• Oil tankers and refineries on high alert based on latest al Qaeda intelligence

    Refineries and ship operators are on a state of heightened alert after documents recovered from the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound revealed that al Qaeda had considered bombing oil tankers; DHS officials issued the warning to law enforcement officials nationwide based on evidence that al Qaeda operatives had discussed holding drills to practice hijacking and bombing oil tankers to create “an extreme economic crisis” in the United States; port officials and refineries in Houston, Texas are particularly wary, as it is the largest oil producing region in the United States with tankers constantly moving in and out

  • Analysts question wisdom of DHS spending

    As U.S. lawmakers battle to cut the deficit and reduce spending, some are beginning to question if the billions of dollars being poured into counter-terrorism measures are cost effective; in calculating the costs for America’s efforts to combat violent extremism both domestically and abroad, two university professors estimated that the U.S. government spent more than $1 trillion from 2002 to 2011; argues that funds allocated to enhanced security measures are a gross misallocation of resources and that DHS has not conducted proper cost-benefit analysis of projects before spending large sums of money

  • Researchers tout efficacy of reporting suspicious activity in foiled terror plots

    Following the death of Osama bin Laden and with fears of a retaliatory attack on the rise, public policy researchers are touting the efficacy of the new “See Something Say Something” campaign which encourages individuals to report any suspicious activity they see; of the sixty-eight stopped terrorist attacks from 1999 to 2009, nearly 40 percent of the plots were stopped following a report of suspicious activity; critics say that the “See Something Say Something” campaign inundates law enforcement officials with tips that could take valuable time and resources from real investigations

  • Is the terrorist threat overhyped? -- II

    Providing for homeland security is an expensive proposition; government-wide homeland security expenditures grew from about $12 billion in FY2000 to $66 billion in VY2009; DHS budget grew from $33 billion in 2003 to $55 billion in 2010 — an increase of 45 percent after adjusting for inflation; there are indirect costs to homeland security, too: the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimates that major homeland security regulations — by “major” OMB means regulations that costs more than $100 a year — cost the U.S. economy between $3.4 and $6.9 billion a year; since not too many Americans have been killed by terrorist acts, the post-9/11 added spending on homeland security means that the United States spends between $63 million and $630 million per one life saved; this an order of magnitude more than what experts, using accepted market measures, would consider the value of a statistical life

  • Is the terrorist threat overhyped?

    There are serious people who raise thoughtful questions about the nature and scope of the terrorist threat to Western societies, and because they do not accept the assumptions of both the Bush and Obama administrations about the nature of the threat, they criticize these administrations’ policies; this group of critics of current policies are joined by others who belong to a second group of critics: in this second group we find people who do not share the assessment of members of the first group about the nature of the threat, but who join them in criticizing government anti-terror policies as too expensive, to intrusive, and ineffective; a new, thought-provoking article on the subject performs a useful service in that it should keep advocates of expensive and intrusive government anti-terrorism policies honest

  • Sophisticated new gadgets helped Navy SEALs take down bin Laden

    In the daring raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Navy Seals were likely outfitted with latest in high-tech weapons and gadgets; Fox News speculates on five key technologies that could have helped the highly trained members of Navy SEAL Team 6 successfully complete their mission including bomb sniffing dogs, satellite-linked helmet cameras, and modified stealth Black Hawk helicopter

  • DHS official: Muslims will not be profiled following bin Laden's death

    In a recent meeting with local Muslims in Detroit, a senior DHS official assured Muslim-Americans that they would not be subject to racial profiling following the death of Osama bin Laden; last week in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, federal officials met with Arab-American and Muslim community leaders to answer any questions and address their concerns; local Muslims were particularly worried that they would be profiled as authorities were on a heightened state of awareness for fear of a retaliatory attack; to help ease fears, Margo Schlanger, the national head of the office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at DHS, assured Muslims that the government was not giving special scrutiny to any ethnic groups at this time, including Muslims

  • Assad intensifies crackdown

    The Syrian government has intensified its crackdown on anti-government protesters over the last three days: more and more cities have been cut off from power, phone, and Internet connection, and have been surrounded by tanks and troops to prevent people from coming or leaving; a vast, nation-wide campaign of arrests and disappearances, carried out by the secret police, has so far resulted in hundreds being taken from their homes or place of employment to destinations unknown; the army has now began to use live rounds not only against demonstrators, but also against participants in funeral processions for those killed; so far, 580 civilians and about 100 soldiers and police have been killed

  • Cross Match's SEEK II may have identified bin Laden

    SEEK II from Florida-based Cross Match is a 4-pound computer that captures photographs, complete fingerprints, and iris scans; its memory holds the images and biometrics of up to 60,000 people; unconfirmed reports suggest that the Navy SEALs who killed bin Laden used a SEEK II to identify him; there are about 5,000 SEEK II devices in the field, being used by the U.S. military, border patrol, and law enforcement agencies, and also by other militaries

  • Al Qaeda the deadliest terror organization in history

    A new report finds al Qaeda to be the deadliest terrorist organization in history; since its founding in 1998, the organization has conducted eighty-four terrorist attacks, resulting at least 4,299 deaths and 6,300 people injured; in comparison: ETA, the Basque separatist organization in Spain, killed 820 people between 1972 and 2008; IRA attacks have killed about 1,829 people dating back to 1970; the only group that comes close in terms of deadly attacks is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), killing 4,835 people during the course of its existence

  • 7/7 attacks could not have been prevented: report

    An inquest into the 7 July 2005 attack on London transportation concluded that any suggestion MI5 could have stopped the attacks was “based to a considerable extent on hindsight”; there were failures in the response by emergency workers — confusion, a shortage of first aid supplies, and radios that did not work underground, but the report concludes that government errors had not increased the death toll

  • Al Qaeda's plans for 9/11 anniversary: attack U.S. rail

    The treasure trove of documents, multimedia, and computers seized in the raid on bin Laden’s hideout is being exploited by intelligence experts for information on the terror network and future plots; on Thursday the FBI and DHS circulated to law enforcement units around the United States the first piece of information from the bin Laden raid: in February 2010 al Qaeda operatives discussed attacks on U.S. trains as a way to commemorate the 9/11 attacks; the discussions show that the planners, in order to achieve a maximum-casualty attack, were thinking of derailing a train so that it plunged into a ravine or fell off a bridge; the FBI-DHS Thursday warning urged local la enforcement to be circulated for clips or spikes missing from train tracks, packages left on or near the tracks, and other indications that a train could be vulnerable

  • Portland rejoins federal terrorism task force

    Following a failed terrorist attack on Thanksgiving of last year, Portland, Oregon has opted to rejoin a federal task force aimed at combatting terrorism; in 2005 Portland became the first city in the United States to stop participating in the Joint Terrorism Task Force; but Portland has chosen to rejoin the task force after it was largely left in the dark during an FBI sting operation; the resolution instructs local police officers to err on the side of Oregon laws if they are more “restrictive” than federal laws when it comes to investigations; Portland officers will also be able to participate in regular counterterror briefings with federal and state law enforcement agencies

  • Heightened alert over reprisal attacks

    With the death of Osama bin Laden, there is a growing expectation of revenge attacks against the United States and its interests, and growing questions about its new leadership; al-Qaeda co-founder Ayman al-Zawahiri may well be only a leader pro tempore; concerns and expectations of reprisal attacks grow; al-Zawahiri may be replaced by an American

  • NFL player questions OBL killing, 9/11 attacks

    The Pittsburgh Steelers Rashad Mendenhall used his Twitter to post comments criticizing the celebration which followed the news of the killing of OBL — and to say that we do not know the whole truth about what happened on 9/11; the Pittsburgh Steelers organization reacts angrily