CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Leave the driving to us: "Federal agents appear to have stepped up checks for undocumented immigrants on public transportation, including Greyhound buses and Amtrak" . . . Antebellum: "For flyers, the real legacy of 9/11 might just be losing our ability to relax in the skies" . . . Scout's honor: British al Qaeda suspect "freed on bail after penning a handwritten statement to show he has had a 'change of heart' on terrorism." These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- Saying they have the authority to check any public area, "Federal agents appear to have stepped up checks for undocumented immigrants on public transportation, including Greyhound buses and Amtrak ," The Miami Herald 's Sarah Gonzalez relates. An FBI memo that appears to profile potential terrorists as people purchasing survivalist-type products surfaced Saturday at the Washington Arms Collectors ' monthly gun show, Dave Workman relates for The Examiner . Feds: A GOP House member's bill would ban the White House from sharing info about the Osama bin Laden raid with filmmakers whose movie would be released weeks before the 2012 election , CBS News ' Patrick Tricker reports. The FBI plans on testing agents about their understanding of surveillance guidelines , more than a year after Justice discovered widespread cheating on a related exam, Threat Level 's David Kravets recounts. "What is an organization deemed by State to be dedicated to terrorism supposed to do when it believes the charge is spurious?" Allan Gerson asks in The Huffington Post . Homies: DHS yesterday launched three days of training for Charlotte-Mecklenburg police in preparation for the Democratic National Convention , The Charlotte Observer 's Franco Ordonez reports. Canada's Public Safety Minister and DHS chief Janet Napolitano met in Winnipeg yesterday, along with the ambassadors of both nations , "to discuss co-operation between the countries on security and cross-border trade," The Winnipeg Sun 's says. Detained by ICE in June 2010 after being picked up for an expired green card, Adel Shahin, more than a year later, is desperate to be returned to his native Egypt, The Imperial Valley (Calif.) Press ' Chelcey Adami profiles. State and local: Escondido, Calif., might soften its policy ordering all city contractors to use DHS's E-Verify to determine worker eligibility so as not to deter small bizzes from bidding for city work, The North County Times tells — while a Washington Post Latina columnist proclaims that " Secure Communities appears here to stay. People who care about keeping crime down would be smart to pay attention to its progress in their own communities." Thanks to DHS dollars, Hall County (Ga.) Sheriff 's deputies will soon be driving "a new armored vehicle featuring an exterior designed stop a .50 caliber machine gun," The Gainesville Times tells.Oregon Air National Guard fighters, whose 180 monthly flights drown out conversation on the ground, "have a distinct purpose: homeland security," The Columbian spotlights. 9/11 Now: A tax lawyer at Cantor Fitzgerald who suffered burns over most of his body on Sept. 11 counts himself "one of the very luckiest of Cantor employees that day," The New York Daily News profiles. "On the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, America continues to fight a war on terror that has claimed the lives of more than 100 Oklahomans," The Tulsa World leads — while The Tallmadge (Ohio) Express sees the VA reaching out to inform veterans of recent congressional changes to the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill taking effect in 2011. A New York Times Magazine slideshow, meantime, honors now-retired dogs mobilized to search for victims at Ground Zero — while Salon quizzes author Eric Darnton about "the Trade Center's historical role , the design for the new tower — and what it says about the decline of the American empire." Bid-ness: The executive protection industry has been expanding "at a rapid clip," Mother Jones updates in a take on World Protection Group Inc. — as Austin's KEYE News spots the International Security Agency winning Texas licensing "to operate locally . . . to stop cartel-style violence in the United States before it starts." TSA is buying tech from Aware Inc. to supply employee prints to the FBI for background checks, United Press International informs —as another UPI item sees DHS's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office approving Smith Detection 's handheld rad-reader.The 12th monograph in the Homeland Security and Defense Business Council's " 9/10/11 Project " focuses on WMD threats, CisionWire relays. Check, also, in Forbes : "How To Use DNA To Figure Out If A Security Guard Is Sending Your Company Bomb Threats" — and a Forbes India podcast: "Terror has a business plan." Bugs 'n bombs: Cutting-edge technology is matched by high-tech security at a newly renovated Army biodefense lab , officials tell The Associated Press during a tour at Maryland's Fort Detrick — while the Globe sees a controversial Boston University lab opening this fall for biomedical research involving pathogens less hazardous than those that had sparked heated opposition . Targeting key nuke infrastructure sites "would certainly be a major setback to Iran's nuclear ambitions, but the regime has devoted considerable effort to hide, diversify and protect its nuclear assets ," an Air Force officer assesses in Policy Review . A mass-casualty drill "involving two downed aircraft, a live