Lone Wolf Terrorism (25 page)

Fixing this loophole in the airport security system is critical, since the AQAP package bombs had been placed on passenger jets as cargo during the first legs of their journeys.
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A lone wolf could just as easily have constructed a PETN bomb and succeeded where AQAP failed. The AQAP bomb was discovered only because Saudi intelligence had information that the terrorist group was planning such an attack. Such intelligence is unlikely to be available to uncover a lone wolf plot, making the screening of cargo that much more significant. The single-view x-ray machines, which is the technology used at a large number of cargo warehouses around the world, lacks the resolution necessary to thoroughly inspect the contents of packages. New-generation multiview x-ray machines and explosive-trace-detection devices, which the British did not have at the time they inspected
the package bomb, have a better chance of finding explosives such as PETN, but they are not used for all cargo flights.
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Even if a lone wolf brings down a cargo flight rather than a passenger flight, there will still be casualties and worldwide reaction. Continuing to improve airline security measures for cargo is therefore an important preventive measure for potential lone wolf terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, following the Unabomber attacks, the USPS made detecting letter and package bombs a top priority. However, due to the volume of mail sent daily, it was not feasible to screen all letters and packages for explosives. Since letter and package bombs are intended to kill or injure the recipient, it is the latter who has to play one of the key roles in preventing these attacks from being successful. This includes following the precautions noted above (being on the alert for letters or packages that have excessive postage, are hand-addressed with possible misspellings, contain oily stains, and so on). Letter and package bombs can also be intercepted by the alert mail carrier or other postal employees. For example, in June 2007, a mail carrier in Missouri found a suspicious package in a collection box addressed to the West Plains, Missouri, police. The Missouri State Highway Patrol's bomb squad x-rayed the package and discovered a pipe bomb inside. After rendering it safe, they sent the components to the US Postal Inspection Service's forensic laboratory in Dulles, Virginia, where it was traced to purchases made at a retail store. Copies of a surveillance photo and a reward poster were distributed to the media, and the suspect, Donald Wayne Schamber, was arrested shortly afterward. Schamber, who pled guilty and was sentenced in May 2008 to ten years in prison, told postal inspectors that he was trying to frame his ex-wife's husband as the mailer of the pipe bomb.
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Corporations and other large businesses that may be targets of lone wolves can also take preventive measures by utilizing various mail-screening technologies that are available. These range from low-cost desktop electronic devices that can automatically detect improvised explosive devices in letters and packages to more complex, conveyorized x-ray screening systems that are used in the aviation industry.
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While preventive measures can work with respect to letter and package bombs, it is more difficult when it comes to detecting biological agents. Bruce Ivins opened the eyes of the security world with his successful anthrax letter attacks in 2001. Now, in addition to worrying about package bombs, postal services, government agencies, and the public everywhere had to be concerned that lone wolves and others would be sending deadly biological agents through the mail. Most, if not all, deadly biological agents, however, cannot be detected until
after
they have been released into the environment. That is why there has been a major effort in the United States and elsewhere to improve the response time to a potential bioterrorist attack. Devices that can measure if anthrax, ricin, or any other biological agent has been released are important for providing early warning that an attack is underway. Accurate diagnosis and speedy treatment of victims can save many lives.

Among the devices utilized by the USPS following the anthrax letter attacks is the Biological Detection System, which is set up to screen the air above mail processing machines as an early warning sign that a biological agent has been released.
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The US government has also deployed air monitors in thirty major cities, covering approximately 80 percent of the US population, to test for the presence of biological warfare agents.
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However, until the day comes when detection devices are developed (if possible) that can accurately detect biological agents before they are released into the environment, terrorists, including lone wolves, will still have a major advantage over security systems everywhere.
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Expansion of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) in Public Settings

