Drug Tunnel Discovery Signals New Cartel In Town

Federal authorities are questioning suspected drug smugglers to learn more about a tunnel trafficking operation uncovered on Thanksgiving Day. It's the second sophisticated smuggling tunnel between Tijuana and San Diego that agents have discovered this month, and it's more evidence that a new cartel has muscled into Tijuana. The tunnel found Thursday is nearly a half-mile long, extending from under the kitchen floor of a house in Tijuana to a pair of warehouses in the Otay Mesa industrial district of San Diego. It has ventilation, electricity, a cinder-block entryway and a rail system for a small cart to move drugs into the U.S.

Of the 76 cross-border drug tunnels discovered in the past four years, the Thanksgiving Day tunnel is one of the most elaborate officials have come across, according to Mike Unzueta, special agent in charge of Homeland Security investigations in San Diego. He says losing the tunnel is bad for cartel business. "It can't but hurt," he says. "Potentially, we're looking at a year or longer to construct something with this level of sophistication, and upwards of a million dollars in terms of the cost." Unzueta said smugglers hand-dug the channel in hard clay soil with an electric jack-hammer.

Acting on a tip Thursday, federal agents followed a tractor-trailer from the warehouse to a border patrol checkpoint. Investigators found 20 tons of pot and arrested three men in the U.S.; the Mexican military arrested five more. The arrests led to the discovery of the tunnel. Federal agents discovered a similarly constructed tunnel on Nov. 2, connecting warehouses in Mexico and the U.S. They recovered more than 30 tons of cannabis in that bust.Federal investigators believe both underground passageways were under the control of the Sinaloa Cartel, which is run by Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, the world's most wanted drug lord.

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DEA bans K2, other 'fake pot' products

The United States Drug Enforcement Administration used its emergency powers Wednesday to ban K2 and other "fake pot" products that mimic the effects of marijuana. The action by the Drug Enforcement Administration makes it illegal to possess or sell the five chemicals used to make the products for at least one year. The agency and the Department of Health and Human Services will determine whether the chemicals should be permanently added to the federal list of controlled substances considered unsafe, highly abused and without medical use.

The herbal blends coated with synthetic chemicals are marketed under brands such as Spice, Red X Dawn and K2. They are usually sold as packets of incense or potpourri at convenience stores, herbal and spiritual shops and online. The packets can sell for as much as $35 an ounce and have become popular as a legal alternative to marijuana among teenagers and college students. The chemicals are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human consumption, the DEA said in its federal notice.

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African Crime Analysis with a Twist

Villagers in Kilifi County are on a killing spree, targeting suspected witches and meting out the ultimate form of justice — death. The killings, first witnessed two years ago but somehow ebbed, are now on a resurgence in the area. Three elderly people — two of them a couple — have been killed in the past one week alone in their houses. The County covers Bahari, Malindi and Magarini constituencies. At least 10 people suspected to be witches were brutally killed in Kilifi County in the past three months, a police crime analysis report indicates.

The latest such incident occurred last Saturday when three men beheaded Mr Kazungu Mranja of Timboni village in Mjanaheri location after he was accused of engaging in witchcraft. Police in Malindi have launched a manhunt for the killers. Last week, a couple, Mzee Mzungu Charo, 70, and his wife Mrs Luvuno Kapombe, 60, were brutally murdered in their house at Pumwani village in Magarini on the same witchcraft suspicions. In the past two years alone, more than 27 elderly people, including an assistant chief, Mr Albert Mulanda Lughanje of Shomela location, have lost their lives in the hands of armed gangs.

Coast Provincial Police Officer Leo Nyongesa expressed confidence that his officers will bring to an end killings of innocent people in the county. According to the PPO, a crime analysis done in August and September this year indicates that the 10 deaths were recorded at Kilifi and two in Malindi. “Elderly persons are mostly targeted and police officers will not relent in their quest to bring to book those behind the killings,” Mr Nyongesa said. But police further suspect that the figure could be higher since some deaths are caused by the victims’ relatives.

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International Jihadists Use Karachi as Hub

Karachi is the pulsating heart of Pakistan, but the city of 18 million is descending into a maelstrom of violence. While NATO uses the port to support its war in Afghanistan, international jihadism has established strongholds in the metropolis's slums and suburbs. The circle had to be closed with blood, in order to wipe out the disgrace of the previous day. That's the way of life here -- the way of life in Karachi. The six men were heavily armed, and yet they still managed to get through all the checkpoints and reach Club Road in the red zone, a highly secured district in the heart of the city. The head of the provincial government has his official residence here, not far from the American consulate, two luxury hotels and the police headquarters, where the office of the young inspector Omar Shahid is located. As the head of the anti-extremism unit, Shahid was at the top of the attackers' hit list.

The terrorists started shooting at the entrance to the police station. For 10 minutes, they fired at the guards, who returned their fire, until a vehicle packed with 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lbs.) of explosives rammed the gate of the police station. The massive explosion destroyed the three-story building occupied by the counterterrorism division and set off a firestorm. At least 20 people, including the suicide attackers, died on the evening of Nov. 11. Some 120 police officers, residents and passersby lay bleeding under the wreckage, as well as an unknown number of members of the extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi who had already been in custody at the police station. It was a retaliatory attack committed by al-Qaida's foot soldiers. On the previous day, a counterterrorism unit had arrested half a dozen of their fellow terrorists.

Omar Shahid was supposed to be one of the victims, but he happened to be on duty elsewhere on that evening. He is usually in command of counterterrorism units when they conduct raids against militant Islamists in the backstreets of Karachi neighborhoods like Sohrab Goth or Shershah Market. "They are showing us that they are there, and that they can strike back," Shahid says, speaking very calmly. He does not show any visible emotion. Otherwise he would be unable to deal with the situation. His office was destroyed by fire, and many of the people with whom he had been waging this battle for years are now dead.

