• High-powered laser for refueling aircraft

    Moving military units from theater to theater is a challenge for the military’s lift capabilities; an integral part of such capabilities is the ability to refuel aircraft in mid-flight, which is dangerous; researchers offer a way to use laser to recharge the plane’s batteries; for now the system is limited to surveillance UAVs, but the developers envision it being used for larger planes

  • Here they go again: China demands access to Western computer security

    Another crisis in U.S.-China trade relations looms, as China, again, is about to introduce rules which would allow Chinese companies to steal Western industrial secrets, and would allow the Chinese government more tightly to monitor what the Chinese people say and read

  • Old fingerprints help solve heretofore unresolved crimes

    A forensic scientist at Northamptonshire Police and the University of Leicester has helped detectives move a step closer to solving a murder case; the key: lifting fingerprints off bullets

  • U.S. to restrict laptop searches at border

    Laptops contain e-mails, pictures, financial documents, and more; searching them may offer law enforcement officials far more revealing pictures of travelers than suitcase inspections at airports might yield

  • FBI: Growing copper theft threatens U.S. critical infrastructure

    The FBI says that, individually, isolated instances of copper theft cause big enough headaches of their own, but taken together, they present a significant problem for the United States — a threat to public safety and to U.S. critical infrastructure

  • 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

  • Independent commission: WMD attack by terrorists likely

    An independent commission of experts, set up by Congress as part of the recommendations by the 9/11 commission, concludes that terrorists will most likely carry out an attack with biological, nuclear, or other unconventional weapons somewhere in the world in the next five years

  • European states to coordinate anti-cybercrime effort

    The 27 member states of the EU are worried about the effects of cyber crimes on the European economy; new blueprint for fighting cybercrime calls for better cooperation among national law enforcement units

  • Advances in counter-IEDs measures, but work remains

    The Pentagon has spent more than $14 billion so far to find way effectively to counter IEDs; it has even created an agency — the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization — to do the work; still, there are about 1,400 IED attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan every month, and about 350 attacks in other parts of the world; a congressional panel notes progress in countering IEDs but says much works remains

  • U.S. harnesses Facebook, MTV in fight against terrorism

    Seventeen pro-democracy, anti-terror groups from South Africa, Britain, and the Middle East which have an online presence will gather in New York to exchange notes

  • New CFIUS regulations

    CFIUS issues final regulations governing national security reviews of foreign investment in the United States

  • Immigration Alert: Employing immigrants during economic slowdown

    There are important employer obligations to consider when employing immigrants during an economic downturn

  • 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

  • FDA opens offices in China

    As food — and food ingredients — imports from China grow, and as China’s lax health and safety standards become more apparent, the FDA is trying to spot problems at the source by opening three offices in China

  • France drops security database over privacy fears

    Criticized for ignoring serious privacy concerns, the French government scraps — for now — the implementation of massive data base; data base was to include information about French men and women as young as 13 years of age and include information on people’s health and sexual orientation