~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Los Angeles Times

Obama touts healthcare law as new provisions take effect

The president visits with those who will immediately benefit as he continues to rebuff Republican attacks on the overhaul.

By Noam N. Levey, Tribune Washington Bureau

September 22, 2010

Reporting from Washington

President Obama, marking major provisions of the new healthcare law that go into effect Thursday, visited with Americans who stand to benefit immediately as he stepped up efforts to repulse Republican attacks on his signature domestic initiative.

"Obviously, the economy has been uppermost on our minds," Obama told a small gathering Wednesday at the home of a Virginia man who suffers from hemophilia and hit a lifetime limit in his private health insurance coverage.

But the president said he felt he had to do more than end the economic contraction.

"Healthcare was one of those issues that we could no longer ignore. … We said we have to take this on," he said, citing stories of people going bankrupt because of their medical bills. "We are now actually able to provide some help to the American people."

Though many of the most sweeping benefits of the law do not go into effect for years, millions of consumers stand to gain substantial new protections starting this fall. (The benefits apply to plan years starting Thursday, although many Americans may not see the changes until January when their health plans renew.)

Insurance companies, for example, will be prohibited from canceling policies when customers get sick or from denying coverage to sick children. Some insurers have said they will stop selling policies exclusively for children rather than comply.

The law will allow parents to keep their adult children up to age 26 on their family plans, and will bar insurers from placing lifetime caps on how much they will pay when their customers get ill.

And many consumers will get new rights to appeal claims that are denied by insurers and win new access to preventive care without being asked for co-pays.

"There are many meaningful reforms here that, while not perfect, will help millions of consumers get a fairer shake when they buy and use health insurance," said Jim Guest, president and chief executive of Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports.

Many more changes, including guarantees that all Americans can get coverage and millions of dollars of subsidies to help them pay their premiums, will go into effect in 2014.

Other changes have already started, such as tax breaks for small businesses and the gradual phase-out of the coverage gap in the Medicare Part D drug benefit.

But public misunderstanding about the new law remains high, fueled in part by Republican attacks.

A recent survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly half of the country's seniors believed erroneously that the law created a new government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare.

"The messaging wars and the rhetoric are really muddying the picture," said Mollyann Brodie, who oversees the Kaiser poll.

Republican lawmakers, energized by their brightening political prospects, are staking out plans to try to roll back parts of the law should they take control of Congress next year.

On Wednesday, Wyoming Sen. Michael B. Enzi, the senior Republican on the Senate health committee, called for senators to back his resolution criticizing a provision of the law designed to discourage businesses from scaling back health benefits.

The provision would place new requirements on health plans provided by employers, such as providing free preventive care, if employers substantially raise co-pays, deductibles or other employee contributions.

"The administration's grandfather rule is a job-killing, wage-cutting game-changer for small business," Enzi said. "This is not the kind of reform the people wanted."

Republican leaders are expected to outline more detailed plans Thursday for repealing other parts of the law when they unveil their much-anticipated governing agenda.

Close to half the country continues to oppose the new law, despite efforts by the Obama administration and consumer and patient advocates such as the American Heart Assn., the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network and U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

In part, the polls reflect the high degree of political polarization and the near-even split between Democrats and Republicans in the country as a whole, with most Republican respondents following party leaders in criticizing the healthcare overhaul and Democrats adhering to their party's support for it.

The White House on Wednesday again tried to sell the overhaul by surrounding the president with Americans who are benefiting, including several small-business owners who plan to use the tax credits and seniors who have received $250 rebate checks to help them with their prescription drug bills.

Obama also met with state insurance commissioners whom the administration is counting on to protect consumers from excessive rate hikes by insurance companies.

And the White House unveiled a new health website that highlights stories of the law's effects from around the country.

"These things are designed not to have government more involved in healthcare," Obama said. "They're designed to make sure that you have basic protections in your interactions with your insurance company, that you're getting what you paid for, that you have some basic measures of protection."

