News Archives

Are We Prepared To Face A Pandeminc? 10/17/05

The Coalition for a Competitive Pharmaceutical Market (CCPM) today said the excessive patent extensions and market exclusivities being considered in Senate BioShield legislation would drive up health care costs for employers, health insurers, and consumers. To highlight its concerns with this legislation, which contains harmful intellectual property provisions (IP), CCPM is running print ads in the Washington, D.C. market.

"The more we learn about the vast and deadly impact a bioterrorist attack or pandemic could have on our nation, the more apparent it becomes that America urgently needs a solution to biodefense preparedness. The good news is that the solution is at hand in promising draft legislation currently before Congress," said Annette Guarisco, chair of CCPM.

"The bad news is that IP provisions will needlessly delay affordable medicines from coming to market and exacerbate the problem of high health care costs for all Americans. Those costs are unsustainable, particularly at a time when health care premiums are increasing by double digits," Guarisco added.

BioShield legislation is intended to ensure that the nation has an adequate supply of drugs and diagnostic tools that would serve as countermeasures to attacks by terrorists using biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons. Yet, monopoly extensions would undermine that goal by encouraging brand pharmaceutical companies to focus their resources on already approved products instead of focusing their attention on novel countermeasures. Under consideration are excessive patent and market exclusivity extensions for already approved products and a sweeping definition of what could be considered a countermeasure. All of these provisions would delay the entry of affordable medicines, unnecessarily and dramatically increasing costs not just for private purchasers but for federal programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans and Defense Department health care programs and the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program.

Instead, CCPM supports other incentives that would encourage companies to produce countermeasures. Those incentives include product liability protections, expanded tax incentives, expedited FDA review, additional funding for biotech companies, guaranteed purchasing, and true research on priorities, such as novel vaccines, novel antibiotics, and novel drug products that fill a recognized security priority, as well as diagnostic agents and environmental detection systems. Each of these provisions advances anti-terrorism goals without unduly burdening the health care system. CCPM is pleased that Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness, is working to include in his legislation many of these incentives that will ensure America's preparedness for a bioterrorist attack.

Iraq, the Constitution and the Fate of a President 10/14/05
By George Friedman

The elections scheduled in Iraq for Dec. 15 have generated what is becoming a permanent feature of Iraqi politics. The process of establishing a constitution has become the battleground among the three major ethnic factions over the nature of political arrangements in Iraq, the distribution of power, the character of the regime and, of course, how oil revenues will be shared. Each milestone on the road to a constitution has become an occasion for intensifying both the negotiating and military process, with no milestone becoming definitive. Thus, the Oct. 15 referendum will give way to December's general elections, and today's negotiations set the stage for the next round of negotiations.

All of this can be taken two ways. One way to view it is that the Iraqi situation is fundamentally insoluble, that the various parties cannot achieve a permanent resolution to the problem. Another way of looking at it is that this process is the permanent solution: Iraq will be an endless reshuffling of a finite political deck, with no end in sight. There are other countries that live this way, and the solution is that they muddle through: politics and the state are devalued, while the rest of society -- clans, families, corporations, organized crime -- are emphasized. An Iraq with eternally shifting politics is not incompatible with the notion of a functioning society.

This assessment, of course, ignores a number of things. First, Iraq is occupied by U.S. troops. Second, there is a war going on in which the Sunnis are fighting the occupation. The Iranians are in the wings -- actually, on the stage -- trying to dominate Iraq as much as possible. A border war is raging along the Syrian frontier. A broader war involving the United States and jihadists is still sputtering along. Therefore, any hope has to be viewed through the prism of this violence, and the question is simple: can the emerging political process ultimately reduce -- "eliminate" is too much to ask -- the level of violence? Put another way, from the U.S. side, can the present political process solve the problems of occupation while yielding the political goals Washington wanted? From the jihadist side, can the uncertainty of the political process be exploited to create the conditions for what Ayman al-Zawahiri described in a recent letter: the jihadist domination of Iraq? Or, will the conflict between political goals undermine the process and create permanent war instead of permanent instability?

The core difference between this milestone and the last -- the generation of a proposed constitution for consideration by the legislature and, through this referendum, the public -- is that, whereas the last round of negotiations ended in an inability of the Shia and Kurds to reach an agreement with the Sunnis, this one has ended in an agreement of sorts. That agreement frames the situation, inasmuch as it is less an agreement than a framework for ongoing negotiations.

Some Sunni leaders have opposed any agreement or participation in the constitutional referendum; others have supported participation with a "no" vote. What appears to have been crafted between the Shia and negotiating Sunni groups is this:

If the constitution is approved, it will be a temporary, not permanent, constitution.

After a general election on Dec. 15 that would be based on this constitution, a committee of the National Assembly would review the document once again.

The new parliament would have four months to complete changes to the document.

A new vote would be held to ratify that final constitution.

In other words, the agreement that has been reached here between the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds is simply that all sides will focus on the constitutional negotiations.

That's not a bad deal, if the negotiations can encompass a large enough spectrum of each group's leadership and if everyone agrees to put other issues on hold. You can spend a lot of time debating the rules under which you will debate the issues, and you can defuse other issues if that is what everyone wants to do. The problem here is that it is not clear that this is what everyone wants.

A major Sunni organization -- the Iraqi Islamic Party -- has agreed to these rules. Other groups, at least as or more important than the Iraqi Islamic Party, have not. Neither the Association of Muslim Scholars nor the Iraqi General Conference appear at this moment to have changed their position, which is that Sunni voters should reject the new constitution. That in itself is not as alarming as it appears. The Sunnis, and other factions, are represented by several groups, and these groups sometimes play "good cop, bad cop" very effectively. The signal the Sunnis are giving is that they are not rejecting the constitutional process out of hand, but that they will need serious coaxing before the vote comes about. They are taking it down to the wire, which is the rational thing to do under the circumstances.

Three serious pressures are converging on the Sunnis. First, simply refraining from participating in the Oct. 15 referendum could free the Shia and Kurds to set up a regional federal system that would leave the Sunnis as the weakest player -- and the one with least access to future oil revenues. At the same time, the traditional Sunni leadership, deeply complicit in the Baath dictatorship, has substantial reason to fear the jihadists. The jihadists are not part of the traditional leadership and are, in fact, ideological enemies of Baathism. If the jihadists grow in strength, the traditional leadership might find itself displaced by them over time. On the other hand, agreeing to participate in the country's political process would open the Sunni leadership up to charges of being, not only lackeys of the United States, but also stooges to the hated Shia. More than any other group in Iraq, the Sunnis need for the jihadists to be defeated. On the other hand, they know they can't count on the Americans to deliver this defeat. They are under pressure to find a political solution, but also under powerful pressure not to find one. So, they churn around, generally heading toward a solution but never quite getting there.

The position of the Shia is simpler, and they have more ways of winning. If the constitution leads to a simple federalist government, the Shia will dominate southern Iraq and can deal with the Sunnis at their leisure. If a centralized government is created, the Shia will be -- with the Kurds -- the majority. The only thing the Shia can't live with is the one thing the Sunnis want: a constitution so contrived that the Sunnis can block major initiatives by the Shia.

The Kurds can live with a lot of solutions and can create informal realities based on geography and their own military strength and American backing. Their interest is less institutional than geopolitical -- they want Mosul and Kirkuk. More precisely, they want to dominate the northern oil fields and trade, and to exclude the Sunnis as far as possible from these interests. Whether that is accomplished through constitutional or business means is of less interest to them than that it be done.

The form of the constitution, therefore, matters most to the Sunnis. They need it to be written a certain way, and then to have guarantees that its provisions will be respected. At the moment, this coincides with the American interest. A radical federalism that creates a de facto Shiite state in the south is not at all in the American interest: It would have the potential to expand Iranian power in ways far more significant that a nuclear weapons program, by bringing a Shiite force -- perhaps Iraqi, or perhaps Iraqi and Iranian -- to the borders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The specter of a Shiite force inciting Shiite populations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia has always been a fear, but the possibility of the Iranian army taking up positions on the frontier would change the balance of power in the region decisively.

