|
G-8 security to close Ga. coastal waters
Boating restrictions - to be enforced with heavy firepower - take effect in areas along Georgia's coast this weekend in advance of the G-8 summit of world leaders. Starting Saturday, 25-foot U.S. Coast Guard patrol boats with armed crews and mounted machine guns will ply waters around Sea Island. The island is where President Bush and the leaders of top industrial democracies will meet Tuesday through Thursday. Federal officials warned last week that terrorists are plotting an attack on U.S. soil this summer and the summit is seen as a potential target. Sea Island is about 80 miles from Savannah. The island will be closed off by a security force that also includes Secret Service agents and National Guard troops. Coast Guard spokesman Dana Warr said intercoastal waterways will be closed to private boats and commercial ships will be monitored as they enter state ports. She said ships will be boarded at random.
seattlepi.nwsource.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In times of terror threats, watchful rail riders add to security
What's to stop terrorists from bombing commuter trains in Washington, as they did in Madrid, Spain, on March 11? Tighter security plus watchful employees, passengers and railfans. On May 23, the Department of Homeland Security directed U.S. passenger railroads to use dogs to detect bombs in baggage, in terminals and on trains, and to enlist the help of passengers and employees in spotting suspicious behavior or unattended property. This helpful advice from the federal government ignores the fact that passenger-carrying lines have been doing just that for a long time. Since Sept. 11, 2001, rail systems across America have been encouraging passengers to keep their eyes open for anything suspicious, and most passenger railroads started boosting security as long ago as 1995, when terrorists used sarin gas on the Tokyo subway. New York City has been stepping up transit security since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Virginia Railway Express has been an industry leader in implementing security measures such as guards, disaster drills and evacuation plans. Dave Snyder, VRE's superintendent of railroad operations, safety and security, has encouraged passengers to be on the lookout for anything suspicious.
www.freelancestar.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Coast Guard to soon have a Hawkeye to watch ports
When a group of Haitians hijacked a freighter in February, the U.S. Coast Guard was able to intercept it seven miles off Miami because the vessel's captain radioed in. ''What would have happened if we did not receive that radio call from the master?'' Rear Adm. Harvey Johnson said Wednesday. Johnson raised that rhetorical question at the unveiling of a Big Brother-like coastal surveillance system that aims to stop smugglers and terrorists before they enter the Port of Miami-Dade, Port Everglades and other seaports. Coast Guard Capts. Jim Watson and James Maes, who oversee South Florida seaports, said the new Hawkeye system features coastal radar, visual and infrared cameras and ship-tracking beacon receivers. A satellite also can monitor the location of ships for hundreds of miles. The $8 million program, funded by the Department of Homeland Security, will be phased in over the next two years from Key West to Fort Lauderdale. It will serve as a model in the post-Sept. 11 era for other major seaports around the country. ''Homeland Security and the Coast Guard are focused on one singular goal -- to prevent an occurrence of 9/11 from happening again, particularly in a maritime environment,'' Johnson said.
www.miami.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
MARTA beefs up security with dogs, drills
Like most transit systems across the nation, MARTA is not as well-equipped as it should be to prevent or respond to a terrorist attack, but Atlanta's transit system is stepping up efforts to protect passengers. MARTA police Chief Gene Wilson said the authority's experience with the 1996 Summer Olympics has done much to help MARTA respond to elevated warnings of potential terrorist activity in the United States this summer. It gave Atlanta a head start on security that many other systems do not have, Wilson said. MARTA Officer Spencer Dunn and his Belgian Malinois, Spike, sweep a train for explosives on the north-south line. Patrols have risen in response to terror threats. "We're the people who went through the Olympics and the bombing at Centennial Olympic Park. We learned a lot," Wilson said in a telephone interview from Baltimore, where he was attending an anti-terrorism training conference. MARTA is relocating some trash cans and has stepped up regular patrols with its four bomb-sniffing dogs. Wilson hopes to buy four more dogs. The MARTA board also has approved the purchase of a truck to transport its bomb squad and equipment. The squad currently uses a converted utility truck. MARTA has held two terrorism drills for officer training. It has scheduled a third later this year. The Federal Transit Administration has reviewed Wilson's security plan for Code Orange alerts.
www.ajc.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Intelligence panel chairmen announce oversight moves
The chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees on Thursday outlined efforts to address congressional oversight of the U.S. intelligence community, including upcoming hearings, reports and legislation aimed at reforming U.S. intelligence capabilities and practices. Well before the surprise announcement that George Tenet was resigning as CIA director, House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., said during a breakfast discussion that his committee will hold hearings beginning next Friday to examine U.S. interrogation capabilities employed by intelligence officials. He said the committee had already received several briefings on the subject in the wake of the recent abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Goss said interrogation capabilities are crucial to U.S. force protection and fighting terrorism. "If we can't use it, we've denied ourselves a critical tool," he said. Goss said the committee is preparing to take action on the intelligence authorization bill "in the next 30 days or so," and he expects to complete the bill before fall. Goss said the committee would also introduce language -- either to the intelligence bill or as stand-alone legislation -- that would emphasize better management of foreign language capabilities in the intelligence community.
