CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Wednesday, May 18, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Domestic Jihad, Take Two: House homelander Peter T. King to convene hearing on potential threat of bin Laden-related revenge attacks . . . A rose is a rose: Utah's Division of Homeland Security is renamed the Division of Emergency Management "to minimize public confusion" over its mission . . . Reasons to ride Amtak: "The scenery is better, and nobody at the train station is going to grope your little girl in the name of security." These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- Senate Republicans, joined by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., have introduced a bill to make Guantanamo a permanent "terrorist" prison, nailing down as de jure that which already appears to be an unavoidable fact, The Public Record's Jeffrey Kaye recounts — as The Australian Associated Press' Peter Veness sees David Hicks advancing his bid for an independent inquiry into his alleged torture at the facility. Feds: House homelander Peter T. King, R-N.Y., will convene a hearing next week on the potential threat of bin Laden-related revenge attacks, The Daily Caller's Caroline May mentions. "If you think it's an accident that the May 1 takedown of Osama bin Laden occurred on Obama's watch, think again," Michael Hirsh essays in The Atlantic. An expanded role for GAO in oversight of the intel community may soon become a reality thanks to an official directive requiring spy agencies to work with auditors, Secrecy News' Steven Aftergood informs. The FBI lists the Sovereign Citizen movement "among the nation's top domestic terror threats," CBS News' Byron Pitts profiles. Homies: The number of refugees sheltering in the United States has slowed to a trickle following security measures enacted by USCIS, The Catholic News Agency's SueAnn Howell hears resettlement workers rebuking. Texas CBP agents arrested a Florida man driving a load of high-powered guns into Mexico, The San Antonio Express-News' Lynn Brezosky relates — while The Tucson Citizen sees Arizona CBPers preventing the illegal exportation of more than $320,000 in U.S. currency, and The Jakarta Globe reports ICE repatriating hand-carved human skulls to Indonesia. State and local: Utah's Division of Homeland Security has been renamed the Division of Emergency Management "to minimize public confusion" over its mission, The Deseret News notes. The Kansas Legislature adjourned its 2011 session without acting on a resolution condemning a member for likening illegal aliens to "feral hogs," The Lawrence Journal-World relates. Nearly 15 percent of Nebraska high school grads can't pass the entrance exam to join the U.S. Army or National Guard, the Lincoln Journal-Star says. An anti-terror exercise staging in Hampton Roads, Va., this week tests response in maritime, hostage and mass casualty scenarios, WAVE 10 News notes. Follow the money: "Terrorist financiers must be under tremendous stress since news broke that U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden and seized hard drives," a Foreign Policy essays starts. Looking into where the money came from to build bin Laden's Abbottabad compound "could yield more leads on al Qaeda worth pursuing," a Huffington Post op-ed advises. Fearing black money and terror financing risks from Iran and North Korea, the Indian stock market has been advised "to be cautious in dealings with funds and entities from those countries," The Business Standard relates. As repositories of personal and financial info on hundreds of thousands of guests enrolled in loyalty programs, "Las Vegas resorts are an obvious target for terrorists seeking to finance their destructive plots," Vegas Inc. informs. Bio-terrible: "An anthrax attack could potentially encompass hundreds of square miles, expose hundreds of thousands of people, and cause illness, death, fear, societal disruption and economic damage," an Examiner essay assesses. "On the heels of anthrax comes a string of deadly agents that scientists also fear can be used as weapons and spread with ease," National Defense surveys. Global health officials are to decide this week on granting a stay of execution to the last known stocks of smallpox virus, The Wall Street Journal relates. The deadly Ebola virus considered a potential bioterror agent, has killed a 12-year-old Ugandan girl, and health officials expect more cases, Reuters reports. Know nukes: Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., plans to reintroduce legislation beefing up penalties for those caught illegally transferring nuclear materials or technologies, Global Security Newswire notes. The nuclear disaster in Japan has revived decades-old concerns about evacuating schoolchildren if something similar happened in New Hampshire, The Associated Press leads. "The NRC works closely with Homeland Security," Bay Net hears an agency official assuring Marylanders wary of the Calvert Cliffs nuke plant. Employees and "disaster reservists" at Savannah River National Lab could "help respond to a terrorist-detonated nuclear blast in a major city" as health and safety workers, engineers and hazmat experts, The Augusta (S.C.) Chronicle recounts. Close air support: A TSA officer was arrested Monday for allegedly stealing items from a traveler's suitcase at LAX, The Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze reports — while CNN sees that L.A. air hub using dogs trained to detect concealed explosives. When a TSA screener at the Twin Cities' airport smelled alcohol on his breath, an AirTran