The FBI is investigating threats against lawmakers stemming from intense opposition to the health care overhaul law, The Associated Press’ Jim Abrams relates while The New York Times’ Carl Hulse has ten House Dems reporting death threats, harassment or vandalism of their district offices. A Harris Poll, meantime, shows high percentages of Republicans avowing that President Obama is “racist,” “anti-American” and “wants the terrorists to win,” The Daily Beast’s John Avlon relates. “Even on terrorism, Obama currently has high approval ratings,” Mark Green writes in The Huffington Post, predicting his reelection in 2012.
Feds: A top FBI official warned yesterday that cyber-adversaries can access virtually any computer system, posing a risk so great it could “challenge our country’s very existence,” Computerworld’s Patrick Thibodeau reports. A U.S. consular official denied the underpants bomber a U.S. visa in 2004 due to false info on his application, but was overruled by a supervisor, The Washington Post’s John Solomon learns. The Pentagon’s top intel official yesterday ended a visit to Sana to discuss “ongoing counterterrorism cooperation between the United States and Yemen,” The Yemen News Agency notes. “An investigation into the destruction of CIA videotapes that depicted harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects appears to be nearing a close,” the Post’s Carrie Johnson and Julie Tate also recount.
Homies:“It appears that the president has picked the perfect spook for a spooky agency,” The Bircherite New American editorializes, waxing paranoid about TSA nominee Robert Harding’s military intel career. TSA, meanwhile, is heeding the general aviation community as it formulates its new security plan for smaller private aircraft, a source tells Aviation Week’s Fred George. USCIS is far from ready to process the flood of applications expected from a proposed immigration legalization bill, The Washington Times’ Steven Dinan has the DHS IG alerting. Speaking from Secret Service headquarters, DHS’s Janet Napolitano yesterday addressed women in law enforcement, BNO News recounts, noting that 35,000 women serve in DHS as law enforcers.
State and local:Broward County is looking to save money by outsourcing to private contractors 100 security positions at Ft. Lauderdale airport and Port Everglades now filled by Sheriff’s Office employees, The South Florida Sun Sentinel says. Beefing up security for a high-profile drug trial, Homeland Security vehicles marked with “Federal Protective Service” encircle Des Moines’ federal courthouse this week, the Register reports — while The Austin American-Statesman notes that Gov. Rick Perry has repeatedly said he’s against metal detectors at the State Capitol, “but key lawmakers don’t appear to agree.” Six days after exchanging words with a GOP congressman in D.C. about his relationship with CAIR, L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca met Tuesday with Southland-area Muslim Americans, The Los Angeles Daily News notes — and check IPT News on Baca’s “willful ignorance.”
Ivory (Watch) Towers:Nineteen students at Salt Lake City’s S.J. Quinney College of Law participated in an elaborate counterterror response simulation last Friday positing attacks in Times Square and Baltimore, The Deseret News notes. DHS’s Napolitano will keynote at the University of North Dakota’s spring graduation, The Jamestown Sun says. Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh have developed a polymer fiber mesh “that could quickly and effectively combat all chemical and bioterror agents without harming our bodies or the environment,” Inhabitat informs — while Business First reports the University of Louisville working with the National Institute of Hometown Security on computer software that will help health responders allocate resources during a pandemic.
Bugs ‘n bombs:“The Indian military has a new weapon against terrorism: the world’s hottest chili,” AP reports, saying that thumb-sized “bhut jolokia,” or “ghost chili,” will be used for tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects. “The release of anthrax is silent and making endless quantities is very easy,” the International Security & Biopolicy Institute’s prez told a Chicago audience last week, BioPrepWatch reports — as The Frederick (Md.) News-Post reiterates a White House threat to veto intel legislation that would re-open the 2001 anthrax mailing probe. “Argonne biochemist Daniel Schabacker could be considered a Sherlock Holmes of bioterrorism,” his most powerful deductive tool being the biochip, Lab Manager Magazine profiles.
Close air support: A long-planned proposal to meet TSA requirements by erecting a security fence around Provincetown’s municipal airport, runway and all, prompts concerns about wetlands wildlife conservation, the Banner reports — while The Bangor Daily News has airport authorities there moving forward with plans to add concessions past the TSA checkpoints. Since “sweeping scrutiny of airline passengers is wasteful and ineffective, focusing on the problem, however ‘discriminating,’ is far more logical,” a Clarksville (Md.) Current op-ed applauding profiling concludes. Washington will abandon its post-Christmas Day bomber decision to impose special security measures on Lebanese traveling to United States, The Daily Star recounts.
