By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times

July 24, 2010

Reporting from San Diego

Federal authorities announced a wide-ranging criminal case Friday against top leaders of a Tijuana-based drug cartel that ran much of its operations from the San Diego area, allegedly ordering murders, kidnappings and torture of rival traffickers in Mexico.

The racketeering conspiracy case charges 43 cartel lieutenants, enforcers and drug traffickers, among them half a dozen current or former Mexican law enforcement officers, including a top official in the Baja California attorney general's office who allegedly passed along information obtained from U.S. law enforcement to cartel leaders.

The organized crime group, an offshoot of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, moved some operations to San Diego in recent years, seeking a safe haven from gang wars and law enforcement crackdowns south of the border, said Laura Duffy, the U.S. attorney in San Diego.

The case marks the latest example of organized crime groups in Tijuana trying to take advantage of the cross-border environment to hamper investigations and hide from rivals and police. The allegations also are a stark illustration of how deeply the cartels have infiltrated Mexican law enforcement in Baja California.

U.S. prosecutors allege that cartel members in Mexico kidnapped and killed several people, then tried to shift responsibility in some of the cases to rival gangs through corrupt Mexican law enforcement. In California, U.S. authorities employing undercover agents and heavy surveillance were able to prevent most violent attacks, including six attempted murders and an attempted kidnapping, Duffy said.

Thirty-one of the 43 defendants are in custody, authorities said. Four were arrested in Mexico by authorities there, and 27 in cities around San Diego County, from Imperial Beach to upscale Poway.

The 20-month investigation was run by the multiagency San Diego Cross Border Violence Task Force, which took advantage of tools often unavailable to those investigating Mexican drug cartels, such as telephone wiretaps, cameras and informants.

"The presence of foreign-based drug-trafficking organization members and associates in San Diego will not be tolerated," said Duffy, a veteran federal prosecutor who recently was named U.S. attorney in San Diego.

Organized crime groups in the past have shifted some operations north of the border, most notably in the mid-1990s, when some leaders of the once-powerful Arellano Felix drug cartel moved to the San Diego area. Such moves allow cartel associates to escape threats in Mexico, but leave them vulnerable to U.S. authorities.

The organization targeted in Friday's crackdown is allegedly led by Fernando Sanchez Arellano. A nephew of the founders of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, he was not among those charged.

According to the criminal complaint filed in San Diego federal court, those associated with the group employed the kind of vicious tactics commonly seen in recent years in Tijuana.

Suspects allegedly placed the defaced headstone from the gravesite of two murder victims in the victims' family courtyard in Tijuana. They sought to videotape a beheading of a rival trafficker so it could be posted on the Internet, according to the complaint.

Six current or former Mexican law enforcement officials are among those charged. They allegedly ran assassination hit squads, blocked homicide investigations and provided a photographic roster of Baja California state police officers so they also could be targeted for assassination or corruption.

Perhaps most troubling of all, officials said, was the arrest of Jesus Quinones Marques, director of the international liaison office for the Baja California attorney general's office. He was detained Thursday after a traffic stop in San Diego. It was a potential setback for U.S. law enforcement agencies that work closely with counterparts in Mexico to hunt down U.S. fugitives and build cases against powerful drug-trafficking organizations.

Authorities said some information shared by U.S. liaison officers with Quinones was compromised, but that nobody's safety was put at risk. Quinones, who also cultivated relationships with local reporters, allegedly tried to plant stories in Mexican media outlets that placed the blame for killings on a rival gang run by Teodoro Garcia Simental, nicknamed El Teo, who was battling Sanchez Arellano for control of key drug-trafficking routes through Tijuana.

Quinones seemed like a cooperative and professional liaison officer, according to U.S. liaison officers, but some said they are never surprised when their counterparts turn out to be corrupt. Liaison officers usually limit conversations related to sensitive investigations.

"At meetings, we don't share critical information," said Jesse Navarro, public affairs officer for the San Diego County district attorney's office. "We have to be cautious."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-drugs-20100724,0,3430876,print.story

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Terrorism case baffles remote Alaska town

By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times

July 23, 2010

Reporting from King Salmon, Alaska

He was the local weatherman, sending up weather balloons twice a day above this remote community of 450 full-time residents near Bristol Bay and preparing short-term forecasts for pilots and fishermen.

