Alleged Russian spy ring members led typical American lives

The charges against 11 suspects expose a surprising – and mundane – side to modern espionage.

by Bob Drogin and Geraldine Baum

Los Angeles Times

June 29, 2010

Reporting from Montclair, N.J.

Richard and Cynthia Murphy grew lettuce in a backyard garden, walked their daughters to the school bus each morning, and swapped Christmas cards with neighbors who had moved to Texas.

Their modest three-bedroom house sported maroon shutters and a wrap-around porch, and sat on a winding street in a well-heeled suburb across from Manhattan. They drove a green Honda Civic.

To all appearances, the Murphys were a typical, child-obsessed American family — not deep-cover Russian spies straight from a Cold War novel.

Their arrests, along with those of 9 other alleged Russian spies, has exposed a surprising side to modern espionage: The group led mundane lives far from the James Bond image. Instead of car chases and shootouts, they paid taxes, haggled over mortgages, and struggled to remember computer passwords.

As a result, the 11 — the biggest alleged spy ring every broken by the FBI — blended into American society for more than a decade. They joined neighbors at block parties, school picnics and bus stops. Four of the couples were married, and at least three had young children.

One suspect wrote columns for a Spanish-language newspaper in New York. Another ran an international consulting and management firm in Boston, while his wife sold high-priced real estate near Harvard University. Yet another drove a shiny blue BMW to his investment banking job in Seattle; he regularly updated his status on LinkedIn, a social networking site.

If their cover jobs were ordinary, their secret lives had a humdrum side that sometimes seems more like Woody Allen than John LeCarre.

One suspect, Anna Chapman, bought a Verizon cellphone in Brooklyn, N.Y., with a patently false address: 99 Fake Street. She also posted sultry photos of herself on Facebook and videos on YouTube. Another, Juan Lazaro, used a payoff from Moscow to pay nearly $8,000 in overdue county and city taxes, according to court documents.

Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley, the alleged spies in Boston, filed regular expense reports to Moscow Center, headquarters for Russia's foreign intelligence agency, called the SVR.

"Got from Ctr. 64500 dollars, income 13940, interest 76. Expenses: rent 8500, utilities 142, tel. 160, car lease 2180, insurance 432, gas 820, education 3600," plus medical, lawyers' fees, meals and gifts, mailboxes, computer supplies, and so on, they wrote in one, according to an FBI affidavit.

And the lettuce-growing Murphys of Montclair repeatedly argued with Moscow Center in encrypted computer messages last summer about who should legally own their $400,000 house — them or the SVR.

"From our perspective, purchase of the house was solely a natural progression of our prolonged stay here," the Murphy's explained, apparently after being reprimanded. "It was a convenient way to solve the housing issue, plus to 'do as the Romans do' in a society that values home ownership."

Murphy later whined to another spy about their bosses back in Moscow: "They don't understand what we go through over here."

The group allegedly attended one of Moscow's most elite spy schools before landing in America. Their mission was spelled out, somewhat awkwardly, in a 2009 message to the Murphy's from Moscow Center.

"You were sent to USA for long-term service trip," the message read, according to the FBI affidavit. "Your education, bank accounts, car, house etc. — all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, i.e, to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US and send intels [intelligence reports] to C [Center]."

It's unclear whether they were successful at that. But they did seem to succeed in adapting to life in America.

The Murphys appeared devoted their tow-headed, blue-eyed daughters, Katy, 11, and Elizabeth (called Lisa) 9.

Most mornings, according to neighbors, it was the mom, Cynthia, a blonde woman who favored long flowing skirts, who walked up Marquette Street to catch the commuter bus to Manhattan.

Or at least that's where everyone assumed she went.

"I think she was in financial services but who knows now?" said Elizabeth Lapin, who lives on the same street.

Since the Murphy's moved into the neighborhood a few years ago, Lapin and Cynthia had spoken at the annual block party in the fall, at the bus stop, on the sidewalk.

Many had assumed that Cynthia, because of her foreign accent and light hair, was Scandinavian. Lapin also said her neighbor smiled and waved whenever she passed. Once she saw her walking home with a bunch of daffodils and a French baguette.

"If you were to look at everybody on this street," added Lapin, "she'd be the last person you'd suspect as a spy."

Richard Murphy was the "stay at home dad," said Denise Capone, 38, who lives across the street.

Murphy walked his daughters to the school bus in the morning and trailed after them in the late afternoon while they rode their bikes around the cul-de-sac at the end of their street.

Richard also tended the backyard vegetable garden and flower pots on the back deck. He wasn't as friendly as his wife — though he sometimes shared a morning coffee with other stay-at-home parents.

"Whatever they were doing as spies, when you think about it, that was just their jobs," said Denise's husband, Steve, who works as a bartender near Lincoln Center in Manhattan.

"The guy stayed at home and sent e-mails and had secret meetings or whatever he did in his spy work. But then he was done he was like everybody else — he took care of the kids, he worked the yard, he carried bikes.

"The only difference is that his main office was in Moscow," Steve said.

His daughter, Joelle, 12, looked at her father as if he was from another planet.

One Saturday, her friends, the Murphy girls, were merrily rolling down the street on their bikes; on Sunday their house swarmed with FBI agents, and on Monday, the media arrived in droves.

Little Lisa Murphy was in the house with female agents after her parents were taken away Sunday, almost two hours later Katy, in a bathing suit and carrying a swimming noodle, returned home from a pool party. A woman quickly drove both girls away in a mini-van with tinted windows.

Suddenly everything seemed suspicious in a place where nothing usually is.

The possibility that she was living in a hotbed of espionage was not nearly as disturbing to Amy Bandler, another neighbor, as what might happen to the Murphy girls.

Last week, Katy had received three awards at the Hillside Elementary School's "moving up" ceremony. Next year, she would have been attending Glenfield Middle.

"I'm sick about the children," Bandler said. "What becomes of the spies' kids?"

Most of the 11 alleged spies, like the Murphys, seemed to pass their lives in mundane, suburban anonymity. But being low-key was apparently not a prerequisite of being a covert agent.

According to the FBI, defendant Vicky Pelaez worked as a both a print and television journalist for decades. She had risen to become a columnist for the prominent New York Spanish-language newspaper, El Diario/La Prensa.

In her column, she voiced strong criticism of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America in weekly pieces.

Gerson Borrero, a former editor in chief of El Diario, described Pelaez as soft-spoken but forceful in her opinions and stridently ideological. She stood out too, because she liked to wear traditional Peruvian garb to the office.

"She's emotional and passionate about what she believes in, which makes her a great columnist," Borrero said.

Still, in the crazy quilt of American punditry, her opinions seemed hardly shocking. Pelaez, in fact, had once been kidnapped while working as a television reporter in her native Peru by the communist guerrilla group, Tupac Amaru, and held for 17 hours. She and her cameraman were released after their station broadcast a videotaped message from the guerrillas protesting the alleged torture of members of the group captured by the government.

Pelaez was arrested with her 65-year-old husband, Juan Lazaro, a retired political science professor who has published articles about the role of women in Peruvian revolutionary groups.

The couple's older son, Waldomar Mariscal, told El Diario that the charges were "ridiculous," saying that his parents were so lacking in computer skills that they sometimes couldn't remember how to access their e-mail accounts on Yahoo.

Many of the defendants, ironically, were perhaps most distinguished by their successful pursuit of the American Dream.

Defendants Michael Zottoli, 40, and Patricia Mills, who is about 31, both graduated from the Bothell campus of the University of Washington in 2006 with degrees in business administration.

Ufuk Ince, a former professor, recalled that the couple concentrated on finance, and that Zottoli excelled.

"Because he was in the top part of my class, I knew that he would have good opportunities in terms of corporate finance money management," he recalled.

He called Zottoli personable and charming. "What I mean by that is he was not overbearing. Understated, smiling face, engaged, interested…. It was a pleasant thing to be around this person. There was a permanent smile on his face."

