CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Suffer the children: DHS's Napolitano promises new guidelines for screening and patting down children under 12 . . . Self-cleaning oven: "If the last 10 years has taught us anything, it's that DHS needs to be abolished," libertarian Cato Institute lashes . . . Traveler beware: Uzbeki rail security measure has platform police extracting bribes from riders, while Canadian screeners rifle flyers' goods. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- DHS's Janet Napolitano told senators yesterday that new screening practices will be unveiled in the next several months for children under 12 years old traveling on airlines, The Hill's Jordy Yager reports. The Obama administration, meantime, is cracking down on immigrants who overstay their visas with a system that automatically and simultaneously checks multiple national security, immigration and law enforcement databases, The Associated Press' Eileen Sullivan relates. Homies: Top U.S. officials, including Napolitano, say they're not ready to put aside last week's "credible threat" of Sept. 11-related al Qaeda strikes against New York and/or D.C., CNN's Carol Cratty recounts. "Janet Napolitano can give the impression she's doing her job and keeping Americans safe when Americans are unaware of the dangers lurking next door," Katie Kieffer condemns in Townhall. "Homeland security begins with hometown security," the DHS chief concludes in an Albany Tribune Sept. 11-pitched op-ed — while The Cato Institute's David Rittgers "argues that if the last 10 years has taught us anything, it's that DHS needs to be abolished," The Washington Post's Allen McDuffee relays. Feds: Alexandria's mayor has written President Obama to vent concern over news reports of a new Northern Virginia Pentagon complex's terror vulnerabilities, The Washington Times' David Sherfinski relates. In a rare public speech, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald praised a "fundamental shift . . . over the last decade in intelligence sharing among U.S. law enforcement," The Chicago Tribune's Annie Sweeney records. "U.S counterterrorism officials already see [al-Qaeda-in-the-Arabian-Peninsula] as the most immediate threat to the United States," CNN's Paul Cruickshank and Tom Lister threat assess. Chasing down last weekend's "credible threat," the FBI questioned and cleared some 300 people, ABC News' Brian Ross reports. State and local: The D.C. police union questions that threat alarm, foreseeing huge, needless overtime bills for local taxpayers, WJLA 7 News notes — while The Grand Island Independent sees the Nebraska State Patrol inaugurating a Suspicious Activity Reporting site, and a Houston Chronicle analysis finds nearly $962 million in homeland security spending to have flooded the metro area since the Sept. 11 attacks. Thanks to a "fusion center" in Little Rock, local law enforcers tell The Arkansas News Bureau, their ability to tackle terrorist conspiracies "has greatly improved" — as The Oshkosh Northwestern finds Wisconsin's emergency response too often "uncoordinated." Police officers from across Philadelphia converged on Center City on Monday in a rapid response homeland security drill, WPVI 6 News relates. Weekend Warriors: Sixteen Massachusetts National Guards have died on active duty since Sept. 11, The Boston Globe notes, detailing the "brave new world" opened up for America's state-based no-longer-just "weekend warriors" — as DVIDS News sees Texas Guard soldiers and airmen marking 10 years of post-9/11 service. The attacks "changed virtually everything about the Oregon National Guard," The Salem Statesman-Journal surveys. "Now a decade old, the GWOT continues to dominate Nevada Guard activities and operations," The Lahontan Valley News adds — and check a Stateline infographic on the same. Bugs 'n bombs: South Carolina's Highway Patrol stopped a box truck on I-85 after getting a hazmat tip from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Florence's WPDE 15 News notes. Fourteen hours after the Twin Towers collapsed, Gotham health officials "met to figure out how to detect a bioterror attack before it spawned an epidemic," a Wired account recalls. The head of the U.N. nuclear agency plans to publish new info undergirding his belief that Iran is working on a nuclear warhead, The Washington Times tells — as ABC News sees Iran celebrating the official opening of its first nuclear power plant on Monday, and Haaretz hears ex-Veep Dick Cheney flatly predicting that Israel would attack Iran to prevent it from acquiring atom arms. Follow the money: Al Qaeda's ability to finance a Sept. 11-type attack "has been significantly diminished, but new challenges to choke off funds for further attacks continue," CNN notes. "Struggling to secure steady financing," al Qaeda "can no longer rely on a thick Rolodex and a simple bank transfer," Agence France-Presse hears Timothy Geithner saying. "The bean counters and financial wizards at the Treasury Department [boast] the only finance intelligence unit of its kind to track terrorist financing around the globe and starve terrorists of their funding," FOX Business profiles. (Treasury last week designated three senior al Qaeda leaders based in Pakistan as global terrorists, The Long War Journal relates.) "Terrorists are increasingly turning to robberies and kidnappings to raise money,' Reuters adds. Off track: "NJ Transit has attempted to 'recruit' people who know the buses, trains, light rail vehicles and their routes the best — the riders," hoping to give them the awareness and resources needed to report security issues, The Cinnaminson Patch