She was a stay-at-home mom who drove their 4-year-old to preschool, sang in the town choir and picked berries with her girlfriends. She took part in the community play, in which she portrayed a fairy godmother who acted as a prosecutor in court, confronting the Big Bad Wolf for his crimes against Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs and the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

So beloved were Paul Rockwood Jr. and his wife, Nadia, that when they left King Salmon in May to move to England, where Nadia was born, more than 30 people — pretty much their entire circle of friends — showed up at the airport. The choir sang "Wherever You Go," and "people were just bawling," said Rebecca Hamon, a friend of the couple.

What none of them could have known was that FBI agents were meeting the small turboprop plane in Anchorage to question the Rockwoods on suspicion of domestic terrorism-related crimes.

This week, Paul and Nadia Rockwood pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Anchorage to one count of willfully making false statements to the FBI; in Paul Rockwood's case, it was a statement about domestic terrorism.

The plea agreements state that Rockwood, 35, had become an adherent of extremist Islam who had prepared a list of assassination targets, including U.S. service members. And, though no plot to carry out the killings was revealed, he had researched methods of execution, including guns and explosives, the agreements say.

Federal charging papers said his wife, 36, who is five months pregnant with the couple's second child, lied to investigators when she denied knowing that an envelope she took to Anchorage in April at her husband's request contained a list of 15 intended targets. (None were in Alaska.) She told FBI agents that she thought the envelope contained a letter or a book. She gave it to an unidentified individual who her husband believed shared his radical beliefs, the FBI said.

Nadia knew exactly what was on the list and what it was for, federal authorities said.

"Obviously we take it very seriously when somebody starts talking about building bombs and component parts and killing citizens because of a hatred that is fueled by violent Internet sites," said Karen L. Loeffler, U.S. attorney for Alaska.

Loeffler, who would not elaborate on how the FBI became aware of the Rockwoods, said the investigation does not involve any other terrorism suspects, and no additional charges are expected.

The plea agreements the couple signed said Paul Rockwood converted to Islam in late 2001 or early 2002 while living in Virginia and became a follower of radical U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar Awlaki, now believed to be living in Yemen.

"This included a personal conviction that it was his religious responsibility to exact revenge by death on anyone who desecrated Islam," his agreement said.

Here in King Salmon, where the biggest thing is the annual red salmon run — it happens to be the biggest one in the world — this has the air of a poorly written movie.

"If all terrorists were this harmless, we'd all be living in a much less complicated world," said Hamon, who lived in Camarillo before moving 12 years ago to King Salmon, on the Alaska Peninsula, 280 miles southwest of Anchorage.

"We've all been in shock," said Mary Swain, who was friends with Nadia and baked the birthday cake for the Rockwoods' son's party last year. "I mean, kids would go over to her house all the time where she was teaching them ballet. She always went to library time, she went to story time…. Her mom would come over here from England and stay with her for a month at a time, and people got to be friends with her too."

King Salmon is little more than a windy cluster of homes surrounding the airport, grocery, repair shops and a handful of bars and restaurants, with emphasis, like any fishing town, on the bars. Populated mainly by government employees year-round, it lies on limitless fields of grassy tundra and low stands of white spruce, not far from the fishing port of Naknek on Bristol Bay and world-famous Katmai National Park. Like most of Alaska, it is accessible only by air or small boat.

The National Weather Service paid for the couple's move to King Salmon after hiring Paul in 2006 as a meteorological technician. They moved into a small tract of modern government housing populated by the many federal employees working for the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the weather service.

In the summertime, the populations of King Salmon and especially Naknek swell with thousands of itinerant fishermen and cannery workers. Nadia worked to become part of the close-knit permanent community, friends and neighbors said. Paul, because of his irregular work hours, often slept during the day and wasn't as engaged in the community.

"He was a good employee. I never had any problems with him," said Debra Elliott, his supervisor at the small, two-room building next to the airport, where the weather service shares an office with the Federal Aviation Administration. "He was very likable."

The couple told neighbors they were Muslim but, other than avoiding pork, never made an issue of their religion. Paul had a beard, but the couple never prayed publicly. Nadia performed Christian and secular songs with the choir in performances at the local chapel; her husband attended with his video camera.

