Report: Cybercrime Costs $67.2 Billion A Year

Cybercrime has significant economic impacts and threatens U.S. national security interests. Various studies and experts estimate the direct economic impact from cybercrime to be in the billions of dollars annually. The annual loss due to computer crime was estimated to be $67.2 billion for U.S. organizations, according to a 2005 FBI survey, cited by a recent federal report.

In addition, there is continued concern about the threat that U.S. adversaries, including nation-states and terrorists, pose to our national security, says the report, prepared by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). GAO is the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress.

"For example, intelligence officials have stated that nation-states and terrorists could conduct a coordinated cyber attack to seriously disrupt electric power distribution, air traffic control, and financial sectors. Also, according to FBI testimony, terrorist organizations have used cybercrime to raise money to fund their activities," the GAO says.

Despite the estimated loss of money and information and known threats from adversaries, the precise impact of cybercrime is unknown because it is not always detected and reported, GAO finds.

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U.S. Citizen Sentenced to Prison for Training From Terrorist Organization

Daniel Joseph Maldonado, a.k.a. Daniel Aljughaifi, a U.S. citizen convicted of receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, senior U.S. law enforcement officials announced.

The 10-year sentence is the maximum statutory penalty for receiving military training from a terrorist organization. U.S. District Judge Gray Miller handed down the maximum sentence during a hearing in Houston. The prison term is to be followed by a three year term of supervised release. Additionally, the court imposed a $1,000 fine.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein says, "We cannot tolerate our own citizens joining the ranks of our enemies and foreign terrorists. Any American who does so can expect swift prosecution and a severe sentence."

Daniel Joseph Maldonado, a.k.a. Daniel Aljughaifi, 28, pleaded guilty in April admitting he had traveled from Houston to Africa in November 2005 and then on to Somalia in December 2006 to join the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and elements of Al Qaeda to fight "jihad" against the Transitional Federal Government to establish an independent Islamic State in Somalia.

While in Somalia, Maldonado was provided an AK-47, equipped with military combat uniforms and boots in Mogadishu, and participated in training camps in Kismaayo and Jilib, Somalia. The camps included physical fitness, firearms and explosives training, all in preparation to go to the
front to fight for the ICU. Al Qaeda members were present at the training camps. ICU and Al Qaeda, a recognized foreign terrorist organization, worked together to train fighters in the camps to fight jihad to establish an independent Islamic state in Somalia.

Maldonado was captured by Kenyan military forces on January 21, as he fled to avoid Ethiopian and Somalian forces. Expelled by Kenyan officials, Maldonado was turned over to American authorities and flown to Houston accompanied by Special Agents of the FBI. Maldonado has been in federal custody since his return to the United States.

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University Development Could Bring Terrorists To Justice Quickly

An Australian university has made a highly significant scientific development which promises to assist police to more efficiently apprehend terrorists responsible for bomb blasts using homemade explosives.

In a world first, the University of Tasmania has developed a portable explosives "fingerprint" device which can process and analyse the complex chemical residues from homemade bombs in minutes.

The briefcase size instrument, which works on a high voltage from a battery, allows scientists to separate and identify the individual chemicals left in complex residues after a bomb blast. These residues forma "fingerprint" which is used to identify the explosive used.

The instrument was developed by a team of 10 scientists in the extensive laboratories of the Australian Centre for Research On Separation Science (ACROSS). The device will add an important new dimension to forensic investigations and counter-terrorism measures.

Research leader Greg Dicinoski says the "ACROSS Portable Explosive Fingerprinter" device could give counter-terrorism authorities three distinct advantages:

• It is portable and can be taken onto most bomb sites
• Samples can be analysed on-site from miniscule levels of chemical residues
• Investigators will have the results in minutes and can start pursuing leads immediately

"This is a very exciting breakthrough for forensic science, and thepossibilities are enormous," Dicinoski says. "After a terrorist bombing, it can often take investigators considerable time using laboratory tests to find exactly the kind ofchemicals used to create the bomb. With the new portable technology it will be possible to identify the exact homemade explosive used within minutes, thus allowing investigators to trace large purchases of the particular chemicals involved."

