• South African wireless traffic lights stolen by SIM-card thieves

    The city of Johannesburg had a great idea to make traffic move more smoothly in the city: install wirelessly activated traffic lights; but this is South Africa, so it did not take more than a few weeks for thieves to steal the SIM cards from 400 out of the 600 traffic lights installed; now the city does not have the fancy lights — and it pays thousands of rand on phone calls the thieves subsequently make using the snaffled SIMs

  • Mexico violence hits new levels in scale, brutality in 2010

    Mexico’s drug violence in 2010 was striking not only for its scale but also for its brutality; more than 13,000 people were killed across the country in drug violence, up from an estimated 9,600 a year earlier; the number of people killed since the government launched its war on the drug cartels in December 2006 has reached 31,000; analysts say that the violence is the result of the collapse of the old political structure — the 80-year one-party system ran by the PRI, which came to an end in 2000, when Vicente Fox came to power; the old system, with its unwritten rules and tacit understandings, is yet to be replaced by a new, consensual system; what has exacerbated the anarchical situation are two new elements: the rise of drug trafficking through Mexico, and the free flow of arms into the country, mostly from the United States

  • Smart system to teach itself to jam new wireless threats

    As wireless communication devices become more adaptive and responsive to their environment by using technology such as Dynamic Spectrum Allocation, the effectiveness of fixed countermeasures may become severely degraded; DARPA wants smart system that can learn to jam new wireless threats automatically

  • ATF to require gun dealers to report multiple rifle sales

    Mexico, reeling under the weight of the escalating armed conflict between the government and the drug cartels, is on the verge of becoming a failed, ungovernable state on the U.S. door-step; U.S. and Mexican experts say that 90 percent of the tens of thousands of the semi-automatic rifles in the arsenals of the cartels are smuggled from the United State; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has announced a new measure, requiring U.S. gun dealers to report multiple sales of rifles to authorities; Texas law enforcement authorities say that since the reporting requirements will only include the southwest border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California — guns will continue to flow into Mexico from other parts of the United States — and from other countries

  • Closing of U.K. forensics research centers triggers protest

    The U.K. government announced that the Forensic Science Service — a leading research center based in Birmingham, United Kingdom — will be closed by 2012 because of budgetary reasons; law enforcement leaders and scientists calls on the government to reconsider the decision, saying that “The reputation of forensic science in the U.K. will undoubtedly diminish —- The lack of research means that we will be lagging behind the rest of the world, and justice will suffer”

  • ShotSpotter to detect gun firing in Huntington Station

    To combat rising gun violence in Huntington Station, Long Island, Suffolk County has decided to deploy the ShotSpotter gunfire detection system; ShotSpotter, an acoustic surveillance system, uses microphones that pick up the sounds of gunfire. Patrol cars with laptop computers can then detect the origin of the shots within ten feet

  • Holder: threat of homegrown terrorism "keeps me up at night"

    U.S. attorney general Eric Holder says the danger of homegrown terror “keeps me up at night”: “The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens — raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason, have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born”; the attorney general said that of 126 people who have been charged with allegations related to terrorism in the past 24 months, 50 had been American citizens; Holder dismissed criticism of recent FBI sting operations, which some have argued employed the use of illegal “entrapment,” offering that “options are always given all along the way for them to say, ‘You know what, I have changed my mind. I don’t want to do it’”

  • Millions allowed into U.S. without proper border documents

    The inspector general for DHS estimated this week that about 3.6 million people a year were still passing through customs without the required documents — passports or other hard-to-forge identification cards — and that about half of those were coming through the border crossings in Texas

  • State-federal tensions on immigration issues continue

    Governor David Patterson of New York has pardoned six immigrants facing deportation because, he says, deportation is unjustified in their cases; “[immigration officials] may take no account of the New York State criminal justice decisions, but I do,” he said; the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the first of two controversial Arizona immigration law; this law was signed by then governor Janet Napolitano, now DHS secretary in the administration which is challenging the law in court

  • Carjackings, violence to increase in wake of Mexico prison break

    Close to 200 drug dealers, murderers, and human traffickers broke out of a Nuevo Laredo prison — probably with the help of guards who were bribed or threatened; members of the Zetas were behind the prison break, and they are expanding their influence in cities close to the U.S. border; intelligence analysts say that the breakout means that we should expect more violence in cities within the Zetas-dominated areas

  • U.S. kill vehicle missile defense weapon fails test

    The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has suffered another failure in a live test conducted last week over the Pacific; the first part of the test — detecting and tracking the “enemy” missile by the Sea Based X-band Radar — went well; the second part — getting an Exo-atmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) to place itself in the path of the oncoming missile warhead and destroying it — did not work; the Ground Based Interceptor (GBI) triple-stage rocket is the most capable tool in the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s armory, but its test record is spotty at best

  • Rhode Island prison deploys new inmate eye scanners

    This summer a Rhode Island prison inmate was able to walk out of prison by posing as another inmate who was up for parole; the state Department of Corrections has deployed an eye scanner in the prison that checks inmates’ eyes to ensure identity

  • White House held up regulation to stop gun flow to Mexico

    Tens of thousands of semi-automatic rifles are smuggled from the United States to Mexico every year, increasing the level of violence of the war among the drug cartels and creating a situation in which the cartels often out-gun the Mexican police and military; on Friday, the ATF published an emergency proposal in the Federal Register; the proposal requires dealers to report to the ATF anytime they make two or more sales over a 5-day period of semiautomatic rifles that have a caliber greater than .22 and a detachable magazine; it would be valid for six months; Justice wanted the proposal to be placed in the Register in the summer, but the White House held it up — some say because of election considerations

  • Critics: Trusted Traveler will allow Mexican cartels to bypass airport security

    Two weeks ago DHS announced plans the roll out of Trusted Traveler program with Mexico; under the program, Mexicans who have undergone background checks and are deemed low security risks will be able to fly into major U.S. cities and breeze through customs without being questioned by U.S. Customs agents; critics say Mexico’s drug cartels will quickly learn how to exploit loopholes in the plan by recruiting Mexicans with clean backgrounds to attain trusted traveler status, and then use them to smuggle drugs and other contraband into the United States; Mexican citizens are already eligible for expedited land border crossings through another trusted traveler program, Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (SENTRI); last week, two SENTRI trusted travelers were caught trying to bring contraband across the border into the U.S. through the SENTRI-only express border passage

  • More companies shun Mexico as violence spirals

    Growing numbers of companies are deciding to limit their investments in Mexico because of spiraling drug-related violence in one of the world’s most important emerging markets; Mexico continues to lure foreign investment with its low wages, location next to the United States, and the advantages of the North American Free Trade Agreement; for some companies, particularly those that do not yet have operations south of the border, the violence has become daunting