Florida Man Charged In Terror-related Case Obtains Bail

The Miami-Herald reports a Florida businessman accused of selling video-game players to a Paraguayan shopping mall designated by federal authorities as a front for a Middle East terrorist group was granted a $1.55 million bond in federal court on Monday. But Khaled Safadi, 56, charged with two other Miami-Dade business associates in a terrorism-related conspiracy indictment last month, can post the bond by putting down $100,000 cash and securing the rest with his home and other assets, a U.S. magistrate ruled.

Federal prosecutors argued that Safadi, a Paraguayan citizen with legal U.S. residency, was a flight risk and should be detained before trial. His lawyer, Michael Tein, mocked the government’s prosecution as a trumped-up “civil customs violation” and argued that he should be released on a $50,000 bond. Magistrate Judge William Turnoff, noting that Safadi had no prior criminal record and strong ties to his family and community, decided that the defendant should be released before trial but reminded him of the severity of the charges. “I hope you understand what’s going on here”, Turnoff said. “It’s a very serious matter”.

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Thefts of 16 Propane Tanks Concern Augusta Police

This falls under the “See Something, Say Something” category. If something seems suspicious, or out of the ordinary, report it. Richmond County authorities are investigating the Sunday night theft of 16 propane gas tanks from two Wrightsboro Road businesses.

“This is something out of the ordinary,” said Sgt. Robbie Silas. “We haven’t had a lot of thefts of these kinds of items.”

Although the thieves might simply try to sell the tanks — which can be used for heating and cooking – for a profit, more sinister motives could include making drugs or using the canisters as explosive devices, Silas said.

“Being that these things are highly explosive, we have to notify Homeland Security,” he said.

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TSA To Begin Random Explosive Screening With New Equipment

Screening for explosives at several US airports is about to change. Airport screener’s will navigate carts with specialized bomb-detection machines around airport gates and checkpoint lines to randomly check passengers hands and carry-on bags for explosive residue using chemical swabs.

The program, already tested at five airports after the attempted Christmas Day bomb plot on a U.S.-bound airliner, begins nationwide in a few weeks, TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne said.

Metal detectors now used at checkpoints can’t spot materials such as the powdered explosives that bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly hid in his underwear to get through a checkpoint in Amsterdam’s airport.

“Had Abdulmutallab been subjected to a (chemical) inspection, there’s a high probability it would have picked up the explosives,” RAND Corp. security analyst Brian Jenkins said. “The machines are extraordinarily sensitive.”

Shortly after the Dec. 25 incident, the TSA ran a 17-day test at the five airports to see whether bomb-sensing equipment could be rolled on carts to check random passengers.

The microwave-oven-size detectors are usually stationary and are a common sight at airport checkpoints, where screeners swipe a small swab along a bag or a passenger’s hand. The swab is then run through a reader that can detect minute amounts of explosives.

The machines are so sensitive that alarms can sound for passengers who have recently taken heart pills containing nitroglycerin, or if they have recently fired guns, Jenkins said. The machines also are used on checked luggage.

via Source – USATODAY.com – Read Full Article.

Suspicious Passenger Delays Flight from Detroit

A Detroit Metropolitan Airport spokesman says police allowed a Pinnacle Airlines flight to depart for Oklahoma City after determining a passenger showing “suspicious behavior” did not pose a threat.

Spokesman Mike Conway says the flight was delayed about 8 p.m. Tuesday while airport police inspected the plane and conducted a background check on the man, who was not arrested.

via ‘Source – Read Full Article.

Man Helps Restrain Panicked Passenger on Delta Flight

Thirty-five passengers were about to takeoff when a man lunged for the door and tried to get off the plane. Several reports indicate the passenger suffered a panic attack, although others are taking more of a ‘wait and see” approach.

Jeff Backus is back for day two at Capital Region International Airport. He was enroute to Detroit Sunday evening when a panicked passenger forced a nearly three-hour delay.

“The gentleman kept getting more and more irate,” says Backus. “He kept mumbling and saying prayers. He was unresponsive and kept trying to get off the airplane.”

Backus was sitting right next to the passenger in the first row. He says the man seemed upset and jittery.

“He was in his young 20s, a smaller guy, so he was quite nervous and shaken, and I don't know if he was upset afraid to fly or what,” Backus says.

Delta flight 3679 was originally scheduled to depart at 5:30 p.m. Sunday. But bad weather in Detroit caused a 45-minute delay.

“During that time, he kept trying to get off the plane 3 or 4 times, he kept lunging for the door,” Backus says. “A couple of us had to physically restrain him in his seat and keep his seatbelt on and hold his hands down so he couldn't get off the plane.”

“The flight crew determined to go back to the terminal building and had airport police escort him from the plane,” says Robert Selig, Executive Director of Capital Region Airport Authority.

According to Selig, the man was not arrested but detained by the FBI and airport police. Backus was worried for his safety but tried to maintain a level-head.

“You just never know what could happen. What he could smuggle on. I think most of us were watching his shoes to make sure nothing was going to happen. But it worked out okay,” Backus says.

Both airline and airport officials tell us the incident is still under investigation.

via Man Helps Restrain Panicked Passenger on Delta Flight.

Security Scare Closes Detroit Airport Concourse

Part of a Detroit airport terminal was shut down Monday after an Arabic man ignored instructions from security guards, police said.Part of Concourse A of McNamara Terminal at Metro Airport was closed for just under an hour while the security dogs checked the area, the Detroit Free Press reported.

The man allegedly refused to stop for questions during a security screening process, airport spokesman Michael Conway said.Security guards at first thought the man didn’t understand English and therefore didn’t understand their questions, but when he was taken into custody, he began to speak in English, Conway said.Police, who reported nothing unusual was found when the man’s body was searched, were conducting a background check and planned to search his luggage and car, impounded by airport police.

via Security scare closes airport concourse – UPI.com.

Metro Transit Police Stage Large Anti-terrorism Drill

Metro Transit Police staged their largest anti-terrorism sweep ever during Tuesday morning’s rush hour, as about 50 officers — some toting M-4 rifles and others guiding bomb-sniffing dogs — took up position in Union Station in a new initiative aimed at discouraging attacks.

In the coming months, they plan to hold similar drills for the effort, dubbed Blue TIDE (Terrorism Identification and Deterrence Effort).

Robert Rotz, 50, did a double take when he ran into two officers wearing body armor and shouldering rifles.

“This will make people think twice if they are trying to do something,” said Rotz, a computer specialist who commutes from Shady Grove.

via Metro Transit Police stage large anti-terrorism drill – washingtonpost.com.

Conference Addresses Social Media Use In A Disaster

The use of social media to inform communities about emergencies has taken local public information officers by storm. Recent events have outlined social media’s popularity as survivors of Haiti’s earthquake turned to Twitter and other networks to update their statuses and verify the well-being of loved ones. Its popularity with citizens worldwide has led to a bevy of questions regarding use and best practices.

About 130 public and private information officers from the emergency management, first response and business continuity communities gathered on Jan. 21 at the Midwest Disasters 2.0: Social Media and Emergency Response training session. The session’s goal was to assemble Kansas City, Kan.-area emergency communicators to learn how social media systems work and how they can be used during a disaster.

The examples of social media’s use during disasters — like the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 and the Mumbai attacks in 2008 — spurred the creation of the event, said Adam Crowe, assistant director of the Johnson County Emergency Management and Homeland Security office. “There seemed to be a growing use of it, and then a lot of people in my area of Kansas City were clamoring to learn more,” he said. “And unfortunately the only trainings that were popping

via Disasters 2.0 Conference Addresses Social Media Use.

Airline Passenger Says Concerns Ignored on Flight

South Jersey woman got the scare of her life when she tried to report suspicious activity on board a plane Philadelphia International Airport.The woman shared details of her terrifying ordeal only with Fox 29 News on Wednesday.Now, she’s wondering if it was some kind of sick joke or a test run for a terrorist.

Fox 29’s Dave Schratwieser reported that 12 days after her red-eye flight from Los Angeles, the US Airways passenger is still upset over an incident on her flight, the reaction to it by the flight crew, and the lack of reaction from authorities.”I was trembling, and I was just completely frightened,” said the mother of three.

via Only On Fox: Airline Passenger Says Concerns Ignored.

Source

United Flight From D.C. to Las Vegas Diverted After Disturbance

UPDATE: The man accused of attempting to open an airplane’s exterior door while in flight has been released after investigators determined it wasn’t a terrorism matter.

KTNV reports that United Airlines flight 223 en route from Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., to McCarran International Airport has been diverted to Denver due to a passenger disturbance.

According to the TSA, the male passenger attempted to open one of the plane doors while it was in flight.

The aircraft was immediately diverted and was met on the ground by TSA and FBI officials as well as Denver Police.

Barry Eynon of Coopersburg, Pa., said in a phone interview that he was in the third row when another passenger “saw this person trying to open the airplane door and trying to get into the cockpit.” The other passenger “jumped up and grabbed him from behind and yelled for help.”

Eynon said, “I jumped up and grabbed him from the front.”

Three or four other passengers also helped to subdue the man, putting him in a seat and ensuring he remained there, Eynon said.

The man seemed “really out of it,” Eynon said. Source – Washington Post

The passenger was taken into custody by the FBI and questioned.