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-na-health-new-benefits-20100923,0,5211973,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Children face an unfortunate side effect of health reform

Stripped of the ability to deny individual policies to kids with preexisting conditions, some insurers respond by barring any new individual policies for children. A bill could help mitigate the practice in California.

OPINION

September 23, 2010

Congress passed a healthcare reform law this year in part to curb a series of abuses by insurance companies, particularly in the market for individual health policies. Some of its provisions take effect Thursday, providing more safeguards and benefits for consumers but also raising insurers' cost of doing business.

One of the new mandates is having an alarming effect on the insurance market. As of Thursday, insurers may not deny individual policies to children with preexisting conditions. The rule could affect more than 80,000 minors in California who aren't covered by their parents' policies or by state programs. In response, at least two major insurers — Anthem Blue Cross and Aetna — have announced that they won't offer individual policies in California to any children who don't already have coverage. Other companies are doing the same in states across the country.

It's a very unfortunate — but entirely predictable — reaction. Insurers argued throughout the healthcare reform debate that forcing them to make coverage available to all Americans without restrictions would lead consumers to go without coverage until they required expensive medical care — a form of "adverse risk selection" that would cause premiums to skyrocket. Lawmakers tried to guard against that by requiring all adults to obtain coverage, starting in 2014. But no such requirement applies to the individual insurance market for children.

Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) addressed those concerns in a bill, AB 2244, that would bar California insurers from denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions, but would let them charge significantly higher premiums to those who don't sign up during open enrollment periods each year and impose surcharges on those who try to game the system by dropping coverage when they're healthy. It also would limit how much extra children with preexisting conditions would have to pay if they signed up during open enrollment. And to give insurers an incentive to keep offering individual coverage for kids, those that don't would be hit with the same penalty that insurers currently face for refusing to cover dependents: a five-year ban on offering individual policies to any Californian.

Feuer's bill, which the Legislature recently passed, is a reasonable compromise, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should sign it. The measure may not persuade Anthem and Aetna to reverse course, but it gives their competitors a good reason not to join them on the sidelines.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-insurance-20100923,0,682040,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the New York Times

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Feeling Slighted by France, and Respected by U.S.

BONDY, France — The residents of this poor, multiracial Paris suburb say they have been abandoned. For 30 years, they say, the French authorities have written off Bondy and neighborhoods like it, treating their inhabitants as terminal delinquents and ignoring their potential.

This, residents note, is not the approach taken by the United States Department of State.

“We're waiting for the president of the Republic, for his ministers,” said Gilbert Roger, the mayor of Bondy. “And we see the ambassador of the United States.”

The United States Embassy in Paris has formed a network of partnerships with local governments, advocacy groups, entrepreneurs, students and cultural leaders in the troubled immigrant enclaves outside France's major cities.

Begun in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks as part of an effort to bolster the image of the United States within Muslim communities across the globe, American outreach in these hard neighborhoods — often referred to collectively as the “banlieues,” or suburbs — has grown in scale and visibility since the election of Barack Obama .

France is home to five million to six million Muslims, Europe's largest Muslim population, and the banlieues have long been considered potential incubators for religious extremism. But anti-American sentiment, once pervasive in these neighborhoods, seems to have been all but erased since the election of Mr. Obama, who has proved to be a powerful symbol of hope here and a powerful diplomatic tool.

Many suggest the Americans' warm reception is a measure of these communities' sense of abandonment. Others say it is the presence of Mr. Obama in the White House. Whatever the case, the United States is now more popular in the banlieues than at any other time in recent memory, say French and American officials.

Much of the embassy's outreach is meant to dispel “mistruths” about the United States, the ambassador, Charles H. Rivkin , said in an interview, adding, “It's easier to hate something you don't understand.”

With an annual public affairs budget of about $3 million, the Paris embassy has sponsored urban renewal projects, music festivals and conferences. Since Mr. Obama's election, the Americans have helped organize seminars for minority politicians, coaching them in electoral strategy, fund-raising and communications.

The International Visitor Leadership Program, which sends 20 to 30 promising French entrepreneurs and politicians to America for several weeks each year, now includes more minority participants, and Muslims in particular. The embassy began a similar program for French teenagers.

