• Legal expert: NDAA does not comply with Constitution

    Shayana Kadidal, the senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, recently spoke with Homeland Security NewsWire’s executive editor Eugene K. Chow; in the interview Kadidal discusses the legal challenges of closing Guantanamo Bay, the legal consequences of the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and the Obama administration’s position on transferring detainees

  • CBP overtime costs soar, agency seeks solutions

    Over the past six years U.S. Border Patrol agents have accrued more and more overtime pay at the same time that the number of arrests for illegal crossers has fallen to record lows; the cost of overtime has rocketed from roughly $156 million in 2006 to more than $331 million in 2011, with DHS spending more than $1.4 billion total during that time period

  • Fort Wayne Mayor dissolves joint homeland security department

    After six years of operation, the joint Fort Wayne-Allen County Homeland Security Department has been dissolved; last week Tom Henry, the Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana sent a letter to county officials notifying them of the city’s plans to end its agreement to share in the costs of the local homeland security department

  • Customizable crime alert map helps Louisville residents stay safe

    With the help of sophisticated online mapping tools, residents in Louisville, Kentucky can receive customized updates on crime that can be narrowed down to a particular beat

  • D.C. Homeland Security Director resigns amid scandal

    Washington D.C.’s homeland security director, Millicent D. West, abruptly resigned earlier this week amid the ongoing federal investigation of a former District Council member

  • Terrorists focus on five U.S. urban counties, but rural areas not exempt

    Nearly a third of all terrorist attacks from 1970 to 2008 occurred in just five metropolitan U.S. counties, but terrorist events continue to occur in rural areas as well; there are 3,143 counties in the United States; researchers found 65 of these counties to be hot-spots for terrorism, that is, each of these counties experienced a greater than the average number of terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2008

  • Washington to test police gun safety equipment

    Lawmakers in Washington are currently debating legislation that would require police departments to thoroughly test the gun locks and safes they issue to law enforcement officers for use in their homes

  • Report finds Aero aids torture by transporting suspects

    A recently released report by the University of North Carolina’s law school has reinvigorated protests against Aero Contractors Ltd. for its alleged role in transporting terrorism suspects to secret foreign prisons where they are interrogated and possibly tortured

  • Cameron calls for human rights reforms to aid counterterror efforts

    Following the European Court of Human Rights ruling that the United Kingdom could not deport radical Islamic militant Abu Qatada to Jordan, Prime Minister David Cameron blasted the court stating that human rights laws were in danger of becoming “distorted” and “discredited” because of the court’s decisions

  • Real ID deadlines looms

    More and more states have adapted the driver’s licenses they issue to meet the requirements of the Real ID Act; several states have not – and they have until 15 January 2013 to do so, or receive an extension from DHS; if these states do not change their driver’s license or receive an extension, their residents will need to start getting passports in order to board commercial airlines

  • Facial recognition tech helps California police nab two thieves

    With the help of facial recognition technology, police in Lancaster, California were able to apprehend two individuals thought to be behind a string of armed robberies

  • Inspectors uncover Qaddafi’s hidden WMD stockpile

    Last week international weapons inspector found clear evidence that the late Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi had large caches of hidden chemical weapons, despite making a promise to destroy all weapons of mass destruction weapons in 2004

  • China syndrome: a giant sucking sound

    Discussions of cyber warfare typically focus on the threat posed by terrorists or nation-states to U.S. critical infrastructure – power grid, water systems, financial institutions, etc.; three former high-level U.S. security officials argue that the threat of China’s economic cyber espionage looms even more ominously; the former officials say the evidence is irrefutable: China intends to help build its economy by industrial espionage and theft “rather than by innovation and investment in research and development (two strong suits of the U.S. economy)”

  • Animal rights activists set fourteen cattle trucks ablaze

    Earlier this month fourteen cattle-transportation trailers were set on fire at California’s largest feed yard by an animal rights group; following the attack, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) released a statement that indicated an anonymous group of activists had executed the attack against the “horrors of factory farming”

  • N.J. city augments surveillance cameras with spotlights

    Over the next three months, the East Orange police department will connect high-powered spotlights to their surveillance camera system, so that when camera operators spot suspicious activity they can turn on the bright lights of justice and deter would be criminals