Russian secrets for sale, no questions asked

At Moscow's Savyolovsky Market, anyone can buy discs filled with information hacked or leaked from government databases. Reporters or hit men, it really doesn't matter.

By Megan K. Stack

March 17, 2010

Reporting from Moscow

They are selling secrets along the shining corridors of the Savyolovsky Market: Unlisted numbers. Tax returns. Customs declarations. Wanted lists. Police reports. Car registrations. Business permits.

Wrenched from the bowels of government by the forces of runaway capitalism and corruption, the hush-hush databases have made their way to this market in central Moscow where the windows of tiny shops glitter with cellphones, pirated DVDs and porn.

Compressed on discs, frozen in Cyrillic letters, is a trove of petty squabbles and personal tragedies that make up the fabric of this vast and often lawless land.

In a country where you have no right to know, but really you can know anything, anybody can anonymously buy discs burned with private information such as rape victimization, financial holdings and the suspicion of CIA involvement. Asking price (it's negotiable): $40 to $60.

Nobody asks whether the buyer is looking for a competitive edge, an address to plan a hit, research for a newspaper article. The sale of these databases is illegal, sure, but nobody seems to care. A few beat cops browse lazily among the stalls, studying cellphones.

" Krysha ," a vendor with matted dreadlocks and bloodshot eyes says slyly, stretching a flat hand over his head. "Roof" -- the word Russians use to denote protection.

The roof is the person who has enough connections, and enough muscle, to shelter underlings from the authorities. When Russians talk about operating in Moscow -- opening a business, or even working as a journalist -- they will, almost inevitably, say the same thing: What you need is a roof.

"It's cool, right?" the vendor prods, jabbing a cigarette at the wall displays advertising available databases. "It's cool."

A reporter settles on two discs: one purporting to contain all police reports in Russia throughout 2009, the other an amalgamation of cellphone numbers, addresses and professions. Both are packed with data technically off-limits to the public.

"They get leaked, or else somebody hacks into official databases," says another vendor, a swarthy young man who gives his name only as Alexander. "It's not legal."

The buyers might be concerned that a used car they're looking to buy was stolen, or maybe they're trying to track a license plate or find long-lost relatives or friends. Or, Alexander adds ominously, they are "people conducting their own investigations."

A browse through the database of phone directories turns up full names, addresses and telephone contacts for employees of the FSB, the secretive intelligence service that is a successor to the KGB.

Other bits of information come to light: A Russian colleague discovers that his name and his father's were found among the papers of a woman who was slain.

Anybody interested in calling on the 49-year-old longtime FSB agent whose job is described as "creation of favorable psychological climate in the collective . . . organization of video control and control of access" need only fish his address from the database. For the less formal, a telephone number and e-mail address are also provided.

If sympathies run in the other direction, you might phone the woman whose name was found in the notebook of a suspected CIA agent.

The police records offer a window on a compulsively secretive world. Crimes committed by police officers on a single September day included rape, hooliganism, embezzlement, bribe-taking and false testimony. "Suicide of an arrested person" also appeared in this category.

And on that same day in Novosibirsk, a traffic police captain hanged himself in his shed. "The motives are being established," the report says helpfully.

A few keystrokes dredge up the names, addresses and telephone numbers of crime victims. There's the 20-year-old woman who was dragged into a yard and raped from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. on an August night by four unknown young men.

And, too, the director of a fruit company who was robbed of the $52,000 he was carrying in a briefcase.

A summary of street demonstrations carried out across Moscow on an April day included an account of 15 citizens who gathered on Arabat Street. They carried a dummy dressed in a blue tracksuit that was emblazoned with the name of the Chechen president, Ramzan Kadyrov.

The purpose of the demonstration, the anonymous police loggers dutifully typed up, was "to establish support for Ramzan Kadyrov." Did they really believe the demonstration was a gesture of solidarity for the feared leader? Were they snickering as they typed?

With straight faces, they logged the slogans, which appear to have been dripping with sarcasm: "Kadyry, decide everything!" (an allusion to Stalin's famous "Cadres decide everything.") "Academician Kadyrov will resurrect Russian science!" "Putin today, Kadyrov tomorrow!"

"No violations of public order resulted," the report concluded dryly.

Meanwhile, across the city, a lone veteran picketed the Defense Ministry. And near a monument to the Orthodox St. Kiril, eight young men passed out a neo-Nazi newspaper and chanted, "Russia is a Russian land."

Here, too, the faceless recorders kept their sense of humor. The neo-Nazis, they noted, were trying to "attract public attention to the social, political and ecological situation in the Russian Federation."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/more/la-fg-secrets-for-sale17-2010mar17,0,1670609,print.story

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Pakistan indicts 5 Americans on terror charges

The young men from Virginia, arrested in December, deny the charges and claim they were tortured in custody, a lawyer says.

By Alex Rodriguez

5:56 AM PDT, March 17, 2010

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan

A Pakistani court Wednesday indicted five young Americans from the Washington, D.C., area on charges of plotting terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

The men have been held in the eastern city of Sargodha since their arrests in December. If convicted, they could be sentenced to life in prison.

The five men, ages 18 to 24, are U.S. citizens of Pakistani, African and Egyptian descent. They lived within blocks of each other in Alexandria, Va.

Police say the men left their homes in late November and flew to Pakistan with the hope of waging jihad, or holy war, against American forces in Afghanistan. Khalid Khawaja, one of the lawyers representing the men, said they were also charged with plotting attacks in Afghanistan, and with funding banned Pakistani extremist organizations.

Khawaja said the men deny the charges and allege that police beat them and tortured them with electric shocks while they were in custody. Efforts to reach Sargodha authorities late Wednesday afternoon were unsuccessful.

Khawaja said authorities claim that they have taped confessions from the men, as well as maps detailing potential targets for terrorist attacks, including an air force base in western Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province.

Their case was continued to March 31, when prosecutors will begin presenting evidence against the men.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-americans-indicted18-2010mar18,0,7939148,print.story

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Consular slayings spotlight Mexico's failures in fighting drug gangs

On a visit to Ciudad Juarez in the wake of the killings of an American couple and a Mexican, President Calderon is confronted by angry demonstrations and a tense, frustrated citizenry.

