How Mexico’s drug war washed up on Canada’s West Coast

Constables Phil Gomes and Mike Clark – a.k.a. Shake ‘n’ Bake – are 27 and 28, clean-cut and solidly built, and together form the newest and least-known front in Mexico’s drug wars: Canada.

Members of the coveted Integrated Gang Task Force in British Columbia, their orders are to “disrupt and dismantle” drug gangs, many of which maintain a cocaine lifeline to Mexico.

They don’t talk about it much, but they spend their days chasing down the “bad guys” and “sitting on” drug houses around Vancouver and the Lower Mainland of B.C. (Toronto Star)

Securing our Digital Future

The globally-interconnected digital information and communications infrastructure known as cyberspace underpins almost every facet of modern society and provides critical support for the U.S. economy, civil infrastructure, public safety and national security.  The United States is one of the global leaders on embedding technology into our daily lives and this technology adoption has transformed the global economy and connected people in ways never imagined.  (CyberWarn)

Homeland Security taps sci-fi writers

The line between what’s real and what’s not is thin and shifting, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has decided to explore both sides. Boldly going where few government bureaucracies have gone before, the agency is enlisting the expertise of science fiction writers.

Crazy? Recently the 2009 Homeland Security Science & Technology Stakeholders Conference, with contractors hustling business around every corner, felt at times more like a convention of futuristic yarn-spinners.

Onstage in the darkened amphitheater, a Washington police commander said he’d like to have Mr. Spock’s instant access to information: At a disaster scene, he’d like to say, “Computer, what’s the dosage on this medication?” (Detroit News)

Obama consolidates national security, homeland security teams

President Barack Obama will combine the staffs of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, with all 240 employees now reporting to national security adviser James Jones. The move aims to reduce overlapping bureaucracies, though it stops short of the full merger recommended by the 9/11 Commission. Obama will preserve the HSC, which oversees issues such as terrorism, pandemics and weapons of mass destruction. “The idea that somehow counterterrorism is a homeland security issue doesn’t make sense when you recognize the fact that terror around the world doesn’t recognize borders,” Jones told reporters on Wednesday. (Source)

Small bomb goes off outside Upper East Side Starbucks

A small improvised explosive device detonated outside an Upper East Side Starbucks early Monday morning, shattering the coffee shop’s windows and raising fears of terrorism.

The bomb tore a hole in a wooden bench outside the coffee chain’s outpost at Third Ave. and E. 92nd St. when it exploded at 3:30 a.m.

No one was injured in the blast, but it terrified residents who had been fast asleep early on Memorial Day. (NY Daily News)

One in seven freed from Guantnamo reportedly return to terrorism

An unreleased Pentagon report provides new details concluding that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials.

The conclusion could strengthen the arguments of critics who have warned against releasing any more prisoners as part of President Barack Obama’s plan to close the prison by 2010. Past Pentagon reports on Guantánamo recidivism have been met with skepticism from civil liberties groups and criticized for their lack of detail. (Mercury News)

Privacy fears hinder Homeland Security

Privacy proponents are planning a national campaign to protest the Department of Homeland Security’s use of a new airport security technology that some worry reveals a bit too much underneath the clothes, CNN reports.

The so-called “whole-body imaging” technology, critics say, conducts a digital strip search, producing naked pictures that are impossible to make secure.

“People need to know what’s happening, with no sugar-coating and no spinning,” says Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which is leading the charge. (Metro.us)

U.S. health officials troubled by new flu pattern

The new influenza strain circulating around most of the United States is putting a worrying number of young adults and children into the hospital and hitting more schools than usual, U.S. health officials said on Monday.

The H1N1 swine flu virus killed a vice principal at a New York City school over the weekend and has spread to 48 states. While it appears to be mild, it is affecting a disproportionate number of children, teenagers and young adults.

This includes people needing hospitalization — now up to 200, said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Reuters)

US Officials Expect More Swine Flu Cases, Deaths

The number of U.S. cases of swine flu has risen to 3,000 – an increase of 400 from Monday’s released figures. Three deaths have been reported. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says more cases and fatalities are likely.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the swine flu outbreak in the United States appears to be mild. But, the CDC says the actual number of cases is likely to be much higher than what it has reported. (VOA)

Napolitano defends security budget, extremism report

Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano defended Tuesday her agency’s 55.1-billion-dollar budget request and reassured Republican lawmakers the agency did not consider returning US soldiers to be right-wing extremists.

The agency came under fire last month for saying troubled veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.” (AFP)

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