Airways pilot was arrested and removed from his scheduled flight, The Minneapolis Star Tribune relates. No explosives were found in a van stopped at a Miami International parking lot security checkpoint on Monday, The Miami Herald relays. Indian officials have banned Sikh air security officers from wearing the "kirpan," the Sikh ceremonial knife, while on duty at the Amritsar airport, The South Asia Mail mentions — though the Times of India sees the policy under review following protests. Coming and going: Riding Amtrak, "the scenery is better, and nobody at the train station is going to grope your little girl in the name of security, a Washington Examiner op-ed observes. Few Americans completely change their travel plans in response to State's warnings of terrorism risk and other overseas perils, the Los Angeles Times sees an online poll suggesting. Security boats patrolling the waters near the giant SBX radar ship are working to prevent a "USS Cole-style attack" on the highly classified vessel, Seattle's KIRO TV News notes. Kuwaiti police dogs sniffed out plastic explosives hidden in a pickup truck entering an industrial seaport there, Reuters reports. Terror tech: A little bee venom protein fuels "the most powerful explosives-detection system in history, able to detect a single molecule of dangerous chemicals," Danger Room recounts — while StreetInsider.com relays Implant Science's launch of its new bench-top trace detector, the advanced Quantum Sniffer. The E.U., meantime, is honing a citywide network of autonomous sensors for scenting hints of airborne explosives, The Engineer relates. If a dirty bomb detonated in a U.S. city, an expert sitting in a national lab could use DHS-devised networking software to analyze the data and promptly update first responders, National Defense, again, notes. A new software system could provide info relevant to evacuating a threatened region prior to an asteroid impact, Discovery News notes. Guns and gizmos: Military gear blogs credit the highly reliable HK416 rifle with the "double tap" of 5.56 mm bullets to bin Laden's head, U.S. News briefs. Pakistan will return the tail of the secret stealth helicopter used in the bin Laden raid to the United States, and not to China, its longtime armorer, Defense Tech confirms. "Why use two stealth helicopters (and maybe a stealth drone) when the other half of your assault fleet is unstealthy?" Defense Tech also head-scratches. "Bin Laden was a conspiracy theorist who twisted religion to justify mass murder. But even he thought constructing a monster truck of doom crossed a certain line of taste," Danger Room, again, leads. The terror icon's low-tech final redoubt belies his organization's sophisticated seizure of "the Web to spawn an army of online followers who will prolong al Qaeda's war against the West long after his demise," AP spotlights. Courts and rights: A U.S. magistrate has ruled that a young imam facing terror finance charges has too much money to receive a court-appointed public defender, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel says — while CBS Detroit sees a county judge ordering a competency hearing for a mentally ill Vietnam War vet accused of planning to attack a Dearborn mosque with fireworks. A "man who is suddenly an important figure in the relationship between Pakistan and the United States," appearing for the prosecution in a Chicago terror trial initiated this week, "may not be the most reliable witness," The Hindu handicaps. A federal judge has validated an attorney's claim that the Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy is larger than thought, ordering the FBI to produce more info, AP reports. Over there: A al Qaeda expert says an Egyptian veteran militant was acting as an interim leader pending longtime deputy Ayman al-Zawahri being tapped as bin Laden's successor, Reuters reports. As lawmakers condemned the bin Laden raid and continuing drone attacks, Interior Minister Rehman Malik insists that anti-terror ops must respect Pakistan's sovereignty, Bloomberg relates — and see Al Jazeera on yesterday's cross-border exchange of fire between NATO and Pakistani forces. The bin Laden killing could prompt "a new wave of terror" across a broad swath of Central Asia, Reuters, again, hears the Shanghai Cooperation Organization contending. Three bomb scares in Ireland preceded Queen Elizabeth II's arrival yesterday in the capital, The Dublin Herald relates. There is thy sting: "Following the passing of 82-year-old Joseph Howerton, the American people were, for the very first time, forced to confront the reality that death is an inevitable part of life that one day awaits us all," The Onion reports. "While sources confirmed that the nation's 311 million residents were aware of death as a basic concept, the demise of Ohio retiree Howerton reportedly marked the first instance in which death became fully real to the U.S. populace, and not simply an abstract idea removed from their own lives. Although sources said the nation's entire citizenry had confronted death firsthand to a much lesser degree in 2001 following the death of St. Cloud, Minn., house cat Boots, nothing had prepared the population for the level of existential awareness that comes when an actual human being dies . . . Congress plans to form a number of special committees this week that will spend long hours pondering Howerton's death, estimating how many years their own respective relatives have left to live, and coming to grips with how these deaths might affect them." 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.