By Tracy Wilkinson

5:47 PM PDT, March 16, 2010

Reporting from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

The slayings of three people attached to the U.S. Consulate here underscore the failings of Mexico's military offensive against drug gangs despite a steady flow of troop reinforcements and personal attention from President Felipe Calderon.

Calderon came to Ciudad Juarez on Tuesday for the third time in 33 days. The trip had been previously scheduled, but its agenda was overtaken by the consulate slayings -- the American couple and Mexican man are just three of the 500 people killed in the city this year alone.

The president encountered angry demonstrations, as on his previous visits, and a citizenry that is tense, frustrated and increasingly hopeless.

"We Are Fed Up, Mr. President," read the banner headline in Ciudad Juarez's leading newspaper, El Diario.

"More than fed up!" said Irene Bota, a shopkeeper and lifetime resident of this city across the border from El Paso. "You should have seen what Juarez used to be like. Artists, celebrities, soldiers from Ft. Bliss [in El Paso] all came to pass time and enjoy themselves. Now no one dares even go outside."

Ciudad Juarez today is the epicenter of unrestrained drug-war violence, with the highest homicide and kidnapping rates in the country and one of the broadest penetrations of drug-trafficking corruption.

Coroners are overwhelmed by the number of dead. Houses sit vacant, a quarter of the city's population, by official estimate, having fled in the last two years. Thousands of businesses have shuttered rather than pay steep extortion fees to gangs.

Calderon has poured nearly 10,000 army and police troops into the city. But far from restoring security, the killings have only soared. Killers act with impunity and, if it turns out the Americans were targeted because of who they were, with newfound brazenness.

In his trip to Ciudad Juarez on Feb. 11, Calderon was forced to publicly recognize that the offensive launched when he took office in December 2006 was "not working." Military campaigns had to be supplemented with social programs to attack poverty and promote education, he said in a remarkable moment of self-criticism. But residents complain that the words have not translated into concrete actions.

He was pushed to act by the Jan. 31 massacre in Ciudad Juarez of at least 15 mostly young people at a party and by an unusually forceful surge in demands from the public for change.

The attacks Saturday on U.S. diplomatic personnel and their families -- and the swift, harsh voice of outrage from the Obama administration -- ratcheted up the pressure on Calderon and embarrassed his government.

Canada on Tuesday seconded Washington's warning to citizens against unnecessary travel to parts of Mexico.

Calderon will be pressed to capture suspects to show that his government still has the upper hand. There also will be questions north of the border about the United States' cooperation with Mexico's fight against traffickers.

Washington has pledged $1.3 billion to Mexico to beef up police and the judiciary, but only a fraction of the money has been released.

Mexican politicians were quick to lament the consulate deaths but added that the U.S. must share responsibility because its gun dealers supply the weapons and its addicts keep the traffickers in business.

The bodies of Lesley Enriquez, a consular official, and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, were returned Tuesday to family in El Paso. Mexican authorities have blamed the killings on the Aztecs drug gang.

Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said Redelfs' work as an officer in the El Paso prison system, where numerous Aztecs gang members are held, might have had a role in the killings.

Reyes echoed U.S. officials in pledging to capture the culprits quickly, despite the fact that few crimes are ever solved in Mexico.

As Calderon met behind closed doors with security officials here, a small demonstration was taking place outside a funeral home. Relatives of some of the 28 other people killed over the weekend were protesting what they described as the government's negligence and indifference.

"The curious thing about this [consulate] case is that with one huge slap from [President] Obama, the entire Mexican state seems to have awakened and become determined to make the criminals pay," commentator Ricardo Aleman noted. "Never mind that those same criminals have killed thousands of young Mexicans, to whose families no authority ever promised justice."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/more/la-fg-mexico-juarez17-2010mar17,0,5448779,print.story

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$75 million in drugs stolen from Connecticut warehouse

The East Coast distribution center for Eli Lilly stored Prozac, Cymbalta and Zyprexa. Thieves scaled the warehouse's walls and loaded dozens of pallets onto a truck, police say.

By Christine Dempsey and Shawn Beals

5:27 PM PDT, March 16, 2010

Reporting from Enfield, Conn.

In what officials described Tuesday as a "sophisticated, well-planned" heist, thieves scaled the walls of an Eli Lilly warehouse, cut a hole in the roof, slid down ropes and loaded dozens of pallets holding $75 million worth of prescription drugs onto at least one truck.

The thieves also disabled the alarm system at the 70,000-square-foot warehouse, one of three distribution centers in the nation for the international pharmaceutical firm. The robbery took place sometime early Sunday but was not discovered until later in the day, when an employee showed up for work, authorities said.

"It certainly has the appearance of a sophisticated, well-planned criminal action," said Edward Sagebiel, a spokesman for Eli Lilly & Co. "We are conducting a full investigation and working with authorities . . . with the intention of recovering the products."

Enfield Police Chief Carl Sferrazza described the heist as "extremely substantial" and said enough drugs were taken to fill at least one tractor trailer. "I can tell you it was many, many pallets," he said. "They might have spent at least a couple of hours unloading all these drugs."

Sferrazza expected the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration to join the investigation. "This will turn out to be, unfortunately, the largest theft that our town has ever experienced," he said.

Sagebiel said drugs including Prozac, Cymbalta and Zyprexa were stored at the facility, but he said he could not say which drugs were taken.

No arrests have been made.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-drug-theft17-2010mar17,0,6715933,print.story

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Father of missing woman files claim against L.A. County

The father of a woman missing for six months since being released from the sheriff's station in Calabasas filed a claim for damages Tuesday against Los Angeles County, alleging that deputies were negligent in their care of her.

Michael Richardson's claim alleges that deputies “failed to respond reasonably to a suspect who exhibited signs of mental illness.” The document is similar to one filed two months ago by Latice Sutton, the mother of 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson.

