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From the Los Angeles Times

Homegrown radicals changing terrorism threat in U.S., officials say

The Internet has become a key tool for increasingly savvy and hard-to-detect extremists, top officials say. They say plotters are also inspired by Al Qaeda without having ties to the group.

By Ken Dilanian, Tribune Washington Bureau

September 21, 2010

Reporting from Washington

The rising threat from homegrown radicals makes terrorist plots against the U.S. harder to detect and more likely to succeed, top administration officials are scheduled to tell Congress on Wednesday.

In written testimony to be delivered before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Michael E. Leiter, chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, each say terrorist threats have become more complex, with a greater array of plotters inspired by Al Qaeda without necessarily being directly linked to the terrorist network.

"Homegrown terrorists represent a new and changing facet of the terrorist threat," Napolitano said in the testimony, obtained in advance by the Los Angeles Times. "The threat is evolving in several ways that make it more difficult for law enforcement or the intelligence community to detect and disrupt plots."

Citing the November shootings at Ft. Hood in Texas, which left 13 dead, and the attempted Times Square bombing in May, among others, Leiter said there were more homegrown attacks or attempts in the last year than at any time since Sept. 11, 2001, when hijackers crashed airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"Homegrown extremists are increasingly more savvy, harder to detect, and able to connect with other extremists overseas," Mueller said. "The Internet has expanded as a platform for spreading extremist propaganda, a tool for online recruiting, and a medium for social networking with like-minded violent extremists, all of which may be contributing to the pronounced state of radicalization inside the United States."

The statements were less clear on how the government intends to counter the domestic threat.

A recent report by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the successor to the Sept. 11 commission, called it "fundamentally troubling … that there remains no federal government agency or department specifically charged with identifying radicalization and interdicting the recruitment of U.S. citizens or residents for terrorism."

That is a major problem, said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who chairs the committee, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican.

"We need to focus more deeply on the role of the Internet in violent Islamist extremism and reassess the adequacy of the tools and legal authorities we have to detect online plotting and radicalization," Lieberman said.

The hurdles are both bureaucratic and legal. The government's counter-terrorism apparatus consists mainly of law enforcement agencies that see their mission as investigating threats, crimes and conspiracies — not expressed radical ideas that amount to protected free speech.

Napolitano's testimony described new initiatives to encourage tips from the public, including an advertising campaign with the slogan, "See something, say something." Mueller touted the FBI's outreach to Muslim communities.

Napolitano noted that the Department of Homeland Security is working with an array of 72 state and regional "fusion centers," where state and local law enforcement officials with top-secret clearance have access to high-level intelligence and analyze reports of suspicious activity generated by cops on the beat.

The Obama administration has thus far resisted any national program to combat radicalization similar to one undertaken in Britain, which is spending $200 million a year to "challenge the ideology behind violent extremism and support mainstream voices."

The administration has been criticized because it has avoided terms such as "Islamists" or "jihadists" to describe Al Qaeda and related terrorist groups.

"It risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself," Obama's counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, said in an August speech.

Lieberman strongly disputed that argument, saying Muslims understand the difference between their faith and "the terrorist political ideology that has exploited it."

The officials said the good news is that intelligence reports show that Al Qaeda is weakened, pummeled by airstrikes from drones and other operations.

The CIA has carried out 15 aerial drone attacks in Pakistan this month and 69 this year, according to the Long War Journal, a blog that tallies the strikes from media reports. In comparison, there were 36 attacks in 2008.

Those operations, however, have not damped Al Qaeda's ability to inspire disaffected Muslims, including Americans, the officials said.

Al Qaeda's ability to pull off spectacular attacks has diminished, the officials said. But smaller attacks require fewer steps, Napolitano said, and "there are fewer opportunities to detect such an attack before it occurs."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terrorist-threat-20100922,0,225499,print.story

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Death row inmates would be strapped to this gurney in the lethal injection chamber, and three drugs would be administered intravenously. Albert Greenwood Brown is scheduled to be executed Sept. 29.

Clock is ticking on first execution at San Quentin's revamped death chamber Albert Greenwood Brown is scheduled to be put to death via lethal injection Sept. 29. The facility has undergone an $853,000 remodel and is now four times larger than the old chamber. by Carol J. Williams Los Angeles Times September 22, 2010 Reporting from San Quentin, Calif. Pistachio vinyl covers the gurney in the state's new lethal injection chamber, the only splash of color in a sterile white room where corrections officials intend to put to death rapist-murderer Albert Greenwood Brown next week. An Elgin clock, the only other furnishing, ticks above the death bed, tracking the time to the first execution to be carried out in California in nearly five years, unless a judge moves to stop it.

The hexagonal room surrounded by viewing compartments and a holding cell where Brown is expected to spend his last six hours were built to comply with a federal court order that state officials correct deficiencies in the execution regimen.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel halted the February 2006 execution of murderer Michael Morales after hearing testimony about inadequate anesthesia and cramped conditions in the former gas chamber.

Fogel's order set in motion a legal duel between those who want capital punishment practiced in a state where two out of three citizens support the ultimate penalty and those who oppose executions on moral, religious and economic grounds and have used the hiatus to challenge its validity in state and federal court.

"We are fully prepared to carry out an execution on Sept. 29," San Quentin State Prison Warden Vincent Cullen said as he accompanied journalists on a tour of the facility housed in a cinderblock annex to the prison's teeming East Wing.

At 200 square feet, the lethal injection chamber built with inmate labor and $853,000 in taxpayer money is more than four times the size of the old metal-walled gas chamber used for two executions by lethal gas and 11 by lethal injection since capital punishment was restored in 1977.

Vials of the three drugs used to execute the condemned are stored in a caged and locked refrigerator in the death chamber's adjacent Infusion Control Room. Sodium thiopental would be pumped through first, to anesthetize the inmate, then pancurium bromide to paralyze him and, finally, potassium chloride to stop his heart. Two grommeted holes in the wall on either side of the gurney would be threaded with tubes to carry the lethal infusions from the masked execution team in the control room to the veins of the inmate. The inmate would be restrained by five black straps across the body and cuffs to steady his arms and ankles. Four tan wall phones with red warning lights stand ready to receive calls from the governor, the warden, the state attorney general and the U.S. Supreme Court, should a last-minute clemency be granted.

Fogel has yet to inspect the new death chamber or review the revised execution procedures drafted by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation over the last three years and approved by a state agency in July. But department spokeswoman Terry Thornton pointed out Tuesday that the Morales case wasn't a class action on behalf of all death row inmates and posed no barrier to Brown's scheduled death by lethal injection.

The warren of rooms being readied for their first use are silent, in stark contrast with the grunts and shouts and thunderous footfalls emanating from the concertina-wire-enclosed rooftop recreation yard where maximum-security inmates exercise high above the sparkling waters of San Francisco Bay. A fog-shrouded skyline is visible on the horizon.

Lethal injection is the "default" method of execution in California, with the gas chamber still available and fully functional if a condemned prisoner should choose that over lethal injection, said Lt. Sam Robinson, public information officer for San Quentin.

Brown's attorney, Jan B. Norman of Los Angeles, has petitioned Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant her client a reprieve so that the next governor can consider the prisoner's request for clemency. Schwarzenegger, who leaves office in January, has said he wants to resume executions as soon as possible. Norman criticized the rapid-fire moves to resume executions since the new protocols were adopted six weeks ago and accused the governor and his lawyers of "a headlong rush to execute as many people as quickly as possible and to sabotage the ability of inmates' counsel to respond."

Brown, who raped and murdered a 15-year-old girl in 1980, is one of 708 California prisoners on death row, including 18 women. Only a handful have exhausted all appeals and are eligible to be issued death warrants.

A state appeals court on Monday lifted an injunction against executions that had been imposed by a Marin County judge, clearing away the last legal hurdle to fulfilling the death warrant issued by a Riverside County judge for 56-year-old Brown.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lethal-injection-chamber-20100922,0,2681425,print.story

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Big health insurers to stop selling new child-only policies

Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna Inc. and others say they will make the move as soon as Thursday when parts of the new healthcare law take effect. They cite potentially huge and unexpected costs for insuring children.

By Duke Helfand, Los Angeles Times

September 21, 2010

Major health insurance companies in California and other states have decided to stop selling policies for children rather than comply with a new federal healthcare law that bars them from rejecting youngsters with preexisting medical conditions.

Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna Inc. and others will halt new child-only policies in California, Illinois, Florida, Connecticut and elsewhere as early as Thursday when provisions of the nation's new healthcare law take effect, including a requirement that insurers cover children under age 19 regardless of their health histories.

The action will apply only to new coverage sought for children and not to existing child-only plans, family policies or insurance provided to youngsters through their parents' employers. An estimated 80,000 California children currently without insurance — and as many as 500,000 nationwide — would be affected, according to experts.

Insurers said they were acting because the new federal requirement could create huge and unexpected costs for covering children. They said the rule might prompt parents to buy policies only after their kids became sick, producing a glut of ill youngsters to insure. As a result, they said, many companies would flee the marketplace, leaving behind a handful to shoulder a huge financial burden.

The insurers said they now sell relatively few child-only policies, and thus the changes will have a small effect on families.

"Unfortunately, this has created an un-level competitive environment," Anthem Blue Cross, California's largest for-profit insurer, said in a statement declaring its intention to "suspend the sale of child-only policies" on Thursday, six months after the healthcare overhaul was signed.

The change has angered lawmakers, regulators and healthcare advocates, who say it will force more families to enroll in already strained public insurance programs such as Medi-Cal for the poor in California.

The White House weighed in Tuesday, condemning Anthem corporate parent WellPoint Inc. and others that plan to stop selling child-only policies.

"It's obviously very unfortunate that insurance companies continue to make decisions on the backs of children and families that need their help," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at a news briefing.

The Obama administration had told insurers they could solve the problem by issuing policies only during designated enrollment periods. Some White House officials, however, noted that families who can't find policies might be able to sign up for high-risk pools being set up around the country as part of the new healthcare law.

In California, the stakes may be particularly high for insurers who abandon child-only policies. A bill awaiting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature would bar such companies from selling insurance in the lucrative individual market for five years. A Schwarzenegger spokeswoman said the governor had not yet taken a position on the measure.

Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), the bill's author, voiced frustration over the insurers' plans and singled out Anthem Blue Cross, whose corporate parent notified brokers nationwide Friday of its decision to exit the child-only business in 10 states, including Colorado, Connecticut, Missouri, Nevada and Georgia as well as California.

"At a time when we are launching a national approach to ensure that all children have access to healthcare, Anthem's actions represent a step backwards," Feuer said. "By threatening to drop child-only policies in California, the company jeopardizes the health of families and children. I call on Anthem to reconsider its plan."

Other regional and national insurers also plan to stop selling insurance policies exclusively for children. Among the companies is UnitedHealth Group Inc., the nation's largest insurer by revenue. It did not say which states would be affected.

"We continue to believe that regulations can be structured that will enable child-only plans to be offered, and we are working toward that goal," spokesman Tyler Mason said.

Aetna said that effective Oct. 1 it would no longer offer policies in the 32 states where it conducts business, including California, Florida, Illinois, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Cigna Corp. will halt the policies in 10 states, including California, Arizona, Colorado, Tennessee and Texas.

"We made a decision to stop offering child-only policies to ensure that we can remain competitive in the 10 markets where we sell individual and family plans," Cigna spokeswoman Gwyn Dilday said. "We'll continue to evaluate this policy and could reconsider changing this position as market dynamics change."

The explanations left healthcare advocates fuming. They accused insurers of trying to skirt the law's new requirement to cover children with health problems.

"Insurers need to decide if they are in the business of providing care or denying coverage," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer group. "In California, we hope our insurers come to an equitable compromise that allows access for all children and affordability for those with preexisting conditions."

In Colorado, regulators and insurance carriers are trying to work out such a compromise. The state's insurance commissioner met Friday with several insurers, including Anthem, Cigna and Aetna. The two sides did not reach an agreement, but officials remain hopeful they can broker a deal before Thursday.

"Obviously this deadline looms large," said Jo Donlin, director of external affairs for the Colorado Division of Insurance. "The commissioner wants families to have access to the insurance they need. Both sides of this want to find a solution."

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-fi-kids-health-insurance-20100921,0,5977746,print.story

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Iranian president expects nuclear talks to resume

Ahmadinejad, in New York for the U.N. General Assembly meetings, says there's no choice but to resume negotiations with the U.S. and its allies.

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times

September 21, 2010

Reporting from New York

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that he saw a "good chance" that talks could soon resume with the United States and its allies over Iran's disputed nuclear program because "there is no other alternative."

