Morning Security Brief: TSA Leadership, Hate Online, DHS and the Security Market, and Islam and Terrorism

♦ The dean of the the Baltic Defence College in Estonia rips President Barack Obama for choosing two unqualified candidates to lead the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Writing online for the United Kingdom's Telegraph, James Corum, a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve, argues each of Obama's picks have social agendas. Former FBI agent Erroll Southers, Obama's first pick, wanted to unionize TSA officers, while retired US Army Major General Robert Harding, Obama's second and present pick, has made it clear that he believes in diversity-based hiring. "Given the dangerous failure of the TSA when it allowed a passenger on several terrorist watch lists to board and then try to blow up a passenger airplane, one might think that the government’s first priority would be to find a leader who might ensure that such failures won’t happen again," writes Corum. "But that is clearly not Obama’s priority."

♦ Hate groups have hit social networking sites like a virus, reports CNN.com. In a report released yesterday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Tolerance said it discovered "11,500 hate-affiliated Web pages, a 20 percent jump from last year's study." The  report found that social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace have become bastions of hate- and terrorism-related content. Other Web sites have become virtual how-to guides for bomb-making and computer hacking.

♦ The chief of commercialization for the Department of Homeland Security has a message for all those entrepreneurs thinking they can cash in on the $1.4 trillion homeland security market: You've got a lot of competition. Thomas Cellucci says every day his e-mail box is overflowing with 650 messages from companies claiming their product is unique, reports the San Diego Business Journal. The good news for entrepreneurs is that DHS wants to work with them. "The bad news is that with competition being stiffer than ever before, companies seeking business have to try harder to differentiate themselves from the crowded field, Cellucci said."

♦ A Islamic conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, over the weekend condemned terrorism and said it has no place in Islam, reports WPTV.com. "Our fight is not just with Osama bin Laden," Abu Abdis-Salaam Siddiq responded. "Our fight is with him, and anyone who holds these same ideologies as him. So for anyone who holds these ideologies, our fight is with them." The Islamic Center of Palm Beach will hold more events to educate people that true Islam and terrorism do not mix.