Vicente Fox, the most recent former president of Mexico, is calling for the legalization of narcotics. In a post at his personal blog published over the weekend, the former president says: "We must legalize the production, distribution, and sale of drugs." Fox, whose election in 2000 ended more than 70 years of one-party rule in Mexico, argues that legalizing drugs would "strike and break" the economic power of drug-trafficking cartels operating in Mexico.

"We need to break the balance between criminals, markets, transfer routes, and criminal associations sheltered by corruption, intelligently, with much less doses of violence," Fox writes.

He also expresses support for the idea of state police forces to replace municipal police, which are plagued by corruption and often found to collude with organized crime groups. The military, the primary force currently deployed against the cartels, should be withdrawn due to rising allegations of human rights abuses, Fox also argues.

The post, in Spanish, is here . Here's an automated translation into English.

Fox is the immediate predecessor of President Felipe Calderon, who initiated a military-led campaign against traffickers in Mexico that has so far claimed more than 28,000 lives since he took office in December 2006. Under the Merida Initiative, the United States has promised Mexico millions of dollars in aid in its fight against the cartels, and in recent visits to Mexico, President Obama has praised Calderon's military strategy.

In a summit last week on the drug violence, Calderon offered a blunt assessment of the reach and power of the cartels, and said he would be open to a debate on legalization of drugs. His administration later clarified that Calderon is still opposed to legalization.

Both Fox and Calderon are members of the center-right National Action Party and are often singled out for criticism of Mexico's efforts against drug trafficking. Critics point out that drug violence grew under President Fox as a result of his strategy of arresting or killing top cartel leaders, which led groups to splinter and fight violent internal battles for control of drug routes. The violence has only surged under President Calderon, getting worse and worse by the year. Others have openly suggested two consecutive PAN administrations have applied justice unevenly against drug trafficking groups, " favoring " the Sinaloa cartel over its rivals -- despite several recent gains against major Sinaloa cartel figures. Calderon has said all cartels are treated equally in Mexico.

Fox's post over the weekend is not the first time he's publicly supported legalization of drugs in Mexico. He made the same basic argument during a U.S. media interview in May 2009. That year, Mexico  quietly decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and LSD.

Fox now joins another former president of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, in support of some form of legalization of narcotics. Early last year, Zedillo and former leaders of Colombia and Brazil called for a " paradigm shift " in international drug policies.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2010/08/vicente-fox-legalization-drugs-mexico.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LaPlaza+%28La+Plaza%29

OPINION

by Jonah Goldberg

August 10, 2010

It's like clockwork. Whenever conservatives propose a constitutional amendment, progressives suddenly rediscover the delicate gears of the constitution and the horrible dangers of "tinkering" or "tampering" with its precision craftsmanship. Consider the sudden brouhaha over the idea of revising the 14th Amendment to get rid of automatic birthright citizenship (which would make us more like Europe, by the way). Here's Angela Kelley of the liberal Center for American Progress on Sen. Lindsey Graham, who started the amendment chatter: "He's not one to tamper with the Constitution, so I'm surprised he would even suggest this."

"While everyone recognizes that there are problems with our immigration system in this country," Elizabeth Wydra of the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center tells NPR, "my perspective is: Let's try to fix this through legislation and not tinker with the genius of our constitutional design."

But wait a second. Progressives love to tinker with the constitutional design. They simply do it by stealth, by appointing Supreme Court justices such as Elena Kagan, who, her testimony notwithstanding, everyone knows will treat the Constitution like Felix the Cat's magic bag; when she searches the document hard enough you know she'll find what she's looking for.

But when conservatives who talk about reverence for the Constitution also want to update it in a way that is actually consistent with the "genius of our constitutional design," they are hypocrites and radicals.

Liberal devotees of the "living Constitution" always made a fair point. The founding fathers never envisioned a world with jet planes, split atoms, stem cell therapies, one-click porn or MTV's "Jersey Shore." Similarly, the ratifiers of the 14th Amendment would be stunned to learn, in July of 1868, that they had just created an adamantine right for homosexuals to marry one another and receive state benefits to boot, as a federal judge in California recently decided (overruling, I might add, the will of California voters).

Hence, liberals claim, we need an evolving constitution that, as President Obama writes in "The Audacity of Hope," "is not a static but rather a living document, and must be read in the context of an ever-changing world." But as legal analyst Ed Whelan has noted, the "living document" argument is a straw man. Of course justices must read the document in the context of an ever-changing world. What else could they do? Ask plaintiffs to wear period garb, talk in 18th century lingo and only bring cases involving paper money and runaway slaves?

The issue is not whether the world is ever-changing, but whether judges should treat the Constitution as ever-changing to meet their own agendas and desires, often over the lawfully expressed preferences of voters, legislators and the founders.

