NOTICE: This document may contain initial and preliminary reporting which may or may not be accurate of be supported by corroborative information. The HSOC is actively evaluating the reporting to establish its accuracy and to determine if it represents a possible link to terrorism. If recipients have any additional or clarifying information, please contact the Homeland Security Operations Center Senior Watch Officer (HSOC SWO) at (202) 282-8101

Cryptome with leaked Homeland Security Dept documents. "For official use only".

Homeland Security Operations Morning Briefs - 27 September 2004 to 6 January 2005

] Homeland Security recently has lost or will be losing its
] well-regarded deputy secretary, James Loy, as well as its
] inspector general, chief security officer, deputy for
] cyber security, director of domestic preparedness,
] undersecretary for protecting critical networks and
] assistant secretary for public affairs.
]
] Observers said other top officials also are considering
] leaving, including Asa Hutchinson, the undersecretary for
] border and transportation security. Hutchinson, who had
] been mentioned as a possible replacement for outgoing
] Secretary Tom Ridge, is contemplating running for
] governor in Arkansas.

Our President, once long ago described as CEO like, continues to show a surprising inability to build solid leadership teams. We've seen Internet startups in the dot-com era that have had less turnover in their senior leadership. Intelligence is not living up to its own name, and the only element of our nation state that appears to have stable leadership, command, or control is the military.

Sleep well!

Homeland Security exodus alarms terrorism experts

] David Banach, 38, is the first person charged in a rash
] of recent incidents in which lasers were shined at
] aircraft around the country. Justice Department officials
] said they do not suspect terrorism in any of the cases,
] but said Banach's arrest shows how seriously they take
] the matter.

I've heard it said on the news terrorism was suspected in these cases by the FBI. I myself have been suspecting stupidity.

] After being taken to an FBI office and given a
] lie-detector test, Banach said he had hit the jet with
] the beam, court documents say. During questioning by the
] FBI, Banach showed an agent his laser. After the agent
] switched it on, Banach warned him "not to shine the laser
] in his eyes because it could blind him," the court
] documents say.

My suspicions seem confirmed by this man's statement. Don't look at the laser. Well, don't aim the laser somewhere it might meet someone's eyes.. Idiot. That is a very clear case of putting others at risk by not thinking. I'm not saying this guy should wind up in jail, but he was posing a risk to aviation, and a visible example of some sort should be made. Making someone look stupid that is doing something stupid using the mass media is a good way to go about it. Hopefully it ends there.

Green lasers are way more likely to harm the human eye then those red ones most people have because of the way your eyes see the color spectrum. The big brother to those little red laser pointers can to do very significant damage to the eye. If these risks are not seen by someone playing with even a weak laser, then they should be educated. We also don't know the specifics of what he had. A user on this system had a green laser that was strong enough to light a cigarette with, I know because I lit several with it. Blind pilots guiding a major airliner isn't something anyone would care to see, and that can happen, easily and accidentally.

Comments have been made regarding the 4th Amendment and the Patriot Act.. I could be missing details, but it seems like the Patriot Act was only what they charged him under, not how they collected evidence. I await to see how it is handled in the court. A sentence maximum of 25 years would actually make sense in a case where it was the expressed goal to take out the aircraft and its passengers. In a case of being stupid, I would assume the maximum would not apply. I could be wrong.

If a police helicopter looking for places shooting lasers at aircraft found itself being shot with a laser, well, that's not very intrusive. I don't see a 4th Admendment angle here. The search was in public space the searchers are designated to protect. The seizure occurred in a situation where the specific place and the specific item were identified. That is like a cop car driving around your neighborhood looking for people shooting bullets at cars, and finding itself shot at.

NJ Man charged with aiming laser at aircraft

The fate of the agency is no minor matter to intelligence professionals who have spent their careers trying to serve both presidents and the nation; all know that these two masters are often at odds. There is no easy way to reconcile these divided loyalties. But there are good reasons for trying to understand what has now brought the stresses to the breaking point.

Secret Intelligence and the 'War on Terror'

The 30 minute video here is not to be missed.

America's Secret War - George Friedman - Author interviews

In this article for The National Interest, Francis Fukuyama rips into the viewpoints of Charles Krauthammer, which have acquired strong influence inside the Bush Administration foreign policy team and beyond. The primary subject is nation building in Iraq, the larger context is America's relations with our allies and the Middle East, our position as the only superpower, and the war on terror.

