J.A. LaSorsa & Associates
1645 SE 3rd Ct., Suite 102
Deerfield Beach, FL 33441
(U.S. SECRET SERVICE – RET.)
954-783-5020 (24 hour contact)
www.lasorsa.com
e-mail: jal@lasorsa.com
Providing Global services: Security Expert Witness, Anti-Wiretap and Audio Countermeasures, Consulting, Investigative, Polygraph, Executive Protection Estate & Yacht Security Systems & Consulting, Workplace Violence Training & Intervention and Executive Protection Training.
Specializing in Europe, Central and South America.
We provide Confidential Private Investigator Services to insurance companies, businesses, financial institutions, andprivate citizens. Our team of highly experienced private investigators can provide law firms of any size with the Litigation Support Resources necessary to secure the evidence they need for any case. We provide both domestic and international security and Protection Services, to include the following areas: Antigua, Anguilla, Aruba, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Dominica, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Grenada, Montserrat, Netherland Antilles, Nevis, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Turks & Caicos and Trinidad & Tobago, Bermuda, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, New York, Los Angeles, U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Cayman, Trinidad, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, Mexico, El Salvador,Venezuela and South America, Europe, Italy, Rome, Milan, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, Asia, China, the Far East, India, etc.
J.A. LaSorsa & Associates
1645 SE 3rd Ct., Suite 102
Deerfield Beach, FL 33441
(U.S. SECRET SERVICE – RET.)
954-783-5020 (24 hour contact)
www.lasorsa.com
e-mail: jal@lasorsa.com
Providing Global services: Security Expert Witness, Anti-Wiretap and Audio Countermeasures, Consulting, Investigative, Polygraph, Executive Protection Estate & Yacht Security Systems & Consulting, Workplace Violence Training & Intervention and Executive Protection Training.
Specializing in Europe, Central and South America.
We provide Confidential Private Investigator Services to insurance companies, businesses, financial institutions, andprivate citizens. Our team of highly experienced private investigators can provide law firms of any size with the Litigation Support Resources necessary to secure the evidence they need for any case. We provide both domestic andinternational services, to include: Antigua, Anguilla, Aruba, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Dominica, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Grenada, Montserrat, Netherland Antilles, Nevis, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Turks & Caicos and Trinidad & Tobago, Bermuda, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, New York, Los Angeles, U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Cayman, Trinidad, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, Mexico, El Salvador,Venezuela and South America, Europe, Italy, Rome, Milan, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, Asia, China, the Far East, India, etc.
This service provides a comprehensive security assessment and analysis of the exisiting security environment. Internal and External Security exposures and risks are identified within a client’s policies, processes, procedures, networks, and systems to include: overall Physical Security, Financial and IT Operations and Infrastructures. The client is provided the benefit of an outside security review of their environment which analyzes and measures their level of security versus industry standards and best practices.
This high-level evaluation (Security Assessment, Threat Assessment and Risk Assessment) provide a representative list of vulnerabilities, risks, and system requirements and the appropriate counter-measures to mitigate those vulnerabilities and risks.
Some of the critical benefits of this service are:
Provides fully defined security solutions specific to your business needs in any and all facets: Physical Security, Financial and IT Operations and Infrastructures.
* Delivers expert security analysis of the enterprise and networks
* Develops an adaptable security architecture, to includes security systems and networks
* Builds a foundation for your company’s overall security strategy and suggestions on how to minimize security risks
* Identifies potential risks and vulnerabilities within your company’s policies, process, networks, and systems
* Establishes a security infrastructure that meets the needs of your business requirements today and for the future
Core Deliverables:
* Key staff members, employees and users are interviewed
* Risks and vulnerabilities are identified
* Corporate Incident history data is collected and analyzed
* Network, system, and password scans can be performed
* Host systems are inspected and reviewed
* Recommendations on countermeasures designed to mitigate identified risks and vulnerabilities
For more information, contact:
J.A. LaSorsa & Associates
1645 SE 3rd Ct., Suite 102
Deerfield Beach, FL 33441
U.S. Secret Service (Ret.)
954-783-5020 (24 hour contact)
www.lasorsa.com
e-mail: jal@lasorsa.com
Providing Global services: Security Expert Witness, Anti-Wiretap and Audio Countermeasures, Consulting, Investigative, Polygraph, Executive Protection Estate & Yacht Security Systems & Consulting, Workplace Violence Training & Intervention and Executive Protection Training.