Still, if the Constitution is unclear or inadequate, what's a strict constructionist to do? Propose changes, and you're dubbed a hypocrite and a radical for wanting to "tinker with the genius of our constitutional design," or else you're guilty of hypocritical conservative judicial activism.

The relevant fact is that central to the genius of the constitution's design are the mechanisms to change it. That process is arduous, requiring long and deliberate debates at the national and state levels. (In over two centuries, thousands of amendments have been proposed, 33 have been approved by Congress and only 27 have been ratified by the states. That's not tinkering, that's craftsmanship.)

When discussing the Constitution on college campuses, students and even professors will object that without a "living constitution" blacks would still be slaves and women wouldn't be allowed to vote. Nonsense. Those indispensable changes to the Constitution came not from judges reading new rights into the document but from Americans lawfully amending it.

From birthright citizenship and gay marriage to flag-burning and gun rights, I trust the American people to change the Constitution when necessary (after lengthy debate) more than I trust five out of nine unelected justices with lifetime tenure, hiding behind closed doors and away from TV cameras.

What are the opponents of "tinkering" afraid of? I suspect sullying the genius of the founders takes a distant backseat to their real fear: losing a fair fight.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg-14th-20100810,0,1580953,print.column

EDITORIAL

August 10, 2010

Ever since the attempted Christmas Day airliner bombing, a debate has raged over whether the U.S. criminal justice system is equal to the challenges posed by international terrorism. This page has long believed that it is, but Rep. Adam Schiff (D- Burbank) has a different view, reflected in a bill known as the Questioning of Terrorism Suspects Act of 2010. As we see it, the legislation gives needlessly short shrift to individual rights.

The bill would do two things. It would express a nonbinding "sense of Congress" about how the Miranda rule should be applied to terrorist cases, and it would provide a terrorism exception to current practices that exist to ensure that suspects are brought before a magistrate without "unnecessary delay." In both cases, the intention is to allow interrogators more freedom to extract information from suspects for intelligence purposes without jeopardizing a criminal case.

We agree with Schiff that that's a laudable goal. But we disagree with the balance he strikes between acquiring intelligence and protecting the rights of criminal suspects.

Take the provisions in the bill dealing with the Miranda rule, which, as most TV watchers know, requires that suspects in custody be advised that they have the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. Law enforcement officers and prosecutors worry that once terrorism suspects are advised of their rights, they might stop talking about pending or planned attacks — but that if they're not advised of their rights, their confessions might not be admissible in court. So Schiff has proposed applying to terrorism cases an existing exception to the Miranda rule under which police may question a suspect without reading him his rights if there is a danger to public safety — and still have the evidence used in court. (The exception was first announced in a 1984 case in which police questioned a suspect about the location of his gun without reading him his rights.)

We have no problem with that proposal in theory, although we think it's unnecessary. The public safety exception already has been invoked in the terrorist context; the Justice Department cited it in delaying Miranda warnings for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused Christmas Day bomber. The Supreme Court is likely to ratify its use in that context whether or not Congress asks it to do so.

The problem with the bill is that it interprets the public safety exception too broadly. It would allow agents to question suspects without warning them of their rights "for as long as is necessary to protect the public from pending or planned attacks when a significant purpose of the interrogation is to gather intelligence and not solely to elicit testimonial evidence." The "significant purpose" language would allow Miranda warnings to be withheld even if the primary purpose of questioning was to obtain evidence for use in court. That goes too far.

Equally objectionable is the suggestion that a confession by a suspect in foreign custody be admissible in court even if there was no Miranda warning given. Our view is that if Americans are involved in the questioning, and the suspect is in jeopardy of prosecution in U.S. courts, the same rules should apply abroad as in this country.

Unlike its Miranda proposals, the bill's detention provisions would actually change federal law. The key provision would allow the government to ask a court for permission to question a suspect for 48 hours, or in some cases 96, before bringing him before a magistrate, a process known as "presentment." Currently, an otherwise valid confession is deemed inadmissible if a suspect is not taken before a magistrate within a reasonable amount of time, usually six hours.

Allowing the government to postpone a presentment and use the results of the extended interrogation encourages the abuses that a prompt presentment is designed to prevent, including, most notably, coerced confessions. Last year the Supreme Court emphasized the dangers of prolonged questioning in secret, saying, "No one with any smattering of the history of 20th century dictatorships needs a lecture on the subject."

We recognize that a prompt appearance before a magistrate might discourage some suspects from continuing to answer questions about an immediate threat to public safety. But even under present law, the six-hour rule isn't absolute, and a court might well conclude that an additional delay for the purposes of averting harm was reasonable and that the confession should be admitted.

