Roscoe C. Howard Jr., the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, and Michael J. Garcia, the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), announced that two individuals have been indicted for attempting to illegally export military components for F-4 and F-5 fighter jets to China.

These defendants have also been charged with conspiring to export parts for F-14 TomCat fighter jets, AH-1J attack helicopters, and Hawk surface-to-air missiles.

Earlier, arrest documents were served on Amanullah Khan, aka "Wali Merchant," who was already in federal custody in Santa Ana, California, in connection with another matter. Khan, age 54, is a naturalized U.S. citizen and a native of Pakistan. On July 21, 2003, ICE agents arrested Ziad Jamil Gammoh, aka "Al Gammoh" without incident at his residence in Tustin, California. Gammoh, age 53, is a naturalized U.S. citizen and a native of Jordan.

On July 18, 2003, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia returned a four-count indictment charging Khan and Gammoh with charges of conspiracy, violating the arms export control act and violating international traffic in arms regulations.

According to the indictment, Khan and Gammoh attempted to export to China controlled U.S. military components for the F-4 "Phantom" fighter jet and the F-5 "Freedom Fighter / Tiger II" fighter jets without obtaining the required export license or authorization from the U.S. State Department. ICE agents seized all these shipments before they departed the United States.

According to the indictment, Khan and Gammoh jointly operated United Aircraft & Electronics, an unincorporated business in Anaheim, Calif., that purchased and resold aerospace, military, and defense aircraft parts to various foreign commercial and government buyers.

The indictment alleges that the defendants advertised defense articles on a database so prospective customers could locate their company as a source for these components. Upon receiving orders from customers, the defendants would allegedly purchase the requested items from various vendors and manufacturers. The defendants would then cause these munitions to be packaged and prepared for export. According to the indictment, neither of the defendants would obtain the required export license from the State Department for any of these shipments to China.

For investigative purposes, undercover ICE agents posed as representatives of a fictitious Chinese company called Sino-American Aviation Supply. Purportedly based in Shenyang, China, Sino-American Aviation Supply sought to purchase U.S. defense articles for shipment to and use in the People's Republic of China.

According to the indictment, undercover ICE agents from Sino-American Aviation Supply placed five orders for controlled military components for F-4 and F-5 fighter jets with the defendants' company. Beginning in November 2000 and continuing through June 2001, the indictment alleges that the defendants acquired several of these components, which they then attempted to export to China while knowingly and willfully failing to obtain the required license or authorization from the U.S. State Department for such exports.

For example, the indictment alleges that on February 8, 2001 and April 24, 2001, the defendants attempted to export to Sino-American Aviation Supply, controlled U.S. military components for F-4 and F-5 fighter jets that they falsely described in the air waybills as "metallic parts." In each case, the defendants failed to obtain the required export license, according to the indictment.

Gammoh made his initial court appearance in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on July 22. Khan is scheduled to make his initial court appearance soon.

(Article information from Govexec.com)

Despite lingering questions, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to start testing a new passenger identification system within the next couple of months. If all goes well, the system could be in place nationwide by the end of the year or early next year.

But significant hurdles remain. Privacy advocates say the system is too invasive and could potentially threaten civil liberties. Some members of Congress have hinted they may try to hold up funding for the effort.

The highly controversial Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, commonly referred to as CAPPS II, is designed to flag suspected terrorists or other dangerous passengers before they board a plane. CAPPS II, announced in January, is intended to replace an existing program that airlines created in 1996.

After receiving more than 200 comments about its initial CAPPS II proposal, TSA released an interim final rule on the program Thursday. The revised proposal makes significant modifications to the original, including limiting the amount of time the agency will keep files on passengers. Originally, TSA planned to keep such information for 50 years. Under the interim rule, the data will only be held for a few days after a flight.

Additionally, TSA appears to have backed off a proposal to tap into a broad array of databases-including commercial sources, such as banks and credit reporting services-for information about travelers. The new rule says the agency will limit its data collection to the passenger's name, address, telephone number and date of birth. TSA says it will not ask commercial data providers for anything other than an "authentication score and code indicating a confidence level in that passenger's identity."

Still, under the rule, TSA will not divulge exactly where the information it gathers on passengers comes from. That raises red flags for privacy advocates such as David Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington.

Sobel also raised concerns that the rule allows TSA to extend its reach into general police work. Under the rule, TSA will notify law enforcement authorities of any passenger with an "outstanding state or federal arrest warrant for a crime of violence."

