The Heritage Foundation will host next week a forum on cargo security entitled Homeland Security and Inspecting Shipping Containers: Debating the Way Forward. Two of Security Debrief’s contributors will participate – former DHS Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, who is also now head of the Safe Commerce Coalition, and Dr. James Carafano, who is the senior fellow for foreign policy, homeland security and counter-terrorism issues at the Foundation.

CNET’s Anne Broche covers a bipartisan Congressional hearing on REAL ID yesterday where DHS policy guru Stewart Baker was grilled on the legislation’s most contentious issues, including who will protect the data that states will be required to collect and how the mandate - which takes effect in May - will be funded. Broche notes [...]

Recently, I learned that President Bush will name Michele Leonhart as the Administration’s nominee to be the permanent head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The President’s decision to name such a worthy and dedicated public servant to the post should be commended.

Recently, CQ’s Dan Fowler wrote an in-depth investigative analysis on the rather abrupt end to a Gulf Coast program providing emergency alerts to deaf and blind citizens because of a lack of continued funding from FEMA . The Deaf Link pilot program provided critical services to over 2,500 subscribers in three states, but was deemed as too costly to continue by some officials. Earlier in the week, Security DeBrief contributor Rich Cooper had addressed the injustice of not maintaining an emergency alert system that is capable of reaching all members of the American people - including those in the deaf community – in his piece The Forgotten Portion of “We the People” that had an accompanying American Sign Language translation in a YouTube video.

WIRED’s Michael Peck details how the nation’s intelligence agencies are leaving classrooms behind as they embrace technology to train new spy recruits in virtually simulated environments.  With names like Rapid Onset, Vital Passage and Sudden Thrust, Peck blogs that the games are “actually a surprisingly clever and occasionally surreal blend of education, humor and intellectual [...]

ShaneHarris.net: Surveillance Standoff
No one should believe that real-time government surveillance of the communications network is an idea born of the 9/11 attacks or that it results solely from the Bush administration’s aggrandizing of executive power. The legal arguments that the government has asserted to support increased surveillance of digital space were first put forth in [...]

Mr. Carter’s revisionist history reminds one of the international bullying of Maoist China and the Soviet Union’s fearless invasion of Afghanistan under his presidency. It’s as if the former president is sleepwalking through history, in a lovely dream of righting all the wrongs he failed to right as president. What a nightmare for the rest of us.

Criminal threats have evolved over the years. New responsibilities in a post-9/11 environment challenge law enforcement at the local, state and federal level. Emergency response capabilities are increasingly part of any street cop’s job. But the resource most critical for so many of these challenges—the patrol car—has never evolved to keep pace.

The post below is an excerpt of an email published on the Counterterrorism blog, regarding alleged efforts by the government to airbrush the term jihad from the American lexicon:
As a Muslim trying to help America defend itself against the Islamist jihad, I am outraged that our government is letting us down so badly by cozying [...]

While NYPD officers were acquitted of a battery of charges related to the death of Sean Bell, it is clear that the department needs to review and re-evaluate its training and use-of-force operations. Fifty rounds fired at a target that does not pose an immediate threat, is retreating and is more than a handful of feet away is not an appropriate or professional use of force for officers equipped with pistols. Hopefully, this regrettable situation will lead to a serious review within NYPD.

Recently declassified documents disclose the bureaucratic side of al Qaeda and the terrorist organization’s continuing struggle with funding. The documents were captured in Afghanistan and Iraq and date from the early 90s to the present. They reflect an organization obsessed with paperwork, and the control and flow of money - something that has become more difficult in the post 9/11 world.

Much is made about morale at the Department and appropriately so. There are lots of ways to improve it. Better salaries and leadership/career development opportunities are just two. So is a better work environment. Investing in the physical infrastructure of the place you want working 24-7, 365 days a year without stop, without risk of physical breakdown and that is not an embarrassment is not a luxury - it’s a requirement.

Danger Room discusses threats to private contractors in Iraq.
Insurgents have put together hundreds of propaganda videos ranting about how oh-so-terrible the American troops in Iraq are.  But this is the first flick I’ve seen that directly and exclusively targets the private military contractors like Blackwater that have become a hallmark of the Iraq occupation.

US policy towards Hamas is boosting Iran’s standing and influence in the Middle East, increasing the Iranian threat to Israeli security, neutralizing American efforts to contain Iranian ambitions, and endangering the long term interests of the United States in that region. The question that should be seriously debated in Washington still stands: should the United States talk to Hamas?

Agree or disagree, the fact is that President Bush’s DHS has made a Herculean effort to move from day to day crisis management to a more thoughtful consideration of threat based risk management priorities. As all parts of DHS begin placing emphasis on emergency preparedness, TSA is emerging as an excellent example.

Law.com - Posner Blasts Immigration Courts as ‘Inadequate’ and Ill-Trained
Posner, who sits on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said administrative law judges who serve in the immigration courts are ill-trained and insufficient in number. He also said the bar that represents applicants doesn’t have enough qualified lawyers, and that the Board of Immigration [...]

Early Warning’s William Arkin discusses the complicated - and potentially problematic - role that retired Army generals play as paid consultants and analysts for major television networks to comment on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:
The larger problem is the role these general play, not just on TV but in American society. In our modern [...]

The 2004 Madrid subway attacks and the 2005 London subway and bus attacks demonstrate that the terrorists consider passenger rail and mass transit as preferred targets. The rising fuel costs for automobiles and congested air travel could logically push more passengers to rail throughout the course of the year and beyond. This is where DHS and DOT should place their emphasis.

In honor of the 35th anniversary of the DEA, this spring’s lecture series highlights Drug Kingpins Across the Decades, with panel discussions covering Nicky Barnes & Frank Lucas (1970s), Pablo Escobar (1980s), The Arellano-Felix Organization (1990s) and Haji Baz Mohammad (2000s).

The Associated Press writes that Former Olympic ice dancer Pasha Grishuk was found to be the victim of GHB dropped into her drink.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration labels GHB a “predatory drug” that can be mixed with alcohol to reduce resistance from a victim before a sexual assault.