Armoredd.com

June 08, 2009

The US has offered to lease out 12 of its Coast Guard’s twin-engine helicopters to India which is looking to strengthen its coastal security following the Mumbai terror attacks [ Images ]. “As the acquisition process will take time, we (India) want to have 12 twin-engine helicopters on lease for the Coast Guard. The US has offered to lease out its Coast Guard helicopters to us,” a senior Defence Ministry official said in New Delhi [ Images ] on Monday. However, India has also got some offers from within the country. But it has to be seen if these civilian helicopters would meet the Coast Guard’s military needs, the official said.

Under the fast-track acquisition process, the Coast Guard was asked by the government to purchase 12 Dornier transport aircraft for medium-range surveillance activities and the proposal has been approved already. “The purchase of 12 Dorniers for the Coast Guard has been approved and government-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited will supply five Dorniers by this year end,” the official said, when asked about the fast-track acquisition process in the wake of the 26/11 attacks.

The 12 twin-engine helicopters to be leased were meant to augment the Dornier fleet for surveillance and reconnaissance activities.In all, India is looking to purchase about a dozen items, mostly ships and aircraft, for its Coast Guard and Navy, which has been designated this February as the overall in-charge for matters concerning the security of the 7,500-km-long coast.

“About 12 Request for Proposal (RFP) are to be issued under fast track acquisition process. Six or seven are ready and after they are issued, the acquisition will begin in six or seven months,” he said. The Navy, which would get its own 1000-man Sagar Prahari Bal to protect its own installations along the coast, was in need of 80 boats for the new force. “Global tenders will be issued and in four or five months the process would be completed,” the official said. India will be issuing RFPS in a month for coastal radars, which would be fitted on lighthouses and at Coast Guard installations all along the coastline, the official said, adding Aerostat radars were not under consideration of theNavy as yet.

© Copyright 2009 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.

Source: rediff news

By Michael O’Brien
Posted: 06/05/09 04:42 PM [ET]

A former State Department official and his wife have been indicted on charges of spying for Cuba since the 1970s.

Walter Kendall Myers, a former official in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research who retired in 2007, is said to have worked as an agent of the Cuban Intelligence Service along with his wife, Gwendolyn, according to an indictment released Friday. The couple were arrested Thursday.

Charges of conspiracy, being an agent of a foreign government, wire fraud, forfeiture and aiding and abetting were filed against the couple in the federal district court for Washington on Friday.

“The clandestine activity alleged in the charging documents, which spanned nearly three decades, is incredibly serious and should serve as a warning to any others in the U.S. government who would betray America’s trust by serving as illegal agents of a foreign government,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security David Kris said in a statement announcing the indictments.

As a State Department employee, Myers has had access to some classified information since 1978.

The indictment said that the alleged “conspiracy” persisted from 1979 to “on or about June 4, 2009.”

The indictment accuses the couple of working to undermine the day-to-day function of the State Department.

It is not clear whether Gwendolyn Myers had once served as a congressional aide, as had previously been reported.

The detailed indictment unveiled Friday even goes so far as to say the couple had used shortwave radio and Morse code to communicate messages to the Cuban government.

According to the indictment, the FBI had run an undercover sting at a Washington hotel against Walter Myers in mid-April of this year.

“These arrests are the culmination of an outstanding counterespionage effort by many agents, analysts and prosecutors who deserve special thanks for their extraordinary work,” Kris said.

Source: The Hill

By ELLEN NAKASHIMA
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON | President Barack Obama on Friday declared the country’s computer and digital networks a “strategic national asset” and said he will select a cyber security coordinator to spearhead the effort to protect them.

“We’re not as prepared as we should be, as a government or as a country,” he said in a speech from the White House East Room in an effort to bring to the nation’s attention to what he termed one of the most serious economic and military dangers threatening the country.

He laid out the threat, noting that in the last two years alone, cyber thieves have cost Americans more than $8 billion and that last year worldwide they stole data worth up to $1 trillion. He described how even his own presidential campaign network had been compromised last fall, with hackers gaining access to policy position papers and travel plans.

In a serious attack on the military network last year, he said, several thousand computers were infected by malware, forcing troops to abandon use of thumb drives, changing the way they use computers.

“Protecting this infrastructure will be a national security priority,” he said. “We will ensure that these networks are secure, trustworthy and resilient. We will deter, prevent and … defend against attacks and recover quickly from any disruptions or damage.”

The new cyber czar, whom he has not yet chosen, will be a member of the National Security Council and National Economic Council. He or she will head a new White House cyber office that will work closely with the Office of Management and Budget to ensure agency budgets reflect cyber security policies, he said, and in the event of a major cyber attack, coordinate the government’s response.

The office will include an official dedicated to protecting privacy and civil liberties, Obama said.

In an attempt to assuage concerns about government monitoring of Americans’ e-mails and phone calls, he stressed that the new effort won’t include “monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic.”

The announcement coincided with the release of a 38-page report that outlines a broad strategy to strengthen cyber security. The report is intended as a road map, with substantive policies to be worked out later.

The initial response to the speech was positive.

“The president’s engaged. He’s informed on the issues. He’s making a commitment,” said Amit Yoran, a former senior cyber official at the Department of Homeland Security under the Bush administration, who was among more than 120 industry, academic and government officials attending the speech.

The plan is “pretty good,” said James A. Lewis, executive director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency, whose report last December was influential in shaping the current strategy.

“This is really the first time a president has talked about this issue” in public from the White House, he said.

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Authorities say Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, the reputed leader of the Mexican cartel, has given his associates the OK, if necessary, to open fire across the border.

By Josh Meyer
May 6, 2009

Reporting from Sells, Ariz. — The reputed head of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel is threatening a more aggressive stance against competitors and law enforcement north of the border, instructing associates to use deadly force, if needed, to protect increasingly contested trafficking operations, authorities said.

Such a move by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s most-wanted fugitive, would mark a turn from the cartel’s previous position of largely avoiding violent confrontations in the U.S. — either with law enforcement officers or rival traffickers.

Police and federal agents in Arizona said they had recently received at least two law enforcement alerts focused on Guzman’s reported orders that his smugglers should “use their weapons to defend their loads at all costs.”

Guzman is thought to have delivered the message personally in early March, during a three-day gathering of his associates in Sonoita, a Mexican town a few miles south of the Arizona border, according to confidential U.S. intelligence bulletins sent to several state and federal law enforcement officials, who discussed them on the condition of anonymity.

The Sonoita meeting is considered one of several signs that Guzman is becoming more brazen even in the face of a Mexican government crackdown on his activities and continued turf rivalries with other traffickers.

Read More here

By Ken Stier
Saturday, May. 02, 2009
Time

With swine flu frenzy gripping the U.S., the threat coming from south of the Mexico border may seem more real to many Americans than ever before. But the U.S. border authorities who patrol that 1,969 mile long border have another stealth threat to worry about. This month, they will begin installing the first small, 50 mile segment of a “virtual fence” on the dividing line with Mexico. By 2014 most of the border will be home to sensor-equipped towers that are linked to a central communications network. But while proponents argue that the system will help stem the flow of illegal immigrants, drugs and arms coming over the border, most experts admit it will do little to guard against people making their way under it.

