TERRORISM: FBI Training Elite Deep-diving Counterterrorism unit

photo courtesy fbi.gov

Underwater terrorismFBI training elite deep-diving counterterrorism unit

Published 18 October 2011

To bolster its counterterrorism capabilities, the FBI has created an elite group of special agents trained to track terrorism underwater.
Next year the ten-member Technical Dive Team will begin searching for evidence left behind by international terrorists in waters contaminated by chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear waste.
Pointing to the 2008 attack in Mumbai, India where terrorists entered the city by boat, supervisory special agent James Tullbane, a Technical Dive Team member, said, “There have been enough scenarios recently,” to justify the creation of the special unit.  Full article

China's big surveillance push

Published 10 August 2011

In China’s latest push to keep tabs on its citizens, police in Beijing have ordered supermarkets and shopping malls throughout the city to install high-definition security cameras; the recent order comes as part of a broader expansion in monitoring technology which includes the addition of millions of surveillance cameras over the past five years and large increases in domestic security spending

In China’s latest push to keep tabs on its citizens, police in Beijing have orderedsupermarkets and shopping malls throughout the city to install high-definition security cameras.

The recent order comes as part of a broader expansion in monitoring technology which includes the addition of millions of surveillance cameras over the past five years and large increases in domestic security spending.

Bo Zhang, a senior research analyst at IMS Research, an electronics-focused consulting firm, estimates that more than ten million cameras were installed in China in 2010 alone at a cost of $680 million. This year total internal security spending is set to reach nearly $97 billion, more than the country’s official military budget. Security spending includes Internet censorship as well as projects like individual identity cards and neighborhood communities that monitor the activity of fellow residents.

Other countries like Britain and the United States have embraced surveillance cameras, but China’s camera network is set to far outpace other countries growing more than 20 percent annually from 2010 to 2014, more than double the rate of others, according to IMS Research.  Read more

USNavy SEALS COME HOME: Obama, Military Leaders Pay Respects at Dover Air Force Base

Written on AUGUST 9, 2011 AT 2:46 PM by JTOZER

Obama, Military Leaders Pay Respects at Dover Air Force Base

Filed under DOD NEWS{0}

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By Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service
From www.defense.gov

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Barack Obama and military leaders paid their respects today at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware during the dignified transfer of remains of service members killed in an Aug. 6 helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

Two Air Force C-17 transport aircraft carrying the remains arrived at Dover this morning.

An investigation is under way to determine the facts surrounding the deaths of 30 U.S. service members and eight Afghans when their CH-47 Chinook helicopter went down in Afghanistan’s Wardak province.

Five of the U.S. casualties were aircrew members, and 25 were members of the U.S. Special Operations Command.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta was in attendance at Dover today, along with Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his wife, Deborah; and Michael G. Vickers, undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Representing the services were Navy Secretary Ray E. Mabus, Navy Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Rick D. West; Army Secretary John M. McHugh and Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff; and Air Force Undersecretary Erin C. Conaton, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, Air Force vice chief of staff, and Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James A. Roy.

Al-Qaeda: Weakened, Continues to Target U.S.: Officials

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Al-Qaeda still hopes to carry out attacks against the United States, even as the structure of the terrorist network has become more dispersed, the White House pick to oversee unified U.S. counterterrorism operations said at his Tuesday confirmation hearing (see GSN, July 18).

"That threat is not so much from the senior (al-Qaeda) leadership in Pakistan with one unified goal, it is now diffused in various regional locations under various leaders and with various goals," said Matthew Olsen, who is awaiting Senate approval to become the new director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Olsen said the May shooting death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. Navy SEALs was a "significant milestone" that that there has been "substantial progress" in the fight against the terror group.

Al-Qaeda's Yemen branch "has shown a willingness and a level of capability to strike in the United States," Olsen told members of the Senate intelligence committee. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been linked in recent years to failed efforts to detonate a bomb on a passenger aircraft heading to Detroit and to mail explosives to the United States.   

