U.S., South Korea, dismiss North Korea's peace talks proposal

From the Associated Press

January 11, 2010

SEOUL, South Korea

South Korea and the U.S. rejected North Korea's proposal to start peace talks to formally end the Korean War, with Seoul saying Tuesday that can happen only after the North rejoins disarmament talks and reports progress in denuclearization.

The North said Monday that its return to six-nation negotiations on its nuclear weapons program hinges on building better relations with the United States by starting peace treaty talks. The North also called for the lifting of international sanctions against it.

On Tuesday, South Korea's defense chief said he believes peace treaty talks can take place only after the nuclear talks are resumed and the North takes steps toward disarming its atomic programs.

"I think it's an issue that we can probably move forward with after the six-party talks are reopened and there is progress in North Korea's denuclearization process," Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told reporters.

He said South Korea will continue to try to find what the North's true intention is behind its peace talks proposal.

But Kim said his military is ready to deter any possible North Korean aggression, saying the North "many times in the past offered peace gestures with one hand while on the other committed provocations."

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley also brushed off the North's call, saying it must first rejoin the six-party negotiations.

Crowley, speaking Monday in Washington, urged North Korea to return to the talks "and then we can begin to march down the list of issues that we have."

Washington and Pyongyang have never had diplomatic relations because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, thus leaving the peninsula technically at war. North Korea, the U.S.-led United Nations Command and China signed a cease-fire, but South Korea never did.

North Korea, which claims it was forced to develop atomic bombs to cope with U.S. threats, has long demanded a peace treaty. But South Korea has also been suspicious that its rival is using the issue as a distraction, while the U.S. has resisted signing a treaty while the North possesses nuclear weapons.

However, President Barack Obama's special envoy, Stephen Bosworth, said following a landmark trip to Pyongyang last month that the subject can be discussed as part of the six-nation nuclear talks, which have not been held for more than a year.

The North quit those talks with the U.S., South Korea, China, Russia and Japan last year in anger over international condemnation of a long-range rocket launch. The country later conducted its second nuclear test, test-launched a series of ballistic missiles and restarted its plutonium-producing facility, inviting widespread condemnation and tighter U.N. sanctions.

After months of tension, however, the North said last month it understood the need to resume the nuclear talks following Bosworth's trip to Pyongyang. Still, the country did not make a firm commitment on when it would rejoin the forum.

The North's statement called for a peace treaty to be concluded this year, which it emphasized marks the 60th anniversary since the outbreak of the Korean War.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fgw-north-korea-talks12-2009jan12,0,4316262,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ft. Hood inquiry focuses on military's evaluation system

A Pentagon report will look at why the shooting suspect's performance reviews did not reflect concerns about his inappropriate behavior.

by Julian E. Barnes

January 12, 2010

Reporting from Washington

A Pentagon report on the Ft. Hood massacre that left 13 people dead will pinpoint the military's administrative failings leading up to the attack, including how the accused shooter repeatedly earned favorable performance ratings in spite of mounting concerns about his views and behavior.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is expected to announce preliminary findings in the investigation Thursday. Among other issues, investigators have examined how Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a military psychiatrist, received reviews that allowed his career to advance despite concerns about inappropriate behavior -- including charges that he proselytized to patients and discussed extremist Islamic views with colleagues, defense officials said.

The investigation was led by retired Adm. Vernon Clark, a former chief of naval operations, and Togo West, a former secretary of the Army.

Because the criminal investigation is ongoing, a Defense official said, the findings to be released Thursday will not include details about Hasan's actions. But the report is expected to explore why concerns about his performance at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were not passed on to supervisors at his next assignment at Ft. Hood, Texas.

The investigation also is supposed to point to ways to overhaul the military performance evaluation system.

In the Army, few performance reviews contain negative comments. However, at senior levels and in competitive fields, an evaluation that is less than effusive in its praise can derail an officer's promotion. In less competitive fields and at junior levels, the Army has promoted the vast majority of its officers. And because of a shortage of mental health personnel, few such experts are blocked from promotion.

The culture that encourages mainly positive reviews has undercut the usefulness of the system for evaluating officers' strengths and weaknesses, according to some military officials who requested anonymity when discussing the case.

Hasan's performance at Walter Reed should have raised red flags and prevented his promotion and transfer to Ft. Hood, many inside and outside the military have argued since the Nov. 5 rampage.

For instance, Hasan's superiors faulted his light caseload and said he shirked professional responsibilities. He was admonished for discussing religion with his patients and criticized for at least one research paper he wrote on the internal conflicts of Muslim soldiers.

At the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, he was put on academic probation shortly after he began, and took six years to graduate from a four-year program.

Despite those problems, Hasan was promoted to captain in 2003 and major last year. Even superiors who had raised questions about his work wrote references that he was competent.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-fort-hood12-2010jan12,0,4853311,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Iran says nuclear scientist killed in bomb blast

by Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim

January 12, 2010

Reporting from Beirut and Tehran

A powerful bomb blast killed one of Iran's leading nuclear scientists this morning in a leafy north Tehran district as he left home for work, officials said.

Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, 50, was described by colleagues as a respected Tehran University nuclear physicist. Reformist websites and two students also described him as an outspoken supporter of opposition figure Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

But hard-line Iranian officials immediately blamed Israel and the West for the assassination, which came at a time of heightened tension over Iran's nuclear program.

State television described Ali-Mohammadi as a "revolutionary university professor martyred in a terrorist operation by counterrevolutionary agents affiliated" with the West.

"Considering the kind of attack and previous threats by security and terrorist services close to America and the Zionist regime, probably this terrorist attack was sponsored by those services," said a report on the news website, Tabnak.

The West and Israel have vowed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability. Iran's top diplomat last month accused the United States and Saudi Arabia of kidnapping nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who worked for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, during a summer religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

But Iran is also in the grips of its greatest domestic crisis since the 1979 revolution, with political violence escalating. Even Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei demanded that pro-government vigilantes rein in their activities following the assassination of Mousavi's nephew in December and an alleged attack on opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi last week.

Though hard-line news outlets described Ali-Mohammadi as a former member of the Revolutionary Guard, a stalwart supporter of the Islamic Republic and a loyalist to Khamenei, others contradicted that assessment.

Dr Ali Moqari, president of the science department at Tehran University, told the Mehr news agency that Ali-Mohammadi "had no political activity."

One student of nuclear physics told The Times she believed Ali-Mohammadi was killed because of his outspoken support for the student movement. Another said Ali-Mohammadi cut his ties with the Revolutionary Guard years ago and in recent months had vocally turned against the Islamic Republic.

"Since two months ago, he has been venting his frustration with almost everybody in the system," said the student, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He was openly criticizing high-ranking officials in classes."

The reformist news websites Ayandenews and Rahesabz identified Ali-Mohammadi among a list of scholars campaigning for Mousavi during his presidential run against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A graduate of Tehran's Sharif University of Technology, Ali-Mohammadi began teaching quantum physics and electromagnetic theory at Tehran University in 1995. He has written books on nuclear science and advised PhD candidates on their dissertations.

Officials offered different explanations for the source of the bomb. Some said it was attached to a motorcycle. Another said it was in a trash bin and set to detonate by remote control.

Neighbors said Ali-Mohammadi has lived for decades in an old bungalow set amid new multi-story apartment buildings on a quiet side street off north Tehran's Shariati Street.

Iranian news reports say he was leaving home for work when the explosion erupted. Witnesses said the 7:30 a.m. explosion shattered windows for 150 to 300 feet around.

"Most probably, the bomb had been fixed to the motorcycle outside Mr. Ali-Mohammadi's house, and exploded by remote control," Fakhreddin Ja'arzadeh, a Tehran prosecutor, told the Iranian Students News Agency.

Two people were reported injured and a car was set ablaze, witnesses and news reports said.

"I was shocked," said one resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I was at breakfast, and our glass breakfast table shattered."

Police cordoned off the area as utility workers tried to restore downed power lines.

Iranian officials said forensic experts were conducting post-mortem examinations, but that no suspects had been arrested.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fgw-iran-bomb-scientist12-2009jan12,0,4208165,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OPINION

The feigned-outrage game

Harry Reid's 'Negro dialect' comment is just the latest out-of-context remark to fall victim to the phony indignation so common in today's news cycle.

by David Greenberg

January 12, 2010

During the 2008 presidential race, Barack Obama's campaign perfected a brilliant technique for gaining the upper hand in the short-term news cycle -- feigned outrage. In the Democratic primaries, Obama's team would alight on an ill-phrased but ultimately innocent choice of words by his rival Hillary Rodham Clinton or one of her surrogates -- like her claim that President Lyndon Johnson did as much as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to pass the Civil Rights Act -- and use it to whip up outrage and score political points. Often, the indignation would be joined by a call for the aide who uttered the supposedly offensive remark to be, in the reigning cliche of 2008, thrown under the bus.

The Clinton campaign soon taught its spokespeople to huff just as indignantly over stray remarks made by Obama or his surrogates, giving words like "cling" and "bitter" and places like Pennsylvania an undeservedly long sojourn in the headlines. And in late summer 2008, John McCain's campaign got into the act, suggesting that Obama's benign "lipstick on a pig" remark about Sarah Palin amounted to rank sexism -- leading Obama to try to scuttle the whole business.

