Morning Security Brief: Witness Ties ISI to Mumbai Attacks, Risk-Based HLS Funding, Stowaway Threat, U.K. Police Abuse?, & More

♦ The U.S. government's star witness in a terrorism trial connected to the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks says Pakistan's intelligence service was deeply involved in the plot. "In testimony that prosecutors said offered a 'rare look' inside a major terrorist plot, David C. Headley said he had trained with the Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba between 2002 and 2005 in preparation for scouting locations to attack in India. In 2006, Mr. Headley said, he met a member of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency who offered to provide financial support for that surveillance," reports The New York Times. "In testimony so painstaking that the judge and some jurors seemed to nod off at the mundane details of a plot that left 163 people dead, Mr. Headley described how he changed his name and used his American passport to portray himself alternately as a tourist or a businessman, concealing his Muslim faith and his Pakistani roots so he could travel easily across borders. He said he provided hours of video of potential targets in Mumbai to his handlers in both ISI and Lashkar."

♦ Rep. Peter King wants homeland security funds distributed based on risk not pork-barrel politics. Homeland security funding “should be risk-based, and right now there are 64 different cities that get Homeland Security funding,” King told POLITICO in an interview. “Now, theoretically, anybody could be attacked. But in a time when budgets are being cut and the money is just not there, we have to focus on the areas that are the prime targets, and we can’t afford to waste the money." King says New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Port of Houston, and Los Angeles are the big five areas that should receive more homeland security funds.

♦  An incident from January brings more attention on how to prevent stowaways from boarding various conveyances. "Asem Haroon, 26, was arrested Jan. 31 in an empty Port Newark warehouse near oil refineries and other vital facilities, the law enforcement sources said," reports UPI. "Haroon said he was an Iraqi who had hidden on an Italian freighter but he turned out to be an Egyptian who was once denied a visa to enter the United States after authorities said he had fought against U.S. forces in Fallujah, Iraq."

♦ The Guardian reports that U.K. police have tried to coerce innocent Muslims into becoming spies within their communities by using random stop and search powers. "There is no independent evidence to support the claims that police and MI5 are abusing schedule 7 stop and search powers by trying to turn innocent people into informers.But there is a consistency of testimony from those who have been stopped and pressured to inform," according to the Guardian. "Solicitor Alastair Lyon, who has advised dozens affected by schedule 7, said: 'This is a power which has sowed fear in the most vulnerable of our communities. The security services and special branch are operating in an unregulated and unchecked way without legal observers, to put pressure on people.'"

♦ The United States wants to build a closer security relationship with India. "Keen to choke off the life line of terror groups, the US will open a dialogue with India for evolving more effective steps for cyber security and monitor illicit financial transactions, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said," according to The Economic Times. "On the eve of her first-ever official visit to India, Napolitano said illegal smuggling of cash, financial fraud, counterfeiting, illicit movement of money are some of the major items on the agenda as it pertained to terrorism."