Boston-area man charged in alleged terrorist plot

Authorities say Tarek Mehanna and associates discussed attacking two prominent U.S. politicians, shopping malls and American troops serving in Iraq.

By Josh Meyer

October 22, 2009

Reporting from Washington

A Boston-area man was arrested Wednesday and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists as part of what authorities said was a long-running plot to "kill, kidnap, maim or injure" people -- including U.S. officials -- overseas and in the United States.

Prosecutors and FBI agents said that from 2001 to 2008, Tarek Mehanna, 27, of Sudbury, Mass., conspired with at least two other men to carry out an Islamist holy war, or jihad.

Their plans included discussions about killing two prominent, unidentified U.S. government officials overseas, attacking American troops in Iraq, and shooting at shoppers in U.S. malls and the emergency personnel who would come to their rescue, according to those authorities and FBI affidavits unsealed in connection with the case.

But one law enforcement official said the alleged conspiracy was not as serious as some other recent cases.

Mehanna, a pharmacy college graduate and a U.S. citizen, was arrested at his parents' home in Sudbury, an upscale Boston suburb. A federal judge ordered him held until an Oct. 30 hearing.

The three men discussed their desire to participate in "violent jihad against American interests" and "to die on the battlefield," prosecutors said.

Mehanna had "multiple conversations about obtaining automatic weapons and randomly shooting people in shopping malls," said Michael K. Loucks, acting U.S. attorney for Massachusetts. The men's plan was thwarted when they could not get the kind of automatic weapons they thought necessary for a mall attack, Loucks said.

One senior federal law enforcement official said the alleged planning was not nearly as far along as in a case in which a Colorado man is charged with conspiring to detonate homemade explosive devices on U.S. soil, possibly New York-area transit hubs. Afghan native Najibullah Zazi, 24, was arrested last month. He is also charged with training with Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Mehanna's situation was different, the law enforcement official said.

"It's very aspirational -- hopes and dreams," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because both investigations are classified and ongoing. "It's nothing like the Zazi case."

Loucks said authorities were "satisfied" that they had identified all participants in the alleged plot.

Mehanna's arrest followed several other cases in which the FBI arrested men in Texas and Illinois after lengthy investigations that closely monitored the suspects' activities.

Two senior Bush administration counter-terrorism officials said Mehanna's case in particular showed that the FBI had learned in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks not to rush investigations when it was clear that there was no imminent threat.

"It shows that the FBI is becoming more patient and investing long-term resources into these investigations, which is what is required," said Frances Fragos Townsend, a former senior counter-terrorism and Homeland Security advisor to President George W. Bush. "This is the sort of long-term investigation that shows that the FBI has changed its mind-set and culture, and that it sees itself not just as a law enforcement agency but as an intelligence and counter-terrorism agency that has the mandate to prevent the next attack and not simply investigate it after it occurred."

Juan Zarate, Bush's deputy national security advisor for counter-terrorism, said Mehanna's arrest underscored the troubling trend in recent years of American citizens and nationals who seek to travel overseas and receive training.

Zarate said he had not seen a sharp uptick in such cases, but "enough for authorities to be worried across the board about the problem of homegrown or self-actualized violent extremism."

"The good news," he said, "is the FBI has done a good job of using the tools and resources at its command to help uncover and infiltrate most of these plots."

Federal authorities said the Mehanna investigation was also part of a hunt for individuals in this country who were going to Somalia to fight with Al Qaeda-linked militants trying to overthrow the U.S.-backed government.

Dozens of men, mostly Somali nationals, are suspected of supporting that effort, either through funding and recruitment or by traveling to Somalia to engage in combat and guerrilla activities, several senior FBI and Justice Department officials have said recently.

If convicted on the material support charge, Mehanna faces up to 15 years in prison. His attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., did not return calls seeking comment.

Neighbors told TV camera crews outside the Mehannas' home that he was a quiet and friendly man who did nothing to cause suspicion.

Authorities alleged that Mehanna and two associates traveled to the Middle East in February 2004, unsuccessfully seeking military-type training at a terrorist camp that would prepare them for armed jihad against U.S. interests, including U.S. and allied forces in Iraq. Ahman Abousamra, who authorities say is one of the associates, made two similar trips to Pakistan in 2002.

Authorities did not identify the man believed to be the third associate; court documents suggest he is cooperating with investigators.

