Recently in Homeland Security Category

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.
While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.

By William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott

FOXNews.com

Thursday, April 02, 2009
0
x

in order to recommend a story, you must login or register.
1 Comments | Add Comment
ShareThis
PEOPLE WHO READ THIS...
Also read these stories:
Cities and States Plan Strange New Taxes on Pretty Much Everything
[2009-03-31]
cities states plan strange taxes on ... everything, cities and states plan strange new taxes on pretty much everything, tax, strange, cities states plan strange new taxes on ... everything
5177 visitors also liked this.
Republicans Disinvite Palin to Major Fundraiser
[2009-03-31]
republicans disinvite palin to major fundraiser, republican, palin, republicans stay home sarah, sarah
5089 visitors also liked this.
Justice Department Files Motion to Drop Case Against Former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens
[2009-04-01]
stevens conviction to be voided, stevens too bad i lost election, justice department seeks to drop stevens case, election, lost
2949 visitors also liked this.
House Republicans Call for Stimulus Repeal in Budget Plan
[2009-04-01]
gop roll back stimulus, stimulus, gop, gop calls for stimulus repeal in budget plan, house republicans call for stimulus repeal in budget plan
2174 visitors also liked this.
McCain Seeks Pardon for First Black Heavyweight Champ
[2009-04-01]
a pardon for first black heavyweight champ?, pardon, first, mccain seeks pardon for 1st black heavyweight champ, mccain seeks pardon for first black heavyweight champ
1823 visitors also liked this.
powered by Baynote

You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors … come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. By all accounts, it's probably around 17 percent.

More stupid insanity from the escaped monkeys who are running this administration.

Send all these killing machines into the homes of the lawyers who are volunteering to defend them. Allow the lawyers to really get to know their clients, before they die.

Keep the terrorists OUT OF AMERICA! What good can come of allowing these pig lovers a chance at more Americans?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/30/virginia-jail-home-gitmo-detainees/

A Virginia jail could be the next home for Guantanamo Bay inmates.

The maximum security jail in Alexandra, Va. -- home to approximately 460 inmates -- is under contract to take federal inmates who are tried at the courthouse just a few blocks away.

Among them could be former Al Qaeda operatives detained in Guantanamo Bay like Abu Zubaydah, Al Qaeda's operations chief, or Abd Al-Nashiri, the alleged planner of the U.S.S. Cole attack, Alexandria sheriff Dana Lawhorne told FOX News.

"We are a maximum security jail, so the answer is yes," Lawhorne said when asked about the possibility that Gitmo detainees could be transferred to the jail.

Lawhorne said that although most inmates are booked at city jail on local charges, Al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui was detained there in a separate unit on the third floor for five years.

Lawhorne said he and his team were given specific instructions for Moussaoui's imprisonment, which included no contact with television, radio, or other inmates.

"He had to be isolated. He could not be within earshot -- of television, radios, and other people. It takes a lot of space to accomplish that," Lawhorne said.

The jail, built in 1987, is surrounded by condominiums, government offices, and a luxury hotel just a few hundred feet from the courthouse door.

In a letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder two weeks ago, Virginia Rep. Frank Wolf, a Republican, inquired about the housing and handling of detainees at Alexandria's jail because he said all signs indicate that Gitmo detainees will be transferred there. Holder's office has not yet responded, according to Wolf.

I am glad that private security is being upgraded to police levels. With the horrible crime rates in our cities and the worries about terrorists we need a new line of defense. i know that the Liberal solution to crime is to fire the police and give the cash to the criminals so they don't have to work and have more time to plan a better life. Or plan better crimes.

Train these guys and send them to work. Have the police handle the major stuff. It makes sense to me. What is the downside?

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/police.private.security.2.966243.html

Since the private security patrols arrived, the robberies have continued, "but it's slowing down, because it seems like more of the stores have to have their own guns and their own security."

In addition to the Fraternal Order of Police being against it, experts tell CBS 2 that asking private security guards to conduct police functions is dangerous, and potentially fatal, with most security guards paid much less and receive less training. Chicago's Police Supt. Jody Weis calls it all a work in progress.

"Let's be creative," Weis said. "If we can have police officers focusing on higher priority cases, it's worth talking about."

