Homeless in Arizona

Did the FBI create this crime so they could be heroes when they busted it???

From this article it sounds like this could be another one of those cases where the FBI created the crime so the FBI could look like heroes after they busted the crime they created.

Source

U.S. suspects' alleged terror plot beset by hurdles, FBI says

By Phil Willon, Kate Mather and Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times

November 21, 2012, 2:51 a.m.

The alleged aspiring terrorists "liked" each other's jihadist Facebook postings. When they played paintball in Corona to prepare for Holy War, they commended each other for going full-throttle for shaheed (martyrdom) against timid opponents.

One man vowed to start hiking to get to know mountain terrain, and maybe try skydiving to see how he handled fear. Yet even as he expected to go on a suicide mission once he reached the Middle East, at home in Ontario, he briefly fretted over selling his car to fund the trip.

The federal complaint unsealed this week against four Southern California men depicts them as intent on joining Al Qaeda and killing American and coalition troops. But their alleged road to martyrdom was rutted with endless logistical problems, dubious connections overseas and their own equivocating over the smallest decisions: How do you pack for a jihad?

Ralph Deleon, 23, told two of his cohorts and an FBI informant "to bring thermal underwear, an XBox, sports magazines, and durable shoes." They cleanly shaved to avoid suspicion in transit to the Middle East — just before their friend in Kabul, the fourth defendant, told them to arrive with full beards to gain the trust of the Taliban.

That friend got sick and had to miss his scheduled suicide mission. His cohorts in the U.S. told him to hold off on his next mission at least until they arrived, so he could introduce them to their handlers before he killed himself. They had already talked him out of leaving Afghanistan altogether for Yemen.

Miguel Santana, 21, Arifeen Gojali, 21, and Deleon booked their tickets from Mexico City to Istanbul on Thursday, and were taken into custody during a vehicle stop in Chino the next day, authorities said. Santana is a Mexican national who was in the process of getting his U.S. citizenship. Deleon is a legal permanent resident from the Philippines. Gojali is an American of Vietnamese descent.

The central figure in the alleged plot is Sohiel Kabir, 34, a native Afghan and naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in Pomona and served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000 to 2001. He converted Santana and Deleon to Islam in 2010, then left for Afghanistan to make arrangements for the three of them to join the Taliban or Al Qaeda. (Santana and Deleon subsequently recruited Gojali in September.) Kabir was apprehended Saturday in Kabul.

Federal officials took the defendants' plans extremely seriously, and expended "extraordinary resources" to track and stop them, said David Bowdich, special agent in charge of counter-terrorism in Los Angeles, at a news conference Tuesday.

Undercover FBI operatives began chatting with Santana online in February, and the informant had infiltrated the group by March.

"Not only were they playing paintball, they were going to shooting ranges," Bowdich said. "They saw this as jihad."

The charges appear to be based largely on the work of the undercover informant, who has been on the FBI payroll for more than four years and has received $250,000 and "immigration benefits" for his work. According to the affidavit included in the criminal complaint, he was once convicted of trafficking pseudoephedrine, a chemical precursor to methamphetamine.

News of the arrests rattled neighbors of the defendants, who lived in quiet neighborhoods in Ontario, Upland and Riverside.

Just a few months earlier, Deleon was regularly playing basketball in the driveway of his parents' Ontario home with his 15-year-old next-door neighbor, Martin Garcia.

"I was in shock. I was like, damn!" Garcia said. "He's actually a really nice guy. He'd offer to take me out to dinner when we played basketball together."

"Then he became Muslim. He would try to influence me to become Muslim, tell me all these nice stories and it sounded pretty cool."

Deleon's younger brother told Garcia that Deleon was moving to Afghanistan.

"He just said he was tired of all that life," Garcia said. "He was just a regular teenager, partying and all that before."

Ulises Vargas, 23, said he attended classes at Ontario High School in 2006 with Deleon, and ate lunch with him and other friends almost daily. Deleon was outgoing — someone who played on the football team, made Homecoming Court and cracked jokes at lunch.

"It's surreal because it's somebody that you knew," Vargas said.

Deleon's father politely declined to comment, saying only, "It's too difficult."

The case comes after a series of similar federal investigations of individuals in terror plots targeting sites in this country and abroad.

In the Pacific Northwest, half a dozen radicals were stopped after planning to open a terror training camp near the Washington-Oregon border. In Minneapolis, some 20 young men were recruited to undergo training for attacks abroad; one of them, Shirwa Ahmed, died in a round of suicide bombings in Somalia.

Kabir first got to Afghanistan in July 2012 and informed Santana and Deleon that they would join the "students" (the Taliban) and then step up to join the "professors" (Al Qaeda), according to the affidavit. He said the "brothers would take care of everything." But by Aug. 31, he was telling them the situation with Al Qaeda was a "little complicated." In September, he told them his main priority was now in Yemen, and they asked why they should fly to Afghanistan if that was so. On Sept. 30, Kabir said there were more complications because the three were coming from the United States.

In California, the men kept practicing and planning, trying to get their various immigration problems fixed They scrubbed their Facebook sites of jihadist material to avoid detection.

All the while, the FBI was compiling evidence against them. According the complaint, Santana repeatedly spoke of the violence he would cause: "I wanna do C-4s if I could just put one of these trucks right here.... Just drive it into like the baddest military base.... I'm gonna take out the whole base."

His comments, as conveyed in the FBI affidavit, suggest he had no qualms about killing people: "The more I think about it the more it excites me," he proclaimed. He wanted to go to Afghanistan because it was the most active spot, like "South Central."

While driving home after shooting an M-4 rifle at the range one day, the confidential informant asked the group how Kabir got them to convert. "Santana said that, growing up, he was easily influenced by people," according to the affidavit. "Santana said that he would hear Kabir talk and then 'accepted Islam without knowing anything about it besides it being the truth.' "

Deleon's conversion to Islam was similarly easy, according to the affidavit.

When the informant asked him at one point how he felt about the possibility of killing someone, Deleon said, "I'll snipe the guy off. I'm so ready"

A neighbor of Deleon's, who declined to be identified because he "didn't want trouble," said that recently Deleon began to wear Muslim attire on Fridays, a traditional day of prayer for Muslims.

Neighbors of Santana said he too lived with his parents, who are said to be devoted Catholics who dote on their young daughter and love to play with her at the neighborhood pool.

Maria Villa, who lives a few houses down the street, said her son and Santana used to hang out skateboarding and playing video games when they were students at Upland High School. That friendship quickly cooled two weeks ago when her son called Santana to catch up. Santana lectured him about the glory of Islam and seemed paranoid that people were following him.

"He was just talking about Allah," Villa said. "He just started to talk about Allah and said, 'You guys shouldn't be around me. I know people are looking at me.' "

phil.willon@latimes.com

kate.mather@latimes.com

joe.mozingo@latimes.com

The White House routinely lies to us for political reasons??? Probably!!!!

Intelligence officials edited talking points on Libya attack

By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times

November 21, 2012, 12:26 a.m.

WASHINGTON — Authorities with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the CIA, decided to remove the terms "attack," "Al Qaeda" and "terrorism" from unclassified guidance provided to the Obama administration several days after militants attacked the U.S. mission in Benghazi, a senior official said Tuesday.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, relied on the so-called talking points when she appeared on several Sunday TV talk shows five days after the Sept. 11 attacks in eastern Libya. She asserted that the violence, which killed four Americans, erupted out of a protest over a film made in the U.S. that mocked Islam.

Critics accused Rice and other administration officials of twisting the intelligence for political reasons when it later emerged that the CIA had concluded that the lethal assault involved militants, some of whom had links to Al Qaeda's North African affiliate. The White House has argued that Rice was relying on information provided by the CIA and other agencies and didn't deviate from it.

U.S. intelligence officials supported the administration claims Tuesday, contending that language in the talking points was changed by intelligence officers to protect information that was classified at the time.

"Early drafts of the talking points included several analytic judgments that were debated and adjusted during the internal intelligence community coordination process," said the senior intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue involved classified material. "The adjustments were focused on producing talking points that provided the best information available at the time, protected sensitive details and reflected the evolving nature of rapidly incoming intelligence."

Officials at the CIA and at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, headed by James R. Clapper, "were all communicating on an email chain, which is normal in our coordination process," the official said. "Suggestions were being made and implemented in a collaborative manner."

The CIA drafted the initial talking points, and they were not "edited to minimize the role of extremists, diminish terrorist affiliations, or play down that this was an attack," said a second U.S. official familiar with how the material was edited.

David H. Petraeus, the former CIA director, told the House and Senate intelligence committees in closed hearings Friday that he believed almost immediately that the Benghazi assault was an organized terrorist attack, according to lawmakers who attended the hearings. But he said the CIA initially withheld reports that extremists with links to Al Qaeda were involved to avoid tipping off the terrorists.

Petraeus also said some early classified reports supported the possibility that some attackers were motivated by violent protests in Cairo earlier that day over the anti-Islam video.

When the CIA drafted language that Rice could use for her TV appearances, it circulated the language to officials at Clapper's office, which has a supervisory role in the intelligence community. In the editing process, the word "attack" was changed to "demonstration," and the phrase "with ties to Al Qaeda" was removed, officials said. The word "terrorism" also was removed.

If intelligence professionals were responsible for the changes, it might dispel charges from some Republicans that political operatives at the White House had manipulated the narrative to downplay the possibility of an Al Qaeda attack when the Obama administration was campaigning on its successes in degrading the terrorist group.

One of the most vocal critics, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said he was "somewhat surprised and frustrated" Tuesday after CBS broke the news.

During the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last week, McCain said, "senior intelligence officials were asked this very question, and all of them, including the director of national intelligence himself, told us that they did not know who made the changes. Now we have to read the answers to our questions in the media."

McCain said the episode "is another reason why many of us are so frustrated with, and suspicious of, the actions of this administration when it comes to the Benghazi attack."

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and an embassy computer specialist were killed when the militants stormed and set fire to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Two CIA contractors were killed several hours later when mortar rounds were fired at a CIA compound about 1 1/2 miles away.

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants

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Senate bill rewrite lets feds read your e-mail without warrants

By Declan McCullagh | CNET.com

A Senate proposal touted as protecting Americans' e-mail privacy has been quietly rewritten, giving government agencies more surveillance power than they possess under current law.

CNET has learned that Patrick Leahy, the influential Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, has dramatically reshaped his legislation in response to law enforcement concerns. A vote on his bill, which now authorizes warrantless access to Americans' e-mail, is scheduled for next week.

Leahy's rewritten bill would allow more than 22 agencies -- including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Communications Commission -- to access Americans' e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook wall posts, and Twitter direct messages without a search warrant. It also would give the FBI and Homeland Security more authority, in some circumstances, to gain full access to Internet accounts without notifying either the owner or a judge. (CNET obtained the revised draft from a source involved in the negotiations with Leahy.)

Revised bill highlights

Grants warrantless access to Americans' electronic correspondence to over 22 federal agencies. Only a subpoena is required, not a search warrant signed by a judge based on probable cause.

Permits state and local law enforcement to warrantlessly access Americans' correspondence stored on systems not offered "to the public," including university networks.

Authorizes any law enforcement agency to access accounts without a warrant -- or subsequent court review -- if they claim "emergency" situations exist.

Says providers "shall notify" law enforcement in advance of any plans to tell their customers that they've been the target of a warrant, order, or subpoena.

Delays notification of customers whose accounts have been accessed from 3 days to "10 business days." This notification can be postponed by up to 360 days.

Leahy had planned a vote on an earlier version of his bill, designed to update a pair of 1980s-vintage surveillance laws, in late September. But after law enforcement groups including the National District Attorneys' Association and the National Sheriffs' Association organizations objected to the legislation and asked him to "reconsider acting" on it, Leahy pushed back the vote and reworked the bill as a package of amendments to be offered next Thursday. The package (PDF) is a substitute for H.R. 2471, which the House of Representatives already has approved.

One person participating in Capitol Hill meetings on this topic told CNET that Justice Department officials have expressed their displeasure about Leahy's original bill. The department is on record as opposing any such requirement: James Baker, the associate deputy attorney general, has publicly warned that requiring a warrant to obtain stored e-mail could have an "adverse impact" on criminal investigations.

Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said requiring warrantless access to Americans' data "undercuts" the purpose of Leahy's original proposal. "We believe a warrant is the appropriate standard for any contents," he said.

An aide to the Senate Judiciary committee told CNET that because discussions with interested parties are ongoing, it would be premature to comment on the legislation.

Marc Rotenberg, head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that in light of the revelations about how former CIA director David Petraeus' e-mail was perused by the FBI, "even the Department of Justice should concede that there's a need for more judicial oversight," not less.

Markham Erickson, a lawyer in Washington, D.C. who has followed the topic closely and said he was speaking for himself and not his corporate clients, expressed concerns about the alphabet soup of federal agencies that would be granted more power:

❝ There is no good legal reason why federal regulatory agencies such as the NLRB, OSHA, SEC or FTC need to access customer information service providers with a mere subpoena. If those agencies feel they do not have the tools to do their jobs adequately, they should work with the appropriate authorizing committees to explore solutions. The Senate Judiciary committee is really not in a position to adequately make those determinations. ❞

The list of agencies that would receive civil subpoena authority for the contents of electronic communications also includes the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Maritime Commission, the Postal Regulatory Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Mine Enforcement Safety and Health Review Commission.

Leahy's modified bill retains some pro-privacy components, such as requiring police to secure a warrant in many cases. But the dramatic shift, especially the regulatory agency loophole and exemption for emergency account access, likely means it will be near-impossible for tech companies to support in its new form.

A bitter setback

This is a bitter setback for Internet companies and a liberal-conservative-libertarian coalition, which had hoped to convince Congress to update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act to protect documents stored in the cloud. Leahy glued those changes onto an unrelated privacy-related bill supported by Netflix.

At the moment, Internet users enjoy more privacy rights if they store data on their hard drives or under their mattresses, a legal hiccup that the companies fear could slow the shift to cloud-based services unless the law is changed to be more privacy-protective.

Members of the so-called Digital Due Process coalition include Apple, Amazon.com, Americans for Tax Reform, AT&T, the Center for Democracy and Technology, eBay, Google, Facebook, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, TechFreedom, and Twitter. (CNET was the first to report on the coalition's creation.)

Leahy, a former prosecutor, has a mixed record on privacy. He criticized the FBI's efforts to require Internet providers to build in backdoors for law enforcement access, and introduced a bill in the 1990s protecting Americans' right to use whatever encryption products they wanted.

But he also authored the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which is now looming over Web companies, as well as the reviled Protect IP Act. An article in The New Republic concluded Leahy's work on the Patriot Act "appears to have made the bill less protective of civil liberties." Leahy had introduced significant portions of the Patriot Act under the name Enhancement of Privacy and Public Safety in Cyberspace Act (PDF) a year earlier.

One obvious option for the Digital Due Process coalition is the simplest: if Leahy's committee proves to be an insurmountable roadblock in the Senate, try the courts instead.

Judges already have been wrestling with how to apply the Fourth Amendment to an always-on, always-connected society. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police needed a search warrant for GPS tracking of vehicles. Some courts have ruled that warrantless tracking of Americans' cell phones, another coalition concern, is unconstitutional.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies already must obtain warrants for e-mail in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, thanks to a ruling by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio wins by a lousy .7 percent

While Sheriff Joe is the most popular politician in Arizona, I suspect he is also one of the most hated people in Arizona.

Sadly we will have to put up with Sheriff Joe for another 4 years.

Source

Arpaio wins by .7 percent

By LAURIE ROBERTS

Wed, Nov 21 2012 11:08 AM

Final election results are – at along last – in for Maricopa County.

So, the sheriff, once the most popular politician in the state, eked out a win. Half the county’s voters (actually half plus .7 percent) supported the sheriff.

That means that half (actually half minus. 7 percent) didn’t support the sheriff.

And it took him $8 million to get the .7 percent.

That’s not a mandate, it’s a warning. The question is, did the sheriff, who has already announced his intent to run for re-election in 2016, get the message?

Arizona Organix First Authorized Medical Marijuana Dispensary in Arizona

Arizona Organix Steps Out as the State's First Authorized Medical-Marijuana Dispensary

By Ray Stern Thursday, Nov 22 2012

A business in Glendale has become Arizona's first licensed medical-marijuana dispensary under a voter-approved 2010 law.

It's called Arizona Organix — but it would have been more fitting had the owners dubbed the place Target and adopted the mega-chain's red concentric logo.

This is hostile territory — the land of Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, who claims that anyone selling marijuana can be prosecuted regardless of the state law, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who'll do anything for a headline.

Montgomery, who also strongly opposes abortion and pornography, is trying his best to become a hero to social conservatives. In August, he partnered with Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne to file a motion in Superior Court that seeks to reverse the will of voters — allowing dispensaries and marijuana cultivation — by having a judge declare that the state law is preempted by the federal prohibition against pot.

A ruling on the motion by Judge Michael Gordon is expected any day now. But Montgomery and Arpaio could use another test case.

So far, Arizona Organix owners Ben Myer, Bill Myer (Ben's father), and Ryan Wells have stuck out their heads only halfway.

Their store was authorized on November 15 to sell marijuana by the Arizona Department of Health Services, but it isn't open yet. A sign on the door at Arizona Organix (5301 West Glendale Avenue), which is in a high-profile location between a pet-food store and an antique shop, says, "We hope to be operating within a few weeks" and asks interested customers to sign up on an e-mail list.

The situation frustrates some in the medical-marijuana community, because the DHS said it would begin notifying newly qualified patients who are within a 25-mile radius of the store that they are forbidden from growing marijuana. Arizona law allows patients to grow up to 12 plants each, but not if an operating dispensary is open within a 25-mile zone.

However, on Monday afternoon, DHS director Will Humble announced that it had allowed the dispensary to delay the effective day of operation until the retail store opens, meaning the 25-mile exclusion won't be triggered just yet.

Other dispensaries could open before Arizona Organix. DHS inspectors were scheduled to visit a Tucson dispensary on November 20. But the legal battlefield remains hazy for any marijuana-related business in Arizona.

Wells tells New Times that he and the Myers still are trying to figure out when to open, even though they've been working on the dispensary project for two years.

"This has been such a long road for us; a lot of my feelings are pretty well dulled by this point. The next hurdle is to open and see what happens," Wells says.

They're wondering what Arpaio might do: "He's always in our minds for the worst."

But that's not the only hurdle. Arizona Organix hasn't yet found a cultivation site in which to grow the marijuana that will be sold to qualified patients.

The city of Glendale, which approved the dispensary earlier this year, doesn't allow medical-marijuana retail stores to grow pot on-site. The company's looking for a roomy warehouse to turn into an indoor greenhouse. Landlords, fearing reprisals from the feds, have been more than hesitant.

"Nine out of 10 say no," Wells says. He adds that obtaining a site still appears possible, as they're in negotiations with several property owners.

In theory, the medical-pot shop could open with donated marijuana on the shelves. Patients and caregivers can only possess up to 2.5 ounces at any given time under state law, but growing 12 plants generates more than 2.5 ounces. Arizona law allows patients and registered caregivers, who can cultivate for up to five patients each, to give their excess marijuana away to authorized dispensaries.

Wells says Arizona Organix possibly could find people who want to donate their marijuana, but he says it's not good business to open with a limited supply only to run out before replacement pot from a cultivation site is ready for sale. Being the only operating, official medical-pot store in the Valley would make it popular, for sure. And the location already has been operating as a compassion club, which distributed marijuana to dues-paying members, ostensibly without requiring anything of value in return.

Until last week, the Alternative Health Clinic used what is now Arizona Organix's address and phone number. "Very easy process to get high-quality medicine," says a February 14 comment on the clinic's Yelp.com listing.

Similar businesses have sprung up all over the state since the passage of the Medical Marijuana Act. They're a result, in part, of the vacuum created when Governor Jan Brewer canceled the dispensary portion of the law by executive order in May 2011. After two failures in court to block the law, the Republican governor was ordered by a state judge in January to carry out the wishes of voters. Ninety-seven applicants for dispensaries were selected at random by the state.

Meanwhile, Valley police agencies have raided several compassion clubs, claiming they were operating outside of the medical-marijuana law. New clubs have opened to replace some of those that closed. The raids typically are preceded by an undercover "buy" at the club by an officer with a medical-marijuana card. It's unknown whether Alternative Health Clinic was under investigation by any law enforcement agency when Arizona Organix took over at the location.

I tried to get the 2nd page of this article, but the folks at the New Times screwed up and put a garbage link to the 2nd page.

If you want to read the full article go to the URL and try again to find page two of the article.

The FBI will pay you $250,000 to frame a terrorist? Maybe!!!

Source

Dependence on paid informant in terror case may aid defense

By Phil Willon and Andrew Khouri, Los Angeles Times

November 21, 2012, 7:04 p.m.

Federal agents' use of a paid informant to ensnare four Southern Californians plotting to join Al Qaeda is expected to be a focus of their defense against federal terrorism charges, allegations that continue to mystify family, friends and local Muslim leaders.

An attorney for one of the suspects on Wednesday criticized the case for hinging on evidence gathered by a confidential informant who had been convicted of drug-related charges.

The informant, who received $250,000 from the FBI and "immigration benefits" for his work over the four years, infiltrated the group in March and wore recording devices that provided evidence crucial to the case. The federal complaint unsealed this week against the four men was based in large part on incriminating statements recorded by the informant.

