| Behind the Lines for Friday, Nov. 5, 2010 — 3 P.M. See something, say something: More than 80 percent of foiled terror plots frustrated by citizen or police observations or law enforcement investigations . . . The penultimate solution: For ICE to remove 10 million illegal immigrants would cost about $65 billion, not to mention "ancilliary costs" . . . Department of Human Steering: Are aggressive pat-downs just a way to sell flyers on naked scanners? These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- More than 80 percent of foiled terrorist plots between 1999 and 2009 were frustrated by observations of citizens or police or by law enforcement investigations, Homeland Security Today’s Anthony L. Kimery learns from a new report. “Terror Tips. Call 1-800-492-TIPS. Hmmm . . . We have seen these signs at least 10 times in the last three days . . . around Washington,” Bill Bonner broods in The Christian Science Monitor, asking: “What purpose do they serve? Has anyone ever called?” Feds: The White House yesterday declined to confirm a French report that one of two U.S.-addressed mail bombs was defused just minutes before exploding, FOX News’ Catherine Herridge reports — while The Christian Science Monitor’s Howard LaFranchi suggests U.S. involvement in Yemen, from whence the bombs originated, is “edging towards clandestine war.” (“The U.S. government and mainstream media continue to play dumb about threats to Americans from the Muslim world,” Sheldon Richman reproves for CounterPunch.) U.S. Park Police arrested an Arizona man on firearms violations after finding several guns in a vehicle parked near the National Mall, CNN’s Larry Lazo relates. Homies: DHS’s Janet Napolitano is considering new measures to enhance security screening of packages on all-cargo flights, an issue she discussed Wednesday with global shippers, Dow Jones Newswire’s Bob Sechler relates. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, yesterday accused DHS of violating the law by refusing to provide immigration docs for a man suspected of plotting to bomb the D.C. Metro system, The Hill’s Elise Viebeck relates. For ICE to remove “10 million illegal immigrants would cost about $65 billion . . . Of course, there are also the ancillary costs,” Ruben Navarette Jr. notes in The San Francisco Chronicle. A screener canned earlier this year for planting cocaine in the luggage of Philadelphia airport passengers was a bomb appraisal officer, The Smoking Gun learns, posting TSA documents on the case. The 3.7 million square feet of DHS HQ floor space going up on the West Campus of D.C.’s St. Elizabeths Hospital “is the fed’s largest project since the Pentagon,” Real Estate Bisnow’s Amanda Metcalf mentions. Chasing the dime: In the wake of last week’s air freight cargo scare, trade groups are predicting increased demand for airport security tech, Security Management relates — as Aviation Business sees airlines fearing a concomitant surge in security costs. “Once again, the market appears to be indicating the [terror] threat isn’t over,” Inside Futures cheerfully forecasts. The American Small Business League, meantime, is suing DHS over its contracting practices, United Press International briefs. Gotham’s transit authority has approved a $400,000 deal with Activu Corporation to manage “smart cameras” transmitting live surveillance feeds to a transit police hub, Government Video reports — while BioPrepWatch sees Universal Detection Technology getting an order for bioterror scanning gear from its Chinese distributor. The financial risks posed by the loss of species and ecosystems are escalating and becoming a greater concern for businesses than international terrorism, The Guardian sees a U.N. report finding. State and local: As chairman of the House homeland panel in the next Congress, an optimistic Peter T. King, R-N.Y., tells CBS News, “he’ll make sure the New York region gets the funding it needs to be safe.” Bayonne area responders recently turned out for a mock disaster drill at International Matex Tank and Terminal, one of 25 north Jersey facilities considered vulnerable, The Hudson Reporter reports. “Wisconsin’s undaunted ALERT Team is equipped and prepared to respond to and mitigate terrorist, WMD, or other catastrophic events,” PoliceOne.com profiles. Tracking the Twitter activity of law-abiding citizens was part of the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security’s intel surveillance program, The Harrisburg Patriot-News notes. You’ve got mail: A wave of pipe bomb mailings originating in Greece, plus the Yemeni parcel bombs, prompts Germany, for one, to press for an E.U.-wide package-screening tune up, Christian Science Monitor reports — as The Associated Press says the Yemeni plotters “could not have known exactly where their Chicago-bound packages were when they were set to explode, even after a suspected test run.” Those terrorists “are using our own package-tracking systems against us,” a Daily Beast contributor contends — as a Philly-area synagogue director tells The Jewish Exponent: “We do not accept packages or merchandise from strange, unfamiliar addresses.” Check out, finally, How-To-Wiki’s blueprint for a “confetti bomb.” Close air support: A Delta flight from Amsterdam landed “under emergency conditions” at Mumbai late last night with a “suspicious package” on board, Press Trust of India informs. “It’s incomprehensible that some of our leaders view using [the New Jersey Air Guard’s 177th Fighter Wing] as our primary strategy to combat terrorism,” a Philadelphia Magazine poster