Toxic soil lurks beneath Carson neighborhood

The discovery of methane gas and benzene has transformed a 50-acre neighborhood into an environmental case study — a reminder of Southern California's history as a center of the oil industry.

By Jeff Gottlieb, Los Angeles Times

April 27, 2010

When Ron and Belinda Oglesby moved into Carson's Carousel neighborhood in 2003, they saw a solid, middle-class area where homeowners set down roots and lived for decades, where Santa Claus paraded through the streets on a firetruck and children returned to buy their own homes.

This, they told themselves, was the perfect place to raise their three kids.

Six years later, they noticed workmen drilling holes and leaving cryptic white marks on the streets.

By last summer, they had discovered what the sudden activity meant: Preliminary tests under the direction of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board had found dangerous levels of potentially explosive methane gas and benzene under the 285 homes of the Carousel tract. In some spots, tests found benzene at concentrations seldom seen, levels that could significantly increase cancer risks for residents.

The discovery has transformed a 50-acre neighborhood of palm trees and quiet streets into an environmental case study — a reminder of Southern California's history as a center of the oil industry and the problems of ground pollution that continue to dot the region.

"How can you get a good night's sleep?" Belinda Oglesby said. "I tell my husband, ‘Get me out of here,' but where are we going? Who'd buy our house? It's like a nightmare that never goes away."

Things have only seemed to get worse. In March, the water quality board told residents not to eat fruit or vegetables grown in their backyards. Shell Oil Co., which once stored millions of gallons of crude oil in giant tanks where the houses now stand, sent letters to more than 20 homeowners recommending they minimize contact with "exposed soil in your yard."

Many residents have begun anxiously wondering about their health. Oglesby worries about whether contamination caused her weak immune system, the chronic rashes her daughters have developed and the 10-year-old's memory problems. A neighbor, Rosemary Noval, has the same questions about her husband's previous bout with cancer.

Others ask about the tar-like substance that sometimes bubbles up into their lawns or through cracks in their patio.

Noval said she worries that her years of gardening have exposed her to dangerous chemicals, especially after she watched investigators pull dark, wet soil from her backyard that smelled like oil.

"The garden is where the soul feels at home," she said. "That's how I feel when I'm in the garden. Now I'm no longer happy in my garden because I know what's underneath."

"Our lives are full of uncertainty and heartache and disappointment," she said. "That's our lives now. It's been ripped from us."

The contamination in Carson was discovered by accident. Two years ago, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control was investigating the site of an old chemical plant west of the Carousel neighborhood when workers found benzene and other petroleum products in the soil and groundwater. Because the chemical plant had rarely used those products, investigators concluded they had migrated from elsewhere. The old Shell tank farm was the most likely suspect.

Starting in 1924, Shell had stored oil in what were essentially giant concrete bathtubs covered with wood. The tank farm operated in conjunction with a refinery 1 1/2 miles to the east until the mid-1960s, when the tanks were demolished and Shell sold the property. The first homes were built on the site around 1970, state records indicate.

Alison Abbott Chassin, Shell's external affairs manager, said the oil company sold the 50 acres as is, and it was the responsibility of the developer to clean up the site.

Shell officials also have said there could be causes of contamination other than the oil tanks. Gene Freed, Shell's project manager, said chemical residue at some homes could have been left behind by previous owners who enjoyed fiddling with cars, or been from pesticides or other household chemicals.

The company found no contamination in a house it tested near the spot on Neptune Avenue where benzene levels were highest, Freed said.

"It could be as simple as the gardener spilled gasoline there when filling up his lawn mower," he said. "There are all kinds of things we're finding that are not related to our operations."

Tracy Egoscue, the water board's executive officer, said no developer would be allowed to build on the Carousel tract today. Regardless of what the environmental laws were when Shell sold the land, the company now is legally responsible for cleaning it up, she added.

Shell was slow to cooperate with the investigation, Egoscue said. "Initially they were dragging their feet," she added. The agency sent the company a notice of violation in April 2009.

Most residents have joined a lawsuit against Shell and others including developer Barclay Hollander Corp., which was bought by Dole Foods, according to attorneys involved in the case. Tom Girardi, the homeowners' attorney, said Shell knew the area was polluted when it sold the property in 1966.

"It's the most despicable situation I've seen in 40 years of doing this," said Girardi, who represented plaintiffs in the in the case against Pacific Gas & Electric made famous by the movie "Erin Brockovich." He said it was Brockovich who alerted him to the situation in the Carousel neighborhood.

Sam Unger, the water board's assistant executive officer, said the Carousel tract "has the potential to be a very large cleanup, complicated by people living on it." In several previous cases around the country, oil companies, chemical firms and developers have ended up paying tens of millions — sometimes hundreds of millions — of dollars to clean up polluted sites and buy homes that were built on top of polluted soil.

The homeowner lawsuit claims Shell found "significant levels of benzene" at 66 of 73 locations the company drilled, mostly streets and other public areas. In a letter to the water board, Girardi said the cancer risk exceeds the federal Environmental Protection Agency's level of risk by a factor of 1,400. At the high level, the concentration of benzene in soil gas would be estimated to cause one additional cancer case for each 10 people who breathed it for 30 years of a 70-year lifetime.

Several experts interviewed by The Times said they were surprised at the benzene levels. David Siegel, chief of the Integrated Risk Assessment Branch of the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, said if testing finds such levels inside homes, he would be worried not only about long-term affects, but short-term problems such as birth defects and neurological problems in children.

Martyn T. Smith, a professor of toxicology at UC Berkeley, said the key is how much benzene is entering people's houses.

Even if the levels in homes turns out to be low, however, a child playing in the dirt or a dog digging with a child nearby could lead to considerable exposure, he said. "I would be highly concerned about such a site," he said.

The level of benzene found so far "boggles my mind," said Stephen Lester, science director for the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, an environmental advocacy group that focuses on communities at risk from toxic chemicals. "It poses serious risks for homes and anyplace where it could reach the public."

Shell is now testing homes and digging for more samples under water board supervision. The company is splitting the samples with Girardi's firm.

Early this month, Girardi's investigators dug a 7-foot-deep trench in the frontyard of Adolfo Valdez's beige ranch-style house. They hit oil mixed with the dirt at about a foot and a half, said Mark Zeko, principal hydrogeologist for Environmental Engineering and Contracting Inc. The air around the house smelled like a gas station.

Valdez, a longshoreman who has done extensive remodeling to the house himself, tells his four daughters they can't kick the soccer ball around in the frontyard any more. "I wish I could leave," he said. "I wish they could put me up in a rental house. What are we supposed to do?"

A house two doors down was in escrow when the buyers learned about the contamination and pulled out.

Carson Mayor Jim Dear said he hoped the attorney general will file a civil suit against Shell.

He thinks Shell and the water board are moving too slowly. "Put yourself in the shoes of someone living there," he said. "Not knowing if it's a dangerous environment is psychological torture."

That's how Matt Priest feels. Priest grew up on Marbella Avenue and bought a fixer-upper four doors down from his parents in 2003.

The longshoreman figures he's spent $100,000 on copper plumbing, a new electrical system, granite counters and a stainless-steel double oven.

Lumber and drywall are stacked in the living room, and he wonders whether he should bother continuing with the renovation. The smell of gas permeates the house.

His mother has a rare liver disease, and his father has a disabling brain condition. At 42, Priest has an enlarged prostate, and he wonders if the contamination contributed to these medical problems.

"I'm hoping they'll buy us out and knock down the houses," he said. "I don't want to live here anymore. Every day I live here is a bad day."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-carousel-shell-20100427,0,7021769,print.story

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James Bond theories arise in Korean ship sinking

Did the North send a submersible suicide bomber to destroy the South's warship, killing at least 40 sailors?

