CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Canned hams: Rep. Dan Burton proposes (again) to enclose House chamber in "transparent and substantial material" securing solons from tossed explosives or gunfire . . . Negative endorsement: "The Taliban are mad at Sen. Lindsey Graham, and the South Carolina Republican couldn't be happier" . . . Tenure review: FBI calls on college professor after lecture is denounced by student as rife with "terroristic threats" . . . These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- “Senators and staff were instructed in a security briefing Wednesday that if confronted by a gunman and there’s no escape: attack,” Politico’s Shira Toeplitz leads. An aide to Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., tells CBS News he intends to reintroduce a bill similar to one he presented in 2007 to enclose the House Chamber in a “transparent and substantial material” to deflect tossed explosives or gunfire, Brian Montopoli mentions. “If you have never worked on Capitol Hill, you might be surprised to learn that the average congressman or senator has no security,” Matt Mackowiak muses in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Safe, not sorry: Members of the Washington state delegation, for one, “are loath to spend more money to protect themselves,” McClatchy Newspapers’ Rob Hotakainen reports — while The South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Anthony Man hears Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., urging that legitimate security concerns not “create a police state.” If Nebraska state senators weren’t already security conscious, the Rep. Gabriel Giffords shooting “gave them reasonat least to ponder it,” The Lincoln Journal Star’s JoAnne Young surveys — as The Austin American-Statesman’s Mike Ward sees new security measures at the Texas Capitol causing little delay. If New York’s Capital Region “were ever under the threat of terrorism, it could bevulnerable,” The Albany Times Union’s Dayelin Roman quotes Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. Feds: A federal judge ruled that DHS can keep from public view 2,000 “whole-body” images taken at airport checkpoints, CNN’s Bill Mears relates. An American teenager detained in Kuwait said he underwent a heated interrogation by FBI agents for several hours on Wednesday, The New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti leads. “The Taliban are mad at Sen. Lindsey Graham, and the South Carolina Republican couldn’t be happier,” McClatchy Newspapers’ James Rosen leads. The Texas State Board of Psychologists will hold a hearing Feb. 8 in the complaint against James Mitchell, the Texas-licensed architect of CIA “enhanced interrogation techniques,” The Texas Tribune’s Morgan Smith says. DHS deputy secretary Jane Holl Lute met yesterday with India’s home secretary for an hour’s discussion of antiterror measures, The Press Trust of India informs. State and local: D.C. responders gave the all clear yesterday after an earlier report of a suspicious package at a USPS mail facilitynear where postal workers discovered an incendiary package last Friday, The Washington Post reports. Chicago-area communities are receiving 60 new mobile generators through DHS and the Illinois Terrorism Task Force for use in natural disasters, terror attacks, etc., the Tribune tells. Funded with DHS dollars, Louisiana’s Office of Homeland Security is in Caldwell and Jackson parishes creating a virtual map of all commercial structures there, The Monroe News-Star notes. Rhode Island’s A.G. has signed an agreement implementing ICE’s Secure Communities initiative to ID and deport criminal illegal immigrants, The Providence Journal reports. Ivory (Watch) Towers: A University of Victoria prof says the FBI contacted her after a letter in a local paper termed her views on Native American land rights, enunciated in a Minnesota lecture, “terroristic threats,” CBC News recounts. The Ashland (Ore.) Public Schools’ superintendant doesn’t expect DHS to approve the district’s Chinese boarding school in time for next year’s launch, the Daily Tidings tells. “Just as 9/11 changed the way information is gathered and terror threats assessed, the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 forever altered how colleges deal with potential violence,” a Cincinnati Inquirer columnist comments. Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College was recognized by the state Office of Homeland Security for having completed its NIMS requirements, Joplin’s KOAM 7 News notes. Bugs ‘n bombs: “There are some who don’t think it is the best idea in the world to build a facility that will study live foot-and-mouth disease pathogens across the street from the Kansas State University football stadium,” The Daily Yonder leads. “More than 3,000 survivors of the World Trade Center attacks experience long-term post-traumatic stress disorder, Medical News Today has a study finding. “It’s worth remembering that North Korea’s missiles have been problem-plagued for years — while U.S. analysts perennially judge that Pyongyang’s fearsome ICBM is just around the corner,” Danger Room reassures. Close air support: An elderly Texas heart patient wants an apology from TSA for “subjecting her to security screening that could have jeopardized her health,” San Antonio’s WOIA News notes. “By initiating an Elderly, Injured and Veteran Network, we would significantly alter the long waits mandated by the TSA by moving the suspicious disabled persons to a separate, but equal, line,” a Florida Times-Union op-ed asserts. Kansas City International is one of 17 U.S. airports where the screeners work for private contractors, not the TSA, NPR spotlights. “The security staff I encountered were a lot