Passengers and crew members are also being questioned by the FBI.

via United flight from D.C. to Las Vegas diverted after disturbance – KTNV ABC,Channel 13,Las Vegas,Nevada,News,Weather,Sports,Entertainment,KTNV.com,Action News .:..

TSA Prankster Who Allegedly Planted Powder Out Of Job

According to FoxPhilly News, an apparent practical joke at Philadelphia International Airport security is no laughing matter for a Wynnewood college student and the Transportation Security Administration.

Rebecca Solomon said the screener planted a small plastic bag filled with white powder in her laptop case before she boarded a flight back to school in Michigan earlier this month.

He confronted her in the security line and then said he was just kidding.

Sullivan wasn’t laughing. She complained, and the worker is no longer employed by the TSA. (TSA in my opinion acted quickly and made the right decision)

via TSA Powder-Prankster Out Of Job.

Additional Details from Philly.com Daniel Rubin: It was no joke at security gate

What happened to her lasted only 20 seconds, but she says they were the longest 20 seconds of her life.

After pulling her laptop out of her carry-on bag, sliding the items through the scanning machines, and walking through a detector, she went to collect her things.

A TSA worker was staring at her. He motioned her toward him.

Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on – the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.

She remembers his words: “Where did you get it?”

Two thoughts came to her in a jumble: A terrorist was using her to sneak bomb-detonating materials on the plane. Or a drug dealer had made her an unwitting mule, planting coke or some other trouble in her bag while she wasn’t looking.

She’d left her carry-on by her feet as she handed her license and boarding pass to a security agent at the beginning of the line.

Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK.

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New Scanner Sees Explosives Inside Body Cavities

The workers at a Merrillville company have spent the past six months developing their own form of airport security, a machine they say is superior to the metal detectors and body scanners making the news.

Guns, explosive powders, plastic weapons, the machine can show them all, no matter where they're at.

Even if they’re inside a human body.

If everything goes according to their plan, the Purdue Technology Center incubator-based Nesch LLC will see its product in airports worldwide helping to stop terrorists from using airplanes as their personal weapons.

The device called Diffraction-Enhanced X-ray Imaging, or DEXI, is basically an X-ray machine on steroids — but with far fewer X-rays. A normal X-ray machine will use three sources — light absorption, refraction and scattering — to produce one image. Because the light refractions and light scatterings don't mix well, the result is a blurry image, one that picks up on bones but not soft tissue.

Ivan Nesch, CEO of Nesch LLC, says that DEXI creates a separate image from each of the sources that makes for not just clearer pictures but allows people to see softer material — including powders like the one a Nigerian man supposedly brought with him on a Christmas Day flight to blow up the plane.

“(With conventional X-ray machines,) you could not even think about this,” Nesch said.

Pictures provided by Nesch show various objects taken with a conventional X-ray and the DEXI system. In conventional X-rays, plastic bags filled with powder are obscured but are clearly seen in images taken by DEXI. Another DEXI image shows a plastic knife hidden in another object.

Source

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/crack-new-scanner-finds-explosives-inside-body-cavities/#ixzz0cGhW23gG

Nesch LLC Company Website

Airtran Flight 39 Diverted To Colorado Springs Airport

Two F-16 fighters under the direction of NORAD escorted the AirTran flight 39 down to the Colorado Springs Airport.

AirTran Airways has released the following statement in regards to the incident on flight 39. The FBI is on the scene and is overseeing the law enforcement response.

AirTran Airways Statement on AirTran Flight 39

At approximately 1:30 Eastern Standard Time (EST) AirTran Airways flight 39, a Boeing 737-700 aircraft with scheduled service from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to San Francisco International Airport diverted to Colorado Springs, Colo., because of a disruptive passenger onboard.

The aircraft was carrying 132 passengers and five Crew Members and landed safely in Colorado Springs at approximately 1:55 EST. It taxied to a remote location of the airport.

via Source KXRM FOX 21.

Reporter Passes Through JFK Security With Titanium

Although it’s open to speculation whether this could translate into a terrorist smuggling an actual weapon through security, a reporter apparently had no trouble carrying an 8-inch-long piece of titanium through the a checkpoint just hours after it was reported that the same detectors twice failed to go off for a woman with a 14-inch hip replacement made of the metal.

That passenger, Berna Keiler of Santa Barbara, Calif., alerted federal authorities to the breach late last year and was reassured by Transportation Security Administration officials that the metal detectors were tested and properly working.

But that was clearly not the case Tuesday when the reporter failed to set off the alarm during two trips through the scanners.

The first time around, the reporter placed the titanium in her right side pocket and sent her purse and bag through the X-ray machine. She walked through the metal detector without setting off any alarm.

Read Full Article At The NY Post

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