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U.S. Citizen Pleads Guilty to Training With al Qaeda

A U.S. citizen, whotrained to fight jihad along with elements of al Qaeda to establish an Islamic state in Somalia, has been convicted of receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization, Kenneth Wainstein announced.

At a hearing, Daniel Joseph Maldonado, a.k.a. Daniel Aljughaifi, 28, pleaded guilty to the sole charge in an Information filed on March 30, 2007 and unsealed Thursday. During the hearing, Maldonado admitted he had traveled from Houston to Africa in November 2005 and then on to Somalia in December 2006 to join the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and elements of al Qaeda to fight "jihad" against the Transitional Federal Government to establish an independent Islamic State in Somalia, according to the US Justice Department.

While in Somalia, Maldonado was provided an AK-47, equipped with military combat uniforms and boots in Mogadishu, and participated intraining camps in Kismaayo and Jilib, Somalia. The camps included physical fitness, firearms and explosives training all in preparation to go to the front to fight for the ICU. Al Qaeda members were present at the training camps. ICU and al Qaeda, a recognized foreign terrorist organization,worked together to train fighters in the camps to fight jihad to establish an independent Islamic state in Somalia, the Justice Department says.

"Today's guilty plea is the first involving an American who joined forces with Islamic extremist fighters in Somalia and should serve noticeto others who would travel overseas to wage violent jihad," says Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security.

"For an American to travel overseas to train as a violent jihadist alongside al Qaeda elements who are focused upon threatening the security of our nation, is decidedly disturbing and definitely illegal," says U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle. "Maldonado's conviction should serve as a strong warning to any American who considers joining forces with terrorist groups here or abroad."


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Fruit Giant Chiquita Brands Guilty of Paying Terrorists

Chiquita Brands International Inc., a multinational supplier of fruit and vegetables, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one count of engaging in transactions with a designated global terrorist, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Chiquita pleaded guilty pursuant to a written plea agreement. Under theterms of the plea agreement, Chiquita's sentence will include a $25 million criminal fine, the requirement to implement and maintain an effective compliance and ethics program, and five years' probation.

Chiquita also has agreed to cooperate in an ongoing investigation. Sentencing will occur on June 1.

The plea agreement arises from payments that Chiquita had made for years to the violent, right-wing terrorist organization United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia -- an English translation of the Spanish name of the group, "Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia" (commonly known as the "AUC"). The AUC had been designated by the U.S. government as a Foreign Terrorist Organization ("FTO") on Sept. 10, 2001, and as a Specially-Designated Global Terrorist ("SDGT") on Oct. 31, 2001. These designations made it a federal crime for Chiquita, as a U.S. corporation, to provide money to the AUC. In April 2003, Chiquita made a voluntary self- disclosure to the government of its payments to the AUC, giving rise to this investigation.

"Like any criminal enterprise, a terrorist organization needs a funding stream to support its operations. For several years, the AUC terrorist group found one in the payments they demanded from Chiquita Brands International. Thanks to Chiquita's cooperation and this prosecution, that funding stream is now dry and corporations are on notice that they cannot make protection payments to terrorists," says Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein.

"Funding a terrorist organization can never be treated as a cost of doing business," says U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor. "American businesses musttake note that payments to terrorists are of a whole different category. They are crimes. But like adjustments that American businesses made to the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act decades ago, American businesses, as good corporate citizens, will find ways to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law and still remain competitive."

Following the company's disclosure, the investigation leading to this prosecution developed evidence that for over six years -- from sometime in 1997 through Feb. 4, 2004 -- Chiquita paid money to the AUC in two regions of the Republic of Colombia where Chiquita had banana-producing operations: Uraba and Santa Marta. Chiquita made these payments through its wholly owned Colombian subsidiary known as "Banadex." By 2003, Banadex was Chiquita's most profitable operation. Chiquita, through Banadex, paid the AUC nearly every month. In total, Chiquita made over 100 payments to the AUC amounting to over $1.7 million.