The Schiff bill, however, goes much further than that. It allows for a delay if high-level officials certify that "the individual may be able to provide intelligence necessary to protect the public safety." By that standard, almost any interrogation of any suspected terrorist would qualify for a lengthy delay in bringing him or her before a magistrate. We'd prefer to rely on judicial discretion in interpreting the current legal standard rather than lock into the law a distinction between terrorism and nonterrorism cases. Our fear is that a 48-hour or even 96-hour delay would become the norm, not the exception.

Terrorism cases present special challenges, because a criminal suspect might also be a source of information about an ongoing plot against the United States. But in our view, current law provides sufficient flexibility to deal with that situation. And affording suspected terrorists the same protections available to other defendants sends a powerful message about this nation's commitment to the rule of law.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-miranda-20100810,0,4694646,print.story

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From the New York Times

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The Horror Show

OPINION

The employment data for July, released by the government on Friday, showed that private employers added just 71,000 jobs during the month and that the unemployment rate remained flat at 9.5 percent. But as bad as those numbers were, if you look beyond them you'll see a horror show.

Government workers were walking the plank from coast to coast. About 143,000 temporary Census workers were let go, and another 48,000 government employees at the budget-strapped state and local levels lost their jobs. But the worst news, with the most ominous long-term implications, was that the reason the unemployment rate was not higher was because 181,000 workers left the labor force.

With many of them beaten down by the worst jobs situation since the Great Depression, they just stopped looking for work. And given the Alice-in-Wonderland way in which we compile our official jobless statistics, they are no longer counted as unemployed.

Charles McMillion, the president and chief economist of MBG Information Services in Washington, is an expert on employment and has been looking closely for years at the issue of labor force participation. “Over the past three months,” he said, “1,155,000 unemployed people dropped out of the active labor force and were not counted as unemployed. Even ignoring population growth, if these unemployed had not dropped out of the labor force, simple arithmetic shows that the official unemployment rate would have risen from 9.9 percent in April to 10.2 percent in July, rather than — as it has — fallen to 9.5 percent.”

Because of normal growth in the working-age population, the labor force increases by roughly 150,000 to 200,000 people per month. If those folks were factored in, said Mr. McMillion, “unemployment now would be even higher than 10.2 percent.”

We are not even beginning to cope with this crisis, which began long before the onset of the so-called Great Recession. The economy is showing absolutely no sign of countering the nation's staggering jobs deficit.

“We have a large number of people who have just given up hope of finding a job,” said Mr. McMillion. He pointed out that there are record numbers — “I mean lights-out record numbers” — of long-term unemployed people who are still looking for jobs. Of the 14.6 million men and women officially counted as unemployed, nearly 45 percent have been out of work for six months or longer.

The Times's Michael Luo wrote a moving article last week about the people who have started calling themselves the “99ers,” meaning they have been out of work for more than 99 weeks and thus have exhausted the absolute maximum in unemployment benefits. Nearly a million and a half people have been out of work for at least 99 weeks — and not all of them qualified for jobless benefits.

Said Mr. McMillion: “When you combine the long-term unemployed with those who are dropping out and those who are working part-time because they can't find anything else, it is just far beyond anything we've seen in the job market since the 1930s.”

They may be thinking about this in Washington, but they sure aren't doing much about it. The politicians' approach to the jobs crisis has been like passing out umbrellas in a hurricane. Millions are suffering and the entire economy is being undermined, and what are they doing? They're appropriating more and more money for warfare while schizophrenically babbling about balancing the budget.

At some point we're going to have to claw our way out of this denial. With 14.6 million people officially jobless, and 5.9 million who have stopped looking but say they want a job, and 8.5 million who are working part time but would like to work full time, you end up with nearly 30 million Americans who cannot find the work they want and desperately need.

We've got more and more people in our working-age population and fewer and fewer jobs to go around. Mr. McMillion tells us that there are now 3.4 million fewer private-sector jobs in the U.S. than there were a decade ago. In the last 10 years, we've seen the worst job creation record since 1928 to 1938.

We're not heading toward the danger zone. We're there. The U.S. will not remain a stable society if this great employment crisis is not addressed head-on — and soon. You cannot allow joblessness on this scale to fester. It's wrong, and the blowback will be as destructive and intolerable as it is inevitable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10herbert.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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The Latest on Medicare and Social Security

OPINION

It's the time of year when the trustees of Medicare and Social Security release their annual reports on the programs' financial health. And that means Americans are likely to be bathed in a fog of political rhetoric that makes it hard to sort out fact from fiction.

Here's the bottom line: The recently passed health care reform bill is promising to have a positive effect on Medicare, assuming Republican opponents don't succeed in killing the reform in court or otherwise undermining its main provisions. Social Security is holding up even in the face of a weak economy. According to the reports, the date of insolvency for Medicare's hospital fund was pushed back, from 2017 to 2029, because of cost-saving measures in health reform. As for Social Security, without any changes, it will be able to pay full benefits until 2037 and partial benefits after that, the same estimate as in last year's report, despite temporary setbacks from the recession.

