U.S. spy agency may get more cybersecurity duties

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The spy agency that ran the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program may get more responsibility for securing U.S. computer networks, President Barack Obama's intelligence chief told Congress on Wednesday.

Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair said the National Security Agency, which is responsible for codebreaking and electronic spying, should assume a greater role in cybersecurity because of its technological prowess and current role in detecting attacks.

"There are some wizards out there ... who can do stuff. I think that capability should be harnessed and built on," Blair said in testimony to the House of Representatives intelligence committee.

Blair acknowledged that many Americans distrust the agency, which operated former President George W. Bush's secret program of warrantless electronic spying on some Americans' overseas phone calls.

"The NSA is both intelligence and military, two strikes out in terms of the way some Americans think about a body that ought to be protecting their privacy and civil liberties," Blair said.

Government concern over computer network vulnerability has risen as computer hackers become more sophisticated.

"A number of nations, including Russia and China, can disrupt elements of the U.S. information infrastructure," Blair said. "Cyber-defense is not a one-time fix; it requires a continual investment."

Billions of dollars are at stake. Defense contractors Northrop Grumman Corp, Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co are working on classified cybersecurity projects for the U.S. government.

Software and telecommunications companies also are likely to play a major role, said Democratic Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, whose Maryland district includes the NSA.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama ordered a 60-day cybersecurity review and named Melissa Hathaway, the top cyber official with the intelligence director's office, to a White House post overseeing the effort.

Some lawmakers have said the Homeland Security Department, which plays a leading role in U.S. computer security and is in charge of protecting federal civilian networks, is not up to the job.

Blair said he agreed: "The National Security Agency has the greatest repository of cyber talent."

"They're the ones who know best about what's coming back at us, and it is defenses against those sorts of things that we need to be able to build into wider and wider circles."

Policing Terrorism in the United States: The Los Angeles Police Department's Convergence Strategy

(Compiler's note: An excellent must read article.)

By Michael P. Downing, Deputy Chief and Commanding Officer, Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau, Los Angeles, California, Police Department

ocal law enforcement agencies around the world face an increasingly complex set of problems with the emergence of globally coordinated criminal networks and national security threats. Modern-day criminals have proved themselves to be transnational in reach, linked by sophisticated networks and highly adaptive in their thinking. In response, local police agencies such as the Los Angeles, California, Police Department (LAPD) are developing strategies that are equally adaptive and networked. The linchpin of these strategies is and must remain convergence.

The word convergence is used variously by different disciplines. In this context, the intent is to describe the process of bringing different elements together to achieve a result beneficial to all. As a real-world example, the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain Project (http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/) puts anthropologists and other social scientists alongside combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq to help the military better understand local cultures.

This concept translates well to policing in the context of counterterrorism. To face a relatively new adversary, police have been required to bolster old strengths, such as investigative skills, while acquiring new information, such as specific knowledge of terrorist organizations. These developments are fostered often by collaborative, multidisciplinary environments, which can cast light on the way forward. This article highlights some of the efforts the LAPD has undertaken to achieve a high level of convergence in working to prevent terrorist activities on U.S. soil.

A New Reality: Global Events with Local Effects

For local police to successfully meet the challenges posed by terrorism, the time-tested approaches that emphasize prevention must converge with new ones that focus on prediction. The systems designed to protect sensitive information must converge with efforts to cooperate and collaborate with law enforcement partners in the United States and abroad. Self-contained, territorial methods of operation must give way to strategic relationships and the development of an international consciousness that remains anchored in local communities.

In relation to terrorism, these strategies are driven by a new reality: extreme ideologies often have global implications. The groups that hew to these ideologies and embrace the use of violence can achieve a global reach. The impact of this new reality is that terrorist attacks can have devastating effects on the United States and its interests—no matter where in the world such attacks occur.

Local law enforcement agencies in the United States must assume that an attack that takes place in a remote location could be part of a global effort with a local operational component. The attack could be replicated locally, could be supported or advanced by local operators, or could even be exploited by local extremists to advance their political agendas. Therefore, it is essential that local law enforcement agencies start to look beyond U.S. shores for the harbingers of future regional issues.

Two examples of geopolitical changes in the past several years demonstrate the need to appreciate international perspectives. According to World Bank estimates, the number of poorly governed “fragile” states—those characterized by weak institutions and vulnerability to conflict—jumped from 17 in 2003 to 26 in 2007.¹ This is significant because failed states can serve as breeding grounds for criminals such as terrorists, who are all too eager to exploit a weakened government and population and who often develop transnational reach. In terms of tactics, it is interesting to note that suicide attacks took place in seven countries from 1981 to 2000. The number of countries has jumped to at least 20 since 2001.² Although it is not a foregone conclusion that the United States will suffer a suicide attack, this is a trend that merits the close attention of the law enforcement community.

