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Archive for February 2008

Targeting Researchers; A court order says animal-rights activists have gone too far

February 29, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

By Andrew MurrNewsweek Web ExclusiveUpdated: 3:06 PM ET Feb 27, 2008

University of

California,

Los Angeles, research ophthalmologist Arthur Rosenbaum stepped from his home one morning last June and discovered a firebomb had been planted under his white BMW. Cops evacuated the neighborhood, the bomb squad came, but the device’s crude fuse had already fizzled. Rosenbaum’s UCLA colleague, neuropharmacologist Edythe London, was less lucky. In October, a garden hose was shoved into a broken window of her

Beverly Hills, Calif., home, flooding it, causing thousands of dollars in damage. And then on Feb. 5, a Molotov cocktail detonated on her doorstep, scorching her entryway but failing to burn down the house.Who would want to target academics? Underground militant animal-rights activists took credit for the attacks, but despite an FBI investigation, no one has been arrested. UCLA officials complain that protesters–angry over the school’s use of research primates–have continually harassed, threatened and vandalized the university, as well as its faculty and staff. Fed up, UCLA last week won a temporary restraining order in Los Angeles Superior Court against five individual protestors and three animal-rights groups: the Animal Liberation Front, the Animal Liberation Brigade and the UCLA Primate Freedom Project. “We’re dealing with terrorist organizations and people who are knowingly involving themselves with these terrorist organization,” says John Hueston, a lawyer for UCLA.Modeled on court orders granted to testing laboratories and corporations who have faced similar protests and “underground actions,” the restraining order signed by Judge Gerald Rosenberg orders the groups’ members and five individual protesters to refrain from violence, harrassment or vandalism. They must also remain 50 feet from researchers homes (150 feet at night) and the groups must remove the names and home addresses of Rosenbaum,

London and other researchers identified as “Targets” from their respective Web sites. The school is also seeking an injunction that would make these restrictions permanent.UCLA’s run-in with violent animal-rights activists began in 2006, when someone from the Animal Liberation Front put a Molotov cocktail outside what was evidently believed to be the home of UCLA psychiatrist and animal behavior researcher Lynn Fairbanks. (Actually, the ALF goofed and left the bomb at a neighbor’s door.) Since then, Hueston says the groups and individuals acting in their name have acted with “a chilling coordination” to intimidate researchers. Two days after the botched firebomb attack on Rosenbaum’s car by an anonymous member of the Animal Liberation Brigade, the group’s Web site posted a note urging Rosenbaum to “watch your back.” Three days later, protestors including Lindy Greene and Hillary Roney shouted “Hey, Arthur, how’s your BMW doing?” Weeks later, a package sent by someone claiming to be with the ALF arrived addressed to Rosenbaum’s wife containing animal fur and razor blades and promising “what he does to the animals we will do to you.” “My wife and I were both terrified,” Rosenbaum wrote in a court filing. Later protesters returned, shouting, “We know where you sleep at night!”After the

Fairbanks attack in 2006, UCLA officials increased security and improved communications between campus police and other law enforcement;  other universities have followed suit. Earlier this year, the Society for Neuroscience released “Best Practices for Protecting Researchers and Research” that drew on security and communications improvements at UCLA. The incidents at

London’s home also prompted concern from National Institutes of Health Director Elias Zerhouni, who issued a recent statement supporting the UCLA scientist. “Terrorism against researchers using animals is real and intolerable,” wrote Zerhouni. “This violence must stop.”UCLA isn’t the only school being targeted by a variety of local protestors who share similar names and tactics. The Animal Liberation Front claimed credit for vandalizing the cars and homes of two researchers last year at

Oregon Health Sciences University near

Portland. At the

University of

Utah, several researchers have been the targets of home protests that including spray-painting and destroying a lawn with a saline solution, according to Dr. Jeffrey Botkin, the university’s associate vice president for research integrity. The Utah Primate Freedom Project has led demonstrations against several researchers. The protests led the university to rewrite its security plan - and to get city and county officials to ban protests within 100 feet of residences. And on Sunday, an animal researcher at the

