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May 20, 2010

CQ Behind the Lines

Behind the Lines for Thursday, May 20, 2010 — 3 P.M.

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Mitigate that gall, please: Seeking perhaps to extend their 15 minutes, notorious White House gatecrashers demanding East Wing apology . . . Witchfinder general: Pentagon seeking "automated witch-finder technology" to finger "malicious insider behavior" . . . Bad screener, no donut: Newark airport TSA agent charged with pocketing $495 from wheelchair-bound passenger's purse. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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“In every presidency, a couple of Cabinet officials usually emerge as lightning rods for criticism [and A.G.] Eric Holder and DHS secretary Janet Napolitano find themselves playing that role on the volatile issues of terrorism and immigration,” The Chicago Sun-Times’ Steve Huntley leads. DHS “has been marred by mismanagement almost since the day it was established. Many parts of it have simply been a pork-barrel trough for states to eat up federal funds,” Jonas Stankovich asserts for The FrumForum. “Like its predecessor, the Obama White House has struggled with the politics of security funding and whipsawing demands from Congress,” The Washington Post’s Spencer Hsu assesses.

Feds: Specialists with the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group established last year are questioning the Times Square bomb plotter, Reuters’ Adam Entous quotes the White House terror czar. In the leg-exec tussle over the Times Square case, A.G. Holder “has tightened his grip on our intelligence agencies,” Jed Babbin broods in RealClearPolitics. The notorious White House gate-crashers who sparked such a security flap last November are actually demanding an East Wing apology, The Dallas Morning News’ Colleen McCain Nelson is appalled to learn. “Pentagon boffins want nothing less than some kind of automated witch-finder technology able to finger ‘increasingly sophisticated malicious insider behavior’ in the USA,” The Register’s Lewis Page relates.

Homies: Against the arrival yesterday of Mexico’s prez, DHS and Justice officials say they are seizing more drugs, weapons and cash along the Mexican border, and expelling more illegal immigrants, The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Perez reports. FEMA’s chief says an agency videographer was “absolutely wrong” to ask Mississippi church volunteers not to wear religious T-shirts for a video about tornado cleanup, The Associated Press’ Emily Wagster Pettus relates. President Obama’s pick of a third would-be TSA chief has revived calls to give the agency boss a 10-year term, the Post’s Ed O’Keefe blogs. Arizona’s new law targeting illegal immigration is not “good government,” The Chicago Tribune’s Oscar Avila quotes ICE chief John Morton.

State and local: A Homeland Security Alert asks Houston area law enforcers to watch for a potential terrorist affiliated with Somalia’s Al Shabaab group, KHOU 11 News notes. San Francisco’s sheriff wants to opt out of an ICE program that uses arrestees’ fingerprints to check their immigration status, the Chronicle relays. A missing hard drive containing personal info on more than 32,000 Arkansas Army National Guards has turned up, The Arkansas News Bureau relates — while The Bloomington Pantagraph sees Illinois Guards being cheered upon returning from a year in Iraq. Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman says he’s “not getting involved” in a controversial proposal in his hometown aimed at curbing illegal immigration, The Omaha World-Herald relates.

Uncle Sugar: More than $92 million in disaster relief funds have been approved by FEMA “and Nashville residents appear to be receiving most of that money, a quick influx of cash that has pleased state officials and surprised recipients,” The Tennessean tells — while a Hearst Newspapers review “shows state and local officials across Connecticut have parlayed an unending stream of federal homeland security money into a bonanza of ‘free’ items.” Texas lawmakers who rapped Gov. Rick Perry’s allocation of DHS grants, in fact, tucked away a combined $5.5 million worth of earmarks in last year’s DHS appropriations bill for their districts, The Center for Investigative Reporting reveals.

Ivory (Watch) Towers: The College of DuPage’s $25 million Homeland Security Education Center will include a “tactical village,” a command center, advanced forensics and cybercrime labs, even a lecture hall doubling as a mock courtroom, The Chicago Tribune elaborates. It takes more than a few classes: Employers looking for cybersecurity experts are not interested in newbies with just a certificate and no experience, of which commodity there is a glut, DarkReading relates. DHS is providing crowd management training yesterday and today to local responders at Solano Community College in Vacaville, Calif., The Auburn Journal alerts. Virginia Tech broke federal campus security laws by waiting too long to notify students during a 2007 shooting rampage, the Post has an Education Department report due tomorrow finding.