Already, the United States faces a vicious, amorphous, and unfamiliar adversary. In simplistic terms, the terrorist threat can be separated into three categories: homegrown terrorists inspired by an ideology promoted by al Qaeda or other groups; terrorists who come to the United States to raise money to conduct operations here or abroad; and terrorists who have footholds both in the United States and overseas and operate in both arenas.

In the experience of the LAPD, the principal threats are local, self-generating, and self-directed. If there are direct connections with overseas groups, these are most likely to be initiated by the local actors. One such example was found in Lodi, California (see figure 1 for a timeline of terrorist activity since September 11, 2001), where U.S. citizens sought terrorist training in Pakistan. This consideration is not intended to minimize the international threat, but it serves as a caution that the number of U.S. local threats will likely increase.

Figure 1. The graph illustrates that over time, terrorist attacks have become more inspired by rather than controlled by al Qaeda. For U.S. law enforcement agencies, this means a greater emphasis must be placed on identifying homegrown, al Qaeda–inspired terrorists and developing a greater understanding of the local environment that produces them.

Strengths of Local Agencies in Counterterrorism Efforts

The United States has many more layers and jurisdictions than countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Israel, and Australia. One need only look at the numbers. Covering 3.79 million square miles and home to more than 300 million people, the United States contains roughly 3,000 counties and about 2,500 cities with 10,000 or more people.

The country boasts more than 16 federal intelligence agencies and 17,500 local law enforcement agencies that employ more than 750,000 local law enforcement officers. This decentralization of law enforcement responsibilities presents both a challenge and an opportunity: a challenge to develop lasting, effective collaboration among diverse agencies, but an opportunity for special skills and expertise to be developed and shared throughout the U.S. law enforcement community. Whether that opportunity will be realized will be decided by how effectively agencies collaborate—with each other, with the private sector, with academia, and with their communities.

The strengths of U.S. local law enforcement agencies are drawn from the powers of search, seizure of evidence, and arrest; a community policing infrastructure; the growing ability to manage, share, and analyze information; the proven ability to identify and interpret suspect behaviors; and established relationships that can carry an investigation from inception to completion.

Local police also add the critical elements of speed, resources, and numbers to any situation. They are able to deploy rapidly and can quickly summon more forces if needed. Managers in the field are accustomed to making decisions in dynamic and high-stakes incidents. Investigators, particularly in large police departments, have considerable resources at their fingertips and are supported by a solid investment in their training. Many police departments throughout the country are faced with a high workload. The natural outcome of this fast pace is that the officers and investigators have substantial breadth and depth of field experience.

These strengths all make local police supremely capable of being valuable contributors to U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Just as terrorists’ modus operandi evolve, so do policing efforts. Police are designed to quickly adapt and align their resources to changing circumstances in the field. They are also the force most attuned to subtle changes and warning signs in the community.

In the terrorism arena, the main strength of local agencies is their experience in investigating individuals and enterprises. The investigation of individuals has created a robust understanding of how broad networks and enterprises with varying degrees of culpability are linked through relationships. The crime-fighting model used to investigate organized crime, gangs, and narcotics trafficking enterprises—their structures, the players, and their strategies—is being applied regularly to the investigation of terrorist networks.

This modern approach was embraced after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in recognition of the dearth of information about other possible terrorist activity in the country. Agencies following the model cast a wide and deep law enforcement net that both attempts to catch culpable individuals and targets the larger enterprise. Resources are focused on detecting more traditional crimes such as fraud, smuggling, and tax evasion to assemble the puzzle pieces and understand the networks of terrorist operatives in local communities. This approach has helped agencies develop a richer picture of the operational environment and likely has played a significant role in preventing another attack in the United States.

The convergence of these tried and true policing strategies when applied to the problem of terrorism has yielded success. Local police, particularly those from the larger antiterrorism units, are contributing to the knowledge base of their state and federal colleagues—particularly when it comes to understanding the dynamics of networks and decentralized groups. These cases and the resulting lessons learned have increased the stature of local law enforcement operations and earned local agencies a legitimate seat at the intelligence table.

Progress since September 11

In the past, turf battles and the need for jurisdictional supremacy at all levels of the U.S. law enforcement community led to key intelligence failures. Although there is still much work to be done, in the last seven years, information sharing in the United States has improved both vertically and horizontally: vertically, meaning between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the nation’s 17,500 state and local police departments, and horizontally, among the state and local departments themselves. The changes made in communication between local and national intelligence units since the September 11 attacks can be put into three categories: culture, capability, and awareness.