Mr. Rivkin, 48, an entertainment executive and the youngest American ambassador to France in nearly 60 years, has taken a strong personal interest in the banlieues. Earlier this year, he thrilled a group of students in Bondy when he arrived with the actor Samuel L. Jackson , one of several entertainment industry contacts he has called upon in France. In Los Angeles, Mr. Rivkin cultivated ties between the family media and hip-hop worlds; in Paris, he has hosted local rappers at the Hôtel Rothschild, his official residence.

Officials insist the outreach is not meant solely to curry favor for the United States; the Americans also see an emerging group of political and business elites in these neighborhoods. The embassy is “trying to connect with the next generation of leaders in France,” Mr. Rivkin said. “That includes the banlieues.”

Few French leaders speak in such hopeful terms.

Residents “have the sense that the United States looks upon our areas with much more deference and respect,” said Mr. Roger, the Bondy mayor. For electoral reasons, he said, French politicians exaggerate the violence and criminality here.

Ministerial excursions to the banlieues often entail a crushing police presence and vows to crack down on crime. President Nicolas Sarkozy , who as interior minister famously pledged to clean up one of these cities with a “ Kärcher ” — a brand of high-pressure hose — typically spends his time here consulting with law enforcement officials.

Though often criticized as not serious about stemming the violence, poverty and unemployment that plague the banlieues, the French government commits $5 billion annually to these cities, according to Fadela Amara , the secretary of state for urban policy. Since 2003, she said, the state has pledged more than $16 billion to a nationwide urban reconstruction program.

Residents and local politicians say this is nowhere near enough, though they add that money alone will not solve the problems.

“Do you know what it means to give recognition in the suburbs?” asked Aziz Senni, 34, the founder of a taxi service and an investment fund dedicated to spurring economic development in the banlieues, where he was raised. “It's worth as much as gold.”

A Moroccan-born Muslim, Mr. Senni traveled to the United States in 2006 as a participant in the visitor program. He was effusive in his praise for the outreach and the optimism it has spread. “Never has France had this type of approach,” he said.

Mr. Senni spoke of feeling “stigmatized” by French leaders. A law banning the full facial veil , a government-led “debate on national identity” and a recent proposal to revoke French nationality from certain criminals “of foreign origin” have been widely felt as attacks on immigrants and Muslims here.

“The emerging elite in the suburbs doesn't see itself in the way it's being treated by French society,” said Nordine Nabili, 43, who directs the new Bondy branch of a journalism school, E.S.J. Lille ; he hosted Mr. Rivkin and Mr. Jackson there in April.

“You're the future,” Mr. Jackson told the students.

Mr. Nabili said, “I don't think people tell them that enough.” But he worries that the Americans may be raising hopes too high. Beyond good feelings, he said, “there really needs to be a true policy.”

Mr. Rivkin called such concerns unfounded. “From my vantage point, this embassy has not been peddling false dreams,” he said. “Anything is possible, if you put your mind to it and work hard enough.”

Widad Ketfi, 25, was among the students who met Mr. Rivkin and Mr. Jackson earlier this year. “We won't be disappointed,” she insisted. The American attention is proof that “these young people are succeeding,” and that “we're not invisible,” she said.

A Muslim born to French-Algerian parents, she acknowledged the likelihood that the Americans had reached out to her, at least in part, because of her background.

Asked if that reality left her uneasy, Ms. Ketfi replied, “What bothers me is being the target of the French state.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/world/europe/23france.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=world&adxnnlx=1285237469-AmGMAYyBAJQSkArJywqg3g&pagewanted=print

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For Many, Health Care Relief Begins Today

Sometimes lost in the partisan clamor about the new health care law is the profound relief it is expected to bring to hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been stricken first by disease and then by a Darwinian insurance system.

On Thursday, the six-month anniversary of the signing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act , a number of its most central consumer protections take effect, just in time for the midterm elections.

