Another Planned NYC Military Fly Over Cancelled Posted: 11 May 2009 10:26 PM PDT
A retiring navy pilot planned to fly over New York City this morning to celebrate the end of his career before the flight was cancelled at the last minute by the Federal Aviation Administration in consultation with city officials as the plane was set to roar down the Hudson, over the harbor and up to Maine. Before saner heads prevailed, a P-3, a turbo prop aircraft that often sees service as a marine patrol plane for the Navy, was set to fly at 3000 feet. According to officials, shortly before the flyover was slated to begin at 10:30a.m., This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and Share this post                  |
Panel Opposes No First Use of Nuclear Weapons Posted: 11 May 2009 10:08 PM PDT
President Obama wants the world to get rid of its nukes, eventually. But, for now, it’s still official U.S. policy that America reserves the right to drop the first Bomb During the early 1980’s — the peak of the late Cold War — the Soviet Union declared that it would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. Many of America’s strategic lions — most famously Robert McNamara, George Kennan, Gerard Smith, and McGeorge Bundy — said we should do the same. But we never did. Why not? Primarily because we thought we might actually use the weapons first. In my view, one of the three most likely ways that World War III would have started would have been with Red Army troops surging west across Europe. American conventional weapons probably couldn’t have helped the French or West Germans stop them. But nuclear weapons could have. This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and Share this post |
Are America’s Biohackers a Threat to National Security? Posted: 11 May 2009 10:03 PM PDT
In Massachusetts, a young woman makes genetically modified E. coli in a closet she converted into a home lab. A part-time DJ in Berkeley, Calif., works in his attic to cultivate viruses extracted from sewage. In Seattle, a grad-school dropout wants to breed algae in a personal biology lab. These hobbyists represent a growing strain of geekdom known as biohacking, in which do-it-yourselfers tinker with the building blocks of life in the comfort of their own homes. Some of them buy DNA online, then fiddle with it in hopes of curing diseases or finding new biofuels. But are biohackers a threat to national security? That was the question lurking behind a phone call that Katherine Aull got earlier this year. Aull, 23 years old, is designing a customized E. coli in the closet of her She’s got a DNA “thermocycler” bought on eBay for $59, and an incubator made by combining a styrofoam box with a heating device meant for an iguana cage. A few months ago, she talked about her hobby on DIY Bio, a Web site frequented by biohackers, and her work was noted in New Scientist magazine. That’s when the phone rang. A man saying he was doing research for the U.S. government called with a few polite, pointed questions: How did she build that lab? Did she know other people creating new life forms at home? This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and Share this post |
Al Qaeda No. 2, al Zawahiri Hiding In Quetta Posted: 11 May 2009 09:56 PM PDT
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, the most wanted terrorist after Osama bin Laden, with a $25 million bounty on his head, is holed up near Quetta, Pakistan, according to a highly placed Pakistani intelligence source. The Egyptian-born radical is a master of disguise, a meticulous planner and the deadliest of terrorists. Yet Pakistani intelligence sources say he roams openly and with impunity in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. While Predators continue to strike at a variety of key terror targets in that area, our source tells us that the CIA and other intelligence agencies cannot get Al-Zawahiri’s recent movements can be tracked with some specificity. He was positively identified in the North Waziristan Agency of Pakistan in June 2008, and the locations pinpointed where he conducted high- level meetings. This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and Share this post |
Hacked ATMs Steal $500G From Bank Customers Posted: 11 May 2009 09:52 PM PDT
A sophisticated band of thieves managed to steal personal information and more than half a million dollars from hundreds of New York City bank customers by rigging ATMs in what police say is further evidence of the continued assault on personal data by identity thieves. Police said the identity thieves installed devices on ATM machines at Sovereign Bank branches in Staten Island that enabled them to collect account and PIN First they placed skimmers on the slots where customers inserted their bank card that could read and store the information. Then a tiny camera was hidden in the lighted sign on the ATM that filmed customers typing in PIN codes, the Daily News reported. “This crew is sophisticated,” Deputy Inspector Gregory Antonsen, head of the NYPD’s special investigations division, told the Daily News. “And they are The ATM-riggers managed to steal more than $500,000 from more than 250 victims. They also created fake ATM cards with the same magnetic codes as the victims and used the cards at different banks, police said. This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and Share this post |
Roxana Saberi, Journalist Jailed In Iran To Be Freed Posted: 11 May 2009 06:24 AM PDT
be freed after an appeals court downgraded her sentence. Lawyers for the 32-year old said the court had reduced the eight-year jail sentence to a suspended two-year term and she would soon be freed. The Iranian-American television reporter had lived in Iran for six years arrest in January. The harsh sentence provoked aninternational backlash that prompted Iran’s hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to express concern that she had received due process. After his intervention the head of the Iranian judicary asked for the appeal court review. “The verdict of the previous court has been quashed,” lawyer Saleh Nikbakht said. “Her punishment has been changed to a suspended two-year sentence and she will be out of prison.” This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and Share this post |
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