• Culture: Local and state law enforcement agencies are now recognized as critical to intelligence efforts to prevent terrorism—efforts that blend seamlessly with their core mission to detect and deter crime and protect communities. This was not always so. Only after the September 11 attacks were these agencies woven into the national security fabric, and the art of policing was acknowledged and embraced. The change in the culture has been reflected in numerous documents, studies, and initiatives in the past seven years, including the president’s National Strategy for Information Sharing and a recent RAND Corporation study that stated that “policing and intelligence should be the backbone of U.S. efforts” to defeat al Qaeda because its network of individuals needs
to be tracked and arrested.³

• Capability: Analytic capabilities have improved in large part because of the establishment of 58 fusion centers in 46 states.


• Awareness: Local police are becoming better able to recognize behaviors consistent with the crimes related to terrorism.

Role of Local Agencies in Intelligence Gathering and Analysis

As the U.S. government and federal law enforcement agencies have embraced police as true partners, local law enforcers themselves have rallied. For the first time in U.S. law enforcement history, senior officers from every major city police intelligence unit in the nation have come together to form an Intelligence Commanders Group (ICG), part of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Major city police departments are those that employ more than 1,000 law enforcement officers and serve a population of 500,000 or more. The 64 top-level intelligence commanders that constitute the ICG work in concert to share intelligence and ensure interagency cooperation.

In May 2008, this group delivered a position paper, Twelve Tenets to Prevent Crime and Terrorism, that detailed the priorities of local law enforcement agencies.⁴ This paper addresses 12 issues ranging from the classification of intelligence documents to the federal grant process and calls for changes in all.

The ICG document is a prime example of how police are collaborating in new ways to influence homeland security policy at the federal level. Their newfound voice is coupled with a desire to consider thoughtfully all of the serious responsibilities that come with their role as “first preventers” of terrorism—particularly when it comes to intelligence gathering and sharing.

With an increased role in the intelligence arena comes the increased responsibility on the part of police to protect civil liberties and operate in a legitimate and transparent fashion. The growth of intelligence-gathering operations at the local level must be proportionate with the creation of safeguards against abuses. It is important that local law enforcement agencies carefully and accurately define those they suspect will commit a criminal terrorist act. This task must be executed with a balance and precision that inspires the support and trust of the U.S. population so that local residents will partner with the police in the pursuit of their lawful mission.

The support and the trust of the public are essential to “softer” law enforcement strategies aimed at countering extremist ideologies and influence at the local level. Although the primary objective remains to hunt terrorism suspects and disrupt their operational capability (that is, recruiting, funding, planning, surveilling, and executing operations), the broader strategy must include efforts that target terrorists’ motivations.

Outreach and partnership efforts aim to increase the safety and stature of communities to create a network of individuals who feel it is in their best interest to create an environment hostile to criminals of all stripes. Such a network can be achieved by providing excellent police service and building solid relationships with community members.

This point is not merely an academic one—it has operational consequences. By getting communities, including those that may be breeding grounds for violent ideologies, to buy into the idea that local agencies are operating in the communities’ best interests, these agencies foster an environment in which tips and leads can come from those same communities, increasing the ability to gather information. Ultimately, it is these communities—aided by law enforcement and other resources—that foster environments hostile to the proliferation of criminality in any form.

Recent LAPD Counterterrorism Cases

The LAPD created its Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau in 2003. It now has close to 300 officers dedicated to counterterrorism, criminal-intelligence gathering, and community mobilization efforts.

The LAPD Counter-Terrorism Bureau’s mission has four goals:

• Prevent terrorism by effectively sharing information aimed at disrupting terrorists’ operational capability and addressing the underlying causes associated with the motivational component


• Protect the public and critical infrastructure by leveraging private-sector resources and hardening targets


• Pursue terrorists and the criminal enterprises that support them


• Prepare the citizenry and the city government for consequences associated with terrorist operations against the city

The LAPD has gained considerable counterterrorism case experience over the past few years. The following cases are but a sample of those that have come onto the LAPD’s counterterrorism investigative radar.

Hezbollah Funding Case: The arrest of a major terrorist funding group by a task force comprising members of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the LAPD working alongside the FBI illustrated the interrelation of criminal acts and the funding of terrorism, as well as the increasing global reach of local cases. This group raised money for Hezbollah by selling narcotics. It then laundered a portion of the funds by selling counterfeit products such as clothing and cigarettes in the United States and Latin America.