Nobody likes being watched. Yet the price for security against terrorism requires a little watching. How much, though, is always open to debate. Since the 9/11 attacks, the number of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras that monitor your every move in public settings has skyrocketed around the world. Britain, the United States,
China, and India are just a few of the countries that are utilizing CCTV to prevent crime, terrorism, and other illegal activities. In Britain alone, which is considered the CCTV capital of the world due to the prevalence of these cameras, it is estimated that there are nearly two million CCTV cameras, with the average Londoner being caught on camera approximately three hundred times each day.
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Yet, in the case of Britain at least, CCTV has not been proven to have reduced crime or been responsible for catching a single terrorist before she or he went into action. Because of this, many observers have questioned its value. “CCTV leads to massive expense and minimum effectiveness,” said David Davis, a British member of Parliament. “It creates a huge intrusion on privacy, yet provides little or no improvement in security.”
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The CCTV cameras have, however, been effective in tracking down lone wolves and other terrorists after an incident and therefore preventing these individuals from striking again. One of the earliest examples occurred in April 1999, when David Copeland (mentioned in
chapter 1
), a British neo-Nazi who became known as the “London Nailbomber,” embarked upon a thirteen-day bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 139 others. His target was the black, Asian, and gay communities of London. Copeland planted homemade nail bombs in public locations over three successive weekends. The first bomb exploded outside a supermarket in Brixton, South London, a district with a large black and minority ethnic population. The second bomb detonated in Brick Lane, East London, an area with a large South Asian community. The third bomb went off in a pub in Soho, Central London, which was frequented by the gay community.
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After the first bombing, the authorities viewed more than one thousand CCTV videotapes of the area, which contained approximately twenty-six thousand hours of footage. Since the police had been able to recover a black sports bag that had contained the bomb, they looked on the videotapes for people carrying similar bags. They eventually saw images of a man carrying such a bag, and he became
their prime suspect. After releasing the CCTV images to the media, the police received hundreds of calls and other information from the public. Their best lead came from one of Copeland's coworkers (an engineer who had worked with him on the London Underground), who recognized him from the released CCTV images.
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But before the police could go to his home to arrest him, Copeland struck again with the Soho bombing. “I was devastated because we'd released the images…and we were actively following lots of information that had come through,” said Detective Chief Inspector Maureen Boyle. “We'd not succeeded in arresting…him before he committed his next offence.”
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The arrest, however, did help prevent additional attacks, since Copeland confessed that he had three more multicultural areas in London on his list of future targets.
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CCTV cameras were also used in the aftermath of the July 2005 London bombings to identify the four suicide terrorists responsible for the attacks in the subway that killed fifty-two people and injured seven hundred others. Another example of effective CCTV use occurred during the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed more than 160 people. CCTV cameras were able to record the terrorists' movements during the shooting spree, which aided in the investigation of the incident. During riots in London and other cities in August 2011, British authorities posted CCTV images of looters and others, leading to information from the public that allowed them to make several arrests. And it wasn't just facial images that the British authorities used in their investigations. Since many of the rioters were aware that there were cameras watching, they hid their faces with scarves, bandannas, and hooded sweatshirts. But the CCTV cameras weren't fooled. “We can identify people on how they walk, their height, their clothes, shoes—all manner of things,” noted Martin Lazell, chairman of the Public CCTV Managers Association, a body that represents council-run CCTV networks throughout Britain. “People recognized people by what they wear and often, despite having full wardrobes, we tend to wear the same clothes most of the time. These people won't be going home and burning their
jeans, trainers, jackets, or coats so they can be identified and placed in an area.”
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The CCTV system also allows for tracing the earlier movements of suspects, by following them back in time to a period when their face was not hidden or where they might have gotten off a train, bus, or car, thereby yielding more clues as to where they live and other vital information.

CCTV systems, however, have to be more than just an investigative tool if they are to be of value for identifying lone wolves or any type of terrorist
before
such an individual acts. One factor that plays into the hands of police, intelligence agencies, and others whose job it is to protect against terrorism is the need for some lone wolves, just like other terrorists, to conduct onsite surveillance of potential targets. The use of the Internet for virtual surveillance has somewhat reduced the need for the physical inspection of targets. Still, terrorists usually do not just go off on a mission without some previous scouting of whom or what they are going to attack. This makes lone wolves vulnerable to detection by CCTV before they strike. And since they do not have others to assist them in the surveillance, lone wolves can become even more susceptible to discovery than “professional” terrorists. As one security expert noted: “A person unskilled in the art of surveillance, especially one who is mentally disturbed, will frequently commit many errors of demeanor. Thus, their odd behavior and crude surveillance technique—they frequently stalk and lurk—make them easy to pick out.”
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For example, Yigal Amir lurked in a parking lot prior to assassinating Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Volkert van der Graaf hid for two hours in the bushes outside a building before killing Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. And Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (who changed his name from Carlos Bledsoe) had cased a Little Rock, Arkansas, military recruiting center before opening fire on two soldiers standing in front of the building, killing one and injuring the other in June 2009.
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As CCTV technology advances, there will be an even greater potential for these systems to prevent some lone wolf attacks. Imagine cameras that can “think” for themselves and automatically notify
authorities that something “suspicious” is occurring at some point in a city, airport, train station, or other location? That is exactly what the next generation of CCTV technology is aiming for. It is known as “smart CCTV,” or “video content analysis.” The idea behind this is to solve the problem of there being too much video captured by CCTV for one person or even a group of people to view and interpret in a timely manner. Computer technology is therefore being developed that can recognize “suspicious” behavior in public places and then instantly send the information to a control room, where the CCTV controllers can decide what to do, such as notify nearby police about the situation.
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The problem, naturally, is how to define “suspicious” behavior. (We will see in the next section how advances in biometrics are attempting to solve that problem). Somebody who is just nervous, but not a threat, may still be spotted by the CCTV. The key is to teach the CCTV system what to look for. The system can learn what is and what is not normal behavior by analyzing and modeling behavior patterns. For example, a system might be able to locate people who are stopping in unusual places, wandering around a specific area, or leaving a bag behind.
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One system that is being developed is based on a “surveillance profile” that is built into the CCTV cameras. It measures “various physical parameters such as size, shape, speed, time, movement, density, and location of a particular scene and [compares] these to a preselectable surveillance profile. If any parameters are exceeded, the cameras then spring into action and follow closely such unusual occurrences.”
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Some camera systems are being developed in the hopes that they will be able to identify an individual who may be hiding a bomb under his or her clothes. The camera software would detect the bomb by assessing the way the individual walks or by focusing on tiny sensors that may be able to detect chemicals that were used to make the improvised explosive devices.
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The US military used video-stream sources to identify possible terrorists during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We [would] look at those videos,” said a retired
Department of Defense intelligence analyst who did not want to be identified. “[One of the factors would be] the way they're dressed. They may be wearing a big outfit, and if we find that it looks too suspicious, we analyze the data a little bit further. The first thing we do is the facial recognition to see if that particular individual is in any of our databases so we can identify who that individual is. If he is not in our database, we may search someplace else to try to come up with a match.” If the individual turns out to be somebody new who is not in any database, then that person will be given an identification code. “If we see them again in another video stream, then at least we'll be able to track it,” said the former intelligence analyst.
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