Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack: Critical National Infrastructures

Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack : critical national infrastructures. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2008. SUDOC: Y 3.2:IN 3/EL 2

The physical and social fabric of the United States is sustained by a system of systems; a complex and dynamic network of interlocking and interdependent infrastructures (“critical national infrastructures”) whose harmonious functioning enables the myriad actions, transactions, and information flow that undergird the orderly conduct of civil society in this country. The vulnerability of these infrastructures to threats — deliberate, accidental, and acts of nature — is the focus of greatly heightened concern in the current era, a process accelerated by the events of 9/11 and recent hurricanes, including Katrina and Rita.

The increasingly pervasive use of electronics of all forms represents the greatest source of vulnerability to attack by electromagnetic pulse (EMP). When a nuclear explosion occurs at high altitude, the EMP signal it produces will cover the wide geographic region within the line of sight of the detonation. This broad band, high amplitude EMP, when coupled into sensitive electronics, has the capability to produce widespread and long lasting disruption and damage to the critical infrastructures that underpin the fabric of U.S. society.

This report presents the results of the Commission’s assessment of the effects of a high altitude EMP attack on our critical national infrastructures and provides recommendations for their mitigation.

This document is available online: http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS101707

The Long Arm of the Lawless

(Compiler's note: Must read)

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

Last week we discussed the impact that crime, and specifically kidnapping, has been having on Mexican citizens and foreigners visiting or living in Mexico. We pointed out that there is almost no area of Mexico immune from the crime and violence. As if on cue, on the night of Feb. 21 a group of heavily armed men threw two grenades at a police building in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero state, wounding at least five people. Zihuatanejo is a normally quiet beach resort just north of Acapulco; the attack has caused the town’s entire police force to go on strike. (Police strikes, or threats of strikes, are not uncommon in Mexico.)

Mexican police have regularly been targeted by drug cartels, with police officials even having been forced to seek safety in the United States, but such incidents have occurred most frequently in areas of high cartel activity like Veracruz state or Palomas. The Zihuatanejo incident is proof of the pervasiveness of violence in Mexico, and demonstrates the impact that such violence quickly can have on an area generally considered safe.

Significantly, the impact of violent Mexican criminals stretches far beyond Mexico itself. In recent weeks, Mexican criminals have been involved in killings in Argentina, Peru and Guatemala, and Mexican criminals have been arrested as far away as Italy and Spain. Their impact — and the extreme violence they embrace — is therefore not limited to Mexico or even just to Latin America. For some years now, STRATFOR has discussed the threat that Mexican cartel violence could spread to the United States, and we have chronicled the spread of such violence to the U.S.-Mexican border and beyond.

Traditionally, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations had focused largely on the transfer of narcotics through Mexico. Once the South American cartels encountered serious problems bringing narcotics directly into the United States, they began to focus more on transporting the narcotics to Mexico. From that point, the Mexican cartels transported them north and then handed them off to U.S. street gangs and other organizations, which handled much of the narcotics distribution inside the United States. In recent years, however, these Mexican groups have grown in power and have begun to take greater control of the entire narcotics-trafficking supply chain.

With greater control comes greater profitability as the percentages demanded by middlemen are cut out. The Mexican cartels have worked to have a greater presence in Central and South America, and now import from South America into Mexico an increasing percentage of the products they sell. They are also diversifying their routes and have gone global; they now even traffic their wares to Europe. At the same time, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations also have increased their distribution operations inside the United States to expand their profits even further. As these Mexican organizations continue to spread beyond the border areas, their profits and power will extend even further — and they will bring their culture of violence to new areas.

