Security Companies

Pinkerton Inc. in Westlake Village has reached an agreement to acquire American Protective Services, based in Oakland, and First Security Services Corp. of Boston. Both companies are privately owned. Pinkerton said that with the agreements it will become the leader in the U.S. security services market with revenues of about $1.5 billion and more than 57,000 employees. The acquisition of both companies is expected to be completed in early January.

With a shudder, Kim Deuk-uy recalls the gloominess of the 1998 Asian financial crisis. Back then, Kim worked for a securities company that was shedding employees like a snake sheds skin. Kim could see it: The nation's rocky finances would lead to a change in the dynamic between workers and executives in South Korea. "It became a good excuse to fire the full-time employees for no good reason, hire them back at two-thirds of the payment as a part-time employee, though they were doing exactly the same job," he recalled.

Craig Harvey likened applying for government certification of his company's anti-terrorism technology to applying for a patent: It took hundreds of pages of technical writing and six months to complete. Still, he said, the process was necessary — he just wished his company, NVision Solutions Inc., had heard of it earlier. Harvey's complaint echoed those of experts who say the government does a good job of creating programs to work with the private sector in developing anti-terrorism technology — it just doesn't do a good job of getting the word out about them.

Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley dismissed all private security companies at the nation's two international airports after last week's seizure of an Air Jamaica plane in Miami in a drug-smuggling case. Manley said that "a combination of monumental corruption and negligence" allowed nearly two tons of marijuana to be shipped on the state-owned airliner. An Air Jamaica cargo supervisor and an unidentified suspect in Miami were arrested in connection with the drug shipment. He also said Air Jamaica has dismissed all employees involved in loading the plane.

Four U.S. private security guards are being held against their will in Afghanistan by the company Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, after their involvement in a deadly shooting, their lawyer said. A spokeswoman for the company denied the allegation. The shooting and allegations of forced confinement highlights the murky legal world in which private security companies operate in Afghanistan and elsewhere. An Afghan died and two were wounded in the May 5 incident in the capital, Kabul, said Lt. Col. Chris Kubik, a U.S. military spokesman.

The people who staff the pre-boarding metal detectors and X-ray machines at airports have a tough, tedious job trying to make sure that weapons aren't smuggled onto an airplane. They must withstand the noise and conversation of harried passengers and concentrate for 30-minute stretches on a black-and-white monitor that is filled with odd-looking, ever-changing images that reveal the contents of each bag.

Blackwater Worldwide said Monday that it planned to shift away from the security contracting business that earned it millions of dollars and made it a flash point in the debate over the use of private security companies in war zones. "The experience we've had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk," company founder and Chief Executive Erik Prince said. Blackwater executives said the company would continue to guard U.S.

Security companies in the San Fernando Valley said Thursday they were swamped with requests for additional personnel to protect businesses from looting. "I have every single one of my 300 employees working," said Kurt Strasser, president of Westridge Security Services Inc. "We've had to mobilize like never before. We ran out of armed and unarmed guards by noon." The Canoga Park-based company planned to have 38 vehicles patrolling in the Valley on Thursday night.

There came a day when the armed guards Howard Ader had hired to patrol his carwashes gave him no sense of security. That was the same day he took a close look at the contract he had signed with the security firm he hired. "When you sign up with a security company, you take full responsibility for their actions," he said. To his surprise he learned that he could be held liable for the security company's conduct as well as his own.

President Hamid Karzai agreed Wednesday to push back a deadline for the shutdown of private security contractors operating in Afghanistan, but the issue still looms as a potentially serious point of contention with donor governments. The dispute, which began in August when Karzai abruptly announced a ban on all private firms providing security in the country, has spotlighted the increasingly fragile and tumultuous relationship between Karzai and his Western patrons. Without private protection, major donors have said they would have no choice but to shut down development projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

A veteran Los Angeles police officer who owns a private security company in Belize surrendered to federal authorities Monday after being indicted on a weapons charge. Johnny Augustus Baltazar, 50, is accused of illegally shipping 10 handguns and 1,500 rounds of ammunition to the Central American nation, where he owns a company called Elite Security, according to authorities. Prosecutors suspect the guns were intended for use by employees of the company. Baltazar did not have the required license to export the firearms, officials allege.

The secret CIA program to assassinate top Al Qaeda leaders was outsourced in 2004 to Blackwater USA, the private security contractor whose operations in Iraq prompted intense scrutiny, according to two former intelligence officials familiar with the events. The North Carolina-based company was given operational responsibility for targeting suspected terrorist commanders and was awarded millions of dollars for training and weaponry, but the program was canceled before any missions were conducted, the two officials said.

Mirza Mohammed Dost stood at the foot of his son's grave, near a headstone that read, "Raheb Dost, martyred by Americans." His son was no insurgent, Dost said. He was walking home from prayers on the night of May 5 when he was shot and killed on a busy Kabul street by U.S. security contractors. "The Americans must answer for my son's death," Dost said as a large crowd of young men murmured in approval. The shooting deaths of Raheb Dost, 24, and another Afghan civilian by four gunmen with the company once known as Blackwater have turned an entire neighborhood against the U.S. presence here.

One Sunday in March, a man strode down the aisle of the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill., pulled out a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol and fired at the pastor. The Rev. Fred Winters deflected the first bullet with his Bible, sending bits of it into the air like confetti. But the next three rounds hit Winters, killing him.

Four U.S. private security guards are being held against their will in Afghanistan by the company Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, after their involvement in a deadly shooting, their lawyer said. A spokeswoman for the company denied the allegation. The shooting and allegations of forced confinement highlights the murky legal world in which private security companies operate in Afghanistan and elsewhere. An Afghan died and two were wounded in the May 5 incident in the capital, Kabul, said Lt. Col. Chris Kubik, a U.S. military spokesman.

David A. Burke, the former airline employee suspected of carrying a gun onto Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771 and firing shots that caused the plane to crash, may have been aided by a security system at Los Angeles International Airport that sometimes allows airline employees to bypass airport metal detectors simply by showing a familiar face, a number of people familiar with airport security said Tuesday.

Blackwater Worldwide said Monday that it planned to shift away from the security contracting business that earned it millions of dollars and made it a flash point in the debate over the use of private security companies in war zones. "The experience we've had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk," company founder and Chief Executive Erik Prince said. Blackwater executives said the company would continue to guard U.S.

Growing worry over identity theft, viruses and other online problems helped boost quarterly earnings at two big Internet security companies, Symantec Corp. and VeriSign Inc. Symantec, one of the largest digital security companies, said Wednesday that net income in the fiscal second quarter jumped to $136 million, or 38 cents a share, from $83 million, or 24 cents, a year earlier. Sales rose 44% to $618 million.