• Florida’s falling crime rate has experts puzzled

    With unemployment at record highs and police departments struggling with budget cuts, the fact that Florida’s crime rate has fallen nearly 33 percent in the last decade has many experts puzzled

  • LAPD named best counterterrorism squad

    The Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau (CTSOB) recently received Government Security News’ highest honor for a division of its kind

  • DHS takes down suspected Mexican gang members in New York

    On 16 November DHS agents arrested twenty-five suspected members of the Mexican Los Vagos gang on a variety of charges including murder conspiracy, assault, firearms offenses, narcotics trafficking, and immigration violations. Los Vagos allegedly used drug trafficking and violence to defend their turf from the Latin Kings, a rival gang

  • NYPD spying on Muslims leads to spiral of mistrust

    Following the revelation that the New York City police department was spying on the daily lives of ordinary Muslims, community activists have launched a campaign encouraging people to avoid directly reporting suspicious activity to the police

  • Pre-crime detection scanners raise legal, scientific issues

    DHS has successfully tested a pre-crime detection scanner on humans. The scanners gauge facial expressions and other biometric data to detect whether someone is giving cues for mal-intent. The DHS algorithm also includes scanning a person’s gender, ethnicity, breathing, and heart rate in a non-intrusive way through video and audio scanning. Critics want to know whether Americans agree that it is worth their safety interests to be watched in every public space, or will pre-crime scanning cross certain privacy rights?

  • Serving and protecting – and saving money in the process

    As municipalities battle tight budgets and rising gasoline prices, law enforcement fleets across in the United States have found a way to save taxpayer dollars by shifting to clean-burning, American-made propane autogas

  • Surveillance plane to circle Lancaster ten hours a day

    Beginning in May, a Cessna 172 airplane will hover over the Lancaster, California for ten hours a day collecting intelligence and keeping an eye on residents; the surveillance program was recently approved by city leaders in an effort to fight crime, but the prospect of aerial surveillance has critics concerned about privacy violations

  • Technology helps Detroit fight crime

    Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. credits new technology and tactics for helping to reduce homicides by 15 percent

  • Drones and privacy

    With civilian unmanned surveillance drones now capable of listening in on cell phone conversations, monitoring Wi-Fi traffic, seeing into backyards and windows not visible from the street, and tracking a person’s movement privacy advocates are concerned that the rapid advances in technology could violate privacy rights

  • Montgomery County adds drone to arsenal

    For local police departments who do not have a helicopter unit or cannot afford one, small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are quickly becoming a cheap solution; the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Texas recently purchased the ShadowHawk, a small remote controlled helicopter manufactured by Vanguard Defense Industries

  • Budget cuts force Nevada to reconsider security priorities

    Next fiscal year Nevada will be forced to adapt to a 47 percent cut in DHS funding. To prepare for this new financial reality, Nevada governor Brian Sandoval has called for a reassessment of the state’s homeland security priorities

  • Prison systems vulnerable to cyberattack

    At the recent Hackers Halted convention in Miami, researchers John J. Strauchs and his daughter Tiffany Strauchs Rad told the audience how with only $2,500 and some basic equipment, they were able to develop a cyberattack on a simulated prison computer system with potentially catastrophic results

  • DHS agents recover painting stolen by Nazis

    Last week, federal DHS agents raided a museum in Tallahassee, Florida to recover a 500-year-old painting that was believed to be stolen by Nazis during the Second World War; upon receiving a tip from a foreign law enforcement source that the painting had been stolen by the Nazis, DHS agents seized the painting and will hold it until the rightful owner can be determined

  • One answer to the National Drug Threat Assessment Report: It’s the human component, stupid // by Lee Maril

    The recent Department of Justice study of the impacts of illegal drugs upon our country, the National Drug Threat Assessment 2011 (NDTA2011), outlines significant challenges facing Customs and Border Patrol (CBP); a first step to directly addressing the NDTA2011 is to refrain from sending out a new batch of RFPs (request for proposal) to the usual defense contractors

  • Highly-trained Indian K-9s join counterterror forces

    The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) has a highly-trained unit in its force unlike any other in the world; police handlers have taught six Labradors to carry explosives in their teeth, sneak into terrorist lairs, plant remote-controlled bombs, hide secret cameras, interpret body language, and understand English and Hindi