ianstone
10-07-2010, 04:34 PM
Program to boost security at military bases
Associated Press / October 7, 2010
WASHINGTON — Nearly a year after a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, the Pentagon is taking steps to strengthen security and surveillance programs at its bases and will join an FBI intelligence-sharing program aimed at identifying future terror threats, federal officials said.
The new partnership with the FBI’s eGuardian program comes two years after the Pentagon shut down a controversial antiterror database that collected reports of suspicious activity near military installations. The now-defunct program, called TALON, was closed after revelations it had improperly stored information on peace activists.
Defense officials have moved carefully to set up the new programs, trying to balance the protection of the nation’s armed forces with the privacy and civil rights of Americans.
The decision to use the FBI’s program is part of a broader campaign to beef up security at military facilities and better identify terror threats among its troops, senior Defense officials said. Over the past 18 months some of those threats have been deadly, as attackers spurred on by Islamic extremism and opposition to US wars abroad have targeted troops at home.
According to an accounting by the Congressional Research Service, as many as 20 terror attacks have been attempted on American soil since May 2009, but only two have led to fatalities. Both of those attacks — at Fort Hood and earlier in 2009 in Arkansas — occurred at military facilities.
Last November Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan gunned down 13 people and wounded dozens more in a shooting spree at Fort Hood, prosecutors said.
In the other attack, Abdulhakim Muhammad, born Carlos Bledsoe, is accused of shooting and killing one soldier and wounding another outside a recruiting center in Little Rock. Muhammad, an Islam convert, said the shooting was retaliation for US military action in the Middle East.
The others include the botched Christmas Day airliner attack, the attempted Times Square truck bombing, and the foiled plan to wage attacks in the New York subway systems.
Internal reviews triggered by the Fort Hood attack are scheduled to be released later this week, and will focus on new efforts to ensure that information on possible threats is passed from base to base.
They will also call for better communications before and during an attack, officials said.http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_story_end_icon.gif
Associated Press / October 7, 2010
WASHINGTON — Nearly a year after a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, the Pentagon is taking steps to strengthen security and surveillance programs at its bases and will join an FBI intelligence-sharing program aimed at identifying future terror threats, federal officials said.
The new partnership with the FBI’s eGuardian program comes two years after the Pentagon shut down a controversial antiterror database that collected reports of suspicious activity near military installations. The now-defunct program, called TALON, was closed after revelations it had improperly stored information on peace activists.
Defense officials have moved carefully to set up the new programs, trying to balance the protection of the nation’s armed forces with the privacy and civil rights of Americans.
The decision to use the FBI’s program is part of a broader campaign to beef up security at military facilities and better identify terror threats among its troops, senior Defense officials said. Over the past 18 months some of those threats have been deadly, as attackers spurred on by Islamic extremism and opposition to US wars abroad have targeted troops at home.
According to an accounting by the Congressional Research Service, as many as 20 terror attacks have been attempted on American soil since May 2009, but only two have led to fatalities. Both of those attacks — at Fort Hood and earlier in 2009 in Arkansas — occurred at military facilities.
Last November Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan gunned down 13 people and wounded dozens more in a shooting spree at Fort Hood, prosecutors said.
In the other attack, Abdulhakim Muhammad, born Carlos Bledsoe, is accused of shooting and killing one soldier and wounding another outside a recruiting center in Little Rock. Muhammad, an Islam convert, said the shooting was retaliation for US military action in the Middle East.
The others include the botched Christmas Day airliner attack, the attempted Times Square truck bombing, and the foiled plan to wage attacks in the New York subway systems.
Internal reviews triggered by the Fort Hood attack are scheduled to be released later this week, and will focus on new efforts to ensure that information on possible threats is passed from base to base.
They will also call for better communications before and during an attack, officials said.http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_story_end_icon.gif