• Briefly noted

    Obama administration looks to fill more than 300 IT positions… Larger inmate population is boon to private prisons… More attacks on critical infrastructure?

  • Modern-day piracy poses growing threats, challenges

    Forget Captain Kidd, wooden legs, or treasure maps; modern pirates are equipped with supercharged speedboats, large-caliber weaponry, and all the radio intercept technology they need to identify and locate valuable ocean-going booty; on 9/11 we saw what damage a jumbo jet could do when used as a weapon; how about a supertanker as a weapon?

  • Two former DHS leaders on DHS under a new administration

    Amit Yoran and Dwight Williams held important positions at DHS; now in private industry, they offer their view and the challenges the department will face next year

  • Briefly noted

    Pentagon to ask Obama for $581 billion budget for next fiscal year… Security requirements for private aircraft arriving and departing the United States

  • Continued growth for aerospace, defense despite economic slowdown

    Revenues for electronics /C4ISR companies in the U.S. defense market are projected to be worth $298 billion in 2015; Europe and the United States account for more than 80 percent of the world’s aerospace and defense revenues

  • Biosafety Lab-Level 4 dedicated in Galveston, Texas

    The $174 million, 186,267-square-foot lab will employ 300 people; the lab is one of two approved in 2003 by NIH (the second is being built in Boston); critics question placing a BSL-4 lab on a barrier island vulnerable to hurricanes

  • Anti-bioterror programs may make U.S. more vulnerable

    There are 14 BSL-4 labs in the United States (6 already in operation; 3 completed but not yet operational; 5 under construction), and 15,000 scientists authorized to work with deadly pathogens; critics argue that by vastly increasing the number of researchers and labs authorized to handle deadly substances, the government has made the U.S. more vulnerable to bioterror attacks

  • DHS to regulate ammonium nitrate

    Ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil commonly is used as an explosive in mining and has been used by terrorists — such as Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma; DHS proposes to regulate its use

  • Turkish ship seized in Gulf of Aden

    Piracy off the Somali coast is becoming a serious problem; so far this year there have been 81 pirates attacks in the region, including 32 hijackings

  • Turkey studying U.S. counterterrorism strategy model

    The Turkish government a comprehensive study for a new counterterrorism strategy, using the U.S. model for counterterrorism coordination as a possible base

  • U.S. lost, and never found, a nuclear weapon in 1968

    A U.S. Air Force bomber carrying four nuclear bombs crashed in Greenland in 1968; three of the weapons were recovered; the fourth is still under the ice

  • U.K. local authorities lack intelligence for effective counter-terrorism

    A government study finds that government counter-terrorism funding to local authorities and neighborhood policing over the last two years has yet to translate into a coherent strategy to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremists

  • Briefly noted

    Decision in Defense procurement case could set precedent… Elbit completes acquisition of Innovative Concepts for $15 million… Huntsville grows into major explosives hub

  • Some federal agencies fail to meet secure ID October deadline

    The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had set 27 October as the deadline for agencies to issue the cards to all federal employees and contractors; 28 percent of the federal employee workforce and 30 percent of contractors who require the cards have received credentials

  • Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository too small

    Congress has placed a 77,000-ton limit on the amount of nuclear waste that can be buried in Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository (the repository will open in 2020 at the earliest); trouble is, the 104 active U.S. nuclear reactors, together with the Pentagon, produce that amount of waste in two years