Mehanna was arrested last November as he was about to board a flight for the Middle East at Logan International Airport in Boston, Loucks said. He was charged with lying to the FBI in its 2006 investigation of Daniel Joseph Maldonado, an American convicted of training alongside Al Qaeda militants in Somalia.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terrorism-boston22-2009oct22,0,3534502,print.story

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Central America is most crime-ridden region in world, U.N. report finds

Central America has become the region with the highest levels of nonpolitical crime worldwide, with a murder rate of 33 per 100,000 inhabitants last year, three times the global average, according to a new report from the United Nations that also says crime threatens the region's development.

The U.N. said:

Some 79,000 people have been murdered in the region over the past six years, but despite these heightened levels of violence, solving the problem of insecurity is possible within the framework of democracy, according to the U.N. Development Program (UNDP) Report on Human Development in Central America 2009-2010.

The full report is available here in Spanish.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2009/10/central-america-has-become-the-region-with-the-highest-levels-of--non-political-crime-worldwide-with-an-average-murder-rate.html

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Death toll rises in Rio violence

Gang warfare has left 33 dead since Saturday in the city chosen to host the 2016 Olympics.

By Marcelo Soares and Chris Kraul

October 22, 2009

Reporting from Bogota, Colombia, and Sao Paulo, Brazil -- Rio de Janeiro police on Wednesday announced seven more deaths and 17 arrests as drug-fueled violence continued to sweep over parts of the city that this month was named to host the 2016 Olympics.

The death toll has risen to 33 since Saturday, when rival gangs launched a turf war for control of drug trafficking in several favelas , or shantytowns, interspersed among Rio's luxury hotels and residential areas.

Gangs are suspected of using high-caliber weapons to shoot down a helicopter on Saturday near the Morro dos Macacos slum, which remains the scene of fighting between rival gangs and police trying to subdue them. Three of six police officers on board were killed in the crash.

Most of the dead this week were suspected gang members, but the victims also included several bystanders. On Wednesday, 18-year-old student Jose Carlos Guimaraes was seriously wounded in the abdomen by a stray bullet during a confrontation between police and criminals at the Vila Cruzeiro favela .

Hundreds of Rio de Janeiro state police have been deployed in a bid to control the violence. Gov. Sergio Cabral has requested additional forces from the federal government.

The pressure is on local authorities to quell the violence as Rio begins its $14-billion preparations to host the Olympics in 2016, the first time the Games will be held in South America. Mayor Eduardo Paes is on a foreign trip to generate investment in the effort.

In awarding the Games to Rio instead of Chicago, Tokyo or Madrid, the International Olympic Committee made a leap of faith that Rio authorities would bring the city's sometimes horrendous crime under control.

Many of the 2014 World Cup soccer matches will also be held in Rio.

The turf war started Saturday when the Red Commandos gang mounted a predawn invasion of Morro dos Macacos, controlled by the Friends of Friends gang.

Police recently increased their presence in five favelas , forcing gangs to fight over other areas.

On Wednesday, police said that among the 17 arrested was Rodrigo Mello, a leader of the Red Commandos. Mello is said to have ordered the invasion of Morro dos Macacos, the biggest favela not under his gang's control.

Ten buses have been burned since Saturday, a form of gang retaliation, and some bus lines have suspended service to the favelas .

Several Brazilian newspapers on Wednesday published a photo of the corpse of a suspected gang member found in a shopping cart.

In an interview with Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, Ricardo Teixeira, head of the Brazilian Soccer Confederation and co-organizer of the 2014 World Cup, tried to minimize the negative impact of the violence.

"There was a natural reaction, the same way as when we turn the TV on and see the attacks of crazy kids in the United States killing everyone and shooting everyone," he said, referring to cases of school violence.

But Antonio Biscaia, who ran for Rio state governor in 2006 against Cabral, said the city lives in a kind of civil war, alleging that slayings are rising in Rio while declining in the rest of Brazil.

"Some administrations don't want to face the problem because their popularity can get soiled in these areas, with voters from poor communities," Biscaia said in a magazine interview.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-brazil-violence22-2009oct22,0,6608935,print.story

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Opinion

Columbine, O Magazine and suicide

An article in Oprah Winfrey's publication by Susan Klebold -- whose son was one of the high school shooters 10 years ago -- seems to diminish the enormity of the incident.

Meghan Daum

October 22, 2009

The November issue of O Magazine (that's the Oprah Magazine) features a series of articles about how to be "your true self," a guide to do-it-yourself hair coloring and -- thud -- an essay by Susan Klebold. In April 1999, her son, Dylan, along with his classmate, Eric Harris, killed 12 students, a teacher and themselves in a massacre that would thereafter be known simply as Columbine, the deadliest high school shooting in the nation's history.