The night Mitrice Richardson was arrested at a Malibu restaurant for not paying her bill, patrons and staffers at Geoffrey's described her actions as bizarre. Since her disappearance, police detectives discovered evidence that she was suffering from severe bipolar disorder.

“This is just a drastic step we have to take,” Michael Richardson said Tuesday outside the Hahn Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles.

”His only goal is to find Mitrice Richardson," said his attorney, Benjamin Schonbrun, who later characterized the claim as an “attempt to hold accountable those that released a mentally imbalanced young woman into the darkness of night without so much as a mental evaluation.”

Officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department have maintained that they released Richardson in a timely manner at 12:30 a.m. on Sept. 17, 2009. They said they told her she could stay at the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff's station as long as she needed.

Her car -- which contained her cellphone and purse -- had been impounded upon her arrest.

But on Tuesday, Richardson lashed out at law enforcement officials and local politicians for not working hard enough to find his daughter. He said county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas had not returned his phone calls for the last month, and he criticized U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) for not doing enough.

Both public officials represent the district where Richardson was living before she vanished.

“All the people who didn't respond to me -- it's voting time,” Richardson declared.

Waters did make a formal request for the FBI to get involved, and last fall Ridley-Thomas directed the sheriff's department to review events surrounding Mitrice Richardson's release from jail, as well as their general procedures for custody release.

Ridley-Thomas also prompted the Board of Supervisors to issue and extend a reward for information leading to her whereabouts. Authorities have conducted four searches of Malibu Canyon, and two LAPD detectives were assigned to the case full time up until several weeks ago.

But both Richardson and Sutton said Tuesday they believe authorities were not pursuing the search aggressively.

“They haven't been returning phone calls. They just dropped this,” Sutton said. “We've been trying to get drones out to search Malibu Canyon.”

Sutton said she was still waiting for the sheriff's department to approve a remote-controlled aircraft search of Malibu Canyon for signs of her daughter.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/03/father-of-missing-woman-files-claim-against-la-county.html#more

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Veteran sues federal government for removing upside-down flag

A civil rights group filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Veterans Administration, claiming the free speech rights of a 67-year-old Army veteran were violated when a U.S. flag he hung upside down was confiscated.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed the federal suit on behalf of Robert Rosebrock, one of a group of veterans who protested the VA's land-use policies every Sunday for the last two years outside its West Los Angeles complex.

After protesting for more than a year with the U.S. flag hanging right side up on a fence outside the property, Rosebrock hung it upside down last June as a distress signal to bring attention to the group's cause, according to a statement released Tuesday.

Rosebrock was cited six times for “unauthorized demonstration or service in a national cemetery or on other VA property," according to the ACLU.

An associate director for the Veterans Administration e-mailed Rosebrock to say that he and other demonstrators “may not attach the American flag, upside down, in VA property including our perimeter gates,” the ACLU said.

The ACLU contends the government has no right to selectively enforce the display of the flag.

“The government cannot say it's OK to hang the flag one way but not another just because the latter expresses a message that the government does not approve of,” ACLU attorney Peter Eliasberg said in the statement.

The Veterans Administration did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Rosebrock and other veterans have held their protests in a part of the complex that the Veterans Administration plans to lease as a park. But protesters argue that the space should be used for the benefit and care of veterans.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/03/veteran-sues-administration-for-removing-upsidedown-flag.html#more

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O.C. jails begin checking immigration status of all inmates

All inmates booked into Orange County jails will have their immigration status checked through fingerprint identification starting Tuesday, authorities said.

Orange County joins 11 other California counties -- including Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura -- that started the process of checking the status of all inmates as part of a national program to identify and deport undocumented immigrants who land in jail.

Under the Secure Communities initiative, which was developed by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, inmates' fingerprints will be compared against a database that will simultaneously check FBI criminal history and immigration records maintained by DHS, authorities said.

Previously, specially-trained deputies screened inmates upon arrival in jail. Those who were foreign born were checked further for immigration status.

Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens is also negotiating with DHS to house hundreds of immigration detainees in county jails to help supplement a massive budget shortfall.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/03/orange-county-jails-begin-checking-immigration-status-of-all-inmates.html#more

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OPINION

A spiritual journey into L.A.'s gang culture

'Tattoos on the Heart' by Father Greg Boyle is destined to become a classic of both urban reportage and contemporary spirituality.

by Tim Rutten

March 17, 2010

In my business, there are few sounds more ominous than that of a good friend's book landing on your desk. When that friend isn't a professional writer, the desire to run can be almost irresistible: "Your book? No, I never saw it. You know I've been in Costa Rica. Beautiful place, but I lost my sight to a rare tropical parasite."

Father Greg Boyle, the Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries -- Los Angeles' most successful effort to fruitfully engage young men and women caught up in the gang life -- has been my friend for more than two decades. We go back to the days when he was the freshly minted young pastor at Dolores Mission, the poor East L.A. parish that the Jesuits have helped residents of the adjacent housing projects turn into a vibrant center of community organizing built on the principles of liberation theology. Greg found his particular calling working with the area's many gang members. Homeboy Industries, which he now directs, is the miraculous result.

Even so, I sat down with his first book, "Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion," with a friend's trepidation. I got up glowing with the exhilaration that contact with first-rate literature confers. "Tattoos on the Heart" is destined to become a classic of both urban reportage and contemporary spirituality.

Its structure is simple: a series of dialogue-rich stories of the "homies" with whom Boyle has worked over the years, each leading to an unpretentious spiritual reflection rich in literary and scriptural allusion.

No other contemporary Los Angeles writer has so deftly captured the expressive flavor of the distinctive Spanglish patois spoken by the young people of East L.A. That alone makes "Tattoos on the Heart" remarkable literature. But something more is accomplished: An entire community made invisible by the wider city's indifference and distaste comes urgently to life on these pages. In the process, we obtain as well a kind of autobiography of Boyle.

"What the American poet William Carlos Williams said of poetry could well be applied to the living of our lives: 'If it ain't a pleasure, it ain't a poem,' " he writes. "My director of novices, Leo Rock, used to say, 'God created us -- because He thought we'd enjoy it.'

