• Mexican drug cartels smuggling illegals into U.S. create security risk, officials say

    DHS has defined several countries — primarily China, but also Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan — as “special interest countries”; smuggling potential terrorists and citizens of special interest countries across the U.S. border is evolving into a billion dollar industry for Mexican drug cartels, posing a significant threat to the United States

  • Questions about killing of 15-year old Mexican boy by U.S. Border Patrol agent

    A 15-year old Mexican, Sergio Hernandez, was shot dead by a U.S. Border Patrol agent; the agent was on the U.S. side of the border, and Hernandez and his friends on the Mexican side; unnamed U.S. sources say Hernandez was a known ” juvenile smuggler,” and that in 2009 he was charged with alien smuggling; he was also on a “most wanted” list of juvenile smugglers compiled by U.S. authorities in the El Paso area; the Border Patrol says its agents came under “assaulted with rocks” by Hernandez and his friends; the Mexican government wants to know whether it was necessary to shoot a teen-ager dead for throwing rocks

  • Obama's 29 May 2009 cybersecurity speech: a year on

    On 29 May 2009 president Obama said “America’s economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on cybersecurity”; since then the United States has moved systematically toward enhancing cybersecurity through the following initiatives, but much remains to be done

  • The consequences of new surveillance technology

    Many wish for better security in public places, and support installation of new video surveillance technologies to achieve this goal; these surveillance technologies, however, have important psychological and legal implications, and four German universities cooperate in studying these implications

  • Outrage in India over Bhopal verdict

    The 1984 toxic gas leak in the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India claimed between 15,000 and 20,000 lives; in addition to thousands of dead, the toxic gas left hundreds of thousands either disabled or grappling with chronic illnesses ranging from kidney and liver damage, to cancer and birth defects; court in India sentences seven of the plant managers to two years in jail and a fine of $2,200 each; Union Carbide India was fined $10,500; Warren Anderson, a top Union Carbide executive and named defendant, lives in the United States and has not answered court summons from India

  • Demand for stand-alone terrorism coverage down

    Reinsurers would like to place more terrorism business, but the demand for stand-alone terrorism coverage is on the wane; the market could tighten if the Obama administration proceeds with its plan to scale back the federal government’s terrorism insurance backstop, which has been in place since 2002

  • Israel-Iran confrontation looms as Iranians set to challenge Gaza blockade with aid ships

    The Iranian Red Crescent has said it will send three aid ships to Gaza, plus an aid cargo plane to Egypt, as it joins the efforts to defy Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip; Iran’s leaders said they would send the Iranian navy to accompany the ships; an aid ship from Iran was prevented from reaching Gaza in 2008.

  • Israel navy thwarted naval terrorist attack from Gaza

    With the land borders of Gaza tightly controlled by Israel, Palestinian militants resort to trying to attack Israel from the sea; IDF foiled rare maritime attack by armed Palestinian squad equipped with wetsuits and diving gear; Hamas says four Palestinians killed and a fifth is missing; in January a number of barrels packed with explosives were washed ashore in Israel after being launched from Gaza

  • UN criticism of U.S. UAV war not likely to stop CIA drone strikes

    A UN report on the U.S. UAVs against terrorists and insurgents calls on countries to lay out rules and safeguards for carrying out the strikes, publish figures on civilian casualties, and prove they have attempted to capture or incapacitate suspects without killing them

  • U.S. stealthy war on terror expands, deepens; Special Operations forces take lead

    The Obama administration has expanded and deepened the U.S. war on terror, and increase the role of Special Forces in that war; U.S. Special Forces are now deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year; plans exist for preemptive or retaliatory strikes in numerous places around the world, meant to be put into action when a plot has been identified, or after an attack linked to a specific group; the administration has also authorized the assassination of the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a rare — some say unprecedented — move against an American citizen

  • European bodies give Google mixed signals on data retention

    The European Commission wants Google to erase personally identifiable information from its logs after six months — but members of the European Parliament are calling for laws to require Google to retain more data for longer; these MEPs argue the data will help catch pedophiles

  • Marine camera, integrated software offer improved underwater surveillance, security

    Underwater surveillance is one of the more difficult tasks for security personnel; darkness, humidity, murkiness, low temperature all make it difficult for camera equipment to capture clear images of elements in water; a new marine camera with integrated software offers a solution

  • Ship of fools // By Ben Frankel

    On Monday Israel forcibly stopped a ship heading toward Gaza; since Gaza is controlled by Hamas, a terrorist organization officially committed to the destruction of Israel, Israel insists on inspecting cargo heading to Gaza; al Qaeda operatives are already in Gaza, and Iran is the largest supplier of weapons and munitions to Hamas; the Israeli military operation was clumsy, but it revealed that the supposedly peaceful activists on the ship were anything but: they were equipped with stun grenades, guns, knives, machete, and other weapons, an attacked the Israeli soldiers with intent to kill; since Hamas is likely to try this flotilla approach to public relations again, Israel may want to think of more creative ways to intercept future ships heading toward Gaza

  • New automated tool debugs nuclear weapon simulations

    The United States relies on nuclear weapons in its deterrence strategy; international conventions, however, prohibit the testing of nuclear weapons; U.S. leaders , military and civilians, must thus rely on simulations to have confidence in the operational reliability of these untested weapons; Purdue researchers offer a new methods to debug nuclear weapons simulations

  • Suspicionless customs search constitutional: federal appeals court

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that an April 2008 search of the cabin of a crew member of a cargo ship docked in Miami was constitutional; the search of the ship was looking for prohibited agricultural materials, but the searchers found child pornography in the cabin; the court found that the ship was docked at the equivalent of a border, making the act a border search; the court ruled that an individual has a lesser expectation of privacy at a border and the government has a greater interest in searching thus the balance tips more favorably to the government