|
Chicago Mayor Unveils Surveillance Plan
More than 2,000 surveillance cameras in public places would be tied in to a network that would use sophisticated software to spot emergencies or suspicious behavior under a plan announced Thursday by Mayor Richard Daley. "Cameras are the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes. They are the next best thing to having police officers stationed at every potential trouble spot," Daley said. Officials said the bulk of the cameras already are in use at O'Hare International Airport, on the city's transit lines and in public housing, parks and schools, along with 30 police are using to try to curb violent crime. An additional 250 surveillance cameras still to be bought will raise the number available to more than 2,000. Locations for the new cameras have not been determined. The cameras would not all be continuously monitored. But software would be used to pick up out-of-the-ordinary activity on the video images, such as a bag being abandoned in a stairwell, a car pulling to the side of a highway, or movement in an area off-limits to people.
www.maconcom
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gunboat puts bay on Guard
On the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America, the U.S. Coast Guard is increasing security on Bay County's waterways. Homeland Security agency funds are outfitting Coast Guard stations nationwide with more personnel, better weapons and faster boats to prevent or detect terrorist activities. The newest, shiniest example is a 29-foot, $250,000 gunboat that arrived this week at the Saginaw River Coast Guard station in Hampton Township. An identical boat is coming soon to the Coast Guard station in East Tawas. The twin-engine boat is designed for both rescue and law-enforcement activities, said Chief Senior Boatswain's Mate Michael Martin. The Coast Guard is getting 700 gunboats nationwide, with most Coast Guard stations getting at least one. Each boat will be armed with two automatic weapons. The aluminum boat will be able to track down any other small boat on the river or Saginaw Bay, said Martin during a demonstration run on the Saginaw River.
www.mlive.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
AP Interview: Ridge says Bush wants plan for school siege
The government is reviewing hostage-crisis tactics in light of the Russian school attack and will extend its heightened election-year vigilance against terrorism past the January presidential inauguration, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Thursday. President Bush ordered the re-evaluation of hostage-taking responses to make sure the nation is prepared if an attack like the one in Russia happens here, Ridge said in an interview with Associated Press reporters and editors. "The president said to all of us: Just make sure you know what you are going to do, who is going to be doing it, where we are going to be doing it, what resources we are going to apply," he said. In recent morning briefings, Ridge said Bush had asked his top advisers -- including homeland security, FBI and justice officials -- to review their strategies for dealing with hostage situations. Ridge said the U.S. government was still trying to find out key details of how last week's attack in Russia was planned and carried out. He indicated the U.S. government was still relying on press reports and is hoping to learn more from Russian officials.
www.sfgate.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
DuPont Developing New Protective Suits for Military, First Responders; Suits Offer Resistance to Chemical and Biological Agents
DuPont today announced promising research in the fight against terrorism with the development of protective materials that are resistant to chemical and biological agents. The suits are targeted for use by U.S. soldiers, firefighters, and other first responders. Early feedback from wearers has been positive. The U.S. government has awarded nearly $2.5 million to DuPont and its partners to assist in the development of this new technology. Prototype military garments were recently tested by the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center (Natick). Prototypes of firefighter turnout gear were shown at the recent International Association of Fire Chiefs show in New Orleans. In addition to traditional DuPont fire resistant materials, DuPont(TM) Nomex® and Kevlar®, these new, lightweight suits contain a selectively permeable membrane developed by DuPont that will help protect front line defenders from toxic industrial chemicals and military warfare agents.
biz.yahoo.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Panel reviews integration of communications systems
While the Homeland Security Department has made strides with its SAFECOM program to coordinate wireless safety programs for the government, challenges remain to fostering communications among different systems, a department official said Wednesday. "Our nation is heavily invested in an existing framework that is largely incompatible," SAFECOM Director David Boyd said in written testimony before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census. Despite the challenges, he said, SAFECOM has "accomplished a great deal in the short time [the department] has managed the program." Those accomplishments include the RapidCom Initiative, which provides training to 10 urban areas in how to respond to emergency situations. The program is a "catalyst for these areas to begin to institutionalize routine training and exercises, governance meetings, standard operating procedures, and more frequent use of interoperable communications," Boyd said. The road to interoperability is hampered, however, because "first responders" to emergencies lack standards to assess the nation's current wireless capabilities, according to the Government Accountability Office.
