Open Source Homeland

A major theme emerging from the news from London is that alert, well-trained civil servants stopped a major terrorist attack just by showing up and doing their jobs well. An alert ambulance crew and a plain old police officer. Really fantastic news and a great sign for meat & potatoes work in the face of what sometimes seem like invincible enemies.

British police foil major terror plot - Yahoo News
The events unfolded when police were called to Haymarket, south of Piccadilly Circus, after a man fell at the nightclub Tiger Tiger, injuring his head, prompting a call for an ambulance around 1:30 a.m. Friday.

When crews arrived, they noticed smoke coming from a green Mercedes parked in front of a club, Clarke said.

Photographs showed a canister bearing the words “patio gas,” indicating it was propane, next to the car. The propane gas is of the type usually used in backyard barbecues and patio heaters. The back door was open with blankets spilling out. The car was removed from the scene after a bomb squad disabled the explosives.

A bomb squad called to the scene manually disabled the explosives.

Sky News television reported that a police officer seized a telephone from the car — believed to have been a potential detonator for the explosives — and an American lawmaker briefed on the investigation confirmed that British authorities found a cell phone.

“They found a cell phone and it was going to be used to detonate the bomb,” said U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

The American Medical Association has launched a new peer-reviewed journal, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. Here’s their explanation of what they’re about:

Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness is the first comprehensive and authoritative journal emphasizing public health preparedness and disaster response for all health care and public health professionals globally. The journal will translate science into practice and integrate medical and public health perspectives. With the events of September 11, the subsequent anthrax attacks, the tsunami in Indonesia, hurricane Katrina, SARS and the fear of pandemic influenza, all health care and public health professionals must be prepared to respond to emergency situations. In support of these pressing public health needs, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness is committed to the medical and public health communities who are the stewards of the health and security of citizens worldwide. 

Table of contents for the inaugural issues of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.

Certainly this experience yesterday, where the entire emergency radio communications system for the state of Illinois went a little bonkers, shows that we’d be smart to stay in touch with local ham radio operators.

STLtoday - News - Missouri State News
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A test by the federal government of the new national Emergency Alert System went awry and resulted in faulty emergency messages being sent out over television and radio stations in Illinois Tuesday morning, state officials announced.

The test was part of a program by the federal government to install the new satellite warning system in all 50 states. While federal officials were conducting what was supposed to be an internal test of the Illinois portion of the system, the test emergency signal was accidentally sent out.

The audio and written messages were sent from a Springfield location to radio and television stations around the state, said Patti Thompson, spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. There were four messages, spaced about 10 minutes apart, starting shortly after 7 a.m.

The CTA has announced that Chicago police will soon be able to tap into the buses on the street and see what’s going on inside them. This kind of idea sounds great on the surface, but you can see that’s overly tight and a little unpractical. Second City Cop points out that the cameras are useful after the fact and notes some practical issues in viewing the feeds in the car.

Seems to me that if a cop is driving near a bus and wants to see what’s going on inside, they’d board the bus.

Tech Upgrades Allow Police To Tap Into CTA Cameras - News Story - WMAQ | Chicago
CHICAGO — Chicago police will soon be able to see what is happening on a Chicago Transit Authority bus without getting on board, NBC5 reported on Thursday.

New computer upgrades will allow officers to electronically tap into video cameras already installed on city buses.

Video images viewed in real time will let police dispatchers issue immediate alerts about criminal activity.
Last month, after a gunman opened fire on a CTA bus, killing 16-year-old Julian High School student Blair Holt, and police looked at videotapes to identify a suspect.

Well done.

Boing Boing: SF writers advise on homeland security
The Homeland Security Department has called up their special team of science fiction authors, a group called Sigma, to help them imagine various terror scenarios and ways to fight the “war” on terror. Sigma members Jerry Pournelle, Arlan Andrews, greg Bear, Larry Niven, and Sage Walker, all attended a Homeland Security conference in Washington this month about science and technology. Andrews formed the group fifteen years ago and apparently the last time they met was to envision a post-nuclear age. From USA Today: