The Security Week That Was: A Recap - Jan. 21-27, 2006

Jan. 27, 2006
SIW Editor Geoff Kohl gives a weekly surveillance of news shaping your profession

Security directors, we've got a question for you... If, just hypothetically, you knew you were likely to have an attempted perimeter breach in say, just over an hour, would you prepare? Would you bring in extra man power, advise the potential suspects of your response plan, perhaps increase your physical barriers to prevent the intrusion?

Or would you just sit back and wait for it to happen?

That's the question that Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley raised recently following a "storming of the court" by U. Tenn. basketball fans. Now, I'm not one who would protest too loudly over a non-threatening court celebration that erupts onto the playing area (it's not been so long that I can't remember a few of those from my own college days), but I have to admit that Foley has a point that this isn't just a "fan" issue, but a security issue. It's something to think about. Get the whole story.

More Hoops

We must be moving toward March Madness if basketball security stories are popping up on SecurityInfoWatch.com, so put another story into your news-reading game plan. Isonics subisidiary Protection Plus has landed a contract with the NBA to secure some of the NBA's corporate facilities in the Metropolitan New York area. That makes us think about the basketball free throws that Northern Video Systems always does at their tradeshow booths, which is a good segue for us to remind you to plan your trip to ISC West 2006. That show, where we expect Northern will be back with B-ball, is coming up on April 5-7. See you in Vegas.

Lock and Load

Out of the state of Virginia comes an interesting story that mixes the Second Amendment and the security of government buildings. In the office of Virginia General Assembly delegate John Reid, a mishandled gun was accidentally fired as the delegate sought to unload the weapon. While Virginia has been highly protective of its right to carry, the accidental firing raises issues of how appropriate weapons are in the setting of a public building, especially when they're in the hands of civies.

On the other hand, the police at Brown University have finally received the OK to carry weapons on campus. It's one thing when a CCTV camera captures a suspicious character sneaking around on campus; it's another thing entirely when a sworn and carrying officer responds.

Pay Up!

ChoicePoint, an information broker (which, incidentally, is located not far from our offices here in suburban Atlanta) was slapped by the feds for not having tight controls on the information it sells. The company, as you recall, was found to have inappropriately released personal data on some 163,000 people. The end result is a $15 million fine against the company. Now that information leaking is a major risk managment (and even financial) concern for corporations, you have one more thing to think about, Mr. or Ms. CSO.

For the Dealers and Integrators

A couple things to note this week that pertain solely to your side of the business: DynaPel is restructuring its sales and marketing efforts to better support a new "certified dealer" program. And after a small Vermont town was chastized in the mainstream media for "spying" on its residents with a proposed CCTV system, video surveillance design firm Fastek came back to publicly defend the proposal, explaining to a concerned citizenry that the system wasn't for "spying" and that the cameras weren't hidden, and were going to be used to protect some public areas. In your business as either a dealer or integrator, you may need to make these points as well if you're working in the municipal marketplace.

What's big this week? The list includes a story on new funding for 3VR, IP installations (a regular favorite), container security, the UT basketball story, behavioral detection, and the Dallas verified response ordinance. Check these "most reads" out: