The Homeland Security Department on Monday returned the 43-inch sword with an embellished blade and sheath with gold inlaid Arabic writing to the Iraqi ambassador.
Tag Archives: Homeland Security
Homeland Security official probed
(AP)—President Barack Obama’s choice to be the No. 2 official at the Homeland Security Department is under investigation for his role in helping a company run by a brother of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Associated Press has learned. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
AP NewsBreak: Homeland Security official nominated for No. 2 post probed by internal watchdog
The Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog is investigating President Barack Obama’s pick to become to the department’s No. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
Who’s watching the watchdog? Records show IG billed taxpayers for questionable trips
The man who’s supposed to be the chief watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security was himself billing the government for a string of “site visits” to sunny locales including Puerto Rico and south Florida — where he allegedly was pursuing his Ph.D.
President Obama Signs Missouri Disaster Declaration
The President today declared a major disaster exists in the State of Missouri and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the area affected by severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes, and flooding during the period of May 29 to June 10, 2013.
Federal funding is available to state and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes, and flooding in the counties of Barton, Callaway, Cape Girardeau, Chariton, Clark, Howard, Iron, Knox, Lewis, Lincoln, Maries, Marion, Miller, Montgomery, Osage, Perry, Pike, Putnam, Ralls, Shelby, St. Charles, St. Louis, Ste. Genevieve, Stoddard, Sullivan, Texas, and Webster.
Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide.
W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Michael L. Parker as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal recovery operations in the affected area.
FEMA said additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the state and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MEDIA SHOULD CONTACT: FEMA NEWS DESK AT (202) 646-3272 OR FEMA-NEWS-DESK@DHS.GOV
Source: White House Press Office
SAPVoice: Wall Street Launches a Massive Cyber-Attack — On Itself
Wall Street’s largest trade group is about to try taking down the financial nerve center of the United States. The FBI and SEC, as well as the U.S. departments of Treasury and Homeland Security, are among about 50 banks, exchanges and other organizations participating in a high-tech war game to test institutional and individual readiness for an all-out cyber-assault. About 50 banks, exchanges and other organizations will spend Thursday testing Wall Street’s readiness for an all-out cyber-assault. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) will kick off Quantum Dawn 2 on Thursday in hopes of “informing best practices moving forward.” The mounting threat of organized, full-on cyber-attack on the financial services industry prompted the drill. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Napolitano Will Inherit Turmoil As University Of California’s New President
By The Huffington Post News Editors
By Sharon Bernstein
LOS ANGELES, July 13 (Reuters) – In hiring Janet Napolitano to run the sprawling University of California, state officials are counting on the Homeland Security chief’s political savvy and fund-raising prowess to restore a system racked by years of budget cuts and turmoil.
Napolitano, a two-term Arizona governor plucked by President Barack Obama in 2009 to be Secretary of Homeland Security, said on Friday she would leave that post to run the university’s 10-campus system, pending final approval by the board of regents expected next week.
Chosen from among more than 300 candidates in part because of her political skills, the 55-year-old Democrat will take the helm as the university is struggling to recover from economic crises that have eaten away at the state budget on and off for nearly two decades.
Cuts of nearly $1 billion over the last five years have led to tuition increases and class shortages, and have strained relations with faculty and staff through the imposition of furlough days and hiring freezes.
“Her job is to restore the glory of the system,” said Jack Stripling, who covers college leadership for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
To do that, Napolitano will have to persuade the politicians who control the state budget that a high-end university is an asset worth paying for – while showing faculty, staff and the 234,000 students that she is on their side.
“The thinking is, you bring in someone with political savvy to solve what is essentially a political problem,” Stripling said.
In making their choice of a new president, university leaders picked someone with experience managing a large, highly political organization, said UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein. The university budget, including its hospitals and medical centers, is more than $24 billion.
“It’s a dynamic position, and she is somebody who has experience managing big complex organizations,” Klein said.
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
Possible contenders to lead Department of Homeland Security following Napolitano's resignation
A retired Coast Guard admiral, a current New York City police commissioner and a former California congresswoman are among the early names being floated in Washington as possible picks to replace outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 7/12/2013
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
1:10 P.M. EDT
MR. CARNEY: The Associated Press, start us off. I have no announcements. Welcome.
Q Edward Snowden has said he would like to have asylum in Russia, that he’s willing to agree to their demand that he not continue to release information to them. What is your message today to Russia about what the implications of granting that to him would be for their relations with the United States?
MR. CARNEY: Our position on Mr. Snowden and the felony charges against him, and our belief that he ought to be returned to the United States to face those felony charges is as it was. And we have communicated it to a variety of countries, including Russia. So it’s no different than it was. And I would simply say that providing a propaganda platform for Mr. Snowden runs counter to the Russian government’s previous declarations of Russia’s neutrality and that they have no control over his presence in the airport. It’s also incompatible with Russian assurances that they do not want Mr. Snowden to further damage U.S. interests.
But having said that, our position also remains that we don’t believe this should, and we don’t want it to do harm to our important relationship with Russia. And we continue to discuss with Russia our strongly held view that there is absolute legal justification for him to be expelled, for him to be returned to the United States to face the charges that have been brought against him for the unauthorized leaking of classified information.
Q Can you tell us a little bit about the President’s session today with the Attorney General? And has he accepted Eric Holder’s report on media relations and investigations?
MR. CARNEY: The President did meet with the Attorney General today in the Oval, and the Attorney General did discuss with him and present to him that report. I believe the Department of Justice will be releasing that report this afternoon, but I’d refer you to them.
Q So if they’re releasing it this afternoon, that indicates that the President did accept it as it was presented?
MR. CARNEY: Yes, I think that’s a fair assessment to make. We won’t have any statement or comment on it before it’s released, but I believe the Department of Justice is releasing it today.
Q And on Secretary Napolitano’s departure, do you have any information for us on who her replacement might be or any timeline for that decision?
MR. CARNEY: I have no names to float, if you will. I would say that the President greatly appreciates Secretary Napolitano’s four-plus years of service. And if you think about it, those four and a half years account for almost half the existence of the Department of Homeland Security. And she’s done a remarkable job. And on her watch there have …read more
Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano Will Resign to Lead University of California System
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and former governor of Arizona Janet Napolitano is being named as the next president of the University of California system and will resign from her government post, according to media reports. …read more
Source: The Christian Post
Power Woman Janet Napolitano Steps Downs as Homeland Security Chief
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has announced her resignation to become President of the vast University of California system, America’s largest public university system. “The opportunity to work with the dedicated men and women of the Department of Homeland Security, who serve on the frontlines of our nation’s efforts to protect our communities and families from harm, has been the highlight of my professional career,” said Napolitano in a statement released earlier today. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Video: Terrorists In The White House
By Kris Zane
On June 13, 2013, Hamas-linked radical cleric Sheik Abdullah Bin Bayyah met with the Obama administration, none other than National Security Advisor Tom Donilon heading the meeting. Also included was the Obama administration’s special envoy to the Muslim community, Rashad Hussain, who is deeply embedded in the Muslim Brotherhood.
This is the same Hamas—officially designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government—who have called for the destruction of the United States, the destruction of Israel, and the annihilation of the Jewish people down to every last man, woman, and child.
This is the same Hamas who have openly murdered thousands of innocent people, including shooting rockets into Israeli schools.
This is the same Hamas who regularly chant “Death to America!” on every street corner.
What exactly was the Obama administration discussing with our enemies? Removing Hamas off of the list of designated terrorists organizations!
Oh, but this is only the beginning…
Hamas is only one side of the radical White House coin—the Muslim Brotherhood being the other side.
Yes, the Muslim Brotherhood that Barack Hussein Obama backed in Egypt, and still secretly hopes will be returned to power.
The same Muslim Brotherhood that in their own internal documents call for the destruction of the United States.
The same Muslim Brotherhood whose front group CAIR—the Council on American Islamic Relations—an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist funding trial—has had literally hundreds of meetings with the Obama Administration.
But the Muslim Brotherhood not only meets with the Obama administration, but is inside the Obama administration.
All of the following individuals have deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood:
Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for policy development.
Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
And Eboo Patel, member of Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships.
Barack Obama says NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is a traitor for aiding and abetting the enemy. But Barack Hussein Obama is the enemy.
Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano Resigning
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who led the burgeoning Department of Homeland Security through a host of policy changes in the post 9/11 era, is resigning to head the University of California system.
Napolitano, just the third person to lead the 10-year-old department, told her senior staff Friday she would be leaving for California. She will become the president of the University of California system, which includes UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley, among other campuses. The University of California also announced Napolitano’s nomination to be the 20th president of the statewide system.
“The opportunity to work with the dedicated men and women of the Department of Homeland Security, who serve on the front lines of our nation’s efforts to protect our communities and families from harm, has been the highlight of my professional career,” she said in a statement. “After four plus years of focusing on these challenges, I will be nominated as the next president of the University of California to play a role in educating our nation’s next generation of leaders.”
“I thank President Obama for the chance to serve our nation during this important chapter in our history,” Napolitano said, “and I know the Department of Homeland Security will continue to perform its important duties with the honor and focus that the American public expects.”
Obama issued a statement commending Napolitano for “her outstanding work on behalf of the American people over the last four years.”
Read more at CNS News. By Alicia A. Caldwell and Eileen Sullivan.
Bombing shifts Mass. Senate race before primaries
Even before the explosions, polling suggested that Massachusetts voters weren’t excited about the looming special election to replace former U.S. Sen. John Kerry.
But in the days after bombs ripped through the Boston Marathon‘s crowded streets, politics were all but forgotten as authorities launched an unprecedented manhunt and a region grappled with terror. It didn’t matter that competitive primary contests on both sides were 15 days away; everything was put on hold.
“There are things that are more important than campaigning and that horrific event was clearly one of them,” said U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, who is competing against U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch for the Democratic nomination to replace Kerry, now the secretary of state.
After suspending political activities for roughly a week, the candidates have been forced to walk a delicate balance as they engage voters ahead of Tuesday’s Republican and Democratic primaries. They have largely avoided the site of the attack out of sensitivity for victims, but some have tweaked campaign advertising to address the bombing, highlighted their national security credentials and tried to use the sudden focus on terrorism to shift the direction of the race.
“It completely changed the landscape,” Lynch aide Scott Ferson said of the bombing.
Indeed, a campaign once dominated by debates about the environment, health care and women’s rights has become more focused on enemy combatants, Miranda rights and counterterrorism agencies. Some candidates welcomed the shift.
On the Democratic side, Lynch has seized on national security in recent days to attack Markey, thought to be the frontrunner. One of the most memorable moments in last week’s Democratic debate, just a week after the bombing, focused on support for federal security efforts
“Unlike my colleague Mr. Markey, I’ve actually voted for the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bills,” Lynch charged.
Markey responded: “He’s taking a page right out of the Karl Rove swift boat playbook, and it’s very sad, especially just one week after what just happened in Boston, Cambridge and Watertown.”
Through Tuesday’s primary election, Markey outspent Lynch on television advertising $1.7 million to $1.2 million, according to advertising figures obtained by The Associated Press. But only Lynch focused on the bombings in a television ad that blanketed the state last week, while Markey focused on traditional Democratic priorities such as women’s reproductive rights.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
Bill Bratton on Data and Analytics, Homeland Security and Hometown Security
“In preventing terrorism, as in preventing crime, the secret is data, the intelligence that you make out of it and how you use that intelligence,” Bill Bratton told the audience at the CEB TowerGroup Financial Services Technology Conference this week in Boston. Bratton, the former head of the Boston, New York, and Los Angeles police departments, was invited to speak at the conference about “data-driven policing.” Also called “predictive policing,” today it is a widely-discussed big data example, building on a new approach to policing which Bratton has played a leading role in its development and implementation over the last two decades. In the aftermath of last week’s Boston Marathon’s terror attack, Bratton’s talk was highly instructive. Here’s what I learned about the link between hometown and homeland security and the use of data to combat crime and terror.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Java security questions answered
Most of the products tested (except Windows Server 2012), use Oracle's Java in one form or another, at least for client access and also in some cases within the management interface. With numerous vulnerabilities recently discovered in Java, leading to guidance from Department of Homeland Security and others to disable it entirely, this raised some questions about usability and possibly even security of the devices tested.