And as above ground border defenses and patrols get tougher, that subterranean vulnerability is becoming a growing problem. Since 2001, more than 100 tunnels have been discovered by U.S. law enforcement, compared with just 15 in the 1990s, and the pace is accelerating. Most of those have been uncovered through human intelligence, since there are no currently available technical means to reliably detect tunnels. The Department of Homeland Security started spending research money on detection technologies two years ago. But even the most promising ones — primarily adapted from mining and petroleum exploration industries — are several years from proving reliable. “We see this as one of those frontier threat areas that have to be mitigated but it is a very, very difficult problem area,” says Rick Miller, a leading expert at the Kansas Geological Survey.

Most of the tunnels are pretty crude, what law enforcement call gopher holes. Typically just a few feet down and only long enough to get under a fence or two, they can be dug with a pick axe and shovel in the span of just a few nights. Some of them tap into existing infrastructure, using paved roads as roofs, or by punching their way into extensive storm drainage systems that are sometimes shared by border towns, such as with the town of Nogales, Mexico and its northern neighbor in Arizona — also called Nogales.

Far more worrisome are the increasingly sophisticated tunnels that display mining engineering expertise and significant investments of money. A tunnel discovered in 2006 believed to have been financed by the Tijuana Cartel led by the family of Ramon Arellano Felix was around 2,400 feet long and about nine stories deep. It had concrete floors in certain sections, ventilation, electricity and a water drainage system. It went from an industrial area of Tijuana across the border to a warehouse in Otay Mesa, the main commercial port of entry near San Diego. “The technology it used was shocking,” says Brian Damkroger, who heads the Borders and Maritime Security programs at Sandia National Labs in New Mexico. (View pictures of high seas border patrol near San Diego.)

In some respects, though, it was predictable. Drug cartels certainly have the money to build these tunnels, and Mexico’s sizeable mining sector means there is plenty of tunnel engineering expertise available, willing or not. There have been at least nine very sophisticated tunnels discovered over the years, some equipped with rails to move contraband more efficiently. Authorities believe at least six cartels are thought to be capable of building major tunnels, and three have already undertaken them. “I would certainly think that [tunneling] would be the preferred way to go for drug smugglers,” says Neil Anderson, Professor, Geological Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology Rolla, who has worked on the issue for the military. ”

Still, even for cash flush traffickers, these narco-tunnels are not small undertakings. The Otay Mesa tunnel could easily have cost more than a million dollars; several hundred truckloads would have been needed to carry away the excavated soil. Covert tunneling entails more security risks that cost extra to conceal. On top of that, US officials believe they caught the latest sophisticated tunnel soon after it came online.

“That’s a huge hit,” says Michael Unzueta, special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Investigations [in San Diego]. “Drug trafficking organizations don’t want to lose money, narcotics, houses and the same goes for tunnels — and if they spent a year a digging a tunnel and then to loose that asset so quickly, that has to have some crippling setback effect.”

But for a business worth some $25 billion a year, that’s debatable. “The cartels can afford to dig ten tunnels, have nine of them get discovered, one doesn’t and the money they make off of that one tunnel pays for all ten, and then some, so why not,” counters Austin Long, a security expert, and associate political scientist at the Rand Corporation, who points to all the other exotic and expensive ways cartels have devised to bring drugs into the US, including submarines and ultra-light aircraft. (Read about The Great Wall of America.)

Tunnels have been a factor in conflicts and escapes for millennia; only after the Vietnam War did the world came to appreciate the engineering marvel the Vietnamese Communists accomplished in the Cu Chi tunnel networks, which was as extensive as the New York City subway system. But in today’s age of asymmetric conflict tunneling seems to have a new cachet. The US military is finding this out in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there have been numerous successful and nearly successful underground breaches at bases and prisons where suspected terrorists are held. “Protecting underground perimeters is the next capability gap to be bridged in the force protection arena,” Lt Colonel Robert Tucker, of the Army’s Maneuver Support Center at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, wrote in a recent journal article.

Israel was jolted into awareness of the threats tunnels pose one early Sunday morning in June of 2006, when Palestinian militants popped up from the earth in the middle of a military outpost near the border, killing two soldiers and wounding four others. Twenty year old Gilad Shalit, whose hand broke when an RPG hit his tank, was dragged into the tunnel and back to Gaza. Almost three years later, Shalit is still being held by Hamas, which has offered to exchange him for 450 Palestinians prisoners.

Even more vexing are the estimated 800 tunnels linking Gaza (from the town of Rafah) with Egypt, whose border is closed due to friction between Cairo and Hamas. The tunnels are critical conduits not only for weapons but also medicine and food, including live goats and sheep. The occasional bombing along the border is not thought to accomplish much; Israel’s US-made bunker-busting bombs would not do much damage to tunnels that are 70-100 feet deep. If tunnels are located — as they were in Israel’s latest ground operation in Gaza in January — they are not easily disabled for long. By the end of March some 70 tons of weapons was smuggled in to replenish Hamas stocks, according to Israel’s security chief, Yuval Diskin.

Back at the Mexico-Texas border, the new fence does include some underground sensors. But in reality, it basically stitches together currently available commercial technology which experts acknowledge is far from adequate to detect stealth tunneling. The overall problem is that soil conditions vary widely and some environments pose particular challenges. Acoustical and electromagnetic techniques, for instance, are seriously compromised in urban environments, which are noisy and have lots of other metal around. That’s important because most tunnels so far have been found in or near cities, which provide the “cover” to help obscure the infrastructure needed, like warehouses, for tunnels to thrive.

“We fully expect that our well-financed adversaries, will take whatever steps they feel they need to take that they think might defeat our mechanisms…both above and below the ground,” says Mark Borkowski, a retired Air Force colonel who is now executive director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative, which oversees the physical and virtual fences on the Mexico border. “We are seeing all kinds of technologies that these people are using to get around some of the fences we are putting in place.”

Associated Press and McClatchy-Tribune
April 26, 2009, 7:09PM
Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON — The federal government declared a public health emergency Sunday to deal with the emerging new swine flu, much like the government does to prepare for approaching hurricanes.

Officials reported 20 U.S. cases of swine flu in five states so far, with the latest in Ohio and New York. Unlike in Mexico where the same strain appears to be killing dozens of people, cases in the United State have been mild — and U.S. health authorities can’t yet explain why.

“As we continue to look for cases, we are going to see a broader spectrum of disease,” predicted Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We’re going to see more severe disease in this country.”

Eight Queens, N.Y., high school students have contracted confirmed cases of swine flu, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Sunday, while Nassau, N.Y., officials said they have one suspected case and test results for eight Suffolk, N.Y., residents were negative.

At a White House news conference, Besser and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought to assure Americans that health officials are taking all appropriate steps to minimize the impact of the outbreak.

Top among those is declaring the public health emergency. As part of that, Napolitano said roughly 12 million doses of the drug Tamiflu will be moved from a federal stockpile to places where states can quickly get their share if they decide they need it. Priority will be given to the five states with known cases so far: California, Texas, New York, Ohio and Kansas.

Napolitano called the emergency declaration standard operating procedure — one was declared recently for the inauguration and for flooding. She urged people to think of it as a “declaration of emergency preparedness.”

“Really that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re preparing in an environment where we really don’t know ultimately what the size of seriousness of this outbreak is going to be.”

U.S. officials will begin asking travelers about illness if they’re entering the country from areas with confirmed swine flu.

Passengers won’t be barred from getting into the United States. But they could be referred for further testing.

Quarantines, tighter pork rules

Canada became the third country to confirm human cases of swine flu Sunday as global health officials considered whether to raise the global pandemic alert level.