Bugs ‘n bombs: “In all, 30,000 airmen have been shifted to the front lines of cyberwarfare,” Air Force Times leads — while Fire Engineering provides a downloadable awareness card to prompt responders confronted by “vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.” The Strategic National Stockpile is receiving shipments of a modified smallpox vaccine for those with compromised immune systems, Global Security Newswire notes. The worldwide eradication of smallpox may, inadvertently, have helped spread HIV infection, BBC News has scientists suggesting. “We have the problem of nuclear security and nuclear terrorism,” and people need to understand that “if an incident takes place, they will be exposed to radiation,” Bloomberg quotes the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

Coming and going: Federal and state authorities are conducting a series of anti-terrorism training exercises this week at ports throughout California, The Oakland Tribune relays — while AP sees a Navy-trained sea lion taking “less than a minute to find a fake mine under a pier near AT&T Park.” Confronted with the dilemmas posed by prosecuting Somali pirates, many ship captains “release” captured buccaneers in rubber rafts far out to sea where they are never seen again, Slate relates. An “ironic side effect” of Arizona’s new immigration law may be more undocumented residents applying for temporary work visas and permanent citizenship, Arizona Capitol Times research shows. While DHS conducts a program review of its troubled border fence program, CBP has not stopped deploying new sensors in the Southwest, National Defense Magazine mentions.

Close air support: A Newark airport TSA screener has been charged in federal court with pocketing $495 while inspecting a wheelchair-bound woman’s purse, the Star-Ledger relates — which incident a Post blogger adds to “a growing list of troubling cases involving agency workers.” A U.S.-bound Delta flight was turned back to Japan on Monday, it turns out, because two passengers locked themselves inside a bathroom with a “container of suspicious liquid,” Agence France-Presse reports. Seeking to trump a controversial state law and matching a Senate initiative, a Georgia congressman is floating a bill criminalizing carrying a gun in any airport, Atlanta’s WSBTV 2 News notes. “It seems strange to me that the no-fly list is not checked at the initial security checkpoint instead of at the individual airline’s boarding section,” a U.S. News reader writes.

Courts and rights: The appointment of a well-respected ex-Navy lawyer to oversee war-crime trials is being seen as a sign Justice might reverse its decision to try 9/11 conspirators in NYC, The Washington Times leads. A Missouri auto dealer pleaded guilty in a Kansas City federal courtroom yesterday to giving $23,500 to al Qaeda, the Star relates. Sen. Lindsey Graham says he and Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan “found common agreement” on legal issues in U.S. anti-terror policies, McClatchy Newspapers reports. It appears one of two men arrested in Boston-area Times Square-related terror raids may have been married to two women, WHDH 7 News notes.

Over there: Convicted terrorist Momin Khawaja could have been acquitted if motive hadn’t been excluded from his trial, The Canadian Press has his lawyer telling the Ontario Court of Appeal. French police have arrested 14 men suspected of plotting a prison escape to free an Islamist militant involved in the bloody 1995 Paris Metro bombings, Reuters reports. Two Pakistani students arrested in anti-terror raids have won their fight to remain in the U.K. after arguing that they would be at risk if deported, The Guardian recounts — even as the court acknowledged that one of them led an al Qaeda plot to bomb British targets, BBC News adds.

Over here: “American Muslims noticed when . . . the Naval Criminal Investigative Service stopped using an anti-Muslim film ‘Obsession: Radical Islam’s Obsession with the West’ to train agents,” retired Secret Service man Walied Shater comments in the Post. Times Square scourge Faisal Shahzad’s “argument with American foreign policy grew after 9/11, even as he enjoyed America’s financial promise and expansive culture,” an in-depth New York Times profile relates — as a Boston Herald columnist interviews local Muslim entrepreneurs “baffled and enraged” by the alleged actions of two Bay State Pakistanis arrested in the Shahzad case. “Dreams by a Muslim group to build a mosque near Ground Zero may not match its means,” The New York Post leads.

Holy Wars: “If we want Times Square to be safer from terrorists, we need to start by helping make Pakistan safer as well,” a Times columnist comments. While a growing number of imams in Europe and the Middle East have denounced suicide missions and terrorist acts, a cleric in Munich openly declares that al Qaeda and its ilk are violating the tenets of Islam, the Times also profiles. There is little info about the role social network websites might play in the recruitment of terrorists, but the FBI is seeing an increase in the use of such pages by radical groups, CBS News spotlights. What appears to be a young European or North American male was spotted in a Taliban video Sunday, The Washington Post reports.

