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Also Noted: U.S. pressures Brits over 2012 Olympics security; German officials uncover right-wing extremist terrorist group; and much more...
Today's Top News
Governments should be careful that rare, atypical terrorist attacks such as those of Sept. 11, 2001 don't have an outsize effect on policy--although, at the same time, governments can't ignore the tendency of terrorism to occur in bursts, said Gary LaFree, a University of Maryland professor. LaFree, head of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses, said during an Oct. 13 lecture at the University of Nebraska, that Sept. 11 should be understood as both a highly unusual event that one that people reasonably at the time feared was a precursor to additional attacks. To put the rareness of 9/11 in perspective, 3,369 Americans within the United States have died of terrorist attacks since 1970, with the collapse of the World Trade Center accounting for the vast majority of them. "If you take out the fatalities of 9/11, our fatalities are on a level similar to Canada," he said. Further, even foreign terrorist groups identified by the State Department as inimical to the United States attack non-U.S. affiliated targets in their home region far more often than they do either the United States itself, or representations of the Untied States, such as embassies or U.S. corporate buildings located abroad, LaFree said. |
 The Homeland Security Department might propose legislation to place dams under a regulatory regime similar to chemical facilities, says the DHS office of inspector general. In a report dated Sept. 15 critical of national dam risk management, the OIG says that DHS has failed to conduct security reviews for 55 percent of critical dam assets as of March 2011. The reason for the gap, the OIG says, is that participation in DHS-led risk management activity is purely voluntary for dam owners, and "DHS could not always obtain cooperation." Even after a risk assessment--which can vary in strength from a survey to a site visits--non-federal dam owners are under no obligation to implement corrective actions identified by DHS personnel, the report says. DHS officials told auditors that they recently revised the criteria for determining whether a dam is a "critical asset" and so in need of DHS risk management, and that under the new criteria, the proportion of dams assessed by the National Protection and Programs Directorate has gone up. Auditors, however, say that DHS should consider proposing legislation that would place critical dams under the same regulatory regime as high-risk chemical facilities. The regime is known as Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards, or CFATS. DHS officials told auditors they concur, and that the NPPD will make a subsequent recommendation on whether DHS should proceed with proposing legislation. For more: - download the report, OIG-11-110 (.pdf) |
 Prosecutorial discretion by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents when it comes to deporting illegal aliens hasn't taken root, says a Nov. 9 report from the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council. A June 17 memo signed by ICE Director John Morton instructs personnel to take into account factors such as educational attainment, criminal history, age and circumstances of arrival in the United States when deciding to proceed with the removal of an illegal alien. "The overwhelming conclusion is that most ICE offices have not changed their practices," the report says. The Obama administration has said its policy is to focus on the deportation of people posing a threat to society since ICE already operates at about its maximum removal capacity of 400,000 individuals a year. AILA and AIC say they requested feedback from lawyers and other immigration practitioners across the country over a 4-month period starting on June 30 regarding implementation of the discretion policy. Based on 252 cases, the two organizations conclude that ICE generally has not implemented the policy or implemented it inconsistently. Some immigration attorneys reported that ICE official said they have "no intention of complying and indicated their jobs are to arrest and deport people," the report says. In other cases, ICE officials interpreted prosecutorial discretion far more narrowly than the memo directs, with some stating that they wouldn't consider discretion except in the case of a life threatening situation. Discretion extends to those convicted of petty misdemeanors, the report says--since the Obama administration has emphasized the protection of public safety and national security in its deportation policy--but many ICE officials also would not grant discretion for anyone with any type of criminal record, the report says. The report recommends further guidance and training. For more: - download the report, "Holding DHS Accountable on Prosecutorial Discretion" (.pdf) |
During 2010, law enforcement agencies reported 6,628 criminal hate crime incidents involving 7,699 offenses across the United States, the FBI says in a Nov. 14 release of annual crime statistics. Of the 6,624 incidents involving an incident with a single bias, 47.3 were racially motivated, 20 percent were motivated by religious hatred, 12.8 percent by ethnicity and 19.3 by sexual orientation. Anti-Jewish and anti-Hispanic incidents were the most common incidents within religiously- and ethnically- motivated hate crimes, the FBI statistic show, constituting 67 percent and 63 percent of those categories, respectively. Anti-Islamic religious hate crimes accounted for 12 percent of religiously-motivated hate crimes; there were 1,322 total such crimes reported during 2010, the FBI says. |
 Holders of federal security clearances could become the next class of individuals to receive expedited treatment in Transportation Security Administration airport checkpoints. "Clearly, that is a category of people that we as a society know and trust more than others," TSA Administrator John Pistole told a Nov. 10 audience at an event hosted by Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. TSA, he added, is working with the director of national intelligence to explore a way of implementing a system that would permit security clearance holders to typically go through a less intrusive airport security checkpoint. The TSA earlier this year unveiled an expedited airport security program in four American airports known as PreCheck for frequent passengers who undergo pre-screening and has plans to expand the program to an additional three in the coming months. Right now only frequent fliers of American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, as well as some members of a Customs and Border Protection expedited border crossing program known as Trusted Traveler, can participate in PreCheck. PreCheck passengers go through lines that permit them to keep their belts on pants, shoes on feet, light jackets worn, laptops in laptop cases and liquids and gels in a carry-on bag. During the event, Pistole also said that the TSA behavioral observational technique program rolled out by TSA at Boston Logan and in October to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport might not be implementable on a nationwide basis. "To try to do over 625 million [passengers] at 450 airports is a significant challenge," he said, citing the monetary concerns and passenger volume. The program has come under criticism for lacking a scientific basis and for encouraging racial profiling. "We are not in the profiling business," Pistole said. The program's inspiration, a program at Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport, does engage in profiling, Pistole said. "The Israelis are very upfront about 'We do profile, here's why, there's the threat,'" he said. For more: - go to the event webpage (archived webcast available) |
Also Noted > U.S. pressures Brits over 2012 Olympics security. Article ( The Guardian) > TSA issues bus travel advisory but doesn't cite specific threat. Article ( AP via WaPo) > Mexican government rules out sabotage in helicopter crash of interior minister. Article ( Bloomberg) > ICE steps up voluntary employer immigration enforcement program. Article ( Fox News Latino) > German officials uncover right-wing extremist terrorist group. Article ( AP via WaPo) And Finally... Caught on tape: A pre-fame Stephen Colbert recorded this commercial for Nebraska Firs Tier Bank. Embedded video Contact Us Advertise Email Management Explore our network of publications: |
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