CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Monday, Sept. 19, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Global free fire zone: White House asserts right to annihilate al Qaeda operatives in "sovereign countries beyond 'hot battlefields' such as Afghanistan" . . . Oops: United Flight 175 hijackers "waltzed past security screeners who could not speak English, never heard of Osama bin Laden and didn't even know what Mace was" . . . Uncomfortable question: "Could a single attack involving [WMDs] settle al Qaeda's score with the United States?" These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- "The Obama administration's legal team is split over how much latitude the United States has to kill Islamist militants in Yemen and Somalia, a question that could define the limits of the war against al Qaeda and its allies," The New York Times' Charlie Savage leads. Washington has the right to strike terrorists in other sovereign countries beyond "hot battlefields" such as Afghanistan, Bloomberg's Margaret Talev, relatedly, hears White House counterterrorista John Brennan declaiming Friday at Harvard Law School. Last week's drone killing of a jihadist big in Pakistan is viewed in "defense and intelligence communities as a sign of growing progress in beating back their No. 1 terrorist target — al Qaeda," CBS News' Farhan Bokhari reports. Feds: Suggestions to the contrary, a top FBI agent says no evidence was found linking members of a Saudi family then living near Sarasota to the Sept. 11 attacks, The Miami Herald's Dan Christensen recounts. DHS last week briefed members of a panel established to oversee U.S. implementation of a Security Council resolution aimed at curbing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Global Security Newswire notes. A draft report by a DHS task force finds serious concerns with ICE's Secure Communities deportation effort that are caused by confusion about the program and the tensions it has created for state and local police, ABC News' Jason Ryan reports. "America's post-9/11 increase in homeland security efforts made many revolving-door lobbyists feel much richer," The Washington Examiner's Timothy P. Carney surveys. Debating DHS: "While DHS may not be the perfect agency (though I would challenge anyone to find the perfect agency or company), it has grown significantly from its early days," Homeland Security Watch's Jessica Herrera-Flanigan surveys. "It's time to rethink the very existence of [DHS] because the additional layers of government and wasteful spending do not provide enough security to justify its existence," David Rittgers recommends in The Washington Times. DHS's Janet Napolitano says "it's time to keep eyes and ears open. The foreign student that shares space with you is not above suspicion... Do any of your professors question the authority of the state? Janet wants to know," Robert Patton protests in The Lyndon State College Critic. "Chew on these homeland security boondoggles: thousands of dollars to rescue yachters; firefighting training courses — that no one attended," Jim Waters jabs in iSurfNews — as a Yuma (Ariz.) Sun reader rues: "Since 9/11 the U.S. government has grown very large." State and local: A disconnect between U.S. border communities and CBP, and the perceived ineffectiveness of the border fence, emerged as the major themes at a Brownsville public meeting on Saturday, The McAllen (Texas) Monitor reports. The state of Colorado has produced a complete account of its homeland security equipment purchases since 9/11, a purchase list adding up to more than $160 million, The Denver Post reports. Forty government, tribal and volunteer agencies last week engaged in Arizona's largest-ever communications testing exercise to ensure that they can all remain in contact during a disaster, Cronkite News Service notes. The new security chief at West Virginia's Capitol building "brings a wealth of experience from the coalfields of McDowell County," The Charleston Daily Mail mentions. The flow of driver's licenses to immigrants has slowed in New Mexico since the state tightened its application system last year, The Santa Fe New Mexican mentions. Bugs 'n bombs: According to a new warfighting manual, the U.S. military is taking a more assertive stance against the proliferation or use of weapons of mass destruction, Secrecy News notes. "Could a single attack involving [WMDs] settle al Qaeda's score with the United States and return it once more to international prominence?" Digital Journal wonders. "Isolated and underestimated, lone wolves might go unnoticed even as they try to get chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear that can spread terror and spark psychological chaos," a Huffington Post poster propounds. The Detroit Police bomb squad detonated an explosive device found in the bathroom of a southwest Detroit restaurant on Saturday, the Free Press reports — as Reuters sees Border Patrol agents last week coming across a rocket launcher, assault rifles and explosives in a bag along the Rio Grande river in Texas. Back on track: Australian authorities plan later this week to release a harmless gas at three Melbourne subway stops to help determine how a biochemical agent might disperse during a terrorism incident, The Age reports. NJ Transit officials have unveiled a memorial in honor of the commuters who took their trains