Faith-Based Daily Awareness Post 02 October 2023

These updates are shared to help raise the situational awareness of Faith-Based organizations to best defend against, and mitigate the impacts from all-hazards threats including physical security, cybersecurity, and natural disasters. 

Secretary Mayorkas Delivers Remarks at the Protecting Places of Worship Roundtable | Homeland Security (dhs.gov)

The following are excerpts from Secretary Mayorkas’ remarks delivered at the Protecting Places of Worship Roundtable, hosted at the White House in Washington, D.C. on September 28, 2023.

“The reason I came here was to applaud and thank all of you for the work that you do, your partnership and friendship with our Department, and to share a quick thought and maybe take a couple of questions or comments from you – but really I just wanted to come in and say, thank you.

I wanted to underscore two principles that I think underlie our work around this room and around the country …

The first principle is that there is no such thing as a small act of hate – that it can be a defamatory symbol on an elevator, and that defamatory symbol on a single elevator doesn’t only victimize the individuals who see it, when they ride on that elevator. It reverberates and ripples far more broadly than that, and so, the victims of an act of hate are far broader than those directly or are more immediately targeted.

The second principle is that when there is an act of hate, targeted at one community, it is all of us who are impacted, because until we get to a place where we understand that community is all inclusive, we will continue to need to do this work. 

I think those are two critical guiding principles of our work in protecting houses of worship, and protecting the communities of which they are a part. 

I think all of you are familiar with the work that we do in the Department, certainly some of you helped make it happen – I see a members of our Faith-Based Security Advisory Council here… Let me end where I began, which is just to say thank you for your commitment to this work, so that people can pray in peace and we can achieve the peace we all pray for. 

Analyst Comments:

Mayya Saab, the Executive Director of FB-ISAO, was in attendance at this White House roundtable, along with Advisory Board member, Curtis Jones.

Mayya Saab is also Vice-Chair of the Faith-Based Security Advisory Council (FBSAC) Information Sharing Subcommittee, which published the Faith-Based Security Advisory Council: Information Sharing Subcommittee Final Report (dhs.gov) in June of this year.

It is vitally important for the FB-ISAO and its members to be involved with local, state, regional, and federal government outreach programs. This not only provides Faith-Based Organizations (FBO) with the latest security information, but FBO input helps these government organizations design programs that reflect the actual needs of FBOs.

Other FBSAC publications include:

• Grants & Resources Subcommittee Final Report
• Building Trust and Partnerships Subcommittee Final Report

Peruvian National Arrested In Peru For Sending Over 150 Hoax Bomb Threats To Schools And Other Institutions In The United States And Soliciting Child Pornography

Last week, Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James Smith, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced the unsealing of a Complaint charging Eddie Manuel Nunez Santos, aka “Lucas,” with making hoax bomb threats to more than 150 school districts, synagogues, airports, hospitals, and a shopping mall between September 15 and September 21, 2023.  The threats spanned multiple states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Arizona, and Alaska, and resulted in massive disruptions to the targeted communities, including evacuations of thousands of schoolchildren, a lockdown of a hospital, and flight delays.  Nunez Santos is also charged with attempting to induce a 15-year-old girl to take and send him nude and sexually explicit photographs, and he allegedly sent the bomb threats in retaliation against her and other minors after they refused his requests for child pornography.  Nunez Santos, a Peruvian national, was arrested on September 26, 2023, by Peruvian authorities in Lima, Peru, based on the charges in the Complaint.

Analyst Comments:

While law enforcement has apprehended someone who may have responsible for many of the bomb threats to synagogues, Faith-Based Organizations should not drop their guard.

The following resources are presented again for those who missed them in earlier DAPs.

The Maine School Safety Center provides information on  Anonymous Threats, Swatting, and more.

An article in The Forward provided steps from security professionals on:

• Before a potential swatting or bomb threat incident occurs,
• What to do during a swatting incident,
• What to do after receiving a bomb threat,
• And how to keep your synagogue livestream safe.

For bomb threats in particular, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has made numerous resources available, including through the Bombing Prevention webpage at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The resources include a Bomb Threat Checklist and videos on how to respond to bomb threats and suspicious or unattended items.

As always, Faith-Based ISAO’s website provides resources in the Resource Library.