Burned in Phoenix

The spillover of violence from Mexico began some time ago in border towns like Laredo and El Paso in Texas, where merchants and wealthy families face extortion and kidnapping threats from Mexican gangs, and where drug dealers who refuse to pay “taxes” to Mexican cartel bosses are gunned down. But now, the threat posed by Mexican criminals is beginning to spread north from the U.S.-Mexican border. One location that has felt this expanding threat most acutely is Phoenix, some 185 miles north of the border. Some sensational cases have highlighted the increased threat in Phoenix, such as a June 2008 armed assault in which a group of heavily armed cartel gunmen dressed like a Phoenix Police Department tactical team fired more than 100 rounds into a residence during the targeted killing of a Jamaican drug dealer who had double-crossed a Mexican cartel. We have also observed cartel-related violence in places like Dallas and Austin, Texas. But Phoenix has been the hardest hit.

Narcotics smuggling and drug-related assassinations are not the only thing the Mexican criminals have brought to Phoenix. Other criminal gangs have been heavily involved in human smuggling, arms smuggling, money laundering and other crimes. Due to the confluence of these Mexican criminal gangs, Phoenix has now become the kidnapping-for-ransom capital of the United States. According to a Phoenix Police Department source, the department received 368 kidnapping reports last year. As we discussed last week, kidnapping is a highly underreported crime in places such as Mexico, making it very difficult to measure accurately. Based upon experience with kidnapping statistics in other parts of the world — specifically Latin America — it would not be unreasonable to assume that there were at least as many unreported kidnappings in Phoenix as there are reported kidnappings.

At present, the kidnapping environment in the United States is very different from that of Mexico, Guatemala or Colombia. In those countries, kidnapping runs rampant and has become a well-developed industry with a substantial established infrastructure. Police corruption and incompetence ensures that kidnappers are rarely caught or successfully prosecuted.

A variety of motives can lie behind kidnappings. In the United States, crime statistics demonstrate that motives such as sexual exploitation, custody disputes and short-term kidnapping for robbery have far surpassed the number of reported kidnappings conducted for ransom. In places like Mexico, kidnapping for ransom is much more common.

The FBI handles kidnapping investigations in the United States. It has developed highly sophisticated teams of agents and resources to devote to investigating this type of crime. Local police departments are also far more proficient and professional in the United States than in Mexico. Because of the advanced capabilities of law enforcement in the United States, the overwhelming majority of criminals involved in kidnapping-for-ransom cases reported to police — between 95 percent and 98 percent — are caught and convicted. There are also stiff federal penalties for kidnapping. Because of this, kidnapping for ransom has become a relatively rare crime in the United States.

Most kidnapping for ransom that does happen in the United States occurs within immigrant communities. In these cases, the perpetrators and victims belong to the same immigrant group (e.g., Chinese Triad gangs kidnapping the families of Chinese businesspeople, or Haitian criminals kidnapping Haitian immigrants) — which is what is happening in Phoenix. The vast majority of the 368 known kidnapping victims in Phoenix are Mexican and Central American immigrants who are being victimized by Mexican or Mexican-American criminals.

The problem in Phoenix involves two main types of kidnapping. One is the abduction of drug dealers or their children, the other is the abduction of illegal aliens.

Drug-related kidnappings often are not strict kidnappings for ransom per se. Instead, they are intended to force the drug dealer to repay a debt to the drug trafficking organization that ordered the kidnapping.

Nondrug-related kidnappings are very different from traditional kidnappings in Mexico or the United States, in which a high-value target is abducted and held for a large ransom. Instead, some of the gangs operating in Phoenix are basing their business model on volume, and are willing to hold a large number of victims for a much smaller individual pay out. Reports have emerged of kidnapping gangs in Phoenix carjacking entire vans full of illegal immigrants away from the coyote smuggling them into the United States. The kidnappers then transport the illegal immigrants to a safe house, where they are held captive in squalid conditions — and often tortured or sexually assaulted with a family member listening in on the phone — to coerce the victims’ family members in the United States or Mexico to pay the ransom for their release. There are also reports of the gangs picking up vehicles full of victims at day labor sites and then transporting them to the kidnapping safe house rather than to the purported work site.

