News / Analysis
America’s quest for homeland security includes the development of federal programs to protect our aviation, maritime and ground transportation sectors, efforts to detect a “dirty bomb” before it can emit deadly radiation, the search by the FBI for Muslim terrorists and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, his Al Qaeda followers and Islamic extremists pursuing jihad.
ASIS names Cummings new president
January 8th, 2009
Alexandria, VA-based ASIS International, the well-known trade organization for security management professionals, has named Michael Cummings, CPP, as its new president.
Cummings has been in the security field since 1973, specializing first in retail and, since 1985, in the health care arena.
Currently, he is director of loss prevention services for Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee, WI, a position he has held since 1987.
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Newest Air Force One aircraft to arrive in 2017
January 8th, 2009
The U.S. Air Force is beginning to look for contractors capable of building the next generation of Air Force One which, unfortunately for President-elect Barack Obama, will not be put into service until at least 2017.
Maryland man pleads guilty to conspiracy to act as an Iraqi agent
January 8th, 2009
A 67-year-old Iraqi national living in Maryland, Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, has pled guilty to charges that he conspired to act as an agent of Iraq under the Saddam Hussein regime.
The guilty plea was announced recently by Patrick Rowan, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod Rosenstein.
“Since coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003, the Justice Department has charged at least a dozen people who served in the United States as illegal agents for the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein or its feared intelligence service, the Mukhabbarat," Rowan said in a statement.
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Law enforcement on the cyber beat
January 8th, 2009
In the boundless, stateless universe of cyberspace, how do you track and find the criminals and terrorists lurking on the Internet?
"Even though the Internet does not exist within geographic borders, Internet Service Providers and people do," Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip said this week, in remarks prepared for delivery at the International Conference on Cyber Security, held in New York City. "As a result, as long as governments can exert control over what happens within their physical borders, they can attempt to positively control, at least to some extent, or at least fundamentally affect, what happens on the Internet."
Cyber crime and cyber terrorism are issues that transcend customary bureaucratic and national boundaries, according to Filip. And because both public and private Internet infrastructures are "closely linked," they transcend the usual public/private dichotomies as well.
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District of Columbia will convert interstate highways to bus parking lots for inauguration
January 7th, 2009
Because it expects 10,000 buses carrying spectators to the inauguration of Barack Obama on Jan. 20, the District of Columbia is planning to close portions of three different interstate highways that run through the District, and convert those roadways into parking areas for many of those buses.
The perfect gift for any homeland security maven
January 7th, 2009
It's that time of year again – time for a new calendar.
And if your taste in daily reminders runs less to swimsuit models or inspirational sayings and more toward the key dates and important issues of national and homeland security, then the National Counterterrorism Center has just the calendar for you. And it's free for the downloading.
The NCTC's 160-page 2009 counterterrorism calendar, available at www.nctc.gov, contains "information on known terrorist groups, individual terrorists, and technical information on topics such as biological and chemical threats and explosives," according to an NCTC statement.
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The FBI is hiring
January 7th, 2009
In what it calls "one of the largest hiring blitzes" in its history, the Federal Bureau of Investigation intends to add more than 2,100 staff employees and 850 special agents to its rolls.
And you may not have to relocate to become a G-Man either. According to an FBI statement announcing the big jobs push, openings are available in "virtually every field office" and at headquarters in Washington, DC.
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TSA’s general aviation rules meet nearly universal condemnation
January 6th, 2009
A panel of TSA officials from Washington traveled on Jan. 6 to Westchester County Airport, in the suburbs north of New York City, to hold the first of five all-day public hearings planned across the country to hear comments about TSA’s proposed new security regulations for general aviation aircraft.
The reception was polite, but almost universally negative.