Source: CQ Homeland Security

Apr 19, 2010

White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S. - NYTimes.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

When President Obama took the stage in Cairo last June, promising a new relationship with the Islamic world, Muslims in America wondered only half-jokingly whether the overture included them. After all, Mr. Obama had kept his distance during the campaign, never visiting an American mosque and describing the false claim that he was Muslim as a “smear” on his Web site.

Nearly a year later, Mr. Obama has yet to set foot in an American mosque. And he still has not met with Muslim and Arab-American leaders. But less publicly, his administration has reached out to this politically isolated constituency in a sustained and widening effort that has left even skeptics surprised.

Muslim and Arab-American advocates have participated in policy discussions and received briefings from top White House aides and other officials on health care legislation, foreign policy, the economy, immigration and national security. They have met privately with a senior White House adviser, Valerie Jarrett, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to discuss civil liberties concerns and counterterrorism strategy.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

The impact of this continuing dialogue is difficult to measure, but White House officials cited several recent government actions that were influenced, in part, by the discussions. The meeting with Ms. Napolitano was among many factors that contributed to the government’s decision this month to end a policy subjecting passengers from 14 countries, most of them Muslim, to additional scrutiny at airports, the officials said.

That emergency directive, enacted after a failed Dec. 25 bombing plot, has been replaced with a new set of intelligence-based protocols that law enforcement officials consider more effective.

Also this month, Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Muslim academic, visited the United States for the first time in six years after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reversed a decision by the Bush administration, which had barred Mr. Ramadan from entering the country, initially citing the U.S.A. Patriot Act. Mrs. Clinton also cleared the way for another well-known Muslim professor, Adam Habib, who had been denied entry under similar circumstances.

Arab-American and Muslim leaders said they had yet to see substantive changes on a variety of issues, including what they describe as excessive airport screening, policies that have chilled Muslim charitable giving and invasive F.B.I. surveillance guidelines. But they are encouraged by the extent of their consultation by the White House and governmental agencies.

“For the first time in eight years, we have the opportunity to meet, engage, discuss, disagree, but have an impact on policy,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington. “We’re being made to feel a part of that process and that there is somebody listening.”

Image by IIOC via Flickr

In the post-9/11 era, Muslims and Arab-Americans have posed something of a conundrum for the government: they are seen as a political liability but also, increasingly, as an important partner in countering the threat of homegrown terrorism. Under President George W. Bush, leaders of these groups met with government representatives from time to time, but said they had limited interaction with senior officials. While Mr. Obama has yet to hold the kind of high-profile meeting that Muslims and Arab-Americans seek, there is a consensus among his policymakers that engagement is no longer optional.

The administration’s approach has been understated. Many meetings have been private; others were publicized only after the fact. A visit to New York University in February by John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, drew little news coverage, but caused a stir among Muslims around the country. Speaking to Muslim students, activists and others, Mr. Brennan acknowledged many of their grievances, including “surveillance that has been excessive,” “overinclusive no-fly lists” and “an unhelpful atmosphere around many Muslim charities.”

“These are challenges we face together as Americans,” said Mr. Brennan, who momentarily showed off his Arabic to hearty applause. He and other officials have made a point of disassociating Islam from terrorism in public comments, using the phrase “violent extremism” in place of words like “jihad” and “Islamic terrorism.”

Image by IIOC via Flickr

While the administration’s solicitation of Muslims and Arab-Americans has drawn little fanfare, it has not escaped criticism. A small but vocal group of research analysts, bloggers and others complain that the government is reaching out to Muslim leaders and organizations with an Islamist agenda or ties to extremist groups abroad.

They point out that Ms. Jarrett gave the keynote address at the annual convention for the Islamic Society of North America. The group was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a Texas-based charity whose leaders were convicted in 2008 of funneling money to Hamas. The society denies any links to terrorism.

“I think dialogue is good, but it has to be with genuine moderates,” said Steven Emerson, a terrorism analyst who advises government officials. “These are the wrong groups to legitimize.” Mr. Emerson and others have also objected to the political appointments of several American Muslims, including Rashad Hussain.

In February, the president chose Mr. Hussain, a 31-year-old White House lawyer, to become the United States’ special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The position, a kind of ambassador at large to Muslim countries, was created by Mr. Bush. In a video address, Mr. Obama highlighted Mr. Hussain’s status as a “close and trusted member of my White House staff” and “a hafiz,” a person who has memorized the Koran.

Within days of the announcement, news reports surfaced about comments Mr. Hussain had made on a panel in 2004, while he was a student at Yale Law School, in which he referred to several domestic terrorism prosecutions as “politically motivated.” Among the cases he criticized was that of Sami Al-Arian, a former computer-science professor in Florida who pleaded guilty to aiding members of a Palestinian terrorist group.

At first, the White House said Mr. Hussain did not recall making the comments, which had been removed from the Web version of a 2004 article published by a small Washington magazine. When Politico obtained a recording of the panel, Mr. Hussain acknowledged criticizing the prosecutions but said he believed the magazine quoted him inaccurately, prompting him to ask its editor to remove the comments. On Feb. 22, The Washington Examiner ran an editorial with the headline “Obama Selects a Voice of Radical Islam.”

Muslim leaders watched carefully as the story migrated to Fox News. They had grown accustomed to close scrutiny, many said in interviews, but were nonetheless surprised. In 2008, Mr. Hussain had co-authored a paper for the Brookings Institution arguing that the government should use the peaceful teachings of Islam to fight terrorism.

“Rashad Hussain is about as squeaky clean as you get,” said Representative Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat who is Muslim. Mr. Ellison and others wondered whether the administration would buckle under the pressure and were relieved when the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, defended Mr. Hussain.

“The fact that the president and the administration have appointed Muslims to positions and have stood by them when they’ve been attacked is the best we can hope for,” said Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America.

It was notably different during Mr. Obama’s run for office. In June 2008, volunteers of his campaign barred two Muslim women in headscarves from appearing behind Mr. Obama at a rally in Detroit, eliciting widespread criticism. The campaign promptly recruited Mazen Asbahi, a 36-year-old corporate lawyer and popular Muslim activist from Chicago, to become its liaison to Muslims and Arab-Americans.

Bloggers began researching Mr. Asbahi’s background. For a brief time in 2000, he had sat on the board of an Islamic investment fund, along with Sheikh Jamal Said, a Chicago imam who was later named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case. Mr. Asbahi said in an interview that he had left the board after three weeks because he wanted no association with the imam.

Shortly after his appointment to the Obama campaign, Mr. Asbahi said, a Wall Street Journal reporter began asking questions about his connection to the imam. Campaign officials became concerned that news coverage would give critics ammunition to link the imam to Mr. Obama, Mr. Asbahi recalled. On their recommendation, Mr. Asbahi agreed to resign from the campaign, he said.

He is still unsettled by the power of his detractors. “To be in the midst of this campaign of change and hope and to have it stripped away over nothing,” he said. “It hurts.”

From the moment Mr. Obama took office, he seemed eager to change the tenor of America’s relationship with Muslims worldwide. He gave his first interview to Al Arabiya, the Arabic-language television station based in Dubai. Muslims cautiously welcomed his ban on torture and his pledge to close Guantánamo within a year.

In his Cairo address, he laid out his vision for “a new beginning” with Muslims: while America would continue to fight terrorism, he said, terrorism would no longer define America’s approach to Muslims.

Back at home, Muslim and Arab-American leaders remained skeptical. But they took note when, a few weeks later, Mohamed Magid, a prominent imam from Sterling, Va., and Rami Nashashibi, a Muslim activist from Chicago, joined the president at a White-House meeting about fatherhood. Also that month, Dr. Faisal Qazi, a board member of American Muslim Health Professionals, began meeting with administration officials to discuss health care reform.

The invitations were aimed at expanding the government’s relationship with Muslims and Arab-Americans to areas beyond security, said Mr. Hussain, the White House’s special envoy. Mr. Hussain began advising the president on issues related to Islam after joining the White House counsel’s office in January 2009. He helped draft Mr. Obama’s Cairo speech and accompanied him on the trip. “The president realizes that you cannot engage one-fourth of the world’s population based on the erroneous beliefs of a fringe few,” Mr. Hussain said.

Other government offices followed the lead of the White House. In October, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke met with Arab-Americans and Muslims in Dearborn, Mich., to discuss challenges facing small-business owners. Also last fall, Farah Pandith was sworn in as the State Department’s first special representative to Muslim communities. While Ms. Pandith works mostly with Muslims abroad, she said she had also consulted with American Muslims because Mrs. Clinton believes “they can add value overseas.”

Despite this, American actions abroad — including civilian deaths from drone strikes in Pakistan and the failure to close Guantánamo — have drawn the anger of Muslims and Arab-Americans.

