Aviation security is far from cheap, Bruce Kennedy affirms in Daily Finance, observing, e.g., that scrambling an F-16 to shadow a potentially imperiled airliner costs $7,500 per hour. The creation of a federal airport security service after 9/11 “came with a massive conflict of interest: TSA serves as both the aviation-security regulator and the provider of key security. Who’s watching the watchmen?” a Washington Times op-ed observes. Cultural, political and legal differences must be set aside to heighten global aviation security, Agence France-Presse hears DHS’s Janet Napolitano urging African aviation ministers in Nigeria on Sunday.
Feds: CBP agents along the Texas border were warned that Mexican drug cartels are using “cloned” Border Patrol vehicles to smuggle drugs into the United States, according to docs obtain by the Washington Examiner’s Sara A. Carter. Before it was folded into DHS in 2003, CBP was a “proud, independent” agency, but it now “ain’t what it used to be — and that ain’t good,” DC Velocity’s Toby Gooley quotes a D.C. trade attorney. The Pentagon will brief House Armed Services members on the investigation into whether defense attorneys for Guantanamo detainees endangered CIA interrogators, The Washington Times’ Bill Gertz relates.
Going to extremes: The Hutaree militia “is only one among a number of separatist, terrorist and hate groups that view police as their No. 1 target for attack,” Madeleine Gruen observes in a Baltimore Sun op-ed — as The New York Daily News’ Rocco Parascandola and Joe Kemp say MS-13 may have issued a hit on the NYPD. Two members of the Michigan militia charged with plotting to assassinate law-enforcers are ex-servicemen, Newsweek notes — and recall the controversy excited last spring when a DHS report on right-wing extremists referenced just such a nexus. “Liberal MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow will host an April 19 special on Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 act of terrorism and how it ‘puts into perspective the threat posed by anti-government extremism,’” NewsBusters’ Scott Whitlock reprovingly relates.
State and local: From unmarked access tunnels, NYPD beat cops defend against terror attacks in the city’s intricate underground mass transit network, The Associated Press spotlights. Security measures imposed at the Nevada Capitol after a threatening letter will remain while the FBI investigates, and possibly longer, The Nevada Appeal notes. A proposed $5.5 million cut to New Jersey’s homeland security office could cost twice that when DHS matching grants are factored in, The Newark Star-Ledger relates. Ex-Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura raised eyebrows last week by asserting that the United States has been “practicing terrorism for 50 years, only we call it ‘foreign policy,’” The Minnesota Independent mentions.
Bid-ness: “Do you want to think about the United States as the nation that fights terrorism or the nation you want to do business with?” Mona Charen, in a Tennessean op-ed, scornfully quotes a National Security Council staffer’s rhetorical question. Basque separatists are “supposed to be out of business, at least the terrorism business. But ETA’s money-making operations are still active, and most of them are illegal,” The Strategy Page reports. A report tracking cyber-espionage against U.S. defense contractors finds unmanned aerial vehicles likely to remain a principle target of foreign collection, Homeland Security Newswire notes. Systems integrator SDI has inked a $2.3 million contract for an Airport Response Coordination Center at LAX, Security Systems News notes.
Close air support: “The case of the Qatari diplomat at least establishes the principle that egregious behavior justifies authorities being able to use their judgment to deter potential terrorists,” a Wall Street Journal columnist comments. Next time you fly, “avoid the temptation to fall into the usual pattern of griping. Remember that these pesky procedures are really a small price to pay,” Orlando’s Central Florida Future enjoins. “It’s rude when a distracted or lazy person holds up the [checkpoint] line, but it’s also rude to roll your eyes, let out exaggerated sighs, etc. Your being a jerk won’t make the line move any faster,” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette admonishes.
Coming and going: Chilling new details about the foiled al Qaeda plot to blow up Gotham’s busiest subways have emerged as a fourth suspect was quietly arrested in Pakistan, The N.Y. Daily News also learns. “One need only travel through Grand Central Station at any time to recognize the enormity of the risk. A suicide attack . . . involving a simple explosive or chemical-biological agent would be catastrophic,” a Boston Herald columnist comments. As Canada prepares to host two major global events this summer, the Mounties are hoping the trucking industry can play a role in assisting security by reporting any irregular activity, Today’s Trucking tells. Days after murdered rancher Robert Krentz was buried, “his family and others are still waiting for troops to be deployed to the border,” The Arizona Daily Star leads.
