| Behind the Lines for Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2011 — 3 P.M. Howling chorus of disapproval: "One of the top five liberal hate groups," DHS also sponsors "the largest government-sanctioned sexual assault program in American history" . . . A flea in their ears: Flea market managers vociferously reject as "zombie propaganda" AP's allegations of terror financing via counterfeit "flea market fakes" . . . Sticks and stones: Is a DHS covert keyboard firing Internet F-bombs at TSA screener critics? These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- Almost half of 77 suspects arrested in terror plots since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had prior criminal records, mostly for small-time offenses, suggesting previously unexploited opportunities to “detect and deter an attack,” The Wall Street Journal’s Sean Gardiner sees a New York fusion center draft study finding. “Recent evidence from Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the United States indicates that attacks on Western targets have been thwarted by a combination of good intelligence and good luck,” The Sydney Morning Herald’s Gerard Henderson surveys — and, for a bit of both elements, check Bruce Riedel in The Daily Beast on “The Saudi Spy Who Saved Chicago.” Feds: The White House may challenge congressional authority to bar Gitmo detainees from federal trials in the United States, The Washington Post’s Peter Finn and Anne E. Kornblut forecast — while Homeland Security Today’s David Silverberg tells Federal News Radio that an expected “change in emphasis on homeland security issues with the new Congress” will be driven by the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11. In Jerusalem yesterday, Janet Napolitano played down prospects of TSA adopting Israeli-style aviation security, Reuters’ Dan Williams relates — as United Press International hears her telling Israeli leaders the United States is committed to protect both countries against terror. “Sometimes a government can act as a terror magnifier,” as when DHS “produces widespread public concern [by] raising the threat level,” Stratfor’s Scott Stewart suggests. (“If the threat level is high, what are we supposed to do differently?” a Technorati poster poses.) Bad homie, no donut: DHS “is one of the top five liberal hate groups of 2010, The Raw Story’s Eric W. Dolan hears Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips fuming — as The New American’s Becky Akers finds TSA “remarkably lax about finding terrorists, so lax, in fact, that no one in its employ anywhere at any time has ever ferreted out a single one.” DHS’s Napolitano has presided over the largest government-sanctioned sexual assault program in American history, Adrian MacNair maintains in The National Post. “The idiots at Homeland Security . . . are always in a reactive mode. This time it’s thermoses that have caught the attention of the TSA goons,” The SOP’s Robert Paul Reyes rails. DHS’s much-promoted “If you see something” campaign involves “spying on American citizens. This is way beyond tattle-tales reporting gunshots at the house next door,” a White Mountain (Ariz.) Independent editorial inveighs. State and local: As the post-9/11 “ethic of being prepared for everything continues to dominate . . . cities and towns have used [DHS grantage] to respond to problems other than terrorism,” The Boston Globe surveys. To involve neighborhoods in emergency response, Vanderburgh County(Ind.) EMA officials are training residents in disaster preparedness, Evansville’s WFIE 14 News notes — as WQOW 18 News sees Eau Claire’s Civil Air Patrol Squadron joining a Wisconsin Air National Guard homeland defense exercise last week. As of Jan. 1, cities and counties across Georgia must enter compliance with a DHS mandate to verify the legal status of hirees and contractors, The Coastal Courier recounts. Bid-ness: ICE cites cases in Philadelphia and Miami in which product counterfeiters were linked to such terror groups as Hezbollah, The Associated Press says in a report on a “flea market fakes” crackdown — which story FleaMarketZone roundly denounces as “fear mongering” loaded with “zombie propaganda that will not die.” Despite sanctions and trade embargoes, over the past decade the United States has allowed American companies to do billions of dollars in biz with Iran and other blacklisted state sponsors of terrorism, The New York Times learns. An ex-Fort Campbell security guard is suing one of the largest federal private security contractors over a never-paid retention bonus, AP also reports. Lockheed Martin and the Port Authority “are locked in a no-holds-barred legal battle” over problems encountered installing CCTV cameras to surveil NYC’s subways, Homeland Security News Wire updates. Bugs ‘n bombs: As a $650 million DHS lab approaches reality, look for the Kansas Bioscience Authority to spend millions to lure top foreign animal disease researchers to Kansas State, The Kansas City Star forecasts. The post-Christmas blizzard raised “an interesting question regarding resilience: how big does an event have to be for people to not expect to be saved by government and instead start relying on themselves?” Homeland Security Watch wonders. Some 300 rabbits are the sole survivors on a small Japanese island that hosted a once-deadly World War II-era chemical weapons program, Danger Room spotlights. The Iraqi Health Ministry seeks to ban the sale of toy guns, particularly a pellet-firing air pistol responsible for possibly thousands of eye injuries, the Times