John Evans, manager of the building where the couple last lived in Seattle, said Zottoli drove off each morning in a late model blue BMW to a job at an investment bank. He said Zottoli's wife told him she planned to go back to school. They appeared devoted to a toddler named Kenny.

"Michael and Patricia were a very nice young couple," Evans recalled. "They were so family oriented, you would never think they would be involved in something like, what are they saying, espionage?"

They paid their rent each month in advance with a cashier's check, he said.

In hindsight, however, he now wonders about the couple and little things he noticed about them.

Evans said had initially assigned Zottoli a parking spot that seemed tight. Later, when another slot became available, he offered to let the couple switch because it would be easier to use.

"But they said, no, they had gotten used to this parking spot," he said.

"Looking back, it was a perfect cover," Evans said. "Their car was tucked in, and nobody would be able to tell whether they were home or not."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-russian-agents-lives-20100630,0,3028519,print.story

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Obama renews immigration push

The president meets with lawmakers to discuss a strategy for passing a bill this year; gaining Republican support will be a challenge. He will make his case to the public in a speech Thursday.

By Peter Nicholas

Tribune Washington Bureau

June 30, 2010

Reporting from Washington

It would be a revival worthy of Lazarus, but President Obama is making a renewed push for an immigration overhaul, possibly during a lame-duck session of Congress after the November election — when members would no longer face an imminent political risk for supporting it.

Obama met with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the State Dining Room on Tuesday and discussed a strategy for passing a bill that had seemed dead for the year.

On Thursday morning, the president will put the issue before the American public. In a speech at American University, he plans to make the case for providing a path to legal status for the estimated 11 million people who live in the U.S. illegally while strengthening border enforcement.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily briefing Tuesday that "this continues to be a very important national issue" requiring Republican support. To date, no Republican senators have agreed to back a comprehensive immigration bill. Nor has such a bill been introduced in the Senate.

Obama "can't sign something that doesn't exist," said one person who was at the White House meeting.

As recently as May, Obama said he merely wanted to "begin work" on immigration this year — not complete a bill. But this week he has approached the issue with renewed urgency.

He spoke to immigration advocates at the White House on Monday, setting aside time from coping with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a shakeup in his military command in Afghanistan.

Latino lawmakers who have criticized the White House for neglecting immigration said they were pleased.

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who was part of the Hispanic Caucus meeting with Obama, said in an interview: "He's going to speak to the nation on Thursday and tell the country why it's important to have comprehensive immigration reform. That's something we've been demanding of this administration."

But advocates have heard assurances before.

Deepak Bhargava of the Washington-based Center for Community Change was among those who met with the president Monday. In an interview afterward, Bhargava said Obama "was unambiguous about his commitment. The question is whether the actions will match the words over the next few weeks."

In their hourlong meeting Tuesday, lawmakers and the president debated a strategy for passing a bill in the coming months — no small task given that members are increasingly focused on the upcoming election, and national polls show broad support for Arizona's strict new immigration law.

With conservatives energized, angry and likely to storm to the polls, Democrats fear they will lose even more seats in Congress than a president's party typically does at the halfway point in his term.

Voting on an immigration bill in a lame-duck session has some advantages in proponents' eyes. Outgoing members of Congress would have little reason to fear backing a controversial bill. And those who won might be more likely to support it, since they wouldn't have to face voters for another two years — when Obama is up for reelection and likely to draw progressives to the polls.

In addition, if Republicans make major gains in November, an immigration overhaul could be impossible in 2011 or 2012.

While running for president, Obama pledged to act on immigration in 2009. That deadline came and went. But Obama won two-thirds of the Latino vote in 2008 and has no wish to alienate a growing constituency.

Raising the issue anew allows Obama to mollify his Latino supporters. But it also puts Republicans in a tough spot. Neither party can afford to write off a Latino community whose influence is growing.

Forcing a vote on immigration would give Republicans a difficult choice: They could vote against the bill and risk antagonizing Latinos, or vote yes and invite the wrath of "tea party" activists and other conservatives opposed to what they view as amnesty for illegal immigrants.

In his private meetings this week, Obama has emphasized that Republicans are the main force blocking a bill.

"He said over and over again the Republican obstruction was the key to preventing this from getting done," said Eliseo Medina, international executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, who took part in a meeting with Obama on Monday.

In another move likely to please Latino voters, Obama's immigration enforcement chief, John Morton, issued a memo Tuesday ordering his agency to focus on deporting criminals and those who pose a national security threat, rather than on pursuing people such as "immediate family members of U.S. citizens" and those caring for children.

Morton has long embraced those priorities publicly. The memo was an effort to make them clear to every employee of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said a senior ICE official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

The Los Angeles Times has reported in recent months on deportation cases against college students and others with no criminal records, including one against a Nevada couple that a federal judge criticized as "horrific." After the article appeared, immigration officials told the family it would not be deported.

Officials in the Department of Homeland Security, which encompasses ICE, say it is difficult for senior officials to learn of every such case wending its way through the sprawling bureaucracy.

The Morton memo orders immigration officials to focus on removing "aliens engaged in or suspected of terrorism or espionage, or who otherwise pose a danger to national security; aliens convicted of crimes, with a particular emphasis on violent criminals, felons and repeat offenders; aliens not younger than 16 years of age who participated in organized criminal gangs; aliens subject to outstanding criminal warrants; and aliens who otherwise pose a serious risk to public safety."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-immigration-20100630,0,6206482,print.story

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Half-million worth of meth, coke seized at U.S.-Mexico border east of San Diego

A man trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in a truck packed with cocaine, methamphetamine and ammunition has been arrested, federal authorities said Tuesday.

Customs and Border Protection officers apprehended the 30-year-old Mexican citizen Saturday at the Calexico border crossing in Imperial County, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche allegedly contained 13 packages of cocaine weighing 33 pounds, 20 packages of methamphetamine weighing 30 pounds and 20 rounds of ammunition. The drugs, valued at $579,000, were hidden in compartments built into the rear fender of the vehicle, according to federal authorities.

Officers noticed that the truck had been possibly altered and ordered the driver to a secondary inspection area, where a drug-sniffing dog found the stash, authorities said.

The driver's name was not released. He was turned over to federal immigration authorities.

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

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Mitrice Richardson - missing in Malibu

Mitrice Richardson's mother files lawsuit against L.A. County, sheriff's officials June 29, 2010 Outside the Los Angeles County office building Tuesday morning, the mother of Mitrice Richardson -- the woman missing since she was released from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff's station in the dark, early morning of Sept. 17, 2009 -- said she was suing the county and sheriff's officials over the arrest and release of her daughter. Richardson disappeared after being released into the remote Calabasas area without her car, which had been impounded, cellphone and purse. Her disappearance prompted several massive searches and an investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department . After discovering her diaries, police investigators concluded that she was probably suffering a severe form of bipolar disorder. Richardson was arrested at Geoffrey's restaurant for not paying her bill. The staff told deputies that she was acting "crazy." The sheriff's department has always maintained that Richardson seemed lucid and normal during the several hours she was held at the station. But on Tuesday, Richardson's mother, Latice Sutton, cited video footage of her daughter in a holding cell that showed her behaving in an infantile manner. According Sutton, who first saw the video in late March, her daughter, at one point, clutches the screen of the holding pen and sways from side to side. "She's grabbing at a door where she's swinging back and forth," Sutton said. "She's pulling at the back of her hair." She tries to make a call at a pay phone. Unsuccessful, she relinquishes the receiver.

In the suit, Sutton cites as negligent the sheriff's department's "failure to give Ms. Richardson a medical or psychiatric evaluation."

"They knew when they got the phone call from Geoffrey's that she was acting strangely," said Sutton's attorney, Leo Terrell, at the media conference outside the county building. "They saw this conduct. They ignored the conduct."

Terrell said that they were also alleging unlawful arrest. "There was an offer to pay the bill. Mitrice Richardson should not have been arrested," Terrell said. Richardson's great-grandmother had offered to give restaurant staffers a credit card over the phone but she was told that she would have to also fax a signature. (The owner of Geoffrey's said later that they requested that because otherwise the credit card company might disallow the charge.)

