Morning Security Brief: Storms Devastate South, Cyberterrorism Rhetoric, Too Much Oversight Hurting DHS?, U.K. Campus Extremism

 
 
♦ Killer storms ravaged the South yesterday evening. "The death toll in five Southern states rose sharply Thursday morning to nearly 200 after devastating storms ripped through the region, spawning a deadly tornado in downtown Tuscaloosa, Ala., and leaving a trail of flattened homes and buildings in an area already battered by storms," reports The New York Times. "States of emergency have been declared from Alabama to Virginia, and President Obama said in a statement that the federal government had pledged its assistance."
 
♦ Information Week Government writes that George Mason University's Mercatus Center has released a new report that questions the "alarmist rhetoric" surrounding the potential for "catastrophic cyber threats," noting that it has strong parallels with the inflated threats used to justify the lead-in to the Iraq War. The report, titled Loving the Cyber Bomb, was released Wednesday by the center, which is a nonprofit think tank that promotes free-market and deregulation policies.

♦ The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is hamstrung by too much oversight, reports NorthJersey.com. "Rival committees battle over power, and sometimes provide conflicting instructions as division directors and undersecretaries scurry around Capitol Hill to hearings and briefings," the article states. "Every homeland security secretary since the department was created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks has urged Congress to cut a bureaucracy that gives more than 100 House and Senate committees and subcommittees authority over pieces of the agency."
 
♦ The BBC reports that a study by a group of British MPs, the All-Party Parlimentary Group on Homeland Security, says that extremism is spreading on university campuses, threatening the United Kingdom's security. The MPs state that there are "grave concerns" that radicalization is occurring and that it should be dealt with immediately. British universities are responding that the MPs have no evidence to back up their claims.