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DHS seizes ancient Egyptian relics in smuggling bust
Last Thursday DHS officials made an announcement that seemed more fitting for a Hollywood movie — agents had broken up an antiques smuggling ring that had illegally shipped ancient Egyptian artifacts to the United States; among the confiscated goods was a sarcophagus that dated back to the seventh century B.C.
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Minneapolis man single-handedly battles Islamic extremism
Individuals like Abdirizak Bihi, who single handedly tries to keep young Somali-American teenagers from becoming radicalized, are part of a growing trend that officials in Washington call “CVE,” combatting violent extremism; since the 9/11 attacks, there have been fifty-one domestically produced jihadist plots or attacks in the United States and that number is steadily growing
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U.S. troops deploy biometrics in the field
Biometric databases in Iraq and Afghanistan are helping U.S. troops combat violent insurgents; in an ambitious move, troops have sought to capture iris scans, facial photographs, and fingerprints from men of fighting age especially those who have been detained for insurgent or terrorist ties.
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BVS combats jail cell phone smuggling
Prisons across the United States are struggling to prevent cell phones from falling into inmates’ hands; in 2010 more than 10,000 contraband cell phones were confiscated from inmates in California prisons; to help officials crack down on these contraband items, Berkeley Varitronics Systems has developed a suite of sophisticated cell phone detectors that can “sniff” out phones even when they are hidden in the most obscure places
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The art of signature replication
A Rockville, Maryland company’s signature replication technology is so advanced, DHS sends its agents there to learn; using sophisticated computer software and its Autopen signing machines, Damilic is capable of replicating signatures that so closely resemble the original hand written version, forensic scientists are needed to be able to tell the difference
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Qaddafi's Tripoli suicide plan
Libya’s prime minister confided in Russia’s envoy to Africa that Col. Qaddafi has a suicide plan for Tripoli if the rebels took over the city; the regime plans to shower the city with missiles and destroy it rather see the rebels control it; Libya has plenty of surface-to-surface missiles, and so far it has not used any of them against the rebels
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Deterring cyberwar, police gear and the law, guarding the guardians
Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the current U.S. cyberdefense policy as “too predictable”; he added that “[the current policy is] purely defensive. There is no penalty for attacking us now. We have to figure out a way to change that”; he said the new U.S. cyberdefense policy is the first step toward correcting current deficiencies; a Massachusetts company is selling local police forces a new iPhone app that scans a suspect’s iris and matches it to a national database of felons; there are questions about whether or not this app — which costs $3,000 — violates the Constitutional prohibition of unreasonable searches; the former mayor, the police chief, and member of the city council of a New Mexico border town have been charged with smuggling guns to the Mexican cartels; some of these guns have been linked to at least eight murders in Mexico
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Tough new Alabama immigration law divides community
A sweeping new Alabama immigration law is generating sharp controversy and unease with many likening it to a return to the state’s brutal Jim Crow laws; among the strict immigration measures passed last month, undocumented immigrants are banned from enrolling in or attending college, applying for work, and landlords are restricted from renting property to illegal aliens; the law even requires school districts to check the immigration status of children; the bill has drawn fierce criticism from immigration advocates, churches, and civil liberties groups.
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Senator Schumer demands release of northern counternarcotics strategy
Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) is demanding that the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) release its Northern Border Counternarcotics strategy immediately; the strategy was due on 5 July as stipulated by a law passed in January; the law came in response to a to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report which found that only thirty-two miles along the nearly 4,000 mile U.S.-Canada border had “an acceptable level of security”
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AntiSec hacks IRC Federal, posts passwords online
Last Friday, AntiSec, a prominent hacking group, announced that it had successfully infiltrated the servers of IRC Federal; the company has contracts with several major government agencies including the Department of Justice, the Army, Navy, and NASA; in an announcement on their website, AntiSec wrote, “We laid nuclear waste to their systems, owning their pathetic Windows box, dropping their databases and private emails, and defaced their professional looking website”
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Sector Report for Tuesday, 12 July 2011: Law Enforcement Technology
This report contains the following stories.
Plus 1 additional story.
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Five years on: Israel-Hezbollah 2006 war
Five years ago today, a war broke out between Israel and Hezbollah after Hezbollah fighters made a foray into Israel, killing several soldiers and carrying the bodies of two of them back into Lebanon; despite the uneven scale of death and damage — Israel has inflicted much more damage on Hezbollah and Lebanon — the war was initially perceived as an Israeli defeat because Israel was unable to stop Hezbollah from firing rockets into Israel during the entire conflict; more recently, though, this initial conclusion has been revised somewhat, with some analysts pointing out that the Israel-Lebanese border has been quiet during the past five years — the longest period it has been so quiet; a respected Israeli military analyst says that the 2006 war was an Israeli failure — and unless Israel changes its definition regarding who the real enemy is, the next Israel-Hezbollah war will be and Israeli failure as well
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Divorce leads to approval of GPS tracking in New Jersey
A divorce case in New Jersey has resulted in the first time a state court has approved the use of GPS devices to track individuals; last week a New Jersey appellate court ruled against a man who sued his ex-wife for placing a GPS device in the car she and her husband shared
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Pilot programs reduce texting while driving by at least one third
Two pilot programs launched by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) aimed at minimizing texting while driving have reduced the practice by at least one third; the programs ran for one year starting in April 2010 and used a combination of stepped up law enforcement and public information campaigns in Syracuse, New York and Hartford, Connecticut
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Peachtree City police win technology award for traffic enforcement
The Peachtree City police department in Georgia recently won the annual National Law Enforcement Challenge’s Technology award for its innovative approach to traffic safety; with the use of a “data driven” approach to traffic safety, the Peachtree City excelled in occupant protection, deterring driving under the influence, and enforcing speed limits
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More headlines
The long view
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
Using Drone Swarms to Fight Forest Fires
Forest fires are becoming increasingly catastrophic across the world, accelerated by climate change. Researchers are using multiple swarms of drones to tackle natural disasters like forest fires.
Testing Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations
“People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”
The Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
From popular films like a War Games or The Terminator to a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI, there has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. There is one easy way to avoid a lot of this and prevent a self-inflicted doomsday: don’t give computers the capability to launch devastating weapons.