Although the suit seeks unspecified monetary damages, both Sutton and Terrell said the primary reason for the suit was to give them the right to demand information about the night that Richardson was arrested.

"This magical lawsuit will allow me to obtain every single document in the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department and to depose every officer and detective involved," said Terrell, who stated that he has been representing Sutton pro bono. He also said the suit would enable him to get a copy of the videotape that Sutton was allowed to view but not take.

LAPD officials, who were not involved in her arrest or subsequent release, are not named in this suit. The LAPD was asked to investigate, and two detectives spent four months full time working on the case. They continue to follow leads as they come up.

"I feel as though I am forced at this point to bring this lawsuit to get answers," said Sutton, holding a framed photo of her daughter in cap and gown for her 2008 graduation from Cal State Fullerton.

The suit also alleges wrongful death. When Terrell was asked if he believed Richardson was still alive, he answered, "No."

Her mother, who said she continues to search for her daughter, gave a more complicated answer: "My hope is she's alive…. But based on how long she's been missing, she's either being held and transported or she's dead. I have to face that possibility."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/mitrice-richardsons-mother-files-lawsuit-against-los-angeles-county-and-sheriffs-officials.html#more

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From the New York Times

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Spying Suspects Seemed Short on Secrets

WASHINGTON — The suspected Russian spy ring rolled up by the F.B.I. this week had everything it needed for world-class espionage: excellent training, cutting-edge gadgetry, deep knowledge of American culture and meticulously constructed cover stories.

The only things missing in more than a decade of operation were actual secrets to send home to Moscow.

The assignments, described in secret instructions intercepted by the F.B.I., were to collect routine political gossip and policy talk that might have been more efficiently gathered by surfing the Web. And none of the 11 people accused in the case face charges of espionage, because in all those years they were never caught sending classified information back to Moscow, American officials said.

“What in the world do they think they were going to get out of this, in this day and age?” said Richard F. Stolz, a former head of C.I.A. spy operations and onetime Moscow station chief. “The effort is out of proportion to the alleged benefits. I just don't understand what they expected.”

As cold war veterans puzzled over the rationale for Russia 's extraordinary effort to place agents in American society, both Russian and American officials signaled that the arrests would not affect the warming of relations between the countries.

At a meeting with former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday, Vladimir V. Putin , the prime minister and a former spy himself, said, “Your police have gotten carried away, putting people in jail.” But he played down the episode: “I really expect that the positive achievements that have been made in our intergovernmental relations lately will not be damaged by the latest events.”

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs , struck a similar note. “I do not believe that this will affect the reset of our relationship with Russia,” he said. “We have made great progress in the past year and a half working on issues of mutual concern.” Asked if the White House found it offensive for its partner to be spying on the United States, he said the case was “important,” but a law enforcement matter.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the police in Cyprus arrested the man known as Christopher R. Metsos, the last of the spying suspects to be detained, and American officials disclosed that they had moved to make arrests over the weekend because one of the people suspected of being Russian agents, who called himself Richard Murphy, was planning to fly out of the United States on Sunday night, possibly for good.

After years of painstaking surveillance, the F.B.I. did not want any of its targets to escape, and “you can't take down one without taking down all of them,” one law enforcement official said.

The F.B.I. on Sunday arrested 10 people in Yonkers, Manhattan, New Jersey, Boston and Virginia and charged them with conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. Most were also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering.

American officials said they believed that most of the accused spies had been born in Russia and had been given sophisticated training before resettling in the United States, posing as married couples. They connected with various Americans of influence or knowledge, including a “prominent New York-based financier” described as a political fund-raiser with personal ties to a cabinet official, a former high-ranking national security official, and a nuclear weapons expert.

But they were instructed not to seek government jobs, because spy bosses in Moscow thought their cover stories would not stand up under a serious background investigation. So they were assigned to feed to Moscow what amounted to briefing papers on economics issues, American government players and diplomatic and military affairs.

One, the agent known as Cynthia Murphy, talked to New York contacts and reported on “prospects for the global gold market” that her bosses (whose spelling in English-language messages was imperfect) told her were “v. usefull” and passed to the Russian Ministry of Finance.

Before a visit to Moscow by President Obama last year, Ms. Murphy and her ostensible husband, Mr. Murphy, were instructed to size up American intentions from their home in Montclair, N.J. “Try to outline their views and most important Obama's goals which he expects to achieve during summit in July and how does his team plan to do it (arguments, provisions, means of persuasion to ‘lure' [Russia] into cooperation in US interests),” the spy bosses in Moscow asked, according to the charging papers.

Another time, Moscow offered vague instructions that might have been directed to journalists: “Try to single out tidbits unknown publicly but revealed in private by sources close to State department, Government, major think tanks.”

But why would Russian intelligence ask for such information from people settled in New Jersey rather than, say, Russian Embassy experts or specialists in Moscow or Washington?

“It's a Hail Mary pass,” said Milton A. Bearden, who served for three decades in the C.I.A.'s clandestine service and ran its Soviet and East European division as the Soviet Union fell.

“Maybe I end up next to a guy that is the minority staff director on some committee and we do barbecues, or I coach his kid in Little League,” Mr. Bearden said. “How can you lose?”

For the Russian government, he said, supporting the so-called illegals operation was probably relatively inexpensive, particularly because some suspected agents were self-supporting, as court papers show.

One, Ms. Murphy, reported an annual income of $135,000 as a financial planner, her affidavit says. And another, Anna Chapman, owned her own real estate firm in Manhattan, which her lawyer said in court was valued by his client at $2 million.

If anything, the challenge for Moscow in an operation of such duration was to make sure its agents remained loyal amid the comforts of daily suburban American life. After the collapse of Communism, Mr. Bearden said, several Czech “sleeper agents” in the United States refused to go home, saying they felt they had become Americans.

“What's their life like, and particularly if it goes on for years?” said Burton Gerber, a former chief of the C.I.A.'s Soviet division, of the suspected Russian agents. For couples with children, for example, they may be “very guilty spies,” Mr. Gerber said, and yet influenced by P.T.A. and after-school sports.

“At some stage, do you begin to think of yourself more as American than Russian?” he said. “Without feeling a sense of betraying Russia, they may just want to lead quiet lives.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/world/europe/30spy.html?adxnnl=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1277889691-7dS++RQ3VRwaoMKS20XR7Q

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‘Illegals' Network Famed in Lore of Russian Spying

MOSCOW — In the lore of Soviet spycraft, few figures command as much respect as the “ illegals ,” steel-jawed agents with the intelligence of a chess grandmaster and the fortitude of a cosmonaut.

Painstakingly trained in the K.G.B.'s Directorate S, the illegals spent years assuming a fake biography, known in Russian as a “legend,” then awaited orders undercover for years or even decades. Unlike their “legal” counterparts, they worked without a diplomatic cover, which would offer them immunity from prosecution. They were rewarded with the kind of adulation Americans reserve for movie stars.

This week's jaw-dropping arrest of 11 people seems to offer a glimpse into a recent form of the program. Russia has made little comment on the specific accusations, though it called the arrests “baseless” and “unseemly.”

But if prosecutors are correct, two things seem clear: First, that Russia's network of illegals has survived, and perhaps even grown, since the Soviet Union's collapse. And second, that the agents' assignment — collecting information about politics and getting to know policy makers — can now be achieved through more straightforward means.

“It strikes me as a very well-organized, very well-thought-out and very out-of date approach,” said Olga Oliker, a senior policy analyst for the RAND Corporation. “I would lay money on bureaucratic inertia. It's a terribly ineffective approach, but it's something that might have made sense in a previous period. ”

After the 1917 October Revolution, the Soviets had good reason to develop a specialty in undercover intelligence-gathering. Few countries formally recognized the Soviet Union, so no diplomatic cover was available.