Black Rider Case: The Black Rider Liberation Party, a spinoff of the Black Panther Party, threatened to take over four police stations in Los Angeles and shoot and kill as many police officers as possible in furtherance of its black separatist and antigovernment agenda. Traditional policing tactics, including surveillance (using both technical and nontechnical methods), source development, search warrants, and the introduction of an informant, resulted in the arrest and prosecution of this domestic terrorist group. Property recovered during the investigation included numerous large-caliber automatic and semiautomatic weapons; a military handbook on intelligence and interrogation; night vision goggles; bulletproof vests; knives; a crossbow; a police scanner; and manuals on police field operations, sniper procedures, and bioterrorism.

Jam’yyat Al-Islam Al-Saheeh: One case serves as an excellent example of the prison radicalization process, the nexus between street-level crimes and terrorism, and how homegrown terrorists are often inspired by ideology and events overseas but have no affiliation with a larger terrorist organization. It also illustrates how local police are key to identifying terrorism suspects who were not previously on the federal law enforcement radar.

Kevin Lamar James was a former Hoover Street Crip gang member who, while in prison, founded a group called Jam’yyat Al-Islam Al-Saheeh (JIS). While serving a 10-year sentence for robbery and possession of a weapon in prison, James converted a fellow inmate who, once released in 2004, was instructed to recruit others for terrorist operations against the United States and Israel. The convert did as instructed; in 2005, the four-person cell actively started researching such targets as military installations, Israeli offices, and synagogues and funded its operations through a series of gas station robberies—all orchestrated by James from behind prison walls.

One of these robberies led to the cell’s discovery and capture by local police in the summer of 2005. The search warrant that resulted from the robbery of a Torrance, California, gas station led to the discovery of jihadist propaganda and an overarching conspiracy to wage war against the United States. The four men involved were indicted in October 2006. Three of the four, including James, have pleaded guilty. The fourth was found mentally unfit to stand trial and is in a federal prison facility under psychiatric care. One of the four—the man whom James sent out to recruit others—was the first to be sentenced, receiving a 22-year federal prison term in June 2008. During his sentencing hearing, Levar Haney Washington told the judge that the members of JIS waged war against their own country because they opposed U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and stated that “calamities affecting the Muslim world” had influenced his outlook. The cell had robbed gas stations because oil is a political symbol, he said.⁵

Animal Liberation Front: The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) is an extremist group whose members have committed arson, vandalism, and other crimes that often do not rise to the level of a federal violation—placing them directly in the wheelhouse of local law enforcement agencies. The leaders of this underground movement often cloak themselves in the protections of the First Amendment right to free speech while leading a criminal lifestyle, committing crimes such as petty theft and robbery to sustain both themselves as individuals and the larger criminal enterprise. This rejection of authority enables local agencies to track and ultimately catch the leadership culpable for more pedestrian crimes such as burglaries. The ALF’s ultimate objective is to eliminate animal euthanasia and the use of all animals in laboratory testing in universities and science centers. In the pursuit of these objectives, elements of the group have become more violent.

California Department of Motor Vehicles: Another case provides an example of a crevice criminal market—in this case, embedded in a trusted government institution—that provides the logistical support for lower-level crimes all the way to potential terrorism-related cases. Workers at the California Department of Motor Vehicles provided a significant number of suspects with false documents. The documents in question appeared legal in every way other than the assumed name. This enterprise is in the process of being disrupted and dismantled through such traditional policing methods as extensive investigation and using informants against the targets.

LAPD Counterterrorism Programs

Even as the LAPD gains valuable real-world experience through cases such as those mentioned in the previous section, it must keep improving its capabilities and methods to stay ahead of the threat. The LAPD must also continuously develop ways to forge partnerships and foster collaboration among agencies. Sun Tzu, the oft-quoted Chinese general from the sixth century, wrote that “if you know your enemies and you know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.”

The following programs (some of which are identified in figure 2) demonstrate just some of the areas in which the department has concentrated its efforts to achieve its ambitious goals.

Figure 2. The graphic depicts a convergent approach to information/intelligence collection that feeds into operational decision making, both in terms of critical operational decision making and deployment or tactical resource allocation. The double-sided arrows illustrate the fact that in this system, intelligence can feed operations or operations can feed intelligence collection requirements.

