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"Joint Forces Offers New Web-Based Course"
The Defense Department is offering a new online course, called Joint Task Force Fundamentals, through the Joint Forces Command's Joint Warfighting Center that educates joint task force personnel about joint operations and organizations. The Internet-based course allows for constant updates and easy accessibility worldwide. Students will participate in numerous modules designed to teach them how to establish a joint task force headquarters, organize operations, manage information, plan for joint operational deployment, lead transition and redeployment operations, and operate in multinational arenas. "The [Joint Warfighting Center] is the only organization within the Defense Department that trains joint headquarters to function at the operational level of war," stated Air Force Col. Frederick Guendel. "Traditionally, the vehicle used to conduct that training has been exercises where we identify a headquarters to train, and then conduct that training through a...collective process." Guendel added that the course will prove its worth when short-notice scenarios requiring a joint response crop up.
www.fcw.com
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"Security Costs Soar, But Agencies Adapt"
The terrorism alert index has been at Code Orange for nearly three weeks, and the associated security costs for cities and local governments has been high in the more vulnerable areas of the country. The city of Los Angeles has spent $9.3 million on security during the current Code Orange alert, and New Jersey has spent $2.7 million. The state of New York has not yet tabulated the full costs, but New York City spent between $5 million and $7 million a week during the last Code Orange alert. New Orleans spent about $300,000 just on overtime pay for police officers during the week of the Sugar Bowl game, Las Vegas spent upward of $400,000 to safeguard its New Year's Eve celebrations, and Portland, Maine, spends an average of $5,000 a week during Code Orange alerts. But other cities and states say they have figured out how to reduce or eliminate extra costs associated with the Code Orange alerts by planning and deploying smarter, more efficient measures. For instance, in Denver, Colorado, a merchants group paid the overtime costs of police officers who provided security for the city's New Year's Eve fireworks display. And in New Hampshire, the state police have figured out how to maximize "visibility and vigilance" with no additional costs by reorganizing staff during Code Orange alerts.
www.philly.com
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"Police Give MATRIX Rave Reviews, But Watchdogs See Potential for Harm"
The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX) is proving to be a powerful new information-gathering tool for law enforcement agencies hunting for criminals and terrorists. The intranet-based MATRIX system provides law enforcement agents with a quick way to search multiple public and law enforcement databases across the country. Using the MATRIX system, agents can search for criminal histories, Social Security numbers, credit card records, addresses, drivers license files, and property records--all in a span of time that would have previously been unimaginable. For example, by using MATRIX, Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) analyst Mary Lattig was able to track down a scam artist within roughly a day's time. Previously, the search process would have taken weeks to accomplish, she says. The quick search time enabled FDLE agents to find and arrest the scam artist as he attempted to bilk an elderly woman out of money. MATRIX, which is being funded by $12 million from the Homeland Security Department and Justice Department, is being tested in eight states, with testing slated to end in November. The closed intranet system housing MATRIX protects the information in the databases through a series of passwords, firewalls, and secret codes, and any abuse of MATRIX can result in criminal charges.
www.gannett.com
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"High-Security Check Features Help Foil Counterfeiters"
Check fraud costs financial institutions about $20 billion annually. Despite the electronic revolution, checks are the preferred method for a majority of payment transactions. Frank W. Abagnale of Abagnale and Associates, a company that has developed fraud prevention techniques for more than 14,000 organizations, says that combining various security features now in use offers the best protection against counterfeiting. The most effective features include controlled paper, which is distributed and monitored by paper manufacturers, thereby making it more difficult, but not impossible, for counterfeit rings to attain. Multi-chemical reactive paper produces a stain or the word "void" when it comes in contact with chemicals typically used to erase ink, though not all chemicals. Thermochromatic inks begin to fade at 78 degrees Fahrenheit and disappear at 85 degrees, which means it cannot be color copied since copy machine temperatures exceed 85 degrees. Copy void pantographs are patented designs that appear when a document is copied or scanned, yet high-tech copiers can evade this security feature. Fourdrinier watermarks are pressed into paper while it is being made and cannot be duplicated with copiers or scanners. The best security policy combines as many as these features as possible.
www.indianabankers.org
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"FTC, Reserve Board Issue Joint Letter on Effective Dates of FACT ACT, Regulations"
In a joint statement issued on Jan. 2, the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Reserve Board stated that state laws concerning identity theft would remain in effect until federal provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) are actuated. The missive was in response to a Dec. 23, 2003, letter from the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group that sought clarification about the impact the federal rules would have on existing state regulations in light of a Dec. 31 effective date for preemption provisions of the Fairness and Accurate Transaction Act and other aspects of FCRA. The groups feared that state laws protecting consumers from identity theft could be preempted before certain federal protections are in place. The response they received explained that the relevant rules will only override state laws when "the referenced federal provisions that require conduct by the affected persons are in effect," and until then, when necessary, state laws apply.
