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Daily Archives: January 3, 2010

TSA: New Security Measures for International Flights to the U.S.

News release: “…the Transportation Security Administration issued new security directives to all United States and international air carriers with inbound flights to the U.S. effective January 4, 2010. The new directive includes long-term, sustainable security measures developed in consultation with law enforcement officials and our domestic and international partners. Because effective aviation security must begin beyond our borders, and as a result of extraordinary cooperation from our global aviation partners, TSA is mandating that every individual flying into the U.S. from anywhere in the world traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required to go through enhanced screening. The directive also increases the use of enhanced screening technologies and mandates threat-based and random screening for passengers on U.S. bound international flights.”

  • AP: “The State Department lists Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria as state sponsors of terrorism. The other countries whose passengers will face enhanced screening include Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.”
  • Chief Justice Roberts Issues 2009 Year-End Report

    2009 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary: “Chief Justice John Roberts issued his 2009 year-end report, stating that “courts are operating soundly, and the nation’s dedicated federal judges are conscientiously discharging their duties…In 2009, a total of 1,402,816 bankruptcy petitions were filed in the U.S. courts, an increase of 35% over the 1,042,806 filed in… Continue Reading

    Growth of Cloud Computing and Parallel Security Risks

    Security in the Ether – Information technology’s next grand challenge will be to secure the cloud–and prove we can trust it. By David Talbot, Technology Review, January/February 2010 [Dan Mitchel] “In 2006, when Amazon introduced the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), it was a watershed event in the quest to transform computing into a ubiquitous utility,… Continue Reading

    2009 Treasury Financial Report

    “The Department of Treasury’s annual Agency Financial Report provides fiscal and high-level performance results that enable the President, Congress, and the American people to assess our accomplishments for each fiscal year (October 1 through September 30). This report provides an overview of our programs, accomplishments, challenges, and management’s accountability for the resources entrusted to us.… Continue Reading

    DOE Launches New Website to Bring Energy Technology Information to the Public

    News release: “Secretary Chu announced the Department of Energy launched Open Energy Information – a new open-source web platform that will make DOE resources and open energy data widely available to the public. The data and tools housed on the free, editable and evolving wiki-platform will be used by government officials, the private sector, project… Continue Reading

    American Indians and the Great Recession – Economic Disparities Growing Larger

    American Indians and the Great Recession—Economic Disparities Growing Larger, By Algernon Austin, Economic Policy Institute, December 2009 “American Indians, like Hispanic Americans and African Americans, have had the misfortune of experiencing double-digit unemployment rates for most or all of 2009. In the first half of this year, the American Indian unemployment rate averaged 13.6%. This… Continue Reading

    Major International Hacker Pleads Guilty For Massive Attack On U.S. Retail And Banking Networks

    News release: “Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to hack into computer networks supporting major American retail and financial organizations, and to steal data relating to tens of millions of credit and debit cards, announced Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer, U.S. Attorney for the District of… Continue Reading