Drug-related kidnappings are less frequent than the nondrug-related abduction of illegal immigrants, but in both types of abductions, the victims are not likely to seek police assistance due to their immigration status or their involvement in illegal activity. This strongly suggests the kidnapping problem greatly exceeds the number of cases reported to police.

Implications for the United States

The kidnapping gangs in Phoenix that target illegal immigrants have found their chosen crime to be lucrative and relatively risk-free. If the flow of illegal immigrants had continued at high levels, there is very little doubt the kidnappers’ operations would have continued as they have for the past few years. The current economic downturn, however, means the flow of illegal immigrants has begun to slow — and by some accounts has even begun to reverse. (Reports suggest many Mexicans are returning home after being unable to find jobs in the United States.)

This reduction in the pool of targets means that we might be fast approaching a point where these groups, which have become accustomed to kidnapping as a source of easy money — and their primary source of income — might be forced to change their method of operating to make a living. While some might pursue other types of criminal activity, some might well decide to diversify their pool of victims. Watching for this shift in targeting is of critical importance. Were some of these gangs to begin targeting U.S. citizens rather than just criminals or illegal immigrants, a tremendous panic would ensue, along with demands to catch the perpetrators.

Such a shift would bring a huge amount of law enforcement pressure onto the kidnapping gangs, to include the FBI. While the FBI is fairly hard-pressed for resources given its heavy counterterrorism, foreign counterintelligence and white-collar crime caseload, it almost certainly would be able to reassign the resources needed to respond to such kidnappings in the face of publicity and a public outcry. Such a law enforcement effort could neutralize these gangs fairly quickly, but probably not quickly enough to prevent any victims from being abducted or harmed.

Since criminal groups are not comprised of fools alone, at least some of these groups will realize that targeting soccer moms will bring an avalanche of law enforcement attention upon them. Therefore, it is very likely that if kidnapping targets become harder to find in Phoenix — or if the law enforcement environment becomes too hostile due to the growing realization of this problem — then the groups may shift geography rather than targeting criteria. In such a scenario, professional kidnapping gangs from Phoenix might migrate to other locations with large communities of Latin American illegal immigrants to victimize. Some of these locations could be relatively close to the Mexican border like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, San Diego or Los Angeles, though they could also include locations farther inland like Chicago, Atlanta, New York, or even the communities around meat and poultry packing plants in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic states. Such a migration of ethnic criminals would not be unprecedented: Chinese Triad groups from New York for some time have traveled elsewhere on the East Coast, like Atlanta, to engage in extortion and kidnapping against Chinese businessmen there.

The issue of Mexican drug-traffic organizations kidnapping in the United States merits careful attention, especially since criminal gangs in other areas of the country could start imitating the tactics of the Phoenix gangs.

No terror talk: Homeland Security head's new tone

By EILEEN SULLIVAN and MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano avoids mention of terrorism or 9/11 in remarks prepared for her first congressional testimony since taking office, signaling a sharp change in tone from her predecessors.

Napolitano is the first homeland security secretary to drop the term "terror" and "vulnerability" from remarks prepared for delivery to the House Homeland Security Committee, according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.

Tom Ridge, who headed the agency when it was launched in 2003, mentioned terrorism 11 times in his prepared statement at his debut before the oversight committee in 2003. And in 2005 Michael Chertoff, the second secretary, mentioned terrorism seven times, according to an AP analysis of the prepared testimonies.

Napolitano, a former Arizona governor, instead charts a course in very different terms than Chertoff, who used law enforcement and military jargon — "intelligence," "analysis," "mission" — to describe the agency's objectives.

The department's top priorities are spelled out in legislation that created it in 2001: preventing a terrorist attack in the United States; reducing the vulnerability for such an attack; and helping with the recovery if the U.S. is attacked.

Napolitano's prepared remarks also show her using the word "attacks" less than her predecessors. She is the first secretary to use a Capitol Hill debut to talk about hurricanes and disasters, a sign of the department's evolving mission following Hurricane Katrina.

