• U.K. changes terrorist surveillance procedures

    U.K. home secretary announces changes in manner in which terrorist suspects may be detained and questioned; modifications are in response to claims of overreaction to 9/11 and the London bus bombings; critics claim changes not enough

  • New tactics in war on terror -- litigation

    Islamic extremists are increasingly using lawsuits to threaten and intimidate civilians across the world; the Danish newspaper Politiken, which published the controversial Danish Mohammed cartoons in 2005, has been hit by a civil lawsuit; a Danish MP was recently forced to plead guilty to hate speech for speaking his mind about Islam; civilians can also use the courts to go after extremists using similar tactics

  • King announces 112th Congress' Homeland Security subcommittees, chairmen

    Representative Peter T. King (R-New York), chairman-elect of the House Committee on Homeland Security, announced Monday the homeland security subcommittees for the 112th Congress and his appointments of subcommittee chairmen

  • Software enables swifter justice

    A system from the Eagan, Minnesota, company Intertech speeds the process of filing criminal complaints, eliminating steps that used to require paper; this summer, it received approval for its eCharging Web-based system, which cuts down on the time to process the complaints because officials sign off electronically through a password or fingerprint reader

  • ASIS International, BSI release Business Continuity Management ANSI standard

    ASIS International, BSI have released Joint Business Continuity Management ANSI Standard; the standard provides auditable criteria with accompanying guidance for developing and implementing a business continuity management system that improves an organization’s ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from a disruptive event

  • U.K. prepares for pro-WikiLeaks attacks on government Web sites

    Britain’s national security adviser has warned that government Web sites are at risk of cyber attack from pro-WikiLeaks hackers; the office of Prime Minister David Cameron said security adviser Peter Ricketts has raised his concerns before an extradition hearing scheduled for today (Tuesday), when WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to appear at a London court; Cameron’s spokesman Steve Field said the government’s priority is Web sites dealing with information that belongs to members of the public; he said the government has particular concerns about Web sites used to file tax returns or to claim benefits, which store sensitive personal information

  • WikiLeaks's Assange to be indicted for spying "soon"

    If charges against Assange are brought, it would reflect a watershed event in the United States, which has never successfully prosecuted a news organization for publishing classified information; a report released last week by the Congressional Research Service acknowledged that federal prosecutors would have a hard time making charges stick against the whistle-blower Web site, which operates almost entirely abroad; “There may be First Amendment implications that would make such a prosecution difficult, not to mention political ramifications based on concerns about government censorship,” the report states, adding that additional difficulties would arise from the fact “that the investigation implicates —- foreign nationals whose conduct occurred entirely overseas”

  • Lawmakers urge Obama to expand State Department's cybercrime reach

    Lawmakers call President Obama to expand the U.S. State Department’s foreign policy mechanisms to address crime and security on the Internet; Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) joined with Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to author the International Cybercrime Reporting and Cooperation Act; this bill will hold foreign countries accountable for cybercrime committed on their soil

  • Senate bill would require minimum cybersecurity standards for Internet

    Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-Maryland) has introduced a bill that would require the U.S. government to work with the private sector to propose minimum standards for internet and cybersecurity safety; “Just as automobiles cannot be sold or operated on public highways without meeting certain minimum safety standards, we also need minimum Internet and cybersecurity safety standards for our information superhighway,” Cardin said

  • Gitmo repeat offender rate rises sharply

    The number of Guantanamo Bay detainees returning to the battlefield continues to grow at an extraordinary rate; new report from the director of U.S. national intelligence says that 150 of the 598 detainees who have been transferred out of Guantanamo’s detention camps, about 25 percent, are now confirmed or suspected of returning to the battlefield; of that group, 13 are dead and 54 are again in custody, while 83 remain at large; CIA director Leon Panetta said the biggest concern is ex-detainees who not only return to the battlefield but take up leadership positions within al Qaeda, a reference to the terror group’s branch in Yemen, where at least two leaders are Saudis and former Guantanamo detainees

  • Judge throws out suit aiming the bar U.S. from killing al-Awlaki

    Anwar al Awlaki, the New Mexico-born fire-brand Islamic cleric, from his hideout in Yemen, has been urging Muslims to kill Americans; the Obama administration has placed him on its capture-or-kill hit list, and U.S. special forces and intelligence operatives have been searching for him; the cleric’s father, Nasser al Awlaki of Yemen, sued the U.S. government, arguing that international law and the Constitution prevented the administration from unilaterally targeting his son for death unless he presents a specific imminent threat to life or physical safety and there are no other means to stop him; the suit also tried to force the government to disclose standards for determining whether U.S. citizens like his son can be targeted for death; a federal judge has thrown out the law suit, writing in his opinion: “The serious issues regarding the merits of the alleged authorization of the targeted killing of a U.S. citizen overseas must await another day or another nonjudicial forum”

  • Congressional cybersecurity leadership after the elections

    If Republicans win both houses of Congress next Tuesday, there will be many changes at the relevant committees regarding the handling of cybersecurity matters; in the Senate, though, changes may be less noticeable — with bills heretofore informally dubbed Lieberman-Collins and Rockefeller-Snowe remaining the same, but with the names reversed

  • Somalia is the most corrupt country in the world

    Along with war, piracy, and chronic hunger, there is now another reason not to live in Somalia: corruption; Transparency International has named Somalia the most corrupt country in the world; one sad manifestation: according to preliminary report by a UN monitoring group in Somalia, up to half of all food aid meant for hungry people is siphoned by the warlords who control territory where most of the country’s displaced people live.

  • Chinese government funds research based on stolen U.S. trade secrets

    Chinese national, Kexue Huang, charged with economic espionage involving theft of trade secrets from Dow AgroSciences, a leading U.S. agricultural company; Huang published an article without Dow’s authorization through Hunan Normal University (HNU) in China, which contained Dow trade secrets; the article was based on work supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), an agency of the Chinese government

  • State of Arizona files Opening Brief in Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

    State of Arizona filed an appeal of Judge Susan Bolton’s decision which accepted many of the Obama administration’s objections to the Arizona Immigration law; the appeal argues that the Arizona law does not amount to a usurpation by the state of federal power