University of

California,

Santa Cruz, was the target of an alleged home invasion by six people wearing bandanas over their faces. Police say the intruders fled after attacking the researcher’s husband when he answered the front door. Police searched one house but have made no arrests so far. “This incident appears to be part of a series of recent incidents targeting UC faculty, students, and staff who conduct biomedical research using animals,” wrote UC Santa Cruz chancellor George Blumenthal in a statement issued Tuesday, adding that the alleged break-in “threatens, intimidates, and stifles academic freedom.”Defendants in the UCLA case and their friends reacted with a mixture of scorn and caution. But two of the individuals named in the suit said they would fight the restrictions in court, but abide by them as long as they remain in force. Complaining that she was just “an above-ground activist” whose free-speech rights were being abridged, longtime protester Lindy Greene said, “I would honor the restraining order but fight it legally.” Ramin Saber, another named activist vowed to abide by the restraining order but fight the imposition of a permanent injunction. “We’re not going to just lay down.” Jean Barnes, director of Primate Freedom and operator of the UCLA Primate Freedom Web site told NEWSWEEK that she would comply with a court order to remove the names and home addresses of researchers her site listed as “Targets.” [As of this article’s posting, the banned home addresses remained online.] But Barnes hinted that if her Web site can’t post the researchers’ whereabouts, she may continue the fight through e-mail, which the restraining order doesn’t ban “so the information will still get out there.”The Animal Liberation Front activists who claimed credit for firebombings aren’t likely to be deterred by an injunction, says Jerry Vlasak, who runs the Animal Liberation Front Press Office Web site, which reports ALF “actions” but operates independently of the ALF and its Web site and wasn’t named in the restraining order. “It’s laughable that someone willing to face a 30-year sentence for arson will be put off by a restraining order,” complains Vlasak. “It’s not going to have any effect.”The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wasn’t named in the suit and hasn’t been part of the UCLA protests, but when asked to comment, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk says she does not support firebombings, but she supports protests at researchers homes and worries that the new limits abridge free-speech rights. “I think it’s a freedom-of-speech right to say [to researchers] ‘You better watch what you are doing’,” Newkirk tells NEWSWEEK.UCLA chancellor Gene Block defends the university’s legal tack and says the school avoided trying to abridge protected speech by seeking to ban protests broadly. “This was carefully done,” Block says. “We chose people and organizations who are involved in a way that leads to harassment of our investigators. When people decide to do something illegal, we have to stop them.” Or try to. “These things are difficult to stop. None of us would feel good if there was any legal activity left that we hadn’t taken. We have to do everything we can. It’s really our obligation.”The ALF Press Office’s Vlasak say that the plan will be ineffective, in part because it circumscribes the actions of only five above-ground protesters. “There 150 more who remain” that can say and do what they want, Vlasak says. But Hueston, the university’s lawyer, says UCLA will seek to add new names of protestors shown to be threatening. He also promises “additional” measures, but declines to name them. Meanwhile, hearings to discuss whether the temporary order should become permanent begin next month.URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/116644

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Over Here or Over There, Intelligence Key to Countering Terror

February 29, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

By Matt Korade, CQ Staff

David Cid thinks he knows how to protect

America against terrorists, but it won’t be easy.

The former FBI agent and current deputy director of the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism said intelligence, especially human intelligence, is the key to battling ne’er-do-wells at home and abroad.

But as anyone who has followed the controversies over prewar intelligence or the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program knows, intelligence is never perfect.

Those who gather human intelligence are “the best, but they’re difficult to deal with,” Cid said, speaking at an International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals on Thursday at Alion Science & Technology’s headquarters in Washington.

The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism provides free Web access to its online database of terrorism cases, the “terrorism knowledge base,” a resource for security officials and others that was funded with grant money from the Department of Homeland Security, Cid said.

The reason intelligence is critically important is that the spectrum of terrorist threats is so broad, he said. At the high-end is al Qaeda and other state-sponsored terrorist organizations, whose destructive-potential is well known.

On the low end are people like Leroy Charles Wheeler and Douglas Allen Baker. Wheeler and Baker were members of the Patriots Council, a right-wing, anti-government group that abhorred paying taxes, according to records on the MIPT site.

Despite the fact that “their collective IQs” would barely break 100, Cid said, the two were able to get their hands on ricin, a lethal poison derived from castor beans, which they were planning to use as a weapon. After an informant turned them in, the pair were charged under the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 (PL 101-298) and sentenced to brief prison terms.

America finds itself in a fluid terrorism environment, and yet there is a reluctance right now among some members of Congress to grant the government further intelligence-gathering authority, as evidenced by the conflict over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (PL 95-511).

