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Page 39 of 80

FBI Stoking Fear

Another unsubstantiated terrorist plot:

An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press says the FBI has received a “plausible but unsubstantiated” report that al-Qaida terrorists in late September may have discussed attacking the subway system.

[…]

The internal bulletin says al-Qaida terrorists “in late September may have discussed targeting transit systems in and around New York City. These discussions reportedly involved the use of suicide bombers or explosives placed on subway/passenger rail systems,” according to the document.

“We have no specific details to confirm that this plot has developed beyond aspirational planning, but we are issuing this warning out of concern that such an attack could possibly be conducted during the forthcoming holiday season,” according to the warning dated Tuesday.

[…]

Rep. Peter King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, said authorities “have very real specifics as to who it is and where the conversation took place and who conducted it.”

“It certainly involves suicide bombing attacks on the mass transit system in and around New York and it’s plausible, but there’s no evidence yet that it’s in the process of being carried out,” King said.

Knocke, the DHS spokesman, said the warning was issued “out of an abundance of caution going into this holiday season.”

Got that: “plausible but unsubstantiated,” “may have discussed attacking the subway system,” “specific details to confirm that this plot has developed beyond aspirational planning,” “attack could possibly be conducted,” “it’s plausible, but there’s no evidence yet that it’s in the process of being carried out.”

I have no specific details, but I want to warn everybody today that fiery rain might fall from the sky. Terrorists may have discussed this sort of tactic, possibly at one of their tequila-fueled aspirational planning sessions. While there is no evidence yet that the plan is in the process of being carried out, I want to be extra-cautious this holiday season. Ho ho ho.

Posted on November 27, 2008 at 12:27 PM • View Comments

Friday Squid Blogging: Preserving Giant Squid

At the Smithsonian:

At the centerof the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History’s gleaming new Sant Ocean Hall lies a preserved giant female squid—the arresting, spineless star among the vibrant exhibition’s animal specimens. Tentacles menacingly outstretched and seemingly frozen in time, the 24-foot squid embodies humans’ fascination with the briny deep. But this squid also symbolizes something else: an ongoing experiment in the chemistry of preservation, without which the Smithsonian’s new exhibition would not have been possible.

Also note the terrorism tie-in:

To create the exhibit, the Smithsonian had to work around post-9/11 rules restricting flammable materials, while maximizing the lifelike appearance of the squid for public display. They turned not to formalin or ethanol, but to a new fluorinated chemical called Novec, developed by 3M.

If we give up our preserved giant squids, then surely the terrorists have won.

Posted on November 21, 2008 at 4:20 PM • View Comments

When Sky Marshals Do Bad Things

They’re not even close to perfect:

Since 9/11, more than three dozen federal air marshals have been charged with crimes, and hundreds more have been accused of misconduct, an investigation by ProPublica, a non-profit journalism organization, has found. Cases range from drunken driving and domestic violence to aiding a human-trafficking ring and trying to smuggle explosives from Afghanistan.

The meta-problem is that the kind of person who wants to be federal air marshal is the exact kind of person we don’t want for the job.

Before 9/11, the Air Marshal Service was a nearly forgotten force of 33 agents with a $4.4 million annual budget. Now housed in the Transportation Security Administration, the agency has a $786 million budget and an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 air marshals, although the official number is classified.

And 3,000 to 4,000 is a lot of people to hire quickly; it’s hard to weed out the bad eggs.

Posted on November 21, 2008 at 6:23 AM • View Comments

Schneier for TSA Administrator

It’s been suggested. For the record, I don’t want the job.

Since the election, the newspapers and Internet have been flooded with unsolicited advice for President-elect Barack Obama. I’ll go ahead and add mine.