It was a simple matter to fabricate a foreign identity — the agency mined records of foreign babies who had died, wrote Galina Fedorova in a 1994 memoir about life as an illegal. What followed was grueling training, psychological screening for a life of isolation and stress. The ideal candidate was single; while some agents enjoyed the comfort of deploying as a couple, any offspring they produced were immediately sent back to the Soviet Union, Ms. Fedorova wrote.

Maj. Gen. Yuri I. Drozdov, 85, who ran the illegals program for more than a decade while he was in the K.G.B, called his recruits “wunderkinds,” people who often spoke three or four languages with native fluency. He would say little about the training process, except to call it “very long.”

“We have our process of raising them,” General Drozdov said. “You have your Dr. Spock method; we have our own ways.”

Throughout the Soviet era, such agents were rewarded with adulation. Illegals like Rudolf Abel and Konon Molody became such national heroes that the External Intelligence Service, or S.V.R. , still posts their biographies on its Web site. A beloved television serial chronicled the fictional life of one undercover agent, Max Otto von Stirlitz, as he penetrated Hitler 's inner circle. Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin , who served as a K.G.B. officer in East Germany in the 1980s, has said the Stirlitz character helped shape an entire generation of Soviet youth.

Recent arrests have come as a reminder that the tactic is still in use. In 2006, Canadian officials deported a Russian citizen suspected of spying under an assumed Canadian identity, Paul William Hampel. In 2008, Estonian intelligence services said they had unmasked an S.V.R. handler named Sergei Yakovlev, who was recruiting agents under the assumed identity of Antonio de Jesus Amurett Graf, a Portuguese businessman living in Madrid.

Then came this week's arrests of 11 people accused of gathering information on American policy and politics.

Their assignment, as reported by prosecutors, raises a simple question: Now that United States policy makers routinely visit Russia and engage with foreign lobbyists, much of this information is easily accessible. Why bother with an expensive, high-risk undercover operation?

Experts on Tuesday pointed to institutional politics. Russia's intelligence services were thrown into chaos during the early 1990s, when agents left in huge numbers and vast overseas assets went missing. But within a decade they rebounded, rebuilding their networks to the proportions they had at the end of the Soviet era, said Leonid M. Melchin, the author of five books about cold war intelligence services.

Nikolai Zlobin, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information , said the network of illegals received support from people intent on “returning to the old system that they were familiar with.”

“It was glorified. It's a romantic business for several Soviet generations, including Putin's generation,” he said. “People who work in the central structure, they did everything to rebuild the system. I know some of them, and many of them believe they did the right thing for Russia.”

But he, like other experts interviewed on Tuesday, was scratching his head at the details of the alleged spy ring. To Russians, the term “illegals” suggests discipline and a painstaking effort to hide one's nationality; traditionally, they worked strictly in isolation, lest they endanger their carefully developed cover. Among the people arrested this week were several who used Russian names, openly spoke Russian or retained Russian accents.

Amy W. Knight, who has written on Soviet intelligence, said the illegals were famous for their ability to remain under deep cover for years and return to Russia without being caught.

“They had an extensive program and they used illegals a lot,” Ms. Knight said. “This new scandal suggests either the S.V.R is not as professional as its predecessors, or it's just easier for the F.B.I. to track them down because of the sophisticated technology that they have.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/world/europe/30sleepers.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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The Spy Who Came Out to the Suburbs

Washington

A ring of Russian agents who look and sound like ordinary Americans! Suburban spies with orders to infiltrate United States “policy-making circles” and report to Moscow! So, the cold war is back?

No, not really. For the intelligence agencies on both sides — the F.B.I. and the K.G.B.'s successor, the S.V.R. — it never ended.

The Russians love to dispatch “illegals” — spies who usually adopt the identities of real (or dead) Americans — as opposed to the traditional cold war custom of posing as diplomats. Since the illegals act like the family next door, complete with backyard barbecues and unruly teenagers, they can be impossible to detect. Unless, as some of the 11 spies arrested this week did, they communicate with Russian intelligence officers at the United Nations mission or the consulate in Manhattan. Then the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence agents, always keeping an eye on Russian officials, may sniff them out.

What is new about the network of illegals rolled up by the F.B.I. this week is the hi-tech methods they used to communicate with Yasenevo, the supersecret S.V.R. headquarters on the Moscow ring road. Old-fashioned dead drops — leaving documents in a drainpipe or under footbridges, as the American spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen did for their Soviet paymasters — are passé. These illegals used laptops and set up private wireless networks to communicate with Russian officials parked in a van near a coffee shop on Eighth Avenue, a bookstore in Tribeca, a restaurant in Washington.

They also used steganography, the technique of using highly secret software to insert coded messages into images on ordinary Web sites. The messages could be read only by S.V.R. experts in Moscow using the same software. As it turns out, today's spies, like everybody else, use the Internet.

All of this was an expensive business for the Russians, who had to train and support their operatives here, and for the F.B.I., which spent years trailing them. To what avail? None of the illegals was charged with espionage, which means that none was caught accepting documents from government officials. Instead they were charged with failing to register as foreign agents — take that, James Bond — and money laundering.

And how many secrets from the White House, the Pentagon or the C.I.A. could a Russian spy living in Yonkers or Montclair, N.J., acquire? Unless some future bombshells are disclosed, it sounds as though the S.V.R. did not get much for its investment.

Conspiracy theorists are already asking, why did the arrests come just days after President Obama's friendly cheeseburger summit with Russian President Dimitri A. Medvedev? Was the White House sending a message, or the F.B.I. trying to sandbag détente?

Most likely neither. The criminal complaint reveals that on Saturday, a Russian-speaking F.B.I. undercover agent met with Anna Chapman, one of the illegals, and instructed her to hand a fake passport to another supposed illegal the next day, using this password exchange: “Excuse me, but haven't we met in California last summer?”; “No, I think it was the Hamptons.” (The Hamptons!)

But Anna Chapman, it seems, smelled a rat. She bought a cell phone that could not be traced to her and may have called Moscow to find out what was going on. She never showed up for her meeting on Sunday. The F.B.I., fearing the game was up, moved in and arrested her and nine others. The bureau, like the S.V.R., ends up with little to show for its decade of hard work. But its agents can take heart: cold wars come and go, but Russian spies are here forever.

David Wise is writing a book on Chinese espionage against the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/opinion/30wise.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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France Makes ‘Psychological Violence' a Crime

PARIS — The French Parliament gave final and unanimous approval on Tuesday to a law that makes “psychological violence” a criminal offense as part of a law intended to help victims of physical violence and abuse, especially in the home.

The law is thought to be too vague by some judges and the police, and whether they choose to investigate and prosecute such offenses will define the success of the new legislation.

Nadine Morano, the secretary of state for the family, told the National Assembly that “we have introduced an important measure here, which recognizes psychological violence, because it isn't just blows, but also words.”

Ms. Morano said the primary abuse help line for French women got 90,000 calls a year, with 84 percent concerning psychological violence.

The legislation, introduced by Danielle Bousquet, a Socialist, and Guy Geoffroy, a member of the ruling center-right Union for a Popular Movement, quickly found bipartisan support and backing from the government. In November, Prime Minister François Fillon called the draft law “a national cause” and said it would allow the authorities to deal with “the most insidious situations, which don't leave a mark to the naked eye but can mutilate the victim's inner self.”

Those found guilty face up to three years in jail and a fine of 75,000 euros, or about $90,000. The law is meant to apply to both sexes, but the drafters were particularly concerned about the abuse of women. The two legislators say a woman dies every 2.2 days in France because of domestic violence, which understood broadly affects 10 percent of women ages 18 to 60. Ms. Bousquet said that in couples, 90 percent of the victims were women.

The law defines mental violence as “repeated acts that could be constituted by words,” including insults or repeated text messages that “degrade one's quality of life and cause a change to one's mental or physical state.”

The law also authorizes a three-year experiment with electronic ankle bracelets to keep an abuser away from a victim.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/world/europe/30france.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Who Will Fight for the Unemployed?

Without doubt, the two biggest threats to the economy are unemployment and the dire financial condition of the states, yet lawmakers have failed to deal intelligently with either one.

