MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Civic leader from El Monte, Calif., is victim of Mexican violence

The killing of an El Monte civic leader on a visit to Durango shows how prevalent lawlessness has grown.

by Sam Quinones and Molly Hennessy-Fiske

January 2, 2010

The execution-style murder of a young El Monte civic leader in Mexico was viewed Friday as a stark sign of just how widely the country's savage drug violence has spread.

Bobby Salcedo, an assistant principal and school board member, had no ties to narcotics trafficking, his family and friends said. He is believed to be the first U.S. elected official killed in the 4-year-old spasm of carnage in Mexico.

Gomez Palacio, the city where he died, was once best known for its industry. But it has grown violent: Salcedo and the five men who died with him were among 11 killed in the city that night with signs of execution, according to media reports.

Salcedo had deep ties to the central Mexican city. The school administrator, who was born and raised in California, was a past president of the South El Monte-Gomez Palacio sister cities organization and raised money for scholarships, clinics, firefighters, orphanages and playgrounds.

He met his wife, Betzy, in 1999 when she went from Gomez Palacio to Southern California on a sister-city exchange student scholarship. They were visiting her family when he was hauled off and shot to death.

"I don't know if we lived in a bubble, but we never thought we would be targeted," said Salcedo's brother Carlos. "We were never looking over our shoulder."

But criminality and lawlessness have descended on Durango state, where Gomez Palacio is situated, like a pestilence, attacking the city of 240,000 people with ferocity. Last year, more than 600 people were killed in Durango, making it the fourth-deadliest state total in the country.

For immigrants from Durango in Southern California, the return home for Christmas was once a hallowed tradition. This year, however, the Federation of Durangan Clubs estimated travel home was off by as much as 60%.

"There's a lot of fear," said Carlos Martinez, the federation secretary. "People don't want to risk it."

Martinez said the federation was promoting a round-trip flight from Tijuana to Durango for $220, cheaper than the cost of a bus, but the airline canceled the flight because of a lack of sales.

Agustin Roberto "Bobby" Salcedo, 33, apparently wasn't very worried.

Joseph Vu, 34, a former co-worker and classmate of Salcedo, said they exchanged text messages hours before Salcedo was kidnapped. "He said he was going to have a few beers. That was it," said Vu, also an assistant principal at El Monte High School.

The Salcedos were dining with Betzy's former classmates at a bar called Iguanas Ranas, next to the Buchacas pool hall, Wednesday evening.

Shortly after midnight a group of armed and masked men burst into the bar and asked who owned a truck parked out front, investigators told The Times. No one claimed it so the gunmen went from man to man, slapping them around until zeroing in on Salcedo and five others. They were hauled away.

Their bodies were discovered several hours later, dumped in a field near a canal. Salcedo was killed by a single gunshot to the head and had apparently not been tortured, said an official in the state attorney general's office in Gomez Palacio, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to media.

Most of the other men had also been killed with a single gunshot, but two bore numerous gunshot wounds, suggesting they were the targets, the official said. None of the men killed with Salcedo had criminal records, but investigators suspect one or two might have been drug dealers.

No evidence indicates that Salcedo had been specifically targeted, authorities said.

Residents of Gomez Palacio expressed surprise that Salcedo would have ventured to the strip on Miguel Aleman Boulevard, which has a well-established seedy reputation. Its bars, pool halls and nightclubs have been the scene of kidnappings and shootouts, and the area is an easy place to buy drugs.

"I think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and with the wrong people," one resident said.

At Mountain View High School in El Monte, where Salcedo was once student body president, then later football coach and assistant principal, he was remembered as an involved administrator, attending sporting events, dressing up on Halloween and exercising often on the school's track.

"He's helped every aspect of the school," said junior Justin Spence. "Everyone knew him."

Former El Monte Police Chief Ken Weldon described Salcedo as conscientious and hard-working, a "giver" and a leader. "This is a dagger in the hearts of a lot of people," he said.

Salcedo's brother Carlos said that his sister-in-law called Thursday to tell him his brother's body had been found. He was the first in his family to hear the news. He said his mother broke down. "She kept saying, 'They took my Bobby,' " he said. Salcedo said his brother's body probably will be returned Monday and the family is hoping to have a service Wednesday.

The spasm of drug violence that has gripped Durango in the last few years has been fueled by a dispute over the territory.

The Sinaloa cartel and its leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, long controlled the area. But moving in from neighboring Coahuila are the Zetas, a ruthless gang that has splintered off the Gulf cartel in Mexico's northeastern border region.

One Southern California immigrant leader, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation, said people are routinely stopped at roadblocks run by well-armed men outside Santiago Papasquiaro, the town that serves as a gateway to the Durango sierra.

"They ask you, 'Which group are you from: ¿Los Zetas o Los Chapos ?' " said the immigrant leader. "This happened to me twice. It's terrifying. The traditional Christmas trip home is over. We go now only when it's an emergency."

This violence has infected the once-peaceful lowland city of Gomez Palacio, which is both the state's wealthiest industrial hub and a distribution center for goods heading to the United States, a strategic point for the battling cartels.

In the last year, generalized criminality has set in across the city, encouraged by authorities' ineffectiveness, immigrants and residents say.

"It could be that a neighbor who doesn't have work calls up and extorts a neighbor," said Salvador Franco, president of the Gomez Palacio club in Southern California, who recently returned from the city. "They pretend to be traffickers or Zetas."

In the last year, many Gomez Palacio businesses have closed as their owners fled. Franco said he knew a family that received extortion and kidnapping threats and sold its two-bus transportation line and left for the United States.

"Things are serious," he said. "You have to be inside by 6 p.m. You can't be in a restaurant. You can't have a good car because you never know who's going to take it from you."

Martinez, the federation secretary, said extortion and kidnapping have become scourges of the city's middle-class business owners. He said a brother-in-law who is an architect moved his firm from an office to his house to avoid seeming wealthy and attracting attention. His brother ran a purified-water store for five years until receiving demands for weekly payment of protection money.

"Car lots, factories and restaurants have closed," Martinez said. "These are things you've never before seen in the state of Durango."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-elmonte2-2010jan02,0,2497449,print.story

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Mexico's drug violence comes home to California

January 1, 2010

As family, friends and elected officials in El Monte gathered today to mourn one of their community's rising civic stars, many said the killing this week of school board member Agustin “Bobby” Salcedo in the Mexican city of Gomez Palacios underscored Mexico's drug violence coming home to California in a new and chilling way.

