Government

  • USAF nuclear-missile officers alleged to have regularly cheated on readiness tests

    Three former U.S. Air Force officers have alleged that USAF officers responsible for operating nuclear-armed missiles at Malmstrom Air Base in Montana have, for many years, been cheating on monthly readiness tests, and were never punished for it. The former officers claim that cheating is the norm and that officers who did otherwise are the exception.The officers who made the allegations added, though, that misconduct on tests did not impair the safety of the nuclear weapons or the Air Force’s ability to launch missiles if ordered.

  • Florida teenager faces bioterrorism charges

    Jesse Korff, 19, of Labelle, Florida is facing federal charges in New Jersey for selling poison through a black marketplace on the underground Internet. Law enforcement says from November 2013 through 15 January this year, Korff produced, stockpiled, and sold abrin for use as a weapon. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers abrin, which is extracted from the seeds of the rosary pea plant, a subset of biological agents and toxins posing a threat to public health and safety. Small doses of abrin are potentially lethal to humans if ingested, inhaled, or injected.

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  • Foreign jihadists in Syria encouraged to return home to engage in terrorism

    Thousands of foreign fighters are traveling to Syria to fight the Syrian government in the country’s civil war. About 500 of those are from Britain, and many of these individuals are already known to British intelligence service, MI5. One British Muslim who had joined ISIS but then defected, says many of those Britons, along with other Europeans and Americans, are being trained as jihadists and then encouraged by their trainers to return home to launch terrorist attacks. Manuel Valls, France’s interior minister, said jihadists are the “biggest threat that the country faces in the coming years.”

  • The basis for a permanent deal: deep, verifiable changes to Iran’s nuclear program

    A new study says that only broad and verifiable changes to Iran’s current nuclear program could serve as a basis for a permanent nuclear deal between Iran and the international community. Among the changes: reducing the number of Iran’s uranium-enrichment centrifuges from the current 19,500 to no more than 4,000, and limiting Iran to one enrichment site; converting the heavy-water reactor being built in Araq to a light-water reactor fueled by low-enriched uranium; and imposing a tight, intrusive inspection regime for at least twenty years.

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  • Aussie police uncovers vast money laundering operation used by terrorists, criminals

    Terror groups are known to rely on money laundering operations to finance their activities. A recent operation by an Australian government taskforce has revealed the scope of money laundering operations within the country’s borders. The investigation, which has uncovered forty money laundering operations in Australia, has so far seized $26 million in cash, seized $30 million worth in houses and other assets, and has intercepted drug shipments worth at least $530 million.

  • New York mulling first U.S. college dedicated to homeland security studies

    Political, educational, and law enforcement leaders in New York are actively exploring the idea of creating pro the U.S. first college focused on emergency management and homeland security on the Syracuse University (SU) campus. “Believe it or not, there is no such college,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said during his fourth State of the State address two weeks ago. “I believe this is a field that is only going to grow. Unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse. And we want this college right here in the state of New York, training our people and training others from around the country.”

  • CBP flew its drones on behalf of other agencies

    The U.S. Customs and Border Protection(CBP) operates the largest drone fleet in the United States. The Defense Departmenthas a much larger fleet, but it is prohibited from operating its drones in the United States for law enforcement missions. The FAA is working on opening U.S. skies for public and commercial drone traffic, but for now CBP is the only agency permitted to operate drones on a daily basis within the nation’s borders. Released documents show that agencies not allowed to operate drones borrowed them from CBP.

  • Assad bolsters al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria with secret oil deals, prisoner release: Western intelligence

    Western intelligence agencies say that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in a complex double game, has provided funds to and cooperated with al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organizations in Syria even as these organizations fight the Syrian military. The regime has two goals in pursuing this policy. The first is to persuade the West that the uprising is inspired and led by Islamist militants, including al-Qaeda and its affiliates, in order to weaken, and even stop, Western support for the rebels. The second is to allow the jihadists to gain the upper hand in the internal fighting among rebel groups. The regime believes that if the rebellion is seen to be led by Islamist fundamentalists rather than secular and moderate Syrians, more non-Alawite Syrians would side with the regime against the rebels, even if grudgingly.

