CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Friday, April 29, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly As goes New Jersey: Screening managers at Newark's security-impaired airport form first management group to lobby for TSA changes . . . There she is, Miss Vulnerable Passenger: Former Miss USA "violated" by TSA pat-down after refusing naked body scanning . . . Bad pirate, no donut: With 76-second PSA, ICE guilt-trips movie downloaders "by dramatizing the stark human toll BitTorrent inflicts on Hollywood boom mike operators." These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- Supervisors at security-challenged Newark International have formed the nation's first management group to lobby for changes at the embattled TSA, the Star-Ledger's Steve Strunsky relates. Screening at that air hub was halted three times over a five-day period after passengers left security checkpoints without being cleared, the Star-Ledger also learns. TSA, meantime, has named as a senior adviser the Newark security director who recently stepped down after a string of earlier lapses, Cybercast News Service's Edwin Mora mentions. Government Work: "Getting a 10-pound leg of lamb through security at San Francisco International Airport was tinged with suspense — Janet Napolitano would have been pleased," San Mateo County Times columnist John Horgan recollects. Commenting on an irate reader's photo of a DHS vehicle parked in the bike lane of the Apple Store in SoHo, The Gothamist's John Del Signore snipes: "We'll just assume the bike lane terror threat level is currently 'elevated.'" A Justice I.G. report finds many agents attached to the FBI's elite cyber-unit lacking the skills to investigate computer attacks, The Christian Science Monitor's Mark Clayton recounts. No fewer than 247 people suspected of ties to terrorism bought guns in the United States last year legally, The Associated Press' Eileen Sullivan learns. Feds: Justice has nixed a probe into the ex-employee who outed a warrantless wiretapping program, a classified counterterror effort that roiled the Bush administration in 1984, The Wall Street Journal's Devlin Barrett and Brent Kendall recount — while Main Justice's Mary Jacoby handicaps the race for next FBI director, contestants for which include, as "a safe choice," ex-agent and current TSA chief, John Pistole. "Your phone call may stop an attack. You might actually be a part of intelligence on our side of the fence by reporting information," a U.S. Navy "physical security specialist" tells Navy Compass' Bill Larned. State and local: Tennessee's governor and attorney general get to decide who constitutes a "domestic terrorist entity" under a controversial bill now being debated, The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports. "It's an all-out war of words" between Baton Rouge's mayor and sheriff over who's entitled to a $4 million Louisiana state homeland security grant, WAFB 9 News notes. A $100,000 DHS gift of cameras allows the Monaca (Pa.) police force to monitor the borough's wastewater treatment plant and reservoir, The Beaver County Times tells. Five Western New York fire companies reaped $1.2 million from FEMA to help recruit new first responders, Buffalo Business First relates — as WBEZ 91.5 News reports that Country Club Hills, "a south suburb of Chicago, plans to take down signs that alert residents to the current terrorism threat level." Chasing the dime: One of the largest distributors of police software is integrating open source intel "and betting the results will lead to enhanced counterterrorism efforts," Fast Company profiles. Ex-DHSer Michael Chertoff told card execs this week he sees significant room for cooperation between public and private institutions working on data security, Credit Union Times tells. "Right there on Route 85 in Salem [Conn.] is a 'pro shop' and training facility operated by the successor to the infamous Blackwater private security company," The New London Day tour-guides. Thanks to the Japanese reactor crisis, some biotech companies developing agents to treat radiation effects have seen a dramatic jump in trading volume, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News notes. Bugs 'n bombs: "Homeland security is definitely about more than just stopping acts of terrorism," an Examiner contributor fretful about socially disruptive increases in the costs of food and gasoline concludes. Seven hundred people from 25 countries gathered in Kansas City this week "to share ideas on a span of topics dealing with the world's food supply and how to keep it terror-safe from farm to fork," KCTV 5 News updates. Oregon State University researchers have learned to use magnetic "nanobeads" to detect chemical and biological agents, Nanowerk News relates — while EurekAlert relays word of the University of Houston winning an NIH grant to study the bioterror-flagged chikungunya virus. Brownsville, Texas, investigators, meanwhile, wonder how a poorly constructed hand grenade ended up alongside the highway, FOX News notes. Close air support: A former Miss USA charges she was 'violated' by a female TSA agent's pat-down at the Dallas airport after refusing to submit to a naked body scanning, FOX News notes — while Network World takes up a "case at Knoxville Airport when TSA agents seemed to go out of their way to harass a young pregnant woman." A California man was busted at L.A.