Out of balance: Intelligence report breaks down Mexico narco war

Mexico's narco war is a "struggle for balance" among various large criminal organizations that control drug trafficking routes in certain regions of the country, and government efforts to decommission the cartels have made that balance "very elusive," says a recent private intelligence report on the security situation in Mexico.

The report, published online last month by the U.S.-based Stratfor intelligence firm, is open and free to the public, an unusual move in an industry where data are usually only available to clients. Stratfor analyst Scott Stewart describes in detail the make-up of the cartels' current geography and the rise of a new trafficking alliance he calls the New Federation.

"The laws of economics dictate that narcotics will continue to flow into the United States," the report says early on. Narco trafficking groups in Mexico have traditionally attempted to supply those narcotics as quietly as possible, like "businessmen." But when one organization is weakened, others attempt to wrest control of new territory, causing violence to erupt.

So who is fighting whom right now? And over which territories? It is a complicated trail to follow, but the report sheds light on the strategic conflict at play behind the daily headlines of carnage and bloodshed.

Many analysts trace the current narco warfare on efforts by the Sinaloa cartel early this decade to move into Juarez cartel territory, in Ciudad Juarez, and Arellano Felix carte l territory, in Tijuana.

The other strong trafficking group in Mexico, the Gulf cartel , has also battled the Sinaloa group for control of smuggling "plazas" along the U.S. border. Further complicating the picture, break-off groups like the Zetas (formerly under the Gulf cartel), and the Beltran Leyva organization and La Familia Michoacana (formed partly among former Sinaloa cartel agents) are seeking to secure their own smuggling territories.

Government strikes against major cartel figures result in temporary vacuums of power and can thus yield more violence.

"Indeed," the Stratfor report says, "the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels have joined forces with La Familia Michoacana to form a new super cartel called the New Federation and are now allies in the struggle against Los Zetas and the [Beltran Leyva Organization], which have teamed up with the Juarez cartel to fight against the New Federation."

In a short-term outlook, the report says, "perhaps the only hope for striking a balance and reducing the violence is that the New Federation is strong enough to kill off organizations like Los Zetas, the BLO and the Juarez cartel and assert calm through sheer force."

So where is the government and military in all of this? The Stratfor report discusses lingering suspicions that consecutive governments headed by the conservative National Action Party (PAN) have "helped" the Sinaloa cartel. The Times has also noted the allegations, which President Felipe Calderon vigorously denies.

"Of course, it is highly possible that the Sinaloa cartel is just a superior cartel and is better at using the authorities as a weapon against its adversaries. On the other hand, perhaps the increasingly desperate government has decided to use Sinaloa and the New Federation as a fulcrum to restore balance to the narcotics trade and reduce the violence across Mexico," the report says.

For anyone who has grown weary of constant reports of violence in Mexico and a soaring tally of victims , such assessments on the current narco war could hardly be reassuring. Still, many Mexicans would welcome an end to the violence -- no matter who makes it stop.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2010/05/mexico-report.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LaPlaza+%28La+Plaza%29

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Two police officers combat Arizona immigration law

Both feel betrayed by the legislation and say it will interfere with a fundamental law enforcement mission: protecting people.

By Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times

May 6, 2010

Reporting from Tucson

In 15 years patrolling the barrios here, Officer Martin Escobar learned that it takes extraordinary effort to gain trust in an area where many fear deportation. In case after case, he has reassured people in his communities that police are around to help and that residents would not be handed over to immigration officials for reporting crimes.

"You have to build relationships," he said. "And I've done that. They trust me now."

Then came the recent passage of SB 1070, the law that makes it a state crime to lack immigration papers and requires police to determine whether people they stop are in the country illegally.

"It's going to break down everything I've worked to let people know that officers are good, that we're here to protect you," said Escobar, who as a teenager was questioned by federal authorities about his legal status.

After the law was passed, Escobar, 45, decided he could not stay neutral. Now he's inserted himself into the middle of the controversy. Last week, he filed suit in federal court against the state, city and county, saying the law will impede police investigations and lead to more crime.

Officer David Salgado, a 19-year veteran of the Phoenix Police Department, filed a separate suit in federal court, claiming the law amounts to racial profiling. Both men see the law as an affront to police work.

And both men say they feel betrayed by a law they think targets not just illegal immigrants, as the bill's sponsors argue, but people like them — Mexican Americans who have made Arizona their home.

Supporters say the law is a necessary crime-fighting tool because illegal immigration has made the state vulnerable to violence, drug trafficking and kidnappings. Suspected illegal immigrants were blamed in the recent killing of an Arizona rancher and the shooting of a sheriff's deputy last week, although no one has been charged in the incidents.

"We cannot sacrifice our safety to the murderous greed of drug cartels," Gov. Jan Brewer said at a signing ceremony for the new law.

Changes to the law after it was signed sought to address concerns about racial profiling, but both Escobar and Salgado think the revisions do little to fix what they see as the law's fundamental problems.

Law enforcement agencies in Arizona have been mixed in their response. The Phoenix Law Enforcement Assn., a union that represents thousands of officers in the Phoenix Police Department, strongly endorsed the bill, saying it would address the crime of illegal immigration and allow police officers to do their work unimpeded by unnecessary restrictions. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has used his deputies to enforce federal immigration laws.

The reaction of their fellow officers has also been mixed, Escobar and Salgado say. Many have called to offer support. Others say it's wrong for police officers to get involved in such issues because it is their duty to enforce the law whether they agree with it or not.

The head of the Phoenix Police Department, Jack Harris, spoke out last week against the law, saying, as Escobar did, that it will make victims and witnesses of crimes afraid to call police.

"This law does not fix the immigration problem," Harris said in a news conference. "It adds new problems for local law enforcement."

Escobar had wanted to be a police officer since he was a fourth-grader growing up in Tucson and watching "Adam-12" on TV.