"We try to find a way, then, to hold our fingertips gently to the pulse of God. We watch as our hearts begin to beat as one with the One who delights in our being. Then what do we do? We exhale that same spirit of delight into the world and hope for poetry."

There is poetry aplenty in this book, some of it quoted by an erudite author, most of it spilling from the lives and mouths of the young people whose stories and conversations he recounts. It all is singularly free of sentimentality and the treacle of conventional piety.

At one point, Boyle quips that "some on my senior staff wanted to change our motto, printed on our T-shirts, from 'Nothing stops a bullet like a job' to 'You just can't disappoint us enough.' . . . You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable: kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear."

The late Henri Nouwen, one of the 20th century's great masters of practical spirituality, once said: "The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing . . . not healing, not curing . . . that is a friend who cares."

By that wise and humane standard, the real city that is Los Angeles has no better or more caring friends than Greg Boyle and his selfless associates at Homeboy Industries. Their decision to stand immovably beside those deeply wounded and impossibly burdened young men and women -- to know them by the names their mothers used -- is a daily renewal of the hope that this place may one day be the city it ought to be.

All the proceeds from "Tattoos on the Heart" will go to support Homeboy's work. Buy it for that reason alone, because Homeboy richly deserves every cent you send its way. Buy it to savor fine prose and the archaic power of the engaging story artfully and purposefully told. In either case, be prepared to see your city as you have not seen it before, and to be changed by the experience.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten17-2010mar17,0,7301230,print.column

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OPINION

American history -- right and left

Liberals and conservatives have differing views; why not give students both sides and let them decide?

By Jonathan Zimmerman

March 17, 2010

Once upon a time, Americans did some very bad things. They enslaved Africans, displaced Indians, oppressed women and exploited laborers. Then the Great American Government came to the rescue.

Spurred by protest movements for freedom and equality, the government instituted changes that brought the nation progressively closer to its founding promise.

That's the theme of most American history textbooks. And it's also what offended the Texas Board of Education, which voted last week to approve a new set of social studies standards that emphasize America's timeless virtues. The current standards, one board member explained, "are rife with leftist political periods and events: the Populists, the Progressives, the New Deal and the Great Society."

And here's what most of my fellow liberals won't admit: He's right. These bursts of reform are the spine of the story that we tell ourselves, about who we are and who we want to be. When a social problem arises, we press our elected representatives to devise new laws and institutions that will make America more compassionate, decent and fair.

That's how most liberals -- and, I should add, most historians -- see the world. Our heroes are the champions of social justice -- Frederick Douglass, Jane Addams, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and so on -- and the presidents who tried to put their ideas into practice: Abraham Lincoln, both Roosevelts, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

It's not an unalloyed embrace, mind you. Many of us have criticized these politicians for their errors, blind spots and inconsistencies. Kennedy takes a pummeling every few years for the Bay of Pigs, as does Johnson for escalating the war in Vietnam.

But even our disparagement of liberal icons demonstrates our overall adherence to the liberal script. In the great national drama, our leaders are supposed to harness the power of government to the principle of social justice. And when they don't, we take them to task.

Our scholarship about conservatism reflects a similar bias. Over the last few decades, historians have produced brilliant studies of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the rise of the so-called Christian right. But most of this work proceeds from the basic assumption that the right was wrong: about religion, race, the economy and everything else.

And now -- surprise -- conservatives are fighting back. Look closely at the new Texas social studies standards and you'll find attacks on every sacred cow in the liberal pantheon, starting with the separation of church and state. While liberals often impute the principle to the Founding Fathers, the Texas standards hold that the founders imagined America as a "Christian nation."

The new standards also reject the idea of American imperialism, preferring to call it "expansionism." They insist on the superiority of America's "free enterprise system," which will replace the prior standards' reference to "capitalism." (Capitalism, one school board member explained, "does have a negative connotation. You know, 'capitalist pig.' ")

When we get to the Cold War, the new standards note that recent archival discoveries "confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in the U.S. government." And for the 1960s and beyond, the standards advise, students should examine the "unintended consequences" of Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX.

Conservatives on the Texas school board claim that these changes will simply provide "balance" to the dominant liberal paradigm. But their red-meat rhetoric says otherwise. Would these people rest easily if students -- following a "balanced" discussion -- concluded that the Great Society and affirmative action were really great ideas?

I think not. And the same goes for liberals, who would bridle if the students walked away from class believing that '60s-era reforms were failures. For the most part, Americans do not enter this arena to make the case for "balance." Instead, they want their side to win.

And that's the real back story of the tragicomedy that's unfolding in Texas. It's easy for coastal liberals to scoff at the unlettered rubes of the Lone Star State, who are obviously revising history to fit their present-day predilections. But that's what we all do, all the time, and then we foist these ideas on our kids.

What if we gave them multiple points of view instead? Recent history gives us a perfect opportunity to do precisely that. After the arch-liberal author Howard Zinn died in January, his "A People's History of the United States" shot to No. 12 on the New York Times paperback nonfiction list. Just behind -- at No. 15 -- was Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's conservative "A Patriot's History of the United States," which received a big boost when Glenn Beck pumped it on his radio and TV shows.

So here's a modest proposal: Instead of bickering about the "correct" version of the past, the Texas school board should decree that every high school history class use both of these texts. That would teach students that Americans disagree -- vehemently -- about the making and the meaning of their nation. And it would require the kids to sort out the differences on their own.

Most of all, though, it would require adults to be more "liberal" in the dictionary sense of the word: tolerant, reasoned and open-minded. And we would all need to be willing to lose, of course, if our children decided that our version of history was wrong.

Will we let them?

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author, most recently, of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-zimmerman17-2010mar17,0,3386315,print.story

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From the Daily News

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State prison numbers drop for first time since 1972

NEW YORK — Spurred by budget crises, California and Michigan together reduced their prison populations by more than 7,500 last year, contributing to what a new report says is the first nationwide decline in the number of state inmates since 1972.

The overall drop was slight, according to the Pew Center on the States - just 0.4 percent - but its report suggests there could be a sustained downward trend because of keen interest by state policymakers in curtailing corrections costs.

"The political and policy environment has changed drastically," said Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center's Public Safety Performance Project.

"There's now a realization on both sides of the aisle that there are research-based strategies to protect public safety and hold offenders accountable without sinking ever more public dollars into prisons," Gelb said.

According to official state data collected by the Pew Center, 1,403,091 people were under the jurisdiction of state prison authorities on Jan. 1, down by 5,739 from a year earlier. The report, being released Wednesday, said this was the first year-to-year drop in the state prison population since 1972, when there were about 174,000 prisoners.

Since then, the nationwide prison population has soared, in part because of stiff sentencing laws, giving the U.S. the world's highest incarceration rate.

With more inmates to handle, state corrections costs quadrupled over the past 20 years, according to the report. Many states are now in fiscal disarray, and legislators are looking afresh at ways to curb prison spending, but the Pew survey revealed a wide variation of responses.

In 23 states, the number of prisoners increased in 2009 - notably in Indiana by 5.3 percent and in Pennsylvania by 4.3 percent.

However, 27 states reduced their prison populations - led by California with a drop of 4,257 and Michigan with a drop of 3,260. New York, Maryland, Texas and Mississippi also reduced their prison populations by more than 1,000.

A look at developments in some key states:

California: A new law, created to ease prison overcrowding and help close the budget deficit, enables inmates to reduce their sentences by up to half through good-behavior credits. The state also has sought to cut the number of low-risk parolees returning to prison for technical violations of parole terms.

Michigan: Since reaching an all-time high of 51,554 in March 2007, Michigan's prison population has been cut by more than 6,000, according to the Pew report. The state has reduced the number of inmates who serve more than their minimum sentence, decreased parole revocation rates and enhanced supervision of re-entry programs for newly released offenders.

Rhode Island: In percentage terms, Rhode Island had the biggest drop in prison population last year - 9.2 percent - in large part because of a new law that enables some prisoners to get out early if they commit to rehabilitation programs such as job training and substance abuse treatment.

Although California, Michigan and Rhode Island have fiscal problems that are among the nation's worst, Gelb said the move toward reduced prison populations was not driven solely by the economic downturn. He noted that Texas decided in 2007, before the recession, to strengthen probation and re-entry programs rather than commit to construction of several new prisons.

Michael Thompson, director of the Council of State Governments' Justice Center, urged states to avoid rash, deficit-driven decisions and reinvest funds saved on prisons in other programs that would reduce recidivism.

"You want to make sure policymakers are not just trying to balance their budgets and jeopardize public safety in the process," he said. "You can actually find interesting ways to reduce corrections spending and increase public safety - but not every state is doing that."

Among the 23 states where the prison population increased last year, Indiana led in proportional terms, growing by 5.3 percent, while Pennsylvania added the most prisoners, 2,122.

An Indiana prison spokesman, Doug Garrison, said the legislature had enhanced criminal penalties to add prison time to a number of offenses, and the state has not had to release prisoners out of budget constraints or court orders.

Florida added 1,527 more state prisoners in 2009, the second highest increase - at a time when the state is cutting funding for many non-corrections programs.

"The university's funds were cut," said Florida State University criminologist Dam Mears. "In the face of that, look at our prison system. They keep the funding going."

Despite the slight decrease in state prisoners, the Pew report said the nation's total prison population increased in 2009 because the number of inmates in federal prisons rose by 6,838 to an all-time high of 208,118.

The report did not tally prisoners held in municipal and county jails.

http://www.dailynews.com/ci_14687174

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Veterans get a proper burial

Decades after they served their country during the Vietnam War and even World War II, the bodies of five military veterans lay, unclaimed, in the Los Angeles County morgue.

They had no place to call home, no family to bury them.

But Tuesday, the homeless vets were honored with a 21-gun salute, taps played by bagpipers and a folded American flag. The funeral at Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake Village was part of a two-day service that will culminate today with burial in Riverside National Cemetery, where the Southern California veterans will be saluted by a patriot guard.

The caskets contain the bodies of Army soldiers Glenn Davis, 63, who served from 1963-64; Jefferson Robinson, 62, who served from 1971-74; Sanford L. Garland, 78, who served from 1955-58 and whose last known address is Panorama City; and Paul Deighton, 86, who served from 1943-46 and last lived in Van Nuys. The fifth is Valentine Plaska, 92, who served in the Merchant Marine during WWII.

"I'm sure there are a lot of veterans who are basically being disposed of in paupers' graves without recognition or anything," said Joe P. Sainz Jr., a retired Army captain who spoke at the service. "We're taking care of these homeless veterans without families.

"And every veteran, whether they served in war or not, deserves to have military honors."

The men will be buried as part of the Dignity Memorial Homeless Veterans Burial Program, which works with local coroners, veteran organizations and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to identify and give homeless and indigent veterans with no family a military burial.

Since the program's launch in 2000, more than 600 homeless veterans have been buried in more than 20 U.S. cities.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14688358

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Fair warning: Tuesday's temblor ought to prompt us to prepare for the next big quake

THE mild earthquake that shook awake much of Los Angeles early Tuesday should serve as a reminder to all of us to check our preparedness for a major temblor.

Southern California is deep in earthquake territory. And despite the series of major, deadly earthquakes across the globe in recent months - in Haiti, Chile, Taiwan - nothing is more jolting than the sensation of the ground moving underfoot.

We were lucky - this time - that the quake was a modest 4.4 magnitude that merely shook our beds and rattled the pictures on the walls. But chances are good that next time - or the time after that - the shaking will be longer and harder, maybe even The Big One. It's one of the understood downsides of living in one of the most pleasant climates in the world.

However, we've adapted well, in no small part due to lessons learned through hard experiences such as the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. Our building codes have gotten stronger and smarter; even in a large quake, Los Angeles will likely fare far better than Haiti or Chile.

Still, survival isn't all about building safety. Many people are injured and die in the hours and days after a major earthquake from a lack of water, food or basic medical supplies or due to unsanitary conditions.

We can't foresee the next earthquake, but we can prepare for it. If you haven't done so before, this is a good time to put an earthquake plan in place and check or restock your emergency supplies.

Every household in California ought to have at least a basic survival kit stashed somewhere accessible. The kit should have at least a three-day supply of water, food and medication, and extra cash, flashlights and a hand-crank radio.

But also as important is learning about what to do during and immediately after an earthquake.

For example, for years conventional wisdom told us that the safest place to be in an earthquake was under an internal door frame. Authorities now say that doorways are no longer considered all that safe and instead recommend that people get under a sturdy piece of furniture and ride out the roller there.

For more information on preparation and earthquake safety, visit The American Red Cross online at www.redcross.org . Then go get ready. It's not a matter of if, but of when.

http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_14688500

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From the Wall Street Journal

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In El Paso, Mexican Violence Is Never Far

Texas Residents Press for Measures to Reduce Homicides in Sister City of Ciudad Juárez, Where Two Americans Were Killed Saturday

EL PASO, Texas—Only one person has been murdered here this year. Across the Mexican border in Ciudad Juárez, more than 500 have been killed.

Against that backdrop, El Paso residents welcomed the pledge this week by President Barack Obama to help solve the fatal shooting of two Americans in Juárez. But some city leaders say the federal government must increase attention to their violence-prone neighbor.

El Paso and Juárez, which are separated by the Rio Grande River, used to operate essentially as one community, with many of their residents shuttling back and forth. But the violence is hurting businesses on the Mexican side of the border and causing anguish among El Paso residents, many of whom hail from Juárez or have relatives there.

"I don't go there anymore," said Claudia Paz, an El Paso programmer and developer, who still has family in Juárez and was a friend of Ms. Enriquez and Mr. Redelfs.

Some, like Jose Manuel Porras, whose mother lives and works in Juárez, say they can't avoid the visits, but they cross the border with trepidation. After witnessing an execution in Juárez, the 28-year-old moved in with his father, an American citizen residing in El Paso.

So far, such scenes of violence have mostly taken place on the Mexican side, with some 4,800 people killed in Juárez in the past couple of years.

Beto O'Rourke, an El Paso councilman, said Tuesday that "Obama and [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton are outraged, which is good, because we want them to focus their attention on this crisis and on a resolution to this." He added, "But you wonder why almost 5,000 people had to die in this border community for them to finally notice and commit to doing something."

U.S. State Department officials said Tuesday there were no quick fixes to the border violence, adding that they were working very closely with the Mexican government to improve security. "You're talking about violence fueled by drug use that produces vast sums of money," said a spokesman. "That produces significant capabilities that could rival the strength of any army."

The consulate-related murders prompted Texas Gov. Rick Perry to activate on Tuesday a state contingency plan that increases surveillance along the border to fend off any potential spillover violence from Mexico.

The El Paso City Council passed a resolution in February urging President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon to meet at the border and come up with a joint strategy "to bring an immediate end to the drug violence in our community." They also called for an evaluation of current federal drug policy, and for more economic and social aid to Mexico to reduce the pool of potential recruits for drug dealers.

However, a request for the legalization of marijuana, which some supporters hope would tamp demand for Mexican drugs, was withdrawn from the resolution because it lacked enough votes.

Mexicans, and some Americans, have criticized the U.S. government for not doing more to slow demand for drugs on U.S. soil. It is the demand for drugs, and their illegality, that creates huge profits that attract Mexicans into the drug business. The U.S. has also struggled to slow the flow of guns and money from the U.S. to Mexico that helps keep the drug business going.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, from El Paso, who opposed the resolution to legalize marijuana, called the $1.4 billion that the U.S. has pledged Mexico for drug-cartel-fighting purposes "an embarrassment," in light of the significantly larger amounts the U.S. government has spent in Iraq.

However, Mr. Reyes said, there are practical issues to consider when thinking about reformulating U.S. drug policy, including the fact that Mexico is a sovereign country.

"Any assistance that we give them, they have to ask for," he said, adding that the U.S. has been providing various forms of aid to President Calderon, ranging from intelligence and training to helicopters.

Despite recent efforts on both sides of the border, there are few signs that the violence is waning. Some 117 people were killed in drug-related violence across Mexico in the three-day period from Saturday to Monday.

Still, many El Paso residents continue to commute to Mexico for work every day, because they need the job or they refuse to be shut out by fear. Mark Earley, the chief financial officer of a company that helps manufacturers do business in Juárez, crosses the border two or three times a week for work.

Mr. Earley says he drives his wife's Chevy Malibu instead of his own Suburban to avoid drawing attention to himself.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704688604575126084050433688.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews#printMode

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Why 70 Miles Per Hour Is the New 55

Virginia Becomes the Latest State to Raise Its Speed Limit; Drivers in Mississippi Go Really Fast

Virginia is the 34th state to raise its rural interstate speed limit to 70. WSJ's Joseph B. White says improved car safety was one reason behind the move, but skeptics worry the increase will lead to more fatalities and greater energy use.

That's the finding of an analysis of speed data gathered by TomTom Inc., a marketer of GPS navigation devices. This helps to explain why safety advocates and conservationists are losing the long-running debate over lowering freeway speed limits.

The Virginia legislature last week passed legislation raising the speed limit on rural interstate highways to 70 mph from 65 mph. The state's new Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, put boosting the legal speed limit high on his list of priorities, and got action less than three months after taking office.

Virginia will become the 34th state to boost interstate speed limits to 70 mph or higher. In big, empty states such as New Mexico, Idaho and Nevada, posted limits on rural interstates can be as high as 75 mph.

TomTom collected speed data from 45 states and the District of Columbia, under agreements with customers who agreed to allow the company to collect the information anonymously to improve the quality of its route guidance by directing customers away from congested roads at peak travel times.

TomTom found the fastest drivers, on average, in Mississippi, where interstate drivers average 70.1 mph, or a hair over the maximum posted limit. The company doesn't have speed data from some sparsely populated states, including Montana, where drivers may be moving faster than those in Mississippi, says Nhai Cao, senior product manager for TomTom's SpeedProfiles database.

Virginia drivers clock in at a law-abiding 65 mph. The slowest drivers—drumroll, please—are in Washington, D.C. Freeway traffic in the nation's congested capital crawls at an average of 46.4 mph, according to TomTom's data. That may explain the eagerness of Virginia residents who work inside the Beltway for the freedom to go faster when they finally see some open road.

Hawaii is the slowest state, with highway drivers traveling at an average 52.7 mph.

Speed limits and enforcement have taken a symbolic significance that transcends vehicle mechanics or highway design.

The 55 mph national speed limit enacted in 1973 in response to the first Arab oil embargo was justified as a means of conserving fuel. In 1987, the law was changed to allow speeds up to 65 mph. But the Republican Congress elected in 1994 did few things more popular than repealing the limit altogether in 1995.

Driving speed has become a proxy for bigger questions about personal freedom versus government control.

The argument for raising speed limits is fundamentally an argument for letting drivers use their own judgment. The argument for stronger speed control is that too many people behave badly behind the wheel.

"Higher speeds are bad on any road," says Anne McCartt, vice president of research for the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, a research arm of the insurance industry.

The Federal Highway Administration estimates that in 2008, about 31% of the total 37,261 highway fatalities were related to speeding over posted limits.

But advocates of relaxing speed limits point to federal statistics which show that both fatalities and fatality rates on U.S. highways are declining even as speed limits rise. The U.S. Department of Transportation last week reported that its latest estimate of highway deaths in 2009 is 33,963—the lowest number since the government began keeping these grim records in 1954. The fatality rate is estimated at 1.16 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.

Modern cars and light trucks have an average of 225 horsepower under the hood and sophisticated safety systems such as traction control. They are designed to cruise comfortably, safely and efficiently at between 65 and 70 mph—if not faster, particularly in the case of the autobahn-burners German luxury brands sell.

If gas prices spike again this summer, as some predict, the idea of dropping speed limits again may get a new hearing. But Virginia's decision and the powerful cars consumers are buying suggest otherwise

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704688604575125510326010610.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_6#printMode

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Statement by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano

Release Date: March 16, 2010

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

“Not only do we have an obligation to secure our borders, we have a responsibility to do so in the most cost effective way possible. The system of sensors and cameras along the Southwest border known as SBI net has been plagued with cost overruns and missed deadlines.

Effective immediately, the Department of Homeland Security will redeploy $50 million of Recovery Act funding originally allocated for the SBI net Block 1 to other tested, commercially available security technology along the Southwest border, including mobile surveillance, thermal imaging devices, ultra-light detection, backscatter units, mobile radios, cameras and laptops for pursuit vehicles, and remote video surveillance system enhancements.

Additionally, we are freezing all SBI net funding beyond SBI net Block 1's initial deployment to the Tucson and Ajo regions until the assessment I ordered in January is completed.”

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1268769368466.shtm

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SportEvac: Choreographing a Stadium Stampede

What sports fan hasn't grumbled while waiting in a long, snaking, slow-moving line to get into the stadium for the big game? It's enough to discourage anyone short of a diehard fan from braving the crowds. But if you think it's a hassle getting into a sold-out game, imagine trying to get out after a bomb explodes—or even to get out under a bomb threat, for that matter.

For good measure, let's say the emergency lights fail. If you're thinking of feeling your way out by the light of your cell phone, join the crowd—they're right beside you, shuffling fifty-across and a thousand-deep in a slow-motion stampede. It's every sports fan for himself.

Scenes like this may sound like a trailer for a Hollywood thriller (think Black Sunday ), but their grim prospect is all-too-real. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI jointly warned of terrorist interest in attacking crowded stadiums. Small wonder: A bomb or noxious plume released over a throng of captive sports fans could cause major-league mayhem.

Mindful of the threat, stadium sentinels have been laying plans to manage and minimize the anarchy that would follow such an attack. Just how would authorities whisk 70,000 people out the gates and onto the roads quickly and safely? For an evacuation on this scale, there's no dress rehearsal or practice drill—just simulation software.

Now, a new breed of simulation software—dubbed SportEvac—is being developed and tested by the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety & Security (NCS 4 ) at the University of Southern Mississippi, part of the Southeast Region Research Initiative (SERRI) , funded in part by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) .

"SportEvac isn't simply more realistic; it will be a national standard," says program manager Mike Matthews of S&T's Infrastructure and Geophysical Division .

Using blueprints from actual stadiums, the Southern Miss developers are creating virtual, 3-D e-stadiums, packed with as many as 70,000 avatars—animated human agents programmed to respond to threats as unpredictably as, well, humans . Security planners will be able to see how 70,000 fans would behave—and mis behave—when spooked by a security threat.

But a SportEvac avatar need not be a sports fan. The simulation includes make-believe stadium workers, first responders , even objects, such as a fire truck or a fans car (screen shot) . SportEvac tracks them all, accounting for scenarios both probable and improbable.

Simulating thousands of people and cars can impose a crushing load on software and hardware. That's why, unlike SportEvac, most evacuation software apps are unable to simulate a crowd much larger than 5,000. For a college or NFL football game, that's bush-league.

Beyond scaling problems, earlier simulators did not account for the myriad variations that make human behavior hard to predict and human structures hard to simulate. How adversely, for example, would an evacuation be impaired if an audible were called—a wet floor, a wheelchair, a stubborn aisle-seater, a fan fetching a forgotten purse, or an inebriated bleacher bum? Conventional evacuation simulators couldn't say. SportEvac can.

And like an open-source Web browser, the SportEvac software will get better and better because it's built on open, modular code. If your IT intern creates a module that can more accurate predict parking lot gridlock, just plug it in. This also means it can be customized for any sports arena.

By simulating how sports fans would behave in the minutes following an attack, SportEvac will help security experts across the country to plan and train and answer key questions, such as:

• How can my stadium be evacuated in the shortest time?
  
  
• How can civil emergency workers quickly get in as fans are dashing out?
  
  
• How can our stadium guards and ushers provide valuable information to civil responders and assist them as the evacuation unfolds?
  