Nations from New Zealand to Spain also reported suspected cases, and some warned citizens against travel to North America while others planned quarantines, tightened rules on pork imports and tested airline passengers for fevers.

The six Canadian cases in Nova Scotia and British Columbia all had links to people who had traveled to Mexico, and all are the same swine flu strain. The six people have recovered, said Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer.

But “these are probably not the last cases we’ll see in Canada,” he said.

The news follows the World Health Organization’s decision on Saturday to declare the outbreak first detected in Mexico and the United States a “public health emergency of international concern.”

A senior World Health Organization official said the agency’s emergency committee will meet for a second time on Tuesday to examine the spread of the virus before deciding whether to increase the alert for a possible pandemic, or global epidemic.

Governments including China, Russia and Taiwan began planning to put anyone with symptoms of the deadly virus under quarantine.

Russia banned the import of meat products from Mexico, California, Texas and Kansas. South Korea said it would increase the number of its influenza virus checks on pork products from Mexico and the U.S.

2 more deaths in Mexico

Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrardo said two more people died of swine flu overnight in the overcrowded capital, and three other deaths are suspected to have been caused by the strain. An additional 73 more people were hospitalized with influenza, possible swine flu.

City Health Secretary Armando Ahued said most of the fatalities involve victims who only sought medical help after the disease was well advanced and urged people to seek urgent care

President Felipe Calderon has assumed new powers to isolate people infected with the deadly swine flu strain that health officials say has killed up to 86 people and likely sickened about 1,400 in the country since April 13.

The flu has spread beyond Mexico’s borders with 20 confirmed cases in five U.S. states: New York, California, Texas, Kansas and Ohio.

In Mexico, soldiers and health workers patrolled the capital’s subway system on Sunday handing out surgical masks and looking for possible flu cases. People were advised to seek medical attention if they suffered from symptoms including a fever of more than 100 degrees, body aches, coughing, a sore throat, respiratory congestion and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhea.

Hundreds of public events from concerts to sports matches to were called off to keep people from congregating and spreading the virus in crowds. Zoos were closed and visits to juvenile correction centers were suspended.

About a dozen federal police in blue surgical masks stood in front of Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral, which was nearly empty after a measure canceling services to avoid large concentrations of people.

Johana Chavez, 22, said she showed up for her confirmation only to find a sign advising that all Masses, baptisms and confirmations were canceled until further notice.

“We are all Catholic so this is a big step, closing the cathedral,” she said, cradling a squirming infant in her arms. “The flu must be bad. I guess I’ll have to come back later.”

Markets and restaurants were nearly empty. And throngs of Mexicans — some with just a fever — rushed to hospitals.

Mexico appears to have lost valuable days or weeks in detecting the new flu strain, a combination of pig, bird and human viruses that humans may have no natural immunity to. Health officials have found cases in 16 Mexican states. Two dozen new suspected cases were reported in the capital on Saturday alone.

The first death was in southern Oaxaca state on April 13, but Mexico didn’t send the first of 14 mucus samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention until April 18, around the same time it dispatched health teams to hospitals looking for patients with severe flu or pnuemonia-like symptoms.

Those teams noticed something strange: The flu was killing people aged 20 to 40. Flu victims are usually either infants or the elderly. The Spanish flu pandemic, which killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19, also first struck otherwise healthy young adults.

The World Health Organization on Saturday asked all countries to step up reporting and surveillance of the disease, as airports around the world were screening travelers from Mexico for flu symptoms.

On Sunday, New Zealand reported that 10 students “likely” have swine flu after a school trip to Mexico, though Health Minister Tony Ryall said none of the students was seriously ill and there was no guarantee they had swine flu. Israel’s Health Ministry said there is one suspected case in that country and France is investigating four possible cases.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said the outbreak of the never-before-seen virus has “pandemic potential.” But she said it is still too early to tell if it would become a pandemic — an epidemic that spreads in humans around the world.

Mexican authorities ordered schools closed in the capital and the states of Mexico and San Luis Potosi until May 6.

A team from the CDC was in Mexico to help set up detection testing for the swine flu strain, something Mexico previously lacked.

Health authorities noticed a threefold spike in flu cases in late March and early April, but thought it was a late rebound in the December-February flu season.

Testing at domestic labs did not alert doctors to the new strain. Health Secretary Jose Cordova acknowledged Mexican labs lacked the profiling data needed to detect the previously unknown strain.

Even though U.S. labs detected the swine flu in California and Texas before last weekend, Mexican authorities as recently as Wednesday were referring to it as a late-season flu.

But mid-afternoon Thursday, Mexico City Health Secretary Dr. Armando Ahued said, officials got a call “from the United States and Canada, the most important laboratories in the field, telling us this was a new virus.”

Asked why there were so many deaths in Mexico, and none so far among the U.S. cases, Cordova noted that the U.S. cases involved children — who haven’t been among the fatal cases in Mexico, either.

“There are immune factors that are giving children some sort of defense, that is the only explanation we have,” he said.

Another factor may be that some Mexican patients may have delayed seeking medical help too long, Cordova said.

Others are forced to work and leave their homes despite health concerns.

Wearing two dirty, blue surgical masks she says she found and a heavy coat, Daniela Briseno swept garbage early Sunday morning from the streets in Mexico City.

“This chill air must be doing me harm. I should be at home but I have a family to support,” the 31-year-old said.

Scientists have warned for years about the potential for a pandemic from viruses that mix genetic material from humans and animals.

By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY

A rising number of U.S. border enforcement officers are being arrested on corruption charges as Mexican drug cartels look to bribes as a way to get around tougher enforcement, border officials say.

Investigators arrested 21 U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers on corruption charges in the fiscal year that ended last September, up from eight in the previous 12 months, according to CBP. This year, 14 have been arrested.

Since 2004, 84 officers have been arrested and 62 were convicted, says James Tomsheck, assistant commissioner for internal affairs at CBP, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. That number represents a small fraction of the more than 52,000 people employed by the agency, which enforces U.S. law along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico.

Still, the trend is alarming, Tomsheck says. “We’re deeply concerned. The numbers are disturbing.”

Another troubling trend: Mexican syndicates are trying to plant their own people in the agency. Investigators have arrested at least four agents since 2007 who they believe were sent by drug cartels to infiltrate the CBP, Tomsheck says.

The Homeland Security Department’s Office of Inspector General, which also investigates border agents, has also reported an increase in border corruption cases.

The rise stems in part from the department’s success in patrolling the border, says Thomas Frost, Homeland Security’s assistant inspector general for investigations.

As the vast terrain between ports of entry thickens with agents, fences and walls, drug cartels are increasingly targeting checkpoints and trying to influence officers there, he says, and more corruption cases are expected.

Among the border agents arrested:

• Michael Gilliland, a veteran CBP officer in California, who was seduced with sexual favors by a woman working for the cartels and cash, Frost says. In exchange, Gilliland allowed caravans of illegal immigrants to enter the United States. Gilliland pleaded guilty to taking bribes and was sentenced in 2007 to five years in prison.

• Margarita Crispin, a CBP officer in El Paso, allowed vehicles stuffed with marijuana to enter the U.S., according to the Justice Department. Border officials say Crispin, who pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, was sent by a drug gang to infiltrate CBP.