Loukas Barton, a National Park Service archeologist who lived next door, said the couple's seeming reticence about discussing their religion may have been because they were, so far as anyone here can remember, the only Muslims who have ever lived in King Salmon.

"It's not uncommon in a bar here to hear some moron say, 'I hate Barack Obama because he's … a terrorist and an Ay-rab.' And people will swear up and down that he's a Muslim. Which is really well-informed, right?" Barton said.

"So for families like them, you could imagine it'd be a little tough. Maybe that's why Paul wasn't all that social. I don't think he'd be welcome down at Eddie's, or any of the other bars in town. He certainly didn't look Arab or Muslim, so those kind of comments would just fly freely."

Hamon said Nadia was a fresh-faced, lively, fun-loving woman. She seemed determined to embrace rural life with enthusiasm.

"I met her and we just really hit it off. She became a really central part of our little group of girlfriends here," Hamon said. "She did set-net fishing with us to catch salmon in summer. She learned to smoke and can salmon…. We learned to knit about the same time. We'd all get together and do crafts and stuff. We were all very welcome in each other's homes.

"There was never a feeling with Nadia that there was anything funny or secretive going on. Paul was always very comfortable with us too," she said.

The couple's garage was a clearinghouse for fresh vegetables flown in from Washington state, and neighbors were free to let themselves in to pick up their allotments when no one was home.

The couple decided to leave because Paul had a disease of the inner ear that gave him frequent bouts of vertigo, friends said. Barton said Paul told him at the couple's going-away yard sale that he also was growing tired of the annual clouds of mosquitoes and biting flies that descend each summer on King Salmon.

They were planning to move near Nadia's mother in Kent, England, where Paul could get better medical treatment than at the small clinic in Naknek, neighbors said.

If U.S. District Judge Ralph R. Beistline accepts the plea agreements, Paul Rockwood Jr. will serve eight years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Nadia Rockwood, who is free and in seclusion in Anchorage, would be sentenced to five years' probation and return to England. Sentencing is set for Aug. 23.

Some of the targets on Rockwood's list listened in by telephone to Wednesday's plea hearing in Anchorage federal court, though none of them was identified and none of them spoke. The couple said very little, beyond entering their guilty pleas.

"We've known them since Zaid was a tiny little tyke," Hamon said, referring to the couple's son. "Everybody was sad they had to leave. Then when this came out, we were all completely shocked. It's just impossible for me to imagine the friend that I knew being involved in anything like this."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-adv-alaska-terrorists-20100723-1,0,4847228,print.story

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From the New York Times

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V.A. Easing Rules for Users of Medical Marijuana

DENVER — The Department of Veterans Affairs will formally allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal, a policy clarification that veterans have sought for several years.

A department directive, expected to take effect next week, resolves the conflict in veterans facilities between federal law, which outlaws marijuana, and the 14 states that allow medicinal use of the drug , effectively deferring to the states.

The policy will not permit department doctors to prescribe marijuana. But it will address the concern of many patients who use the drug that they could lose access to their prescription pain medication if caught.

Under department rules, veterans can be denied pain medications if they are found to be using illegal drugs. Until now, the department had no written exception for medical marijuana.

This has led many patients to distrust their doctors, veterans say. With doctors and patients pressing the veterans department for formal guidance, agency officials began drafting a policy last fall.

“When states start legalizing marijuana we are put in a bit of a unique position because as a federal agency, we are beholden to federal law,” said Dr. Robert Jesse, the principal deputy under secretary for health in the veterans department.

At the same time, Dr. Jesse said, “We didn't want patients who were legally using marijuana to be administratively denied access to pain management programs.”

The new, written policy applies only to veterans using medical marijuana in states where it is legal. Doctors may still modify a veteran's treatment plan if the veteran is using marijuana, or decide not to prescribe pain medicine altogether if there is a risk of a drug interaction. But that decision will be made on a case-by-case basis, not as blanket policy, Dr. Jesse said.

Though veterans of the Vietnam War were the first group to use marijuana widely for medical purposes, the population of veterans using it now spans generations, said Michael Krawitz, executive director of Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access , which worked with the department on formulating a policy.

