Subscribe to our RSS feed
If Pakistan continues to falter in its nascent steps toward democracy; if its government continues to arbitrarily jail leading citizens and silence an independent media; if it continues to focus its security measures against legitimate political opponents and civic leaders rather than the violent extremists and terrorists; then the resulting discontent and repression will make it that much easier to recruit and motivate more terrorists. And if the rule of law and the justice system collapse, and they are teetering on the edge now, then the terrorists will surely operate with even greater freedom and efficiency.
Speaking after the bombing attack on her life when she first returned, she told me that, yes, she was afraid of the assassins bent on killing her, she was afraid of being arrested again, but that she was more afraid of what was happening to her country and she was determined to restore freedom and safety in this land of her children.
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto will unfortunately speed up the destabilization of Pakistan. Bhutto had the potential of winning the upcoming elections and steering the country away from extremism and towards democracy. Her elimination has created a theatre in which the three key players are a discredited Musharraf, an Islamist Sharif, and a Taliban/Al Qaeda coalition. This spells trouble to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and the war on terror.No matter whether elections are held or whether Musharraf re-imposes emergency rule, the prospects for long term stability in Pakistan are very dim. The United States needs to do several things in the immediate future to help preserve stability.
Passed in 2002 by one vote, the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies (SAFETY) Act provides limited liability protection to companies and/or organizations that have technologies, products or services that could be used to combat terrorism. The rationale was to protect providers from being disemboweled by a litany of lawsuits should a product or service fail during a terrorist event.
One trembles to think where the former DHS Inspector General’s deep pockets end — particularly since the public would be paying for his spending binge — and common sense begins. Besides making airports an even greater misery than they already are in terms of waits, lines, crowds, screaming babies and tired angry travelers … would putting screeners at the entrances of airports prevent violence? September 11th was wrought with box cutters. What creativity could be brought to bear among the many stores and equipment located in airport terminals? Would the Starbucks employees need security clearances?
The recent Holy Land Foundation mistrial underscores the difficulty of prosecuting individuals for providing support to terrorist groups under the cover of humanitarian or political activity. However convincing the government’s evidence, jurors must balance volumes of dry financial and other data against heart-wrenching images of hungry children. Not only does a picture tell a thousand words, it is also easier to digest than thousands of financial and other documents. It is far more straightforward to prosecute cases involving participation in an actual attack, plot or training camp. In contrast, prosecuting individuals for providing material support to others engaged in such activity is complicated by the degrees of separation between the two and the need to decipher ambiguously worded, coded conversations that lose further meaning in their English translation.
It continues to amaze me that over five years after the 9-11 Commission Report, we as a nation are still discussing the creation of a “national identification” document. As brought to light last week in Secretary Chertoff’s remarks on DHS’s accomplishments in 2007 and priorities for 2008, DHS is moving forward with a “retooled” REAL ID requirement. Despite the current multitude of state rules and standards that are inconsistent in the issuance of driver’s licenses, reality is and continues to be that a driver’s license is the most requested and recognized form of identification. If you don’t believe that, just ask Governor Spitzer of New York who recently advocated giving illegal immigrants the ability to obtain state driver’s licenses.
Today and tomorrow, I have the privilege of chairing the Second Annual National Congress for Secure Communities. The National Congress brings together representatives from the federal, state and local government sector with representatives of the private, educational, non-profit, public health and emergency responder sectors to share ideas and develop best practices for community preparedness. I look forward to reporting to our readers on Security Debrief the lessons and outcomes generated during the National Congress over the next days.
I compare my experience in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws to pushing a broken-down car up a hill. Once you get a little momentum forward, it starts to roll backwards.
The job of enforcing our immigration statutes gets even harder when employers shirk their responsibilities to verify the employment eligibility of their workers, when advocacy groups run to the media sensationalizing the plight of the unauthorized worker, when Members of Congress send in scathing letters on behalf of their constituencies challenging DHS actions and now when states implement laws preventing cooperation with DHS.
Most interesting in the Secretary’s speech were his uncommonly candid criticisms of groups that he says have made it difficult for the federal government to implement an effective homeland security strategy. He doesn’t hold back, taking aim at: Congress, state governments and private industry.
As the former head of the DEA, I applaud the decision of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to reduce the disparity and unfairness between penalties for convictions associated with crack cocaine and powder cocaine. I have been a long time advocate for reducing the 100 to 1 disparity on sentencing of crack and powder cocaine convictions because it offends the high principle of equal treatment under the law.
Over the last few years, the SSA has issued practically useless notifications to employers advising employers that there were some discrepancies between an employee’s social security number and their biographic information. The main question from employers receiving such letters was “… and you want us to do what about this?” The notices did not direct employers to take any action, and frankly were a fine example of a bureaucratic SSA hot-potato game.
The Departments of State and Defense have agreed on a formula granting the military oversight of all private military company (PMC) operations in Iraq: the military will have oversight of the convoys are taking place, their routes, timings, etc. All of this is very good news, as it gives commanders access to oversee the [...]
By Kevin R. McCarthy, Special Guest to Security DeBrief
Board of Advisors, SPADAC Inc.
Scanning 100% of the packages that process through this system is a focus of the 9/11 Bill. Many people interpret this process as being similar to the treatment a traveler’s bag receives at the airport security checkpoint. Logistically, however, this is simply impossible. Implementing the 100% requirement will create a net effect to completely cripple our economy.
Jeff Stein, Congressional Quarterly’s national security editor, writes up a well-sourced article providing context to growing skepticism about the latest conclusions of the National Intelligence Estimate with regard to Iran’s nuclear ambitions — conclusions that are in dramatic contradiction to earlier conclusions of the same report.
An interesting analysis of the controversy surrounding the CIA’s decision to destroy tapes of interrogation techniques: “Since Watergate, the CIA’s case officers have been restrained by the expectation that taking risks in pursuit of actionable intelligence would bring career-ending, or even life-threatening, exposure if things went badly and details came to light.”
Earlier this week, two Security DeBrief contributors shared their thoughts on topics ranging from the implementation of the SAFE Port Act to 100% cargo scanning in a panel discussion entitled “Is America Safer at Sea? Grading U.S. Maritime Security.” Jack Quinn, chairman of the Safe Commerce Coalition, outlined how the newly formed organization will proactively advocate for practical, sensible solutions to protect the supply chain - in contrast with some of misguided approaches such as 100% scanning that might actually result in decreased security for the nation. The event was moderated by Dr. James Carafano, and also featured Rear Admiral Mary Landry of the U.S. Coast Guard and Dr. Robbin Laird, an international security expert with Anteon Corporation. View a video of the event here.
Although not given a lot of attention in the mainstream media, the recent mistrial in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) case, due to a deadlocked jury, could have a significant and far-reaching impact on terrorism prosecution cases in the future. As the former head of Homeland Security’s New York investigative field office at ICE, one of my roles was to manage the El Dorado Financial Crimes Task Force. And one of the primary missions of the Task Force was to follow the money trail of terrorism-related cases.
This week, the U.S. intelligence community released to Capitol Hill the unclassified key judgments of its latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear intentions and capabilities. The new estimate opens with the startling judgment that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003, which is sure to dominate the discourse to follow. It shouldn’t.