• Studying how journalists and private citizens use of drones

    Newly published research offers a groundbreaking perspective on the controversial use of unmanned aerial vehicles in journalism and mass communication, or “drone journalism.” Until now, there has been no formal research and academic writing on the use of smaller drones by news organizations and private citizens.

  • DHS 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.

  • Immigration bill includes benefits to some industries

    The immigration reform bill currently being debated on Capitol Hill, in addition to giving immigrants a pathway to citizenship, strengthening border security, and requiring better enforcement of laws which aim to prevent the hiring of undocumented workers, also includes benefits for specific industries and groups.

  • Newark to raise water rates to pay for infrastructure

    A report presented to Newark’s city council said that the town’s water and sewer rates will be increased by more than 60 percent over the next ten years in order to pay for $500 million in infrastructure repairs to the town’s faulty and outdated meters, century-old, leaky pipes, and broken valves.

  • Iran 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.

  • GOP lawmakers want stronger border security provisions in immigration bill

    A border security amendment to the immigration reform bill, offered by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), was defeated by a 57-43 vote last Thursday. Republican senators who supported Grassley’s amendment said they were concerned about a repeat of the 1986 scenario: the Reagan administration pushed through Congress an amnesty for illegal immigrants then residing in the United States, but without bolstering security along the U.S.-Mexico border, prompting millions of illegal immigrants to cross the border in the following decades. Several GOP lawmakers are offering their own border security amendments to the immigration overhaul bill.

  • Texas to appeal FEMA decision not to declare West, Texas a disaster area

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said President Obama would not declare West, Texas a disaster area in the wake of the massive fertilizer plant explosion there two months ago, and Texas governor Rick Perry is not happy. FEMA said Texas did not make the case the state lacked funds for cleanup and recovery efforts.

  • New Jersey faces costly water infrastructure upgrades

    Before Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey, state officials knew they had much work ahead of them to update the state’s water infrastructure. The damage Sandy inflicted only highlighted the inadequacies of New Jersey’s outdated wastewater, stormwater, and drinking water infrastructure. Upgrading the system will be costly, but not doing so will be costlier.

  • U.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.

  • Justice 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.

  • Environmental group sues State Department for Keystone XL-related files

    The Sierra Club has announced it is suing the State Department for files related to an environmental review draft of the Keystone XL pipeline. The group tried to gain access to the files through the Freedom of Information Act, but the request was denied, so the group filed the suit on Monday in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California.

  • U.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.

  • NSA 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.”

  • Al 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.

  • Defense companies turn their attention to border security

    The U.S. involvement in the Iraq war is over, and the country will soon withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. Federal budgets cuts shrink agencies’ ability to conduct research and development. Faced with these realities, military contractors have begun to focus on border security. What many defense companies find especially appealing is the fact that the Senate immigration bill conditions any move toward legalizing the status of more than eleven million illegal immigrants in the United States on the strengthening of security along the U.S.-Mexico border.