Napolitano is not alone in her departure from terror talk.

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee doesn't mention terrorism or 9/11 in his prepared remarks for Wednesday's hearing either. Securing the borders, responding to natural disasters, ensuring transportation safety, protecting critical infrastructure and administering grants are the priorities, Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson says.

The United States hasn't been attacked since 2001, and the color-coded threat alert system hasn't changed since 2006 when a U.S.-bound terrorist plot was thwarted in the United Kingdom. But intelligence officials still consider the potential for terrorist attack on the U.S. a serious concern and send messages of "not if, but when."

The committee's top Republican said he was struck that Napolitano's prepared remarks did not include terrorism, Sept. 11, new threats or a formula for distributing counterterrorism grants to states and cities — a topic near and dear to the New Yorker.

"This can't be the evil we don't speak about," Peter King said. "Any testimony on homeland security should be centered around the threat of terrorism and what we're doing to combat it."

Napolitano has talked about unifying a 218,000-strong department that includes agencies charged with protecting the country's borders, enforcing immigration laws, protecting the president, responding to disasters, keeping terrorists off of airplanes and preventing computer attacks.

Because the department is so large and has many missions that overlap other agencies', Napolitano wants to make the Homeland Security Department's role unique. She wants to focus on transportation security, guarding chemical plants and detecting weapons of mass destruction.

Security expert James Carafano calls this "a debate without a difference." All the department's missions deal with terrorism in one way or another, said Carafano, a fellow with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

The department is six years old, and the secretary does not need to tell her employees to look for terrorists, he said. Employees know that and have been doing it.

When reporters asked last month why she doesn't talk about terrorism specifically, Napolitano said terrorism fits into what she calls "action directives" that she's issued over the past month.

In those directives, she mentions terrorism only once, and that is about a law that contains the word in its title. Her directives include reviewing the Gulf Coast recovery from Hurricane Katrina, information sharing, and immigration and border security programs.

Pressed further on the absence of terror vernacular, she said she has been working with members of President Barack Obama's national security team since the November election, and she's regularly briefed on "incidents around the world." She doesn't single out terrorism "because it's almost become part and parcel of what we do everyday."

The department's mission is straightforward, she says in her prepared testimony: "To protect the American people from threats both foreign and domestic, both natural and manmade — to do all that we can to prevent threats from materializing, respond to them if they do and recover with resiliency."

Heritage experts unpack President Obama’s speech

By Nathaniel Ward

The Heritage Foundation's policy experts covered President Obama's address to the Congress live on the Foundry blog last night. They responded in real time to the points the President raised on issues such as foreign policy, energy, taxes, spending and education.

» Follow all the action on the Foundry.

Should D.C. be represented in Congress?

Lawmakers seem determined to grant the District of Columbia representation in the House of Representatives — in spite of the oath they took to defend the Constitution.

Writing in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, legal expert Lee Casey explains that the Constitution is explicit: representation is limited to the states. And Heritage experts Joesph Postell and Nathaniel Ward take on activists for representation, explaining that "those who value the true interests of the District should defend the existing arrangement, which promotes the collective responsibility of Congress to preserve the welfare of the federal city."

» Read the rest of the article at MyHeritage.org

— David Talbot

Measuring the 'fiscal responsibility summit'

President Obama hosted a "fiscal responsibility summit" at the White House on Monday. On the campaign trail and as President, he has several times called for reducing the budget deficit and tackling runaway spending on entitlement programs.

These are important goals that The Heritage Foundation shares. Reforming out-of-control spending on entitlement programs will be "one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century," Heritage experts Brian Riedl and Alison Fraser said in a memo to President Obama. Current spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is unsustainable, they explain:

In the coming decades, the cost of these three programs will leap from 8.4 percent to 18.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)--an increase of 10.2 percent. Without reform, this increased cost would require either raising taxes by the current equiva­lent of $12,072 per household or eliminating every other government program. Funding all of the prom­ised benefits with income taxes would require rais­ing the 35 percent income tax bracket to at least 77 percent and raising the 25 percent tax bracket to at least 55 percent.

