch court handing two pirates six and seven years for abducting two South Africans off a yacht last year, and The Guardian describes mounting piracy off West Africa as well. Courts and rights: Federal prosecutors are opposing crime-victim status for the family of a murdered Border Patrol agent in the case of the accused gun dealer who allegedly purchased two weapons recovered at the scene, USA Today tells. An Oregon federal judge has denied an Islamic charity founder 's request for acquittal or a new trial on what the government called terror-related money-smuggling charges, The Eugene Register-Guard relates. The Friday court date for a Minnesotan charged with recruiting Somali-Americans to Al Shabaab was continued to this afternoon, The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports — while The Wall Street Journal finds it "a bit hard to understand the lack of controversy over the case." Saying the feds have "largely ignored" pleas for help, Arizona has asked the Supremes to let state and local police enforce new laws aimed at illegal immigrants, Capitol Media Services says. Over there: One of two men suing Canada for millions of dollars claiming they were falsely linked to terror schemes denies that he ever plotted to blow up a plane headed for France, AFP reports. Pakistan 's repatriation of militant Bali bombing suspect Umar Patek to Indonesia last week, nearly seven months after his capture, highlights questions "about how best to prosecute militants suspected of cross-border terrorism ," The Christian Science Monitor mentions. Recent unrest in London could alter security planning for the 2012 Olympics "much like, on a far different scale, 9/11 shifted the priorities of security officials several months before the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City," an expert tells ESPN . Qaeda Qorner: The fight against Somalia's al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabaab "has mostly been outsourced to African soldiers and private companies out of reluctance to send American troops back into a country they hastily exited nearly two decades ago," The New York Times tells. Al Qaeda's North African branch has expanded recruitment efforts , even as it faces increased military cooperation by regional governments, IPT News notes. Egyptian officials say they are preparing to launch an op against al Qaeda cells recently established in the restive Sinai peninsula, CNN notes. A German-Turkish citizen has been charged with planning bombings of U.S. installations in Germany and trolling for al Qaeda supporters on the internet, Voice of America mentions — while Trend sees three al Qaeda members, two of them Azerbaijanis , arrested in Istanbul. The road to hell: "Well camouflaged by air due to the abundant growth of highly cultivated marijuana plants , which are off limits to the DEA due to a DHS edict promulgated by Janet Napolitano , an underborder smuggling tunnel apparently built with Economic Recovery Act funding is said to be a bigger boondoggle than Massachusetts''Big Dig' which continues to leak after billions were poured down the drain, SatireWorld.com snipes. "Preliminary seismic reports indicate the tunnel runs from Nogales and under Tombstone and Tucson where it ends in the Gila River Basin . Local travelers using the high-speed tunnel for entering the United States illegally, drug cartels for hauling 18 wheelers of highly concentrated drugs, and straw buyers of automatic weapons sponsored by the ATF with the blessings of the Attorney General 's office and the White House , are constantly 'coming and going'according to reports from locals who refused to be identified." 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.