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Today's Top Stories
1. Fast and Furious stemmed from a 'series of failures,' say auditors
2. PNNL looks at worker engagement to predict major accidents
3. DOJ aggressively pursues overturn of indefinite detention permanent injunction
4. DHS launches new nationwide training to counter violent extremism
5. Arctic sea ice at record low Also Noted: Feds block NC sheriff's access to ICE database; Intel official says al Qaeda link probed in Libya terrorist attack; and much more...  Follow @fiercegov on Twitter
More News From the FierceGovernment Network:
1. Cyber attacks subject to international law, says State Dept.
2. Agencies rarely use rehire retirees at full pay, finds GAO
3. THOMAS.gov reboots
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Today's Top News 1. Fast and Furious stemmed from a 'series of failures,' say auditors
 The Fast and Furious undercover operation that permitted guns bought in Arizona to be smuggled into Mexico was a result of a "series of misguided strategies, tactics, errors in judgment, and management failures," finds the Justice Department office of inspector general.
Those failures were mainly localized to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives headquarters and Phoenix division as well as the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona, auditors conclude in a lengthy report (.pdf). During the operation, which began in late 2009 and continued through early 2011, ATF agents identified more than 40 people believed to be connected to a gun-smuggling conspiracy for Mexican drug cartels that purchased more than 2,000 firearms for about $1.5 million in cash. ATF and U.S. Attorney's Office officials deferred moving against individual gun "straw purchasers" in a bid to build a larger case. But agents lost track of the guns, and two weapons bought by a known straw purchaser were found at the scene of Customs and Border Protection Agent Brian Terry's Dec. 14, 2010 murder. Attorney General Eric Holder did not learn about the operation until late January or early February 2011, auditors say. Holder's knowledge of the operation has been the subject of fevered speculation and allegations of a high-level cover-up. The House of Representatives in a partisan vote declared him to be in contempt of Congress in June for withholding investigation documents. "It is unfortunate that some were so quick to make baseless accusations before they possessed the facts about these operations--accusations that turned out to be without foundation and that have caused a great deal of unnecessary harm and confusion," Holder said in a Sept. 19 statement. Holder also said that as a result of the inspector general report, Kenneth Melson, former acting director at ATF, retired from federal service "effective immediately," and that Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein resigned. Weinstein, who approved Fast and Furious wiretaps, was in a position to identify the inappropriate tactics at work in the operation, auditors say. In his resignation letter (.pdf), Weinstein said his departure stems from political pressure. "It is virtually inevitable that someone must be singled out for blame, whether the facts support it or not," he said. "That is what the inspector general's report has done with regard to me here," he added. Auditors also call for the Justice Department to review the conduct of more than a dozen officials and determine whether discipline or other administrative action is appropriate. Fast and Furious was not the first ATF operation to permit gun smuggling to occur. Another, Operation Wide Receiver, occurred more than 3 years earlier and was headed by William Newell, the same ATF special agent in charge who oversaw Fast and Furious, auditors note. Newell "bore ultimate responsibility for the failures" of Fast and Furious, auditors say, although they also state that failures within ATF and the U.S. Attorney's Office "were systemic and not due to the acts of only a few individuals." In a statement, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has led the House investigation into the operation, said the audit "confirms findings by Congress' investigation of a near total disregard for public safety in Operation Fast and Furious." The committee is set to hold another hearing on it Oct. 20. For more:
- download the DOJ OIG report (.pdf) Related Articles:
Senators press Holder on Fast and Furious, guns in Mexico
Most guns used in Mexican crimes traced to U.S.
Mexico, U.S. need closer border cooperation, says DHS task force Read more about: attorney general, Operation Fast and Furious
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2. PNNL looks at worker engagement to predict major accidents
 To prevent major accidents, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is using a predictive model that considers employee dissatisfaction a key risk factor.
