CQ's take on the media

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY
April 2, 2008 – 5:51 a.m.

BEHIND THE LINES: Our Take on the Other Media's Homeland Security Coverage

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

“The Bush administration will use its authority to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations in an effort to finish building 670 miles of fence along the southwest U.S. border by the end of this year,” officials tell The Associated Press’ Juliet Eilperin. Congress needs to regain control of an insurance board it created that is refusing to disburse nearly $1 billion to Ground Zero workers for medical conditions incurred during the cleanup, The Washington Times’ Audrey Hudson has members being told.

Spooks: The Pentagon will shutter a controversial intel office that has drawn fire as part of a Defense effort to expand into domestic spying, The New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti learns. The ACLU, meanwhile, accuses the military of using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain Americans’ private records, AP’s Larry Neumeister notes. Since rescinded, a 2003 Justice document exempted military interrogators from federal laws prohibiting assault and other crimes, The Washington Post’s Dan Eggen and Josh White report. These days, “crucial intelligence reports often rely less on secrets from risky espionage missions than on material that’s available to just about anyone,” USA Today’s Peter Eisler reports. Despite the single most far-reaching intel reorganization since 1947, George Bush’s “single greatest failure as a president might well be that American intelligence remains mired in bureaucratic mediocrity,” Gabriel Schoenfeld slashes in The Wall Street Journal.

Poly-ticks: American “policy toward people of color” worldwide really did “incite what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, even though what the terrorists did was totally unjustifiable,” KTAR 92.3 AM’s Jon Zimney quotes a Phoenix pastor in support of Barack Obama’s ex-minister. The “surge” in Iraq is “a precursor to the likely foreign policy of a McCain administration: more militarism for the sake of building up the military side of the military industrial complex,” Norman Markowitz maintains in Political Affairs (“Marxist Thought Online”). Obama told Pennsylvanians on Monday that he would never question McCain’s patriotism — even as he asserted that “we can’t afford to stay in Iraq like John McCain said, for another 100 years,” The Washington Times’ Christina Bellantoni recounts — while FOX News cites FactCheck.org as terming that “a serious distortion of what McCain actually said.”

Stump memes: President Bush’s “war on terror has had few tangible successes and many apparent failures,” The Toronto Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson maintains in an early eulogy for a lame duck — whereas PoliGazette’s Michael van der Galien embraces Rasmussen Reports’ finding that “the number of Americans who believe that the terrorists are winning has fallen ‘to the lowest level ever.’” Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton “need to spell out in detail how they will address Bush’s grim [terror war] legacy and manage the move to the fire escape. So far, neither has,” The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall suggests. Israel ranks low on the agenda of likely U.S. voters, including Jews, “who are chiefly concerned with the economy and jobs followed by Iraq, affordable health care, terrorism and national security,” The Jerusalem Post’s Greer Faye Cashman recounts from a poll — while Haaretz’s Shmuel Rosner mines data suggesting that Clinton and Obama voters support Israel in equal numbers.

State and local: Boiseans “have taken pride in favorable lifestyle rankings their city has picked up recently . . . But one title startled and baffled nearly everyone: city most vulnerable to terrorism in the Western United States,” the Los Angeles Times spotlights. Illinois’ Cook County embarks today on the third phase of a multimillion-dollar DHS-funded project to link responders via an interoperable mobile and video data network, The Munster Times tells. Beaver State dependents of U.S. veterans killed or disabled since 9/11 are now eligible for a full tuition waiver to attend any of the state’s seven public universities, The Oregonian relates. Tennessee’s House has sent the governor legislation to boost jail time and fines for non-federally activated National Guard members who go AWOL, The Chattanooga Times Free Press tells.

Follow the money: A.G. Michael Mukasey said Friday that a rising global tide of counterfeit products is generating huge profits for organized crime and even terrorist groups, The San Jose Mercury News relates. “Who are these terrorists that fund operations by selling DVDs from the side of the road? Mukasey, who presumably knows, isn’t saying, so you’ll have to take his word for it,” Ars Technica retorts. Rather than pursuing divestment, the legislative committee overseeing Tennessee ’s $32 billion pension fund wants a report by Dec. 31 on holdings in companies operating in alleged terrorist-backing nations, The Knoxville News notes. Counterterrorists in North America strive to regulate the “ancient, informal financial transfer system known as hawalas that can move money internationally without formal financial institutions,” The Moncton (N.B.) Times & Transcript spotlights. “What will it take for the United States to recognize the . . . financial jihad, or al-jihad bi-al-mal, which the Saudis and Gulf States aggressively pursue?” The Terror Finance Blog asks.