  • Judge denies defense request to see whether NSA surveillance led to terrorism charges

    U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman on Friday ruled that lawyers for Adel Daoud, a 20-year old resident of Hillside, a suburb west of Chicago, who was charged with plotting to set off a powerful bomb outside a crowded Chicago bar, will not be allowed to examine whether the investigators who initiated the sting operation which led to Doud’s arrest relied on information gleaned from NSA surveillance programs. Attorneys for Daoud had asked Judge Coleman to instruct prosecutors to disclose “any and all” surveillance information used in Daoud’s case, including information disclosed to a U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence. In a brief ruling posted late Friday, Coleman denied the motion, writing that the defense had “failed to provide any basis for issuing such an order.” Prosecutors would not confirm whether the FBI had initiated its operation against Doud as a result of a tip from the NSA, but they did say that even if such surveillance did exist, they have no plans of using it at trial and the defense was not entitled to it.

  • California lawmakers propose restricting use of antibiotics in livestock

    The growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans has been attributed to the increasing use of antibiotics in livestock. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) estimates that antibiotic-resistant bacteria infect more than two million Americans a year,killing at least 23,000 of them. California legislators are proposing new laws to restrict the use of antibiotics in livestock.

  • Economists propose market-driven solutions to the problem of antibiotic use in agriculture

    Fifty-one tons of antibiotics are consumed daily in the United States, of which 80 percent are used in agriculture. To minimize the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, Aidan Hollis of the University of Calgary is proposing the imposition of an antibiotic tax on food producers, thus encouraging them to distinguish between good and bad use of antibiotics, since the fee would force farmers to purchase antibiotics only when needed to treat sick animals and not for non-illness purposes.Timothy Richards of Arizona State University says that more regulations or a tax would run the risk of harming the agriculture industry. He says that farmers and ranchers should clearly label their products as containing or not containing antibiotics, and then market dynamics would operate by “letting people follow labels and buy or not buy meats where antibiotics are used.”

  • Rep. Rogers, House Intelligence chair: Russian intelligence may have helped Snowden

    Representative Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said that Russia may have helped the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to reveal details of surveillance programs and escape U.S. authorities last year. Rogers said he could reveal evidence which would support his claims, but suggested Snowden “used methods beyond his technical capabilities” and had help with his travel arrangements. Rogers’s comments were backed by Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked whether he was aided by the Russians, said: “He may well have.”

  • Judge says DHS made “mistake” placing Malaysian woman on terrorist watch no-fly list

    Rahinah Ibrahim, 48, was prevented by TSA agents from boarding a plane in San Francisco in 2005 because his name showed up – erroneously –on the government terrorist watch no-fly list. She was eventually allowed to leave the country, but has not been allowed to re-enter the United States since. Last Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that DHS made a “mistake” when it put Ibrahim, a former Stanford University Ph.D. student, on the list, and that the government must give her an opportunity to apply for reentry to the United States. Ibrahim’s challenge of the government’s actions is believed to have been the first trial of its kind in the country. It was held before Judge Alsup without a jury.

  • House approves $447 for Cyber Command

    The House of Representatives approved a fiscal 2014 stop-gap budget last Monday (it approved to full spending bill on Wednesday), which allocates $447 million to the Defense Department’s Cyber Command. This is more than twice the $191 million budget for Cyber Command in 2013.

  • Obama announces reforms of U.S. intelligence data collection practices

    President Barack Obama on Friday called for a “new approach” by the U.S. intelligence community to the collection of Americans’ phone metadata. The major changes in current practices involve storage of and access to bulk metadata; the presence of a public advocate during FISA court deliberations; new privacy protections for non-Americans; and new restrictions on spying on leaders of allied countries. Obama offered a robust defense of the U.S. intelligence services, saying that there was no evidence they had abused their power, and that many of their methods were necessary to protect Americans. “We will not apologize simply because our services may be more effective,” he said. The president pointedly noted that some countries that “have loudly criticized the NSA privately acknowledge that America has special responsibilities as the world’s only superpower . . . and that they themselves have relied on the information we obtain to protect their own people.”