"They seize on an innocent remark," Obama fulminated, as he offered a nice analysis of the technique, "try to take it out of context, throw out an outrageous ad because they know it's catnip for the news media."

It's appropriate that a book about the 2008 campaign -- Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's newly published "Game Change" -- has given us yet another example in which phony outrage over an out-of-context sound bite captivates the media all out of proportion to the offensiveness of the remark. The statement was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's 2008 comment that he expected Obama to fare better electorally than previous black presidential aspirants partly because of his lighter skin tone and lack of "Negro dialect" -- a term, incidentally, that the "Google Books" search engine finds in 3,780 publications, all before this year, none apparently racist. Republicans are shocked, shocked, and applying as much heat as they can, despite the explicability of the remark. And unfortunately, the technique of ginning up outrage and demanding heads over decontextualized or poorly phrased comments is here to stay.

The most obvious reason is that it's a political game perfectly suited for our new news cycle. Episodes like the Reid comment provide "catnip for the news media," as Obama said, because of the new rhythms of cable TV and blogging, which intensify the old talk-radio pattern: polarized and combative, with guest experts and pundits chosen to parrot each side's arguments with requisite rage. Verbal missteps work well for cable because they require little explanation (so the fight can begin quickly); they lend themselves to simple partisan battles; and viewers can readily align their own emotions with one side or the other.

The media, of course, reflect our politics, and a second reason these flaps are so common lately is that they fit well with our divided and mutually suspicious condition. As the Republican Party has become over the years more uniformly and aggressively conservative, and the Democrats (to a lesser degree) more uniformly liberal, the parties see little reason to work together. With enmity and constant partisan combat now the norm, both sides seize any chance to give their opponent a black eye. The stakes are rising as we enter 2010, an election year.

Then there's a third, less obvious reason that the outrage game is thriving: its connection to the politics of race. Although race has been at or near the center of American politics in every age, Obama's candidacy and election elevated it in a new and complicated way. On the one hand, the election of an African American president makes it natural for race to emerge often in our presidency-centered political discourse. On the other, Obama has always been careful and understated in his efforts to address the subject. He talks about it infrequently and often obliquely, and he almost always assumes a moderate stance that tries to dignify all positions. As president, he has focused on race mainly when it has been thrust upon him, as when reporters asked him last summer to comment on the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates on Gates' own property.

This delicate touch -- and this is related to Reid's "controversial" comments -- helped Obama appeal to white voters in 2008. But Obama's gingerly treatment of race also reveals a certain continuing skittishness. Because the president recognizes that a provocative comment could derail his policy priorities -- the way Jimmy Carter's threatened to do last summer when he accused healthcare reform critics of racism -- Obama is, not surprisingly, loath to open any wounds in some dreamy hope of starting a "national conversation about race." And so resentments and anxieties on all sides have simmered. Episodes like Reid's comments or Gates' arrest then serve as lightning rods, drawing out these resentments and anxieties in a quick flash.

The persistence of feigned outrage admits to no easy solution. Moralizing to the cable channels about their choices of what to cover -- or to the higher-toned newspapers and other media that now feel pressed to take their cues from the Fox News or MSNBC fray -- will not likely change anything. Nor will politicians likely forgo the chance to bruise their rivals when presented with such chances by the media. In this climate, any attempt to begin an authentic "national conversation on race" would surely degenerate quickly into keening and calls for somebody's resignation. Ultimately, explaining all the subtleties of a linguistic concept like "Negro dialect" -- or any other touchy subjects that could trigger such an episode -- demands more time, patience and intellectual precision than the leading producers and avid consumers of our breakneck political discussions wish to indulge.

David Greenberg is a professor of history and journalism and media studies at Rutgers University and the author of "Nixon's Shadow: The History of an Image" and other books.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-greenberg12-2010jan12,0,4307238,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OPINION

Playing race-card 'gotcha'

Sure, Harry Reid deserves criticism for his remarks on Obama. But the GOP shouldn't be embracing the Democrats' double standard.

by Jonah Goldberg

January 12, 2010

There is so much to enjoy about the Democrats' Harry Reid problem, and yet I find the whole spectacle horribly depressing.

First, let's recap the bright side. The addlepated and vindictive Senate majority leader deserves the grief he's getting for saying -- according to the new book, "Game Change" -- that Barack Obama would make a promising Democratic presidential contender because he's "light-skinned" and can speak "Negro dialect" only when he wants to.

Just last month, Reid insinuated that fellow senators standing in the way of "Obamacare" were carrying on the tradition of the racists who stood in the way of civil rights in the 1960s. You've got to love it when the gods punish race-card players so poetically.

But one thing the moment doesn't call for is more "gotcha."

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said over the weekend that Reid should step down from his leadership position because of his comments. For this we needed the first African American head of the Republican Party?

Steele is obviously right that there's a double standard when it comes to such racial gaffes. A Republican says something stupidly offensive or offensively stupid about race and he must be destroyed, even if he apologizes like Henry in the snows of Canossa. But when a Democrat blunders the same way, the liberal establishment goes into overdrive explaining why it's no big deal.

But by demanding Reid's resignation, Steele is making an idiotic, nasty and entirely cynical game bipartisan. Yes, there's a double standard, but the point is that the standard used against conservatives is unfair, not that that unfair standard should be used against Democrats as well.

Whatever Steele's other strengths and weaknesses may be, a major benefit of having a black leader for the GOP was, for me, that Republicans could have a more credible voice in attacking the unfairness of such race-driven scalp hunts. What will Steele's position be when some tired Republican hack politician accidentally says something Reid-like down the road? Shall the GOP, for consistency's sake, demand he or she step down?

The real, sad lesson of this episode is that we have somehow come to define racism as disagreeing with the Democratic Party or its African American base. Reid's defenders told Politico they're planning to disseminate the NAACP voting score of Republicans who criticize Reid, as if voting against the NAACP is a test of your racial conscience. The Congressional Black Caucus says Reid's comments are forgivable because he's advancing the Democratic agenda. Translation: If you aren't advancing the Democratic agenda and you slip up, prepare to be branded a racist and pelted from the public stage.

Heck, you don't really even have to slip up. We've spent much of the last year being told that "tea party" protesters are unforgivably racist for complaining about high taxes and deficits. But ruminating on Obama's light skin and versatility with the "Negro dialect" is merely forgivably inappropriate.

Democrats have so completely mastered this practice and internalized their own heroic narrative, they are completely at home with their cognitive dissonance. For instance, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y) is reportedly one of Reid's biggest defenders. Schumer won his Senate seat in 1998 in large part by insinuating his opponent, Alfonse D'Amato, was an anti-Semite because D'Amato had allegedly called Schumer a "putzhead" in a private conversation.

The bittersweet irony is that racism is such a nonissue in U.S. politics today. Most of the "black agenda" is simply a throwback to the ethnic spoils game played by Italians, Germans, Jews and the Irish in previous generations. But we've absurdly elevated racial pork barrel into a test of one's soul. It's no more racist to oppose spending on the "digital divide" than it is anti-Irish to oppose pay increases for Boston firemen.

No politicians in either party are calling for Jim Crow-style segregation or anything remotely like that. Instead, we have one party that, for the most part, says it wants special benefits for blacks and certain other minorities in order to compensate for past discrimination, and another party that, for the most part, wants to live up to the colorblind ideal found in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s poetry about judging people by the content of their character. Both points of view are well intentioned. But only the Democratic position gets lacquered with a thick coating of self-serving sanctimony and the benefit of the doubt from the media.

Alas, rather than discrediting this charade, the Reid affair is only reinforcing it. And that's far worse than anything he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg12-2010jan12,0,2211214,print.column

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EDITORIAL

Craigslist and crime

Despite a number of criminal activities by users of the popular classified-ad website, it's better to have users police the site for suspicious activity than the company.

January 12, 2010

Craigslist's vast network of classified-ad websites has been a boon not just to bargain hunters but also to criminals searching for victims. The San Francisco-based company has been linked to a wide range of crimes in recent years, from petty thefts to grisly murders. The most recent was a rape in Wyoming allegedly orchestrated by the victim's ex-boyfriend, a former Marine in Twentynine Palms. The 27-year-old mechanic is accused of placing an ad on Craigslist purportedly from a woman seeking "a real aggressive man with no concern for women." He allegedly continued the impersonation in e-mails and instant messages, enticing a 26-year-old Wyoming man to the victim's house to engage in abusive, humiliating sex.

The incident brought more scrutiny to Craigslist, which stopped taking ads for "erotic services" last May under pressure from several state attorneys general. The company replaced the erotic services section with "adult services" listings that must be approved in advance by Craigslist (ostensibly to bar pitches for prostitution and other illegal activities) and paid for (creating a commercial paper trail). Yet the attack in Wyoming led some critics to suggest that Craigslist wasn't monitoring such posts closely enough. "If a woman is putting an ad online saying she'd like to be raped, I'd hope it would be stopped," said a spokesman for an Illinois sheriff who'd tried in vain to hold Craigslist liable for publishing solicitations by prostitutes.

Craigslist's popularity and breadth make it attractive to the seamy elements of society, as well as to fringe groups of all types. But despite the headline-grabbing nature of some of the crimes linked to the site, it makes sense to shield the company from liability for what gets posted on its site, as the Communications Decency Act currently does. Bear in mind that there are many outlets besides Craigslist where people can publish fraudulent come-ons in relative anonymity, such as alternative newspapers and Internet newsgroups. But the information Craigslist collects from those who post ads can provide better leads to investigators than they might obtain from, say, a newspaper that accepts cash for classifieds.