Suspicious Activity Reports: The LAPD developed and implemented the Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) process for reporting suspected terrorism-related incidents and tying them firmly into information collection procedures, tracking systems, and intelligence analysis. This is considered the first program in the United States to create a national standard for terrorism-related modus operandi codes. The SAR program is an example of the convergence of skills that police have used for decades to observe traditional criminal behavior with the new behavioral indices of those associated with terrorist recruitment and the planning and execution of operations. This initiative, which fits nicely with the federal government’s National Strategy for Information Sharing, is in the process of being rolled out nationally. Once the SAR program is institutionalized throughout the country, local, state, and federal agencies will have a common standard for collecting, measuring, and sharing information about suspected terrorism-related incidents. This program has the potential to become the bread and butter of U.S. fusion centers, and it can inspire the so-called boots on the ground and the community to get involved in the counterterrorism effort.

Operation Archangel: More than 85 percent of the critical infrastructure in the United States is privately owned. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the LAPD implemented Operation Archangel, which has become a national model for critical infrastructure protection. This program, which represents convergence of the private sector with the police system, was recently documented in the award-winning film Archangel: Protecting Our Freedom, which was distributed to 64 major cities and to the U.S. Congress.

National Counter-Terrorism Academy: The LAPD pilot tested the National Counter-Terrorism Academy (NCTA), the first such academy created by local law enforcement agencies for local law enforcement agencies. During the five-month pilot program, which ended in July 2008, nearly 60 police, fire, and private security personnel from 25 agencies received a comprehensive overview of international and domestic terrorist threats and were aided in the development of intelligence-led policing (ILP) strategies to counter those threats in their jurisdictions. This multiagency, multidisciplinary student body served as a prime example of the convergence of various disciplines in the counterterrorism effort. The NCTA will train many more in 2009, with NCTA programs in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California. The LAPD has also formally proposed the creation of a National Consortium on Intelligence-Led Policing (NCILP) that would serve as an ILP training and education resource for state and local police departments across the United States. The NCILP would design five separate curricula to teach state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies how to apply ILP strategies to the fusion of intelligence on counterterrorism, narcotics trafficking, gangs, organized crime, and human trafficking.

Hydra: The LAPD facilitated the acquisition of a training system, called Hydra, that tests and improves the decision-making skills of agency personnel during simulated critical incidents. This will be the first Hydra system in the United States and will grant the LAPD access to the training scenarios of 32 other installations throughout the world. In doing so, the department will firmly converge its training efforts with those of major police departments in such countries as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Terrorism Liaison Officers: Terrorism liaison officers (TLOs) are casting an ever-wider net to train more people in the city as public data collectors. They are trained on what and how to report suspicious behavior/activity that has a nexus to terrorism. This is one prong of an effort to institutionalize counterterrorism awareness in the area commands and throughout the LAPD. The ultimate goal is to blend crime-fighting and counterterrorism efforts seamlessly.

Muslim Forum: The LAPD recently held its first-ever Chief’s Muslim Community Forum, hosted by Chief William J. Bratton. This meeting brought police and Muslim leaders from throughout the greater Los Angeles area together to enable the LAPD to better understand how it can protect and serve their communities. The LAPD is in the process of developing a documentary film that will highlight the diverse Muslim communities in Los Angeles, their relationships with local law enforcement agencies, the challenges faced by both U.S. Muslims and law enforcement agencies, and the way forward. Community mobilization, an essential part of the crime-fighting model, is particularly important when applied to populations that may feel targeted by society or the police. One goal with Muslim communities has been to converge their community-building efforts with those of the LAPD; by opening channels of communication and fostering trust, opportunities to improve police service to those communities would arise.

Additional Capabilities

The following list enumerates some of the LAPD’s capabilities that best enable it to work toward its goal of convergence.

Information Sharing: Working in concert with regional and federal partners in the seven counties served by the Joint Regional Intelligence Center, the LAPD continues to build its capacity to collect, fuse, analyze, and disseminate both strategic and operational intelligence (see figure 3). The LAPD is aligning the information collection and dissemination process with an eye toward accountability to ensure that “first preventers” have the needed information in a timely manner. The “all crimes, all hazards” approach to this center ensures analysts’ ability to bring to light relevant trends to generate actionable intelligence. This fusion center epitomizes the model of convergence.

Figure 3. This graphic illustrates the LAPD’s preventive and predictive model of intelligence collection and distribution. The LAPD’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau’s Major Crimes Division and Emergency Services Division, as well as the Joint Regional Intelligence Center and the Real-Time Analysis and Critical Response Division, create a real-time, four-lane superhighway of information and intelligence. The CompStat process, criminal and intelligence investigations, crimes that provide funding mechanisms for terrorist networks, and technology that provides even more focused information all provide for a richer picture of local intelligence

RPPICS: The LAPD has developed a technological tool, called the Regional Public Private Infrastructure Collaboration System (RPPICS), that enhances communication both within the LAPD and with the private sector. This program converges technology with the goals of hardening targets and the inclusion of the private sector in counterterrorism efforts.

Human Intelligence: The LAPD created a human source development unit to increase its ability to develop actionable intelligence in specific areas—a measure taken with an eye toward understanding the environment of homegrown extremists and what to target in that environment.

Intelligence Investigators: The pioneering of the Anti-Terrorism Intelligence Section demonstrated the success of a hybrid model of cross-training that equipped intelligence officers with the tools traditionally available to analysts. The new model requires that each investigative team be responsible for producing link charts, timelines, financial analysis, and so on. This helps investigators to see the criticality of analysis by identifying their own knowledge gaps and adjusting their investigations accordingly. This new approach has shortened the time span from the identification of a problem (a terrorist indicator) to its representation (in the form of analyzed intelligence) and the realization of investigative goals.

Cyber Investigations: The LAPD has developed the ability to hunt for signs of radicalization and terrorist activities on the Internet—a capability that provides a plain-view means of identifying and gathering information on potential threats. Information gleaned from this open source, fed into the radicalization template, and combined with a thorough understanding of operational indicators is critical to articulating suspicion and justifying the increased application of enforcement measures.

Conclusion

U.S. local law enforcement agencies have come a long way in terms of adapting to the increasingly complex threats of today’s world. However, as terrorist groups embracing asymmetric warfare tactics attempt to create a larger footprint on U.S. soil, agencies must not grow complacent.

Police hold the key to mitigating and ultimately defeating terrorism in the United States. Local agencies throughout the country have the ideas and the technology to create counternetworks and to mount effective defenses and offenses. Through multijurisdictional, multiagency efforts, police can cast a redundant network of trip wires to determine whether individuals or enterprises represent an active threat that warrants investigation or enforcement action. But agencies will need to be flexible, adaptable, and transparent enough to collaborate with one another. They will need to develop more meaningful and trusting partnerships and to create policy that maximizes law enforcement resources. Most importantly, they will need to work with communities to counter the extremism that foments acts of terrorism. Policing must be a convergent strategy that fights crime and disorder while creating hostile environments for terrorists.

The theme of convergence illustrates the coupling of local resources, namely police, with the ability to recognize ordinary crimes that terrorists have been known to commit in preparation for their operational attack: committing traffic violations, obtaining fake identification papers, smuggling, human trafficking, counterfeiting, committing piracy, drug trafficking, or participating in any other criminal enterprise that intersects with terrorists’ needs. Local police serve as the eyes and ears of communities; as such, they are best positioned to observe behaviors that have a nexus to terrorism. It has been the LAPD’s goal to institutionalize the idea of counterterrorism efforts throughout the department and the communities it serves—not to make counterterrorism measures the priority, but a priority.

Converging community policing and counterterrorism strategies and implementing them under the guiding philosophy of intelligence-led policing will focus law enforcement efforts and better equip agencies to partner with communities in the pursuit to make the United States safe. Ultimately, the success of all of these convergent strategies will be measured by the prevention of terrorist acts, the countering of extremist ideologies and their local influence, and the resiliency of U.S. communities in the face of man-made and natural disasters. ■

Notes:

¹Karen DeYoung, “World Bank Lists Failing Nations That Can Breed Global Terrorism,” Washington Post, September 15, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401859.html (accessed December 23, 2008).
²Louise Richardson, What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat (New York: Random House, 2006).
³White House, National Strategy for Information Sharing: Successes and Challenges in Improving Terrorism-Related Information Sharing, October 2007, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/infosharing/index.html (accessed December 23, 2008); and Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki, How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida (Santa Monica, California: RAND Corporation, 2008), xvi, http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG741-1.pdf (accessed December 23, 2008).
⁴Major Cities Chiefs Association, Homeland Security Committee,Twelve Tenets to Prevent Crime and Terrorism, May 2008, http://www.majorcitieschiefs.org/pdfpublic/MCC%20Twelve%20Tenet%20Final%205%2021%2008.pdf (accessed December 23, 2008).
⁵H. G. Reza, “Man Sentenced to 22 Years in L.A.-Area Terror Plot,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 2008, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/23/local/me-cell24 (accessed December 23, 2008).

Kuwaiti prof: 330,000 dead from 4 pounds of anthrax

(Compiler's note: A must read article.)

By Bob Unruh

A professor from Kuwait, the country liberated from Saddam Hussein's attack squads by the United States in the first Gulf War, has outlined on Arab television a potential terror attack that would involve smuggling anthrax from Mexico into the U.S. and killing 330,000 people in 60 minutes.

The plan was described by Abdallah Al-Nafisi in a speech that aired on Al-Jazeera television Feb. 2, according to MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, an independent nonprofit that provides translations and analysis of media reports.

Al-Nafisi, whose school affiliation was not identified, says: "Four pounds of anthrax – in a suitcase this big – carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S., are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour, if it is properly spread in population centers there."

He calls the plan "horrifying," but says, "9/11 will be small change in comparison. Am I right?"

The plan is simple to carry out, he emphasized.

"There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings and so on. One person, with the courage to carry four pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this 'confetti' all over them, and then will do these cries of joy. It will turn into a real 'celebration,'" Al-Nafisi said.

He said Americans already are afraid that WMDs will "fall into the hands of 'terrorist' organizations like al-Qaida and others."

The video has been posted online and also is embedded here:

"There is good reason for the Americans' fears, because al-Qaida used to have in the Herat region. ... It had laboratories in north Afghanistan. They have scientists, chemists, and nuclear physicists. They are nothing like they are portrayed by these mercenary journalists – backward Bedouins living in caves. No, no. By no means. This kind of talk can fool only naïve people. People who follow such things know that al-Qaida has laboratories, just like Hezbollah," he said.

He cited Hezbollah "laboratories" in Lebanon where the terrorist group makes weapons to use and sell.

After viewing the Al-Nafisi video, Jamie Glazov, author of the new book "United in Hate" explained that "militant Islam needs to kill in order to survive. It can breathe only if it kills."

He noted with President Bush now gone from office, potential threats from the likes of Al-Nafisi are closer to becoming reality.

"In the face of this morbid threat we have the liberal-Left trivializing the danger that confronts us and, worse still, going out of its way to frustrate our society's ability to defend itself," Glazov said. "We have Obama now, who has closed all of our CIA interrogation centers abroad, plans on closing Guantanamo, has appointed people who are intent on frustrating every ability we have to gather information on impending strikes, and the list goes terrifyingly on."

Why does the American Left love radical Islam? Find out in "United in Hate: The Left's Romance With Tyranny and Terror."

MEMRI said Al-Nafisi also ventured into other areas of comment.

He called terrorists "the most honorable people in the world, the best people in the world," the report said.

He spoke of 300,000 "white militia members" in the U.S. who are "calling to attack the federal government in Washington, and to banish the Arabs, the Jews and the negroes (sic) from the U.S."

Explained Al-Nafisi, "These are racist people. They are called 'rednecks.' The Ku Klux Klan. They are racists."

He suggested that element in the U.S. is considering bombing "nuclear plants."

"May Allah grant them success. … They have plans to bomb the nuclear plant at Lake Michigan. This plant is very important. It supplies electricity to all of North Africa (sic)," Al-Nafisi said.

He also dismissed any idea of discussions between Jews and Arabs.

"Allah states in the Quran that the hostility between us and [the Jews] is eternal. So whoever talks about dialogue – cut off his tongue! What dialogue are they talking about?! There is no room for dialogue. Allah said that our hostility towards the Jews is eternal, and then along comes someone and talks about brotherhood and so on ... This contradicts the Quran. Anyone who contradicts the Quran is an infidel," he said.

As part of his effort to further Arab interests, he also advocated threats against journalists.

"There are voices expressing doubts about the leaders of the resistance. We must confront these [journalists], and prevent them from continuing this, even if it means calling them over the phone, and saying to them: 'Do not repeat these despicable things in your columns or your articles, or else we will take the following measures against you.' We must resort to pressure with these people," he said.

$500-a-day fine for posting Constitution

Man fights back: 'This is for every businessman that's ever been railroaded' ....

ACLU Signs Add to Washington State's Immigration Storm

An immigration showdown is brewing on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, where simmering tensions and borderline hostility have fueled a turf war between the local community and the Border Patrol agents assigned to protect it. ....

Obama Yawns as Iran Fires Up First Nuke Plant

By Jonathan Tobin

Iran might not have rated a single mention in the president’s address to Congress last night, but that doesn’t mean nothing interesting is happening there.

Today (2/25/2009), the New York Times reports that Iran has started tests on its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr. The Russian-built plant will begin loading its nuclear fuel later this year but we are assured the Russians will not let any of that fuel be used for illicit purposes.

However, Israel isn’t reassured. Defense Minister Ehud Barak noted that Iran’s announcement that it had increased the number of centrifuges enriching uranium at the Bushehr plant to 6,000 constitutes a stage in the creation of a substantial existential threat to Israel, adding that time was running out on preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

Barak is right. Iran’s clear progress toward nuclear capability is something it’s not bothering to conceal anymore. Moreover, the news that earlier this month Tehran launched into orbit a satellite on a domestically-built rocket ought to scare those advocates of “engagement” who keep claiming Iran has no way to deliver a bomb even if it made one.

