• Water pumps and terrorism-related information sharing systems

    With thousands of local law enforcement agencies, critical infrastructure operators, and concerned citizens reporting suspicious incidents, Homeland Security officials are inundated with data; effectively sorting through that information is a problem, as was illustrated last November by a report that a water pump at an Illinois water utility was broken by Russian hackers; the preliminary report caused panic about U.S. infrastructure vulnerability, but ultimately proved incorrect; it took more than a week for federal investigators to reach its conclusion, showing DHS ongoing problems with streamlining information sharing processes with its Fusion Centers

  • In death al Awlaki lives on

    In a recent security bulletin, DHS is warning local officials that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is still actively seeking to recruit Americans, encouraging them to commit acts of terrorism; in a posthumous video released in December, the radical American-born imam Anwar al Awlaki continues to spread his ideologies, stating “jihad against America is binding”

  • Chinese hackers target DoD, DHS smart cards

    Cybersecurity researchers have discovered malicious code developed by Chinese hackers to target the smart cards used by Defense Department, DHS, and State Department personnel

  • FedEx fined $370,000 for export violations

    Shipping giant FedEx has agreed to pay $370,000 in fines for violating anti-terrorism export measures

  • Minnesota shop to continue cash transfers to Somalia

    Following the uproar caused by the announcement that a Minnesota bank would stop transferring money to Somalia out of terrorism concerns, a local Minnesota business has agreed to continue the cash transfers

  • DHS IG: Cook County communications program botched

    On Monday the DHS Inspector General blasted officials in Cook County, Illinois for mishandling a $45 million federally funded project to upgrade communications equipment for first responders; the Inspector General said the Cook County program, dubbed Project Shield, was fraught with trouble from the start, resulted in equipment that did not work, and potentially wasted millions of taxpayers’ dollars

  • Israel takes out another Iranian nuclear scientist

    Yet another Iranian scientist associated with Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been killed earlier today: Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, who was the deputy director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, was killed when a “sticky” bomb was attached to his car by two men on a motorcycle; in the last two years, Israel’s Mossad has taken out four leading Iranian nuclear scientists; there are reports that this latest strike was a joint Mossad-MEK operation

  • Morocco changes offer U.S. “very important opportunity”

    Homeland Security NewsWire’s Executive Editor Eugene K. Chow recently had the opportunity to chat with Robert M. Holley, the executive director of the Moroccan American Center for Policy; in their interview Holley discusses the implications of Morocco’s recent historic elections, the likely policies of the newly elected moderate Islamist party, and the broader consequences of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Libya

  • New way to detect underground nuclear tests

    A new analysis of satellite data from the late 1990s documents for the first time the “uplift” of ground above a site of underground nuclear testing, providing researchers a new tool for analyzing the strength of underground nuclear detonation

  • British military gears up to secure 2012 Olympic Games

    As London gears up for the 2012 Olympic Games, event organizers and government officials have spared no expense on security measures to ensure the safety of the hundreds of thousands of athletes, spectators, and VIPS attending the six week event which begins on 27 July

  • State Department launches new Bureau of Counterterrorism

    Last week, the State Department announced that its counterterrorism office has been upgraded to a “full-fledged bureau”

  • Al Qaeda wants to be your “friend” and “follower”

    Hackers attacking databases is just one facet of online terrorist activity; international terrorist organizations have shifted their Internet activity focus to social networks and today a number of Facebook groups are asking users to join and support Hezbollah, Hamas, and other armed groups that have been included in the West’s list of declared terror organizations

  • Record high police fatalities, second year in a row

    For the second year in a row, a record number of law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty; the chairman of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund blamed the recent spate of law enforcement deaths on budget cuts

  • LA sheriff department upgrading its 1980-era terminals

    The Los Angeles Sheriff Department is upgrading its 1980s-era terminals, for which it had become difficult for the largest sheriff’s agency in the United States to find parts; the upgrade – Raytheon’s Mobile Digital Computer System (MDCS); the MDCS project and major technology upgrade represents the largest-ever deployment of mobile digital computers to a sheriff’s department in the country

  • Thirty U.S. car dealers caught in Hezbollah terror-financing scheme

    Thirty used car dealerships in the United States are currently under investigation for their part in an international money laundering scheme that sent roughly $300 million to the known terrorist organization Hezbollah