HomelandSecurityLeader.com

From Newsday.com, by Combined News Services (Contributed by Bill Bailey)

WASHINGTON - Under pressure to exercise greater control over private security contractors in Iraq, Bush administration officials outlined stricter rules for these armed guards during a three-hour meeting with 20 companies yesterday at the Pentagon.

The top executives from the largest security firms working in Iraq attended the meeting, hosted by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England and Deputy Secretary State John Negroponte. The session came nearly four months after shootings involving Blackwater Worldwide that left 17 Iraqi citizens dead.

The shootings created a worldwide furor and put the White House on the defensive, leading to a December pact between the Defense and State Departments that gave U.S. military commanders a stronger hand in managing security workers.

Full Story…

No official events announced.

From Bushmaster Release

Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC (BFI) announced today that it has signed an exclusive license deal with Magpul Industries Corp. for the production, future development, and sales of Magpul’s prototype MASADA weapon system.

The Bushmaster ACR (Adaptive Combat Rifle) will initially be offered in 5.56 NATO, available for law enforcement and civilian purchase second quarter 2008.  This release will be followed by military ACR versions in the 3rd quarter of 2008.

Without government funding or outside influence of any kind, the Masada concept was developed from scratch in Boulder, Colorado by Magpul’s Design Group. The Masada concept was first shown publicly at the 2007 Shot Show and its success prompted Magpul to spend a year redesigning the system for production.

The result is the ACR (Adaptive Combat Rifle) which keeps the fundamentals of the Masada concept with added advanced features such as firing pin block and true ambidextrous charging handle.

Among the ACR’s key features are a gas piston operating system, tool-less quick change barrel, multi-adjustable folding stock with integrated storage, and backward compatibility with a number of AR15/M16 parts.  Due to similar operating controls, user transition from the M16 series of weapons is easily facilitated with minimal re-training.

The Bushmaster ACR will initially be available in 3 SKUS: Standard Carbine with fixed stock, Entry Carbine with folding stock, and Special Purpose Rifle with Precision Rifle Stock. Live fire demonstration and test and evaluations beginning in the end of March to qualified law enforcement, federal government agencies.

No official events announced.

These cartoons depicting Palestinian humor were emailed to HSLEADER.  I found the use of the Olympics as a topic ironic given the PLO’s attack on the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, where eleven Israeli athletes and coaches were killed along with a German police officer.

Link to HSLEADER web community sign-up.

From FederalTimes.com, by John T. Bennett 

The White House’s 2009 budget proposal will include a new multibillion-dollar program to help stop hostile penetrations of information networks, several sources said.

Bush administration officials, who called the program “very classified,” said more needs to be done to steel networks against the kind of debilitating strike that paralyzed Estonian servers for several days last spring, and the one that threatened the Pentagon and may have been launched from China.

“We are already at war in the cyber domain,” one defense official said Jan. 24.

Full Story…

From The Tampa Tribune, by Valerie Kalfrin

TAMPA - Airport police are investigating what a Chicago man and a homeless woman traveling with him planned to do with 99 driver’s licenses stolen from people across the country and doctored with their pictures.

Kenneth Blake, 39, and Theresa Hensle, 39, were traveling under different names from Tampa to New Orleans on Southwest Airlines, but Transportation Security Administration employees did not recognize their identification were tampered with to show their pictures, airport spokeswoman Brenda Geoghagan said.

“This is real identification of other people that they are using,” Geoghagan said.

Full Story…

From WallStreetJournal.com, by Scott MacCartney

A government program set up to remove innocent people from terrorism no-fly and watch lists has been ineffective and riddled with problems, travelers and congressional leaders say.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, or TRIP, was started almost a year ago to clear people routinely subjected to extra airport-security screening and even detention simply because their names were confused with those on the government’s voluminous terrorism watch lists. The lists now contain more than 700,000 records and include many names as common as John Thompson and James Wilson.

Full Story…

From ABCNews.com, by Nick Schifren (via NationalTerrorAlert.com) 

Islamabad, Pakistan - He is more dangerous to Pakistan than Osama bin Laden, analysts say. He may be the single most important person in Pakistan’s fight for its future. And for the first time, he has described the goals and the details of the network of militants responsible for the most violent time in Pakistan in 60 years.

During a 25-minute sit-down with al Jazeera, Baitullah Mehsud, the man Pakistan blames for killing former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, claims he is fighting a “defensive” jihad with the goal to destroy the White House, New York and London.

“Our main aim is to finish Britain, the United States and to crush the pride of the non-Muslims,” he told Admad Zaidan, al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Islamabad from an undisclosed location in northwest Pakistan. “We pray to God to give us the ability to destroy the White House, New York and London. And we have trust in God. Very soon, we will be witnessing jihad’s miracles.”

Full Report