Status Brief
History/Origins:
Developmental Milestones/Developments to Date:
Current Assessment/State of the Field:
Problems/Challenges:
Proposals:
2009
Wong, Edward, “China’s Tough Policy Seems to Slow Swine Flu,” NYT, A 1, Nov. 12, 2009.
- “Quarantines and medical detentions are among the aggressive measures that Chinese officials have taken to slow the transmission of H1N1.”
- “Local authorities canceled school classes at the slightest hint of the disease and ordered students and teachers to stay home.”
- “Now, Chinese and foreign health officials say that some of those contested measures — more easily adopted by an authoritarian state — may have helped slow the spread of the disease in the world’s most populous country.”
- “The United States Embassy in Beijing said that 2,046 American citizens had been quarantined by the end of October, with 215 testing positive for H1N1.”
- “But Mr. Feng and Dr. O’Leary also say that the social and financial cots of China’s tough measures will have to be evaluated to see whether they were worth the benefits.”
- “From the beginning, the W.H.O. has said that tightening borders would not keep the disease out, and that closing borders or automatically quarantining specific groups of travelers — as China did for a brief period with holders of Mexican passports — would have no benefit.”
- “The State Department implicitly criticized the Chinese policies by issusing travel warnings on the quarantine procedures.”
Quarantine, Flu, China, WHO, State Department, Mexico
Aitoro Jill R, “Los Alamos Lab Again Under Fire for Weak Computer Security”, 17 November 2009 Nextgov.com, Global Security Newswire Last checked February 24, 2011. http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20091117_6009.php
- “Numerous network vulnerabilities in several critical areas of the laboratory, which manages operations at nuclear facilities.”
- ‘“This weakness, increased risk exists that insiders with malicious intent could guess the passwords of other individuals and use them to gain inappropriate access to classified information.”’
- “In 2000, two pieces of removable media containing nuclear weapon designs used by the Energy Department were lost temporarily…”
- “In 1999, a scientist transferred classified information from Los Alamos computer systems onto unmarked discs, which he then removed from the laboratory.”
- “GAO recommended NNSA review federal cybersecurity staffing requirements at the Los Alamos office to determine if more personnel is needed.”
- “The lab also should develop a plan that details how cybersecurity improvements will be maintained and funded.”
- “October 2006, evidence obtained during a drug-related investigation… revealed that classified information saved on a thumb drive and some paper documents had been improperly removed from the laboratory.”
- ‘”[The lab] did not always manage passwords securely on the classified computer network..”’
2010
McNeill, Donald, G., “Transfers of Surplus Flu Vaccine Are Going Slowly to Countries That Need It,” NYT, A15, February 2, 2010.
- “There is now so much unused swine flu vaccine in the world that rich nations, including the United States, are trying to get rid of their surpluses.”
- “…95 countries that told the World Health Organization last year that tehy had no means of getting flu vaccine…”
- “… countries that can afford vaccines save themselves first and, when the worst has passed, transfer their leftovers to the poor, using the W.H.O. as a clearinghouse. …’it’s a very complex operation.'”
- “Each country must submit a plan proving it can store and refrigerate vaccine, give it to those who need it most, inject it safely and do medical follow-up. It must also sign letters exempting donors from legal liability, and the W.H.O. has to certify the vaccine as safe if the country has no regulatory agency.”
- “Bill Gates … dismissed flu vaccine shipments a ‘a pipe dream.’ ‘It’s not practical; they have no infrastructure to deliver it.’
- “At first , there was deep skepticism; 80 percent of French residents polled said they would refuse. But after a few deaths were reported, such huge lines formed that, in Lyon, the riot police were called.”
- “The chairman of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, Daniel Vasella, recently warned governments breaking their contracts might not be be first in line in the next pandemic. ‘Reliable partners will be treated preferentially,’ Mr. Vasella said.”
- “Canada recently lent Mexico five million doses because Mexico’s first shipments were not due to arrive until this month. Similar bilateral deals took place between Western and Eastern Europe, a W.H.O. spokesman said.”
- “The [U.S.] cancellation of 22 million doses out of 36 million ordered from CSL Ltd., an Australian manufacturer that fell behind on orders anyway…”
- “The [US] country also promised 25 million doses to the W.H.O. [and the rest will be stockpiled in bulk antigen form, i.e. a portion of which will not placed in viles.] an extra step that involves a separate payment.”
Vaccination, Flu, WHO, Pandemic, Poland, Canada, Mexico, France, Australia
Moloney, Anastasia, “Questions Raised Over Response To Influenza A Outbreak,” The Lancet, Vol. 373, No. 9675, pg. 1591, May 9, 2009.
- “In early April, analysts working at Veratect – a US biosurveillance consultancy – picked up a string of reports about unusual respiratory diseases in several states in Mexico, including a health alert in the state of Veracruz on April 6.”
- “WHO has also said it was monitoring the situation from April 10 on the basis of reports from Mexican authorities about unusual respiratory cases, and had immediately asked Mexican authorities to investigate. Health officials in Mexico reported back to WHO concluding there was no epidemic.”
- “On April 16, the death of a woman with diabetes from acute pneumonia in Oaxaca state prompted Mexican health authorities to alert PAHO about a possible epidemic brewing.”
- “WHO issued its first public response about the in[[flu]]enza A outbreak on April 24. That was 18 days after Mexican health officials first raised the alarm locally. By then, the virus had spread across Mexico’s borders to the USA. It was when the USA confirmed seven cases of influenza A (H1N1) on April 24 that international agencies started to respond quickly.”