Specializing in Europe, Central and South America.
No matter what your security concerns or needs are, our team of expert security consultants will conduct the necessary threat and vulnerability assessment and recommend the appropriate countermeasures to mitigate your risks.
The J. A. LASORSA & ASSOCIATES standard of excellence and quality, relies on the principal’s background and U.S. Secret Service career, where he was assigned to the Presidential Protection Detail, the counter-terrorism unit and numerous investigative assignments.
At J. A. LASORSA & ASSOCIATES, our expert security consultants and bodyguards are fluent in Spanish, Arabic and Italian.
We provide Confidential Private Investigator Services to insurance companies, businesses, financial institutions, andprivate citizens. Our team of highly experienced private investigators can provide law firms of any size with the Litigation Support Resources necessary to secure the evidence they need for any case. We provide both domestic and international security and Protection Services, to include the following areas: Antigua, Anguilla, Aruba, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Dominica, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Grenada, Montserrat, Netherland Antilles, Nevis, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Turks & Caicos and Trinidad &Tobago, Bermuda, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, New York, Los Angeles, U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Cayman, Trinidad, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, Mexico, El Salvador,Venezuela and South America, Europe, Italy, Rome, Milan, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, Asia, China, the Far East, India, etc.
Security Expert: Former Secret Service Agent, Presidential Protection
Presidential LimoThe White HouseAir Force One
Inside the Presidency
Few outsiders ever see the President’s private enclave.
By Elisabeth Bumiller
History always makes a sharp turn in Washington when a new American President takes the oath of office, and so it will once again on January 20, 2009. There will be new Cabinet members, a new Congress, a new foreign policy, a new style in the East Wing, new embarrassing relatives (if the past is any guide), and new first friends.
But many other things in the private world of the President of the United States will stay remarkably the same. The maids on the permanent White House housekeeping staff will make the presidential bed, just as they always have. The kitchen staff will still peel potatoes and scramble eggs. The gardeners will have planted 3,500 tulip bulbs to bloom in the Rose Garden in the spring.
The permanent care and feeding of the President of the United States is an industry staffed by hundreds of people, largely supported by taxpayers, and little understood beyond the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. First families move in and out—”They get a four- or eight-year lease,” says Gary Walters, former chief usher of the Executive Mansion. But the staff, customs, and mechanics surrounding the world’s most powerful chief executive endure, often for generations.
Walters knows this well. As a deputy manager and then manager of the most famous address in the U.S. for 31 years, from Gerald Ford to the second President Bush, Walters spanned six presidencies and crises both global and domestic until his retirement in 2007. He ran a house with a 90-member residence staff of butlers, maids, chefs, maître d’s, elevator operators, florists, curators, carpenters, electricians, and plumbers. In some ways it was like running the world’s most exclusive hotel, except that Walters was in charge of a building with four major and often conflicting functions: home, office, grand museum, ultimate event site. Incredibly, the White House has welcomed up to 30,000 guests in a single week.
Walters, an Army veteran and a former officer in the old Executive Protective Service (now known as the Secret Service Uniformed Division), brought military precision and the utmost discretion to a job that was never 9 to 5. His worst times, he recalls, were when one first family moved out, typically around 10 a.m. on January 20, and the other moved in—by 4 p.m. the same day.
Walters’s goal was to have the departing family’s possessions out and the new socks in dresser drawers, personal furniture arranged, pictures hung, family photos displayed, favorite snacks in the kitchen—all in that six-hour time frame. There is no chance to get a head start, since the new President does not officially take office until January 20 at noon, two hours after his moving van pulls up under escort in the White House driveway as the outgoing President leaves for the Capitol. To make the deadline, Walters would deploy the entire 90-member staff at once, divided into teams with specific tasks. Months of planning included repeat verbal dry runs. (No such rehearsals took place before Richard Nixon’s early departure, however. Word went out that the First Lady had made a request through the usher’s office for packing boxes. “That’s how we knew,” said Betty C. Monkman, a former White House curator.)
Some transitions were especially rocky. Bill Clinton stayed in the Oval Office until 4 a.m. on January 20, 2001. “Then he had his desk that had to be cleaned out,” Walters recalls. He had to wait until the President went to bed before he could swoop in and help Clinton’s staff clear out the office to make way for George W. Bush.
But once things settle down, “the White House is first and foremost a family home,” Walters says. “It is the responsibility of the residence staff to change to the needs of every family, and not pigeonhole the family to the White House.”