and buses to work as usual on Sept. 11, 2001, and never came home, The Asbury Park Press reports. A Transportation Workers Union safety rep warns about the security risks posed by a Brooklyn rail yard and bus depot gate that was left "open and unsupervised for nine weeks," NY1 notes. The trial of two suspects in a deadly bomb attack on the Minsk metro opened last week, with the men facing the death penalty if convicted on terror charges, Agence France-Presse reports. Close air support: "The 9/11 terrorists who hijacked United Flight 175 after it left Boston had waltzed past security screeners who could not speak English, never heard of Osama bin Laden and didn't even know what Mace was," The New York Post has court docs showing. "There was no profiling of any kind by any crew member," a Frontier Airlines spokesman assures Bloomberg, in re: a woman of Middle Eastern descent removed from a flight in Detroit on Sept. 11. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., "wants stronger penalties against airports such as the one in Charlotte, which he said had ignored suggestions for improving security," The Boston Herald relates. New "chat-down" procedures on trial at Logan International caused significant checkpoint backups late last week, WCVB 5 News notes. TSA has fired 28 Honolulu screeners and suspended 15 more after a probe of checked baggage screening lapses, the Star-Advertiser advises. An investigator into the 1998 crash of Swissair Flight 111 in Nova Scotia tells CBC News officials barred pursuit of his theory that an incendiary device might have been the cause. Courts and rights: A former Minneapolis man accused of moving men and guns to support Somalia's Al Shabaab asked a federal judge Friday for a new translator, the Star Tribune tells. A judge's decision to let prosecutors use the Underwear Bomber's incriminating statements — even though he wasn't read his rights — has triggered a legal debate, The Detroit News updates. DNI James Clapper testified last week that the recidivism rate for former Guantanamo detainees has risen to an estimated 27 percent, with the total number of "confirmed" and "suspected" recidivists now totaling 161, The Weekly Standard relates. The Guantanamo terror prison's 11th commandant must "not only incarcerate [detainees] after years of secret interrogation by the CIA but prepare Camp Justice for trials," The Miami Herald profiles. Over there: The United States and Canada are preparing to launch a pilot project authorizing law enforcers to cross their mutual international land border in pursuit of suspected criminals or terrorists, Postmedia News notes. A Spanish court found a prominent Basque separatist guilty of terrorism Friday, sentencing him to 10 years in prison, BBC News relates. Two suspects arrested for terror financing and recruiting "have foreign backgrounds and their alleged actions were not aimed at Finland," The Associated Press quotes Helsinki officials. "Pakistan seems to have been turned into the suicide bombing capital of the world, with the country's security forces, especially the army and the police, often being targeted by lethal human bombs," Asia Times spotlights — while Foreign Policy finds new data suggesting that the supposedly increasingly Islamist Pakistani military "may be even more liberal than Pakistani society as a whole," and The Wall Street Journal sees Washington looking to link Pakistani intel to last week's Taliban assault on the U.S. embassy in Kabul. Qaeda Qorner: The prosecutor general in Riyadh demanded the death penalty Saturday for two al Qaeda leaders for planning attacks against two U.S. military bases in Qatar and Kuwait, The Saudi Gazette relates. Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq finds itself in a very difficult position, with U.S. and Iraqi government forces having killed many of the group's top leaders, IPT News notes. The U.S. embassy in Algiers alerted potential targets to an al Qaeda threat to attack planes chartered by oil companies, AFP reports — as The Philippine Star hears police warning "that at least 20 militants were dispatched by al Qaeda to stage a series of bomb attacks in the restive south." A Nigerien soldier and three suspected al Qaeda members, finally, died in a clash in the northern mountain region of Niger, Reuters reports. The fire next time: "Emergency management professionals questioned the readiness of Washington, New York, and other cities after a 5.8-magnitude earthquake hit Virginia," an Onion Infographic informs. "Here are some things you can do to keep safe during a quake: At the first sign of a tremor, shoot the ground to scare the earthquake away; In the event of an earthquake, never use an elevator, only use stairs, or a fire pole; In case you get trapped under a building and need to be carried out by emergency crews, make sure you're wearing the clothes you'd like to be seen in on CNN; When the ground begins shaking, it is absolutely vital that you update your Facebook status or tweet something snarky, as this is now the common way seismologists map earthquake's range and impact; If you're trapped under rubble, just remain calm, a cadaver-sniffing dog should find you eventually; And, as soon as the shaking subsides, immediately power down your nuclear fission reactor. Not that you needed to be reminded, of course." 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