"I hope this focuses people's attention on the senseless killings taking place in Mexico right now," said El Monte Mayor Andre Quintero, who was a close friend of Salcedo. “Bobby was an absolute bright, shining star...They didn't just take his life. They robbed him from our community. ... We have to get justice.”

Congresswoman Judy Chu called the incident “a terrible reminder of the drug war that is raging just south of our border, and most importantly, it shows that this conflict does not respect borders.”

Salcedo, who was also assistant principal at El Monte High School, was born and raised in Southern California, but his wife Betzy is from Gomez Palacios, where she trained as a doctor. The couple were visiting her family for the holidays. They were dining with some of Betzy's former classmates at a pool hall Wednesday evening when armed men burst in and kidnapped Salcedo and five other men. All six were found dead Thursday, El Monte officials said.

Friends and family said there was no reason for the couple to be targeted. “From all accounts right now, it sounds random,” said Salcedo's brother, Carlos.

The situation in the state of Durango has been worsening in the last year. Traditionally, it has had a reputation as a peaceful, hard-working ranching state while neighboring states Sinaloa and Chihuahua were known for drug trafficking.

But with drug violence now an ingrained part of life in the states all around Durango, widespread criminality and lawlessness have descended.

The return home for Christmas was once a hallowed tradition of Durangan immigrants in Southern California. This year, however, the Federation of Durangan Clubs estimated travel home was down by as much as 60%, due mostly to widespread fear, said Carlos Martinez, federation secretary.

The federation was promoting an Interjet Airlines round-trip flight from Tijuana to Durango for $220, cheaper than the cost of a bus. But the airline had to cancel the flight due to lack of sales, Martinez said.

“There's a lot of fear,” he said. “People don't want to risk it.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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El Monte school board member killed in Mexico was in 'wrong place at the wrong time,' ex-police chief says

January 1, 2010

El Monte residents paid tribute today to a 33-year-old school board member who was abducted and killed in Mexico, with one city leader saying he believes Agustin Roberto “Bobby” Salcedo was an innocent victim of the country's drug war.

"There's a huge war between the Mexican government and the drug lords, and I think Bobby was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," said former El Monte Police Chief Ken Weldon, who has worked alongside Salcedo on community activities. "It could have been you or I or anyone else. I think when you're killing six people, you're making a statement for whatever reason."

Weldon described Salcedo as conscientious and hard-working, a "giver" and a leader, raising money for school events and trying to help families in need.

"People in this town loved him. Everybody loved Bobby. This is a dagger in the hearts of a lot of people," Weldon said. "El Monte has a way of coming together. Sometimes good comes out of the bad. We'll see if something good comes out of this. If we use Bobby as a role model for us, if we see what he did, it'll make El Monte a better place."

El Monte Mayor Andre Quintero expressed outrage over the killing.

"I hope this focuses people's attention on the senseless killings taking place in Mexico right now," who was close friends with Salcedo. "He is a major figure in this community. He was a teacher for years, so imagine all the students he taught."

Salcedo was apparently at a pool hall when armed men burst in and kidnapped him and five other men. All six were found dead Thursday, El Monte officials said. Salcedo's wife, who was vacationing with him, was not abducted.

Salcedo, who also was the assistant principal of instruction at El Monte High School, had arrived in the Mexican city of Gomez Palacio earlier this week. The city of 240,000 is in the state of Durango and is the hometown of Salcedo's wife, Betzy.

Salcedo, who was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, and his wife were dining with some of her former classmates when the attack occurred, said Salcedo's brother, Carlos.

“They ordered everyone to the floor. They threatened to shoot them all if anyone dared to look up. They abducted the men,” Carlos Salcedo said. “Their whereabouts were unknown until the police chief informed my sister-in-law that they found the bodies, my brother included."

The bodies were discovered alongside a canal, local media reported . All the victims had been shot in the head, and dozens of spent bullet casings were found at the site, suggesting they had been slain on the spot, the reports said.

Carlos Salcedo said he did not know the identities of the other men.

Friends and family were in shock Thursday. They said there was no reason for the couple to be targeted. Salcedo's wife told family members that she did not recognize any of the gunmen's voices.

“From all accounts right now, it sounds random,” Carlos Salcedo said. “There is no reason for my brother to be targeted.”

Raging drug violence and rampant corruption have been a major problem in Durango, a tense, rough state. The local Catholic archbishop, Hector Gonzalez Martinez, recently described the region to The Times as one where gunmen “own the night” in village after village, even threatening priests.

The couple had been married two years, and Betzy Salcedo was a physician in Mexico. She has been preparing for examinations to practice in the United States.

Carlos Salcedo said his brother's wife was devastated.

“She's extremely brokenhearted. It's a nightmare. I can't believe it's happening,” he said. “My brother had just such a bright future. He was finishing up his doctorate at UCLA — just the type of person you want in your community as a leader.”

In November, Salcedo was reelected to a new term on the school board of the El Monte City School District , which governs the city's elementary schools.

Salcedo was born to a family of Mexican immigrants who arrived in the Los Angeles area in the 1960s. His father was a construction worker and his mother a homemaker. They had only an elementary school education, Carlos Salcedo said, but they pushed their five children to succeed educationally, and all went to college.

Salcedo wanted to give back to his community by becoming an educator, his brother said.

Salcedo was student body president when he attended Mountain View High School in El Monte in the early 1990s and graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in history, later earning a master's degree in educational administration at Cal State San Bernardino. He had been completing work on a doctorate in educational leadership at UCLA.

Before becoming a school administrator, he taught world history, government and economics. He inspired some of his former students to become teachers themselves, and some now work in El Monte, his brother said.

Quintero said Salcedo was devoted to education and leadership. The mayor said his friend volunteered at book giveaways and food drives.

“Bobby was an absolute bright, shining star in our community,” Quintero said.

Gomez Palacio was a familiar city to Salcedo. He and his wife married there about 2 1/2 years ago, and Salcedo was a past president of the South El Monte/Gomez Palacio sister city organization.

Quintero said he hoped authorities would do whatever they can to catch the suspects.

“They didn't just take his life. They robbed him from our community. ... We have to get justice,” he said.

Quintero said Salcedo worked with community colleges to get students from the community into universities. "Think of all the people his life has touched," he said. "This is a huge, huge loss to the community. This guy was a leader from when he was young. He was student body president at Mountain View High school, and he chose to come back and serve El Monte."

According to a Times interactive map , there were at least 669 drug-related killings in Durango between Jan. 1, 2007, and May 29 of last year, the most recent information available from the University of San Diego Trans Border Institute's analysis of data from the Agencia Reforma newspaper group. Overall in Mexico, more than 9,900 drug-related killings occurred during that period.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/01/school-board-member-killed-in-mexico-was-in-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time-expolice-chief-says.html#more

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Pakistan suicide bombing kills at least 75

Dozens are wounded when an explosives-laden truck is detonated at an outdoor volleyball game. Officials say the attack targeted members of an anti-Taliban 'peace committee.'

by Mark Magnier and Zulfiqar Ali

January 2, 2010

Reporting from New Delhi and Peshawar, Pakistan

At least 75 civilians were killed and dozens were wounded Friday when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at an outdoor volleyball game in northwestern Pakistan, police said. The attack apparently was aimed at members of an anti-Taliban "peace committee" that has been challenging the influence of insurgents, officials and town elders said.

The bombing took place as a crowd of more than 200 people watched a match between local teams about 20 miles south of the town of Lakki Marwat in North-West Frontier Province. The site is close to South Waziristan, where Pakistani troops have been battling Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in recent months at the urging of U.S. leaders.

The bomber drove a double-cab pickup truck packed with 550 pounds of high-intensity explosives onto the field, which is in a densely populated neighborhood, police said. Witnesses said the ground was littered with flesh after the blast and that several bodies were damaged beyond recognition.

The force of the bomb rocked the area, destroying several nearby houses. Survivors struggled to free badly wounded victims from the rubble. Several critically hurt people were taken by car and wagon to other hospitals in Lakki Marwat district after the local government-run hospital became overwhelmed.

"Locals set up a militia and expelled the militants from this area," Police Chief Ayub Khan told reporters. "This attack seems to be reaction to their expulsion."

Mushtaq Marwat, an elder in Lakki Marwat, said members of the peace committee, many of whom were watching the volleyball match, had earlier received threats from militant groups operating in the volatile North Waziristan tribal region.

Analysts said the attack was part of a retaliatory campaign the Taliban has waged against the army and public since the government launched an offensive against insurgents in South Waziristan in October. It underscores the challenges ahead this year in the battle to stem insurgency along both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border.

One of the militants' objectives is to sow terror among the general population in hopes of putting more political pressure on President Asif Ali Zardari's government to back down.

"The Taliban are increasingly frustrated, as you saw with this sports attack," said Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor of international relations with Islamabad's Quaid-i-Azam University. "They spare no opportunity to engage in pure and simple terrorism against unarmed civilians. This has the largest psychological impact."

A second objective, analysts said, is to increase misunderstanding and distrust between Washington and Islamabad in hopes of preventing coordinated attacks from both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border in the spring. In a few months, the snows will have melted and many of the 30,000 additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan promised by President Obama will be in place.

On other fronts, a suspected U.S. missile strike killed at least two alleged militants in a car in North Waziristan on Friday. It was the second such attack in less than 12 hours.

In 2009, the U.S. carried out at least 50 missile attacks using unmanned drone aircraft in Pakistan's lawless Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the adjacent Bannu district. Dozens of people were killed, including Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders.

U.S. officials rarely discuss the missile strikes, which the Pakistani public views as a threat to national sovereignty and a danger to civilians. Islamabad publicly condemns the attacks, although it is widely believed that it assists with intelligence and logistical support in secret.

With time, the drone attacks have become more effective and involved fewer civilian casualties, although militants have begun altering their movements in response.

Locals said two people were killed and four were wounded in Friday's drone attack after two missiles hit a car parked outside a residential compound. The victims' identities could not immediately be learned.

A drone attack late Thursday reportedly hit the house of a local tribesman in Mirali Tehsil, in North Waziristan, killing seven people. Officials and family members confirmed that pro-Taliban commander Haji Muhammad Umar, 48, was among the casualties.

Umar, who signed a peace deal with the government in 2005, succeeded Nek Mohammed after the militant commander was killed in a missile attack in 2004. When the peace deal fell apart, Umar reportedly organized attacks against Pakistani security forces and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Analysts said the relative success of a Pakistani army operation in the Swat Valley in early 2009 and in South Waziristan more recently has prompted militants to lash out against the army and soft targets.

So far, however, Pakistanis have been supportive of the government crackdown, despite the civilian casualties, analysts said.

"The people of Pakistan are absolutely united on this as something you have to get rid of," said Shaukat Qadir, a retired brigadier general and military analyst.

In an announcement that analysts said might be a further effort to drive a wedge between U.S. and Pakistani officials, Taliban militants based in Pakistan claimed Friday that they had carried out the suicide bombing in Afghanistan this week that killed seven CIA employees in eastern Afghanistan.

The militants' statement -- that they used a local CIA informer in an operation meant to avenge the death of a top militant leader in a U.S. missile strike -- could not immediately be confirmed.

If such claims lead Washington to openly criticize Islamabad for not doing more, a nationalist backlash could result among Pakistanis. That would undermine counterinsurgency cooperation, analysts said.

"They're trying to create fissures," said Ahmad of Quaid-i-Azam University. "They know that Washington already has reservations that Pakistan is pursuing one policy against Pakistan Taliban and another toward Afghan Taliban."

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-pakistan-bombing2-2010jan02,0,3518500,print.story

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Ceremony formally marks end of coalition effort in Iraq

The United States Force-Iraq is inaugurated in belated recognition of the fact that for some time there have been no other nations serving alongside U.S. forces, which had no combat deaths last month.

by Liz Sly

January 2, 2010

Reporting from Camp Victory, Iraq

December was the first month since the Iraq war began in which there were no American combat deaths, a milestone hailed by military officials Friday as they inaugurated a new name for the U.S. force at the start of the year that will see the war wind down in earnest.

Henceforth, the Multinational Force-Iraq will officially be called the United States Force-Iraq, in belated recognition of the fact that for some time there have been no other nations serving alongside U.S. troops in the nearly 7-year-old conflict.

British, Australian and Romanian soldiers pulled out in July, leaving Americans as the last surviving members of what President George W. Bush once called "the coalition of the willing." A small number of foreigners are serving with a NATO training mission, but they were not part of the multinational force.

At its peak, the coalition included 32 nations, but the term often drew snickers because many of the members, such as Estonia and Tonga, were among America's smallest allies and contributed fewer than 100 troops.

And now the U.S. is preparing to pull out too, adding an end-of-era feel to the renaming ceremony held at one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces on the sprawling Camp Victory complex outside Baghdad.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, told the troops and diplomats assembled in the palace's marble foyer that the new name signaled a new phase for the military as it prepares to halt all combat operations and scale back from the current 110,000 troops to fewer than 50,000 by August.

The remaining troops, who will provide support and training,are scheduled to leave by the end of 2011.

Though challenges remain, in the form of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq and Iranian-sponsored Shiite Muslim militias, Petraeus said, "there has been sustained progress."

Army Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, hailed the absence of American combat casualties in December as "a significant milestone" in the U.S. effort to leave behind a stable country.

The Iraqi government released figures Friday showing that 3,454 Iraqis died in violence in 2009, the lowest annual level since the war began in March 2003.

"Iraq has moved out of the darkness toward the light of hope," Odierno told the crowd. "Two years from today U.S. forces will have completed their redeployment and Iraqi security forces will be fully in charge of their country."

But there were reminders of the toll exacted by the war, in which 4,371 U.S. troops and 318 other coalition members have lost their lives, according to the independent website icasualties.org .

In seats of honor in the front rows sat five troops who had been wounded in action, returning to Iraq for the first time since they were injured.

The face of one of the men was severely disfigured. Another had hooks in place of his hands and appeared to be missing most of his nose. After Petraeus pointed them out, they received a warm round of applause.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-iraq-ceremony2-2010jan02,0,7636838,print.story

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EDITORIAL

Toward a less deadly Iraq

Civilians deaths have dropped sharply since the brutal days of 2006-2007.

January 2, 2010

Whenever we see a report on the declining violence in Iraq, we're reminded of the old book title, "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me." Take, for instance, the report that the civilian death toll fell in November to the lowest level since the 2003 U.S. invasion: 88 fatalities. That was after October bombings in Baghdad killed 155 people, and just ahead of December's two rounds of multiple car bombings in the capital that left at least 136 dead and hundreds wounded.

Don't get us wrong. This is far from the height of the civil war in 2006-07, when thousands of civilians died each month and every day was a struggle for typical Iraqis to get their children to and from school, go to work, do their shopping and stay alive amid attacks by ethnic death squads and car bombings. By that measure, even as dozens of pilgrims were killed and more than 150 wounded by sectarian insurgents, the Shiite Muslim holiday of Ashura last month was relatively peaceful.

Iraq is experiencing what has been called a "creeping normalization," which is not to say that life is normal for most Iraqis. The daily and monthly death tolls are still unacceptably high if the country is to rebuild its economy and public life. The Al Qaeda-affiliated group known as the Islamic State of Iraq has claimed responsibility for several of the recent bombings, although Prime Minister Nouri Maliki also has blamed remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. The bombers appear determined to show that Maliki's U.S.-backed government cannot provide security in place of American troops -- now largely confined to bases and scheduled to pull out this year -- and are doing what they can to reignite the embers of sectarian strife. The violence is expected to increase in the run-up to national elections on March 7, as Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities vie for power.

The United States can continue to provide the Iraqi government with intelligence and other support to battle extremists, as well as advice for strengthening governance. But it is up to the Iraqis now to finish the business of political reconciliation. Besides holding another fair election, they must build an impartial judicial system, continue to integrate disaffected Sunnis into the Shiite-dominated military and political process, and figure out how to divide power and resources between the central and provincial governments, particularly in the Kurdish region. This is what will bring the death toll down even further and prevent the country's return to civil war.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-iraq2-2010jan02,0,7934708,print.story

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OPINION

Security -- or just silliness?

Are new rules for flying really making us safer?

by David H. Steinberg

January 2, 2010

A lunatic tries to blow up an airplane, so now my 2-year-old daughter can't sleep on her pillow. If this is how we respond as a nation to terror threats, then maybe the terrorists really are winning.

Allow me to connect the dots. My family and I were in Aruba for the last two weeks. Then, as we started packing for our return flight, news spread across One Happy Island (yes, that is Aruba's official motto -- it's on the license plates) that another lunatic had tried to blow up a plane. We were scheduled to fly the next day -- not exactly an ideal time to be traveling back to the U.S. from abroad (let alone from a part of the kingdom of the Netherlands), but we figured it would at least be a safe day to travel.

Anticipating that the TSA might have instituted some new rules overnight, we arrived at Queen Beatrix Airport 4 1/2 hours early. Some airlines weren't allowing carry-ons; Delta just made us put a red sticker on them (not sure how that was supposed to help, but we did as we were told).

We went through two Aruban X-ray stations and passed one bomb-sniffing dog handled by U.S. TSA agents. Then came an announcement that boarding would start an hour before our scheduled departure, and that all passengers would be frisked and have their carry-ons searched.

Most people were OK with the idea of the frisk and search. But it turned out that One Happy Island didn't have enough security personnel to carry out the searches, so we were frisked by baggage handlers who still wore their fluorescent orange vests.

Our frisker seemed a little dazed. I guess you pick up the basics from watching "Cops" and the like, but he did look embarrassed when he frisked my 4-year-old son. My 2-year-old daughter didn't know how to "assume the position," so our baggage handler just patted her on the head and sent her on her way. With all the searching and frisking, boarding took 2 1/2 hours.

Onboard, we learned of more new TSA rules (for flights to the U.S. originating abroad). All electronic devices would have to be turned off an hour before landing instead of just on descent. And no one could have a pillow or blanket on their person during the last hour of the flight. Seriously. Cut to my daughter screaming bloody murder as the flight attendant yanks the pillow from under her head. Seriously.

I get that the threat of terrorism is real. But if these hastily thrown-together rules are how we respond to new threats, then something is seriously wrong with us (or at least the TSA). If two X-rays, a bomb-sniffing dog, a frisk and a bag search can't detect the next terror attack, then how is turning off the DVD player an hour early and grabbing pillows from sleeping children going to help? Keep in mind that the new rules only apply to the last hour of the flight (presumably because Friday's particular lunatic decided to set off his bomb only on descent). Won't the no-pillow policy just cause Al Qaeda to issue orders to detonate at T minus 1:01?

We all know that we have to take off our shoes at security because some other lunatic tried to blow up his shoes. These rules, created in response to the latest terror plots, inconvenience us all and waste time and money as more and more resources are allotted to enforcing them. But we tolerate it because it's a small price to pay for security.