For several years Chiquita paid the AUC by check through various intermediaries. Chiquita recorded these payments in its corporate books and records as "security payments" or payments for "security" or "security services." Chiquita never received any actual security services in exchange for the payments.

Beginning in June 2002, Chiquita began paying the AUC in Santa Marta directly and in cash according to new procedures established by senior executives of Chiquita. The newly-implemented procedures concealed the factthat Chiquita was making direct cash payments to the AUC.

The U.S. government designated the AUC as an FTO on Sept. 10, 2001, and that designation was well-publicized in the American public media. TheAUC's designation was even more widely reported in the public media in Colombia, where Chiquita had its substantial banana-producing operations. Chiquita also had specific information about the AUC's designation as an FTO through an Internet-based, password-protected subscription service that Chiquita paid money to receive. Nevertheless, from Sept. 10, 2001 through Feb. 4, 2004, Chiquita made 50 payments to the AUC totaling more than $825,000.

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Islamic Charity and Five Individuals Indicted

The U.S. branch of an international Islamic charity and five of its officers, employees or associates have been indicted for illegally transferring funds to Iraq, laundering money, stealing federal funds, and obstructing tax laws by, among other things, falsely denying that a procurement agent of Osama bin Laden had been an employee of the charity, Assistant U.S. Attorney General for National Security Kenneth Wainstein, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri Bradley Schlozman, and Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division Joseph Billy announced.

The charity named in the 33-count indictment is the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), formerly known as the Islamic African Relief Agency-USA. IARA is an Islamic charitable organization headquartered in Columbia, Mo., that was officially formed in 1985 and closed in October 2004, when it was identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a specially designated global terrorist organization, the Justice Department says.

Also charged in the indictment are Mubarak Hamed, 50, of Columbia, Mo., a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sudan who served as executive director of IARA; Ali Mohamed Bagegni, 53, formerly of Columbia, Mo. and currently of Iowa City, Iowa, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Libya and a former member of IARA's board of directors; Ahmad Mustafa, 54, of Columbia, Mo., a citizen of Iraq and a former fund-raiser for IARA; Khalid Al-Sudanee, 55, a citizen and resident of Jordan and the regional director of the Middle East office of the Islamic African Relief Agency (also known as the Islamic Relief Agency, or ISRA); and Abdel Azim El-Siddiq, 50, of Palos Heights, Ill., a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Sudan and formerly vice president for international operations for IARA, the Justice Department says.

"Today's indictment paints an alarming picture of theft, money laundering, and fraud by the U.S. branch of an international charitable organization. These charges demonstrate our resolve to thoroughly investigate and prosecute any charities that abuse their tax-exempt status to engage in wide-ranging criminal activity," says Wainstein.

"The FBI will continue to work closely with our law enforcement andintelligence community partners to ensure charitable donations are notmisused for criminal purposes," says Billy.

The indictment, which was returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo., on Tuesday, March 6, was unsealed and made public upon the arrest and initial court appearance of several co-defendants, the Justice Department says.

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Report Shows Little Evidence Of Coherent Al Qaeda Strategy For U.S. Attack

There is little consistent evidence that al Qaeda has a specific strategic plan for attacking targets within the United States, according to a recent RAND Corporation report.

Although al Qaeda succeeded in attacking the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, subsequent terrorist strikes have been outside the United States and were carried out by groups affiliated with – but not necessarily directed by – al Qaeda's core leadership, RAND researchers found.

Even if al Qaeda still had the capability to attack within the United States, the terrorist organization has given few clues about the types of venues it would seek to target and why, the RAND study finds.

“It is entirely possible that the many anti-American pronouncements al Qaeda's leaders have made since 9/11 are merely expressions of their hatred toward the United States and that any future attacks might reflect little more than that hatred,” said lead study author Martin Libicki. “Such attacks could actually have little to do with achieving anything for al Qaeda.”