The countries in the Saudi peninsula are no match for the Iranians. Add in the Syrians, who long have been allies of sorts to Iran, and you get a situation in which the United States would have to retain a presence in order to protect the regional balance of power. The Saudis do not want U.S. forces in the kingdom, to say the least, and the United States does not want to be there -- it would generate even more jihadist threats. Therefore, Washington does not want to see the federal solutions favoring the Shia come into being, nor does it want to see a centralized government dominated by the Shia. Having used the Shia to contain the insurrection in the Sunni regions, the United States now finds itself aligned with the Sunnis and with the former Baath Party.

These things happen in war and geopolitics. But there are two problems here. First, the United States has made it very clear that it will be withdrawing its forces -- at least some of them -- from Iraq in 2006. Second, everyone reads U.S. polls. President George W. Bush is in political trouble in the United States and, now, within the Republican Party itself. As with Nixon and Ford found in Vietnam, following Watergate, the threat posed by the United States declines as the president's political weakness grows. And with the decline of the U.S. military threat, there is a decline of U.S. influence. Last week's discussion of air strikes inside Syria -- and the leak that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opposed such strikes -- is an example of the problem. Where the administration had had credibility for action before, that credibility has now decreased.

The administration's political weakness does not seem to be reversing. Should Karl Rove be indicted in the Valerie Plame affair -- and at the moment, the rumors in Washington say that he will be -- the president will have lost his chief aide, and the administration will have been struck another blow.

At this moment, it is possible to make the constitutional process into a container for diverse Iraqi interests. It is also possible to see a point where the Sunni Baathists would turn on the jihadists in order to protect their political position. But all of this hinges on the guarantees that are provided by each side, and the ability and willingness of the United States to compel compliance with those guarantees. The paradox is that the most likely path to a successful withdrawal from Iraq is the perception that the United States is going to stay there forever -- and can do it. But as Bush weakens in Washington, the ability of various Iraqi factions to rely on U.S. guarantees declines.

Geopolitics teaches the interconnectedness of events. The current American strategy requires sufficient stability to be generated in Iraq to permit a U.S. military withdrawal. That requires that the United States must be taken seriously as a military force. But the weaker Bush is -- for whatever reason, fair or not -- the less credible becomes his pledge to stay the course. There are few parallels between Iraq and Vietnam save this: the political climate in Washington determines the seriousness with which American power is taken on the battlefield.

It would seem, then, that Bush has two problems. The first is whether he can stabilize and increase his power in the United States. The second is whether he can extract a clear strategy from the complexity of Iraq. The answer to the second question rests in the answer to the first. At the moment, the Iraqi constitutional talks seem to be saying, "Bush is not broken, but we aren't committing to anything until we see the polls in December."

Republished courtesy of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. at www.stratfor.com.

Protect Yourself Against Identity Theft - 10/13/05
(see also story below "Do You Know Who's Stealing Your Identity".

Trilegiant Corporation has partnered with MyPublicInfo to launch an exclusive new fraud protection service that detects and can help prevent identity theft -- the fastest growing crime in America.

The new service, called Public Information Profile (PIP), developed by MyPublicInfo, offers a strong shield of prevention and protection that can deter even the most sophisticated ID thieves -- and stop them in their tracks. PIP detects early identity theft and mistaken identity through a unique comprehensive background self-check to help consumers fight off these thieves, as well as a complete public records snapshot, spotlighting identity theft as well as identity confusion. This new PIP service also allows consumers to view their employer background checks.

A Public Information Profile (PIP) is a detailed summary of the vast quantity of information available to others about consumers. Under the agreement, MyPublicInfo will sift through more than 10 billion records to verify a consumer's identity and build a PIP. These records include: federal, state and county records; financial records like bankruptcies, liens and judgments; property ownership records, including one billion acres of satellite and aerial photos; and government-issued and other licenses. All this info is then compiled into a single, easy to read document. Together, Trilegiant and MyPublicInfo will also develop other technologies to strengthen ID theft protection and prevention for consumers.

Consumers can arm themselves with this new PIP ID theft preventative technology with a click of a mouse, since the service is available online. The client must first prove their identity through a series of two tests. Proprietary, leading-edge technology identifies the user before releasing any information. Information cannot be accessed without passing the series of tests, which requires intimate knowledge of personal information that only the client knows.

