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Officer Wounded at East Charlotte Apartment Complex
WSOCTV.com (NC) (08/12/11)
According to police, a private security officer was injured in a shooting at an east Charlotte, N.C., apartment complex. An ambulance carrying the man left the scene around 5.30 a.m. on Aug. 12. Police said they found the wounded member of the Metro Special Police in his vehicle with a head wound and at least one shell casing on the ground. It remains unclear whether the officer or the suspect fired shots in the incident. Police believe the victim has non-life-threatening injuries. Police said they were unable to collect an account of the events because the officer was incoherent when they discovered him.
FBI Looking Into Allegation by Verizon of Sabotage
Associated Press (08/11/11)
Verizon has asked the FBI to investigate several alleged incidents of sabotage at some of its facilities. According to the company, which is currently dealing with ongoing worker strikes, more than 90 incidents of sabotage have been discovered since the strike began last weekend. A spokesman said that damage included cut wires, causing the loss of phone and Internet services for some customers, including a police department and a hospital. The FBI confirmed that it is looking into the incidents. Representatives for the Communications Workers of America say that the union does not condone such illegal action.
Sports World Eyes London Riots Warily
Wall Street Journal (08/10/11)
The recent riots in London are having an impact on the sports world. For instance, questions are being raised about how well the British capital will be prepared to meet the security demands of hosting the 2012 Olympics, which are set to begin in less than a year. Those questions are being raised as executives from the International Olympic Committee and officials from nearly 200 national Olympic committees are in London for meetings about the games. Several test events, such as beach volleyball, are also being held at the same time. Meanwhile, the start of the English Premier League--which had been scheduled for this weekend--may be delayed because of the riots. Two Carling Cup rugby matches and a soccer match between the Netherlands and England have already been cancelled because of the civil unrest.
Visa Pushing New Card Technology
Wall Street Journal (08/10/11) Zimmerman, Ann; Sidel, Robin
Visa has announced a new program designed to provide merchants with more incentives to install readers for debit and credit cards equipped with a computer chip that makes it harder for counterfeiters to duplicate them. Under the plan, Visa would eliminate a requirement for merchants to annually validate compliance with an industry security standard showing they are protected from fraud, provided at least 75 percent of Visa transactions come from a chip-enabled terminal by October 1, 2012. Additionally, starting in 2015, merchants who do not have the technology could be held responsible for the costs of any fraud that stems from a transaction where a chip-enabled card was presented but could not be used. Such costs are now borne by the banks that issue the cards. Boston-based consulting firm Aite Group LLC estimates that the new chip technology could reduce fraud losses, which amount to $8.6 billion annually, by 30 percent. However, the Mercator Advisory Group consulting firm estimates that the adoption of the chip-based system would cost banks $2.8 billion and merchants $2.6 billion.
Exclusive: Somali Pirate Ransoms Skirt U.S. Directives
Reuters (08/08/11) Clarke, David; Ahmed, Mohamed
In April 2010, President Obama signed Executive Order 13536, which prohibited U.S. citizens, permanent residents, or entities organized under U.S. law from engaging in transactions with 11 people, including two Somali pirate kingpins. However, that order has been ignored by some. In May, one American and five other individuals were arrested in Somalia for trying to make a $3.6 million payment to pirate kingpin Mohamed Abdi Garaad in order to free the hijacked Chinese vessel MV Yuan Xiang. The six individuals were eventually pardoned by Somalia's president and set free, although the government in Mogadishu kept the $3.6 million ransom payment. Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is responsible for implementing President Obama's executive order, often fails to take action against individuals making ransom payments to pirates unless an American or a U.S. entity is involved, even if other government agencies are interested in the case. Shipowners say that the effort to prevent pirates from being paid ransoms has come too late, and that stopping the payments would put hundreds of hostages' lives at risk. Among the shipowners who is arguing for ransom payments to continue being made to pirates is the Danish shipowner Per Gullestrup, who said that having armed guards aboard ships is the best way to prevent piracy.