• Raul Villarreal, a CBP spokesman from California, and his brother, Fidel Villarreal, also a border agent, were arrested in Tijuana in October and charged by federal agents with running a smuggling ring that brought in illegal immigrants for money. The brothers have pleaded not guilty and are being held without bail at a federal prison in San Diego.

By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press
USA Today

WASHINGTON — Wanted: Computer hackers.

Buffeted by millions of digital scans and attacks each day, federal authorities are looking for hackers — not to prosecute them, but to pay them to secure the nation’s networks.

General Dynamics Information Technology put out an ad last month on behalf of the Homeland Security Department seeking someone who could “think like the bad guy.” Applicants, it said, must understand hackers’ tools and tactics and be able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems.

And in the Pentagon’s budget request submitted last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates hung out his own help-wanted sign, saying the Pentagon will increase the number of cyber experts it can train each year from 80 to 250 by 2011.

Amid dire warnings that the U.S. is ill-prepared for a cyber attack, the White House conducted a 60-day study of how the government can better manage and use technology to protect everything from the nation’s electrical grid and stock markets to tax data, airline flight systems, and nuclear launch codes.

President Obama appointed former Bush administration aide Melissa Hathaway to head the effort, and her report was delivered Friday, the White House said.

While the country had detailed plans for floods, fires or errant planes drifting into protected airspace, there is no similar response etched out for a major computer attack.

David Powner, director of technology issues for the Government Accountability Office, told Congress last month that the U.S. has no recovery plan for a digital disaster.

“We’re clearly not as prepared as we should be,” he said.

The U.S., administration officials say, has not kept pace with technological innovations needed to protect its computer networks against emerging threats from hackers, criminals or other nations looking for national security secrets.

U.S. computer networks, including those at the Pentagon and other federal agencies, are under persistent attack, ranging from nuisance hacking to more nefarious assaults, possibly from other nations, such as China. Industry leaders told Congress during a recent hearing that law enforcement and other protections are too outdated to fend off threats from criminals, terrorists and unfriendly foreign nations.

Just last week, a former government official revealed that spies had hacked into the U.S. electric grid and left behind computer programs that would let them disrupt service. The intrusions were discovered after electric companies gave the government permission to audit their systems, said the ex-official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Cyber threats are also included as a key potential national security risk outlined in a classified report put together by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And Pentagon officials say they spent more than $100 million in the last six months responding to and repairing damage from cyber attacks and other computer network problems.

Nadia Short, vice president at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, said the job posting for ethical hackers fills a critical need for the federal government.

The analysts keep constant watch on the government networks as part of a surveillance programs called Einstein that was initiated by the Bush administration under the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. US-CERT is a partnership of the Homeland Security Department, other public agencies and private companies. The Einstein program is an automated process for collecting and sharing security information.

Short said the $60 million, four-year contract with US-CERT uses the so-called ethical hackers to analyze threats to the government’s computer systems and develop ways to reduce vulnerabilities.

Faced with such cyber challenges, Obama ordered the 60-day review to examine how federal agencies manage and protect their massive amounts of data and what the government’s role should be in guarding the vast networks that control the country’s vital utilities and infrastructure.

Over the past two months, Hathaway met with hundreds of industry leaders, Capitol Hill staff and other experts, seeking guidance on what the federal government’s role should be in protecting information networks against an attack. And she sought recommendations on how officials should define and report cyber incidents and attacks; how the government should structure its cyber oversight and how the nation can increase security without stifling innovation.

A task force of technology giants, including representatives from General Dynamics, IBM, Lockheed Martin and Hewlett-Packard Co. urged the administration to establish a White House-level official to lead cyber efforts and to develop ways to share information on problems more quickly with the private sector.

The administration has struggled with the basics, such as who should control the nation’s cyberspace programs. There appears to be some agreement now that the White House should coordinate the overall effort, rejecting suggestions that the National Security Agency take it on — a plan that triggered protests on Capitol Hill and from civil liberties groups worried about giving such control to U.S. spy agencies.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security officials are warning that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country’s first black president to recruit members to their cause.

In an intelligence assessment issued to law enforcement last week, Homeland Security officials said there was no specific information about an attack in the works by right-wing extremists.

The agency warns that an extended economic downturn with real estate foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit could foster an environment for extremists to recruit members who may not have been supportive of these causes in the past.

Homeland Security spokesman Sean Smith said the report is one in a series of assessments issued by the agency’s intelligence and analysis unit. The agency describes these assessments as part of a series published “to facilitate a greater understanding of the phenomenon of violent radicalization in the United States.”

In February, the department issued a report to law enforcement that said left-wing extremist groups were likely to use cyber attacks more often in the next 10 years to further their cause. And in September, the agency issued a report that highlighted how right-wing extremists over the past five years have used the immigration debate as a recruiting tool.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: United States | Internet | Barack Obama | Pittsburgh | Oklahoma City | Homeland Security | Sean Smith
The latest assessment started making its way into the mainstream press after conservative blogs got wind of the analysis. In this report, the agency warns that imposing new restrictions on firearms and returning military veterans who have difficulties assimilating back into their communities could lead to terror groups or individuals attempting to carry out attacks. The returning war veterans have skills and experience that are appealing to right-wing groups looking to carry out an attack, according to the report.

The agency cites the April 4 killings of three Pittsburgh police officers as an example of a the type of violence spurred by right-wing rhetoric.

“Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years,” the report said.

In the 1990s, the report said, a resurgence in right-wing extremism was brought on by the poor economy and the outsourcing of jobs, with extremist groups targeting government facilities, law enforcement officers and banks.

The growth was slowed after intense government scrutiny of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings, according to the report, but the Internet now gives extremists more access to information about making bombs and weapons training. The new technologies also make it easier for extremists to communicate, the report said, and make it more difficult for law enforcement to detect or prevent an attack.

In November, after Obama’s election, law enforcement officials were seeing more threats and unusual interest against a president-elect than ever before.

One of the most popular white supremacist websites got more than 2,000 new members the day after the election, compared with 91 new members on Election Day, according to an Associated Press count. The site, stormfront.org, was temporarily off-line Nov. 5 because of the overwhelming amount of activity it received after Election Day.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

USA Today

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli fighter jets were scrambled to escort a Delta Air Lines plane flying from New York to Tel Aviv after the pilot activated a hijacking alert by mistake.

Transportation ministry official, Dani Shenar, told Israeli media Saturday that nobody was hurt in the incident.

He said two jets hovered briefly over the plane carrying over 100 people and escorted it safely to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.

A technical malfunction had prevented the pilot from communicating with the airport’s control tower.

The transportation ministry said it will launch an investigation.

Submitted by national on Monday, 6 April 2009
National Terror Alert

Police captured the pilot of a stolen Canadian plane late Monday night, ending a bizarre pursuit that began in Thunder Bay, Ont., and ended in a small Missouri town.

The pilot took a single-engine Cessna 172 from a Thunder Bay aviation school and soon crossed into U.S. airspace. Authorities scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to track the aircraft as it made its way over Wisconsin and Illinois.

Nearly eight hours later, at about 10 p.m. ET, the pilot landed on a dirt road in the southern Missouri town of Ellsinore and fled on foot.

Officials with the Federal Bureau of Investigation then arrested 31-year-old suspect Yavuz Burke, a native of Turkey who became a Canadian citizen last year. He was formerly known as Adam Leon.

Earlier, the North American Aerospace Defense Command had scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to track the plane.

Lt.-Cmdr. Gary Ross, a spokesperson for NORAD, said the pilot did not respond to radio calls from the jets or the FAA.