The RAND report examined four hypotheses that might explain al Qaeda's targeting preferences in the United States:

• The coercion hypothesis states that al Qaeda would use terrorist attacks to cause pain in an attempt to coerce the United States into leaving the Islamic world.
• The damage hypothesis contends that al Qaeda seeks to reduce the ability of the United States to interfere in the Islamic world, largely through assaults designed to cause severe economic disruption.
• The rally hypothesis presumes that al Qaeda would use terrorist attacks within the United States to mobilize supporters and polarize relationships between the United States and the Islamic world.
• The franchise hypothesis posits that although al Qaeda retains its influence and reputation, it lacks the resources necessary to carry out attacks and therefore would use affiliated groups to do so.
  

Researchers for RAND, a nonprofit research organization, found that al Qaeda may well find that its most attractive targets within the United States are those that can simultaneously create fear and damage the U.S. economy – reflecting both the coercion and damage hypotheses.

The RAND report also examined a range of potential attacks that would be consistent with the coercion and damage hypotheses. Researchers concluded that two types of attacks would make powerful contributions to such strategic goals: either targeting America's food chain or industry, or using “dirty bombs” involving radiological dispersal devices.

“Either of these kinds of attacks would have the potential to cause severe social dislocation and economic damage,” says the study co-author Peter Chalk. “If they came on the heels of a widespread or suicide bombing campaign they could also possibly overwhelm the country's emergency management infrastructure.”

In order to determine which of the four potential strike hypotheses al Qaeda was most likely to use, researchers analyzed major attacks by the terrorist organization and its affiliates over the last decade. They also examined statements made by the group, and consulted with al Qaeda experts along the way.

Ultimately, the report finds that most attacks had more than one goal. For example, the Sept. 11 attacks caused significant human and economic casualties while also serving to rally al Qaeda supporters.

Researchers also concluded that al Qaeda is most likely to pick a future target in the United States that would meet similar strategic goals. However, if the next attacks are carried out by local jihadists with little or no direct input from al Qaeda, the assaults will most likely reflect the “franchise” group's beliefs.

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ATF, U.S. Military Team To Defeat Roadside Bombs

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced that it has expanded its program to help the U.S. military combat the use of improvised explosives devices (IEDs) by terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. IEDs, or homemade, roadside bombs, are a top killer of U.S. troops in combat.

The expanded program, under a Department of Justice initiative, includes detailing an ATF special agent certified explosives specialist to the military's Joint Improvised Explosive Device DefeatOrganization (JIEDDO) Joint Center of Excellence (JCOE) at Ft. Irwin,Calif., and assisting in the training of military bomb technicians before they deploy overseas in post-blast explosives investigations and homemade explosives.

Under a memorandum of agreement signed late last year by ATF acting Director Michael Sullivan and JIEDDO Director Montgomery Meigs, the ATF detailee will be the Department of Justice's representative to JCOE and provide technical instruction for the roles ATF and other Justice Department components play in the Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell (CEXC) in Iraq and the Terrorist ExplosiveDevice Analytical Center (TEDAC) in the United States.

CEXC provides immediate, in-theater technical exploitation and operational analysis of the IEDs that insurgents have used againstmultinational forces, and assists in the development of measures and procedures to counter the insurgent bombing campaign. TEDAC exploits and analyzes the returning IED components, confirming the intelligence received by CEXC for assessment and eventual sharing with law enforcement and U.S.allies.

"This agreement and the military's decision to have ATF assist intraining its bomb techs further strengthens the collaboration essential to winning the war against terrorism," Sullivan said. "We're proud to be ableto share our well-established expertise in explosives training and investigations with our comrades in uniform."

Since 2001, ATF's National Center for Explosives Training and Researchhas trained almost 6,000 bomb technicians and investigators in explosivedisposal and investigative techniques. ATF also provides explosivestraining to the new Iraqi Police Service and at the International Law Enforcement Academies in Botswana, El Salvador, Hungary and Thailand.


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Coping With 'Dirty Bomb' Detonation

If a so-called “dirty bomb” exploded in a populated area, first responders would have to make immediate decisions to lessen health impacts on people who might be exposed to radioactive material. Brookhaven National Laboratory health physicist Stephen Musolino offers guidance to first responders, planners, and other decision makers for protective actions during the first 48 hours after a dirty bomb – formally known as a radiological dispersal device (RDD) – has been detonated.