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Interpol Chief has Facebook identity stolen

He's one of the most powerful people in world policing, but on Facebook Interpol chief Ronald K. Noble is just as vulnerable to identity theft as anyone else. At last week's inagural Interpol Information Security Conference in Hong Kong, secretary general Noble revealed that criminals had set up two accounts impersonating him on the networking site during this summer's high-profile global dragnet, 'Operation Infra-Red'. The fraud was discovered only recently by Interpol's Security Incident Response Team.

"One of the impersonators was using this profile to obtain information on fugitives targeted during our recent Operation Infra Red," Noble told delegates. Operation Infra-Red, which took place between May and July of this year, was a global, Interpol-led operation to crack down on named criminal fugitives accused of murder, paedophilia, fraud, corruption, drug trafficking and money laundering, who had fled national jurisdictions. The operation led to 130 arrests. Noble is not believed to have had a professional profile on Facebook although his organisation does. "Cybercrime is emerging as a very concrete threat. Considering the anonymity of cyberspace, it may in fact be one of the most dangerous criminal threats we will ever face," Noble was quoted as saying.

Although Facebook itself wasn't compromised in any way, the example cited by the Interpol head hinges on the ease with which the criminals were able to forge his identity without challenge. This is a problem both Facebook, and that other giant of social media, Twitter, have been grappling with. Even for non-VIPs using real accounts, Facebook is a controversial place to put certain types of data. Last week, a study found that many US SMEs had suffered security problems they blamed on employee interest in the site.

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Who are Canada's 'freemen'?

When Mika Rasila got pulled over by Niagara police in January for driving his white Pontiac Montana without licence plates, he was ready with a defence: he doesn’t need plates because he’s a Freeman on the Land. A Freeman on the Land, he explained in a letter he tried to hand the patrol officer through the window, is someone who has revoked his consent to be governed. He has opted out of Canada so the laws don’t apply to him. It didn’t work. Police seized his van, arrested him and charged him with six traffic offences, but the incident signaled that the anti-government Freemen on the Land, of which Mr. Rasila is a prominent member, had taken root in Canada.

Across the country, police and officials have been having similar run-ins with “freemen,” also known as “sovereign citizens,” members of a radical movement that does not recognize government authority and consequently refuses to licence their cars, carry government ID or obey police. “We have thousands of members now,” said Mr. Rasila, who writes on the Freemen of Canada Facebook page, which has over 2,000 members. “We have meetings, we’re fairly organized. They’re very casual, usually just in someone’s living room or we’ll rent a hall.”

Canada’s freemen are a loose collection of true believers, ranging from tax protesters to 9/11 conspiracists to fathers whose children have been apprehended by child welfare agencies. What unites them is their dislike of government. Self-declared defenders of individual freedom, they are anti-government extremists in the sense that, rather than opposing specific policies, they deny government has any legitimacy at all and want to be left alone to live according to their own rules.

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Children of the Greek Revolution

The letter bombs sent to embassies in Athens and heads of state throughout Europe last week halted Greek mail and international delivery services and sparked opportunistic street demonstrations. Bomb squads cordoned off streets, choking Athens with apocalyptic traffic jams. Militants have staged about one attack per month over the past 14 months, but the embassy bombings marked a broader, more coordinated level of violence -- and the first time in the history of Greek terrorism that foreign leaders have been targeted, lending credence to the theory among terrorism experts that Greek militants are looking for collaborators outside the country, as well as to enhance their reputation internationally.

Athens police have questioned two Greeks suspected to be responsible for the latest bombings, both unemployed men in their early 20s and alleged to be members of a Greek terrorist group that also committed several nonlethal attacks last year. A suspicious package delivered to the Hungarian Embassy on Tuesday was found to have contained only documents, and Athens has by and large returned to normality. Meanwhile, jaded Athenians grappled for explanations: Why is it that disaffected French students go on strike while middle-class Greek students bomb embassies?

Although Greek terrorism has been occasionally erupting for decades, its inchoate ideological inspiration has made it difficult for many Greeks to understand what motivates the increasing violence of the country's militant youth. At times accompanied by anti-capitalist sloganeering and anarchist proclamations, Greek terrorism has also been perpetrated with no defined message at all. "We have problems with authority," said Paraskos Mantagos, a senior investment manager at a large Greek bank, from his home in Athens. He paused, and then let out a long breath. "I haven't grasped what is going on, to be honest. It's almost like a fashion."

Elaine Papoulias, director of the Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, notes that it's a byproduct of Greece's unique political culture. "In France, political parties do not permeate every social and economic fabric in life as they do in Greece," said Papoulias in an interview. "The turn to violence in some ways can be seen as a rejection of this system where politics is ubiquitous and dictates what job you have, what cafes you frequent, what football teams you support, what newspapers you read. Violence has become a means of political expression and a way to clearly reject participation in traditional modes of political life, be it voting, joining a party or trade union."

Excellent article from Foreign Policy magazine.

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Centre for Fiji Financial Intelligence Unit

The Fiji Financial Intelligence Unit yesterday opened a National Anti-Money Laundering Learning Center which will provide electronic computer based training (CBT) to financial institutions and stakeholders. FIU director – Razim Buksh says the AML Learning Center and the CBT courses will be of tremendous value to Fiji’s law enforcement agencies as their officials will be trained without any cost. CBT courses will cover topics such as money laundering, human trafficking, precursor chemicals, search techniques, control deliveries and basic intelligence analysis. Buksh says the course will ensure that relevant authorities have a better understanding and skills to combat complex crimes in Fiji.

“The main reason for providing such a training forum to law enforcement agencies is basically the nature of crime is quite complex, this is a new era, and we have seen emergence of complex crime in Fiji. Therefore we need to equip our law enforcement agents – so that they are at par with the new methods and techniques. These include coming up with a matrix, linking information through flow charts and link charts and undertaking better management of information if this relates to financial record.” The Learning Center has been established through a partnership between the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, the British High Commission in Suva, Reserve Bank of Fiji and the Fiji Intelligence Unit.

