Security Debrief

Congressman Demands Info, Halt To TSA Program After KITV Story

The ranking Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee has sent a letter to the Transportation Security Administration, demanding information and a halt to a controversial TSA program, in reaction to an investigation by KITV 4 News earlier this month.
An elite unit of about 32 Transportation Security officers at Honolulu International Airport is supposed to assess the behavior of passengers to see if they might be terrorist threats.

A Public/Public Partnership – Addressing Water Sector Security

Following the recent attention given to the water sector’s vulnerability to cyber intrusion, there’s been a lot of talk about what went wrong, whose fault it was and why changes need to be made in the sector. However, the challenge in addressing the water sector’s cyber security posture isn’t in outlining existing problems, but rather in generating realistic, affordable and timely solutions to mitigate them. My concern is that we may just keep talking about the problem without actually doing anything about it.

New legislation would allow spy agencies to share cyber threat info with private sector

DailyTech – New Bill Urges U.S. Intelligence Agencies to Share Cyber Threat Info with Private Sector Members of the U.S. House intelligence committee have proposed a bill that would allow private firms to receive cyber threat-related information from government agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA).

Water Security Expert Vance Taylor on Critical Infrastructure Hacking Incidents

Since news broke last week about a suspected cyber attack on an Illinois water utility, media, government and industry have probed the ramifications for U.S. critical infrastructure protection (CIP). Though DHS and FBI later found no attack had occurred, the incident does highlight vulnerabilities in the way utilities are secured against cyber threats. To understand these complex issues, reporters turned to water security expert, Catalyst Partners principal and Security Debrief contributor Vance Taylor.

LAPD Common Sense Approach to Protestor Management

The LAPD operation to clear the park in City Hall was noteworthy for its change in style and was the correct conclusion to what has been a policing operation characterized by engagement and discretion by the police. This and other examples of policing Occupy Protests must be examined closely by the departments that will host National Significant Security Events next year, extracting the lessons that will apply to certain sections of the protest community, and creating effective plans for the those truly violent demonstrators who were patently absent from Occupy LA.

Immigration Law A Violation of Trust

Since Nov. 16, the state has received extensive publicity after the Tuscaloosa police arrested a 46-year-old German Mercedes-Benz executive visiting Alabama on business. The cause? The man’s rental car didn’t have a license plate, and he did not have the proper documentation required by Alabama’s new illegal immigration law.
“If it were not for the immigration law, a person without a license in their possession wouldn’t be arrested like this,” Tuscaloosa Police Chief Steven Anderson told the Associated Press. Like other states, before the immigration law passed Alabama simply issued a court summons and a ticket to individuals found driving without a license.
But now that we have adopted the toughest law against illegal immigration in the country, arrests like this one are sure to become more common.

Boko Harem: Emerging Threat to U.S. Homeland

The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence has issued a report calling attention to a new threat to the U.S. homeland. Boko Harem has up to this point focused largely in Nigeria but has recently turned its violence toward international targets.

Border Info-Sharing Plan Triggers Privacy Concerns

Under a new joint Canada-U.S. border security plan both countries will be able to track the movement of cross-border travellers to crack down on citizenship fraud, illegal immigrants and war criminals living in North America.

But the new 32-point border plan, which will be signed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama next week, is also raising privacy concerns over the amount of information that will be shared.

Walden spectrum bill includes public safety block

A new bill aimed at reallocating television spectrum for commercial wireless broadband services that includes a direct allocation of the resource for public safety users was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 29.

Terrorists Embrace Internet Fraud to Fund Operations

By Rob Strayer
It is an unfortunate modern reality that cyber attacks are commonly used to steal money from businesses and individuals. Cyber attacks that disrupt or destroy physical assets, on the other hand, have been rare up to this time. The news over the weekend that a terrorist organization was able to finance its activities by hacking AT&T business customers’ telecommunications accounts represents a new and disturbing development in the use of cyber attacks by terrorists.