Starting now, insurance companies will no longer be permitted to exclude children because of pre-existing health conditions, which the White House said could enable 72,000 uninsured to gain coverage. Insurers also will be prohibited from imposing lifetime limits on benefits.

The law will now forbid insurers to drop sick and costly customers after discovering technical mistakes on applications. It requires that they offer coverage to children under 26 on their parents' policies.

It establishes a menu of preventive procedures, like colonoscopies , mammograms and immunizations, that must be covered without co-payments. And it allows consumers who join a new plan to keep their own doctors and to appeal insurance company reimbursement decisions to a third party.

The arrival of the long-awaited changes propelled President Obama , whose Democrats have struggled to exploit their signature achievement, into the backyard of Paul and Frances Brayshaw of Falls Church, Va., to explain his decision to pursue health care.

“The amount of vulnerability that was out there was horrendous,” Mr. Obama on Wednesday told a gathering of people chosen to illustrate the law's new provisions. He said he concluded that “we've just got to give people some basic peace of mind.”

Mr. Obama also responded to Republican Congressional leaders who have campaigned on a threat to repeal the act. “I want them to look you in the eye,” he told his audience, and explain their opposition to a law that is projected to cover 32 million uninsured and reduce the deficit by $143 billion over 10 years.

The Republican strategy “makes sense in terms of politics and polls,” Mr. Obama said, an acknowledgment that the electorate is divided and that many swing districts are hostile. “It just doesn't make sense in terms of actually making people's lives better.”

House Republicans continued to question Mr. Obama's assertions, which he repeated Wednesday, that the law will lower premiums, pointing to double-digit increases recently announced by many insurers. A blog posting on the Web site of the minority leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, predicted the law would “raise health care costs, explode the federal deficit and create a byzantine bureaucracy.”

The administration has estimated that premiums should rise no more than 2 percent because of the new consumer protections, and warned this month that it would have “zero tolerance” for efforts to blame the law for larger increases.

It will take years to determine the act's long-term impact on American health, and on American politics. But Democrats did manage to front-load some notable benefits, while deferring the pain of tax increases and penalties until after the election.

Polls have found that many of the provisions taking effect Thursday are popular, tugging at a national sense of fairness and feeding off distrust of health insurers. They bear particular appeal for the 14 million people who must buy policies on the individual market rather than through employers and are thus at the mercy of the industry. And they land on the heels of a government report showing that the recession drove the number of uninsured Americans to 50.7 million in 2009, up 10 percent in a year.

As the political battle endures, those most immediately affected are welcoming the changes with collective relief, and hoping that their promise of security is real.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/health/policy/23careintro.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Insurers Scramble to Comply With Health Rules

The first big wave of new rules under the federal health care law goes into effect on Thursday, leaving many insurers scrambling to get ahead of the changes.

Insurers are cutting administrative staff to lower overhead costs, investing in big technology upgrades and training employees to field the expected influx of customer inquiries.

Despite the talk among some Republicans of repealing all or part of the law, insurers say they cannot afford to put off the changes. Many said they were fundamentally altering their business models to cope.

“It is really the Manhattan Project because of the scale and the scope,” said Karen Ignagni, chief executive of America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group.

Under the new law, insurers that offer child-only policies must start covering all children, even the seriously ill, beginning on Thursday. Insurers must also begin offering free preventive services, and for the first time, their premiums must start passing muster with federal and state regulators by the end of the year.

Companies are choosing to avoid some of the rules by no longer offering certain policies. Aetna , WellPoint and Cigna , for example, have announced that they would stop selling new child-only policies, at least in some states. Ahead of the regulatory review, some also raised premiums this year.

The coming weeks and months should provide an important test of the legislation — and a dry run of sorts for the more far-reaching changes required by the law in 2014, when insurers will have to offer coverage to everyone and begin selling their plans on state-run exchanges.

Adjusting to the new terrain could push some insurers out of business, health care analysts say. In a setback to the bottom line, for example, insurers will no longer be able to pick and choose enrollees to avoid covering people who are likely to run up high medical bills, and many of the markets where they operate will become much less profitable.