By the time it is known that an attack has occurred, most likely there will have been casualties, all the radioactive material will have been released and it will have begun to disperse,” Musolino says. “The goal of our research is to provide science-based response recommendations to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to consider for use in community preparedness activities.”

Over the past two decades, more than 600 explosive experiments were conducted at Sandia National Laboratories to determine how the radioactive material in a RDD would disperse in the environment through aerosolization, which forms a cloud of particles. In these experiments, the quantities of material used to simulate the radioactive material, the shock physics, and the aerosol physics are representative of what might occur in the detonation of an actual device. This information was then applied to predict the dispersal of actual radioactive sources using many different device designs. Musolino his collaborator published the study’s results in a cover article in the April issue of the Health Physics journal.

The research, says Harper, was performed on many different forms of materials – including ceramics, metals, powders, and liquids – so that the dispersal characteristics of most realistic radioactive sources could be predicted accurately.

“We focused on sophisticated aerosolization techniques to provide the responders with guidance based on what is realistically possible,” Harper says. “We’ve also performed experiments investigating some of the more probable aerosolization techniques that terrorists might employ.”

Based on the experiments, Musolino and his collaborator recommended establishing a “high zone” with boundaries of 500 meters in all directions from the point of detonation. Because there is a good set of experiments behind this recommendation, first responders can follow it without radiation measurements if they know there is radiation associated with the explosion.

Responders are advised to evacuate this “high zone” and control access to prevent uncontaminated people from entering the affected area. “These new strategies will speed up lifesaving efforts to aid the injured victims and minimize the overall radiation dose to the public," Musolino says.

“I hope a terrorist act with a RDD never happens,” he continues. “But if it does, we want the first responders to have the best science behind the tough decisions they will make in those first critical hours.”

The research was funded primarily by the Department of Energy and the Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Recently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Nuclear Regulatory Commission contributed to the work, with DHS coordinating the outreach effort with the first responder community.

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In Case of Terrorist Attack At The Mall

A RAND Corporation report identifies and prioritizes 39 security measures that can substantially reduce the risk of terrorist attacks at enclosed shopping centers.

The study ranks the security measures based on the relative risks of a set of attack scenarios and on the cost and effectiveness of each measure. It identifies a high-priority set of six to 10 security measures that can cut terrorism risk to just one-fifteenth the level it would otherwise be, based on case studies of three enclosed shopping centers in the United States.

The highest priority measures identified by the RAND study span a range of approaches and include: public information campaigns encouraging people to report suspicious packages; placing vehicle barriers at pedestrian entrances to block suicide car bombers; searching kiosks for bombs and weapons; more clearly labeling exits so shoppers can quickly find their way out of malls in an emergency; and searching all bags and requiring everyone entering shopping centers to remove their coats to check for explosives and weapons.

Costs of implementing the highest priority security measures range from $500,000 to $2 million per year per at each of the three shopping centers examined. In addition, researchers found that implementing the high-priority measures would be 95 percent as effective as implementing all 39 measures.

“The RAND analysis does not assess the probability of terrorist attacks at shopping centers and does not suggest that the risk is high or increasing,” says Tom LaTourrette, lead researcher on the project.

Millions of people shop safely at shopping centers every day, but the threat of terrorist attacks at the centers has become a more prominent concern since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. There have been more than 60 terrorist attacks against shopping centers in 21 countries since 1998.

The report by RAND, a nonprofit research organization, uses a quantitative modeling approach to rank security measures with the goal of achieving the greatest risk reduction for the least cost.

The ranking approach considers the relative likelihoods and consequences of different types of terrorist attacks at commercial shopping centers based on historical data, identifies site-specific physical security measures that could reduce these risks, and uses a model to prioritize the measures according to estimates of cumulative risk reduction and cumulative annual cost.

Despite examining centers that span a wide range in size and layout, the prioritization of security measures among the three centers studied by RAND is very similar, with eight of the top 10 measures being the same for all centers.