Ahmadinejad, visiting New York to take part in United Nations General Assembly meetings, denied that Iran had been hurt by economic sanctions imposed in the last three months to pressure Tehran to dramatically alter its nuclear program. He also dismissed talk of a possible attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations as no more than "psychological warfare."

New talks over Iran's nuclear policies are "bound to happen," he told a group of reporters at a breakfast, because "what is left is talks.... There's no other way."

The U.S. and many other world powers believe Iran's nuclear program is aimed at developing a bomb. Iran insists its goals are peaceful, such as power generation.

Sanctions against Tehran have sought to cut off investment in Iran's energy sector, limit the country's access to international banking and punish Iranian officials tied to the nuclear program.

Iran has been trying to make up for the loss of trade and investment by turning to other countries, especially in the developing world. Ahmadinejad has been urging countries not to enforce the sanctions, arguing that it is the U.S., rather than Iran, that stands in the way of a solution to the nuclear standoff.

U.S. officials say they are willing to negotiate but that Iranian officials have not agreed to offers from the West to resume the conversations.

"Iran has been talking about talks but needs to follow up," said a senior administration official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Ray Takeyh, a former U.S. advisor on Iran, said that although Ahmadinejad has floated the idea of new talks, a majority of the most powerful figures in Iran, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are opposed.

Ahmadinejad has become "the main advocate for engagement," said Takeyh, now with the Council on Foreign Relations. "That's what it's come to."

Although Ahmadinejad seemed open to renewed contacts in his meeting with journalists, he also repeated harsh criticisms of the U.S. and its allies.

He blasted the U.S. for a planned $60-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, a regional rival of Iran. "That's how much the United States wants peace," he said.

But even as he dismissed talk of war, Ahmadinejad suggested that the U.S. was not capable of waging one.

He said the U.S. has "never entered a real war, not in Vietnam, nor in Afghanistan, nor in World War II." He suggested that other countries bore the brunt of fighting in World War II. "War is not just bombing someplace. When it comes, it has no limits," he said.

He accused the U.S. of using the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to dominate other countries and criticized U.S.-led peacemaking efforts in the Middle East, contending that the Palestinian leaders engaged in peace talks are not the chosen representatives of the Palestinian majority.

Kaveh Afrasiabi, an Iranian political scientist and onetime advisor to Iranian nuclear negotiators, said Iranian officials were trying to persuade other governments that the sanctions and U.S. arms sales were a threat to regional stability but that Iran was willing to cooperate with the U.S. in the interest of stability.

Afrasiabi, who was traveling with the Iranian delegation, said he believed there had been behind-the-scenes diplomatic conversations and that a resumption of U.S.-Iran talks might be announced soon.

Ahmadinejad and President Obama are scheduled to address the General Assembly in speeches Thursday.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-iran-nuclear-20100922,0,7418363,print.story

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Jobless workers dispute claim that unemployment benefits foster complacency

The idea that extended benefits discourage people from seeking work is an insult, unemployed workers say. 'Let 'em walk a mile in our shoes,' one jobless woman says of unemployment critics.

By Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times

September 21, 2010

It's an old theory that's gaining new political currency: By cushioning the blow of unemployment for nearly two years, jobless benefits discourage recipients from looking for work.

The claim, most frequently advanced by conservative pundits and politicians aligned with the conservative "tea party" movement, is seen as a fresh insult by the nation's suffering unemployed workers.

Nevada Republican U.S. Senate candidate and tea party favorite Sharron Angle, who is vying for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's seat, put it this way this summer: "You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job but doesn't pay as much. We've put so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry."

In July, as Congress debated extending emergency jobless benefits, an economist from the conservative Heritage Foundation said on PBS' "NewsHour" that increasing unemployment insurance payments to 99 weeks — the maximum now available — had "created a bit of a problem." Giving help for extended periods, said William Beach, "changes the behavior of the people who are unemployed. They don't look for work as much as they otherwise would."

In an opinion piece on the Fox News website, economist John Lott wrote that the unprecedented length of today's unemployment benefits "is almost like a drug addiction."

Advocates for workers, and the unemployed themselves, are pushing back. Last week, a Facebook group called Extend Unemployment Benefits, with nearly 4,000 members, received a flurry of attention. It is devoted to lobbying for a bill introduced by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) that would create a new tier of jobless benefits for those who have exhausted their unemployment insurance.

Pointedly called the Americans Who Want to Work Act, the bill would provide an additional 20 weeks of financial assistance. Unemployment compensation is funded by taxes paid by employers, not by workers. The average weekly check is about $300.

Dave Yocom, a 60-year-old college graduate, has been unemployed since 2008. After recovering from a stroke at 54 that wiped out his savings, he left the high- stress restaurant business and went to work for a construction company that repaired residential fire and water damage. He said he is insulted by the idea that receiving about $400 a week in unemployment diminished his desire to find work, or that it was comparable to drug addiction.

Critics of unemployment, he said, "are either incredibly naive or they … have quite the opinion of themselves if they think it can't happen to them."

Since losing his job, Yocom estimated, he has sent out 50 resumes a week. He said he has received no job offers. He believes that his age is his biggest impediment. That and his ruined credit score, which prospective employers often check.

His 99 weeks of unemployment insurance ran out in April. He receives food stamps and lives in his sister's home in suburban Chicago. His sister, unemployed as well, will receive jobless benefits through November. After that, Yocom said, he's not sure how they will make ends meet.

James Sherk, senior policy analyst in labor economics at the Heritage Foundation, agreed that workers like Yocom are in terrible straits, but said that such suffering does not change the fact that unemployment benefits lead recipients to have unrealistic expectations — particularly in hard-hit industries such as construction or automobile manufacturing.

"Encouraging someone to look for a job that is not going to return is not ultimately helpful to them," Sherk said. "If you have two years of benefits, it's natural to spend the first six months looking for the same job you had. Some will find jobs, but the vast majority won't, and they have become less productive employees because their job skills are deteriorating."

But Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocate for workers and the unemployed, said the point of unemployment insurance is to provide a cushion that might protect against downward mobility.

"There's nothing wrong with the idea that unemployment benefits would actually enable someone to spend a little more time looking for an appropriate job — or, for that matter, spending time in job training," Owens said. "You want people to improve their skills and find a better job."

In the current job market, there are nearly five unemployed people for every job, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank. That alone, Owens said, means that most unemployed workers are out of luck, no matter how much they yearn for a paycheck.