By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times

April 26, 2010

Reporting from Seoul

The image is chilling: A submersible suicide bomber set loose by North Korea destroys a South Korean warship and kills at least 40 crew members.

Each day, the mystery over the fate of the 1,200-ton patrol boat Cheonan deepens — with the speculation taking on what some analysts say is a fantastic, James Bond quality. The Cheonan split in two and sank March 26 on a mission at the disputed sea border between North and South.

The Korean peninsula is always tense, but the specter of war has increased in recent weeks as investigators point to possible North Korean involvement in the sinking, suggesting the Cheonan was struck by either a floating mine or enemy torpedo.

North Korea has denied responsibility, but South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is under pressure to respond with force if Pyongyang is found to be the culprit.

As salvagers over the weekend raised the bow section of the ship, a team of civilian and military investigators probing the mishap blamed a "non-contact external explosion" beneath the warship rather than a direct hit.

Quoting unnamed naval sources, South Korea's largest newspaper recently published claims that the attack was carried out by a specially trained team of "human torpedoes" in retaliation for a November sea battle that reportedly killed at least one North Korean sailor.

Additionally, at least one North Korean defector and an activist in Seoul have provided details of the elite unit of 13 commandos in mini-submarines, according to the newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

The activist, Choi Sung-yong, head of a group that seeks the return of abductees taken by the North, said in an interview that he was told of the program by a major in a North Korean special-forces unit.

He said he contacted the major about the remains of his father, who had allegedly been kidnapped years ago by North Korea, and he mentioned the Cheonan disaster.

Choi said that in an April 15 telephone conversation he taped, the major said North Korea had developed an elite mini-submersible commando team. He quoted the North Korean major as saying he had not heard of the sinking of the Cheonan, but suggesting that the North was responsible, using "a new weapon that had fired one shot."

The major did not specifically say the Cheonan was hit by a "human torpedo." Choi said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il visited naval commanders after the November skirmish and said the country must retaliate.

The North Korean defector, Jang Jin-sung, who once worked within Pyongyang's spy network, said he is also convinced the Cheonan was hit by a so-called human torpedo.

Jang said that he saw the program firsthand as a veteran of the North's ministry in charge of espionage operations, before defecting in 2004.

The human torpedo units "are treated better than the submarine crew and their training focuses on suicide bombing attacks," Jang wrote on his blog.

"The first thing Kim Jong Il sees when inspecting the Navy Command is the suicide bombing training of soldiers in this unit," he wrote.

Chosun Ilbo said in addition to suicide bombing tactics, North Korean crews also launch attacks using semi-submersible vessels equipped with light torpedoes or other explosives, which are fired or placed on their targets at close range.

This month, a South Korean lawmaker proposed a slightly different scenario to the National Assembly — that of a Seal Delivery Vehicle, or SDV, a semi-submersible piloted by a three-man crew that can fire a missile.

One South Korean military official discounted the theory.

"SDVs are very slow and there is a low possibility that such vessels were used in an attack," Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told lawmakers.

Officials said they planned to employ computer simulation analysis to determine the Cheonan's fate. The boat was struck in the dark and quickly sank. Fifty-eight crewmen were rescued and authorities have recovered 40 bodies. Six are still missing.

Some analysts here say they don't buy the human torpedo theory.

Daniel Pinkston, a North Korean expert for the International Crisis Group think tank, said that Washington officials who are following the Cheonan case told him they would be "absolutely astounded" if it turns out the ship was hit by a torpedo.

"They're giving more credibility to a mine," Pinkston said. "There seems to be a hole in each of the scenarios being looked at. Some of it sounds like stuff from a James Bond film."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/asia/la-fg-korea-torpedo-20100427,0,4988869,print.story

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Arizona immigration law reshaping the push for reform

Obama calls the state's actions a wake-up call for the federal government to overhaul the immigration system. White House officials fear a patchwork of state laws that don't address core problems.

By Peter Nicholas, Tribune Washington Bureau

April 27, 2010

Reporting from Washington

A tough new Arizona law aimed at rooting out illegal immigrants is reshaping the arguments used by the Obama administration and congressional Democrats in support of a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration system.

White House officials say the Arizona law underscores an untenable void in federal immigration policy. Without congressional action, they warn, Arizona and other states will create a patchwork of laws that don't resolve the core problem: how to strengthen the borders and deal with the 11 million people who are in the U.S. illegally.

"The president has said … that this is a wake-up call for the federal government to act," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

It was unclear Monday whether that argument will prove to be the catalyst in overcoming the thorny politics surrounding immigration. But the Arizona law is now part of the message that proponents of a federal overhaul are deploying to pass a bill with bipartisan support.

"There's a substantive and moral sense of urgency around this now because of the potential consequences of this [Arizona] legislation," said Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino civil rights group.

Obama's game plan is not to put forward his own bill, but rather to wait for a pair of influential senators, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), to release a proposal that might command bipartisan backing.

The two have spent months crafting a blueprint. But Graham in recent weeks has insisted publicly that the White House must come forward with its own plan.

However, Graham did not make that request when he met privately with Obama at the White House last month to strategize about immigration, according to people familiar with the meeting. Instead, he asked Obama to help round up potential Republican votes, they said.

Complicating matters for the White House is a divided Democratic caucus. Two Democratic senators, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, privately have told Democratic leaders they would prefer to see immigration delayed until 2011, according to a Democratic Senate aide.

That means the White House would have to round up more than token Republican support if an immigration bill is to have a chance of passing this year.

The Arizona law has emerged as a wildcard in the national debate.

Last week, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a measure that empowers local authorities to prosecute people in the country illegally. Described as the toughest anti-immigration law in the U.S., it has spawned fears that police will target minorities on the thinnest of suspicions.

Joining the critics is Mexican President Felipe Calderon. On Monday, Calderon said the Arizona law "opens the door to intolerance, to hatred, to discrimination and to abuse." He vowed to use "all resources available" to defend Mexicans who run afoul of the law.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) defended the law. At one time, McCain was a voice for broad-based immigration changes. Now, challenged in his Senate reelection bid by a conservative primary opponent, McCain is taking a hard-line stance on immigration, focusing more on border security than on finding a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants.

"There is no intention whatsoever to violate anyone's civil rights, but this is a national security issue," McCain said. "This is a national security issue where the United States of America has an unsecured border between Arizona and Mexico, which has led to violence [that is] the worst I have ever seen."

For Obama and his Democratic allies, time is short for passing a national immigration bill. Senators have only a few months to act before a new Supreme Court nomination and mid-term elections consume their time.

Other tough bills are competing for the attention of Congress, including a measure to curb global warming.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) believes that steps to alleviate unemployment should take precedence over immigration legislation this year.

"It strikes me that with all the border security problems we have down there … and with 10% unemployment, it's not a great time to take this issue up in Washington," he said on Fox News.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration-arizona-20100427,0,2874492,print.story

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Arizona leads, sort of

The state's tough new law highlights the need for national reform.

April 27, 2010

Thank you, Arizona.

Despite our strong condemnation of a new law that will likely promote racial profiling of Latinos in your state, we must acknowledge that you have accomplished what many others — including senators, committed activists and a willing president — have failed to achieve. You put immigration back on the national agenda.

The truth is, something had been missing from the latest push for comprehensive immigration reform. It had been a campaign in search of a movement. This lack of emotional traction persisted despite the earnest efforts of advocates who lobbied Congress, pressured President Obama to keep his campaign promise and rallied their troops to Washington. But even when thousands of immigrants and their allies converged on the National Mall in March, the nation paid little heed: The House was voting on healthcare reform that day.

