• San Francisco to regulate private biological agent detectors

    Some firms have begun selling building owners and companies untested devices designed to detect anthrax and other biological agents, but city officials are worried that these will generate false alarms; in San Francisco city officials estimate that responding to a false alarm generated by a biological agent detector could cost as much as $700,000; legislation has been introduced to regulate these devices; the bill would require those who have biological agent detectors to pay an annual fee and owners would also be fined as much as $10,000 for false alarms; if passed, owners would have ninety days to register with the city

  • States continue to fight REAL ID

    The battle against the REAL ID act rages on as states continue to oppose implementing REAL ID standards; under the law states would have to remake their driver’s licenses, restructure their computer systems, and create new intra-state data sharing networks; nearly half of the states in the country have enacted anti-Real ID bills including Maine, Alaska, South Carolina, Arizona, and Oklahoma; DHS issued its third reprieve giving states an additional twenty-one months to observe the law; the National Governors Association welcomed the decision; with the recent economic downturn and many states facing budget shortfalls, many states are struggling with the costs of implementing REAL ID standards

  • NATO to take command over stalemated campaign

    Agreement has been reached for NATO to take over command of the Libya campaign from the U.S. Africa Command; the question of command and control has been resolved, but the questions about strategy and direction of the operation have not; it is not easy to see how, short of a ground intervention by an outside force, the operation can escape the current stalemate

  • Keeping it in perspective

    The question we should ask about nuclear power is not whether or not it has risks; every mode of power generation comes with its own risks; rather, the questions we should ask are: How do the risks of nuclear power measure relative to the risks of other power generation methods? Was the disaster in Japan proof that nuclear power plants are riskier than we thought — or did the disaster provide evidence for the opposite conclusions: aging plants absorbed unprecedented blows — a double whammy of an 8.9 earthquake, followed by a massive tsunami; a series of mistakes by plant operators — mistakes which came on top of years of wrong decisions about back-up systems and redundancy — and yet, the plants survived: there was no meltdown; there was but little release of radioactive materials into the atmosphere; some would be moved to say this is a pretty good record under the circumstances

  • Obama: Coalition cannot militarily force Gaddafi to leave

    The Obama administration is continuing to send mixed messages about the direction, purpose, and effect of the U.S.-led missile strikes on Libya, with conflicting statements from the top about Col. Qaddafi’s grip on power five days into the campaign; the coalition’s air dominance has been achieved, but administration officials have not offered a clear picture as to what the no-fly zone is expected to yield; the president reiterated that the coalition does not “have military tools at our disposal in terms of accomplishing Qaddafi’s leaving,” though he has said it is U.S. policy that Qaddafi should go; Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa spoke by telephone Sunday night with assistant secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman; no details were released

  • Madison County, IL receives $260,000 in DHS grants

    Two fire departments in Madison County, Illinois were recently awarded more than $260,000 in federal grants; the grants come as part of DHS’ Assistance to Firefighters program and goes toward the purchase of new safety gear and firefighting equipment; the Wood River fire department will receive $223,556 to help pay for a high-volume foam monitor as well as foam that will be used to put out chemical fires; the Rosewood Heights Fire Protection District will receive $37,050 to procure thirty sets of new protective fire suits

  • Air dominance is achieved, but confusion of goals deepens

    As the coalition forces achieve air dominance over Libya, the lack of clarity over the campaign’s goals becomes even more apparent; the Security Council authorized the use of force to prevent Gaddafi from killing a large number of civilians, and U.S. and French planes were thus within the UN mandate when they attacked Libyan ground units trying to attack rebels’ positions; but if the rebels go on the attack against the Libyan military, would coalition forces provide close air support? Would the coalition begin to arm and train the rebels — because if they do not, then Gaddafi will not be dislodged from power; as importantly: the support for Gaddafi comes from certain tribes, and the opposition to him is also tribal, although not exclusively so; we should not delude ourselves: if the rebels gain the upper hand, we should expect massacres and atrocities to be committed by some rebel groups against members of tribes loyal to Gaddafi; what do the coalition forces do then? Their mandate is the prevent the wholesale killing of civilians, but does this mean killing by Gaddafi loyalists only, or is the mandate broader than that?