Even though their involvement with the administration has broadened, they remain most concerned about security-related policies. In January, when the Department of Homeland Security hosted a two-day meeting with Muslim, Arab-American, South Asian and Sikh leaders, the group expressed concern about the emergency directive subjecting passengers from a group of Muslim countries to additional screening.

Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, pointed out that the policy would never have caught the attempted shoe bomber Richard Reid, who is British. “It almost sends the signal that the government is going to treat nationals of powerless countries differently from countries that are powerful,” Ms. Khera recalled saying as community leaders around the table nodded their heads.

Ms. Napolitano, who sat with the group for more than an hour, committed to meeting with them more frequently. Ms. Khera said she left feeling somewhat hopeful.

“I think our message is finally starting to get through,” she said.

Apr 16, 2010

CQ - Behind the Lines for Friday, April 16, 2010

Image via Wikipedia

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Don't believe the hype: Transnational cybercrime, actually a far more serious concern than "cyberwar" attacks against the electrical grid, e.g., cyberczar says . . . Duck and recover: California shelter firm offers guaranteed survival of bioterror, nuclear terrorism, chemical attack, etc. at only $50,000 per head . . . Taxpayers beware: It would take trillions of Uncle Sam's dollars to decontaminate the site of a major biological attack. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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A top White House cybersecuricrat terms transnational cybercrime a far more serious concern than “cyberwar” attacks against such infrastructure targets as the electricity grid, Technology Review’s David Talbot relates. “As U.S. officials struggle to put together plans to defend government networks, they are faced with questions about the rippling effects of retaliation,” The Associated Press’ Lolita C. Baldor adds, which questions have stalled establishment of the Pentagon’s Cyber Command — while Threat Level’s Ryan Singel notes the command’s control center contract going to the employer of ex-DNI Mike McConnell, who furiously fans fears of cyber-attack.

Feds: “It is painfully easy to fool the protective force that guards Uncle Sam’s real estate,” The Washington Post’s Joe Davidson paraphrases a GAO report. Senate homeland overseers accuse the Obama administration of stonewalling their investigation into Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan’s Fort Hood massacre, Newsweek’s Mark Hosenball reveals. Having previously IDed two distinct domestic terror threats — eco-terrorists and lone offenders — a new FBI report assesses a third: the “sovereign citizen” movement, The Kingsport (Tenn.) Times News notes. Four GOP congressmen moved this week to ban Interior from using environmental regulations to hinder CBP agents along the Mexico border, FOX News’ Joshua Rhett Miller reports.

Order in the court: “There is little debate that Justice John Paul Stevens’ terrorism-related opinions and influence have checked a broad and bold assertion of executive power,” Marcia Coyle comments in The National Law Journal. If DHS’s Janet Napolitano gets tapped to replace Stevens, “it would bring a fresh perspective to a body made up exclusively of former appeals court judges who have never held elected office,” legal eagles tell The Arizona Republic’s Erin Kelly — and check her speech today at Harvard. FOX News, again, tenders “a list of disputes” involving A.G. Eric H. Holder, most of the beefs terror-related — while the Post’s Dana Milbank proclaims him “a Guantanamo Bay prisoner.”

Chasing the dime: Until recently, few Mexican criminals dared touch the border’s teeming multinational factories, but amidst a raging cartel war those are no longer untouchable, The McAllen (Texas) Monitor relates. For $50,000 per person, a California company offers clients a berth in an underground shelter guaranteed to survive nuclear attacks, bioterrorism and chemical warfare, NPR spotlights. The Chertoff Group, helmed, of course, by the ex-DHS chief, has hired Richard Falkenrath, who is retiring as NYPD counterterrorist at month’s end, SecurityInfoWatch relays. Raytheon Co. says it’s received an $88 million TSA contract to install passenger screening equipment, BusinessWeek relays.

State and local: A GOP candidate for Oklahoma governor who endorsed a state citizen militia is retreating from his earlier position that it be used to oppose the federal government, The Oklahoman relays — as The Bay City Times notes the second installment in a two-part NPR report on the cop-threatening Hutarees profiling a “kinder, gentler” side to Michigan militias. Members of The Dallas Morning News editorial board, meantime, debate the merits of installing metal detectors and X-rays at the Texas Capital. A House homeland hearing in Plant City, Fla., on Monday will examine security of pipelines, including hundreds of miles of gas and oil pipe in the Tampa area, the Tribune relates.