“A lot of health plans will struggle and fail,” said Jeff Fusile, a health care partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Blue Shield of California, which was an early proponent of requiring insurers to cover everyone, has trained about 2,500 people — nearly half of its work force — about the impact of the new law. About 250 of the employees are leading teams responsible for reprogramming computer systems, determining the cost of new policies and ensuring that the people answering phones have the correct responses to customer questions, among other tasks.

“The train has left the station, and we'd much rather be the ones with the engineer's hat,” said Bruce Bodaken, the chief executive of Blue Shield of California, a nonprofit health plan based in San Francisco.

The challenge for the industry as a whole will be to demonstrate an ability to oversee patient care and work closely with hospitals and doctors to find ways to improve the quality of care while trying to contain costs. To that end, insurers are making big investments in technology systems and new areas of expertise.

Blue Shield says it has already increased its efforts to address the cost and quality of care by exploring new ways to pay doctors and hospitals.

“We're going to do a lot more innovation and experimentation, failing and succeeding, than we've ever been doing before,” Mr. Bodaken said.

Like many of its competitors, Blue Shield is also upgrading its technology systems. The plan is spending several hundred million dollars on the effort, and both the new and old systems must be reprogrammed at the same time to reflect the new rules.

But the cost of such upgrades could be the undoing of some plans, said Mr. Fusile, of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“The biggest challenge facing the payers is that they are going through a pretty massive investment in information technology,” he said.

Even those insurers that were critical of the legislation have little choice but to comply. Still, several have chosen to avoid the new rules by ceasing to offer certain policies. In the case of the child-only policies, insurers say the new rules could require them to cover too many sick children and too few healthy ones.

Aetna, for one, says it would be willing to work with government officials to find ways to keep offering the coverage. “With the right regulatory environment, we would be able to keep plans affordable and continue to offer them,” said Matt Wiggin, an Aetna spokesman.

The Obama administration says that it is willing to work with the insurers, but added that the companies had already promised to continue offering the policies.

“Insurance companies have pledged to offer coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, and we expect them to honor that commitment,” said Jessica Santillo, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services .

One of the most critical changes in the coming months will be the final rules dictating how insurers spend their premiums. The federal legislation says that at least 80 cents of every dollar collected in premiums must be spent on the welfare of patients, but the regulations spelling out what qualifies are still being worked out.

Some insurers are acting quickly to make cuts to lower their overhead expenses in anticipation of the new regulations on spending, said Roger Collier, a former health care executive who is now a consultant. Brokers may see their commissions, which are paid for by the insurers, sharply reduced or eliminated as one potential source of savings, he said.

The legislation also requires insurers to have their premiums vetted, in some fashion, by regulators at the state and federal levels. Given the amount of controversy over the double-digit increases some plans have already requested, insurers are readying themselves for a long and potentially fraught process.

Blue Shield recently filed rate increases of less than 2 percent, on average, for all of its policies, and a little more than 4 percent in the individual market, largely to address the expanded benefits under the new federal law.

The timetable to enact the new rules under the health care law is aggressive, and administration officials say they will enforce it. Still, the administration recently announced its willingness to allow insurers more leeway in complying with some rules when the logistical challenges were essentially insurmountable.

The rush to comply has led to some stumbles. When Blue Shield, like some of its competitors, wanted to offer coverage to adult children up to age 26 through their parents' policies, the insurer notified its customers about the change — only to discover that some employers, who had the final say over whether to speed up the timing of the change, wanted to wait. Blue Shield then sent out follow-up letters delaying the change.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/business/23insure.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Boast, Build and Sell

United Nations

World leaders have flown in first class to the United Nations this week to discuss global poverty over cocktails at the Waldorf Astoria.

The U.N. set eight landmark antipoverty objectives in 2000, so this year's General Assembly is reviewing how we're doing after a decade. We're off-track on most of these Millennium Development Goals, so let me offer three suggestions for how the humanitarian world might do better in framing the fight against poverty:

First, boast more.