Suggested reading. Fukuyama is a very clear thinker. All his points here are valid, relevant, and well supported.

Fukuyama: The Neoconservative Moment

] The UN imposes all sorts of penalties on all those who
] contradict its religion. It issues documents and
] statements that openly contradict Islamic belief, such as
] the International Declaration for Human Rights,
] considering all religions are equal, and considering that
] the destruction of the statues constitutes a crime...

This is long but its interesting. Someone extracted emails from a computer stolen from Al'Q and posted them in The Atlantic. Details about some of Al'Q's codes are discussed, as well as an interesting inside look at their operation. (The statues were the buddhist monuments destroyed by the Taliban in the late nineties.)

Emails from Bin Lauden

] Khan had been secretly apprehended by ISI in mid-July and
] persuaded to become a double agent. He was actively
] helping investigators penetrate further into Al Qaeda
] cells and activities via computer, and was still
] cooperating when the "senior Bush administration"
] figure told New York Times's Douglas Jehl about him. ISI
] told Reuters, "He sent encoded e-mails and received
] encoded replies. He's a great hacker and even the US
] agents said he was a computer whiz -- He was cooperating
] with interrogators on Sunday and Monday and sent e-mails
] on both days. This proves that the Bush administration
] just blew the cover of one of the most important assets
] inside Al Qaeda that the US has ever had.
]
] Prof. Juan Cole of the University of Michigan's
] analysis is more daring, "The announcement of Khan's
] name forced the British to arrest 12 members of an
] al-Qaeda cell prematurely, before they had finished
] gathering the necessary evidence against them via Khan.
] Apparently they feared that the cell members would
] scatter as soon as they saw that Khan had been
] compromised. (They would have known he was a double
] agent, since they got emails from him Sunday and Monday!)
] One of the 12 has already had to be released for lack of
] evidence, a further fallout of the Bush SNAFU (situation
] normal all fouled up). It would be interesting to know if
] other cell members managed to flee. Why in the world
] would Bush administration officials out a double agent
] working for Pakistan and the US against Al-Qaeda? In a
] way, the motivation does not matter. If the Reuters story
] is true, this slip is a major screw-up that casts the
] gravest doubts on the competency of the administration to
] fight a war on terror. Either the motive was political
] calculation, or it was sheer stupidity. They don't
] deserve to be in power either way."

(Pakistan) Daily Times - How the Pakistani double agent was ‘burned’ by the US

This is where the most recent terror alerts came from.

] The figure, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, was described by a
] Pakistani intelligence official as a 25-year-old computer
] engineer, arrested July 13, who had used and helped to
] operate a secret Qaeda communications system where
] information was transferred via coded messages.

Al Queda has a new job opening for a sysadmin with a bad attitude. You must also be able to use Photoshop and make banners.

] The Pakistani official said Mr. Khan told investigators that
] he had received 25 days of training at a militant camp in
] Afghanistan in June 1998. By the time Mr. Khan had risen
] to his current position, the official said, Qaeda figures had
] arranged his marriage and were paying him $170 a month
] for rent for his house in Lahore and $90 for expenses.

] Mr. Khan was in contact with the brother of the Indonesian
] Qaeda leader Hambali, who was studying in a religious
] school in Karachi, and who was deported in December
] 2003. Mr. Khan has told interrogators that his Qaeda
] handler was a Pakistani he knew as Adil or Imran, who
] assigned him tasks related to computer work, Web design
] and managing the handler's messages. His correspondents
] included a Saudi-based Yemeni, Egyptian and Palestinian
] nationals and Arabs in unknown locations, and someone
] described as the "in-charge" in the city of Khost in eastern Afghanistan.

The New York Times | Intelligence: Captured Qaeda Figure Led Way to Information Behind Warning

] POTENTIAL TARGETS
]
] New York
] * Citigroup Building
] * New York Stock Exchange
]
] New Jersey
] * Prudential Financial Center
]
] Washington, D.C.
] * International Monetary Fund
] * World Bank
]
] -- Department of Homeland Security

No more failures of imagination. The boogie man could strike at any time.

CNN.com - U.S.A. raises threat level at key financial sites - Aug 1, 2004