Bugs ‘n bombs: Whether McAlester, Okla., would be ready for an “incident involving chemical exposure and mass casualties” was answered in the affirmative by last weekend’s terror exercise, the News-Capital leads. “For years, specially trained dogs have run their noses over objects to screen for explosives. But vapor wake dogs can detect explosives in the air despite crowds, cross-currents and other odors,” CNN spotlights. It would take trillions of Uncle Sam’s dollars to decontaminate the site of a major biological attack, Global Security Newswire finds a new report alerting. Following al Qaeda threats to the World Cup soccer match, State is “providing extensive training to South African police to deal with potential bioterror or nuclear attacks,” BioPrepWatch reports.

Know nukes: Georgian security forces foiled a criminal plot to peddle weapons-grade uranium on the black market, The Guardian has the country’s president reminding summit-goers this week— and see Before It’s News for “five scary nuclear scenarios.” As to which, a “leading nuclear expert” tells Australia’s ABC News “it is only a matter of time” before terrorists launch a dirty bomb attack — as The Christian Science Monitor ponders possible contradictions between U.S. efforts to secure nuclear materials and its push to help other nations develop nuclear plants, generating more such bomb fuel. Logistical disputes over a proposed “nuclear fuel swap” means “the crisis over Iran’s uranium-enrichment program stumbles on,” Asia Times assesses.

Close air support: Three GOP senators want TSA to adopt at U.S. airports the technology Amsterdam’s air hub uses to screen passengers for explosives, Government Computer News notes. Southwest Florida International’s federal security director assures The Naples Daily News that explosive trace detection will not add extra wait time because passengers are tested while standing on the checkpoint line — while Reuters airs DHS plans to spend $35.5 million in stimulus moneys on another 1,200 detectors. Extra screening measures announced by TSA will see some 50 percent of British airport passengers facing secondary screening, Travel Weekly relates.

Coming and going: “Two detailed reports on risks to surface transportation offer intriguing insights,” Homeland Security Newswire promises. “Beijing’s subway security has reached the highest level in history, with all of its nine subway lines’ entrances, passages, stations and security checkpoints being guarded by armed police, SWAT teams [and] police dogs,” China Daily leads. Arizona lawmakers have approved what foes and supporters agree is the toughest measure in the country against illegal immigrants, the Los Angeles Times relates. Ranchers fed up with border violence in southern Arizona, meantime, are demanding action to close the border and restore order, The Arizona Republic recounts.

Courts and rights: The Afghan-born Queens imam in the Najibullah Zazi terror case was yesterday given a suspended sentence and 90 days to leave the country, The New York Daily News notes. “Why would the FBI deny potential evidence to another law enforcement agency investigating the case?” The Detroit Free Press wonders in re: the Oct. 28 shooting of a radical Michigan imam. A Somali man accused of piracy last year in the hijacking of an American-flagged cargo ship appears to be in negotiations to plead guilty, The New York Times tells. If the military terror tribunal system’s “proponents were hoping this week’s proceedings would showcase the strengths of the military system, they were disappointed, yet again,” The Huffington Post spotlights.

Over there: The Toronto 18 terror cell hoped footage of them firing paintballs at a picture of a Hindu deity would woo jihadi leaders in Afghanistan, The Canadian Press has a court being told — as Der Spiegel reports Berlin prosecutors indicting an ex-RAF terrorist for the 1977 murder of Germany’s then-attorney general. Syria stands accused of transferring long-range Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, The Wall Street Journal relates — while AKI explores Saudi fears of al Qaedaites targeting officials by impersonating journalists and hiding bombs in camera equipment.

Welt Zeitgeist: A TV spot by a Colombian ad agency proclaims “Desinfex household cleaner will do to germs what bombs do to suicidal terrorists. It’s that effective!” Gothamist relays. “Scotland Yard has bowed to Islamic sensitivities and accepted that Muslims are entitled to throw shoes in ritual protest — which could have the unintended consequence of politicians or the police being hit,” The Times of London tells. “Roars, growls and galloping hooves replaced music Tuesday on some of Mogadishu’s radio stations in a protest of a ban on music imposed by Islamic extremists,” CNN leads. Iraqi authorities have uncovered 9/11-esque plans by al Qaeda to fly hijacked planes into the country’s Shiite mosques, Agence France-Presse reports. The Brit Army stands accused of “gross insensitivity” for erecting seven mosque-like structures on a firing range, The Daily Mail mentions.

