NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that Larry Austin, a former Florida Highway Patrol commander, has been named federal security director for Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans.
“Larry’s hands-on experience in law enforcement and his demonstrated ability to lead will be an asset to TSA’s operations in New Orleans,” Lee Kair, TSA assistant administrator for security operations, was quoted as saying.

The defense in the Ft. Dix terrorism trial is punching some holes in the government case. The big question is: Will the government’s case hold up?

wcbstv.com

By George Anastasia
PHILADELPHIA Inquirer
CAMDEN, N.J.–The chief FBI informant in the Fort Dix terrorism investigation said yesterday that at least one of the defendants in the case considered him “the brains” and the leader of the plot to attack the military complex.
And, in a comment that seemed to support the defense theory of the case, he said that two other defendants, brothers Dritan and Shain Duka, “wanted nothing to do with the matter” when he first alluded to it during a fishing trip in August 2006.
By that point, according to earlier testimony and evidence, informant Mahmoud Omar, 39, had held several in-depth discussions with defendant Mohamad Shnewer, 23, about the plan and had been assured by Shnewer that the Dukas, including a third brother, Eljvir, were committed.
“I was surprised of [the Dukas’] lack of knowledge of anything we had discussed,” Omar said in recounting the reaction of Dritan and Shain Duka to comments he made during the fishing trip.
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See Daily Transcript Of The Trial and Videos

John Torres/ice photo

By Chris Battle
Security DeBrief
WASHINGTON — John Torres, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Operations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is expected to take the helm after yesterday’s announcement that Assistant Secretary Julie Myers is stepping down.
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Also Read 10 Most Important Jobs to be Filled at the Dept. of Homeland Security (Security DeBrief)

Hiding money in Swiss banks may not be what it’s cracked up to be, or for that matter, be worth the risk.

By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has chipped new holes in the secrecy of Swiss bank accounts, obtaining the names of American clients of the banking giant UBS as part of an investigation into the use of foreign banks to evade taxes.
In an unusual move, the Swiss have turned over information on about 70 UBS clients for use by Justice Department investigators, a source close to the case said.
The Swiss were responding to a Justice Department request for information on Americans who held “undeclared” accounts at UBS in Switzerland — accounts that they had not revealed to the Internal Revenue Service, the source said.
Meanwhile, criminal investigators have obtained the names of an additional 30 or so American holders of undeclared UBS accounts from other parties, and people with inside knowledge of the bank have been giving federal prosecutors information about UBS’s conduct, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
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For the second time in less than a week we learn that the FBI kept tabs on a famous writer. Last week, the FBI released files on the late journalist David Halberstam. Now the Washington Post has obtained files on the late Norman Mailer. And last month, the FBI released its files on the late investigative columnist Jack Anderson who was despised by J. Edgar Hoover.

Norman Mailer

By Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — In the summer of 1962, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was scanning his morning Washington Post when an item on Page A15 caught his eye. Norman Mailer’s most recent article in Esquire magazine had mocked Jacqueline Kennedy for, among other things, being excessively soft-spoken for a first lady.
Hoover scribbled a note: “Let me have memo on Norman Mailer.”
Over the next 15 years, FBI agents closely tracked the grand and mundane aspects of the acclaimed novelist’s life, according to previously confidential government files. Agents questioned his friends, scoured his passport file, thumbed through his best-selling books and circulated his photo among informants. They kept records on his appearances at writers’ conferences, talk shows and peace rallies.
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Texas is probably not the first place someone might look for a former IRA militant. But here you have it.

By Christopher Sherman
Associated Press Writer
RAYMONDVILLE, Tex.(AP) –A former IRA militant and escaped political prisoner who has lived in immigration limbo for 25 years in California may see it all unravel from inside a South Texas federal detention center.
Pol Brennan, convicted member of the Irish Republican Army and escapee from a notorious prison outside Belfast, was nabbed with an expired work permit in South Texas in January. He has been detained ever since, awaiting a hearing Wednesday and Thursday on whether he’ll finally earn legal residency or be deported to Northern Ireland, where his wife says he’ll face retaliation.
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