• Legislator proposes volunteer-based Arizona border force

    An Arizona legislator is set to introduce a bill to create a new state volunteer force that could be used help patrol the U.S.-Mexico border; the bill would establish a new homeland security force of volunteers who could be called to duty during civil disasters and for border security; the border security role could kick in if the federal government withdraws National Guard soldiers now assisting in border security

  • Blood at crime scene identifies age of perpetrator

    New DNA tests of minute amounts of blood left by the perpetrator at a crime scene can now allow police to predict, with a high degree of accuracy, the age of the perpetrator; to be more precise: the test accurately predicts what 20-year age bracket (1-20, 20-40, etc.), from birth to eighty years, the donor of the blood sample belongs to

  • Suprema to provides palm-print scanners to Poland, Lithuania

    Korean company Suprema win contracts to equip the Polish and Lithuanian police forces with palm-print live scanners; the contracts are part of EU-funded effort to upgrade the two countries’ criminal identification methods so these methods could be integrated with the European Union’s Schengen Visa Information System (VIS) project

  • GOP: DREAM act would allow criminal illegals to gain residency

    One version of the DREAM Act — an immigration reform measure pushed by President Obama and Democratic legislators — would allow qualified illegal immigrants up to the age of 35 to gain resident status, prevent DHS from removing any illegal who has a pending application — regardless of age or criminal record — and offers amnesty to qualified illegals with misdemeanor convictions, even DUIs

  • Non-lethal device deters hostile divers

    Hostile divers may be deterred from approaching U.S. Navy ships, sea ports, off-shore oil rigs, and other infrastructure facilities with an acoustic device that overwhelms them with the amplified sound of their own breath; the device generates low frequency underwater sound that interferes with breathing, induces disorientation, panic, uncontrolled ascent to surface, and decompression sickness

  • Mexico's violence intensifies, becomes more gruesome

    The war among Mexico’s seven drug cartels — and between the cartels and the Mexican government — is intensifying and becoming more gruesome; as recently as a year or two ago, commandos fighting for the Mexican drug cartels often would rather flee than confront security forces, but an influx of combat weapons — purchased at U.S. gun shops and shows or stolen from Central American munitions stockpiles — and a vast supply of ammunition now enables them to fight, and sometimes outgun, army and federal police units; the war is also becoming more gruesome: the preferred form of cruelty by drug cartel henchmen is to capture enemies and behead them, a once-shocking act that has now become numbingly routine; decapitations emerged alongside another gruesome tactic — dumping the bodies of rivals in vats of acid; cartel goons have moved away from that method, however

  • New York half way to installing terror surveillance network

    New York City is almost halfway to its goal of installing 3,000 of the devices as part of its security network; the additions to the $201 million initiative will see the project completed by 2013; the system is based in part on the City of London’s “Ring of Steel,” a camera network in the square-mile financial district in the 1990s after Irish Republican Army bombings

  • Using Facebook to nab a Facebook killer

    Suffolk County police are using Facebook to solve a murder which appears to have been related to Facebook; a 31-year old woman was found dead; the police searched her Facebook page, and found two individuals with whom she had recently been in contact; one of them was using her credit cards after her death; the police has now created a page seeking information about the man, looking to arrest him

  • NYPD begins iris scanning of crime suspects

    The New York Police Department bought 21 iris scanning systems for $24,000 each; the scanners are used to take photographs of the irises of crime suspects along with their fingerprints and mug shots

  • Blood camera detects invisible stains at crime scenes

    At present, blood stains in a crime scene are detected using the chemical luminol; luminol is toxic, however, and can dilute blood samples to a level at which DNA is difficult to recover; it can also smear blood spatter patterns that forensic experts use to help determine how the victim died; luminol can also react with substances like bleach, rust, fizzy drink, and coffee, causing it to produce false positives; University of South Carolina rese3archers offer a better solution

  • DNA shows Texas man may have been wrongly executed

    A DNA performed on a single strand of hair from the scene of a deadly store robbery in Texas casts doubt on the guilt of the main suspect, Claude Jones, who was executed ten years ago, during George W. Bush’s last month as the governor of Texas; Jones was pressing the governor’s office for permission to do a DNA test on the hair, but as the execution drew near, the briefing Bush got from his staff did not include the request for the DNA test, and Bush denied a reprieve; Bush had previously shown a willingness to test DNA evidence that could prove guilt or innocence in death penalty cases

  • Law enforcement agencies dig deeper into applicants' digital past

    More and more police departments are digging deep into the social media accounts of applicants, requesting that candidates sign waivers allowing investigators access to their Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, and other personal spaces; some agencies are demanding that applicants provide private passwords, Internet pseudonyms, text messages, and e-mail logs; of “particular concern” to law enforcement agencies is that defense lawyers could use officers’ posts to undercut their credibility in court

  • Securing the nation with fingerprinting materials

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers may have found a way to improve Raman spectroscopy as a tool for identifying substances in extremely low concentrations; potential applications for Raman spectroscopy include medical diagnosis, drug/chemical development, forensics and highly portable detection systems for national security.

  • Not your father's police dept.: Tarrytown police adopts latest technology

    Tarrytown police cruisers are now rolling with the latest technology and software; two of the software systems at the fingertips of the police are the Mobile Plate Hunter 900 and the TraCS (Traffic and Criminal Software) system; used in conjunction with dual, rear-mounted license plate readers, an officer can catch an offending driver, check a driver’s background, and print up a ticket and a court summons in a matter of minutes

  • New Jersey towns warm up to electronic traffic ticketing

    Officers will be able electronically to issue summonses and tickets for moving and nonmoving violations in a fraction of the time it takes to write them by hand; the efficiency should free officers to do more police work — a benefit as departments deal with reduced manpower, said officers and advocates of the technology