An immigrant from Sonora, Mexico, whose family struggled for many years, he wanted to be respected and admired, he said, as were the men in uniform on the show.

The feeling stuck, even after he was stopped by Border Patrol officers in his neighborhood and asked about his immigration status when he was in middle school.

"I can still remember the street where it happened," he said. "They stopped me and started asking me what my legal status was. It scared the heck out of me. I was thinking, 'How am I going to prove that I'm here legally?' That's the experience I felt, being afraid, wondering, 'Have I done anything wrong?' "

Now he patrols the same neighborhood on the south side of Tucson, a place with a history of drugs and gangs. He wonders if he'll be the officer asking kids on the street about their immigration status.

As a Spanish-speaking policeman, he's often asked to help on calls. He prides himself on being able to get information out of people who relate to him because, like them, he is an immigrant. And he thinks those skills make him better at the job he aspired to.

"I love my job," he said. "I love being a police officer. But because of my convictions, my beliefs, my experiences growing up in this community, I decided I had to step forward and say I want to do this."

"I knew what the consequences would be — losing friendships, being the minority out of a whole large group. But I believe in what I'm doing."

Legislators changed the language of the law to address some of the concerns raised in Escobar's suit. Initially, the law required police to determine a person's legal status if officers had reasonable suspicion about his or her legality during any "lawful contact." That led to fears that an officer might have to question someone who asked for directions. Last week, legislators changed the law to require police to focus on people they stop, detain or arrest while enforcing existing state laws. Whether that is enough to address concerns about racial profiling is open to debate.

Salgado, 51, of the Phoenix Police Department, whose suit against the governor and the city of Phoenix was filed the same day as Escobar's, said his experience as a school resource officer makes him particularly wary.

He remembers that while working at an elementary school, he picked up a perpetually truant sixth-grader named Raul whom he caught roaming the streets during school hours. Talking with the boy, he learned he was undocumented.

"That's what concerns me with this new law," Salgado said. "Who do we turn him into? Where is [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] going to deliver him? What do we do with him? …That's the problem I'm having."

Both officers said they think that the Arizona law will ultimately be ruled unconstitutional. Several civil rights groups have also filed legal challenges.

Still, Escobar and Salgado said they would enforce the law if the courts upheld it.

"I took an oath," Escobar said. "I will uphold any laws that I have to.… My heart will not be into it, but I am a police officer."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-officer-escobar-20100507,0,228905,print.story

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Rep. Maxine Waters asks for inquiry into missing woman

Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law sparks more protests and counter-protests

Arizona's tough new immigration law sparked dueling actions Thursday as several immigrant advocacy and labor groups announced a national boycott and supporters unveiled plans to converge on the state next month for rallies and shopping sprees to counteract that action.

The law, which is scheduled to take effect in July, would make it a state crime for illegal immigrants to be in Arizona and requires police to check the immigration papers of those they suspect lack legal status. It has produced a frenzied reaction on both sides, with lawsuits, rallies and boycotts against it and counter-protests in support of the law. Lawmakers in at least a dozen states have announced plans to push similar measures to crack down on illegal immigration.

William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration said numerous polls show a majority of Arizonans and Americans support the bill as a legitimate state attempt to control illegal immigration. His and other organizations, including Voice of the People USA and Tea Party Patriots Live, are coordinating efforts to bring thousands of supporters to Arizona from June 5 to 12 to show support for the bill, known as SB 1070. Supporters have also declared that week “Shop in Arizona Week” to offset boycotts by the bill's opponents.

“SB 1070, properly implemented, is expected to save American jobs, wages, health, taxpayer resources and in many cases, American lives,” Gheen said.

On the other side, a consortium of national labor, immigrant advocacy and civil rights groups announced plans Thursday to boycott the state. The groups include the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Latino advocacy organization; the Asian American Justice Center; the Service Employees International Union; and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. The SEIU has already cancelled a conference that had been scheduled in Arizona this year.

“SB 1070 clearly offends our values as a nation of immigrants and brings back many things that we thought were behind us, such as racial profiling,” said SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina.

Gheen said, however, that the bill was aimed at legal status, not race or national origin. He said African Americans, Latinos and others of diverse ethnic backgrounds support efforts to control illegal immigration because of concerns that it lowers wages, heightens job competition and increases taxpayer costs for public services.

“We want to make sure people understand that we are white, blacks and Hispanics united against illegal immigration,” Gheen said. “I am tired of Americans who oppose illegal immigration being accused of racism.”

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles on Thursday, opponents of the Arizona law blocked several streets around the federal prison downtown, including Alameda and Commercial streets, causing traffic tie-ups. “This detention center symbolizes the incarceration of so many immigrants and the separation of families,” according to a statement posted on a website by protesters.

The city attorney plans to charge 14 demonstrators who were arrested with interfering with police work and failure to disperse, spokesman John Franklin said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/05/arizonas-antiillegal-immigration-law-sparks-more-protests-and-counterprotests.html#more

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Remembering victory

by Si Liberman

May 7, 2010

The explosion of joy had not yet erupted. But there, in the heart of London that night, darkness was strangely absent on one city street. A stream of light illuminated almost an entire city block.

Some happy soul had raised a store window's blackout shade. And for the first time in nearly six years, it was done without fear of inviting an air raid warden's citation or German bombs.

That marvelous lighted scene, foretelling the end of Europe's deadliest period, has stayed with me all these years. It was May 7, 1945.

I was a 20-year-old B-24 bomber radio gunner then and on a three-day pass from the U.S. Army Air Force's base outside of Norwich, a five-hour train ride away. On a London Underground train to Piccadilly Circus, I had spotted a newspaper headline that screamed in thick black letters: "Unconditional Surrender Imminent." The lighted street seemed to confirm the headline.

By 3 p.m. the next day, it was official — V-E Day.

Standing on the War Ministry balcony above Whitehall at that hour, a beaming Prime Minister Winston Churchill flashed his usual "V" sign. This time, though, his "V" for victory was no symbolic promise.