TSA officials did not respond to calls for comment.

Reflecting the growing tension in the agency between its security mission and maintaining customer service for travelers, TSA Administrator James Loy said in a statement that CAPPS II will not only help identify potentially dangerous passengers, but also "be a valuable tool in holding down passenger wait times by reducing the number of people who undergo secondary screening or who are misidentified as potential terrorists."

Lockheed Martin won the $12.8 million contract to build CAPPS II earlier this year.

(Article information from Global Security Newswire)

U.S. laboratories are not prepared to analyze or respond to a chemical weapons attack, the Association of Public Health Laboratories announced Thursday.

If terrorists attacked using dangerous chemical agents, laboratories would not be prepared to test environmental samples and provide crucial information on contaminated areas, according to an APHL report. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has taken steps to test victims in a chemical attack, environmental testing has lagged, the association says.

"State public health laboratories will be left in the lurch if the homeland were attacked today," according to the report.

Last month, the Trust for America's Health released a similar report that said the U.S. public health system was "woefully unprepared" to deal with a terrorist attack. That report faulted the analytical capacity of U.S. laboratories.

The APHL report also noted that laboratory employees could be subjected to unsafe working conditions.

Echoing a common complaint, the association said the nation's public health infrastructure is underfunded and that an attack would stretch already scarce resources.

"There is simply no reserve workforce available to help states cope with chemical testing in the aftermath of a terrorist attack," according to the report.

(Information from National Journal's Technology Daily)

The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday sued the Justice Department and FBI over a provision of a 2001 anti-terrorism law that gives law enforcement easier access to a range of business records, including those of libraries, bookstores, and hospitals.

In press conferences in Detroit joined by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., ACLU officials released the complaint against the landmark law known as the USA PATRIOT Act. Because the section in question, section 215, expanded the scope of business records accessible by police and loosened the standards for them to obtain them, the ACLU argues that the law violates the Constitution's bar on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Before enactment of the PATRIOT Act, only a narrow class of businesses-including airlines, car renters and storage facilities-were subject to the disclosure of the records in foreign intelligence investigations. The law broadened the class to all business records. Instead of having to demonstrate "reasonable and articulable" grounds for believing someone is a foreign agent, now Justice need only assert that the records are "sought for" an investigation.

The section is set to expire in December 2005.

Justice spokeswoman Barbara Comstock said the section could only be used in investigations targeting foreign intelligence information about people who are neither American citizens nor lawful permanent residents, or in investigations of foreign spies or international terrorists. But Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU staff attorney said information about U.S. citizens could be obtained as part of such an investigation.

Section 215 has been the subject of protests by libraries and bookstores, who object that they may have to relinquish information about patrons' reading habits without probable cause of a crime.

Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., has introduced legislation to exempt libraries and bookstores from the law. The House last week ruled out of order an amendment to an appropriations bill that was based on Sanders' bill.

A recent House Judiciary Committee review of classified orders under the section prompted no concerns about misuse or abuse.

G. Kemble Bennett, Ph.D., P.E. , the vice chancellor for engineering at Texas A&M University and the director of Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEEX) is presenting the August Homeland Security Lecture at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) at 12 noon on August 12 in the Conference Center room 1.102 on the UTD campus. The event and the reception at 11:30 a.m. are free and open to the public.

The Emergency Services Training Institute, a division of TEEX, provides training for the National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center (NERRTC) to emergency personnel around the country, including the Texas Department of Emergency Management. TEEX also has contracts with the Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to provide a variety of training on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terrorism and also courses in threat and risk assessment, incident management, leadership development and domestic preparedness. During this presentation, Dr. Bennett will discuss the critical role of training in Homeland Security and what TEEX is doing to prepare first responders.

In 1992, Dr. Dr. G. Kemble Bennett was named director and CEO of the Texas Engineering Extension Service and associate vice chancellor for engineering of The Texas A&M University System. In this post he established Texas Task Force One, a disaster response group. He led a team called for special duty at Ground Zero following the World Trade Center tragedy. Dr. Bennett is the executive director of the National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center. He was appointed by President George W. Bush to administer the state Domestic Preparedness Program and served as founding chairman of the U.S. Department of Justice National Domestic Preparedness Consortium. He is a member of the ECO Terrorism Committee of the National Association of Universities and Land Grant Colleges.

Registration is not required. Questions should be directed to keithly@utdallas.edu.