Public Safety
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GunsWhite House finalizes executive actions on gun violence
The White House said President Obama is close to putting the final touch on several executive actions to address gun violence. White Officials said that these actions should be viewed as a substitute to legislative action.
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Emergency communicationCompetitors selected for DARPA Spectrum Challenge
As wireless devices proliferate and the radio spectrum becomes ever more congested, all users have a common interest in radio technologies that can accommodate the largest number of users but still enable priority traffic to get through. Three wild card selections remain to be selected for the DARPA Spectrum Challenge, a competition aiming to demonstrate solutions for more robust wireless radio technologies.
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NSA surveillanceNYPD police chief Raymond Kelly criticizes NSA for secrecy surrounding surveillance program
NYPD commissioner Raymond Kelly yesterday pointedly criticized the secrecy surrounding the National Security Agency (NSA), saying that Americans would probably be comfortable knowing their conversations are monitored. Kelly also said that if Snowden is correct in his allegations that the surveillance system can be readily abused, then there is a need for more oversight of the NSA. He said that more transparency about the checks on and supervision of what NSA analysts can monitor would help put the public at ease.
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ImmigrationDHS ordered to release names of immigrant criminals allowed to stay in U.S.
A federal judge has ordered DHS to release the names of thousands of criminal immigrants who were allowed to stay in the United States because their home countries refused to take them back. Two years ago, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a list of more than 6,800 criminals, including 201 who were convicted of murder and other serious offenses, but the agency refused to provide names, saying that doing so would be a violation of the immigrants’ privacy. A judge ruled that the public interest in knowing how ICE handles aliens convicted of crimes is more important than the privacy concerns of the immigrants. The list of released criminal aliens now contains more than 8,500 names.
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RoboticsSandia hosts annual Robot Rodeo
Sandia National Laboratories is hosting the seventh annual Western National Robot Rodeo and Capability Exercise, a lively and challenging five-day event that draws civilian and military bomb squad teams from across the country to see who can most effectively defuse dangerous situations with the help of robots.
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SyriaIran to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria
In preparation for the attack by Assad forces on rebel-held Aleppo, Iran announced it is sending a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to help the Syrian military. Iran’s goal is to help Assad capture Aleppo, and inflict a decisive defeat on the rebels, before U.S., and European, military aid begin to make a difference on the battlefield. Iran has also announced that it and Hezbollah are planning to open up a new “Syrian” front on the Golan Heights against Israel, and the presence of 4,000 Revolutionary Guards in Syria will allow Iran to do so. The United States responded by saying that 3,000 U.S. troops, a detachment of F-16s fighter jets, and batteries of Patriot missiles will remain in Jordan after the joint U.S.-Jordan military exercise they are currently participating in is over.
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In the trenchesImproving close air support for faster, more precise airstrikes
Air-ground fire coordination — also known as Close Air Support or CAS — is a dangerous and difficult business. While its tools have become more sophisticated, CAS has not fundamentally changed since the First World War. Now, Persistent Close Air Support (PCAS) program aims to improve air-to-ground fire coordination, but could revolutionize military technology development and deployment as well.
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ForensicsWebcast of Forensic Handwriting Analysis Conference available online
On 4-5 June 2013 NIST and partnering organizations hosted the Measurement Science and Standards in Forensic Handwriting Analysis Conference. In case you missed this event or would like to view/listen again to the presentations, the archived video of the Webcast is now available online.
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SyriaU.S. confirms: Assad used chemical weapons against Syrian rebels, civilians (updated)
The Obama administration has informed Congress a few minutes ago that the U.S. intelligence community has determined that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons on several occasions against both rebel forces and Syrian civilians. The U.S. intelligence community says these attacks, each using small quantities of sarin gas, have killed about 150 Syrians. The president’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told reporters that the president had decided to provide “direct military support” to the opposition. Rhodes said the U.S. military assistance to the rebels would be different in “both scope and scale” from what had been authorized before, which included non-lethal equipment such as night-vision goggles and body armor.
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DetectionDetecting explosives, not toothpaste
Researchers want airports, border checkpoints, and others to detect homemade explosives made with hydrogen peroxide without nabbing people whose toothpaste happens to contain peroxide. This is part of the challenge faced in developing a portable sensor to detect a common homemade explosive called a FOx (fuel/oxidizer) mixture, made by mixing hydrogen peroxide with fuels.
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Law enforcementJustice Department endorses NYPD’s stop-and-frisk
The Justice Department (DOJ) has entered the debate on the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy, telling a federal judge that DOJ endorses the program as long as there is independent oversight to monitor changes in the policy if civil rights violations occur.
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SyriaU.S. confirms: Assad used chemical weapons against Syrian rebels, civilians
The Obama administration has informed Congress a few minutes ago that the U.S. intelligence community has determined that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons on several occasions against both rebel forces and Syrian civilians. The U.S. intelligence community says these attacks, each using small quantities of sarin gas, have killed about 150 Syrians.
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NSA leaksNSA director: surveillance programs prevented “dozens” of terror attacks
Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, told lawmakers yesterday (Wednesday) that the NSA’s electronic surveillance programs have been indispensable in thwarting “dozens” of terrorist attacks on targets in the United States and abroad. He told the senators that securing a “cyber arena” could be done without infringing upon the privacy rights of Americans. “We do not see a tradeoff between security and liberty,” Alexander said, later adding, “We are trying to protect Americans.”
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TerrorismAl Qaeda-affiliated militants training in using shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile
A Xerox copy of a 26-page manual with instructions on how to use man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS – also called SA-7 — was found in a building in Timbuktu in North Mali which was used by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb operatives during the 8-month control – April 2012 to February 2013 — of the area by Islamist militants. The Libyan military under Col. Qaddafi had about 15,000 SA-7s, but after the Qaddafi regime fell in November 2011, NATO forces and Libyan militias loyal to the government gained possession of only 5,000 of them. The rest have disappeared into the arsenals of different militias, and have probably found their way to different terrorist organizations in North Africa and the Middle East.
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NSA surveillanceACLU files lawsuit challenging NSA's phone surveillance
In the wake of the past week’s revelations about the NSA’s surveillance of phone calls, the yesterday American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit charging that the program violates Americans’ constitutional rights of free speech, association, and privacy.
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