‘Concise’ Terror Alerts to Replace Color Codes

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Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday outlined the new terror alert warning system that will replace the color-coded system that was put in place following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The new system, which will be implemented in 90 days, will reduce the number of threat levels from five under the color-coded system to two. Alerts will be categorized as being either “imminent” or “elevated” and will be issued as statements from the Department of Homeland Security. Those statements will include a summary of the potential threat, information about steps that are being taken to ensure the safety of the public, and recommendations about steps that the public can take. The phasing out of the old system, which was criticized for scaring the public and doing little to raise awareness about possible terrorist threats, comes amid an increase in the number of terrorist plots being conceived inside the U.S. Among the homegrown plots that have been uncovered in the past two years was the plot by Najibullah Zazi to attack the New York City subway system and Faisal Shahzad’s plot to detonate a car bomb in Times Square. Zazi was a legal permanent U.S. resident, while Shahzad was a naturalized U.S. citizen.

By:  Armour National Security Group, LLC – (A New York Security Firm)

Clinton Treads Carefully in Leading Massive Damage-Control Campaign

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other State Department officials have been working for weeks now to contain the damage from the WikiLeaks’ release of hundreds of thousands of confidential diplomatic cables, some of which painted foreign officials in an unflattering light. Several days before the cables were leaked, Clinton called leaders in a number of countries–including the U.K., France, and China–to warn them about the impending release of the documents. In addition, State Department bureaus began developing assessments of the impact of the release several weeks ago, after officials realized that WikiLeaks had obtained a large amount of diplomatic messages. Since last Friday, a task force has been running a round-the-clock “war room” at the State Department to address any issues that may arise from the release of the documents. Clinton has also sent a message to State Department personnel in an effort to boost morale, and has said that personnel still need to send candid reports back to officials in Washington, despite the fact that the release of some of the cables has proved embarrassing. While Clinton has said that she did not believe that the release of the cables would do any permanent damage to relations between the U.S. and other countries, some U.S. diplomats say that WikiLeaks has documents that it has not released that could potentially do more damage than those that were recently leaked.

By: Armour National Security Group, LLC – (A New York Security Company)

Airport Check-In: Registered Traveler Program Clear is Back

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Some travelers will now be able to skip to the front of the line at security checkpoints at Orlando International Airport. In order to do that, travelers will have to sign up for Clear, a service which screens travelers before they arrive at the airport. When travelers sign up for the program, they pay a $179 fee and submit their fingerprints and iris scan. This information is then stored in Clear’s machines in airports in order to verify the identity of travelers. The service was operated for several years by Verified Identity Pass, though the company eventually declared bankruptcy and ceased operations. Travelers who had valid Clear memberships when Verified Identity Pass folded will be able to use the service for the remaining terms of their memberships.

This Year in Scandals: Contractors Behaving Badly

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by Alexandra Andrews
ProPublica, Jan. 5, 2009, 11:46 a.m.

The Pentagon was repeatedly rebuked in 2008 for lax oversight of its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, drawing accusations of gouging U.S. taxpayers and endangering troops and Iraqi civilians. This past year, KBR and Blackwater were responsible for the lion’s share of contractor misconduct allegations. Below is our round-up.

KBR

KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary, is the beast of all the military contractors ; as of May last year, it had earned more than $24 billion . That’s nearly a quarter of the total amount the U.S. has spent on contractors in Iraq.

But KBR’s ubiquitous presence in ongoing U.S. wars has also generated a number of problems. It has been accused of bilking U.S. taxpayers on workman’s comp and engaging in the human trafficking of Nepali workers. It was accused of installing shoddy electrical wiring in barracks in Iraq and then ignoring warnings to fix it; 18 people have been electrocuted. A subsequent Pentagon investigation of the wiring determined that KBR was guilty of “serious contractual noncompliance.”

Around the same time that the Pentagon report came out, Military Times published a disturbing investigation of KBR’s massive “burn pit” at Balad , the largest U.S. base in Iraq. According to a 2006 memo from an Air Force official, the pit was burning plastics, paint, Styrofoam and medical waste, including amputated limbs. A resultant smog of toxic, cancer-causing chemicals hung over the base, and several GIs have reported illnesses. In late November, a former Air Force employee filed a suit against KBR . In addition to the burn pit, the suit alleges that KBR served troops rotten food, contaminated water and ice that had been transported in trucks that “still had traces of body fluids and putrefied remains in them.” KBR declined to comment to the Times.

KBR is also facing a lawsuit from 16 members of the Indiana National Guard who are accusing the company of knowingly exposing them to hexavalent chromium (the cancer-causing chemical made famous by Erin Brockovich) at the Qarmat Ali water treatment facility in Iraq in the months following the 2003 invasion.

At a Senate hearing in June, a former KBR employee accused the company of initially downplaying the chemical as a “minor irritant at worst ” (PDF) and ignoring evidence from a U.N. report that warned of the chemical’s risks. The Army is conducting its own investigation . KBR told CNN that it notified the Army Corps of Engineers immediately after discovering the chemical, and its efforts to clean it up were deemed sufficient.

Blackwater

Blackwater is a much smaller company, but it’s still managed to garner a significant amount of notoriety. In September 2007, Blackwater employees fired on a group of civilian Iraqis in a widely publicized incident at Nisour Square; 17 people were killed.

In November, the Justice Department charged five of those employees with manslaughter. The guards have defended their actions by saying they were fired upon first, but testimony from a sixth guard who has cooperated with the FBI suggests otherwise. Attorneys for the five guards lashed out at the government for “second-guess[ing] split-second decisions” made in a war-zone.

Blackwater has also been accused of skirting federal laws prohibiting private entities from buying automatic weapons and misrepresenting its size to win contracts reserved for small businesses. The company is also facing huge fines from the State Department for shipping weapons to Iraq and Jordan without proper licensing . A federal grand jury in North Carolina is also investigating whether or not Blackwater smuggled weapons into Iraq in giant sacks of dog food.

And in a final blow to Blackwater, a recent draft report from the State Department inspector general indicates that Blackwater might be losing its license to work in Iraq very soon.

Obama has pledged to reduce U.S. reliance on private security contractors like KBR and Blackwater, but NPR notes that it won’t be so easy to break the addiction .

Focus on Cargo Security Steps

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The recent interception of several packages filled with dangerous explosives bound for Chicago from Yemen has put the spotlight on air freight security. The Obama administration is expected to propose a plan to improve such cargo inspection, improvements that many experts say are long overdue. That is not to say that they are calling on 100 percent package inspection as such a policy has the potential to adversely impact shipping times. Instead, they suggest undertaking a targeted, risk-basked approach that would profile shipments based on country of origin or shipper identity. Regardless of the approach, there does appear to be room for a change as it is estimated that the overall percentage of shipments screened prior to entering the U.S. may be as low as 50 percent. There are a number of reasons for these security oversights, including a shortage of funding for screening technology and the reluctance of cargo companies to help improve screening procedures. These procedures vary based on the country where the package originated according to government oversight and the state of the cargo industry in the area. Differences in air-cargo security are higher than those in passenger security policies. In fact, the U.S. actually has more cargo inspectors than Europe. However, the European Union is largely complying with the U.S. mandate that 100 percent of all cargo loaded on passenger planes gets screened. But cargo that arrives in the E.U. and is redirected to other countries does not get rescreened. For example, cargo can arrive in Europe from Pakistan and go onto a flight to Argentina without being checked. From there it could then enter the U.S. without being screened.