Santa Fe Public Schools will spend $580,000 for unarmed security guards to patrol campuses across the district in the coming school year following a contract renewal Tuesday for Rio Rancho-based AJF Enterprises Inc.
Gabe Romero, the school district’s safety and security director, said AJF has provided security guards at Santa Fe schools since 2012. The contract, which Romero said is similar to last year’s, is for about 18 guards — eight for Santa Fe High, five for Capital High, one each for the middle schools, and the rest for the district’s K-8 and elementary schools.
Art Famiglietta, head of AJF, which also does some work for the Rio Rancho schools, said the firm’s security officers on school grounds do not carry weapons. “There’s no reason to have any form of weapons at the school,” he said. “That’s not our mission.”
A now-defunct deal with the city of Santa Fe, however, would have put armed police officers on Santa Fe’s high school campuses. In fall 2014, the school board approved a plan to place two armed city officers at Santa Fe High and Capital High. While that plan was derailed by some hesitation at City Hall, as well as a decision by the school district to invest the $70,000 it would have contributed under the officer deal to hiring a dean at the new El Camino Real Academy.
Romero said he still believes that police officers on campus would be good for students. Police Chief Eric Garcia also has said he was in favor of the program. But recent tensions between the school district and the Santa Fe Police Department may make any renewal of the deal difficult.
Earlier this year, police charged a teacher and a principal with child abuse and failure to report child abuse, respectively, following a paperback-throwing incident at De Vargas Middle School. Those charges have since been dropped, but Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Boyd has expressed concerns about the police department’s policies.
Romero said police officers do have a presence on campus — they come by whenever they are needed — but a consistent presence, he said, would be ideal. He said a security guard has a different set of responsibilities than a police officer assigned to a campus would have. Guards, Romero said, can help school officials monitor the flow of visitors on and off the campus. They also can help to cut the truancy rate by keeping an eye on students.
Romero said guards also conduct nighttime patrols and monitor sporting events and graduation ceremonies.
Security guards don’t have the ability to arrest or detain students or teachers. In fact, Famiglietta said he encourages his guards not to touch the students. Instead, he wants them to focus on talking to people to solve problems.
The school board on Tuesday also approved a quarter-of-a-million-dollar contract for 30 crossing guards across the district.
Security officer Jeremy Reed frequently sees it at the Yakima County Courthouse: lines of people spilling out of the building and sometimes reaching about a half a block to the corner of North Second Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Each person entering the courthouse must place their belongings into plastic trays, remove their belt, surrender purses and bags to a search, and walk through a metal detector.
Long lines are no cause for personnel to rush. “We’re going to be here, do the job,” Reed said one recent afternoon. “It’s still one bag, one person at a time.”
Once, the general public could simply walk into the courthouse without any security checks through entrances at both ends of the building. But that was before increasing violence at government structures, including schools, prompted a nationwide move to heighten security.
Long lines have been increasing in frequency because nearly four years ago, the county stepped up security at the courthouse by reducing public access to a single set of doors facing Second Street and installing security guards and metal detectors.
Everyone is screened, one at a time, before entering. But the intense screening slows access to the building, often clogging the lobby and sidewalk outside when foot traffic into the courthouse is high, especially during jury trials and tax season.
Yakima County Commissioner Kevin Bouchey said a safer courthouse is worth the wait in line because gang-related murder trials and domestic violence cases aren’t going away.
“It’s a changing world and unfortunately we have to do this,” Bouchey said. “It’s a necessity.”
A Mississippi College public safety officer saved a child’s life while on vacation in Florida.
Two weeks ago, Mary Lou Dill and her husband, Lieutenant Christopher Dill with the Clinton Police Department, were on a last minute vacation with friends in Orlando, Florida.
Dill, who had been visiting her sick father in Canada, booked the trip weeks ago but forgot to cancel; an oversight Dill now says was guided by fate.
Dill, her husband and her friends were walking around their hotel grounds at West Gate Resort when they heard music coming from one of the resort’s 14 pool areas. The women decided to go back to their hotel rooms and change into their bathing suits. Once she changed, Dill left her hotel room by herself and began walking back down to the pool area where her husband was waiting.
On her way, a hotel employee on a golf cart stopped and asked if she wanted a ride. A move, once again, where Dill believes fate intervened.
As soon as she got off the golf cart and walked into the pool area, Dill saw chaos. Hearing screams, Dill initially thought a fight had broken out but then she saw a woman running, carrying a lifeless body of a little boy.
Once he was laid on the ground, Dill could see foam coming from the child’s mouth.
“He was blue, it was just awful,” Dill told The Clarion-Ledger Thursday.
Dill asked that the child, a six-year-old triplet, not be identified.
Dill, a mother of three, said her instincts took over and she sprung into action. To this day, she said the moments between when she first saw the child and when she began doing chest compressions are a blur. Dill checked and the child did not have a pulse. She began administering CPR.
“From that point, I can’t remember what I did,” she said. “I just dropped everything and I started doing compressions.”
TUPELO – Tupelo Public School District security officers will carry pepper spray next year.
The district’s School Board voted on Tuesday to authorize the district’s 18 school security officers to carry the chemical agent while working. The officers are state-certified employees stationed at campuses throughout the district.
The idea is to give the officers another resource to use, particularly when there are large crowds at athletic events or if other major problems arise, said TPSD Executive Director of Operations Andy Cantrell.
“We are holding them accountable to maintain a safe and orderly environment, and we have to give them the resources to do that,” Cantrell said.
The district requested the Mississippi Department of Education’s Division of Safe and Orderly Schools to conduct a safety and facilities assessment in the spring in order to identify areas that could be improved. One recommendation was to allow the officers to use pepper spray, as needed.
“The safety of our students, faculty and staff is a top priority,” Cantrell said.
The officers will begin to carry the small canisters of pepper spray this fall. They all have attended a training that includes having them get sprayed by it. That allows them to fully understand the chemical’s effect so they will only use it when necessary, Cantrell said.
The safety officers are different than the four school resource officers, who are provided by the Tupelo Police Department.
Last week, millions of government employees were probably quite nervous to hear their personal data had been stolen by hackers (likely from China), who gained access to a trove of data from the Office of Personnel Management.
This week, the same office is opening up even more government employees to more risk, based on its response to the breach. OPM announced it will notify all impacted individuals by email, which makes not only the affected individuals, but also anyone else who is worried they might be affected now a ripe target for a phishing attack.
In its announcement, OPM said, “The email will come from opmcio@csid.com and it will contain information regarding credit monitoring and identity theft protection services being provided to those federal employees impacted by the data breach.”
OPM is using a third party, CSID, to manage this communication, and has now, in essence, provided phishers with a blueprint for creating an attack. Of note, CSID does at least use DMARC, which is one good step it has taken to see how others may be spoofing its domain.
Imagine you have had any kind of interaction with the OPM in the past five years or so. You may be wondering “was I one of the ones compromised?” Soon enough, an email shows up in your inbox, notifying you that you have indeed been breached, and offering credit monitoring and identity protection services. It directs you to a website, where you provide some basic information, including your name, email address, mailing address (and maybe more) and promises the credit and ID monitoring services will start immediately.
But what if you didn’t read the email closely enough? What if it came from opmcio@cdis.com, or from opmcio@cssid.com? What if you never saw the announcement to know exactly what email address you should be looking for?
Now each of these employees have willingly handed over this information to a second group of hackers (this time, through the phishing attack), who likely have different ambitions than China. These hackers can easily keep you placated by sending you false credit report info (hey, your credit still looks great, nothing to worry about here), while destroying your actual credit.
OPM is in a difficult situation, and is trying to respond as quickly and cost effectively as possible to a massive breach affecting millions of government employees. But it must take a step back and make sure it does not cause greater harm to these employees with its follow-on actions.
