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Security specialist Core Systems sees U.S. prisons as opportunity
Belfast-based Core Systems provides biometric equipment to prisons in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland; it is now expanding to the United States; with a prison population of 2.2 million; “In the prisons business, the United States is the market leader,” says Patricia O’Hagan, company’s co-owner
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U.K. Home Office denies remote snooping plan
There have been discussions among EU ministers about giving police more authority to snoop on crime and terror suspects remotely, but the legal framework to do so is yet be created; what is more, techies says it cannot be done
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Israel uses new ISR systems, ordnance
Advocates of air power were humbled in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, but they hope to be vindicated in the Israel-Hamas conflict; Israel uses new ISR systems which shrink the sensor-to-shooter loop, and new bunker-busting ordnance
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TSA has processed more than 1 million commercial HAZMAT applications
Since the HAZMAT driver’s license screening process was launched nearly four years ago, TSA has completed a review of 1,015,660 applications and approved more than 1 million
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Britain may outsource large surveillance database
The U.K. Home Office is moving forward with a £12 billion plan for a massive database to track phone calls, e-mails, and chat conversations in the country; the Home Office said it is considering outsourcing the database’s maintenance to private firms
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U.S. air travel database fails own privacy tests
DHS privacy report says the department is in violation of U.S. law and the DHS-EU agreement on the handling of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data
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Not yet ready for prime time: RFID technology
RFID technology is incorporated into more and more documents (e-passports, enhanced driver’s licenses); trouble is, the technology still suffers from privacy and security vulnerabilities
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Survey of emergency care cases indicate excessive use of force by police
New survey: Excessive police violence is evident in the types of injury and trauma emergency care doctors are treating in the United States
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New guide for truck cargo security
Some 80 percent of all communities in the United States rely solely on trucks for the products and goods they receive, including food, books, clothing, electronics, automobiles, and medical supplies; making sure these trucks and their cargo are safe is thus an essential part of securing the home front
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Follow the money: The value of tracking terrorist financing
Mounting terrorist operations is cheap, but maintaining a terrorist network is expensive; disrupting the money flow to a terrorist organization is thus an important preventive tool; it is also a valuable intelligence-gathering tool
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Bush administration meticulous about power handoff
The transfer of power from the Bush administration to the Obama administration will be the first handoff since 9/11; the Bush administration is taking unprecedented measures to make sure the incoming administration is ready from day one
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DHS expands biometric info collection to include green card holders
DHS will begin to collect biometric data from permanent residents of the United States and from refugees; new rule, to go into effect on 18 January 2009, will include “nearly all aliens,” except Canadian citizens on brief visits
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Graham, Talent: U.S. should do more to prevent terrorist attack
The leaders of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism say that the incoming administration must do more, much more, to prevent a terrorist attack on the United States
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U.K.'s new way to prevent people from assuming identity of deceased persons
A new — and controversial — regulation allows U.K. government agencies more sharing of personal data they hold of U.K. citizens; the Home Office says one benefit of the new regulation is better prevention of fraudsters assuming the identity of dead people
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States, localities are slow to repair poorly maintained levees
Two years ago the U.S. government identified 122 levees as too poorly maintained to be reliable in major floods; only forty-five of them had necessary repairs; people living behind the unrepaired levees should be concerned
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The long view
Kinetic Operations Bring Authoritarian Violence to Democratic Streets
Foreign interference in democracies has a multifaceted toolkit. In addition to information manipulation, the tactical tools authoritarian actors use to undermine democracy include cyber operations, economic coercion, malign finance, and civil society subversion.
Patriots’ Day: How Far-Right Groups Hijack History and Patriotic Symbols to Advance Their Cause, According to an Expert on Extremism
Extremist groups have attempted to change the meaning of freedom and liberty embedded in Patriots’ Day — a commemoration of the battles of Lexington and Concord – to serve their far-right rhetoric, recruitment, and radicalization. Understanding how patriotic symbols can be exploited offers important insights into how historical narratives may be manipulated, potentially leading to harmful consequences in American society.
Trump Aims to Shut Down State Climate Policies
President Donald Trump has launched an all-out legal attack on states’ authority to set climate change policy. Climate-focused state leaders say his administration has no legal basis to unravel their efforts.
Vaccine Integrity Project Says New FDA Rules on COVID-19 Vaccines Show Lack of Consensus, Clarity
Sidestepping both the FDA’s own Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), two Trump-appointed FDA leaders penned an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine to announce new, more restrictive, COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. Critics say that not seeking broad input into the new policy, which would help FDA to understand its implications, feasibility, and the potential for unintended consequences, amounts to policy by proclamation.
Twenty-One Things That Are True in Los Angeles
To understand the dangers inherent in deploying the California National Guard – over the strenuous objections of the California governor – and active-duty Marines to deal with anti-ICE protesters, we should remind ourselves of a few elementary truths, writes Benjamin Wittes. Among these truths: “Not all lawful exercises of authority are wise, prudent, or smart”; “Not all crimes require a federal response”; “Avoiding tragic and unnecessary confrontations is generally desirable”; and “It is thus unwise, imprudent, and stupid to take actions for performative reasons that one might reasonably anticipate would increase the risks of such confrontations.”
Luigi Mangione and the Making of a ‘Terrorist’
Discretion is crucial to the American tradition of criminal law, Jacob Ware and Ania Zolyniak write, noting that “lawmakers enact broader statutes to empower prosecutors to pursue justice while entrusting that they will stay within the confines of their authority and screen out the inevitable “absurd” cases that may arise.” Discretion is also vital to maintaining the legitimacy of the legal system. In the prosecution’s case against Luigi Mangione, they charge, “That discretion was abused.”