fire and 25 patients who need to be treated" is playing out this morning at the Prescott, Ariz. air hub , The Daily Courier curtain-raises. Close air support: For flyers, the real legacy of 9/11 "might not just be more invasive security checks, new fees or other things we never had to worry about before . . . It might just be losing our ability to relax in the skies," a 10-years-later AP feature frowns. "You cannot bring meat cleavers, ice picks, swords, baseball bats, hockey sticks — and this is disappointing — spear guns, cattle prods , billy clubs and stun guns on board with you," a similar Mt. Pleasant (Mich.) Morning Sun exercise reminds. "Deliberately circumventing airport security can be a crime. Getting off easy isn't," the Times Magazine 's "Ethicist" coaches an advice-seeker convinced he's on a TSA watch list and disturbed when screeners fail to give him a once-over. Border wars: "A decade after 9/11, tightened security measures have divided communities on the northern border, where for centuries, people crossed back and forth to shop, work or visit relatives," AP surveys. With CBP "embarked on a long spending spree , staffing up and building bigger border patrol stations along the northern boundary . . . these are boom times for American border stations ," The National Post adds.The Mexican army has discovered in Tijuana a 328-foot-long unfinished under-border tunnel, complete with an altar to the Santa Muerte , the Los Angeles Times tells. An ICE raid at a Mississippi trailer park that swept up six accused citizenship document counterfeiters was in the works for at least a year, The Laurel Leader-Call relates. Talking Terror: A University of North Carolina sociologist "thinks the wave of 20th century anarchist violence bears a resemblance to the Islamic terrorism of the 21st century in one sense: Neither resulted in a spiraling escalation of violence," The Religious News Service 's Yonat Shimron leads. "If the Crusades find their ideological origins in jihad, arguably, so too does much of modern day terrorism," Raymond Ibrahim essays in FrontPage Magazine . "By the end of the 19th Century, torture was 'as extinct as cannibalism.' Then it came back. What happened? Guerrilla warfare ," a HistoryNet.com essay asks and answers. "One of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's goals was to destroy America economically by waging a ' war of a thousand cuts ,'" Brian Beyer opens for Antiwar.com . "With bin Laden vanquished . . . the challenge today is a set of issues still capable of achieving his principal aim : knocking the United States from its lofty world perch," The Boston Globe 's Glen Johnson appraises. Politically speaking: If the Obama strategy for heading off domestic extremists "had to be summed up in one word, it would be, 'Collaborate!'" Daniel Greenfield growls in Human Events . "Liberal critics howled when George Bush made any reference to the September 11 attacks [but his] actions pale compared to Obama 's systematic milking of war-related events for political gain," The Washington Times ' James S. Robbins rebukes. Even before last May's Abbottabad raid , "Republicans publicly and privately marveled/tutted at the Obama administration's terrorist-killing mojo ," Mediaite 's Tommy Christopher contends. "A DHS video that appears to characterize white middle-class Americans as the most likely threat to the country may help explain why many prominent liberals have taken to calling tea party members terrorists," The Greeley (Colo.) Gazette 's Jack Minor maintains. Over there: "A suspected al Qaeda chief detained in Britain has been freed on bail after penning a handwritten statement to show he has had a 'change of heart' on terrorism," The Sun tabloid seethes. "Security experts believe the Taliban is facing internal strife, and the use of female suicide bombers could be a signal that its efforts inside Pakistan are weakening," The Christian Science Monitor mentions. China has dispatched its elite Snow Leopard anti-terrorism unit to a Muslim western province before the area stages an international trade convention, AP reports. Courts and rights: An appeals court ruling allows a case to proceed against the Palestinian Authority by the family of a State Department contractor killed by an IED while securing a 2003 trip to the Gaza Strip, FOX News notes. A former Minneapolis man accused of recruiting fighters for al Shabaab in Somalia will stay in custody for at least another two weeks, The St. Paul Pioneer Press hears a judge ruling yesterday. Federal prosecutors are questioning whether the Nigerian " underwear bomber " is in control of his legal defense, The Detroit News reports. Devilish Island: "The national debt is rising because Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to create an artificial island with $600 billion borrowed from China , after which $7 billion will be used to construct a prison for incarcerating persons serving sentences of 20 years or more," The Spoof spoofs. "Holder also plans to have the island surrounded with sharks , jellyfish , electric eels , electric catfish , piranhas , alligators , crocodiles , lions , tigers , pit bulls , German shepherds and rhinos , as well as installing Israeli commandos armed with Romanian AK-47s , a fence that can electrocute one to death and no chance of ever escaping alive. Human blood will also be sprinkled into the water and near potential paths of escape, and electric fences will consist of barbed wire and chain saws ." 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