The Department of Justice announced that six men have been arrested and charged federally with conspiring to kidnap the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. According to a complaint, this group used operational security measures, including communicating by encrypted messaging platforms and used code words and phrases in an attempt to avoid detection by law enforcement.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao announced the launch of this year’s Stop. Trains Can’t. public education campaign, which will run through November 8. This national $6.6 million safety campaign will run on radio, digital, and social media, educating drivers not to gamble with their lives at rail grade crossings. The campaign will also target high-risk highway-railway crossings in Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, Indiana, Tennessee, and Texas.
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad F. Wolf released the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Homeland Threat Assessment (HTA). This first-of-its-kind report synthesizes threat information across DHS including intelligence and operational components.
The security office head, Crede Bailey, who is in charge of the White House security office contracted coronavirus last month and has been hospitalized since September.
Shannon Polson, author of “The Grit Factor: Courage, Resilience and Leadership in the Most Male Dominated Organization in the World” and the founder of The Grit Institute, gave the final keynote today at ICS West.
Presented by the SIA Women in Security Forum, titled, “Leading From Any Seat: Stories from the Cockpit & Lessons from the Grit Project,” featured Polson discussing courage, resilience and leadership, using examples from her personal life as one of the first women to fly the Apache helicopter in the U.S. Army and ideas outlined in her book.
Skyfire Consulting, a public safety UAS consulting group, announced the appointment of Michael Briant as Chief Security Officer (CSO) and Michael Rogers as Director of Public Safety. Both will team up and bring their experience to the Skyfire Academy, as they lead a robust training programs in the industry.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has launched a crowdsourcing challenge to spur new methods to ensure that important public safety data sets can be de-identified to protect individual privacy. The Differential Privacy Temporal Map Challenge includes a series of contests that will award a total of up to $276,000 for differential privacy solutions for complex data sets that include information on both time and location.
Charles Burns, head of global security and engagement at Uber, opened day two of ISC West with a keynote titled, “How Uber is Scaling Enterprise Risk Management at the Speed of Global Transportation.”
Brigham Young University (BYU) announced the formation of the new BYU Security Department, which will function separately from and alongside the BYU Police Department. The BYU Security Department will oversee on-campus security for buildings, such as the Museum of Art and the Harold B. Lee Library, as well as campus properties, such as the Motion Picture Studio and West Campus (former Provo High School). The department will also have responsibility for campus parking.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) joined with public and private-sector partners to conduct an interagency Tabletop Exercise (TTX) called “National Harbor 2020 – Recovery Phase Exercise,” September 29 – 30, to test the processes and plans required by regional government and business partners following a notional catastrophic incident at National Harbor outside of Washington, D.C.
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