• Flames change the sound of a firefighters' personal safety alarm

    The PASS, short for Personal Alert Safety System, has been used by firefighters for thirty years to help track members of their team who might be injured and need assistance to escape a fire. Though the alarm has saved many lives, there are cases in which the device is working correctly but is not heard or not recognized.

  • Bloomberg group presses lawmakers to close FBI’s gun “terror gap”

    New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has turned its attention to Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire), Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), and Max Baucus (D-Montana)  to gain their support for a gun bill which would prevent people on the U.S. terrorist watch list from passing background checks for guns.

  • Former CIA chief: NYPD surveillance would have prevented Boston-like attacks

    Former CIA director Michael Hayden said a terror attack like the Boston Marathon bombings would never have taken place in New York City. Hayden, who also headed the National Security Agency (NSA), said the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) broad campaign of spying on the Muslim communities in the city would have helped officials identify the radical tendencies of the alleged bombers, thus preventing the attack.

  • Letters containing ricin sent to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, gun-control advocacy group

    Two letters sent to Mayor Michael Bloomberg – one to his office in New York, the second to the Washington, D.C. offices of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a non-profit gun-control group he has founded — contained traces of the deadly poison ricin.

  • Israel warns: if S-300 missiles arrive in Syria, Israel will “prevent” them from becoming operational

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    Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that if Russia went ahead with its planned sale of advanced S-300 air defense missiles to Syria, and these systems became operational, then Israel’s “entire airspace will become a no-fly zone.” Netanyahu warned that the threat was such that Israel “cannot stand idly by.”

  • Laser weapons on ships require reliable shipboard power

    For the first time, a laser weapon system (LaWS) will be placed onboard a deployed ship, USS Ponce, for testing in the Persian Gulf in 2014. The U.S. Navy’s plan to put laser weapons on ships, makes the need for reliable, high-voltage shipboard power a matter of national security.

  • Smartphone technology to accelerate development of unattended sensors

    DARPA wants to develop low-cost, rapidly updatable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors – to be used by the military on the ground, in the air, at sea, and undersea – in less than a year, a marked improvement to the current three-to-eight year development process. It hopes to do so by using an original design manufacturer (ODM) process similar to that of the commercial smartphone industry.

  • Chinese government hackers steal designs of advanced U.S. weapons systems

    The Chinese government has been conducting a broad, sustained, and disciplined campaign of cyberattacks against U.S. government agencies, critical infrastructure, private companies, and news organizations. The public version of a study prepared for the Pentagon by the Defense Science Board now says that Chinese government hackers have also been able to penetrate the computer networks of all the major U.S. defense contractors, stealing the designs and specifications of the most advanced weapon system in the U.S. arsenal, and gaining insights into broad technologies on which U.S. military advances are based.

  • San Diego to receive $16.9 million in DHS funding

    Some cities see DHS cutting its funding for their terrorism-related programs, but other cities see such funding increasing. A case in point is San Diego, which will receive $16.9 million in DHS funding to strengthen the city’s security against terrorist attacks.

  • Game changer: Russia to supply Syria with advanced S-300 air-defense systems

    In what should be regarded as a major victory for Iran and its two regional allies, Syria and Hezbollah, Russia has announced it would provide Syria with advanced S-300 air defense missiles. The United States, Israel, and EU and NATO countries have been vigorously, and anxiously, pressing Russia not to go ahead with the sale of the missiles, because the deployment of the S-300 would make the imposition of a no-fly zone over Syria, let alone air attacks on targets inside Syria — like the ones Israel conducted in late January and early May — much costlier.

  • McCain meets with Syrian rebel leaders in Syria

    Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) on Monday, Memorial Day, met with Syrian rebel leaders. McCain’s visit makes him the highest ranking U.S. official to enter Syria since the civil war began in 2011.Rebel commanders asked that the U.S. consider providing heavy arms to the Free Syrian Army, set up a no-fly zone in Syria, and conduct airstrikes on Hezbollah. McCain, for his part, asked the rebels how they planned to reduce the presence of Islamic extremists in rebel ranks.

  • Biometric technology identifies one of the Boston Marathon bombers

    In a study which evaluated some of the latest in automatic facial recognition technology, researchers were able quickly to identify one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects from law enforcement video, an experiment that demonstrated the value of such technology.

  • Firefighters, FAA weighing the use of drones for wildfires

    With the wildfire season already claiming land and homes in the Western United States, federal government firefighters are considering the use of drones outfitted with cameras to map out the size and speed of a wildfire.

  • New Obama policy sets higher standards for drone use

    In a major policy speech Thursday, President Obama announced plans to set higher standards for the use of drones in the fight against terrorists. He defended the use of the unmanned vehicles in that war, however, including when, in extreme situations, they are used to kill American citizens.

  • DHS: it is impossible to stop 3D plastic guns from getting past security checkpoints

    A DHS intelligence bulletin starkly warns it may not be possible to stop 3D-printed guns from being made – or from getting past security checkpoints undetected. DHS notes that 3D-printed firearms can be made without serial numbers or unique identifiers, making ballistics testing difficult, and that advancements in technology and decreasing 3D printer costs will mean even more sophisticated printed guns will become easier to acquire.