Border Fence Plagued by Glitches, Long Delays – Associated Press
An ambitious, $6.7 billion government project to secure nearly the entire Mexican border with a ”virtual fence” of cameras, ground sensors and radar is in jeopardy after a string of technical glitches and delays.
Delays prompt White House to propose deep cut in secure border initiative – NextGov
President Obama proposed slashing by more than a quarter the fiscal 2011 budget for the Homeland Security Department’s massive border security project, which relies on high-tech equipment to look for illegal immigrants, because of long development delays.
During his formative years, Founding Father Ben Franklin is reputed to have said, “out of adversity comes opportunity.” From a homeland security standpoint, we saw this parable in operation over the past week. DHS Secretary Napolitano traveled to Europe to meet with colleagues in Spain. It appears that the International Air Transport Association, in conjunction with the CEOs of 20 international airlines, has agreed to enter into global public-private collaboration to strengthen security. This is an epoch event and a solid-gold opportunity to cease an initiative long over due.
An immigration protest against Sheriff Joe Arpaio was a timely reminder of an issue that while quiet at the moment, threatens to return. The protest also demonstrates the effect a few agitators can have in provoking police/crowd tension and violence. An effective crowd management and public order system would have prevented much of the confrontation.
With the nomination of Erroll Southers to be the next Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) now in tatters, the question has to be raised, “Now what?” f we do the forensics on why Southers will remain in Southern California instead of TSA Headquarters in Arlington, VA, I think it is safe to say that for all of his testimony faults and the petty politics that caused his nomination to collapse, its more than apparent that it was the White House that doomed the nomination from the start. If we’ve seen anything of their first year in office, this is not an Administration with much ability to make unpopular or tough positions, let alone a willingness to fight to put people into positions that serve the nation’s interests. Rather than actually leading and staking positions beyond rhetorical campaign platitudes or using the powers and authorities they have, the Obama Administration is apparently unable or unwilling to answer tough questions or lacks the ability to fight for people who are willing to serve.
Mexico opened 2010 with 69 murders in 1 day Mexico opened the new year with what could be its most dubious distinction yet in the 3-year-old battle against drug trafficking – 69 murders in one day. The country resembled a grim, statistical dart board Saturday as law enforcement and media reported the deaths from various […]
The news cycles, talking heads and many elected officials seem to be in a bit of a tizzy over the images created Whole Body Imaging (WBI) systems. Solutions to enhance security through the use of WBI will become more effective when the data is synthesized to produce a depiction of the entire situation on a generic form, enabling real-time interpretation without the distraction of raw data. If we take a moment to consider the efficacy of WBI and the invested public and private funds, we are likely to witness a clear example of Moore’s law.
Many U.S. embassies lack additional layer of visa security – Government Executive
The expansion of a seven-year-old federal program designed to tighten the visa application process at U.S. embassies is moving too slowly, said a Republican lawmaker in a Jan. 11 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
By Edward Alden
The failed Christmas bombing plot has been called, by everyone up to President Obama, a massive failure of the intelligence and targeting systems that are supposed to identify would-be terrorists before they come so close to succeeding. But the more we have learned about what the government knew before the attacks, the more it looks like this was instead a very near miss by agencies that were doing most of the right things.
Congressional Quarterly surveyed homeland security experts, a number of whom are contributors to Security Debrief, on the state and future of homeland security. Some of their views on the Obama administration’s best move in homeland security in 2009 are provided here.
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