-Ontario International after screeners found a collapsible baton inside his bag, The San Bernardino Sun says — as WBTV 3 News sees Charlotte (N.C.) police charging a man over the Colt .380 pistol in his carry-on. "You know who exhibits involuntary physical and physiological reactions in response to TSA screenings? A very large segment of the population," a Gadling poster prods, in re: an AOL Travel News take on the "behavioral indicator officers" who "monitor passengers' antics while in security lines" at 161 airports nationwide. Railroaded: DHS on Wednesday unveiled "a rugged, inexpensive terrorist-proof camera system that can withstand a suicide bombing and [show] what exactly occurred if a bomb explodes on a crowded subway car," Security Management mentions. Bay State officials are looking into some 15 chemical tankers containing nitric acid, ethanol and toluene standing at a railyard alarmingly near the town's main water source, The Milford Daily News notes. Subject to frequent militant attacks and "small bombings," Pakistan Railways is installing surveillance cameras at rail stations, Central Asia Online relates. Courts and rights: To expedite the long-protracted proceedings, the judge hearing the last 9/11-related wrongful-death action still pending of more than 90 filed after the attacks will time-limit the two sides like a speed chess match, The New York Times relates. WikiLeaked documents regarding terror detainee Mohammed el-Gharan provide "a case study in the ambiguities that surround many of the men who have passed through the prison at Guantanamo Bay," another Times story surveys. Recent polling shows Americans favoring military tribunals over civilian trials, The American mentions. Over there: An Indonesian court has handed 10 years to an Islamic extremist for his part in an "evil conspiracy" to launch Mumbai-style attacks, Agence France-Presse reports. A bomb tore through a busy cafe in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh yesterday, killing at least 15 patrons, 10 of them apparently foreigners, Bloomberg reports. Culminating a four-year manhunt, a senior al Qaeda commander in Afghanistan was killed by a U.S. airstrike as he met with four other top insurgents, ABC News quotes NATO authorities. Islamic fundamentalism is being allowed to flourish at British universities, endangering national security, The Daily Telegraph hears the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Homeland Security alerting. Kulture Kanyon: "Artists and cartoonists from all over the world are invited to take part in an exhibition with the central theme of peace and global alliance against terrorism to be held in Tehran," The Tehran Times blandishes. If you "wonder why TV insists on portraying [DHS] as a team of frontline counterterrorist shock troops," you might welcome a reality show about the department being developed by AMC, Danger Room relates. With a 76-second PSA, "ICE is hoping to lay a little guilt on movie downloaders bydramatizingthe stark human toll BitTorrent inflicts on Hollywood boom mike operators . . . or something," Threat Level laughingly leads. "Remember this the next time you plug in your Sega Genesis for some throwback gameplay: al Qaeda once wanted to set off bombs concealed in your game cartridges," Danger Room, again, has a WikiLeaks doc showing. Ginger Long Island rapper Scott James' latest album, "Brand New Villain" (TrunkFace), features "stories tackling everything from homegrown terrorism to suffering for your art," The Staten Island Advance advises. Screening Room: Executive-produced by Sean Penn, "Love Hate Love" (KTF Films) "tells the powerful stories of three families whose lives were changed by acts of terrorism," USA Today spotlights. Alex Gibney's "My Trip to Al-Qaeda" (HBO), a screen adaptation of Lawrence Wright's one-man play about his search for the roots of Islamic terrorism, "is a spellbinding connect-the-dots tour through some little-understood recent history," Salon advises. Some terrorism thrillers "leave one with a sense that they work as neither an action movie or a commentary on today's world. Sadly, Julien Leclercq's 'The Assault' [Labyrinthe]falls firmly into that latter category," The Tribeca Review reacts — while The Express Tribune hopes that Bilal Lashari's first feature-length film, "Waar" (MindWorks Media/Warner Bros.), "finds a new and refreshing angle to explore war and terrorism," even though it was shot "in collaboration with" Inter Services Public Relations, Pakistan's military image polisher. Case solved. Not: "In response to a probe into the bureau's operational costs, FBI director Robert Mueller timidly told Congress yesterday that the organization he oversees has not technically solved any crimes since 2001," The Onion reports. "After confirming that the FBI does indeed have more than 13,000 special agents deployed to investigate cases all across the country, Mueller stressed that the bureau's internal process was 'complicated,' and that the fact that not one case file has been closed in the past decade is not unexpected. According to records, the last case the FBI officially solved was a Topeka, Kan., mail fraud offense in February 2001 . . . According to Mueller, while the FBI has worked tirelessly over the past decade to obtain leads, collect a substantial amount of evidence, and organize a thorough criminal database, it has still failed to solve any cases, despite coming close several times. Offering a variety of reasons for the surprising results, Mueller insisted that while many in the agency would love to be solving more federal crimes, in the end, the majority of cases usually work themselves out anyway." 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. Source: CQ Homeland Security Copyright © 2011 CQ Roll Call. All rights reserved.