Now that Arizona has made it a crime for immigrants — legal or otherwise — not to carry identification, and now that police are required to ascertain the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect is in the state illegally, the nation is awake to the unconscionable extremes states might pursue if there is no federal reform. Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, who sponsored the legislation, says opponents are overreacting and that the law has safeguards to prevent racial profiling. To fear that will happen, he says, is to lack faith in the police. We have faith that the police will be just as confused as everyone else about whom to suspect of being in the state illegally. Their starting points, almost certainly, will be brown skin, dark hair and accented English.

Over the weekend, on "Meet the Press," Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said that immediate federal action is necessary. "Before the events get further out of hand, we've got to step up and do the job," he said. And he's right. The United States has made no progress toward a coherent immigration policy in the past few years, but last week Arizona demonstrated that the country isn't just inert, it is actually sliding backward. So if this travesty of a law inspires Congress to act and develop a sensible new policy, we have Arizona to thank.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-arizona-20100427,0,5072855,print.story

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Arizona's ugly but necessary immigration law

Worries about expanding government power have to be balanced against the economic, social and environmental costs to the state.

Jonah Goldberg

April 27, 2010

On Monday morning, the "Today" show's Matt Lauer interviewed Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff who's made a national name for himself cracking down on illegal immigration. Lauer noted that Arizona's new immigration bill has the support of 70% of Arizonans. "But get this," Lauer added, "53% of those same people said they worry it could lead to civil rights violations."

Lauer and other commentators seem to think that there's something of a contradiction here. I don't see it, perhaps because it describes my own position so well. I support the Arizona law, but I'm also worried that it could lead to civil rights abuses.

It seems that whenever government expands either its powers or its enforcement efforts, you should be worried that it could go too far. But such worries have to be balanced against necessity.

I agree that there's something ugly about the police, even local police, asking citizens for their "papers." There's also something ugly about American citizens being physically searched at airports. There's something ugly about IRS agents prying into nearly all of your personal financial transactions or, thanks to the passage of Obamacare, serving as health insurance enforcers.

In other words, there are many government functions that are unappealing to one extent or another. That is not in itself an argument against them. The Patriot Act was ugly -- and necessary.

Consider California's decision to "lead by example" on global warming. Environmentalists -- and this newspaper -- argued that Washington was negligent in fighting climate change at the federal level. Hence California had no choice but to tackle a national problem at the state level. California implemented standards that are considerably more strict than those required (for now) by Washington.

Arizona's law is more humble than that. While California pushed a stricter standard than the one Washington was enforcing, Arizona seeks to enforce the federal law that Washington isn't enforcing.

Now the constitutional and legal issues make the parallel less than perfect, but the principle remains the same. Indeed, I'd wager that the costs of illegal immigration -- economic, social and environmental -- on Arizona dwarf the costs on California from global warming, at least so far.

President Obama seems to get this, sort of. "Indeed, our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others. And that includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona."

This is awfully tendentious since he takes it as a given that Arizona's effort to take some responsibility for a problem is best understood as "irresponsible," as if continuing to do nothing at the local level while too little is done at the federal level would be more responsible. Of course, "irresponsible" is lavish praise compared with charges of "apartheid" and "Nazi" coming from some opponents of the law, including L.A.'s Cardinal Roger Mahony.

Regardless, Obama is right insofar as Arizona's effort is the inevitable consequence of Washington's inability to take illegal immigration seriously.

Which is why the Democrats' sudden decision to push for "comprehensive" immigration reform is so disappointing. If this were a sincere effort at reform, it would be laudable. But it's almost impossible to find anyone in Washington not paid to spout Democratic talking points who believes this is anything but a naked political ploy. Even such reliably liberal bloggers as Josh Marshall and the Washington Post's Ezra Klein concede that this is first and foremost a partisan stunt and wedge issue intended to split the GOP and woo Latinos, particularly in Nevada, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs a game-changer to avoid crushing defeat in November.

Now, I don't mind wedge issues per se -- though liberals have been decrying them for decades. Still, this is beyond the pale. Ginning up a lot of anger on both sides of the issue without any serious hope of success will in all likelihood send the signal that Washington still thinks it's all a big, unserious game. And that is precisely why we will get more laws like Arizona's and make real immigration reform all the harder, if Washington ever tries to pursue it seriously.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg-20100427,0,7060798,print.column

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When whistle-blowers suffer

Revealing government misconduct shouldn't be a crime.

Jesselyn Radack

April 27, 2010

The case of Thomas A. Drake, a former National Security Agency official indicted last week on charges of providing classified information to a Baltimore Sun reporter, is painfully familiar. In 2002, I became the target of a leak investigation stemming from America's first post- 9/11 terrorism prosecution.

As a Justice Department ethics attorney, I had inadvertently learned of a court order for all copies of Justice's internal correspondence about the interrogation of the so-called American Taliban, John Walker Lindh. Although I had written more than a dozen e-mails on the subject, the Justice Department had turned over only two of them, neither of which reflected my conclusion that the FBI committed an ethics violation in its interrogation and that Lindh's confession might have to be sealed. I checked the hard-copy file, which had been a thick, stapled stack of paper. It had been reduced to three rather innocuous e-mails and fax cover sheets from my boss to senior Justice officials.

I resurrected the missing e-mails from the bowels of my computer archives, gave them to my boss and resigned. I also took home a copy of them in case they "disappeared" again. As a criminal case proceeded against Lindh — and the Justice Department, by all appearances, still had not turned over the e-mails — I decided to give them to the media.

The Justice Department then unleashed an investigation that had nothing to do with ascertaining why someone would divulge government documents, and everything to do with plugging the leak. Anonymous senior Justice officials smeared me in the media as a "traitor," "turncoat" and "terrorist sympathizer." They told my new employer, a private law firm, that I was a criminal and would steal client files. They leaned on the firm to fire me. The firm put me on unpaid, indefinite administrative leave instead. When I was awarded meager unemployment benefits, the government assisted the firm in contesting them.

As someone who has been the target of a ruthless leak investigation, I believe, and the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 says, that government employees should be protected, not retaliated against, when they disclose conduct evidencing illegality, fraud, waste or abuse.

The worst scandals of the past decade — including government torture and warrantless wiretapping — came to light because of whistle-blowers, derisively labeled "leakers." The bigger the crime, the more likely that the evidence of it was classified, privileged or subject to one of the more than 150 hybrid secrecy categories that ballooned during the George W. Bush years. Although a judge later deemed my e-mails nonclassified, their unclassified status didn't prevent the Justice Department from criminally investigating me, referring me to the state bars in which I'm licensed as a lawyer and putting me on the "no-fly" list.

I submit that Drake, the former NSA official, did not leak. He made valid disclosures revealing the failings of several major NSA programs that use computers to collect and sort electronic intelligence. These mistakes cost billions of dollars. He also described how the agency had rejected a program that would collect communications while protecting Americans' privacy — disclosures eerily similar to those made by Thomas M. Tamm, the former Justice Department lawyer who revealed the NSA's secret surveillance of Americans. Such disclosures are clearly in the public interest. They evidence a violation of law, a gross waste of funds and a patent abuse of authority — the very definition of a protected disclosure under the whistle-blower law.

Unfortunately, the terms "leaking" and "whistle-blowing" are often used synonymously to describe the public disclosure of information that is otherwise secret. Both acts have the effect of damaging the subject of the revelation. But leaking is quite different from blowing the whistle. The difference turns on the substance of the information disclosed. The Whistleblower Protection Act protects the disclosure of information that a government employee reasonably believes evidences fraud, waste, abuse or a danger to public health or safety. But far too often, whistle-blowers are retaliated against, with criminal prosecution being one of the sharpest weapons in the government's arsenal.

