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ShotSpotter technology deployed to Minneapolis
Sensors immediately tell police the exact location of a fired shot; technology based on acoustic detection of muzzle blasts; data to aid criminal prosecutions
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Canadian government announces annual air security revenue, expenses
Deficits projected as security costs, number of travellers, mount; government plans to hold dwindling program surplus as check against future costs
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In-Q-Tel names new chief executive
Christopher Darby takes the reigns at the CIA’s venture capital arm; background in cybersecurity; succeeds Amit Yoran
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9/11, Katrina anniversaries highlight radio interoperability problems
Government grants have done little to improve municipal communications; New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Tulsa provide models of ongoing difficulties
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DHS launches information-sharing program with states
More information should lead to more effective law enforcement, and DHS next month will begin to share some of the information in its files with the states; first will be the personal and biometric information collected from travelers in the US-VISIT program; DHS also said that the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. reached 11 million
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States to DHS: Either fund the Real ID Act, or drop it
Congress gave states a May 2008 deadline to equip their citizens with driver’s licenses with biometric information and RFID techonlogy; U.S. citizens without such licneses will not be able to enter federal buildings, open bank accounts, or purchase airline tickets; states balk at the cost of the project, telling the federal government to fund it or drop it
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STG wins DHS contract for financial and accounting services
A leading IT and homeland security contractor announces it had won a contract to manage financial infrastructure problems related to DHS consolidation.
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Arizona turns to wireless border security
Arizona equips its police units along the U.S.-Mexican border with wireless connection to the Internet
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Texas Emerging Technology Fund awards $2.25 million to local companies
The State of Texas has established a fund to support emerging technologies offered by local companies
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Federal IT spending to reach $6.3 by 2011
The need for interoperability and the threat of hacking will drive the steady growth in government IT spending
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EAGLE contract will save DHS $40 million
The 25 EAGLE contracts DHS has awarded would help the department streamline and standardize its IT operations, but will also save it about $40 million a year it now pays other agencies for various services
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New York City's security grants have been cut, but not those for chickens in Delaware
New York City’s security grants have been cut, but not those for chickens in Delaware
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DHS adds $10 million to antiterror programs of NYC transportation system
DHS received a lot of criticism for cutting more than $80 million from New York City’s antiterrorism grants; the department has now added $10 million to the city’s transportation system’s security plan
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Construction begins on DHS’s NBACC at Ft. Detrick
In several states — Kentucky, Missouri, Massachusetts — there are heated debates about construction of level 3 BioLabs: There is a lot of money and many jobs in these projects, but citizens are worried about lethal pathogens escaping the labs; while these debates go on, the plans for building a large, multi-agency biolab in Fort Detrick, Maryland, are on schedule, and DHS has began construction of its own, $130 million component of the project
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HSIEC awards grants to three innovative Illinois companies
Northwestern University’s center for homeland security entrepreneurship awards three grants to innovative Chicago-area companies
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The long view
Laughing Through the Storm: How Humor Can Help Us Not Only Survive but Thrive in Turbulent Times
The world feels heavy again. In a time such as this, laughter can seem almost obscene. Who dares to joke while the world burns? Yet, perhaps the better question is: how can we not?
Technology Evolves the Tactics: Preparing for the Rise of Terrorist AI Harms
Terrorist groups, like the societies they emerge from, adapt to new technologies. As AI capabilities evolve, so too do the tactics of extremist actors. While the full effects may take years to observe, as the technologies continue to develop, we are starting to see them directly alter extremism tradecraft.
Trump’s National Guard Deployments Raise Worries About State Sovereignty
In two instances – Portland and Chicago – President Trump’s campaign to send the National Guard into Democratic-leaning cities he falsely describes as crime-ridden, has turned to out-of-state National Guard troops. Presidents who have federalized National Guard forces in the past, even against a governor’s will, have done so in response to a crisis in the troops’ home state. But the decision to send one state’s National Guard troops into a different state without the receiving governor’s consent is both extraordinary and unprecedented, experts on national security law.
Correctly Assessing Left-Wing Terrorism and Political Violence in the United States
A recent CSIS report, making sweeping claims about a supposed rise in leftwing terrorism in the United States, risks feeding false narratives about political violence and polarization. Michael Jensen and Amy Cooter write that the evidence used to sound this alarm consists of just five plots and attacks, and that these five events not only “are doing a lot of heavy lifting” in the report, but that they are given “an unwarranted level of causal and predictive power.” This tiny sample “simply does not justify inducing panic with eye-popping headlines.”
What Just Happened? Dismantling the Intelligence Community’s Foreign Malign Influence Center
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that the functions of the intelligence community’s Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC) would be significantly reduced. Gabbard has thus dismantled the last remaining U.S. federal government organ dedicated to tracking and analyzing state-sponsored efforts to interfere in U.S. institutions, elections, and society – following the Trump administration’s shutting down of related units at the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and Department of Justice earlier this year.
Silencing America’s Voice
The Trump administration has taken a series of steps which have substantially weakened U.S. government-funded media outlets whose task it was to tell the American story and counter the global propaganda and disinformation efforts of U.S. adversaries. These moves greatly benefit the anti-American propaganda efforts of Russia and China, which will now go unchallenged.