Veterans, some of whom have been at the forefront of the medical marijuana movement, praised the department's decision. They say cannabis helps soothe physical and psychological pain and can alleviate the side effects of some treatments.

“By creating a directive on medical marijuana, the V.A. ensures that throughout its vast hospital network, it will be well understood that legal medical marijuana use will not be the basis for the denial of services,” Mr. Krawitz said.

Although the Obama administration has not embraced medical marijuana, last October, in a policy shift, the Justice Department announced that it would not prosecute people who used or distributed it in states where it was legal.

Laura Sweeney, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, would not comment spefically on the veterans department policy. “What we have said in the past, and what we have said for a while, is that we are going to focus our federal resources on large scale drug traffickers,” she said. “We are not going to focus on individual cancer patients or something of the like.”

Many clinicians already prescribe pain medication to veterans who use medical marijuana, as there was no rule explicitly prohibiting them from doing so, despite the federal marijuana laws.

Advocates of medical marijuana use say that in the past, the patchwork of veterans hospitals and clinics around the country were sometimes unclear how to deal with veterans who needed pain medications and were legally using medical marijuana. The department's emphasis on keeping patients off illegal drugs and from abusing their medication “gave many practitioners the feeling that they are supposed to police marijuana out of the system,” Mr. Krawitz said.

“Many medical-marijuana-using veterans have just abandoned the V.A. hospital system completely for this reason,” he said, “and others that stay in the system feel that they are not able to trust that their doctor will be working in their best interests.”

In rare cases, veterans have been told that they need to stop using marijuana, even if it is legal, or risk losing their prescription medicine, Mr. Krawitz said.

David Fox, 58, an Army veteran from Pompey's Pillar, Mont., uses medical marijuana legally to help quiet the pain he experiences from neuropathy, a nerve disorder. But he said he was told this year by a doctor at a veterans' clinic in Billings that if he did not stop using marijuana, he would no longer get the pain medication he was also prescribed.

A letter written to Mr. Fox in April from Robin Korogi, the director of the veterans health care system in Montana, explained that the department did not want to prescribe pain medicine in combination with marijuana because there was no evidence that marijuana worked for noncancer patients and because the combination was unsafe.

“In those states where medical marijuana is legal, the patient will need to make a choice as to which medication they choose to use for their chronic pain,” Ms. Korogi wrote. “However, it is not medically appropriate to expect that a V.A. physician will prescribe narcotics while the patient is taking marijuana.”

Mr. Fox was shocked by the decision, he said.

“I felt literally abandoned,” he said. “I still needed my pain meds. I thought they were supposed to treat you. It was devastating for me.”

Mr. Fox, who said that at one point he was weaning himself off his pain medication for fear of running out, has held one-man protests in front of the clinic, carrying signs that read “Abandoned by V.A., Refused Treatment.”

Veterans officials would not comment on specific cases, citing medical privacy laws.

This month, Dr. Robert A. Petzel, the under secretary for health for the veterans department, sent a letter to Mr. Krawitz laying out the department's policy. If a veteran obtains and uses medical marijuana in accordance with state law, Dr. Petzel wrote, he should not be precluded from receiving opioids for pain management at a veterans facility.

Dr. Petzel also said that pain management agreements between clinicians and patients, which are used as guidelines for courses of treatment, “should draw a clear distinction between the use of illegal drugs, and legal medical marijuana.”

Dr. Jesse, the veterans department official, said that formalizing rules on medical marijuana would eliminate any future confusion and keep patients from being squeezed between state and federal law.

Steve Fox, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project , which favors the legal regulation of the drug, called the decision historic. “We now have a branch of the federal government accepting marijuana as a legal medicine,” he said.

But Mr. Fox said he wished the policy had been extended to veterans who lived in states where medical marijuana was not legal.

He said it was critical that the veterans department make its guidelines clear to patients and medical staff members, something officials said they planned on doing in coming weeks.

Said Dr. Jesse, “The whole goal of issuing a national policy is to make sure we have uniformity across the system.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/health/policy/24veterans.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Web Tool for Finding Detainees

The government unveiled a Web application on Friday that is intended to make finding immigration detainees easier. The change was a part of a broader overhaul of the detention system.

