Snippets: The federal government has already deployed new detection machines that can scan citizens without their knowledge from as far as 50 feet away and "read" their personal documents such as passports or driver's licenses.
The RFIDs are so sensitive that, even before a vehicle pulls up at a border checkpoint, agents already will have on their computer screen the personal data of the passengers, including each person's name, date of birth, nationality, passport or ID number, and even a digitized photo.
Panel rules jail stabbing constituted terrorism
A reputed former leader of Al Qaeda who is serving 32 years in prison for stabbing a jail guard in 2000 must be resentenced, a federal appeals panel in Manhattan ruled on Tuesday, because a judge wrongly concluded that the man’s crime did not meet the legal standard for terrorism.
Federal prosecutors, who argued that the attack met the standard for terrorism, had sought a life sentence for the defendant, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim. Officials have described him as a founder of Al Qaeda and a former top aide to Osama bin Laden.
Terrorism suspects arrested in Italy
Two Moroccan factory workers living in the Milan suburbs were arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of plotting to carry out bomb attacks on the outskirts of Italy's financial capital.
Rachid Ilhami, 31, and Abdelkader Ghafir, 42, both married with children, had frequented an Islamic cultural centre in the town of Macherio, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi owns a home. They had been grooming recruits there, police said.
Possible targets included the parking lots of a bar and a supermarket, a police barracks and an immigration office, according to police, who had been investigating the pair since March 2007.
Captured gunman sold into terrorism by his father
The sole Mumbai gunman to have been captured alive claims that his father introduced him to the terrorist faction suspected to be behind the terror attacks last week in exchange for cash.
Azam Amir Kasab, 21, believed to be from Pakistan, said that members of his family would be killed because he was ordered not to be taken alive. “Spread terror and your family will be looked after,” he was told, according to a leaked account of his interrogation.
Thanks for the ping MamaD. I hope they throw the book at Mamdouh.