Read more

TERRORISM 9/11: Bin Laden Plotted New Attack

By SIOBHAN GORMAN

Osama bin Laden was working to assemble a team of militants to attack the U.S. on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, according to communications Navy SEALs seized from his Pakistani hideout when they killed the al Qaeda leader this spring.

Bin Laden and his operations chief, Attiyah Abd al-Rahman, swapped views about the composition of the attack team, with bin Laden repeatedly rejecting names that Mr. Rahman suggested, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence taken from the bin Laden compound.

The News Hub covers documents indicating al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden planned a U.S. attack on Sept. 11, 2011. Also, Rebekah Brooks resigns from News Corp (parent company of The Wall Street Journal) as it UK newspapers chief. Getty Images photo.

The plans were only in the discussion phase, U.S. officials said. They haven't seen any signs the nascent plot ever went beyond the early planning, the officials said.

Still, earlier this month in his first meeting with senior staff at the Central Intelligence Agency, acting Director Michael Morell told his staff that one of their top priorities would be to make sure that neither that plan nor any others were carried out.

Plans for an anniversary attack were one of the few specific potential threats to emerge from the trove of documents and other materials taken from bin Laden's residence in Abottabad, Pakistan, in the May 2 raid. An initial analysis of the evidence said al Qaeda hoped to attack trains in the U.S., possibly on the anniversary of Sept. 11.   For more

TECHNOLOGY: "Amplified" Nanotubes for Efficient, Loss-free Grid

The current U.S. copper-based grid leaks electricity at an estimated 5 percent per 100 miles of transmission; Rice University researchers have achieved a breakthrough in the development of a cable that will make an efficient electric grid of the future possible; the armchair quantum wire (AQW) will be a weave of metallic nanotubes that can carry electricity with negligible loss over long distances

Rice University scientists have achieved a breakthrough in the development of a cable that will make an efficient electric grid of the future possible.

Armchair quantum wire (AQW) will be a weave of metallic nanotubes that can carry electricity with negligible loss over long distances. It will be an ideal replacement for the U.S. copper-based grid, which leaks electricity at an estimated 5 percent per 100 miles of transmission, said Rice chemist Andrew R. Barron, author of a paper about the latest step forward published online by the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters.

A Rice University release reports that a prime technical hurdle in the development of this “miracle cable,” Barron said, is the manufacture of massive amounts of metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes, dubbed armchairs for their unique shape. Armchairs are best for carrying current, but can not yet be made alone. They grow in batches with other kinds of nanotubes and have to be separated out, which is a difficult process given that a human hair is 50,000 times larger than a single nanotube.  Read more

TERRORISM: Home-grown Islamist Web Site Moderator Indicted

Fri, 2011-07-15 08:01 AM

By: Mark Rockwell

Begolly in Myspace photo

The moderator of an extremist Web site, who encouraged violent Jihad attacks inside the U.S. against law enforcement, military, public buildings and synagogues was indicted by a federal grand jury.

An indictment handed down in Alexandria, VA, on July 14 alleges Emerson Begolly, 22, is a homegrown terrorist who actively encouraged violence through a popular, internationally known Islamic extremist Web forum, the Ansar al-Mujahideen English Forum (AMEF). Begolly, from New Bethlehem, PA, is a moderator of the site, which distributes and promotes violent Islamist propaganda¸ said the FBI.

According to the indictment, it was through that Web forum, beginning in July 2010, that Begolly urged followers to use firearms, explosives and propane tanks to attack a wide-ranging list of targets inside the U.S. including police stations, post offices, synagogues, military facilities, train lines, cell phone towers, bridges and water plants. He also posted bomb-making instructions online, it said.  Read more

EXPLOSIVE DETECTION > Sensors printed on wetsuits detect explosives, other hazards

Published 12 July 2011

UC San Diego researcher has successfully printed thick-film electrochemical sensors directly on flexible wetsuit material, paving the way for nano devices to detect underwater explosives or ocean contamination; UCSD has a full U.S. patent pending on the technology, and has begun talks on licensing the system to a Fortune 500 company

Flexible sensors printed on neoprene wetsuit sleeve // Source: calit2.net

Breakthroughs in nanoengineering often involve building new materials or tiny circuits. A professor at the University of California, San Diego, however, is proving that he can make materials and circuits so flexible that they can be pulled, pushed, and contorted — even under water — and still keep functioning properly.