Humanitarians have tended to guilt-trip people and governments into generosity by peddling emaciated children with flies on their eyes. But relentless negativity leaves the inaccurate impression that Africa is an abyss of failure and hopelessness. And who wants to invest in a failure?

In fact, here's the record: antipoverty work saves around 32,000 children's lives each day. That's my calculation based on the number of children who died in 1960 (about 20 million) and the number dying now ( about 8 million a year ).

Twelve million lives saved annually — roughly one every three seconds — is a reminder that global poverty needn't be a depressing topic but can be a hopeful one. Ancient scourges like Guinea worm, river blindness and polio are on their way out. Modern contraception is more common than a generation ago. The average Indian woman has 2.6 children now, compared with 5.5 in 1970.

That doesn't mean overselling how easy it is to defeat poverty. In their zeal to raise money, activists sometimes elide the challenges of corruption and dependency — and mind-boggling complexity. Helping people in truth is far harder than it looks.

For example, it's easy to build a school, but it can be tough to make sure that teachers actually show up afterward; they may live 100 miles away in the capital, receiving their pay for doing nothing. Or kids may be “enrolled” but miss months of school during the harvest. Or they may attend school but lack pencils, paper or books. Or they may be too malnourished or anemic from intestinal worms to learn anything. And Western aid to education sometimes just displaces domestic resources, which are then diverted to buy weapons instead.

In short, building an educational system in which students actually learn is difficult, and it takes more than money poured into broken systems. But it's also true that literacy rates and school attendance are rising sharply. More than three-quarters of African youngsters are now enrolled in primary school, up from 58 percent in 1999.

My second suggestion is to focus not just on poverty relief but also on wealth creation. The best way to overcome poverty isn't charity but economic growth, trade rather than aid. That's why East Asia has raised its living standards so much.

There, too, there's progress. We're seeing economic engines revving up from Africa to India. For the last decade, per capita G.D.P. growth in Africa has averaged more than 3 percent per year — faster than in America or Europe.

Wealthy countries could encourage prosperity creation by opening their markets wider to exports from poor countries. The United States has a program , the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, that is an important step in that direction and should be expanded.

My third suggestion: punchier marketing. Humanitarians tend to flinch at the idea of marketing, thinking that's what you do with toothpaste. But it's all the more important when lives are at stake.

This United Nations summit meeting is marked by the publication of tedious reports on poverty that almost no one will read, when it might gain more support with, say, a music video. After all, one of the most powerful tools to spread the word about educating girls was a “Girl Effect” video designed by the marketing geniuses at Nike. The first Girl Effect video went viral and has been watched by about 10 million people; its successor was released this week.

My hunch is that the most effective way to market antipoverty work in coming years will be by rebranding it, in part, as a security issue. Rich country budgets are so strained that it's unrealistic to think that governments will approve much new money — or endorse the excellent suggestion of a financial transactions tax to pay for global health programs — just to ease suffering.

But hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent fighting terrorism and bolstering fragile countries like Afghanistan, Yemen and Pakistan. We should note that schools have a better record of fighting terrorism than missiles do and that wobbly governments can be buttressed not just with helicopter gunships but also with school lunch programs (at 25 cents per kid per day).

International security is where the money is, but fighting poverty is where the success is.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/opinion/23kristof.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Missed Goals

OPINION

Ten years ago, leaders of rich and poor countries pledged to build a better world by 2015. Among their vital goals: halving extreme poverty and hunger from 1990 levels, reducing by two-thirds the child-mortality rate and slashing maternal mortality by three-quarters and achieving universal primary education.

As they gathered at the United Nations this week, world leaders had to admit that their progress “falls far short of what is needed” to meet those targets by the deadline. The global recession set many countries back. But rich nations — including the United States — have not contributed the money needed to make this a reality.

The best way we can see of turning this around is for wealthy nations to make a generous and concrete pledge of aid for the next five years — and then deliver. The 0.7 percent of gross domestic product endorsed by world leaders in 2002 is a good place to start. Unfortunately, the United States and many others, including Italy, Germany and Japan, fall far short of that.