Federal unemployment benefits began to expire nearly a month ago. Since then, 1.2 million jobless workers have been cut off. The House passed a six-month extension as part of a broader spending bill in May, but the Senate, despite three attempts, has not been able to pass a similar bill. The majority leader, Harry Reid, said he was ready to give up after the third try last week when all of the Senate's Republicans and a lone Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, blocked the bill.

Meanwhile, the states face a collective budget hole of some $112 billion, but neither the House nor the Senate has a plan to help. The House stripped a provision for $24 billion in state fiscal aid from its earlier spending bill. The Senate included state aid in its ill-fated bill to extend unemployment benefits; when that bill failed, the promise of aid vanished as well.

As a result, 30 states that had counted on the money to help balance their budgets will be forced to raise taxes even higher and to cut spending even deeper in the budget year that begins on July 1. That will only worsen unemployment, both among government workers and the states' private contractors. Worsening unemployment means slower growth, or worse, renewed recession.

So if lawmakers are wondering why consumer confidence and the stock market are tanking (the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index hit a new low for the year on Tuesday), they need look no further than a mirror.

The situation cries out for policies to support economic growth — specifically jobless benefits and fiscal aid to states. But instead of delivering, Congressional Republicans and many Democrats have been asserting that the nation must act instead to cut the deficit. The debate has little to do with economic reality and everything to do with political posturing. A lot of lawmakers have concluded that the best way to keep their jobs is to pander to the nation's new populist mood and play off the fears of the very Americans whose economic well-being Congress is threatening.

Deficits matter, but not more than economic recovery, and not more urgently than the economic survival of millions of Americans. A sane approach would couple near-term federal spending with a credible plan for deficit reduction — a mix of tax increases and spending cuts — as the economic recovery takes hold.

But today's deficit hawks — many of whom eagerly participated in digging the deficit ever deeper during the George W. Bush years — are not interested in the sane approach. In the Senate, even as they blocked the extension of unemployment benefits, they succeeded in preserving a tax loophole that benefits wealthy money managers at private equity firms and other investment partnerships. They also derailed an effort to end widespread tax avoidance by owners of small businesses organized as S-corporations. If they are really so worried about the deficit, why balk at these evidently sensible ways to close tax loopholes and end tax avoidance?

House lawmakers made an effort on Tuesday to extend jobless benefits but failed to get the necessary votes, and it remains uncertain if an extension can pass both the House and Senate before Congress leaves town on Friday for a weeklong break. What's needed, and what's lacking, is leadership, both in Congress and from the White House, to set the terms of the debate — jobs before deficit reduction — and to fight for those terms, with failure not an option.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/opinion/30wed1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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Why We Talk to Terrorists

NOT all groups that the United States government classifies as terrorist organizations are equally bad or dangerous, and not all information conveyed to them that is based on political, academic or scientific expertise risks harming our national security. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court, which last week upheld a law banning the provision of “material support” to foreign terrorist groups, doesn't seem to consider those facts relevant.

Many groups that were once widely considered terrorist organizations, including some that were on the State Department's official list, have become our partners in pursuing peace and furthering democracy.

The African National Congress is now the democratically elected ruling party in South Africa, and of course Nelson Mandela is widely considered a great man of peace. The Provisional Irish Republican Army now preaches nonviolence and its longtime leader, Martin McGuinness, is Northern Ireland's first deputy minister. Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestine Liberation Organization have become central players in Middle East peace negotiations.

In the case of each of these groups, there were American private citizens — clergymen, academics, scientists and others — who worked behind the scenes to end the violence.

The two of us are social scientists who study and interact with violent groups in order to find ways out of intractable conflicts. In the course of this work and in our discussions with decision makers in the Middle East and elsewhere we have seen how informal meetings and exchanges of knowledge have borne fruit. It's not that religious, academic or scientific credentials automatically convey trust, but when combined with a personal commitment to peace, they often carry weight beyond mere opinion or desire.

So we find it disappointing that the Supreme Court, in Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project , ruled that any “material support” of a foreign terrorist group, including talking to terrorists or the communication of expert knowledge and scientific information, helps lend “legitimacy” to the organization. Sometimes, undoubtedly, that is the case. But American law has to find a way to make a clear distinction between illegal material support and legal actions that involve talking with terrorists privately in the hopes of reducing global terrorism and promoting national security.

There are groups, like Al Qaeda, that will probably have to be fought to the end. The majority opinion of the Supreme Court reasonably conjectures that any help given such enemies, even in seemingly benign ways like instruction about how to enhance their human rights profile, could free up time and effort in pursuit of extremist violence.

Yet war and group violence are ever-present and their prevention requires America's constant effort and innovation. Sometimes this means listening to and talking with our enemies and probing gray areas for ways forward to figure out who is truly a mortal foe and who just might become a friend.

It is important to realize that in a political struggle, leaders often wish they could communicate with the other side without their own supporters knowing. Thus the idea that all negotiation should be conducted in the open is simply not very practical. When there are no suitable “official” intermediaries, private citizens can fill the gap.

Conditions, of course, should be stringent — there must be trust on all sides that information is being conveyed accurately, and that it will be kept in confidence as long as needed. Accuracy requires both skill in listening and exploring, some degree of cultural understanding and, wherever possible, the intellectual distance that scientific data and research afford.

In our own work on groups categorized as terrorist organizations, we have detected significant differences in their attitudes and actions. For example, in our recent interactions with the leader of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad Ramadan Shallah (which we immediately reported to the State Department, as he is on the F.B.I.'s “most wanted” list), we were faced with an adamant refusal to ever recognize Israel or move toward a two-state solution.

Yet when we talked to Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas (considered a terrorist group by the State Department), he said that his movement could imagine a two-state “peace” (he used the term “salaam,” not just the usual “hudna,” which signifies only an armistice).

In our time with Mr. Meshal's group, we were also able to confirm something that Saudi and Israeli intelligence officers had told us: Hamas has fought to keep Al Qaeda out of its field of influence, and has no demonstrated interest in global jihad. Whether or not the differences among Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other violent groups are fundamental, rather than temporary or tactical, is something only further exploration will reveal. But to assume that it is invariably wrong to engage any of these groups is a grave mistake.

In our fieldwork with jihadist leaders, foot soldiers and their associates across Eurasia and North Africa, we have found huge variation in the political aspirations, desired ends and commitment to violence. And as one of us (Scott Atran) testified in March to the emerging-threats subgroup of the Senate Armed Services Committee, these differences can be used as leverage to win the cooperation of the next generation of militants, who otherwise will surely become our enemies.

It's an uncomfortable truth, but direct interaction with terrorist groups is sometimes indispensable. And even if it turns out that negotiation gets us nowhere with a particular group, talking and listening can help us to better understand why the group wants to fight us, so that we may better fight it. Congress should clarify its counterterrorism laws with an understanding that hindering all informed interaction with terrorist groups will harm both our national security and the prospects for peace in the world's seemingly intractable conflicts.

Scott Atran, an anthropologist at France's National Center for Scientific Research, the University of Michigan and John Jay College, is the author of the forthcoming “Talking to the Enemy.” Robert Axelrod is a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Michigan, and the author of “The Evolution of Cooperation.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/opinion/30atran.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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The Myth of Modern Jihad

Robert Wright on culture, politics and world affairs.

It would be an understatement to say that Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, pleaded guilty last week. “I'm going to plead guilty a hundred times over,” Shahzad told the judge. Why so emphatic? Because Shahzad is proud of himself. “I consider myself a Mujahid, a Muslim soldier,” he said.

This got some fist pumps in right-wing circles, because it seemed to confirm that America faces all-out jihad, and must marshal an accordingly fierce response. On National Review Online, Daniel Pipes wrote that Shahzad's “bald declaration” should make Americans “accept the painful fact that Islamist anger and aspirations” are the problem; we must name “Islamism as the enemy.” And, as Pipes has explained in the past, once you realize that your enemy is a bunch of Muslim holy warriors, the path forward is clear: “Violent jihad will probably continue until it is crushed by a superior military force.”