"As identity theft spirals out of control, two of the flanks on the battlefield of protection have been credit monitoring and identity theft insurance," said Frank Abagnale, a former master forger and a leading authority on fraud prevention. "This is the next generation weapon that frightens ID thieves and stops them before they commit the crime."

Do you know who's stealing your identity? 10/12/05

Until just a few months ago, the odds were that it was someone in your family or neighborhood. Today, however, there is someone far more savvy and distant stealing your identity. There are currently 26.7 million Americans who are unwittingly transmitting their identity to international hackers and criminals.

In a recent study conducted by the Alladin Knowledge Systems of the top 2,000 known spyware threats, they found that 15 percent of spyware is actually stealing all the information typed on an infected computer, by logging the information the user types and then transmitting it to the spyware's creator. This method is called "key logging," and was the cause for five percent of the identity theft cases last year.

There are currently over 223 million Internet users in the United States. According to the National Cyber Security Alliance 80 to 90 percent of desktops are infected with spyware. At 80 percent, that's 187.4 million Internet users affected by spyware. With 15 percent of those transmitting the information needed for identity theft, that's 26.7 million people in the U.S. alone transmitting their identities to international hackers and criminals.

Last year, there were approximately 10 million cases of identity theft in the U.S., resulting in losses of over $50 billion, of which spyware comprised only 5 percent ($2.5 billion). The average identity theft case resulted in $5,000 in damage. If we do not do something to stop the flood of spyware, we could be looking at over $133 billion in losses this year due to spyware alone.

There are plenty of products available to fight spyware, many of which are free, or very inexpensive. To effectively fight spyware you must have an antivirus program, at least two anti-spyware applications, and a firewall on your computer. They must be properly installed, updated, and maintained. All of this gets to be a bit too much for the average computer user who just wants to use the computer and not have to spend hours each week updating and maintaining their computer, which is where PCImmunity(TM) comes in.

PCImmunity is the only product on the market that meets the security recommendations of computer experts. An Internet security suite alone will not fully protect you from spyware, as it only contains one anti-spyware application. To date, no one anti-spyware application has been able to detect and remove 100% of known spyware threats. The best applications available reach the upper 80 percentile.

Experts recommend using at least two anti-spyware applications, which results in coverage in the upper 90 percentile. PCImmunity is the only product available that not only allows, but enforces the two-anti-spyware-application policy.

Hurricane Katrina/Rita Update – 10/11/05
Entergy (NYSE:ETR)has restored service to more than 95 percent, or nearly 732,000 customers, who lost power due to Hurricane Rita in just over two weeks. About 34,000 Entergy customers remain without power due to Hurricane Rita, the second-worst storm to strike the company's four-state utility system in the company's history. Customer outages due to Hurricane Rita peaked at more than 766,000.

Texas Update: Entergy's workforce has restored power to more than 90 percent of the Texas customers left without power by Hurricane Rita. As of Monday, about 29,124 customers were still without electricity, compared to approximately 286,600 after Hurricane Rita hit on Sept. 24. Entergy hopes to have service fully restored by the end of this week.

Southwest Louisiana Update: Crews are working to restore power to the remaining 5,325 customers still without power in the Lake Charles/Sulphur area. The company estimates that customers should have power restored by the end of the week, except for those customers who have damage to their own electrical facilities.

Preparing for Terror - 10/11/05
To discuss the latest trends in security technology and services, and how they relate to terrorism prevention, security experts and professionals will be gathering for a free conference in Elk Grove Village, Illinois on October 19 for the Security Solutions 2005 Seminars and Exhibits sponsored by the American Society for Industrial Security. (A.S.I.S.)
The conference will help bring together Corporate Security Managers, Homeland Security Professionals, Law Enforcement Officials, Emergency Services and First Responder Personnel, Building Management Professionals, Risk Managers, Professional Investigators, and Business Owners interested in increasing their security knowledge and effectiveness.
"Preparation for and prevention of terrorist attacks are concepts that weigh heavily on the minds of not only government officials but also professionals in the private sector," said Craig Lawrence, CPP, Director of Operations at United Risk Partners in Elk Grove Village, IL and Chairman of the Illinois Northshore Chapter of A.S.I.S. "Terrorism is the subject matter most pressing for Security Directors right now, and in response industry professionals are joining together to deal specifically with terrorism and homeland security issues in the private sector."