For example, Daniel Ellsberg, the patriarch of whistle-blowers in modern times, disclosed the Pentagon Papers, a secret government study of the Vietnam War, to the New York Times. The publication of the papers helped to end the Vietnam War. But Ellsberg was still prosecuted. Tamm revealed an indisputably illegal secret surveillance program, but he has been under criminal investigation since Dec. 30, 2005, a case that remains open. I am still under investigation by the Washington, D.C., bar after nearly seven years, despite the hypocrisy of the Justice Department in declining to prosecute — much less refer to licensing bars — the lawyers who wrote the torture memos related to detainees after 9/11.

In contrast, when I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, unmasked covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, he was not trying to disclose evidence of wrongdoing; in fact, quite the opposite. He put at risk national security and people's lives to undermine a critic. He was trying to punish former Ambassador Joseph Wilson by outing his wife. Libby was leaking, not whistle-blowing. His disclosure to the media had no intrinsic public value whatsoever, and he was rightly prosecuted and convicted.

The common denominator of whistle-blowers is the same: They disclose information of significant public importance that reveals illegal, unconstitutional or dangerous conduct, often at the highest levels of government. The government should not be allowed to hide illegal conduct under official-sounding labels such as "classified," "privileged" or "state secrets," which confer an aura of legitimacy on alleged crimes, and whistle-blowers should not be prosecuted. The billions of dollars wasted on modernizing the NSA's vast eavesdropping system is what needs to be investigated, not Drake.

Speaking truth to power is hard enough. Government employees should not have to choose their conscience over their career, or their very freedom.

Jesselyn Radack is the homeland security and human rights director of the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit public interest group based in Washington.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-radack-20100427,0,7166510,print.story

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Look, it's an illegal, right?

Arizona's anti-immigration law looks like it will take racial profiling to work.

Gregory Rodriguez

April 26, 2010

If Arizona's Republican legislators weren't so dumb, they'd be dangerous. Or maybe they're dangerous because they're dumb.

Either way, once they stop celebrating the passage of what should be dubbed the "We really, really, really don't like illegal aliens" bill , they're going to have to figure out how law enforcement is supposed to identify the culprits.

It's always fun to read the text of silly legislation. Turn to Section 2, Paragraph B, which states: "For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person."

Did you catch the part about "reasonable suspicion"? How is a cop going to know by sight who is or isn't legal? What about a person will elicit suspicion?

Opponents of the measure argue that the open-ended nature of "reasonable suspicion" will lead to widespread racial profiling of all Latinos. They're probably overstating their case. Something tells me someone who looks like, say, blond Mexican pop singer Paulina Rubio won't be stopped.

The truth is that Mexicans are hard to racially profile. Five hundred years of racial mixture has given many Mexican families a decidedly kaleidoscopic racial quality. To wit: Not everyone with Mexican ancestry shares the same skin color.

The law's proponents say that it's not about race anyway, it's about legality, but that isn't entirely true either. Presumably, certain physiognomic features will stand out. And presumably so will class signifiers and certain ethno-cultural accoutrements.

We can safely assume that most illegal immigrants in Arizona are of humble origins, right? So, should the police "reasonably suspect" people with darker faces? What about fair-skinned Mexicans? Are work boots or jeans a dead giveaway? Would someone draw more suspicion driving a truck or an Audi? Do those "Yo heart Jalisco" bumpers scream "illegal alien"?

And what about accents? Is there a marked difference between the accents of a legal and an illegal immigrant? Should a legal immigrant refrain from blasting ranchera music from his Toyota for fear of being "reasonably suspicious"? It's easy to imagine this law creating a climate in which both foreign- and native-born legal residents try to avoid being targeted by suppressing any outward signs of ethnicity.

Last Wednesday, Joe Arpaio, the cartoon-like sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County — he was wearing a gold tie tack depicting a semiautomatic pistol — assured a CNN anchor that he and his deputies "know the criteria when we come across people who may be here illegally in the country."

I'd love to see the criteria. Maybe he could set up a hotline, so everyone can be on the lookout for real illegals.

I'm not saying the new law won't help catch and deport some illegal immigrants. But at the very least, the "reasonable suspicion" clause suggests that the process will be hit or miss, and that plenty of legal residents could be wrongly suspectedand generally harassed. Proponents might say that that's a reasonable risk to run, but I'm pretty certain that most of them won't be subjected to the indignities of having their right to be in this country questioned.

It also puts law enforcement in the awkward position that Southern train conductors once faced, fretting over whom they could risk offending. Booker T. Washington writes about the dilemma in his 1901 autobiography. He describes a conductor inspecting a light-skinned passenger seated in the "colored" compartment. The official examines the man's eyes, nose and hands. If the rider is black, he doesn't want to send him into the white coach. If he is white, he doesn't want to insult him by asking his race. To solve his quandary, the conductor bends over to glance at the man's feet. At last he is convinced the passenger is seated among his own kind.

I guess you could say that Arizona has sent its state law enforcement officers down the road to becoming America's latest foot soldiers. In the process, they've also made their state a little bit more like that segregated train car Washington once rode in.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rodriguez-20100426-14,0,7344780,print.column

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From the Daily News

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LAPD officials want FBI requirement removed to cut backlog of rape kits.

The LAPD has slashed its backlog of untested rape kits from 6,132 to 648, but says it could expedite the process further if the FBI lifts a regulation requiring the verification of tests conducted by private labs.

City Councilman Greig Smith, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, said officials are lobbying federal lawmakers to change an FBI requirement that local police departments repeat DNA tests conducted by independent laboratories if the results are going to be used as evidence in court.

"Council President (Eric) Garcetti and I met with members of Congress and they were very sympathetic to what we were saying," Smith said. "They said to the FBI that if they didn't find an accommodation, legislation would be introduced and that's something the FBI doesn't want."

The Los Angeles Police Department has suffered a 10 percent cut in its forensics budget because of the city's financial crisis, but it is still giving priority to cases in which a rapist is believed at large.

"There are no high priority cases going untested," Detective David Doan said. "Where there is an unknown predatory type, we process those on a high-priority basis."

The DNA backlog became a major issue in 2008, when an audit found a backlog of more than 6,100 rape kits - some of them from assaults that took place years earlier.

As a result, the city hired private contractors to help clear the backlog but was slowed when analysts had to retest DNA in order for it to be used in court.

LAPD officials said they hope to keep $3 million in next year's budget to continue use of outside firms.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14963553

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Mortgage fraud incidents rise 7 percent last year

Cut at will. Incidents of residential mortgage fraud increased last year, a sign that scammers are still targeting the industry despite more diligent efforts to find and report such activity.

The number of mortgage fraud reports among loans made in 2009 grew 7percent, a smaller increase than the 26percent jump seen the previous year, according to a study released Monday by the LexisNexis Mortgage Asset Research Institute.

Since the housing boom, lenders have tightened their underwriting standards, requiring larger down payments, stronger credit histories and reliable proof of income. Law enforcement agencies also have created investigative teams to fight mortgage fraud. These efforts should make it harder for consumers and industry professionals to commit mortgage fraud.

The slower growth rate is being attributed to better reporting and policing for fraud activity, but there's more to it. The report also said more scammers are using technology to access information and allow them to remain anonymous by using the Internet.

"It remains critical for those in the mortgage industry to reassess their processes, work together by sharing information and reporting incidents of fraudulent activity, and ready themselves for more complex schemes in order to continue the fight against mortgage fraud," said Denise James, a co-author of the report.

Among states, Florida moved into the top spot for mortgage fraud, displacing Rhode Island, which led the nation in 2008 but dropped out of the top 10 rankings in 2009. Florida had nearly three times the expected amount of reported mortgage fraud for the volume of loans created there.

New York, California, Arizona and Michigan completed the top five states for mortgage fraud. Eight of the top 10 states are in the eastern half of the U.S.

Rhode Island wasn't ranked in 2009 because the state's sample size did not meet the minimum requirements set for the survey, the institute said.

