Budget

Increased Pentagon role in U.S. domestic security
The U.S. Department of Defense will have an increased role in domestic U.S. security; a Pentagon plan calls for up to 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe
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Scholarships, guaranteed jobs for cyber security students
State University of New York at Buffalo uses $868,000 Federal CyberService Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to award undergraduate, graduate scholarships
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Security alliance calls financial incentives for cyber security
The Internet Security Alliance calls for the incoming Obama administration and Congress to give information technology companies financial incentives for improving cybersecurity defenses, including providing funding in research and development and shielding them from liability caused by cyberattacks
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Briefly noted
Pentagon to ask Obama for $581 billion budget for next fiscal year… Security requirements for private aircraft arriving and departing the United States
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Anti-bioterror programs may make U.S. more vulnerable
There are 14 BSL-4 labs in the United States (6 already in operation; 3 completed but not yet operational; 5 under construction), and 15,000 scientists authorized to work with deadly pathogens; critics argue that by vastly increasing the number of researchers and labs authorized to handle deadly substances, the government has made the U.S. more vulnerable to bioterror attacks
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Continued growth for aerospace, defense despite economic slowdown
Revenues for electronics /C4ISR companies in the U.S. defense market are projected to be worth $298 billion in 2015; Europe and the United States account for more than 80 percent of the world’s aerospace and defense revenues
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U.K. local authorities lack intelligence for effective counter-terrorism
A government study finds that government counter-terrorism funding to local authorities and neighborhood policing over the last two years has yet to translate into a coherent strategy to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremists
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DHS releases FY2009 guidance for $3 billion worth of grants
FEMA requests applications for 14 programs for which it has allocated $3 billion; funded programs concentrate on state and local governments and strengthening community preparedness
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The priorities of DHS's Science and Technology Directorate
DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate is known for its restless, entrepreneurial spirit; it has a $830 million dollar budget, and 250 projects under development at any one time
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U.S. debates creating domestic intelligence agency
A new RAND study examines the benefits of creating a domestic intelligence agency; research group offers a break-even analysis of the various counterterrorism organizational options
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Satellite program canceled; intelligence community uneasy
Congress has shelved a Pentagon program to buy two commercial imagery satellites; in 2005 the Pentagon pulled the plug on a major component of the Future Imagery Architecture system; U.S. intelligence community fears intelligence gaps will open
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New DHS network still has problems
HSIN was launched in 2004 to provide a secure, Internet-based system to share terrorism information with federal, state, and local agencies and the private sector, but ran into problems; last year DHS decided to replace it with a new system, but that one, too, has problems
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DHS, NSF announce $3.1 million awards for radiological detection
DHS and NSF give awards to academic institutions to advance research in radiological and nuclear detection
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Texas county weighing border fence alternatives
Cameron County, Texas, must decide which option is more beneficial to it: DHS’s fence plan which the county does not like, but which will see $37 million in contracts go to local businesses, or resubmitting the county’s alternative fence plan, which DHS had already rejected, exploiting the fact that DHS has postponed the 31 December fence deadline
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More debate about how best to defend Earth against asteroids
U.C. Berkeley expert says protecting Earth against incoming asteroids “is not an astronomy problem. It is a financial problem, an accounting problem, an international problem, an organizational problem, a political problem”
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