The Department of Homeland Security and Wal-Mart have announced a partnership to promote the recent "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign, which urges citizens to
report "suspicious activity." At select locations, a brief DHS video message will urge shoppers to "contact local law enforcement" if they see anything out of the ordinary. Over
230 stores began playing these short videos Monday, with another 588 stores in 27 states to come on-board in the next few weeks.
[more inside]
posted by Despondent_Monkey
on Dec 7, 2010 -
189 comments
National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) Sometimes, its the unheralded steps, that take you most quickly to your destination.
On October 7, 2005, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and their associated domains announced the first release of the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) Version 0.1. NIEM "establishes a single standard XML foundation for exchanging information between DHS, DOJ, and supporting domains, such as Justice, Emergency Management, and Intelligence."
The release of this specification, and the development of the systems that utilize it may actually be the cataylst for more 'progress' in information mining on the individual than most other, well publicized efforts.
NIEM Mission: "To assist in developing a unified strategy, partnerships, and technical implementations for national information sharing — laying the foundation for local, state, tribal, and federal interoperability by joining together communities of interest."
When you say it like that, it sounds sort of cool!
posted by sfts2
on Jan 12, 2006 -
19 comments
Alarming Article on Security Procedures What is alarming is not necessarily that there is a "no-fly" list, or that we have security measures in response to a percieved terrorist threat. What's alarming is that there seems to be no accountabity or due process demanded from public officials. Without accountability, what's to stop public officials from acting arbitrarily, or for some political endeavor? (See the Plame case.)
Combined with the Right's seeming position that the president is above the law in prosecuting a war, U.S. Supreme Court Case No. 03-1027 (Rumsfield v. Padilla) and Case No. 03-6696 (Hamdi v. Rumsfield), (see also the recent DOJ position papers), and for the 1st time I am becoming nervous that America might devolve into something like a police state.
posted by JKevinKing
on Jul 7, 2005 -
36 comments
Be afraid: The national threat-alert level today is yellow or "
elevated," with "significant risk of terrorist attacks," says the Department of Homeland Security. In fact, the alert level has been elevated since December of 2003, when it was raised from orange. During the election season, the Fox News network flashed the terror alert level in their "crawl" as if there was breaking news -- the sort of thing that prompted some liberal
wags to ridicule the entire system. Now former DHS secretary Tom Ridge says that
the Bush administration was "really aggressive" about raising the threat-alert level during his tenure, even when the agency felt that the intelligence didn't warrant it.
posted by digaman
on May 11, 2005 -
24 comments
Less than 60 percent of federal homeland-security funding sent to New York State this year has ended up in New York City. New York’s elected officials often complain about the way the Department of Homeland Security distributes money. They repeat the finding that America spends more money per capita securing Wyoming than protecting New York State. Quietly, however, New York officials in both parties have created a local copy of Congress’ spending priorities, distributing money to places like remote Wyoming County.
For example, Ontario County (pop. 100,000) is purchasing a climate-controlled mobile command post, said Jeffrey Harloff, director of the county’s emergency-management office. Mr. Harloff will buy the vehicle with his share of the Department of Homeland Security’s main grant to the state. How will he use the command post? It depends on who’s asking.
"If it’s the federal government asking me, it is for the intended purpose of W.M.D. incidents and HazMat incidents," Mr. Harloff said. "In reality, we’re going to use it for everyday stuff in our office."
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood
on Dec 10, 2004 -
41 comments
Southeast Airlines has plans to
install digital video cameras throughout the cabins of its planes to record the faces and activities of its passengers at all times. Furthermore, the charter airline will store the digitized video for up to 10 years. And it may use face recognition software to match faces to names and personal records.
posted by Irontom
on Jul 18, 2003 -
17 comments
Muslim men have been asked to undergo "Special Registration", a Department of Homeland Security program in its early stages. Men who hail from 25 targeted countries are required to be fingerprinted, photographed, give up credit card and bank account numbers, and are then given a registration number. So far, 46 people have been arrested, but none for terrorist-related activities. Is this an acceptable security precaution or the first sign of
history repeating itself?
posted by ed
on Mar 19, 2003 -
51 comments
University City, Missouri stands up against homeland security and gets reprimanded by a U.S. Attorney. A resolution passed by the city council to protect citizens' rights from being violated by city employees, including police, "puts all citizens at risk" and could result in "catastrophic loss of life," according to U.S. Attorney Ray Gruender.
posted by zsazsa
on Feb 21, 2003 -
4 comments
Potential missile defense system stronger or weaker? In different days the creation of a cabinet post called "Director of the Office of Homeland Security" would make a lot of people nervous. The choice of Tom Ridge (former Governor of Pennsylvania) could be worse. He served in Vietnam and is known as being "tough on crime". An interesting note is that while in Congress he "led repeated fights against the anti-missile system nicknamed Star Wars." Meanwhile, would you want this guys job?
posted by jeremias
on Sep 22, 2001 -
5 comments