The hostilities with Nazi Germany were over. "This is your victory," he told a huge crowd that had gathered.

Cheers grew into one giant party. People poured into the streets, shouting, dancing, embracing. They mounted double-decker buses and utility poles, waved flags, started bonfires and danced the hokey pokey around a statue of Queen Victoria. Sirens blared, car horns honked and church bells pealed.

In four words, a newspaper headline expressed the mood of the country: "Our Day of Days."

I found myself drawn to Buckingham Palace later that day. A roar from the crowd and wild applause greeted the appearance of persons on the balcony. From where I stood among a mass of humanity, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, their princess daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, and Churchill were a distant blur.

That night floodlights illuminated Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament for the first time since the Battle of Britain began in 1940. And Big Ben's toll, signaling the official end of the war in Europe, was accompanied by exploding fireworks and screaming sirens.

The celebration went on for two days. Bus and train service in and out of London was halted, as more than a million people entered the city, jamming streets and blocking traffic. They had flocked there to witness and participate in these historic moments, crowding hotels and parks.

U.S. military personnel passes were extended for two days because of the mass transit stoppage. This was great for me, except that the Red Cross servicemen's hotel and every other hotels had no vacancies, and my money had run out. But I wasn't alone. I and hundreds of others spent a damp, chilly night trying to keep warm and sleep near one of the bonfires in St. James Park.

I met a thin, dark-haired girl who was also left out in the cold, unable to return to her suburban home because trains weren't running. Doreen — that was her name — said her mother had also come to London years ago to celebrate the end of World War I and met and married a Yank.

She told me she couldn't wait for the end of rationing, especially for the day when newly marketed nylon stockings from the U.S. would be available in England. Back in the States several months later, I answered her prayers, and mailed her three pairs. The anticipated thank-you note never arrived, though.

Memories of those tumultuous days will be rekindled as England observes the 65th anniversary of V-E Day on May 8. I'll be there, recalling the joy and that chilly night in St. James Park. Only this time I'll be with my wife of nearly 61 lucky years, and we'll be spending the night in one of London's luxury hotels.

Si Liberman is a retired editor of the Asbury Park (N.J.) Sunday Press.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-liberman-20100507,0,4245122,print.story

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How much does Washington care about African democracy?

The U.S. government's rhetoric on atrocities in Africa doesn't match its long record of supporting authoritarian regimes.

Kevin Funk and Steven Fake

May 6, 2010

After five days of voting, the withdrawal of virtually all of the opposition presidential candidates and countless accusations of ballot tampering, voter intimidation and worse, Sudan's flawed elections drew to an unceremonial conclusion last month, while doing little to advance democracy in Africa. Indicted war criminal Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir has maintained his grip on the presidency with 68% of the national vote, and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement will do the same in the south after obtaining 93% of votes in that region.

For their part, despite pro forma criticisms of electoral irregularities, outside powers appear largely content to play along. In his April 28 Times Op-Ed article , former President Jimmy Carter hailed Sudan's election as, despite flaws, an important step to peace for the country. Glib comments such as U.S. special envoy Scott Gration's eyebrow-raising assertion that Sudan's elections would be "as free and fair as possible" raise an important and oft-obscured question: What is Washington actually looking to accomplish in Africa's largest nation?

Tellingly, relations between the U.S. and Sudan have typically been less bitter than frequently reported. Even as the Darfur conflict peaked, Washington was actively collaborating with Sudanese officials and groups directly implicated in the violence and developed a close intelligence-sharing relationship with Sudan's notorious security agency. Then-Sudanese intelligence chief Salah Abdallah Gosh — against whom the U.N. recommended instituting sanctions — was flown to Washington for meetings with U.S. government officials on a CIA jet in 2005.

However, since Khartoum's defiant tendencies and China's well-cemented position in Sudan's booming oil industry make a full Washington-Khartoum rapprochement unlikely, the U.S. has turned to cultivating its budding alliance with oil-rich and increasingly oppressive south Sudan, expected to be an independent nation after a 2011 referendum on its status.

And while the dust settles on postelection Sudan, several regional U.S. allies are gearing up for their own supposed exercises in democracy.

On Sudan's eastern border, U.S. stalwart Ethiopia has been preparing for late May elections by "waging a coordinated and sustained attack on political opponents, journalists and rights activists," in the unminced words of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

As documented, the ruling party has been using its "near-total control" of the state apparatus to "systematically punish … opposition supporters" and "severely restrict the activities of civil society and the media."

As HRW comments with some understatement, "Ethiopia is heavily dependent on foreign assistance, which accounts for approximately one-third of all government expenditures." However, "The country's principal foreign donors — the World Bank, United States, United Kingdom and European Union — have been very timid in their criticisms of Ethiopia's deteriorating human rights situation."

One could also mention Ethiopia's past service to the U.S. in invading Somalia to decimate a nascent, relatively functional government in 2006 as part of the ever-invoked "war on terror," thus ensuring the latter country's continued descent into chaos.

Elsewhere, in central Africa, the U.S.-allied government of Paul Kagame in Rwanda is gearing up for its own elections by "doing everything it can to silence independent voices," according to HRW .

"We've seen a real crackdown on critics," according to Georgette Gagnon, HRW's Africa director, including "increasing threats, attacks and harassment" against opposition parties. Tellingly, the Economist noted that while Kagame "vigorously pursues his admirers in Western democracies, he allows less political space and press freedom at home than Robert Mugabe does in Zimbabwe."

That Kagame also won his second term in office in 2003 with a highly suspicious 95.1% of the vote, and has continued a long-standing Rwandan policy of ravaging the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, speaks volumes about Washington's commitment to human rights and democracy.

Finally, in Egypt, Sudan's neighbor to the north and the recipient of more U.S. aid than any country in the world except Israel, president-for-life Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30-year-reign continues unabated. Notably, the announcement by the prominent dissident Mohamed ElBaradei that he would be willing to contest Mubarak in 2011 in the normally rubber-stamp elections has elicited few smiles in Washington.

