Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), Member on the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence of the House Homeland Security Committee, released the following statement Friday after the U.S.-backed assassination of Al Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen: more ›

A United Airlines flight from SFO to Frankfurt, Germany needed to make an emergency stop in Chicago on Sunday. It seems that a crew member discovered a "sticker with a threatening message in a bathroom," so the plane was diverted as a precaution. After the plane was emptied and searched, wherein nothing dangerous uncovered, the flight then continued on to Germany. more ›

A man was escorted off a BART train this morning after loudly and wildly talking to passengers about weapons of mass destruction. Egads. "BART officers responded at about 9:20 a.m. to the 12th Street Oakland City Center station to a report of a man on a train who was scaring other passengers by saying 'you should be aware of weapons of mass destruction,' " reports the Examiner. A passenger on the train, Michelle King (@hulasista), posted the following on Twitter, "Of the many crazy people, there's one right now clapping loudly and talking loudly about WOMD. :| " Agreed. What with Osama bin Laden's death so fresh in people's memory, :| is right. more ›

The White House decided not to release "gruesome" photos of recently deceased al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. This comes after some debate about whether or not the Obama Administration should make the reportedly graphic images public. The photos, according to KRON 4 Morning News, are too gory and could be considered "inflammatory." more ›

Cashing in on the Osama death craze, local pet retailer Best in Show sent out the following mass email this morning. "Osama bin Laden is dead... but Osama Bone Laden is alive and well and living at Best in Show. And he's quickly becoming a collector's item along with out other Bony Babies dog toys." Adorable and timely, yes? The satirical plush play toy has already garnered rave reviews. "My little shih-tzu loves chewing on his Osama Bone Laden doll," said noted civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (Or not.) To get your own terrorist doll, visit bestinshowsf.com. more ›

An elderly man in Vacaville was injured by an explosive device hidden in his Sunday newspaper yesterday. When the man went to retrieve the paper from his lawn the hidden device exploded, alerting neighbors who found him "bloodied and lying on the lawn in front of his house," according to KGO-TV. The injured man was airlifted to the hospital in Davis while police evacuated the quiet-looking suburban neighborhood and cautioned others against picking up their own Sunday papers. No other explosives were found nearby. more ›

In part of a "long-running campaign to clear his son's name ", Frank Lindh, father of noted Taliban supporter John Walker Lindh, spoke to law students at University of San Francisco on Wednesday. According to Frank, his son, now 30, "spends his days studying ancient Islamic texts and is earning a liberal arts degree at Indiana University." more ›

Ever since John Tyner bravely asked a TSA agent not to sexually assault him -- the 31-year-old Oceanside software engineer now faces prosecution and $11,000 in civil penalties -- Jonathan Mann came up with this ditty about the much-feared Transportation Security Administration. more ›

You can't make this shit up, folks! Two specially trained sea lions and a dolphin succeeded in "identifying" a suspicious device attached to a concrete pier piling as part of a counter-terrorism exercise the other day near AT&T Park. The marine mammal team also successfully spotted two suspicious divers and used a leg cuff to "apprehend one of them." more ›

Speaking of attacks on public transportation, following the deadly subway bombing that rocked Moscow yesterday, Muni and BART have ramped up security. Dogs made their way through BART trains yesterday, "sniffing for anything out of the ordinary," and Muni police were on alerts (well, sort of) after suicide bombers "conducted brazen attacks a day earlier that killed 39 people" during rush hour attacks in Moscow. more ›

As we predicted this morning, San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón made his official apology today regarding statements he made about our local Middle Eastern ilk possibly parking a van outside the Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant and blowing it to smithereens. more ›

During a breakfast to celebrate a $412 million June-ballot bond to seismically retrofit a city buildings, San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón made a comment, according the SF Chronicle, about how the Hall of Justice at 850 Bryant "is susceptible not just to an earthquake, but also to members of the city's Middle Eastern community parking a van in front of it and blowing it up." more ›

Yushing Lui, a marketing director at Silicon Valley technology company Nvidia, is accused of making a bomb threat on an airplane at SFO. According to KTVU, Lui "allegedly told a flight attendant at San Francisco International Airport his jacket contained a bomb." He was then swifted escorted off the flight and arrested by authorities. Lui, however, denies "saying anything about a bomb when interrogated by authorities." According to other reports, Lui mentioned "something to the effect that he did not have a million dollars in his pocket." He is free on $10,000 bail, scheduled to go on trial March 8. [via KTVU] more ›

What's the latest weapon in the war on terror? Why, it's a full-body scanner that will soon be the mainstay of airport security checkpoints. The TSA is reviewing several pieces of technology for implementation in the near term which bounce "harmless radio waves" off the body in order to detect "anomalies" such as explosives in the underwear. The Today show's Ann Curry is particularly worried that everyone's genitals will be on display, but a shill for the full-body-scanner industry demonstrates that dangly parts and private areas are "pretty well masked." more ›

The big news this post-Xmas weekend was, of course, that little punk who boarded the plane in Nigeria and tried to blow up that Northwest/Delta flight landing in Detroit on Friday. He failed, of course, but fearing that there are more sleeper operatives out there trying to bring down planes using similar measures, the TSA has imposed a slew of "unpredictable" new restrictions and precautions, including (according to the passengers in the ABC 7 video that follows) not letting passengers out of their seats for the last hour of the flight, and not telling passengers when they would be landing. International travelers are being subjected to all kinds of new pat-downs and interrogations, and there were a number of reported incidents of suspicious persons being escorted off planes. more ›

We've always wondered whether BART was as likely a terror target as the New York City subway system, and always suspected that no, it isn't. But you may have noticed some stepped up security patrols on trains, complete with bomb sniffing dogs, the likes of which we haven't seen since around October/November 2001. more ›

Hello. Today is the anniversary of the day when hijackers crashed four commercial planes into the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and the ground in Pennsylvania. That is to say, today is 9/11. Did you forget? Because you shouldn't. Ever. more ›

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker will hold a hearing on September 1 regarding the federal government's illegal wiretapping of former charity, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation of Ashland, Oregon, in 2004. The charity has presented public documents that show that agents eavesdropped on phone calls without a warrant, which violated the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. more ›

Terrific news, everyone! CNN has obtained a copy of a report being delivered to Congress this morning detailing how undercover agents managed to sneak bomb-making components into ten "Level IV" federal office buildings in four different, unnamed U.S. cities (including, quite possibly, our own). The agents then went ahead and assembled the bombs in restrooms and trotted about the buildings' offices with the improvised devices in their briefcases, unbeknownst to all concerned. more ›

Like "molotov cocktails on steroids," the ALF, or Anti-Abortion Animal Liberation Front, has NOT claimed responsibility for this past weekend's firebomb attacks on UC Santa Cruz research biologists. (Let an authentic Journalist tell you all about it here.) But the silver lining in this story is that the Santa Cruz Police Department is offering a breathtaking $30,000 reward for info leading to an arrest. (Psst, you know the guilty party is totally hiding out at Kresge College.) Snitch away, stoned college students. That money is as good as yours! Update: Although initially reported as such, we're hearing that ALF did not, in fact, take credit for the attacks. (Damn you, MSM!) Clearly, they've gone soft on us. more ›

According to CQ Politics, the FBI combed through customer data collected by SF and Bay Area grocery stores in 2005 and 2006. Why? To see what amount of Middle Eastern food products were purchased, with the hope of leading authorities to the sweet spot: Iranian terrorists. Of course! more ›