The Blog @ Homeland Security: Helping the Best and Brightest Study in the States By Janet Napolitano (The Blog @ Homeland Security) Today I visited the University of Wisconsin – Madison to announce an important new initiative to help streamline the international student visa process and encourage foreign students to study and lawfully remain in […]
On Friday, September 23, 2011, for an HSPI Ambassadors Roundtable event, Lieutenant General Walter Semianiw, Commander, Canada Command, will share his unique perspective.
An al Qaeda-affiliated organization based in North Waziristan is now in the spotlight and crosshairs: the Haqqani Network. Yesterday evening, Defense Secretary Panetta and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker tagged the Haqqani Network with responsibility for this week’s attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, as well as a September 10 truck-bomb attack on a U.S. base there that injured 77 Americans. With the benefit of a safe haven in Pakistan in areas bordering Afghanistan, and a continuing relationship with Pakistan’s intelligence agency (ISI), the Haqqani network thrives and threatens the region as well as U.S. national security. The situation is, as Secretary Panetta stated categorically, “unacceptable.”
International air carriers break U.S. federal law every day. Any cargo flown on a passenger plane in U.S. airspace (whether of domestic or foreign origin) must be screened for explosives. Yet, despite the law, some cargo flown into the United States does not meet the “100 percent” standard. To satisfy the cargo screening mandate, TSA has reinterpreted the law in an attempt to achieve 100 percent screening without physically screening all international cargo on passenger planes.
The attacks of September 11 are full of many amazing and heartbreaking stories of loss, heartbreak and heroism. Frank Culbertson was the Commander of Expedition 3, a three-man crew on board the International Space Station when then attacks occurred. Frank recorded his thoughts and experiences at the time in an open letter that was circulated shortly after the attacks. With the ten-year anniversary observances underway, deserved attention is finally being given to Frank, his unique letter and his one in 250 million American experiences.
What has been termed the “Arab Spring” could potentially pose the gravest challenge the United States has ever faced in the Middle East. Yet, when one tracks the reactions and positions of the US foreign policy establishment, one is left with a state of confusion and bewilderment. In this fourth part of The Real New Middle East Order series, we will resume the process of explaining the Real New Middle East Order focusing on the post-9/11 period.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of the attacks of “9/11,” we should take a look back over the past decade and see what strides we’ve made in the effort to make our border safer. In an positive development for the tourism industry and for frequent travelers across the Canada and Mexico border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced last week the latest new feature of the Global Entry Program. The program is an ingenious way to address both the needs of a 21st century economy and the concerns of national security.
Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton have been two of the nation’s most outstanding public servants, and the report of the 9/11 Commission was an extraordinary document. The two chairmen should be commended for their steady efforts, including the release yesterday of a 10th Anniversary Report Card under the auspices of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group. But among the group’s list of nine major unfinished recommendations, there is one that deserves to remain unfinished – the construction of a biometric exit system – and for good and sensible reasons.
The tedious process of watchlisting and making watchlists available to our frontline border and aviation operators is the most important tool our nation has to curtail attempted “legitimate” terrorist travel — meaning, those terrorists who seek to use our border and aviation system to enter the United States. The 9/11 Commission recommended significant changes to watchlisting, including merging 11 disparate watchlists into one base list. Today, this single list is simply termed the “Terrorist Watchlist.”
The Washington Post published an excellent article, “Suspected North Korean cyberattack on a bank raises fears for S. Korea, allies” detailing a significant cyber attack on a major South Korean bank that occurred last April. This was more than the Denial of Service attacks that have been executed in the past. It was a sophisticated virus attack that took down hundreds of servers at the bank, shut it down for days, and then corrupted a huge amount of financial data. We will see more and more of this. Poor and disconnected nations and terrorist groups have nothing to lose by executing these sorts of attacks.
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