Fertilizer Plant Didn't Report 270 Tons of Ammonium Nitrate
By Ruth Brown A lack of sprinklers and fire walls wasn’t the only safety issue at the Texas fertilizer plant that exploded, killing 200, on Wednesday: plant owner West Fertilizer had failed to report the 270 tons of ammonium nitrate it was storing to the Department of Homeland Security, reports Reuters . Plants are…
From: http://www.newser.com/story/166566/fertilizer-plant-didnt-report-270-tons-of-ammonium-nitrate.html
Dead Boston Suspect's Mother-in-Law 'Sickened'
By Kate Seamons The mother-in-law of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev feels how you might expect: sickened. The AP describes Judith Russell as distraught as she made the comments this evening through a crack in her front door, speaking just after Homeland Security agents escorted a car containing two women into…
From: http://www.newser.com/story/166545/dead-boston-suspects-mother-in-law-sickened.html
President Obama: "We've Seen the Character of Our Country Once More"
By <a href="/author-detail/3336903">Matt Compton</a>
After a daylong manhunt that saw police searching door-to-door through Boston, law enforcement officials captured the remaining suspect believed to be responsible for Monday's bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. He was ultimately found in Watertown, Massachusetts.
In a statement from the James Brady Briefing Room after the arrest, President Obama commended the response from the state and local police and federal investigators.
“We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to all our outstanding law enforcement professionals,” he said. “These men and women get up every day, they put on that uniform; they risk their lives to keep us safe — and as this week showed, they don't always know what to expect. So our thoughts are with those who were wounded in pursuit of the suspects and we pray for their full recovery.”
While tonight's arrest closes one chapter in this tragedy, we're still left with many questions about these young men. President Obama pledged to put the full weight of the federal government behind finding answers.
“I've instructed the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and our intelligence community to continue to deploy all the necessary resources to support the investigation, to collect intelligence, and to protect our citizens,” he said. “We will determine what happened. We will investigate any associations that these terrorists may have had. And we'll continue to do whatever we have to do to keep our people safe.”
It's been a long week, and the events in Boston have in some ways overshadowed another tragedy — the explosion that took the lives of at least 14 people in West, Texas and wounded more than 200. Before the President closed, he made sure to remind the people of that community that they hadn't been forgotten.
“Our thoughts, our prayers are with the people of West, Texas, where so many good people lost their lives; some lost their homes; many are injured; many are still missing,” he said. “I've talked to Governor Perry and Mayor Muska and I've pledged that the people of West will have the resources that they need to recover and rebuild. And I want everybody in Texas to know that we will follow through with those commitments.”
Read the full remarks here. Watch the video here.
Learn more
- President Obama's statement following the Boston bombings (4/15)
- President Obama updates the American people on developments in Boston (4/16)
- President Obama speaks at an interfaith prayer service in Boston (4/18)
From: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/04/20/president-obama-weve-seen-character-our-country-once-more
The Second Boston Massacre
While we are all still numb with grief for our fellow Americans who were maimed or killed on Patriots Day (April 15, 2013), and before American history gets revised too much by the statists among us, it should be remembered that the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770 was one of the occurrences that incited the first American Revolutionary War. That was back in the day when British troops bullied their way onto the shores of America to enforce the heavy burden of the King of England’s new taxes. That was also back in the day when the full context of individual freedom was the nexus for our young country.
As the story goes, in 1770, five Bostonian colonists were murdered in cold blood when a British soldier fired into an angry crowd, which then caused something of a chain reaction of gunshots into the gathering of patriots. These new Americans were protesting what was seen as the overreach of King George III into the business of the men and women who had forged a new life free from the tyranny of Kings and Parliamentary rulers from afar.
Today, Americans don’t want to fight (we aren’t quite as hardy as our forebearers), but we still want to live free from the tyranny of Kings and rulers from afar.
It is tragic to see that our country, our way of life, and our futures are being challenged by the most despicable bullies imaginable – the terrorists. Pray that we find a way to remain free without another American revolution.
Photo Credit: aquadogs (Creative Commons)
From: http://www.westernjournalism.com/the-second-boston-massacre/