The report also finds that disaster preparedness plans and exercises that focus primarily on emergency response have limited effectiveness in reducing terrorism risk. The vast majority of terrorism risk derives from bomb attacks, which have immediate effects that abate quickly. This poses constraints on what can be done to reduce consequences once such an attack has occurred.

While shopping center operators could choose to implement some of the security measures identified in this report immediately, many of the measures may not be feasible or appropriate under current conditions. As a result, a tiered implementation may be the best strategy, implementing a set of security options most appropriate for today's environment and developing plans today for further measures if the environment changes for the worse, Rand says.

The report also notes that the impact of the security measures on shopping center business will depend on how shoppers and merchants perceive the terrorism threat. Some shoppers may dislike increased security and come to more secure centers less frequently, while others shoppers may prefer to go to centers with increased security because they will feel safer.

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Border Security System Faces Strategic, Operational, Technological Challenges

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's US-VISIT border security system faces a variety of technological and other challenges, a government watchdog agency says.

US-VISIT is designed to collect, maintain, and share data on selected foreign nationals entering and exiting the United States at air, sea, and land ports of entry (POEs). These data, including biometric identifiers like digital fingerprints, are to be used to screen persons against watch lists, verify identities, and record arrival and departure.

US-VISIT entry capability had been installed at 154 of the 170 land POEs. Officials at all 21 sites visited by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that US-VISIT had improved their ability to process visitors and verify identities.

DHS plans to further enhance US-VISIT’s capabilities by, among other things, requiring new technology and equipment for scanning all 10 fingerprints, notes GAO, the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress.

"While this may aid border security, installation could increase processing times and adversely affect operations at land POEs where space constraints, traffic congestion, and processing delays already exist. GAO’s work indicated that management controls in place to identify such problems and evaluate operations were insufficient and inconsistently administered," GAO says.

For example, GAO identified computer processing problems at 12 sites visited; at 9 of these, the problems were not always reported. US-VISIT has developed performance measures, but measures to gauge factors that uniquely affect land POE operations were not developed; these would put US-VISIT officials in a better position to identify areas for improvement, GAO finds.

US-VISIT officials concluded that, for various reasons, a biometric US-VISIT exit capability cannot now be implemented without incurring a major impact on land POE facilities. An interim nonbiometric exit technology tested did not meet the statutory requirement for a biometric exit capability and thus cannot ensure that visitors who enter the country are those who leave, GAO says.

"DHS had not yet reported to Congress on a required plan describing how it intended to fully implement a biometric entry/exit program or use nonbiometric solutions. Until this plan is finalized, neither DHS nor Congress is in a good position to prioritize and allocate program resources or plan for POE facilities modifications," GAO adds.

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Anti-terror Defenses Must Adapt, Rand Report Says

When designing systems to protect people and places against terrorist attacks, government officials should take into account that terrorists actively seek and find ways around defensive measures deployed against them, according to a recent RAND Corporation study.

The report examines defensive technologies – the systems and approaches used to protect an area and people in it from terrorism – along with the methods terrorist groups have historically used to thwart attempts to discover and frustrate their efforts.

“The most important point we found is that terrorist organizations keep changing their strategies in order to remain effective, and we have to design our defense capabilties to adapt,” says lead study author Brian Jackson. “If we don't, we risk spending our resources building the equivalent of a fortress wall that won't actually provide much protection once terrorists have found a way over, under, through or around it.”

Defensive technologies examined in the report include: surveillance methods, techniques that counter terrorist weapon systems, blast walls and terrorist profiling.

RAND researchers note in the report that while America's defensive technologies can provide an edge in combatting terrorism, that edge can be dulled by the countertechnology efforts of terrorists.

Jackson and his colleagues at RAND, a nonprofit research organization, recommend that counterterrorism experts design multiple technologies to fight terrorism. Then when terrorists figure out how to defeat one defensive technology, there will always be another one waiting to be deployed.

“For most defensive technologies, terrorists will eventually develop countermeasures that will limit the value of the technologies,” Jackson says. “So it is imperative that we have other options available when that happens.”

The study also concludes that it is particularly important for those who design defensive technology to “red team” new systems, a process for anticipating what countermeasures the enemy will use and whether or not that strategy is likely to work.