Of course, neither program is sound for the long run. But the reports show there is time for lawmakers to reform and strengthen both of the programs for the long haul. The real question is whether they will rise to the challenge or continue to view these vital programs as battlegrounds for scoring partisan points.

The trustees stressed that the improvement in Medicare depends on how effectively the new health care reform law is implemented. For instance, the law envisions paying doctors based on quality and efficiency of treatments, rather than on the number of visits or procedures. As that transition occurs, will Congress resist the inevitable outcry?

Future savings also depend on how Congress and the White House react to the Medicare payment advisory board, established under the new law to recommend additional ways to reduce costs. The recommendations take effect unless Congress passes a law to reject them. Will lawmakers be generally supportive of the board or generally antagonistic?

Technically, Social Security is an easier fix. To put the program on a sound footing will require a combination of moderate benefit cuts and tax increases, which could be distributed fairly and phased in over decades.

A lot of attention will be paid to the finding in the Social Security report that payouts will exceed revenues in 2010 and 2011, as high unemployment drives down payroll taxes. That doesn't endanger benefits, because any shortfall can be covered by the trust fund. But some politicians will depict the imbalance as evidence that deep and urgent cuts are needed soon. That is not the case. If anything, public attention to near-term fluctuations should serve as a reminder that by acting to reform the system sooner rather than later, needed reforms can be fair, gradual and modest.

Medicare is a thorny problem; Social Security, by comparison, is a cinch. More worrisome than either is the hyperpartisan atmosphere in Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10tue2.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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Slumdog Tourism

OPINION

Nairobi, Kenya

SLUM tourism has a long history — during the late 1800s, lines of wealthy New Yorkers snaked along the Bowery and through the Lower East Side to see “how the other half lives.”

But with urban populations in the developing world expanding rapidly, the opportunity and demand to observe poverty firsthand have never been greater. The hot spots are Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai — thanks to “Slumdog Millionaire,” the film that started a thousand tours — and my home, Kibera, a Nairobi slum that is perhaps the largest in Africa.

Slum tourism has its advocates, who say it promotes social awareness. And it's good money, which helps the local economy.

But it's not worth it. Slum tourism turns poverty into entertainment, something that can be momentarily experienced and then escaped from. People think they've really “seen” something — and then go back to their lives and leave me, my family and my community right where we were before.

I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes, looking at the utensils with longing because I hadn't eaten in two days. Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.

When I was 18, I founded an organization that provides education, health and economic services for Kibera residents. A documentary filmmaker from Greece was interviewing me about my work. As we made our way through the streets, we passed an old man defecating in public. The woman took out her video camera and said to her assistant, “Oh, look at that.”

For a moment I saw my home through her eyes: feces, rats, starvation, houses so close together that no one can breathe. I realized I didn't want her to see it, didn't want to give her the opportunity to judge my community for its poverty — a condition that few tourists, no matter how well intentioned, could ever understand.

Other Kibera residents have taken a different path. A former schoolmate of mine started a tourism business. I once saw him take a group into the home of a young woman giving birth. They stood and watched as she screamed. Eventually the group continued on its tour, cameras loaded with images of a woman in pain. What did they learn? And did the woman gain anything from the experience?

To be fair, many foreigners come to the slums wanting to understand poverty, and they leave with what they believe is a better grasp of our desperately poor conditions. The expectation, among the visitors and the tour organizers, is that the experience may lead the tourists to action once they get home.

But it's just as likely that a tour will come to nothing. After all, looking at conditions like those in Kibera is overwhelming, and I imagine many visitors think that merely bearing witness to such poverty is enough.

Nor do the visitors really interact with us. Aside from the occasional comment, there is no dialogue established, no conversation begun. Slum tourism is a one-way street: They get photos; we lose a piece of our dignity.

Slums will not go away because a few dozen Americans or Europeans spent a morning walking around them. There are solutions to our problems — but they won't come about through tours.

Kennedy Odede, the executive director of Shining Hope for Communities, a social services organization, is a junior at Wesleyan University.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10odede.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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Texting With Terrorists

Why? Because just as professionals depend on mobile devices to do their jobs, law enforcement and intelligence officers depend on electronic surveillance to do theirs. The Emirates made their decision principally because Research in Motion, the Canadian company that provides BlackBerry services, refused to modify its information architecture in a way that would enable authorities to intercept the communications of select subscribers.

Monitoring electronic communications in real time and retrieving stored electronic data are the most important counterterrorism techniques available to governments today. Electronic surveillance is particularly vital in combating global terrorism, where the stakes are highest, but it is a part of virtually all investigations of serious transnational threats.

