Northcom Backs Out of National Level Exercise 2010

Northcom has unexpectedly withdrawn from participation in National Level Exercise (NLE) with FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Defense announced on April 26 it was decoupling its Ardent Sentry exercise from the National Level Exercise. Ardent Sentry is a Joint Chiefs of Staff directed and Northcom sponsored “homeland defense” exercise. It [...]

Three More Domestic Spying Programs Revealed

The Department of Homeland Security is acknowledging the existence of three more government programs charged with spying on American citizens in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The programs — Pantheon, Pathfinder and Organizational Shared Space — used a variety of software tools to gather and analyze information about Americans, according to [...]

Deportation’s Harmful Effect on Children

This brief from the International Human Rights Law Clinic University of California, Berkeley School of Law , In the Child’s Best Interest? The Consequences of Losing a Lawful Immigrant Parent to Deportation states “Congress is considering a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws more than a decade after the enactment of strict immigration measures. [...]

DHS Controls Over Firearms

Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General Report, DHS Controls Over Firearms This report addresses the efficacy of the Department of Homeland Security‘s management and oversight of its components to ensure that personnel are sufficiently safeguarding and controlling firearms. It is based on interviews with employees and officials of relevant agencies and institutions, direct [...]

Former New York Police Commissioner Sentenced to Four Years in Prison

New York, February 20 (RHC)– Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Bailey “Bernie” Kerik has been sentenced to four years in prison. Kerik pleaded guilty in November to lying to the White House when he was nominated to head the Department of Homeland Security. The former Commish admitted to tax evasion and receiving renovations [...]

Mexicans Say U.S. Drug Crackdown Feeds Violence

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – A Mexican law enforcement agency is blaming recent violence along the border in large part to a U.S. crackdown on drug traffickers, prompting skepticism from American government agencies. Mexico’s Secretariat of Public Security (Secretaría de Seguridad Pública) reported that in the past six months the value of cocaine in [...]

Government posting wealth of data to Internet

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday is posting to the Internet a wealth of government data from all Cabinet-level departments, on topics ranging from child car seats to Medicare services. The mountain of newly available information comes a year and a day after President Barack Obama promised on his first full day on the [...]

EPIC Posts TSA Documents on Body Scanners

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has posted more than 250 pages of documents it obtained in  a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit concerning body scanners. The documents, released by the Department of Homeland Security, reveal that Whole Body Imaging machines can record, store, and transmit digital strip search images of Americans. This contradicts assurances made by [...]

Officials Hid Truth of Immigrant Deaths in Jail

Silence has long shrouded the men and women who die in the nation’s immigration jails. For years, they went uncounted and unnamed in the public record. Even in 2008, when The New York Times obtained and published a federal government list of such deaths, few facts were available about who these people were and how [...]

Group slams Chertoff on scanner promotion

Since the attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day, former Department of Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has given dozens of media interviews touting the need for the federal government to buy more full-body scanners for airports. What he has made little mention of is that the Chertoff Group, his security consulting agency, [...]

America’s Secret ICE Castles

“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement‘s (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008. Also present [...]

Claremont man who aided migrants convicted for littering

When Walt Emrys Staton stumbled upon a migrant mother, Concepcion, carrying her daughter Jessica, 9, along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, they’d been lost for days and had no food or water. “The daughter was crying, `I’m sorry, mom, this is my fault,”‘ Staton said. “It’s heartbreaking to see that.” Passion to help those in [...]

Lil Wayne detained in Texas for marijuana

Rapper Lil Wayne was detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Texas on Friday after authorities found marijuana on two of his tour buses. The marijuana on the buses was detected by a drug dog, said Agent Joe Trevino. The rapper, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., was among a dozen being detained [...]

TSA Stonewalls Congress About Screening Manual Security Breach

On Wednesday, the Transportation Security Administration‘s (TSA) acting director insisted to Congress that the mistaken posting of secret airport screening procedures online posed no threat to holiday travelers because the procedures had changed, but refused to provide members of Congress with the newest version of the TSA’s screening manual to prove it.  And current and [...]

Intelligence Improperly Collected on U.S. Citizens

WASHINGTON — In February, a Department of Homeland Security intelligence official wrote a “threat assessment” for the police in Wisconsin about a demonstration involving local pro- and anti-abortion rights groups. That report soon drew internal criticism because the groups “posed no threat to homeland security,” according to a department memorandum released on Wednesday in connection [...]

Report and Recommendations of the Presidental Task Force on Controlled Unclassified Information

Report and Recommendations of the Presidental Task Force on Controlled Unclassified Information The Presidential Task Force on Controlled Information headed by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder recently released a report. This report provided findings and recommendations on current sensitive information sharing practices between federal, state, local and tribal [...]

Napolitano Unveils “Virtual USA” Information-Sharing Initiative

Secretary Napolitano Unveils “Virtual USA” Information-Sharing Initiative Today Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano officially launched Virtual USA, an information sharing initiative that will help federal, state, local, and tribal responders communicate more effectively during emergencies. According to Secretary Napolitano: “Virtual USA makes it possible for new and existing technologies to work together seamlessly [...]