“In a red team exercise, the good guys pretend to be the bad guys, to see if they can defeat the technolgies designed to defend against terrorism,” Jackson says. “When they uncover weak points in defenses, those weak points can often be closed.”

The goal of such a process is to assess the limits of a technology before it is built and deployed, thereby helping reduce the risk that limited resources will be spent to design and construct a defensive system that ultimately won't provide much protection.

For example, when countries examined in the study tried to use profiling techniques to identify members of certain terrorist organizations, the terrorist groups simply found people who did not fit the profile to carry out high-priority missions like suicide bombings. Government officials should anticipate such countermeasures by terrorists when crafting new defensive approaches.

Researchers examined terrorist conflicts and methods that included Palestinian terrorist groups, Southeast Asia's Jemaah Islamiyah, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, and the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

Understanding how terrorist groups have adapted to defenses deployed against them in the past allows government officials to design better and more robust measures for today's threats, according to the report.

RAND researchers found that when faced with a defensive technology threat, each of the terrorist groups studied responded by:

• Changing the way it carries out its activities or designs its operations so that the terrrorist organization may reduce the value of a defensive technology.
• Modifying its own technologies, acquiring new ones or substituting different measures for those already in place in order to limit the impact of a defensive technology on its activities.
• Avoiding the defensive technology by moving terrorist operations to a different area.
  Attacking the defensive technology in order to damage or destroy it.

Creators of defensive technologies used by governments need to be aware that those defenses could eventually be used against them, according to the RAND researchers. For example, detection systems could be used by terrorists to produce false alarms in order to trigger response systems and cause chaos.

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Homeland Security Legislation Mandates Uniform K-9 Standards

Canine detection teams are a critical element in increased demand for explosive detection since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leading to the introduction of new bipartisan legislation in Congress.

In response to this increased need, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, ranking Republican and Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.), chairman, of the House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Management, Investigations, and Oversight joined together with full committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and ranking Republican Peter King of New York to introduce H.R. 659, the "Canine Detection Improvement Act of2007."

This legislation addresses the need for improved and coordinated training, encourages the use of domestic dogs and confronts the need formore dogs by establishing a "Domestic Canine Breeding Grant Program" to increase canine numbers through both public and private means, the lawmakers say. Most importantly, the bill creates a canine team accreditation board to ensure proper certification standards and to prevent fraud and abuse, they add.

"Canine Detection Teams are critical to keeping America safe. This legislation is an important first step to ensuring that the supply of trained dogs will meet the nation's demand," says Thompson.

"This bipartisan, common sense legislation should help increase the use of domestically-bred dogs and support the work of canine breeding programs. Currently, the vast majority of these dogs are purchased in Europe, but by increasing domestic breeding we lower the costs of acquiring these dogs and ensure there are a sufficient number available for U.S. detection team training," Rogers adds.

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System Detects Hazardous, Toxic Material in Concealed Packaging

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are developing the next generation of screening devices that will identify hazardous and toxic materials even if concealed by clothing and packaging materials.

Working in the underutilized terahertz (THz) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that lies between microwaves and infrared, a team of Labs scientists is harnessing Sandia’s strengths in a variety of technical areas with the goal of building a highly integrated miniaturized terahertz transmitter-receiver (transceiver) that could make a number of applications possible.

The project, the Terahertz Microelectronics Transceiver Grand Challenge, is in its second of three years of funding through Sandia's internal Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.

Sandia is a U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratory.

“The technology being developed in the Grand Challenge can be used to scan for items such as concealed weapons or materials, explosives, and weapons of mass destruction,” says Mike Wanke, principal investigator. “In addition, we believe it will find applications in advanced communication systems and high-resolution radars. However, the infrastructure needed to move the terahertz technology from the laboratory to the field is unavailable right now. We want to develop that infrastructure and invent the necessary technologies.”

Wanke says over the past three years, “the terahertz situation has begun to change dramatically, primarily due to the revolutionary development of terahertz quantum cascade lasers.”