To ensure such comfort, Walters would begin questioning the First-Lady-to-be after the election in November, as soon as the outgoing President had invited the new one to visit. What rooms would you like to use for your bedrooms? What time do you want to get up in the morning? What kind of toothpaste should be in the bathroom? What snacks would you prefer stocked in the pantry?
Bush 43 said pretzels, which got him into trouble in 2002, when he choked on one while watching a football game in his White House bedroom, lost consciousness, hit the floor, then came to, with only the presidential dogs as witnesses. Bush’s father requested easier to swallow Texas Blue Bell ice cream. He did not, however, request pork rinds, despite making a regular-guy show of nibbling them in public. “It was totally bogus,” Walters says. “He didn’t eat them.”
The second Bush also liked to keep a stainless steel water dish at the foot of the South Portico’s curved granite staircase, and Dale Haney, the superintendent of the White House grounds, could be seen moonlighting as the walker of the presidential terriers, Barney and Miss Beazley. Chelsea Clinton had her friends over for pizza in the State Dining Room. Susan Ford hosted her junior prom in the East Room. In the Reagan Administration, known publicly for its old Hollywood glamour, the President and First Lady liked their private, just-the-two-of-them dinners served on trays in front of the television.
So what’s for dinner? First Ladies and Presidents generally haven’t cooked at the White House, although they have a second-floor kitchen in the family quarters, separate from the main kitchen on the mansion’s ground level. The Clintons liked to use their kitchen for post-party glasses of champagne and raided its refrigerator for leftovers. But most families have simply selected a weekly menu from choices offered by the White House chef. State dinners, barbecues for Congress, and holiday receptions for the diplomatic corps are paid for by taxpayers, but the President is billed for all food consumed by his family and his personal guests. In the first months of a new administration, sticker shock is routine.
“I can’t remember anybody not complaining,” Walters says, recalling in particular Rosalynn Carter’s astonishment at the size of the bills. “Mrs. Carter came from Georgia. Things were a little cheaper there at the time. But let’s face it, you’ve got world-class chefs. The garnishes they put on foods, the way they dress them up, it’s like eating in a restaurant.”
Food comes from various Secret Service–approved commercial suppliers, but also from farmers markets and occasionally just the grocery store. Sometimes the White House chef will stop in at a local butcher on the way to work and pick up a last-minute chop for the President’s dinner. Wine, always American—the White House stopped serving French wine in the Ford Administration—comes directly from the wineries and includes offerings from Virginia and Idaho as well as California. (White House Francophile customs died hard: Mamie Eisenhower once had her favorite apple brown Betty listed on a state dinner menu as Betty Brune de Pommes.)
The first family pays its own dry cleaning bills, although the staff takes care of sending out the clothes to high-end establishments in town. The President’s shirts are done in-house, as are all the family’s sheets and towels. The President’s valet keeps his shoes shined and deals directly with the housekeepers to replace missing buttons. Presidents select their own suits from the closet each day, although staff members have been known to reject presidential ties as too busy for television. “I can’t think of any President who had somebody else pick out his clothes,” Walters says.
When the President leaves the White House, he travels within an enormous, ever secure bubble, whether seated in the armor-plated limousine referred to internally as “the Beast,” flying on Air Force One, or sleeping in one of the 600 to 800 hotel rooms required for each stop on a foreign trip.
The President’s road show includes a caravan of White House staff, State Department officials, Secret Service agents, communications technicians, crews for Air Force One and Marine One (the presidential helicopter), Department of Defense staff, and press. A big foreign trip typically includes up to 800 people, among them 30 White House staff members, more than a hundred members of the Secret Service, and some 150 representatives of the media—television and radio correspondents, camera crews, sound technicians, print journalists, wire service reporters, and still photographers.
The group is actually transported in two planes: Air Force One for the President, his staff, his Secret Service agents, and a small pool of reporters in the back; and the White House press charter, usually a United 747, for the rest of the media. (Reporters are rotated in and out of the 14 press seats on Air Force One, but on either plane, media organizations pay dearly for the seats, typically the price of first-class airfare or more.) The entourage is accompanied by cargo planes that transport the President’s limousine and a spare, plus sometimes Marine One, to each stop.
The nucleus of the bubble, referred to within the White House as “the package,” consists of the President, his senior staff, the Secret Service detail assigned specifically to him, and a small pool of reporters. The package essentially isolates the President from the rest of the bubble and the outside world. Inside the package life is serene; humming outside is the 24/7 infrastructure required to keep the peace.
