CRIME NIPC Daily Report, 13 Aug 02

From: George Heuston (GeorgeH@private)
Date: Tue Aug 13 2002 - 09:23:02 PDT

  • Next message: Steve Kirby: "CRIME Security Justification"

    State will promote cybersecurity guidelines. The State Department is 
    endorsing the development of a "culture of security" as described in the 
    Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) new 
    guidelines for protecting information systems. The OECD, an economic 
    analysis agency in Paris, was founded after World War II to coordinate 
    international development and is supported by the US, Western Europe, 
    Australia, Canada, and Japan. In recent years, however, the European 
    Union, the Association of South East Asian Nations, and the G-7, a group 
    of seven leading democratic economies, have overshadowed it. The State 
    Department said it will encourage businesses, the public, and 
    governments to use the guidelines to bolster IT security. It is 
    currently developing outreach plans to promote the guidelines. 
    (Government Computer News, 12 Aug)
    
    Government creates new Washington evacuation plan. The federal 
    government has created a new procedure for evacuating federal employees 
    in Washington, DC in the case of terrorist attacks. The protocol, which 
    took effect in May, tells who can decide to evacuate federal employees 
    from agencies and how the government will communicate the decision to 
    employees and to city and state agencies that would be affected by a 
    mass exodus of civil servants from Washington. Under the new process, 
    evacuation decisions will be made jointly by the heads of three 
    agencies: Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the General Services 
    Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Officials 
    will then notify the White House, Office of Homeland Security, Secret 
    Service, and a host of state and local agencies, including the mayor of 
    the District of Columbia and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit 
    Authority, which runs the Metro subway system. Media outlets will also 
    be tapped to broadcast evacuation announcements, a step that means 
    officials will not have to personally contact every state and local 
    agency that could be affected by an evacuation. Certain scenarios may 
    require officials to inform agencies before alerting the media, 
    according to Scott Hatch, OPM's director of communications. Agency heads 
    can still disregard closure announcements under the new protocol, 
    although most followed OPM's lead when the agency released federal 
    employees on 11 September. (Govexec.com, 9 Aug)
    
    Fearing theft, US plans to relocate nuclear fuel. The US is moving 
    toward shipping tons of bomb-grade plutonium and uranium out of a 
    laboratory in New Mexico, according to Energy Department officials. 
    Experts said it would be the first time the government has moved nuclear 
    weapons fuel to reduce the risk of terrorists stealing it. The plutonium 
    and uranium would be moved from an area near Los Alamos Nuclear 
    Laboratory to the Nevada Test Site, 90 miles outside of Las Vegas. The 
    director of Los Alamos wrote on 28 June to a deputy administrator of the 
    National Nuclear Security Administration that the laboratory supported 
    moving the material as "the best overall decision to meet the 
    post-September 11th challenges for the long-term security of nuclear 
    activities." (New York Times, 12 Aug)
    
    Transportation Secretary Mineta announces $8.9 million in grants for 
    South Carolina airports . Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta 
    announced $8.9 million in federal grants for South Carolina airports on 
    11 August. These grants will help South Carolina airports maintain the 
    highest levels of safety, security, and efficiency in the years ahead. 
    Rep Lindsey Graham said "Transportation infrastructure is a very 
    important consideration for businesses contemplating building a new 
    plant or factory in our state. If we want to continue being competitive 
    in attracting new business, we've got to have efficient and secure 
    transportation systems in place. These grants will help ensure the 
    airports in our state are ready to meet the transportation needs of our 
    communities and state in the years ahead." (Department of 
    Transportation, 11 Aug)
    
    Pipeline safety: initiatives finally moving. A Bush administration 
    official responsible for pipeline safety enforcement acknowledged that 
    the Office of Pipeline Safety's record is not good. A study in 2001 by 
    The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman found that the agency was 
    understaffed and underfunded, and that oil and gas pipelines across the 
    nation lose an average of at least 6.7 million gallons daily. Congress 
    is now beginning to take action to remedy the apparent weaknesses in 
    pipeline-safety regulation. Legislation has passed both the House and 
    Senate that better protects the public and the environment from 
    accidents related to unsafe oil and gas pipelines. If signed into law, 
    the result would mean more frequent inspections and stiffer penalties 
    for those companies that don't pass. (PowerMarketers.com, 11 Aug)
    
    Water's flow from private hands. Private companies may begin to take on 
    operations at aging municipal water systems, as well as play new roles 
    in storing, managing and transferring water, and sell water outright 
    from farms to cities. Farmers too may increasingly forgo crops and 
    instead sell water to cities, and coastal cities may begin to invest in 
    costly desalination plants to turn seawater into tap water, and recycled 
    gray water will be employed to green lawns and agricultural lands. The 
    Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the largest 
    wholesale water supplier in the nation, is engaged in an almost 
    perpetual search for new sources of drinking water. It has agreed to a 
    preliminary deal that would use the aquifer beneath desert farms to 
    store surplus water pumped from the Colorado River via a 
    still-to-be-constructed $150 million, 35-mile pipeline. The pipeline 
    will be used during wet years and the water sold back to the district 
    during dry ones. The company would also mine its own "native" water and 
    sell it to the water district. (Washington Post, 12 Aug)
    
    Tainted water puts New Jersey towns on alert. The discovery in recent 
    years of a new form of radium in underground water supplies is forcing 
    towns throughout New Jersey to spend millions of dollars to remove the 
    element from public drinking water. Throughout New Jersey public water 
    suppliers are shutting down contaminated wells and drilling new ones; 
    constructing radium-treatment plants; buying water from outside sources; 
    and, in some cases, supplying customers with bottled water, as well as 
    building removal systems. Eric Evenson of the US Geological Survey said 
    radium has been the focus of government studies throughout the country 
    and that recent actions by New Jersey go a long way toward protecting 
    the public health. (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 Aug)
    
    California on heightened security alert after potential threat to Golden 
    Gate Bridge . On Sunday, 11 August, state and federal law enforcement 
    agencies boosted security patrols on and around the Golden Gate Bridge 
    after officials learned of a potential terrorist threat. The bridge was 
    placed on a "super-heightened" state of alert. Specific details of the 
    threat or the source of the threat are not available. (Associated Press, 
    12 Aug)
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    _______________________________________________
    NIPC-daily mailing list
    NIPC-daily@private
    http://mailman.ops.nipc.gov/mailman/listinfo/nipc-daily
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Aug 13 2002 - 16:32:39 PDT