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March of the Euro Police: Shocking New Powers

The full extent of the police and criminal prosecution powers that the European Union has over British citizens can be revealed today. An investigation has uncovered an array of new EU controls over justice and home affairs for which no one has voted, and most are unknown to the public. These include:

• Europol, the £60 million-a-year European criminal intelligence agency, whose officers have diplomatic immunity.
• An 800-strong paramilitary police force called the European Gendarmerie Force.
• The European Arrest Warrant, which now allows British citizens to be seized in the UK and sent without appeal to foreign jails for months or years without bail while awaiting trial.

Europol now has more than 650 officials at its headquarters in The Hague, from where it directs investigations across Europe. When its Euro police officers are operating in the UK they have diplomatic immunity and cannot be touched by the British judiciary. Europol’s director is Rob Wainwright, 43, a Welsh-speaking former British civil servant who joined Europol last year. He and his officials will move into a new £8.5 million building next year.

The paramilitary police force has been trained in Italy and armed to be deployed as ‘an expeditionary police mission’ under military command if necessary. The gendarmerie is not yet a full EU institution. However, its official purpose is ‘a consistent and co-ordinated deployment of EU police forces with a military status and full police powers. The EGF will be, first and foremost, at the disposal of the EU.’ Members are drawn from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania, France and the Netherlands.

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New method of obtaining "criminal" intelligence

Scots gangsters are using "waterboarding" terror tactics to torture rivals. Hardened crooks have copied the CIA-style interrogation technique where water is poured on to a cloth covering the victim's mouth and nose to simulate drowning. We can reveal that a leading member of one of Scotland's most notorious crime clans was tortured by a rival gang using the shock tactics last week. Drug dealer John Fox was terrorised after being snatched off the street by four thugs during a row over stolen drugs.

Associates of Fox said he was taken to a flat in Glasgow's east end, strapped to a scaffolding board, his head covered and water poured over his nose and mouth. One source close to the family said: "It's taking torture among gangs to a new level, but they've all seen how effective it can be, so it's a new weapon for them. "Some guys will take any amount of pain but it looks as though they crack within seconds of the water being poured over."

According to sources, Fox, 43, was at war with a rival gang from the city's Barrowfield area over £1000 of stolen drugs. An associate revealed last night: "John knew that one of his suppliers of blue valium pills kept them in the electricity box in the stairway outside his flat so he helped himself to the stash - about 1000 of them. "They are currently selling for around £1 a pill, so he walked off with a tidy sum. "He got greedy and paid the price. This other family were tipped off straight away about who had their drugs and John was lured to a meeting in a car near his home.

Thanks to my buddy Dean for putting me onto this story.

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U.S. Falls Behind Other Nations in Reducing Traffic Fatalities and Injuries; Report Identifies Safety Strategies That Could Succeed in U.S.

The United States is missing significant opportunities to reduce traffic fatalities and injuries, and could save lives by implementing a more rigorous, comprehensive program that adopts successful safety practices from other countries, says a new report by the National Research Council. The committee that wrote the report reviewed traffic safety practices and strategies in high-income countries around the world and compared them with those in the United States. From 1995 to 2009, fatalities dropped 52 percent in France, 38 percent in the United Kingdom, 25 percent in Australia, and 50 percent in 15 high-income countries for which long-term fatality and traffic data are available, but they dropped only 19 percent in the United States. "There is a notable gap between traffic safety progress in the U.S. and other nations that deserves our attention," said Clinton V. Oster Jr., committee chair and professor, Indiana University, Bloomington. "The U.S. could learn from the effective strategies in place elsewhere to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities." Countries most successful at reducing traffic deaths had comprehensive safety programs that include improvement in road design and traffic management; regulation of vehicle safety; and regulation of driver behaviors regarding speed, alcohol and drug use, and seat belt and motorcycle helmet use, the committee found. Furthermore, successful national programs excel at management and planning and benefit from political support and leadership. The committee noted that the most critical area for improvement in the United States today may be in management and planning, to ensure that available resources are used to greatest effect and to foster political and public support by demonstrating progress.

The report highlights essential elements of safety program management, including a plan that makes a credible commitment to the public to improve safety and regular monitoring and evaluation to determine the effects of actions taken. "These management practices have produced success in other countries," said Oster, "but are lacking in the traffic safety programs of most U.S. states." The committee urged the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), in cooperation with the states, to revise its Guidelines for State Highway Safety Programs and develop a new model for state strategic highway safety plans that would specify resource requirements and the expected outcomes of safety interventions. DOT and the states should undertake a series of large-scale projects to demonstrate the design and management of effective safety initiatives. These demonstration projects are necessary, the committee concluded, because communicating the needed safety management methods to U.S. state and local agencies will require a greater level of effort than has been previously devoted to the task.

The committee also advised state legislatures to require regular reporting from the responsible executive agencies on progress in fulfilling the state’s safety plan and success in meeting the plan’s goals. In addition, DOT should conduct an in-depth review of social marketing methods and outcomes in other countries, and national professional organizations should create forums that bring together public administrators, legislators, and researchers for exchange of information and views on traffic safety. Two enforcement tools widely credited with fatality reductions in other countries -- automatic enforcement of speed limits and frequent roadside sobriety checks -- are not common in the U.S because of legal restrictions, popular opposition, and cost considerations. The report estimates, on the basis of evaluations in the U.S. and other countries, that nationwide, sustained, and frequent use of sobriety checkpoints to detect drunk drivers could save 1,500 to 3,000 lives annually in the U.S.; systematic speed control programs applied nationwide could save 1,000 to 2,000 lives annually at feasible cost, even if automated enforcement is not used; enactment of universal helmet use laws by all states would avoid 450 motorcyclist deaths per year; and increasing the U.S. rate of seat belt use from the present 85 percent to 90 percent would save 1,200 lives annually. Total traffic fatalities in 2009 were 33,808 in the U.S.