Those searching for a detainee must enter the detainee's “alien number” and country of birth, or the person's exact name, birth date and country of birth into a form, which will return a detainee's location and instructions for arranging a visit.

“If it functions properly, it will be of tremendous assistance,” said Joanne Lin, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union , whose nationwide affiliates represent many detainees.

Some advocacy groups were concerned that foreign spellings or a lack of information could still make it difficult for family members to find some individuals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/us/politics/24brfs-WEBTOOLFORFI_BRF.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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North Korea's Latest Tantrum

North Korea is threatening a “physical response” to joint American-South Korean naval exercises scheduled to begin on Sunday off the Korean Peninsula. China, which has abetted its neighbor's excesses for too long, needs to ensure that the North's bluster is only bluster. And it needs to tone down its own.

The United States and South Korea are right to demonstrate their strong alliance and resolve after North Korea sank a South Korean warship in March, killing 46 sailors. The South Koreans have exercised admirable restraint, but they need to know that the United States is with them. The North Koreans need to know that further attacks won't be tolerated.

When the issue of the warship, the Cheonan, was brought to the United Nations Security Council last month, the Security Council — at China's insistence — blinked. It deplored the attack and expressed “deep concern” about the results of an investigation that held North Korea responsible. But the Council did not directly censure the North and noted its denial of responsibility. North Korea's leaders hailed the statement as a “great diplomatic victory.” The danger is that they believe it.

The naval exercises have to be carefully calibrated to demonstrate strength without being provocative. They also need to be backed up by a review of what South Korea needs to defend its warships.

The Obama administration also has to carefully manage the diplomacy with Beijing. China — North Korea's main oil and food supplier — is probably the only country with a serious chance of curbing the North's craziest impulses.

The United States should be urging China to exercise that influence — and reminding it that when it blocked a tougher Security Council statement (and watered down earlier sanctions on North Korea's nuclear program), it took responsibility for reining in the North.

We are disturbed that instead of talking sense to North Korea, China has stoked tensions by objecting that part of the exercises were planned for the Yellow Sea — international waters, where American ships have often sailed, that are claimed by Beijing.

Four years after North Korea tested its first nuclear device, negotiations to end its program are going nowhere. American officials say privately that China has abdicated its role as a coordinator of the six-party nuclear talks. For now, they will focus on working with South Korea to ratchet up the pressure on the North.

On a visit to Seoul, South Korea, this week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that the United States is expanding sanctions on the already heavily sanctioned North Korea. The new measures have not been fully detailed, but they will target the bank accounts and luxury goods (cigarettes, alcohol) that the ruling elite enjoy while their people starve. The new approach is unlikely to change minds in North Korea. But it may persuade China to get back in the game.

Despite the tougher talk, the administration says — wisely — that it is still open to engagement. We're not sure there is a strategy to get there. But the Cheonan is one more reminder that the status quo is untenable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/opinion/24sat1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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North Korea ramps up threats against military exercises

North Korea "will legitimately counter with [its] powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises to be staged by the U.S. and the South Korean puppet forces," the state-run KCNA news agency said.

Earlier, the isolated communist nation vowed a "physical response" to massive U.S.-South Korean military drills set to begin Sunday. The U.S. Defense Department said the drills are in response to the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan and are intended to send a strong message to Pyongyang to stop "provocative and warlike acts."

At a regional security conference Friday, North Korea lashed out at the impending exercise. "There will be a physical response against the threat imposed by the United States militarily," North Korea spokesman Ri Tong Il said outside the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Two U.S. military officials told there was no sign of significant troop movement in North Korea.

About 8,000 military personnel from the United States and South Korea are scheduled to participate in the joint military exercises.

Meanwhile Friday, in the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas, officers from the North sat down for talks about the Cheonan incident with their counterparts in the U.S.-led United Nations Command.

During the almost two-hour meeting in the international truce town of Panmunjom, the U.N. Command reminded the North Koreans of the Security Council's condemnation this month of the Cheonan attack.

The Security Council did not mention North Korea by name but condemned the attack strongly, called for "full adherence" to the armistice agreement that halted fighting in the Korean War in 1953 and encouraged "the settlement of outstanding issues on the Korean peninsula by peaceful means."