The head of the road show in the Bush 43 Administration was Joe Hagin, former deputy chief of staff in charge of operations, who believes in striking a balance between protecting the President and allowing him some exposure in public. “You can’t lock him in a steel box and move him around,” Hagin says. “You have to get him out.”
Hagin would begin planning Bush’s foreign trips up to a year ahead. Every November or December, he’d sit down with the White House chief of staff and national security adviser to block out what usually amounted to five or six annual presidential trips overseas. Some were built-in, such as the yearly Group of Eight meeting of industrialized nations or the NATO summits, both must-attends for the American President. But others, like Bush’s trip to Africa in February 2008, were designed to highlight administration policies and to show the White House flag.
“My geography’s not good enough to do it without a map,” Hagin says. So with maps unfolded all over the conference table in the national security adviser’s office, and with the Air Force One pilots on hand to consult, the group would figure out what stops made geographic sense. There were all-important political considerations as well. Bush 43, who grew increasingly unpopular overseas as his administration progressed, often augmented his European trips with stops in former Soviet-bloc nations like Albania, where he could count on pro-democracy, pro-American crowds to cheer him on.
The White House Communications Agency, or WHCA, builds its own communication system for each destination, and on foreign trips the leader of the free world can push a button on the telephone in his hotel suite and be instantly connected to a direct-dial U.S. system. Bush hasn’t carried a personal cell phone for security reasons, but he had access to any number of them while traveling.
One cell is specifically for the presidential limousine, where there is never a problem with background noise. People who have been inside say that the limo is eerily serene, as if the outside world were on mute. The President can see the crowd, but he can’t hear it, especially not over the deep rumble of the Beast’s big V-8.
Air Force One is the President’s refuge. He can sleep in his cabin, a suite in the nose of the plane with a shower and two daybeds. Or he can work out; before Bush’s knees gave out and he abandoned running, he had a treadmill set up in the Air Force One office on foreign trips. The jet’s kitchen serves full dinners prepared by military stewards, but they are unlikely to win culinary or nutrition awards. Steak, chicken, and pork chops are normal fare. In June 2002, when Bush was on a trip to Florida to promote dietary and physical fitness, the Air Force One lunch menu, printed on gold-edged cards for all passengers, was corned beef sandwich, steak fries, and strawberry cheesecake.
As the President moves with ease from meeting to meeting, an intense choreography churns around him, all outlined in hundreds of pages of briefing books. “We can go to the other side of the world and land precisely to the minute,” Hagin says. “But you’ve got to know what you’re doing. These trips are not for the faint of heart.” Only experienced staff members go overseas, and they are expected to know where to stand, what to wear, how to address foreign dignitaries, and when, literally, to run.
In spite of the briefing books and the overall efficiency of Hagin and his team, travel foul-ups occasionally occur. In May 2005, only a malfunction in a live hand grenade, tossed into an ebullient crowd of tens of thousands in Tbilisi, Georgia, averted what could have been a lethal attack. In 2004, Bush waded on his own into a group of security agents to pull a Secret Service agent out of a shoving match with the Chilean police. In 2002, the Beast came to such a sudden stop en route to lunch in Beijing with then President Jiang Zemin of China that the wire services reported a blowout, conjuring images of Secret Service agents rummaging through the trunk for a jack. The problem was in fact mechanical, and the President was moved to the spare limo within moments.
Not surprisingly, the President, like everyone else, is happy to get home. Although Ronald Reagan said he often felt captive in the fishbowl of the White House, many other Presidents and their families have loved it there.
And why not? There is, after all, a recently refurbished movie theater, suitable for viewing major Hollywood films sent overnight from the studios. (In the past couple years Bush saw The Kite Runner and The Perfect Game.) There is a swimming pool, the same one where Gerald Ford spoke to the press in his bathing suit. There is a tennis court, too, and the Children’s Garden, a shady spot created by Lady Bird Johnson, its walkway lined with bronzed handprints and footprints of presidential grandchildren.
Most of all, there is a sense of home and history, coupled with the knowledge that a first family, however well cared for and fed, can only pass through. Or as one of the permanent household staff gently reminded Barbara Bush during her time as First Lady: “Presidents come and go. Butlers stay.”