  • GAO scrutinizes DHS financial management system

    The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has thrown a wrench in DHS’s long-running effort to modernize its financial management system, upholding a protest of the department’s most recent award; the decision could be significant for agencies reevaluating their IT programs in the wake of a slate of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reviews launched last year

  • Military action continues, operation's goals still unclear

    The military operation against the military assets of Col. Gaddafi continued Monday, but with lesser intensity than the attacks over the weekend; it is still not clear what the end goal of the military operation is — and it now appears that one of the reasons for the lack of clarity are divisions within NATO over the aims of the operation and who should be in charge; there are two camps within NATO which are uncomfortable with the idea of the organization running the campaign: Turkey and Germany — the former is the only Muslim member of NATO, the latter, owing to its past, always reluctant to support the use of force — are worried that NATO, under the leadership of England and France, would push for more expansive goals for the operation; France is worried that NATO — an organizations operating on the basis of unanimity, so all twenty-eight members have to agree on every move — would be swayed by those members who are not enthusiastic about the operation to limit the operation’s scope

  • U.S. reconsiders nuclear plant sites amid safety review

    Following the nuclear crisis that occurred in Japan as a result of a massive earthquake and tsunami, the United States is undergoing a thorough safety review of existing plants that may affect where new plants are located; President Obama ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to conduct a comprehensive safety review of all nuclear plants in the United States; observers are particularly concerned with the Indian Point nuclear power station located forty miles north of New York City; if an accident were to occur, up to twenty million people, including eight million in New York City, would have to be evacuated

  • Analysis: More questions than answers

    It is not clear, exactly, what targets have been attacked — and what is the overall goal of the campaign; Libya does not have an army the size of Iraq’s circa 2003, but an attack by 124 cruise missiles is on the limited side — and the numbers of planes involved is also on the small side; if what we know about the weekend air campaign is accurate, then there is not enough in it materially to weaken Gaddafi and his forces, nor is there anything in it to strengthen those who oppose him; we must conclude, then, that the campaign is more a part of a complex bargaining process with Gaddafi than a serious effort to topple him from power; it would be wise for NATO leaders to be clearer about the goal of the campaign against Gaddafi: democratic public opinion would demand it, and the Arab world, watching the West’s every move, should not be allowed to have unrealistic expectations about what it is we are trying to achieve

  • Senate proposes new $10 billion "infrastructure bank"

    Several U.S. Senators are pushing for the creation of a $10 billion “infrastructure bank” to spur investment in new infrastructure and to repair America’s rapidly aging roads, power grids, and bridges; the bill could attract as much as $640 billion in private investment over the next ten years; the Obama administration has proposed a similar plan; the bank would be self-sustaining as it is not allowed to finance more than 50 percent of a project’s costs; this bill faces an uncertain future given the current Congressional budget climate

  • Westland, MI firefighters receive federal grant for fitness program

    Westland, Michigan firefighters recently received more than $100,000 from the federal government to fund a new wellness program; the health program is designed to help prevent on the job heart attacks, which is one of the primary causes of death among firefighters; roughly 100 firefighters die on the job each year, and heart attacks are responsible for 45 percent of those deaths, a higher percentage than other public safety occupations; Westland firefighters have also received $14,800 to upgrade its radio systems to comply with state-mandated standards

  • Nuclear terrorism is a preventable catastrophe

    Graham Allison, a nuclear proliferation expert, warns of the seriousness of the threat of nuclear terrorism and the ease with which rogue states or terrorists groups can obtain weapons or fissile material and the knowledge essential to developing production capability; “The number of rogue states and terrorist groups seeking to acquire nuclear weapons is increasing. There are a number of states willing to sell it to anyone, and a larger number of sites where enriched weapons grade plutonium and uranium can be found in conditions where they might be vulnerable to theft due to lack of security,” he says

  • Napolitano enlists MIT engineers and scientists

    At a recent speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano urged for greater private sector involvement to help develop technological solutions to secure critical infrastructure and the border; Napolitano said that technology will be the key to DHS’ future in screening passengers and cargo more effectively and efficiently; she also called for more people with cybersecurity, engineering, and science skills to assist the government; in particular, she pointed to the “data problem,” with the massive amounts of data that government agencies must sift through to detect terrorist threats, the sheer volume alone presents a logistical challenge to counter-terrorism efforts