Joseph Wang has successfully printed thick-film electrochemical sensors directly on flexible wetsuit material, paving the way for nano devices to detect underwater explosives or ocean contamination.

“We have a long-term interest in on-body electrochemical monitoring for medical and security applications,” said Wang, a professor in the Department of NanoEngineering in UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering. “In the past three years we’ve been working on flexible, printable sensors, and the capabilities of our group made it possible to extend these systems for use underwater.”

Wang notes that some members of his team — including electrical-engineering graduate student Joshua Windmiller — are surfers. Given the group’s continued funding from the U.S. Navy, and its location in La Jolla, it was a logical leap to see if it would be possible to print sensors on neoprene, the synthetic-rubber fabric typically used in wetsuits for divers and surfers    Read more

EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO TERRORISM > JOB AID

Description: Edition 2.0. Identifies strategic and tactical considerations that should be assessed within the first hour of a terrorist incident.

Year/pages: 2003: 74 p. and 7 index dividers.

Price: $13.50

[To order]

FREE .pdf VERSION:  http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/downloads/pdf/publications/ert-ja.pdf

FREE > Isolation & Quarantine Response Planning Toolkit

In the absence of rapid and definitive diagnostic tests, vaccines, or cures, isolation and quarantine remains Public Health's best strategy against the spread of mass illness. Public Health - Seattle & King County (Public Health) is an Advanced Practice Center for Emergency Preparedness and established this Planning for Isolation & Quarantine Response Web Toolkit to support local Public Health jurisdictions in their efforts to plan for and manage a large-scale isolation and quarantine response. The Toolkit is designed for all types of users and is separated by topic for the ease of use and navigation.

NUCLEAR > Nuclear Safety Journal Launched

Published 7 July 2011

Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima: for the third time in twenty-five years a nuclear power plant suffered a serious accident, precipitating a global review of the way to govern nuclear safety and security; a publisher of scientific journal is launching a new journal -- International Journal of Nuclear Safety and Security (IJNSS) -- which will offer a forum for the serious discussion of nuclear power plants' safety

pThree Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima: for the third time in twenty-five years a nuclear power plant suffered a serious accident, precipitating a global review of the way to govern nuclear safety and security.

The 11 March Fukushima accident was especially poignant because it came during — and may well put an end to — what was correctly termed a Nuclear Renaissance: as worries about climate change and the volatility of oil prices grew, interest in nuclear power generation was rekindled.

InderScience Publishers is launching a new journal — teInternational Journal of Nuclear Safety and Security (IJNSS) — which aims to address the growing interest in, and concern about, nuclear safety.

The publisher says that the international community must learn from these accidents in order to improve international co-operation, both in terms of crisis management and prevention of risks. IJNSS will provide an opportunity to exchange information on the implications of safe and secure operation of nuclear power plants and approaches taken by countries worldwide.   Full article

Among the topics which will be covered by the new journal:

• Strategic, managerial, organizational issues; total quality management (TQM) and environmental management
• Macroeconomics, nuclear economics and business
• Technological advances, issues, innovation, hazards; role of information and communication technologies (ICTs)
• Analysis/assessment methodologies, performance measurement
• Governance, policy strategy, assessment, review
• National/international environmental protection policy; ecosystem research
• Ecological/environmental impacts; risk assessment/legal aspects of pollution
• Waste disposal strategies; clean technologies
• Energy security and risk assessment; policy, standards and regulations
• Critical infrastructures design, protection, management
• Risk assessment, control, characterization, perception, communications, models
• Integrated risk assessment and safety management
• Nuclear systems management, transport, resource development, power quality
• Public policy, regulations, governance and nuclear use; public attitudes
• Knowledge based policies and education; knowledge transfer