protests. “Consistency among airport security [checkpoints] is essential, especially after this potential threat,” chides a Quinnipiac Chronicle student columnist who managed to board with 16.9 ounces of water. “I want air travel to be safe, but are aggressive pat downs just a way to sell us on scanners?” a USA Today reader demands. It’s possible U.S. and U.K. aviation securicrats will conclude, post-parcel bomb bid, that cell phones and Wi-Fi connections should be verboten on planes, TechSpot speculates. Coming and going: Terror threats to mass transit will always remain high, regardless of the resources allotted to securing public transportation, Security Director News quotes ex-DHSer Tom Ridge. Philly transit cops last week told a photographer “caught” snapping shots on stairs down to the city’s subway that he would be added to the “Terrorism Data Base,” Prison Planet protests. The Port of Oakland has reached a milestone in its goal to improve security, signing more than 5,000 trucks onto the Secure Truck Management Program, the Tribune tells. Saudi authorities are investigating how a 13-year-old boy managed to sneak through its port of Jeddah and across the Red Sea to Sudan without a passport, Emirates 24/7 tells. Courts and rights: “The latest bombing attempt from Yemen could strengthen the Obama administration’s defense against a lawsuit challenging alleged government efforts to kill Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al Awlaki,” The Wall Street Journal leads. A Bulgarian man who used a name stolen from a slain Ohio boy to work for Oregon’s state liquor agency has pleaded guilty to passport fraud and aggravated ID theft, The Oregonian reports. In indictments unsealed this week, three men, two in the United States and one in Africa, were charged with allegedly providing support to Somalia’s al Shabaab terror insurgency, Reuters reports Over there: “The international community should not fear the possibility of an al Shabaab government. It should, instead, . . . work with it while discouraging extremist tendencies,” an op-ed in Kenya’s Daily Nation advises. Fifty-year security treaties newly inked by France and the U.K. will also help defeat terrorism, The Guardian hears Britain’s P.M. declaring. Previously unseen Iraqi war files aired by WikiLeaks confirm that Ansar al-Islam founder Mullah Krekar continues to be a threat to Norwegian national security, The Foreigner relates — while CNN hears State this week officially designating Iranian extremist group Jundallah as a foreign terrorist organization. Algeria will resume a policy of arming people as reinforcements in the fight against terrorism, AP has the interior minister maintaining. Screening Room: “If ‘Godzilla’ is the 9/11 of alien movies: a devastating shock invasion coming out of nowhere,” CultureLab quotes “Monsters” (Vertigo) director Gareth Edwards, “he wanted to make the Afghanistan war of alien movies: something that the public has got used to.” Don’t consider Chris Morris’s comedy “Four Lions” (Drafthouse) “a movie that has much to say about radical Islam or the threat of terrorism. Instead, think of ‘Airheads’ (Twentieth Century), [but a version in which] the idiots want to blow themselves up,” The Village Voice cautions. “24,” FOX’s canceled uber-series, “is shown in 100 countries . . . and has crossed cultural barriers because it deals with terrorism. Terrorism is like the school bully — it’s the one thing everyone is afraid of,” Jack Bauer portrayer Kiefer Sutherland tells The Independent. In the wake of official U.S. and U.K. complaints, YouTube has begun removing al Qaeda videos from its website, The Daily Telegraph tells — and see Danger Room’s snarky: “Terror Wannabes Mildy Inconvenienced.” Historically speaking: In an excess of sardonic historicism, the would-be Yemeni mail bombers addressed their U.S.-bound parcels to two actual figures notorious in Middle Eastern lore for the persecution of Muslims, The New York Times takes note. The real-life character who inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda” after saving hundreds of lives during the 1994 genocide is accused by the country’s prosecutor general of abetting the “terrorism activities” of a rebel Hutu group, The Guardian relates. Bear Family Records has released “Atomic Platters: Cold War Music From The Golden Age of Homeland Security,” a five-CD package accompanied by a 292-page book, Prefix Magazine alerts. If anything, in the terror era, nuclear weapons “are just as likely to be used today as they were at the height of the cold war,” Jon Savage suggests in a related review essay in The Guardian. No Town for Old Members: “Waving signs, brandishing sticks, and hurling rotten fruit, thousands of citizens lined the streets of Washington to taunt and abuse defeated members of Congress on Wednesday as they were forcibly marched from the nation’s capital at sundown, The Onion reports. ‘There’s one now! Get him!’ said Albert Howatt, who had driven nearly 24 hours from Wichita to lob a chunk of pure Kansas granite at the disgraced politicians. ‘Go on out of here and don’t come back!’ The crowd then descended upon 63-year-old legal clerk Paulette Thomas, kicking, spitting on, and eventually hospitalizing the woman they had mistaken for outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.” And see this lead in The Borowitz Report: “Canadian immigration officials have reported a huge increase in the number of requests for Canadian citizenship in the past 24 hours, with over 55 million such inquiries pouring in since late Tuesday night.” |