Security Expert: Former Secret Service Agent, Presidential Protection
THE VALUE OF PERIODIC CORPORATE AND SECURITY ASSESSMENTS
On too many occasions, corporate (commercial), residential and private estate security and security systems undergo complacency and/or neglect with corporate security managers, estate and property managers assuming that all conditions are good to go. They many times lack response time capability and a Safe Room. However, like most modern, service oriented industries, technology advances and conditions change.
Advances in the interpretation of current security needs negates the antiquated notion of achieving the so called “SECURE AND COMFORT LEVEL” by simply installing a “basic” security system.
In many instances, prominent individuals and celebrities have been hurt (i.e., George Harrison, Meg Ryan, etc.) because they had a “security system”, however, the overall system response did not act as a intrusion detection system, did not provide the critical “advance warning” and, also did not include a “safe room” or “security zone”.
The security system is “only as good as the client’s ability to remove him or herself from harm’s way”. A simple intrusion detection system in itself is “NOT ENOUGH” to provide adequate protection. A security system should be MULTI-LAYERED and should include a RESPONSE MECHANISM to the threat or intrusion to be effective.
Periodic assessments of security systems and current threats and vulnerabilities not only help maintain the appropriate and acceptable level security environment, but also strives to maintain security counter-measures at the required response levels, ensuring a safe and secure environment for the client and family.
For additional information and or free initial consultation, please contact: Joe LaSorsa at J.A. LaSorsa & Associates, Tel: 954-783-5020 (USA) or e-mail: jal@lasorsa.com or visit our website: www.lasorsa.com
J.A. LaSorsa & Associates provides Confidential Private Investigator Services to insurance companies, businesses, financial institutions, andprivate citizens. Our team of highly experienced private investigators can provide law firms of any size with the Litigation Support Resources necessary to secure the evidence they need for any case. We provide both domestic andinternational services, to include: Antigua, Anguilla, Aruba, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Dominica, St. John, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Grenada, Montserrat, Netherland Antilles, Nevis, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Turks & Caicos and Trinidad & Tobago, Bermuda, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, New York, Los Angeles, U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Cayman, Trinidad, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, Mexico, El Salvador,Venezuela and South America, Europe, Italy, Rome, Milan, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, Asia, China, the Far East, India, etc.
SECURITY WILL BE TIGHT FOR POTUS VISIT TO THE MIDDLE EAST
By Steve Macko, ERRI Risk Analyst
WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) – In what is being described as a massive three-way security operation will surround POTUS (President of the United States) when he meets Israelis and Palestinians on his venture into the traditional lion’s den of Middle Eastern violence this weekend. On the eve of the three-day visit to Israel, White House officials kept a tight lid on the plans for protecting the President from the suicide squads, car bombs and assassins who have bloodied the region’s history for decades.
National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley said, “Every trip has security challenges, and the president will have the security he needs.” But with tensions high in Israel over the faltering peace process and POTUS a potential target for both Jewish and Palestinian extremists, security experts said precautions would be at least as tight and elaborate as on any previous trip anywhere.
Joe LaSorsa, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Secret Service, who now runs an executive protection service in New York State, said, “You’re talking about being in the heartland of terrorism. We’ve experienced so many previous threats and incidents in the region is that you’re always at a heightened sense of awareness.”
Two Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank on Friday during violent protests. About 50 protesters were wounded, two seriously, in the clashes near the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya during Palestinian riots over Israel’s handling of the release of Palestinian prisoners under the Wye River peace deal.
The deaths brought to four the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces this week in widespread disturbances in the West Bank. More than 200 have been injured. Both of the male youths who were killed on Friday were 18-year-old. One Palestinian doctor said, “They were shot in the head with live ammunition.”
Three Israeli soldiers were slightly injured by stones thrown at them. One witness said demonstrators had held a sit-in following Friday Muslim prayers, then proceeded to an Israeli checkpoint near the 1967 border between Israel and the West Bank where they clashed with the soldiers.
ERRI senior analyst Clark Staten reiterated warnings that he has voiced all week. Staten said in a statement disseminated to U.S. military intelligence services: “Although we are sure that appropriate protective measures are being taken, possible retaliation for these two shootings only reinforces our concerns about security during the POTUS trip to this region. Add to this a “threat statement,” published in Al-Hayat by Egyptian Jihad, within the past 24 hours. At the very least, the OPFOR (those opposed to Wye or Oslo) could pick the coming days as a time for a peripheral terror act, which would generate major publicity. Great caution and preparedness is urged at this time.”