As for the types of fraud, misrepresentation of information on mortgage applications accounted for 59percent of reported incidents. Fraud related to appraisals was second, increasing to 33percent last year from 22percent in 2008.

Other types of fraud included verifications of deposits or employment, escrow or closing costs, and credit reports.

Despite increased reporting efforts, mortgage fraud "is significantly understated, even during times of massive origination volumes," said Jennifer Butts, manager of data processing for the institute.

The information collected in the 12th annual report comes from about 600 mortgage companies.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14962998

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From the New York Times

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Russian Adoptees Get a Respite on the Range

EUREKA, Mont. — Hundreds of adopted children, most of them Russian, have come here to northwest Montana to live and perhaps find healing grace with the horses and cows and rolling fields on Joyce Sterkel's ranch. Some want to return to the families that adopted them, despite their troubles.

Others, like Vanya Klusyk, have seen far too much of what the world can dish out.

Vanya, 17, suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome, which affects his reasoning ability, his impulse control, his intelligence and even his height. Then there were the beatings in the Russian orphanage, he said, where he lived from age 8 to 14, until a California couple brought him to America.

“There were bigger boys, 18 and 19, and I was too small,” he said in a quiet voice, standing in the bright sun outside the ranch's school on a recent morning. Vanya, who turns 18 this summer, wants to stay on after graduation, working with other wounded children, and Ms. Sterkel has said he can.

An international adoption can be a journey into the waters of the unknown, and sometimes the rocks and shoals — for the parents, the child or both — are too much to negotiate. Ms. Sterkel's remote ranch, five miles from the Canadian border in a homesteader's valley that got electricity only around 1960, is for some of those families the end of the line.

In the weeks since a woman from Tennessee put her daughter's 7-year-old adopted son, alone, on a plane back to Russia, saying he had been violent toward his mother, much of the furor has focused on parents, governments and adoption agencies, and what they do right — or do not do right — by adopted children.

Missing from the debate have been the voices and perspectives of the children themselves and the wrenching life that many face as a legacy of fetal alcohol, institutionalization, poverty and the sometimes socially corrosive survival skills they were required to hone in their early years.

“Lying, stealing and hoarding food,” Alexi, a smiling, upbeat 13-year-old girl, said when asked why her adoptive parents had sent her here. Alexi, whose family did not want her last name used, sat on the edge of a pool table in the main ranch house, swinging her legs and reading a book, “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren .

She spent the first two years of her life in a Russian orphanage, she said, and does not remember anything about it. She just knows she has always had a hard time trusting adults, including her adoptive parents.

Here at the Ranch for Kids , a nonprofit established seven years ago and focused on adopted children from Russia — where Ms. Sterkel's family came from a century ago, and where she worked as a midwife in the early 1990s before adopting three Russian children herself — background stories of hard luck or horror are as common as skinned knees.

Ms. Sterkel, 63, said those stories gave her great sympathy for parents who had reached a point of desperation. Adoptees with inner lives, and brains, twisted by experiences that began even before birth can be mercurial — sunny one minute, explosively violent the next, with no ability to make moral judgments about what they have done. They can also be emotionally distant, self-destructive or both.

In Russia, vodka's curse has been woven through history since the early czars. One widely cited study concluded that Russia's rate of fetal alcohol syndrome was eight times that of the rest of the world.

Exposure in utero to alcohol can cause irreversible brain damage, with visible manifestations that include smaller eyes and a smaller upper lip with the lip's groove flattened. Even those with lesser exposure can have an interior rewiring of their brain chemistry, according to extensive medical research.

Isolation in infancy — in an understaffed orphanage or with a drunken parent — compounds those problems. A paper published last year in The American Journal of Psychiatry about preschool-age children from Romania found that more than half who had lived in an orphanage had psychiatric disorders, from attention deficit to post-traumatic stress. Boys tended to have more symptoms than girls, the study said.

That well-documented path of devastation makes Ms. Sterkel impatient with remarks like the one made by President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, who called the return of the boy from Tennessee a “ monstrous deed .”

“What he experienced was monstrous,” she said, gesturing toward Vanya. “Sending a kid back was not.”

Ms. Sterkel can be just as tough in talking about some of her own clients, like the adoptive parents of a Russian boy who was recently brought to the ranch with early signs of fetal alcohol troubles. The parents had agreed to pay $3,500 a month for the boy's keep, but they knew, they said, that whatever happened, they just could not take him back.

“That's when it's sad — they haven't exhausted all the possibilities,” Ms. Sterkel said.

Ranch for Kids now has 30 children, ages 5 to 17, some of whom stay for a month or two, some for years. Critics say the ranch, and places like it that focus on experience as therapy — exposure to nature, animals and rules of ranch life — are islands of unreality that do not fundamentally address a child's problems.

“All it does is give them a hiatus,” said Ronald S. Federici , a clinical neuropsychologist in Virginia who mainly treats foreign adoptees.

Dr. Federici has tracked international adoptions since 1992 and estimates that about 4,000 from Eastern Europe alone have foundered — with children being sent into state care or to places like the Ranch for Kids or back to their home countries. He said that while he respected the impulse behind the ranch, permanent improvement could not happen without a spine of rigorous medical and therapeutic treatment.

“It's like a vacation at the beach — we're always better when at the beach,” he said.

Ms. Sterkel and her staff do not fully disagree. The rhythms of the ranch — afternoons on horseback, two teachers in a room of eight children, cow-milking — are not how life back home really works. But she believes that strict routines and responsibilities, like cleaning one's room and close contact with nature and animals, can make a difference in upended lives.

“We can't fix the fundamental damage,” she said. “Generally, our parents have reached a place where they need to restore sanity.”

About 70 percent of the roughly 300 children who have come here, Ms. Sterkel said, do go back to their adoptive families — though she admits she often loses track after that. Of the remaining 30 percent, the younger ones are often readopted, while adolescents typically go into the federal Job Corps program. And now there is even a second-generation to work with — a 10-month-old girl named Lilia.

Lilia's mother was adopted from Russia and came through the program herself a few years ago — fiercely unmanageable and claiming, in full embrace of the Goth lifestyle, to be a vampire. The young woman's life did not much get better: She ended up on methamphetamine, tattooed, pierced and pregnant at age 19.

But she came back to the ranch last year, Ms. Sterkel said, for the final months of her pregnancy, and then agreed to let the infant stay on in the Sterkel family's care. Ms. Sterkel, now the baby's legal guardian, said she assumed Lilia had prenatal exposure to alcohol, so she is trying everything she has learned over the years — especially physical contact, usually with the baby on her hip or lap — as an effort at early intervention therapy.

And Vanya now has a big brother figure, a former resident as a child, Jenya Davidson, 21, who has fetal alcohol syndrome, too, and came originally for help, only to return years later to work as a handyman and to help attend to the younger children. The two young men share an apartment over Ms. Sterkel's garage.

Mr. Davidson, with a nearly constant smile, said northwest Montana was now home. He dreams of starting his own landscaping business.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/us/27ranch.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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In Wake of Immigration Law, Calls for an Economic Boycott of Arizona

A spreading call for an economic boycott of Arizona after its adoption of a tough immigration law that opponents consider racially discriminatory worried business leaders on Monday and angered the governor.

Several immigrant advocates and civil rights groups, joined by members of the San Francisco government, said the state should pay economic consequences for the new law, which gives the police broad power to detain people they reasonably suspect are illegal immigrants and arrest them on state charges if they do not have legal status.

Critics say the law will lead to widespread ethnic and racial profiling and will be used to harass legal residents and Latino citizens.

La Opinión , the nation's largest Spanish-language newspaper, urged a boycott in an editorial Monday, as did the Rev. Al Sharpton , and calls for such action spread to social media sites. The San Francisco city attorney and members of the Board of Supervisors said they would propose that the city not do business with the state.