Even for the indomitable Oprah Winfrey, Klebold must have been a real "get." Klebold had apparently turned down repeated interview requests over the years, and a spokesperson announced that she has no plans to appear on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," nor was she paid for the article.

"I'd had no inkling of the battle Dylan was waging in his mind," Klebold wrote, admitting that even though a teacher had become alarmed by Dylan's paper about a man in a black trench coat who murders nine students, friends and family remained convinced for months after the attack that he hadn't meant to hurt anyone. Meanwhile, Susan Klebold was "nearly insane with sorrow for the suffering my son had caused, and with grief for the child I'd lost. Much of the time I felt that I could not breathe, and I often wished that I would die."

What's notable about the essay, aside from the way the details remain jaw-dropping even 10 years later, is Klebold's decision to couch it as a form of suicide awareness. The last several paragraphs are largely devoted to various statistics about suicide, and Klebold even provides the phone number for the national suicide prevention "lifeline." "I hope that, by reading of my experience, someone will see what I missed," she writes.

We heard a lot about Columbine last April, the 10-year anniversary of the event. In his exhaustively researched book on the event, author Dave Cullen examined how the facts of what happened were so misrepresented and so misconstrued by the public that a set of myths arose that came to define the entire notion of disaffected adolescence, even if they had little to do with the event itself. Contrary to what was widely reported, the shooters were not members of a "trench coat mafia" who targeted jocks and other popular kids in their rampage. Instead, it seems fairly clear that Harris met the clinical definition of a psychopath, and Klebold's suicidal depression made him vulnerable to Harris' influence. Though they weren't members of the "in crowd," they had plenty of friends and weren't widely seen as outcasts. Despite countless rumors otherwise, their victims were random.

But there was a reason the rumors gained such traction. It's easier to believe in the idea of a trench coat mafia and to make pat assumptions about teenagers and their social hierarchy than it is to come to terms with the idea that one kid would kill for the sake of killing and another would so willingly go along for the ride.

And it's hard not to see Susan Klebold's essay as, if not a continuation of the myths, an extension of the impulse that causes people to repeat them. Though she comes across as a sincere and thoughtful woman, the net effect of the whole endeavor seems like a form of pandering -- to readers' sympathies and, more important, to the American obsession with "closure." We are not, after all, a culture that is particularly adept at accepting the more irrational aspects of tragedy, the randomness of death, the unknowability of a criminal's motives. Instead, we like to make sense of it all, to learn from mistakes, to erect memorials, observe anniversaries and offer up platitudes about finding peace.

Though Klebold avoids words such as "closure" in her essay (and, indeed, it is clear she will never find peace), her choice to view her son chiefly through the lens of suicide -- and, to boot, to do it in O Magazine -- diminishes the enormity of what really happened. The ostensible reason for her article appearing now is that Nov. 21 is National Survivors of Suicide Day. But imagine being the mother of a suicide victim who didn't happen to take 13 people along with him. Would you want to commemorate Nov. 21 with Susan Klebold? Or would you prefer she speak solely for herself, even if what she had to say offered no comfort because it fit no familiar idiom and offered no resolution?

My guess is the latter. Besides, as Dylan himself demonstrated in a video he and Harris made just before they started shooting, attempts at closure can be appallingly hollow. "I just wanted to apologize to you guys for any crap this might instigate," he said to his parents.

Closure? Not even close.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-daum22-2009oct22,0,4703898,print.column

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From The Washington Times

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Thursday, October 22, 2009

Case shows terrorists may target malls

Ben Conery

A 27-year-old Massachusetts man with dreams of holy war plotted to shoot up a shopping mall and even discussed assassinating U.S. government officials, authorities said Wednesday.

But there appear to be stark differences between Tarek Mehanna's aspirations and his abilities.

Authorities said his plot to kill shoppers at a mall failed to materialize after he couldn't get his hands on the needed guns, and his hopes of receiving training from al Qaeda collapsed when he traveled to Yemen in 2004 only to learn that the terrorist camps there had packed up years earlier.

Mr. Mehanna, who lives with his parents in Sudbury, Mass., a wealthy suburb about 20 miles west of Boston, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of that charge.

Still, Ken Piernick, a retired FBI agent who worked on terrorism cases, said malls can be easy targets even for amateurish terrorists.