Instead, OPM should send notifications via physical mail, or secured Intranet communication. OPM should also provide education to all employees on the risk of phishing attacks.
And finally, OPM should conduct thorough penetration testing of the third-party provider, CSID, to ensure that by handing this project off to another party, it’s not opening up its employees to yet another attack.
Pomona, NY – Night sights have grown in popularity over the last few years, due primarily to the growing interest in personal protection.
Because night sights work in low, or no light situations, it makes them perfect for home protection, especially if the need arises to seek out your weapon very quickly in the dark.
Kahr Firearms Group has just announced that some of their C-Series pistols will now be offered with night sights. Three of their most popular 9mm models; the CM9093N, CW9093N, and the CT9093N will now be available with night sights.
All three models feature a black polymer frame, matte finish stainless steel slide, a drift-adjustable white bar-dot combat rear sight, and a pinned in polymer front night sight.
The CM9 features a 3.1” barrel length; an overall length of 5.42”, a slide width of .90”, the height is 4.0” and weighs in at just 14 oz.
It has a 6+1 capacity and comes with one 6-round flush floorplate magazine.
The CW9 features a 3.56” barrel, an overall length of 5.9” and a height of 4.5”. It weighs 15.8 oz. without the magazine.
Capacity is 7+1, and comes with one 7-round stainless magazine.
Lastly, the CT9 offers a 3.965” barrel, an overall length of 6.5”, a slide width of .90”; height is 5.08” and weighs just 18.5 oz. without the magazine.
Capacity is 8+1 and comes standard with one 8 rd. stainless magazine. Cost of the three models featuring night sights is $499 for the CM9093N, $495 for the CW9093N, and $485 for the CT9093N.
Recently, Kahr Firearms Group announced that effective June 1, 2015 through September 30, 2015, Kahr will send one free magazine with the purchase of specific C-Series guns, which includes these 3 models with the night sights.
To receive a coupon for a free magazine, just log onto the Kahr website at www.kahr.com/MagPromo2015.asp and fill out the online form or download the coupon, fill it out and mail, email, or fax it along with a copy of the firearm receipt and the firearm serial number.
The new firearm must have been purchased during the summer promotion period to qualify. Any form submitted without a copy of the receipt and the serial number will not qualify for the magazine promotion. Allow 6 weeks for processing, shipping and delivery.
For more information about Kahr Firearms Group products, log onto www.kahr.com.
In a bid to close potential vulnerabilities in the government’s Web presence, the White House is mandating every public federal website switch to a more secure Internet connection standard within about a year and a half.
The connection technology, Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, provides site visitors more privacy and confidence they are looking at official government websites. The secure protocol also prevents a lot of Web surfing behavior from being watched or toyed with.
Come Dec. 31, 2016, every public federal site must be protected with HTTPS.
Today, most of the federal government’s roughly 1,200 websites use HTTP technology, which exposes website content, browser format, search terms and other user information to eavesdroppers.
Anyone observing the network, including an employer or Internet service provider, can see what topics a computer user is interested in. Or instead of just watching traffic, the interloper could redirect the user to fraudulent content.
HTTPS cannot protect Web servers and other networking systems from being hacked, however. For example, HTTPS would not have stopped self-described Syrian government backers from defacing the official website of the U.S. Army earlier Monday. In that instance, Syrian Electronic Army hacktivists broke into a military contractor’s system and posted a message reading, “YOUR COMMANDERS ADMIT THEY ARE TRAINING THE PEOPLE THEY HAVE SENT YOU TO DIE FIGHTING.”
The White House rule will eliminate the burden of deciding what Web content is sensitive enough to merit HTTPS protection and ensure stronger privacy governmentwide, federal Chief Information Officer Tony Scott said in a blog post.
“With this new action, we are driving faster Internetwide adoption of HTTPS and promoting better privacy standards for the entire browsing public,” he said.