They followed the lead of Representative Raúl M. Grijalva , Democrat of Arizona, who had urged conventions to skip the state, though other Democrats who oppose the law, including Mayor Phil Gordon of Phoenix, pleaded for people not to punish the entire state.

Tourism and convention managers, struggling to rebound from the recession, said it was too soon to tell if the effort would have an impact, but some businesses said people were turning away from the state.

At the Arizona Inn in Tucson, the manager, Will Conroy, said that over the weekend 12 customers canceled reservations or said they would not return to the state because of the law.

“This is a very scary situation that the police can now just come up to you for no reason and ask for papers,” Joy Mann, a prospective guest who had previously stayed at the inn, wrote him in an e-mail message. “My son is a construction worker and is very suntanned. I cannot ask him to join us there now, as I would fear for him.”

Tourism officials said such accounts were not widespread, but they were concerned that the rancor was tarnishing the state's image and were mindful of the boycott in the 1980s that led to Arizona's officially observing Martin Luther King 's Birthday after initially rejecting it as a holiday.

“Arizona tourism is currently in a very fragile state of recovery, and the negative perceptions surrounding this legislation are tarnishing Arizona's image and could easily have a devastating effect on visitation to our state,” the Valley Hotel and Resort Association in Phoenix said in a statement.

Gov. Jan Brewer , a Republican, signed the bill on Friday, calling it an important step toward public safety that would help control immigration and give the police a tool to root out criminals.

She criticized opponents for not offering more solutions to problems related to illegal immigration and called the idea of a boycott “disappointing and unfortunate” at a time when the state is reeling from the recession and suffering from border-related crime that “continues to harm our economy and stifle trade.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/us/27arizona.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Justices to Consider Law Limiting the Sale of Violent Video Games

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether California may forbid the sale of violent video games to children.

Lower courts have consistently struck down similar laws under the First Amendment, declining to extend obscenity principles to images of violence. The Supreme Court's decision to hear the case in the absence of disagreements in the lower courts suggests that at least some justices might be prepared to rethink how the First Amendment applies to depictions of violence, at least when they are sold to children.

The 2005 California law at issue in the case imposes $1,000 fines on stores that sell violent video games to people under 18. The law defines violent games as those “in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being” in a way that is “patently offensive,” appeals to minors' “deviant or morbid interests” and lacks “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

A unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, struck down the law, rejecting what Judge Consuelo M. Callahan, writing for the panel, called “an invitation to reconsider the boundaries of the legal concept of ‘obscenity' under the First Amendment.”

In defending the law in court, the California officials submitted “several vignettes from the games Grand Theft Auto : Vice City, Postal 2 and Duke Nukem 3D, which demonstrate the myriad ways in which characters can kill or injure victims or adversaries,” Judge Callahan wrote. But she said the “heavily edited selections” did not “include any context or possible story line.”

The state urged the appeals court not to apply “strict scrutiny,” the searching judicial review usually called for when content-based laws are challenged under the First Amendment. To survive strict scrutiny, laws must be narrowly tailored to promote a compelling government interest. The state instead urged the court to apply a more relaxed standard used in obscenity cases involving minors, one that requires only a showing that it was not irrational for lawmakers to find that exposure to the materials in question would harm children.

Judge Callahan rejected the looser standard, saying it was specifically rooted in the Supreme Court's “First Amendment obscenity jurisprudence, which relates to nonprotected sex-based expression — not violent content.”

She added that the justification offered by the state to support the law — that violent video games cause psychological harm to children — was supported mainly by evidence based on correlation rather than causation.

Michael D. Gallagher, the president of the Entertainment Software Association , said First Amendment protections should apply to video games just as they do to books, films and music. Industry self-regulation is working, he said, and it is harder for minors to buy M-rated games than it is to buy R-rated DVDs.

The justices first considered whether to hear the case, Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, No. 08-1448, in September and apparently put off their decision until they finished work on United States v. Stevens , last week's 8-to-1 decision striking down a federal law that made it a crime to traffic in depictions of animal cruelty.

The fact that the court decided to hear the video game case instead of sending it back to the lower courts for reconsideration in light of the Stevens decision indicates that some justices consider the two sorts of depictions distinct for purposes of the First Amendment.

In a separate development, the court turned down a request from Michigan that it address a dispute over how to prevent Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/us/27scotus.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the Department of Justice

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As part of the Department of Justice's ongoing initiative to confront intellectual property (IP) crimes, Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grindler announced today the appointment of 15 new Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) positions and 20 FBI Special Agents to be dedicated to combating domestic and international IP crimes.

These new positions – announced on the 10 th annual World Intellectual Property Day – are part of the department's continued commitment to combat the growing number of IP crimes here at home, and abroad. The new AUSA positions will be part of the department's Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) program.

“Intellectual property law enforcement is central to protecting our nation's ability to remain at the forefront of technological advancement, business development and job creation,” said Acting Deputy Attorney General Grindler. “The department, along with its federal partners throughout the Administration, will remain ever vigilant in this pursuit as American entrepreneurs and businesses continue to develop, innovate and create.”

The 15 new Assistant U.S. Attorneys will work closely with the Criminal Division's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) to aggressively pursue high tech crime, including computer crime and intellectual property offenses. The new positions will be located in California, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

The 20 new FBI Special Agents announced today will be deployed to specifically augment four geographic areas with intellectual property squads, and increase investigative capacity in other locations around the country where IP crimes are of particular concern. The four squads will be located in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and the District of Columbia. The squads will allow for more focused efforts in particular hot spot areas and increased contact and coordination with our state and local law enforcement partners. The 20 new agents will join the 31 agents devoted to investigating IP crimes who have already been deployed to field offices around the country.

“Theft of intellectual property – from inventions to trademarks and copyrights, to industrial designs and trade secrets – is a worldwide problem. It affects individuals and corporations financially and can threaten public safety. The additional FBI agents will significantly strengthen the efforts of our squads investigating intellectual property rights violations and help bring to justice those who seek to profit from intellectual property theft," said Assistant Director Gordon M. Snow of the FBI Cyber Division.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Grindler serves as chair of the department's Task Force on Intellectual Property , which was established earlier this year by Attorney General Eric Holder to coordinate the department's efforts on IP crimes. The task force focuses on strengthening efforts to combat intellectual property crimes through close coordination with state and local law enforcement partners as well as international counterparts. As part of its mission, the task force works together with the Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), housed in the Executive Office of the President, to implement an Administration-wide strategic plan on intellectual property.

The task force includes representatives from the offices of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, and the Associate Attorney General; the Criminal Division; the Civil Division; the Antitrust Division; the Office of Legal Policy; the Office of Justice Programs; the Attorney General's Advisory Committee; the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys and the FBI.

World Intellectual Property Day was established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to recognize the importance of protecting intellectual property rights and enforcing their laws. Each year on April 26 th , WIPO and its member states seek to increase public understanding of intellectual property through activities, events and campaigns.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/April/10-dag-480.html

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Resources on How to Protect Yourself – these documents have actionable steps you can take  to identify fraud, protect yourself, or report suspicious activity.

Related Organizations and Web Sites – Additional web resources on the topic.

Reports – Studies further identifying, analyzing, and measuring the topic.

Publications – Brochures, pamphlets, or books devoted to the topic.

Health/Medicare Fraud

Health or medical fraud is the purposeful billing Medicare for services that were never provided or received.

Identity Theft/Privacy Issues

Identity theft is the use of another's personal information without permission — like their name, Social Security number, or credit card number — to commit fraud or other crimes.

Mass Marketing, Mail, Wire, Telephone and Internet Fraud

Mass Marketing Frauds target individuals of all ages and walks of life. Victims are lured with false promises of significant cash prizes, goods, services, or good works, in exchange for up-front fees, taxes or donations.