www.govexec.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Lack Of Maritime Security Leaves U.S. Ports Open To Attack
Though the United States is safer today than it was three years ago from air and land attacks by terrorists, the nation has "a long way to go" to shield itself from seaborne attacks, said Air Force Gen. Ed Eberhart, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command. "I believe that it is just a matter of time until the terrorists try to use a seaborne attack, a maritime attack against us," Eberhart recently told a group of journalists who visited -- for the first time -- some of the most secure areas in NORAD and NORTHCOM. Following a tour of the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center, Combined Fusion Intelligence Center and Domestic Warning Center, the 18 journalists spent 30 minutes with Eberhart in a roundtable discussion. Eberhart said a maritime attack could come in any form -- from terrorists sailing into harbor with high explosives or a weapon of mass destruction to terrorists launching an unmanned aerial vehicle or cruise missile from a distance. Such attacks are possible, he said, because the nation's situational awareness of the sea "is not as mature, not as sophisticated, or as elegant as (its) awareness of air space." Nonetheless, the United States has come a long way in terms of securing our seas and ports since Sept. 11, 2001. In fact, the average American is not even aware of all the things that have been done to secure maritime approaches, said Eberhart.
www.defenselink.mil
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Panel urges sharing of data on germs
The value of freely sharing data on dangerous germs so vaccines and treatments can be developed outweighs the danger that bioterrorists may use the information to do harm, a scientific panel concluded Thursday. Scientists and policy-makers have struggled to balance the needs of researchers for all available information with worries their work might somehow be turned against the public. That concern has increased since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But times have changed since the World War II secrecy dictum that "loose lips sink ships." Thus, a committee convened by the National Research Council concluded that allowing scientists and the public full access to genome data on germs should continue. "I think we all felt that ultimately, national security needs are best served by facilitating downstream work to develop new diagnostics, new detection devices, new vaccines, new antimicrobial and antiviral compounds, and we just didn't see any way to do that other than continuing with the current open access," said one committee member, Claire M. Fraser.
www.globetechnology.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
State on track for biometrics
State Department officials will meet a fall deadline for a congressionally mandated program for issuing visas with biometric indicators, but a Government Accountability Office report indicated that federal officials haven't provided comprehensive guidelines for the program's use. The GAO report today found State officials had installed program hardware and software at 201 of 207 overseas posts that issue visas for the Biometric Visa Program. Installation at the remaining six posts will completed by the end of September. The $162 million program is designed to work with the Homeland Security Department's U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program to verify identities of people entering the United States. Both programs rely on DHS' Automated Biometric Identification System, or IDENT, which is a database of fingerprints and digital photographs of people who have entered the country since January 2004, have applied for visas since September 2003 or are on watch lists. When a person applies for a visa at a U.S. consulate, officials take a fingerprint scan, which is transmitted through State servers to DHS' IDENT system and then a response is returned. The process takes as little as 30 minutes or as much as 24 hours if a human expert is needed to verify matches, according to the GAO report.
www.fcw.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Nasdaq tests everyone's disaster recovery plans
Three years ago on Sept. 11, Kamran Rafieyan and his co-workers walked down 83 floors of World Trade Center Tower One to safety. "Miraculously enough, we didn't lose any people," says Rafieyan, CIO of Lava Trading Inc. His then-fledgling company, a service bureau that routes equity orders for brokers, lost its data center when the tower collapsed. "We were in the midst of building our backup site, and we had to scramble for four weeks to get it up and running." Today, Lava Trading counts among its clients 16 of the top 20 investment banks and helps to process 15% of the daily trading volume on Nasdaq -- which is why on two Saturdays earlier this year, Rafieyan joined 49 other brokers and service providers in Nasdaq-sponsored disaster recovery tests. It was the first time that Lava Trading was able to test its disaster plans in an everyday business setting, rather than in a simulated environment. In the first test, Nasdaq had customers test connectivity from their backup sites to Nasdaq's primary site in Connecticut; in the second, customers tested how either their primary or backup trading systems connected to Nasdaq's backup site in Maryland. Steve Randich, Nasdaq's executive vice president and CIO, reports nary a technical hiccup in the entire proceedings. The tests were the first Nasdaq offered to its entire customer base. (In the past, Nasdaq has accommodated individual requests for testing whenever Nasdaq conducted its own.) With 9/11 and the August 2003 Northeast blackout behind them, it's becoming clear to many financial services companies that their survival depends on that of their trading partners. Regulators, meanwhile, are pushing securities traders to have proven disaster recovery plans in place. In April, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a rule issued by Nasdaq's parent company, the National Association of Securities Dealers, requiring market participants to develop and disclose to its customers such plans by September 2004.
www.computerworld.com
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ridge: Integration of people, technology helps secure nation
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on Tuesday touted the Bush administration's use of technology to protect the homeland over the last three years, but the secretary was careful not to strike a partisan chord amid the political background. "Three years after the [Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks], I can tell you that working in common effort for the common good is the way of homeland security," Ridge said at a National Press Club luncheon. "And when I say homeland security, I'm not speaking of a federal strategy - rather, the mission and mandate of a nation." Ridge said there is "no doubt" the department can do more to bolster security but added that the "successful integration of people and technology for a greater purpose has had a genuine result."
www.govexec.com
|