CBS 2 wanted to ask the Toronto-based firm which was the lowest bidder for contracts in the 9th and 10th wards about the background and training of its officers. Also in question was is how much experience the Canadian company has with the inner city problems which make the Roseland community a challenge for even the most streetwise Chicago Police professionals. The firm has not yet returned calls.

I am very glad that I am not in political level public safety any more! Being a semi-retired consultant is much safer. If I make a slip that the PC police dislike, I just get a warning and fewer calls. It is hard for them to do anything else! Can't take my pension! I do pity the law enforcement people in the modern world.

Where can we send the lawyers and hippies to get them out of our hair?

http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2009m3d14-Obama-ignores-madness-of-fighting-politically-correct-terrorism-war

President Barack Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Friday that the term enemy combatant will no longer be used by the federal government to describe enemy combatants captured on the battlefield during counterterrorism and counterinsurgency military operations. To many law enforcement officers and military personnel, this action is the epitome of politically correct newspeak.
As time passes and the events of September 11th become more distant, the voices of America's political-correctness orthodoxy have increased their volume and intensity. They now feel safe in questioning Homeland Security tactics to combat terrorism and are attempting to turn public opinion against law-enforcement leaders.
A major weapon in their arsenal is the accusation of racial profiling by US police and security forces. Another weapon in the war against the war on terrorism is the distortions made regarding the Patriot Act. When one considers the risks to lives and property posed by terrorists, political correctness has now become a weapon of mass destruction.

Most clear thinking Americans were shocked when 9-11 Commission member and former US Secretary of the Navy John Lehman revealed a disturbing fact: the Federal Aviation Administration will be hitting American airlines with stiff penalties for even the appearance of any racial profiling of Middle-Easterners. One airline paid out a huge sum of money to Arab males who filed law suits alleging racial profiling, as well. Yet none of this appeared in the commission's final report.

This leaves many law-enforcement officers incredulously asking: what kind of terrorism war is this? It seems national security and public safety are taking a back-seat to political correctness which in turn thwarts our efforts to detect terrorists and their accomplices.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_11770847

Homeland Security official affirms Mexican drug cartel violence has spilled over into Texas
By Brandi Grissom / Austin Bureau
Posted: 02/24/2009 12:00:00 AM MST

AUSTIN -- Violence from Mexican drug cartels has spilled over into Texas, state Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw said Monday.

"Yes, absolutely it has occurred; there's no question about it," McCraw said after a hearing before the House Committee on Border and International Affairs.

McCraw answered lawmakers' questions about Gov. Rick Perry's request for another $135 million for border security operations on the same day Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked lawmakers for a new tool to help bring down transnational gangs that threaten border communities.

During the border committee meeting, state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, asked McCraw whether some incidents that have been reported in the El Paso area would be considered elements of spillover violence from Mexican drug cartels.

Moody asked, among other things, if threats against American citizens, individuals seeking treatment at U.S. hospital for injuries sustained in Juárez and Mexican nationals seeking asylum would be evidence of spillover.

McCraw said yes.

I do not understand why people do not label the War in Mexico as a Civil War and not as random violence. Mexico needs to declare this a war and treat it as such this will allow them to round up Prisoners of War who can be processed and held indefinitely. It would be a way to get these criminals off the streets and into prisons.

I advise all my friends to avoid Mexico at all costs. It is not safe any more. Not that it has been that great.

We need to seal the border to keep this from overwhelming our country!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,493784,00.html

TABASCO, Mexico --

Gunmen killed a state police officer and 10 members of his family, including five children, during a violent weekend that left at least a dozen Mexicans dead in separate events.

The shooting late Saturday also killed a street vendor in front of the house of state police officer Carlos Reyes, said Tabasco deputy prosecutor Alex Alvarez. Among the five children killed was a 2-year-old boy.

Reyes was a member of a special unit of high-level officers who investigated organized crime and kidnappings, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported.

Police hadn't determined a motive for the attack but Reyes directed a car chase and raids on two homes on Wednesday that led to the death of three suspected gang members and the arrest of seven others, Alvarez said.

"It is confirmed that [the assailants] wanted to kill the state police officer but they killed his whole family," Alvarez said.

At least a dozen gunmen in three SUVs sprayed the house with bullets, leaving police to find 11 bodies scattered inside three houses, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported.