[…]

And by “revamp,” I mean “start over.” Most security experts agree that the rigmarole we go through at the airport is mere security theater, designed not to make us safer, but to make us feel safer by making it increasingly inconvenient to fly. TSA’s approach to security is too reactionary—too set on preventing attacks and attempted attacks that have already happened. And please, whatever you do, resist the temptation to let TSA workers unionize. Security from terror attacks should not be a federal jobs program. You need the authority to fire underperforming screeners quickly and effortlessly. Three game-changing possibilities to head up TSA: security guru Bruce Schneier, Cato Institute security and technology scholar Jim Harper, or Ohio State University’s John Mueller.

Although I’d be happy to see either Jim or John with it.

I don’t want it because it’s too narrow. I think the right thing for the government to do is to give the TSA a lot less money. I’d rather they defend against the broad threat of terrorism than focus on the narrow threat of airplane terrorism, and I’d rather they defend against the myriad of threats that face our society than focus on the singular threat of terrorism. But the head of the TSA can’t have those opinions; he has to take the money he’s given and perform the specific function he’s assigned to perform. Not very much fun, really.

But I’d be happy to advise whoever Obama choses to head the TSA.

The job of the nation’s CTO would be more interesting, but I don’t think I want it, either. (Have you seen the screening process?)

Posted on November 18, 2008 at 1:46 PM • View Comments

Interview on Nuclear Terror

With Brian Michael Jenkins from Rand Corp. I like his distinction between “terrorism” and “terror”:

NJ: Why did you decide to delve so deeply into the psychological underpinnings of nuclear terror?

Jenkins: Well, I couldn’t write about the history of nuclear terrorism, because at least as of yet there hasn’t been any. So that would have been a very short book. Nonetheless, the U.S. government has stated that it is the No. 1 threat to the national security of the United States. In fact, according to public opinion polls, two out of five Americans consider it likely that a terrorist will detonate a nuclear bomb in an American city within the next five years. That struck me as an astonishing level of apprehension.

NJ: To what do you attribute that fear?

Jenkins: I concluded that there is a difference between nuclear terrorism and nuclear terror. Nuclear terrorism is about the possibility that terrorists will acquire and detonate a nuclear weapon. Nuclear terror, on the other hand, concerns our anticipation of such an attack. It’s about our imagination. And while there is no history of nuclear terrorism, there is a rich history of nuclear terror. It’s deeply embedded in our popular culture and in policy-making circles.

This is also good:

NJ: How do you break this chain reaction of fear?

Jenkins: The first thing we have to do is truly understand the threat. Nuclear terrorism is a frightening possibility but it is not inevitable or imminent, and there is no logical progression from truck bombs to nuclear bombs. Some of the steps necessary to a sustainable strategy we’ve already begun. We do need better intelligence-sharing internationally and enhanced homeland security and civil defense, and we need to secure stockpiles of nuclear materials around the world.

Nations that might consider abetting terrorists in acquiring nuclear weapons should also be made aware that we will hold them fully responsible in the event of an attack. We need to finish the job of eliminating Al Qaeda, not only to prevent another attack but also to send the message to others that if you go down this path, we will hunt you down relentlessly and destroy you.

NJ: What should political leaders tell the American people?

Jenkins: Rather than telling Americans constantly to be very afraid, we should stress that even an event of nuclear terrorism will not bring this Republic to its knees. Some will argue that fear is useful in galvanizing people and concentrating their minds on this threat, but fear is not free. It creates its own orthodoxy and demands obedience to it. A frightened population is intolerant. It trumpets a kind of “lapel pin” patriotism rather than the real thing. A frightened population is also prone both to paralysis—we’re doomed!—and to dangerous overreaction.

I believe that fear gets in the way of addressing the issue of nuclear terrorism in a sustained and sensible way. Instead of spreading fear, our leaders should speak to the American traditions of courage, self-reliance, and resiliency. Heaven forbid that an act of nuclear terrorism ever actually occurs, but if it does, we’ll get through it.

Posted on November 11, 2008 at 6:26 AM • View Comments

Anti-Terror Law Mission Creep in the U.K.