The transition to the new format will take elbow grease and money, officials acknowledged. Manual work often is required to transition sites with external images, scripts and fonts that aren’t secure, for example.
The public can see which dot-gov websites are protected with HTTPS by checking an official government website, Pulse, that launched last week. CIA.gov, FTC.gov and HealthCare.gov were early converts to HTTPS. To date, about 160 government sites default to the secure protocol.
There also is a HTTPS help website for federal web managers.
HTTP sites “will not keep pace with privacy and security practices used by commercial organizations,” the HTTPS regulation states. “This leaves Americans vulnerable to known threats, and may reduce their confidence· in their government.”
The White House Office of Management and Budget in March first proposed HTTPS requirements.
If you want a more open government, now is the time to put your ideas where your mouth is.
The White House seeks ideas and feedback from the public, federal officials and other open government advocates as it develops a third Open Government National Action Plan to be released later this year.
The announcement came in a White House blog post authored June 4 by Corinna Zarek, senior adviser for open government at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The government’s first and second iterations of open government NAPs were released in 2011 and 2013, and as Zarek notes, those initiatives will be fully implemented by the end of 2015.
Given the object is a more open government, the process by which the White House will ideate for the third NAP is transparent and open, yet perhaps even more so than prior efforts.
NAP suggestions can be emailed (opengov@ostp.gov) or tweeted to @OpenGov. Users can also log into the collaborative, publicly available Hackpad platform to share their thoughts and ideas. That online collaboration will be managed by social and digital government guru Justin Herman of the General Services Administration.
The blog post makes clear that new suggestions regarding old commitments are sought as much as ideas for new initiatives. The only stipulations are that ideas are ambitious, relevant, specific and measurable, according to Zarek.
“You may wish to suggest expanded commitments on topic areas from the first two plans such as public participation, open data, records management, natural resource revenue transparency, the Freedom of Information Act, open innovation, or open educational resources, among others,” Zarek wrote. “You may also wish to suggest entirely new initiatives — and we hope you do!”
The FBI is investigating a cyber intrusion affecting the information technology and data systems of the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management, or OPM.
In a June 4 press release notifying federal employees of the incident, OPM said the agency has partnered with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to determine the intrusion’s full impact on federal personnel. OPM said it will send notifications to approximately four million individuals whose personal information may have been compromised.
OPM’s press release included guidance for affected individuals, as well as tips to avoid becoming a victim.
In a June 4 statement confirming its role in the investigation, the FBI said, “We take all potential threats to public and private sector systems seriously and will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace.”
An international survey* among public transport organizations reveals that operators worldwide are continuing to invest in leading edge security technology, with the majority interested in adopting more widespread use of real-time surveillance and advanced video analytics to better protect their passengers, equipment and installations.
The survey was conducted by UITP, the International Association of Public Transport, and Axis Communications, the world leader in network video.
97% of survey respondents have already installed security cameras. This indicates not only a very strong installed base but also that public transport operators are convinced of the baseline value that video surveillance offers their organizations.
The vast majority of respondents reported that video surveillance systems help increase the actual and perceived security among passengers and staff, as well as minimize, deter and manage various types of crime and vandalism.
The survey also revealed that public transport staff is generally very positive towards the use of video surveillance with more than 83% indicating positive or neutral reactions, especially when usage of the system is well communicated to staff. Some responders do not gather staff or passenger feedback, but from those that do, no responder reported a negative reaction from staff or passengers.
The use of video surveillance within public transport is no longer only a matter of incident evidence, even if the vast majority of respondents (86%) find this forensic element the most valuable concrete use. Real-time detection of incidents also scored highly in terms of potential value (72%), indicating this is a trend to come.
Already today, 42% of respondents can share live video with other parties such as police or other authorities, and 50+% plan on using real-time video surveillance in “rolling stock” (moving vehicles vs. just in static locations). This underlines the value of real-time video surveillance monitoring across all areas of a public transport system.