He also said the pilot refused to acknowledge the nonverbal communications from the F-16 jets to follow them. It appears the plane only landed as it came close to running out of fuel.

The plane was reported stolen at about 2:30 p.m. ET and was spotted flying erratically.

At about 5 p.m., the state capital building in Madison, Wis., was evacuated before the plane passed near the region. Police cars cordoned off the streets around the building and officers told people to move away from the area.

The small plane belongs to Confederation College’s aviation program and was taken off from the Thunder Bay International Airport.

According to local radio, someone jumped the fence and took off on an unauthorized flight.

City police are at the scene at the college’s hangar. Police spokesperson Chris Adams says officers have little to go on at the time.

According to Cessna’s website, the Cessna 172 Skyhawk is world’s most flown airplane. It has a maximum cruise speed of 233 kilometres an hour and a range of 1,130 km.

updated 3:42 p.m. PT, Thurs., March. 12, 2009
MSNBC

WASHINGTON - A top Homeland Security official told a House panel Thursday that Mexican drug cartels are the biggest organized crime threat to the United States.

Homeland Security official Roger Rufe said a department plan to respond to escalating violence on the southwest border includes — as a last resort — deploying military personnel and equipment to the region if homeland security agencies become overwhelmed.

Rufe, echoing comments a day earlier from President Barack Obama, said now is not the time to militarize the southwest border.

“We would take all resources short of DoD and National Guard troops before we reach that tipping point,” Rufe told lawmakers. “We very much do not want to militarize our border.”

Rufe said military forces would be called in only when homeland security and other government agencies are overwhelmed. He did not specify what circumstances would trigger a call for troops.

The Mexican government has deployed 700 extra federal police to Ciudad Juarez, a city bordering Texas where local police have been overwhelmed by drug violence. Earlier this month, 3,200 federal troops were sent to the city.

Mexican officials say the violence killed 6,290 people last year — and more than 1,000 in the first eight weeks of 2009. Warring drug cartels are blamed for more than 560 kidnappings in Phoenix in 2007 and the first half of 2008, and killings in Atlanta, and Birmingham, Ala.

Rufe said while the violence along the border in Mexico is appalling, violent crimes have not increased in U.S. border cities as a result. He said kidnappings are up, but violent crime is down.

We’re not so concerned, at least at this point, about that violence spilling over into our cities,” he said.

Warnings issued to travelers
Further, the Homeland Security Department’s attache to Mexico said the violence in Mexico is not as dangerous to U.S. tourists as has been portrayed.

Alonzo Pena said the violence is in isolated areas of the country and only affects the people involved in criminal activity. He said the violence is not affecting U.S. citizens visiting Mexico and Americans should not cancel their vacations in the country.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives warned college students on spring breaks not to travel to parts of northern Mexico because it was too dangerous.

In February, the State Department advised travelers to avoid areas of prostitution and drug-dealing in Mexico.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Travelers from Muslim countries are bribing Mexican foreign service workers for travel documents that will get them access to the U.S.

March 1, 2009 - by Todd Bensman
Pajamas Media

Former Dearborn, Michigan, resident Mahmoud Youssef Kourani was a secret Hezbollah agent sent to infiltrate America in February 2001. He stole over the Mexican border into California with a skill set that court records would later describe as “specialized training in radical Shiite fundamentalism, weaponry, spy craft, and counterintelligence,” picked up in Lebanon and Iran.

Kourani got caught in 2004 and thrown in federal prison for raising money and recruits for Hezbollah, which pioneered the modern art of suicide truck bombing by blowing up American Marines in Beirut.

But the enduring significance of Kourani isn’t that Hezbollah was able to implant the likes of him on American soil. It’s how it was done that reveals an insufficiently known national security danger for the U.S. that emanates to this day from a most unexpected source: Mexico’s foreign service embassies, consulate offices, and “honorary” appointed consuls across the Muslim world.

How was a Lebanese national whose brother was known to be “Hezbollah’s chief of military security for southern Lebanon” able to get within striking distance of California?

According to court records and interviews with knowledgeable sources, a $3,000 bribe was paid for Kourani’s travel documents to a corrupt official of Mexico’s Beirut consulate office. He just flew over, then on February 4, 2001, sneaked into California with help from a smuggling ring that had moved hundreds of Lebanese nationals already.

In this one instance at least, the discovery of the smuggling ring and bribery scheme prompted Mexico to quietly purge and prosecute several of its Beirut workers a few years ago. But I have found that Mexican consulates in other sensitive parts of the world, where anti-American Islamic terror groups thrive, are still open for the same kind of business.

Take the Mexican embassy in Mumbai, India. In all the ink expended about the devastating terror attacks there, none was shed for the fact that only months earlier, three Afghan Muslim travelers were caught posing as Mexicans and carrying genuine Mexican passports on their way out of the region. The trio was switching flights in Kuwait using Mexican pseudonyms and flashing valid Mexican passports, on their way to France and beyond, when an alert customs officer noticed they couldn’t speak Spanish. Subsequent investigation in India showed the passports were purchased for $10,000 each from a corrupt worker in the Mumbai-based Mexican consul office. Were these men terrorists? The answer isn’t public.

Recently retired FBI Assistant Legal Attaché James Conway spent four years after 9/11 overseeing the bureau’s counterterrorism programs in Mexico City. He told me that interdicting U.S.-bound travelers from Muslim nations in South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa “was our number one concern” because any of them might be a terrorist headed for the U.S. frontier. Mexico-bound travelers from Islamic countries, armed with valid passports bearing security bar codes, are among the most difficult to detect, he explained, because they enable their bearers to easily slip airport inspections.

Conway said that during his post-9/11 Mexico tour the FBI got many “hits” running the names of captured U.S.-bound immigrants from those countries through terror watch list databases. He couldn’t elaborate. But in his last job, Conway learned why gaining entry to Mexico is such a golden ticket.

“If you’ve got a Mexican passport, you can become part of the flood of people who cross into the U.S,” he said. “If terrorists wanted to exploit that infrastructure, they can. It’s there.”

The problem of Mexico’s corruptible foreign service was not lost on the Bush administration, which practically obsessed over plugging the obscure nooks and crannies of national security. In deference to American security concerns since 9/11, the Mexican government — at least officially — has severely restricted visas to travelers from the Arab world. Mexico certainly does have legitimate reason to field embassy offices abroad, what with oil and varied business interests.

Ricardo Alday, a spokesman for Mexico’s embassy in Washington, D.C., insisted that since 9/11 his government, in deference to American concern from the Kourani case and others, “has applied strong measures and invested considerable resources to continuously improve the security of its travel documents” in those foreign offices.

But such assurances rang hollow when an American national security investigation early last year found that corruption in yet another Mexican consulate office — this one in Belize — had enabled at least 100 Africans from terror-watch countries to make their way to Houston, Texas.

That Washington, D.C., investigation targeted a smuggling ring run by two Ghana nationals, Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim of Mexico City and Sampson Lovelace Boateng of Belize City. The two men confessed to ferrying in dozens of U.S.-bound travelers since 2005 from countries like Somalia and Sudan, a state sponsor of terror where radical Islamic groups like al-Qaeda have thrived. The travelers would pay $5,000 each for packages that included the Mexican tourist visas, hotel, and air and ground transport into Texas.

If the Bush administration obsessed enough over such scenarios to push Mexico City to clear out its rat’s nests abroad, it’s less than certain whether the new Obama administration will be as attentive.

Raouf N. El-Far of Amman, Jordan, would probably predict trouble from his neck of the woods. When I met El-Far two years ago, he’d been serving as Mexico’s honorary consul in Amman, Jordan, for three years already, in charge of handling travel applications from local Jordanians, Palestinians, and Syrian students and businessmen. But El-Far was candid enough to tell me that huge bribe offers began coming in on his first day in the position from travelers who know they’d be rejected. One Iraqi had just offered a staggering $100,000 a month if El-Far would grant Mexican tourist visas to Iraqi refugees. El-Far insisted that while very tempted, he never caved “because it’s against my principles.”

El-Far explained that his predecessor had showed no such moral restraint. One has to wonder how El-Far’s successor will respond.

Todd Bensman is an investigative projects reporter for The San Antonio Express-News. He can be reached at bensman@gmail.com

By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — More than 100 levees in 16 states flunked maintenance inspections in the last two years and are so neglected that they could fail to stem a major flood, records from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers show.
The 114 levees received “unacceptable” maintenance ratings in corps inspections, meaning their deficiencies are so severe that it can be “reasonably foreseen” that they will not perform properly in a major flood, according to the records, which were requested by USA TODAY. As a result, the corps is advising state and local levee authorities that the levees no longer qualify for federal rehabilitation aid if damaged by floodwaters.

People who rely on the levees should “be aware that there is reason for concern,” says Tammy Conforti, head of the corps’ levee safety program.

The corps built most of the levees and turned them over to state and local governments, which were supposed to maintain them. Some of the neglected levees protect urban, residential areas, such as the Arcade Creek levee in Sacramento; others guard rural or agricultural land.

The corps’ levee inspections were revamped under a public safety initiative started after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A round of 63 levees with unacceptable maintenance lost eligibility for federal rehabilitation aid last year after they were not fixed within a one-time, one-year grace period.

Now, the addition of 114 levees to that list leaves a total of 177 nationwide that are so poorly maintained that they don’t qualify for federal rehabilitation. That’s 9% of the nearly 2,000 levees the corps inspects.

There are thousands of levees nationwide — the government has no precise number — that aren’t subject to federal oversight, often because they were built by local or private sponsors. And many big levees, including some on the Mississippi River and around New Orleans, are federal projects where the corps handles major maintenance itself.

The corps will alert the Federal Emergency Management Agency to poorly maintained levees. If states and communities cannot certify to FEMA that those levees will handle a 100-year flood — one that has a 1% chance of hitting each year — owners of property behind them may have to buy flood insurance.

“Many of the levee boards don’t have the funds to maintain them and really haven’t … for years,” says Michael Borengasser, National Flood Insurance Program coordinator for the state of Arkansas.

Federal taxpayers already have paid to rebuild many levees that failed in floods because of poor maintenance, says Larry Larson, director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. “For years, the corps has been threatening to kick them out of the (rehabilitation) program, but never really did,” he adds. “Now, the corps is doing the right thing.”

By Chris Joyner, USA TODAY

James Davis hopes to get a job with a professional sports team — ideally, the New Orleans Saints — when he graduates next year with a master’s degree in sports management from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.

To bolster his job prospects, Davis, 23, has chosen a concentration in sports security management, a new offering at Southern Mississippi and part of a growing number of academic programs around the country with a homeland security bent.

Davis, who is taking classes in emergency preparedness and risk analysis as part of the program, says he believes the extra credential will make him a more marketable candidate when he graduates.

“It has to, with the level of terrorism where it’s at,” he says.

Security jobs are everywhere
There has been huge growth in the popularity of security-related programs since 2002, when the Department of Homeland Security was created, says David Silverberg, editor of the trade magazine Homeland Security Today. The programs began popping up at community colleges and online-only institutions five or six years ago, and now they are being offered at some of the nation’s most prestigious universities.

“Homeland security has developed as a discipline, and it took time for people to realize that it was a discipline,” Silverberg says. “People think of homeland security as just screeners at the airport, and it is way more than that.”

In the spring of 2007, Homeland Security Today published its first educational directory, with a list of 81 institutions with homeland security programs. The most recent directory, published last fall, had nearly twice that number.

Silverberg says the growth in academic programs mirrors the job market. The Department of Homeland Security, a labyrinthine federal department made up of 22 agencies with more than 200,000 employees, is just the beginning, he adds. Every state has its own homeland security framework, and job seekers in the private sector, even in seemingly unrelated fields such as nursing and law, find the courses are a résumé builder, he says.

Offerings range from vocational certificates earned in a few weeks to advanced degrees. George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., for example, offers a doctorate in biodefense, which teaches “intelligence and threat assessment, nonproliferation, and medical and public health preparedness,” according to the university’s website.

Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., founded its Homeland Security Institute in 2002 as an interdisciplinary program. Director Eric Dietz says the coursework offered through the institute is designed as an enhancement to traditional fields of study, such as engineering and agriculture.

“It’s a new set of thoughts that you can take back to your old job,” he says.

Higher quality of programs

Silverberg notes that although small schools, including for-profit online ventures, were the first to offer homeland security courses, the quality of these early programs varied. It took longer for universities to develop programs and hire faculty who met traditional education standards, he says.

Lou Marciani, director of Southern Mississippi’s Center for Spectator Sports Security Management, has been an athletic director for five universities and worked for the federal government evaluating security threats for sports venues. His faculty includes a former FBI counterterrorism expert, who managed security for the 2004 U.S. Summer Olympic team, and a professor whose doctoral dissertation was on security measures for sporting events.

Marciani says his center has an advisory board made up of representatives of every major professional sports league and the National Collegiate Athletic Association to make sure students are getting the skills they need for the workplace.

“It’s a new discipline,” he says. “When I came through as a student, I didn’t take any classes in sports security.”

Contributing: Joyner reports for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., and USA TODAY

February 2, 2009

Lee Ellis
Family Security Matters

Which two countries offer the greatest threat to the United States? If you answered that they both must be in the Middle East, you would be only half right. You would be amazed to learn, as I was, that the second greatest threat to America comes from this hemisphere – yes, right next door to us. Former CIA chief Michael Hayden told reporters in January of this year that Mexico could rank alongside Iran as a challenge for President Obama – perhaps a greater problem than Iraq.

The U.S. Justice Department said last month that Mexican gangs are the “biggest organized crime threat to the United States.” National security adviser Stephen Hadley said recently that the worsening violence threatens Mexico’s very democracy.

Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district, the capital – Mexico City, whose metropolitan area is one of the most populous.

Glenn Beck, on his new FOX News Channel program of January 26th, reported that presently, 23 of these states are each completely controlled by the Mexican Crime Cartel which makes its millions from selling illegal drugs. This cartel is growing rapidly, mainly because over 80% of the police (federales) are on the take from the crime bosses. Thus, these drug lords are making millions of dollars by smuggling drugs into America and threatening our very way of life.

Some of our readers may ask how this creates such a large threat to America, compared to Iran. There are two great reasons why.

Mexico is within inches of a total collapse. If this happens, as Michelle Malkin said last week, Venezuela and other Communist countries may take control of our next door neighbor. Think about what is happening to Israel with its enemies across its border.