The ways in which individual governments perform electronic surveillance are highly idiosyncratic, controlled by a bewildering patchwork of laws and technical capabilities that vary from country to country, agency to agency, service provider to provider, application to application. Intercepting a land-line phone call, for example, is entirely different from intercepting a voice-over-Internet call, and retrieving an e-mail is different from retrieving a text message. For obvious reasons, governments (and former officials) do not openly explain how their electronic surveillance powers vary from one communications method to another.

The United Arab Emirates is in no way unique in wanting a back door into the telecommunications services used inside its borders to allow officials to eavesdrop on users. In the United States, telecommunications providers are generally required to provide a mechanism for such access by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and related regulations issued by the Federal Communications Commission. As a general principle, information-service providers here must provide a means for federal agencies, usually the F.B.I., to view the ostensibly private data of their subscribers when lawfully ordered to do so.

The F.C.C. is not, however, a national security agency: it is an independent, bipartisan commission whose members serve fixed terms. The commission interprets a variety of statutes and balances many different interests, including the business success of telecommunications providers and the convenience of consumers, and its rulings are subject to legal challenge in the courts.

As a result, there remain a number of telecommunication methods that federal agencies cannot readily penetrate. Given the way the F.C.C. operates, the prospect of it taking a swift, decisive action to make these services accessible to the government is almost inconceivable. Hence the envy some American intelligence officials felt about the Emirates' decision.

Research in Motion is learning a lesson that other companies have learned before. As we saw in 2000 with Yahoo's failed attempt to maintain a forum to sell Nazi memorabilia in France, and with Google's repeated attempts in recent years to deliver uncensored search results in China, no provider of information services is exempt from the power of the state. The stakes are simply too high for governments to cede the field to private interests alone.

Companies can sometimes evade government intrusion for a while. In many cases, governments fail to keep pace with telecommunications innovation; in others, governmental intrusion into ostensibly private communications offends liberal sensibilities.

But in the end, it is governments, not private industry, that rule the airwaves and the Internet. The Emirates acted understandably and appropriately: governments should not be timid about using their full powers to ensure that their law enforcement and intelligence agencies are able to keep their citizens safe.

Richard A. Falkenrath, a principal of the Chertoff Group, a risk-management consultancy, is a former deputy commissioner for counterterrorism for the New York Police Department and deputy homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10falkenrath.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the White House

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Today President Obama is traveling to the University of Texas at Austin to discuss what the Administration is doing to meet his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates by 2020. Thousands of college students will be heading back to school in the next few weeks, so here's a list of the top five things you need to know before you head back to school:

1. Many students' wallets are going to be a little heavier. The President has invested more than $40 billion in Pell Grants and provided support to help these scholarships keep pace with inflation in the coming years. The great thing about Pell Grants is that they are free and clear – they don't have to be paid back if your family qualifies. Since taking office, the President has helped grow the maximum Pell Grant scholarship by $800. This is real money that students and families can use to pay for tuition and fees.
   
   
2. If you don't have a job after graduation lined up and are stressed about health insurance, don't worry. If you're under 26 years of age, may be already be able to get on a parent's health insurance plan – and all plans will allow this in September.
   
   
3. Not ready for a 4 year institution? Community colleges are a great alternative, and they will receive an extra $2 billion over the next four years to invest in degree and training programs that will prepare you for the jobs of the future. 
   
   
4. If you attend one of America's 105 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) or 225 Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), your school might get a cut of $2.55 billion in coming years. That means better courses, facilities, and programs for you.
   
   
5. Interested in pursuing a career in math or science? The Department of Energy, in partnership with the National Science Foundation, will dedicate $19 million in funds for its undergraduate and graduate fellowship, scholarship, and traineeship programs.

Click here for more information on President Obama's agenda for higher education.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/09/top-5-things-you-should-know-heading-back-college

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From the Department of Justice

WASHINGTON – A federal jury in U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii today found Noshir S. Gowadia, age 66, of Maui, guilty of five criminal offenses relating to his design for the People's Republic of China (PRC) of a low signature cruise missile exhaust system capable of rendering a PRC cruise missile resistant to detection by infrared missiles. The jury also convicted Gowadia of illegally communicating classified information on three other occasions and unlawfully exporting technical information on those three occasions, illegally retaining defense information, and filing false tax returns for the years 2001 and 2002. The jury acquitted Gowadia of three other offenses alleging illegal communication of information to the PRC.

The verdict was announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and Florence T. Nakakuni, U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii. The verdict followed six days of deliberation and a 40-day trial in the District of Hawaii.