friendlier and more professional than the average TSA guard,” Salon’s air travel columnist writes of a recent transit through Japan’s Narita Airport. Rails and trails: A Phoenix man was jailed in a bomb scare aboard a Vegas-bound Greyhound bus, 8 News Now notes — as The Jersey Journal sees a “suspicious package” on a bus stop bench closing a major avenue in North Bergen. An “odd package,” meantime, shuttered a D.C. Metro station briefly, but proved unthreatening, Gather relates. (“Hundreds of people in their knickers, skivvies, and pantaloons bum-rushed the [NYC subway Sunday] as part of Improv Everywhere’s annual No Pants Subway Ride, The Gothamist recounts.) “A security guard of the Light Rail Transit station in Pasay City accidentally fired his gun injuring seven persons on Tuesday,” The Manila Bulletin leads. The Philippines also “saw a rebound in visitor arrivals last year despite a deadly tourist bus hijack and foreign warnings of terror attacks,” BusinessWorld relates. Courts and rights: An ex-TSA data analyst has won two years behind federal bars for seeking to sabotage a computer network used for screening airline passengers, The Colorado Springs Gazette relates. A U.S. judge refused to release an Algerian detainee just as the Guantanamo terror jail entered its tenth year, Reuters reports. A federal court has ruled in favor of a Kuwaiti-born Honolulu man who claims he was arrested in Honolulu based on unjustified suspicions of terrorism, Hilo’s KPUA 670 AM relays. When Luis Posada Carriles, accused of blowing up a Cuban airliner, went on trial Monday on 11 charges, the word “terrorism” was not uttered until well into jury selection, The Miami Herald mentions. Over there: Nine years after 9/11, “al Qaeda has lost much of its top leadership, commands just a few hundred fighters and is strapped for cash. Paradoxically enough, it also probably exercises more power than at any point the past,” a Daily Telegraph op-ed asserts. The Philippines, again, has overtaken Indonesia and Thailand as the country facing the gravest terror threat, Bloomberg hears a security consultancy concluding. Interpol has placed 47 Saudis on its most-wanted list after Saudi Arabia accused them of involvement with al Qaeda, BBC News relates — as Agence France-Presse reports that the Sudan could be removed from State’s list of sponsors of terrorism as early as July. The suicide bomber who botched a Stockholm attack was trained in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, The Long War Journal learns. Over here: “How we respond to possible hearings on radicalism will reveal our own commitment to Islam,” Qanta A. Ahmed comments in The Wall Street Journal, in re: planned House Homeland hearings. Trial began this week in the case of a Muslim cable TV producer accused of beheading his estranged wife inside a television studio the couple founded to promote cultural understanding, The Buffalo News notes. A top Australian Islamic group has warned that the radio license of the Sydney-based Muslim station accused of links to a “radical cult,” should not be renewed because it promotes “sectarian fringe views,” the Morning Herald mentions. The Swedish Muslim Council has declared its support for its chairwoman despite the fact that a terror suspect in Copenhagen is the father of her daughter’s children, The Local relates. Holy Wars: “Stopping violent extremism should be a bipartisan affair. It must be as important as implementing health care (for Democrats) or pursuing tax cuts (for Republicans),” Julian E. Zelizer exhorts in a CNN op-ed. “The Left reached its hand out in solidarity to the communist enemy in the Cold War. Now it is doing the same thing in our terror war, but this time the totalitarian adversary . . . is Radical Islam,” Jamie Glazov charges in a Right Side News Q&A. “Our global community in the Muslim world [must] spit in the face of terror by building even more churches, synagogues, temples and mosques,” Arsalan Iftikhar comments for, again, CNN. “There is no concept of the hate or violence in [basic Islam]; therefore, waging a war against the Muslims in the garb of terrorism; a term still remaining undefined, is discriminatory and unjust,” a Pakistan Observer op-ed adjures — while Stephen Lendmann leads in Dissident Voice: “Western vilification of Islam is longstanding, cruel, and unjustifiable.” This just in, from The Onion: “TUCSON, AZ — Jared Lee Loughner was released from custody this afternoon when it was determined that the suspect—accused of a shooting spree that left six dead and 14 injured, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords—had not technically broken any Arizona state laws. ‘While Loughner is clearly a deranged madman who, with this heinous, tragic act, has proved to be a danger to himself and others, he has not explicitly violated any statutes currently on the books in Arizona,’ Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall said of the man whom witnesses saw murdering a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge. ‘We can only hope that if he acts out again, another Arizona citizen will be legally carrying a concealed firearm and be able to stop him.’ LaWall told reporters that the only way her state would have any legal recourse in the brutal slayings would be if Loughner were Mexican.” Check, also in The Onion: “Lingerie-Wearing Boehner: ‘We Still Have A Very Pretty Speaker Of The House.’” 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 Group products Rob Margetta, CQ Homeland Security Editor Arwen Bicknell, Behind the Lines Editor Published by CQ Roll Call Group To sign up for CQ Roll Call Group's free newsletters, click here. Source: CQ Homeland Security Copyright © 2011 CQ Roll Call Group Inc. All rights reserved.