She cited a recent Rutgers University survey that found 73% of Americans have been "directly affected" by the current recession, meaning they had lost a job or had either a family member or a friend who lost a job.

"We find Americans have great sympathy and empathy for the plight of the unemployed," wrote the survey's coauthor, Cliff Zukin of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers. "The unemployed are seen as wanting to work and trying hard to get jobs."

Last year, stories popped up about younger workers looking on the bright side of layoffs. They were usually single and unencumbered by mortgages and children — like Alexis Mansinne, 27, who lost her job at a magazine and began a blog called Funemployment.

Mansinne, now a graduate student in counseling at Cal State Long Beach, said she used the term to make a scary situation less daunting, not to convey frivolity. Even while on unemployment, she spent many hours a week looking for work. But not everyone was as diligent. "I watched many of my peers take advantage of what's intended to be a temporary solution," Mansinne said.

Unemployed older workers often don't have the luxury of relaxing. Susan Velcich Rodway, 52, said she's looked for work constantly since losing her medical office job in May 2008. "Every time you go to apply for a job, the line is a mile long," said Rodway, who lives in Des Plaines, Ill. "You've got 1,000 people applying for five or 10 positions."

Her family cars have been repossessed. She and her husband, an unemployed forklift operator, downsized apartments, lowering their rent from $900 to $775.

Both are taking online college courses. Rodway is studying medical transcription; her husband is studying information technology. When they finish, she estimated, they will have $30,000 in added debt.

Each week, she gets $192 and her husband gets $314 in unemployment benefits.

"It's easy for people who have jobs, insurance and fancy cars to pass judgment," Rodway said. "… But you know what? Let 'em walk a mile in our shoes."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-jobless-election-20100922,0,5195862,print.story

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From the New York Times

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U.N. to Announce Aid for Women and Children

UNITED NATIONS — Secretary General Ban Ki-moon plans to end a development summit meeting of world leaders on Wednesday by announcing a huge increase in aid to improve the health of women and children, but independent specialists said they were skeptical about the amount of actual new money committed, given the global economic crisis.

Governments and private aid organizations committed to spending more than $40 billion toward that goal, Robert Orr, the assistant secretary general leading the effort, said Tuesday, and pledges were still flowing in.

The two lagging areas among the 15-year development goals that United Nations member states agreed to in 2000 are efforts to drastically cut the deaths of both young children and mothers in childbirth. The baseline to measure improvement is 1990.

Having money specifically directed at those two issues should help counteract “the hard stuff that has been the most resistant to change,” Mr. Orr said.

The eight Millennium Development Goals, or M.D.G.'s in the United Nations' alphabet soup, included cutting by two-thirds the number of children who die before age 5 and reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015.

Infant mortality has dropped to about 8.1 million annually from more than 12 million in 1990, while maternal mortality is down to about 350,000 from more than 500,000 — improvements, but still short of the goals.

And the latest money committed will still not allow the world to meet the goals.

United Nations officials said they hoped that the bulk of the $40 billion would go to the poorest 49 countries, those least able to afford money from their own budgets. But those countries alone need a projected $88 billion over the next five years to meet the goals.

Mr. Ban's announcement is also expected to include an ambitious commitment by the poorest countries to add nearly $26 billion to their health budgets.

Aid groups remain skeptical that the traditional donors among Western nations will really increase their giving at a time when they are slashing budgets. In addition, experts say, any announced increases, like France and Norway pledging to increase by 20 percent previous commitments to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, still fall short of the need.

“It has to be more than announcing amounts at a summit, it is about going home and putting that money in national budgets,” said Emma Seery, a development specialist at Oxfam International, a global antipoverty organization. “I am not seeing where the money is coming from.”

The American ambassador, Susan E. Rice , said that no new American money would be committed beyond the $63 billion the United States set aside for global health aid through 2014, the bulk of it to combat AIDS.

At the development meeting on Tuesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said that her country would not cut its aid budget, but she did not announce any increase.

“The primary responsibility for development lies with the governments of the developing countries,” she said. “Development aid cannot continue indefinitely.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/world/22nations.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Airman's Heroism in '68 Secret Mission Is Recognized

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Obama on Tuesday awarded the Medal of Honor to an Air Force chief master sergeant who died saving three fellow airmen in Laos on a secret mission that was kept under wraps for more than 40 years.

“Today your nation finally acknowledges and fully honors your father's bravery,” Mr. Obama told the three sons of the airman, Chief Master Sgt. Richard L. Etchberger, at a White House ceremony.

“Even though it's been 42 years, it's never too late to do the right thing,” Mr. Obama said.

One of the sons said afterward that his father would have been humbled to receive the nation's highest military honor. “He would be here just saying, ‘I was doing my job up there,' ” Richard Etchberger told reporters.

A native of Hamburg, Pa., Chief Master Sergeant Etchberger was an electronics expert without formal combat training in March 1968 when he single-handedly kept the North Vietnamese enemy at bay while helping evacuate wounded comrades from their radar station on a remote Laotian mountain after coming under attack.

The next morning, Chief Master Sergeant Etchberger managed to get three wounded comrades into rescue slings and on their way to safety. But he was fatally wounded after enemy ground fire struck the helicopter trying to lift him to safety. Richard Etchberger, the son, said the family was told only that his father had died in a helicopter crash.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/us/22medal.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Woman on Death Row Runs Out of Appeals

“She is clearly the head of this serpent,” the judge said of Teresa Lewis in 2003 when he sentenced her to death by lethal injection, describing her as the mastermind of the cold-blooded murders of her husband and his son as they slept in rural Virginia.

Late on Tuesday, the Supreme Court denied her last-ditch appeal for a stay, and Ms. Lewis, now 41, is scheduled to die on Thursday night at 9. Her case has drawn unusual attention, not only because she would be the first woman executed in the United States since 2005, and the first in Virginia since 1912, but also because of widely publicized concerns about the fairness of her sentence. Ms. Lewis waited this week in her prison cell, reportedly soothed by intense religious faith.

Her lawyers say her original defense against the death penalty was bungled. They also cite new evidence suggesting that Ms. Lewis — whose I.Q. of 72 is described by psychologists as borderline retarded — was manipulated by her co-conspirators, who were out to share in savings and life insurance worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Her partners in the crimes, two young men who fired the guns, received sentences of life without parole in what her lawyers call a “gross disparity” in punishment.