Bugs ‘n bombs: With the Ag Department counting 656,475 beef raisers alone, “there are a lot of livestock operations that could potentially be under threat from natural disasters/emergencies or agroterrorism,” Cattle Network notes. “A rogue crop duster, someone tossing an infected rag over the loafing lot fence, or an upset employee with access to a food processing facility could conceivably commit an act of agroterror,” Homeland Security Newswire leads. Since 2001, members of the American Chemistry Council have led the way on security, investing more than $8 billion on facility security enhancements, an official assures in a Houston Chronicle letter.
Know nukes: “Does the Secret Service have too much power to disrupt life in Washington?” a Washington Post blogger asks in re: intense security at the ongoing Nuclear Security Summit. If al Qaeda acquired nuclear weapons, it “would have no compunction at using them,” Reuters hears President Obama predicting — as ABC News finds barely half of Americans viewing nuclear terrorism as a top-level threat. Even as the United States and other nations press the issue, “there have been doubts within the international community about the immediacy of the threat posed by nuclear terrorism,” a U.S. specialist tells Global Security Newswire — while AP quotes experts chiding that such complacency slows efforts to lock down the makings of atomic bombs, and see Newsweek on nuclear terrorism as “an afterthought.”
Ways and means: White House authorization for assassinating a U.S.-born imam “raises an important legal question: Is it legal in the war on terror for the United States to target an American citizen?” The Christian Science Monitor’s Gordon Lubold muses. The director of NYU’s Center on Law and Security tells The Washington Independent’s Spencer Ackerman that you can’t just revoke citizenship and, anyway, assassination of the Yemen-based cleric is a looming national security blunder. “In an effort to soften the playing field in their favor, terrorist, separatist, and hate groups will continue targeting police,” The Counterterrorism Blog’s Madeleine Gruen maintains. “Was the reaction to an Arab diplomat’s ill-timed smoke break aboard a flight to Denver overkill, unnecessarily alarming the entire country, inconveniencing passengers and squandering the taxpayers’ money?” The New York Times’ Scott Shane poses.
Talking terror: With mounting evidence of the role of women in terrorist operations, “it is essential that counterterrorism experts not rely on outdated racial and gender profiles to protect Americans,” Joyce Davis advises in a Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot-News op-ed. “When it comes to terrorism, men and women have much in common,” ABC News’ Patrik Jonsson adds. That the 168 deaths in Oklahoma City “were the result of Americans killing Americans in the name of America has made the incident in some ways harder for the nation to process than 9/11 and the less-complicated enemy, al Qaeda, The Observer’s Ed Vulliamy explores. Obama administration plans “to expel certain religiously charged words, such as ‘Islamic extremism’ . . . is a mistake that only adds ambiguity to the fight against global terrorists,” The Grand Junction (Colo.) Daily Sentinel editorializes. “If we continue to find words to obfuscate the threat, we will lose the capacity to address it,” Alan Caruba similarly inveighs for Right Side News.
Courts and rights: A court ruling has revealed that a convicted Ohio terrorist had ties to an al Qaeda suspect who met with some of the 9/11 hijackers, AP relates. Police fabricated evidence to incriminate five Americans facing trial in Pakistan on terror charges, lawyers representing the men will argue in court this week, ANI informs. President George W. Bush and senior officials covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to Guantanamo because they feared that releasing them would harm the broader war on terror, The Times of London says it has learned. “The thing that first strikes you about Guantanamo Bay’s “Camp Justice” is what an extraordinary effort was made to create something that never needed to exist,” The Seminal, relatedly, leads.
It’s the end of the world as we know it (and we feel fine): “The European Organization for Nuclear Research, has announced a successful run of the $10-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, which has been plagued for years with both technical problems and predictions that its use will cause the destruction of the known universe,” Unconfirmed Sources confirms. “And while scientists cheered as the collider directed two proton beams into each other at three times more force than ever before, naysayers expressed a grim satisfaction as the known universe did indeed implode, just as they predicted . . . The end of the universe as we know it also has its bright side, of course. Fears of global warming have decreased markedly, as there is no longer a globe to warm, the glut of foreclosed and existing homes have eased dramatically and the crisis in the Middle East has disappeared, along with the rest of everything else. Plus, and most happily of all, you’ll never get stuck reading any of this writer’s crap again.”
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