Law Enforcement – Page 183 – Public Intelligence Blog

photo las vegas — Ground Zero Las Vegas--Full Story Online

Monday, December 28, 2009

SPOOK'S JOURNAL

Nine of the ten largest hotels in the world are in Las Vegas. Four of them share one intersection: Las Vegas Boulevard (The Strip) and Tropicana Avenue. Together, these four corners comprise 12,953 rooms, most of which enjoy high occupancy year-round and are often full. Figure 25,000 people huddled on four corners.

The imagery is also appealing to terrorists: Occupying one corner is New York, New York, with a “skyline” that features the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and the Statue of Liberty.

This thought: It is no longer necessary for al-Qaeda terrorists to hijack two Beechcraft C99 planes out of Vegas, as easy as this would be. Instead, why not drive (three-and-a-half hours from Vegas) to Grand Canyon West Airport with a few vans filled with ammonium nitrate (fertilizer) and diesel fuel? Armed with a few baseball bats, one could take command of the airstrip in less than a minute. Then wait for the Beechcrafts to arrive. Loaded with ammonium nitrate (or a low grade chemical or biological agent), these vector weapons could then be dispatched back at Las Vegas, a mere 15 minutes away at full throttle, or Hoover Dam, half the distance.

Phi Beta Iota: This posting was brought to our attention by a patriotic citizen who finds a great deal of common sense on this web site, and none at all within the so-called Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We recollect the period 1990-1994 when Peter Black, Winn Schwartau, and Robert Steele, among others, tried to warn Congress and the Executive about the cyber-threat, to include substantive correspondence to the top National Information Infrastructure security officer, Marty Harris, sounding the alarm. We vividly recollect testifying on behalf of Hackers and trying to tell the Secret Service it should hire them, not torment them. Now we have a government spending hundreds of billions of dollars in the wrong way, and failing to LISTEN to common sense solutions from its citizens.

Journal: Weaponizing Web 2.0

Memorandum: Talking Points on Homeland Defense Intelligence

1999 Setting the Stage for Information-Sharing in the 21st Century: Three Issues of Common Concern to DoD and the Rest of the World

2009/12/26

Reference: US Responsibility for Atrocities in Indonesia

04 Indonesia, 05 Civil War, 10 Security, Law Enforcement, Military

Phi Beta Iota: We take everything with some skepticism. We are quite certain that 95% or more of the U.S. officers training Indonesian military and police personnel had no intention of enabling the atrocities that came later–the problem–as we personally experienced in Central America–is when the 1% to 5%, including personal emissaries from the White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency all say that there will be no U.S. retribution or blow-back from committing atrocities using US training, equipment, and forms of organization intended to counter bona-fide subversion. Hence, one bad apple rots the entire barrel of good apples.

2009/12/212010/09/02

Journal: Update on Combatting Global Terrorism

09 Terrorism, 10 Security, Government, Law Enforcement, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

Kudos should be given to the UN’s Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) for producing what is perhaps the most comprehensive and frank assessments to date of the international community’s implementation of Security Council Resolution 1373 and the measures adopted to combat international terrorism. Their report was presented to the Security Council by CTED Executive Director Mike Smith on December 16th and provides detailed information on what is actually being done, on the vulnerabilities, and on the technical assistance required. It provides a thematic overview of the laws and actions taken in the areas of enforcement, border control, countering the financing of terrorism, and international cooperation as well as a region by region assessment. Human rights considerations are also addressed. The report should be read closely.

2009/12/21

Journal: Fraudulent Security Device Popular in Iraq

09 Terrorism, Commercial Intelligence, Law Enforcement, Military

Original (3 Nov 09) Full Story Online

Iraq Swears by Bomb Detector U.S. Sees as Useless

The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.

Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.

Schneier on Security: A blog covering security and security technology November 6, 2009

The Doghouse: ADE 651: A divining rod to find explosives in Iraq:

ATSC’s promotional material claims that its device can find guns, ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at distances up to a kilometer, underground, through walls, underwater or even from airplanes three miles high. The device works on “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction,” ATSC says.

To detect materials, the operator puts an array of plastic-coated cardboard cards with bar codes into a holder connected to the wand by a cable. “It would be laughable,” Colonel Bidlack said, “except someone down the street from you is counting on this to keep bombs off the streets.”

Complete quackery, sold by Cumberland Industries:

Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.

Continue reading “Journal: Fraudulent Security Device Popular in Iraq”

2009/12/192010/01/12

Reference: Walter Dorn on UN Intelligence in Haiti

01 Poverty, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Academia, Analysis, Articles & Chapters, Civil Society, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, United Nations & NGOs

UPDATE: Superceeded by final published version a tReference: Intelligence-Led Peacekeeping

Phi Beta Iota: Dr. Walter Dorn is one of a tiny handful of truly authoritative academic observers of UN intelligence, a pioneer in his own right, and perhaps the only person who has followed UN intelligence from the Congo in the 1960's to the creation of new capabilities in Haiti and elsewhere in the 21st Century. He is the dean of UN intelligence authors. See also Who’s Who in Peace Intelligence: Walter Dorn.

2009/12/192009/12/19

Journal: Well-Intentioned Idiocy Abounds….

Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Methods & Process, Military, Mobile, Reform

Headlines Only:

Not Just Drones: Militants Can Snoop on Most U.S. Warplanes (Updated)

Spytech Agency Wants Software Brains to Connect the Dots

Training For The Civilian Surge

TSA Cannot Order Sites to Take Down Sensitive Manual

Headlines and Snippets Below the Fold with Phi Beta Iota Comment

Continue reading “Journal: Well-Intentioned Idiocy Abounds….”

2009/12/192009/12/19

Journal: Integrity (Truth) Coming to the Top on Banking

03 Economy, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement

I doubt it, but hope springs eternal could this be a significant development? To date, Simon Johnson has been a very astute observer of the financial meltdown and has been crusading for breaking up the mega banks …

Paul Volcker Picks Up A Bat

Simon Johnson

Baseline Scenario

Dec 17, 2009

For most the past 12 months, Paul Volcker was sitting on the policy sidelines. He had impressive sounding job titles – member of President Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board immediately after last November’s election, and quickly named to head the new Economic Recovery Board.

But the Recovery Board, and Volcker himself, have seldom met with the President. Economic and financial sector policy, by all accounts, has been made largely by Tim Geithner at Treasury and Larry Summers at the White House, with help from Peter Orszag at the Office of Management and Budget, and Christina Romer at the Council of Economic Advisers.

With characteristic wry humor, Volcker denied in late October that he had lost clout within the administration: “I did not have influence to start with.”

But that same front page interview in the New York Times [10/21/09] contained a well placed shock to then prevailing policy consensus.

Volcker, legendary former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board with much more experience of Wall Street than any current policymaker, was blunt: We need to break up our biggest banks and return to the basic split of activities that existed under the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 – a highly regulated (and somewhat boring) set of banks to run the payments system, and a completely separate set of financial entities to help firms raise capital (and to trade securities).

Continue reading “Journal: Integrity (Truth) Coming to the Top on Banking”

Category: Law Enforcement

Journal: Strong Signals–Las Vegas as Next 9/11