More important, society has much to gain from encouraging companies to create venues for people to speak and collaborate freely. Holding sites liable for the wrongs done by a tiny percentage of users could make it impossible to build low-cost services that can grow rapidly in value to the public. Websites would instead have to maintain large staffs to keep tight control on what users published, reducing customers' freedom to air their views and participate in the culture. It's better to encourage users to police Craigslist by reporting material that crosses the line than to have Craigslist try to police them.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-craigslist12-2010jan12,0,1268355,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Daily News

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Parents learn to be advocates for kids

For more information on the K.E.N. project see www.kenproject.com .

Already working in a demanding job as a film editor, Karen Kory's life got far more stressful nine years ago when she gave birth to daughter Claire.

Beyond the usual challenges of first-time parenthood, Kory and her husband learned that their daughter had been born with hypotonia, a neuro-muscular disorder affecting physical development and movement.

Kory's anxiety escalated as she struggled with questions about how her daughter would handle school and socializing while requiring so much specialized attention.

But at least some of that stress was relieved when Kory discovered The K.E.N. Project, a Calabasas-based non-profit organization that empowers parents and teaches them how to be advocates for their special-needs children.

"I don't know what I would have done without them," said Kory, of Studio City. "They changed my life."

Executive Director Dina Kaplan launched The K.E.N. Project (Kids With Exceptional Needs) in 1996, after she gave birth to her son Brandon. He has developmental delays and physical disabilities that prevent him from walking or eating independently; he is also blind in one eye.

A civil litigator, Kaplan thought she would be able to manage the jumble of information and be an effective advocate for Brandon. However, even she found the task overwhelming.

"I'm an attorney and if I couldn't find all the answers I needed, I knew other families were definitely struggling," Kaplan said. She decided to change her legal practice to focus on special education law, a field dedicated to fighting for the rights of children with disabilities.

She also decided to help parents who did not have the means to pay for legal advice navigate the systems to get their children what they needed.

The K.E.N. Project offers conferences and workshops at least once a month to train parents how to access available state and county services, and advocate for their children at their local public schools.

The organization also offers legal advice and coordinates a regular monthly play-date meeting at Gates Canyon Park in Calabasas - the region's first handicapped-accessible playground.

"They are usually one of the first places we recommend to parents of special-needs children," said Theresa Quary, a coordinator at the Family Focus Resource and Empowerment Center at Cal State Northridge.

"They not only receive great advice but they get to meet other parents just like them ... and they become friends."

For Kory, The K.E.N. Project has been invaluable as she deals with her daughter's education.

"I still remember how nervous I was during that first meeting," Kory said, referring to the Individualized Education Plan meetings that are required to service any child with special needs at a local public school.

"I was wringing my hands and practically trembling," she said.

Thanks to the information she has received from The K.E.N. Project, Kory says she's gained the knowledge she needs to feel empowered and confident when she has to face-off with school officials.

"The fact that they do this for parents like us is selfless and remarkable," Kory said.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14168134

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Question of the week: Strip search?

IT'S the same after every terrorist attack - successful or not. The national discussion centers on three questions: Who's to blame? What could have been done better? And, what steps should we take to make sure it doesn't happen again?

In the wake of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day, debate is centering on the expanded use of full-body scanners, which allow screeners to see beneath our clothes and eyeball our naked bodies in much the same way their scanners now check inside our carry-on baggage.

This suggestion has angered many Americans, who say this latest air travel indignity is just too much. Removing their shoes is one thing. But allowing a stranger to see them in their birthday suit is an entirely different matter. On behalf of those who find the idea abhorrent, the American Civil Liberties Union and other privacy advocates are countering the growing call for the installation of full-body scanners at American airports, calling them a "virtual strip search."

In Los Angeles, both the mayor and the city's Police Department have endorsed the use of full-body scanners. The mayor, a former president of ACLU's Southern California chapter, even said "these small incursions on our privacy" are worth it for our continued safety in the air.

In addition, a CBS news poll conducted after the Christmas Day incident found that nearly three-quarters of Americans support the use of full-body scanners at airports.

What do you think?

Does employing full-body scans constitute an unacceptable invasion of personal privacy? Would you feel safer on a flight where everyone had been scanned?

Or is this simply a feature designed make us feel better about flying rather than actually catching potential bombers?

Is scanning just a fancy metal detector, or the first step to pre-flight DNA test? Is full scanning the best step to ensure that air travel remains as safe as we can humanly make it while al-Qaida dreams up more innovative ways to destroy us?

Maybe you have a better solution - flying naked, perhaps, or a mandatory "flight" suit like the robes at the hair salon? Maybe requiring light sedation would keep passengers happy, in their seats and unable to activate an underwear bomb?

Send your responses to opinionated@dailynews.com . Please include your full name, the community or city in which you live and a daytime phone number. We'll print as many as we can in Sunday's Opinionated section.

http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_14168665

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Wall Street Journal

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Even in a Recovery, Some Jobs Won't Return

Even when the U.S. labor market finally starts adding more workers than it loses, many of the unemployed will find that the types of jobs they once had simply don't exist anymore.

Many of the jobs created by the booms in the housing and credit markets, for example, have likely been permanently erased by the subsequent bust.

"The tremendous amount of economic activity associated with housing, I can't see that coming back," says Harvard University economist Lawrence Katz. "That was a very unhealthy part of the economy."

After getting laid off in March from his job as operations director at a small hotel, Tim Winters could no longer afford his $1,200 a month apartment. He has been living at family members' homes, an ironic twist for someone who often used to stay for free at hotels when he traveled. "It takes a lot of understanding and time to get used to living with other people again," says Mr. Winters, who started his career in hospitality in 1996. Mr. Winters says he has applied for approximately 170 hotel-management positions and has had 14 interviews, but no job offers yet.

Daryl Jones misses the smiles that would appear on clients' faces after receiving the one-of-a-kind cabinets, bedroom sets and other wood furniture he built by hand while running his home-based business. But sales plummeted in recent years, prompting the third-generation craftsman to take a job building cabinets for corporate jets to make ends meet. Still, Mr. Jones is optimistic that one day he will return to his custom woodworking full time. "Once the economy bounces back and people feel comfortable again spending money, then things will start picking back up."

Jeff Walker, a former auto industry executive, doesn't mind being among the oldest students at Eastern Michigan University. "I'm happier than just being unemployed and looking for a job," he says. In April, Mr. Walker lost his job as a vice president of operations at a small auto equipment supplier in Brighton, Mich., where he had worked for 22 years. Mr. Walker is studying technology management in pursuit of the college degree he started but never finished after high school. Now, he says, he just wants to "get out of manufacturing."

Duane Dittbrenner was laid off last month from his job at Arrow Trucking Co. He has been struggling to find another trucking job in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. "Where I live, most of it is hazmat and tankers," says Mr. Dittbrenner, who has hauled big rigs for the past 20 years throughout the U.S. Mr. Dittbrenner says he is worried he won't be able to pay next month's bills if a new job doesn't come along. "It's just getting out there and pounding the pavement," he says. "I'll have one soon. All you can do is be optimistic."

Debra Allicock migrated to New York from Guyana in 2000 and took a job as a home-health aide, helping the elderly with errands, meals and light housekeeping. She says the relationships she gains are what motivates her to work 12-hour days despite low pay and no medical insurance. "You get to get very close and attached with them," she says of her clients. Ms. Allicock says her services are in high demand. "Why go to a nursing home when you can stay in your home surrounded by everything you love?" she says. "Maybe one day someone is going to return that favor for me."

Richard Hawthorne has been out of work since June 2007, when he was laid off from a small commercial real estate investment firm where he was director of development. "In past downturns I've done well, but this downturn has me stumped," he says. Mr. Hawthorne enjoyed his more than 30 years in commercial real estate. "There was something new and totally unpredictable each and every day to solve," he says. But now, tired of being told he is overqualified for jobs in his field, he is launching a business advising financial institutions on how to eliminate investment property debt.

-- Interviews by Sarah E. Needleman

Unhealthy but a boon for men without a college education. One in three jobs, or six million total, have been lost in the manufacturing sector since 1997, the last year the sector posted job gains. The upsurge in construction jobs accompanying the housing boom provided these workers in manufacturing with an opportunity to earn decent wages.

Now that door, too, has shut. With 1.6 million jobs lost over the last two years, the construction sector has accounted for more than a fifth of the jobs lost since the recession began.

For more highly educated workers, finance may no longer offer as many high-paying jobs as it has in the past. Thomas Philippon, an economist at New York University's Stern School of Business, estimates that the financial sector's share of the economy was nearly 20% larger than it should have been. Since the start of the recession, the financial sector has lost 548,000 jobs, or 6.6% of its work force. Mr. Philippon's estimate suggests there will be further pressure on financial jobs.

In other areas of the labor market, the recession accelerated job losses that were probably coming anyway. In November, there were 36% fewer people working in record shops than two years earlier, according to the Labor Department. There were 23% fewer people working at directory and mailing list publishers, and 46% fewer at photofinishing establishments. Those are jobs that, with the advent of mp3 recordings, Google and digital photography, were likely disappearing anyway.