relates. Close air support: Anymore, “everyone and their brother is either an expert on airport security or the incubator of the next big idea for how to make security more commonsensical,” a Seattle Post-Intelligencer blogger jabs. As airport security queues congeal, travel groups urge TSA to speed passengers through with separate, faster checkpoints for frequent fliers, the Los Angeles Times spotlights — as The Cincinnati Enquirer spotlights yet another purveyor of scanner-resistant fig leaf undergarments. A screening-phobic blog site is fielding F-bomb-laden counterposts from a DHS-controlled IP address, We Won’t Fly relates — and see an amusing “People Who Touch Your Junk Venn Diagram” at Chart Porn. Down Under, meanwhile, “furious travelers missed flights and faced long delays after a security screening bungle at Hobart Airport,” The Tasmania Mercury mentions. Coming and going: By 2014, Moscow and other large Russian cities plan to outfit their subways with screening gear including devices able to detect explosives and chemical agents, RIA Novosti notes. In 2010, “both Americans and Europeans were compelled to accept the presence of machine-gun-toting security personnel in subway and train stations,” a Real Truth retrospective remarks. “Did our government really think that a terrorist is going to dress like a migrant worker and try to walk across the Sonoran desert? The answer is no, but terrorism as an act did come across the Mexican/American border,” The Tucson Citizen says. Ponderous Mumbai port security has held up 200 tons of imported onions destined for onion-deprived Indian diners, Pakistan’s Daily Times tells. Talking terror: “We are going to drop the War on Terror page label, instead focusing on more specific labels, such as War in Afghanistan, Global Terrorism and Rebuilding Iraq,” a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial announces. Experts say to expect more “lone wolf” FBI terror sting cases in 2011, “because the agency has clearly decided that the best way to battle the growing threat of homegrown terrorism in this country is to confront the suspects directly,” NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston forecasts — and see a new CRS report: “American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat.” Recent plots suggest that “the 2008 Mumbai assault, in which terrorists staged low-tech attacks on hotels and other sites, is becoming the new terrorist norm,” The Boston Globe, again, editorializes. Osama bin Forgotten: “Al Qaeda wants America and the world to believe Osama bin Laden is still alive . . . But the image is getting moldy, and there’s little reason for his ghost to scare anyone anymore,” Robert Weiner and James Lewis assure in The Washington Times. “It’s been nearly a decade since Osama pulled off a mass-casualty attack on American soil. Instead, terrorist franchisees, affiliates and wannabes spent 2010 trying to pull off something in his name. And failing,” Danger Room’s Noah Schachtman similarly writes. “American intelligence assesses that al Qaeda is a significantly weakened force, yet developments in Pakistan indicate otherwise,” Asia Times’ Syed Saleem Shahzad leads — while Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Scott Paulsen cracks: al Qaeda has used up “25 No. 3 men in a decade.” Courts and rights: Despite his pleas for mercy, a hijacker who voluntarily returned to face justice in the United States after more than four decades in Cuba was yesterday handed 15 years in the slammer without possibility of parole, The New York Post reports. “Congress should reform the laws governing material support of terrorism. It should make clear that speech advocating only lawful, nonviolent activities is not a crime,” law prof David Cole contends in a New York Times op-ed — even as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald accuses ex-A.G. Michael Mukasey, ex-DHSer Tom Ridge and other noted conservatives of materially supporting a designated terrorist group. Over there: New terror alerts and arrests across the pond mark a “realization that all Europe faces the same growing threat — even countries that, not long ago, didn’t imagine themselves targets,” Time Magazine muses. France’s secretive international spy agency is recruiting hundreds of people and getting a budget boost to better fend off threats like terrorism and nuclear proliferation, AP, again, spotlights. A public interest group suggests that the U.S.-led war on the Taliban probably caused more civilian casualties in Pakistan in 2009 than in neighboring Afghanistan, The Dawn records. DHS’s Napolitano and her Qatari counterpart signed an agreement last weekend to expand cooperation in the war on terror, Agence France-Presse reports. Herd on the Street: “The TSA has met with a great deal of resistance over the invasiveness of its new body-scanning technology in airports. What do you think?” The Onion’s inquiring street photographer asks a supposedly representative cross-section of American street users. “If you don’t want a bunch of strangers looking at you naked, then what the hell are you doing flying on an airplane?” systems analyst Anne Burdick demands. “I just lost twenty pounds. Have fun ****ing off to the new me,” home health aide Perry Garcia invites. “At the very least, they should stop trying to sell you a printed photo of your body-scan for $20 as soon as you step out of the machine,” library clerk Larry Vaughan reasons. Tune in, as well, on Onion Radio News, to: “911 Operator Patiently Explains That, No, You Can’t Die Of Hangover.” |