Two of the PNNL officials behind the effort, Christopher Larmey and Cindy Caldwell, discussed the model Sept. 18 at the Predictive Analytics World-Government conference in Washington, D.C. The idea stemmed from PNNL's past work with Gallup, which had done a survey that found a relationship between staff engagement and worker injury. PNNL's work in this area then evolved into a predictive model based in part on employee responses to surveys about their engagement and satisfaction with their jobs. The model also accounts for inherent hazards, such as working with explosives or radioactive materials, and historical data like past incidents, staff performance reviews and attrition rate. Caldwell, senior technical advisor in PNNL's environment, health, safety and security directorate, said PNNL has abundant data on past incidents. "We have a very healthy reporting culture within the laboratory," she said, and employees report incidents, most of which are low severity, every day. The model assesses risk at the workgroup level. As a pilot program, PNNL has taken its initial results and picked seven workgroups whose inherent hazards, engagement levels and histories suggest they're most at risk of a major accident. Larmey, who works in PNNL's assurance systems department, said the lab's human resources department is developing a model of what drives engagement and how to improve it. He also said the process has been as useful as the outcome. A variety of stakeholders were able to work together who otherwise wouldn't, and the process forced them to think differently about risk, Larmey said. In addition, PNNL tended to measure risk for programs or functional areas--but not at the workgroup level--until it developed this model, he added. Related Articles:
Predictive analytics faces skepticism in government
FPS still unable to assess risk at the facilities it protects
U.S. nuclear plants vulnerable to Fukushima-like disaster Read more about: Cindy Caldwell
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3. DOJ aggressively pursues overturn of indefinite detention permanent injunction
 The Justice Department won Sept. 18 an interim stay of the permanent injunction granted by a New York federal judge against a 2011 law permitting the indefinite military detention of suspected terrorists.
Judge Raymond Lohier of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said in the stay (.pdf) that a motions panel will on Sept. 28 consider a Justice motion to stay the ruling pending appeal. Justice lawyers seek to have overruled the Sept. 12 decision (.pdf) by Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York that section 1021 of the fiscal 2012 national defense authorization act (P.L. 112-81 [.pdf]) violates the First, Fifth and Fourteenth amendments. A lawsuit against the act's language was brought by a group of writers and activists that includes former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges. The section states that the military may detain without trial "until the end of hostilities" any person "who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States, or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces." In a Sept. 17 motion (.pdf), Justice says Forrest's decision was "unprecedented and exceeded the court's authority" and threatens to harm national security "by injecting added burdens and dangerous confusion into the conduct of military operations abroad during an active armed conflict." Forrest's permanent injunction is "at odds with the interpretation that has been given to the president's detention authority by two presidents, the D.C. circuit, and the Congress itself," government attorneys also say. Forrest had already blocked implementation of the law through a preliminary injunction in May. In her final ruling, Forrest says the government argument that the law is merely a reaffirmation of powers already granted to the president by the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (P.L 107-243) perpetuates an attempt by the law to make an ex post facto "fix" that provides the executive branch with broader detention authority than the Authorization for Use of Military Force gave, but which the federal government assumed regardless. The Authorization for Use of Military Force gave the president the power to use force against individuals who "planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons," whereas Section 1021 covers persons unconnected to 9/11 or to any battlefield, Forrest says. Plaintiffs in the suit argued that key phrases of the section--"associated forces," "substantially supported," and "directly supported"--are vague and so could subject them in the course of their reporting or activism to indefinite detention by the military. Justice attorneys chose not to explain those terms, Forrest says, preferring to instead argue that plaintiffs' fear of detention was unreasonable. "As a result of the Government's strategic trial choice, the Court is left with a one-sided evidentiary record. The Court will not--indeed, it cannot--'assume' what the Government's evidence would have been," Forrest says. For more:
- download Forrest's Sept. 12 opinion (.pdf)
- download DOJ's Sept. 17 motion (.pdf)
- download Lohier Sept. 18 stay order (.pdf) Related Articles:
Judge blocks military detention law
Obama issues waivers to mandatory military detention of al Qaeda terrorists Read more about: First Amendment
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4. DHS launches new nationwide training to counter violent extremism
 A new web portal will soon help train law enforcement officers to counter violent extremism, the Homeland Security Department's Scott McAllister said at a Sept. 19 Senate hearing.