C.I.A. is Disputed on Civilian Toll in Drone Strikes
New York Times (08/12/11) Shane, Scott
A number of U.S. officials, including President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, say that there have been no civilian casualties as a result of drone attacks in Pakistan since last year. American officials speaking on condition of anonymity say that the drone attacks have been so precise because drone operators spend hours or even days before an attack watching their targets, analyzing their patterns, and distinguishing militants from civilians. Software is also used to model the blast area of a planned strike. After an attack is carried out, drone operators see who has been killed and wounded in the strike and track any funerals that subsequently take place. Information gleaned from video surveillance is supplemented by informants who sometimes attach homing devices to a compound or car. However, C.I.A. critics say that the agency cannot be completely sure that civilians have not been killed in drone strikes, in part because the intelligence officers viewing video from drones cannot be certain of the identities of everyone killed in an attack. The British Bureau of Investigative Journalism, meanwhile, has said that at least 45 civilians were killed in drone strikes over the past year. But there may be reasons to doubt those claims as well, including the fact that informants may want to inflate the number of civilian deaths to turn the opinion of the Pakistani public against the drone strikes.
Britain Tallies Damage and Sets Out Anti-Riot Steps
Wall Street Journal (08/12/11) MacDonald, Alistair
British Prime Minister David Cameron has outlined a number of steps his government will implement or is considering implementing to prevent a repeat of the four nights of riots that resulted in more than $323 million in damages. For instance, Home Secretary Theresa May is scheduled to meet with representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Research in Motion to discuss the technical and legal issues associated with preventing people from organizing riots through social networking sites. Police believe that disturbances during the recent unrest spread as the result of rioters using Twitter and the messenger service that is included in Research in Motion's Blackberry smartphone. However, Jillian York, the director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that there is no practical way for authorities to block only rioters from using social networking sites, and that they would instead have to completely block all users from such sites, which in turn would have a negative impact on freedom of speech. Meanwhile, Cameron has proposed several steps to fight gangs, including giving landlords of public housing the authority to evict troublemakers, cracking down on the use of face masks, and using more special injunctions against gang members. The government plans to use the injunctions against children in addition to adults, who are currently the only ones subject to such injunctions.
UK Police Raid Houses Looking for Rioters
MSNBC (08/11/11)
London's Metropolitan Police launched raids overnight on Thursday to arrest those who are suspected of being involved in the recent rioting in the British capital. More than 100 arrest warrants will be executed over the course of operation, which will be carried out at least one more night, police said. Nearly 900 people in London have been arrested since the rioting began on Saturday, 371 of whom have been charged with various crimes. Meanwhile, British cities were generally calm on Thursday, though there were some pockets of trouble. In the London neighborhood of Eltham, for example, a group of men threw rocks and bottles at police in what they said was part of an effort to defend their neighborhood. Police said they dealt with the problem and broke up the group. Minor disturbances were also reported in Wales. The general sense of calm in Britain came after thousands of additional police officers were deployed to the streets of some cities to prevent further trouble. It also follows warnings from Prime Minister David Cameron that any necessary steps, including the unprecedented use of water cannons, would be taken to restore order. That statement was contradicted by senior police officers, who said that there were no plans to use water cannons, which are often used in Northern Ireland but have never been used in mainland Britain.
London Sweeps Up as Riots Simmer to North
Wall Street Journal (08/10/11) Chazan, Guy; MacDonald, Alistair
Tension was high in London on Tuesday evening but there was no violence in the city after British Prime Minister David Cameron promised to boost police presence to prevent further rioting in the capital. In addition, employees left work early and business owners in some areas of the city closed their stores early. Some stores were boarded up or had fortified entrances to protect them from possible looters. Although there was no violence in London on Tuesday evening, rioting spread to several other English towns and cities, including Nottingham, where a police station was firebombed. Eight people were arrested there. In Manchester, meanwhile, cars were set on fire and the windows of clothing and jewelry stores were smashed by looters. The rioting, which began after a peaceful protest on Saturday over the death of a man who was killed by police in London, is the worst civil unrest that the U.K. has seen in 30 years. As cleanup from the rioting begins, a debate is raging over what caused the violence. Some said that the looting was committed by youths who took advantage of the situation to steal consumer goods, while others said that the violence was the result of high unemployment, budget cuts to public services, and poor policing.
Florida Detention Center Caught in Illegal Immigration Controversy
All Headline News (08/08/11) Ramstack, Tom
Florida officials reportedly plan to move forward with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Southwest Ranches, which is about 30 miles north of Miami. The center, which would be capable of holding up to 1,800 prisoners awaiting deportation, would be run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Under the terms of their contract, Southwest Ranches would receive a percentage of the money awarded to CCA by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for each prisoner housed there. Immigrant rights groups have objected heavily to the planned detention center, saying that it "will result in more deportation of contributing members of our community, more separation of families, and more community mistrust of law enforcement." Despite these objections Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may need the room provided by the facility if it continues to move forward with its controversial Secure Communities initiative. ICE has notified the nation's governors that the program will be implemented nationwide by 2013. Secure Communities enters the fingerprints of local arrestees into an ICE database to check for immigration and criminal records in an attempt to prioritize illegal immigrants who have committed crimes for deportation. However, according to ICE statistics, over half the people deported through the program have no criminal record, which has led to resistance from some lawmakers who are worried it is ineffective. Thus far, only 40 governors have signed a memorandum agreeing to participate in the program, but ICE has told them that their agreement is not "legally necessary."
