The White House has warned state and local governments to expect no “significant federal response” at the scene of a terrorist nuclear attack for the first 24-72 hours, USA Today’s Steve Sternberg learns from a planning guide. By skimping on details, President Obama has contrived to make nuclear terror seem a more immediate danger than it really may be, The Associated Press’ Anne Gearan fact checks — and see The Washington Times’ Bill Gertz and Eli Lake on the same. Even as Obama rings the tocsin on an al Qaeda nuke strike, “emergency public health preparedness for a catastrophic, mass casualty attack . . . continues to deteriorate,” Homeland Security Today’s Anthony L. Kimery adds.
Feds: “In contrast to the Bush administration’s record on protecting the public, we are less safe under the Obama administration,” J.D. Gordon opines for FOX News, offering five reasons why so — while an exercised Bay Area IndyMedia poster sees Obama “evidently seeking a new pseudo-legal justification for the policy of state murder.” A.G. Eric H. Holder, meanwhile, reignited debate by telling a Senate panel yesterday that NYC is “not off the table” as a venue for 9/11 trials, The Washington Post’s Spencer Hsu reports. The CIA deputy director who has overseen agency counterterror efforts since 9/11 will retire next month, to be replaced by a career analyst, the Post’s Greg Miller also mentions.
Homies: Janet Napolitano said Tuesday that DHS is incorporating civil liberties protections at the outset of all efforts to protect against terrorism, rather than shoehorning them in after the fact, The Charlottesville (Va.) Daily Progress’ Brian McNeill reports — while The Cambridge Chronicle says she will be in Boston today. “Immigration is always a contentious topic. But [ICE] has drawn an unusual amount of criticism from both sides in recent weeks,” Jude Joffe-Block surveys for San Francisco’s KALW News. The Coast Guard’s “souped up” Alert and Warning System transmits local or nationwide alerts about security threats via e-mail and phone, Government Computer News’ William Jackson spotlights — as Federal Computer Week’s Ben Bain belatedly finds GAO praising TSA’s implementation of Secure Flight.
State and local: “After a year of waiting for that initial interview,” a longtime Buchanan County (Mo.) sheriff’s deputy is on his way to becoming an officer in DHS’s Federal Protective Service, The St. Joseph News-Press proudly profiles. (“Should Congress federalize the building security force, much like it did to airport screeners in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks?” Federal Times, relatedly, polls readers.) “The best thing the Obama administration can do with 287(g) is abandon it. Let cops be cops and let [ICE] do the job that it was created to do,” a Palm Beach Post editorial adjures in re: immigration enforcement outsourcing — as The Chicago Tribune notes that the names of suspects booked at most major suburban Chicago jails now will be run through ICE databases to deport those here illegally.
Ivory (Watch) Towers: “In his online lectures, Anwar al-Awlaki looks like a passionate professor [but] terrorism specialists say [he] could be more influential than Osama bin Laden,” The Washington Times spotlights. (The Yemen-based Awlaki “was educated in the United States with taxpayers money,” FOX News also finds.) Using blueprints from actual stadiums, the University of Southern Mississippi’s SportEvac simulation software provides virtual 3D stadiums, packed with as many as 70,000 avatars programmed to respond to terror threats as unpredictably as humans would, redOrbit spotlights. John Federici, physics professor at New Jersey’s Science and Technology University, terms terahertz rays a critical technology in the defense against suicide bombers, Homeland Security Newswire profiles.
Bugs ‘n bombs: Officials continue probing a “white powdery substance” found leaking out of an envelope at the Helena, Mont., Federal Reserve Bank, the Independent-Record records — while San Antonio’s WOAI News says a “suspicious white powder” that emptied a police substation turns out to be “just candy.” The Dayton (Ohio) P.D.’s bomb squad, meantime, is assisting the FBI and ATF in a multi-state investigation related to an explosives trafficking ring, the Daily News notes. Aside from the fact of its existence, nearly everything about the Biological Sciences Experts Group, non-governmental scientists who advise the intel community on biothreats and weapons, is classified, Secrecy News spotlights — as OfficialWire takes note of a market report rating 66 key and niche players worldwide that vend counter-bioterror products and services.