Kulture Kanyon: Massive steel remnants of the fallen Twin Towers have returned to a National Iron and Steel Heritage Museum in the Pennsylvania city where they were originally forged, AP spotlights. “Moscow” (Paramount), the tentatively titled next entry in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan franchise, will show him as a stockbroker whose “billionaire employer sets him up to take the fall for a terrorist plot designed to collapse the U.S. economy,” Fused Film previews. The real value of the Batman feature “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.) “regarding the discussion of terrorism . . . is in its depiction of the effects of terror,” a Foreign Policy poster weighs. “This misses the point about ‘The Dark Knight’ in important ways,” Attackerman retorts. A Washington Post columnist, finally, imagines recently cancelled FOX “24” icon Jack Bauer bringing his famously effective counterterror interrogation techniques to bear on bankers for the Senate investigations subcommittee.

Bauer-ing Inferno: “Only days after canceling the television series ‘24,’ FOX Entertainment announced today that it had reversed its decision and decided to pick the show up for a ninth and final season,” Glossy News notes. “The announcement came just as tabloid Web sites were reporting that Kiefer Sutherland, star of the popular action thriller, had begun intimidating and threatening executives at FOX over the show’s early demise. The suits say there is ‘absolutely no truth’ to the rumors and that the renewal was just a change of heart on their part. ‘We realized the show is amazing and that we had acted a bit prematurely in canceling it,’ said head of programming Kevin Reilly. ‘We love “24,”and we love Kiefer. I also love my family. I love them very, very much.’Asked what that non-sequitur had to do with the FOX show, Reilly broke down crying.”

Source: CQ Homeland Security

Nov 13, 2009

White House counsel steps down, will be replaced by Bob Bauer - washingtonpost.com

Tenure marked by struggles over closing Guantanamo

By Anne E. Kornblut and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff writer
Friday, November 13, 2009 11:30 AM

TOKYO -- White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig will step down from his post and be replaced by Bob Bauer, a prominent Democratic lawyer who is President Obama's personal attorney, the White House said Friday.

The departure is the highest-level White House shake-up since Obama took office in January. It comes after months of dissatisfaction over Craig's management of the closure of the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other matters, and less than a month after officials said Craig was no longer guiding the effort to close the prison.

White House officials nevertheless praised Craig for laying the groundwork for the closure and for guiding the nomination and confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina on the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Greg Craig is a close friend and trusted advisor who tackled many tough challenges as White House Counsel," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "Because of Greg's leadership, we have confirmed the first Latina justice on the Supreme Court, set the toughest ethics standards for any administration in history, and ensured that we are keeping the nation secure in a manner that is consistent with our laws and our values."

Bauer, currently a partner at Perkins Coie, will begin his new job by year's end, the White House said. Obama's statement said Bauer is "well-positioned to lead the Counsel's office as it addresses a wide variety of responsibilities, including managing the large amount of litigation the administration inherited, identifying judicial nominees for the federal courts, and assuring that White House officials continue to be held to the highest legal and ethical standards."

The announcement that Craig will leave coincides with a long-awaited Justice Department decision to transfer the prosecutions of five high-profile Guantanamo Bay detainees linked to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- including Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- to federal court in New York.

As a lawyer for House Democrats during their time in the minority, Bauer pursued an aggressive legal strategy aimed at undercutting the GOP's political advantages. In 2000, Bauer, in his capacity as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's attorney, filed a racketeering lawsuit against Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), then the House majority whip, and three affiliated political groups, charging that DeLay had engaged in extortion and money laundering.

The two parties reached a settlement a year later in which both sides claimed victory, but Bauer argued that the Democrats had effectively neutralized one of the GOP's most effective fundraising methods.

"We shut it down," Bauer said at the time. "There is no DeLay shadow network. We didn't have to worry about it in 2000, and we don't have to worry about it in 2002."

DeLay called the lawsuit, which cost him more than $450,000 in legal fees, "nothing more than a desperate political ploy to win back the House."

Shortly after Bauer's appointment was announced, Republicans began to raise questions about the propriety of a president's personal lawyer serving as White House counsel. One described the move as a serious housecleaning of the White House counsel's office.

Craig had once hoped for a post in the Obama administration conducting foreign policy. But when that job did not materialize, and Obama asked Craig to serve as counsel, Craig felt he could not refuse, people close to him said.

Before the release of Craig's letter to Obama stating he would return to private practice, some White House officials had said they expected him to receive a judicial appointment or diplomatic posting.

Craig, a respected lawyer whose storied career includes representing President Bill Clinton during his Senate impeachment trial, became one of the earliest Clinton allies to support the Obama campaign during the 2008 race. At the height of the campaign, he penned a memo sharply criticizing then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's foreign policy credentials, a reflection of how passionately he cared about international relations.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs denied that Craig's exit was related to Guantanamo and noted that Craig had never sought to serve as the administration lawyer.