“Mr. Gowadia provided some of our country's most sensitive weapons-related designs to the Chinese government for money. Today, he is being held accountable for his actions. This prosecution should serve as a warning to others who would compromise our nation's military secrets for profit. I commend the many prosecutors, analysts, and agents - including those from the FBI and the Air Force - who were responsible for this investigation and prosecution,” said Assistant Attorney General Kris.

“The United States entrusts people with important and sensitive information critical to our nation's defense. Today's verdict demonstrates that there is a serious consequence to betraying that trust,” said U.S. Attorney Nakakuni.

“The FBI will continue to pursue anyone who treats America's national security as a commodity to be sold for personal enrichment,” said Charlene Thornton, Special Agent in Charge of the Honolulu Field Office of the FBI.

“This case is a superb example of interagency cooperation with one single goal in mind: to protect Americans from harm. The successful prosecution of Mr. Gowadia for espionage and other crimes highlights the many contributions of AFOSI personnel and our partner organizations worldwide,” said Colonel Keith Givens, Vice Commander, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Gowadia was first arrested in October 2005 on a criminal complaint alleging that he willfully communicated national defense information to a person not entitled to receive it. He was charged with additional violations in a 2005 indictment, a 2006 superseding indictment and a 2007 second superseding indictment.

According to information produced during the trial, Gowadia was an engineer with Northrop Grumman Corporation from approximately 1968 to 1986, during which time he contributed to the development of the unique propulsion system and low observable capabilities of the B-2 Spirit bomber, sometimes referred to as the “Stealth” bomber. Gowadia also continued to work on classified matters as a contractor with the with the U.S. government until 1997, when his security clearance was terminated.

Evidence at the trial revealed that from July 2003 to June 2005, Gowadia took six trips to the PRC to provide defense services in the form of design, test support and test data analysis of technologies for the purpose of assisting the PRC with its cruise missile system by developing a stealthy exhaust nozzle and was paid at least $110,000 by the PRC. The jury convicted Gowadia of two specific transmissions of classified information: a PowerPoint presentation concerning the exhaust nozzle of a PRC cruise missile project and an evaluation of the effectiveness of a redesigned nozzle, and a computer file providing his signature prediction of a PRC cruise missile outfitted with his modified exhaust nozzle and associated predictions in relation to a U.S. air-to-air missile.

The prosecution also produced evidence which documented Gowadia's use of three foreign entities he controlled, including a Liechtenstein charity purportedly for the benefit of children, to disguise the income he received from foreign countries. In addition to demonstrating that Gowadia under-reported his income and falsely denied having control over foreign bank accounts for the two tax years involved in his convictions, the evidence at trial revealed that Gowadia had not paid any income tax since from at least 1997 until 2005 when he was arrested.

Chief U.S. States District Judge Susan Oki Mollway set sentencing for Nov. 22, 2010. At that time, Gowadia faces the following maximum terms of imprisonment.

• Life imprisonment for each of two counts of willfully communicating classified national defense information to the PRC with the intent that it be used to the advantage of the PRC or to the injury of the United States.
  
  
• Ten years imprisonment for each of three counts of willfully communicating classified national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it in the PRC and elsewhere, and one count of illegally retaining defense systems information at his Maui residence.
  
  
• Ten years imprisonment for each of four counts of exporting technical data related to a defense article without an export license (in violation of the Arms Export Control Act).
  
  
• Five years imprisonment for one count of conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act.
  
  
• Ten years imprisonment for one money laundering charge based on proceeds from the Arms Export Control Act violations.
  
  
• Three years imprisonment for each of two counts of filing false tax returns for the years 2001 and 2002.

This case was investigated by FBI, the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Division, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth M. Sorenson of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Hawaii and Senior Trial Attorney Robert E. Wallace Jr., of the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department's National Security Division.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/August/10-nsd-913.html

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From the FBI

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By the Numbers The Southwest border crime problem measured in numbers. - View infographic Border Corruption Criminal Investigative Division chief describes issues. - Read comments Video The FBI works closely with other agencies to fight border crime. - Watch the video

ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER Public Corruption: A Few Bad Apples 08/09/10 In the surveillance footage taken hours before his arrest, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Michael Gilliland can be seen nonchalantly waving a car through his lane at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego. He was knowingly allowing illegal aliens across the border, and he would do this several more times throughout the evening. His actions that night would earn him nearly the equivalent of his annual salary—and eventually a five-year prison term. Gilliland, a former U.S. Marine and veteran Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer with 16 years of experience, has been in jail since 2007. But his case continues to illustrate the pervasive problem of corruption along the Southwest border and the damage that can occur when officials betray the public's trust. Although the vast majority of U.S. government employees working on the border are not corrupt, as one senior agent who investigates such crimes noted, “Even one bad apple is too many.” Of our 700 agents assigned to public corruption investigations nationwide, approximately 120 of them are located in the Southwest region. We work closely with many federal agencies, including CBP and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The result has been more than 400 public corruption cases originating from the Southwest region—and in the past fiscal year more than 100 arrests and about 130 state and federal cases prosecuted.