At the risk of raining on Pipes's parade: If you look at what Shahzad actually said, the upshot is way less grim. In fact, at a time when just about everyone admits that our strategy in Afghanistan isn't working, Shahzad brings refreshing news: maybe America can win the war on terrorism without winning the war in Afghanistan.

As a bonus, it turns out there's a hopeful message not just in Shahzad's testimony, but in Pipes's incomprehension of it. Pipes exhibits a cognitive distortion that may be afflicting Americans broadly — not just on the right, but on the center and left as well. And seeing the distortion is the first step toward escaping it.

Here is how Shahzad explained his role in the holy war: “It's a war,” he said . “I am part of that. I am part of the answer of the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people, and on behalf of that, I'm revenging the attacks.”

Now, for a Muslim holy warrior to see his attacks as revenge runs counter to Pipes's longstanding claim that Islamic holy war is about attack, not counterattack. Roughly since 9/11, Pipes has been telling us that jihad is “unabashedly offensive in nature, with the eventual goal of achieving Muslim dominion over the entire globe.” This notion of “jihad in the sense of territorial expansion has always been a central aspect of Muslim life” and is now “the world's foremost source of terrorism.” That's why you have to respond with “superior military force.”

Now we have Shahzad suggesting roughly the opposite — that the holy war could end if America would stop using military force. He said in court, “Until the hour the U.S. pulls its forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing the Muslims and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be attacking U.S., and I plead guilty to that.”

Should we really take this testimony seriously? It does, after all, have an air of self-dramatizing grandstanding. Then again, terrorism is a self-dramatizing, grandstanding business, and there's no reason to think this particular piece of theater isn't true to Shahzad's interior monologue.

Indeed, it tracks the pitch of jihadist recruiters, notably Anwar Awlaki, the American sheik in Yemen who inspired not just Shahzad but the Fort Hood shooter and the thwarted underwear bomber. The core of the pitch is that America is at war with Islam, and the evidence cited includes Shahzad's litany: Iraq, Afghanistan, drone strikes, etc.

Of course, this litany amounts to pretty severe terms for peace. Shahzad says terrorism will continue until we end two wars and all drone strikes? And quit “reporting” suspicious Muslims to our government? Anything else we can do for him?

But as a practical matter, taking any of these issues off the table weakens the jihadist recruiting pitch. (Different potential recruits, after all, are sensitive to different issues.) And if we could take the Afghanistan war off the table, that would be a big one.

At least, that's my view. This isn't the place to fully defend it (e.g., address the question of whether I'm “blaming” America for terrorism or whether ending the war would amount to dangerous “appeasement”). My point is just that, if you take Shahzad at his word, there's more cause for hope than if Pipes were right, and Shahzad's testimony were evidence that jihadists are bent on world conquest.

Now on to the second cause for hope: Pipes's confusion itself. For these purposes, it doesn't matter whether Shahzad was telling the truth, because Pipes certainly thinks he was. Pipes applauds Shahzad's “forthright statement of purpose,” adding, “However abhorrent, this tirade does have the virtue of truthfulness.”

So then why doesn't it bother Pipes that Shahzad's depiction of Islamic holy war as defensive counter-attack is the opposite of the depiction Pipes has peddled for years? How can he possibly hail Shahzad's comments as confirming his world view?

It's only human nature. Once you decide that some group is your implacable enemy, your mind gets a little warped. Virtually all incoming evidence is thereafter seen as consistent with that model. (In fact, there's a more specific finding from social psychology that also helps explain Pipes's world view, as laid out by blogger Dan Drezner in this little video clip .)

This cognitive distortion reared its head in America's previous cosmic struggle. Just about all cold war historians agree that Americans bought into the “myth of monolithic communism.” Once we decided that the communist menace was a single, vast, implacable force, we failed to appreciate, for example, tensions between Russia and China that in retrospect seem obviously important. We had our model, and we were sticking to it. Pipes has his model, and he's sticking to it. He needn't dismiss evidence inconsistent with it, because he can't really see the evidence to begin with.

This same tendency may now be impeding America's ability to conduct the war on terrorism wisely.

If you ask people — right, left or center — why we can't withdraw from Afghanistan, they start talking about the catastrophe that would ensue: The Taliban would take over, provide bases for al Qaeda, and suddenly it's 9/11 again. Now, the consequences of withdrawal would certainly be messy and in some ways bad — and this subject is way too complicated to deal with in my remaining few paragraphs. But enough holes have been poked in standard catastrophe scenarios ( by, for example, Paul Pillar , former deputy chief of the C.I.A.'s counterterrorism center) without much reducing the grip these scenarios have on people's minds that you have to wonder whether our fears are grounded in something other than pure reason. You have to wonder whether we're doing what Pipes is doing: taking a genuinely pretty scary bunch of enemies and making them much scarier — attributing so much unity and relentlessness and cunning to them that it's hard to imagine beating them without military victory.

To be sure, there is always an ostensibly logical argument that catastrophists summon. (Pipes isn't wrong to say that there is a doctrine of offensive jihad — he's just wrong about how it has played out historically and how it plays it out today .) But the reason people accept these arguments so uncritically is that they have a fear of Islamic radicalism that dwarfs the actual threat.

The analogy with communism is worth dwelling on. People warned that if Vietnam fell, the dominoes would keep falling until America itself was under communist control. After all, Russia and China — the sponsors of our Vietnamese enemy — would join with the Vietnamese government to use Vietnam as a forward base if we were chased out. You know — kind of the way al Qaeda would join with a Taliban that controlled any chunk of Afghanistan to torment America.

Well, four years after Saigon fell, Communist Vietnam and Communist China were at war — not with us, but with each other. And a decade after that we had won the cold war.

I've been kind of hard on Pipes — in parts of this column and in an earlier column. So I'm glad to have the opportunity to emphasize that he's just an example of the human mind at work, albeit a particularly revved up example. It's only natural to attribute to your enemy more cohesion and menace than is in order. We used to do this with communism, and now we do it with radical Islam — and radical Muslims, for their part, do it with us. It's a temptation we all have to fight. Maybe if we fought it as hard as we fight other enemies, we'd have fewer of them.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/the-myth-of-modern-jihad/?pagemode=print

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From the White House

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Food Safety Week Kick Off

Cross posted from the USDA blog

I'm very pleased and honored to be a part of Food Safety Week and contribute to our mission to protect public health. The USDA has been working diligently over the past year to improve food safety since the creation of the Food Safety Working Group . Part of our mission is to guarantee that we equip you with accurate food safety information. If it's grilling outside for 4th of July, going to a ballgame, or just enjoying a summer night with your family, make sure that safe food handling is a part of your celebration. An easy way to prevent contaminated food is to use a food thermometer when grilling or smoking meat. Commonly, the color of the meat is wrongly used as a method for indicating whether or not the meat is cooked. However, using a food thermometer is the only way to determine the temperature of the food. What temperature should your food be? Check the Food Safety and Inspection Service's website .

To kick things off we offered more food safety tips today for your Independence Day celebration here .

Also this week is a live Facebook chat on food safety tips on Thursday, July 1, at 1:00 PM EDT. You may submit any questions you would like answered before and during the chat at www.facebook.com/USDA .

I am proud to say the FSIS Twitter page currently has 49,000 followers. This tells me that many of you desire to know more about food safety, and encourages us to keep providing food safety information. Follow food safety tips on  Twitter.com/USDAFoodSafety .

Please join us in our fight against foodborne illness and have a safe and happy summer.

Jerry Mande is the Deputy Under Secretary for the USDA Office of Food Safety

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/29/food-safety-week-kick

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National Conference on Volunteering and Service

Yesterday the Corporation for National Community Service and the Points of Light Foundation kicked off the 2010 National Conference on Volunteering and Community Service in New York City. More than 5,000 leaders of the business, nonprofit, government, and volunteer sector are on hand for the three-day event. This represents the largest gathering of service leaders in the world.