Barack Obama is one in a long of line U.S. presidents who have proclaimed their dedication to freedom for the world's people. Yet a simple review of the facts makes it apparent that Sudanese President Bashir's open disdain for democracy in the region is amply matched by Washington's.

Kevin Funk and Steven Fake are the authors of "The Scramble for Africa: Darfur – Intervention and the USA" (Black Rose Books, 2008). They maintain a Website with their commentary at scrambleforafrica.org .

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-0507-fake-20100506,0,5715449,print.story

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California parole agency breaks up sex-offender encampment in Anaheim

On Wednesday, officials with the Parole Department relocated 30 to 40 paroled offenders who had been living in cars and RVs outside its office on Coronado Street, police say.

By Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times

May 7, 2010

The beat-up station wagons and peeling RVs had been turning up outside the Coronado Street parole office in Anaheim for months, parked through the night. But in recent weeks it seemed they filled the whole block.

In Orange County, where more than a third of the paroled sex offenders are homeless, police estimated that 30 or 40 had taken to camping on the streets in this industrial stretch.

The situation appeared to stem from Jessica's Law, the 2006 statute that forbids sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools, parks or other places where children gather, severely limiting lodging options in densely populated cities.

"These people have difficulty finding residence, so they make do," said Anaheim police Lt. Julian Harvey.

The sex offenders are required to meet regularly with their parole officers, and those without a power source use the office to charge up the electronic ankle bracelets that monitor their whereabouts.

After media inquiries and business complaints, however, the state Parole Department cleared the block Wednesday night, moving the sex offenders to another location. Anaheim police Sgt. Tim Schmidt said the parole agency did not inform the Anaheim police where the offenders had been relocated.

"We had no clue they were doing that," Schmidt said Thursday. "Somebody made a quick, abrupt decision that we didn't know anything about."

The Parole Department did not return calls seeking comment.

On Wednesday afternoon, hours before the streets were cleared, a convicted 41-year-old child molester was sitting near the parole office in his vehicle, his belongings filling the back seat. He said he lost his lodging nearby after a Boys & Girls Club moved in down the block, putting him in violation of Jessica's Law. After four years in prison, he said he has been living in his vehicle for months and that nobody has hassled him.

The California Department of Corrections, which runs the Parole Department, "has been very good to us," he said. "They know we can't go anywhere." He said the sex offenders who camped there did not associate with each other because the law forbade it. He said he felt a measure of protection living near the parole office.

  "All of us are safer than in the streets," he said. Still, he did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation. He said he had heard a rumor that there might be a drive-by shooting targeting the campers.

According to the Parole Department, California has about 8,580 registered sex offenders on parole, about 2,000 of whom are classified as transient. Of Orange County's 302 registered sex offenders on parole, 119 are transient, and in Los Angeles County, the homeless represent 421 of 1,896 offenders.

"The bottom line is, they're going to be in the city some place," Kenneth Ford, the Parole Department's chief deputy regional administrator, said in an interview earlier this week. "We're trying to make them be compliant with the law. You're not going to find a lot of compliant housing for them."

Ford said the Parole Department had reached an understanding with the Anaheim Police Department that there were advantages to having the parolees at a specific location.

"If they were going to be transient, they wanted them to be transient in an area where they know they are," Ford said. "My understanding now is the area is not acceptable to the chief of police."

The Police Department insists it never had such an understanding with the parole agency. "We do not have any formal or informal agreement," Schmidt said. He added that although camping on a city street violates an Anaheim ordinance, police had refrained from citing the sex offenders in hope that a solution could be reached with the Parole Department.

Jerry Grinstead, who co-owns an emergency-vehicle business near the parole office, has watched warily as the overnight campers proliferated in recent weeks.

When a television news report identified the transients as sex offenders last week, however, his worries grew, especially because his granddaughter and daughter-in-law sometimes visit his office. On Monday, he said, he met with Anaheim police Chief John Welter and Mayor Pro-Tem Harry Sidhu to express his concerns. 

Though the sex offenders have been dispersed, the company's co-owner, Travis Grinstead, said that he has seen some of them camped on the surrounding blocks in their vehicles.

The sex offenders are a shunned and hated fraction of the traffic at the parole office. On Wednesday afternoon, milling around the street in front of the office, a group of thickly tattooed ex-convicts were taking a break from mandatory drug rehabilitation class. They said they did not know where the sex offenders were, but it was best for them to keep out of sight.

"This is probably the safest block they could be on," said Richard Velasquez, 33, of Anaheim. But he added: "Don't get me wrong. If I find out there's one, I'm punching him in the face."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/crime/la-me-0507-sex-offenders-20100507,0,3565464,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Times Sq. Bomb Suspect Is Linked to Militant Cleric

WASHINGTON — The Pakistani-American man accused of trying to detonate a car bomb in Times Square has told investigators that he drew inspiration from Anwar al-Awlaki , a Yemeni-American cleric whose militant online lectures have been a catalyst for several recent attacks and plots, an American official said Thursday.

The would-be bomber, Faisal Shahzad , was inspired by the violent rhetoric of Mr. Awlaki, said the official, who would speak of the investigation only on condition of anonymity.

“He listened to him, and he did it,” the official said, referring to Saturday's attempted bombing on a busy street in Times Square.

Friends of Mr. Shahzad have said he became more religious and somber in the last year or so, and asked his father's permission in 2009 to join the fight in Afghanistan against American and NATO forces. Investigators believe he was trained by the Pakistani Taliban , a militant group that previously focused mainly on Pakistani government targets.

A senior military official said Thursday that Mr. Shahzad has told interrogators that he met with Pakistani Taliban operatives in North Waziristan in December and January. Later he received explosives training from the same operatives, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Counterterrorism officials want to know how Mr. Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen who had earned an M.B.A., married and had children and worked in several corporate jobs, came to embrace violence.

