Homeland

IQALUIT, Northwest Territories -- Adamie Pitseolak dreams of leading his people to master a more modern destiny as they carve an independent homeland out of the arctic ice.But with five years to go before they redraw the map of North America, there is growing anxiety among Canada's Inuit over whether Nunavut (Our Land) will be a shining success or a dismal failure.Once known as Eskimos (literally, "eaters of raw meat"), the Inuit yearn to preserve their ancestral ways of hunting, fishing and trapping across the snow-swept top of the globe, while also moving into the modern world and the next century.

An article Friday regarding plans by Harford County to open a magnet high school for homeland security, which county officials believe will be the first of its type in the nation, should have mentioned Baltimore's Homeland Security Academy at the Walbrook high school campus. The academy opened last year and it is accredited by the state to teach law enforcement and emergency response, including computer science and information infrastructure security. The Sun regrets the errors. The Harford County school system plans to open what will apparently be the nation's first magnet program focused on homeland security, preparing high school students for careers in disaster response, high-level computer science and law enforcement.

WASHINGTON - Congress has made it a priority in recent years to revamp the executive branch's homeland security agencies - but lawmakers' own way of dealing with the anti-terrorism effort remains a chaotic maze, and an effort to streamline the system is likely to erupt into a battle today. There are 88 congressional committees that deal with homeland security issues. All 100 senators and 412 of the 435 House members sit on those panels. The system "is a confusing mess," said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, a New York Democrat.

The commander of the Maryland State Police at Westminster, which serves as Carroll County's primary law enforcement agency, has been reassigned to the agency's new Homeland Security and Intelligence Bureau. Lt. Terry L. Katz, 55, who has spent 22 of his 32 years in the state police in intelligence and undercover work, has been the barracks commander since February 1999, overseeing about 100 troopers. His transfer is part of a reorganization, announced yesterday, that is to move new commanders into more than half of the state police barracks while creating the new homeland defense unit.

ROSWELL, N.M. - Seeking to convince the public that significant progress has been made on the nation's war on terrorism, President Bush yesterday said he would ask Congress for a nearly 10 percent increase in funding for homeland security. "The greatest responsibility of the federal government and my first responsibility as your president is to defend and protect America," Bush told cadets of the New Mexico Military Institute. In a wide-ranging speech, the president said he was "optimistic" about America's future as he defended his policy of treating countries that harbor terrorists as terrorist states, and again called for Congress to reauthorize the controversial Patriot Act. "We'll protect the homeland," Bush said, adding, "The best way to protect America, however, is to go on the offensive, stay on the offensive and bring the terrorists to justice."

They came for Benjamin Feldman's copper gutters the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, ripping two 10-foot sections from each side of his stone house in Homeland. Last week, someone made off with downspouts from a house around the corner. There was another theft, and several attempted, on nearby Saint Dunstans Road. A month ago on North Charles Street, a Homeland homeowner chased away two would-be gutter thieves in the middle of the afternoon. A home in Ruxton was stripped of its copper on Tuesday.

Department of Homeland Security officials have released plans that would guarantee their employees binding labor contracts and salvage new workplace rules after a judge blocked them this month. The case is a critical one for federal workers and their unions. The rules make government hiring, firing and pay more similar to corporate America's; Congress will weigh this year whether other federal agencies can replicate this system. The rules also significantly reduce the influence of federal unions, whose membership is strong but whose powers have waned over time.

Four months after its builder filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the Village of Homeland town house development in northern Baltimore is back on the market.Homeland Acres Limited Partnership, the group building the 120-unit community off the 400 block of Homeland Avenue, resumed sales late last month, with Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. in charge of marketing.Doug Magill, regional manager for Long & Foster's new homes division, said the Bankruptcy Court has approved the builder's plan to resume sales.

WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security has quietly scaled back its intelligence operation in a move that some intelligence insiders say could significantly hamper the government's ability to protect the country from terrorist attacks. Originally assigned by Congress to collect and analyze terrorism intelligence from throughout the federal government, the department instead plans to concentrate solely on information gathered from within its own units, focusing mostly on border security and, eventually, data from state and local governments, officials said.

WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security fails at times to adequately collect and share intelligence, Secretary Michael Chertoff told a House committee yesterday, blaming lingering divisions among the many agencies merged two years ago to create the sprawling department. "Intelligence is the driver of everything we do," Chertoff told the House Homeland Security Committee. "We need to make sure that we are capturing all of that, we are pulling it together and we are fusing it at the top of our organization."