The Egyptian Jihad “threat statement” Staten was referring to was published in the Arabic-language Al-Hayat newspaper on Friday. Egypt’s banned Jihad threatened a prolonged war against the United States, which it accuses of being an enemy of Islam, and said the most potent weapon in the hands of Moslems was an economic boycott.
The Jihad statement said: “Let the Americans know that we have resolved to fight them in a severe and long, drawn-out battle to be passed on to generations.” The terrorist group is led by Ayman el-Zawahri, a close ally to Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden.
The statement urged Moslems to boycott the United States which it said was “the biggest enemy aiming to undermine Islam.” It also said: “The most dangerous weapon in the hands of the Moslem community is an economic boycott.”
The United States is sending several batteries of Patriot missiles, which take out incoming missiles, during the visit as a partly-symbolic gesture to ward off attacks from other regional states, including hostile Iraq, during the visit.
In Jerusalem, National Police Commander Yehuda Wilk said although police had received no specific warnings of attacks, “the working supposition is that there will be an attempt to carry out a terror attack in order to upset the event.” He told reporters the huge media coverage would give added incentive for an attack by militants who have killed scores in bombings in Israel in recent years.
Thousands of Israeli and Palestinian police and other paramilitary groups are engaged in a web of protection centering on the President and his own close guard of U.S. Secret Service agents. Most of Clinton’s travel outside of Jerusalem will be done by helicopter, including visits to Gaza and Bethlehem, with security forces alert to the possibility of missiles.
Gaza is seen as a playground for violent anti-American groups. They range from Iranian-backed groups in Lebanon and elsewhere, Kurdish separatists, Islamic fundamentalists in Egypt and Afghanistan-based Osama bin Laden. Palestinian and Israeli officials say there has been close cooperation with the U.S. Secret Service in setting up a protective web around the President.
LaSorsa said there would be a thoroughly professional, close cooperation between the three. He said, “It’s a hand-in-glove relationship — even with the KGB. There’s a very close-knit brotherhood between security agents.”
There are no plans of a POTUS meet-the-people outing on his visit. 500 police will be on duty round-the-clock at the Jerusalem Hilton hotel, where he will stay. Israeli police say that they have taken into account the recent surge in West Bank violence in drawing up their plans. At least 10,000 police will be deployed around Israel for the President’s visit — 3,500 in Jerusalem.
After spending Sunday in Jerusalem, POTUS will spend Monday in Gaza. There remains considerable support among the strip’s more than one million residents for the militant terrorist group HAMAS. The No. 1 HAMAS militant on Israel’s wanted list, Mohammad Deif, remains at large and is believed to be hiding in Gaza.
On Friday, a leaflet in the name of HAMAS vowed to bomb Israeli targets if the Palestinian Authority did not release the movement’s spiritual leader from house arrest by Christmas Day. The statement, sent to an, international news agency, also ridiculed the visit of POTUS to Gaza, saying: “The Palestinian Authority claims that Clinton’s visit reinforces Palestinian sovereignty, but this is a mere illusion. We condemn and reject this visit and consider it … a visit with ulterior motives that aims to dash real Palestinian hopes.”
A top HAMAS terrorist who asked not to be named confirmed the statement was genuine. The leaflet called POTUS “the enemy of the Arabs and Muslims.” The HAMAS statement was meant to put pressure on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to release HAMAS founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from house arrest.
Yassin was placed under house arrest on 29 October after a suicide bomb attack against Israeli children. The HAMAS leaflet said: “We give the leadership of the Palestinian Authority until December 25 to lift the house arrest on our leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin or else the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam brigades will be free to commit any new bombing attacks against the Zionist entity and their forces.” Izz el-Deen al-Qassam is the military wing of HAMAS.
The high-pitched voiced, 62-year-old, bearded Yassin is an icon for Muslim militant suicide bombers who have killed scores of Israelis since the first interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deal was signed in 1993.
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Security Expert: Former Secret Service Agent, Presidential Protection
Estate and Mega-Yacht Security Systems and Safe Rooms
Why do I need a “safe room? I really don’t need one; I’m not that high profile”. This is typical V.I.P. client frame of reference or attitude concerning security systems and safe rooms.
What most clients don’t realize is “being high profile” has a definite impact on vulnerabilities, however, not being high profile does not mitigate the vulnerabilities and overall exposure caused by their “lifestyles” and “net worth”.
Firstly, security systems are usually designed and installed by security system companies. The salesperson of the vending company is primarily interested in selling the highest dollar components and system. The viability of the system is usually important but not usually paramount to their operational concerns. The clients usually are persuaded to purchase the “high end” version of systems and usually get very good systems.