» Read the rest of the article at MyHeritage.org

— David Talbot

Heritage's response to the 'stimulus'

Over the last several weeks, Heritage Foundation experts worked tirelessly to highlight the flaws in the so-called 'stimulus.' Here are just a few of our successes.

• Heritage experts had over 42 meetings with members of Congress and their staff.
• Heritage experts were cited on the stimulus in more than 750 newspaper clips.
• Heritage analysts completed over 255 radio and TV interviews regarding the stimulus bill.

» Read about the rest of Heritage's impact on the 'stimulus' debate at MyHeritage.org

> Other Heritage work of note

• European Union legitimacy is disintegrating, writes foreign policy analyst Sally McNamara on Heritage's Foundry blog. President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, and the Irish people continue to resist the Lisbon Treaty, which McNamara says would "transfer vast powers from member states to the European Union." President Klaus compared attempts to silence opposition to the Soviet oppression of Eastern Europe: "With no opposition, there is no freedom."
  
• The automakers who recently received a massive government bailout are already asking for more — $22 billion of taxpayer dollars. (Only in an age of trillion-dollar debt plans does $22 billion seem like small beans.) Here is an update on the first round of bailouts from The Foundry blog.
  
• This chart from Heritage's Center for Data Analysis, which demonstrates how high corporate taxes are hurting America in the global market, appeared in today's Washington Examiner:
  
  

> In other news

• The Associated Press has the scoop on the cost to taxpayers of big-government health-care "reform": $634 billion.

• The House of Representatives has passed a massive $410 billion domestic spending bill for fiscal 2009. The AP reports that "the legislation would provide increases of roughly 8 percent for the federal agencies it covered"—a massive boost for government at a time when individual Americans are tightening their belts.

• President Obama nominated former Washington governor Gary Locke to be his Secretary of Commerce. Is the third time the charm?

• Al Gore pulled a dramatic slide from his famous and infamous global warming presentation after is was sharply criticized as misleading.

• Negotiations between the Treasury and Citigroup, the nation's third largest bank, are looking more and more like nationalization.

> Coming up at Heritage

To attend these or any other events at Heritage please RSVP at Heritage's website. Or you can view these events live online. All times are Eastern.

• On Thursday, February 26 at noon, author Indur Goklany will debunk myths popularized by global warming propagandists.

• On Friday, February 27 at noon, a panel of experts will discuss why bankruptcy is still better than a bailout for automakers.

Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation. David Talbot contributed to this report.

Major General Commanding General Carroll D. Childers Joins Military Suit

(Compiler's note: Maybe in time the General will tell us what he really thinks.)

by Defend Our Freedoms Foundation

CONSENT FORM
DATE: 24 Feb 2009

Attn. Orly Taitz, Esq.
26302 La Paz, Ste. 211
Mission Viejo, CA 92691

I agree to be a plaintiff in the legal action to be filed by Orly Taitz, Esq. in a PETITION FOR A DECLARATORY JUDGEMENT THAT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS NOT QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT of the U.S., nor TO BE COMMANDER IN CHIEF of the U.S. ARMED FORCES, in that I am or was a sworn member of the U.S. military (subject to recall), and therefore when serving as an active member of the military, I would be unable to follow any orders given by a Constitutionally unqualified Commander In Chief, since by doing so I would be subject to charges of aiding and abetting fraud and committing acts of treason.