• Full Report
• Report in Brief
  

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Source Management Software for the British Transport Police

The British Transport Police (BTP) has awarded a five year contract for abmpegasus Source Management – the covert human intelligence source (CHIS) management solution from criminal intelligence, investigation and criminal justice software solutions specialist, ABM. The railways present a unique policing environment with very distinctive needs. BTP’s 2,835 police officers and 1,455 support staff police the tracks and provide a service to rail operators, their staff and passengers across the country. Source Management will offer the next generation of covert policing technology to effectively manage confidential informants, delivering better value for the force and the public.

ABM’s professional services director, Sue Grewcock, explains: “By incorporating ABM's Source Management module into the force’s existing infrastructure, it will assist the BTP in maximising accountability whilst enhancing the productivity of each source. The module also offers enhanced profiling to match CHIS to problem areas and even help improve financial monitoring and control of payments and rewards to informants.”

Used by 80% of UK Police Services, abmpegasus Source Management is the most successful CHIS management solution available anywhere in the world today, providing a management platform in line with relevant legislative requirements and established best Following formal training in December, the Source Management implementation will follow in the new year. Once the initial system has been installed, it will be very easy for BTP to open up further functionality as Source Management is part of the cutting-edge abmpegasus covert management suite. The complete solution encompasses Source Management, Information in Confidence, Protected Persons, Communications, Surveillance and Debrief to provide an integrated approach to managing covert operations.

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Two Out of Five Drivers Admit to Falling Asleep at the Wheel

Two out of every five drivers (41 percent) admit to having fallen asleep at the wheel at some point, with one in ten saying they’ve done so in the past year, according to a new AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study. More than a quarter of those surveyed admitted they drove despite being so tired that they had difficulty keeping their eyes open in the previous month. Eighty-five percent of drivers surveyed felt it was “completely unacceptable” for someone to drive if they are so tired they are having trouble keeping their eyes open. Unfortunately, drivers may not always be aware of the effects of fatigue resulting from a lack of sleep. In recognition of this week’s Drowsy Driving Prevention Week®, hosted by the National Sleep Foundation, AAA wants all drivers to recognize the seriousness of this dangerous, yet underestimated, driving practice.

“When you are behind the wheel of a car, being sleepy is very dangerous. Sleepiness decreases awareness, slows reaction time, and impairs judgment, just like drugs or alcohol, contributing to the possibility of a crash,” said AAA Foundation President and CEO Peter Kissinger. “We need to change the culture so that not only will drivers recognize the dangers of driving while drowsy but will stop doing it.” A new analysis of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration crash data estimates that about one in six (16.5 percent) deadly crashes, one in eight crashes resulting in occupant hospitalization and one in fourteen crashes in which a vehicle was towed involve a driver who is drowsy. These percentages are substantially higher than most previous estimates, suggesting that the contribution of drowsy driving to motor vehicle crashes, injuries, and deaths has not been fully appreciated.

"Many of us tend to underestimate the negative effects associated with fatigue and sleep deprivation and, conversely, overestimate our abilities to overcome them while driving," said Kathleen Marvaso, vice president, AAA Public Affairs. "This data underscores the importance of educating drivers on the simple, yet effective steps they can take to prevent a possible tragedy. Unfortunately, too many drivers have adopted the 'I'm tired, but I can make it’ mentality, often to their own peril or to the peril of others." To remain alert and avoid drowsiness, AAA suggests:

• Getting plenty of sleep (at least six hours) the night before a long trip;
• Scheduling a break every two hours or every 100 miles;
• Traveling at times when you are normally awake, and staying overnight rather than driving straight through; and
• Stop driving if you become sleepy; someone who is tired could fall asleep at any time.

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Fusion centers gather terrorism intelligence – and much more

About a year ago, a police officer in Maryland noticed a truck loaded with plastic pallets driving down a main road in the early morning. He normally wouldn't have given it a second look, but the officer had seen a bulletin from the state's "coordination and analysis center" advising that such thefts were costing bakeries and grocers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sure enough, the pallets were stolen. Cracking down on pallet thieves wasn't quite the mission envisioned for "fusion centers," 72 facilities across the country that were started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks to improve information-sharing and threat analysis among local law enforcement.

The centers, which have received $426 million in federal funding since 2004, were designed as an early warning system against the next attack. Lately, amid the recent uptick in homegrown plots, the Homeland Security Department has been touting fusion centers as a means of thwarting domestic terrorism. But it turns out that homegrown terrorism pales in frequency and fatalities compared with typical street crime, so many of the centers have begun collecting and distributing criminal intelligence, even of the most mundane kind.

In the process, Homeland Security Department officials say, the centers are developing a system to receive, sort and share crucial information. And they say it's too soon to judge the program, which is likely to grow in importance as a tool in detecting terrorism before it erupts. "I'm a big supporter because of their potential," said Mohamed Elibiary, a Texas-based Muslim activist who advises the Homeland Security Department, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. "If you want the government to function effectively, you need proper information sharing and analysis."

Critics argue that the centers are another potential intrusion on citizens' rights, and that having 72 of them guarantees bureaucratic overkill. Many centers make extensive use of private contractors. And the methods used are inconsistent from one to the next, raising questions about whether some of them are performing vital work. "We thought if we just threw the name out there, built a bunch of them, we'd feel a lot better," former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said this month at George Washington University. "And I frankly think there's too many of them. We still don't have quite the protocol we need to make sure that they're effective."

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James Bond's Russian Counterpart Dispatched to The United States

A contract killer has been dispatched to assassinate the Russian double agent who betrayed Anna Chapman and nine other spies in the United States this spring, according to reports in Moscow. "We know who he is and where he is," a high-ranking Kremlin source told the reputable Kommersant newspaper. You can have no doubt – a Mercader has already been sent after him." Ramón Mercader was the KGB-hired Spanish communist who was sent to kill Leon Trotsky with an icepick in Mexico in 1940.