Coming and going:Lawmakers are proposing a national ID card — a/k/a “high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security cards” — that would be required for all U.S. employees, Threat Level relates. A Transport Canada report on the escape of four Algerian stowaways from a Halifax terminal two years ago points to a need for updated phone lists and security procedures at port gates, The Toronto Star says. A new U.K. agency will counter the threat of a terrorist attack from the sea by monitoring of the hundreds of thousands of small boats sailing off Britain’s coastline, The Times of London tells. “The two words ‘Port Security’ hold a much more sinister connotation than they did five years ago,” a PTI Online editorial leads.
Courts and rights: India’s justice minister yesterday demanded that the U.S permit Indian investigators to directly question a Chicago man who has pleaded guilty to links with the 2008 assault on Mumbai, ANI notes. Three Guantanamo detainees, their identities undisclosed for security and privacy reasons, were transferred to the Caucasian nation of Georgia on Tuesday, Reuters reports — as Deutsche Presse Agentur reports two brothers, the last of the Uighur detainees save five, arriving safely yesterday in Switzerland. Senate GOPers are using a federal court’s order to release a terror suspect held at Guantanamo to slam the Obama administration’s bid to close the controversial prison, Politico recounts.
Over there: A Boston man facing trial in North Korea for illegally entering that hermit nation “is not a terrorist,” a friend tells AP — as BBC News learns that an Australian terror suspect was mistakenly released last week by Kenyan police who thought he was “just an illegal immigrant.” Saudi Arabia announces having arrested 113 al Qaeda militants, including suicide bombers who had been planning attacks on energy facilities, Reuters reports. As Somalia’s government gears up for a major offensive, the beleaguered population is turning against al Shabaab, one of Africa’s most fearsome Islamic groups, The New York Times leads. A new report asserts that the U.K. is confronted with a heightened risk of coming under assault by a terrorist radiological “dirty bomb,” Global Security Newswire relays.
Over here:“Young and angry Muslim Canadians. That is a recipe that al Qaeda would dream to have,” a resident of Toronto’s Little Mogadishu tells The National Post in re: the recruitment by extremists of Canada’s Somali Muslims. “Adam Gadahn and Anwar al Awlaki are not the only radicalizing agents who speak English as a first language. Australia’s Feiz Muhammad may have equally grim potential to incite terrorism,” The Counterterrorism Blog profiles. “The path of a Muslim soldier in this country’s Army is often not an easy one, especially not after the Fort Hood incident,” leads a Post feature on the tribulations of one such. “Supporting the vast majority of peaceful, law-abiding Muslims living in the West could be key to keeping the small minority of Islamist terrorists from gaining more recruits,” a Houston Chronicle op-ed by “a group of Jews and Muslims” maintains. British judges have ruled that action taken to restrict the possible “malign influence” of an imprisoned radical imam dubbed “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe” was justified and proportionate, The Daily Telegraph tells.
Holy Wars:“I believe that Islam is not compatible with our Western way of life. Islam is a threat to Western values,” Pamela Geller avows in Human Events, while rapping Glenn Beck’s denunciation of anti-Islamist Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders as “a fascist.” A Turkish university is hosting an assembly of international Islamic scholars next week to revisit a fatwa on jihad in Islam dating back seven centuries to the Mongol invasions, Hurriyet reports. “Just as social networking and online video sites have boomed with the general online community, they’ve become popular as tools for those spreading hate and fear,” CNET News has the “Digital Terrorism and Hate 2010” report finding. “A new research paper has pointed how militaries worldwide could use the Transcendental Meditation . . . as a non-religious and scientifically verified way to prevent war and terrorism,” a Time of India op-ed spotlights.
Sup with the devil with a long spoon: “A few hours after an explosion rocked Times Square, breaking windows and rattling local residents, a group claiming responsibility for the apparent attack issued a short statement through Al Jazeera indicating that their intent was to strike out against the Great Satan and to herald the opening of a new terror-themed restaurant, The Jihad Cafe,” Ridiculopathy reports. “Investigators are also looking into a series of mysterious letters sent to members of Congress that same day. At this point, officials believe the mailings may be somehow connected to the Times Square explosion since the cryptic envelopes reportedly contain fliers advertising the restaurant’s weekly specials. In a grainy video released to the local media and played between commercials during the evening news, restaurant owner Ben Laidin invited New Yorkers to come down to the Jihad Cafe and enjoy their playful mix of Middle Eastern and American cuisine.”
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