Government
Gregory Allen Justice, an engineer who worked for a cleared government contractor in California, was recently sentenced to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to attempting to commit economic espionage, attempting to violate the Arms Export Control Act and violating the International... Read More »
A framework would be established for law enforcers to legally access email communications stored on overseas cloud-based servers, and U.S. officials would be authorized to negotiate bilateral data sharing agreements with foreign countries, under a Senate bill announced on Monday.
The Clarifying... Read More »
A meeting between Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Canada’s Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ralph Goodale on Monday focused on raising global security standards.
Nielsen and Goodale discussed standards pertaining to cyber security, counterterrorism,... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is proposing an ambitious new program to counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: checking suspects’ epigenetic markers to track history of exposure to associated materials.
The program is being called Epigenetic... Read More »
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) representatives met with privacy advocacy groups on Friday to discuss the implementation of the Biometric Entry/Exit Program and public-private partnerships being forged to ensure traveler safety.
Currently, biometric facial recognition technology is being... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently selected Booz Allen Hamilton as the first prime contractor under the government-wide Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Dynamic and Evolving Federal Enterprise Network Defense (DEFEND) Program.
DHS gave Booz Allen a $621 million... Read More »
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) positioned 20 bomb-sniffing dogs at the Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) Airport to handle an influx of travelers in the days leading up to and following Super Bowl LII.
TSA usually screens approximately 34,000 travelers at the airport on a typical... Read More »
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced new sanctions against six individuals and seven entities tied to Hezbollah on Friday in an effort to cripple the terrorist organization’s business operations.
The six individuals targeted by OFAC sanctions, all... Read More »
The 2018 Joint Civil & DoD CBRN Symposium presented by the Defense Strategies Institute will take place on March 5-6 at the Mary M. Gates Learning Center in Alexandria, Virginia. The event will provide a forum for members of the Department of Defense, federal government, private industry, academia,... Read More »
Pointing to pledges made in the State of the Union speech earlier this week, both the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and HIV Medicine Association have asked Congress and President Donald Trump to raise budget caps for both defense and nondefense spending.
Their reasoning is that... Read More »
The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) will begin to aggregate and analyze data to identify and target prescribers and pharmacies moving unusually large amounts of opioid drugs, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently announced.
Sessions said a “surge” of DEA agents would be directed to the... Read More »
The Federal Office for Civil Protection (FOCP) of Switzerland recently hosted, in collaboration with the Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the second workshop on Schedule 1 facilities at Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland.
The workshop... Read More »
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that newer applications for asylum will be processed before older filings in an effort to mitigate potential fraud and abuse in the backlog of pending asylum applications,
The asylum applications backlog had reached 311,000... Read More »
After being sworn in as the director of the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) on Thursday, Dr. Eric Moore called for effective partnerships with chemical and biological defense stakeholders, academia and industry to develop technologies of the future for warfighters.
Moore,... Read More »
In response to reports that the fitness-tracking platform Strava shared user information that could be used to identify military installations, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sought information about company data security practices and potential changes on Wednesday.
Strava... Read More »
Wireless providers taking part in the wireless emergency alerts (WEA) system will be required to deliver notification more precisely to geographical areas that are affected by the warning under action taken by the FCC on Tuesday.
The FCC will require participating wireless carriers to target... Read More »
A storied system developed by the Science and Technology Directorate’s Center of Excellence and utilized by the U.S. Coast Guard is going a long way to analyzing its stations’ strengths and weighing how best they can be utilized.
The assessment was released by the Coast Guard and... Read More »
The FBI does not currently have a hard-and-fast threshold or indicators to determine the appropriate response when America’s small businesses face cyber attacks, according to testimony before a House panel on Tuesday.
The House Small Business Committee convened a hearing to probe the federal... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended on Tuesday that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) begin to independently validate that life extension programs (LEPs) for nuclear weapons are meeting management best practices.
Given that LEPs used to refurbish or replace... Read More »
Border Patrol agents at the checkpoint on north Highway 83 in the Laredo Sector recently discovered 76 individuals entering the United States without legal permission in a tractor-trailer driven by a U.S. citizen.
When the driver arrived at the checkpoint, agents questioned him regarding his... Read More »
Using rabies as a case study, researchers from across the world joined together to assess and promote the effectiveness of public awareness campaigns in spotting and preventing the spread of infectious diseases.
The study--published in the journal Epidemiology and Infection--focused on the... Read More »
The first Automated Passport Control (APC) kiosk will be installed aboard a ferry operating between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to expedite the processing of travelers, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced on Monday.
U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, Canadian... Read More »
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen announced Monday additional security procedures and recommendations for the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP).
The additions include additional screening for certain nationals of countries identified as high-risk, a periodic review and... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) added government-wide personnel security clearance to its “High Risk List” on Thursday, which designates programs in need of transformational changes to reduce the risk of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.
GAO typically updates the High Risk... Read More »
Federal officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) arrested 86 criminal aliens and immigration fugitives in North Texas and Oklahoma during a three-day enforcement action that occurred last week.
The operation targeted mostly aliens... Read More »
A total of seven Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers are headed to Minneapolis to provide x-ray inspections of all vehicles headed into the U.S. Bank Stadium, where Super Bowl LII will be held on Feb. 4.
While the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots face off, the CBP will... Read More »
After warning last year that lack of funding could force three of nine A-10C Thunderbolt squadrons to be grounded, the United States Air Force said that it would include funding for additional wings in its fiscal year 2019 budget request on Friday.
To maintain current levels, Congress included... Read More »
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently announced the implementation of stronger screening procedures for carry-on items at St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL), which were announced last year and have been rolling out across the country.
The new procedures require... Read More »
Ahead of Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis on Sunday, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is conducting measurements of naturally occurring background radiation using a low-flying helicopter.
Naturally occurring radiation measurements are a standard security... Read More »
The 2018 Joint Civil & DoD CBRN Symposium presented by the Defense Strategies Institute will take place on March 5-6 at the Mary M. Gates Learning Center in Alexandria, Virginia. The event will provide a forum for members of the Department of Defense, federal government, private industry, academia,... Read More »
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) recently sanctioned six individuals, designating them as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224.
OFAC designated four of the individuals -- Abdul Samad Sani, Abdul... Read More »
After a career spanning more than 30 years with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Customs Service, Alfonso Robles was tapped Thursday to serve as CBP’s director of field operations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Robles’ appointment marks his second posting in... Read More »
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations (OFO) officers at multiple crossings within Laredo Port of Entry seized more than $770,000 of hard narcotics and controlled prescription medication in two separate, unrelated enforcement actions.
“These significant interceptions of... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) highlighted its efforts to enhance first responders’ ability to handle active shooter and other critical incidents in public places through multi-agency training exercises on Thursday.
In October, DHS’ Science and Technology Directorate (S&T)... Read More »
The Kansas Highway Patrol recently announced its decision to subscribe to FirstNet, a nationwide public safety broadband network designed specifically for first responders, become the first agency in Kansas to do so.
The update to their communications gives them access to a secure network that... Read More »