www.govexec.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
NORAD Marks Shift To New Aircraft Tracking System
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) on May 27 marked the shift from the obsolete Granite Sentry aircraft tracking system to the new Air Migration Evolution (AME) system. "We actually had the cutoff on the 19th of May, but today [May 27] was the ceremony," said Maj. Dave Patterson, spokesman for Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station here. AME, also known as Air Mission Release (AMR), is the first segment of the Combatant Commander Integrated Command and Control System (CCIC2S), a Lockheed Martin suite of network-based software tools that the Air Force says will improve NORAD's ability to accomplish its aerospace warning and defense mission. AME ran side-by-side with Granite Sentry for months to ensure a smooth handoff, industry officials say. In April, AME was in place, Patterson said. "It modernizes air and operations planning support components and improves system sustainability by implementing an enterprise architecture with common hardware and software interfaces," he said. With Granite Sentry, "you were looking at different systems," he said. AME integrates "all the systems we were looking at into one, so [commanders] can get that [integrated] air picture." AME, he said, "combines data from air defense regions and sectors to produce a consolidated picture of all air tracks crossing into North America and transmits tracks to the forward users."
www.aviationnow.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cyber-Cops Outgunned
Bob Breeden isn't complaining, don't get him wrong. Special Agent Breeden, who heads the Computer Crime Division of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, in Tallahassee, feels fortunate to work in one of the few state police departments running a full-time cyber-crime division. With four other officers under his command and another 10 FDLE employees at his disposal, Breeden oversees a division with an embarrassment of riches compared with its counter parts in most other states. Still, "there are days I feel like I need 10 more agents and more money," Breeden said. Considering Florida has the second-highest number of Internet-fraud incidents in the country each year and that Breeden's team handles between 400 and 500 cyber-crime cases annually, it's easy to see how resources can be stretched to the limit. Breeden knows that most jurisdictions have it far worse. "The vast majority of local law enforcement hasn't embraced technical investigations," he said. Since the 1980s, when computer crimes first became a concern for law enforcement, agencies have wrestled with how to deal with the often-confusing, highly technical realm of the cyber-criminal. Early efforts to centralize enforcement within federal agencies were seen as convenient and mostly logical but ultimately have led to jurisdictional squabbles and turf wars.
www.eweek.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Delays increase terrorism threat to Athens Games
With the Summer Games set to begin in less than 11 weeks, missed construction deadlines at the Athens stadium site are compromising a highly sophisticated $1.2 billion security effort to prevent a terror attack on the 2004 Olympics, according to security analysts and several officials directly involved in the preparations. Construction delays fuel fears of security vulnerability, say these security sources, in two potential ways: The first is infiltration. Work crews of many nationalities are flooding in and out of the sprawling construction site where the massive Olympic stadiums and other venues are undergoing hasty efforts to complete them on time. The appearance of chaos and the crews working through the night has raised the specter of a terrorist posing as a laborer, conceivably embedding an explosive device with a timer inside the site. Last month there were long gaps in the chain-link fence separating the new stadium from a public road on the edge of Athens. The other concern is lack of time. The delays in construction have narrowed the window for counterterrorism specialists to "lock down and clean" the sites prior to the Olympics. The delays have also shortened the time frame that personnel will have to familiarize themselves with a complex nexus of security known as "C-4-I," which stands for "Command, Control, Communication, Coordination, and Integration."
www.trivalleyherald.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
FBI unveils plan for better computers and information access for agents
By the end of the year, the FBI plans to field the first phase of a new information management system, install a centralized Internet network at field offices nationwide and give agents the ability to access an integrated terrorist watch list, the bureau's new chief information officer said this week. Zalmai Azmi, who became CIO this month, refuted claims that the FBI has not solved some of its simplest problems due to obsolete systems and spotty network access. Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., criticized FBI Director Robert Mueller during a May 20 hearing for not doing enough to address issues that existed in the bureau before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Leahy specifically criticized the bureau's Trilogy modernization program as behind schedule and over budget. "Your information technology systems are hopelessly out of date," Leahy said. "The FBI is not much better off today than it was before 9/11, when [the FBI] was unable to do a computer search of its own investigative files to make critical links and connections. By all accounts, the Trilogy solution has been a disaster."
www.govexec.com
|