It is no surprise to counterterrorism officials to find that an accused terrorist had been influenced by Mr. Awlaki, 39, now hiding in Yemen , who has emerged as perhaps the most prominent English-speaking advocate of violent jihad against the United States.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration took the extraordinary step of authorizing the killing of Mr. Awlaki, making him the first American citizen on the Central Intelligence Agency 's hit list.

Mr. Awlaki's English-language online lectures and writings have turned up in more than a dozen terrorism investigations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, counterterrorism experts have said. And in two recent United States cases, Mr. Awlaki communicated directly with the accused perpetrator.

Nidal Malik Hasan , the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood , Tex., in November, exchanged about 18 e-mail messages with Mr. Awlaki in the year before the shootings, asking among other things whether it would be permissible under Islam to kill American soldiers preparing to fight in Afghanistan. After the shootings, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan as “a hero” on his Web site, which was taken offline by the Internet host company shortly after the posting.

In addition, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner on Christmas Day, is believed to have met Mr. Awlaki during his training by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

It is unclear whether Mr. Shahzad ever directly communicated with Mr. Awlaki.

A video broadcast on April 26 on Al Jazeera showed Mr. Awlaki speaking in Arabic and accusing the United States of participating with Yemeni forces in two air strikes in December, one of which was directed at a house where Mr. Awlaki was believed to be meeting with leaders of the Al Qaeda branch. The video carried the logo of the media arm of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Mr. Awlakiwas questioned by the F.B.I. late in 2001 about contacts with three of the Sept. 11 hijackers who had attended his mosques in San Diego and Virginia. He denied any radical ties and denounced the 9/11 attacks in public statements.

He was imprisoned in Yemen in 2006 and 2007, and after his release he was more overtly approving of violence. Last year, he published a tract entitled “44 Ways of Supporting Jihad” that was widely circulated on the Internet.

Mr. Awlaki's Web site became a favorite for English-speaking Muslims who were curious about jihad, and hundreds of people sent e-mail messages to his site. It is not known whether Mr. Shahzad was among them, and there is no evidence that Mr. Shahzad visited the cleric in Yemen where he was believed to be hiding in a harsh region of desert and mountains.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/world/middleeast/07awlaki-.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Bill Targets Citizenship of Terrorists' Allies

WASHINGTON — Proposed legislation that would allow the government to revoke American citizenship from people suspected of allying themselves with terrorists set off a legal and political debate Thursday that scrambled some of the usual partisan lines on civil-liberties issues.

The Terrorist Expatriation Act, co-sponsored by Senators Joseph I. Lieberman , independent of Connecticut, and Scott Brown , Republican of Massachusetts, would allow the State Department to revoke the citizenship of people who provide support to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda or who attack the United States or its allies.

Some Democrats expressed openness to the idea, while several Senate Republicans expressed concern. Mr. Brown, who endorsed aggressive tactics against terrorism suspects in his campaign for the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy 's seat, said the bill was not about politics.

“It reflects the changing nature of war and recent events,” Mr. Brown said Thursday. “War has moved into a new dimension. Individuals who pick up arms — this is what I believe — have effectively denounced their citizenship, and this legislation simply memorializes that effort. So somebody who wants to burn their passport, well, let's help them along.”

Identical legislation is also being introduced in the House by two Pennsylvania congressmen, Jason Altmire, a Democrat, and Charlie Dent, a Republican. The lawmakers said at a news conference that revoking citizenship would block terrorism suspects from using American passports to re-enter the United States and make them eligible for prosecution before a military commission instead of a civilian court.

Citing with approval news reports that President Obama has signed a secret order authorizing the targeted killing of a radical Yemeni-American cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki , Mr. Lieberman argued that if that policy was legal — and he said he believed it was — then stripping people of citizenship for joining terrorist organizations should also be acceptable.

Several major Democratic officials spoke positively about the proposal, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton . Noting that the State Department already had the authority to rescind the citizenship of people who declare allegiance to a foreign state, she said the administration would take “a hard look” at extending those powers to cover terrorism suspects.

“United States citizenship is a privilege,” she said. “It is not a right. People who are serving foreign powers — or in this case, foreign terrorists — are clearly in violation, in my personal opinion, of that oath which they swore when they became citizens.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she supported the “spirit” of the measure, although she urged caution and said that the details of the proposal, like what would trigger a loss of citizenship, still needed to be fleshed out.

Several Republican officials, though, were skeptical of the idea. Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, questioned the constitutionality of the proposal.

“If they are a U.S. citizen, until they are convicted of some crime, I don't see how you would attempt to take their citizenship away,” Mr. Boehner said. “That would be pretty difficult under the U.S. Constitution.”

The proposal would amend an existing, although rarely used, program run by the State Department. It dates to a law enacted by Congress in 1940 that allowed the stripping of citizenship for activities like voting in another country's elections or joining the army of a nation that is at war with the United States. People who lose their citizenship can contest the decision in court.

The Supreme Court later narrowed the program's scope, declaring that the Constitution did not allow the government to take away people's citizenship against their will. The proposal does not alter the requirement of evidence of voluntariness.

That means that if the proposal passed, the State Department would have to cite evidence that a person not only joined Al Qaeda, but also intended to relinquish his citizenship, and the advantages it conveys, to rescind it.

Several legal scholars disagreed about the legality and effectiveness of the proposal.

Kevin R. Johnson, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Davis , argued that it was “of dubious constitutionality” because merely joining or donating to a terrorist group fell short of unequivocal evidence that someone intended to relinquish his citizenship.

Peter H. Schuck, a Yale University law professor, said the Supreme Court might allow Congress to declare that joining Al Qaeda created a presumption that an American intended to relinquish his citizenship, so long as the program allowed the person to rebut that view.