These tiny lasers are semiconductor sources of terahertz radiation capable of output powers in excess of 100 mW. Previously, such powers could only be obtained by molecular gas lasers occupying cubic meters and weighing more than 100 kg, or free electron lasers weighing tons and occupying entire buildings.

Quantum cascade laser-based systems can be less than the size of a baseball and powered from a nine-volt battery. Sandia has been a leader in developing this new technology and in collaboration with MIT is responsible for several world performance records for the lasers. Also, the Labs and its partners are the only US institutions that have demonstrated the ability to grow the unique semiconductor crystals such that they can be turned into operating terahertz quantum cascade lasers. The crystals are grown by Sandia research scientist John Reno, an expert in molecular beam epitaxy, a method of laying down layers of materials with atomic thicknesses onto substrates.

Sandia researchers spent the first year of the Grand Challenge using Sandia’s unique strengths in integrated microelectronics and device physics to develop components that are now being combined to create an integrated THz microelectronic transceiver, a core enabling element.

The team is currently developing the receiver, doing systems tests and exploring packaging requirements. At the end of three years, the researchers expect to have an actual working prototype capable of detecting the materials and chemicals by reading distinctive molecular spectral “signatures.”

“Most materials and chemicals have their own unique terahertz spectral signatures,” Wanke says. “A terahertz transceiver system would be able to measure, for example, the signature of a gas and determine what it is.”

“Atmospheric scientists and radio astronomers have spent years developing terahertz spectral signature databases to identify chemicals in nebula and planetary atmospheres,” says Greg Hebner, program manager. “Even though the current devices are washing machine-sized, they are located in a few observatories, and one is even flying on a satellite. To address specific national security problems, we are working on reducing the size, weight, and power requirement as well as expanding the existing spectral databases.”

In addition to monitoring for concealed hazardous materials, Mike believes a terahertz system can be used to monitor the air for toxic materials. Using air sampling technology developed at Sandia and other locations, hazardous vapors can be preconcentrated. Shining light from the quantum cascade laser through the concentrated sample provides a direct identification of the vapor. This technology can be used in conjunction with existing mass spectrometer-based systems to reduce false identifications.


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Bush Claims Right To Open Your Mail

President Bush asserted the federal government's right to open U.S. mail without a warrant.

Bush asserted the right in a little-noticed signing statement the White House issued in December when Bush signed into law the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.

"The executive branch shall construe subsection 404(c) of title 39, as enacted by subsection 1010(e) of the Act, which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection, in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances, such as to protect human life and safety against hazardous materials, and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection," the Bush statement says.

The Bush statement was originally reported on the Care2 social network.

President Bush has been criticized for civil liberties violations in pursuit of terrorists.

Bush this week decided not to renew a warrantless wiretap, or domestic spying, program after months of criticism.


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Bush Signs Anti-Terror Bill To Fight Missile Threat

Legislation authored by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) to prevent terrorists from obtaining surface-to-air missiles, support key U.S. allies including Israel, and assist U.S. diplomats while conducting missions overseas and was signed into law by President Bush today.





"We rely considerably on the State Department's diplomatic work to helpus win the Global War on Terror. Therefore, American diplomats must have every means available at their disposal to successfully carry out U.S. foreign policy. The new authorities contained in this law enhance U.S.foreign policy and provides the State Department with more tools to effectively accomplish their diplomatic objectives," says Smith.



Among the new authorities granted to the State Department through the"Department of State Authorities Act of 2006" (P.L. 109-xxx) is the ability to withdraw any economic and military assistance to a country that knowingly transfers man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) to terrorist organizations or a foreign government that sponsors terrorism.



"MANPADS are cheap, lethal and shockingly easy to obtain on the black market. We now have the means to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on these destructive weapons and using them to kill hundreds of Americans with a single shot," says Smith.



Defense contractors are developing systems to defend airliners and airports from potential MANPADS attack. Among various competitors, Raytheon has a product called Vigilant Eagle that uses electromagnetic energy tailored to divert a missile. When located at a commercial airport, Vigilant Eagle creates a dome of protection around the airport, protecting all aircraft during the most critical phases of flight—takeoff and landing, the contractor says.



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