"This is something that we've been looking at for a long time," he said. "It's not that difficult because of the security in most malls is terribly inadequate."

Mr. Piernick said potential attackers have a variety of options to carry out successful plots - anything from guns to car bombs - and that it's just a matter of "time or probability" before terror groups succeed in a major attack on a U.S. mall.

According to the Associated Press, Mr. Mehanna, a pharmacy student, appeared defiant at a hearing Wednesday in federal court in Boston. He initially refused to stand when a judge ordered him to, but did so after his father urged him - tossing his chair loudly to the floor as he stood.

"This really, really is a show," his father, Ahmed Mehanna, told reporters after the hearing.

The elder Mr. Mehanna is a professor at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, the school his son attends. When asked whether he thought his son was guilty of the charges against him, he said, "No, definitely not."

It's the second time in a year that Mr. Mehanna has been charged in a terror-related case. Last year, he was accused in a separate case of lying about conversations he had with another would-be jihadist.

In the case announced Wednesday, authorities said Mr. Mehanna and others - including Ahmad Abousamra, who is thought to be living in Syria - conspired from 2001 to 2008 to commit acts of terrorism. They would watch propaganda videos of terrorists killing American soldiers and made plans to unleash their own holy war.

Impressed by the D.C. snipers in 2002, authorities said, Mr. Mehanna and others discussed attacking a shopping mall and reasoned that killing civilians would be justified because they paid taxes to the government and were nonbelievers of Islam.

Mr. Mehanna went to obtain automatic weapons from a man named Daniel Maldonado, but abandoned the plot after Maldonado could get them only handguns.

Maldonado is serving a 10-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to receiving military training from al Qaeda in 2006 in Somalia. He told investigators that he moved to the African nation to engage in holy war and to receive weapons and explosives training.

Mr. Mehanna was first arrested last year after authorities said he lied to them about Maldonado's whereabouts when he was in Somalia. According to court records, Mr. Mehanna told authorities that Maldonado was in Egypt, even though he knew that wasn't true.

"I don't know how the heck I'm going to explain that one," Mr. Mehanna told an informant. "I don't remember if he said the word Somalia on the phone, but that's a problem because, like, lying to them in and of itself is a crime."

He also told an informant that he and Maldonado would use code words during phone conversations such as "making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches." Mr. Mehanna said that phrase meant "I'm here fighting," according to court documents.

Mr. Mehanna and Mr. Abousamra traveled to Yemen in 2004 in search of terrorist training camps, authorities said. They wanted to go to Iraq to kill U.S. soldiers, authorities said.

But the trip was a failure. According to court records, Mr. Mehanna told an FBI informant later that they couldn't find the people they wanted to see - half were on pilgrimages to Mecca while the other half were in jail.

The one man they did find to help them receive terrorist training said "all that stuff's gone ever since the planes hit the Twin Towers" in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Authorities say Mr. Mehanna also discussed killing two members of the U.S. government's executive branch, though authorities would not specify which two. There is no evidence that Mr. Mehanna took any steps toward this plan.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/22/case-shows-terrorists-may-target-malls//print/

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From The Wall Street Journal

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China Expands Cyberspying in U.S., Report Says

Congressional Advisory Panel in Washington Cites Apparent Campaign by Beijing to Steal Information From American Firms

By SIOBHAN GORMAN

WASHINGTON -- The Chinese government is ratcheting up its cyberspying operations against the U.S., a congressional advisory panel found, citing an example of a carefully orchestrated campaign against one U.S. company that appears to have been sponsored by Beijing.

The unnamed company was just one of several successfully penetrated by a campaign of cyberespionage, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report to be released Thursday. Chinese espionage operations are "straining the U.S. capacity to respond," the report concludes.

The bipartisan commission, formed by Congress in 2000 to investigate the security implications of growing trade with China, is made up largely of former U.S. government officials in the national security field.

The commission contracted analysts at defense giant Northrop Grumman Corp. to write the report. The analysts wouldn't name the company described in the case study, describing it only as "a firm involved in high-technology development."

The report didn't provide a damage assessment and didn't say specifically who was behind the attack against the U.S. company. But it said the company's internal analysis indicated the attack originated in or came through China.

The report concluded the attack was likely supported, if not orchestrated, by the Chinese government, because of the "professional quality" of the operation and the technical nature of the stolen information, which is not easily sold by rival companies or criminal groups. The operation also targeted specific data and processed "extremely large volumes" of stolen information, the report said.

