• Local police wear vests at all times to receive Justice funds

    The Justice Department has said that it will withhold federal funding for local police departments to purchase body armor unless they make it a requirement that all uniformed officers wear the armor; last year, the Justice Department distributed $37 million to reimburse more than 4,000 local agencies across the country for the purchase of nearly 200,000 vests; the new requirement comes after a sharp increase in the fatal shootings of police officers while on duty; there was a 44 percent increase in the number of fatal police shootings last year and a recent study showed that 41 percent of police departments do not require officers to wear body armor

  • Milwaukee studying Israel's homeland security practices

    This week, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clark along with about a dozen other police chiefs and county sheriffs are visiting Israel to study the country’s homeland security tactics; American law enforcement officials will learn more about Israeli practices in airport security, intelligence analysis and sharing, mass casualty management, and bomb disposal practices; the trip began on 10 April and will conclude on 16 April

  • Senator seeks to end wasteful government cybersecurity spending

    Senator Tom Carper (D – Delaware) is actively seeking ways to end wasteful government cybersecurity spending; Carper believes that the government can spend its money more efficiently on IT security; he believes that too many government programs are expensive, inefficient, and do not actually secure government networks; Carper was careful to note that he was not advocating for budget cuts, but rather more efficient spending; Carper has proposed mandating that all agencies only purchase technology that is preconfigured with encryption or other security measures; he is currently working with Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) on the Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act of 2011, which contains many of his proposals

  • Gaddafi government accepts AU peace plan

    The disorganization and lack of military effectiveness of the anti-Gaddafi rebels have led coalition leaders to conclude that the opposition can overthrow Qaddafi even with air support, and some are weighing options such as arming the fighters even while attempting diplomatic solutions; such a solution may be offered by an AU “road map” to peace in Libya which, according to AU sources, Gaddafi has accepted; trouble is, Qaddafi enjoys substantial support from countries of the AU, an organization that he chaired two years ago and helped transform using Libya’s oil wealth, so it is not clear whether rebels would accept the AU as a fair broker, and the AU plan as a fair plan

  • Ambassador Shaikh Abdul-Aziz of Bahrain

    Ambassador Shaikh Abdul-Aziz, a veteran diplomat and foreign policy adviser to the government of Bahrain, sat down with Homeland Security NewsWire’s executive editor Eugene Chow to examine the current state of affairs in Bahrain; the ambassador discusses the effect of protests on Bahrain’s economy, the source of the current sectarian strife, and what a political solution to protestors’ demands might look like; “A political solution must be reached,” he says

  • DHS launches new public outreach program to improve image

    DHS is launching a new outreach program aimed at improving the department’s negative image among certain groups; the pilot program is set to be launched in Chicago this week; its goal is to combat the stereotypes, mistrust, and misinformation that people hold about the department and its agencies, especially U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection; the outreach program will hold meetings where DHS officials will give immigrants, Muslims, and other groups the opportunity to express their concerns, ask questions, and learn more about the department; immigrant groups are skeptical of the program and its intent

  • A first: anti-rocket system shoots down two Hamas rockets

    Tensions between Israel and Hamas escalate, leading to fears of a wider war; Israel has intensified its campaign against Hamas operatives: it had kidnapped Hamas’ chief rocket designer while he was visiting the Ukraine, and earlier this week Israeli special forces killed two Hamas operatives in Sudan; they were in Sudan to arrange the transfer of chemical weapons — bought by Iran from the anti-Gaddafi rebels — to Hamas and Hezbollah; earlier today Hamas tried to kill 30 Israeli school children by targeting their bus with the advanced Kornet anti-tank rocket; at the same time, Hamas fired rocket at an Israeli town, but the rockets were intercepted by the newly deployed Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system

  • Hamas operative killed in Sudan successor of operative assassinated in Dubai

    One of the victims of the Israeli strike on two Hamas operatives in Sudan was the successor to the Hamas operatives killed by Israeli agents in Dubai last year; both operatives were in charge of the Iranian-Hamas arms smuggling connection; information emerged that Israel was particularly keen to disrupt the Iranian-Hamas connection after learning that the anti-Gaddafi rebels sold Iran hundreds of nerve and mustard gas munitions from abandoned Libyan military bases; Iran bought the munitions on behalf of Hamas and Hezbollah

