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Also Noted: Mexico's drug war takes to the blogosphere in earnest; EU mulls new sanctions against Iran; and much more...
Today's Top News
 A Nov. 9 nationwide test of the emergency alert system went less than perfectly, according to reports from across the country. The test, meant to last 30 seconds at precisely 2 p.m. EST and be conducted by all manner of public, cable, satellite and direct broadcasters, ran into snafus across the United States. Perhaps most infamously, some DirectTV subscribers saw ( embedded video) an emergency alert title card, but rather than hearing the emergency alert tone, were treated an excerpt of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi." Some Comcast subscribers in Northern Virginia said their Comcast provider switched to home shopping network QVC, according to the New York Times. Some cable customers in Los Angeles said the alert lasted almost 30 minutes, also according to the Times. MTV didn't appear to run the test at all, according to ABC News. |
 Raids conducted by Customs and Border Protection agents on public transportation in upstate New York have come to play an outsize and unconstitutional role in Border Patrol activity, says the New York Civil Liberties Union. In a report released Nov. 9, the NYCLU says arrest statistics it received from the Rochester Border Patrol Station from 2006 through 2009, obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, show arrests made through identity checks on public transportation jumping from 42 percent of the station's total in 2006 to around 63 percent in 2007 through 2009. The raids, during which Border Patrol agents board trains and buses "nowhere near the border to question passengers about their citizenship" typically occur many miles from the Canadian border or other port of entry, the NYCLU says. "They do little to protect the border, but they threaten constitutional protections that apply to citizens and immigrants alike, invite racial profiling, tear apart families and burden taxpayers with the cost of detaining individuals who were arrested while innocently going about their business," the report says. Federal regulations permit CBP to operate within 100 miles of the international border, but the NYCLU says Border Patrol agents don't have the right to conduct routine searches without probable cause or warrant within that 100 mile area, as they do in permanent checkpoints on the border itself. CBP officials have said their questioning of bus and train passengers is consensual--and, in fact, 95 percent of the 2,743 arrest records obtained by FOIA include a statement that the arresting officer initiated "consensual, nonintrusive" contract or engaged in a "consensual conversation" with the arrestee, the report says. But the consent is not real and the language is employed to circumvent constitutional protections, the report adds. "When an armed agent questions passengers on a train or bus, sometimes in the middle of the night with a flashlight glaring at the rider's face, few individuals would feel that they have the right to refuse to answer the agent's questions," it says. For more: - download the report, "Justice Derailed; What Raids on New York's Trains and Buses Reveal about Border Patrol's Interior Enforcement Practices" (.pdf) |
 Expedited airport security lines for frequent passengers who undergo pre-screening by the Transportation Security Administration will roll out to an additional three airports in the coming months, TSA Administrator John Pistole told a Nov. 9 Senate panel. The program, known as PreCheck, will arrive at "select checkpoints" at Las Vegas McCarran International in December and Los Angeles International and Minneapolis-St. Paul International in the first two months of 2012, Pistole told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. TSA announced in October the pilot PreCheck programs with airlines at airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami. The goal, Pistole told the committee, is to expand PreCheck "as broadly as possible." Its wider expansion will likely have to wait for high-profile airline mergers to consolidate information technology systems, Pistole added, citing the merger of United and Continental, and Southwest Airline's acquisition of AirTran. PreCheck must be integrated into the airline ticketing process, Pistole explained, since PreCheck passengers must receive a boarding pass with a machine-readable code on it to go through the special PreCheck screening process. Those who travel frequently enough, and are lucky enough to join PreCheck, get the privilege of a screening process that permits them to keep their belt on their pants, their shoes on their feet, their jackets worn as they were designed, their laptops in laptop cases and any liquids and gels in their carry-on bag. Occasionally and at random, however, PreCheck travelers will be told to go through the regular airport security process (beltless, shoeless and jacketless, etc.) as a way of maintaining the factor of randomness in airport security, Pistole added. TSA also has Known Crewmember security checkpoints operating at seven