Criminals use mail, phone, and internet to commit many different types of fraud, including sweepstakes and lottery frauds, loan fraud, phishing scams, buying club memberships, credit card scams, identity theft, and more. All of these types of fraud fall under this category.

Wire Transfer Fraud consists of using wire communications in a scheme to defraud the following: wire transfers of monies to or from a financial institution; electronic mail (e-mail) communications; facsimile (FAX) transmissions; and radio or television communications.

Mortgage, Loan, Lending and Related Fraud

Mortgage scams and frauds include traditional mortgage fraud, foreclosure rescue scams, loan modification scams, and reverse mortgage scams.

Securities and Commodities Fraud

Securities Fraud covers a wide range of illegal activities, all of which involve the deception of investors or the manipulation of financial markets.

Tax Fraud

Any misrepresentation of the tax laws or effort to undermine the integrity of the tax system to the gain of a person or business at the expense of the federal government.

Unwanted Telephone Calls from Telemarketers

Do Not Call Registry
Phone: (800) 275-8777

Other Types of Fraud

Charity Fraud: Scam artists representing themselves as a charitable organization and using similar techniques to request donations as telemarketing, direct mail, email and online ads.

Job Scams: Scam artists who promise a job, access to special job listings, interviews, or a way to make a big income working from home for a fee or for credit or debit card information.

http://www.stopfraud.gov/protect.html

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From ICE

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IPR Center marks World IP Day by seizing $263 million in counterfeit goods

Federal, state and local law enforcement team up in anti-counterfeiting sweeps around the U.S.

WASHINGTON - The federal partners of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) announced April 26 that more than $263 million worth of counterfeit merchandise was seized by law enforcement around the country this month. John Morton, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), revealed these results at an observance of World Intellectual Property Day at the IPR Center in Arlington, Va.

More than $44 million was seized in "Operation Spring Cleaning," a massive nationwide joint enforcement operation involving federal, state and local partners of the IPR Center. An additional $219 million was seized this month as part of a long-term ICE investigation worked with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of counterfeit products manufactured in Asia and smuggled through the Port of Baltimore.

 In "Spring Cleaning," 45 persons were arrested on federal and state counterfeiting charges and 703,684 items of counterfeit merchandise were seized in operations in dozens of cities across the United States, including Seattle, Dallas, Houston, New York, Miami, Detroit and Norfolk, Va. The seized counterfeit merchandise includes everything from counterfeit DVDs, circuit breakers, pharmaceuticals, video games and controllers, exercise equipment, sportswear and luxury goods.

"The smuggling and trafficking of counterfeit goods pose a triple threat to the United States," said ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton. "It robs Americans of jobs, it diverts legitimate revenue from responsible industries to the pockets of organized crime and it creates great risks for the American consumers - encouraging the cheap production of everything from substandard goods to tainted pharmaceutical products."

The IPR Center, which has united the U.S. government agencies that combat intellectual property theft, welcomed three significant new partners to the center at the ceremony: the U.S. General Services Administration, Office of the Inspector General (GSA-OIG), Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS). NCIS and DCIS will focus on the protection of the U.S. military from counterfeit and substandard products while GSA's Office of the Inspector General will focus on protecting the federal civilian supply chain.

They join ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the FBI, the Department of Commerce, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Postal Inspection Service (P.I.S.) and the Government of Mexico Tax Administrative Service.

"The infrastructure of government is threatened when the United States purchases counterfeit products. Working with the IPR Center is a unique opportunity that will strengthen the GSA Office of Inspector General's efforts to better protect the government supply chain," said GSA Inspector General Brian D. Miller.

 "The IPR Center will be a valuable tool for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service in our efforts to protect America's war fighters," said James B. Burch, Deputy Inspector General for Investigations, Office of Inspector General, Department of Defense. "Crimes such as product substitution, sub-standard parts and loss or compromise of sensitive military technology to potential adversaries directly impacts the safety and welfare of our service men and women, especially in areas where we have ongoing overseas contingency operations."

"The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is fully committed to combating the infiltration of counterfeit electronics and other substandard materiel into the military system. Product substitution - using counterfeit parts - is a crime. It degrades the quality of equipment used by the armed forces, and poses an unacceptable safety and security risk for members of the Department of Defense. NCIS recognizes the need to work collaboratively with other agencies and private industry in our effort to ensure the highest possible quality of technology used by our service members and to pursue those individuals and companies who are engaged in this criminal activity," said Mark Ridley, NCIS Deputy Director for Operations.

At the event, the IPR Center also announced the formation of 22 IP Theft Enforcement Teams (IPTETs) with 70 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies around the country to join the 10 federal partners of the IPR Center in collaborating on activities to more effectively combat IP theft nationwide.

World IP Day was instituted by the World IP Organization to raise awareness of the threat posed globally by the theft of trademark and intellectual property rights and the dangers posed by counterfeit and substandard products.

The IPR Center is one of the U.S. government's key weapons in the fight against counterfeiting. The IPR Center offers one-stop shopping for both law enforcement and the private sector to address the growing transnational threat of counterfeit merchandise. The IPR Center coordinates outreach to U.S. rights holders and conducts domestic and international law enforcement training to stem the growing counterfeiting threat as well as coordinating and directing anti-counterfeiting investigations.

To learn more about the IPR Center go to www.ice.gov . Report information on counterfeiting and trademark violations at (866) IPR-2060.

For more photos from Operation Spring Cleaning, visit the ICE media gallery .

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1004/100426washington.htm

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From the FBI

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REQUESTING FBI RECORDS

Making the Process Easier

04/26/10

How can you get copies of FBI records on people, groups, and closed cases?

For years, we've been steadily adding these files to our Freedom of Information/Privacy Act (FOI/PA) website so you can access them with a click of a mouse. But some records are not available online and require you to make a formal request to the FBI.

This request process has just gotten easier, thanks to a new electronic form and revamped website that we are unveiling today. The new eFOIA form—as we call it—works like this:

• Type your information straight into the form, hit “submit,” and your request will be sent to us automatically.
  
  
• Or type in your information, print out the form, and mail or fax us a copy. You can also print and scan the completed form and e-mail it to us at foiparequest@ic.fbi.gov .

Please note! You cannot use the eFOIA form to request records about yourself or another living person (who has given you permission). These requests fall under another law, the Privacy Act. Instead, use the U.S. Department of Justice Certification of Identity Form DOJ-361 or send a notarized letter identifying yourself. The 361 form is not automated; it must be printed and sent to us.

Other new features of the website include:

• A Guide to Conducting Research in FBI Records  (see below)—a comprehensive summary of how to find, use, and understand our records, including those in the possession of the FBI and those held by archives, libraries, and the like;
  
  
• Details on what happens after you make a request and how to file an appeal with the U.S. Department of Justice;
  
  
• Overviews of the Freedom of Information Act (1966) and Privacy Act (1974), which govern the release of FBI records; and 
  
  
• Specifics on how to visit the Reading Room at FBI Headquarters .

A Guide to Conducting Research in FBI Records The sections include: FBI Records Overview Access to FBI Records and Other Records Brief Descriptions of Major Collections of FBI Records Other Significant FBI-Related Collections The full report  | Printable version (pdf, 13MB)

Given the FBI's role in American history, our records have long been of interest to researchers, scholars, the media, and many others.

“Our goal is to make the website as user-friendly as possible—to give people more ways to request our records and to explain the process as clearly as we can,” says David Hardy, head of the Record/Information Dissemination Section in our Records Management Division. “It's part of being more open and transparent.”

As always, if you have questions about requesting FBI records or related issues, call our Freedom of Information Act Requestor Service Center at (540) 868-1535 to hear helpful recorded information, or contact our Record/Information Dissemination Section .