Pentagon Can Not Win a Cyberwar Claims Author
Wall Street Journal (08/11/11) Rooney, Ben
Despite the United States' status as the last global superpower, the ability of the government to transfer its superiority into the cyber warfare space is being called into doubt. In a pessimistic essay in The Diplomat, Jeffrey Carr argues that the U.S. will lose a cyber war because the Pentagon fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the internet. In the essay, which is entitled "Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld," Carr claims the Pentagon views the Internet as a piece of hardware, which he says is wrong. "The more integrated our physical and virtual lives become (Web 3.0), the farther away from that definition we land," Carr argued. Carr traces his theory that cyberspace is both artificial and natural, back to Carl Jung's theory of synchronicity. "The U.S. Defense Department is deeply grounded in traditional Western thinking and practicality ...This is why the United States will lose a war fought in cyberspace," the paper said. "A strategic doctrine built upon a flawed vision can't yield a victory against an adversary whose knowledge of the battle space is superior to our own," Carr said in his closing arguments.
Anonymous Vows to Take Down Facebook
TG Daily (08/10/11) Woollacott, Emma
According to a YouTube video message, the hacker collective Anonymous is planning to destroy Facebook on Nov. 5. The group alleges that Facebook has been giving personal information to governments, including Egypt and Syria. "Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so they can spy on people from all around the world," the group said. Facebook denies the claims and said it only shares information with third parties if the user has previously agreed. Additionally, Anonymous is angry about Facebook's privacy policies, which it says keeps information on the social networking site regardless of privacy settings. While the group did not explain how it would destroy the social networking site, a DDoS attack is seen as being the most likely method.
Hong Kong Exchange Website Hacked
Wall Street Journal (08/10/11) O'Keeffe, Kate; Ng, Jeffrey
Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. reports that the news section of its Web site has been hacked, forcing the exchange operator to halt afternoon trading in seven listed companies. Despite the halt, companies were assured that the trading system itself had not been breached. An investigation into the hacking has been opened, but only limited information has been available so far. Hong Kong police also said it was looking into the attack but made no further comment. "Denial-of-service attacks on a Web site are not such an unusual thing. We see them on banks, airlines etc.," said Steve Vickers, chairman of Asia investigations for FTI Consulting Inc. He said the attack must be taken seriously but that "the damage is more perception than material. It's embarrassing because today was their earnings day."
Expert: Rural US Websites Easy Target for Hackers
Associated Press (08/08/11) Merchant, Nomaan
The hacker group Anonymous recently said that it had attacked the Web sites of 70 mostly rural law enforcement agencies in the United States in retaliation for the arrests of several individuals connected with the group. The attacks enabled Anonymous to obtain emails from sheriff's offices in five Southern and Midwestern states, some of which contained sensitive information. Hackers also were able to steal five credit card numbers that they said were used to make "involuntary donations." Security experts say the episode shows that hackers will attack Web sites of any size. In fact, smaller organizations may be more likely to be attacked because hackers may see their Web sites as easy targets with little security in place, says consultant Dick Mackey.
Anonymous and LulzSec Spew Out Largest Ever Police Data Dump
The Register (UK) (08/08/11) Leyden, John
Hackers from around the world have released data stolen from law enforcement agencies in a number of countries, including the U.S., in retaliation for the arrests of several people who are believed to be members of the hacking groups LulzSec and Anonymous. In the U.S., for example, 10GB of data stolen from 76 law enforcement Web sites in 11 states was released by members of the hacking group AntiSec. The information included Social Security numbers and credit card information that was being held by an online sheriff's store. The release of that data comes after AntiSec hackers released the Social Security numbers of 100 police officers who belong to the Missouri Sheriff's Association on July 31. Both batches of information were stolen at the same time. Meanwhile, LulzSec has released 8GB of data stolen from Brazil's Federal Police, while Anonymous has released the personal information of 45,000 police officers in Ecuador.
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