airports, Pistole said. The program--funded, Pistole said, by the Air Line Pilots Association and the Air Transportation Association of America--permits pilots to go through expedited security. TSA said earlier this year that Known Crewmember ties airline employee databases together, permitting TSA agents to "positively verify identity and employment status of crewmembers." When it comes to nude images of people passing through x-ray scanners, Pistole said backscatter machines continue to display revealing images of individuals passing through them, rather than the generic figures TSA agents now see in millimeter wave full-body scanners. Pistole said the manufacture of the machines is undergoing software testing with TSA. "They haven't been through that quite yet," Pistole said, adding that about 240 backscatter machines are in use. For more: - go to the hearing webpage (prepared testimony and webcast available) |
 Attorney General Eric Holder expressed regret over Operation Fast and Furious but defended efforts to prevent guns from being trafficked to Mexico at a Nov. 8 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation was a sting where ATF officials let suspected arms traffickers buy guns so ATF could track them to Mexican organized crime groups. ATF officials lost track of about 1,400 of the guns, and two were found at the scene of the killing of a U.S. border patrol agent. "When I saw the indications that guns had walked, I was bothered by it, offended by it, concerned about it, and ordered the inspector general to investigate it," Holder said, adding that he issued a field directive "to make it clear that gun walking was not appropriate." "It is not fair, however, to assume that the mistakes that happened in Fast and Furious directly led to the death of Agent Terry," Holder said, referring to Brian Terry, the slain CBP officer. Holder added that new leadership at ATF has implemented reforms such as stricter oversight procedures for major investigations. He also reiterated that the operation "was a flawed response to and not the cause of the flow of illegals guns" to Mexico, as he urged Congress to provide ATF the resources it needs to combat arms trafficking. He expressed support for a new rule that requires firearms sellers in the four states that border Mexico to report when someone buys multiple assault rifles in a five-day period. For more: - go to the hearing webpage (webcast available) |
 Iran's questionable nuclear activities have added to the International Atomic Energy Agency's suspicions that its nuclear program is not exclusively peaceful, says a Nov. 8 IAEA report (.pdf). For example, Iran has developed detonators that are integral to nuclear devices and have few non-nuclear applications, yet has not explained its need for them, the report says. It has also developed a related initiation system, and the IAEA found "strong indications" that a foreign expert who worked on nuclear weapons in his country of origin assisted Iran on the system. The unnamed expert and other sources verified to the IAEA that he was in Iran from 1996 to 2002, apparently to assist Iran's nuclear program, while he also lectured on explosion physics and its applications. But "Iran has not been willing to engage in discussion" about the initiation system, the IAEA says. Iran also covertly built several facilities for uranium enrichment and only declared them to the IAEA once the agency became aware of their existence from outside sources, the report says. Meanwhile, the agency obtained information that shows that Iran constructed a large explosives containment vessel for hydrodynamic experiments, which are "strong indicators of possible weapon development," the reports says. The IAEA called on Iran to explain what's behind these activities. A United Nations member state has provided the IAEA with Iranian documents that include logistics and safety arrangements necessary for conducting a nuclear test. Documents also show that Iran worked on a prototype firing system to explode a payload either in the air above a target or when its re-entry vehicle impacts the ground. In response, Iran called this "an animation game." The IAEA concluded that the payload in the documents could only be nuclear, and Iran agreed that the documents would constitute a nuclear weapons program "if the information upon which it was based were true," the report says. But the IAEA expressed doubt that fabrication would be possible, on the basis of the quantity, scope, comprehensiveness and complexity of the documents. |
Also Noted > Accused Texas terrorist secretly recorded volunteering for al Qaeda. Article ( Houston Chron) > Mexico's drug war takes to the blogosphere in earnest. Article ( BusinessWeek) > Controversial U.S.-Canada pipeline may be rerouted. Article ( USAT) > Richard Clarke, cyber Cassandra. Blog post ( Security Debrief) > EU mulls new sanctions against Iran. Article ( Reuters) And Finally... Space station reboots itself 2 miles higher, sending astronauts hurtling backward into space. Embedded video Contact Us Advertise Email Management Explore our network of publications: |
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