Disasters 2.0 Conference Addresses Social Media Use During Emergencies

The use of social media to inform communities about emergencies has taken local public information officers by storm. Recent events have outlined social media’s popularity as survivors of Haiti’s earthquake turned to Twitter and other networks to update their statuses and verify the well-being of loved ones. Its popularity with citizens worldwide has led to a bevy of questions regarding use and best practices.

About 130 public and private information officers from the emergency management, first response and business continuity communities gathered on Jan. 21 at the Midwest Disasters 2.0: Social Media and Emergency Response training session. The session’s goal was to assemble Kansas City, Kan.-area emergency communicators to learn how social media systems work and how they can be used during a disaster.

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Al Qaeda man captured wearing bomb belt in Yemen

Yemeni forces on Saturday captured an al Qaeda militant wearing an explosive belt who was planning a suicide attack on "economic facilities," a government official said. The man was detained while driving a motorbike in the Khalf area in the Hadramaut region, the Ministry of Interior official said in a statement sent to Reuters. He was named as Saleh Abdul-Habib Saleh Shawash.

"The primary interrogation of this terrorist (revealed) he was planning a suicide attack against economic facilities in Hadramaut ... the interrogation is ongoing to reveal more information about this and to see who else might be involved in the plan," the source said. Yemen has gained a reputation as a haven and a training and recruiting center for al Qaeda militants since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. Authorities stepped up operations against the group after its Yemeni wing said it was behind an attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on December 25.

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Afghanistan Condemns NATO 'Friendly Fire' Incident

A joint U.S.-Afghan force called in an airstrike on what turned out to be an Afghan army post after taking fire from there before dawn Saturday, killing four Afghan soldiers and prompting an angry demand for punishment from the country's defense ministry. Both NATO and Afghan authorities described the clash around a snow-covered outpost in Wardak province southwest of Kabul as a case of mistaken identity. NATO called the attack "unfortunate" and promised a full investigation. Nevertheless, the deadly strike threatens to strain relations between NATO and the Afghan government at a time when both sides are calling for closer partnership in the fight against the Taliban. The fighting came on the heels of several cases of bloodshed between Afghans and Americans in recent weeks.

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Cellphone Curbs May Not Decrease Car Crashes

Laws that forbid motorists from using hand-held phones or texting while driving don't appear to result in a significant decrease in vehicle crashes, according to a new study by the Highway Loss Data Institute expected to be released Friday. The study, expected to be released at a conference in Washington, D.C., Friday, comes amid stepped-up efforts by federal highway-safety regulators to ban texting while driving and curb other forms of driver distraction. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood earlier this week announced rules to forbid commercial truck and bus drivers from text messaging while driving. Mr. LaHood has said he would ban all texting while driving if he could.

The Transportation Department in a statement Friday criticized the HLDI findings, saying "it is irresponsible to suggest that laws banning cell phone use while driving have zero effect on the number of crashes on our nation's roadways. A University of Utah study shows that using a cell phone while driving can be just as dangerous and deadly as driving drunk. We know that by enacting and enforcing tough laws, states have reduced the number of crashes leading to injuries and fatalities."

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U.S. is unprepared for major bioterrorism attack

More than eight years after the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, the United States is still unprepared to respond to the threat of large-scale bioterrorism, a congressionally appointed commission said Tuesday in a report that gave the government mixed grades overall for how it has protected Americans from weapons of mass destruction. The report, which measured the government's performance in 17 key areas, gave the White House and Congress "F" grades for not building a rapid-response capability for dealing with disease outbreaks from bioterrorism, or providing adequate oversight of security and intelligence agencies.

Within hours of the report's release, the Obama administration revealed plans to fill gaps in the nation's public health defenses with a series of initiatives to be announced in Wednesday's State of the Union address. The proposals, which administration officials said had been in the works well before the report's findings were known, will seek to speed up delivery of drugs in the event of a major attack, addressing one of the principal shortcomings identified by the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.

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Human Predators Stalk Haiti's Vulnerable Kids

Mia Pean's heart sank last week when she saw the Toyota pickup truck cruising the debris-cluttered streets of Leogane, ground zero for the earthquake that has devastated Haiti. Each time the driver saw a child — especially a young teen — he would stick his head out of the window and shout, "Manje, manje," Creole for "eat." Pean says she watched the hungry kids, four or five at a time, hop into the back of the pickup, which then disappeared. "I saw the same man again a few days later in Carrefour," a poor suburb of Port-au-Prince, says Pean. "I asked him, 'What are you doing with all those children?' He said, 'Don't worry, we're going to put them in safe homes.' Then he drove off."

But Pean, a Haitian-American emergency consultant for the Andrew Young Foundation, doubts that altruism is the motive of the pickup driver, and others like him, who are now prowling Haiti's streets. The quake that has killed 150,000 people has left thousands of children orphaned, and vulnerable to being preyed upon by child traffickers and Haiti's shameful tradition of keeping child slaves known as restaveks. "I really fear," says Pean, "that most of the kids you see being picked up on the streets in Haiti right now are going to become restaveks or victims of sexual trafficking."