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/april10/records_042610.html

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Alleged Bomb Maker Arrested in Murder-for-Hire Plot

TAMPA, FL—On Friday, April 23, 2010, the Tampa FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), which consists of numerous representatives from local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, arrested JOHN NICHOLAS COORS, age 20, without incident.  COORS was arrested in Tampa, Florida, after meeting with an undercover law enforcement asset (UCA) and attempting to detonate an improvised explosive device (IED).  COORS resides at 702 East 51st Street, apartment 916A, Bradenton, Florida.

According to the federal complaint, the JTTF initially learned about COORS during November 2009. The JTTF received information that COORS was trained in “special forces” type military tactics, considered himself a mercenary, was proficient in building explosive devices, and had made pipe bombs in the past.  He was allegedly in possession of precursor chemicals that could be used to make explosives as well as bomb making books, including the “Anarchist Cookbook”, which where stored in Bradenton, Florida.  Resultantly, OPERATION ROCKY BULLET was launched.

During the investigation, contacts between COORS and the UCA involved plans to kill someone by blowing them up in their vehicle.  COORS and the UCA discussed building an IED, COORS furnished instructions on how to build such a device, and how to plant the device in a vehicle to carry out the assassination.

COORS agreed to construct and provide an improvised explosive device capable of killing a person sitting in a car.  COORS told the UCA that he would build the bomb in such a way that it could be remotely detonated and that he would install the device himself to ensure it was done properly.  COORS agreed to build and detonate the bomb for $8000.00.

COORS constructed the bomb triggering device himself and used inert explosives which were provided by the UCA to ensure the public's safety.

The related charge in this arrest involved the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.  This investigation is ongoing.

Criminal prosecution of this matter will be addressed by the United States Attorney's Office, Middle District of Florida.

The charges in the federal complaint are merely allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

http://tampa.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/ta042610.htm

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From the ATF

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Tobacco: The New Commodity for Criminals

Tobacco smuggling is a growing problem in U.S. that has turned into a lucrative business for criminals who trade cigarettes and other tobacco products on the black market.

February 2010 – an unsuspecting delivery driver made a stop at a popular discount retail store in Corona, California. He was there to replenish the store's supply of cigarettes and other tobacco products but what he didn't know is that lurking in the darkness were two men – watching, waiting for their moment to attack.

The two men confronted the truck driver as he stepped out the truck to ring the receiving bell. With guns drawn and pointed at the delivery man, the two men who were wearing ski masks ordered their victim to get into a waiting vehicle and drove away. The suspects left the delivery man in a neighborhood, miles away from the scene. Police were able to track down the tractor trailer but its contents – more than six thousand cigarettes worth more than $250,000 were gone.

Nationally it's estimated $5 billion in tax revenue annually is lost on the black market, says Special Agent Chris Perez, Chief of the Alcohol and Tobacco Diversion Division for Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Some smugglers trade firearms and drugs for tobacco products while we've had cases of groups that will hire a hit-man to kill someone they see as competition.

November 2009 – ATF special agents bust a ring of tobacco smugglers in Northern Virginia. Culminating a 14–month investigation, agents took 14 people into custody where the suspects allegedly paid or traded for more than $8 million, nearly 40 firearms, and drugs to purchase 388,000 cartons — totalling more than 77 million contraband cigarettes — all in headed for retail stores in New York. But these weren't just any kind of criminals, two of the suspects allegedly agreed to pay $15,000 for a hit-man to kill a man and wife whom suspects believed were involved in stealing more than 15,000 cartons of contraband cigarettes.

The ongoing problem of tobacco diversion seems harmless on the surface but the people working the black market often resemble organized crime gangs of the past and the potential revenue loss, costs states billions annually – money that often times is never recovered and in extreme cases has been found to fund terrorist activity.

In the summer of 2002 Mohammed Hammoud was sentenced to 150 years in prison for using money he got from selling tobacco products on the black market in Charlotte, N.C., to fund a terrorist operation.

ATF is working diligently to investigate and prosecute tobacco traffickers but work the that goes into a tobacco diversion investigation is long and tedious, requires the U.S. Attorneys assistance, and because of the financial complexity of tobacco cases help from financial auditors – complex investigations which sometimes last years.

Tobacco cases take time, explains Perez. It takes a while to gain the trust and infiltrate some of these organizations enough to track the money get to the people who are in charge.

Here is how most tobacco smuggling rings work – legal entities pay significant taxes on their product, including $1.01 per pack in Federal Excise Tax, from $0.07 to $4.25 per pack in state and local excise taxes, and typically $0.50 per pack to a settlement fund for health care costs incurred by the states as a result of tobacco use by their citizens.

By selling non-tax paid cigarettes at tax paid prices or just below that price, criminal organizations are able to net a substantial profit. For example, purchasing legally taxed products in Virginia (a low excise tax state) and driving them to New York (a high excise tax state) for resale creates an immediate $3.95 per pack profit margin. A single carton of cigarettes (10 packs) purchased in Virginia and sold in New York will yield about $39.50 in profits; a single case (60 cartons) yields $2,397 in profits and a single truckload (typically 800 cases) yields $1,917,600.

The bottom line is tobacco diversion is a crime, says Perez. It's a crime that affects local economies through the loss of state tax revenue and a crime that affects communities because of the increasing violence tobacco smugglers are involved in.

http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2010/04/042310-atf-tobacco-the-new-commodity.html

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ATF Canine Handlers Train Mexican Law Enforcement

First Mérida Initiative Funding Class Graduates

FRONT ROYAL, Va. — The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ( ATF ) today announced the graduation of 10 Mexican law enforcement officers from its National Canine Training Operations Center's canine handler basic course.

Eight officials completed the 10-week class, a basic course which teaches new handlers all the necessary skills to deploy an explosives detection canine in operational environments. Two graduates successfully completed the 16-week “Train-the-Trainer” course. The first six-week participants learned to “imprint” untrained canines so they can search for more than 19,000 explosives odors, including homemade and peroxide-based explosives, in the field. The remaining 10 weeks taught students how to teach their own 10-week explosive detection canine handler course. The goal of the “Train-the-Trainer” course is to assist Mexico with developing their canine training capability.

When these teams of explosives detection canines and handlers go back home they will be at the frontline combating violence associated with cartels that use explosives to kill and intimidate people so they can traffic drugs and firearms across the U.S. – Mexico border, explained Kenneth Melson, ATF deputy director.

Narcotics trafficking from Mexico fuels firearms trafficking across the United States. Violence in Mexico, financed and perpetrated by powerful drug trafficking organizations, increasingly involves the use of explosives as well. By partnering with Mexico, with funding from the U.S. Department of State Mérida Initiative, ATF is working to equip law enforcement officials with useful tools to combat violent crime.

The Mérida Initiative is a multi-year program that provides equipment and training to support law enforcement operations and technical assistance for long-term reform and oversight of security agencies. In 2010, Congress approved $450 million for Mexico to complement U.S. domestic efforts to reduce drug demand, stop the flow of arms and weapons, and confront gangs and criminal organizations. The Mérida Initiative demonstrates the United States' commitment to partner with governments in Mexico, Central America, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic to confront criminal organizations whose actions plague the region and spill over into the United States. ATF developed the explosive detection canine program to combat the explosives threat in the United States and abroad. ATF is also at the forefront of combating terrorism through such innovative programs as training local, state, federal and international law enforcement explosives detection canines in peroxide-based explosives, using its years of experience training its own ATF -certified explosives detection canine teams on these substances.

Since 1991, ATF has trained 676 explosives detection canines and 149 accelerant detection canines. The dogs and their ATF -trained handlers are located throughout the United States in local police and fire departments, fire marshal offices and federal and state law enforcement agencies. Teams are also located in 21 foreign countries.

http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2010/04/042310-atf-canine-handlers-train-mexican-law-enforcement.html

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