Mr. Lieberman portrayed the proposal as a reaction to increasing involvement in Islamic terrorism by United States citizens, including Faisal Shahzad , the Pakistani-American man who was arrested in connection with the failed attempt to set off a car bomb in Times Square last Saturday. Mr. Shahzad was granted American citizenship last year.

However, Mr. Lieberman emphasized, the measure would apply only to people who commit such acts in the future. Senate aides said that it would apply only to acts undertaken overseas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/world/07rights.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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As Agents Staked Out, Suspect Fled to Airport

The federal agent searching the streets of Bridgeport, Conn., at last laid eyes on Faisal Shahzad sometime Monday afternoon. The agent called for help, and soon there was a mix of federal agents and local police officers arrayed on the blocks around Mr. Shahzad's apartment at 202 Sheridan Street, according to a federal official briefed on the events.

The narrow street of row houses was far from ideal for a surveillance operation. The agents stood out in the gritty neighborhood. There was no familiarity with Mr. Shahzad's habits or routines, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was in progress. But for hours the agents were there, trying to cover any likely exit routes that might be taken by the man they believed was in some way involved in the botched effort to set off a bomb in Times Square on Saturday.

Sometime around 11 p.m., according to people who live on the street, the authorities moved in with a show of force — black Suburbans, white panel trucks and a SWAT team unit. The building's landlord had given them a layout of Mr. Shahzad's apartment. They hoped he would come out, and if not, the intention was to call him and encourage him to surrender.

Except Mr. Shahzad was no longer inside. Somehow he had left without being seen, perhaps because he had come to suspect he was a target. Instead, he was at Kennedy International Airport preparing to fly to Dubai, having driven there not in the black Isuzu Rodeo the agents knew he had, but in another vehicle. He had made his reservation about 6:30 p.m., calling from his car on the way to the airport, and he bought his ticket with cash after he got there at about 7:35 p.m., officials said. He boarded Emirates Flight 202 sometime before 11 p.m., one official said, around the time the F.B.I. was moving on his home.

Mr. Shahzad, 30, was arrested on the plane; he has been charged in the car-bombing attempt and is cooperating with investigators.

“Surveillance is an art, not a science,” a former law enforcement official said. “People think it is like it is on TV or the movies — the cops set up across from the house, and if the bad guy gets out, they are 50 feet away, they make a U-turn and follow him. That is not real life.”

For officers, of course, the trouble with following a suspect is obvious: play it too tight or get too close, and they can be “made,” or exposed; play it too loose, and they can lose their target.

Add the dynamics of environment, and the degree of difficulty increases: wide-open farmland, noisy city streets or exurban sprawl is each an enemy to a police detective or a federal agent tying to blend in, ghostlike.

So, too, is a street in Bridgeport, one full of bodegas and people gathering in front of their houses — and one with an apartment building with a tiny back alley for cars, but not agents looking to hide.

“Surveillance is hard work,” said James K. Kallstrom, a former assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in charge of the New York division who initiated the first specialized surveillance team in the 1980s, a system copied across the F.B.I.'s 56 field offices in later years.

The lapse, despite Mr. Shahzad's ultimate capture , put something of a disheartening twist on an otherwise fast-moving and successful investigation.

When asked if the F.B.I. was responsible for the surveillance lapse, and what, exactly had led to it, Special Agent Richard Kolko, an F.B.I. spokesman in New York, said, “We do not discuss specific operations.”

But he emphasized that when it came to surveillance work, the F.B.I., nationwide, used teams of “armed special agents” and “highly trained professional support” personnel, who are full-time employees. The former, who work under the Special Operations Group, handle criminal cases in which suspects are considered dangerous, and the latter, assigned to the Special Surveillance Group, handle cases deemed less risky.

The decision not to immediately arrest Mr. Shahzad might have been colored by several factors. Despite having placed him on the “no-fly” list at 12:20 p.m. on Monday, prosecutors and agents still were not sure whether he was the suspected bomber or an associate. In addition, they might have thought they lacked probable cause to arrest him.

Pasquale J. D'Amuro, a former chief of the New York F.B.I. office, offered another reason for waiting: the desire to let things play out a bit.

“I would want to know who else he is meeting with, are there other people involved in this or are there other devices that may be set and going off,” he said. “The big thing you have to find out is, are there other events that you want to stop.”

On “The Charlie Rose Show” on Tuesday night, the New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said that in the Times Square car bomb investigation, Mr. Shahzad was not immediately arrested because “probable cause” was needed.

“At that time,” he said, “there was not enough to make the arrest when they initially started the surveillance.”

When pressed, he added: “I think while he's under surveillance what you're trying to do is build up a case or build up enough information to get probable cause to make an arrest. There are a lot of other avenues.”

Andrew C. McCarthy, who was the lead prosecutor in the Southern District of New York in the case of Omar Abdel Rahman in the 1990s, said the tensions between prosecutors and agents were palpable in those days.

The agents, he said, worried about public safety. The prosecutors wanted to ensure they could make a convincing case.

“The agents are going to be blamed if something terrible happens and people get killed,” he said, “and the prosecutors are going to be blamed if the other something terrible happens, which is you don't get enough evidence and as a result people get acquitted.”

Several current and former officials said that when it came to surveillance, the more tools, the better. Sets of cars are useful, so they can be arranged to prepare for a target's sudden shift in direction. Agents posted on various corners or streets, connected by radio, can move in and out and trade off observations.

“You've got to build layers of surveillance around the target,” said Christopher T. Voss, a retired F.B.I. agent who conducted surveillance for three years as part of his assignment to the Joint Terrorist Task Force in New York. “You need to place people at the primary routes of departure. And sometimes you're in a situation where you can't put a lot of people on it because you're going to be seen.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/nyregion/07surveil.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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When a Suspect Likes to Talk, and Talk

Days after his arrest, the Times Square bombing suspect has not been seen in court, though American law provides a right to be charged promptly before a magistrate, usually within 48 hours.

