Mohamed Shommo, an engineer for Cisco Systems Inc., travels overseas several times a year for work, so he is accustomed to opening his bags for border inspections upon returning to the U.S. But in recent years, these inspections have gone much deeper than his luggage. Border agents have scrutinized family pictures on Shommo’s digital camera, [...]
Are there lessons for Los Angeles in Mumbai’s tragedy? Times editorial writer Marjorie Miller asked Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton and his counter-terrorism commander, Deputy Chief Michael Downing, to discuss the potential for terrorism in Los Angeles and what law enforcement is doing to prepare for it. Here is an edited transcript of [...]
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is seeking public comments on a draft quantitative food safety risk assessment for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus from consumption of poultry products, shell eggs and egg products. The risk assessment was done in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human [...]
“Homeland Security USA,” a reality show produced with the full cooperation of several agencies of the Department of Homeland Security, will have its premiere on Jan. 6 on ABC. In an announcement Thursday, ABC said the production “has been given unprecedented access to the agencies,” including Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the [...]
California’s AB 38 — signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger in September — established the California Emergency Management Agency as a Cabinet-level entity responsible for emergency management and homeland security operations and set the deadline for appointing a secretary at January 1, 2009. Schwarzenegger has less than a month to decide on a plan to merge the [...]
Kansas State University soon be home to the new National Biological and Agricultural Defense Facility, which will research ways of protecting citizens and animals from the threat of disease. The office of Sen. Pat Roberts has confirmed that the Department of Homeland Defense has selected the Manhattan campus as the site for the $451 million [...]
The US is drawing lessons from the attacks in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) that could inform thinking on how government agencies could be better structured and prepared for terror attacks, says the top US official on homeland security. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said government agencies such as his, which is an amalgamation of several entities, [...]
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has formally abandoned the plan for a massive new department of homeland security Labor took to the election. In his long-awaited national security statement, Mr Rudd said he’d taken the advice of former Defence Department head Ric Smith that to lump all the security and intelligence agencies into one new department [...]
The Indian government on Tuesday reviewed its policy on terrorism and decided to formulate new norms on how to handle cases of aircraft hijack and terrorism. The Crisis Management Committee (CMC) that has authorised the National Security Guards (NSG) chief to liase with the defence commandoes during the Mumbai terror attacks on Monday met to [...]
A biological or nuclear attack is likely to occur somewhere around the globe during the Obama administration or shortly thereafter, a new congressionally mandated report has warned. The report, titled “The World at Risk,” starkly states, “The commission believes that unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than [...]