"What jumps out to me was the footnote in the affidavit that said the confidential source was paid a quarter million dollars," said Anaheim Hills attorney Randolph K. Driggs, who represents Ralph Deleon, 23, of Ontario. "We see the same thing in drug cases.... Informants push and prod until someone gives in. They have a financial incentive.''

Driggs said the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have aggressively pursued potential terrorism threats since the Sept. 11 attacks, increasing the possibility that people who lack the ability or intent to commit terrorist acts may be arrested for idle talk or a delusional fantasy.

Deleon and two other suspects, Miguel Santana of Upland and Arifeen Gojali of Riverside, both 21, were taken into custody during a vehicle stop in Chino on Friday, a day after they booked airline tickets from Mexico to Afghanistan. Attorneys for Santana and Gojali declined to comment about the case.

Terrorism experts dismissed the notion that suspects, as ill-prepared as they may appear, would not pose a potential threat.

"Bin Laden is dead, but Al Qaeda isn't. It has appeal to people, including amateur terrorists," said Bruce R. Hoffman, a counter-terrorism analyst at Georgetown University.

That includes a "small number" of Americans, he said, including the recent case of some 20 young men in Minneapolis who authorities say were recruited to undergo training for attacks abroad, and three former high school classmates in New York convicted of plotting to bomb the subway. Hoffman said there is no distilled profile of the type of person attracted by such a cause, but noted that many are young Islamic converts drawn in by a charismatic ringleader.

The central figure in the alleged plot is Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, who has lived in Pomona and served a year in the U.S. Air Force. The native Afghan and naturalized U.S. citizen converted Deleon and Santana to Islam in 2010, then left for Afghanistan, intent on joining the Taliban or Al Qaeda and paving the way for Santana and Deleon to join him, according to authorities. Santana and Deleon allegedly recruited Gojali in September.

Kabir was taken into custody Saturday in Kabul.

Brian Levine, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, said the explosion of social networking — through Facebook, YouTube and other avenues — also has aided terrorist recruitment and training, and has allowed kindred individuals to connect.

"The overwhelming majority of these folks are not-ready-for-prime time players," Levine said. "The important thing to look at, though, is how committed they are to violence and their cause.... They can always be trained."

At the Masjid al-Sabireen mosque in Pomona, which Gojali, Deleon and Santana attended, members expressed shock about the allegations against the young men.

"They are some wonderful youngsters," said Aaron Goulding. "If they are guilty of anything it's just of being youth and naive. Neither one of them have the ability nor the money to do what they claim they were willing to do."

Krya Jacques, president of the Cham American Muslim Community, said Gojali and his family were frequent visitors to the mosque and were well respected in the community.

"My impression was that this family is good family to all … and I hope all the news we get is false news," said Jacques.

Jacques said the mosque does not preach extremism.

"I don't know if it is the true story or a setup of some kind," he said of the allegations.

phil.willon@latimes.com

andrew.khouri@latimes.com

Pakistan to suspend cell phone service to protect us from terrorists

Source

Pakistan to suspend cell phone service to prevent attacks against Shiites, causing controversy

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, November 23, 5:35 AM

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s interior minister said Friday that the government will suspend cell phone service in most parts of the country over the next two days to prevent attacks against Shiite Muslims during a key religious commemoration.

Militants often detonate bombs using cell phones and the Pakistani government has implemented similar service suspensions in the past, but not on such a wide scale.

Saturday and Sunday are the most important days of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, which is especially important to Shiites.

Pakistani Shiites on Sunday observe the Ashoura, commemorating the 7th century death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson. The Sunni-Shiite schism over the true heir to Muhammad dates back to that era. Different parts of the Muslim world mark Ashoura on different days — neighboring Afghanistan, for example, observes it on Saturday.

Sunni extremists often target Shiites during Muharram, especially on Ashoura, frequently using cell phones. Several bombings targeting Shiites earlier this week killed over a dozen people.

The suspension of cell phone service will begin at 6 a.m. Saturday and run through the next day, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. He said 90 percent of the bombs set off by militants in Pakistan have been detonated using cell phones.

Some commentators have criticized the government for the policy of suspending cell phone service, saying it was a huge inconvenience to millions of Pakistanis and that militants could find other ways to stage attacks.

“The people it truly affects is every other Pakistani who may not have any alternative means of communication,” wrote Nadir Hassan in a column Friday in The Express Tribune newspaper.

“These are the people caught in accidents who need to call for help, those who just want to go about their everyday business without being unduly hindered by the state,” Hassan said.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Election Spurred a Move to Codify U.S. Drone Policy

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Election Spurred a Move to Codify U.S. Drone Policy

By SCOTT SHANE

Published: November 24, 2012 162 Comments

WASHINGTON — Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials.

The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified.

Mr. Obama and his advisers are still debating whether remote-control killing should be a measure of last resort against imminent threats to the United States, or a more flexible tool, available to help allied governments attack their enemies or to prevent militants from controlling territory.

Though publicly the administration presents a united front on the use of drones, behind the scenes there is longstanding tension. The Defense Department and the C.I.A. continue to press for greater latitude to carry out strikes; Justice Department and State Department officials, and the president’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, have argued for restraint, officials involved in the discussions say.

More broadly, the administration’s legal reasoning has not persuaded many other countries that the strikes are acceptable under international law. For years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the United States routinely condemned targeted killings of suspected terrorists by Israel, and most countries still object to such measures.

But since the first targeted killing by the United States in 2002, two administrations have taken the position that the United States is at war with Al Qaeda and its allies and can legally defend itself by striking its enemies wherever they are found.

Partly because United Nations officials know that the United States is setting a legal and ethical precedent for other countries developing armed drones, the U.N. plans to open a unit in Geneva early next year to investigate American drone strikes.

The attempt to write a formal rule book for targeted killing began last summer after news reports on the drone program, started under President George W. Bush and expanded by Mr. Obama, revealed some details of the president’s role in the shifting procedures for compiling “kill lists” and approving strikes. Though national security officials insist that the process is meticulous and lawful, the president and top aides believe it should be institutionalized, a course of action that seemed particularly urgent when it appeared that Mitt Romney might win the presidency.

“There was concern that the levers might no longer be in our hands,” said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity. With a continuing debate about the proper limits of drone strikes, Mr. Obama did not want to leave an “amorphous” program to his successor, the official said. The effort, which would have been rushed to completion by January had Mr. Romney won, will now be finished at a more leisurely pace, the official said.

Mr. Obama himself, in little-noticed remarks, has acknowledged that the legal governance of drone strikes is still a work in progress.

“One of the things we’ve got to do is put a legal architecture in place, and we need Congressional help in order to do that, to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president’s reined in terms of some of the decisions that we’re making,” Mr. Obama told Jon Stewart in an appearance on “The Daily Show” on Oct. 18.

In an interview with Mark Bowden for a new book on the killing of Osama bin Laden, “The Finish,” Mr. Obama said that “creating a legal structure, processes, with oversight checks on how we use unmanned weapons, is going to be a challenge for me and my successors for some time to come.”

The president expressed wariness of the powerful temptation drones pose to policy makers. “There’s a remoteness to it that makes it tempting to think that somehow we can, without any mess on our hands, solve vexing security problems,” he said.

Despite public remarks by Mr. Obama and his aides on the legal basis for targeted killing, the program remains officially classified. In court, fighting lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and The New York Times seeking secret legal opinions on targeted killings, the government has refused even to acknowledge the existence of the drone program in Pakistan.

But by many accounts, there has been a significant shift in the nature of the targets. In the early years, most strikes were aimed at ranking leaders of Al Qaeda thought to be plotting to attack the United States. That is the purpose Mr. Obama has emphasized, saying in a CNN interview in September that drones were used to prevent “an operational plot against the United States” and counter “terrorist networks that target the United States.”

But for at least two years in Pakistan, partly because of the C.I.A.’s success in decimating Al Qaeda’s top ranks, most strikes have been directed at militants whose main battle is with the Pakistani authorities or who fight with the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan.

In Yemen, some strikes apparently launched by the United States killed militants who were preparing to attack Yemeni military forces. Some of those killed were wearing suicide vests, according to Yemeni news reports.

“Unless they were about to get on a flight to New York to conduct an attack, they were not an imminent threat to the United States,” said Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who is a critic of the strikes. “We don’t say that we’re the counterinsurgency air force of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, but we are.”

Then there is the matter of strikes against people whose identities are unknown. In an online video chat in January, Mr. Obama spoke of the strikes in Pakistan as “a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists.” But for several years, first in Pakistan and later in Yemen, in addition to “personality strikes” against named terrorists, the C.I.A. and the military have carried out “signature strikes” against groups of suspected, unknown militants.

Originally that term was used to suggest the specific “signature” of a known high-level terrorist, such as his vehicle parked at a meeting place. But the word evolved to mean the “signature” of militants in general — for instance, young men toting arms in an area controlled by extremist groups. Such strikes have prompted the greatest conflict inside the Obama administration, with some officials questioning whether killing unidentified fighters is legally justified or worth the local backlash.

Many people inside and outside the government have argued for far greater candor about all of the strikes, saying excessive secrecy has prevented public debate in Congress or a full explanation of their rationale. Experts say the strikes are deeply unpopular both in Pakistan and Yemen, in part because of allegations of large numbers of civilian casualties, which American officials say are exaggerated.

Gregory D. Johnsen, author of “The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda and America’s War in Arabia,” argues that the strike strategy is backfiring in Yemen. “In Yemen, Al Qaeda is actually expanding,” Mr. Johnsen said in a recent talk at the Brookings Institution, in part because of the backlash against the strikes.

Shuja Nawaz, a Pakistan-born analyst now at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said the United States should start making public a detailed account of the results of each strike, including any collateral deaths, in part to counter propaganda from jihadist groups. “This is a grand opportunity for the Obama administration to take the drones out of the shadows and to be open about their objectives,” he said.

But the administration appears to be a long way from embracing such openness. The draft rule book for drone strikes that has been passed among agencies over the last several months is so highly classified, officials said, that it is hand-carried from office to office rather than sent by e-mail.

Military's dogs of war also suffer post-traumatic stress disorder

Military's dogs of war also suffer post-traumatic stress disorder

By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times

November 26, 2012

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas — Not long after a Belgian Malinois named Cora went off to war, she earned a reputation for sniffing out the buried bombs that were the enemy's weapon of choice to kill or maim U.S. troops.

Cora could roam a hundred yards or more off her leash, detect an explosive and then lie down gently to signal danger. All she asked in return was a kind word or a biscuit, maybe a play session with a chew toy once the squad made it back to base.

"Cora always thought everything was a big game," said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Garry Laub, who trained Cora before she deployed. "She knew her job. She was a very squared-away dog."

But after months in Iraq and dozens of combat patrols, Cora changed. The transformation was not the result of one traumatic moment, but possibly the accumulation of stress and uncertainty brought on by the sharp sounds, high emotion and ever-present death in a war zone.

Cora — deemed a "push-button" dog, one without much need for supervision — became reluctant to leave her handler's side. Loud noises startled her. The once amiable Cora growled frequently and picked fights with other military working dogs.

When Cora returned to the U.S. two years ago, there was not a term for the condition that had undercut her combat effectiveness and shattered her nerves. Now there is: canine post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Dogs experience combat just like humans," said Marine Staff Sgt. Thomas Gehring, a dog handler assigned to the canine training facility at Lackland Air Force Base, who works with Cora daily.

Veterinarians and senior dog handlers at Lackland have concluded that dogs, like humans, can require treatment for PTSD, including conditioning, retraining and possibly medication such as the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. Some dogs, like 5-year-old Cora, just need to be treated as honored combat veterans and allowed to lead less-stressful lives.

Walter Burghardt Jr., chief of behavioral medicine and military working-dog studies at Lackland, estimates that at least 10% of the hundreds of dogs sent to Iraq and Afghanistan to protect U.S. troops have developed canine PTSD.

Cora appears to have a mild case. Other dogs come home traumatized.

"They're essentially broken and can't work," Burghardt said.

There are no official statistics, but Burghardt estimates that half of the dogs that return with PTSD or other behavioral hitches can be retrained for "useful employment" with the military or law enforcement, such as police departments, the Border Patrol or the Homeland Security Department.

The others dogs are retired and made eligible for adoption as family pets.

The decision to officially label the dogs' condition as PTSD was made by a working group of dog trainers and other specialists at Lackland. In most cases, such labeling of animal behavior would be subjected to peer review and scrutiny in veterinary medical journals.

But Burghardt and others in the group decided that they could not wait for that kind of lengthy professional vetting — that a delay could endanger those who depend on the dogs.

Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the military has added hundreds of canines and now has about 2,500 — Dutch and German shepherds, Belgian Malinois and Labrador retrievers — trained in bomb detection, guard duty or "controlled aggression" for patrolling.

Lackland trains dogs and dog handlers for all branches of the military. The huge base, located in San Antonio, has a $15-million veterinary hospital devoted to treating dogs working for the military or law enforcement, like a Border Patrol dog who lost a leg during a firefight between agents and a suspected drug smuggler.

"He's doing fine, much better," the handler yelled out when asked about the dog's condition.

Cora received her initial training here and then additional training with Laub at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. Before they could deploy, however, Laub was transferred to Arkansas, and Cora shipped off to Iraq with a different handler, much to Laub's regret.

"I'll always remember her as the girl who got away," Laub said. "She and I had clicked so well."

The bond between handlers and military working dogs is legendary. Army 1st Sgt. Casey Stevens has a catch in his voice when he mentions Alf, the German shepherd with whom he deployed to Iraq. Alf survived the war and died in the U.S. of natural causes.

"He saved my life several times; he had my back," Stevens said. "Some guys talk to their dogs more than they do to their fellow soldiers. They're definitely not equipment."

"Equipment" is a kind of dirty word among dog handlers. In the Vietnam War, the military left behind hundreds of working dogs, determining that they were excess equipment. That will never occur again, military officials promise.

But when some of the current generation of war dogs returned to the U.S., their handlers noticed the lingering effects of battle.

Stevens has seen once-confident dogs freeze up when going through an easy training exercise. "They would just shut down," he said. "I think they were going through memories."

Just why Cora's behavior changed is unknown. One possibility is that she sensed the apprehension of her handler or other troops around her — that classic battlefield concern that after months of survival, your luck is running out. A working dog has been trained to understand and even anticipate the handler's needs and moods.

"There's a saying in canine handling: Your emotion goes 'down the leash,'" Laub said. "The handler's stress goes right to the dog."

Calling Cora's condition canine PTSD drives home a point that Burghardt feels is key: "This is something that does not get better without intervention."

Two factors slowed down the decision to label canine PTSD. For one, Burghardt and others did not want to suggest disrespect for the military personnel who have been diagnosed with the disorder.

Second is the problem faced by any veterinarian. "You can't ask them questions," Burghardt said.

The goal is to "rebuild and recondition" an afflicted dog, said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Charles Rudy, instructor supervisor at the dog training school.

"It's really counter-conditioning," Rudy said. "You find out what the dog doesn't enjoy and then find what will overpower that."

If the dog is afraid of the dark, exercises involve a decreasing amount of light, with the dog given treats and positive reinforcement each time it successfully enters a dimly lighted space. The same approach is used if the problem involves places that are noisy or crowded with people.

At a compact 60 or so pounds, Cora is fit and bright-eyed, her coat is shiny and she can still outrun most other dogs. Thanks to retraining and shielding her from battle, she has calmed down somewhat.

She no longer snarls at other dogs. But neither does she anticipate her handler's orders or quiver with excitement at the idea of sniffing out hidden explosives. Like many a human veteran, Cora is marked forever by having gone to war.

One recent day, Cora appeared to work well with Cpl. Drew Daniel Adams, a trainee from the Marine base in Yuma, Ariz. Cora stayed close by Adams but gave off a vibe to other humans of "don't get too close to me."

Sometimes Cora will appear to respond to a command and then decide that, no, she would rather sit down and rest.

"Sometimes she just doesn't do what she's asked," Rudy said. But her occasional moodiness makes her an excellent trainer of trainers. "It's beneficial because [the trainees] get to see not just when things are working right, but when things aren't working. That increases their skills."

Trainees admire Cora as a combat veteran. But admiration and affection may be two different things.

Asked about whether the trainees like Cora, Rudy laughed. "I can't say specifically, but I'm willing to bet they don't appreciate her quirks at first."

If Adams cannot control Cora, he might not pass the course. Better that Adams or any trainee wash out now rather than be unable to work with a balky dog in Afghanistan.

"Cora has proven a challenge for him and that's good," Gehring said. "Cora is still working for us."

Another thing about Cora hasn't changed. She still loves a pat on the head or a biscuit, reminders of a younger dog who seemed to see everything as a game.

tony.perry@latimes.com

Supreme Court blocks Illinois law prohibiting taping of police

Supreme Court blocks Illinois law prohibiting taping of police

Tribune staff

10:12 a.m. CST, November 26, 2012

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked enforcement of an Illinois law that prohibited people from recording police officers on the job.

The justices on Monday left in place a lower court ruling that found that the state's anti-eavesdropping law violates free speech rights when used against people who tape law enforcement officers.

The law set out a maximum prison term of 15 years.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in 2010 against Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez to block prosecution of ACLU staff for recording police officers performing their duties in public places, one of the group's long-standing monitoring missions.

Opponents of the law say the right to record police is vital to guard against abuses.

Last May, a federal appeals court in Chicago ruled that the law “likely violates” the First Amendment and ordered that authorities be banned from enforcing it.

The appeals court agreed with the ACLU that the "Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests.”

The appeals court ruling came weeks before the NATO summit when thousands of people armed with smart phones and video cameras demonstrated in the city. Officials had already announced that they would not enforce the law against summit protesters.

Public debate over the law had been simmering since last summer.

In August of 2011, a Cook County jury acquitted a woman who had been charged with recording Chicago police internal affairs investigators she believed were trying to dissuade her from filing a sexual harassment complaint against a patrol officer.

Judges in Cook and Crawford counties later declared the law unconstitutional, and the McLean County state's attorney cited flaws in the law when he dropped charges this past February against a man accused of recording an officer during a traffic stop.

Harvey Grossman, legal director of the ACLU of Illinois, said the organization was "pleased that the Supreme Court has refused to take this appeal. . .The ACLU of Illinois continues to believe that in order to make the rights of free expression and petition effective, individuals and organizations must be able to freely gather and record information about the conduct of government and their agents – especially the police. The advent and widespread accessibility of new technologies make the recording and dissemination of pictures and sound inexpensive, efficient and easy to accomplish."

The police will illegally search your cellphone without a warrant????

Sadly some courts have not ruled this as being a violation of the 4th Amendment.

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Courts Divided Over Searches of Cellphones

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

Published: November 25, 2012 149 Comments

Judges and lawmakers across the country are wrangling over whether and when law enforcement authorities can peer into suspects’ cellphones, and the cornucopia of evidence they provide.

A Rhode Island judge threw out cellphone evidence that led to a man being charged with the murder of a 6-year-old boy, saying the police needed a search warrant. A court in Washington compared text messages to voice mail messages that can be overheard by anyone in a room and are therefore not protected by state privacy laws.

In Louisiana, a federal appeals court is weighing whether location records stored in smartphones deserve privacy protection, or whether they are “business records” that belong to the phone companies.

“The courts are all over the place,” said Hanni Fakhoury, a criminal lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group. “They can’t even agree if there’s a reasonable expectation of privacy in text messages that would trigger Fourth Amendment protection.”

The issue will attract attention on Thursday when a Senate committee considers limited changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a 1986 law that regulates how the government can monitor digital communications. Courts have used it to permit warrantless surveillance of certain kinds of cellphone data.

A proposed amendment would require the police to obtain a warrant to search e-mail, no matter how old it was, updating a provision that currently allows warrantless searches of e-mails more than 180 days old.

As technology races ahead of the law, courts and lawmakers are still trying to figure out how to think about the often intimate data that cellphones contain, said Peter P. Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University. Neither the 1986 statute nor the Constitution, he said, could have anticipated how much information cellphones may contain, including detailed records of people’s travels and diagrams of their friends.

“It didn’t take into account what the modern cellphone has — your location, the content of communications that are easily readable, including Facebook posts, chats, texts and all that stuff,” Mr. Swire said.

Courts have also issued divergent rulings on when and how cellphones can be inspected. An Ohio court ruled that the police needed a warrant to search a cellphone because, unlike a piece of paper that might be stuffed inside a suspect’s pocket and can be confiscated during an arrest, a cellphone may hold “large amounts of private data.”

But California’s highest court said the police could look through a cellphone without a warrant so long as the phone was with the suspect at the time of arrest.

Judges across the nation have written tomes about whether a cellphone is akin to a “container” — like a suitcase stuffed with marijuana that the police might find in the trunk of a car — or whether, as the judge in the Rhode Island murder case suggested, it is more comparable to a face-to-face conversation. That judge, Judith C. Savage, described text messages as “raw, unvarnished and immediate, revealing the most intimate of thoughts and emotions.” That is why, she said, citizens can reasonably expect them to be private.

There is little disagreement about the value of cellphone data to the police. In response to a Congressional inquiry, cellphone carriers said they responded in 2011 to 1.3 million demands from law enforcement agencies for text messages and other information about subscribers.

Among the most precious information in criminal inquiries is the location of suspects, and when it comes to location records captured by smartphones, court rulings have also been inconsistent. Privacy advocates say a trail of where people go is inherently private, while law enforcement authorities say that consumers have no privacy claim over signals transmitted from an individual mobile device to a phone company’s communications tower, which they refer to as third-party data.

