• Obama: Russia’s chemical weapons proposal may be a “significant breakthrough”

    President Obama on Monday described a Russian proposal for Syria to turn over control of its chemical weapons to international monitors in order to avoid a military strike a “potentially positive development,” which could represent a “significant breakthrough.” Obama said, though, that the proposal should be taken “with a grain of salt,” and it was viewed with some skepticism by the administration, with senior officials saying the proposal could possibly be a delaying tactic aimed to undermine Obama’s already tenuous efforts to push for a military strike. The Russian proposal called for Syria to open its chemical weapons stocks to international inspections and give complete account of its stocks; begin the process of supervised destruction of these weapons; and join the Chemical Weapons Convention.

  • Rebels capture historic Christian town

    Maaloula, located about forty miles northeast of Damascus, is a small town of about 3,300 residents, famous mostly for the fact that it is one of three places (the other two being two villages nearby) where western Aramaic – the language spoken by Jesus, even though his dialect was different — is still spoken. Most of the town’s residents are Melkite Greek Catholic and Orthodox Christians, so the fact that it was sitting in the middle of rebel-held territory was a source of unease for its mostly pro-regime residents. Over the weekend, anti-regime rebels had taken over the town — and many Christians in Syria watched the battle for the town nervously, as they have been watching other gains by the rebels, fearing that the alternative to Assad’s regime would be far less tolerant of minority religions. These worries about the Sunni-led rebellion against Assad have caused large segments of Syria’s minority communities to continue to support the Assad regime.

  • U.S. pays growing attention to insider threats

    Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have repeatedly sought to infiltrate the U.S. intelligence community by having supporters apply for intelligence jobs, according to a classified budget document. The U.S government investigates thousands of employees a year to make sure such infiltration does not happen. The CIA says that 20 percent of job applicants whose backgrounds raised questions had “significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections.”

  • “Climate Change, Water Conflicts, and Human Security” report released

    Increasingly, climate change and the associated increase in the frequency of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, and rising sea level, are acknowledged as not only having humanitarian impacts, but also creating national and regional political and security risks. While people and governments can adapt to these impacts, their capacity to do so varies.

  • Pentagon expands Syria attack plan

    The Obama administration, in an effort to mobilize American public opinion to support a strike against Syria, has stressed that any military action would be limited in scope, but the Pentagon is preparing for a longer, and broader, campaign of bombardment of Syria than it originally had planned. The plan includes heavy missile strikes which will be followed by second and third waves of bombing of targets which were not initially destroyed or sufficiently damaged. The plan calls for the use of cruise missiles and aircraft from a U.S. Navy aircraft group in the Red Sea, and long-range bombers from outside the theater.

  • Syria’s chemical weapons stocks will not be attacked

    Military analysts say Syrian president Bashar Assad will emerge with Syria’s chemical arsenal intact if the United States executes a limited airstrike. The United States contemplates a punitive strike in response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons against Sunni civilians on 21 August – and on about a dozen earlier occasions – but the U.S. attack, if it comes, is not likely to include the depots where the chemical weapons are stored because such an attack may release deadly gases which would cover the neighboring areas with toxic clouds, potentially creating a human and environmental disaster.

  • NYPD designated all NYC mosques as terrorist organizations to facilitate broad surveillance

    The New York Police Department (NYPD) secretly labeled entire mosques in New York as terrorist organizations, allowing the NYPD to use surveillance techniques including informants and spies without needing evidence or proof of criminal or terrorist activities to investigate the mosques. The investigations, known as Terrorism Enterprise Investigations (TEI), began after the 9/11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.

  • Flexible vehicle-arrest system stops cars involved in crime, terrorism

    Researchers have developed a mathematical model that could help engineers design a flexible vehicle-arrest system for stopping cars involved in criminal activity or terrorism, such as suspect car bombers attempting break through a check point, without wrecking the car or killing the occupants.

  • Budget cuts force changes in CIA’s document declassification policy

    Sequestration-mandated budget cuts forced the CIA to close its Historical Collections Division office, which declassifies historical documents. Instead, the division’s responsibilities will be transferred to the office that handles Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. “This is very unfortunate,” said Robert Jervis, a Columbia University professor who chairs the CIA’s Historical Review Panel. “There will be fewer releases. We shouldn’t fool ourselves.”

  • Worries grow about Syria’s biological weapons capabilities, intentions

    The debates among experts in Western and Middle Eastern intelligence services and militaries about the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime revolve around how many times Assad has used chemical weapons, not whether such weapons were used. Neighbors of Syria have become increasingly alarmed – and, in private, have expressed their anxiety in discussions with the United States – about another illicit Syrian WMD program: biological weapons. The readiness of the Assad regime to use one proscribed weapon – chemicals — has led to growing unease among Syria’s neighbors that the regime may not find it too difficult to violate other weapon-related taboos. Biological weapons could give the Assad regime an effective means of retaliation because, if the weapon is well-designed, the lethal contents would spread easily without leaving tell-tale signs about the origin of the attack – or even evidence that there has been an attack.

  • Jewish Federations’ security arm stresses awareness on High Holidays

    Security awareness should be a primary consideration for synagogues during the High Holidays, the security arm of the national Jewish community said. Synagogue staff, security volunteers and greeters should be on the lookout for suspicious persons or activity around their facilities, particularly during services and other gatherings,” the Secure Community Network (SCN) said in a statement posted Wednesday on its Web site, hours before the start of Rosh Hashanah.

  • Administration's Syria plan: limited operation with “downstream” effect

    Three leading administration officials yesterday presented, in general detail, the plan of attack on Syria. The plan emphasizes the destruction of delivery vehicles – missiles, rockets, planes and their airfields, and artillery pieces – used in the delivery of chemical weapons. The three officials – Kerry, Hagel, and Dempsey — agreed that such an attack, even if its purpose would be to degrade the regime’s ability to deliver chemical weapons, would have “downstream” effect: these delivery vehicles also deliver conventional munitions, so their destruction would more generally degrade the regime’s ability to fight, thus making the battlefield between the regime and the rebels more level. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is today drafting a new resolution which would permit up to ninety days of military action against the Syrian government and bar the deployment of U.S. combat troops in Syria but permit the deployment of a small rescue mission in the event of an emergency. The White House also would be required within thirty days of enactment of the resolution to send lawmakers a plan for a diplomatic solution to end the violence in Syria.

  • Fusion centers collect information on non-threatening groups

    Since the 9/11 attacks, federal and state surveillance of nonviolent student groups, protest movements, and mosques has increased along with the growth of fusion centers. Fusion centers serve as the focal points for the receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information. According to DHS, there are fifty-three primary fusion centers and twenty-five recognized fusion centers across the United States.

  • Police’s facial recognition program becomes a political issue in Ohio

    Attorney General Mike DeWine of Ohio confirmed last week that local and state law enforcement have used facial recognition software since June of this year to match images of potential suspects and victims to pictures on the state’s drivers’ licenses and mug shots. The Democratic challenger for the Attorney General post faulted DeWine’s office for launching the program on 6 June without any public notice.

  • Security vs. privacy

    Those who ask you to choose security or privacy and those who vote on security or privacy are making false choices. That’s like asking air or water? You need both to live. Maslow placed safety (of which security is a subset) as second only to food, water, sex, and sleep. As humans we crave safety. As individuals and societies, before we answer the question “security or privacy,” we first have to ask “security from whom or what?” and “privacy from whom and for whom?”