"Greg is, as you know, somebody who served in a previous administration in foreign policy. That's his passion," Gibbs said. He called Craig a "reluctant acceptor" of the counsel position who had never expected to stay long.

Craig did not return a phone call placed to his house Thursday night. In a letter to Obama released by the White House, he said he was honored to have worked for the administration and would return to private practice Jan. 3.

As White House counsel, Craig tried to influence some initiatives he cared most about, including reversing the Bush-era detainee policies. He took the job of closing the Guantanamo prison so seriously that when Bermuda agreed to take several detainees, Craig personally flew with them to the island.

But just a few months in office left Craig disenchanted with the political process, and some senior White House officials frustrated with the operations of the counsel's office. Some critics pointed to mistakes along the way, including the administration's failure to anticipate congressional opposition to closing the detention facility.

White House officials have conceded they will not make the January closure deadline that Craig helped Obama settle on and are at a loss as to where to house a number of hard cases who cannot be transferred to foreign countries or tried in U.S. civilian or military courts.

And there were other problems in his path. The vetting of nominees, a job typically overseen by the counsel's office, did not go well at first. Craig never quite penetrated the president's inner circle of advisers, despite his close personal relationship with Obama. And his high-profile role in the Guantanamo struggle made him an easy target, according to defenders of his who said he should not have been held responsible for the politics of such a thorny issue.

His allies praised him for trying to keep Obama in sync with some of the ideologically liberal ideas he promoted in the campaign.

Oct 31, 2009

White House Visitor Log Lists Stars and C.E.O.’s - NYTimes.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday released a partial roster of visitors in the first six months of President Obama’s term, a disclosure that shows business executives, labor leaders, lobbyists and a sprinkling of celebrities were cleared into the White House for meetings, events or tours.

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, visited the Oval Office on March 25. Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, dined in the White House Mess Hall on Feb. 19. Oprah Winfrey arrived two days earlier for an appointment in the residence of the executive mansion.

Among the White House guests was a boldface-names list of chief executives, including Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup Inc., Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, Rex W. Tillerson of the Exxon Mobil Corporation, David J. O’Reilly of the Chevron Corporation and Jeffrey R. Immelt of the General Electric Company The men, who met with Mr. Obama, his advisers or both, were among nearly 500 entries in logs from Jan. 20 to July 31.

The White House released the names late Friday in a disclosure that officials said was without precedent by previous administrations. The names on the White House Web site were in response to requests about specific people by watchdog groups or news organizations. By December, the White House intends to regularly release names of visitors in three-month increments.

The most frequent visitor included in the narrow sample was Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union and Mr. Obama’s top ally in the labor movement. Mr. Stern visited the White House 22 times, sometimes for health care or other public events in the East Room, other times for meetings with the president or aides like Rahm Emanuel, Peter R. Orszag or Ronald A. Klain.

The visit tally underscores the clout that S.E.I.U. and Mr. Stern enjoy in this White House, something that has generated consternation at times among business groups and envy among rival unions. By contrast, Richard L. Trumka, the new president of the AFL-CIO, visited seven times in the same period.

Maurice R. Greenberg, a former chief executive of American International Group Inc., which received a $182.3 billion federal bailout, visited three times.

John D. Podesta, who oversaw the transition operation for Mr. Obama, visited the president and his top advisers 17 times in the six months after Inauguration Day. His brother and sister-in-law, Tony and Heather Podesta, both high-profile Washington lobbyists, made a total of eight visits to the White House complex.

Other visitors included Gary D. Cohn, the president of Goldman Sachs, who was a major contributor to Mr. Obama’s campaign. Several lobbyists from financial industry trade groups also came to the White House, including Edward L. Yingling of the American Bankers Association, Timothy Ryan of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, and Scott Talbott of the Financial Services Roundtable.

While the list can be searched on the White House Web site, the visits can raise as many questions as they answer. On many of the entries, the purpose of the visit is unclear. Still, it offers a glimpse into the workings of the administration that has not been previously available.

In addition to Ms. Winfrey, a small sampling of Hollywood visitors included Denzel Washington, Brad Pitt and George Clooney, who met with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Feb. 23. The White House offered no commentary about the list, except to clarify that visitors by the names of William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright were not the same two men who stirred controversy for Mr. Obama in his campaign.

“The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House,” said Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform. “Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.”

Peter Baker and David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting.