CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Friday, Jan. 14, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Fortifying the Hill: One lawmaker installs "panic buttons" in office; another, an ex-FBI man, offers "simple, low-cost security awareness training for members" . . . You say "screening," I say "sexual harassment": Liberty News Network "tackles sexual predators at DHS in a new video report" . . . Say it ain't so: "Are airlines exploiting the TSA's stricter name-matching requirements to squeeze even more money out of us?" These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- Drawing heightened notice in the wake of the Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shootings, a California man was arrested Wednesday for threatening to kill Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., The Palm Springs Desert Sun’s Mariecar Mendoza mentions — as the Los Angeles Times’ Lisa Mascaro explores partisan division over lawmakers’ security needs, not least any budgetary fallout. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., meantime, has dismissed calls for increased spending on congressional security, while acknowledging installing “a series of panic buttons in his D.C. office,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jim Galloway blogs. And freshman Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., an ex-FBI man, is offering “simple, low-cost security awareness training for members and staff,” The Hill’s Shane D’Aprile adds. Homies: The Daily Caller’s Jeff Winkler assails Aaron Mehta’s Newsweek column suggesting the Giffords’ massacre could have been averted had not a 2009 DHS intel report on right-wing extremism not been derided by Republicans. “Liberty News Network national correspondent Andy Ramirez tackles sexual predators at [DHS] in a new video report,” The New American’s Raven Clabough previews, eying those salacious TSA screeners. DHS Science and Tech suprema Tara O’Toole “has radically restructured her division in an effort to rapidly field devices needed by DHS agencies as well as first responders,” National Defense Magazine’s Stew Magnuson spotlights. Feds: An attorney representing two Swedish women who’ve charged WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange with sexual assault is under investigation for actions during his time as a a government official that allegedly facilitated CIA extraordinary renditions resulting in two terror suspects being tortured in Egypt, The Raw Story’s Stephen C. Webster leads. The Pentagon failed to disclose clandestine cyber-activities in a classified report that goes to Congress, The Associated Press’ Lolita C. Baldor hears Senate aides complaining. Every day, DHS’s National Cybersecurity Center sifts through almost a billion pieces of digital data to find threats to U.S. security, The East Oregonian’s Phil Wright leads. David Kris, chief of Justice’s National Security Division which handles terror cases, is departing soon for a patent firm, Reuters’ Jeremy Pelofsky reports. State and local: New Jersey agreed to release road salt barn construction plans to a local after rejecting her request last year on homeland security grounds, The Hunterdon County Democrat relates. Texas has moved to cancel the commercial driver’s licenses of immigrants who lack certain documents, even though legally authorized to work in the United States, The Houston Chronicle recounts. As many as 60 police officers helped protect St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Natick, Mass., “blocking off roads and stopping cars after [DHS] sent a bulletin warning of a terrorism threat,” MetroWest Daily News notes. State senators, including some who support the use of DHS’s E-Verify program, have expressed frustration with some of the system’s limitations, The Florida Independent informs. Confronting seemingly endless snowfall, Connecticut’s gov this week partially activated the state’s Emergency Operations Center, The Bridgeport News notes. Chasing the dime: Ridge Global, founded by DHS’s first chief, and Global Emergency Solutions “will work together to provide integrated emergency planning and response services,” United Press International informs. The Homeland Security & Defense Business Council has released its fifth monograph focusing on our dependence on critical infrastructure, Global Newswire relays. Lockheed Martin Corp. has won a $66 million contract to provide comm gear for the Coast Guard’s fourth National Security Cutter, The Philadelphia Inquirer updates — and check “Giant weapons maker becomes Big Brother” in Asia Times. “The best-performing stocks in the technology sector are likely to be companies that provide protection against cyberterrorism and cybercrime,” Investment U tutors — while Gulf News notes that United Arab Emirates spending on homeland security is set to double from $5.5 billion to $10 billion in the next 10 years. Bugs ‘n bombs: House Speaker John A. Boehner is rejecting gun-control legislation offered by Homeland honcho Peter T. King prohibiting people from carrying guns within 1,000 feet of lawmakers, The Hill relates — while Media Matters hears Glenn Beck claiming on FOX News that lawmakers are eying “a ban on guns,” post-Tucson. ICE agents assigned to a Rio Grande Valley Border Enforcement Security Task Force seized 15 AK 47 assault type rifles found hidden in a pickup truck, The Imperial Valley News relays. “It wasn’t a ‘suspicious package’ planted right outside a busy Walgreens store, it was a bomb and agents have no idea who did it,” Orlando’s WFTV 9 News leads — as AP sees D.C. responders clearing the latest “suspicious package” alarm in D.C. Safety and security concerns have repeatedly cropped up at the Turkey Point nuke plant, but Florida Power & Light execs tell the NRC they are