  • Lawmakers question handling of Awlaki case

    An investigation by Fox News Unit revealed that the commission investigating the 9/11 attacks was likely never told by the FBI about an arrest warrant filed and then dropped against American-born radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki — the spiritual guide to at least two of the hijackers

  • On sleeper cells, smell test, and big numbers

    Whether or not Gaddafi has the means, or the intention, to launch a terror campaign inside the United States in retaliation for U.S. attacks on his military remains to be seen; another country, however, has not shied away from such actions: Iran; just one example: in the early 1990s, in response to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon, Iranian agents blew up the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires; scores were killed and hundreds wounded; there are many other examples for the Iranian penchant for such actions; if the United States attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, then an Iranian terror campaign against targets inside the United States would be one of the ways in which Iran would retaliate for such attacks

  • Israeli strikes kill WMD-related Hamas operatives in Sudanese port

    Sudan accused Israel of killing two men in the port city of Port Sudan; Israel declined to comment on the accusations; sources say the target was the Hamas representative in Sudan in charge of the vast Iranian weapons smuggling enterprise for the Gaza Strip via Egypt; it appears Israel acted after information emerged that Iran purchased a large quantity of chemical munitions from anti-Gaddafi rebels; the rebels found the WMDs in Libyan military bases abandoned by the Libyan military; Iran was making arrangements to have the munitions delivered to Hamas and Hezbollah to be used against Israel; Israel’s action is reminiscent of the January 2009 attack on a convoy of arms smugglers in Sudan, near the Egyptian border; the strike, which killed 119 people, was aimed to prevent an Iranian weapons shipment from reaching Hamas; in the past two years Israeli aircraft and naval units have been operating against smuggling ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea; the ships carry Iranian arms to Hamas

  • Wastewater employee charged with terrorism after idling plant

    A 43-year old waste water facility employee was the sole employee during the night shift at the massive Greenfield Water Reclamation Plant in Gilbert, Arizona; last Friday night, armed with a hand gun, the employee walked through the facility alone, methodically turning off major operating systems at the plant; left untreated, the sewage in the system would cause a buildup of methane gas, which could cause a huge explosion; after a 2-hour stand-off, the police arrested the man, allowing other employees to turn on the treatment systems; the employee is being held on a $250,000 bond, charged with terrorism

  • Massachusetts to spend record $1.2 billion on road and bridge projects

    This year Massachusetts is on track to spend a record $1.2 billion on state road and bridge projects, more than double what it spent in 2007; the state’s latest project is the repair of a structurally deficient bridge over Lake Lashaway and the reconstruction of a dam spillway near the bridge in the town of East Brookfield; the reconstruction of the bridge comes as part of a broader effort by Governor Deval Patrick to invest record amounts of funding in critical infrastructure repairs; last year, the Governor spent nearly a billion dollars on 400 road and bridge projects across the state; a recent study found that one in nine bridges in Massachusetts was in need of repair

  • How many people from terrorism-sponsoring states enter the U.S. illegally?

    Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) says the United States arrested people from nations designated as terrorism sponsors on the border with Mexico in the first nineteen months of Obama administration; an Austin newspaper investigated this claim and reached these conclusions: Cornyn is right that there were arrests of people from the four states designated by the United States as sponsoring terrorism (Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria) — but: the number of people from these states arrested on the Mexican border is miniscule (0.02 percent of the 540,865 total arrests on the southwestern border in fiscal 2009); 87 percent of the people from these countries arrested while trying to enter the United States illegally do so through the Canadian border; and the numbers are dropping: there were 3,309 apprehensions of people from terrorism-sponsoring countries in 2005 (when Libya and North Korea were also on the list), 935 apprehensions in 2009, and 736 in fiscal 2010

  • Huawei tries to crack U.S. market again with U.S. Cellular deal

    Chinese giant Huawei Technologies Co. recently announced that it was the finalist for a contract to build a fourth generation wireless network for U.S. Cellular Corp, the nation’s sixth largest wireless carrier; in response to the deal, U.S. lawmakers sent a letter to President Obama to permanently stop Huawei’s efforts to sell network infrastructure in the United States; in the past, lawmakers have vocally opposed Huawei’s attempts to enter the U.S. market fearing that the telecom giant would install equipment that contains bugs that would make it easier for China to steal information, shut down communications, or make networks easier to hack; Huawei is the world’s second largest telecom manufacturer