Arizona Dictator Sheriff Joe Arpaio Approaching Retirement

The day after the federal government told Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph M. “Joe” Arpaio that he could no longer use his deputies to round up suspected illegal immigrants on the street, the combative Arizona sheriff did just that. He launched one of his notorious “sweeps,” in which his officers descend on heavily Latino neighborhoods, arrest [...]

Fugitive worked for Homeland Security

NEWARK, New Jersey – Prosecutors don’t understand how a fugitive wanted in New Jersey worked for the Department of Homeland Security in Georgia despite a nationwide alert for her arrest. Tahaya Buchanan was sought on a 2007 indictment on charges of staging the theft of her Range Rover. Paul Loriquet of the Essex County Prosecutor’s [...]

Lawsuit demands info on government’s use of social media sites

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing five different government agencies for refusing to disclose their policies on investigations using social networking websites. The lawsuit was filed Monday after the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of the Treasury, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence [...]

DHS Announces “Global Entry” Biometric Identification System for U.S. Airports

Today, the Department of Homeland Security proposed to make permanent Global Entry, a program the agency says will “streamline the international arrivals and admission process at airports for trusted travelers through biometric identification.” Under the proposed system, pre-registered international travelers can bypass conventional security lines by scanning their passports and fingerprints at a kiosk, answering [...]

State police want nearly $7 million to fulfill FOIA request

The Michigan Department of State Police is charging the Mackinac Center for Public Policy nearly $7 million to fulfill its Freedom of Information Act request for information on how the state has used homeland security grant money since 2002, the nonpartisan research group reported. A communications specialist at the center requested information after the Department [...]

County Immigration Enforcement Plan Prompts Profiling Concern

Over the objections of eleven county residents, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors this week renewed a commitment to have the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department cooperate with federal authorities in identifying illegal immigrants and targeting them for deportation. While a representative of the county sheriff’s department indicated that the identification and deportation effort [...]

National Defense University Press Releases New Security Studies Journal

Prism: A Journal of the Center for Complex Operations The National Defense University Press has released the first issue of Prism, a quarterly journal “tailored to serve policy-makers, scholars and practitioners working to enhance U.S. Government competency in complex operations by exploring whole-of-community approaches among U.S. Government agencies, academic institutions, international governments and militaries, non-governmental [...]

Implementing Checkpoint Screening Technology

Aviation Security: DHS and TSA Have Researched, Developed, and Begun Deploying Passenger Checkpoint Screening Technologies, but Continue to Face Challenges A recent report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) indicates that the Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration are having difficulties implementing a plan to deploy checkpoint baggage screening technologies. These findings [...]

FBI Demands Tattoo Shops Rat On Customers

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, in league with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (part of the Department of Justice), has launched a program that harks back to East Germany’s Stasi. In Philadelphia, the FBI has instructed tattoo shops to rat out their customers if they demand privacy, insist on paying with cash, engage in “suspicious [...]

Congress dismisses building additional Mexico fence

The US Congress has rejected to erect another 300 miles of tall fencing on the Mexico border, as Washington struggles to stop smugglers and illegal immigrants from entering the US soil. Congress scrapped an appropriation bill by the Department of Homeland Security that envisaged equipping another 300 miles of US-Mexico border with fencing. Lawmakers said [...]

Private company plans illegal-immigrant prison in Adelanto

ADELANTO • A private prison operator has plans to build a 2,200-bed detention center that holds illegal immigrants on 51 acres near two other local prisons. The Adelanto City Council will decide on Wednesday whether to approve the GEO Group Inc.’s development plan and conditional use permit to construct a new correctional facility on the [...]

ICE performs undercover operations with help from satellite tracking devices

[ Note: The firm mentioned, Eastcor Engineering, is listed with the phone number (410) 820-5521.  This number is also listed to David Jackson, Jen McMaster and George Vojtech, all at the same address. ] The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit of the Department of Homeland Security is planning to award a $39,800 sole source [...]

DHS Directives on Border Searches of Electronic Media

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano recently announced two new directives aimed at improving oversight for searches of computers and electronic decides at U.S. entry ports. This is viewed as an important move to support DHS efforts to “combat transnational crime and terrorism while protecting privacy and civil liberties.” “The new directives [...]

DHS Admits It Failed to Disclose 11 More Deaths at Immigration Facilities

In response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed yesterday that the government had failed to disclose 11 more deaths in immigration detention facilities. In April, DHS officials released what they called a comprehensive list of all deaths in detention. That list included [...]

Racist Web Posts Traced to Homeland Security

After federal border agents detained several Mexican immigrants in western New York in June, an article about the incident in a local newspaper drew an onslaught of vitriolic postings on its Web site. Some were racist. Others attacked farmers in the region, an apple-growing area east of Rochester, accusing them of harboring illegal workers. Still [...]

US to drop satellite spying on Americans

The Obama Administration intends to put an end to a Bush-era program that authorizes the use of US spy satellites for domestic security purposes. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano plans to abandon the controversial project, which was developed when the former President George Bush was in office to give law enforcement an extra tool to [...]

