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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Focus on Fusion Centers –

The Department of Homeland Security has produced a new “Concept of Operations” (pdf) to define how the Department will support and oversee the network of dozens of “fusion centers” that have been established around the country.  The fusion centers are intended to promote a collaborative approach among federal, state [...]

NSA aims to expand power: Eavesdropping agency looks to take over cybersecurity

The spy shop that brought you the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program wants to expand its power under President Barack Obama, the nation’s top intelligence chief told Congress Wednesday, in a little-noticed intelligence grab.
While acknowledging that many distrust the agency for its role in eavesdropping, Obama Director of National Intelligence [...]

BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA PARTNERS WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

The Boy Scouts of America has announced a partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Ready Kids, a family-friendly program designed to increase the level of citizen preparedness nationwide by motivating and helping parents and teachers to educate children about the importance of being prepared for emergencies.
Ready [...]

Documents say DHS helped Md. police “spy”

SILVER SPRING, Md. — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security tracked an anti-war group’s plans for peaceful protests and passed the information on to the Maryland State Police, according to documents released to The Washington Post and reported in Tuesday’s editions.
The documents are the first indication that the state police [...]