"The case study is absolutely clearly controlled and directed with a specific purpose to get at defense technology in a related group of companies," said Larry Wortzel, vice chairman of the commission and a former U.S. Army attaché in China. "There's no doubt that that's state-controlled."

Attacks like that cited in the report hew closely to a blueprint frequently used by Chinese cyberspies, who in total steal $40 billion to $50 billion in intellectual property from U.S. organizations each year, according to U.S. intelligence agency estimates provided by a person familiar with them.

"Modern-day espionage doesn't involve cloak and dagger anymore," said Tom Kellermann, a vice president at Core Security Technologies, a cybersecurity company. "It's all electronic."

China is among more than 100 countries that have the capability to conduct cyberspying operations.

The bulk of the report describes the growing ambitions of the Chinese military in cyberspace and its efforts to develop the capability to destroy adversary networks with physical and cyberattacks in the event of a crisis.

Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, criticized the commission as "a product of Cold War mentality" that was "put in place to pick China to pieces." He added: "Accusations of China conducting, or 'likely conducting' as the commission's report indicates, cyberspace attacks or espionage against the U.S. are unfounded and unwarranted."

In the highly organized cyberspy scheme that drained valuable research and development information from a U.S. company, the report said, the hackers "operated at times using a communication channel between a host with an [Internet] address located in the People's Republic of China and a server on the company's internal network."

In the months leading up to the 2007 operation, cyberspies did extensive reconnaissance, identifying which employee computer accounts they wanted to hijack and which files they wanted to steal. They obtained credentials for dozens of employee accounts, which they accessed nearly 150 times.

The cyberspies then reached into the company's networks using the same type of program help-desk administrators use to remotely access computers.

The hackers copied and transferred files to seven servers hosting the company's email system, which were capable of processing large amounts of data quickly. Once they moved the data to the email servers, the intruders renamed the stolen files to blend in with the other files on the system and compressed and encrypted the files for export.

Before exporting the data, the collection team used employee accounts to take over four desktop computers to direct the final stage of the operation.

They selected at least eight U.S. computers outside the company, including two at unidentified universities, as a drop point for the stolen data before sending it overseas. The high Internet traffic volume on university networks provides excellent cover.

The spies activated the operation on all seven servers almost simultaneously, which suggested a plan to export the data as quickly as possible. The company's computer-security team eventually detected the outflow of data, but "not before significant amounts of the company's data left the network," according to the report.

The report highlights several departments of China's military, the People's Liberation Army, responsible for components of cyberspying. Together these divisions oversee electronic spying and attack efforts, as well as research and development.

The PLA has also been creating a number of cyberwarfare militia units, which draw on civilians in the telecommunications and technology sectors, as well as academia, the report found.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125616872684400273.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories#printMode

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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A New Challenge for Our Age: Securing America Against the Threat of Cyber Attack

Secretary's Web Address on Cybersecurity
October 20, 2009, 11:00 am, NAC

Good morning, I'm Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. And I'd like to thank you for tuning in to this special web address today. 

Since we've been communicating about the importance of protecting the networks we rely on throughout Cybersecurity Awareness Month, I thought it would be fitting to use those networks to reach out to as many people as possible … to speak directly to you.

And you can speak with me as well. If you're watching live this morning, you can submit a question through the link on this page, and I will address as many as I can at the conclusion.

Let me set the scene. A few months back, President Obama addressed in historic terms the issue of safeguarding our nation's digital networks. He described these networks, and the hardware that supports them, as “strategic national assets” and “keys to our prosperity in the 21st century.”

The growing number of attacks on these networks has become, in the President's words, “one of the most serious economic and national security threats our nation faces.”

Until now, we've not often talked about “cybersecurity” in such serious terms. 

But we must. President Obama understands well the challenge and the urgency.

In his video remarks on cybersecurity last week, the President challenged the nation to “seize the promise” and also “confront the perils” that technology brings.

As the agency charged with the broad mission of protecting the nation's cyber infrastructure, systems and networks, the Department of Homeland Security is playing a key role in meeting the President's challenge.

And so this morning I want to speak clearly and candidly about what cybersecurity really means for our nation. And I want to reach out to all of you: from experts, to businesspeople, to ordinary Americans, and especially those of you who may be daunted by all things “cyber.”

Cybersecurity is not some abstract concept. This isn't a discussion about computers, or about data bits and bytes. It's about the networks we use to communicate, to shop, to do our banking, and run our businesses.

