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Homeland Security increases border patrols in the North Country
The United States, Canadian border is nearly twice as long as the border with Mexico. Much of it is open; a possible gateway for drug smugglers and potential terrorists. But the Department of Homeland Security is trying to close that door. The U.S., Canadian border is more than 55,000 miles long. The new Plattsburgh Air and Marine Branch, or AMB, is the Department of Homeland Security's latest initiative to maximize security along that open border. Charles E. Stallworth, II is the Director of the Office of the AMO. "To those who seek to cross this border illegally by air or sea, I have a simple message: No matter how low or high you fly or how slow or fast you cross the waters, eventually we will detect you, we will intercept you, and we will arrest you," he said.
www.news10now.com
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Homeland Security Names New Cyber Chief
The Department of Homeland Security Thursday appointed an acting U.S. cybersecurity chief to replace Amit Yoran, who resigned suddenly from the position a week ago. Andy Purdy, who was Yoran's deputy, was named the interim U.S. cybersecurity director. He becomes the fourth to hold the post in less than two years. Previously, Richard Clarke and Howard Schmidt also held the position. Yoran left amid reports that he was frustrated with the position's lack of authority and limited budget. A bill in the U.S. House of Representatives would add clout to the post by elevating the cybersecurity position within Homeland Security to the Assistant Secretary level, one step removed from Secretary Tom Ridge. The House bill was on the floor mid-day Friday, but a vote had not yet been cast.
www.dhs.gov
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Homeland Security seeks vendor to test no-fly system
The Homeland Security Department’s Transportation Security Administration today will release a complete request for proposals from vendors interested in testing its Secure Flight system. A procurement notice issued earlier this week provided a broad outline of what will be required of the company chosen to test the department’s system for pinpointing risky flyers. Testing will include validating the effectiveness of Secure Flight’s methods of identifying terrorists. TSA developed Secure Flight to replace its Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, which is operated by airline employees. Secure Flight is meant to identify terrorists, reduce false positive results and eliminate false negative results as it checks passenger names against federal no-fly and selectee lists.
www.wtonline.com
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Iraq Disk Prompted Warning to Schools
The FBI advised officials in as many as eight cities last month to tighten security in schools after U.S. soldiers raiding an apartment in Iraq seized computer disks containing information about those towns' school systems that was taken from Web sites, government officials said yesterday. U.S. officials said they remain uncertain whether the Iraqi whose computer disks contained the school information was involved in terrorist activity, and stressed that the government has no evidence of a plot to attack any schools in this country. Officials said they decided to issue the warnings to the school systems in New Jersey, Florida, Georgia, California and Oregon after the siege at a school in Beslan, Russia, by Chechen guerrillas last month ended with 338 deaths, half of them children. The computer disks had been discovered in Iraq several weeks before that, officials said. In reviewing the information seized in Iraq, "officials didn't discover any direct threat, and the reason for collecting the school information is unknown," said Brian Roehrkasse, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.
www.washingtonpost.com
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Agencies expand smart-card programs
Federal agencies are investing in "smart cards" at an increasing rate, and millions are expected to be distributed to employees in the next three years. As of June 2004, 15 agencies had undertaken 34 ongoing smart card projects, according to testimony this week before the House Veterans Affairs Committee by Linda Koontz, director of information management issues at the Government Accountability Office. Nine large-scale agencywide projects are expected to be completed by September 2007. Six major efforts are already up and running. Credit card-sized smart cards are used to allow access to buildings and computer systems by including information that authenticates the identity of the cardholder through photos, fingerprints or other means. The Defense Department's program, which eventually will include 3.46 million users, is rolling out gradually, according to Koontz's testimony (GAO-04-948). Currently, 2.75 million cards are in use at Defense units.
www.govexec.com
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US-VISIT upgrades will meet Dec. 31 deadline
Improvements in the US-VISIT border security program will be implemented by the Dec. 31 deadline, according to the program’s coordinator. P.T. Wright, executive director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, updated local officials on US-VISIT’s progress Thursday at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College International Technology, Education and Commerce Campus. US-VISIT is the exit/entry border program that uses fingerprint scanning and digital photography to track foreign visitors entering and leaving the United States. Since early January, US-VISIT entry procedures have been in place at 115 major airports and 14 seaports, including the Brownsville/South Padre Island International Airport. By Dec. 31, the technology to handle the entry procedures for secondary screening will be placed in the nation’s 50 busiest land ports. The technology is due for implementation at all 165 land ports by Dec. 31, 2005.
www.brownsvilleherald.com
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Schools in Japan turn to high-tech tags for security
Every time a fourth grader passes through Rikkyo Elementary School's front gate, a small, gray plastic tag tucked inside his backpack beams a message to a computer in a nearby office. The students are oblivious, but the computer logs the time they enter and leave and a security guard watching the screen takes note. Moments later, their parents receive confirmation by e-mail. In Japan, high-tech tagging has made the jump from grocery stores to the school yard. Rikkyo officials hope the Radio Frequency Identification technology will serve as an early warning system for children who go missing. ``This won't prevent crimes against children,'' said Tsukasa Tanaka, principal at Rikkyo, a private boys school in Tokyo. ``But without the tags, we might not know that a student hadn't made it to school until we take roll. That's too late.'' A handful of high-profile child murders have shocked low-crime Japan, prompting Rikkyo to look into several types of electronic monitoring.
www.kansascity.com
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Expert: Online extortion growing more common
"Six or seven thousand organizations are paying online extortion demands," Alan Paller said at the SANS Institute's Top 20 Vulnerabilities conference in London. "The epidemic of cybercrime is growing. You don't hear much about it because it's extortion, and people feel embarrassed to talk about it." The SANS Institute, based in Bethesda, Md., offers training and resources related to information security. "Every online gambling site is paying extortion," Paller asserted. "Hackers use DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks, using botnets to do it. Then they say, 'Pay us $40,000, or we'll do it again.'" Paller added he was concerned that the same techniques used for extortion--that is, DDoS attacks--could easily be used to target organizations in the critical national infrastructure. Roger Cumming, the director of the U.K.-based National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre, shares Paller's concern.
news.com.com
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Arrests triple at college
Arrests have nearly tripled this year at Antelope Valley College while reports of crimes have held steady under a new aggressive approach by the college security force, newly reconstituted with certified peace officers instead of unarmed security guards. Chief Tom Bryant of the AVC Police Department said "proactive" policing, instead of reactive measures, is a central factor in the increase in arrests and the slight decrease in the number of criminal reports filed in the first three quarters of this year, compared with the same period last year. "Probably 90 (percent) to 95 percent of the arrests are nonstudents here at the college," said Bryant, who has served the college for 12 years in law enforcement. "The increase in arrests and the slight decrease in the crime rate show the intelligence and the level of training of our officers."
www.dailynews.com
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Justice unit trains first responders at former Army base
Nearly 200,000 U.S. first responders have received training through the Center for Domestic Preparedness here, in programs begun in the mid-1990s but accelerated after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Tucked away on the site of the former Fort McClellan, the center from the outside looks like a standard government office building. The wide, white hallways of its interior would not be out of a place in a high school. That's perhaps fitting as participants here are students, learning how to aid the victims of a potential terrorist attack without becoming casualties themselves. On one morning in September, 143 first responders from around the country walked the hallways lined with pictures of emergency personnel in action and a sign indicating the present terrorist threat level. They listened to classroom lectures and practiced scenarios involving chemical, biological or radiological materials. Before they went home, many would actually come into close contact with live sarin and VX nerve agents.
www.govexec.com
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