“So we’re static, and he’s not,” Cid said, referring to the terrorists. And the more that dichotomy continues, the more Cid believes there will be another major terrorist attack on

U.S. soil.

In fact, the

U.S. system is an irresistible lure to terrorists, Cid said. What we see as our greatest strength, our freedom and compassion as a people, the terrorists see as our greatest weakness.

“The ideal operational environment for a terrorist,” Cid said, reading a quote that was written on the overhead projection, “is a republic grounded in a constitution, guaranteeing he will enjoy privacy, freedom of movement and a vigorous defense if arrested.”

Another perceived weakness is the public’s supposed aversion to suffering mass casualties, an idea that ultimately prompted Osama bin Laden to reject the admonitions of traditional terrorist thinkers, such as Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine tactician George Habash, who died last month.

Habash once said terrorism was “a thinking man’s game.” What that meant, Cid said, was that a terrorist should kill only enough people to be taken seriously, or he runs the risk of invoking the enmity of the local population.

The Domestic Front

Even small-scale terrorist activities can be extremely disruptive.

“Terrorism is theater,” Cid said, quoting counterterrorism expert Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corp. In most cases it’s directed at the viewer as much as the victim.

Domestically, the most immediate danger is from conventional weapons, Cid said, like that used in the

Oklahoma City bombing. In that vein, there are a number of groups out there worth watching, including anarchists, as well as the Animal Liberation Front and the Ku Klux Klan.

The Klan has become politicized today over issues such as border control, immigration and eminent domain; “this is good,” Cid said, “because when they’re political, they’re not killing people.”

The Animal Liberation Front could resort to violence if it perceived its message wasn’t getting out — a possibility, considering a burger joint opens up about “every 15 seconds,” Cid said. When a group believes its goals are being frustrated, its zealots take command, negating the influence of “active and concerned” members who usually exert a moderating effect on the membership.

But that membership is hard to penetrate, because terrorist groups by definition tend to share the same values and beliefs, form strong personal bonds among members, and rely on previously tested relationships.

So, how can they be deterred? The best method is to form small, highly mobile, intelligence driven, self-contained units – much like the FBI has created with in its Joint Terrorism Task Forces. These small cells of highly trained, locally based investigators, analysts, SWAT experts and other specialists from dozens of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, have proven effective, Cid said.

The challenge of counterterrorists is to determine which groups like to stockpile weapons and badmouth the government and which plan to act on those criticisms, he said. That requires actionable intelligence, and that’s best gleaned from human contacts.

As imperfect as pre-Iraq-war intelligence showed them to be, they’re necessary, Cid said.

Matt Korade can be reached at mkorade@cq.com.

Source: CQ Homeland Security
© 2008 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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New Software for Predicting Terror

February 28, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

Researchers at the University of Maryland’s Institute for Advanced Computer Studies announced this week that they have launched an online portal that will let analysts query rules on the behavior of terrorist organizations and forecast their future behavior.

The SOMA Terror Organization Portal (STOP) is based on a framework of Stochastic Opponent Modeling Agents. A formal, logical-statistical reasoning framework, SOMA uses data about the past behavior of terrorist groups to learn rules about the probability of an organization, community or person taking certain actions in certain situations, institute officials said in a statement. University of Maryland researchers have also used SOMA rules to predict scenarios such as the likelihood of Afghan farmers to grow opium poppies.

V.S. Subrahmanian, the institute’s director, a computer science professor and leader of the STOP project, said SOMA can automatically execute rules about behavioral data and “allow us to infer what a group might do in a real or hypothetical situation.”

SOMA has generated tens of thousands of rules about the likely behavior of 30 groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, institute officials said.

STOP contains a table of data about each terrorist group the researchers study, Subrahmanian said. Jonathan Wilkenfeld, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, created the table. Each row denotes a particular year in which the group was active, and each column describes a variable, such as the degree of violence used by a state against the terrorist group. The variables fall into two categories: environmental variables, which describe the environment in which the group operates, and action variables, which denote the intensity of the group’s actions.

Subrahmanian and the STOP researchers have “developed algorithms that automatically examine the data in these tables and automatically identify statistical rules that link the environmental variables and the action variables,” he said. “Such rules specify the conditions under which the group took a given action.”