TYPED NAME or Signature: Carroll D. Childers
FULL NAME: Carroll Dean Childers

POSITION IN THE MILITARY/RANK/DATES SERVED/STATUS: Retired as Major General Commanding General 29TH Infantry Division VA ARNG 1999, 44 years service

OCCUPATION: Consultant Registered Professional Engineer

ACHIEVEMENTS: Retired 38 Yrs DON Civil Service, RDT&E, several patents, 14 months in combat zones as science advisor (Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Operation Desert Storm), Oldest DHG of a Ranger Course (42), retired MG, married 50+ years, still ticking and kicking

I can present a long list of reasons, taken individually, which convinced me NOT to vote for Barack Hussein Obama; his crime associates in the USA, his lack of experience, the mystery of his citizenship, his promise to make coal power industry bankrupt through excessive regulations, his constant adjustment of position on issues, his tax plan, his spread the wealth admission, his obvious socialistic goals, his associations with foreign leaders unfriendly to the USA, the lies he tells about a range of subjects including perhaps who his biological father really is, his most recent revelation of having a "National Security Force" (whatever that is)...............all of these says he is a person of mystery, of no integrity, and in fact paints him with the same narcissist paint of Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Mao, and Kim Jong Ill.

But then, there is a simple more direct, easier to understand reason that I did not vote for him and that is his lack of respect for the country that is giving him the opportunity to run for the highest office in the land........even though I personally think he is not constitutionally eligible.

But more than 50% of America voted for this charlatan and he now has the helm of the ship of state. Even so, he is not MY President. I will not refer to him as such. I will call him Resident Obama, and an illegal resident of the white house at that. I resent him for what he is not. He has not given proof that he is a natural born citizen of these United States. He has spent millions of dollars protecting the truth of his birth from public knowledge; therefore, it is obvious he has something to hide. He is an interloper, a usurper, a fake, a scam artist, a Chicago crook, a recipient of bribes and gratuitous income for which he paid no tax, a socialist (perhaps only a communist or Marxist), and a grave danger to the future of the America that I love and have protected since I was 17 years old.

I have told my two senators and my member of the House of Representatives. I have written 9 justices of the Supreme Court as well as President Bush before he left office. NONE have responded, therefore, they are all complicit and should all be severely punished for having failed in their sworn oath to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The instant Obamb was sworn in, he violated the oath he took because he took the office knowing he is ineligible and there stood Judge Roberts who should have immediately had Obama arrested and deported.

Other than this, my key short-term complaint is that he has not had a heart attack in office. But most important, what I really want is the truth; is Obama a natural born citizen of the United States. If not a natural born citizen, America has been defrauded and then we would be stuck with Joe Biden whose only redeeming attribute is that he is probably not a communist.

Carroll D. Childers P.E.
Major General (Retired)

Home mortgage relief for millions of illegals

By Jerome R. Corsi

Illegal aliens can apply for mortgage relief under the Obama administration's $275 billion plan, according to immigration experts and a group the government will use to help homeowners modify loans.

Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., told WND approximately 1 million households headed by illegal immigrants acquired mortgages through the beginning of 2007, before the housing bubble burst.

"There is no legal prohibition against illegal immigrants owning homes," he said, "and in most cases mortgage lenders

will accept a taxpayer ID or a Matricula Consular card issued by a Mexican Consulate office as identification to illegal immigrants from Mexico."

Chad Buchanan, a manager at SaveMyHomeUSA – a group cooperating with the Obama administration that assists homeowners facing foreclosure – told WND illegal immigrants who own a home "could certainly apply under our program."

"We don't target or go after illegal immigrant customers," he said. "But if an illegal immigrant owns a home legally, we could try to help them under our program.

SaveMyHomeUSA is seeking job applications for loan modification processors to work in the Obama administration mortgage modification program.

"A lot of mortgage modifiers out there never ask about the legal immigration status of the homeowner, and we do not ask either," Buchanan said. "This is the first time I've had that question asked. All we are looking to do is to modify the current note, regardless what the legal immigration status of the client is."....

Growing Instability in Mexico Threatens U.S. Economy and Border Security

A study by The Heritage Foundation