An international inquiry found North Korea culpable for the March attack that killed 46 South Korean sailors. But North Korea denies a role in the incident, which elevated tension between the two enemies.

North Korea demanded again Friday that it be allowed to conduct its own investigation of the Cheonan's sinking and said the upcoming war games are being conducted under false pretext.

"The U.S. forces side would be seriously mistaken if it calculates it can browbeat [North Korea] through large-scale war exercises," the state-run KCNA news agency said. "It should immediately stop the [anti-North Korean] nuclear war racket."

"[This] double-dealing attitude is a dangerous one of driving the situation on the Korean Peninsula to a war phase," KCNA said.

At the ASEAN meeting, nation after nation expressed deep regrets and offered condolences to the South Koreans. The United States has accused North Korea of aggressive behavior and imposed new sanctions Wednesday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated U.S. support for South Korea on Friday.

"Here in Asia, an isolated and belligerent North Korea has embarked on a campaign of provocative, dangerous behavior," she said in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Later, after a repatriation ceremony for the remains of three soldiers who died in the Vietnam War, Clinton said the door remains open for dialogue if North Korea commits to abandoning its nuclear weapons program.

"We would love for them to have the same opportunities that the people of South Korea have been able to enjoy for the last 60 years," Clinton said. "So, it is distressing when North Korea continues its threats and causes so much anxiety among its neighbors and the larger region."

Ri described the planned U.S.-South Korea joint military exercise as "another example of a hostile policy" against North Korea.

"It is a grave threat to the Korean peninsula and also to the region of Asia as a whole," he said.

He said the exercise is a threat to North Korea's sovereignty and security.

The military exercise, dubbed Invincible Spirit, is scheduled to run from Sunday through Wednesday. In addition to the 8,000 personnel involved, military officials say, it will include 20 ships and submarines and about 200 aircraft.

The exercises are to take place in the Sea of Japan on South Korea's east coast and the Yellow Sea on the west coast, according to a joint U.S. and South Korean statement.

China has objected to war games in the Yellow Sea, so close to its coastline. And that is what bothers North Korea as well, said a University of Georgia professor who returned two weeks ago from his 52nd trip to Pyongyang.

"I think it's a bad idea," said Han Park, who helped arrange former President Carter's visit to North Korea in 1994 and is the only American to have visited the rogue nation since the Cheonan incident.

Park said the United States should never underestimate the resolve of the North Korean military, one that is further emboldened now by Chinese opposition to the military drills.

"I will hold my breath if this takes place anywhere near the west coast," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/07/23/north.korea.threat/?hpt=T1

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Probe links 20 defense workers to online child pornography

Federal investigators have identified about 20 Pentagon employees and contractors who allegedly bought and downloaded online child pornography and in some cases used their government-issued computers to view the illegal material.

On Friday, the Defense Department's inspector general's office released a 94-page report that says some of those involved possessed top-secret security clearances and worked for such divisions as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office. Those agencies deal with some of the government's most sensitive intelligence and defense work.

The government auditors released the report -- with some names and other information redacted -- after the pornography investigation was first reported by the Boston Globe .

The exact number of Pentagon employees investigated was not disclosed in the report, but a Pentagon spokeswoman said the probe involved about 20 people who had an "affiliation with the Defense Department" as full-time employees, former military members or contractors.

Some of those people have been prosecuted, and some of their cases were dropped for lack of evidence. Other cases remain open. Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the inspector general, said the agency takes such cases very seriously. He would not comment on individual cases, saying the report "speaks for itself."

The cases are part of a wider probe, Operation Flicker, which was started by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement four years ago and which has identified more than 5,000 people who subscribed to child pornography Web sites.

The cases detailed in the new report include one involving an employee of Oracle Corp. who had a top-secret clearance and worked on a contract for the National Security Agency. The man subscribed to various child pornography Web sites and made 21 purchases. After authorities started investigating him, the report said, he attempted to tamper with computers at his office. He was put on administrative leave with pay. He later fled to Libya but was arrested and extradited to the United States.

Another case involved a government employee at the National Defense University in Norfolk who made two purchases from a child pornography Web site. He pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and was sentenced to five years in prison.

It is an illegal use of government property to access pornography with a government computer, officials say.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072305182.html

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