“The cartels have developed into very sophisticated businesses,” said El Paso Special Agent Tim Gutierrez. “Despite their brutality and violence, they use sophisticated tactics.”

The cartels actively engage in corrupting public officials. They recruit by exploiting weaknesses, sometimes gaining intelligence through surveillance methods usually employed by law enforcement. Cartel members have been known to observe inspectors at ports of entry using binoculars from the Mexican side of the border. Maybe an inspector has a drinking or gambling problem. Maybe he flirts with women and could be tempted to cheat on his wife. Maybe an employee is simply burned out on the job.

“If you're an inspector and you are legitimately waving through 97 out of 100 cars anyway,” Gutierrez said, “and you realize you can make as much as your annual salary by letting the 98th car go by, it can be easy to rationalize that.”

“The cartels are always looking for the next Michael Gilliland,” Agent Reed said. “But using our combined investigative and intelligence gathering skills, the task force has been very successful in rooting out corrupt public officials at the border.”

Next: When Violence Hits Too Close to Home

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/august10/border_080910.html

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Paul Teutul, Sr. (OCC) on his way to the waterfront in Newburgh

Orange County Choppers Partners with the FBI and the Hudson Valley InfraGard Alliance to Build an FBI Themed Chopper An Orange County Chopper with an FBI logo was a unique item created for a fundraising effort to support youth anti-violence in Newburgh, New York. The FBI partnered with the Hudson Valley InfraGard alliance and Orange County Choppers (OCC)—a custom motorcycle manufacturer in Orange County, New York run by Paul Teutul, Sr.—to build a custom-made chopper in support of Newburgh youth. The chopper, unveiled today on the waterfront in Newburgh, attracted a crowd of spectators who waited in anticipation as it made its way down Front Street accompanied by FBI agents and local police. New York State Senator Bill Larkin and Newburgh Mayor Nicholas Valentine joined the crowd along with FBI Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Diego Rodriguez, Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) Belle Chen, Chairman of the InfraGard National Members Alliance Kathleen Kiernan, InfraGard coordinator and FBI Special Agent Maryann Goldman, and members from the “Center for Hope.”

The FBI's InfraGard program is a partnership that creates relationships with the public and private sector to help the FBI protect critical infrastructure and combat major crime trends. The FBI, the Hudson Valley Chapter of InfraGard, and OCC are working with Orange County, the Newburgh Police Department, and community organizations on an awareness building and fundraising campaign to help Newburgh youth stay out of gangs and to reduce the violent crime that is synonymous with the gang culture.

Supervisory Special Agent/Resident Agency James Gagliano preparing the crowd for FBI chopper arrival		Paul Teutul, Sr. arriving with FBI Chopper

SAC Diego Rodriguez, who oversees the Criminal Division in the FBI's New York Office, was excited to see the arrival of the FBI chopper. “There are approximately one million gang members belonging to more than 20,000 gangs in the U.S. Gangs have long posed a threat to public safety, and gang activity is a problem for cities big and small. In 2009 alone, Newburgh led the state in violent crime per capita. The FBI is proud to partner with OCC and the Hudson Valley Chapter of InfraGard on this unique initiative to reach out to the youth of our communities and help provide them with opportunities to steer their future in the right direction.”

The Chopper

Paul Teutul, Sr. speaking to Newburgh youth from the Boys and Girls Club

Accepting the bike on behalf of the InfraGard National Members Alliance was Chairman Kathleen Kiernan, who added, “We are pleased and excited to support this project, which we hope will have a positive influence on the youth of this community. Projects such as this reinforce our private sector partnerships with the public and demonstrate for our youth the possibility of a life with limitless opportunities.”

“I think it's vital that we as OCC get involved with the youth anit-violence campaign in Newburgh. This is the community that we all work and live in, and we are committed through our relationship with InfraGard and the city to ensure that kids in Newburgh know that they've got options outside of gang culture,” said Paul Teutul, Sr., founder of Orange County Choppers.

OCC also worked with Infragard community partners in Newburgh by donating another custom "Stop-the-Violence” chopper. This chopper, also built by OCC and debuted this morning, will be raffled off by local partners to raise money for a "Center for Hope", conceptualized and built by InfraGard and community partners in the center of Newburgh for youth at risk of becoming involved in gangs and gang violence. Paul Teutul Sr. helped the kids of Newburgh paint the walls of the “Center for Hope”, which his raffle bike will help to support.

