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Monday, June 30th Morning Roundup - Featured News and Public Events

From The Belfast Telegraph, on aviation preclearance:

A deal has been agreed to allow air passengers travelling from Shannon to the US to pass through all the necessary security inspections in this country.

Until now, immigration clearance has only been given on arrival in America.

The final touches were agreed between the Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey and the US Secretary for Homeland Security Janet Napolitano today.

When the legislation is enacted, Ireland will be the first country in Europe granted a pre-clearance deal from the US.

From the Financial Times:

The Obama administration has junked the term "global war on terror" because it does not describe properly the nature of the terrorist threat to the US, according to Janet Napolitano, secretary for homeland security.

"One of the reasons the nomenclature is not used is that 'war' carries with it a
relationship to nation states in conflict with each other and of course terrorism is not necessarily derived from the nation state relationship," she told the Financial Times. "In some respects 'war' is too limiting."

Ms Napolitano's comments were the clearest acknowledgement by an Obama official of a widely observed change in language. In March, the White House denied reports that an internal memo had been issued banning the term. But Mr Obama has studiously avoided the phrase, which officials see as legally troublesome and politically counterproductive.

From The Wall Street Journal, on a new Secret Service task force:

The U.S. Secret Service plans to unveil Tuesday plans for a pan-European task force charged with preventing identity theft, computer hacking and other computer-based crime.

The unit will be based in Rome, teaming up with an Italian anti-cyber-crime police unit and the Italian post office Poste Italiane SpA, which has developed software that can track electronic payments as it moves beyond traditional mail delivery.

The European Electronic Crime Task Force's main job will group together the cyber-crime efforts of the European Union nations and the U.S., bolstering defenses against computer attacks on embassies and other government sites that host sensitive computer systems such as air-traffic control. It will also monitor computer networks for threats, as well as deal with attacks once they happen.

"The transnational nature of cyber
attacks requires international collaboration and expertise, as exemplified by
this joint professional partnership," said Robert Gombar, a special agent in
charge of the Secret Service's Rome field office, which coordinates its
activities in southern Europe and the Mediterranean.
Under the terms of the
agreement, the new task force will monitor computer networks across Europe using
software designed by Poste Italiane. The software could comb through money
transfers performed over the Internet for suspicious signs, such as an account
being opened by the same person in several different places, according to Poste
Italiane Chief Executive Massimo Sarmi.

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