On Tuesday, blocking her only other chance for a reprieve, Gov. Bob McDonnell said for the second time that he would not grant clemency for what he called her “heinous crimes.”

Ms. Lewis's guilt is not at issue. By her own admission, she plotted with the men to shoot her husband, Julian C. Lewis Jr., 51, and his son, Charles J. Lewis, 25, a reservist about to be deployed abroad.

Ms. Lewis, then 33, met her co-defendants, Matthew J. Shallenberger, who was 21, and his trailer-mate, Rodney L. Fuller, 20, in a line at Wal-Mart and, according to court records, they quickly started meeting and hatching murder plans. She became particularly attached to Mr. Shallenberger, showering him with gifts, but she had sex with both men and also encouraged her 16-year-old daughter to have sex with Mr. Fuller, the records say.

Ms. Lewis withdrew $1,200 and gave it to the two men to buy two shotguns and another weapon. The night of the murders, she admitted, she left a trailer door unlocked. Later, she stood by as the intruders blasted the victims with repeated shotgun blasts. As her husband lay dying, court records say, she took out his wallet and split the $300 she found with Mr. Shallenberger. She waited at least 45 minutes to call 911.

Her husband was moaning “baby, baby, baby” when a sheriff's deputy arrived and he said, “My wife knows who done this to me,” before he died, the records indicate.

After initially claiming innocence, Ms. Lewis confessed and led police to the gunmen. In 2003, she was sentenced by Judge Charles J. Strauss of Pittsylvania Circuit Court, who concluded that Ms. Lewis had directed the scheme, enticing the killers with sex and promises of money and showing the “depravity of mind” that would justify a death sentence. In separate proceedings, the same judge gave life sentences to the gunmen.

Ms. Lewis's lawyers later unearthed what they called compelling evidence that it was Mr. Shallenberger who did the enticing, including his own statements that he devised the murder plan and a prison letter to a girlfriend in which he said he “got her to fall in love with me so she would give me the insurance money.” Mr. Shallenberger killed himself in prison in 2006.

But prosecutors, in fighting subsequent appeals, said that before and after the crimes, Ms. Lewis had engaged in concerted actions to obtain money from her husband's account and then from insurance, showing that she was far more capable than her lawyers now assert.

None of the evidence suggesting Mr. Shallenberger's dominant role has been presented in court, but it was provided to Mr. McDonnell in a plea for clemency, along with details of her limited intellect, her diagnosis of “dependent personality disorder” and her addiction to pain pills.

When he first turned down the appeal on Friday, Mr. McDonnell noted that appeals courts have upheld her sentence and that “no medical professional has concluded that Teresa Lewis meets the medical or statutory definition of mentally retarded.”

Her lawyers argued in their petition to the Supreme Court that the case should be reopened because her original defense lawyer failed to explore whether her low intelligence and her psychiatric vulnerability would have left her able to plan the scheme. State prosecutors disagreed.

Opponents of the death penalty, and others who feel Ms. Lewis's sentence is unjust, plan to hold vigils on Thursday, including one outside the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va., where the execution is to take place.

“She said she is leaving it in the hands of Jesus,” her lead defense lawyer, James E. Rocap III, of Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, said on Tuesday, before she heard of the 7-to-2 decision by the Supreme Court not to consider her case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/us/22execute.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Medicare Advantage Premiums to Fall in 2011

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced Tuesday that average premiums paid by individuals for private Medicare Advantage plans, which insure about one-fourth of all beneficiaries, would decline slightly next year, even as insurers provide additional benefits required by the new health care law.

By contrast, commercial insurance premiums for many people under 65 and many small businesses are increasing 10 percent to 25 percent or more. Insurers say that a significant share of the increases is attributable to requirements of the new law, a contention that infuriates Obama administration officials and Democrats in Congress.

Many of the law's requirements take effect this week. President Obama plans to highlight the potential benefits for consumers on Wednesday.

The announcement on Medicare came as something of a surprise. Some members of Congress and some health policy experts had predicted that insurers would increase average premiums for Medicare beneficiaries in private plans.

“Despite the claims of some, Medicare Advantage remains a strong, robust option for millions of seniors who choose to enroll or stay in a participating plan,” said Dr. Donald M. Berwick , the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services .

Insurers can begin marketing to beneficiaries on Oct. 1 for Medicare coverage that starts Jan. 1.

Medicare officials said they had held down premiums and co-payments by negotiating with insurers, which sponsor the Medicare Advantage plans.

The law, signed by Mr. Obama in March, gave officials new power to negotiate and to reject bids, as they did in a few cases.

“We negotiated more aggressively than in the past,” said Jonathan D. Blum, deputy administrator of the Medicare agency. “As a result, some plans changed their bids to produce more value for beneficiaries.”

“On average,” Mr. Blum said, “Medicare Advantage premiums will be 1 percent lower in 2011 than today. Medicare Advantage plans project that enrollment will increase by 5 percent in 2011.”

About 11.3 million of the 46 million Medicare beneficiaries are in private Medicare Advantage plans, which offer comprehensive care in return for monthly premiums. While premiums for a particular plan in a particular county may increase next year, beneficiaries may be able to find other plans offering a better deal.

In the yearlong fight over health care, Mr. Obama said the government was overpaying Medicare Advantage plans.

John K. Gorman, a former Medicare official who is now a consultant with clients in the insurance industry, said: “Today's announcement shows that there is a new sheriff in town. Medicare officials were very specific and very forceful. Insurers succumbed to the government's demands and stayed in the Medicare market because they have become much more dependent on Medicare business.”

Payment rates for Medicare Advantage plans will generally be frozen next year at 2010 levels, with rates subject to tighter constraints in subsequent years. The cuts are expected to save $136 billion over 10 years.

Kathleen Sebelius , the secretary of health and human services, said the negotiations showed that insurers “remain committed to the Medicare Advantage program.”

While reviewing bids, Medicare officials said, they identified 300 private plans for further scrutiny.

“These plans unfairly proposed to increase out-of-pocket expenses for beneficiaries while increasing their own profit margins,” Dr. Berwick reported. “We said, ‘No, you have to do better.' ”

Medicare officials secured changes in most of the 300 plans. “After negotiations,” Mr. Blum said, “plans improved their benefits by $13 per member per month, or 5 percent, on average.”

Ultimately, seven Medicare plans offered by three insurance companies decided not to change their bids, and “we denied those bids,” Mr. Blum said.

Premiums in the commercial insurance market continue rising at a brisk pace, as illustrated by the largest plans in California.

Ioannis A. Kazanis, a spokesman for the California Insurance Department, said that starting Oct. 1, commercial premiums would rise an average of 19 percent for individual policies sold by Aetna and by Blue Shield of California, 16 percent for Health Net policies and 14 percent for those sold by Anthem Blue Cross, a unit of WellPoint.

In justifying rate increases sought in Connecticut, Anthem said that one provision of the new law, forbidding insurers to impose lifetime limits on coverage of “essential health benefits,” could cause premiums for some policies to rise as much as 22.9 percent.

Ms. Sebelius said the impact on premiums, from all the new requirements, should be only 1 percent or 2 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/health/policy/22medicare.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Fair Pay Isn't Always Equal Pay

Washington

AMONG the top items left on the Senate's to-do list before the November elections is a “paycheck fairness” bill, which would make it easier for women to file class-action, punitive-damages suits against employers they accuse of sex-based pay discrimination.

The bill's passage is hardly certain, but it has received strong support from women's rights groups, professional organizations and even President Obama, who has called it “a common-sense bill.”

But the bill isn't as commonsensical as it might seem. It overlooks mountains of research showing that discrimination plays little role in pay disparities between men and women, and it threatens to impose onerous requirements on employers to correct gaps over which they have little control.

The bill is based on the premise that the 1963 Equal Pay Act, which bans sex discrimination in the workplace, has failed; for proof, proponents point out that for every dollar men earn, women earn just 77 cents.

But that wage gap isn't necessarily the result of discrimination. On the contrary, there are lots of other reasons men might earn more than women, including differences in education, experience and job tenure.

When these factors are taken into account the gap narrows considerably — in some studies, to the point of vanishing. A recent survey found that young, childless, single urban women earn 8 percent more than their male counterparts , mostly because more of them earn college degrees.

Moreover, a 2009 analysis of wage-gap studies commissioned by the Labor Department evaluated more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and concluded that the aggregate wage gap “may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”

In addition to differences in education and training, the review found that women are more likely than men to leave the workforce to take care of children or older parents. They also tend to value family-friendly workplace policies more than men, and will often accept lower salaries in exchange for more benefits. In fact, there were so many differences in pay-related choices that the researchers were unable to specify a residual effect due to discrimination.

Some of the bill's supporters admit that the pay gap is largely explained by women's choices, but they argue that those choices are skewed by sexist stereotypes and social pressures. Those are interesting and important points, worthy of continued public debate.

The problem is that while the debate proceeds, the bill assumes the answer: it would hold employers liable for the “lingering effects of past discrimination” — “pay disparities” that have been “spread and perpetuated through commerce.” Under the bill, it's not enough for an employer to guard against intentional discrimination; it also has to police potentially discriminatory assumptions behind market-driven wage disparities that have nothing to do with sexism.

Universities, for example, typically pay professors in their business schools more than they pay those in the school of social work, citing market forces as the justification. But according to the gender theory that informs this bill, sexist attitudes led society to place a higher value on male-centered fields like business than on female-centered fields like social work.

The bill's language regarding these “lingering effects” is vague, but that's the problem: it could prove a legal nightmare for even the best-intentioned employers. The theory will be elaborated in feminist expert testimony when cases go to trial, and it's not hard to imagine a media firestorm developing from it. Faced with multimillion-dollar lawsuits and the attendant publicity, many innocent employers would choose to settle.

The Paycheck Fairness bill would set women against men, empower trial lawyers and activists, perpetuate falsehoods about the status of women in the workplace and create havoc in a precarious job market. It is 1970s-style gender-war feminism for a society that should be celebrating its success in substantially, if not yet completely, overcoming sex-based workplace discrimination.

Christina Hoff Sommers is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor, most recently, of “The Science on Women and Science.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/opinion/22Sommers.html?adxnnl=1&ref=opinion&adxnnlx=1285160421-6c177M34HEQVdgucwVgF6Q&pagewanted=print

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From the White House

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50 States, 50 Stories – New Health Care Website Launches Today

Today, President Obama is celebrating the six month anniversary of the Affordable Care Act. To help celebrate, we are unveiling a new website – www.WhiteHouse.gov/HealthReform that provides critical information regarding the Affordable Care Act. The site includes 50 stories from individuals and employers in every state and new state-by-state reports that detail how reform is already strengthening the health care system in your state.

You can listen to audio stories from Americans who are benefitting from the new law and watch this video of Gail O'Brien who received a surprise phone call from President Obama. Gail was previously uninsured and diagnosed with high grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Thanks to the new law, Gail now has insurance through the new Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan that will pay for her treatments, and she is responding very well.

The six month anniversary marks a major milestone for our health care system. The Patient's Bill of Rights will take effect, putting an end to some of the worst insurance industry abuses.

The Patient's Bill of Rights:

• Bans discrimination against kids with pre-existing conditions.
  
  
• Allows young adults to remain on their parents' plan until their 26th birthday.
  
  
• Prohibits insurance companies from cutting off your coverage when you're sick if you made a mistake on your application.
  
  
• Prohibits insurance companies from putting a lifetime limit on the amount of coverage you may receive, and restricts the use of annual limits until they are banned completely in 2014.
  
  
• And if you join a new plan:
  
  
  • You have the right to choose your own doctor in your insurer network.
    
    
  • Your insurer is banned from charging more for emergency services obtained outside of their network.
    
    
  • You will be guaranteed the right to appeal insurance company decisions to an independent third party.
    
    
  • You will receive recommended preventive care with no out-of-pocket cost. Services like mammograms, colonoscopies, immunizations, pre-natal and new baby care will be covered, and insurance companies will be prohibited from charging deductibles, co-payments or co-insurance. 

The enactment of the Patient's Bill of Rights comes during a week when we've already received good news about the Affordable Care Act and our health insurance premiums. On Monday, Blue Cross Blue Shield announced that, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 215,000 customers will receive refunds totaling $155.8 million. Tuesday brought more good news when the Department of Health and Human Services announced that, on average, premiums for seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage would go down, while enrollment in the program is expected to increase. You can learn more about how the new law is strengthening our health care system in your state by visiting the new site today. Or visit HealthCare.gov to learn about all of the coverage options in your community based on your unique needs and circumstances.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/09/22/50-states-50-stories-new-health-care-website-launches-today

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Transforming Distressed Neighborhoods into Neighborhoods of Opportunity

Today, the U.S. Department of Education announced a total of $10 million in awards to 21 Promise Neighborhood communities .  Promise Neighborhoods is the cornerstone of a broader White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative  that focuses and coordinates federal resources in order to build communities that promote cradle to career success.

