07 Jun 07. Reid to unveil anti-terror plans. Home Secretary John Reid is due to outline tougher anti-terrorism measures, for which he hopes he can win cross-party agreement. They are likely to include another attempt to extend the 28-day limit on holding suspects without charge and “stop and quiz” police powers. He will confirm that a committee of privy counsellors will look at using intercept evidence in court. But the Lib Dems are concerned that could be a stalling measure. (Source: BBC)
05 June 07. Guantanamo pair’s charges dropped. Mr Khadr was reportedly taken to Afghanistan at the age of 10. A US military judge has thrown out charges against two Guantanamo Bay detainees, casting fresh doubt on efforts to try foreign terror suspects. Both cases collapsed because military authorities had failed to designate the men as “unlawful” enemy combatants. In one case a Canadian man, Omar Khadr, was accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan with a grenade. Charges were also dropped against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni accused of being Osama Bin Laden’s driver and bodyguard. The BBC’s James Westhead in Washington says the rulings deal a stunning blow to the Bush administration’s attempt to bring its detainees at Guantanamo Bay to trial. (Source: BBC)
20 Apr 07. IBM analytics gets DHS SAFETY nod. The Department of Homeland Security has approved analytics software from IBM Corp. for use in fighting
terrorism. The IBM Global Name Scoring software has been qualified under the guidelines set by the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act of 2002, according to the company. The guidelines act as a seal of approval, assuring the product does what it claims to do. It also protects the vendor from legal liabilities sparked by the product. Global Name Scoring can search for instances of names across different languages. It takes into account “the linguistic, phonetic and specific cultural variation patterns of names,” according to the IBM statement. Thus far, approximately 100 products have been qualified to meet Safety Act guidelines. (Source: GCN)
07 Jun 07. CSC-led Alliance Receives Three-Year Option for National Security Agency Groundbreaker Contract Computer Sciences Corporation today announced that the Eagle Alliance, a CSC-led joint venture, has received notification from the National Security Agency (NSA) of its intent to exercise the three-year option on the Groundbreaker contract. This option, with an expected value of $528 million, was included in the originally announced award value of Groundbreaker in July 2001. The option will extend Eagle Alliance’s performance on the program through September 30, 2011.