The federal research agency in charge of countering emerging terrorist threats such as liquid explosives is so hobbled by poor leadership, weak financial management and inadequate technology that Congress is on the verge of cutting its budget in half. The Homeland Security Department’s Science and Technology Directorate has struggled with turnover, reorganizations and raids on…

(Pardon the long post, but after week of fishing I’ve got a jonesing . . .) Senior U.S. intelligence officials meeting in Denver on Monday (8/21) revealed new measures to try to fix the nation’s ailing intelligence system, which insiders say leaves the government overloaded with data but unable to answer key questions. One leader…

A shameless plug for my old boss:   Still, Donavan Lewis, chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s threat analysis division, wants the United States to think more about long-term trends. “China has shifted its dependence away from the United States to [countries such as Malaysia and South Korea], while our dependence on them has grown,”…

I can’t help myself . . . A tiny software company has been tapped by the new U.S. spy chief to lead a “tremendous leap forward,” in technology and policy that will enable the sharing of sensitive information between intelligence agencies and state and local law enforcement and other first responders. The project aims to…

For those of an Ichthyological bent, the scores as of EENT Friday were: Walleyes 0, Me 1Largemouth Bass 0, Me 1Smallmouth Bass 0, Me 3Pumpkinseeds 0, Me 4Perch 0, Me 2 And I noticed while I was gone that: The Army has figured out that there is more to Jean Larteguy’s poem than another piece…

All of these plots, successful and otherwise, contradict a prevalent theory in counter-terrorism circles that all the skills necessary to conduct a successful attack can be learned in the comfort of a terrorist’s own home. This paradigm is based on the belief that internet technology has removed the need for terrorist training camps by creating…

They gathered anxiously that first October morning, the 50 members of the class of “06-01,” the first of 750 new agents-in-training who will graduate from the FBI Academy this year. Long article that is worth the read. Anyone who has gone through military, para-military or police training can sympathize and empathize to a certain degree.…

Al Qaeda wants to build a political operation in Iraq to broaden its campaign against the U.S.-backed government, a top U.S. general said on Wednesday. Citing intelligence mostly gathered since the death of al Qaeda’s former leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June, Major General William Caldwell said the militant group appeared to be refining its…

In a classroom at the FBI Academy in Quantico, instructor Rodney Loose was trying to introduce the history of Islam to a new group of future agents. He had one hour. The 50 men and women would be joining the ranks of an agency whose top officials have declared fighting terrorism to be its No.…