• "Traffickers targeting Haiti's children, human organs, CNN, 1/28/10.
  
• "Child Trafficking for Sexual Purposes, ECPAT, November 2008.
• ChildTrafficking.com, website.
• Child Trafficking Research Hub, UNICEF website.
• Stop Child Trafficking Now, website.
  

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Nigerian underwear bomber: 10 terror suspects held

Police last week acted quickly to forestall a serious threat to national security when they nabbed 10 terror suspects with links to international terrorist organisations. The nine foreigners and a Malaysian were also believed to be linked to a Nigerian student who attempted to blow up a US-bound flight on Christmas Day. Among the foreigners nabbed here were several Nigerians but the authorities are tight-lipped over the details. The 10 suspects were members of a religious group linked to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, the Nigerian who was arrested in the United States after he attempted to detonate explosives sewn into his underwear on board Northwest Airlines flight 253, which was bound for Detroit from Amsterdam.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said the nine foreigners had only just arrived here when they were nabbed. “They would not have had time to do much and establish themselves here, They posed a serious security threat to the country and have been detained under the Internal Security Act.” He, however, refused to reveal the nationalities of the foreign suspects and organisation they were affiliated to. He said police were tipped off by international anti-terrorism agencies and swung into action. He said terrorist threats were a serious matter regardless of whether they were directed at Malaysia.

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Building fusion centers for the next decade

When viewed in the context of policing in the modern model set forth nearly 200 years ago by Sir Robert Peel, the notion of the “Fusion Center” is still an incredibly new concept. The most well known variant of the fusion center in the United States is the JTTF — the Joint Terrorism Task Force. The first JTTF (and arguably the first fully-functional fusion center) was set up three decades ago in New York City. When al Qaeda terrorists struck this country on 9/11, there were 35 JTTFs in operation. Today there are more than 100 JTTFs up and running. But there are many other multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional information-sharing organizations in America where counterterrorism is not the primary focus — these fusion centers are in place to prevent and respond to every sort of criminal activity and they’re springing up all over the country.

For example, in May 2009, the Dallas Morning News reported that detectives in that city’s fusion center “played a critical role” in the apprehension of various criminals by “quickly analyzing and disseminating information to officers in the field. Then, in August 2009, authorities in Texas announced the opening of the Austin Regional Intelligence Center, set up to investigators broader access to confidential information about suspects or criminal organizations.

Furthermore, the Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS), a federally-funded program to support regional law enforcement efforts in combating crimes of all types — this national network is comprised of six multistate centers designed to operate on a regional basis. There are many other examples we’ve sited in the past year — from the Colorado Information Analysis Center to the Michigan Criminal Intelligence System — where innovative new technologies are being implemented as part of rethought and reinvigorated crime-fighting strategies. The point is: fusion centers are here to stay. The fusion center concept continues to evolve, and the technology supporting that concept is hurtling light years forward on what seems to be a Moore’s Law pace.

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FBI says no terrorism link for Reston man found with weapons

A Virginia man arrested in New Jersey with a cache of weapons, a map of a U.S. military installation and a traditional Middle Eastern headdress has no apparent terrorist ties, the FBI said Tuesday. Lloyd R. Woodson, 43, of Reston, is charged with multiple weapons offenses after being arrested Monday in Branchburg, N.J. Detectives searching his hotel room found the map, the red-and-white headdress, a grenade launcher, a semiautomatic assault rifle with a defaced serial number, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, prosecutors said.

The federal Joint Terrorism Task Force was called in to investigate, but FBI Special Agent Brian Travers, a spokesman for the Newark field office, said the "preliminary assessment is that there is no terrorist link." Travers said agents based that tentative conclusion on "the fact that he has no connection to a known terrorist group and there doesn't seem to be any specific terrorist plot." Investigators said that Woodson's intentions remain unclear and that the investigation is continuing.

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Man with weapons, map of military base arrested

A man was arrested Monday after police found an arsenal of high-powered weapons and a map of a U.S. military base in his New Jersey hotel. Lloyd R. Woodson, 43, was arrested and faces multiple weapons charges after an investigation into his suspicious behavior at a store in Branchburg, New Jersey, said local prosecutor Wayne J. Forrest.

Woodson, wearing a military jacket, went to a store called Quick Chek on Monday afternoon and was acting suspiciously, Forrest said in a statement. The clerk called authorities. When officers arrived, Woodson ran into the woods. He was subdued after wrestling with officers, the statement said.

During the struggle, officers noticed that Woodson was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying an assault rifle in his coat. Officers searched Woodson's hotel room and found another assault rifle, a grenade launcher, a police scanner, another bulletproof vest, a map of a U.S. military base, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a Middle Eastern-style headdress.

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