• Increased Pentagon role in U.S. domestic security

    The U.S. Department of Defense will have an increased role in domestic U.S. security; a Pentagon plan calls for up to 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe

  • Independent commission: WMD attack by terrorists likely

    An independent commission of experts, set up by Congress as part of the recommendations by the 9/11 commission, concludes that terrorists will most likely carry out an attack with biological, nuclear, or other unconventional weapons somewhere in the world in the next five years

  • European states to coordinate anti-cybercrime effort

    The 27 member states of the EU are worried about the effects of cyber crimes on the European economy; new blueprint for fighting cybercrime calls for better cooperation among national law enforcement units

  • Advances in counter-IEDs measures, but work remains

    The Pentagon has spent more than $14 billion so far to find way effectively to counter IEDs; it has even created an agency — the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization — to do the work; still, there are about 1,400 IED attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan every month, and about 350 attacks in other parts of the world; a congressional panel notes progress in countering IEDs but says much works remains

  • U.S. harnesses Facebook, MTV in fight against terrorism

    Seventeen pro-democracy, anti-terror groups from South Africa, Britain, and the Middle East which have an online presence will gather in New York to exchange notes

  • New CFIUS regulations

    CFIUS issues final regulations governing national security reviews of foreign investment in the United States

  • Immigration Alert: Employing immigrants during economic slowdown

    There are important employer obligations to consider when employing immigrants during an economic downturn

  • Scholarships, guaranteed jobs for cyber security students

    State University of New York at Buffalo uses $868,000 Federal CyberService Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to award undergraduate, graduate scholarships

  • FDA opens offices in China

    As food — and food ingredients — imports from China grow, and as China’s lax health and safety standards become more apparent, the FDA is trying to spot problems at the source by opening three offices in China

  • France drops security database over privacy fears

    Criticized for ignoring serious privacy concerns, the French government scraps — for now — the implementation of massive data base; data base was to include information about French men and women as young as 13 years of age and include information on people’s health and sexual orientation

  • Experts: Internet crime might cause global catastrophe

    Damage caused by cyber crime is estimated at $100 billion annually; tech-savvy gangs from China, India, Eastern Europe, and Africa were coming up with ever more sophisticated ways of swindling money from vulnerable people

  • UN: Destroyed Syrian facility resembled a nuclear reactor

    On 6 September 2007 Israel destroyed a remote facility in north-east Syria; Israel and the United States claimed the facility was a nuclear reactor in the making (Syrian officials offered many different, and contradictory, explanations about the facility); Syria engaged in elaborate “landscaping,” importing tons of fresh soil to alter the site before admitting outsiders; these outsiders — IAEA inspectors — have now concluded the the site looked like a nuclear reactor

  • New York City opens counterterrorism center

    The $100 million project was launched after 9/11; the facility would eventually receive video footage from 3,000 cameras posted in and near the financial district, an area of about 1.7 square miles

  • Grappling with the pirate problem

    The Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia, and the Gulf of Aden, are among the most sensitive choke points in global commerce; trouble is, the stable, the comparatively wealthy Southeast Asian countries that line the Malacca Strait have committed their naval and coastal forces to stamping out hijackings and piracy, but the Gulf of Aden is bordered by poor or dysfunctional countries like Djibouti, Yemen, and particularly Somalia

  • Briefly noted

    Raytheon awarded contract for exploratory nuclear detection research… Navies may get tougher on piracy after tanker seizure… U.S. donates nuclear detection equipment to Nigeria