Close air support: A security breach at Tampa International yesterday was caused by a missing training device, the Tribune tells — as the Inquirer sees a former TSA security officer being handed six months behind federal bars for stealing $100 from carry-on luggage she was screening at Philadelphia’s airport. About 93 percent of Americans are willing to sacrifice some level of privacy to increase security when traveling by air, Travel Agent Central cites from research conducted by Unisys Corporation — while The Sydney Morning Herald reports that same survey finding Aussies, too, willing to bare it all at the airport. Screeners at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport will stay away from their jobs tomorrow to support a strike by fellow union members, YLE relates. EasyJet, meanwhile, has praised security at Manchester Airport “following a bust-up with bosses at Liverpool John Lennon,” which the budget airline accuses of fostering revenue-murdering checkpoint delays, The Manchester Evening News notes.
Coming and going: Instead of playing a canned notice urging Yankees fans to “take the plane to the game” on Tuesday, Metro-North sparked no small alarm with a miscued message urging commuters “to leave the station immediately and maintain a distance of at least 300 feet,” The Norwalk (Conn.) Hour relates. “One southbound lane of Flatbush Avenue that was eliminated after 9/11 to provide a security zone around the city’s emergency call center will soon be returned to drivers,” The Brooklyn Paper reports. The Ryder transport firm is pushing for greater government-private cooperation on U.S.-Mexico border security “to help beef up the integrity of cross-border shipments,” Fleet Owner recounts — while Canadian Transportation & Logistics sees truckers, law enforcers and insurers examining cargo crime activity in Canada for possible solutions.
Over there: Obama has given Treasury broader power to deal with pirates and Islamist insurgents as security deteriorates in Somalia, AP reports. Having termed the 9/11 terrorist attacks “a big fabrication,” Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has now formally asked the U.N.’s secretary general to investigate that day’s events, The New York Times notes. According to a survey, less than half of Singaporeans polled know the practical steps to take in event of terrorist attack, Channel NewsAsia notes. The al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Group killed 11 people in a terror assault on a southern Philippines city, The Long War Journal relates.
Over here: The lead suspect in last year’s alleged plot to bomb Bronx synagogues said he wanted to shoot President Bush “700 times” and repeatedly called Osama bin Laden “my brother,” NBC New York quotes prosecutors. DHS officials and lawmakers have been warning for months that law enforcement agencies are unprepared to deal with a mounting threat from homegrown terrorists and extremist groups, The Detroit News notes. “Since the events of Sept. 11, we’ve seen the growth of a view that American Muslims became prime victims of those terror attacks — isolated, fearful, targets of hostility, The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz rebukes. Imagine if the would-be cop-killers of the Hutaree militia “were not Christian extremists, but American Muslims?” the American Muslim mag Illume instructs.
Holy Wars: A religious studies prof proposes to call Islamic terrorists “hirabists,” not “jihadists,” to make it clear they have nothing to do with Koranic religion, United Press International profiles. “The horrid attacks of 9/11 led to the cry: Why do they hate us? The recent bombings in the Moscow subway remind us that terrorism is most often a political tool used to advance political ends,” Doug Bandow essays in The Huffington Post. Violent attacks against Jews worldwide more than doubled last year, AP has a Tel Aviv University study released Sunday saying. Islamist terror organizations, resurgent Sufi groups, the widespread use of English and cultural shifts are all playing a role in changing the face of Islam, Ali A. Allawi assesses for The Globalist. The persecution of fundamentalist Islamists across North Africa, in the name of fighting terrorism, is sowing the seeds for future instability, a Foreign Policy piece warns.
Courts and rights: Michigan’s A.G. has tapped a veteran prosecutor to investigate the FBI’s fatal shooting of a Dearborn imam after Wayne County declined involvement, The Detroit Free Press reports — as The Detroit News, again, hears the underpants bomber being allowed a laptop computer to prepare his defense. At a U.S. Marshals awards ceremony Tuesday, A.G. Holder praised the court security officer who died protecting the fed courthouse in Las Vegas in January, Main Justice mentions. NYC’s lawyers went to a federal appeals court yesterday to challenge a judge’s authority to block settlement of Ground Zero responder suits, the Times tells.
Shoes, shirt, no service: “The U.N. Security Council has adopted a resolution banning wearing shoes on board of planes and while attending press conferences and speeches — it is known as ‘the shoes resolution,’” The Spoof spoofs. “America and Israel have wanted a tougher resolution compelling people to be barefoot, but after the intervention of human rights and civil rights pressure groups, the resolution allowed the wearing of slippers. A U.N. official has commented on the resolution: A bomb can’t be hidden in a slipper and a slipper can’t inflict serious injury when thrown at someone. Also being light, a slipper may fall short of its target. And at least one reporter sees the slippers manufacturers lobby is behind the resolution and says the shoe manufacturers have tried to veto it.” Read, also, in The Onion: “Post Office Extends Hours To 3 A.M. To Attract Late-Night Bar Crowd.”
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