The traitor was reportedly identified as a Colonel Shcherbakov, an officer of the SVR (foreign intelligence service) who headed the S directorate of the service's US department, which controlled the ring of sleeper agents, including Chapman. Shcherbakov is thought to have fled Russia three days before the president, Dmitry Medvedev, visited Barack Obama on 24 June, when the two leaders ate hamburgers together at a diner in Virginia. "After that, the Americans, worried that we would suspect a betrayal and start pulling our agents from the US, began to arrest them," said the Kremlin source.

The agents, who had been living apparently innocent suburban lives in New York, Arlington and elsewhere, were detained by the FBI in late June and convicted of conducting long-term "deep-cover" surveillance on behalf of Russia. The 10 were later sent to Russia in exchange for the release of four men jailed there for alleged espionage on behalf of the CIA and MI6. Speaking shortly after the agents' return to Moscow, Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, said the traitor who had betrayed them had been identified. "It was the result of treason," he said, predicting a grim future for those responsible. "It always ends badly for traitors: as a rule, their end comes from drink or drugs, lying in the gutter. And for what?"

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New Mexico the Hub for Undocumented Immigrants

Attracted by a 2003 law, people from all over the world are traveling to New Mexico to obtain driver's licenses because the state doesn't require proof of citizenship or legal residency. According to a copyright story Friday in the Albuquerque Journal, authorities have arrested a growing number of suspected undocumented immigrants who have traveled from as far away as China to fraudulently obtain New Mexico licenses. The Associated Press reported last summer that three states — Washington, New Mexico and Utah — were seeing surges in the number of immigrants seeking IDs, a trend experts attributed to crackdowns on illegal immigration in Arizona and elsewhere.

Shu Sheng Lui told a state police officer Wednesday she had flown to Albuquerque from Missouri and paid a man $500 to help her get a New Mexico driver's license. Lui, 33, along with Hiew Fongyee, 31, and Lam Fong Siu, 44, were arrested at a state Motor Vehicle Division office in Albuquerque's south valley after they tried to obtain licenses using forged residency documents. According to criminal complaints, the Chinese nationals had paid 22-year-old Gordon Leong for forged documents showing they live in New Mexico so they could obtain driver's licenses. Leong was arrested and charged with conspiracy. Lui faces the same charge. Fongyee and Siu, who both live in New York, were charged with one count of altered, forged or fictitious license.

"It shows that we have a good process in place that is meant to detect any fraud or anyone trying to get a license without proper documentation," MVD spokesman S.U. Mahesh said. New Mexico residents have generally opposed the state's driver's license law, according to a recent Albuquerque Journal poll that found that 67 percent of residents are against it. On the campaign trail, Gov.-elect Susana Martinez pledged that she would work to revoke licenses issued to foreign nationals under the law.

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Fighting School Violence by Pinpointing Its Victims

Ron Huberman is a fast-talking former beat cop with an M.B.A. and a passion for number crunching. For just under two years, he has run the Chicago public-school system, a job whose duties include trying not only to raise test scores and graduation rates but also to keep students from getting killed. During the past school year, 245 Chicago public-school students were shot, and 27 of them died. Huberman thinks the toll would have been even higher had it not been for a controversial school-safety program he announced last fall and is continuing this year. Instead of focusing solely on the perpetrators of violence, the district is also identifying potential victims — figuring out which students are the most likely to be gunned down and taking steps to keep them safe.

The initiative, one of the first of its kind in the U.S., is the natural extension of a burgeoning field of study called victimization research. Its premise: most crime victims are not chosen at random, and some people are much more likely than others to become targets, on the basis of factors such as where they live, how they spend their time and even which personality traits they possess.

Huberman, 38, approached Chicago's seemingly intractable youth-violence problem by gathering detailed information about the more than 500 public-school students who had been shot in the city over the previous two years. The typical student shooting victim was failing academically, absent 40% of the school year (compared with the average student's 16%) and five times more likely to be off track to graduate than other students. These victims—90% of whom were male—also had a history of school disciplinary problems, racking up eight times as many incidents of serious misconduct, like drug use or gang activity, as classmates who were not shot.

Huberman and his team used the data to create a predictive model that identified a tenth of Chicago's roughly 100,000 public high school students as at increased risk of victimization and about 250 individuals at the very highest risk. "If you're not in that group of about 10,000 kids, your likelihood of being shot is incredibly low," Huberman says. If you're in the ultra-high-risk group of 250, he says, "your chances of being shot in the next two years are 1 in 5." After identifying the ultra-high-risk students, Huberman set about trying to change how they spend their time. "How many alcoholic drinks someone consumes each day, how many nights a week someone spends outside the home—these things are highly predictive of victimization," says Robert Sampson, chair of the sociology department at Harvard University.

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Masked refugee creates new headaches

Meet the man behind the mask, behind the man who wore the mask that made a laughing stock of security procedures at a major international airport. Rusty Slusser is the founder of SPFX Masks, the company that makes the hyper-realistic silicone mask used by a Chinese national to fool airport security in Hong Kong and board an Air Canada flight bound for Vancouver using someone else's boarding pass. The disguise he used was a full head-and-torso mask which made him look like a wrinkly, old Caucasian male. The unnamed 22-year-old male shed his second skin midflight and was arrested when the plane landed. He has since applied for asylum.

The bizarre nature of the escapade has created headlines around the world since the story broke at the weekend. But Slusser, 39, dismisses it as unwelcome attention. "We are very proud of what we have accomplished," he said in a telephone interview. "But we are not proud about how our masks have been misused." Authorities investigating the security breach believe that the Chinese male swapped boarding passes with a US passport holder in a scheme that was probably hatched by people smugglers.

This marks the second time this year that Slusser's masks have been used in illegal circumstances. In April, a white man is accused of having committed six bank robberies in Ohio disguised as a black man. Conrad Zdzierak, 30, used another one of Slusser's creations to carry out the robberies, evading capture initially because police were looking for a suspect with a different skin colour. Slusser said he was co-operating with authorities in the case of the robberies but had yet to be contacted over the asylum seeker case.

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Sweden launches criminal investigation of U.S. intelligence activities

Swedish prosecutors launched a formal criminal investigation into "unlawful intelligence activity" conducted by the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, according to a statement posted Monday on the Swedish Prosecution Authority's website. The statement comes two days after Swedish security police announced they were looking into the activities. The investigation began when U.S. Embassy officials told authorities its employees had been conducting surveillance similar to what was recently discovered in Norway. Head prosecutor Tomas Lindstrand said the criminal investigation concerns actions taken to protect American staff and the United States' post in Stockholm. The criminal investigation will establish whether crimes have been committed, he said.

The scale of surveillance is not known, but according to a security police statement Saturday, operations have been ongoing since 2000. They were conducted without the knowledge of the Foreign Affairs office, the Justice Department, the security or the local police in Sweden, the statement said. "I think it's regrettable they have conducted these activities without informing Swedish authorities." Sweden's Justice Minister Beatrice Ask told reporters Saturday, "I think it is very serious if these activities have been carried out in breach of Swedish law." The U.S. Embassy in Stockholm released a statement Saturday that recognized the existence of a program to detect suspicious activities around U.S. facilities, and pointed to past terrorist attacks as evidence for why such a program is necessary.

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Iconic obelisk presents a monumental security issue

The Washington Monument is unlike any other in the capital, so austere and abstract that creating security arrangements for it has dogged the National Park Service for a decade. Fortunately, plans to build a large, underground visitors center, floated in 1993 and renewed in the security panic after Sept. 11, 2001, never came to fruition. So far, the only permanent security installed at the site - a vehicle barrier made from an artful arrangement of low granite walls, careful landscaping and attractive benches designed by landscape architect Laurie Olin - is one of the extraordinarily rare examples of aesthetically pleasing anti-terrorism designs in the United States.

But Olin's work hasn't solved the problem of how to screen individual visitors seeking access to the monument's interior. Currently, this is done in an unsightly, temporary security hut at the monument's base, a provisional structure that disfigures the striking geometry of the obelisk. Monday night, the Park Service will present the public with five ideas for replacing that temporary facility with something permanent. These proposals, designed to hold the magnetometers that have become ritualistic intrusions at so many federal sites, have made the rounds of the main design oversight bodies in the District for preliminary comment. Now it's the public's turn to weigh in on radical changes to one of the most iconic monuments in the world.

Unfortunately, the bureaucratic gears are already grinding, and what will be presented to the public Monday doesn't include important options, including what became known as the "tunnel" in previous discussions of the issue. Nor does it include the choice of more minimal visitor screening - simple wanding or visual bag inspection - that might not require costly and intrusive changes to the structure. The choice to accept risk isn't on the table, either. Finally, and although it might seem paradoxical given how important resisting security authoritarianism is to preserving the symbolism of freedom, it doesn't take seriously the idea that perhaps the monument's interior should be closed altogether - a small concession that might have collateral benefits.

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Building on Clues: Examining Successes and Failures in Detecting U.S. Terrorist Plots, 1999-2009

Since 2001, the intelligence community has sought methods to improve the process for uncovering and thwarting domestic terrorist plots before they occur. Vital to these efforts are the more than 17,000 state and local U.S. law enforcement agencies whose role in the counterterrorism process has become increasingly recognized. As part of an on-going study for the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions (IHSS), this report examines open-source material on 86 foiled and executed terrorist plots against U.S. targets from 1999 to 2009 to determine the types of information and activities that led to (or could have led to) their discovery. Our findings provide law enforcement, homeland security officials, and policy makers with an improved understanding of the types of clues and methods that should be emphasized to more reliably prevent terrorist attacks, including the need to:

• Recognize the importance of law enforcement and public vigilance in thwarting terror attacks. More than 80% of foiled terrorist plots were discovered via observations from law enforcement or the general public. Tips included reports of plots as well as reports of suspicious activity, such as pre-operational surveillance, para-military training, smuggling activities, and the discovery of suspicious documents.
• Continue to investigate Al Qaeda and Allied Movements (AQAM), but do not overlook other groups, and pay particular attention to plots by “lone wolves.” Less
• than half of U.S. terror plots examined had links to AQAM, and many non-AQAM plots, primarily those with white supremacist or anti-government/militia ties, rivaled AQAM plots in important ways. Additionally, plots by single actors (“lone wolves”) have proven particularly successful, reaching execution nearly twice as often as plots by groups.
• Ensure processes and training are in place that enable law enforcement personnel to identify terrorist activity during routine criminal investigations. Almost one in five plots were foiled “accidentally” during investigations into seemingly unrelated crimes.Training is needed to recognize when ordinary crimes may be connected to terrorism.
• Work to establish good relations with local communities and avoid tactics that might alienate them. Approximately 40% of plots were thwarted as a result of tips from the public and informants. Establishing trust with persons in or near radical movements is jeopardized by tactics such as racial, ethnic, religious, or ideological profiling.
• Support “quality assurance” processes to ensure initial clues are properly pursued and findings shared. Investigating leads and sharing information across agencies led to foiling the vast majority of terrorist plots in our sample. Similarly, breakdowns in these basic processes led to lost opportunities to thwart some of the worst attacks, including 9/11.
• Expand the federal standards for categorizing suspicious activity reports (SARs). A large majority of the initial clue types we identified, including public and informant tips, as well as law enforcement observations made during routine criminal investigations, are only indirectly referenced in the current national SAR standards. Expanding them would enable more comprehensive reporting and greater information sharing of potential terrorist activity.

The Institute for Homeland Security Solutions (IHSS) is a research consortium established to conduct applied research in the social and behavioral sciences to address a wide range of homeland security challenges.

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Nuclear bomb material found for sale on Georgia black market

Highly enriched uranium that could be used to make a nuclear bomb is on sale on the black market along the fringes of the former Soviet Union, according to evidence emerging from a secret trial in Georgia. Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, informed other heads of state of the sting operation at a nuclear summit in Washington in April, but no details about the case have been made public until now. The trial has been conducted behind closed doors to protect the operational secrecy of Georgia's counter-proliferation unit, officials said. But investigators have given the Guardian an exclusive first-hand account of the case. It reveals that the critical ingredient for making a nuclear warhead is available on the black market and is reasonably easy to smuggle past a ring of expensive US-funded radiation sensors along the borders of the former Soviet Union. What is not clear is how much nuclear material is in circulation and whether any has already been bought by extremist groups.

The US has made the prevention of nuclear terrorism its national security priority. Barack Obama persuaded 50 world leaders at the April summit to pledge to secure all vulnerable nuclear material within four years. Billions of dollars have been spent upgrading security at nuclear sites around the globe, particularly in Russia, which has an estimated 700 tonnes of HEU in hundreds of facilities. But it is unclear how much has already been stolen. "The question is: of what iceberg are we seeing the tip?" said Matthew Bunn, a Harvard expert and former White House science adviser, who compiles an annual assessment of the nuclear terrorism threat titled Securing the Bomb. It is the third time in seven years HEU has been intercepted in Georgia. There have been 21 seizures or attempted thefts of weapons-grade material, uranium or plutonium, in the region since the Soviet Union collapsed. In every case the material seized had not been missed and mostly the theft was by an insider.

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Cargo security analysis: bringing intelligence to bear

Intelligence must be at the root of any effective cargo security regime, but there is a need for certificated systems capable of screening whole cargo pallets and large items. That is the view of the International Air Transport Association, which on 2 November opened its security-focused AVSEC World conference in Frankfurt - just days after intelligence-led security checks on a UPS aircraft in the UK and a FedEx Express facility in Dubai uncovered PETN explosives in packages originating in Yemen. The message from providers of screening systems, meanwhile, is that the technologies required to ensure cargo security are available, and what is lacking is a global standard to govern their use. Yet IATA's view on the primacy of intelligence appears to be a point of consensus.

In his address to AVSEC World, IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani argued that cargo security required co-operation between governments and industry in investment, processes, technology and risk assessment. For example, the association sees potential for its e-freight programme - a paperless documentation system launched as a cargo analogue of its e-ticketing initiative - to generate data that could be used to manage security "intelligently and efficiently without compromising speed". Industry's role is not confined to airlines, stresses Bisignani. "The entire supply chain from the manufacturer to the airport has a responsibility to secure shipments," he says. He sees the UK and USA as "well advanced on supply-chain solutions", with the former nation operating a regulated agent system and the latter a certificated cargo-screening programme, in which responsibilities are split between shippers, forwarders and manufacturers. IATA aims to "help all governments develop a similar approach".

This article was written for Flightglobal.com by Niall O'Keeffe. Flightglobal.com is a specialized online news and information website related to the aviation and aerospace industries.

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The Threat of Politicized Intelligence

If new US National Security Adviser Thomas E. Donilon needs a reminder of how stark the enemy threat is, he need look no further than today's discovery of printer cartridges rigged like explosive devices aboard UPS airliner cargo holds that left Yemen bound for Jewish Synagogues in the United States. A dry run? You bet. And not just to test the holes in air cargo security systems, but to test the reaction time and responsiveness of our national security apparatus.

The backroom maneuvering that led to Donilon's ascent and the departure of his predecessor, Gen. James L. Jones (USMC Ret), is a dangerous reminder of what happens when politics enters the world of intelligence gathering, analysis and policy-making. Donilon, whose reputation as a backroom Democratic Party wheeler dealer precedes him, would do well now to shed that skin and get down to the serious business at hand in containing and controlling threats that are approaching four-dimensional complexity against American--and global--security interests.

History is replete with bad decisions made by men and women charged with securing America who lamely, selfishly and often purposefully politicized intelligence for narrow political objectives. Those failures should serve as a reminder to Donilon and the team he assembles that America's enemies are lurking and waiting for any sign of weakness to attack us. And attack us they will.

During both the Clinton and Bush presidencies, political machinations repeatedly overtook good judgment in assessing the vast amounts of intelligence gathered by the most formidable surveillance apparatus the world has ever known. Bill Clinton repeatedly ignored warnings and advice from people in and out of government about the storm brewing inside Islam's radical fringe. On September 11, 2001, the hypothetical threat--ignored and politicized for so many years--became a harsh reality. We are living with the consequences of that misjudgment today.

Much of the failure to deal with militant Islam inside the Clinton presidency came from his national security team, which (with the exception of former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke) had little practical experience with military campaigns, counterterrorism strategies, guerrilla warfare tactics or other facets so critical to ensuring modern-day security. They repeatedly, and with increasing stridency, politicized intelligence gathering, analysis and policy responses. Sudan, on which I write from personal knowledge and experience, was a prime example of what America can never afford to allow again.

This article is taken from The Washington Post "On Leadership" Guest Insights and its particularly relevant in today's intelligence environment.

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The Bleeding Edge of Forensics

Scientists who have spent their careers studying the behaviors of liquids are putting forensic techniques to the test. They're working to test the rigor of modern forensic science by improving our understanding of the secrets hidden in blood. "There's been a huge amount of basic research done on droplets and sprays," said Sanjeev Chandra, an engineer at the University of Toronto who helps General Motors develop better ways to spray paint its cars. "A lot of the physics is exactly the same for blood." In soon to be published research, Chandra and his team have revisited the techniques and software packages that forensic experts have developed over the years to reconstruct the origin of blood splatters. By testing this software scientifically on splatters of pig blood in the lab, they've shown that there is significant room for improvement in the models, which typically use straight lines to trace the path of blood droplets a surface back to their point of origin.