First terrorists, then trash cans:

More than half of town halls admit using anti-terror laws to spy on families suspected of putting their rubbish out on the wrong day.

Their tactics include putting secret cameras in tin cans, on lamp posts and even in the homes of ‘friendly’ residents.

The local authorities admitted that one of their main aims was to catch householders who put their bins out early.

EDITED TO ADD (11/13): A better article on the subject.

Posted on November 7, 2008 at 8:18 AM • View Comments

The Ill Effects of Banning Security Research

The Indian police are having trouble with SIM card cloning:

Police had no idea that one SIM card could be used simultaneously from two handsets before the detention of Nazir Ahmed for interrogation. Nazir was picked up from Morigaon after an SMS from his mobile number in the name of ISF-IM claimed responsibility for Thursday’s blasts in Assam.

Nazir had a Reliance connection and an Eve handset. Each handset of this particular model has a unique International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number. Cops found that two IMEI numbers were using the same SIM. Accordingly there were two record sheets of calls and SMSes from Nazir’s mobile number. The record of the SMS to the media was found in only one sheet, which forced police to believe that Nazir’s SIM might have been cloned and someone else was using the duplicate card, with or without the owner’s knowledge.

“We stumbled upon this technological surprise that Nazir Ahmed’s SIM card was used in two handsets,” Assam IG (Law and Order) Bhaskarjyoti Mahanta said.

So far, not that interesting. There are lots of vulnerabilities in technological systems, and it’s generally a race between the good guys and the bad guys to see who finds them first. It’s the last sentence of this article that’s significant:

The experts said no one has actually done any research on SIM card cloning because the activity is illegal in the country.

If the good guys can’t even participate, the bad guys will always win.

Posted on November 6, 2008 at 6:26 AM • View Comments

Understanding Terrorist Behavior

Two items, one short and one long.

The short one: “A Look at Terrorist Behavior: How They Prepare, Where They Strike,” by Brent Smith, National Institute of Justice Journal, No. 260, 2008.

The long one: How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida, by Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki, RAND Corporation, 2008.

Posted on November 3, 2008 at 6:57 AM • View Comments

Keeping America Safe from Terrorism by Monitoring Distillery Webcams

Really:

We had an email recently from an observer “curious as to why the webcam that was inside the shop/bar is no longer there, or at least, functional”. The email was from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in the United States.

When we replied that it was simply a short term technical problem, we asked why on earth they could be interested in the comings and goings of a small Distillery off the West Coast of Scotland. Were there secret manoeuvres taking place in Loch Indaal, or even a threat of terrorists infiltrating the mainland via Islay?

The answer we received was even more surreal. Evidently the mission of the DTRA is to safeguard the US and its allies from weapons of mass destruction -chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high explosives. The department which contacted the Distillery deals with the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, going to sites to verify treaty compliance. Funnily enough chemical weapon processes look very similar to the distilling process and as part of training there is a visit to a brewery for familiarization with reactors, batch processors and evaporators. As they said, it just goes to show how “tweaks” to the process flow or equipment, can create something very pleasant (whisky) or deadly (chemical weapons).

As they say: “In the post-Cold War environment, a unified, consistent approach to deterring, reducing and countering weapons of mass destruction is essential to maintaining our national security. Under DTRA, Department of Defense resources, expertise and capabilities are combined to ensure the United States remains ready and able to address the present and future WMD threat. We perform four essential functions to accomplish our mission: combat support, technology development, threat control and threat reduction. These functions form the basis for how we are organized and our daily activities. Together, they enable us to reduce the physical and psychological terror of weapons of mass destruction, thereby enhancing the security of the world’s citizens. At the dawn of the 21st century, no other task is as challenging or demanding”.

EDITED TO ADD (11/7): This story seems mostly bogus. See “The Story Continues…” on this page.

Posted on October 31, 2008 at 11:15 AM • View Comments