Omss Politics: CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Friday, Aug. 19, 2011 — 3 P.M.

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Editor's Note: Due to the congressional recess, the next issue of Behind the Lines will be published Tuesday, Sept. 6.

Don't ask, don't tell: FBI asking surplus stores to watch whether customers pay in cash, make "extreme" statements or purchase waterproof matches . . . Look sharp: Under airport security rules, knives in post-checkpoint restaurant kitchens "must be tethered down and inventoried daily" . . . The day's least comforting thought: "Aircraft are not made to be secure; they are meant to fly in the air." These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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" Armchair jihadists have brainstormed another sick way to strike America: bomb the funerals of U.S. servicemembers killed in action," The New York Daily News ' Joseph Straw leads. The FBI, meantime, is asking surplus stores to watch whether customers pay in cash, make "extreme" religious statements or purchase waterproof matches , WorldNetDaily 's Bob Unruh relates. "And of course it's all being done in the name of preventing terrorism — isn't that always the pretense now? Need to pass a new law or somehow limit personal freedom , just attach the word 'terrorism' and you're good to go," M.D. Creekmore cranks on the Survivalist Blog .

Homies: Another joint FBI-DHS intelligence bulletin warns law enforcers of the threat posed by a lone gunman or a group with small arms, CNN 's Carol Cratty recounts — while Public Intelligence belatedly posts a DHS intel alert on terrorist " body packing ." Civil rightsers are challenging ICE's routine shackling of all detainees for immigration court appearances, The San Francisco Chronicle 's Bob Egelko relates — as The Associated Press ' Alicia A. Caldwell learns that DHS's Janet Napolitano is directing a case-by-case review of 300,000 illegals facing deportation , many of them via Secure Communities , weeding out those who pose no crime or security risk.

Feds: Reprising sessions staged after the 9/11 attacks, the House and Senate Intelligence panels plan joint hearings, kicking off Sept. 13, "focusing on how the terror threat has changed and whether the United States' defenses have kept pace," The Washington Post 's Greg Miller mentions. "The FBI and the Columbus [Ohio] Bomb Squad say the threat of terrorism could be lurking on store shelves," WBNS 10 News ' Maureen Kocot leads, in re: homemade bombs . An organizer for Michele Bachmann's GOP prez bid was charged with terrorism in Uganda in 2006 after being arrested for possession of assault rifles and ammo, The Atlantic 's Garance Franke-Ruta reports.

State and local: Shanksville, Pa. officials worry there will be insufficient bizzes nearby to serve the 230,000 visitors expected at the Flight 93 memorial each year, The Wall Street Journal relates — while another Journal story sees New York's governor "quietly pushing" Gotham's mayor for more control over his role in the 9/11 tenth anniversary ceremony . Florida's Blue Ribbon Disaster Preparedness Committee is researching, inter alia, nuclear disaster, terrorism, biological and chemical threats and mass casualty situations, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel spotlights. "In a new program reminiscent of Cold War fears," Dallas police are launching a regional radiological detection program ," NBC Dallas-Fort Worth leads — and see Knoxville's KCHD News on an East Tennessee bioterror drill.

Bugs 'n bombs: The CDC's (assuredly tongue-in-cheek) " Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse " webpage "is targeting a younger audience to accomplish a number of important objectives [among them] planting the seeds of 'zombie horror' consciousness ," NewsWithViews.com warns darkly — as The Canadian claims with equal authority that "the terrorists responsible for Fukushima's nuclear accident, along with 9/11 and the Gulf of Mexico [oil spill] are an 'End of the World' cult." The earliest recorded biological warfare was the Romans putting dead animals into an enemy's water supply, a Truthout take opens. Houston's Methodist Hospital Research Institute is partnering with Philips Healthcare on "a multi-modality suite capable of imaging highly infectious patients in a contained, quarantine-like environment," HealthImaging.com recounts.

Chasing the dime: The abundance of small, medium and large firms vying for DHS contracts generates healthy competition and "that means that the market is vibrant," an industry watcher tells National Defense Magazine . CBP has installed a Northrop Grumman radar system on a General Atomics drone to scan for smugglers and border crossers along the Southwestern frontier, Flightglobal relates. The Security Industry Association strongly opposes proposed fiscal 2012 cuts that would severely diminish DHS grant programs, SecurityInfoWatch relays. A private security company made a pitch recently to the Hawthorne City (Fla.) Commission to provide uniformed patrols within the town, The Gainesville Sun says.

Close air support: Due to post-checkpoint airport security rules , knives in restaurant kitchens "must be tethered down and inventoried daily," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recounts. Back on the animal stowaway tip, SAS canceled a Stockholm-Chicago flight also carrying an unticketed, unscreened mouse. The fake bomb intercepted at a Phoenix checkpoint "might be one of the most important homeland security events since 2001. But then again, it could be just someone carrying something that authorities thought was bomb," Modern Times Magazine helpfully updates. "Aircraft are not made to be secure; they are meant to fly in the air," an aviation expert tells Raleigh's WRAL News after the crash of a private aircraft stolen in Chapel Hill, N.C. The FAA ordered all flights grounded as "wartime security measures" were implemented on Sept. 11, 2001, The Tulsa World reminisces — as a GateHouse News Service timeline details "how airport security measures came into effect" over the years since.