Secondly, what they do not realize is they would have benefited immensely from the use of the services of a quality security consultant, who would have been savvy of security system requirements and the needs specific needs of the client.
The experienced security consultant can save the client thousands of dollars in unnecessary expense on hardware and re-direct hardware expenses in the direction of need and viability. This having been said, there are other issues that are unknown to the clients. In addition, these other issues are also not first and foremost in the minds and focus of many security system vendors.
One of these issues is the concept of security system redundant layering. The most effective systems are layered with detection device systems after detection device systems, all integrated into one intrusion detection system. Not to get into too much technical detail, the idea or concept is to set up mantraps and detection device systems that will back each other up and eventually detect and catch the intruder.
The typical estate or residence burglary scenario: an intruder gains access to your residence or estate, the police typically do not respond quick enough to prevent an intruder from coming face to face with an occupant. The result is an unwanted tragic event will usually occur.
Another issue is the concept of the “safe room”. Most clients do not realize and most vendors do not stress the value of the “safe room” We are not talking about the Jodie Foster movie, the “Panic Room” We are not alluding that all estates and mega-yachts need internal, concrete and steel fortified sanctuaries. Far from that. Safe rooms do not have to be these ultra, internal fortresses. ‘Safe Rooms’ can be designed and constructed at various levels of security. They can be minimally reinforced and impregnated with ballistic materials. They can also be designed to achieve the highest levels of security, where the room is totally protected from exterior access and is constructed with steel reinforcements, ballistic materials and a door constructed by a “vault” manufacturer. This highest level of protection is routinely equipped with a separate AC system, security CCTV monitors, survival supplies, oxygen and a back up communications systems.
Essentially, the primary focus of a viable and efficient Security Intrusion Detection System (alarm system) should be to warn and provide occupants of your estate, mega-yacht or home with sufficient time to access a ‘safe room’ and avoid confrontation with an intruder. True, although many people simply regard an alarm system as a deterrent, it should be also, at the same time, a warning system, allowing you and your loved ones ample time to access your ‘safe room’. In order to facilitate a safe outcome, it is vital to ensure quick and easy access to a safe location (‘safe room’) and to remain secure until the police or security detail respond.
The bottom line – police response time and access to your ‘safe room’ play critical roles in determining a positive outcome during a break-in or intrusion.
Proper planning and the use of a highly qualified security consultant will provide clients with the optimum result and more than likely, save hem unwarranted expense. The consultant can work closely with the client’s architect or builder to review preliminary designs in order to pro-actively implement design changes and modifications before construction or renovations are initiated. This involvement routinely ensures the implementation of the appropriate technical and physical security countermeasures.
In conclusion, the client should wind up enjoying the safety and security of a viable intrusion detection system incorporated with the added feature of the safe room.
Mr. LaSorsa manages J.A. LaSorsa & Associates, a South Florida based security consultancy and investigative firm. He provides: asset and executive protection, corporate security consulting, expert testimony as it relates to premises liability & security negligence; anti-wiretapping, safe rooms & security systems consulting, event and tour security & investigations; workplace & school violence intervention, threat & vulnerability assessments.
Joe has over twenty-nine years of experience in the security field, which includes a twenty-year career as a Senior Special Agent with the United States Secret Service, Presidential Protection Division, the White House and extensive senior management private sector experience. Contact info: Telephone # 954-783-5020 or e-mail: jal@lasorsa.com or by visiting: https://www.lasorsa.com/
Gun sales surge as uncertainties stoke fears
By ALLISON ROSS
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 01, 2008
DELRAY BEACH — Consumers may be cutting back on going out to eat and buying new clothes, but at the Delray Shooting Center off Linton Boulevard, guns remain good as gold.
“Business has gone up dramatically in the past year – the last couple months especially,” owner Mike Caruso said. “I’m selling 15 guns a day. … Let’s just say business has been rocking.”
Although Florida does not keep records of gun sales, federal data show background checks needed to purchase a firearm are up sharply in the first nine months of this year. In Florida, concealed weapon permit applications in September jumped 52 percent compared with September 2007.
And it’s not just any gun. Handguns and semiautomatic weapons, not hunting rifles, appear to be leading the way.
The reasons: a sour economy that some fear will increase crime, and worries about gun regulations if Sen. Barack Obama wins the White House.