An official from the Tabasco Attorney General's Office told the newspaper the killers "had no mercy" and were taken by complete surprise.

http://www.officer.com/web/online/Top-News-Stories/Mexican-Drug-Violence-Spills-Over-into-US/1$45324

Just as government officials had feared, the drug violence raging in Mexico is spilling over into the United States.

U.S. authorities are reporting a spike in killings, kidnappings and home invasions connected to Mexico's murderous cartels. And to some policymakers' surprise, much of the violence is happening not in towns along the border, where it was assumed the bloodshed would spread, but a considerable distance away, in places such as Phoenix and Atlanta.

Investigators fear the violence could erupt elsewhere around the country because the Mexican cartels are believed to have set up drug-dealing operations all over the U.S., in such far-flung places as Anchorage, Alaska; Boston; and Sioux Falls, S.D.

"The violence follows the drugs," said David Cuthbertson, agent in charge of El Paso's FBI office.

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87757

Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, D-Fla., has introduced to the House of Representatives a new bill, H.R. 645, calling for the secretary of homeland security to establish no fewer than six national emergency centers for corralling civilians on military installations.

The proposed bill, which has received little mainstream media attention, appears designed to create the type of detention center that those concerned about use of the military in domestic affairs fear could be used as concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany.

The bill also appears to expand the president's emergency power, much as the executive order signed by President Bush on May 9, 2007, that, as WND reported, gave the president the authority to declare an emergency and take over the direction of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments without even consulting Congress.

As WND also reported, DHS has awarded a $385 million contract to Houston-based KBR, Halliburton's former engineering and construction subsidiary, to build temporary detention centers on an "as-needed" basis in national emergency situations.

It is about time he did this! Even this commutation is the barest minimum the President could do for these poor scapegoats. They should have been pardoned and given reprimands for not shooting the drug smuggler dead, then returned to their jobs and see how many more smugglers try the border.

Also, this was not really a debate about illegal immigrants, it was a debate about border security. This is a border for the country, not the border of a playground. If we have to fence off our playgrounds because of criminals and drug smugglers, why are the national borders not being closed to these scum? If prosecutors are allowing tons of drugs to be carried over the border, then what is going to stop tons of bombs? Even nuclear or biological weapons? That is what I am really worried about!

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95QC5OO0&show_article=1

In his final acts of clemency, President George W. Bush on Monday commuted the prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer ignited fierce debate about illegal immigration.

Bush's decision to commute the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who tried to cover up the shooting, was welcomed by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. They had long argued that the agents were merely doing their jobs, defending the American border against criminals. They also maintained that the more than 10-year prison sentences the pair was given were too harsh.

Rancor over their convictions, sentencing and firings has simmered ever since the shooting occurred in 2005.

Ramos and Compean became a rallying point among conservatives and on talk shows where their supporters called them heroes. Nearly the entire bipartisan congressional delegation from Texas and other lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle pleaded with Bush to grant them clemency.

Bush didn't pardon the men for their crimes, but decided instead to commute their prison sentences because he believed they were excessive and that they had already suffered the loss of their jobs, freedom and reputations, a senior administration official said.

The action by the president, who believes the border agents received fair trials and that the verdicts were just, does not diminish the seriousness of their crimes, the official said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479684,00.html

The Department of Homeland Security has approved a site at Kansas State University for a $450 million lab to study livestock diseases and some of the world's most dangerous biological threats.

DHS released its final record of the approval Monday, confirming a decision announced in December to build the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility at the Manhattan, Kan., campus to replace an aging lab at Plum Island, N.Y.

Sites in Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas were also considered for the new lab, where animal diseases and other potential bioterrorism threats will be researched.

The federal agency said factors in its decision included the proximity of the site to Kansas State's research labs and its colleges of agriculture and veterinary medicine.

Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he will work to ensure the project is fully funded. The state has agreed to provide more than $105 million in infrastructure improvements at the site to cover additional costs.

"This is great news. NBAF is a great win for Kansas and Kansas is a great win for NBAF," said Brownback, a Republican.

The laboratory is to be built on 59 acres at Kansas State near the Biosecurity Research Institute, where similar activities are conducted on plant and animal diseases.

University officials have said that the lab could conduct a portion of the research that will be done at NBAF until that facility is completed, which is expected to be by 2015.