McAllister, the deputy undersecretary for the state and local program office within DHS's intelligence and analysis office, testified before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and human rights. The portal, which law enforcement can access via the Homeland Security Information Network, launched Aug. 31 for a select group of law enforcement trainers. McAllister said it will be available to law enforcement trainers nationwide by the end of September. It contains training curricula, case studies, research and cultural competence instructions, he said. DHS is also holding a workshop in California at the end of the month to train trainers from every state on countering violent extremism. At the hearing, Daryl Johnson, a former DHS analyst, said DHS should follow the example of the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance, which provides state and local agencies training about the threat from the sovereign citizens' movement. DOJ, he said, "has done a remarkable job" with that program, which began in 2010 and could be expanded to include other forms of domestic extremism. Johnson was the senior domestic terrorism analyst in DHS's office of intelligence and analysis from 2004 to 2010 and authored a controversial 2009 report on right-wing extremism. He also said law enforcement should learn to do behavioral threat assessments in order to rely less on suspicious activity reports. He said the latter yield too many false positives. The federal government also has a shortage of analysts dedicated to domestic terrorism, he said. The FBI is the only agency that devotes multiple full-time resources to domestic terrorism, but as a law enforcement agency, Johnson said, it limits its domestic terrorism analysis to its particular cases. In an August article in Salon, Johnson said DHS used to have a team of analysts devoted to domestic terrorism, but they disbanded after the controversial 2009 report. He told the Senate panel that only one I&A analyst remains to oversee domestic extremism. For more:
- go to the hearing webpage (prepared testimonies and webcast available) Related Articles:
Fusion centers pose privacy and civil liberties risks, says The Constitution Project
New TSA supervisor training will address misconduct, public image
FBI releases hate crime 2010 data Read more about: training, Scott McAllister
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5. Arctic sea ice at record low
 This year's seasonal melt of Arctic sea ice reached its fullest extent Sept. 16 and is the lowest summer minimum recorded since the federal government began tracking coverage through satellites in 1979.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic sea ice dropped to 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles), and shrunk rapidly in the waning weeks of the summer--indicating that the much of the ice cover that did exist was thin. "We are now in uncharted territory," said NSIDC Director Mark Serreze in a statement. "While we've long known that as the planet warms up, changes would be seen first and be most pronounced in the Arctic, few of us were prepared for how rapidly the changes would actually occur." Warming in the Arctic will lead to more extreme weather, notes NSDIC lead scientist Ted Scambos. The Arctic until recently was dominated by multiyear ice, the center notes, meaning that the fact of seasonal ice and large areas now prone to completely melting away in summer is a new one. The six lowest seasonal minimum ice extents in the satellite record have all occurred in the last six years, the center also notes in a brief analysis. This year's minimum is nearly half that of the average from 1979 to 2000. In related Arctic news, Shell Oil announced earlier this month it will delay until next year penetrating into hydrocarbon zones in test wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. The company's spill containment vessel Arctic Challenger suffered damage to the containment dome during final tests. "We will begin as many wells, known as 'top holes,' as time remaining in this season allows," Shell said Sept. 17. 
For more:
- go to the NSIDC statement
- read the NSDIC brief analysis Read more about: Mark Serreze
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Also Noted > DHS report warned last week of call for 'burning the embassy down' in Cairo. Article (Fox News)
> Feds block NC sheriff's access to ICE database. Article (AP via San Fran Chronicle)
> Swiss nuke smugglers who aided CIA avoid more jail. Article (ABC News)
> Intel official says al Qaeda link probed in Libya terrorist attack. Article (The Hill)
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