CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Multi-tasking: Port of Houston CBP inspectors find rare, one-of-a-kind tree frog hiding in cargo container, donate it to Houston Zoo amphibian house . . . This week's cause for unease: "The day when U.S. forces are attacked by a drone -- perhaps even one operated by a terrorist -- is not far away" . . . And reason for reassurance: No major national outbreak of food poisoning or terror has occurred in the last decade, with no threats being made either." These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- A hotly contested GOP-sponsored House bill "moving this week would compel employers to verify worker eligibility via the Internet while it ratchets up the nation's perennial immigration debate," McClatchy Newspapers' Michael Doyle mentions — as The Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune's John S. Adams sees also wending its way through Congress "a controversial bill that would grant DHS unprecedented authority over federal lands within 100 miles of the United States' border." Feds: U.S. spy agencies are still "struggling with post-9/11 language" skills needed to talk to locals, translate intercepted intelligence and analyze data, Reuters' Tabassum Zakaria reports. At a U.N. counterterror symposium on Monday, A.G. Eric Holder pledged the administration's continued support for using civilian courts for trials of alleged terrorists, Bloomberg's Bill Varner relates. "Since this White House has its heart set on being all things to all constituents," Secure Communities "appears to be at risk of devolving into, well, mush," The Boston Herald editorializes. A man with a backpack who climbed the White House fence last night was arrested on the grounds, The Washington Post's Clarence Williams and Martin Weil inform. Borderline personalities: CBP is under fire from ranchers and environmentalists in New Mexico's boot-heel over placement of a new Border Patrol "forward operating base," The Las Cruces Sun News' Diana M. Alba records. Considering the scope of the coverage area and the fact much of it is water, the Border Patrol's Buffalo Sector admits that New York's Finger Lakes region "is a challenge to keep up," The Finger Lakes Times' Heather Swanson spotlights. When CBP agents routinely checking cargo at the Port of Houston came across a rare Savigny's tree frog, they donated it to the Houston Zoo, where it is the only one of its species on display in the United States, KHOU News notes. State and local: More than 400 federal, state and local law enforcers and emergency managers will gather today for an annual homeland security conference, New Jersey Newsroom briefs. Phoenix will lose $3 million in grant money designed to help urban areas respond to terrorist attacks as lawmakers look to cut federal spending, The Arizona Republic reports. The Fort Wayne (Ind.) Department of Homeland Security had its new preparedness plan up and running for last weekend's Johnny Appleseed Festival, WANE-TV News updates. Longer, slower lines at New Orleans' Superdome are "due to new NFL security procedures, which call for enhanced pat-downs at stadiums across the country," WWLT 4 News notes. Bugs 'n bombs: "It's become apparent weaponized diseases are not as likely to be unleashed on Americans as a really wicked — and naturally occurring — flu strain," The Peoria (Ill.) Journal Star suggests. "If our food still isn't safe, does that mean the terrorists have won?" a Care2 Healthy Living poster ponders. "No major national outbreak of food poisoning or terror has occurred in the last decade, with no threats being made either," The L.A. Weekly reminds. At Northwest Disaster Search Dogs, the canines used to detect the smell of human remains undergo rigorous training, learning how to pick up on specific scents, Seattle's KOMO 4 News spotlights. Succumbing to gravity, a 12,500-pound NASA satellite the size of a school bus is expected to slam into the Earth's surface sometime later this week, The Washington Post warns. Close air support: "In our fear-fueled world, airport security lines are the new crossroads of suspicion and belonging," an Indianapolis Star commentary concludes. TSA is rolling out changes to airport security procedures aimed at helping passengers, especially frequent flyers, get through the screening process easily and more quickly, Dow Jones surveys. Last year, 2 million travelers complained to TSA about stolen, lost or delayed bags, "but it's only 3.6 incidents for every 1,000 passengers, and it's half the rate of complaints lodged just three years earlier," The Associated Press reports. When Australia's forner P.M. Kevin Rudd arrived at JFK, CBP agents looked askance at his jar of Vegemite, inexplicably deemed a treat Down Under, not unreasonably "questioning whether it contained a potentially dangerous liquid," The Sydney Morning Herald relates. Off track: Among other measures to secure the foreign leaders flocking to the U.N. this week, the NYPD is imposing "vehicle checkpoints and more frequent bag searches for subway commuters," The Financial Times tells. Coffee-drinking Maryland Transit commuters will be exposed to DHS's increasingly ubiquitous "If you see something" message on their cup sleeves, The Daily Caller recounts. "America's sprawling rail transit system is one of the most vulnerable and appealing targets for global terrorists," The Connecticut Post spotlights. Given "a number of gaps" in the D.C. Metro's homeland security arrangements, TSA