“SOMA is a significant joint computer science and social science achievement that will facilitate learning about and forecasting terrorist group behavior based on rigorous mathematical and computational models,” Subrahmanian said. “But even the best science needs to work hand in hand with social scientists and users. In addition to accurate behavioral models and forecasting algorithms, the SOMA Terror Organization Portal acts as a virtual roundtable that terrorism experts can gather around and form a rich community that transcends artificial boundaries.”

The Defense Department funds the portal, which has users from four defense agencies. It allows for interaction among the users, who can perform queries, run a prediction engine, mark rules as useful or not useful, and post comments.

“Security analysts need more than piles of data,” said Aaron Mannes, a researcher at the institute and author of Profiles in Terror: The Guide to Middle East Terrorist Organizations. “It takes a network to fight a network. Analysts need to learn from other analysts. This system allows multiple users to arrive at a shared understanding of how a terror group operates and what it might do in the future.”

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Supreme Court Rejects ACLU Challenge to Warrantless Surveillance

February 21, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a legal challenge to the warrantless domestic spying program President George W. Bush created after the September 11 attacks,” reports Reuters. “… Bush authorized the program to monitor international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without first obtaining a court warrant.… The administration abandoned the program about a year ago, putting it under the surveillance court that Congress created more than 30 years ago.… The Supreme Court sided with the administration and rejected the appeal without any comment.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1925683320080219

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Islamic Jamaat Activists Sentenced in Russia

February 21, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

The Russian “Tatar Supreme Court agreed with the jury’s guilty verdict in relation to 17 participants of the Islamic Jamaat illegal armed formation and handed down prison sentences,” reports the Russian news agency Interfax. “‘Under the sentence, 16 of the accused will get terms from three years and three months in a correctional facility of general and strict regime, and Khafiz Rezakov [one of the leaders of the group] is sentenced to life imprisonment in a correctional facility of general regime,’ [the] Tatar Prosecutor’s Office” said

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=4288

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Hicks Diary Reveals Terror Training

February 21, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

David Hicks’s handwritten ‘jihad diary’ gives new insight into the sophisticated terrorism training he underwent, exploding claims that he was an innocent abroad,” reports the Australian. “The confessed terrorism supporter used a school exercise book … to write up the detailed instruction he received in weapon use, explosives and military tactics from Islamic extremists in Pakistan.” Hicks revealed “that he had been trained to carry out armed raids and ambushes, and to designate potential targets including police and railway stations.” He was captured in Afghanistan, held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and “repatriated to Australia last May to serve out a prison sentence imposed by a US military commission.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23243932-5006787,00.html

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Fidel Castro Resigns as Head of Cuba

February 21, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

For many years I have occupied the honorable position of President,” Castro wrote in Granma. “[Because of] my unstable health condition … I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief.” His brother Raul was acting head of the government since Fidel Castro’s provisional resignation on July 31, 2006.

 http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2008/febrero/mar19/mensaje-i.html

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Opposition Group Claims That Iran Has Nuclear Warhead Factory; Iranian Lawmaker Announces Countdown to Israel’s Destruction

February 21, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

The Iranian opposition group that first exposed Iran’s controversial nuclear fuel program”—the National Council of Resistance of Iran—has given the International Atomic Energy Agency “details of what the group says is a working nuclear warhead factory, visited by North Koreans,” reports the Australian. “The facility at Khojir, a Defence Ministry missile research site on the southeast edge of Tehran, is developing a nuclear warhead for use on Iranian medium-range missiles, according to Mohammad Mohaddessin, foreign affairs chief for” the exiled group. And “Iranian Parliament Speaker Gholam Hadad has warned that the ‘countdown to Israel’s destruction has begun,’ in an interview published Thursday in an Iranian newspaper,” reports Haaretz.

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GOVERNMENT WARNINGS

February 20, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

On 15 February 2008, the U.S. Department of State issued the following Travel Warning: “This Travel Warning is being updated to inform American citizens of recent attempts to assassinate the President and Prime Minister of Timor-Leste (formerly East Timor) and the continuing potential for violence, and to urge American citizens to defer non-essential travel to Timor-Leste at this time. Americans currently in Timor-Leste should evaluate carefully their safety and security situation in light of this Travel Warning. This supersedes the Travel Warning issued on September 12, 2007.