So I'll speak in plain terms about what these technologies mean for Americans. Like it or not, we're all in this together. And wherever you are on that spectrum – from skilled professional to computer novice – we all depend on secure cyber networks. So:

I'm going to be honest with you about the risks and threats that are out there; I'm going to tell you what our Department is doing to reduce those risks; and I'm going to ask for your help. 

Our nation, like the rest of the globalized world, has become “digitally dependent.” And this “networked world” we now live in has evolved at a lightening pace.

Consider that from the time the telephone was invented in 1876 it took another 50 years for the first transatlantic phone call to be placed, and almost 80 years before all Americans could even dial long distance.

By comparison, the first commercial web browser came out just over 15 years ago, and today the vast majority of Americans are online, as are more than a billion-and-a-half people around the world.

Today's high school freshmen have never lived in a world without the Internet. Google was established when they were two years old, so they have always been able to access information on demand.

Today:

• We rely on the Internet for banking, buying things, and staying in touch.
• Businesses rely on their cyber networks in myriad ways: interacting with clients, processing transactions, reaching new markets.
• Our transportation, financial, energy, and communications systems – as well as our government and military – rely heavily on computer networks to function.
• It's how your airplane stays on course, how you get your electricity, your Social Security check, and your veterans benefits.

But the very openness of the Internet, one of its great strengths, is also its greatest vulnerability. The 9/11 hijackers used travel sites to plan their attacks.

Computers you can buy for under $1,000 can produce the next Great American Novel in the hands of a talented writer, or build the next great business.

But they can also allow bad people to steal that novel, or the trade secrets your company has worked so hard to develop, or, in the case of the government, to steal classified information – crimes that can put futures and lives at risk.

So, as President Obama said in May, “cyberspace is real. And so are the risks that come with it.”

We see thousands of attempts a day to hack into our nation's government, military, and private sector networks. We've had computer viruses and worms infect millions of computers around the world, destroying important information, and disrupting commerce.

And American businesses have lost billions of dollars – and millions of Americans have had their personal information stolen or compromised – by cyber criminals, organized crime, and foreign intelligence agencies.

We tend to call these “cyber-crimes” or “cyber-attacks.” But, in fact, they are attacks on people like you and me, and on the institutions we build.

Think of it this way: If a predator is seeking to contact your children through an online social network, that's not a cyber crime to you. It's a threat to the safety and security of your loved ones and your family.

If your account numbers are stolen by an online spoof site pretending to be your real bank, that's no longer a computer issue. It's your ability to pay your mortgage next week and buy groceries.

These aren't hypotheticals either. Two weeks ago, the FBI charged nearly 100 people here and abroad in one of the largest cyber fraud cases ever seen. 

In attacks like this, the victims are people like you and me who have been tricked into providing real information to fake sites – and who then see their savings drained, and their credit ruined, by thieves using nothing more than computers. The bad guys never even have to leave their chairs.

President Obama has said that the status quo is not sufficient. Mitigating these risks at all levels is an urgent national security priority and a significant technological challenge. 

Ok, so who's in charge here? It's a fair question because no one individual or organization runs the internet … or runs our cyber networks. So no one person or organization is in charge.

The networks we rely on everyday provide us a shared benefit. The enormous opportunity that this technology provides our society can be shared by all as well. 

But the risks and dangers of that technology are also shared, and so the security of our networks, our digital infrastructure, our cyberspace must also be a shared responsibility.

Let me say that again. Just as with our nation's preparedness for natural disasters or terrorist attacks, our nation's cybersecurity is a shared responsibility. 

And it's an opportunity for you, as an individual, to personally contribute to our national security. Securing your home computer helps you and your family. And it also helps your nation in some very important ways. 

It helps by reducing the risk to our financial system from theft; and to our nation from having your computer infected and then used as a tool to attack other computers.

As individuals, the steps you need to take are clear, and they will make a big difference:

• Install and activate firewalls for your computer and internet connection
• Make sure your anti-virus and anti-spyware software is installed and up-to-date
• Check your computer settings to make sure your operating system and applications are automatically patched
• Practice good online habits by not visiting suspect sites, downloading suspicious documents or attachments, or opening email from people you don't know
• Back up your files regularly and use strong and secure  passwords; and
• Begin educating your children early about staying safe online.

Of course, government has a responsibility to lead. And we're doing just that. Since taking office, President Obama has made protection of our digital networks and infrastructure a top priority, and across the federal family of agencies, we are responding aggressively to the threat.

Under the President's plan, the Department of Homeland Security is leading federal efforts to secure federal executive branch civilian government networks – the .Gov world.

But DHS also performs two other critical functions. We are partnering with the private sector to help secure the networks that power our economy – the .Com world. And we're helping educate the American people about the practical measures that they can take to improve their own safety online, and our nation's collective cyber defenses.

Let me share a few of the steps our Department is taking. We have consolidated our cyber efforts under the leadership of a highly regarded cybersecurity expert – Phil Reitinger – to improve coordination between government, industry, and international partners. 

This includes: the National Cyber Security Division, including the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team, also known as US-CERT; and the National Cyber Security Center.

We're working closely across the federal family to protect the federal civilian networks and systems. First, we're reducing and consolidating the number of external connections federal agencies have to the Internet through the Trusted Internet Connections initiative.

Then, we're implementing DHS's intrusion detection capability, known as EINSTEIN, to those Trusted Internet Connections.

And through US-CERT and other programs, we're working more closely than ever with the private sector to detect and understand threats, share knowledge, and learn from the best that the private sector has to offer.

Just this year, DHS helped mitigate two potentially major cyber threats – the release of the Conficker computer worm, and the Denial of Service attacks we saw over the July 4th weekend.

In both cases DHS worked closely with the private sector to analyze the attacks, develop strategies to mitigate them, and collaborate on solutions that were fast, widely shared, and compatible at all levels.

I believe that this kind of partnership with the private sector can provide a model for deeper engagement … engagement to protect our nation's critical infrastructure. 

That infrastructure is heavily reliant on networks, and the vast majority of it – some estimate around 85 percent – is in private hands.  

To be most effective, we in government must work closely with the private sector, and include it in our work as a full partner from the very start. 

And so DHS is working closely with businesses and trade groups across our economy to better understand risk and vulnerabilities, to collaborate on detecting and responding to intrusions, and to build the relationships that will let us work together to respond to attacks as one nation, and at “Internet speed.” 

Let me close by saying that even with the leadership of the U.S. government, and the engagement of the private sector, and help of ordinary Americans, we still need to do more.

As aggressive as we are being, as fast as we're moving, our cyber adversaries will continue to succeed … unless our nation rises to this challenge in new ways.

We can't treat this as a “government issue” or “corporate” issue. The protection of our digital networks is no longer a just a cyber or an IT issue. 

For people affected, it's a human issue and an economic issue. And for the nation, it's about the future of our prosperity.

I truly believe that when we read our history books in future years, we will see that what we faced was a technical and scientific challenge on par with some of the great challenges of the last century, like getting to the Moon, or sequencing the human genome.

I also believe there is no better catalyst for rising to this new challenge than our nation's culture of innovation, and our world-leading higher education system.

As a good indication of how seriously I take this challenge, I've made a very significant down payment on our nation's cybersecurity future.

Earlier this month, we announced that DHS has been given expedited hiring authority to bring on up to 1,000 additional skilled cyber professionals over the next three years.

And here is our message to those professionals and future-professionals: Not only does DHS want you, your nation needs you. We need our best and brightest, our finest computer scientists and engineers, mathematicians, and innovative thinkers.

I want you to look to DHS. We're a new Department, but we're an exciting and dynamic one, with a strong and clear mission. At DHS, you'll work hard and you'll be pushed because the stakes are high. And you will have an immediate opportunity to serve and to make a difference.

Some of you will work to protect the nation in our National Protection and Programs Directorate, or NPPD. Others will join the Secret Service or Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to help stop international financial criminals or sexual predators. 

All of you will have a chance to make a difference and to serve your nation. You'll find a link on DHS.gov/Cyber where you can see the exciting positions that are already posted.

I want to thank you again for tuning in today. And I hope you'll share this message with others by sending them to DHS.Gov to watch the video of these remarks. 

Together, we can build a more ready and resilient nation that is stronger and smarter than the determined adversaries we all face.

Thank you. And I look forward to answering some of the questions you've sent in.

Question 1: Jeff from Massachusetts - With continual computer hackers and predators are we doing enough to protect our government information infrastructure?

Answer: Jeff, we are moving very aggressively. I met just last week with leaders of the cyber world in Silicon Valley, both in the private world, both corporate and in government. We are also sending out information on a regular basis. We are also focusing, as I said in my prepared remarks, on the direct attacks, and what we do to protect our systems from intrusion and from hacking.

Question 2: Daniel from New York - We have cabinet level positions for labor, agriculture, energy, transportation, and yet none for technology/security which, as an industry, has a size commensurate with the others represented. Do you think a cabinet position to represent technology and its related effects - such as cybersecurity - is necessary?

Answer: Daniel, I'm not sure that I think that a cabinet level position is necessary. And the reason is that cyber runs through everything that we do as a government. So, it's really hard to segregate it out. In fact, I think one of the things we're learning as we enter this new cyber arena is that segregating it into an IT or IT function no longer is adequate. Again, as my remarks suggested, cyber is part of everything we do, from the most basic transaction to complicated security protections of our country. So what we need to do is make sure that cyber is part of our thinking in all departments. But added to that now, the president has included a chief technology officer, a chief information officer, in the White House, and he will be appointing a coordinator for cyber within the White House to help make sure that cyber is part of all that we do throughout the vast array of the federal government as we move forward.

Question 3: Elizabeth from Minnesota - Can you explain what DHS has done to reasonably use electronic means for official communications in high-risk situations?

Answer:  Elizabeth, a couple of things. One is, both FEMA and the Coast Guard have been using things like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in hurricane situations and other natural disasters as a means to get information out. And we will be increasing the use of social media as we move forward. Another interesting application, which doesn't pertain to emergencies per se, but is important to a lot of people, is that our Citizenship and Immigration Services now has online the ability for you to track your own immigration status, and you're trying to become a citizen, as it moves through that process, step by step, as well as tell you how long you can anticipate waiting in each step. And it even has an option on it, where you can elect to be notified either by e-mail or text-messaging when your case has moved along. We're looking for other ways to use the internet to make government more open, transparent, and proactive with individuals, again, as we move forward.

I think that's the time we have for questions today.  Let me thank you.  We're going to continue using this type of presentation to help give you information and to help answer your questions.  In the meantime I hope you will go to dhs.gov/cyber where you will find even more information.  Thank you.  And I look forward to working with each of you as we move forward.

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/gallery/gc_1256070988236.shtm

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From the Department of Justice

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10 Facts on Female Victims of Violence

This month the Bureau of Justice Statistics released their latest report on Female Victims of Violence  (PDF). The report focuses on intimate partner violence, rape and sexual assault, and stalking. It includes estimates of the extent of crimes against females and the characteristics of crimes and victims. The following 10 facts are a small sampling of findings from the report.  

• In 2008, females age 12 or older were five times more likely than males age 12 or older to be victims of intimate partner violence. 
• In 2007 intimate partners committed 14% of all homicides in the U.S.
• The total estimated number of intimate partner homicide victims in 2007 was 2,340, including 1,640 females and 700 males.
• Females made up 70% of victims killed by an intimate partner in 2007, a proportion that has changed very little since 1993.
• Females are generally murdered by people they know. In 64% of female homicide cases in 2007, females were killed by a family member or intimate partner.
• The overall rate of female homicides fell 43%  between 1993 and 2007.
• Between 1993 and 2008 the rate of rape or sexual assault against females declined by 70% (from 4.7 to 1.4 per 1,000 females age 12 or older).    The rate of rape or sexual assault against males declined by 36% between 1993 and 2008 (from 0.5 to 0.3 per 1,000 males age 12 or older).
• One in five rape or sexual assaults against females (20%) was committed by an intimate partner.
• During a 12-month period in 2005 and 2006, an estimated 3.4 million persons age 18 or older were victims of stalking.
• Females were at higher risk of stalking victimization than males.   During the study period, females experienced 20 stalking victimizations per 1,000 females age 18 or older. The rate of stalking victimization for males was approximately 7 per 1,000 males age 18 or older.

October has been recognized by President Obama and The Department of Justice as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The findings in this report, while not limited to domestic violence, certainly remind us of why awareness around this issue is so critical

If you, or someone you know, are a victim of domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (7233), 800-787-3224 (TTY). For more information on resources that may be available to you, visit: www.ovw.usdoj.gov/hotnum.htm

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Data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting Program's (UCR) Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR). The full report as a PDF is available at the Bureau of Justice Statistics Web site.

http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/220

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The National Public Sex Offender Website

http://www.nsopw.gov/Core/Conditions.aspx

Department of Justice Action Center

http://www.usdoj.gov/actioncenter/crime.html

Help and Information for Crime Victims

http://www.usdoj.gov/actioncenter/victim.html

Identify Most Wanted Fugitives

http://www.usdoj.gov/actioncenter/most-wanted-fugitives.html

Report and Identify Missing Persons

http://www.usdoj.gov/actioncenter/missing-person.html

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From The FBI

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