two years ago scored the transit agency 88 percent on 17 different criteria, but "now Metro has improved to 97 percent, close to a perfect score," FOX 5 News notes. Terror tech: Since the Sept. 11 attacks, "technology has been a particular disappointment with regard to security, in that no real breakthrough technologies spurred by massive government R&D investments have emerged," Technology Review reviews. "Law enforcement has a number of ways to track people through their electronic devices. Often in the wake of [9/11] without a warrant, United Press International informs. With a grant from State, a U.S. nonprofit has designed a cell phone app for activists in authoritarian states such as Iran allowing sensitive info to be deleted at a button push if the mobile — and its owner — are falling into police hands, the Los Angeles Times spotlights. Perhaps coming to New Mexico is a 20-square-mile replica metropolis ghost town for "end-to-end testing, evaluation and demonstration" of new tech relating to terrorism vulnerability, cybergrid security and you-name-it, Architecture & Design spotlights — while MSNBC's Gadgetbox offers the "top 10 secret agent security tricks and tips." I, Robot: Six were killed in a clash Sunday between Pakistani soldiers and militants seeking to seize the wreckage of a CIA drone the Taliban claims to have downed, PakTribune tells. The reason the CIA under Michael Hayden "pushed for a much bigger drone war, it now appears, is that it had already created a whole bureaucracy in the anticipation of such a war," Asia Times assesses. The U.S. military is developing pilotless planes capable of flying with near autonomy and eluding radar with stealth technology, The Wall Street Journal relates — while The Washington Post anticipates "a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans." The United States won't "retain a monopoly over [armed drone] technology forever. The day when U.S. forces are attacked by a drone—perhaps even one operated by a terrorist — is not far away," a New York Review essay assesses. The social network: A computer scientist believes that "news monitoring may soon be able to predict social upheavals and conflicts — such as the recent revolutions in the Arab world — with a remarkable degree of accuracy," Foreign Policy spotlights. Applied Research Associates and partner researchers from seven universities "are finding new ways to use 'crowdsourcing' to make more accurate predictions of events and trends," Investor's Business Daily spotlights. Having long since intimidated Mexico's mainstream media, violent cartel operations now "appear to have a new target: social media networks," The Toronto Star relates. "Social media/networking is a particular area of threat in the cyber-risk arena," China Daily cites from a business risk analysis — and see, finally, a CRS Report: "Social Media and Disasters: Current Uses, Future Options, and Policy Considerations." Courts and rights: A Chicago businessman convicted of aiding a terrorist group that took credit for the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks is asking for a new trial, the Sun-Times tells. The last wrongful death lawsuit remaining from the 9/11 terrorist attacks was settled Monday when a victim's family decided they had done what they could and accepted an undisclosed sum from United Airlines, The Boston Herald reports. A federal lawsuit has been filed against ICE agents and the Garfield County (Colo.) sheriff's office on behalf of the family of a man detained in a "gang enforcement operation" this summer, The Glenwood Springs Post Independent informs. Over there: Confessed Norwegian terrorist-mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has been ordered to remain in custody for a further eight weeks, The Guardian reports — while Voice of America sees a Ugandan judge handing two men 25 and five years, respectively, for twin bombings that killed 76 people in Kampala, and The Sun reports a Brit al-Qaeda terrorist freed after serving less than three years of his ten-year jail sentence. A former Afghan president who headed a special panel seeking to launch negotiations with the Taliban was killed by a suicide bomber hiding explosives in his turban, the L.A. Times tells. Top U.S. spook James Clapper was in Turkey on Monday to discuss "intelligence sharing and the joint fight against terrorism," Today's Zaman reports. Th-th-th-that's all folks: "Though the event went largely unremarked upon at the time, a report published Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation has found that the apocalypse, or end of the world, occurred three years ago," The Onion reports. "'According to our data, the total collapse of all human civilization occurred on or around April 3, 2008,' said foundation representative Jodie Palmenterri, citing numerous instances of environmental disaster, humanitarian catastrophe and economic ruin as unambiguous signs that the world had ended. 'Those who have worried for years that human culture was headed toward calamity can rest easy, because it already happened. We are living in a post-apocalyptic world. This is it.' Palmenterri went on to say that because the apocalypse does not resemble the eschatological predictions of any major religion, it's safe to assume the gods have all forsaken us." See also, in The Onion: "Kamikaze Swimmers Finally Reach Pearl Harbor." 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. 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