But as the recession hurt already ailing businesses, workers were forced into a sudden adjustment rather than the gradual one they would have otherwise faced. The recession also provided companies with an opportunity to cut jobs no longer as critical as they once were. That may be particularly true of the secretaries and mailroom clerks that advances in information technology have made less necessary. The ranks of people doing office and administrative work have fallen 10.1% since the recession began.

"Those are the production jobs of the information age, and they're being to a substantial extent automated," says Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist David Autor.

The permanent loss of many jobs may keep the labor market from fully recovering for a long time to come.

Prior to the 1990s, jobs rebounded quickly once recessions ended. Payrolls fell by nearly three million in the deep downturn that extended from July 1981 to November 1982. But by the start of 1983, the economy was creating jobs again, and by the end of 1983, the U.S. job count had exceeded its old peak.

That was because more of the job losses were essentially temporary, with manufacturers and the like letting workers go with the implicit expectation that they would be hiring them back once the worst was over.

But since the early 1990s, jobs have been slower to recover from recession. After the 2001 downturn ended, job losses continued for nearly two years. It wasn't until 2005 that the job count returned to its prerecession high.

Productivity-enhancing technology and competition from low-wage countries like China made more job losses permanent. And it took time for new jobs to be created and for workers to acquire the skills needed to do them. In the wake of a far deeper recession, creating new jobs and retraining workers to do them could take even longer.

It is anyone's guess what those jobs will be. The Labor Department has done little more than extrapolate from recent trends. It expects growth in areas like health care, which has been one of the few bright spots. Given the exigencies of an aging population, that seems a fair bet.

One could also make the case that the U.S. is shifting from a consumer nation to a nation of producers, and that will lead to a resurgence in technology and high-tech manufacturing jobs.

But Harvard's Mr. Katz warns that past experience suggests such conjecture is likely fruitless. "One thing we've learned is that when we attempt to forecast jobs 10 or 15 years out, we don't even get the categories right," he says.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126325594634725459.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories#printMode

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yemeni Sheik Courts, Warns Foreign Governments

Zindani Backs Fight Against al Qaeda, But Tells U.S., Others Not to Send Troops

SAN'A, Yemen -- Yemen's most influential Islamic scholar warned foreign governments against sending troops to his country to battle al Qaeda, but said he would welcome international support to help Yemen stabilize and develop.

Sheik Abdul Majid Al Zindani, who the U.S. and the United Nations accuses of funding and supporting terrorism, has a prominent religious, political and civic role here, making him a key opinion maker in Yemen. Officials need to cultivate religious leaders like Mr. Zindani or risk alienating their sizable flocks as the government steps up its fight against al Qaeda.

Last week, Yemen's deputy prime minister called Mr. Zindani a law-abiding citizen. Other government officials have consulted with him about resurrecting a rehabilitation program for militants.

But he said his support was conditional, as long as U.S. or other foreign combat troops refrain from setting foot on the ground here.

"We accept any [international security] cooperation in a framework of mutual respect and common interest," said Mr. Zindani. "But if someone occupies your country ... a Muslim has a duty to defend" against such invaders, he said.

Yemeni officials have stressed they aren't seeking foreign combat troops. And President Barack Obama on Sunday ruled out sending American soldiers to fight in Yemen.

Underscoring that sensitivity, Mr. Zindani said Monday that Yemen's leading clerics will likely issue a fatwa, or religious ruling, at the end of the week, outlining their views on international cooperation with his government's counterterrorism fight.

While U.S. officials have expressed approval for the Yemeni government's military operations against al Qaeda, they have also shown concern about what they see as the absence of any long-term strategy to root out al Qaeda sympathizers and religious teachings.

Part of their skepticism is aimed at scholars like Mr. Zindani. He heads Al Iman University in San'a, which is known for graduating believers in the fundamentalist Islamic theology practiced in Saudi Arabia. The so-called American Taliban, John Walker Lindh, attended classes there before going to fight in Afghanistan, where he was captured in 2001.

Speaking for an hour in his backyard, Mr. Zindani rejected accusations by the U.S. and the U.N. that he has funded terrorism or supports terrorist acts. He also repeatedly declared that Islam prohibits the killing of innocent people.

However, Mr. Zindani refused to denounce Osama bin Laden, with whom he fought in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. Mr. bin Laden's ancestral home is Yemen, and hundreds of Yemenis have taken up his call to fight against U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mr. Zindani said a court should decide the fate of men like Mr. bin Laden and the American-born cleric Anwar Al Awlaki, who is believed to be in hiding in Yemen. U.S. investigators have linked Mr. Awlaki to both the alleged perpetrator of last year's Fort Hood shooting and the alleged Christmas Day bomber. On a r[eacute]sum[eacute] posted online, Mr. Awlaki has listed Mr. Zindani as a scholar under whom he studied Islamic theology.

"I don't know what is in his heart. I don't know if he is good or bad," Mr. Zindani said about Mr. bin Laden.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126321683002124521.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews#printMode

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Explosives Seized in Baghdad

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi security forces said they thwarted attempted terror attacks Tuesday when they seized a large cache of explosives during cordon-and-search operations in Baghdad, amid heightened tensions in the run-up to crucial March polls.

Iraq's nationwide parliamentary elections will test whether Iraqis can vote in a government capable of overcoming deepening ethnic and sectarian rivalries, or whether those divisions will dissolve into violence that threatens the country's unity and regional stability.

"The security forces were able to arrest 25 men who planned to carry out terrorist attacks in Baghdad this morning," he said.

It was impossible to independently verify the government's claims, which followed hours of lockdowns and searches of neighborhoods across the capital. Such operations have become rare since the height of the insurgency in 2006 and 2007.

An explosives expert said that if the government's claims were true, the amount of military grade explosive seized would have been enough for several car bombs or a large truck bomb. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the press.

Officials have warned that insurgents seeking to disrupt the March 7 vote could try to step up attacks as the election nears. The stakes are especially high for the prime minister's Rule of Law coalition, which is campaigning on its ability to protect citizens.

Iraqi security agencies have been increasingly taking over duties from U.S. forces, whose combat units are scheduled to leave by the end of August and the rest by the end of next year.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told a news conference the raids were prompted by a tip-off.

"We salute the courageous citizen who gave the useful information to the security forces. I cannot reveal his name, but we salute him for contacting us," he said, before apologizing to ordinary Iraqis inconvenienced by the lockdown.

Even without increased security, it can already take hours to negotiate the city's snarled traffic jams -- partly caused by blocked roads and interminable checkpoints.

The capital has been rocked by a number of high-profile bombings in recent months, mostly targeting government institutions in central Baghdad. Hundreds were killed in those bombings.

Analysts expect violence to increase in the run-up to the March polls. One election worker has already been killed and another kidnapped, and on Saturday gunmen wounded an employee of a government committee charged with keeping supporters of the Saddam Hussein regime out of politics.

The committee has recommended banning 14 political parties and one individual from running.

"Members of those entities were personnel of the former regime's repressive security apparatus, or Mukhabarat (secret police) officers, and some of them were collaborators with the former regime," said Ali al-Lami, the head of the committee.

A prominent Sunni politician, Saleh al-Mutlaq, is among those the committee has recommended should be banned. His potential disbarment raised fears that Sunnis might boycott the polls again, as they did in a January 2005 election. That boycott was followed by a surge in insurgent attacks.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126329147691825987.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews#printMode

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suspect in Embassy Bombings Says He Was Denied Speedy Trial

Lawyers for a suspect in the deadly 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa argued in federal court Monday that the case against their client should be dismissed because he was denied the right to a speedy trial.

It was the first major challenge to the government's case against Ahmed Ghailani, who is accused of participating in bombings in Tanzania and Kenya that killed more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. Mr. Ghailani, the first detainee from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to face prosecution in the U.S., has pleaded not guilty. His trial is scheduled for September.

Prosecutors said Monday that Mr. Ghailani, a Tanzanian national, helped load explosives onto a truck used to carry out the attack in Tanzania, one of what have been called al Qaeda's first successful mass-casualty attacks.

Ghailani attorney Peter Quijano argued before Judge Lewis Kaplan in U.S. District Court in New York that the government violated the defendant's right to a speedy trial while he was held at Guantanamo and camps run by the Central Intelligence Agency.

"It took 57 months to indict the man after he was captured," Mr. Quijano said. He called the case "perhaps the most egregious violation of the right to a speedy trial ever."

Michael Farbiarz, an assistant U.S. attorney, argued that the delay was reasonable because the U.S. had a national-security interest in holding Mr. Ghailani. The civilian attorneys who represented the suspect while he was in Guantanamo could have argued for an immediate trial, but didn't, Mr. Farbiarz said. "The demand for a speedy trial has come too late," he said.

Indicted in 1998, Mr. Ghailani was captured in Pakistan in 2004, and detained in secret by the Central Intelligence Agency until being sent to Guantanamo in 2006. While in detention, Mr. Quijano said, Mr. Ghailani was subjected to repeated abuse under questioning, which the attorney called torture. The government has said it wouldn't use evidence obtained through such tactics, the judge noted.

At a 2007 military-tribunal hearing at Guantanamo, Mr. Ghailani denied belonging to al Qaeda, though he said he participated in its military training in Afghanistan and worked with the group preparing travel documents. He also denied scouting the U.S. embassy site in Tanzania or buying a truck used in that bombing.

Four of his alleged co-conspirators have already been tried and convicted in U.S. courts and are serving terms in American prisons.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126322385263024683.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5#printMode

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

U.S. Orders Crackdown on Tribal Crime

Attorney General Eric Holder was to announce the initiative after his deputy, David Ogden, issued a memo to federal prosecutors in those areas instructing them to do more to fight tribal crime -- a problem the Justice Department has long been accused of ignoring.

Mr. Ogden's memo also said 47 new prosecutors and Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel will be assigned to handle such crimes.

On tribal lands, federal officials are usually responsible for prosecuting serious crimes. While the nationwide crime rate continues to fall, statistics show American Indians are the victims of violent crime at more than twice the national rate -- and some tribes have murder rates against women 10 times greater than the national average.

Often, law enforcement on reservations is stretched thin across wide geographic areas.

Still, little is known about what exactly is happening on reservations or how the incidents are handled. Data have been sparse for decades and crime surveys rarely separate out tribal statistics.

Mr. Ogden wrote in the memo that the new demands being placed on prosecutors will help make reservations safer "and turn back the unacceptable tide of domestic and sexual violence there."

The issue of jurisdiction has also long been an obstacle. The Justice Department shares responsibility for Indian crime with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is part of the Interior Department, and with state and tribal governments. Jurisdiction over a crime can vary by state, by the severity of the crime and by whether the victim and suspect are Indian or non-Indian.

While the Bureau of Indian Affairs polices reservations, the Justice Department's role involves investigating and prosecuting crimes that fall under federal jurisdiction and administering grant programs designed to reduce crime on reservations.

Democrats in Congress criticized the Bush administration for not doing more to address the problem and for declining to prosecute many crimes in Indian country. While campaigning on Indian reservations last year during the Democratic primary, Barack Obama promised more protections for tribes, including efforts to improve law enforcement.

Separately, Justice Department officials gathered in Washington to discuss the dangers of stalking nationwide. The most recent figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics found 3.4 million people are stalked every year.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126324400562625153.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5#printMode

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suicide Rate Increases Among Veterans

WASHINGTON—The government said the suicide rate has gone up among 18- to 29-year-old men who have left the military.

According to preliminary data from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the suicide rate for these veterans went up 26% from 2005 to 2007.

It's assumed that most of the veterans in this age group served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The data also showed that while this group of veterans were more likely to kill themselves in 2005 if they were using VA health care, they were less likely to do so two years later.

Last year, the Army saw a record number of suicides.

The VA calculated the numbers using Centers of Disease Control and Prevention numbers from 16 states

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126323064543124873.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5#printMode

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Washington Times

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Military misconduct may be symptom of stress disorder

by Amanda Carpenter

In 2007, a high-ranking Navy doctor sent a sobering warning to colleagues: The service may be discharging soldiers for misconduct when in fact they are merely displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

By doing so, the anonymous doctor noted in a memo to other medical administrators, the service may be denying those troops their rights to Veterans Affairs benefits — including treatment for medical conditions they incurred while serving on the battlefield.

In the future, any military personnel facing dismissal for misconduct after a deployment should be screened first for PTSD, the memo said. The recommendation was never implemented.

High-ranking Navy doctors who oversee medical care for the Marines say such screenings would help avoid sending troops back into society without the ability to get treatment for combat-induced illness from the very government that dispatched them to the battlefield.

"Post-deployment misconduct, especially in a Marine who has previously served honorably, may indicate an unrecognized and unhealed line-of-duty stress injury that deserves expeditious medical evaluation and, when indicated, appropriate treatment," said the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

The Pentagon confirmed the memo's authenticity, but could provide no further information on the author or the names of the recipients. Veterans' mental health issues have come under increasing scrutiny during the years of the war on terrorism. The latest example is Monday's release of a government study showing a dramatic increase in suicides among young veterans.

The PTSD memo also warned, "If adjudication of misconduct charges results in a less-than-honorable discharge, the Marine may lose eligibility for ongoing treatment in the Veterans Administration health care system."

The memo recommended that screening for all troops facing misconduct discharges be implemented by May 1, 2007, but that recommendation was never followed.

"There is not a formal process or directive that I am aware of where [troops discharged for misconduct] must be screened," The Times was told by Frederick "Fritz" Kass, the director of clinical programs for the Marine Corps.

Mr. Kass said the document raises the issue of "service members who are given adverse separation discharges who are at risk of not being eligible for treatment in the VA system."

"It appears it was to make others aware of that as they move forward," he said.

Problems continue

The Pentagon's ability to diagnose and care for its own has come under renewed scrutiny since May 11, when, authorities say, Army Sgt. John Russell killed five fellow soldiers at a stress clinic in Iraq.

Sgt. Russell's father has said his son, who served three tours in Iraq, feared that he was being ousted from the military after being sent to the clinic by a commanding officer with whom he had fought and was told to surrender his gun.

No one knows how many more Sgt. Russells are out there, or how many have been discharged for misconduct, but two sets of statistics hint at the potential scale of the problem.

The Army told The Washington Times that 27,973 troops from that branch alone have been dismissed from service on punitive discharges from October 2002, the start of fiscal 2003 and just before the Iraq war began, to May 2009. Close to half — almost 12,700 — were ousted in fiscal 2003.

A good portion of those who have seen combat duty can be expected to have PTSD. The 2008 Rand Corp. study, which found that one in every five Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffers from PTSD or major depression, also determined that rates of PTSD were highest in the Army and the Marines and that 45 percent of those surveyed said they had seen dead or seriously injured noncombatants.

What's being done

One of the soldiers is Special Operations Command Sgt. Adam Boyle.

Sgt. Boyle was thrown out of the Army because of a "pattern of misconduct," even though he had been diagnosed with PTSD. As a combat veteran who served two tours in Iraq, Sgt. Boyle began experiencing intense pangs of guilt and anger and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at a stress clinic in Iraq.

"I was always in the field before then," he recalled. "I did everything you can imagine from patrols to raids to capturing enemy POWs, interrogations, reconnaissance by fire. Everything you can imagine that put me in harm's way, and I was OK with it."

The bad feelings began to set in after two of his buddies were killed, one of them newly married with a child. "Those deaths haunted me, the idea of their families back home without them," he said.

After his diagnosis, Sgt. Boyle was sent to North Carolina's Fort Bragg, an assignment he resented because he thought he should be fighting the war. At Fort Bragg, he was given heavy antidepressants and sleeping aids that he said caused him to oversleep and miss formation on several occasions, a major transgression in the military.

He wanted to return to Iraq to fight, but the medications barred him from more deployments and he became miserable and agitated. Sgt. Boyle went on to spar with commanding officers who, he said, were unaware of his combat experience. He drank heavily, couldn't control his rage and ended up in trouble with the law.

He reached the tipping point when he experienced a flashback while supervising a session at the firing range at Fort Bragg.

"I was supposed to be keeping an eye on [the soldiers], keep them safe and doing the right thing," Sgt. Boyle recalled. "At one point, I went into a flashback into a firefight, and I was in Iraq. And during that flashback, I zoned out and forgot what I was doing.

"I snapped out of it and realized I missed the whole firing sequence, and it scared the hell out of me. I can't operate as a soldier if I can't concentrate on a firing range like that. That helped me realize I had to get out."

At that point, in consultation with his psychiatrist, Sgt. Boyle began seeking a medical discharge based on his PTSD. But the process was slow; he was allotted only one hour per month with his psychiatrist to plan proceedings and receive counseling for his existing problems.

Some of those problems were documented in a domestic violence complaint filed by a former girlfriend who said Sgt. Boyle assaulted her, although she never brought charges.

"His command has been contacted numerous times by myself and friends trying to get Adam's behavior under control," she said in the complaint. "I would like to see him get serious help and be removed from anyone else he could cause harm to."

Sgt. Boyle became so intoxicated and disorderly during a weekend getaway that police were called. When they attempted to restrain him, he fought back. "I wrestled with the cops," Sgt. Boyle said. "I don't know if it's part of my Iraq issues or not, but I couldn't handle being restrained."

A judge ultimately dismissed the charges, but Sgt. Boyle said that incident was "the straw that broke the camel's back" for the Army, which found his behavior unacceptable.

Even though he was being considered for medical discharge, he was ousted with a general discharge based on misconduct.

"Mr. Boyle demonstrated a repetitive pattern of misconduct in civil jurisdictions," Carol Darby, chief of media and community relations for the Army's Special Operations Command, said about Sgt. Boyle's dismissal. "During that same time frame, he was actively receiving medical attention.

"Nowhere in our four major criteria for PTSD does it allow for breaking the law," she said.

Sgt. Boyle said he was scheduled to receive a general discharge with "other-than-honorable" conditions, but has been fighting to have it changed to "under honorable conditions."

Still, the general discharge isn't as good as an "honorable discharge" or "medical discharge," which would guarantee him access to medical and compensation benefits. He also must repay the Army the $18,500 enlistment bonus he received for signing up for his second tour of duty.

Lawyer Jason Perry has taken on Sgt. Boyle's case pro bono and is working to have the dismissal upgraded to a medical discharge.

Veterans Affairs does provide some counseling services for Sgt. Boyle, but the burden is on him to prove that his injuries were combat-induced. He will be able to access medical care much more easily if Mr. Perry succeeds in having his discharge upgraded.

Ominous prediction

Veterans' advocate and lawyer Carissa Picard has been on a one-woman mission to raise awareness about troops being ousted from service as a result of deployment-induced mental health issues.

"Rather than treating that soldier as if they are treating him [for] a war injury, they treat that soldier with derision," Ms. Picard said.

She got a bad feeling after reading in September 2008 that post-deployment soldier Spc. Jody Michael Wirawan had fatally shot his commanding officer and then turned his gun on himself.

"If we are going to continue to engage in these prolonged military conflicts overseas, then mental health care has to be made a priority," she said in a posting to Bloggernews.com. "It has to be generously funded by Congress and aggressively utilized by the Department of Defense. If we don't, then this won't be the last time you will read a headline like this."

Her grim prediction was borne out eight months later when Sgt. Russell opened fire on fellow soldiers at a stress clinic in Iraq.

When asked what he thought of Sgt. Russell's crimes, Sgt. Boyle said, "I know exactly what's going on. There's been more than a few times I had very unpleasant thoughts dealing with the chain of command.

"Putting myself in that position, dealing with what I was dealing with at Fort Bragg, if I took that scenario and moved it to Iraq, I can't imagine what that situation would be like. That's a scary thought."

Sgt. Boyle added: "Good soldiers shouldn't have to go through that, especially if they are out in Iraq risking their lives and then to expect there's not going to be ramifications. That's like taking a good dog and beating it constantly, and it bites you, and you don't understand why."

Not alone

Bart Stichman, co-executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program, said his office sees "a certain number of cases" in which the military has failed to properly discern between PTSD and misconduct.

"We have clients that fall into that pattern," Mr. Stichman said. "They have PTSD, and they don't get adequate treatment, and when they don't get treatment they act out. They use drugs or alcohol, and the military discharges them for misconduct."

Mr. Stichman added that this presumes that the military perfectly diagnoses PTSD, a disorder that can be difficult to discern. In the meantime, any untreated service member still shows the symptoms, including acting out in ways that can lead to misconduct and other legal charges.

"This is a subset of that, based on a subjective judgment," Mr. Stichman said of his PTSD cases. "You and I could look at a case and say this misconduct is due to a mental disorder, and someone else will say, 'Sure, he had a mental disorder, but his misconduct wasn't due to his mental disorder.'"

What's being done

The government took aggressive action to diagnose and treat veterans suffering from PTSD in 2007 after a flurry of studies, recommendations and reports addressing veterans' care, including the bipartisan commission to investigate Walter Reed Army Medical Center, led by former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala.

On Monday, the Veterans Affairs Department released preliminary data showing that the suicide rate of young veterans, most of whom likely served in Iraq or Afghanistan, has risen by more than one-fourth.

The suicide rate among 18- to 29-year-old men who have left active military duty rose from 44.99 suicides per 100,000 men in 2005 to 56.77 in 2007, based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures taken from 16 states.

The active military is seeing the same problem, with the Army cataloging a record number of suicides last year.

"Why do we know so much about suicides but still know so little about how to prevent them?" VA Secretary Eric Shinseki told a suicide prevention conference Monday in Washington, according to wire service reports. "Simple question, but we continue to be challenged."

Among the many centers that address mental health issues are the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, the Center for Deployment Psychology, the Deployment Health Clinical Center, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, the National Center for Telehealth and Technology, and the National Intrepid Center of Excellence that's scheduled to open later this year.

Yet those centers won't necessarily benefit military personnel like Sgt. Boyle.

"Instead of being honorably retired, he's now an ex-soldier with a general discharge and no guaranteed access to health care or treatment," said his attorney, Mr. Perry.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/12/misconduct-may-be-symptom-of-stress-disorder//print/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beijing reports successful 'defensive' missile test

by Bill Gertz

China conducted a successful test Monday of a missile-defense interceptor, revealing for the first time its development of an anti-missile system, something Beijing has criticized the United States for doing.

The Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency stated in a three-sentence dispatch that the test of "ground-based, midcourse missile interception technology" was carried out "within its territory."

"The test has achieved the expected objective," the report said, noting that it was "defensive in nature and is not targeted at any country." No other details of the test were released.

Rick Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military, said the announcement of the missile-defense test was unusual since China conducts missile tests on a weekly basis but rarely publicizes them.

"The big news here is that they are actually reporting, however brief, on a missile test," Mr. Fisher said. "This appears to be a new trend."

In recent days, Beijing has stepped up rhetoric denouncing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, including Raytheon Co.'s sale of Patriot missile-defense systems.

China's government also has frequently criticized U.S. missile-defense development and, along with Russia, has sought to restrict missile defenses in United Nations forums.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told a U.N. disarmament conference in August that "countries should neither develop missile-defense systems that undermine global strategic stability nor deploy weapons in outer space."

Mr. Fisher, with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said a recent published report by a senior Chinese military officer outlining China's aerospace doctrine made clear that "the air force will be developing a missile-defense mission." The missile-defense program is part of a military unit called Second Artillery Corps.

Mr. Fisher, who has written reports on Chinese missile defenses, said he thinks China will deploy a substantial nationwide missile-defense system by the mid-2020s.

"This will constitute the ultimate irony and face slap given China's very loud and vocal opposition to U.S. missile defenses in late 1990s and early this decade," Mr. Fisher said.

Asked about China's test and its past opposition to U.S. missile defenses, Chinese Embassy spokeswoman Xi Yanchun repeated that "so far, I know that the test is defensive in nature and is not targeted at any country."

Mark Stokes, a former Air Force officer and specialist on the Chinese military, said China has been investing resources for missile-defense technologies and ground-based space surveillance since the late 1980s.

"It's unclear how sophisticated the test was or what was used as a target," said Mr. Stokes, with Project 2049 Institute, a research group.

However, he noted that "there's likely a linkage between China's anti-satellite and missile-defense interceptor programs" because both use similar technology.

Mr. Stokes said China's complaints about U.S. missile-defense sales to Taiwan are dubious considering Beijing's large-scale conventional ballistic missile buildup against Taiwan. More than 1,000 missiles are now deployed near Taiwan.

"If authorities in Beijing find the sale of U.S. missile defenses to Taiwan to be against China's interests, maybe political authorities in Beijing should reduce the missile threat," he said.

In January 2007, China fired a ground-based missile into space and successfully destroyed a weather satellite. This anti-satellite system, which remains couched in secrecy, could be adapted by China for a nationwide anti-ballistic-missile system, Mr. Fisher said.

The Pentagon's latest annual report to Congress on China's military, released last spring, made no mention of Beijing's development of missile defenses, despite providing details on an array of new Chinese weapons, including missiles, submarines, aircraft and cyberwarfare capabilities.

The announcement of the missile-defense test also coincided with a Xinhua report warning that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are harming U.S.-Chinese relations.

The Pentagon announced a $970 million contract to sell Patriot PAC-3 missiles to Taiwan in a Jan. 6 statement. The Xinhua report noted that the contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. was part of an arms package first approved by President Bush's administration in October 2008.

"Profound lessons should be drawn from history," the report said. "All previous U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have caused great damage to the Sino-U.S. relations and blocked their stable and smooth development."

China cut off military relations with the Pentagon after the October 2008 arms package to Taiwan was announced, although Beijing has been gradually resuming military ties.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/12/beijing-reports-successful-missile-test//print/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EDITORIAL

PMOI's place on the terrorist watch list

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hears the case of People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran v. United States Department of State. The State Department says the PMOI is a terrorist organization. The PMOI says the United States is falling for Iranian propaganda.

The PMOI was founded in 1963 as a violent anti-Shah movement. It supported the revolution that brought the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power, who returned the favor by executing the group's leaders. Many members sought refuge in Iraq, and for years Saddam Hussein gave them safe haven to conduct anti-Iranian terror attacks.

The group renounced violence in 2001, and it has not engaged in terrorism since. A U.S. Intelligence Community Terrorist Threat Assessment acknowledged that there "has not been a confirmed terrorist attack by [the PMOI] since the organization surrendered to Coalition forces in 2003."

The PMOI has assisted the United States in Iraq by warning Coalition troops against planned attacks by Iraqi insurgents. The PMOI also has provided critical information on Iran's secret nuclear program, such as the first reports of hidden facilities at Qom and Natanz. These revelations were at first viewed skeptically, given the flawed information that Iraqi emigre groups provided about Saddam Hussein's program to develop weapons of mass destruction. But Frank Pabian, a senior adviser on nuclear nonproliferation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, stated that the PMOI is "right 90 percent of the time."

Removing the PMOI from the list of foreign terrorist organizations is one of the few issues on which both parties in Congress agree. No doubt, the same type of bureaucratic inertia is at work on this matter as that which kept South African President Nelson Mandela on a terrorist watch list until 2008.

The United Kingdom and European Union have removed the group from their terror lists, which has created a disconnect with America's allies that complicates policy-making. The political rationale that put the PMOI on the U.S. terror list also has changed. The Clinton administration tagged the PMOI as terrorists in October 1997 as a means of reaching out to Iran's newly elected moderate leader Mohammad Khatami. Mr. Khatami is now one of the leaders of the reformist Green Movement, and the PMOI's official status as personae non gratae serves the interests of the hardliners.

Tehran uses the PMOI as an all-purpose scapegoat to discredit reformists, never failing to note in its denunciations that the United States calls them terrorists. The regime blamed the PMOI for murdering Neda Soltan, the young woman shot by pro-regime thugs during demonstrations last summer. In December, the Islamic regime claimed the PMOI killed Seyed Ali Mousavi, nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. The mullahs can accuse any liberal reformer with being in league with the "terrorist" PMOI and use the United States terror list as justification for imposing a death sentence. Ironically, America's terror list has become an enabler for Iran's state terrorism.

For the past year, the Obama administration has been trying to reach out to the regime in Tehran and been brusquely rebuffed. It is a good time to send the Islamic regime a new signal. Taking the PMOI off the terror list acknowledges that the group has put violence behind them, creates a credible incentive for other terror groups that might desire to reform their ways, and removes a tool from the hands of a theocratic regime bent on terrorizing its own people.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/12/pmois-place-on-the-terrorist-watch-list//print/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Customs and Border Protection

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Buffalo CBP Officers Arrest Fugitive Wanted for Unlawful Sexual Activity with Minor

January 8, 2010

Buffalo, N.Y. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection Field Operations announced the apprehension of a United States citizen wanted in the state of Florida for unlawful sexual activity with a minor.

On January 7, CBP officers encountered Ramon Ventura, a 45-year-old United States citizen from Land O’Lakes, Fla., as he applied for admission into the United States as a passenger in a taxi cab at the Peace Bridge border crossing in Buffalo, N.Y. Mr. Ventura had applied for entry into Canada on the same day and was being refused admission because of prior criminal convictions in the United States.

Record checks by Canadian authorities also revealed the possibility of an active warrant in the United States. Mr. Ventura was escorted by CBP officers to a secondary inspection area for further questioning and inspection.

Additional name and electronic fingerprint queries of Ventura by CBP officers verified that he was in fact the subject of an active nation-wide no bond warrant issued December 30, 2009 by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office in Land ‘O Lakes, Fla. The warrant charges Mr. Ventura with unlawful sexual activity with a minor.

Mr. Ventura stated to CBP officers that he left Florida on or about December 30, 2009 and traveled to New York City, staying with family. He then traveled by bus from New York City to the U.S.-Canadian border to allegedly visit additional family in Toronto. The subject claimed he was not fleeing the United States in an attempt to avoid prosecution, however, CBP officers discovered various personal items not generally carried by tourists, to include bank statements and more than $13,000 in US currency, which he failed to report upon his intended departure.

CBP officers verified the validity of the warrant and confirmed extradition. Mr. Ventura was arrested and turned over to the custody of the Buffalo Police Department pending extradition to Florida. As Mr. Ventura’s failure to report the exportation of currency over $10,000 is a violation of U.S. law, CBP officers seized the $13,000.

“The subject was arrested approximately one week after the issuance of the warrant. This arrest demonstrates CBP’s close working relationship with our Canadian counterparts and state and local law enforcement departments throughout the United States,” said James T. Engleman, CBP director of Field Operations for the Buffalo Field Office.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/01082010_3.xml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Border Patrol Tracks Smugglers, Seizes More than 200 Pounds of Marijuana

Bundles of marijuana are seized by Border Patrol agents.

January 8, 2010

Del Rio, Texas – U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the Del Rio Station seized more than 200 pounds of marijuana early Thursday.

Agents working west of Del Rio discovered foot sign leading away from the Rio Grande River. A tracking K-9 followed the prints and led agents to four Mexican nationals hiding in the brush with large bundles of marijuana near Ridgeline Road.

The four bundles contained a total of 132 individually wrapped packages weighing 279 pounds with an estimated street value of more than $220,000.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/01082010_6.xml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Douglas CBP Officers Stop 60-Year-Old Woman with 100 Pounds of Marijuana

January 10, 2010

Douglas, Ariz. — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers stopped a drug smuggling attempt when they seized more than 100 pounds of marijuana from a 60-year-old woman.

On January 9 at about 6 p.m. CBP officers at the Douglas port of entry were screening travelers and vehicles when they came in contact with a 60-year-old woman driving a 1989 GMC Jimmy. The woman was identified as a Mexican national and resident of Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico. The CBP officers became suspicious of the woman and selected her for further inspection.

The vehicle was searched and discovered that the quarter panels of the vehicle she was driving were loaded with packages of marijuana. The total weight of marijuana was a little more than 100 pounds with an estimated street value of $162,000.

CBP officers seized the vehicle and marijuana. The woman was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for further investigation.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/01102010.xml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CBP Pilot, Agents Thwart Smuggling Attempt at Texas Riverfront

January 7, 2010

Rio Grande City, Texas — A Customs and Border Protection helicopter yesterday led Border Patrol agents to 1,100 pounds of marijuana valued at $880,000. The marijuana apparently was being smuggled by boat to a waiting pickup when spotted near Rio Grande City, Texas.

A CBP helicopter oversees the area where an apparent marijuana smuggling attempt was thwarted.

As the pilot observed several people loading bundles into a vehicle, the subjects fled the area for Mexico. The pilot informed Rio Grande City Border Patrol agents of the location of the vehicle and its contents.

Agents went to the location and discovered a 1999 Chevy pickup with 63 bundles of marijuana weighing a total of 1,100 pounds. Agents searched the area for the individuals and any additional narcotics, but had negative results.

The marijuana, with a street value of $880,000, was turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

To report suspicious activity, contact the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector’s toll free telephone number at 800-863-9382.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/01072010.xml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Department of Justice

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli Speaks at Stalking Awareness Town Hall

Washington, D.C. ~ Monday, January 11, 2010

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. I am Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli and I want to welcome you today as we commemorate National Stalking Awareness Month. As part of my job, I oversee our grant making programs for state, local and tribal law enforcement. That includes the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), which administers critical funding to advocates, victim service providers and law enforcement agencies across the country. I am honored to stand here to shine a spotlight on the critical issue of violence against women. This is an issue I personally care deeply about, and it is one of the many areas where I believe that we can make a real and significant difference.

I know that I am looking out at an audience of people who have been and are personally and professionally affected by stalking. You are the law enforcement officers, the prosecutors, the judges and the service providers who see the effects of stalking every day, who struggle to help victims and to take action to put an end to stalking and to the dangerous cycle of violence to which stalking behavior so often leads. I also know that we have several survivors of stalking with us today – some of whom you will hear from. To you, I want to extend my heartfelt appreciation – for being here today to share your stories and to help us all learn how to communicate better and faster, so that we can help put an end to this crime.

This year marks the 15 year anniversary of President Clinton signing the Violence Against Women Act – or VAWA – into law. We at the Department have planned a year’s worth of activities meant to raise public awareness, to make sure that survivors everywhere know that they have a place – and a voice – in this administration, and to build toward a future where domestic abuse, sexual assault, stalking and teen dating violence are eradicated.

In fact, our special guest and moderator, Paula Zahn, is one of several public figures who have "Joined the List," a growing list of more than 100 celebrities, musicians, athletes and television personalities who are standing with the Department to end violence against women.

This year cannot just be an anniversary – it must be a call to action, and that is how we at the Department of Justice are viewing it.

We will mark this year with our renewed dedication. We want to use this year not merely to commemorate an anniversary, but to recommit ourselves to ending violence against women.

Our government and this Department have a responsibility to speak out and act on issues of violence against women. This administration has committed itself to thinking outside the box – to bringing in new ideas, and new coalitions, to bring about change. Far too many communities in the United States and around the world are affected by this issue. It must stop – and we must not be afraid to make changes in our own criminal justice system. We are committed to this cause and will work with federal, state, local and tribal partners to ensure that all communities – particularly those that have been chronically neglected – are given the resources and support they need.

We must recognize the changing nature of these crimes and develop new strategies for addressing them. This is particularly important with stalking, in which the use of technology by stalkers has become a common practice. We in law enforcement and our partners in the judiciary need to adapt in order to stop those who stalk and provide help to victims of stalking.

According to information provided by the National Stalking Resource Center, among the most common stalking behaviors that victims experience are unwanted phone calls and messages (66 percent) and unwanted e-mails and letters (31 percent). More than one in four victims report that stalkers have used technology, such as e-mail or instant messaging, to follow and harass them, and one in 13 says stalkers use electronic devices to intrude on their lives.

This was not an issue ten year ago – but it’s an issue today, and it’s an issue we need to learn to deal with right now. And ultimately, that’s what we’re hoping to accomplish today. We want to hear from you what is working, and what isn’t. What are the new trends that we need to be aware of, and how can we help victims protect themselves and get the help and advocacy they deserve.

While we recognize the 15 year anniversary of the signing of VAWA, the Department is also noting the 15 year anniversary of the creation of our Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). I know that we have many OVW partners and grantees in the audience today. Without a doubt, VAWA never would have happened, from creation to passage, without the steadfast commitment and work of the countless advocates, coalitions and community partners who advocated tirelessly for federal legislation to mark the importance of this issue and to back it up with vital resources. Many of you are here, and I applaud you for your work then and now to keep the momentum going.

Catherine Pierce is no stranger to you. And to those of you in the field, I don’t have to tell you what an extraordinary job she has done to address violence against women in all its forms. We are so fortunate to have her in the Department, leading OVW, providing boundless energy to the Department's effort to end the violence, and bringing together the best minds and the greatest available resources for victims’ services. She has challenged me to do better, and I continue to learn from her every day. I am proud to introduce Catherine Pierce, Acting Director of the Office on Violence Against Women.

http://www.justice.gov/asg/speeches/2010/asg-speech-100111.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Automobile Fraud and Unsafe Vehicles: How the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System Can Help You Protect Yourself

January 6th, 2010

Posted by Tracy Russo

This post appears courtesy of the Office of Justice Programs. Consumers can access vehicle information on www.vehiclehistory.gov.

Automobile theft and fraud negatively impacts public safety and often results in tremendous financial loss to the public. In addition, car fraud can place unsuspecting consumers in unsafe vehicles.

In 1996, Congress passed legislation to address these crimes and provide consumer protection. The new law created the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS), an electronic system designed to protect consumers from fraud and unsafe vehicles and to keep stolen vehicles from being resold. This system also assists states and law enforcement in deterring, investigating, and preventing title fraud and other crimes.

The Justice Department has a strong interest in ensuring consumer safety and protection from these crimes. Since 1996, the Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), in partnership with the FBI, has been responsible for the oversight and implementation of this vehicle information system and has invested $22 million in the system to ensure key vehicle information history is available, accessible, and affordable to consumers.

Consumers can access critical nationwide total loss and salvage vehicle information on vehicles by visiting www.vehiclehistory.gov. NMVTIS is the only publicly available system in the U.S. to which all insurance carriers, and auto recyclers, such as junk yards and salvage yards, are required, under federal law, to report to on a regular basis.

The Justice Department’s consumer fraud prevention goals are reflected in the purpose and function of NMVTIS, including: preventing stolen vehicles from being resold; protecting consumers from fraud; reducing the use of stolen vehicles for criminal purposes; and providing consumer protection from unsafe vehicles.

The entire system has produced remarkable results in decreasing the number of cars stolen; improving recovery rate of stolen vehicles, increasing the ability to identify cloned vehicles prior to title issuance, increasing time and cost savings for state motor vehicle titling agencies, reducing consumer wait time at the DMV, and improving theft and fraud investigative abilities for law enforcement. For example, Virginia is seeing a 17 percent decrease in motor vehicle thefts and Arizona has a 99 percent recovery rate on stolen vehicles.

The Act required all states to be fully compliant by January 1 of this year, and states unable to comply with all the requirements by that date have been strongly encouraged to submit a NMVTIS implementation plan to the Department.

We will continue to work closely with states, law enforcement, and industry stakeholders to maximize the consumer fraud prevention benefits of the system.

To learn more about these efforts, please visit www.vehiclehistory.gov.

http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/504

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Moments That Can Last a Lifetime

January 5th, 2010

Posted by Tracy Russo

This post appears courtesy of Jeff Slowikowski, Acting Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

The New Year is traditionally a time to make new commitments, or perhaps renew old ones we’ve let slide. January is National Mentoring Month – the perfect opportunity to consider what we could do to change a child’s life.

When faced with a problem, too often people think, “I am just one person, what can I possibly do?”

The truth is an individual can do quite a lot, especially when focused on solutions that work.

Take, for instance, the problem of juvenile delinquency. Every day we learn more about the myriad of factors that can make the promise of a bright future unfulfilled.

One thing that the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has learned over the past three decades in our work to prevent truancy, drug use, and delinquency from robbing our youth of their future is that people—not programs—make the biggest difference in changing lives.

In Fiscal Year 2009, OJJDP awarded more than $177 million in Recovery Act and other funding to support mentoring initiatives that promote positive outcomes for at-risk youth, reduce delinquency, and expand mentoring to reach underserved youth, foster children, tribal communities, and juvenile offenders reentering their communities, and related research, training, and technical assistance.

By showing interest and commitment and simply caring about children through personal involvement, mentors have made a real difference in the lives of many youth – a significant difference from a relatively small investment of something more precious than dollars: time. A few hours sacrificed from our own lives for the sake of others.

As President Obama states, in proclaiming January 2010 National Mentoring Month, when mentors spend time with young children, “…these moments can have an enormous, lasting effect on a child’s life.”

Apathy can be deadly to a child’s future—and a nation’s. We are each just one person, but so many times one person is what it takes.

So this New Year, consider dedicating your time to mentoring a child, and consider making that lasting impact on someone’s life.

http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/497

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From ICE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Border Enforcement Security Task Force on the front lines in fighting crime

They are omnipresent. They are at the nation's northern land borders, southern land borders and posted at strategic seaports. Yet their success hinges on their ability to keep their identities hidden and their actions undetected. They are the Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST) agents who work surreptitiously to identify, disrupt and dismantle dangerous transnational criminals who threaten the United States, Mexico and the world.

In 2005, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Laredo, Texas, laid the ground work for the BEST initiative under Operation Black Jack. This investigation "was molded into an international investigative task force to respond to evolving violence affecting the Laredo/Nuevo Laredo communities. As a direct result of the task force's efforts, along with collaboration with the government of Mexico, the seizures of caches of grenades, assault weapons, bulk cash and related arrests, helped ensure violence did not spill over the border and assisted the government of Mexico to address the escalating violence perpetrated by the cartels," said ICE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Operations, Al Peña.

A year after Operation Black Jack, the department formalized the program to combat the border violence caused by drug cartels known for their flexibility, wealth, organization, intelligence and ruthlessness. Besides ICE, the BEST teams incorporate personnel from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other key federal, state, local and foreign law enforcement agencies. These multi-agency task forces collaborate and share information to fulfill the overarching goal: to interrupt the flow of cash, weapons and ammunition that fuel the illicit trade of the drug cartels.

Working on covert operations dubbed in catch phrases such as Gateway Hotel, Shadow Catcher, Frontera 53 and Redemption Song, BEST teams are tenacious and relentless in their pursuit of criminals involved in drug trafficking, money laundering, gang activity, arms trafficking and human smuggling.

On the front lines, BEST agents are up close and personal witnesses to the predatory tactics of organized crime. They have often freed victims of human smuggling and trafficking who fear for their lives and those of their families.

ICE recently expanded the BEST program and welcomed neighboring nations who lend support and participation in the mutual effort to protect the peace of our countries' communities. ICE now has 17 BEST teams, with three teams at the U.S.-Canadian border and a team in Mexico. Argentinean customs officers stationed at the Miami seaport BEST and Colombian National Police officers at the Miami and New York-New Jersey seaport BESTs are strengthening investigative partnerships in those locations.

BEST will continue to focus on all aspects of the enforcement process, from interdiction to prosecution and removal. The BEST unified effort will eventually topple the leadership and crumble the supporting infrastructure of the criminal organizations responsible for perpetrating violence and illegal activity along our borders and in the nation's interior.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1001/100108washingtondc.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the FBI

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TWO SISTERS RESCUED

Through a Unique Set of Clues

01/12/10

The pornographic images spotted online by Canadian authorities in 2007 were new—and they were disturbing. They showed a young girl, perhaps only 6 years old, being sexually abused by an adult male.

But the images also contained clues to the girl’s identity—a beer can and a distinctive pair of eyeglasses. Ultimately, those clues helped a dedicated team of investigators rescue the girl, along with her 4-year-old sister, and send their abusers to prison for a very long time.

Here’s what happened:

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police first noticed the pictures online and compiled them for other law enforcement agencies. Members of the Toronto Police Services analyzing the images discovered a blurry beer can in the background of one picture and, after identifying the brand, learned that it was only manufactured in a handful of states in the northeastern United States. This information was shared with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

Independent of their Canadian colleagues, officers of the Belfast Police Department in Maine and later the Maine State Police were also studying the images and discovered that the victim had distinctive eyeglasses. This detail was also relayed to NCMEC, and a cooperative effort began among the various law enforcement agencies involved.

As the investigation continued, the eyeglasses were identified by manufacturer and model number, and the beer manufacturer said that the can in question was only distributed in six states, including New York and Maryland.

On August 1, 2008, a special agent from our New York office with our Innocent Images National Initiative program opened a case and began canvassing ophthalmologists in the six-state area to see who sold that brand of eyeglasses. Three weeks later, that painstaking investigative work paid off when a Maryland doctor recognized a picture of the victim.

At this point, events in the case accelerated.

On Monday, August 25, 2008, the Maryland doctor called FBI Agent Michael Sabric in New York to say that not only was the victim his patient, but she had come into his office that very morning—the first day of school—to replace a pair of broken glasses.

Sabric immediately contacted our Baltimore office cyber squad, which handles child pornography cases as part of our Innocent Images program.

A surveillance team was mobilized within hours, and when the girl got home from first grade that afternoon, investigators positively identified her as the online victim.

Around 9 o’clock that night, Special Agent Rachel Corn—a member of the Baltimore cyber squad—had secured a search warrant for the victim’s home. By 10 p.m., a forensic child interviewer, victim assistance representatives, and members of the cyber squad and evidence response team were knocking on the front door of the house.

Soon, the girl identified her two abusers. Forensic evidence later revealed her younger sister had also been abused.
In October, one of the men involved was sentenced to 45 years in prison for sexually exploiting a minor and producing child pornography. His accomplice had already received a 36-year sentence.

“This is the outcome you always hope for,” Agent Corn said. “Rescue the victims and put the abusers away.”

Agent Sabric added that this case “is a great example of local, state, and federal authorities working together toward a common goal. Every piece of information along the way was critical to solving the case.”

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/jan10/rescued_011210.html

.