Points of Light Foundation CEO Michelle Nunn and I were honored to preside over the opening plenary at historic Radio City Music Hall. We were joined by White House Domestic Policy Director Melody Barnes, U.S. Senator Mark Warner, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and a host of other dignitaries, community leaders, and volunteers from across the country. Our emcees for the event were Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC's “Morning Joe” show.

Over the course of the next two days, in workshops, plenary sessions and informal meetings, the conference will focus on ways the service movement can better target resources toward pressing social problems and measure impact; expand opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds to serve; build the capacity of individuals, nonprofit organizations and communities to address social challenges; and embrace innovation.

This year's conference comes at a moment of great need and opportunity in America. We face many challenges, whether addressing our country's high-school dropout crisis or getting Americans back to work.

Yet in these tough times, the momentum for citizen service has never been stronger. Volunteering is up, social entrepreneurs are redefining service, and corporations are embracing social responsibility. Technology is providing new ways to connect, the federal investment in service is growing, and a new vision for service is taking effect. This vision recognizes that service is a solution; that it isn't secondary or separate from achieving national priorities – it's essential to achieving them.

In my opening remarks, I told the story of a young woman named Gina Parnell who now serves as an AmeriCorps member with Hope for the Homeless in Los Angeles. From the age of 12, Gina was addicted to drugs and in and out of prison. She was homeless for 23 years. AmeriCorps has helped turn her life around. She recently said, “AmeriCorps is a good place to start in service, because there is so much need for help. I think of it as a beautiful way of giving back, a way of making indirect amends to people I harmed and other damage I did in the area when I was homeless, and addicted.” Gina now has her own apartment, and will soon be attending Los Angeles City College. She's on the path to economic self-sufficiency while she helps others do the same.

For stories like Gina's to spread across our nation, we need to be willing to make difficult choices. We cannot be all things to all people. We need to identify those critical outcomes where service can make a big difference and focus relentlessly on results.

Today from 12:45 PM to 2:15 PM the Corporation for National and Community Service will hold its annual town hall meeting to give its service constituents a chance to participate in an open dialogue about the strategic direction of the Corporation and tht service movement. And tonight, from 7-9 PM, MTV is hosting a youth summit to highlight the extraordinary efforts of our nation's youth service leaders and to encourage more young people to give back to their communities. Watch it live on www.mtv.com/serve .

For those who couldn't be with us in person, but still want to join the action, you can participate from the comfort of your own home or office. Your gateway to the virtual conference is www.volunteeringandservice.org .

Patrick A. Corvington is CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/29/national-conference-volunteering-and-service

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From ICE

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Civil immigration enforcement priorities

Read ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton's memo on priorities for the apprehension, detention and removal of aliens.

Civil immigration enforcement priorities memo (pdf file)

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1006/100629washingtondc.htm

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Israeli national and California resident charged with illegal arms trafficking

MIAMI - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) special agents arrested Chanoch Miller on June 18 after arriving at Miami International Airport and Joseph O'Toole earlier today in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., after traveling there from his home in California on charges of illegal arms trafficking.

Joseph O'Toole, 79, of Claremont, Calif., and Chanoch Miller, 53, of Tel Aviv, Israel, were charged in a seven-count indictment with engaging in a conspiracy to export restricted defense articles designated on the U. S. Munitions List without a license, attempting to export the defense articles without a license, and engaging in brokering activities involving defense articles designated on the U. S. Munitions List, without first having registered with and obtained a license from, the U. S. Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. The defendants are also charged with money laundering violations.

The indictment alleges that beginning on or about April 15, Joseph O'Toole and Chanoch Miller, engaged in a conspiracy to send at least 2000 AK-47 Assault Rifles to Somalia, an embargoed country. It was part of the conspiracy to conceal the final destination of the AK-47 Assault Rifles through false flight plans and fraudulent end user certificates.

If convicted, O'Toole faces a term of up to 55 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and a fine of $1,500,000. If convicted, Miller faces a term of up to 75 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and a fine of $2,000,000.

The investigation was conducted by ICE's Office of Homeland Security Investigations in Miami and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U. S. Attorney Michael Walleisa.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1006/100628miami.htm

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DHS to share investigative information with law enforcement agencies in the United States and Canada

ANAHEIM, Calif. - Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) John Morton signed an agreement Tuesday that will make Department of Homeland Security investigative data available to state, local, military and tribal law enforcement agencies through the on-line International Justice and Public Safety Network, commonly referred to as Nlets. He made the announcement Tuesday morning at the 2010 National Sheriffs' Association annual conference.

Starting in December 2010, more than 784,000 sworn law enforcement officers throughout the United States and Canada will be able to access DHS case information through an on-line query of the Nlets database. DHS investigators currently have access to Nlets.

"When DHS investigative information is made available in Nlets, law enforcement officers can retrieve potentially critical information contained in our databases," said Assistant Secretary Morton. "Sharing this type of information grants law enforcement officers access to key data that may help them detect, disrupt and prevent criminal activity within the United States."

"We are fortunate this agreement has been forged. It gives law enforcement yet another valuable resource to share critical information," said DuPage County, Ill., Sheriff John Zaruba who is also the current president of the National Sheriffs' Association.

"We are truly excited to be involved in this initiative. The mission of Nlets has always been to support our members to the best of our ability," said Steve Correll, executive director at Nlets. "The data that will be made available nationwide has never been so widely accessible to state, local, federal, and Canadian law enforcement agencies."

Once DHS criminal justice data is made available in Nlets, law enforcement agencies can use it to enhance the effectiveness of state or local investigations. Sensitive law enforcement details such as names and aliases, known locations and prior DHS contact could potentially link events that initially seem unrelated.

DHS case information is made available through the Law Enforcement Information Sharing (LEIS) Service. This web-based system currently shares information only within DHS and with other certified users.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1006/100629anaheim.htm

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ICE and Florida Department of Law Enforcement announce statewide activation of Secure Communities to prioritize, identify and remove criminal aliens

Secure Communities strategy prioritizes immigration enforcement actions against convicted criminal aliens

MIAMI - On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), announced that ICE is using a new biometric information sharing capability in every Florida county to help federal immigration officials identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement's custody for a crime. This capability is part of Secure Communities - ICE's comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.

Formerly, during the booking process, arrestees' fingerprints were checked for criminal history information only against the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), a biometric database maintained by the FBI.

With the implementation of Secure Communities, this fingerprint information is now automatically and simultaneously checked against both the FBI criminal history records and the biometrics-based immigration records in the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), which is maintained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

If any fingerprints match those of someone in the DHS biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual's immigration status and takes appropriate enforcement action. This includes aliens who are in lawful status and those who are present without lawful authority. Once identified through fingerprint matching, ICE will respond with a priority placed on aliens convicted of the most serious offenses first - such as those with convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape and kidnapping.

"This program maximizes the use of biometric technology to exchange critical public safety information," said FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey. "FDLE is pleased to work with ICE and local law enforcement to help protect Florida citizens."

"The Secure Communities strategy provides an effective tool to help ICE identify aliens charged with crimes in law enforcement custody with little or no cost to our law enforcement partners," said ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton. "Applying this biometric information sharing tool in Florida improves public safety by enabling ICE to prevent the release of criminal aliens back into our communities when they complete their sentences."

"This initiative ensures that our local law enforcement partners know as much as possible about the people in their custody," said Michael W. Meade, ICE field office director for Miami Enforcement and Removals Operations, the office overseeing the Secure Communities initiative in Florida. "By using sophisticated biometrics, this tool allows us to quickly and accurately identify those criminal aliens who pose the greatest threat to our communities."

With the expansion of the biometric information sharing capability throughout Florida, ICE is now using it in 392 jurisdictions in 23 states. ICE expects to make it available in jurisdictions nationwide by 2013.

Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 8,500 criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping. Additionally, ICE has removed more than 22,200 criminal aliens convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes, which account for the majority of crimes committed by aliens. Already in Florida, ICE has removed more than 1,800 convicted criminal aliens. ICE does not regard aliens charged with, but not yet convicted of crimes, as "criminal aliens." Instead, a "criminal alien" is an alien convicted of a crime. In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE continues to take action on aliens subject to removal as resources permit.

The IDENT system is maintained by DHS's US-VISIT program and IAFIS is maintained by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS).

"US VISIT is proud to support ICE, helping provide decision makers with comprehensive, reliable information when and where they need it," said US-VISIT Director Robert Mocny. "By enhancing the interoperability of DHS's and the FBI's biometric systems, we are able to give federal, state and local decision makers information that helps them better protect our communities and our nation."

"Under this plan, ICE will be utilizing FBI system enhancements that allow improved information sharing at the state and local law enforcement level based on positive identification of incarcerated criminal aliens," said Daniel D. Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's CJIS Division. "Additionally, ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving its goals."
For more information, visit www.ice.gov/secure_communities .

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1006/100629miami.htm

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From the FBI

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Montevallo Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Mail Hoax Letters

BIRMINGHAM—A 38-year-old Montevallo man pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Abdul Kallon to conspiracy to mail hoax anthrax letters in April, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and U.S. Postal Inspection Service Inspector in Charge Martin Phanco announced.

MILSTEAD EARL “MICKEY” DARDEN admitted he conspired with Clifton Lamar “Cliff” Dodd, 38, of Lincoln, to mail eight threatening hoax letters on April 24. U.S. Postal Inspectors arrested the two men shortly after they deposited the eight letters in a Pell City Post Office drop box. The letters contained white powder, which was tested and found not be anthrax.

“These type letters are a threat, not a joke,” Vance said. “When people open or handle letters containing white powder, they fear for their health and must endure medical precautions against poisonous contaminants. The emergency response and required testing on every potentially harmful letter is costly,” she said. “These cases will be prosecuted.”

“Tampering with U.S. mail is a serious offense and sending hoax letters to scare postal customers is something that cannot be tolerated,” Phanco said. “Because of the disruption to mail service that such letters cause, the penalties can be just as severe as if they had sent something hazardous.”

DARDEN acknowledged in his plea agreement that he allowed Dodd to prepare and address letters containing white powder while sitting in DARDEN's truck in the parking lot of a Pell City store on April 24. DARDEN then drove Dodd to the Pell City Post Office, where Dodd placed the letters in a drop box, according to the plea agreement.

The maximum penalty for conspiracy to mail hoax anthrax letters is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. His sentencing is scheduled Oct. 4 at 9:30 a.m.

A federal grand jury indicted DARDEN and Dodd in connection with a series of hoax letters mailed in Alabama in March and April that contained a white powder that could have been perceived as the biological toxin, anthrax. The indictment charged both men with the conspiracy and with mailing the eight letters on April 24. Those letters were intercepted by U.S. Postal Inspectors before they could be delivered. The indictment charged Dodd with mailing an additional 15 hoax letters between March 6 and April 5. Dodd's case remains pending, a trial date has not been set.

This case was investigated by the U.S Postal Inspection Service, the FBI, the Federal Protective Service and the Talladega County Sheriff's Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Whisonant.

http://birmingham.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/bh062910.htm

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Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Assaulting a Border Patrol Agent with His Vehicle

LAREDO, TX—Rigoberto Torres-Gomez, a citizen of El Salvador who was illegally residing in Houston, has been sentenced to 55 months in the Bureau of Prisons for assault on a federal officer while in the performance of his official duties by means and use of a dangerous weapon, United States Attorney José Angel Moreno announced today. Torres, 30, was arrested after he assaulted a Border Patrol agent with his vehicle on IH-35 near Laredo, Texas, during an attempt to transport 10 illegal aliens.

On Feb. 15, 2009, at approximately 10 p.m., Border Patrol (BP) agents observed 10 suspected undocumented aliens running out of the brush and into Torres' Isuzu Rodeo parked along the access road to the highway. A BP agent, who was tracking the group through the brush, approached the vehicle, attempted to apprehend the subjects and began struggling with one of the undocumented aliens which left the agent in front of the vehicle. The agent drew his service weapon and ordered Torres to turn off the vehicle and for the occupants to exit. that point, Torres accelerated and struck the agent with the vehicle. As the vehicle approached him, the agent tried to move in order to avoid being hit and fired his service weapon, wounding Torres. The vehicle came to a stop alongside the access road and Torres was treated by BP agents for his injuries at the scene and was later taken to a local hospital. The agent was also taken to the hospital where he was treated for his injuries.

The two-count superseding indictment charging Torres with transportation of an illegal alien for financial gain and assault on a federal officer was returned Sept. 1, 2009. On Feb. 4, 2010, Torres pleaded guilty to count two of the indictment.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI and was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Sam Sheldon and Michael C. Elliott.

http://sanantonio.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/sa062910.htm

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Health Care Fraud Trends and Tips 06/28/10 A pharmaceutical company marketed four drugs to doctors. The drugs had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for specific medical conditions—like rheumatoid arthritis, schizophrenia, and neuropathic pain—but the company promoted the drugs for other uses as well—like post-operative pain, dementia, and migraines—and sometimes in larger doses than the FDA allowed. In some cases, the company even paid kickbacks to doctors to prescribe the drugs for these other uses.

What this company did is known as off-label marketing of prescription drugs, and it's both illegal and potentially harmful to consumers. After an investigation involving the FBI and our federal and state partners, the company pled guilty to misbranding the drugs and agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle criminal and civil violations…the largest U.S. health care fraud settlement ever .

At the FBI, we take our health care fraud responsibilities seriously as the primary investigative agency with jurisdiction over both federal and private insurance programs. But with total health care expenditures in the U.S. expected to reach $2.26 trillion by 2016 according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the opportunity for fraud will continue to grow—so will our workload. That means we have to find ways to leverage our resources.

Partnerships are key. A tried-and-true method of leveraging resources is establishing partnerships. And we've done just that—with federal agencies like the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration, various state and local agencies, and private insurance groups like the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association.

Our most recent joint endeavor? Our participation in the Department of Justice/Health and Human Services' (HHS) Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team, or HEAT, and its Medicare Fraud Strike Forces located in several major metropolitan areas.

The HEAT initiative includes senior Justice, FBI, and HHS officials who are focusing their efforts to reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud through enhanced cooperation. And the strike forces, which use a data-driven approach to identify unexplainable billing patterns by health care providers and then investigate these providers for possible fraudulent activity, are a vital part of the initiative. As a result of strike force efforts, more than 300 cases have been filed and close to 600 defendants charged.

Latest Schemes and Scams  As part of its health care fraud program, the Bureau is looking at various fraud schemes involving: Home health care; Infusion therapy; and  Durable medical equipment. We're also focused on other health care fraud-related crime problems impacting public safety, such as: Off-label marketing of prescription drugs; Drug diversion (prescription drugs diverted from legitimate supply sources for illicit distribution and abuse); and  Internet pharmacies.

Health care fraud facts: Health care fraud schemes come in all forms—fraudulent billings, medically unnecessary services or prescriptions, kickbacks, duplicate claims, etc. Schemes target large health care programs—both public and private—as well as health care beneficiaries. (Medicare and the Medicaid are the largest programs, so they are targeted more often.) Schemes are committed by health care providers, owners of medical facilities and laboratories, suppliers of medical equipment, organized crime groups, corporations, and even sometimes by the beneficiaries themselves. FBI health care fraud cases sometimes cross over into other investigative areas, like organized crime, gangs, and cyber crime, where we see criminals beginning to use the proceeds from health care fraud schemes to fund their operations. Tips to help avoid being victimized: Protect your health insurance information card like a credit card. Beware of free health services—are they too good to be true? Review your medical bills, like your “explanation of benefits,” after receiving health care services and ensure the dates are services are correct. And if you suspect health care fraud, contact your local FBI office. Resources: - 2009 DOJ/HHS health care fraud report  (pdf)

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june10/fraud_062810.html

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