updates. The United Transportation Union and St. Louis's Terminal Railroad Association share a $176,000 Freight Rail Security Grant to help "sharpen workers' security awareness skills," Progressive Railroading reports — while Brookfield (Ill.) Suburban Life describes the Riverside P.D.'s participation in a rail security symposium sponsored by Amtrak, Metra, BNSF and Union Pacific Railroad. Controversial new rail security measures in Uzbekistan have inadvertently empowered police to extract bribes from riders heading to the platforms, UzNews.net notes. Close air support: Out of an abundance of caution, a New York-Phoenix US Airways flight was diverted to St. Louis yesterday, but was inspected and cleared, CNN notes. If TSA's "chat-down" pilot project succeeds, "screeners someday will be able to quickly assess travelers and allow those deemed harmless to keep their shoes on and their laptops packed and breeze past the scanners," Bloomberg spotlights — and read "Inside TSA's 'No-Lie Zone'" in The Boston Globe. "Long before the 2001 attacks, some of my homemade instruments attracted special attention at airport securitycheckpoints," a San Antonio Express-News contributor opens. Thanks to lax oversight, passengers transiting airports across Canada have reported thefts of money, jewelry and such at screening checkpoints, The Toronto Sun discovers. Terror tech: Each failed terror attempt to down airliners has spurred the adoption of new passenger screening techniques and technologies, The Scientific American surveys. U.S. defense industries face relentless, sophisticated foreign attacks on their computer networks, a threat company leaders say may require a protective federal reaction, Reuters reports — while the Los Angeles Times describes the boom that post-9/11 wars have generated for smaller aerospace firms pioneering unique high-tech battlefield adjuncts. Forensic scientists have developed new DNA techniques to meet the unprecedented challenge of putting names to Ground Zero's 1,121 unidentified dead , New Scientist notes — as The Christian Science Monitor profiles a San Francisco doctor whose "Rescue Reel" personal escape device might have saved lives that day. Robots, drones and IEDs, oh my: "Since Sept. 11 . . . robots are everywhere, and the demand for more is tremendous," Discovery News notes — as IEEE Spectrum cautions: "Networks of autonomous robots will someday transform warfare, but significant hurdles remain." The 2001 attacks "triggered a revolution in U.S. spycraft as the intelligence services shattered a longstanding taboo by launching an expansive program of targeted killings by remote control," The Wall Street Journal spotlights. As a default tactic for dealing with terrorist threats, drone strikes could prompt retaliation and pushback, a CFR First Take warns. "The signature weapon of the Sept. 11 era is lethal, easily concealable and maddeningly easy to construct," but the IED's greatest danger is posed by how cheap it is, Danger Room profiles — while The Marine Corps Times touts a Corps-developed airborne jammer pod that could disrupt roadside bomb detonators. Courts and rights: The Nigerian underwear bomber is switching into lawyer mode as his highly anticipated case goes to trial this week, The Detroit Free Press profiles. Two years after being acquitted in an alleged terror plot, Youssef Megahed is still awaiting a government ruling on his citizenship application, The Tampa Tribune tells. "Terrorists may not be prosecuted at the Bucks County (Pa.) Courthouse, but [Sept. 11] forever changed its courtrooms," The Times Courier recounts. "Although tens of thousands of people have been imprisoned by the United States over the last decade, no one directly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks has faced justice in a court of law," Al Jazeera jeers. Over there: A new video distributed by al Qaeda's media arm to mark the Sept. 11 tenth anniversary includes previously unreleased warnings from Osama bin Laden, the Post reports. An Oregon man who traveled by train and boat from the West Coast to England because of his placement on the no-fly list has been detained in Great Britain, AP recounts. The United States has extended its Terrorist Finance Tracking Program to Nigeria to help it deal with increasing terrorist attacks, The African Report updates. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade figures reveal that 1,069 Australians were detained last year for charges including terrorism, sexual assault and kidnapping, The Melbourne Herald Sun relates. Sieg, Hell No: "Despite the surprising coincidence of finding a perfectly formed swastika amidst the broken girders of the Twin Towers, Sept. 11 memorial curators have opted not to display the symbol, choosing instead to leave it in the storage facility where it has been located for the past 10 years," The Onion reports. "'On the one hand, it's pretty miraculous that there was a precisely shaped 80-by-80-foot swastika found in the rubble of the fallen World Trade Center, but in the end, we decided not to include it in our plans for the museum,' said memorial spokesman Stanley Morgenstern, adding that it would probably be seen as inappropriate. Upon hearing the news, neo-Nazi groups have complained about the exclusion, arguing that the giant swastika is 'a sign from heaven' and that 'Sept. 11 affected all Americans, including those who believe in the inherent genetic superiority of the Aryan race.'" Check also, on the cover of The Onion Weekender: "I Was Supposed To Fly From Tampa To Atlanta On 9/11: One Printing Consultant Shares His Story." 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