Coming and going: A man is in custody at Orlando ’s airport after authorities found suspicious items in his bag that appeared to be pipe bomb components, CBS News notes. More than one in 10 of the nation’s airline pilots are cleared to carry a handgun while flying, and the number will continue to grow, USA Today quotes a TSA projection. Slate’s “Hot Documents” feature posts some preliminary legal paper on the TSA’s regretted-if-not-apologized-for demand that a Texas woman remove her nipple rings with pliers. In addition to all the patrolling and fencing, border communities want more money and attention given to beefing up legal entry points for those who cross daily for business and pleasure, AP reports.

Bugs ‘n bombs: The government must act to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism in a major U.S. city, officials and terrorism experts will testify today, USA Today tells. Virginia health officials are investigating why more than 30 employees at a post office have tested positive for exposure to tuberculosis, The Washington Times tells. The chief of the EPA’s National Homeland Security Research Center will brief on the numerous domestic defense security roles it plays at the fifth Water Security Congress, starting this Sunday in Cincinnati, Water Online relates. Increasingly Israeli soldiers are encountering booby-trapped books, egg trays, canteens, and even baby shampoo bottles as Hamas fighters conceal explosives in mundane objects, ynetnews notes.

Terror tech: “To win the war on terror,” Indian army chiefs are set to deploy a ‘curry bomb’ — an eye-watering spice bomb, packed with a potent mix of red and black pepper designed to “smoke out militants,” The Daily Mail spotlights — while India’s Times Now TV proclaims that “the latest weapon of terror is paper bombs,” in which “ammunition is hidden between two slim sheets of paper and any attempt to open them will set off an explosion.” Officials and experts say al Qaeda and its kin “have mastered cybersecurity in ways that many terrorism analysts find impressive, vexing and troubling,” NBC News notes, quoting one such as saying that “these folks are able to communicate on an almost invisible level.” See, also, a CRS Report: “Satellite Surveillance: Domestic Issues.”

I, Robot: “Biological weapons delivered by cyborg insects. It sounds like a nightmare scenario straight out of the wilder realms of science fiction, but it could be a reality, if a current Pentagon project comes to fruition,” TomDispatch.com relates. Miami police could soon be the first in the United States to field a cutting-edge pilotless drone manufactured by Honeywell International, capable of hovering and “staring” using electro-optic or infrared sensors, Reuters reports. London-based Landmine Action wants autonomous robots capable of killing people banned under the same kind of treaty that has outlawed land mines in over 150 countries, New Scientist notes — even as Danger Room’s Sharon Weinberger poses “several questions to those who seem to be warning of the robot warrior onslaught.”

Courts and rights: The trial of three suspected terrorists opened yesterday with a federal attorney outlining more than three years of intelligence gathering on what he called “a terrorist cell here in Toledo, Ohio,” the Blade reports. The admissibility of a videotaped confession and other exhibits in the case of the 2006 Jewish charity killings were argued at an evidentiary hearing yesterday, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer informs. Whether a Moroccan citizen possessed a gun in violation of his student visa all depends on the definition of “possess,” The Tampa Tribune has his lawyer telling a jury. Trial begins in London this week for eight British Muslims charged in an alleged terrorist plot that sparked all the fuss about gels and liquids, the Post reports.

Over there: Australia’s biggest terrorism trial resumes after prison authorities met a judge’s deadline to improve the “intolerable” conditions under which the dozen accused were being held, The Australian reports. China ’s president ordered security forces to place a top priority on the Olympics in August, saying the country’s international reputation was at stake, The New York Times tells. State is calling on the United States and the 15-member Caribbean Community to work together better to address regional security concerns, The Miami Herald mentions — while Caribbean360.com says “a top American military officer has pointed to the Caribbean as a possible terrorist threat to the United States.”

Herd on the street: “Central Intelligence Director Michael Hayden said on ‘Meet The Press’ that al Qaeda was training operatives who ‘look Western’ in order to pass undetected. What do you think?” The Onion’s intrepid stop-you-on-the-street-and-ask-your-opinion guy puts to some exceedingly random Americans. “Oh my god, my neighbor looks Western,” doorman Nick Causey exclaims. “You mean someone who looks as white as Timothy McVeigh might be a terrorist?” importer Becky Teasley questions. “Given the 10-year lag in pop-culture transference, the CIA should keep an eye out for terrorists who look like the cast of ‘Mad About You,’” database administrator Keith DelBueno suggests. Check out also, on Onion Network News, and this is truly hilarious: “9/11 Conspiracy Theories ‘Ridiculous,’ al Qaeda says.”

Source: CQ Homeland Security
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