Secondly, the U.S. population has reached approximately 304 million as we start 2009. Over 8% – 24 million American men, women and children – are already using or are addicted to illegal drugs – PODs, or Prisoners of Drugs (not much different from POWs). This is a calamity for the American customer base built by these drug lords in Mexico. This percentage rate keeps increasing each and every year enslaving more and more Americans, especially our youth, robbing them (and America) of future careers and lives. Once a drug seller hooks someone, the price is raised, forcing each customer to turn to crime to fuel his or her addiction. This, in turn, causes our crime rates to increase.

It makes little difference whether Americans are bombed by Iran or converted to a life of drugs and crime by the crime cartel of Mexico, the same number of lives is destroyed. It may take a combination of diplomacy and military action to stop the bombs from Iran, but only education by both schools and good parenting can keep kids from turning to illegal drugs to solve their problems. We are no longer teaching a majority of our youth about reliability and consequences, nor imbuing optimism for their future. We witness the results daily in our media due to the lowering of all standards of behavior, civility, courtesy and knowledge in America. A combination of the secular-socialist propaganda and the Mexican crime cartels has increased the downfall of almost all the standards that made this Republic so great. We now have a major part of our government and public in favor of following Europe down the same road to a secularist and socialist society.

Our border agents and walls no longer are able to compete against the Mexican crime cartel as it successfully smuggles illegal drugs, terrorists and other illegal aliens across our borders. These cartels have become so powerful that it even has its own military crossing our borders to kill our agents.

Lest you think that criminal gangs in Mexico are far away from us and no different from our old American Mafia teams or current gangs, think again. Over 500 media sources have reported that just across our border in Tijuana, a Mexican man who calls himself El Pozolero – (The Stew Maker) - has revealed how he dumped 300 bodies in vats of acid over the past decade to dispose of their remains for a drug trafficking cartel.

Santiago Meza Lopez, 45, told police after his capture by the army, that once the victims’ remains had been in the acid baths for 24 hours, he would bury them. He said he only dissolved men, refusing to make women vanish this way. Meza Lopez said he had been paid, in U.S. money, $600 a week for his work by drug boss, Eduardo Garcia Simental. He was arrested in Tijuana on the border with California, and is among the FBI’s most wanted men.

The Stew Maker’s nickname comes from “pozole,” a stew local to the Tijuana region where he worked. Its ingredients are normally corn, meat and chili.

In 2008, more than 5,300 people died violent deaths connected to cartel activities, with Mexican authorities having deployed some 36,000 police and troops to fight the drug-traffickers.

Many Americans are now being kidnapped in Mexico. On December 15, 2008, the Washington Post reported that an American anti-kidnapping negotiator, whose company says he has resolved almost 100 kidnapping cases in Latin America, was abducted by gunmen – while meeting with Mexican business executives and their bodyguards to discuss ways to thwart such crimes. The abduction of Felix Batista was bold and chilling, and the report of his disappearance had Mexicans wondering whether anyone was safe.

Decapitation has also become a favorite tactic of warring drug gangs that have contended for control over smuggling routes. Authorities in Tijuana said four decapitated bodies were recently found there, apparent casualties of a violent struggle for control of drug smuggling from Mexico into San Diego. Across our border from El Paso, Texas in Juarez, decapitated bodies have also been found.

All this has affected tourism in Mexico, so much so that Mexico is now close to a failing economy. Glenn Beck said that a friend of his who had gone to one of my favorite places in Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, told him that every third hotel was closed and boarded up. Tourism is dying off for Mexico.

Instead of our new President and Congress thinking of closing Guantanamo and surrendering the war on terrorism, they need to look much closer to our own border gates. The barbarians are indeed at our gates!

Please, President Obama, build stronger gates against terrorism coming across our borders and also keep Guantanamo open. The inmates there are anxious to move to our local prisons as they know, from experience, that it is much easier to recruit new terrorists there! This is how some of them were originally recruited. Fixing America’s economy is necessary, but not if it is to be conquered by the forces of crime and terror moving in across our borders!

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Lee Ellis is a retired journalist, narrator, and formerly a Vice President with both CBS and Gannett (USA Weekend). He can be contacted at indiolee@dc.rr.com.

9:14AM Friday Jan 30, 2009

The New Zealand Herald

WASHINGTON - An imprisoned ex-CIA spy and his son have been charged with renewing contact with the father’s former Russian handlers to get more money for espionage.

Harold Nicholson and his 24-year-old son, Nathaniel, have been indicted in Oregon, where the elder Nicholson is still serving time in a federal prison for past espionage charges.

The pair face charges of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government and money laundering.

The indictment says Harold Nicholson, who pleaded guilty in 1997 after being paid US$300,000 (NZ$584,647) to pass secrets to the Russians, wanted to receive further payments for his work, and used his son as a go-between.

Officials charge his son Nathaniel collected another $35,593 in a series of recent trips to meet Russians in San Francisco, Mexico City, Lima, Peru, and even a T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant in Cyprus in December.

Nathaniel Nicholson was arrested yesterday in the state of Oregon and the two are scheduled to appear in court, officials said.

Harold Nicholson is currently serving a 23-year prison term in Oregon after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit extortion.

As a trainer of CIA personnel, authorities say he gave the Russians the identities of the young CIA recruits he was training, and the identities of other high-level CIA officers.

According to the new indictment, the Russians still thought Nicholson might be able to provide them valuable information - specifically, how he had been discovered and how much the investigators had learned about Russian spying.

- AP

Copyright 2009, APN Holdings NZ Limited

January 24, 2009 2:17 PM PST

Cnet News
Posted by Tom Espiner

Gary McKinnon, the man accused by U.S. prosecutors of “the biggest military hack of all time,” has won the right to a judicial review of a Home Office decision to extradite him to the U.S.

Lord Justice Maurice Kay made the ruling at the High Court in London on Friday. The Home Office had refused to halt the extradition proceedings, despite McKinnon having been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition on the autistic spectrum.

McKinnon’s solicitor Karen Todner told ZDNet UK on Friday that she was “very pleased” about the High Court decision.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Todner said. “We’ve got permission for a judicial review, and that shows we have an arguable case.”

McKinnon’s legal team applied for the review on the grounds that McKinnon’s medical condition had not been taken into account by the Home Office or any UK court in deciding his extradition. If convicted by the U.S., McKinnon faces a 70-year sentence in a maximum security prison, his barrister Edward Fitzgearld QC has argued.

Todner said the review was granted on the grounds that the extradition may breach Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that no one shall be subjected to “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Professor Simon Baron Cohen, the Cambridge University specialist in developmental psychopathology who initially diagnosed McKinnon, said on Tuesday that McKinnon suffered the risk of “psychiatric difficulties” including depression and anxiety should he be extradited and imprisoned.

Home secretary Jacqui Smith turned down McKinnon’s second appeal against extradition in October 2008, after the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome in summer 2008.

The judicial review will not take place until after the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has decided whether to charge McKinnon. McKinnon sent a signed confession to Starmer in December admitting offenses under Section 2 of the Computer Misuse Act, in the hope of being prosecuted under UK law.

Starmer is due to give his decision in just over two weeks. If he chooses to charge McKinnon, the judicial review will not take place, as extradition proceedings will cease. Otherwise, the judicial review will go ahead “towards the end of March,” Todner told ZDNet UK.

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.

<---End of Quote--->

Related Article:
NASA hacker: I’ll plead guilty in the U.K.

January 12, 2009 1:02 PM PST

Cnet News
Posted by Tom Espiner

Self-confessed hacker Gary McKinnon has told U.K. prosecutors he will plead guilty to charges in the U.K., a move that could help him avoid extradition to the U.S.