- “So far, the exact source of the outbreak remains a mystery. Un-confirmed rumors point to La Gloria, a dusty town in the southern Mexican state of Veracruz, where it is believed that 5-year-old Edgar Hernandez became infected with the A (H1N1) virus in late March. Some local residents in La Gloria blame the nearby US-owned industrial pig farms for the outbreak of the disease.”
Biosurveillance, Flu, Mexico, WHO
Mckinley, James, “Lapses in Use of Border Documents“, 22 December 2010, New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/us/22border.html?ref=homelandsecuritydepartment Last Checked 20 February 2011.
- “A year and a half after the federal government strengthened rules on the documents needed to enter the country, millions of people are still being allowed to enter without passports or other hard-to-forge identification cards, a government audit has found.”
- “The inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security estimated this week that about 3.6 million people a year were still passing through customs without the required documents, and that about half of those were coming through the border crossings in Texas.”
- “Auditors found that hundreds of thousands of people were still being waved through by customs officers without being referred for a secondary inspection.”
- “Critics said the audit proved that the Obama administration had failed to fully carry out the stricter identification requirements mandated by Congress in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.”
- “If you are just letting them through without asking questions, then you are not implementing the program…. that’s a big security risk.”
2011
Wools, Daniel, “Spain: Student plotted attack on anti-Pope crowd,” AP, Chicago Sun-Times, August 17, 2011, http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/7118623-418/spain-student-plotted-attack-on-anti-pope-crowd.html last checked 8/17/11
- ”A young chemistry student working as a volunteer to prepare a visit by the Pope to Madrid has been arrested on suspicion of planning a gas attack targeting protesters opposed to the pontiff’s stay, officials said Wednesday.”
- “A police official said the suspect arrested in Madrid on Tuesday is a 24-year-old Mexican student specializing in organic chemistry. She would not say whether investigators believe the man was actually capable of carrying out a gas attack, and did not know if the man actually had chemicals for one.”
- “An official with the visit’s organizing committee said the Mexican was a volunteer working to help deal with the massive flow of people coming to Madrid.”
- “The Mexican Embassy identified the detainee as Jose Perez Bautista and said he was from Puebla state, near Mexico City.”
- “The court official — speaking on condition of anonymity in line with court policy — said the detainee had been making threats over the Internet against people in Spain opposed to the Pope’s visit, and police who’d been monitoring his online activity ultimately decided to arrest him as the visit approached.”
- “Police said in a statement released Tuesday night that officers who searched the detainee’s apartment in a wealthy district of Madrid seized an external hard-drive and two notebooks with chemical equations that had nothing to do with his studies. It said he tried to recruit people via the Internet to help him, and that a computer allegedly used for this purpose was among objects seized by police.”
- “The man had planned to attack anti-Pope protesters with ‘suffocating gases’ and other chemicals, the statement said. But it did not mention police having confiscated chemicals that could be used in an attack.”
- “The suspect was in Madrid studying with Spain’s top government research body, the Spanish National Research Council and his office there was searched, the police statement said. The council confirmed the arrest but gave no immediate details on the Mexican.”
- “Protesters complain the government is essentially spending taxpayer’s money on the visit by granting tax breaks to corporate sponsors and perks such as discount subway and bus tickets for pilgrims.”
Chemical, Scientist, Law Enforcement, Mexico
Shaun Waterman, “U.S. authorities probing alleged cyberattack plot by Venezuela, Iran” 13 December, 2011, Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/13/us-probing-alleged-cyberattack-plot-iran-venezuela/?page=1
- “U.S. officials are investigating reports that Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats in Mexico were involved in planned cyberattacks against U.S. targets, including nuclear power plants.”
- “Allegations about the cyberplot were aired last week in a documentary on the Spanish-language TV network Univision,…”
*“Which included secretly recorded footage of Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats being briefed on the planned attacks and promising to pass information to their governments.” - “A former computer instructor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico told Univision that he was recruited by a professor there in 2006 to organize a group of student hackers to carry out cyberattacks against the United States, initially at the behest of the Cuban Embassy.”
- “In an undercover sting, instructor Juan Carlos Munoz Ledo and several selected students infiltrated the hackers and secretly videotaped the Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats.”
- “Reports about Iran’s involvement in the suspected plot come amid the Islamic republic’s refusal to return a sophisticated, unmanned U.S. spy plane that crashed inside its borders this month.”
- “Iranian officials have laid claim to the drone, vowing to research it for its technology.”
- “In the secretly recorded meetings with the Venezuelan and Iranian diplomats, the hackers discussed possible targets, including the FBI, the CIA and the Pentagon, and nuclear facilities, both military and civilian.”
- “The hackers said they were seeking passwords to protected systems and sought support and funding from the diplomats.”
- ““Iran’s ambassador to Mexico at the time, Mohammed Hassan Ghadiri, is seen telling the students that it was “very important to know about what [the United States has] in mind, attack Iran or not.””
- ““The ambassador denied any involvement in a plot, telling Univision that the students’ sting was a provocation by “CIA agents.””
- ““A good ambassador with good intentions would have thrown [the hackers] out and contacted the Mexican authorities,…””
- “Students secretly taped her asking for more information about the planned cyberattacks and promising to pass it along to Mr. Chavez via his head of security, Gen. Alexis Lopez.”
- “The second secretary at the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico – is currently the Venezuelan consul in Miami.”
- “Officials at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington and the consulate in Miami were unavailable for comment Tuesday.”
- “Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi shrugged off President Obama’s request for the return of the unmanned spy plane and demanded an apology from the United States,…”