"They aren't very accurate," said Chandra. "They don't consider the effects of gravity on blood droplets. They ignore air drag, which can be very significant." Calculating the speed at which drops of blood leave the body during an attack is an important measurement for blood pattern analysis. The physics behind the velocity and size of a blood drop gives investigators an idea of what kind of wound was inflicted. A drop of blood falling from a cut finger, for instance, is a battle primarily between the force of surface tension, which keeps it stuck to the body, and gravity, which pulls it downwards. Solve the equations, and you'll find that a typical drop released this way has a volume of less than one percent of a teaspoon. Blood released from a wound by a violent impact -- such as a bullet -- tends fly in even smaller drops. That's because the force of a bullet is much stronger than gravity and easily overcomes the surface tension, flinging tiny drops away at high speeds.

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Burma hit by massive net attack ahead of election

An ongoing computer attack has knocked Burma off the internet, just days ahead of its first election in 20 years. The attack started in late October but has grown in the last few days to overwhelm the nation's link to the net, said security firm Arbor Networks. Reports from Burma say the disruption is ongoing. The attack, which is believed to have started on 25 October, comes ahead of closely-watched national elections on 7 November. International observers and foreign journalists are not being allowed into the country to cover the polls - which many Western leaders have said will not be free or fair.

It will raise suspicions that Burma's military authorities could be trying to restrict the flow of information over the election period. Dr Craig Labovitz from Arbor Networks said that he did not know the motivation for the attack but said that analysis of similar events in the past had found motives that ran the gamut "from politically motivated DDoS, government censorship, extortion and stock manipulation." He also noted that the current wave of traffic was "significantly larger" than high profile attacks against Georgia and Estonia in 2007.

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San Diego-to-Tijuana drug tunnel uncovered; 25 tons of pot seized

Federal authorities discovered a tunnel linking drug warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana that led to the seizure of more than 25 tons of marijuana, one of the largest-ever drug seizures in San Diego, officials said. The 1,800-foot transnational passageway — roughly equivalent to six football fields in length — isn't the longest or the most sophisticated ever built, but it is one of the few instances in which authorities were able to seize drugs on both sides of the border. The scale of the operation pointed to the work of a major Mexican drug cartel, authorities said, and comes two weeks after Mexican authorities discovered a record 134 tons of marijuana in an industrial area near Tijuana. Officials don't know if there is a connection between the two events, but called this week's discovery another significant blow against organized crime groups.

Authorities estimated the drugs' worth at more than $20 million. "I can promise you there are some very unhappy people in the cartel," said John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which leads the multi-agency San Diego Tunnel Task Force. The investigation was triggered Tuesday afternoon when task force agents patrolling the light industrial area near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry followed a tractor trailer that was acting suspiciously, Morton said. The truck was stopped at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Temecula, where agents found about 10 tons of marijuana stuffed in the 53-foot trailer. Two people in the truck, a husband and wife whose identities were not disclosed, were arrested. Agents later raided the warehouse from which the vehicle had departed and discovered another 10 to 15 tons of dope, the bales wrapped in cellophane and on pallets, as if ready for shipping.

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Kurdish splinter group issues claim for Istanbul bombing

A splinter nationalist group from the Kurdistan Workers' Party has claimed responsibility for Sunday's suicide bombing in Istanbul, Turkey, according to the group's statement on its website. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or TAK, said the attack, which injured at least 32 people, was "an act of revenge" and carried out by Vedat Acar, who died in the strike.

"We as TAK claim responsibility for the action carried out against the police force of Turkish fascism at Istanbul's Taksim Square on Oct 31, 2010," the statement said. Acar is described a member of the group's command from Van, an eastern border province populated by ethnic Kurds who have signed up with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

The PKK has been battling the Turkish government since the early 1980s initially for a separate Kurdish homeland. Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or TAK, was labeled a terrorist group by the United States in 2008. It claimed responsibility for the bombing of a bus that carried Turkish military personnel and their families in Istanbul. The attack, which occurred in June, killed five people.

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Another Bomb In Greece. Blamed On "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei"

Greek authorities have destroyed another mail bomb. This one was returned to a delivery service by the French embassy according to the Associated Press. Police said the latest package contained a small amount of explosives and was destroyed by controlled explosion. They said an erroneous return address on the package was for the Greek Orthodox Church. A 48 hour ban on all international mail leaving Greece is still in effect. Two men have been arrested. Greek police say they are members of an anarchist group the "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei."

Police released pictures of five men they are seeking in connection with the attacks, who they say are also members of the shadowy group. From the WSJ: Little is known about the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, which first emerged in early 2008, six years after Greek police dismantled the country's notorious left-wing November 17 terror group. The Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei has been known for nonlethal bomb attacks around Athens despite the arrests of several of its members—most of them in their 20s—in the past two years. The group is seen as anti-authoritarian and the most recent targets may reflect their opposition to Greece's fiscal austerity program after a European Union sponsored €110 billion ($154 billion) bailout package this year.

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Possibly harmful parcel at German leader's office

German police disarmed a potentially harmful package from Greece at German Chancellor Angela Merkel's office Tuesday, hours after similar small mail bombs exploded outside the Russian and Swiss embassies in Athens in attacks blamed on Greek far-left extremists. Greek police destroyed at least three more suspected bombs in Athens, and two local men have been charged with mailing bombs. Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said the suspicious package intercepted in the mailroom of her office was personally addressed to the German chancellor and "would have been able to harm people."

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the package, which arrived midday at the mailroom of the Chancellor Angela Merkel's office, was sent from Greece two days ago and resembled a series of small mail bombs in Athens. De Maiziere said that not only did the package have a Greek return address, but also authorities had been able to trace that it had been sent from Greece two days ago. "It contained an explosive device," de Maiziere told reporters. "Based on everything that we know, it was built in the same way and visually resembled the package that exploded at the Swiss embassy in Athens," he said.

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