The proceeds will help build key educational and recreational programs geared at providing positive alternatives and activities for Newburgh youth and families to help them say no to gangs and violence in their community. The programs, which the kids themselves have identified, include music production, dance, and boxing along with mentoring programs and life skills training, which will teach the kids the self-control, respect, self-confidence, and discipline they need to succeed in life.

Both motorcycles were built at the OCC facility in Newburgh. It is expected that the TLC TV series American Chopper will feature the building of the FBI chopper in an upcoming September episode.

For more information on the FBI's InfraGard program, please visit: http://www.infragard.net/

http://newyork.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/nyfo080910.htm

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Fugitive Wanted by FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Wyoming and Colorado is seeking the public's assistance in locating Ethan Wade Surrell, who also uses the alias of Nathan Surrell. Surrell is a Native American male, 24 years of age, of the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. He is 5' 07'', 230 lbs, with short black hair, and brown eyes. Surrell was indicted by the United States Attorney's Office, in the District of Wyoming, for assaulting a federal officer on the Wind River Indian Reservation. He is wanted in connection to a crime of violence that occurred on the Reservation and should be considered dangerous. Investigators believe Surrell may be traveling in the areas of Riverton, Wyoming, Cheyenne, Wyoming, or Denver, Colorado. Please contact the Denver Division of the FBI at 303-629-7171 or your local law enforcement authorities if you see Surrell.

Ethan Wade Surrell

http://denver.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/dn080910.htm

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From the DEA

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Pit Bull and Cock Fights Used as Networking Tool for Drug Traffickers

AUG 09 -- LAKE CHARLES, La. + The main organizer and supervisor of a lucrative drug trafficking organization responsible for transporting kilogram quantities of cocaine and marijuana from the Brownsville, Texas area, was sentenced on August 5, 2010 to 12.5 years in federal prison, followed by five years supervised release. Pedro Mendez Ramos, 41, of Church Point, La., was sentenced by U. S. District Judge Patricia Minaldi for Continuing a Criminal Enterprise and Money Laundering Conspiracy.

Ramos and seventeen others were indicted on a variety of drug trafficking, money laundering and firearms charges following an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation dubbed “Operation Fowl Play” and “Rio Gallo.” While under Ramos' direction, this drug trafficking organization was responsible for transporting and distributing cocaine and marijuana from the Brownsville, Texas area to the Church Point, La. area. From Church Point, the drugs would then be distributed to Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, and other parts of Louisiana. Large amounts of drug proceeds would then be transported back to Brownsville, Texas and ultimately, Mexico. Ramos, an avid pit bull and cock fighter, with over three hundred gamecocks and sixty fighting pit bulls of his own, utilized these illegal events as a networking tool in order to recruit members to transport and sell cocaine and marijuana for his organization. The organization utilized various methods to conceal their cocaine, to include tractor trailers and trucks with hidden compartments and gamecock cages with false bottoms. The Ramos organization was supplied cocaine and marijuana directly from members of the Gulf Cartel, a multi-national drug trafficking organization located in Matamoros, Mexico.

At one point, the Ramos organization had amassed so much cash from the sale of cocaine that Pedro Ramos attempted to purchase Canal Oil Refinery, an oil refinery located in Church Point, La. in order to launder the organization's drug trafficking proceeds. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), in conjunction with state and local law enforcement agencies, seized approximately 111 kilograms of cocaine and approximately 1.8 million dollars from members of Ramos' drug trafficking organization, along with real property with an estimated value of one million dollars located in both Louisiana and Texas.

Special Agent in Charge Jimmy S. Fox III of the New Orleans Field Division stated, “The coordinated efforts of this investigation not only exposed and dismantled a sophisticated drug trafficking organization, it also helped to cease the brutality and unspeakable cruelty of animals at the hands of inhumane individuals.” U. S. Attorney Finley stated: “Organized drug trafficking threatens our safety, disrupts our communities, and destroys lives. This case is an example of how federal, state and local partnerships can succeed in dismantling large international criminal organizations. Our office is committed to combating drug trafficking in this district.”

The remaining co-defendants have previously pled guilty and have been sentenced, with the exception of one co-defendant who is awaiting sentencing and faces a statutory, minimum mandatory sentence of ten years to life in prison.

This case was investigated by DEA's Lafayette Post of Duty, La. and Brownsville Resident Office, Texas, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division (Lafayette and Brownsville), Louisiana State Police, and the Cameron County District Attorney's Office, Brownsville, Texas. The Lafayette Post of Duty is a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) initiative comprised of Special Agents of the DEA, and Agents from the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office, Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office, Lafayette Police Department, Vermilion Parish Sheriff's Office, St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office, Acadia Parish Sheriff's Office, St. Landry Parish Sheriff's Office, Opelousas Police Department and the Louisiana National Guard.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys J. Collin Sims and John Luke Walker.

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