"Interoperability is also a key goal," says Lou Marciani, NCS 4 Director, who serves as the S&T projects principal investigator. Stadium security officers can use SportEvac to rehearse and refine procedures with civil responders. During a real evacuation, guards might use the same radios as the civil responders. And for every usher with a smartphone, a "SportEvac Lite" application will graphically show where fans or cars are bottlenecked.

Drawing on actual architectural CAD data, the Mississippi researchers are creating 3-D virtual models of seven of the state's college sports stadiums. This year, in summits and workshops, security teams from the university athletic departments will test and refine SportEvac, with help from local police, Mississippi Homeland Security agents, the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, and security specialists from pro sports. It will then be deployed to the seven state universities. Once the schools give it the green light, S&T will make the advanced version available to other universities, pro sports venues, and amateur sports organizations.

While not quite as immersive as the recent 3-D movie Avatar , SportEvac will create a safe, virtual stadium where security teams can practice guiding fans to safety, without risking life, limb, or lawsuit.

http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/gc_1268329363175.shtm

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From the Department of Justice

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Jeffrey Alan Wasley of Kennesaw, Ga., pleaded guilty today to production of child pornography related to surreptitiously videotaping young boys using public restrooms in Atlanta-area establishments, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Sally Quillian Yates.

Wasley, 38, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper to producing child pornography. According to court documents and information presented at today's plea hearing, Wasley was a church youth counselor and former performing magician who stalked young boys in retail stores and children's attractions.  When Wasley observed young boys entering a restroom unaccompanied by an adult, he admitted he would also enter and secretly videotape the boys.

In July 2008, Wasley victimized five and seven year-old brothers in the men's restroom of a store in Kennesaw, according to information filed with the court and discussed at the plea hearing.  These boys reported Wasley's conduct to their mother, who in turn notified store security.  According to court documents, store security and Cobb County police were able to identify a likely suspect from store surveillance footage.  When store security observed this same individual in the store several days later, they followed him to his car and noted his car's tag number, which was linked to Wasley. A subsequent search of Wasley's home yielded a computer containing six videos Wasley admitted he produced of boys in public restrooms, along with thousands of additional images of child pornography that Wasley had downloaded from the Internet. 

Sentencing has been scheduled for June 10, 2010. At sentencing, Wasley faces a minimum mandatory prison term of 15 years, a maximum term of 30 years, a fine of up to $250,000 and the possibility of a lifetime period of supervised release.

This case was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service and the Cobb County Police Department. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert McBurney and Francey Hakes of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia and Trial Attorney Andrew McCormack of the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/March/10-crm-272.html

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From ICE

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Secure Communities strategy at work in Fairfax County

FAIRFAX, Va. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that since the agency began using biometrics-fingerprints-to identify criminal aliens in Fairfax County one year ago, ICE officers have identified more than 1,200 aliens charged with or convicted of crimes. As part of ICE's Secure Communities strategy for better identifying and removing criminal aliens, ICE has already removed 144 individuals, while the remaining are in immigration proceedings or will be removed from the United States once they serve their criminal sentence.

In March 2009, as part of the Secure Communities strategy, ICE deployed IDENT/IAFIS interoperability to Fairfax County law enforcement agencies, which enables fingerprints submitted during the booking process to be checked automatically against the Department of Justice's (DOJ) criminal history records and DHS records, including immigration status. When fingerprints match DHS records, ICE is automatically notified and promptly determines if enforcement action is required. This process applies to all individuals arrested and booked into custody, not just those suspected of being foreign nationals.

Fairfax County was the first in Virginia to benefit from IDENT/IAFIS interoperability. Since then, ICE has partnered with 118 additional locations, including Prince William County, Va. and Prince George's County, Md., to use biometrics to identify and ultimately remove criminal aliens from the U.S.

"Our first year of partnering with Fairfax County has been extremely successful in identifying and ultimately removing criminal aliens, who might have gone unidentified without our enhanced biometric identification capability," said Secure Communities Executive Director David Venturella. "The Secure Communities strategy's success in Fairfax is indicative of the success we're seeing nationwide and underscores the value of collaboration between ICE and law enforcement."

"The Secure Communities program has been a great success," said Sheriff Stan Barry. "ICE has been able to identify illegal aliens that committed serious crimes in Fairfax County and presented a threat to our community. Through this program, ICE was able to deport them at no cost to Fairfax County."

In Fairfax County, nearly 300 aliens identified through IDENT/IAFIS interoperability were charged with or convicted of the most serious types of crimes, or Level 1 offenses, including homicide, rape and kidnapping. Already, ICE has removed more than 11 percent of this population, representing individuals who posed the greatest threat to public safety. For example, shortly after IDENT/IAFIS interoperability was deployed in the county last year, Fairfax County arrested and booked a man for soliciting a prostitute. The subject's fingerprints were checked through IDENT/IAFIS interoperability, identifying him as a non U.S. citizen and aggravated felon who had been arrested or encountered by law enforcement 13 times using multiple aliases for more than 10 years. His convictions ranged from felony drug possession to first degree attempted armed robbery. Based on this information, received automatically through IDENT/IAFIS interoperability, ICE placed an Immigration Detainer (I 247) for the man and is processing him for removal upon completion of his current sentence.

Since ICE began deploying IDENT/IAFIS interoperability in 2008, biometrics has helped ICE identify more than 18,800 aliens charged or convicted with Level 1 offenses nationwide. Of those, more than 4,000 have already been removed from the United States.

IDENT/IAFIS interoperability is the result of work by the DOJ's FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division and DHS's US-VISIT program. CJIS maintains the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), which stores biometric criminal records, and US-VISIT maintains DHS's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), which stores biometric immigration records. CJIS and US VISIT have made these systems interoperable, enabling fingerprints submitted to one system to be checked against both systems automatically.

The deployment of IDENT/IAFIS interoperability is a critical tool in ICE's Secure Communities strategy. ICE plans to make IDENT/IAFIS interoperability available to every jurisdiction by 2013.

For more information about Secure Communities, visit www.ice.gov/secure_communities/.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1003/100316fairfax.htm

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