Delaware, Maryland and Oklahoma have proposed legislation that would require the police to obtain a warrant before demanding location records from cellphone carriers. California passed such a law in August after intense lobbying by privacy advocates, including Mr. Fakhoury’s group. But Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, vetoed the bill, questioning whether it struck “the right balance between the operational needs of law enforcement and individual expectations of privacy.”

Similar legislation has been proposed in Congress.

Lacking a clear federal statute, the courts have been unable to reach a consensus. In Texas, a federal appeals court said this year that law enforcement officials did not need a warrant to track suspects through cellphones. In Louisiana, another federal appeals court is considering a similar case. Prosecutors are arguing that location information is part of cellphone carriers’ business records and thus not constitutionally protected.

The Supreme Court has not directly tackled the issue, except to declare, in a landmark ruling this year, that the police must obtain a search warrant to install a GPS tracking device on someone’s private property.

“We are in a constitutional moment for location tracking,” said Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. “It’s percolating in all these places.”

The Rhode Island case began shortly after 6 a.m. on a Sunday in October 2009, when Trisha Oliver called 911 to say that her son, Marco Nieves, 6, was unconscious in his bed. An ambulance rushed the boy to the hospital. A police officer also responded to the call, and Ms. Oliver escorted him through the bedrooms of her apartment. She then went to the hospital, leaving the police officer behind.

The officer heard a “beeping” in the kitchen, according to court papers. He picked up an LG-brand cellphone from the counter and saw this message: “Wat if I got 2 take him 2 da hospital wat do I say and dos marks on his neck omg.” It appeared to be from Ms. Oliver to her boyfriend, Michael Patino, court documents said.

Mr. Patino, 30, who was in the apartment at the time, was taken to the police station for questioning. The cellphone he had with him was seized. By evening, the boy was dead. The cause of death, according to court records, was “blunt force trauma to the abdomen which perforated his small intestine.”

Mr. Patino was charged with Marco’s murder.

In the course of the investigation, the police obtained more than a dozen search warrants for the cellphones of Mr. Patino, Ms. Oliver and their relatives. They also obtained records of phone calls and voice mail messages from the cellphone carriers.

Nearly three years later, in a 190-page ruling, Judge Savage sharply criticized the police.

The first police officer had no right to look at the phone without a search warrant, Judge Savage ruled. It was not in “plain view,” she wrote, nor did Ms. Oliver give her consent to search it. The court said Mr. Patino could reasonably have expected the text messages he exchanged with Ms. Oliver to be free from police scrutiny.

The judge then suppressed the bounty of evidence that the prosecution had secured through warrants, including the text message that had initially drawn the police officer’s attention.

“Given the amount of private information that can be readily gleaned from the contents of a person’s cellphone and text messages — and the heightened concerns for privacy as a result — this court will not expand the warrantless search exceptions to include the search of a cellphone and the viewing of text messages,” she wrote.

Mr. Patino remains in jail while the case is on appeal in the state’s Supreme Court. A lawyer for Mr. Patino did not respond to a request for comment.

Just months before Judge Savage’s ruling, the Rhode Island legislature passed a law compelling the police to obtain a warrant to search a cellphone, even if they find it during an arrest. Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, an independent, vetoed the bill, saying, “The courts, and not the legislature, are better suited to resolve these complex and case-specific issues.”

Enrique Peña Nieto to continue Felipe Calderon's "war on drugs"

Sadly new President Enrique Peña Nieto promises to continue this insane "war on drugs" which is mostly paid for by the USA ($2 billion to date or $20 for each of Mexico's 100 million people).

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Calderon finishes his six-year drug war at stalemate

By Nick Miroff and William Booth, Updated: Tuesday, November 27, 4:50 AM

MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderon, who sent battalions of poorly trained soldiers into the streets to fight powerful transnational crime organizations, leaves the battlefield this week after six years with at least 60,000 dead in drug violence and the war essentially a stalemate.

Although Calderon’s security forces have captured or killed more than two dozen of Mexico’s most-wanted drug cartel leaders, many of those vacancies have been filled. And while some cartels have been diminished, others have thrived, and there has been no measurable decrease in the quantity of drugs smuggled into the United States.

Calderon’s strategy unleashed record levels of crime that helped send his party to a staggering defeat in July’s presidential election, though a majority of Mexicans say in polls they support the military campaign.

Incoming president Enrique Peña Nieto of the rival Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, replaces Calderon on Saturday, promising to press ahead with the fight and maintain Mexico’s drug war partnership with the United States.

Yet Peña Nieto says he will fight the drug war differently, measuring success not by bringing down cartel bosses but by bringing down Mexico’s homicide rate. He will meet with President Obama at the White House on Tuesday.

What is unclear is how Mexico’s new president can deliver security gains in cities and towns, where government troops are often the only bulwark between relative order and total criminal takeover.

Calderon has insisted his military-led strategy is finally making Mexico safer. Homicides attributed to organized criminal activity fell in the first six months of this year, his administration says, declining for the first time since Calderon took office in December 2006.

The country has gone several months without one of the spectacular mass killings that left police corpses dumped along major highways or tortured bodies hanging from bridges a few miles from the U.S. border. And regions popular with tourists and American retirees are mostly free of violence.

Homicide rates have plunged in the once notoriously dangerous border cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. Businesses have reopened, and citizens praise the relative calm.

Calderon’s approval rating has improved in polls as public perceptions of security tick upward, and in recent speeches he insists “history will be the judge” of his term.

“In these six years, our nation has waged an unprecedented fight for the rule of law, justice and freedom for our families,” Calderon said in a recent address to the Mexican Congress that was careful to characterize the fight as a still-evolving “process.”

It is hard-won progress at an extraordinary price.

Calderon came into office vowing to reduce poverty, increase educational opportunities and open the country to free and competitive enterprise. Modest gains were made, but his center-right government was consumed by the drug war.

Stemming the flow of illegal narcotics from Mexico was one of the drug fight’s top priorities for Washington, which has backed Calderon with nearly $2 billion in security aid.

The U.S. government delivered Black Hawk helicopters, night-vision goggles and crime-fighting computer software, and helped train thousands of Mexican federal police at academies supported with U.S. tax dollars.

Six years into the fight, Mexican marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin remain cheap and more plentiful than ever in the United States, according to U.S. government data. U.N. surveys indicate that the per-gram price of cocaine on American streets is roughly the same today as it was a decade ago.

Calderon was not the first Mexican president to send soldiers against drug traffickers. But the deployment of more than 50,000 heavily armed, masked troops to patrol city streets became his signature security strategy, as Mexico’s police floundered in corruption scandals and the nation’s dysfunctional criminal justice system was overwhelmed, critics say.

According to tallies of government homicide data by Mexican media organizations, about 60,000 people have been killed in cartel-related violence since Calderon took office. An unknown number have gone missing; unknown because the government has refused to release its internal tallies.

Calculating the drug war dead is a guessing game. Earlier this year, the Calderon government announced it would no longer update its running count of drug killings, saying the true cause of death could not be reliably ascertained in a country where fewer than 10 percent of all crimes are investigated.

But Mexico’s raw crime statistics are sobering.

All homicides, whether the result of a barroom brawl or cartel feud, have gone up every year under Calderon, from fewer than 9,000 in 2007 to more than 27,000 last year, according to Mexico’s National Statistics Institute. It is likely there will be more than 100,000 homicides in Mexico during Calderon’s term, far more than in the United States — which has almost three times the population — during the same period.

Kidnappings, robberies and extortion have soared as well, symptoms of a broader breakdown in public security unleashed by the cartel violence, analysts say.

In one especially grim gauge of the violence, Mexican prosecutors revealed earlier this year that more than 1,300 people were beheaded in the country between 2007 and 2011.

In May, three top Mexican generals, one a former undersecretary of defense, were arrested and charged with working for the Beltran Leyva drug cartel.

“You can say the war has been a failure because Calderon said violence needed to stop, and now there’s three times more violence,” said Ruben Aguilar, a popular commentator in Mexico who served as spokesman for Calderon’s predecessor, President Vicente Fox.

“He said he had to diminish the cartels. But the cartels are still here, bigger and more violent than ever.”

Kingpins and killings

Although many drug lords have fallen, a glaring exception is Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman, Mexico’s most powerful trafficker, who under Calderon has expanded control over the most lucrative smuggling routes.

Forbes magazine listed Chapo as one the world’s richest men. In private, U.S. narcotics agents grumble that his web of bribery reaches deep into the Mexican government, helping him elude capture over and over.

But the Obama administration has avoided criticizing Calderon or his strategy on the record.

Calderon “has had significant success in clearly recognizing the problem and working to find a way to address it,” said David T. Johnson, the former U.S. assistant secretary of state who was in charge of the drug war partnership with Mexico and American assistance for judicial reform. “It is much to his credit that he has reached out to the United States as partner, working with us to build capacity of the criminal justice system.”

Yet not one of the dozen top cartel leaders captured alive has been put on trial and convicted in Mexico using police-gathered evidence or witness testimony — a sign that the institution building and judicial reform that were supposed to be a hallmark of Calderon’s campaign have fallen far short.

Instead, the kingpins are typically extradited to the United States or held for years without trial in Mexico.

A July report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass), concludes the deployment of Mexican military to fight organized crime has been ineffective and may have increased sensational killings by fragmenting crime mafias into warring bands.

Police tactics

Mexican film director Roberto Hernandez, whose “Presunto Culpable” (Presumed Guilty) chronicled the odyssey of a wrongly accused man and became the highest-grossing documentary in Mexican history after authorities tried to censor it, said “some progress has been made” in reforming the country’s legal system, “but unfortunately, I can’t say it’s due to the leadership of the president.”

Forced confessions continue to be standard practice, sometimes exacted by torture, say human rights observers, who have found that the worst abuses have been committed by Mexican soldiers.

“The military was the only institution with the firepower to confront the drug cartels, but it didn’t have the policing skills, and the police had those skills, but not the firepower,” said Roderic Camp, an expert on the Mexican military at California’s Claremont McKenna College.

Calderon attempted to reshape Mexico’s federal police force for that role, raising the number of officers from 6,000 to more than 35,000. But the agency has been plagued by scandal and criminal infiltration.

A dozen Mexican federal police, wearing civilian clothes and driving unmarked cars, launched at a high-powered ambush attack in August against an armored sports utility vehicle with diplomatic plates, leaving two CIA agents and a Mexican marine wounded. Mexican officials have still not determined whether the attack was a case of mistaken targets or directed at U.S. personnel.

The federal police buildup was a cornerstone of Calderon’s security strategy. Peña Nieto plans to shift tactics and fight the narcos with a new paramilitary force modeled after the French National Gendarmerie.

By then, Calderon may no longer be living in Mexico. In diplomatic receptions, he has repeatedly said he plans to move to the United States at the end of his term, fearing for his life.

If Mexico’s homicide rate continues to decline and security improves after he leaves office, Calderon will probably be vindicated for his strategy despite the high costs, said independent pollster Jorge Buendia.

“Right now, I think the public is ambivalent,” Buendia said. “They support the fight against the cartels as a matter of principle. But they’re ready for a change.”

NYPD using lost cell phones as an excuse to spy on people

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City Is Amassing Trove of Cellphone Logs

By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN

Published: November 26, 2012

When a cellphone is reported stolen in New York, the Police Department routinely subpoenas the phone’s call records, from the day of the theft onward. The logic is simple: If a thief uses the phone, a list of incoming and outgoing calls could lead to the suspect.

But in the process, the Police Department has quietly amassed a trove of telephone logs, all obtained without a court order, that could conceivably be used for any investigative purpose.

The call records from the stolen cellphones are integrated into a database known as the Enterprise Case Management System, according to Police Department documents from the detective bureau. Each phone number is hyperlinked, enabling detectives to cross-reference it against phone numbers in other files.

The subpoenas not only cover the records of the thief’s calls, but also encompass calls to and from the victim on the day of the theft. In some cases the records can include calls made to and from a victim’s new cellphone, if the stolen phone’s number has been transferred, three detectives said in interviews.

Police officials declined to say how many phone records are contained in the database, or how often they might have led to arrests. But police documents suggest that thousands of subpoenas have been issued each year, with each encompassing anywhere from dozens to hundreds of phone calls.

For example, T-Mobile, which has a smaller market share than some of its competitors, like Verizon, fulfilled 297 police subpoenas issued in January 2012, according to a police document.

To date, phone companies have appeared willing to accede to the Police Department’s requests for large swaths of call records. Memos issued Sept. 28 by the chief of detectives, Phil T. Pulaski, instruct detectives to prepare subpoenas for stolen phones assigned to AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile or Metro-PCS. With these carriers, the police do not generally seek the victims’ consent; in fact, the subpoenas are executed without the victims’ knowledge. (It does not appear that subpoenas are issued when the stolen phone is served by Sprint Nextel. In those cases, detectives are instructed to ask the victim to fill out consent forms that authorize Sprint Nextel to release call records and location information to the police.)

“If large amounts of victim phone records are being collected and added to a searchable database, it’s very troubling,” said Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who represents wireless carriers, in a phone interview.

“We’re all used to the concept of growing databases of criminal information,” Mr. Sussmann, of the firm Perkins Coie, said, “but now you’re crossing over that line and drawing in victim information.”

Police officials would not say if detectives had used the call records of any cellphone theft victims in the course of investigating other crimes. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, did not reply to more than half a dozen requests for comments.

The practice of accumulating the phone numbers in a searchable database is “eye-opening and alarming,” a civil rights lawyer, Norman Siegel, said when told of the protocol for subpoenaing phone records. “There is absolutely no legitimate purpose for doing this. If I’m an innocent New Yorker, why should any of my information be in a police database?”

Mr. Siegel also said the Police Department should not be permitted to hold on to phone records indefinitely if the records were not relevant to active criminal investigations.

Nationwide, cellphone carriers reported receiving about 1.5 million requests from law enforcement for various types of subscriber information in 2011.

Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who is co-chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, began seeking information this year about how cellular carriers handle law enforcement’s requests for subscriber information. And on Thursday, a Senate committee will consider changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Mr. Sussmann suggested that the Police Department could limit its subpoenas to phone calls beginning on the hour, not the day, of the theft, and ending as soon as the victim has transferred the number to a new phone.

According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, the police subpoenas seek call records associated with the telephone number of the stolen phone.

As a result, three detectives said in interviews, the phone companies’ response sometimes includes call records for not only the stolen phone, but also the victim’s new phone, depending on variables like how quickly the victim transfers the old phone number to a new handset and how many days of calls the subpoena seeks.

One detective said the subpoenas from recent cases typically requested about four days of phone records, but documents reviewed by The Times indicate that the subpoenas can cover longer periods, sometimes as much as two weeks or more.

In interviews, detectives said that if an arrest occurs, it is often a result of earlier investigative steps. Chief Pulaski’s memos from Sept. 28 instruct detectives to use any tracking or location application on the victim’s phone to track down a suspect. Victims are asked to immediately call the phone carrier and learn the details of any phone calls placed after the theft. In addition, detectives ask the victim not to transfer their phone number to a new phone for about four days. Finally, detectives are then required to prepare a subpoena, the results of which usually take a few weeks.

By then, most of the unsolved phone cases have been put on the back burner, and the subpoenaed records seldom lead to an arrest, four current and retired detectives said in interviews.

Lawsuit targets ‘locator’ chips in student IDs

Looks like 1984 is here, even if it took a almost 30 years

Lawsuit targets ‘locator’ chips in student IDs

By Paul J. Weber Associated Press Tue Nov 27, 2012 9:06 PM

AUSTIN, Texas -- To 15-year-old Andrea Hernandez, the tracking microchip embedded in her student ID card is a “mark of the beast,” sacrilege to her Christian faith — not to mention how it pinpoints her location, even in the school bathroom.

But to her budget-reeling San Antonio school district, those chips carry a potential $1.7 million in classroom funds.

Starting this fall, the fourth-largest school district in Texas is experimenting with “locator” chips in student ID badges on two of its campuses.

When Hernandez and her parents balked at the so-called SmartID, the school agreed to remove the chip but still required her to wear the badge. The family refused on religious grounds, stating in a lawsuit that even wearing the badge was tantamount to “submission of a false god” because the card still indicated her participation.

On Wednesday, a state district judge is expected to decide whether Northside Independent School District can transfer Hernandez to a different campus.

“How often do you see an issue where the ACLU and Christian fundamentalists come together? It’s unusual,” said Chris Steinbach, the chief of staff for Republican state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, who has filed a bill to outlaw it in Texas schools.

In Texas, school funding is based on attendance. The more students seated in homeroom when the first bell rings, the more state dollars the school receives.

With the locator chips, a clerk in the main office can find out whether students are elsewhere on campus and, if so, include them in the attendance count.

Gonzalez said the district estimated it’ll bring in an additional $1.7 million in funding, somewhat lessening the sting of losing $61.5 million after state lawmakers cut public school funding in Texas.

U.N. vote recognizes state of Palestine; U.S. objects

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U.N. vote recognizes state of Palestine; U.S. objects

Associated Press Thu Nov 29, 2012 4:07 PM

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to recognize a Palestinian state, a long-sought victory for the Palestinians but an embarrassing diplomatic defeat for the United States.

The resolution upgrading the Palestinians’ status to a nonmember observer state at the United Nations was approved by a more than two-thirds majority of the 193-member world body — a vote of 138-9, with 41 abstentions.

A Palestinian flag was quickly unfurled on the floor of the General Assembly, behind the Palestinian delegation. Jubilant Palestinians who crowded around outdoor screens and television sets to watch the vote hugged, honked and set off fireworks in celebration.

Real independence, however, remains an elusive dream until the Palestinians negotiate a peace deal with the Israelis, who warned that the General Assembly action will only delay a lasting solution. Israel still controls the West Bank, east Jerusalem and access to Gaza, and it accused the Palestinians of bypassing negotiations with the campaign to upgrade their U.N. status.

The United States immediately criticized the historic vote. “Today’s unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles in the path peace,” U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said.

And U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the vote “unfortunate” and “counterproductive.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the speech by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the General Assembly shortly before the vote “defamatory and venomous,” saying it was “full of mendacious propaganda” against Israel.

Abbas had told the General Assembly that it was “being asked today to issue the birth certificate of Palestine.” Abbas said the vote is the last chance to save the two-state solution.

After the vote, Netanyahu said the UN move violated past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians and that Israel would act accordingly, without elaborating what steps it might take.

Just before the vote, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Ron Prosor, warned the General Assembly that “the Palestinians are turning their backs on peace” and that the U.N. can’t break the 4,000-year-old bond between the people of Israel and the land of Israel.

The vote had been certain to succeed, with most of the member states sympathetic to the Palestinians. Several key countries, including France, this week announced they would support the move to elevate the Palestinians from the status of U.N. observer to nonmember observer state.

Thursday’s vote came on the same day, Nov. 29, that the U.N. General Assembly in 1947 voted to recognize a state in Palestine, with the jubilant revelers then Jews. The Palestinians rejected that partition plan, and decades of tension and violence have followed.

The vote grants Abbas an overwhelming international endorsement for his key position: establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. With Netanyahu opposed to a pullback to the 1967 lines, this should strengthen Abbas’ hand if peace talks resume.

The overwhelming vote also could help Abbas restore some of his standing, which has been eroded by years of standstill in peace efforts. His rival, Hamas, deeply entrenched in Gaza, has seen its popularity rise after an Israeli offensive on targets linked to the Islamic militant group there earlier this month.

Israel has stepped back from initial threats of harsh retaliation for the Palestinians seeking U.N. recognition, but government officials warned that Israel would respond to any Palestinian attempts to use the upgraded status to confront Israel in international bodies.

The Palestinians now can gain access to U.N. agencies and international bodies, most significantly the International Criminal Court, which could become a springboard for going after Israel for alleged war crimes or its ongoing settlement building on war-won land.

However, in the run-up to the U.N. vote, Abbas signaled that he wants recognition to give him leverage in future talks with Israel, and not as a tool for confronting or delegitimizing Israel, as Israeli leaders have alleged.

How many murdered in Felipe Calderon's US financed war on drugs???

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Mexico’s crime wave has left about 25,000 missing, government documents show

By William Booth, Published: November 29

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s attorney general has compiled a list showing that more than 25,000 adults and children have gone missing in Mexico in the past six years, according to unpublished government documents.

The data sets, submitted by state prosecutors and vetted by the federal government but never released to the public, chronicle the disappearance of tens of thousands of people in the chaos and violence that have enveloped Mexico during its fight against drug mafias and crime gangs.

Families have been left wondering whether their loved ones are alive or among the more than 100,000 victims of homicides recorded during the presidency of Felipe Calderon, who leaves office Saturday.

The names on the list — many more than in previous, nongovernment estimates — are recorded in Microsoft Excel columns, along with the dates they disappeared, their ages, the clothes they were wearing, their jobs and a few brief, often chilling, details:

“His wife went to buy medicine and disappeared,” reads one typical entry.

“The son was addicted to drugs.”

“Her daughter was forced into a car.”

“The father was arrested by men wearing uniforms and never seen again.”

The documents were provided by government bureaucrats frustrated by what they describe as a lack of official transparency and the failure of government agencies to investigate the cases.

The leaked list is not complete — or, probably, precise. Some of the missing may have returned to their homes, and some families may never have reported disappearances.

But the list offers a rare glimpse of the running tally the Mexican government has been keeping, and it confirms what human rights activists and families of the missing have been saying: that Mexico has seen an explosion in the number of such cases and that the government appears overwhelmed.

“What does the government do? Nothing or almost nothing. Why? There is a paralysis,” said Juan Lopez Villanueva of the group United Forces for Our Missing in Mexico. “The state has failed us.”

According to the National Commission on Human Rights, more than 7,000 people killed in Mexico in the past six years lie unidentified in morgue freezers or common graves.

The commission’s numbers suggest the government count might be accurate. From 2006 to mid-2011, the commission reports that more than 18,000 Mexicans were reported missing.

Calderon’s spokesman declined to offer a reason why the numbers have not been made public during his tenure, and the attorney general’s office did not respond to questions about the list that its staff members compiled.

Critics say the outgoing government has been slow to collect data on those who disappeared and is burying the numbers because their publication would highlight Mexico’s failure to investigate the cases and undermine efforts by Calderon to show that his U.S.-backed fight against organized crime is working.

“Releasing the data would add to the already deteriorating forecast about growing insecurity, and publishing such a very large number, 25,000, it just reinforces the idea that the country is violent,” said Edna Jaime Trevino, director of the think tank Mexico Evalua.

Whatever the reasons, the task of tracking the missing now falls to incoming president Enrique Pena Nieto’s new government. There is no statute of limitations for missing-person cases, and Mexico has heard withering criticism from both the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations about its handling of them.

In December 2011, Calderon pledged in a speech to create a national database including lists of the people who had disappeared and of unidentified bodies, and he promised it would be ready in early 2012.

Then in March, the Mexican Congress passed a law that required the government to establish Calderon’s database, which medical examiners, law enforcement officials and families could use to help track cases. Since then, lawmakers have failed to publish the regulations that would allow the law to be implemented.

State prosecutors agreed to provide data from their missing-person cases to the attorney general, but their reports appear uneven. For example, prosecutors in the northern border states of Chihuahua and Coahuila report only a few hundred cases, even as the governors of those states have stated that there were many more.

The list is a first step, but it is also a disappointment, according to Mexican officials and rights activists. That is because the list, as it is compiled, contains a broad spectrum of cases, mixing together all those who have vanished, whether they were forcibly abducted, young lovers running away or simply people who left their homes to work in the United States or elsewhere.

“This half-baked effort is reflective of an administration that never took the problem of disappearances seriously and is now trying to cover its tracks. But for all its problems, the list provides clear evidence that thousands of Mexicans have gone missing and that the government knew about them,” said Nik Steinberg, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

According to his family, Antonio Verastegui, a shopkeeper, and his nephew, an engineering student, were detained by hooded men wearing police bulletproof vests on Jan. 24, 2009, when they were traveling from a religious festival to their home in the state of Durango.

“A police commander told us they had made a mistake in detaining them,” said Jorge Verastegui, a brother. “He told us they were arrested and beaten and released.”

The two have not been found.

“If the government releases the figures of the displaced, the missing and the dead, it would reflect badly on them, but they ignored us, they ignored the reality,” Verastegui said. “Because to release these figures would show that their strategies had failed, and they had failed us.”

Gabriela Martinez contributed to this repor

Rules for Targeted Killing

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Rules for Targeted Killing

Published: November 29, 2012

The White House reportedly is developing rules for when to kill terrorists around the world. The world may never see them, given the Obama administration’s inclination toward unnecessary secrecy regarding its national security policy. But the effort itself is a first step toward acknowledging that when the government kills people away from the battlefield, it must stay within formal guidelines based on the rule of law — especially when the life of an American citizen is at stake.

For eight years, the United States has conducted but never formally acknowledged a program to kill terrorists associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban away from the battlefield in Afghanistan. Using drones, the Central Intelligence Agency has made 320 strikes in Pakistan since 2004, killing 2,560 or more people, including at least 139 civilians, according to the Long War Journal, a Web site that tracks counterterrorism operations. Another 55 strikes took place in Yemen.

Administration officials have never explained in any detail how these targets are chosen. Are they killing people only associated with groups that participated in the Sept. 11 attacks, the limitation imposed by Congress when it authorized military force in 2001? Or are they free to remove any threat to the United States they perceive? Officials insist they go after only actual belligerents covered in the 2001 legislation, but the public and the world have no way of knowing whether these decisions are made ad hoc, or how they would be interpreted by future presidents.

Before the election, when it looked as if Mitt Romney had a chance of winning the White House, administration officials began codifying these rules, according to a recent report in The Times by Scott Shane. Mr. Obama did not want to leave an “amorphous” program to his successor, one official told Mr. Shane anonymously.

That impulse was right, even if the reasoning was wrong. The rules for killing shouldn’t be amorphous simply because Mr. Romney might have taken over; they need to be rigorous and formalized for Mr. Obama, too. If he sets proper boundaries, it would create a precedent that his successors would have to justify breaking.

Providing a wide latitude to kill would be worse than pointless. Any rules should specify that no one can be killed unless actively planning or participating in terror, or helping lead Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Raising money for terror groups, or making tapes urging others to kill, does not justify assassination, and neither does a threat or a revolt against another government. Killing should be a last resort, when it can be demonstrated that capture is impossible. Standards for preventing the killing of innocents who might be nearby should be detailed and thorough. (Most of these rules are already part of international law.)

Standard police methods should be used on American soil. And if an American citizen operating abroad is targeted, due process is required. We have urged the formation of a special court, like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, that could review the evidence regarding a target before that person is placed on a kill list. Otherwise, the government should establish a clear procedure so officials outside of the administration are allowed to pass judgment on assassination decisions.

Mr. Obama has acknowledged the need for a “legal architecture” to be put in place “to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president’s reined in.” Yet his administration has resisted legal efforts by The Times and the American Civil Liberties Union to make public its secret legal opinions on these killings. Once the rules are completed, they should be shown to a world skeptical of countries that use deadly force without explanation.

Felipe Calderon is now at Harvard University

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Outgoing Mexican President Felipe Calderon heading to Harvard

By Daniel Hernandez

November 28, 2012, 10:10 a.m.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon will head to Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., after his six-year term ends Saturday. He will be a teaching and research fellow in 2013, the university and the president's office said in statements Wednesday.

The announcement put to rest one of the most pressing questions in Mexico's political chatterbox: What's the next post or destination for Calderon, who declared a military-led campaign against drug cartels that left scores of civilians dead or missing across the country?

For his next move, the politically conservative Calderon will be named Inaugural Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School for next year, allowing him to lecture, teach and conduct research as he pleases, the school said.

Calderon received a mid-career master's degree in public administration at the Kennedy School in 2000. He also holds a law degree and a master's degree in economics from institutions in Mexico.

In inviting him to Harvard, the school emphasized Calderon's "pro-business" economic policies and his government's reforms in areas such as climate change and healthcare.

"President Calderon is a vivid example of a dynamic and committed public servant, who took on major challenges in Mexico," David T. Ellwood, dean of the school, said in the statement. "I am thrilled he will be returning."

Earlier this year, Calderon was in negotiations to take a post at the University of Texas at Austin, sparking protests among students and faculty there. One organizer of a petition against inviting Calderon to the University of Texas told a local news outlet in September that his presence there would be "like saying, 'We don’t care about your pain ... We don't care that your country has been ravaged.' "

Elite private universities in the United States are friendly ground for Mexican presidents. Calderon gave the commencement speech at Stanford University in 2011. Ernesto Zedillo, president of Mexico from 1994 to 2000, is currently a professor at Yale University.

On Saturday, Calderon hands over Mexico's presidential sash to Enrique Peña Nieto in a ceremony at the lower house of Congress to launch the country's next six-year presidential term.

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Exiting Mexican Leader to Go to Harvard

By KARLA ZABLUDOVSKY

Published: November 29, 2012

MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderón, who unleashed the military to take on drug traffickers and saw violence spiral out of control during his tenure, will move out of Mexico shortly after leaving office on Saturday.

In January, Mr. Calderón will join the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard as the first Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders fellow, a one-year position created to give high-profile leaders leaving office time to write, lecture and generally share their experiences.

Mr. Calderón, 50, who earned a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School in 2000, will focus on “the many policy challenges he encountered while serving as president,” the school said in a news release that did not mention his biggest challenge: confronting the drug-trafficking organizations that have terrorized the country and fueled a war that left tens of thousands of people dead during his six years in office.

The school’s statement praised other achievements, including his stewardship of the economy, which stabilized after a recession and is now growing faster than the United States’.

Mr. Calderón, who has a wife who has dabbled in politics and three young children, was long expected to leave Mexico, either because of safety considerations or to follow a custom of departing Mexican presidents, who generally do not stay.

“It’s a tradition,” said Shannon K. O’Neil, senior fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, “to give your successor a little bit of space.”

Shortly after leaving the presidency in 1994 under a cloud, Carlos Salinas de Gortari went into self-imposed exile, traveling to New York, Montreal and Havana and finally settling in Dublin. He sought to be named the head of the World Trade Organization, but withdrew after his brother was arrested on charges of ordering the assassination of a Mexican politician.

His successor, Ernesto Zedillo, joined Yale University, his alma mater, as director of the Center for the Study of Globalization.

Vicente Fox, Mr. Calderón’s immediate predecessor and a fellow member of the National Action Party, remained in Mexico in recent years.

He started a research group and kept his hand in politics, causing a stir last summer when he all but endorsed Enrique Peña Nieto of the rival Institutional Revolutionary Party for president. Mr. Peña Nieto won and takes office on Saturday.

Some analysts contend that security problems in Mexico would make it difficult for Mr. Calderón to stay, despite the government’s provision of an extensive security detail for former presidents.

“Calderón is going to pay a high personal cost for having had the courage to take on the cartels, and part of it entails having to be away with his family for some time,” said Gabriel Guerra, a political analyst and consultant.

Mr. Calderón’s job hunt has brought some controversy.

After The Dallas Morning News reported in August that he was in talks with the University of Texas about a teaching position, students and faculty members started circulating a petition across the country blaming him for the deaths of young people in the drug war and calling on campuses to bar him.

Felipe Calderón irá a Harvard en 2013

For the last 6 years Felipe Calderon has terrorized Mexico with his American funded war on drugs which has resulted in the murders of 50,000+ Mexicans. The 50,000+ murders is a conservative figure. Some people guess that more then 100,000 people have been murdered in Felipe Calderon insane war on drugs.

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Felipe Calderón irá a Harvard en 2013

Publicado: Miércoles, 28 de noviembre de 2012 a las 08:42

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (CNNExpansión) — El presidente Felipe Calderón irá a la Universidad de Harvard como académico al terminar su mandato.

"El Primer Mandatario se convertirá en el primer participante invitado al Programa Angelopoulos de Líderes Públicos Globales en la Escuela de Gobierno John F. Kennedy de la Universidad de Harvard", informó la Presidencia en un comunicado este miércoles.

Detalló que el programa busca dar un espacio académico donde los líderes globales puedan dictar conferencias, interactuar con futuros líderes, académicos e investigadores, así como reflexionar sobre sus experiencias.

Agregó que Calderón colaborará con el Programa de Estudios de Caso de la Escuela de Gobierno durante 2013.

El programa en el que participará fue creado con el respaldo de la servidora pública griega Giana Angelopoulos, quien es miembro de la Iniciativa Global Clinton y Vicepresidenta del Consejo del Decano de la Escuela de Gobierno John F. Kennedy.

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Será Felipe Calderón academico en Harvard

Noviembre 28 de 2012

Por Yadira Rodriguez

México.- La Presidencia de la República informó que Calderón aceptó la invitación que le hizo la Universidad de Harvard, en los Estados Unidos, para participar como académico durante el 2013 en la Escuela John F. Kennedy.

Calderón se integrará al Programa Angelopoulos de Líderes Públicos Globales, que tiene como objetivo formar a los líderes del futuro.

Entre las actividades que tendrá Calderón en Harvard destacan: colaborar con académicos, investigadores y estudiantes, dictar conferencias y colaborar con el Programa de Estudios de Caso de la Escuela John F. Kennedy.

En el comunicado se detalla que Calderón se convertirá en el primer mexicano que participe como invitado en el Programa de Líderes Públicos Globales de la Universidad de Harvard.

El Programa Angelopoulos de Líderes Públicos Globales fue creado con el respaldo de la servidora pública griega Gianna Angelopoulos, quien es Miembro de la Iniciativa Global Clinton y Vicepresidenta del Consejo del Decano de la Escuela de Gobierno John F. Kennedy.

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Felipe Calderón fue designado investigador de Harvard

Reflexionará sobre su sexenio en México

El presidente mexicano Felipe Calderón fungirá a partir de enero como investigador de la Escuela Kennedy de la Universidad de Harvard, anunció el decano de la institución David Ellwood.

"El presidente Calderón es un ejemplo vivo de un servidor público dinámico y comprometido, que confrontó los mayores desafíos de México", dijo Ellwod, citado por la agencia mexicana Notimex.

¿Qué opinas del futuro del presidente mexicano Felipe Calderón? Participa en nuestros Foros.

"Aportará su experiencia y conocimiento que ayudará a informar e inspirar a los estudiantes y a la facultad", añadió.

Calderón, quien entregará el sábado el poder a Enrique Peña Nieto, será el primer invitado del programa Angelopoulos para líderes globales establecido en 2011 con el apoyo de la ex legisladora griega Gianna Angelopoulos con el objetivo de brindarle a líderes que abandonan puestos públicos la oportunidad de enseñar, aprender e investigar.

Calderón estará desde enero hasta diciembre de 2013 en Harvard, donde ya había obtenido una maestría en administración pública, recordó The Associated Press.

Entre sus funciones se reunirá con estudiantes, hará colaboraciones con profesores e investigadores y ofrecerá discursos.

Calderón afirmó estar emocionado

"Estoy emocionado por la oportunidad de regresar a la Escuela Kennedy de Harvard una vez que termine mi presidencia. Será una tremenda oportunidad para reflexionar sobre mis seis años de gobierno", afirmó Calderón en una declaración a la universidad.

Igualmente destacó la oportunidad de "empezar a trabajar en importantes investigaciones que documentarán los muchos desafíos que enfrentamos, y las posiciones políticas que asumimos durante mi gobierno".

Calderón estará asimismo afiliado con el Centro de Negocios y Gobierno Mossavar-Rahmani.

El programa de Lideres Públicos Globales Angelopoulos fue diseñado para personas que ejercieron un liderazgo de alto nivel que se encuentran en etapa de transición de la vida pública y ofrece una residencia para enseñar, aprender e investigar, señaló la universidad.

Fue establecido con el apoyo de Gianna Angelopoulos, una organizadora olímpica y embajadora, además de abogada y ex miembro del Parlamento.

"Estoy emocionada que el presidente Calderón regresará a Harvard para servir como el primer investigador del programa", dijo la embajadora.

La universidad señaló que la residencia de Calderón se extenderá hasta diciembre del 2013.

Calderón, del Partido de Acción Nacional, lanzó desde su llegada al poder en 2006 una ofensiva militarizada a los carteles del narcotráfico que ha dejado hasta septiembre de 2011 al menos 47,500 muertes, según cifras oficiales.

Peña Nieto asumirá el 1 de diciembre la presidencia para los próximos seis años, lo cual marcará el regreso al poder del Partido Revolucionario Institucional que ya gobernó el país de manera ininterrumpida entre 1929 y 2000.

Israel to build in disputed Palestinian territory

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Israel to build in disputed Palestinian territory

By Aron Hellerand Karin Laub Associated Press Fri Nov 30, 2012 11:46 PM

JERUSALEM -- Israel responded swiftly Friday to U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, revealing it will build 3,000 more homes for Jews on Israeli-occupied lands that the world body overwhelmingly said belong to the Palestinians.

The plans also include future construction in a strategic area of the West Bank where critics have long warned that Jewish settlements would kill hopes for a viable Palestinian state.

Israel’s moves served as a harsh reminder to Palestinians — euphoric over the U.N. upgrade — that while they now have a state on paper, most of it remains very much under Israeli control.

“This is a doomsday scenario,” Daniel Seidemann of Ir Amim, a group that promotes coexistence in Jerusalem, said of the building plans.

Israel’s decision was bound to embarrass the United States, which was among just nine countries in the 193-member General Assembly to vote against accepting Palestine as a nonmember observer state.

Accelerated settlement construction could also set a more confrontational tone as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas weighs his next moves.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland criticized the Israeli announcement. “These actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations or achieve a two-state solution,” she said.

Friday’s decision was taken by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and eight senior Cabinet ministers, according to the Israeli news website Ynet.

The plans include 3,000 new apartments in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as preparations for new construction in other large West Bank settlements, including Maaleh Adumim, near east Jerusalem, said an Israeli government official.

Among the projects is an expansion of Maaleh Adumim, known as E-1, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the decision with reporters.

Successive U.S. administrations have pressured Israel not to build in E-1 because it would effectively cut off east Jerusalem from the West Bank, and split the northern part of the territory from the southern part. Israel has said in the past it envisions 3,500 apartments there.

“E-1 will be the death of the two-state solution,” said Seidemann, referring to the establishment of a state of Palestine alongside Israel. “If the pronouncements are to be treated seriously, we are months away from the implementation of E-1. This is very serious and very problematic.”

Tzipi Livni, Israel’s former foreign minister and chief negotiator with the Palestinians, warned that “the decision to build thousands of housing units as punishment to the Palestinians only punishes Israel ... (and) only isolates Israel further.”

Since 1967, the number of Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem has risen to half a million, compared with 2.7million Palestinians in those areas, and continued construction makes partition of the land increasingly unlikely.

The new U.N. observer state status could enable the Palestinians to pursue possible war crimes charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court over settlement construction on war-won land.

In his speech to the U.N. on Thursday, Abbas said he would coordinate with sympathetic countries and act responsibly, suggesting he would not seek confrontation with Israel.

“It is our right to get the membership of the ICC, but we don’t want to go to it now,” Abbas told reporters in New York on Friday, before the Israeli decision on new settlements became known. “We will not go unless we are attacked.”

Following Israel’s decision to accelerate settlement building, however, Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian leadership was studying its options. He would not elaborate.

Erekat accused Netanyahu of “defying the whole international community and insisting on destroying the two-state solution.”

The U.N. endorsed a Palestinian state in territories Israel captured in 1967. Abbas has said he is ready to negotiate the final borders with Israel, provided Netanyahu drops his refusal to use the 1967 lines as a starting point.

Abbas asserted Friday that a Palestinian demand for a settlement freeze ahead of negotiations still stands.

“I’m ready for negotiations,” Abbas said, rejecting Netanyahu’s portrayal of the demand for a settlement freeze as a precondition. “Is stopping settlement activities a precondition?” he said. “There are 15 Security Council resolutions that say settlements are an obstacle to peace.”

On the Israeli side, compromise on settlements seemed unlikely. Netanyahu is seeking re-election two months from now at the helm of a Likud party turned more hawkish since primaries earlier this week and in an electoral alliance with an ultra-nationalist pro-settler party.

Abbas returns Sunday to the West Bank, where Palestinians are preparing a hero’s welcome. The U.N. bid has given a boost to his standing, which has been suffering after years of failed peace efforts with Israel. At the same time, the rival Islamic militant group Hamas in Gaza has scored points domestically, after an eight-day cross-border conflict with Israel earlier this month.

Abbas aides say his top priority is to reconcile with Hamas, which seized Gaza from him in 2007 and has been running its own government there since then. Abbas heads the Palestinian Authority, a self-rule government that administers 38 percent of the West Bank, while he has no say in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Drone crashes mount at civilian airports

Drone crashes mount at civilian airports

By Craig Whitlock, Published: November 30

The U.S. Air Force drone, on a classified spy mission over the Indian Ocean, was destined for disaster from the start.

An inexperienced military contractor in shorts and a T-shirt, flying by remote control from a trailer at Seychelles International Airport, committed blunder after blunder in six minutes on April 4.

He sent the unarmed MQ-9 Reaper drone off without permission from the control tower. A minute later, he yanked the wrong lever at his console, killing the engine without realizing why.

As he tried to make an emergency landing, he forgot to put down the wheels. The $8.9 million aircraft belly-flopped on the runway, bounced and plunged into the tropical waters at the airport’s edge, according to a previously undisclosed Air Force accident investigation report.

The drone crashed at a civilian airport that serves a half-million passengers a year, most of them sun-seeking tourists. No one was hurt, but it was the second Reaper accident in five months — under eerily similar circumstances.

“I will be blunt here. I said, ‘I can’t believe this is happening again,’ ” an Air Force official at the scene told investigators afterward. He added: “You go, ‘How stupid are you?’ ”

The April wreck was the latest in a rash of U.S. military drone crashes at overseas civilian airports in the past two years. The accidents reinforce concerns about the risks of flying the robot aircraft outside war zones, including in the United States.

A review of thousands of pages of unclassified Air Force investigation reports, obtained by The Washington Post under public-records requests, shows that drones flying from civilian airports have been plagued by setbacks.

Among the problems repeatedly cited are pilot error, mechanical failure, software bugs in the “brains” of the aircraft and poor coordination with civilian air-traffic controllers.

On Jan. 14, 2011, a Predator drone crashed off the Horn of Africa while trying to return to an international airport next to a U.S. military base in Djibouti. It was the first known accident involving a Predator or Reaper drone near a civilian airport. Predators and Reapers can carry satellite-guided missiles and have become the Obama administration’s primary weapon against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Since then, at least six more Predators and Reapers have crashed in the vicinity of civilian airports overseas, including other instances in which contractors were at the controls.

The mishaps have become more common at a time when the Pentagon and domestic law-enforcement agencies are pressing the Federal Aviation Administration to open U.S. civil airspace to surveillance drones.

The FAA permits drone flights only in rare cases, citing the risk of midair collisions. The Defense Department can fly Predators and Reapers on training and testing missions in restricted U.S. airspace near military bases.

The pressure to fly drones in the same skies as passenger planes will only increase as the war in Afghanistan winds down and the military and CIA redeploy their growing fleets of Predators and Reapers. Last year, the military began flying unarmed Reapers from a civilian airport in Ethiopia to spy in next-door Somalia.

In a Nov. 20 speech in Washington, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the Pentagon would expand its use of the unmanned attack planes “outside declared combat zones” as it pursues al-Qaeda supporters in Africa and the Middle East.

“These enhanced capabilities will enable us to be more flexible and agile against a threat that has grown more diffuse,” Panetta said.

The Air Force says that its drones are safe and that crash rates have declined as the military fine-tunes the new technology. Mishap rates for Predators have fallen to levels comparable to F-16 fighter jets at same stage in their development, according to the Air Force Safety Center at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

‘Backlash and repercussion’

In Djibouti, five Predators have crashed since the Air Force began ramping up drone operations there to combat terrorist groups in nearby Yemen and Somalia.

Many of the mechanical breakdowns have been peculiar to drones.

On May 7, 2011, an armed Predator suffered an electrical malfunction that sent it into a death spiral about a mile offshore from Djibouti City, the capital, which has about 600,000 residents. “I’m just glad we landed it in the ocean and not someplace else,” a crew member told investigators.

Ten days later, another Predator missed the runway by nearly three miles and crashed near a residential area. The aircraft was carrying a live Hellfire missile, but it did not detonate and no one was injured.

Another close call came March 15, 2011. An armed Predator came in too steep and fast for landing, overshot the runway and slammed into a fence.

Investigators attributed that accident to a melted throttle part, but they also blamed pilot error. They said the remote- control pilot was “inattentive” and “confused” during the landing. Because he was isolated inside a ground-control station, the report added, he did not notice the wind rush or high engine pitch that might have warned a pilot in a manned aircraft to slow down.

In Djibouti, the Air Force drones operate from Camp Lemonnier, a fast-growing U.S. military base devoted to counterterrorism. The base is adjacent to Djibouti’s international airport and shares a single runway with passenger aircraft.

That has led to miscommunications and tensions with Djiboutian civil aviation officials. One unidentified U.S. officer told investigators last year that he often had to sternly remind his fellow troops that civilians were in charge of the site.

“There is a need to understand the urgency that this airport doesn’t belong to us,” he said. “Every time that we cause a delay or they miss flight times and connecting flights, there’s a big backlash and repercussion.”

In addition to the five Predator wrecks in Djibouti, the officer said he had witnessed three emergency landings that narrowly avoided catastrophe. “I have no illusions that this won’t happen again, whether it’s an MQ-1 or otherwise,” he said, referring to the military code name for a Predator.

Meanwhile, U.S. drone crews complained to investigators about the Djiboutian air-traffic controllers, saying they speak poor English, are “short- tempered” and are uncomfortable with Predators in their airspace.

According to the crew members, the Djiboutian controllers give priority to passenger planes and order drone pilots to keep their aircraft circling overhead even when they are dangerously low on fuel.

Big Safari

The operation started with four Reapers that spied on pirates at sea and terrorism suspects on land in Somalia, about 800 miles away. It was also an experiment to test new technology for operating the drones.

Normally, Reapers and Predators are flown through satellite links by pilots based in the United States, while local ground crews handle the takeoffs and landings. In the Seychelles, however, the flights did not require a satellite link; details of the new technology remain classified.

Starting in September 2011, records show, the U.S. Air Force took the unusual step of outsourcing the entire operation to a Florida-based private contractor, Merlin RAMCo. By then, the Seychelles operation had dwindled to two Reapers after the other aircraft were redeployed.

The military drew up the surveillance missions, but Merlin RAMCo hired its own remote-control pilots, sensor operators and mechanics, and dispatched them to the islands.

The arrangement was overseen at a distance by the Air Force’s secretive 645th Aeronautical Systems Group at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The unit, also known as Big Safari, develops and acquires advanced weapons systems — many of them classified — for Special Operations Forces.

A spokesman for the Big Safari program declined to comment on the Reaper operations in the Seychelles or its contract with Merlin RAMCo, citing “security concerns.” Lt. Col. Brett Ashworth, an Air Force spokesman at the Pentagon, said the service does not “currently” use contractors to fly drones on “combat operations,” but he declined to elaborate.

Merlin RAMCo, based in Jacksonville, Fla., is a privately held company that was incorporated in 2006, records show. The firm’s vice president and general manager, Robert A. Miller Jr., did not return phone calls or an e-mail seeking comment.

The company supports Air Force missions and other government contracts with more than 80 employees at 14 locations in the United States and five sites overseas, according to the Air Force.

The contractor was subjected to little direct oversight in the Seychelles, records show. The Air Force posted two officials on the islands to coordinate flights and serve as a liaison with the contractor, but neither had experience operating drones.

Underscoring the secrecy of the operation, neither official was allowed to have a copy of Big Safari’s contract with Merlin RAMCo.

“You can imagine it’s awful hard to hold somebody accountable for compliance with a contract that you physically can’t see,” one of the Air Force representatives told investigators.

The other liaison officer told investigators that the whole idea of outsourcing drone flights made him uneasy. “In hindsight, it appears it may not have been the best way to conduct business,” he said.

Seychelles program halted

After Merlin RAMCo took charge, the two Reapers deployed to the Seychelles quickly became hobbled by problems.

In November 2011, the Air Force liaison officers grounded the drones after discovering that they had not received required mechanical upgrades. Just days after the aircraft resumed flying, on Dec. 13, one of the Reapers ran into trouble.

Two minutes after takeoff, the engine failed. The pilot was unable to restart it and tried to execute an emergency landing. But the aircraft, which was not armed at the time, descended too quickly and landed too far down the runway. It bounced past a perimeter road, over a rock breakwater and sank about 200 feet offshore.

Investigators blamed the crash on an electrical short and concluded that the pilot made things worse by botching the landing.

In February, the remaining Reaper was struck by lightning while in flight. The crew was able to steer it home safely, but mechanics grounded the plane for a month to make repairs.

A few days after resuming operations, a different Merlin RAMCo pilot, with limited experience in takeoffs and landings, erred in every way imaginable during the brief flight before crashing the Reaper. Contractors worked for days to fish all the parts out of the water.

The Seychelles and U.S. governments announced a suspension of drone flights afterward, but they didn’t mention that there wasn’t much choice — no intact Reapers were left on the island. U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who met with Seychelles officials a few days later, pledged a “thorough and fully transparent” investigation of the crash.

The accidents, nonetheless, stirred worry among some islanders. In a letter to the Seychelles Nation newspaper, resident James R. Mancham questioned whether civil aviation officials had “seriously examined the implications” of allowing drones to fly from Seychelles International Airport.

“What guarantee do we have that never will one of these drones crash upon or collide with an approaching or departing plane or crash on the air-control tower itself?” Mancham wrote.

Tom Saunders, a spokesman for the U.S. military’s Africa Command, said the Air Force has not flown drones from the Seychelles since April. He declined to comment on whether it planned to resume the flights.

Jean-Paul Adam, the foreign minister of the Seychelles, said the U.S. military has not shared the results of the crash investigations. He said the U.S. government has indicated that it would like to restart the operations but has not said when.

Adam cautioned that the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority would need to review the investigation results but said his government was amenable toward a return of the drones.

“The two crashes were obviously of concern,” he said in a telephone interview. “But I would say the approach we’ve had with the United States has been one of good cooperation.”

Will Enrique Peña Nieto continue the insane drug war???

Will Enrique Peña Nieto continue Felipe Calderon's insane drug war???

I hope not, but from articles like this it sounds like Enrique Peña Nieto will continue the American financed Mexican drug war, which is really a war on the people of Mexico, like the American drug war is a war on the citizens of the USA.

Source

Incoming President Enrique Peña Nieto inherits a bruised Mexico

By Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

November 30, 2012, 5:58 p.m.

MEXICO CITY — When Enrique Peña Nieto assumes the Mexican presidency on Saturday, returning to power a once-autocratic party that ruled for seven decades, he will immediately confront a sluggish economy and a bloody war against drug gangs.

How he will handle those two problems is the biggest question surrounding the incoming government.

Peña Nieto, 46, and his Institutional Revolutionary Party want to shift the focus away from the battle against drug cartels that consumed and ultimately haunted outgoing President Felipe Calderon.

But Peña Nieto is inheriting a bruised, terrified and polarized nation that has lived through its most violent period since its revolution a century ago. Tens of thousands of people — mayors, police, journalists, lawyers, officials, businessmen as well as criminals — have been killed. Thousands are missing, and human rights abuses by authorities have skyrocketed in the six-year campaign against the drug gangs.

Despite the elimination of several top drug lords, the flow of narcotics has not slowed. The gangs have only extended their influence from the border with the U.S. deep into southern Mexico and beyond.

Calderon, meanwhile, will take on a teaching position at Harvard University, swiftly leaving the country he ruled since 2006. Presidents are limited to one term in Mexico, and Calderon's National Action Party came in a poor third in last summer's election.

The PRI finished first, but with only about 38% of the vote, limiting the mandate that Peña Nieto will enjoy and complicating his ability to push through ambitious reforms he promised. He will have to struggle to balance competing forces within his party: the so-called dinosaurs who evoke old-school, heavy-handed politics versus the U.S.- or Europe-educated modernizing younger members. His Cabinet, announced Friday, contains both.

"The most serious problem for Peña Nieto is his desire to draw a line between those traditional PRI practices … and the image of modernity that is incompatible with the old way of doing politics," commentator Ezra Shabot said in an El Universal news column this month.

Instead of the drug war, Peña Nieto would like to talk about the economy, foreign investment and jobs. But security issues will be unavoidable from Day 1.

The new president has pledged, rather vaguely, to "reduce violence" and cut the homicide rate as a way to return to besieged Mexicans a sense of safety and tranquillity. Critics fear that means pulling punches when it comes to persecution of drug gangs.

In the past, the PRI was known to enter into pactos, or deals, with cartel leaders to keep the peace and share the profits.

Peña Nieto has angrily denied that he plans to cut deals with drug gangs, something that would be more complicated today because of their fragmented nature and the acute viciousness of one of the newer and now-dominant groups, the Zetas.

He has said he will keep the army deployed throughout the country, as Calderon did, at least initially. In addition, he will demote the U.S.-backed federal police while building up a national gendarmerie that in theory would eventually replace the military in the drug offensive.

Despite the PRI's long nationalistic streak, Peña Nieto says he intends to maintain and would like to expand Mexico's close cooperation with the United States in security matters. Currently, the U.S. supplies intelligence data to Mexican authorities for the tracking of traffickers and is training thousands of police officers, judges, prosecutors and others as part of a $2-billion aid program.

He has already hired Gen. Oscar Naranjo, retired head of the Colombian national police, as a special security advisor. Naranjo is beloved by the Americans and is expected to bring on board U.S.-promoted tactics from the Colombian conflict, including the increased use of small, vetted police or military units for raids.

Calderon's strategy was faulted for concentrating on military force and underestimating cartel strength while failing to go after the money, much of it laundered through Mexican businesses and banks.

Peña Nieto is promising a new, reformed PRI, one that will not revert to its old habits of election-rigging, paying off supporters, co-opting the opposition and occasionally beating them up.

The Mexico of today is very different from that of nearly two decades ago, when the last PRI president was elected. Some, but certainly not all, of its institutions are stronger, such as the Supreme Court and the news media, and can provide a counterbalance to the presidency.

Yet six years of bloodshed have left a dispirited society that may be willing to give ground to organized-crime kingpins if it at least means being left alone.

Polling data released this week show roughly equivalent portions of Mexicans saying the drug war was Calderon's most important achievement and his biggest failure. And about two-thirds of those surveyed said they believed the cartels were winning the war.

Serious systemic problems, like impunity and corruption — perfected under the long PRI reign — will continue to hinder any progress Peña Nieto hopes to make.

On the economy, Peña Nieto has stressed his plan to open up the state-run oil giant Pemex to private and foreign investment, long a taboo here. To do so means challenging the Pemex unions that have long allied themselves with the PRI.

Already, another key reform, on labor workplace rules, passed the Legislature only after the PRI gutted measures that would have forced powerful unions to be more accountable and transparent.

wilkinson@latimes.com

Skype - a tool or trap for freedom fighters???

For Syria’s Rebel Movement, Skype Is a Useful and Increasingly Dangerous Tool

By AMY CHOZICK

Published: November 30, 2012

In a demonstration of their growing sophistication and organization, Syrian rebels responded to a nationwide shutdown of the Internet by turning to satellite technology to coordinate within the country and to communicate with outside activists.

When Syria’s Internet service disappeared Thursday, government officials first blamed rebel attacks. Activist groups blamed the government and viewed the blackout as a sign that troops would violently clamp down on rebels.

But having dealt with periodic outages for more than a year, the opposition had anticipated a full shutdown of Syria’s Internet service providers. To prepare, they have spent months smuggling communications equipment like mobile handsets and portable satellite phones into the country.

“We’re very well equipped here,” said Albaraa Abdul Rahman, 27, an activist in Saqba, a poor suburb 20 minutes outside Damascus. He said he was in touch with an expert in Homs who helped connect his office and 10 others like it in and around Damascus.

Using the connection, the activists in Saqba talked to rebel fighters on Skype and relayed to overseas activists details about clashes with government forces. A video showed the rebels’ bare-bones room, four battery backups that could power a laptop for eight hours and a generator set up on a balcony.

For months, rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad have used Skype, a peer-to-peer Internet communication system, to organize and talk to outside news organizations and activists. A few days ago, Jad al-Yamani, an activist in Homs, sent a message to rebel fighters that tanks were moving toward a government checkpoint.

He notified the other fighters so that they could go observe the checkpoint. “Through Skype you know how the army moves or can stop it,” Mr. Yamani said.

On Friday, Dawoud Sleiman, 39, a member of the antigovernment Ahrar al-Shamal Battalion, part of the Free Syrian Army, reached out to other members of the rebel group. They were set up at the government’s Wadi Aldaif military base in Idlib, a province near the Turkish border that has seen heavy fighting, and connected to Skype via satellite Internet service.

Mr. Sleiman, who is based in Turkey, said the Free Syrian Army stopped using cellphone networks and land lines months ago and instead relies almost entirely on Skype. “Brigade members communicate through the hand-held devices,” he said.

This week rebels posted an announcement via Skype that called for the arrest of the head of intelligence in Idlib, who is accused of killing five rebels. “A big financial prize will be offered to anyone who brings the head of this guy,” the message read. “One of our brothers abroad has donated the cash.”

If the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were Twitter Revolutions, then Syria is becoming the Skype Rebellion. To get around a near-nationwide Internet shutdown, rebels have armed themselves with mobile satellite phones and dial-up modems.

In many cases, relatives and supporters living outside Syria bought the equipment and had it smuggled in, mostly through Lebanon and Turkey.

That equipment has allowed the rebels to continue to communicate almost entirely via Skype with little interruption, despite the blackout. “How the government used its weapons against the revolution, that is how activists use Skype,” Mr. Abdul Rahman said.

“We haven’t seen any interruption in the way Skype is being used,” said David Clinch, an editorial director of Storyful, a group that verifies social media posts for news organizations, including The New York Times (Mr. Clinch has served as a consultant for Skype).

Mr. Assad, who once fashioned himself as a reformer and the father of Syria’s Internet, has largely left the country’s access intact during the 20-month struggle with rebels. The government appeared to abandon that strategy on Thursday, when most citizens lost access. Some Syrians could still get online using service from Turkey. On Friday, Syrian officials blamed technical problems for the cutoff.

The shutdown is only the latest tactic in the escalating technology war waged in Arab Spring countries.

But several technology experts warned that the use of the Internet by rebels in Syria, even those relying on Skype, could leave them vulnerable to government surveillance.

Introduced in 2003, Skype encrypts each Internet call so that they are next to impossible to crack. It quickly became the pet technology of global organizers and opposition members in totalitarian countries. And while Skype’s encryption secrets remain elusive, in recent months the Assad government, often with help from Iran, has developed tools to install malware on computers that allows officials to monitor a user’s activity.

“Skype has gone from in the mid-2000s being the tool most widely used and promoted by human rights activists to now when people ask me I say, ‘Definitely, don’t use it,’ ” said Ronald J. Deibert, director of Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto that monitors human rights and cybersecurity.

Using satellite phone service to connect makes Skype potentially more dangerous since it makes it easier to track a user’s location, said Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco.

The Syrian government has “gone from passive surveillance to more active surveillance in which they’re gaining access to dissidents’ and opposition members’ computers,” Ms. Galperin said.

The pro-government Syrian Electronic Army has largely led the response to early cyberattacks by rebels and overseas sympathizers. At checkpoints in government-controlled regions, Assad forces examined laptops for programs that would allow users to bypass government spyware, several activists said. In cafes where the Internet was available, government officials checked users’ identification.

Rebels are starting to suspect that the government’s efforts are paying off. A media activist in Idlib named Mohamed said a rebel informant working for the government was killed in Damascus six months ago after sending warnings to the Free Syrian Army on Skype.

“I saw this incident right in front of my eyes,” Mohamed said. “We put his info on Skype so he was arrested and killed.”

In August, an activist named Baraa al-Boushi was killed during shelling in Damascus. Activists later circulated a report saying that a Saudi Arabian claiming to support the revolution was actually a government informant who determined Mr. Boushi’s location after a long conversation on Skype.

A Skype spokesman, Chaim Haas, said calls via the service between computers, smartphones and other mobile devices are automatically encrypted. But just like e-mail and instant messaging can be compromised by spyware and Trojan horses, so can Skype.

“They’re listening to the conversation before it gets encrypted,” Mr. Haas said. “That has nothing to do with Skype at all.”

Liam Stack contributed reporting from New York; Hala Droubi from Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon

Sex Offenders - A jobs program for cops???

On top of that the laws sound so draconian and complex that I suspect they are doomed to fail because it is almost impossible for homeless, unemployed former sex offenders to obey the laws.

Many of these people classified by the government as "sex offenders" are really not "sex offenders". If you have been arrested for taking a leak in an alley these silly, evil and draconian laws classify you as a sex offender and require you to register as a sex offender.

I think H. L. Mencken famous quote addresses this issue perfectly

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Pentagon sending hundreds more spies overseas

Source

DIA sending hundreds more spies overseas

By Greg Miller, Published: December 1

The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said.

The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.

When the expansion is complete, the DIA is expected to have as many as 1,600 “collectors” in positions around the world, an unprecedented total for an agency whose presence abroad numbered in the triple digits in recent years.

The total includes military attachés and others who do not work undercover. But U.S. officials said the growth will be driven over a five-year period by the deployment of a new generation of clandestine operatives. They will be trained by the CIA and often work with the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, but they will get their spying assignments from the Department of Defense.

Among the Pentagon’s top intelligence priorities, officials said, are Islamist militant groups in Africa, weapons transfers by North Korea and Iran, and military modernization underway in China.

“This is not a marginal adjustment for DIA,” the agency’s director, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, said at a recent conference, during which he outlined the changes but did not describe them in detail. “This is a major adjustment for national security.”

The sharp increase in DIA undercover operatives is part of a far-reaching trend: a convergence of the military and intelligence agencies that has blurred their once-distinct missions, capabilities and even their leadership ranks.

Through its drone program, the CIA now accounts for a majority of lethal U.S. operations outside the Afghan war zone. At the same time, the Pentagon’s plan to create what it calls the Defense Clandestine Service, or DCS, reflects the military’s latest and largest foray into secret intelligence work.

The DIA overhaul — combined with the growth of the CIA since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — will create a spy network of unprecedented size. The plan reflects the Obama administration’s affinity for espionage and covert action over conventional force. It also fits in with the administration’s efforts to codify its counterterrorism policies for a sustained conflict and assemble the pieces abroad necessary to carry it out.

Unlike the CIA, the Pentagon’s spy agency is not authorized to conduct covert operations that go beyond intelligence gathering, such as drone strikes, political sabotage or arming militants.

But the DIA has long played a major role in assessing and identifying targets for the U.S. military, which in recent years has assembled a constellation of drone bases stretching from Afghanistan to East Africa.

The expansion of the agency’s clandestine role is likely to heighten concerns that it will be accompanied by an escalation in lethal strikes and other operations outside public view. Because of differences in legal authorities, the military isn’t subject to the same congressional notification requirements as the CIA, leading to potential oversight gaps.

U.S. officials said that the DIA’s realignment won’t hamper congressional scrutiny. “We have to keep congressional staffs and members in the loop,” Flynn said in October, adding that he believes the changes will help the United States anticipate threats and avoid being drawn more directly into what he predicted will be an “era of persistent conflict.”

U.S. officials said the changes for the DIA were enabled by a rare syncing of personalities and interests among top officials at the Pentagon and CIA, many of whom switched from one organization to the other to take their current jobs.

“The stars have been aligning on this for a while,” said a former senior U.S. military official involved in planning the DIA transformation. Like most others interviewed for this article, the former official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the program.

The DIA project has been spearheaded by Michael G. Vickers, the top intelligence official at the Pentagon and a veteran of the CIA.

Agreements on coordination were approved by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, a former CIA director, and retired Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who resigned abruptly as CIA chief last month over an extramarital affair.

The Pentagon announced the DCS plan in April but details have been kept secret. Former senior Defense Department officials said that the DIA now has about 500 “case officers,” the term for clandestine Pentagon and CIA operatives, and that the number is expected to reach between 800 and 1,000 by 2018.

Pentagon and DIA officials declined to discuss specifics. A senior U.S. defense official said the changes will affect thousands of DIA employees, as analysts, logistics specialists and others are reassigned to support additional spies.

The plan still faces some hurdles, including the challenge of creating “cover” arrangements for hundreds of additional spies. U.S. embassies typically have a set number of slots for intelligence operatives posing as diplomats, most of which are taken by the CIA.

The project has also encountered opposition from policymakers on Capitol Hill, who see the terms of the new arrangement as overly generous to the CIA.

The DIA operatives “for the most part are going to be working for CIA station chiefs,” needing their approval to enter a particular country and clearance on which informants they intend to recruit, said a senior congressional official briefed on the plan. “If CIA needs more people working for them, they should be footing the bill.”

Pentagon officials said that sending more DIA operatives overseas will shore up intelligence on subjects that the CIA is not able or willing to pursue. “We are in a position to contribute to defense priorities that frankly CIA is not,” the senior Defense Department official said.

The project was triggered by a classified study by the director of national intelligence last year that concluded that key Pentagon intelligence priorities were falling into gaps created by the DIA’s heavy focus on battlefield issues and CIA’s extensive workload. U.S. officials said the DIA needed to be repositioned as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan give way to what many expect will be a period of sporadic conflicts and simmering threats requiring close-in intelligence work.

“It’s the nature of the world we’re in,” said the senior defense official, who is involved in overseeing the changes at the DIA. “We just see a long-term era of change before things settle.”

The CIA is increasingly overstretched. Obama administration officials have said they expect the agency’s drone campaign against al-Qaeda to continue for at least a decade more, even as the agency faces pressure to stay abreast of issues including turmoil across the Middle East. Meanwhile, the CIA hasn’t met ambitious goals set by former president George W. Bush to expand its own clandestine service.

Defense officials stressed that the DIA has not been given any new authorities or permission to expand its total payroll. Instead, the new spy slots will be created by cutting or converting other positions across the DIA workforce, which has doubled in the past decade — largely through absorption of other military intelligence entities — to about 16,500.

Vickers has given the DIA an infusion of about $100 million to kick-start the program, officials said, but the agency’s total budget is expected to remain stagnant or decline amid mounting financial pressures across the government.

The DIA’s overseas presence already includes hundreds of diplomatic posts — mainly defense attachés, who represent the military at U.S. embassies and openly gather information from foreign counterparts. Their roles won’t change, officials said. The attachés are part of the 1,600 target for the DIA, but such “overt” positions will represent a declining share amid the increase in undercover slots, officials said.

The senior Defense official said the DIA has begun filling the first of the new posts.

For decades, the DIA has employed undercover operatives to gather secrets on foreign militaries and other targets. But the Defense Humint Service, as it was previously known, was often regarded as an inferior sibling to its civilian counterpart.

Previous efforts by the Pentagon to expand its intelligence role — particularly during Donald H. Rumsfeld’s time as defense secretary — led to intense turf skirmishes with the CIA.

Those frictions have been reduced, officials said, largely because the CIA sees advantages to the new arrangement, including assurances that its station chiefs overseas will be kept apprised of DIA missions and have authority to reject any that might conflict with CIA efforts. The CIA will also be able to turn over hundreds of Pentagon-driven assignments to newly arrived DIA operatives.

“The CIA doesn’t want to be looking for surface-to-air missiles in Libya” when it’s also under pressure to assess the opposition in Syria, said a former high-ranking U.S. military intelligence officer who worked closely with both spy services. Even in cases where their assignments overlap, the DIA is likely to be more focused than the CIA on military aspects — what U.S. commanders in Africa might ask about al-Qaeda in Mali, for example, rather than the broader questions raised by the White House.

U.S. officials said DIA operatives, because of their military backgrounds, are often better equipped to recruit sources who can answer narrow military questions such as specifications of China’s fifth-generation fighter aircraft and its work on a nuclear aircraft carrier. “The CIA would like to give up that kind of work,” the former officer said.

The CIA has agreed to add new slots to its training classes at its facility in southern Virginia, known as the Farm, to make room for more military spies. The DIA has accounted for about 20 percent of each class in recent years, but that figure will grow.

The two agencies have also agreed to share resources overseas, including technical gear, logistics support, space in facilities and vehicles. The DIA has even adopted aspects of the CIA’s internal structure, creating a group called “Persia House,” for example, to pool resources on Iran.

The CIA’s influence extends across the DIA’s ranks. Flynn, who became director in July, is a three-star Army general who worked closely with the CIA in Afghanistan and Iraq. His deputy, David R. Shedd, spent the bulk of his career at the CIA, much of it overseas as a spy.

Several officials said the main DIA challenge will be finding ways to slip so many spies into position overseas with limited space in embassies. “There are some definite challenges from a cover perspective,” the senior defense official said.

Placing operatives in conventional military units means finding an excuse for them to stay behind when the unit rotates out before the end of the spy’s job.

Having DIA operatives pose as academics or business executives requires painstaking work to create those false identities, and it means they won’t be protected by diplomatic immunity if caught.

Flynn is seeking to reduce turnover in the DIA’s clandestine service by enabling military members to stay with the agency for multiple overseas tours rather than return to their units. But the DIA is increasingly hiring civilians to fill out its spy ranks.

The DIA has also forged a much tighter relationship with JSOC, the military’s elite and highly lethal commando force, which also carries out drone strikes in Yemen and other countries.

Key aspects of the DIA’s plan were developed by then-Director Ronald L. Burgess, a retired three-star general who had served as intelligence chief to JSOC.

The DIA played an extensive and largely hidden role in JSOC operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, sending analysts into war zones and turning a large chunk of its workforce and computer systems in Virginia into an ana-lytic back office for JSOC.

The head of U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. William H. McRaven, who directed the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, has pledged to create between 100 and 200 slots for undercover DIA operatives to work with Special Forces teams being deployed across North Africa and other trouble spots, officials said.

“Bill McRaven is a very strong proponent of this,” the senior Defense official said.

State Bar investigates Attorney General Tom Horne

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State Bar investigates Attorney General Tom Horne

By Yvonne Wingett Sanchez The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Dec 3, 2012 6:08 PM

The State Bar of Arizona is investigating Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne over allegations stemming from a 14-month investigation into campaign finance violations.

The Bar, which licenses and regulates attorneys, is investigating the state’s top prosecutor over findings from both the election-related investigation as well as his role in a March hit-and-run along with his employee and assistant attorney general Carmen Chenal.

Citing court rules, Rick DeBruhl, Chief Communications Officer for the Bar, said he could not tell The Arizona Republic who initiated the charges, when the charges were initiated or what the potential sanctions could be. DeBruhl said Horne had been notified of the investigation.

The Bar’s legal regulation attorneys are attempting to determine whether Horne’s actions violated any ethical rules. If the attorneys conclude they did, the attorneys will request a probable cause order, which would allow them to proceed with a hearing to essentially present the evidence of their case.

Asked for comment on the investigation, Horne’s spokeswoman issued the following statement on Horne’s behalf: “Anytime someone makes a complaint to the State Bar, the State Bar investigates the complaint. Then, the State Bar decides whether or not to make a complaint. There has been no decision by the State Bar to make a complaint in this case.”

The immediate and long-term impact of the ethics investigation is unclear. Bar investigations into allegations of wrongdoing can begin and end with no sanctions, or in some instances, lead to disbarment.

Paul Bender, an Arizona State University law professor, said the state Constitution places age, citizenship and residency requirements on eligibility to hold state offices. State statute also states that “The attorney general shall have been for not less than five years immediately preceding the date of taking office a practicing attorney before the supreme court of the state.”

Bender said Horne, if disbarred, could argue state statues are unconstitutional because it places additional conditions on who can serve as attorney general.

Horne and employee Kathleen Winn are accused of illegally coordinating with an independent expenditure committee during the 2010 election.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery is pursuing a civil enforcement action against Horne and Winn, who chaired the committee and then went to work as Horne's director of community outreach. Horne and Winn have said they've done nothing wrong and that they will be vindicated during legal proceedings scheduled in January.

Horne is also charged with a Class 3 misdemeanor for leaving the scene of an accident with an unattended vehicle. The Class 3 misdemeanor carries a maximum of 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. He has pleaded not guilty.

His March 27 fender bender was witnessed by two FBI special agents who were tailing Horne as part of the campaign-finance violation investigation.

Horne in a previous statement has said the accident “may have caused no damage to that vehicle. At worst, pictures show nothing but some scratched paint."

Phoenix Police Department records show that the fender bender caused more than $1,000 in paint damage to the bumper of the other vehicle.

Tom Horne tells Arizona to chill

Tom Horne tells Arizona to chill

By LINDA VALDEZ

Tue, Dec 04 2012 7:55 AM

Someone should follow Tom Horne more often.

While Arizona’s embattled Attorney General was being followed in connection with one investigation, the FBI found him doing something that led to another investigation.

Gee, what else is this guy up to?

Now the State Bar of Arizona is looking into both issues: the alleged elections-related shenanigans and a hit-and-run accident.

Horne is becoming a master at dismissing questions about his suitability to office. He's so good at it that he reminds me of a teen-age boy.

Consider his statement that the hit-and-run “may have caused no damage to that vehicle.” No big deal, Mom! Phoenix Police put the damage to the other guy’s car at about $1,000.

Horne’s office issued a statement about the investigation by the lawyers’ professional association that sounded a lot like: No, I didn’t clean my room, but that doesn’t mean I will never clean my room. So just chill.”

Horne’s exact words: “Anytime someone makes a complaint to the State Bar, the State Bar investigates the complaint. Then, the State Bar decides whether or not to make a complaint. There has been no decision by the State Bar to make a complaint in this case.” So just chill.

But here’s the thing. Following Horne around has produced some interesting information about a guy who heads an office that’s supposed to be as squeaky clean as the Lone Ranger’s horse.

The more we find out about Tom Horne, the more obvious it becomes that he has no business in that office. He should resign.

State bar investigating AG Horne

State bar investigating AG Horne

Posted: Tuesday, December 4, 2012 8:46 am

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

The State Bar of Arizona is investigating Tom Horne, adding to the legal woes of the state's top lawyer.

Bar spokesman Rick DeBruhl confirmed for Capitol Media Services that his organization was looking into a complaint that the attorney general violated rules which govern the conduct of lawyers. If an investigatory committee finds violations, a disciplinary panel could impose sanctions, from a reprimand to being disbarred.

DeBruhl said there are two key areas of scrutiny.

One stems from an investigation of Horne by the FBI into allegations that he broke campaign finance laws in his 2010 election by illegally coordinating his efforts with that of what was supposed to be an independent committee.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery already has concluded there was a violation of the statutes which require separation of such efforts and wants a civil penalty against both campaigns. But both Horne and Kathleen Winn, who ran the independent campaign and works for Horne at the Attorney General's Office, have denied wrongdoing.

The case is set to go to a hearing next month.

DeBruhl also said the Bar is looking into allegations that Horne, driving someone else's car, left the scene after hitting another vehicle.

That incident was witnessed by two FBI investigators who were tailing Horne as part of that campaign finance inquiry. Phoenix police, saying the damage to the other vehicle totaled slightly more than $1,000, subsequently charged him with leaving the scene of an accident; he is tentatively set to be in city court later this month.

Horne has said he does not recall hitting another vehicle but conceded it might have happened.

In a prepared statement, Horne said the fact the Bar is looking at the issue means nothing.

"Any time someone makes a complaint to the State Bar, the State Bar investigates the complaint,'' he said, noting it does not become a formal "complaint'' against an attorney until the organization decides it has at least some merit. "There has been no decision by the State Bar to make a complaint in this case.''

Navy denies Iran’s claim of captured U.S. drone

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US Navy spokesman: All US drones in Mideast ‘accounted for’ after Iran capture claims

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, December 4, 7:27 AM

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran claimed Tuesday it had captured a U.S. drone after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf— even showing an image of a purportedly downed craft on state TV — but the U.S. Navy said all its unmanned aircraft in the region were “fully accounted for.”

The conflicting accounts still leave the possibility that the drone claimed by Iran, a Boeing-designed ScanEagle, could have been plucked from the sea in the past and unveiled for maximum effect following escalating tensions over U.S. surveillance missions in the Gulf.

The U.S. Navy says all of its drone unmanned aircraft are accounted for. Iran claims it captured one drone. Iranian State TV showed pictures of what was said to be the drone.

The U.S. Navy says all of its drone unmanned aircraft are accounted for. Iran claims it captured one drone. Iranian State TV showed pictures of what was said to be the drone.

Other countries in the region — such as the United Arab Emirates — also have ScanEagle drones in their fleets.

Cmdr. Jason Salata, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, said ScanEagles operated by the Navy “have been lost into the water” over the years, but there is no “record of that occurring most recently.”

The Iranian announcement did not give details on the time or location of the claimed drone capture.

It’s certain, however, to be portrayed by Tehran as another bold challenge to U.S. reconnaissance efforts in the region. Last month, the Pentagon said a drone came under Iranian fire in the Gulf but was not harmed. A year ago, Iran managed to bring down an unmanned CIA spy drone possibly coming from Afghanistan.

Iran also has recently alleged repeated airspace violations by U.S. drones, which Washington denies.

“The U.S. Navy has fully accounted for all unmanned air vehicles operating in the Middle East region,” said Salata. “Our operations in the Gulf are confined to internationally recognized waters and airspace.”

Iran claimed it captured the drone after it entered Iranian airspace. A report on state TV quoted the navy chief of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Ali Fadavi, as saying the Iranian forces caught the “intruding” drone, which had apparently taken off from a U.S. aircraft carrier.

“The U.S. drone, which was conducting a reconnaissance flight and gathering data over the Persian Gulf in the past few days, was captured by the Guard’s navy air defense unit as soon as it entered Iranian airspace,” Fadavi said. “Such drones usually take off from large warships.”

Al-Alam, the Iranian state TV’s Arabic-language channel, showed two Guard commanders examining what appeared to be an intact ScanEagle drone. It was not immediately clear if that was the same drone Iran claimed to have captured.

In the footage, the two men then point to a huge map of the Persian Gulf in the background, showing the drone’s alleged path of entry into Iranian airspace.

“We shall trample on the U.S,” was printed over the map in Farsi and English next to the Guard’s emblem.

If true, the seizure of the drone would be the third reported incident involving Iran and U.S. drones in the past two years.

Last month, Iran claimed that a U.S. drone had violated its airspace. Pentagon said the unmanned aircraft came under fire — at least twice but was not hit — and that the Predator was over international waters.

The Nov. 1 shooting in the Gulf was unprecedented, and further escalated tensions between the United States and Iran, which is under international sanctions over its suspect nuclear program. Tehran denies it’s pursuing a nuclear weapon and insists its program is for peaceful purposes only.

In late 2011, Iran claimed it brought down a CIA spy drone after it entered Iranian airspace from its eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan. The RQ-170 Sentinel drone, which is equipped with stealth technology, was captured almost intact. Tehran later said it recovered data from the top-secret drone.

In the case of the Sentinel, after initially saying only that a drone had been lost near the Afghan-Iran border, American officials eventually confirmed it had been monitoring Iran’s military and nuclear facilities. Washington asked for it back but Iran refused, and instead released photos of Iranian officials studying the aircraft.

The U.S and its allies believe Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. Iran denies the charge, saying its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes only, such as power generation and cancer treatment.

Iran meanwhile, has claimed advanced in drone technology.

In November, Iranian media reported that the country had produced a domestically-made drone capable of hovering. Earlier, Iran said it obtained images of sensitive Israeli bases taken by a drone that was launched by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and downed by Israel.

Iran also claimed other drones made dozens of apparently undetected flights into Israeli airspace from Lebanon in recent years. Israel has rejected the Iranian assertions.

___

Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Smuggling marijuana into Los Angeles by boat

Fatal incident reflects new boldness among offshore smugglers

By Steve Chawkins, Los Angeles Times

December 3, 2012, 8:57 p.m.

The small Coast Guard inflatable vessel was 20 yards from the panga, an open fishing boat that law enforcement officers say has become the craft of choice to ferry untold numbers of marijuana bales and undocumented immigrants from Mexico to Southern California.

Spotted earlier by a Coast Guard cutter, the panga was running without lights, a standard practice in the illicit trade, according to investigators.

The four men on the boat dispatched from the cutter Halibut approached it cautiously, about 200 yards from the shore of Santa Cruz Island, off the Santa Barbara coast. In the darkness, they turned on their blue flashing lights and shouted, in English and Spanish: "Stop! Police! Put your hands up!" according to court documents filed Monday.

In response, the two men aboard the panga throttled their engines and headed straight at the small Coast Guard boat, ignoring shots fired by a crew member, provoking a collision that left a chief petty officer dead and his colleague injured. Then the two men kept going.

One of two men thrown out of the inflatable, Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III of Redondo Beach, died of a head injury caused by a propeller, according to the affidavit, which was filed in connection with the murder case against two suspects detained as they tried to flee to Mexico.

Officials say the tragedy underscores the dangers posed by smugglers who have foregone well-policed land routes in favor of the sea. Although more than 500 maritime smuggling incidents have been logged off the Southern California coast since 2010, this was the first violent death, authorities said.

"Most of our interdictions off of California can only be described as benign," Coast Guard spokesman Adam Eggers said. "There may be an attempt to evade, there may be a short pursuit, but we haven't had anything like this."

The men on the panga, Jose Mejia Leyva and Manuel Beltran Higuera, both Mexican nationals, were charged in Horne's death in U.S. District Court. Authorities believe they had been supplying gasoline to other smuggling craft operating off the California coast.

According to the affidavit, military aircraft followed their 30-foot craft as it made its way toward Mexico. With the two men futilely trying to restart their sputtering engine 20 miles north of the border, another Coast Guard vessel overtook them. Crew members demanded their surrender at gunpoint. When the men kept trying to start their engine, the Coast Guard crew doused them with pepper spray.

Encounters with seaborne smuggling have nearly doubled since 2010, with the steepest increases found along the more secluded, less patrolled beaches of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In Santa Barbara County, the surge has alarmed local authorities. In an April letter to Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara), Sheriff Bill Brown said the county experienced 16 "panga incidents" since the previous July, including the beaching of a four-engine, 45-foot "super-panga" that could easily have outpaced his department's sole vessel.

"It's a direct byproduct of increased pressure at the border and increased maritime enforcement to the south of us," Brown said in an interview Monday. "They're going further out to sea and they're coming further north."

Capps said she is asking federal agencies for additional enforcement funds in Santa Barbara.

The greatest number of coastal smuggling cases still occurs in San Diego, Orange and Los Angeles counties. But intensive interagency efforts based in San Diego and Long Beach have forced some smugglers farther up the coast, officials said.

"It's not so much that efforts are being stepped up as that agencies are pooling knowledge and experience and expertise," Eggers said. "The beautiful thing about Los Angeles is that there's a ton of law enforcement here."

Upgraded technology, such as infrared radar and enhanced video, is being shared among agencies, he said, along with "actionable intelligence."

But smugglers have powerful incentives to take the risk. Dozens of people, paying an average of $6,000 apiece, can cram into each panga. Police say marijuana bales hauled by a typical panga can sell for millions. There's a huge expanse of sea — the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary is nearly 1,500 square miles — and major roads, including U.S. 101, run right by potential landing areas.

Boat pilots often try to outrun law enforcement and some high-speed chases have ended with U.S. officers shooting out gasoline tanks or performing swerving maneuvers to stop the pangas, said a federal law enforcement officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"They aggressively try to get away, but not turn their boat on another boat like they did the other night," the officer said.

On occasion, the rugged terrain of Channel Islands National Park has served as a staging area for smugglers.

In 2010, authorities seized 2,448 pounds of marijuana hidden in brush in a canyon on Santa Rosa Island, and arrested four people hiding nearby.

In 2011, 15 suspected illegal immigrants were stranded for three days on Santa Cruz Island, abandoned by the panga pilot who had transported them. They were rescued after calling 911 and hailing a boater.

Sunday's incident at Santa Cruz Island occurred in Smugglers Cove, where tequila traders from Mexico once stashed their goods before the trip ashore, Brown said.

"To a certain extent, we have history repeating itself," he said.

In June, six people were arrested as they unloaded 1.5 tons of marijuana from their panga at Santa Barbara County's El Capitan State Beach. The Gaviota coast has been a landing spot for smugglers dating back to the Spanish colonial era.

Arraignment for the two men charged in Horne's death has been set for Dec. 21.

In another panga case Monday, a federal judge took note of the weekend's deadly encounter as he handed a sentence of nearly four years to a Mexican man whose marijuana-laden panga got stuck in rocks near Deer Creek Canyon in Malibu.

U.S. District Judge John F. Walter said the tragedy made it impossible to view the many sea smuggling cases on his docket as "lighthearted" capers.

"It has taken on now a much more serious tone in light of the events this weekend," Walter said, adding, "Something needs to be done about this rash of panga boats."

The defendant, Antonio Robles-Garcia, was arrested in January. His attorney, Dale Rubin, said he had signed on because was desperate to get to the U.S. and work.

steve.chawkins@latimes.com

Times staff writers Richard Marosi and Harriet Ryan contributed to this report.

Fort Hood shooting judge removed for showing bias

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Fort Hood shooting judge removed for showing bias

Associated Press

8:28 a.m. CST, December 4, 2012

FORT WORTH, Texas -- A military judge has been thrown off the Fort Hood deadly shooting case after an appeals court found that his treatment of the suspect, including an order to have the man forcibly shaved, indicated a lack of impartiality.

It was not immediately clear what impact the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces ruling Monday would have on the long-delayed military trial of Maj. Nidal Hasan. The Army psychiatrist is charged with 13 counts of murder in the 2009 shooting rampage.

Hasan appealed after Col. Gregory Gross ordered that he must be clean-shaven or forcibly shaved before his military trial, which was supposed to begin three months ago. It has been on hold pending the appeals. Hasan has argued that his beard is a requirement of his Muslim faith. Facial hair violates Army regulations.

An Army appeals court upheld the shaving requirement in October, but on Monday the appeals court said the command, not the judge, is responsible for enforcing grooming standards.

Gross had repeatedly said Hasan's beard was a disruption to the court proceedings, but the military appeals court ruled there was insufficient evidence to show that was true.

"Should the next military judge find it necessary to address (Hasan's) beard, such issues should be addressed and litigated anew," judges wrote in the ruling.

Gross found Hasan in contempt of court at six pretrial hearings because of his beard and sent him to a trailer to watch the proceedings on a closed-circuit television. The appeals court's ruling also vacated the contempt of court convictions.

The court said it was not ruling on whether the judge's order violated Hasan's religious rights.

Lead defense attorney Lt. Col. Kris Poppe said the judge showed a bias against Hasan when he asked defense attorneys to clean up a court restroom after Gross found a medical waste bag, adult diaper and what appeared to be feces on the floor after a June hearing. Hasan, who is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by police on the day of the shootings, has to wear adult diapers — but the mess in the restroom that day was mud from a guard's boots, Poppe said.

"In light of these rulings, and the military judge's accusations regarding the latrine, it could reasonably appear to an objective observer that the military judge had allowed the proceedings to become a duel of wills between himself and (Hasan) rather than an adjudication of the serious offenses with which (Hasan) is charged," judges wrote in the ruling.

Fort Hood officials said late Monday that proceedings in the case will resume after a new judge is appointed by the Army's highest legal branch. This indicates Army prosecutors will not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hasan faces the death penalty if convicted in the shootings on the Texas Army post that killed 13 people and wounded more than two dozen others.

John McAfee located with GPS info in cell phone photo!!!

When the Feds passed the law which required cell phone manufacturers to allow cell phones to tell the authorities the location of a cell phone they told us it was to make us safer. That was 100 percent BS. The purpose was to allow the police and government to hunt down cell phone users.

And of course in this case some anonymous hacker used that info to track down fugitive John McAfee's location.

The bottom line is to remember that ANYTIME you use a cell phone it is constantly broadcasting your location to the police and government authorities.

And while the internet isn't broadcasting your location on the air waves like a cell phone is, every time you use the internet your current location or IP address is sent across the internet and can be used to location your physical location.

I also think that some high end cameras have GPS systems in then that will add the location of where you shot all your photos as META data inside the photo, again allowing the government to track down the location of any photos you shoot.

Source

Hacker locates John McAfee through smartphone tracks

By Craig Timberg, Published: December 4

Weeks of international intrigue about the whereabouts of tech millionaire John McAfee ended Tuesday after the Internet pioneer made an elementary digital mistake that highlighted the fraught relationship Americans have with what they once quaintly called “the telephone.”

That homely communication tool, wired into walls everywhere for the better part of a century, has become an untethered e-mailer, browser, banker, shopper, movie viewer, music player and — to an extent that few appreciate — digital spy of extraordinary power.

McAfee, 67, who founded the popular antivirus company that bears his name, has been wanted for questioning by police in Belize since a neighbor turned up dead of a gunshot wound near McAfee’s beach-side home Nov. 11. The troubled tech savant, insisting that he had no role in the shooting, went on the run and has been taunting police by blog, Twitter and occasional podcast.

Authorities couldn’t catch him. But a hacker called Simple Nomad learned McAfee’s location shortly after journalists posted an image of him from his supposedly secret locale under the provocative headline, “We are with John McAfee right now, suckers.”

Embedded in that image, apparently taken by one of the journalists, was the sort of detailed data routinely collected by smartphone cameras and often transmitted along with images wherever they go — on e-mail, Facebook, online photo albums and, it turns out, to Vice magazine’s Web site.

Simple Nomad, who declined to give any identifying personal details in an e-mail interview, examined the underlying data and quickly learned that McAfee’s image emanated from an iPhone 4S at the following location: “Latitude/longitude: 15° 39’ 29.4 North, 88° 59’ 31.8 West,” at 12:26 p.m. Monday.

That put McAfee in a Guatemalan villa south of the border with Belize. Simple Nomad tweeted the information, generating significant online buzz. McAfee tried to cover his tracks with a blog post in which he claimed to have faked the iPhone data to fool police, but he came clean Tuesday morning with another post acknowledging that he was in Guatemala and soon would be meeting with a lawyer.

“Yesterday was chaotic due to the accidental release of my exact co- ordinates by an unseasoned technician at Vice headquarters,” McAfee wrote in a short item posted with an image of the blue-and-white flag of Guatemala. “We made it to safety in spite of this handicap. I had to cancel numerous interviews with the press yesterday because of this and I apologize to all of those affected.”

Simple Nomad was in no mood to gloat about the detective work, saying by e-mail, “McAfee’s mistake was talking to the Vice guys, so ultimately his ego is the culprit.”

But the case resonated with privacy experts, who long have feared that most owners of smartphones have little idea how much information they collect and how easily it can be shared. Hackers can steal it. Police in many situations can review it for potential evidence. And users can accidentally transmit it, sometimes without even knowing they have done so.

The rules governing the collection of personal data are few and often unclear. There is no firm limit, for example, on how long a cellphone carrier can keep GPS location data on its users even though many aren’t aware that such records are being kept. A poll by the University of California at Berkeley released in July said 46 percent of Americans thought cellphone providers should not keep such data, and 28 percent said it should be deleted after one year.

The “metadata” that’s embedded in files is particularly treacherous, said Chris Hoofnagle, a law professor at U.C.-Berkeley. Businesses made so many accidental releases that several programs now are available to help scrub out comments and deletions in documents that are intended to remain private. Rules in some states govern what information lawyers can use when opposing counsel inadvertently shares private information in metadata fields.

The rapid spread of smartphones has made it even harder for most users to monitor the creation and flow of personal information, Hoofnagle said. “It has trapped a lot of people, this problem. We’re often not aware of the metadata that’s created.”

The McAfee case is all the more striking because of his presumed savviness in handling technology. The iPhone appears to have belonged to one of the journalists, but sophisticated users can alter or delete the metadata that accompanies photographs — something that McAfee could have demanded or done himself before the image was sent to the Web site. Vice also could have eliminated such data before posting the image online (as it did after Simple Nomad’s discovery).

Interest in McAfee’s location was intense because of his fame — though he left the antivirus company that bears his name in the 1990s — and the bizarre details of his life, which by various reports included sexual exploits, drug experimentation and a range of unusual business ventures. News stories, some of which McAfee has denied, have portrayed a frenzied, paranoid genius with a knack for extravagant fabrications that he later dismisses as pranks.

He has denied any role in the death of Gregory Faull, 52, while expressing fear of the police in Belize.

McAfee sounded a conciliatory note in a blog post Tuesday afternoon announcing that he has hired a prominent lawyer who is the uncle of his latest girlfriend. He apologized for previous blog posts in which he gave out misleading information while seeking to evade police.

To the authorities from Belize, he offered to discuss the death of his neighbor — but only by phone.

San Francisco narc admits robbing prostitutes and stealing drugs

East Bay vice cop cries, admits thefts

Justin Berton

Updated 11:02 p.m., Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The former leader of an elite Contra Costa County antinarcotics squad cried and broke into an excessive sweat in a federal courtroom Wednesday as he pleaded guilty to stealing drugs from evidence lockers.

Norman Wielsch, 51, also admitted that while on the job as one of the East Bay's top vice cops, he robbed prostitutes of at least $10,000 in cash and electronics and illegally arrested a teenager in an effort to "scare him straight."

A federal judge in Oakland will sentence the former lawman in February. Wielsch's attorney hopes the admissions will result in a sentence of as few as 10 years, while federal guidelines recommend a 14- to 17-year sentence. A judge has wide discretion on the term.

Wielsch, who is said to suffer from a neurological disorder that affects his nerve endings, remained composed for most of the hour-long proceeding.

But after an assistant U.S. attorney read the five counts from a 2011 indictment to which he agreed to plead guilty, Wielsch burst into a sweating jag that caused him to furiously wipe his brow and neck with tissues. His attorney, Michael Cardoza, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Kandis Westmore the outbreak was the result of Wielsch's health condition, and not the magnitude of the hearing.

A contrite-sounding Wielsch offered a lengthy apology to law enforcement agents and residents of Contra Costa County. He said he was ashamed that his actions "tarnished the badge" and brought shame upon his family.

"We did a lot of good," he said of his former outfit, the Central Contra Costa County Narcotics Enforcement Team. "Until we did these stupid things."

Prosecutors said that in late 2010 and early 2011 Wielsch, along with then-private investigator Christopher Butler, 51, stole at least 20 pounds of marijuana and 3 pounds of methamphetamine from police evidence lockers. The U.S. attorney's office valued the amount of stolen drugs at from $30,000 to $70,000.

The duo sold the drugs to one of Butler's former employees, who ultimately went to authorities and agreed to video-record Wielsch and Butler during a drug transaction.

Wielsch also admitted that he and Butler, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in September, had staged the arrest of a 19-year-old Danville resident. Butler and Wielsch were hired by the teenager's mom, who suspected her son was dealing drugs and wanted him "scared straight." According to prosecutors, Wielsch handcuffed the teenager and searched his home before releasing him.

Additionally, Wielsch confessed that he and Butler had robbed prostitutes who worked out of hotel rooms. Prosecutors said Butler would knock on the hotel room door and Wielsch would "push his way through" with his badge displayed. Once inside, the pair would steal cash and cell phones. Wielsch admitted they had also taken a computer in one incident.

"I'm sorry," Wielsch said of the robberies. "I don't even believe I did this."

Wielsch waved to his family before U.S. marshals took him into custody.

Outside the courtroom, Cardoza said his client still did not understand his own motives for crossing from one side of the law to the other.

"What I hope some people remember," Cardoza said, "is that Norm Wielsch served the public honorably for a number of years. And then he did go bad, and there's no denying that."

Justin Berton is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jberton@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @justinberton

Cadet quits, cites overt religion at West Point

Cadet quits, cites overt religion at West Point

Associated Press Thu Dec 6, 2012 11:12 AM

ALBANY, New York — A cadet quitting West Point less than six months before graduation says he could no longer be part of a U.S, military culture that promotes prayers and religious activities and disrespects nonreligious cadets.

Blake Page announced his decision to quit the U.S. Military Academy this week in a much-discussed online post that echoed the sentiments of soldiers and airmen at other military installations. The 24-year-old told The Associated Press that a determination this semester that he could not become an officer because of clinical depression played a role in his public protest against what he calls the unconstitutional prevalence of religion in the military.

“I’ve been trying since I found that out: What can I do? What can I possibly do to initiate the change that I want to see and so many other people want to see?” Page said. “I realized that this is one way I can make that change happen.”

Page criticized a culture where cadets stand silently for prayers, where nonreligious cadets were jokingly called “heathens” by instructors at basic training and where one officer told him he’d never be a leader until he filled the hole in his heart. In announcing his resignation this week on The Huffington Post, he denounced “criminals” in the military who violate the oaths they swore to defend the Constitution.

“I don’t want to be a part of West Point knowing that the leadership here is OK with just shrugging off and shirking off respect and good order and discipline and obeying the law and defending the Constitution and doing their job,” he told the AP.

West Point officials on Wednesday disputed those assertions. Spokeswoman Theresa Brinkerhoff said prayer is voluntary at events where invocations and benedictions are conducted and noted the academy has a Secular Student Alliance club, where Page served as president.

Maj. Nicholas Utzig, the faculty adviser to the secular club, said he doesn’t doubt some of the moments Page described, but he doesn’t believe there is systematic discrimination against nonreligious cadets.

“I think it represents his own personal experience and perhaps it might not be as universal as he suggests,” said Utzig, who teaches English literature.

One of Page’s secularist classmates went further, calling his characterization of West Point unfair.

“I think it’s true that the majority of West Point cadets are of a very conservative, Christian orientation,” said senior cadet Andrew Houchin. “I don’t think that’s unique to West Point. But more broadly, I’ve never had that even be a problem with those of us who are secular.”

There have been complaints over the years that the wall between church and state is not always observed in the military. The Air Force Academy in Colorado in particular has been scrutinized for years over allegations from non-Christian students that they faced intolerance. A retired four-star general was asked last year to conduct an independent review of the overall religious climate at the academy.

There also has been a growing willingness in recent years by some service members to publicly identify themselves as atheists, agnostics or humanists and to seek the same recognition granted to Christians, Jews and other believers. Earlier this year, there was an event at Fort Bragg that was the first known event in U.S. military history to cater to nonbelievers.

Page said he hears about the plight of other nonreligious cadets in part through his involvement with the West Point affiliate of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. The founder and president of that advocacy group said Page’s action is a milestone in the fight against “fanatical religiosity” in the military.

“This is an extraordinary act of courage that I do compare directly to what Rosa Parks did,” said Mikey Weinstein.

Page, who is from Stockbridge, Georgia, and who was accepted into West Point after serving in the Army, said he was notified Tuesday of his honorable discharge. He faces no military commitment and will not have to reimburse the cost of his education.

West Point confirmed that it approved his resignation and that Page had been meeting the academic standards and was not undergoing any disciplinary actions. Page said he had been medically disqualified this semester from receiving a commission in the Army as a second lieutenant — like his classmates will receive in May — because of clinical depression and anxiety. He said his condition has gotten worse since his father killed himself last year.

It’s not unusual for cadets to drop out of West Point, an institution known for its rigorous academic and physical demands. But the window for dropping out without the potential for a penalty is in the first two years. Dropouts are rare after that point.

Black boxes in cars raise privacy concerns

The article didn't address it but I wonder if the government will require car makers to install GPS chips in your car to tell the police where you have traveled?

Source

Black boxes in cars raise privacy concerns

Associated Press Thu Dec 6, 2012 11:14 PM

WASHINGTON — Many motorists don’t know it, but it’s likely that every time they get behind the wheel, there’s a snitch along for the ride.

In the next few days, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to propose long-delayed regulations requiring auto manufacturers to include event data recorders — better known as “black boxes” — in all new cars and light trucks. But the agency is behind the curve. Automakers have been quietly tucking the devices, which automatically record the actions of drivers and the responses of their vehicles in a continuous information loop, into most new cars for years.

When a car is involved in a crash or when its airbags deploy, inputs from the vehicle’s sensors during the 5 to 10 seconds before impact are automatically preserved. That’s usually enough to record things like how fast the car was traveling and whether the driver applied the brake, was steering erratically or had a seat belt on.

The idea is to gather information that can help investigators determine the cause of accidents and lead to safer vehicles. But privacy advocates say government regulators and automakers are spreading an intrusive technology without first putting in place policies to prevent misuse of the information collected.

Data collected by the recorders is increasingly showing up in lawsuits, criminal cases and high-profile accidents. Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray initially said that he wasn’t speeding and that he was wearing his seat belt when he crashed a government-owned car last year. But the Ford Crown Victoria’s data recorder told a different story: It showed the car was traveling more than 100 mph (160 kph) and Murray wasn’t belted in.

In 2007, then-New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine was seriously injured in the crash of an SUV driven by a state trooper. Corzine was a passenger. The SUV’s recorder showed the vehicle was traveling 91 mph (146 kph) on a parkway where the speed limit was 65 mph (105 kph), and Corzine didn’t have his seat belt on.

There’s no opt-out. It’s extremely difficult for car owners to disable the recorders. Although some vehicle models have had recorders since the early 1990s, a federal requirement that automakers disclose their existence in owner’s manuals didn’t go into effect until three months ago. Automakers who voluntarily put recorders in vehicles are also now required to gather a minimum of 15 types of data.

Besides the upcoming proposal to put recorders in all new vehicles, the traffic safety administration is also considering expanding the data requirement to include as many as 30 additional types of data such as whether the vehicle’s electronic stability control was engaged, the driver’s seat position or whether the front-seat passenger was belted in. Some manufacturers already are collecting the information. Engineers have identified more than 80 data points that might be useful.

Despite privacy complaints, the traffic safety administration so far hasn’t put any limits on how the information can be used. About a dozen states have some law regarding data recorders, but the rest do not.

“Right now we’re in an environment where there are no rules, there are no limits, there are no consequences and there is no transparency,” said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy advocacy group. “Most people who are operating a motor vehicle have no idea this technology is integrated into their vehicle.”

Part of the concern is that the increasing computerization of cars and the growing transmission of data to and from vehicles could lead to unintended uses of recorder data.

“Basically your car is a computer now, so it can record all kinds of information,” said Gloria Bergquist, vice president of the Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers. “It’s a lot of the same issues you have about your computer or your smartphone and whether Google or someone else has access to the data.”

The alliance opposes the government requiring recorders in all vehicles.

Data recorders “help our engineers understand how cars perform in the real world, and we already have put them on over 90 percent of (new) vehicles without any mandate being necessary,” Bergquist said.

Safety advocates, however, say requiring data recorders in all cars is the best way to gather a large enough body of reliable information to enable vehicle designers to make safer cars.

“The barn door is already open. It’s a question of whether we use the information that’s already out there,” said Henry Jasny, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Automotive Safety.

The National Transportation Safety Board has been pushing for recorders in all passenger vehicles since the board’s investigation of a 2003 accident in which an elderly driver plowed through an open-air market in Santa Monica, Calif. Ten people were killed and 63 were injured. The driver refused to be interviewed and his 1992 Buick LeSabre didn’t have a recorder. After ruling out other possibilities, investigators ultimately guessed that he had either mistakenly stepped on the gas pedal or had stepped on the gas and the brake pedals at the same time.

When reports of sudden acceleration problems in Toyota vehicles cascaded in 2009 and 2010, recorder data from some of the vehicles contributed to the traffic safety administration’s conclusion that the problem was probably sticky gas pedals and floor mats that could jam them, not defects in electronic throttle control systems.

“Black box” is a mechanic’s term for a part that should only be opened by someone with authority to do so. The term is most widely used to refer to flight data recorders, which continually gather hundreds of data points about an aircraft’s operation during flight. Aircraft recorders, by law, are actually bright orange.

Some automakers began installing the recorders at a time when there were complaints that air bags might be causing deaths and injuries, partly to protect themselves against liability and partly to improve air bag technology. Most recorders are black boxes about the size of a deck of card with circuit boards inside. After an accident, information is downloaded to a laptop computer using a tool unique to the vehicle’s manufacturer. As electronics in cars have increased, the kinds of data that can be recorded have grown as well. Some more recent recorders are part of the vehicle’s computers rather than a separate device.

Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano has repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, introduced legislation to require that automakers design recorders so that they can be disabled by motorists

A transportation bill passed by the Senate earlier this year would have required that all new cars and light trucks have recorders and designated a vehicle’s owner as the owner of the data. The provision was removed during House-Senate negotiations on the measure at the behest of House Republican lawmakers who said they were concerned about privacy.

“Many of us would see it as a slippery slope toward big government and Big Brother knowing what we’re doing and where we are,” Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., who is slated to take over the chairmanship of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in January, said at the time. “Privacy is a big concern for many across America.”

Merry Christmas from the TSA goons

Egypt - A new tyrant replaces the old tyrant.

Egypt’s Morsi acting like his predecessors

By Hamza Hendawi Associated Press Mon Dec 10, 2012 9:10 PM

CAIRO -- The freshly scrawled graffiti depicting Mohammed Morsi as a pharaonic Saddam Hussein tells the tale of high hopes dashed with record speed: Barely six months after becoming Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, the Islamist is widely accused of abandoning pledges of inclusive government for doctrinaire and authoritarian ways.

Some say it should come as no surprise: heavy-handed rule has a history in Egypt and in much of the region — as do unfulfilled promises of reform.

In the past three weeks alone, Morsi has given himself near-absolute powers; placed himself above any oversight; allowed or looked the other way when his supporters set upon peaceful protesters outside his palace or besieged the nation’s highest court to stop judges from issuing an unfavorable ruling; and, ominously, indicated he was spying on his foes.

Borrowing a page from his predecessors’ governance manual, Morsi justified his actions by speaking, albeit cryptically, of a “conspiracy” aimed at destroying state institutions and derailing the transition to democracy. He offered no evidence to back his allegation, saying only that he would do everything he can to protect the nation.

“I see what you don’t see,” he told state television a week after he touched off a political crisis Nov. 22 by issuing decrees that gave him sweeping powers.

Critics and analysts believe his actions are dictated by the powerful group he hails from, the Muslim Brotherhood, although they only have anecdotal evidence to support that contention.

Michigan enacts right-to-work law

The reason many employers are moving jobs out of the USA is because of these union thugs.

The reason I included this article about unions is that the police unions routinely use violence and threats of violence to force governments to pay them more money. Sadly the police are often worse criminals then the criminals they claim to protect us from.

Source

Michigan enacts right-to-work law, dealing blow to unions

By Michael A. Fletcher and Sean Sullivan, Published: December 11

Michigan enacted far-reaching legislation Tuesday that threatens to cripple the power of organized labor in a state that was a hub of union might during the heyday of the nation’s industrial dominance.

As thousands of angry union members shouted their opposition outside the state Capitol in Lansing, the Republican-controlled legislature completed work on two measures to ban unions from requiring workers to pay membership dues. Gov. Rick Snyder (R) then signed them into law Tuesday evening.

The “right to work” effort illustrates the power of Republicans to use state legislative majorities won in 2010 to pursue their policy preferences, even after losing a bitter presidential election.

The defeat is devastating for organized labor, which for decades has been waging an uphill battle against declining membership and dwindling influence.

But it also strikes at the roots of a Democratic Party that relied on unions for financial support and to marshal voters for President Obama’s reelection.

The new law comes nearly two years after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) began a push to curb collective bargaining rights for public employees. That effort ignited huge protests from union and liberal activists and triggered a failed effort to recall Walker.

At the same time, a well-funded campaign to curtail union power swept through several other Republican-controlled states in the industrial Midwest.

Indiana followed Wisconsin and passed laws that limited the reach of organized labor. Lawmakers in Ohio also passed legislation that curtailed collective bargaining rights of public sector unions, but voters overturned it.

In crafting Michigan’s measure, supporters avoided some tactical errors from earlier efforts. The measure is attached to an appropriations bill, which exempts it from being taken to a referendum. And it excludes firefighters and police, groups that were critical in overturning Ohio’s law.

Proponents call their win in Michigan especially significant because the state is the birthplace of one of the country’s most powerful labor groups, the United Auto Workers. Founded in 1935, the union organized auto workers, winning wages and benefits that transformed assembly-line work into solid middle-class jobs.

“This is really a message to every other state that is a closed union shop, that if you do it here you can do it everywhere else,” said Scott Hagerstrom, Michigan director of Americans for Prosperity. The group is supported by industrialists Charles and David Koch, billionaires who have pushed for anti-union and other conservative measures.

Supporters predicted that the new law will be a boon to economic growth in an era of global competition. But unions say the measure will starve them of money, weakening their ability to bargain for their members and undercutting their ability to support Democratic political candidates, who typically back their causes.

Labor leaders and Democratic state legislators said they had requested that Obama weigh in on the labor fight. They asked the White House to issue a public statement last week declaring the president’s opposition to the legislation, and for him to refer to the labor fight in his remarks Monday during a visit to Redford, Mich.

“You know, these so-called right-to-work laws, they don’t have to do with economics. They have everything to do with politics,” Obama said. “What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.”

Labor Department figures show that unionized workers earn more and have better benefits than their non-union counterparts. But the number of American workers who are in labor unions is in sharp decline.

In Michigan, the share of unionized workers has dropped from 28.4 percent to 17.5 percent since 1985. Meanwhile, the nation’s struggle to hold on to manufacturing jobs and the travails of the auto industry made Michigan an economic basket case long before the recession. After the downturn hit, unemployment in the state peaked at 14.2 percent and now stands at 9.1 percent, far above the national average.

With increasing numbers of working Americans who must make do with falling wages, frozen pensions and long periods of joblessness, it is unclear whether they consider unions their allies.

The Michigan vote ended a swift change of fortune for the forces of organized labor there. Unions and their supporters spent more than $22 million to back a ballot measure last month that would have guaranteed collective bargaining rights in the state Constitution, only to see it resoundingly defeated.

The rejection emboldened the other side. Sensing an opening, supporters pushed to have the legislature pass the right-to-work measure. Then Snyder, who had previously expressed ambivalence, came out in favor of it.

Greg McNeilly, who heads the Michigan Freedom Fund, a group backed by multimillionaire conservative activist Dick DeVos that spent millions pressing for passage of the legislation, called their success a potentially decisive hit against organized labor.

“I think today is their Waterloo,” McNeilly said. “To see the birthplace of forced unionization do a turnabout is a very monumental achievement, and it is historic.”

At a news conference Tuesday at the George W. Romney Building steps away from the state Capitol, Snyder defended his move as one that would lead to “more jobs coming to Michigan.”

“I view this as simply trying to get this issue behind us,” he said of his decision to sign the measures. “And I recognize that people are going to be upset. There’ll be a continuation. But hopefully what’s really going to transpire over time is you’re going to see workers making a choice and you’ll see unions being held more accountable and responsive.”

Researchers are divided about whether such laws fuel job creation. Sylvia Allegretto, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, said a similar law that was passed in Oklahoma in 2001 did not improve the labor market.

Meanwhile, the average worker — unionized or not — in a right-to-work state earns $1,500 less per year than a similar worker in a state without such a law, according to the liberal Center for American Progress.

But conservative researchers argue that right-to-work states have done better at attracting investment and jobs than have more heavily unionized states. The West Michigan Policy Forum, a research group that supported the right-to-work bills, said that of the 10 states with the highest rate of personal income growth, eight have right-to-work laws.

Whatever the impact, union leaders promised to work hard to overturn Tuesday’s actions.

“What this means is that for the next two years, we are going to work hard to elect candidates who support the middle class and working class and see what we can do to get this bill turned over,” said Michael Bolton, director of United Steel Workers District 2, which covers Wisconsin and Michigan.

Philip Rucker, Peter Whoriskey and Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.

America the worlds biggest police state!!!!!

For Lesser Crimes, Rethinking Life Behind Bars

Rates of incarceration for working-age men, 18 to 64

White 1 in 87

Black 1 in 12

Prison Population rates per 100,000 people

Source

For Lesser Crimes, Rethinking Life Behind Bars

William Widmer for The New York Times

By JOHN TIERNEY

Published: December 11, 2012 224 Comments

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Stephanie George and Judge Roger Vinson had quite different opinions about the lockbox seized by the police from her home in Pensacola. She insisted she had no idea that a former boyfriend had hidden it in her attic. Judge Vinson considered the lockbox, containing a half-kilogram of cocaine, to be evidence of her guilt.

But the defendant and the judge fully agreed about the fairness of the sentence he imposed in federal court.

“Even though you have been involved in drugs and drug dealing,” Judge Vinson told Ms. George, “your role has basically been as a girlfriend and bag holder and money holder but not actively involved in the drug dealing, so certainly in my judgment it does not warrant a life sentence.”

Yet the judge had no other option on that morning 15 years ago. As her stunned family watched, Ms. George, then 27, who had never been accused of violence, was led from the courtroom to serve a sentence of life without parole.

“I remember my mom crying out and asking the Lord why,” said Ms. George, now 42, in an interview at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee. “Sometimes I still can’t believe myself it could happen in America.”

Her sentence reflected a revolution in public policy, often called mass incarceration, that appears increasingly dubious to both conservative and liberal social scientists. They point to evidence that mass incarceration is no longer a cost-effective way to make streets safer, and may even be promoting crime instead of suppressing it.

Three decades of stricter drug laws, reduced parole and rigid sentencing rules have lengthened prison terms and more than tripled the percentage of Americans behind bars. The United States has the highest reported rate of incarceration of any country: about one in 100 adults, a total of nearly 2.3 million people in prison or jail.

But today there is growing sentiment that these policies have gone too far, causing too many Americans like Ms. George to be locked up for too long at too great a price — economically and socially.

The criticism is resonating with some state and federal officials, who have started taking steps to stop the prison population’s growth. The social scientists are attracting attention partly because the drop in crime has made it a less potent political issue, and partly because of the states’ financial problems.

State spending on corrections, after adjusting for inflation, has more than tripled in the past three decades, making it the fastest-growing budgetary cost except Medicaid. Even though the prison population has leveled off in the past several years, the costs remain so high that states are being forced to reduce spending in other areas.

Three decades ago, California spent 10 percent of its budget on higher education and 3 percent on prisons. In recent years the prison share of the budget rose above 10 percent while the share for higher education fell below 8 percent. As university administrators in California increase tuition to cover their deficits, they complain that the state spends much more on each prisoner — nearly $50,000 per year — than on each student.

Many researchers agree that the rise in imprisonment produced some initial benefits, particularly in urban neighborhoods, where violence decreased significantly in the 1990s. But as sentences lengthened and the prison population kept growing, it included more and more nonviolent criminals like Ms. George.

Half a million people are now in prison or jail for drug offenses, about 10 times the number in 1980, and there have been especially sharp increases in incarceration rates for women and for people over 55, long past the peak age for violent crime. In all, about 1.3 million people, more than half of those behind bars, are in prison or jail for nonviolent offenses.

Researchers note that the policies have done little to stem the flow of illegal drugs. And they say goals like keeping street violence in check could be achieved without the expense of locking up so many criminals for so long.

While many scholars still favor tough treatment for violent offenders, they have begun suggesting alternatives for other criminals. James Q. Wilson, the conservative social scientist whose work in the 1970s helped inspire tougher policies on prison, several years ago recommended diverting more nonviolent drug offenders from prisons to treatment programs.

Two of his collaborators, George L. Kelling of the Manhattan Institute and John J. DiIulio Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania, have joined with prominent scholars and politicians, including Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich, in a group called Right on Crime. It advocates more selective incarceration and warns that current policies “have the unintended consequence of hardening nonviolent, low-risk offenders” so that they become “a greater risk to the public than when they entered.”

These views are hardly universal, particularly among elected officials worried about a surge in crime if the prison population shrinks. Prosecutors have resisted attempts to change the system, contending that the strict sentences deter crime and induce suspects to cooperate because the penalties provide the police and prosecutors with so much leverage.

Some of the strongest evidence for the benefit of incarceration came from studies by a University of Chicago economist, Steven D. Levitt, who found that penal policies were a major factor in reducing crime during the 1990s. But as crime continued declining and the prison population kept growing, the returns diminished.

“We know that harsher punishments lead to less crime, but we also know that the millionth prisoner we lock up is a lot less dangerous to society than the first guy we lock up,” Dr. Levitt said. “In the mid-1990s I concluded that the social benefits approximately equaled the costs of incarceration. Today, my guess is that the costs outweigh the benefits at the margins. I think we should be shrinking the prison population by at least one-third.”

Some social scientists argue that the incarceration rate is now so high that the net effect is “crimogenic”: creating more crime over the long term by harming the social fabric in communities and permanently damaging the economic prospects of prisoners as well as their families. Nationally, about one in 40 children have a parent in prison. Among black children, one in 15 have a parent in prison.

Cocaine in the Attic

Ms. George was a young single mother when she first got in trouble with drugs and the law. One of her children was fathered by a crack dealer, Michael Dickey, who went to prison in the early 1990s for drug and firearm offenses.

“When he went away, I was at home with the kids struggling to pay bills,” Ms. George said. “The only way I knew to get money quick was selling crack. I was never a user, but from being around him I pretty much knew how to get it.”

After the police caught her making crack sales of $40 and $120 — which were counted as separate felonies — she was sentenced, at 23, to nine months in a work-release program. That meant working at her mother’s hair salon in Pensacola during the day and spending nights at the county jail, away from her three young children.

“When I caught that first charge, it scared me to death,” she recalled. “I thought, my God, being away from my kids, this is not what I want. I promised them I would never let it happen again.”

When Mr. Dickey got out of prison in 1995, she said, she refused to resume their relationship, but she did allow him into her apartment sometimes to see their daughter. One evening, shortly after he had arrived, the police showed up with a search warrant and a ladder.

“I didn’t know what they were doing with a ladder in a one-story building,” Ms. George said. “They went into a closet and opened a little attic space I’d never seen before and brought down the lockbox. He gave them a key to open it. When I saw what was in it, I was so mad I jumped across the table at him and started hitting him.”

Mr. Dickey said he had paid her to store the cocaine at her home. At the trial, other defendants said she was present during drug transactions conducted by Mr. Dickey and other dealers she dated, and sometimes delivered cash or crack for her boyfriends. Ms. George denied those accusations, which her lawyer argued were uncorroborated and self-serving. After the jury convicted her of being part of a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, she told the judge at her sentencing: “I just want to say I didn’t do it. I don’t want to be away from my kids.”

Whatever the truth of the testimony against her, it certainly benefited the other defendants. Providing evidence to the prosecution is one of the few ways to avoid a mandatory sentence. Because the government formally credited the other defendants with “substantial assistance,” their sentences were all reduced to less than 15 years. Even though Mr. Dickey was the leader of the enterprise and had a much longer criminal record than Ms. George, he was freed five years ago.

Looking back on the case, Judge Vinson said such disparate treatment is unfortunately all too common. The judge, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan who is hardly known for liberalism (last year he ruled that the Obama administration’s entire health care act was unconstitutional), says he still regrets the sentence he had to impose on Ms. George because of a formula dictated by the amount of cocaine in the lockbox and her previous criminal record.

“She was not a major participant by any means, but the problem in these cases is that the people who can offer the most help to the government are the most culpable,” Judge Vinson said recently. “So they get reduced sentences while the small fry, the little workers who don’t have that information, get the mandatory sentences.

“The punishment is supposed to fit the crime, but when a legislative body says this is going to be the sentence no matter what other factors there are, that’s draconian in every sense of the word. Mandatory sentences breed injustice.”

In the 1980s, stricter penalties for drugs were promoted by Republicans like Mr. Reagan and by urban Democrats worried about the crack epidemic. In the 1990s, both parties supported President Bill Clinton’s anticrime bill, which gave states money to build prisons. Three-strikes laws and other formulas forced judges to impose life without parole, a sentence that was uncommon in the United States before the 1970s.

Most other countries do not impose life sentences without parole, and those that do generally reserve it for a few heinous crimes. In England, where it is used only for homicides involving an aggravating factor like child abduction, torture or terrorism, a recent study reported that 41 prisoners were serving life terms without parole. In the United States, some 41,000 are.

“It is unconscionable that we routinely sentence people like Stephanie George to die in our prisons,” said Mary Price, the general counsel of the advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums. “The United States is nearly alone among the nations of the world in abandoning our obligation to rehabilitate such offenders.”

The utility of such sentences has been challenged repeatedly by criminologists and economists. Given that criminals are not known for meticulous long-term planning, how much more seriously do they take a life sentence versus 20 years, or 10 years versus 2 years? Studies have failed to find consistent evidence that the prospect of a longer sentence acts as a significantly greater deterrent than a shorter sentence.

Longer sentences undoubtedly keep criminals off the streets. But researchers question whether this incapacitation effect, as it is known, provides enough benefits to justify the costs, especially when drug dealers are involved. Locking up a rapist makes the streets safer by removing one predator, but locking up a low-level drug dealer creates a job opening that is quickly filled because so many candidates are available.

The number of drug offenders behind bars has gone from fewer than 50,000 in 1980 to more than 500,000 today, but that still leaves more than two million people on the street who sell drugs at least occasionally, according to calculations by Peter H. Reuter, a criminologist at the University of Maryland. He and Jonathan P. Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon University say there is no way to lock up enough low-level dealers and couriers to make a significant impact on supply, and that is why cocaine, heroin and other illegal drugs are as readily available today as in 1980, and generally at lower prices.

The researchers say that if the number of drug offenders behind bars was halved — reduced by 250,000 — there would be little impact on prices or availability.

“Mandating long sentences based on the quantities of drugs in someone’s possession just sweeps up low-level couriers and other hired help who are easily replaced,” Dr. Caulkins said. “Instead of relying on formulas written by legislators and sentencing commissions, we should let judges and other local officials use discretion to focus on the dealers who cause the most social harm — the ones who are violent, who fight for turf on street corners, who employ children. They’re the ones who should receive long sentences.”

These changes are starting to be made in places. Sentences for some drug crimes have been eased at the federal level and in states like New York, Kentucky and Texas. Judges in Ohio and South Carolina have been given more sentencing discretion. Californians voted in November to soften their state’s “three strikes” law to focus only on serious or violent third offenses. The use of parole has been expanded in Louisiana and Mississippi. The United States Supreme Court has banned life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders.

Nonetheless, the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, still has nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

A Mother Taken Away

Ms. George said she could understand the justice of sending her to prison for five years, if only to punish her for her earlier crack-selling offenses.

“I’m a real firm believer in karma — what goes around comes around,” she said. “I see now how wrong it was to sell drugs to people hooked on something they couldn’t control. I think, what if they took money away from their kids to buy drugs from me? I deserve to pay a price for that. But my whole life? To take me away from my kids forever?”

When she was sentenced 15 years ago, her children were 5, 6 and 9. They have been raised by her sister, Wendy Evil, who says it was agonizing to take the children to see their mother in prison.

“They would fight to sit on her knee the whole time,” she recalled recently during a family dinner at their home in Pensacola. “It’s been so hard for them. Some of the troubles they’ve had are because of their anger at her being gone.”

The youngest child, William, now 20, dropped out of middle school. The older two, Kendra and Courtney, finished high school but so far have not followed their mother’s advice to go to college.

“I don’t want to blame things on my situation, but I think my life would have been a whole lot different if she’d been here,” said Courtney, now 25, who has been unemployed for several years. “When I fell off track, she would have pushed me back. She’s way stronger than any of us.”

Ms. George, who has gotten a college degree in prison, calls the children every Sunday. She pays for the calls, which cost 23 cents a minute, with wages from two jobs: a regular eight-hour shift of data processing that pays 92 cents an hour, supplemented by four hours of overtime work at a call center in the prison that provides 411 directory assistance to phone companies.

“I like to stay busy,” she said during the interview. “I don’t like to give myself time to think about home. I know how much it hurts my daughter to see her friends doing things with their mothers. My boys are still so angry. I thought after a while it would stop, that they’d move on as they got older and had girlfriends. But it just seems like it gets worse every Mother’s Day and Christmas.”

She seemed undaunted, even cheerful, during most of the interview at the prison, where she sleeps on a bunk bed in an 11-by-7-foot cell she shares with another inmate. Dressed in the regulation uniform, khaki pants and work boots, she was calm and articulate as she explained her case and the failed efforts to appeal the ruling. At this point lawyers say her only hope seems to be presidential clemency — rarely granted in recent years — yet she said she remained hopeful.

She lost her composure only once, while describing the evening in 1996 when the police found the lockbox in her apartment. She had been working in the kitchen, braiding someone’s hair for a little money, while Courtney, then 8, played in the home. He watched the police take her away in handcuffs.

“Courtney called out, ‘Mom, you promised you weren’t going to leave us no more,’ ” Ms. George recalled, her eyes glistening. “I still hear that voice to this day, and he’s a grown man.”

California prison psychiatrist under investigation for $800,000 pay

California prison psychiatrist under investigation for $800,000 pay

By Thomas Peele Staff writer

Posted: 12/11/2012 06:15:04 PM PST

After raking in half a million dollars for being "on call," California's top paid public employee of 2011 -- a prison psychiatrist from Newark -- has been suspended with pay for allegedly falsifying time records, officials said Tuesday.

Dr. Mohammad Safi, 54, was paid more than $803,000 last year as a supervising senior psychiatrist at a Department of State Hospitals facility within Salinas Valley State Prison in Monterey County, records show.

That amount included more than $503,000 for on-call pay -- in Safi's case being available to respond quickly to emergencies.

His suspension was first reported Wednesday by Bloomberg News, which published an extensive analysis of state government pay that ranked California tops in the nation. It showed Safi was paid more than twice as much as any state psychiatrist in the 12 states Bloomberg examined.

Efforts to reach Safi were unsuccessful Tuesday but his lawyer, Edward Caden, called his client "a scapegoat" for a staffing crisis created by the state.

As a manager, Safi was forced to volunteer for many on-call shifts when others refused, his attorney said, because the state failed to build a required housing unit for doctors to stay overnight at the facility in Soledad.

"He was on call for extended periods of time," said Caden, who said Safi often stayed at a motel near the facility.

At one point, Caden said, Safi was paid for either working or being on call around the clock for fours weeks straight -- 672 consecutive hours.

He is paid roughly $130 an hour, state payroll records show.

On-call duty is voluntary at Salinas Valley because the facility does not have sleeping quarters for doctors, said both Caden and Kathy Gaither, the state hospitals' chief deputy director.

"They are claiming he worked an extended period of time without authorization," Caden said. But, he added, "every time sheet he (submitted) has been signed by the (hospital department's) executive director."

Gaither confirmed that Safi "is being investigated for his use of time," but would not discuss details because the case remains under investigation. He was placed on leave with pay in July, and the investigation is expected to be "completed soon," she said.

An analysis of 2011 pay records by this newspaper for the 370-bed psychiatric hospital within Salinas Valley State Prison where Safi worked shows his pay far exceeded that of other doctors last year. The five people he supervised were paid an average of $313,348, records show -- about half a million dollars less then their boss.

Records also show that 21 doctors with Safi's title of supervising chief psychiatrist working for the hospitals department at other state prisons in 2011 averaged about $283,000.

Safi remains in good standing with the California Medical Board, where he listed as a surgeon.

State Superior Court records show Safi was sued last year by a collections agency for an unspecified amount. Property records show that a five-bedroom Newark house he bought in 2007 for nearly $1 million is now valued at $730,000.

Caden said Safi's taking of on-call shifts had nothing to do with any financial difficulties he might have faced.

"He was the manager," Caden said. "He had to do it."

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