Commuter concerns: "Riders of San Francisco's Muni buses better start doublechecking how they look before getting on board," Government Technology leads, in re: an impending influx of CCTV cameras — as the Los Angeles Times profiles the $1 million high-security Secret Service bus that enabled President Obama's Midwestern barnstorming this week. Security on Hampton Roads' spanking new light rail system will be handled by uniformed off-duty police, at least for the first six months, and then possibly by private contract guards, the Virginian-Pilot reports — while The Journal sees Irish Rail halting all trains on a Dublin commuter line Wednesday "due to a security alert," and Times Wire Service reports China "slowing down its new railway projects with an aim to ensure more security for passengers in future."

Courts and rights: A federal judge says a Texas grandmother can proceed with an emotional-distress complaint alleging that a Navy recruiter added her onto the terrorist watch list , Courthouse News Service says. Lawyers for a New Yorker accused of pledging allegiance to al Qaeda in Yemen last week sought to suppress allegedly coerced statements he made to get off of the "no-fly list," Reuters rather relatedly reports. An unconvincing CBP impersonator, who threatened to deport a man and his family if not given cash, is under arrest in Georgia, Atlanta's WSBV 2 News notes. A terror suspect alleges he was physically abused both by British and U.S. interrogators after being kidnapped in Kenya and driven across the border to Uganda, The Guardian relates.

Over there: "The military's new transport and supply contract in Afghanistan is meant to stop U.S. funds from being diverted to warlords and the Taliban," The Christian Science Monitor spotlights. A radical Muslim sect responsible for mayhem across northern Nigeria may be seeking links with two al Qaeda-linked groups elsewhere in Africa to mount joint attacks, the U.S. Africa Command chief tells AP . "Who provided The New Yorker with its exclusive [on the Osama bin Laden take-down], and what was their agenda in doing so?" a lengthy WhoWhatWhy essay explores.

Kultur Kanyon: Addressing House homelander Pete King's accusations of White House hugger-mugger, the makers of a film based on the bin Laden raid pledge the depiction will be "both heroic and nonpartisan," Hollywood Reporter relates. "From the first shattering moment, movies were wrapped up in Sept. 11 . . . In the 10 years since, 9/11 is nowhere and everywhere, rarely depicted straightforwardly and yet a constant thought," AP surveys — while another AP retrospective leads: "There was bold talk right after 9/11 that TV would emerge from this trauma sadder but wiser . . . Baloney." The networks, meantime, "are betting that the nation is finally capable of digesting the enormity of that event. A number of programs premiering over the coming weeks will test that readiness," the L.A. Times relates. "In 1979, with Washington worried about 52 hostages in Tehran and terrorist threats at home," the National Gallery began storing its most valued art works in containers that "could be spirited away to an undisclosed location" in event of catastrophe , the Post spotlights.

Between the Covers: In her much praised novel, " The Submission " (Farrar, Straus), Amy Waldman "suggests, rather harrowingly, that the party most responsible for our post-9/11 reality is not al Qaeda or George W. Bush, but the very thing you are reading right now: the press," The Cleveland Plain Dealer appraises. Michael Harvey 's third procedural, " We All Fall Down " (Knopf), "opens with a Homeland Security officer blackmailing P.I. Michael Kelly into taking a contract security job [and] in this economy, who needs to be blackmailed into taking a job?," The Philadelphia Inquirer inquires. The premise of " Spycatcher " [William Morrow], Matthew Dunn 's debut espionage thriller, is that it takes a master spy to catch a terrorist mastermind," a Fort Worth Star-Telegraph evaluation leads. The protagonist of Robert Venditti and Mike Huddleston 's graphic novel, " The Homeland Directive " (Top Shelf), "is a CDC researcher, who has been targeted along with her colleague by the Secretary of Homeland Security," Blogcritics reviews.

An Englishman's home is his castle's dungeon: "U.K. Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has said that knifing a robber in the vitals will no longer be a criminal offense under the law of self-defense in England," News Biscuit notes. "Clarke also suggested that using 'a really sturdy piece of wood with a big nail in it' should help householders repel burglars and anyone else trespassing on their property. Prime Minister David Cameron instructed Clarke to put the matter 'beyond doubt' and the Justice Secretary has confirmed that homeowners will also be legally entitled to murder Jehovah's Witnesses , energy company sales people or people who've befriended you on holiday and then show up on your doorstep unexpectedly, years later . . . Under the terms of the new Criminal Justice and Immigration Act , homeowners who use a nine iron to rearrange the cranium of a spotty young offender will have no fear of prosecution when they putt his eyes into the back of his skull ."