www.bna.com
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"Awash in Uncertainty"
Cargo security measures implemented in the wake of the terrorist attacks two years ago have yielded positive results for the most part, but several issues still need to be fleshed out. A recurring problem is the often conflicting guidance various government agencies issue for international and domestic transportation companies. In July, the Inland Marine Underwriters Association (IMUA) issued a press release criticizing the number of laws and regulations Congress and several federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs, have issued, and noted the difficulty international and domestic trading companies and shippers are having trying to comply with the regulations because of their seeming contradictions. IMUA noted that as many as 22 agencies are under DHS. The conflict has not gone unnoticed by international shipping groups. Kay Pysden, head of the Marine & Goods in Transit Department at Davies Lavery Solicitors in London, warns that "practical problems" that impact the daily activity of international commerce may result "if the global transportation chain is not regulated in a uniform manner."
www.riskandinsurance.com
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"Security Looks to the Future"
Biometric security technologies are getting a boost from fears of global terrorism and illegal immigrants, and the next couple of years should see a proliferation of these technologies and their inclusion in identity documents. The introduction of biometric technologies is expected to accelerate this year, following the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's policy to adopt specific security measures by a certain time and issue high ID security standards. January marks the official launch of the U.S.-Visitor and Immigration Status Indicator Technology Program, which requires every visa-holder who enters the United States at any airport or seaport to be photographed and fingerprinted so that their biometric identifiers can be stored in a national database for comparison with a list of known terrorists; 27 nations in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program will be required to start distributing machine-readable passports with biometric data to citizens, and this data will likely relate to facial identifiers and be stored on encrypted computer chips. No secure ID document depends on one individual authentication or anti-counterfeiting device, and the rollout of new security technologies is proceeding slower than some experts originally anticipated. Advanced Optical Technologies CEO Mark Turnage says, "Governments across the world have to look carefully at all their national ID systems--from issuance procedures right through to the point at which a law enforcement or customs agent is asked to verify a document's authenticity." Upgrading other secure documents besides passports--visas, driver's licenses, etc.--is also on governments' agendas. The U.K. government unveiled in November a 10-month plan to adopt a "biometric passport" as a national ID card, as well as a "biometric residence permit" for foreign nationals and European Union officials entering Britain for over three months.
search.ft.com
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United wins Homeland Security deal
United Airlines and Northrop Grumman Corp.'s defense countermeasures plant in Rolling Meadows won separate Department of Homeland Security contracts to research protection of commercial airliners from shoulder-fired missile attacks. Teams led by United, Los Angeles-based Northrop and United Kingdom-based BAE Systems each won contracts of approximately $2 million to produce plans to apply off-the-shelf military missile detection and countermeasure technologies to commercial aircraft. After the six-month study phase, the department is expected to select one or two of the contractors to develop prototypes that can be demonstrated and tested within another 18 months.
www.chicagobusiness.com
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Japan develops device to combat bioterrorism
Reports from the Japanese press say that a Japanese company has developed a device that can identify microbes such as anthrax in about one hour, making it useful in fighting bioterrorism. Precision System Science Co, a developer of bio-related equipment, will start shipping its product which can identify microscopic organisms in a variety of substances including soil, clothes and blood, in coming months to the US military and medical research institutions. Currently germs need to be cultured in a medium for several days before they can be identified. The new device can perform the task in just one hour with a degree of accuracy, even when the number of microbes in the test sample is very small, the newspaper said. The device is portable, weighing a little more than 10kg and standing just under 50 centimetres high. Priced at less than 5m yen (?0360,000), the company projects sales of 200-300 units in the first two years after its release.
www.irishexaminer.com
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DOJ: We Want VoIP Wiretap Powers
The Justice Department (DOJ) is urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to not "minimize" the importance of law enforcement officials to wiretap Voice over IP (VoIP) phone calls. The DOJ's joint comments with the FBI come a month after the FCC began landmark proceedings to determine what, if any, taxes and regulations should apply to the emerging industry built on VoIP. The inquiry is the agency's first examination of the new, high-stakes telecom market promising lower prices and new services for consumers and businesses. VoIP technology is a quandary for regulators because the new industry doesn't fit traditional telecom regulatory models. While it clearly provides telephone service, it does so over the virtually regulation-free Internet, both public and private, instead of the heavily taxed and regulated public switched telephone networks (PSTN). At the Dec. 1 opening hearing on VoIP, FCC commissioners and a wide range of VoIP experts, including some state regulatory officials, agreed that a light touch involving public safety, law enforcement and disability issues should be brought to bear on the nascent industry. Nevertheless, John C. Malcolm, a deputy assistant attorney in the Criminal Division of the DOJ, argued in his comments that the FCC is obligated by law to "adopt all rules necessary to fulfill the goals of CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act)," which requires telecommunications carriers to make their systems available for lawful electronic surveillance. But a number of the fledgling VoIP companies, including Edison, N.J.-based Vonage, contend they are not telecommunications carriers, so they are not subject to CALEA.
www.internetnews.com
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