The goal of the Initiative is to support the transformation of distressed neighborhoods into neighborhoods of opportunity – places that provide the resources, and environment that children, youth, and adults need to succeed.  This means high-quality schools and educational programs; safe and affordable housing; thriving commercial establishments; art and cultural amenities; and parks and other recreational spaces.

To realize this vision, the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative ensures that federal and local policy will coordinate to confront the problems facing high-poverty neighborhoods; high unemployment rates, rampant crime, health disparities, inadequate early care and education, and struggling schools contribute to intensify the effects of poverty.

We're making sure our agencies are working together because we know that neighborhood revitalization can't happen in silos. We're taking the broad and integrated approach we know is needed to leverage our resources and increase economic growth and resident well-being in our communities. 

For more information on the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative see below:

• Full description of the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative
  
  
• Promise Neighborhood Awards Announcement
  
  
• http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/09/21/transforming-distressed-neighborhoods-neighborhoods-opportunity

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From the Department of Justice

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Justice Department Issues Report on 10th Anniversary of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department today issued a report marking the 10 th anniversary of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), showing that the law has had a positive impact on protecting the religious freedom of a wide range of faith groups, and had a particularly significant impact protecting the religious freedom of minorities.

RLUIPA protects places of worship and other religious uses of property from discrimination and unreasonably burdensome regulation in zoning and landmarking law, and also protects the religious freedom of persons confined to institutions such as prisons, mental health facilities and state-run nursing homes. RLUIPA was enacted by both houses of Congress unanimously and signed into law on Sept. 22, 2000. The law was a response to concerns that places of worship, particularly those of religious and ethnic minorities, were often discriminated against in zoning matters.

The report illustrates that in the 10 years since its enactment, RLUIPA has aided thousands of individuals and institutions from a wide range of faith traditions through Department of Justice lawsuits, private lawsuits, and successful efforts to achieve voluntary compliance.

The report details the Justice Department's enforcement record:

• The department has opened 51 RLUIPA land-use investigations, filed seven lawsuits, filed ten amicus-briefs, and intervened in 71 lawsuits to defend RLUIPA's constitutionality.
  
  
• Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist land-use cases made up a disproportionate number of the department's RLUIPA investigations–13 times their representation in the population.
  
  
• Half of the department's land-use investigations involving Christians have involved racial or ethnic minorities.
  
  
• Of the 18 land-use matters involving Muslims reviewed by the Department of Justice, eight have been opened since May of this year.

“The freedom to practice one's faith in peace is among our most cherished rights. RLUIPA has proven to be a powerful tool in combating religious discrimination and ensuring religious freedom for all individuals,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice is committed to vigorously enforcing RLUIPA to ensure that religious liberty for all remains protected.”

The land-use provisions of RLUIPA are enforced by the Civil Rights Division's Housing and Civil Enforcement Section. More information may be found at www.justice.gov/crt/housing . The institutionalized persons provisions of RLUIPA are enforced by the Civil Rights Division's Special Litigation Section. More information may be found at www.justice.gov/crt/split .  More information about both of these provisions, and the Civil Rights Division's efforts to combat religious discrimination more broadly, may be found at www.justice.gov/crt/religiousdiscrimination .  Please visit www.justice.gov/crt/rluipa_report_092210.pdf for the full report.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/September/10-crt-1058.html

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New Civil Rights Unit in the Eastern District of Michigan

Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Thomas E. Perez, U.S. Attorney Barbara L. McQuade and FBI Special Agent in Charge Andrew G. Arena announced the creation of a civil rights unit in the Eastern District of Michigan. This is a renewed effort to ensure that all citizens enjoy the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States.

This unit is headed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Levy. It will handle investigations and litigation of housing discrimination cases under the Fair Housing Act, discrimination by mortgage lenders and small business lenders under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, employment discrimination and police misconduct, among others. In addition, the office has set up a hotline where citizens can call to report suspected civil rights violations. The number of the hotline is 313-226-9151.

Working together, the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney's office have already made considerable progress to protect the rights of Michiganders. For example:

• The U.S. Attorney's Office and the Civil Rights Division have prevailed in a number of fair housing cases in the district; most recently, on Aug. 6, 2010, a jury awarded damages to victims of housing discrimination in Ypsilanti, Mich. The jury found that Glenn Johnson subjected female tenants to discrimination on the basis of sex, including severe, pervasive and unwelcome sexual harassment, in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act. The complaint also alleged, and the jury agreed, that Ronnie Peterson and First Pitch Properties LLC, the owners of the properties, are liable for Johnson's discriminatory conduct.
  
  
• This summer, the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney's Office settled a case alleging racial discrimination involving an apartment complex in Ann Arbor, Mich. The owners and operators of Ivanhoe House Apartments agreed to pay $82,500 to settle a lawsuit that alleged that they had discriminated against African-American home-seekers in denying them housing based on their race.
  
  
• Earlier this year, the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in a civil rights case brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act by Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Services (Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Services v. Richmond Township). Sacred Heart alleged that it was denied a zoning permit because it provides services to individuals with substance abuse issues. The government's brief was filed in response to a motion to dismiss, which United States District Judge Marianne O. Battani denied. The case is currently set for trial for Oct. 25, 2010.
  
  
• The prosecution of hate crimes is also a top priority for the Department. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 provided critical new tools for hate crimes prosecutions, allowing for the federal prosecution of violent bias crimes based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. On Sept. 7, 2010, U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington in Bay City, Mich., ruled in favor of the Department of Justice, dismissing a complaint that questioned the constitutionality of the new law. The judge ruled that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the Act because they did not allege that they intended to violate it, and because it is entirely speculative that their conduct would ever be prosecuted under the Act.

The renewed commitment of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office will ensure that many of our nation's most critical and treasured laws continue to fulfill their purpose of advancing equal opportunity and protecting the rights of every American.

http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/959

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From ICE

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ICE arrests 39 in San Diego-area operation targeting criminals aliens and immigration fugitives

SAN DIEGO - A total of 39 criminal aliens, immigration fugitives and immigration violators are facing deportation following a three-day enforcement operation carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Fugitive Operations Teams (FOTs) in San Diego County last week.