But what if the rule has no bearing on security? What if the rule is just, well, silly? Something cooked up by some TSA paper pusher aimed at stopping the last attack, not anticipating the next one. How long are we going to tolerate increasingly preposterous and obviously useless rules in the name of security? When the TSA recommends you arrive at the airport three hours before a flight? Four hours? What if it takes six hours to get from the curb to the plane because next year's lunatic tries to break the plane's window with his bare skull and so the TSA decides every man, woman and child needs to be outfitted with padded headgear?

There's got to be a better way. A system that keeps us safe without impinging on the civil liberties we cherish. A system whereby suspicious individuals get scrutinized, and everyone else gets to sleep on their own pillows.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-steinberg2-2010jan02,0,7469094,print.story

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EDITORIAL

Mean kids, online

Parents, not schools, are the first line of defense against cyber-bullying.

January 2, 2010

Mean girls -- and mean boys -- have been terrorizing their classmates since the first schoolhouse was built. Recently, however, teachers and administrators have adopted elaborate programs to prevent and punish such cruelty. Now that trend is colliding with another one: bullying online. School administrators across the nation are trying to rein in cyber-bullying, and some judges have been ruling against the crackdowns. The judges are right.

We feel for the Beverly Hills eighth-grader who complained that she had been described as "spoiled," a "brat" and a "slut" in a YouTube video posted by a classmate. But sympathetic school officials went too far in suspending the girl who produced the video. Punishing the student for behavior outside the school was illegal, wrote U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson, "without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school's activities."

It isn't just students who are targeted by the online equivalent of "slam books," the notebooks furtively passed around playgrounds in previous generations in which children inscribed insults about their classmates. In Pennsylvania, a student was suspended and shifted to an alternative education program because he posted a parody MySpace profile that described his principal, among other insults, as a "big steroid freak" and a "big whore." A U.S. district judge lifted the suspension, saying that nondisruptive online speech couldn't be punished even if the offensive material could be accessed on school computers.

Public schools rightly prevent students from insulting one another in the classroom, where even verbal disputes can interfere with a lesson, or elsewhere on school grounds, where conflicts can undermine discipline and order. But traditionally they haven't sought to extend discipline to cover conduct outside school hours. The new wrinkle created by cyber-bullying doesn't alter that practical division of labor between teachers and parents.

Schools aren't hermetically sealed off from what students do at home. A teenager who assaults a classmate on the street and is taken into police custody obviously won't be treated at school the way his classmates are -- assuming he's allowed back into school. And some forms of online harassment cross a bright legal line between speech and making threats, whether the victim learns about them from the classroom computer, her BlackBerry or voicemail.

The advent of the Internet has eroded an endless number of formerly clear distinctions, including those based on physical location. Still, educators should recognize the reasonable limits of their authority and confine their discipline to girls and boys who are mean to one another -- or to their principal -- at school.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-cyberbully2-2010jan02,0,900564,print.story

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From the New York Post

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Obama: Wannabe plane bomber was a member of al Qaeda

REUTERS

January 2, 2010

HONOLULU - U.S. President Barack Obama said it appeared the suspect who tried to bomb a Detroit-bound plane over Christmas was a member of al Qaeda and had been trained and equipped by the Islamic militant network.

Defending his administration's counterterrorism efforts amid scathing Republican criticism, Obama said he received preliminary results of the reviews he ordered into air travel screening procedures and a “terrorist watchlist system” and expected final results in the days to come.

Obama, who is on vacation in Hawaii, had called for an immediate study of what he termed “human and systemic failures“ that allowed 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to get on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Dec. 25 allegedly with explosives in his clothes.

“The investigation into the Christmas Day incident continues, and we're learning more about the suspect,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address, released on Friday local time.

“It appears that he joined an affiliate of al Qaeda, and that this group -- al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America,” Obama said.

The president's comments were his most explicit to date tying the suspect with the al Qaeda group.

Republicans have accused Obama, a Democrat, of mishandling the incident and not doing enough to prevent attacks on the United States.

Appearing on the defensive, Obama used much of his address to outline his administration's actions to keep the country safe, including withdrawing troops from Iraq, boosting troop levels in Afghanistan and strengthening ties with Yemen, where the suspect spent time before the attack.

Obama has summoned U.S. intelligence chiefs to a meeting next week at the White House to discuss how to prevent a repeat of the attempted airplane bombing.

U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials, speaking this week on condition of anonymity, said spy agencies picked up important information about Abdulmutallab, and about the intentions of al Qaeda leaders in Yemen, in the months before the attempted bombing.

The intelligence trail began at least four months ago, when the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted communications between al Qaeda leaders in Yemen discussing the possibility of using a “Nigerian” bomber, according to one official briefed on the intelligence.

The CIA first learned of Abdulmutallab in November, when his father came to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria and sought help in finding him, a spokesman said.

The agency said it then worked with the embassy to add Abdulmutallab and his possible Yemeni contacts to the U.S. terrorism database and forwarded biographical information about him to the National Counterterrorism Center.

Although worrying, a U.S. intelligence official said, the information the CIA received about Abdulmutallab was sketchy.

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/national/obama_wannabe_plane_bomber_was_member_VystFbMyvB9aI9R38t8YPP

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Bust in eerie dead-tykes ID swindle

by PHILIP MESSING

January 2, 2010

Identity theft doesn't get more ghoulish than this.

A New Orleans man is sitting in a city jail after being busted at JFK Airport with credit cards he allegedly phonied up using the stolen IDs of dead children.

"You're not going to find these victims. They're not alive," he told cops, one investigator told The Post.

Career con man Charles Wegmann III, 41, was busted after a crowd of law enforcement -- including Secret Service, New Orleans cops and Port Authority detectives -- tracked him to JFK on Tuesday night.

He was there, sources said, waiting for the arrival from Turkey of his 25-year-old girlfriend, whose ticket Wegmann allegedly purchased using one of the bogus credit cards in his portfolio.

Wegmann, the son of a retired New Orleans police lieutenant, has a rap sheet riddled with forgeries and thefts in Louisiana and New York. His latest crimes alone netted him $100,000, authorities said.

He has been charged in Queens with criminal possession of forged credit cards, identity theft and unlawful possession of personal IDs.

Cops said he was busted at the airport with two "identity packages" -- birth certificates, driver's licenses, credit cards and the like -- that he assembled after stealing the identities of two New Orleans children.

Both kids were 7 when they died, one by drowning and the other after lapsing into a coma.

Wegmann was still in the process of assembling such a package based on the identity of a 33-year-old Louisiana man who'd died in a car crash, a source said.

Wegmann would learn about fatalities in the news, and apply online for a copy of the victim's birth certificate, cops said.

Then he would ask Louisiana authorities to approve small alterations in that document, including claiming the birth date was a typo and that he wanted to change the victim's first name to honor a dead grandfather.

Armed with the newly altered birth certificate, he'd then assemble the other documents needed to send away for credit cards, authorities said.

Authorities declined to release the names of the Louisiana people whose IDs were stolen, saying the families had not been alerted.

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/national/bust_in_eerie_dead_tykes_id_swindle_j5GMUIEfZCqzOnq9qmjV8L

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Art 101 master disaster

by CHUCK BENNETT

January 2, 2010

A cushy Saudi Arabian "rehab" center where terrorists are encouraged to express themselves through crayon drawings, water sports and video games is under scrutiny after one of its graduates re-emerged as a leader in the al Qaeda branch claiming responsibility for trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas.

Said Ali al Shihri -- a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who now heads the terror group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- obviously didn't get to the bottom of his America-hating issues while undergoing the controversial rehab for jihadists.

Inmates like Shihri are supposed to while away the days playing ping-pong, PlayStation and soccer in hopes that the peaceful environment will help them cope with their jihadist rages.

Bomb-makers and gunmen participate in art therapy to help them explore their feelings non-violently.

In between tasty picnic-style meals of rice and lamb and snacks of Snickers along with dips in the pool, participants practice Arabic calligraphy, produce dizzying Jackson Pollack rip-offs and imagine the aftermath of car bombings in crayon.

Some 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists have "graduated" from the program, including 108 former Guantanamo Bay detainees, the Washington Post reported.

"The Saudis talk about a success rate of 80 to 90 percent, but when you look at what those numbers mean in reality, it all falls down. There is no criteria for evaluation," John Horgan, a Department of Homeland Security consultant, told the New York Post.

In 2009, Horgan visited several of the Saudi terrorism rehab centers to report on the programs for Homeland Security.

"These guys are not being de-radicalized. They are being encouraged to disassociate from terrorism, but that doesn't mean their fundamental views changed," said Horgan, director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Penn State.

The Saudis launched the programs after the kingdom was rocked by a series of al Qaeda-inspired attacks in 2003 and 2004.

But despite the Saudi government's best efforts, which also include setting up graduates with jobs, introductions to potential wives and new cars, many of the terrorists don't seem to be getting the peace message.

"Several 'returnees' from Guantanamo Bay continue to espouse a virulent hatred of the United States and Western society in general," Horgan wrote in a September report.

That includes Shihri, who has been busy ignoring the peaceful precepts he was taught in terror rehab and has resumed his hardcore jihadist ways.

Shihri is a top member of the al Qaeda branch in Yemen which claims to have masterminded the failed plot to blow up Flight 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day. He also is suspected of coordinating the 2008 bombing of the US embassy in Yemen, ABC reported.

Another former Gitmo detainee, Muhammad al Awfi, who went back to al Qaeda after his release, has ridiculed the Saudi efforts to rehabilitate jihadists as a plan to "drive us away from Islam."

Shihri -- who was released from Guantanamo Bay by President George W. Bush in 2007 -- spent six to ten weeks at the Prince Mohammed bin Nayef Center for Care and Counseling, ABC News reported.

"There are guards and gates and barbed wire but it's not quite prison," Christopher Boucek of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has visited the center, told ABC.

"It's a communal living environment that's more like 'Hogan's Heroes' than 'Escape From Alcatraz.' "

A team of shrinks works with the inmates in managing their emotions, and they are given lessons in Islam from imams, who warn them that jihad is only acceptable when sanctioned by the state.

Toward the end of their stint, some inmates are allowed to make unescorted visits to family members.

"Some American officials say it's all about crayons and art therapy, but the things that don't translate are the intense emotional and intellectual strides that are made," Boucek told ABC.

"They make intense bonds with the sheiks and doctors they work with. The majority is a religious discussion giving them religious evidence to the contrary of why they think their beliefs are based on Islam."

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the failed bombing of Flight 253, some US legislators have called for the White House to stop plans to release Guantanamo detainees.

There is particular concern over Gitmo inmates with ties to Yemen, where would-be underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab says he connected with al Qaeda.

However, an Obama administration aide told the Washington Post that the administration wants to close the prison because it has become a "rallying cry" for terrorist recruiters.

Another official told the newspaper that the government has no choice to release some Gitmo detainees because of challenges in federal court.

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/international/art_jDhj2e2aUxSz5tTyhngztI

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Muslim loony toon is shot in Mohammed artist attack

by TODD VENEZIA

January 2, 2010

They're not exactly proving him wrong.

A crazed Muslim radical from Somalia with al Qaeda ties was shot yesterday as he tried to attack the Danish artist who sparked fury in the Muslim world for drawing a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed wearing a turban that looks like a bomb.

The 28-year-old terrorist hoped to hack Kurt Westergaard to bits, as he tried to break into his home in the town of Aarhus, Denmark, wielding an ax and a knife.

The maniac shouted "revenge" and "blood" as he tried to get into a secure bathroom where the artist and his 5-year-old granddaughter -- staying with him for a sleepover -- had sought refuge.

"It was scary," he told the Jyllands-Posten daily. "It was close. Really close. But we did it."

The artist was saved when an alarm went off as the Somali thug broke a window at about 10 p.m.

Cops soon arrived and opened fire on the raging Islamoloon after he tossed his ax at responding officers. He was hit in the leg and suffered non life-threatening injuries.

The assailant has known terror links, including "close ties to the Somali terror organization al-Shabaab as well as to al Qaeda leaders in East Africa," the Danish Security and Intelligence Service PET said in a statement.

The man has been "suspected of being involved in terror-related activities in East Africa," intelligence officials said, and has long been probed in connection with threats against Westergaard.

Nevertheless, he was a legal resident of Denmark. He will be charged with attempted murder of Westergaard and of a police officer.

The artist has been the target of several death plots since his 2005 cartoon was printed in newspapers around the world along with other images of the prophet.

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/international/muslim_loony_toon_is_shot_in_mohammed_J8WcyIBijFJ9C1gL5a5q8I

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Ft. Hood link in 'crotch' case

by CHUCK BENNETT

January 1, 2010

Bumbling knicker-bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab undoubtedly met up with vitriol-spewing Fort Hood-linked imam Anwar al-Awlaki in the days before his harrowing Christmas Day bid to bring down an airliner with explosives-packed underwear, Yemeni authorities said yesterday.

Under the guise of being a student of Islamic law, Abdulmutallab traveled to an al Qaeda stronghold in Yemen's lawless Shabwa province and stayed in a home used by Awlaki, the US-raised radical imam who counseled Fort Hood Massacre gunman Nidal Malik Hasan, as well as two 9/11 hijackers.

"If he went to Shabwa, for sure he would have met Anwar al-Awlaki," said Rashad Mohammed al-Alimi, Yemen's deputy prime minister for defense, The Washington Post reported.

During the visit with al-Aulaqi, Abdulmutallab -- the troubled 23-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker -- was fitted with his underwear bomb and taught how to detonate it with an acid-filled syringe, Yemen authorities believe.

US authorities think Awlaki has gone beyond his old role of propagandist to actually planning attacks.

Mercifully, the undie bomb failed to explode aboard Detroit-bound Northwest Flight 253, which was packed with nearly 300 travelers.

Yemeni authorities believe that Abdulmutallab remained in Yemen until Dec. 7.

His journey to the United States began in Ghana on Dec. 24, when he flew to Nigeria and spent less than 30 minutes at the Lagos airport before rushing to a KLM flight to Amsterdam, said Nigerian Information Minister Dora Akunyili.

From the Dutch capital, Abdulmutallab boarded his Detroit-bound flight.

Abdulmutallab went through normal security screenings at both the Lagos and Amsterdam airports, according to officials in both countries.

Authorities are focusing on Abdulmutallab's movements in Yemen, home to 200 to 300 al Qaeda fighters, who are spreading their toxic hatreds to terrorists-in-training.

Yemeni authorities said they were never informed Abdulmutallab was a potential terrorist.

"If we had received the information at the appropriate time, our security apparatus could have taken obvious measures to stop him," Alimi said.

American officials never connected the dots after Abdulmutallab's father told US Embassy personnel in Nigeria that his son may have linked up with terrorists in Yemen.

Just as jarring, it now appears that Awlaki survived a Dec. 24 airstrike on his lair that US authorities thought had killed him.

Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Hider Shaea told ABC News that he spoke to Awlaki after the attack. "I'm alive!" Shaea quoted him as saying.

"He said the house that was attacked was two or three kilometers away from him and he was not there," Shaea said.

It may be the second time Awlaki escaped US justice. He was investigated after 9/11, but fled the country in late 2002 before authorities had the evidence to arrest him.

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/international/jet_terrorist_met_evil_imam_yemen_tvUzCVFH5WxPhHgr3UtQIM

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From the Wall Street Journal

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Lawyer Has Terror-Case Track Record

by AMIR EFRATI

The lawyer appointed to represent the man accused of attempting to bomb Northwest Flight 253 had prior success helping to defend an alleged terrorist.

Miriam Siefer, the chief public defender in Detroit, also has handled cases involving disturbances on other Northwest flights, including one in which a man pleaded guilty after illegally transporting ammunition and saying he was traveling overseas to kill Osama bin Laden.

Defense lawyers with experience in terrorism-related cases say Ms. Siefer's latest job -- representing 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was charged with trying to blow up a Christmas Day flight to Detroit -- will be difficult, in part because of his alleged statements after the incident. Among other things, passengers have said Mr. Abdulmutallab told them he had an "explosive device" after passengers and crew put out a fire that had started in his lap. He also allegedly told investigators he had affiliations with al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, who gave him the device and detonation instructions to blow up the plane.

Despite the media coverage, Margaret Sind Raben, a defense lawyer in Detroit who has known Ms. Siefer for decades, said she thinks "Miriam will go into this with the assumption and presumption that her client is innocent."

Ms. Siefer and her legal team didn't respond to requests for comment.

One potential challenge is if the defendant isn't cooperative. Defendants like Mr. Abdulmutallab "generally start with their backs to us," Ms. Raben said. "You have to work to gain their trust."

Some never cooperate. Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted of helping to plot the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, fired his court-appointed lawyers. He is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty.

Ms. Siefer has spent almost her entire career as a federal defender. She runs a taxpayer-funded office of about 20 attorneys who are appointed to represent individuals who can't afford a private lawyer.

Ms. Siefer and her colleagues notched a victory in a previous high-profile terrorism-related case. In 2003, her office defended an immigrant accused of being part of a terrorist "sleeper cell" in Detroit. Ms. Siefer didn't make a court appearance but was heavily involved in the case, according to other lawyers. Her office's client was convicted, but a year later the cases were dismissed after the Justice Department said its lead prosecutor hid evidence that could have helped the defense.

In 1995 Ms. Siefer represented James Nichols, brother of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols, while he was under investigation. Charges against James Nichols were eventually dropped.

A defense lawyer's goal in the Christmas Day attack would be to understand why Mr. Abdulmutallab was on the Northwest flight with explosive material, said James Thomas, a Detroit attorney who represented a defendant in the 2003 terrorism case.

"How does a privileged young man with an education get turned?" Mr. Thomas said. "It's inconsistent with the way he was raised, and if there was undue influence on him," it could be raised as a defense at trial or could help him get a lesser sentence, he said.

Mr. Abdulmutallab is the son of a prominent Nigerian banker and received an engineering degree from University College London.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126239175516413083.html#printMode

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Obama Reviews Antiterror Steps

by ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON and SIOBHAN GORMAN

HONOLULU -- President Barack Obama was taking the weekend to study a flood of new information from the intelligence community about where the security system failed leading up to a Christmas Day attempted bombing on a U.S.-bound jet.

Obama administration officials late Friday said the president planned no new statements as he digests hundreds of pages of reports from a half-dozen agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the Transportation Security Administration.

Emerging as a central focus are deficiencies in the U.S.'s network of watch lists, a system designed after the Sept. 11 attacks to keep tabs on potential terrorists and prevent them from boarding planes, according to a senior U.S. counterterrorism official. A failure to coordinate and share information about the alleged attacker, Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, led to his inclusion on the government's broad TIDE database, but not on the narrower "no fly" list, which would have prevented him from boarding.

The official noted that government audits turned up problems in recent years, including gaps that kept suspected terrorists from being added to the U.S.'s no-fly list.

Mr. Obama will lead a meeting at the White House Tuesday with the heads of the key agencies to direct an investigation expected to take weeks. Meanwhile, members of Congress are announcing plans for a series of hearings, as the breakdown in intelligence fuels political battling.

In Washington, officials were maneuvering to assign or avoid blame. Former CIA officials in particular expressed concern that they had been tagged with failing to pass on information, which they say misses the broader picture.

"This is not a repeat of eight years ago," said former CIA Director Michael Hayden, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks. "The agency aggressively was sending information up to [the National Counterterrorism Center]. It wasn't that the information was hidden." The issue is whether the threshold should be lower for putting someone on a watch list, he said.

Mr. Hayden said it isn't realistic to expect intelligence analysts to see every possible connection within mounds of information. "It's not that the clues weren't there, it's that so much else was there," he said, referring to the large amount of data intelligence agencies collect.

In the months leading up to the attack, various agencies received tips that combined could have led intelligence officials to look more closely at Mr. Abdulmutallab. Key among them were warnings from his father about his extremist views, which were communicated to a roster of federal agencies, and communications from al Qaeda leaders intercepted by the National Security Agency that a Nigerian was prepared for an attack.

Intelligence officials say the pieces of information appear significant largely in hindsight. That said, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars since the Sept. 11 attacks building intelligence capabilities designed to spot such connections, in particular at the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington, which received much of the intelligence on Mr. Abdulmutallab.

President Obama, on vacation in Kailua, Hawaii, participates in conference call about preliminary assessments of the security and intelligence failures that allowed an attempted terrorism attack on a jet bound for Detroit on Christmas Day.

A senior administration official said Thursday that the White House was taking immediate added security measures, including an effort to place more potential terrorists on the no-fly list. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also said she is dispatching a team of senior department officials to meet with leaders from major airports in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America to review security procedures and technology used to screen passengers on flights to the U.S.

Delta Air Lines Inc. Chief Executive Richard Anderson said Thursday that the carrier was "obviously disappointed" an alleged terrorist was able to smuggle an explosive device aboard one of its Northwest Airlines jets, even after he said the carrier followed screening guidelines authorities introduced in recent years. He added that Delta will continue to work with the TSA "to be certain that the new security measures are put on place promptly and appropriately."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126226680168911825.html#printMode

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From the Washington Times

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Airport pat-downs deemed ineffective

by Michael Tarm

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHICAGO (AP) -- With all the screening technology at U.S. airports, the last line of defense is still the human hand: the pat-down search.

But aviation experts say the pat-down is often ineffective, in part because of government rules covering where screeners can put their hands and how frequently they can frisk passengers. As a result, even if the man accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. jetliner on Christmas Day got an airport pat-down, it probably wouldn't have found the explosives authorities say were hidden in his crotch.

"To have people hold up their arms and just pat them -- like I'm really going to carry a bomb there," said industry analyst Michael Boyd, arguing that pat-downs are often of little value. "You know where you're going to put it, and no one's going to go there."

One woman who filed a formal complaint after she was patted down before a flight in 2004 said such searches don't make anyone safer.

"The pat-down searches represent a needle-in-a-haystack approach and I still believe they wouldn't stop anything from happening," said Lisa Lynch, 49, of Edmonds, Wash.

And, she said, "to see elderly women in wheelchairs patted down ... it is heartbreaking. It is just so invasive."

Lynch, who flies regularly and just returned home from a trip on Friday, said she has not been patted down since the day it happened as she was rushing to catch a flight.

In fact, most travelers at U.S. airports never get a pat-down when they pass through security. A metal detector must be set off first and then screeners would need to find out what triggered the alarm. That often amounts to screeners just lightly tapping on a passenger's arms, legs and clothes.

But even if they go ahead with a pat-down, it likely would not turn up something nonmetallic, small and well-hidden.

Unlike the frisking of suspects conducted by police -- which involves officers running their hands firmly up and down the body, including sensitive areas like the groin, buttocks and breasts -- the pat-downs at airports usually involve, well, patting down.

A flood of complaints by women, including one by Lynch, led the Transportation Security Administration in 2004 to list 'dos' and 'don'ts' on pat-downs, including barring screeners from touching female passengers between their breasts. The TSA hasn't publicly released that list.

But a report by the Government Accountability Office, which said federal investigators were able to smuggle liquid explosives and detonators past security at U.S. airports, appeared to cause some changes last year in pat-down policies.

In one instance cited in the report, an investigator placed coins in his pockets to ensure he'd receive a secondary screening. But after a pat-down and use of a hand-held metal detector, the screener didn't catch the prohibited items the investigator brought through a checkpoint.

The TSA last year decided to permit what it describes as "enhanced pat-downs" that include breast and groin searches. But these could be done only under limited circumstances and only after the use of metal detectors, less invasive pat-downs and all other tools had been exhausted.

Still, even in those cases, screeners must use the back of their hands when touching the groin area and breasts, according to the TSA.

"This new procedure will affect a very small percentage of travelers, but it is a critical element in ensuring the safety of the flying public," the agency said in a statement on its Web site.

Since the Dec. 25 incident, some have been calling for more pat-downs at airports. But sensitivities on all sides mean any push for more frequent, thorough pat-downs would likely meet fierce resistance.

"People just wouldn't stand for it. You wouldn't. I wouldn't," said Gerry Berry, a Florida-based airport security expert.

Fearful of lawsuits or allegations of molestation, many screeners at airports would be the most resistant of all, Boyd said.

"You'll have people yelling, 'He grabbed me! He groped me!'" he said. "You don't want that job."

Lynch said scanning machines would render such searches unnecessary.

"That is way less invasive than somebody putting their hands on you," said Lynch, who was so bothered by what happened that she lay in bed that night sweating and unable to sleep.

TSA spokesman Greg Soule declined to discuss the agency's pat-down rules or any directives to airports, including whether the agency has ordered stepped-up pat-downs at U.S. airports since last week.

"Pat-downs are one layer of security in a multifaceted security system," he said.

The TSA, he added, was aware of concerns surrounding pat-downs.

"I would say that security is TSA's No. 1 priority while balancing the privacy of all passengers," he said.

It's possible that pat-downs may become more frequent in airports as the use of full-body scanning machines expands. The high-tech machines are in use at a handful of airports; the TSA just bought 150 and plans to buy 300 more. But passengers can opt for a physical pat-down instead of being scanned.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/02/airport-pat-downs-deemed-ineffective//print/
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