Law enforcement

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Law enforcement and public health experts from around the globe
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One World Government = New World Order
http://nonlaw.forumotion.com/forum-f1/topic-t1178.htm

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International Experts to Discuss Biological Weapons Use, Preparedness

By Martin Matishak

WASHINGTON -- Law enforcement and public health experts from around the globe will gather next week in Switzerland to discuss the potential use of biological weapons and how nations can improve their preparedness to respond to intentional or natural disease outbreaks.

Specialists from roughly 100 of the Biological Weapons Convention's member states are expected in Geneva for a four-day meeting beginning Monday.

The meeting is part of the "intersessional process" conducted between the convention's review conferences held every five years. This year's discussion is "perhaps the most lively" in years because "it combines both the peaceful side -- developing public health capacity, disease surveillance and so on -- with the very hard-edged security side that is responding to actual use of a biological weapon," Richard Lennane, head of the treaty's Implementation Support Unit, said last week in a telephone interview.

Those two parts of the 1975 pact have often appeared at odds with one another, Lennane said. Developing nations want more emphasis placed on peaceful uses of disease materials for research activities that can increase preparedness against natural epidemics, as well as gird their response capacity in the eventuality of a biological attack.

Meanwhile, Western countries believe the focus should be on the convention's security objectives, intended to prevent the spread of biowarfare agents and technology, he told Global Security Newswire.

This year's topics "will bring people together," Lennane predicted, because countries have begun to realize that peaceful capacity building for disease surveillance and research can also be used to protect against biological weapons.

"If a biological weapon is used, the first line of defense is being able to detect it and assess the situation quickly. At the same time, having that capacity has applications for ordinary public health and completely peaceful reasons," said Lennane, whose unit is composed of three people and housed within the U.N. Disarmament Affairs Office in Geneva.

The Biological Weapons Convention prohibits the development, production and stockpiling of weaponized disease agents such as anthrax, smallpox and plague.

Since 2007, the United Nations in Geneva has hosted two convention meetings every year, focusing annually on different topics. This year is the fourth and final installment of the process.

During each summer session, experts meet to present and hear presentations related to the chosen topic. During the winter conference, delegates from member nations evaluate the conclusions of the summer meeting and pass along recommendations, or "common understandings," to the convention's review conference.

The BWC review conferences, scheduled every five years, examine the implementation of the pact during the intervening period and can also recommend improvements to the nonproliferation regime. The 2011 summit will be the seventh such meeting.

Experts split on how participants would react to this year's topics.

The upcoming experts meeting could enable law enforcement and forensics experts to interact with public health officials on topics such as dealing with biological samples and coordinating responses to a suspicious event, Kavita Berger, associate program director at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy, said in a telephone interview this week

Lennane, though, is "overoptimistic when he suggests that discussing international assistance in response to biological weapons use will resolve any Article X issues," said Jonathan Tucker, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, referring to the section of the convention that deals with technology transfers and international cooperation in the peaceful uses of biotechnology. "It is unlikely that the more radical members of the Nonaligned Movement will view such assistance as adequate."

Countries such as China, India and Pakistan, seeking additional avenues of economic development, have consistently pressed BWC members to be more forthcoming in sharing their biotechnology, he said.

"Since biotechnology is inherently dual-use, there are some dilemmas associated with transferring it, particularly to countries suspected of pursuing illicit biowarfare programs," Tucker told GSN. "Article 3 of the BWC prohibits assisting other countries to acquire biological weapons and transferring dual-use technology would be a form of assistance."

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Drill Tests Law Enforcement's Ability to Respond to Nuclear Threat

By Jill R. Aitoro
Nextgov.com

WASHINGTON -- The National Nuclear Security Administration is turning to technology to help train law enforcement officials on how to respond to terrorist threats involving hazardous materials.

During a tabletop exercise last week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, NNSA showed state and local law enforcement officials PowerPoint presentations and videos that staged fictitious threat scenarios involving terrorists attempting to steal high-activity radiological and nuclear materials from laboratories at the university. Such materials could be used in radiological dispersal devices, which are more commonly known as dirty bombs. The law enforcement officials and faculty and staff from MIT walked through the steps they would take to respond to such an event. Forty participants took part in the exercise, while another 160 people observed.

"The tabletop is the culmination of multiple efforts we're doing domestically to help secure high-activity radiological and nuclear materials at civilian sites," said Kenneth Sheely, deputy director of NNSA's Global Threat Reduction Initiative. "We simulate an event, running through the evolution of alarms that would go off and the procedures [officials on-site and off-site] would need to take to respond in the case of an actual event."

Specifically, the tabletop exercise tests law enforcement's response to alarms a remote-monitoring system sends over the Internet when it detects critical threats involving hazardous materials. Signals to law enforcement officers are encrypted to ensure terrorists can't hack the system either from inside or outside the facility and, for example, prevent alarms from sounding during an attempted theft. The monitoring system also sends a periodic statement to confirm it's up and running.

"This is a sophisticated system in a box that integrates multiple sensors and prioritizes alarms to on-site and off-site monitoring centers to ensure an appropriate response," said Ioanna Iliopulos, director of GTRI's Office of North and South America. So, law enforcement might not be notified when someone enters a facility, but would be alerted if sensors detected tampering with a container of hazardous materials or found elevated levels of radiation in the room.

"Many medical and research facilities allow students to do important research at all hours, and they have authorized access to facilities that house these radiological devices," Iliopulos added. "If I'm a student that has gone rogue, I may not set off any access control alarms, but I'd still have a hard time spoofing the system with all of the additional detection systems on the device itself."

For security reasons, NNSA couldn't comment on whether a legitimate radiological or nuclear threat ever has been detected at either a government or civilian site.

NNSA, in partnership with the FBI, has conducted the tabletop exercises and used the remote-monitoring system at government facilities for nearly one decade, and extended the program to civilian sites during the past two years. While hospitals and universities often maintain hazardous materials on-site for research and medical purposes, Sheely noted, they rarely have armed guards who are properly trained to respond to a threat. This makes partnership with local law enforcement crucial.

"In any facility, whether civilian or military, you need to have a balanced security approach to protect not only against those attacking from outside, but those inside who are more knowledgeable of procedures," Sheely said.