McKinnon has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of “the biggest military hack of all time,” after entering NASA and Pentagon systems. His solicitor, Karen Todner, sent a letter to Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, to say McKinnon would plead guilty if tried in the U.K. under the Computer Misuse Act (CMA). The letter was sent on December 23, Todner told ZDNet UK on Monday.

“Gary has committed offenses under the CMA, and has been diagnosed with Asperger’s,” said Todner. “I think it’s time the DPP recognized that. Gary will plead guilty.”

Todner said that under the CMA, McKinnon would receive a different sentence from the one he would receive if tried under U.S. law, as in the U.S. he would be prosecuted on charges of causing damage to military systems. She added that it is “generally accepted” McKinnon would receive a more lenient sentence in the U.K. The Londoner currently faces trial in the U.S., pending the outcome of an appeal to the High Court.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) told ZDNet UK on Monday that it had received Todner’s letter. “We can confirm we received the correspondence, and are considering that correspondence,” said a CPS spokesperson, who added that no timescale could be given as to when Starmer would make a decision about the prosecution.

At the time of writing, 80 members of Parliament have given their support for an early day motion that the government request repatriation for McKinnon should he be tried and found guilty in the U.S. Prime Minister Gordon Brown in November spoke publically about McKinnon, boosting hopes he would serve any sentence in the U.K.

The self-confessed hacker, who was also known as “Solo,” is accused by the U.S. government of hacking 97 U.S. military computers and causing over $700,000 of damage by deleting files. McKinnon has never denied accessing the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and NASA computers, but denies causing extensive damage. He claims he was initially searching for evidence of extra-terrestrial life, and later found evidence of antigravity projects. McKinnon faces up to 70 years in prison if found guilty by a U.S. court and, as it stands, would serve his sentence in the U.S.

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Jan 19, 9:24 PM EST

La Crosse Tribune
By BEN FOX
Associated Press Writer

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — Two alleged orchestrators of the 2001 attacks on America casually declared their guilt on Monday in a messy and perhaps final session of the Guantanamo war crimes court. This week’s military hearings could be the last at Guantanamo - President-elect Barack Obama has said he would close the offshore prison and many expect him to suspend the military tribunals and order new trials in the U.S.

Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the terrorist attacks, were unapologetic about their roles during a series of outbursts as translators struggled to keep up and the judge repeatedly sought to regain control.

“We did what we did; we’re proud of Sept. 11,” announced Binalshibh, who has said he wants to plead guilty to charges that could put him to death. The judge must first determine if he is mentally competent to stand trial.

Mohammed shrugged off the potential death sentence for the murder of nearly 3,000 people in the Sept. 11 attacks.

“We don’t care about capital punishment,” said Mohammed, whose thick gray beard flows to the top of his white prison jumpsuit. “We are doing jihad for the cause of God.”

Mohammed, representing himself, insisted that a uniformed lawyer assigned to assist him be removed from his defense table, saying he represents the “people who tortured me.”

In another diatribe over secrecy, the acknowledged terrorist ridiculed the government’s position that national security had to be protected. “They want to hide their black sites, their torture techniques,” he said.

Told by the judge to limit his remarks to a legal issue being discussed at that moment, Mohammed bristled: “This is terrorism, not court. You don’t give me the opportunity to talk.”

Relatives of three people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks who attended the hearing as observers said they were appalled by the remarks of the defendants and hope that Obama does not halt the war crimes trials.

“If they’re guilty … then let’s give them the death penalty that they deserve,” said Jim Riches of Brooklyn, N.Y. whose 29-year-old firefighter son, Jimmy, was killed at the World Trade Center. “It would be nice to know the people who planned this, who killed my son and all the other people, are being held accountable.”

Mohammed has openly sought to become a martyr at the hands of the Americans. He threw his death-penalty trial into disarray in December when he declared that he would confess to masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks. In March 2007, he told a military panel that he played a central role in about 30 other terrorist plots around the world.

Separately, a judge held pretrial hearings for Omar Khadr, who was 15 when he allegedly killed a U.S. soldier, Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer of Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a grenade during a battle in Afghanistan in 2002.

Lawyers for the Toronto, Canada native want to exclude statements they say Khadr made through torture and coercion. Prosecution witnesses denied their allegation. One, identified only as “interrogator 11,” characterized some sessions as “lighthearted,” and testified that “he always came in smiling and very willing to talk to us.”

In both cases, judges denied defense requests to make the Pentagon arraign the men all over again after withdrawing and refiling charges in about 20 cases, a step the Pentagon described as merely procedural.

The judge in the Sept. 11 case, Army Col. Stephen Henley, acknowledged doubts about the future of the hearings, saying one legal matter could be addressed “at later sessions, if later sessions are scheduled.”

Lawyers and representatives of human rights groups who observed the hearings believe Obama will suspend the military commission system created by Congress and President George W. Bush in 2006 to prosecute dozens of men held at Guantanamo.

Obama’s nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, in his confirmation hearing, said the commissions lack sufficient legal protections for the defendants, and said they could be tried in the United States.

“The military commissions should be at the very least suspended immediately,” said Gabor Rona, observing as the international legal director of New York-based Human Rights First. “I’m certainly optimistic and hopeful that it will happen as one of the first orders of business.”

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Sumon K Chakrabarti / CNN-IBN

Published on Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 08:19, Updated on Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 09:27
IBN Live

New Delhi: Even as commandos of the National Security Guard were in action in Mumbai during the November 26 terror strike, questions were being raised on crucial time lost due to their late arrival on the scene.

The sharp criticism prompted the government to come up with a proposal for new NSG hubs – four regional centres in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad – to enable quick mobilisation of troops in hostile situations like 26/11

However, work on the hubs is yet to begin in the right earnest. The Home Ministry has now been categorically told by the Prime Minister to come up with a proper plan than can be implemented by mid 2009.

Home Minister P Chidambaram met with Army and NSG Chiefs on Tuesday to get immediate help from the armed forces to set up the four proposed hubs.

Sources in the home ministry say that
-An operational plan to set up the first four hubs within the next four months was discussed.

-Whether to replicate the training facilities at Manesar (near Delhi) - where the NSG commandoes are now trained - was considered.

-Also discussed was whether anti-terrorist personnel should be trained by the defence forces for cities like Bangalore which will not have such a hub in the first list.

The army needs to provide 600 officers and 1,000 junior commissioned officers for the new hubs. Currently the Army has about 4,000 men on deputation for the NSG.

Not only the NSG, the Government is also stuck with the much-hyped National Investigative Agency.

Almost two months since the Mumbai attacks, the Government is yet to appoint a chief of the new agency and it’s still not clear what its mandate will be.

An operational plan to set up the first four hubs within the next four months was discussed.

Whether to replicate the training facilities at Manesar (near Delhi) - where the NSG commandoes are now trained - was considered.

Also discussed was whether anti-terrorist personnel should be trained by the defence forces for cities like Bangalore which will not have such a hub in the first list.

The army needs to provide 600 officers and 1,000 junior commissioned officers for the new hubs. Currently the Army has about 4,000 men on deputation for the NSG.

Not only the NSG, the Government is also stuck with the much-hyped National Investigative Agency.

Almost two months since the Mumbai attacks, the Government is yet to appoint a chief of the new agency and it’s still not clear what its mandate will be.