Morning Security Brief: Terrorist Financing, Immigration Database, Nuclear Detection, Jihadi Myths, & Airport Security

♦ The European Union and the United States have agreed on terms to allow the United States to use European bank data for counterterrorism  purposes, but only after liberal EU parliament members received stronger privacy guarantees. "Under a five-year agreement signed Monday by the European Council, the E.U.'s governing body, U.S. officials can request European financial data relevant to a specific terrorist investigation if they substantiate the need for the data," The Washington Post reports. "The European Parliament is expected to approve the deal by a comfortable margin when it votes on it next week, lawmakers said." The United States, however, can only retain the data for 5 years, must correct inaccurate data, and must grant redress if someone's financial or personal information is abused.

♦ Florida jails have been linked up to a federal database to help determine whether suspects are citizens or foreign nationals. "Michael W. Meade, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office director in Miami, announced Tuesday that booking centers in all 67 Florida counties are now linked to ICE's biometric databases for quicker identification of immigration records," reports The Miami Herald. Proponents of the program say the database is a big advance. "In pre-Homeland Security days, many booked in local jails escaped immigration detection because computers generally were not linked to immigration computers. Under Secure Communities, booking centers can submit a suspect's digitized fingerprints to a Homeland Security database, which then matches the fingerprints to immigration records." If the suspect is identified as an illegal alien, then the deportation process begins.

♦ The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office has failed to create a multiagency "global nuclear detection architecture" to stop radioactive materials that could be used in a bomb from getting into the United States. "Instead of formulating a plan, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, part of DHS, spent more than $200 million on an ill-fated project to develop and deploy thousands of new high-tech detectors for screening vehicles and cargo at ports, according to the GAO," reports The Washington Post." In February, following one setback after another, officials abandoned full-scale deployment of the machines."

♦ New York Time's online columnist Robert Wright argues that American foreign policy makers should listen closely to Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad's guilty plea last week because it shows the distinction between defensive jihad and offensive jihad. "In fact, at a time when just about everyone admits that our strategy in Afghanistan isn’t working, Shahzad brings refreshing news: maybe America can win the war on terrorism without winning the war in Afghanistan," he writes.

♦ Former and current federal aviation security personnel have taken to the big screen to take a critical look at airport security. The film "Please Remove Your Shoes," reports The Washington Post, "uses the experiences of mostly former employees of the Federal Air Marshals, Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration to argue that FAA officials frequently turned a blind eye to significant security threats in the years before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.