Morning Security Brief: Military Contractors, Surveillance Cameras, Privacy, Terror Gun Gap, & Counter-radicalization

♦ A U.S. Senator wants to know how contractors will use military hardware the State Department has requested from the Pentagon to protect diplomatic staff as troops withdraw from Iraq. "Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., wants to know whether the private sector will be doing more than upkeep. In a letter sent Wednesday to Patrick Kennedy, the State Department's undersecretary for management, McCaskill asks whether contractors will be at the controls of the aircraft and vehicles," reports The Associated Press. "She also asks what measures the department will put in place to ensure that the gear, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, is not misused by hired hands."

♦ A city program in the United Kingdom surreptitiously put up 216 overt and covert cameras throughout Birmingham causing outrage among local Muslim communities. In response, the Safer Birmingham Partnerships says it will put plastic bags over many of the cameras excluding the covert ones.  "In terms of reassurance it's going to take a lot more than plastic bags," a local Respect Party councilor told BBC News. "The residents have lost faith with the authorities for their sneaky handling of the way they went about this and will not be reassured until they have been told the locations of the hidden cameras too."

♦ The European Commission on Tuesday made proposals to regulate how authorities use personal information to track terrorist financing and develop common European standards for the use of full body scanners to protect passenger health and privacy. "The move by the European Parliament was partly a bid to assert new powers to decide issues concerning European security jointly with E.U. governments," reports The New York Times. "But it also reflected deepening unease in Europe over the way personal data are used by companies and governments."

♦ Dr. Louis Klarevas of New York University's Center for Global Affairs argues in The New Republic that the United States close the "terror gun gap," whereby a person on the terrorist watch list can still purchase firearms. "So what's to be done?" writes Klarevas.  "It’s simple. Just as there is a no-fly list that keeps suspected terrorists from boarding planes, Congress should pass legislation that creates a no-buy list to prevent suspected terrorists from purchasing guns."

♦ A letter sent to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano by four House Republicans worries that the United States's counter-radicalization policy could shift too far toward a community-policing direction. "We support the development of counter-radicalization policies that will protect our communities," Michael McCaul (R-TX), Peter King (R-NY), Sue Myrick (R-NC), and Frank Wolf (R-VA) wrote in the letter obtained by Fox News. "However, we are concerned about the development of policy that is based on poor research, flawed assumptions and insufficient inquiry. A flawed policy could ... worsen our radicalization problem."