“There are so many uncertainties right now in the country,” said Susan Lipschultz, co-owner of Liberty Guns Inc. in West Palm Beach. “It’s the economy, the politics, the concern of an anti-gun Congress and president.”
Jeff Lovering, 52, was at the Self Defense Shooting Center in Port St. Lucie on a recent morning, having bought his first gun three months ago.
“I figured I better buy it now,” Lovering said of his .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun. “Obama – he’s up there in the polls. He’s looking like he might win.”
Gun sales are up about 10 percent this year, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which analyzed federal excise taxes on firearms sales and the number of checks that went through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
In Florida, there were 405,738 such FBI checks in the first nine months of the year, a 30 percent hike. While those checks don’t always translate into gun sales, it’s one of the best indicators available, said Kristen Perezluha, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Further, 22,249 Floridians applied for a concealed weapon permit in September, a 52 percent increase from September 2007, according to the Division of Licensing in the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
“You look at September last year and September this year, and it’s pretty amazing,” said Connie Crawford, division director.
The recent Florida Gun & Knife Show at the South Florida Fairgrounds reflects the trend. According to an employee, sales of ammunition were up about 20 percent, while handgun sales were up 11 percent.
Handguns and semiautomatic weapons in particular are flying off shelves.
Gunmaker Smith & Wesson, in its latest quarterly report, revealed similar trends: Specialty rifles and shotguns in the hunting division fell, while sales of other products rose.
Similarly, Lipschultz said the economy has forced some recreational hunters and shooters to cut down on buying new guns, but sales of handguns are up.
And Joe Fordham, owner of Palm Beach Trap & Skeet Pro Shop in Wellington, said he fields daily calls about where to buy handguns, which his store does not carry.
Economy down, crimes up
People often buy guns during periods of uncertainty, said Gary Kleck, a professor at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice.
Lovering, for instance, may have purchased his first handgun in advance of the presidential election, but he plans to teach his 21-year-old daughter to shoot it as a means of self-defense.
“We’re facing an economic crisis, and there’s this background assumption that crime will go up,” which may lead people to buy more guns for personal safety, Kleck said.
While the economy may or may not be a contributing factor, certain crimes are up in Palm Beach County.
After two straight years of decline, robberies and larcenies in the county grew last year by 3 percent and 6 percent, respectively. Statewide, property crimes are up by more than 3 percent in the first six months of this year.
At the Delray Shooting Center, “we lost a portion of our client base because the economy is weaker, but we gained some in our firearms for the exact same reason,” said Caruso, who gets 50 to 60 people each week in his concealed weapon classes.
“Our economy’s garbage,” summed up Jacob, a West Palm Beach resident shopping at Liberty Guns on Monday. Jacob declined to give his last name for fear of being burglarized and having his guns stolen: “Robberies could occur because of desperate people.”
‘Don’t Believe Obama!’
Politics is another concern. WhileObama has said he supports the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment, he also favors tighter state restrictions.
“He’s not exactly friendly to gun rights, to say the least,” Lipschultz said.
A poster reading, “On the Second Amendment, Don’t Believe Obama!” is taped to the counter in her store.
Lipschultz is not a huge fan of Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s stance on gun control either, but his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, really “understands the importance of the Second Amendment,” she said.
Nelson Waite, owner of Gator Guns & Archery Center in West Palm Beach, also reports sales are up because of concerns about Obama’s gun policies.
“Every time we get an anti-gun president, people get nervous and start buying guns,” Waite said, adding that people worry about the impact of a shifting political climate.
Florida State University’s Kleck has seen it before.
“During the Clinton administration in 1993, when it became clear they were likely to pass an assault weapons ban, gun sales went up tremendously,” Kleck said. “Most guns people bought had nothing to do with the ban, but people didn’t know it at the time.”
At Gator Guns & Archery, Waite said, “When (Bill) Clinton got ready to go into office, gun sales just quadrupled at my store.”
Joe Rice, manager at Delray Shooting Center, said he is not panicked about the possibility of Obama’s becoming president, but he is preparing.
When the Clinton-backed 1994 Semi-Auto Gun Ban went into effect, the price of certain semiautomatic guns skyrocketed.
“All Clinton’s crime bill did was create a commodity,” Rice said. “It turned a $700 rifle into a $3,400 rifle.”
So Rice has stocked up on weapons such as the AK-47 assault rifle and the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle – two firearms he believes would be subject to new regulations.
If that happens, he said, “the prices will go up, and I’ll quadruple my cash.”
