White House North Lawn Closed – Suspicious Package

The White House North Lawn has finally reopened after more than two hours after a suspicious package thrown over the fence prompted the closure — and a huge response from four fire trucks and numerous Secret Service. In order to get back in, reporters were walked along a West Wing hallway near the Oval Office. We learned that the president has a lot of large photos of himself along the walls.

After the president’s short speech, reporters were forced to remain in the Grand Foyer for the last 10 minutes. No word on when we might be allowed to leave. Your correspondent took the time to do a brief radio interview — and later talked to WDET while walking back from lunch.

Earlier, the Secret Service forced reporters off the White Hosue driveway and into the press room over an suspicious package found near the White House fence. Some reporters were forced to go through another entrance into the building, while our trip into the Grand Foyer for the president’s speech on General Motors Corp.’s bankruptcy filing was delayed by 15 minutes.

Not clear what it is, but this typically happens over suspcious packages. The Secret Service also cleared pedestrians off the sidewalk in front of White House.

via DETNEWS | Weblogs | Autos Blog.

White House Visitor Tourists Taken Into Custody

Two people facing deportation from the U.S. were taken into custody at the White House gate. They had arrived for a tour.

The pair were part of an adult education program, and a routine background check showed they had an outstanding immigration order against them. They were taken into custody yesterday before they entered the compound.

All White House visitors undergo a U.S. Secret Service background check.

Source

White House Scare – Small Plane In Restricted Airspace

A small, single-engine plane strayed into restricted air space near the U.S. Capitol on Friday, forcing anxious officials to place the White House in temporary lockdown and take steps to evacuate the U.S. Capitol.

The episode was over within minutes as two F-16 fighter jets and two Coast Guard helicopters were dispatched to intercept the plane and escort it to an airport in Maryland, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. U.S. Northern Command spokesman Michael Kucharek said the two helicopters established communications with the pilot.

The plane landed at Indian Head Airport in Charles County, Md., where airport owner Gil Bauserman said the aircraft had been flying from Maine to North Carolina. Bauserman said the military notified the airport that the plane would be making an unscheduled landing at 12:45 p.m. EDT. The plane landed 15 minutes later, escorted by the F-16s and the helicopters.

“It was just a navigation mistake, the GPS went and the pilot got confused.

Source

White House to Keep Agencies Focus on Terrorism

The Obama administration is moving to solidify one of the most significant shifts of resources put into place under President George W. Bush: the transformation of the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into agencies where the top priority is counterterrorism rather than conventional law enforcement.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other Justice Department officials have emphasized that they will not cut resources allocated to national security in the foreseeable future, and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, told lawmakers on Wednesday that “we have no intention of retreating from preventing a terrorist attack on American soil as our No. 1 priority.”

Source

Bill Forthcoming To Move Cybersecurity From Homeland Security To White House

Forthcoming legislation would wrest cybersecurity responsibilities from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and transfer them to the White House, a proposed move that likely will draw objections from industry groups and some conservatives.

CNET News has obtained a summary of a proposal from Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) that would create an Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor, part of the Executive Office of the President. That office would receive the power to disconnect, if it believes they’re at risk of a cyberattack, “critical” computer networks from the Internet. Read more

CIA Chief Panetta Provides Economic Intel Brief

Highlighting the potential impact the worldwide economic downturn may have on global security and foreign policy, new CIA Director Leon Panetta said today that the agency is now producing a new daily intelligence document for President Obama and other top officials that focuses on economic issues.

Panetta says the new intelligence product, known as the Economic Intelligence Brief, is intended to make sure that policymakers “aren’t surprised by the implications of the worldwide economic crisis.”

The first brief was presented to the White House this morning, after a request from the Obama administration, Panetta said.

He said the briefs would “cover overseas developments –- economic, political, leadership developments,” as well as “the implications of those developments in terms of the U.S. economy.”

The new intelligence brief is another sign of the Obama administration’s focus on economic issues.

Since his first day in office, Obama has received daily briefings from his economic advisers that take place before the long-standard security briefing focused on the intelligence community’s daily assessment, known as the Presidential Daily Brief.

via Source

Kuwaiti Professor Fantasizes Of Biological Attack On US

In this speech Kuwaiti Professor Abdallah Nafisi openly speaks of how he fantasizes of a biological attack at the White House and prays for the bombing of a nuclear plant on Lake Michigan. Perhaps even more disturbing is the laughter his speech draws from the audience.

Source

US Agencies Chase Down Potential Inauguration Day Terror Threat

US intelligence services chased reports of a potential terrorist threat Tuesday as President Barack Obama was sworn in before massive crowds amid an unprecedented security lockdown.

Officials were tightlipped about the seriousness of the terrorist threat, with the Department of Homeland Security saying the information was “of limited specificity and uncertain credibility.”

But a Homeland Security official, who asked not to be identified, said it was linked to a militant Somali group called al-Shabab.

“The FBI has acknowledged publicly that there has been a lot of incoming information, all of which we are running to ground. This is the only specific bulletin that has gone out,” the official said.

With an estimated two million or more people jammed into the heart of Washington to celebrate the inauguration of the first African American president, security officials braced for a potential security nightmare.

But the most vulnerable moment of the day passed without incident when Obama and his wife Michelle stepped down from a slow moving motorcade and walked along Pennsylvania Avenue to the deafening cheers of the multitudes.

Secret Service agents in black coats walked the route, at the ready as Obama’s motorcade crept from the Capitol to the White House.

The Obamas moved through a city blanketed by more than 12,500 active troops and military reservists, thousands of metropolitan police with reinforcements from 99 law enforcement agencies around the nation.

via S ource – Yahoo News.

Bush and Obama Administrations Practices Homeland Security Event

Officials of the outgoing and incoming Bush and Obama administrations are teaming up for a rehearsal of how to handle a theoretical national emergency.

Bush White House chief of staff Josh Bolten announced that the exercise, involving representatives of both administrations, will take place on Tuesday afternoon at the executive mansion.

Bolten said that such a joint rehearsal for a possible terrorism-era emergency is a matter of necessity, not just courtesy.

He said a few key members of the Obama administration and the current administration will get West Wing briefings on “incident management procedures” and “continuity of government procedures.”

Bolton said officials will “work on a specific scenario … and talk about who does what” in the event of a homeland security incident.

via Source

White House Concerned Over al Qaeda Terror Attack During Transition

President Bush on Thursday said he is concerned that al Qaeda will try to test the incoming Obama administration with a terror attack on U.S. soil, and said he will meet with the president-elect Monday to talk about homeland defense and the economy.

Terrorists, the president said, “would like nothing more than to exploit this period of change to harm the American people.”

White House press secretary Dana Perino stressed that the U.S. government has no specific intelligence of any imminent attacks.

“I don’t know anything specific, but we do know this a heightened period of concern,” Mrs. Perino said. “We know that al Qaeda and others try to test a new administration.”

“That is something that we’re very concerned about. We’ve seen that in other countries,” Mrs. Perino said, mentioning the example of a 2004 bombing in Madrid, Spain that killed 191 people.

That bombing, however, was committed just before national elections in an attempt to influence the outcome, by what authorities deemed to be terrorists trying to imitate al Qaeda.

But Mr. Bush, speaking to more than 1,000 executive branch employees from across the federal government on the South Lawn, said the terrorist threat is a main reason that “all of must ensure that the next president and his team can hit the ground running.”

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