While we don’t doubt the economy is President Obama’s top priority these days, the short shrift given to national-security concerns in his speech to Congress highlights the fact that this administration has not taken the threat from Iran seriously. But the news about the nuclear progress Iran is making serves as yet another reminder that the White House cannot ignore this issue indefinitely. At some point, and it may be sooner rather than later, Obama is going to have to make a decision about what he will actually do to stop Iran’s push for nukes. Talking about talking will not be enough. The Bush administration spent years trying to lure Tehran into talks about stopping its nuclear programs and largely outsourced this problem to our European allies — who failed.

While there are no attractive options here, Obama should think about whether he wants his foreign policy legacy to be America’s resignation to an Islamist regime’s gaining the ability to “wipe Israel off the map” with one weapon.

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

U.K: Analysts find new culprit for "radicalization": Old people

from Jihad Watch

Don't trust any imam over 30. That'll fix it, right?

Once again, a theory that attempts to explain away the obvious nexus between Islamic teachings and violence in the name of Islam simply puts a spotlight on the elephant in the room: The matter of where all these "extremists" keep coming from, and how resilient their "misunderstanding" of the Religion of Peace continues to be. "Young Muslims at the mercy of extremists because of out-of-touch Imams," by Duncan Gardham for the Telegraph, February 24:

Mosques dominated by elderly foreign clerics are leaving young Muslims at the mercy of extremists, a study has found.

The Quilliam Foundation, an Islamic think tank, has found that 97 per cent of imams in Britain's mosques are from overseas, although the majority of Muslims in Britain were born in the UK.

The study also found that forty-four per cent of mosques do not hold their sermons at the main Friday prayers in English.

Nearly half of Britain's mosques do not have facilities for women, "depriving half the community of access to public spaces," the study said.

It added: "Foreign imams, poorly paid and with limited proficiency in English, are ill-equipped to navigate Britain's complex, liberal and multi-faith society.

And from that, we're to infer that the social ills of Muslim communities can all be attributed to "cultural" issues, and not anything contained in Islamic teachings.

"They have neither the freedom, being at the mercy of mosque management committees dominated by first generation elders, nor the capacity to promote a British Islam informed by British values.

"By failing to reach out to young British Muslims, radical Islamists have the upper-hand. Britain's young Muslims, without a voice in mosques, are looking elsewhere for religious guidance and will continue to be drawn in by young, articulate extremists who offer an alternative narrative, cause and social space."

Quilliam's director, Maajid Nawaz said: "These findings are deeply disturbing. Our first line of defence against terrorism is the ability, commitment, and confidence of mosques and Muslim communities to root out extremism. Currently, we are failing.

"With foreign imams who are physically in Britain, but psychologically in Pakistan or Bangladesh, mosques lack the requisite resilience to challenge Islamist extremists. We cannot continue to ignore the malaise in our mosques."

The report's author, Anya Hart Dyke, a senior research fellow at Quilliam, said mosques needed to include women and young people in running mosques, make use of government support from funds aimed at preventing violent extremism, and take advantage of training opportunities as well as sharing their space with community organisations and schools, and opening their doors to non-Muslims.

She said the mosques could learn from some local initiatives introduced in some mosques as well as the way churches and synagogues operate.

Why, exactly! That must be why you don't see their youth carrying menacing placards and calling for the overthrow of governments. Not to mention the dearth of bombings.

"There are signs of hope. I have found some locally-led initiatives in mosques across the country, but this needs to become the norm amongst our mosques," she added.

Quilliam attempted to contact over 1,000 mosques by using researchers who spoke Urdu or Bengali during Ramadan in late 2008, a busy period in mosques.

Due to lack of resources at most mosques and after repeated phone calls they successfully polled 512 mosques, although not all mosques responded to every question posed.

As usual, there's not really a problem, except when there kind of is, even though there really isn't. It's complicated:

Seyyed Ferjani, chairman of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, admitted there was a problem in mosques but said it was not on the scale suggested in the report.

"The imam in the mosque only leads prayers," he said. "We have a problem in our mosques that most, the bulk of our youth, they don't seek advice from imams, they seek advice elsewhere."

Referring to the July 7 bombers, he added: "The problem that we've got, like the people who are in Leeds and elsewhere, they are outside of mosques, who are grooming them."

An increasing trend. Where jihadists organize doesn't answer questions about their ideology.