doing better, The Miami Herald mentions — as The Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald hears regulators rapping the Seabrook nuke plant for once again failing to report a contract worker’s arrest. Close air support: “Are airlines exploiting the TSA’s stricter name-matching requirements to squeeze even more money out of us?” Tribune Media Services asks and answers. At LAX in recent years, DHS officers have nabbed flyers trying to smuggle everything from lizards to songbirds to, most recently, 55 rare turtles hidden in Japanese cookie boxes, AOL News takes note — while The Consumerist describes a Southwest Airlines pilot holding up departure 12 minutes to accommodate a man flying to his murdered grandson’s funeral who was stalled at a TSA checkpoint. Construction should start this spring at Colorado Springs’ airport on the $20 million installation of in-line baggage screening and full-body scanners at an expanded passenger checkpoint, the Gazette relates. Revivified Trusted Traveler initiatives “will once again be doomed to failure unless economic and operational structural modifications are made,” Tnooz contends. Coming and going: “There is similarly a risk that the Ryder truck next to you will be full of explosives,” an Atlantic columnist retorts to a colleague’s concerns about terrorism and small private aircraft. After a passenger ignited a gas tank in a Guangzhou subway car, residents want Chinese authorities to bring back security checks to the Guangzhou Metro Line, Global Times tells. “The 348-passenger Spirit of Adventure, a cruise ship known for its off-the-beaten-path, adventurous itineraries, was pursued by pirates Wednesday while sailing across the Indian Ocean,” USA Today updates — while UPI sees a U.S. destroyer intercepting a Somali pirate skiff in the Gulf of Aden earlier this week. Courts and rights: A federal judge yesterday ordered that a Pennsylvania man remain in jail pending trial for biting two FBI agents investigating his alarming Internet postings, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review relates — while TPM hears a defense lawyer alleging that one of the Feebs had “a romantic relationship with the suspect’s estranged, alcoholic mother.” Another fed magistrate this week postponed to Jan. 25 a court date for accused underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, The Detroit News notes — as The Oregonian hears lawyers for a state resident convicted in a Muslim charity case accusing Justice of failing to disclose payments to a star witness’s husband, and Raleigh’s NBC 17 News sees seven North Carolina men accused of plotting terror attacks “moving closer to trial.” If Julian Assange is extradited to Sweden, there is a “real risk” the United States would seek to extradite him, and detain him at Guantanamo Bay or subject him to the death penalty, The Wall Street Journal quotes the WikiLeaks founders’ lawyers. Over there: Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law is No. 39 on a list of 47 wanted alleged terrorists that the Saudi government recently gave to Interpol, AKI informs. The man in charge says security at the 2012 London Olympics will be “severe” but not oppressive and will be led by police, not armed soldiers, ESPN relays. Somalia’s new prime minister promises that 8,000 government troops will start attacking Islamist insurgents and al Qaeda terrorists “very, very soon,” South Africa’s Independent informs. Pakistan’s state-run television, meantime, will soon air “a series that pays tribute to unsung heroes of the war on terror by showcasing the exploits of several civilians and military personnel,” PTI informs. Kultur Kanyon: “I was a real-life secret agent. I didn’t have the hand-grenade cuff links or the poison-dart pen, but in 2004 I was recruited by DHS for its Red Cell program,” thriller author Brad Meltzer confesses in The New York Daily News. When ex-defense don Donald Rumsfeld publishes his memoir next month, McSweeney’s will release Stephen Elliott and Eric Martin’s “Donald,” which imagines the “architect of the war on terror [being] abducted at night from his Maryland home [and] held without charges in his own prison system,” mediabistro.com curtain-raises. “Batman has battled many enemies but now has to face the anger of right-wing U.S. bloggers furious that the comic book caped crusader has recruited a Muslim to run his crime-fighting franchise in Paris,” Agence France-Presse reports. “Islam has always been a religion of peace, love, tolerance and coexistence. This is the main theme of the music album which popular Emirati Islamic singer Ahmed Abu Khater is working on,” Khaleej Times profiles. A dollar here, a dollar there: “According to a report in The Washington Post, Gen. David Petraeus and other American military commanders were given access to $5 billion in discretionary funds to spend on various projects like a now-defunct $1 million water park in Baghdad,” an Onion Infographic informs, adding: “Here are some of the places the money went to: $10 million — Free ‘I Love the Surge’ bumper sticker and T-shirt program; $13 million — Retrofitting Saddam’s sex palace to create municipal sex library; $125,000 — Amphibious, duck-shaped Tigris River tour boat; $300,000 — Funyuns Military Blend; $9,000 — The Offspring’s booking fee; $100 million — Given to this guy who promised he would build a chain of really awesome after-school clubs and skate parks but who, in retrospect, was probably Muqtada al-Sadr; $7.1 million — Really nice big statue of Muhammad to cheer everyone in Baghdad up; $6 million — Ultimately abandoned Frank Gehry blueprints for Iraq’s entire infrastructure; $4 million — Dance hall; men only; $60 million — Blowing up bridge E.U. forces need to leave.” 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.