 

“On February 11, 2008, armed rebels attempted to assassinate President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. The President was shot at his home and evacuated to Australia for medical treatment, and the Prime Minister was unharmed.

 

“The Department of State advises U.S. citizens of the continuing potential for violent civil unrest in Timor-Leste. The situation could deteriorate without warning and foreigners may be specifically targeted. U.S. citizens should defer non-essential travel to Timor-Leste at this time. Those already in Timor-Leste should exercise extreme caution, limit movements to the greatest extent possible, and maintain a high level of security awareness while moving around in Dili; be alert to the potential for violence; and avoid demonstrations, large gatherings, and areas where disturbances have occurred. Demonstrations can occur at or near symbols and institutions of the Government of Timor-Leste, including government buildings and houses belonging to prominent politicians. Even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and escalate into violence.”

 

Montenegro (Country threat level - 3): On 15 February 2008, the U.S. Embassy in Podgorica issued the following Warden Message: “Due to heightened political activity in the region, local gatherings and events, both official and unofficial, may be potentially large and could pose security risks for onlookers and participants. Businesses and organizations with U.S. affiliations may serve as focal points for demonstrations, especially in the event of a declaration of independence by Kosovo. American citizens are strongly urged to avoid crowds, keep a low profile, and maintain security awareness. U.S. Government personnel were advised to consider deferring travel to areas known to have a significant pro-Serb or pro-Albanian population at this time. American citizens may wish to take this information into consideration when making their own travel plans. Embassy Podgorica will advise further as circumstances warrant.

 

“We wish to remind American citizens that even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. American citizens are therefore urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations.”

Serbia (Country threat level - 4): On 17 February 2008, the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade issued the following Warden Message: “Serbia is in a period of heightened political activity following the declaration of independence by Kosovo. Local gatherings and events, both official and unofficial, may be potentially large and could pose security risks for onlookers and participants. Businesses and organizations with U.S. affiliations may serve as focal points for these demonstrations. American citizens are strongly urged to avoid crowds and maintain security awareness. Embassy Belgrade will advise further as circumstances warrant.”

Zimbabwe (Country threat level - 5): On 15 February 2008, the U.S. Department of State issued the following Travel Alert: “This Travel Alert is being issued to inform U.S. citizens of safety and security concerns related to the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe scheduled for Saturday, 29 March 2008. This Travel Alert expires on 1 May 2008.

 

“The national election season in Zimbabwe may pose a security threat to U.S. citizens in Zimbabwe. Previous elections in 2000, 2002 and 2005 were contentious and sparked food, water and fuel shortages, as well as occasional outbreaks of violence. Given the present, significantly weaker, Zimbabwean economy, chronic hyperinflation, and ongoing shortages, the 2008 election season has the potential to generate widespread instability and violence.

 

“Demonstrations and general unrest may occur during this period. The U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens who live, work, or are traveling in Zimbabwe to maintain a high level of vigilance. Avoid visiting high-density suburbs, industrial zones, and unfamiliar areas. Be aware of your surroundings and avoid potentially threatening events such as demonstrations, rallies, or other public gatherings. Even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence.”

 

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Kosovo / Serbia (Country threat level - 4)

February 20, 2008 by Tim McDowell.

Kosovo formally declared its independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008. The United States recognized Kosovo’s independence on 18 February. Several other countries, including the United Kingdom, France and Australia have done the same, while others — such as Germany and Poland — have declared their intention to do the same and are expected to make recognition official in the course of this week. As expected, Serbia and Russia denounced the move as illegal. Several EU countries, including Spain, Greece, Romania and Cyprus, also refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence. Serbia recalled its ambassadors from the United States, the United Kingdom and France and demanded that these countries’ ambassadors leave Belgrade within 24 hours. Serbia will likely take similar steps against other countries that decide to recognize Kosovo’s independence.

 

Since the declaration of independence there have been several protests by Serbs in Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Kosovo, the Serbian-majority enclaves have been the focus of the protests and acts of violence. On 19 February, Serbs burned down a border-crossing post between northern Kosovo and Serbia and attacked another. Kosovo police officers had to retreat from the border posts and called in NATO peacekeeping troops for reinforcement. On 18 February, approximately 10,000 Serbs demonstrated against independence in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica. International troops deployed along the main bridge that links the northern part of the town (where Serbs live) with the southern one (inhabited by Albanians). There were no reports of violence.

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