Congressional probe of Riverside Border Patrol office sought

The union representing U.S. Border Patrol agents is calling for a congressional investigation into the agency’s Riverside office. Lombardo Amaya, president of Local 2554 of the National Border Patrol Council, said he’s frustrated that a Department of Homeland Security investigation of the office has not yielded results and might not be fair. Homeland Security is [...]

Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online Hacker ‘Dark Tangent’ Joins DHS Advisory Council

Forget the new cyber security czar position that President Barack Obama announced last week. The real sign that the White House might be finally taking cyber security seriously came in an announcement on Friday that Jeff Moss, aka “Dark Tangent” and the former hacker behind the annual DefCon hacker confab in Las Vegas, has been [...]

Homeland Security Intel: Operations and Oversight

The Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence mission is to collect, analyze and disseminate intelligence to reduce the threat of domestic terrorism.  The somewhat complex structure of DHS intelligence, at DHS headquarters and in six operational components, is illuminated in a new report (pdf) from the Congressional Research Service. The new report usefully examines how DHS [...]

US Homeland Security National Interoperability Field Operations Guide, May 2009

US Department of Homeland Security National Interoperability Field Operations Guide, May 2009. Notable for its extensive list of radio frequences and call procedures. Download here.

Michael V. Hayden today

Less than three months after stepping down as CIA director, retired general Michael V. Hayden has taken several jobs in the private sector. He has just joined the board of the National Interest Security Company (NISC), a holding company that manages all the assets of the DC Capital Partners equity fund in the intelligence field. [...]

Panel votes to investigate ‘Extremism’ report

Democrats on a key House panel joined Republicans in a unanimous vote calling for a formal inquiry into the Department of Homeland Security to determine how a contentious report that described military veterans as possible recruits for radical extremists was developed and distributed. In a rare bipartisan manner, the House Committee on Homeland Security agreed [...]

Canadians Take Notice, the U.S. Is Militarizing the Border

More troops, more searches, more surveillance drones. The U.S. is taking Canadians’ pictures as they cross the border, and their biometrics. A camera snaps your license plate. An electronic card reader mounted on a yellow post scans your car for the presence of any radio-frequency ID cards inside. If there is an enhanced driver’s license [...]

Arrests of U.S. border agents on the rise

WASHINGTON — A rising number of U.S. border enforcement officers are being arrested on corruption charges as Mexican drug cartels look to bribes as a way to get around tougher enforcement, border officials say. Investigators arrested 21 U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers on corruption charges in the fiscal year that ended last September, up [...]

US DHS: Domestic Terrorism Newsletter, Vol. 1, Issue 4, 2006

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GAO Report on DEA’s Post-9/11 Drug Control Responsibilities

Drug Control: Better Coordination With the Department of Homeland Security and an Updated Accountability Framework Can Further Enhance DEA’s Efforts to Meet Post-9/11 Responsibilities “Given the global context of the war on drugs-coupled with growing recognition since September 11, 2001 (9/11), of the nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism-the mission of the Drug Enforcement Administration [...]

New GAO Report on USCG Vessel Tracking Systems

Maritime Security: Vessel Tracking Systems Provide Key Information, but the Need for Duplicate Data Should Be Reviewed “This report addresses: the extent to which the Coast Guard has vessel tracking systems in place, can use these systems to track vessels that may be threats, and has coordinated the development and implementation of these systems. To [...]

FEMA Releases Comprehensive Preparedness Guide 101

Yesterday, April 14, 2009, the “Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced … the release of the final Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101: ‘Developing and Maintaining State, Territorial, Tribal, and Local Government Emergency Plans.’” The “CPG 101 is the first in a series of publications developed through the FEMA National Preparedness [...]

Your DHS On Drugs

This is beyond ludicrous. That they want use a kind looking middle aged woman to soft sell their paranoid, Stasi era, snitch nation hell on earth is illuminating. How many times have you used binoculars, asked directions or sat on a park bench, you filthy terrorist? The real ones are the fascists who put this [...]

Glenn Beck and Penn Jillette on MIAC report

See also: The Radical Polarization of Law Enforcement

The Radical Polarization of Law Enforcement

The Radical Polarization of Law Enforcement Patriots, Christians and concerned citizens are increasingly in the cross hairs of the U.S. intelligence community, and battle lines are being quietly drawn that could soon pit our own law enforcement and military forces against us. A February 20 report entitled “The Modern Militia Movement” was issued by the [...]

NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to ‘Grave Peril’, Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress

The government’s national cybersecurity efforts would be in “grave peril” if they were dominated by the intelligence community, said Amit Yoran, former head of the Department of Homeland Security‘s National Cyber Security Division. Yoran told a House subcommittee on Tuesday that although the Department of Homeland Security, which currently oversees the government’s cybersecurity efforts, has [...]

Ex-agent: Probe of head of Riverside office widens

Already under investigation for allegedly punishing agents who did not meet arrest quotas, the head of Riverside’s U.S. Border Patrol office is now being probed for other alleged offenses, according to a former agent and the union representing Riverside agents. Ramon Chavez, patrol agent in charge of the Riverside office, declined to comment. The office [...]