But like a lot of legal rights, that one can be waived. Lawyers and former prosecutors said it could be some time — anywhere from a little while to a long while — before the suspect, Faisal Shahzad , who has been talking with prosecutors and investigators, stands in some baggy jail outfit before a judge.

“It's not the normal course of things, but it's not unprecedented,” said Daniel C. Richman, a Columbia law professor who is a former federal prosecutor. He said there was no clear outer limit to how much time might pass before a court appearance, as long as Mr. Shahzad properly waived his legal rights.

It may suit both sides to keep their momentum going, whether it is full cooperation, boasting or something in between. For prosecutors and investigative agents, the interrogation of a helpful defendant can be a kind of alchemy that works best roped off from the world.

A court appearance can break the spell, said Anthony S. Barkow, a former federal terrorism prosecutor in Manhattan who is executive director of a criminal law center at New York University.

“All kinds of wheels get set in motion that sometimes makes it difficult to continue the discussion” after an arraignment, Mr. Barkow said.

Having a defense lawyer, for example, can be a major impediment. Federal prosecutors declined to comment Thursday on whether Mr. Shahzad has yet consulted a lawyer. He could waive that right as well.

Accused people sometimes insist on going it alone for a variety of reasons, including vanity and hubris. Some Islamic prisoners who view themselves as political captives have spurned American lawyers.

From the prosecution's vantage point, a defense lawyer can be a double-edged sword. The presence of a lawyer can limit later claims that a defendant was duped by interrogators, mentally unstable or coerced into saying something false.

But on the other hand, a defense lawyer can get in the way. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, one of the staple arguments in the debate about what legal system to use for terrorism prosecutions has been whether the right to counsel may be a luxury the country cannot afford during investigations like the one now under way.

The questioning of Mr. Shahzad certainly has both law enforcement and national security aspects. Investigators want to know not only who else might be prosecuted for a role in the failed attack, but also how to try to stop the next one, and where military or intelligence operations might be most useful.

“For the government to be able to get at the person directly, without counsel interposed, is something they want,” said Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer for terrorism suspects who is a professor at the City University of New York School of Law in Queens.

There are some legal risks in a delay in getting the case into court. Mr. Barkow, the former terrorism prosecutor, said investigators would be careful to document that Mr. Shahzad was acting voluntarily in all his dealings with them, perhaps by signing statements or taping his interviews.

“If he waived his rights and that can be demonstrated,” Mr. Barkow said, “there's really not much of a legal risk” in delaying a court appearance.

But other lawyers said that could be a big if. Over time, defendants have a way of changing their minds when confronted with the reality of long prison terms and former allies turned enemies.

If Mr. Shahzad's case travels that route, this period of isolation could become a point of contention, said Professor Richman of Columbia. Should Mr. Shahzad later decide to disavow what he is saying now, he could claim he was mistreated or manipulated while out of reach of the courts. The rule requiring prompt arraignments is rooted in part on an American aversion to people vanishing into secret interrogations.

“The longer the period of time is,” Mr. Richman said, “the more plausible will be a claim down the road that any waiver of his rights was not fully voluntary.”

James A. Cohen, a criminal law professor at Fordham Law School, said that in the usual case a defendant generally makes it to court quickly. The Times Square case is not the usual case.

The exceptions can be for any number of reasons. Informers sometimes stay out of court to keep their legal troubles from new targets of their testimony. Mobsters who switch sides sometimes see secrecy as a way to stay alive.

Professor Cohen said Mr. Shahzad's government handlers are probably focused right now on keeping him talking. “It could be weeks,” he said. “It depends upon the quality of the information he is supplying and how easy or hard it is to confirm.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/nyregion/07detain.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Latino Groups Urge Boycott of Arizona Over New Law

Several large Latino and civil rights organizations on Thursday announced a business boycott of Arizona, saying that a tough anti-illegal immigration law there would lead to racial profiling and wrongful arrests .

The boycott call was led by the National Council of La Raza , or N.C.L.R., one of the nation's biggest Latino groups, and was joined by the League of United Latin American Citizens and the National Puerto Rican Coalition . The groups said they would ask members and supporters to refrain from planning conventions or conferences in Arizona and from buying goods produced in the state.

“The law is so extreme, and its proponents appear so immune to an appeal to reason, nothing short of these extraordinary measures is required,” Janet Murguía, the president of N.C.L.R., said Thursday at a news conference in Washington.

The organizations said they would collect signatures on a pledge committing supporters to pressure corporations to stop doing business with Arizona. Also participating were the Service Employees International Union , the United Food and Commercial Workers union, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights , a coalition of about 200 groups including African-American and Jewish organizations.

The Arizona law would require the state and local police to question people about their immigration status based on a “reasonable suspicion” that they might be illegal immigrants. Adopted on April 23, the law has not yet taken effect and is facing legal challenges.

Senator Charles E. Schumer , Democrat of New York, sent a letter on Thursday to Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, asking her to call on the Legislature to delay the new law for one year, to give Congress time to enact an immigration overhaul. He also asked Ms. Brewer, a Republican, to help raise support among Congressional Republicans for the overhaul.

Ms. Brewer has said the state was forced to act because the federal government failed to control illegal immigration. Mr. Schumer is the main author of a proposal offered last week by Democrats, which would increase spending for border security and open a path to legal status for millions of illegal immigrants.

In Los Angeles, the police said they arrested more than a dozen protesters who chained themselves together on Thursday and blocked traffic in front of a federal immigration detention center downtown to protest the Arizona law.

In Phoenix, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County said officers arrested 24 immigrants in a raid Thursday morning on a local company, Lasermasters, accusing them of felony identity theft for working with false documents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/us/07immig.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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ISIS new video-camera -- bolts it to a ceiling, mounts it on a roof, or fastens it to a truck-mounted telescoping mast.