Of those taken into custody, 26 were immigration fugitives with outstanding orders of deportation, or previously deported aliens who returned to the United States illegally after being removed. Fifty percent of the aliens arrested during the enforcement action also had criminal records, in addition to being in the country illegally. Their criminal histories included prior arrests and convictions for a variety of violations, including domestic violence, indecent exposure, theft, vehicle theft, fraud, driving under the influence and drug charges.

Since many of the individuals have outstanding orders of deportation or have been previously deported, they are subject to immediate removal from the country. The remaining aliens will be held by ICE pending a hearing before an immigration judge or the completion of travel arrangements. The group included 29 males and 10 females from five different nations - Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Somalia and the Philippines.

Last week's enforcement action was spearheaded by ICE's Fugitive Operations Program, which is responsible for locating, arresting and removing at-large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives. ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams (FOTs) give top priority to cases involving aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety, including members of transnational street gangs and child sex offenders.

In fiscal year 2010 (through Aug. 20), ICE's FOTs nationwide have made 30,787 arrests. More than 89 percent of those arrests involved immigration fugitives and aliens with prior criminal convictions. Locally, the San Diego FOTs have made 1,343 total arrests in fiscal year 2010 through Sept. 19, surpassing the 1,157 total arrests made in all of fiscal year 2009.

As a result of the FOT's efforts, the nation's fugitive alien population continues to decline. Estimates now place the number of immigration fugitives in the United States as slightly under 525,000, a decrease of more than 71,000 since October 2007.

The officers who conducted last week's operation received substantial assistance from ICE's Fugitive Operations Support Center (FOSC) located in Williston, Vermont. The FOSC conducted exhaustive database checks on the targeted cases to help ensure the viability of the leads and accuracy of the criminal histories. The FOSC was established in 2006 to improve the integrity of the data available on at large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives nationwide. Since its inception, the FOSC has forwarded more than 550,000 case leads to ICE enforcement personnel in the field.

ICE's Fugitive Operations Program is just one facet of the Department of Homeland Security's broader strategy to heighten the federal government's effectiveness at identifying and removing dangerous criminal aliens from the United States. Other initiatives that figure prominently in this effort are the Criminal Alien Program, Secure Communities and the agency's partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies under 287(g).

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1009/100920sandiego.htm

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From the FBI

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A Barrio Azteca gang member's tattoos.

ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER Understanding the Gang Threat 09/21/10 Mexican drug cartels run the billion-dollar trafficking operations that bring so much crime and violence to both sides of the Southwest border. But it's street gangs that carry out the cartels' dirty work of smuggling, extortion, and murder. Understanding the gangs—their structure, culture, and tactics—is the job of agents who specialize in collecting human intelligence, or HUMINT. In our El Paso Field Office, the HUMINT squad pays particular attention to Barrio Azteca, the city's predominant gang whose leaders regularly do business from prison—even authorizing contract killings. “The focus of the HUMINT squad is not to worry about making individual cases,” said Special Agent Armando Ramos, a senior investigator on the team. “Our job is to see the big picture—whether it's Barrio Azteca or any other gang—so we can effectively target these groups and the larger drug trafficking organizations they associate with.” Intelligence gathering is critical to seeing that big picture. And Agent Ramos, working closely with officers from the El Paso Police Department and the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, collect intelligence in a variety of ways.

They get tips from police officers on the street, recruit sources from the ranks of disgruntled gang members, and make contact with recently arrested gang members who may be looking for a more lenient sentence in exchange for their cooperation.

“Whatever intelligence we gain, we pass on to our Safe Streets Task Force and to other law enforcement agencies,” Agent Ramos said. “We get the information out quickly to where it can do the most good.”

The actionable intelligence collected by the HUMINT squad could lead to arrests, drug seizures, or the prevention of crimes such as kidnapping or murder . There are dozens of different gangs operating along the Southwest border—some of them cooperate and some are bitter rivals—but the one thing they all share in common is violence.

Barrio Azteca—known as BA—is an extremely violent gang, with as many as 3,500 members on the street and in jail, both in El Paso and across the Rio Grande in Juarez, Mexico. Even though the Bureau put together a major racketeering case against the gang several years ago that effectively dismantled its leadership, the group has reorganized, and younger members—dubbed the “Pepsi Generation”—have been promoted to top positions.

Agent Ramos has been on the HUMINT squad for about three years and has an intimate knowledge of BA culture and its leaders. “The players are always changing, and so are their tactics,” he said. “That's why HUMINT is so valuable, because we are able to keep pace with gang activities and be proactive in our response.”

But the job requires constant vigilance, he explained, because of how integral crime and violence are to the gang's culture. BA's constitution—its “sacred bible”—lists dozens of rules members must follow. Rule Number Two is, “Always dominate your opponent.” Rule Number One: “Once you get in, you can't get out.”

“After you become a member,” Agent Ramos said, “there are only two ways to get out of BA—get killed or get arrested. With that kind of mindset, you can see why the work of the HUMINT squad is so important.”

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/september10/border_092110.html

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FBI Releases Bank Crime Statistics for Second Quarter of 2010

During the second quarter of 2010, there were 1,146 reported violations of the Federal Bank Robbery and Incidental Crimes Statute, a decrease from the 1,304 reported violations in the same quarter of 2009. 1 According to statistics released today by the FBI, there were 1,135 robberies, 11 burglaries, zero larcenies, and one extortion of financial institutions 2 reported between April 1, 2010 and June 31, 2010.

Highlights of the report include:

• Loot was taken in 91 percent of the incidents, totaling more than $8.4 million.
  
  
• Of the loot taken, 21 percent of it was recovered. More than $1.3 million was recovered and returned to financial institutions.
  
  
• Bank crimes most frequently occurred on Friday. Regardless of the day, the time frame when bank crimes occurred most frequently was between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
  
  
• Acts of violence were committed in 5 percent of the incidents, resulting in 23 injuries, five deaths, and nine persons being taken hostage. 3
  
  
• Oral demands and demand notes 4 were the most common modus operandi used.
  
  
• Most violations occurred in the Western region of the U.S., with 403 reported incidents.

These statistics were recorded as of August 10, 2010. Note that not all bank crimes are reported to the FBI, and therefore the report is not a complete statistical compilation of all bank crimes that occurred in the U.S.

View the entire report and learn more about the FBI at www.fbi.gov

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/2010q2bankcrimestats.htm

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