U.S. Assistance for Earthquake in Pakistan – 10/10/05
The destruction and loss of life in Pakistan is massive, and the United States is responding rapidly and robustly. In response to the request of President Musharraf and the Government of Pakistan, the United States is providing an initial contribution of up to $50 million for relief and reconstruction following the earthquake that struck on October 8. The Department of Defense is also providing additional assistance and capabilities. Pakistan's initial request includes emergency shelter, food, water and medical supplies, transportation assets, and emergency management personnel.
The United Nations said more than 2.5 million people were left homeless by the massive 7.6-magnitude earthquake which affected Pakistan, India and Adghanistan.

Syria ends cooperation with U.S. security agencies – 10/10/05
Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador to Washington, has admitted that Damascus ended all security and intelligence cooperation with America several months ago, and it has not resumed. The ambassador says that while Damascus is still detaining jihadists on its own, it got "fed up" with the Bush administration's public bashing of president Bashar al-Assad,.
While U.S. officials stop short of accusing al-Assad of actively aiding the insurgency in Iraq, they say he has permitted jihadist transit and training camps to exist in the open. After the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, warned last month that "time is running out on Damascus," U.S. officials even debated launching military strikes inside the Syrian border against the insurgency.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice successfully opposed such a move. Rice argued that diplomatic isolation is working against al-Assad, especially on the eve of a U.N. report that may blame Syria for the murder of Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri. But Moustapha says Syria could do much more if intelligence was shared as it once was. Some U.S. intelligence officials agree. They say that valuable cooperation is being sacrificed at a critical moment when Iraqis are to vote on a new government and insurgents seek to undermine that effort. Syrian intelligence helped avert two major attacks on U.S. targets, including a Navy base in Bahrain. U.S. pressure, he adds, may be "radicalizing the country."

New York Subway Closed Down - 10/7/05
Just hours after we posted a blog about a threat to the nation's mass transit systems, officials in New York revealed they had received a warning of a terrorist plot to bomb the subway "in coming days." Security on all New York mass transit was stepped up. Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the it "the most specific terrorist threat that New York officials had received to date."
Early on Friday morning, part of Penn Station was briefly closed after a bottle containing a suspicious green liquid was found during the morning rush hour.

Senate Votes to Give Bush More War Funds - 10/7/05
The Senate voted to give President Bush another $50 billion more for the war in Iraq pushing the total spending on the operation todate to more than $350 billion.
Passage comes at a time when public support for Bush and the Iraq fighting has slipped, U.S. casualties have climbed and Congress has grown increasingly frustrated with the direction of the conflict.

San Diego School Buses Step Up Security, Safety Preparedness - 9/27/05
With emergency preparedness now more than ever the public's expectation for government services, San Diego school bus officials today announced that big yellow school buses are being equipped with the latest inspection technology to guard against possible terrorist actions, improve safety, and ensure the transportation system is run as efficiently as possible for taxpayers. - more

Dog’s are man’s best friends in helping find explosives - 9/27/05
James Greco, a law enforcement officer and founder of Long Island K-9 Service (www.lik-9.com), is reaching out to private businesses to help maintain security. - more

Hi-Tech Aids to Find Missing Children - 9/27/05
Virtela, a global secure network solutions company, today announced that the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children(R) (NCMEC) has selected Virtela's managed Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to speed communications between its employees and law- enforcement in providing nationwide services for families and professionals in the recovery and prevention of abducted and exploited children. - more

Four Arrested on Plotting Terrorist Attacks - 9/1/05
A series of gas station robberies that turned into an FBI terrorist investigation has led to four men being indicted on charges of plotting terrorist attacks in the Los Angeles area. - more

Gas Station Robberies Trigger Terrorism Investigation - 8/31/05
The arrest of two men for a series of gas station robberies in the Los Angeles area has triggered an FBI terrorism investigation. - more