ISIS: New Video Camera Sees It All 360° surveillance video promises high-res detail, multiple views, and DVR features Traditional surveillance cameras can be of great assistance to law enforcement officers for a range of scenarios—canvassing a crowd for criminal activity during a Fourth of July celebration, searching for who left a suitcase bomb beneath a bench , or trying to pick out a terrorist who has fled the scene and blended into a teeming throng in the subway. But there are shortfalls. For starters, once they zoom in on a specific point of interest, they lose visual contact with the rest of the scene. But a new video surveillance system currently being developed by the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) may soon give law enforcement an extra set of eyes. The Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance (or ISIS) takes new video camera and image-stitching technology and bolts it to a ceiling, mounts it on a roof, or fastens it to a truck-mounted telescoping mast.

“Coverage this sweeping, with detail this fine, requires a very high pixel count,” says program manager Dr. John Fortune, of S&T's Infrastructure and Geophysical Division , “ISIS has a resolution capability of 100 megapixels.” That's as detailed as 50 full-HDTV movies playing at once, with optical detail to spare. You can zoom in close…and closer…without losing clarity.

The stitching together of several images isn't exactly cutting-edge magic. For years, creative photographers have used low-cost stitching software to create breathtaking high-res images (like that famous image of the National Mall from Inauguration Day 2009). But those are still images, created days or weeks after a scene was shot. ISIS is quilting video —in real time!And a unique interface allows you to maintain the full field of view, while a focal point of your choice can be magnified.

Other neat tricks—many of which are commercially available—will be provided by a suite of software applications called video analytics . One app can define a sacrosanct “exclusion zone,” for which ISIS provides an alert the moment it's breached. Another lets the operator pick a target—a person, a package, or a pickup truck—and the detailed viewing window will tag it and follow it, automatically panning and tilting as needed. Video analytics at high resolution across a 360-degree field of view, coupled with the ability to follow objects against a cluttered background, would provide enhanced situational awareness as an incident unfolds.

In the event that a terrorist attack has occurred, forensic investigators can pore over the most recent video, using pan, zoom, and tilt controls to reconstruct who did what and when. Because these controls are virtual, different regions of a crime scene can feasibly be studied by separate investigative teams simultaneously.

Many of the ISIS capabilities were adapted from technology previously developed by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory for military applications. With the help of technology experts from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Lincoln Laboratory has built the current system with commercial off-the-shelf cameras, computers, image processing boards and software.

ISIS creators already have their eyes on a new and improved second generation model, complete with custom sensors and video boards, longer range cameras, higher resolution, a more efficient video format, and a discreet, chandelier-like frame—no bigger than a basketball. Eventually, the Department plans to develop a version of ISIS that will use infrared cameras to detect events that occur at night.

S&T formed a partnership with the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), and in December 2009, began an ISIS pilot at Logan International Airport, allowing potential Homeland Security end users the opportunity to evaluate the technology. Beyond the potential for enhancing security at our nation's airports, if successful, the current testing at Logan could pave the way for the eventual deployment of ISIS to protect other critical venues.

That's a good thing, says S&T's Fortune. “We've seen that terrorists are determined to do us harm, and ISIS is a great example of one way we can improve our security by leveraging our strengths.”

http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/gc_1273160563362.shtm

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From ICE

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ICE deports Iraqi national with ties to Al Qaeda operatives

SEATTLE - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today announced that an Iraqi citizen, who had ties to an Al Qaeda leader and was deemed a national security risk by a federal immigration judge, an administrative appeals court and a federal appeals court, was recently removed to his native country.

Sam Malkandi, 51, was living in Kirkland, Wash., in 1999 when he attempted to fraudulently obtain a U.S. visa for Tawfiq bin Attash to travel here and purportedly receive medical treatment. Bin Attash, also known as "Khallad," was a trusted lieutenant and former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden, and is suspected of planning the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

During Malkandi's hearings before a federal immigration judge, ICE attorneys introduced evidence that Malkandi committed fraud against the U.S. government in order to obtain immigration benefits for himself and his family. ICE attorneys also presented evidence linking Malkandi to Khallad and argued that there are reasonable grounds for regarding Malkandi as a danger to the security of the United States. In February 2006, the immigration judge ordered Malkandi removed to Iraq.

The Board of Immigration Appeals considered his case and, three months later, upheld the immigration court's order of removal. Malkandi appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In August 2009, the Ninth Circuit issued a published decision upholding the immigration judge's opinion and ruling that nothing prevented ICE from deporting Malkandi.

"We are gratified that justice has prevailed in this case," said Dorothy Stefan, chief counsel for ICE in Seattle. "Our laws prohibit aliens who are living here as our guests to use this country as a base to advocate terrorism or support terrorists. ICE will use every tool at its disposal to restore integrity to the nation's immigration system and protect the community from those who might attempt to do us harm."

Evidence linking Malkandi to Al Qaeda surfaced in 2003 after bin Attash was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, and turned over to U.S. authorities. According to a footnote on page 492 of The 9/11 Commission Report, bin Attash told U.S. officials in August 2003 that an individual living in Bothell, Wash., whose name sounded like "Barzan," had tried to help him obtain a U.S. visa to enter the United States.

U.S. officials concluded that "Barzan" was very likely Sarbarz Mohammad who was living in Bothell at the time. Sarbarz Mohammad changed his name to Sam Malkandi in 2001.

A subsequent investigation by ICE and FBI agents on the Seattle Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) determined that "Barzan" and Sam Malkandi were the same individual.

Among other things, federal agents were able to obtain documents indicating that Malkandi had made arrangements with a clinic in Bellevue, Wash., for bin Attash, under an alias, to obtain a new prosthetic foot in 1999. Bin Attash was never able to come to the United States as his visa application was denied.

ICE agents arrested Malkandi in August 2005 on grounds that he had committed fraud against the U.S. government in order to obtain immigration benefits for himself and his family. Specifically, he was accused of falsely claiming to have been incarcerated in Iran for possession of prohibited materials. At the time of the arrest, JTTF agents executed a search warrant at Malkandi's home.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1005/100506seattle.htm

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