It was disappointing that President Obama made no hard commitment to increase development aid when he addressed the United Nations conference on Wednesday. The legalistic claims by some of his aides that the United States never really signed on to hard aid targets sends precisely the wrong message. If Washington isn't willing to fully ante up, there is little hope others will.

Still there was a lot in Mr. Obama's speech that made good sense to us. He made a compelling case for why foreign aid is an essential component of an effective national security strategy. And he outlined a promising new policy to bring coherence to the often incoherent American foreign aid and development system.

He said the United States would still be a major donor but would put new emphasis on using all of its tools — including trade and export credits — to help poor countries get to the point where they don't need assistance. He also, rightly, promised to hold recipient countries accountable for improving governance and combating corruption and to be “more selective and focus our efforts where we have the best partners and where we can have the greatest impact.” That, too, is essential.

The meager progress on the so-called Millennium Development Goals underscores why more effective aid is so important but also why more money is needed.

The best news is that the share of people living on less than $1.25 a day seems on track to meet the goal of halving the extreme poverty rate. But most of those gains have occurred in China and other East Asian countries. Poverty rates in sub-Saharan Africa remain way too high. The world is far behind on many other goals.

Between 1990 and 2008, the mortality rate of children under 5 in developing countries declined only from 10 percent to 7.2 percent — far from the target of a two-thirds reduction by 2015. Maternal mortality declined only from 480 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 450 deaths in 2005. The 2015 goal is closer to 120. Enrollment in primary education reached only 89 percent in 2008, up from 80 percent in 1991.

Nobody can know how much money is needed to meet these and other urgent development goals. But, in 2002, rich donor countries agreed that contributions of 0.7 percent of their G.D.P. was, at least, politically feasible. Today, only Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have met the goal. In 2009, the United States channeled 0.2 percent of its G.D.P. to aid. On average, development assistance amounted to only 0.31 percent of G.D.P. of developed nations last year.

On Wednesday, world leaders again urged developed countries to meet this aid target by 2015. Talk is cheap. They have to deliver.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/opinion/23thu1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Google News

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Al-Qaeda likely to try small-scale attacks on U.S., officials say

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 23, 2010; A9

Al-Qaeda and its allies are likely to attempt small-scale, less sophisticated terrorist attacks in the United States, senior Obama administration officials said Wednesday, noting that it's extremely difficult to detect such threats in advance.

"Unlike large-scale, coordinated, catastrophic attacks, executing smaller-scale attacks requires less planning and fewer pre-operational steps," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "Accordingly, there are fewer opportunities to detect such an attack before it occurs."

Terrorism experts have puzzled over al-Qaeda's apparent unwillingness after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to use car bombs, improvised explosives and small arms to conduct assaults in the United States. The group appeared fixated on orchestrating another dramatic mass-casualty event, such as the simultaneous downing of several commercial airliners.

Indeed, attacks inspired by al-Qaeda in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005 involved multiple, coordinated bombings targeting mass-transit systems.

But the risk of a single-target bombing or an attack by a lone gunman has increased, officials say, with the rise of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in the tribal areas of Pakistan, in Yemen and in Somalia, and with the emergence of radicalized Americans inspired by the ideology of violent jihad.

"The impact of the attempted attacks during the past year suggests al-Qaeda, and its affiliates and allies, will attempt to conduct smaller-scale attacks targeting the homeland but with greater frequency," said Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, pointing to plots against the subway system in New York, the attempt to down a commercial airliner approaching Detroit and the failed car bombing in Times Square.

Leiter said in his testimony that "al-Qaeda in Pakistan is at one of its weakest points organizationally," but he noted that "regional affiliates and allies can compensate for the potentially decreased willingness of al-Qaeda in Pakistan - the deadliest supplier of such training and guidance - to accept and train new recruits."

Officials in the United States and Europe have expressed concern about some of their citizens and residents turning to the Taliban in Pakistan; al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; and al-Shabab, a militant group in Somalia, for inspiration and training.

"The spike in homegrown violent extremist activity during the past year is indicative of a common cause that rallies independent extremists to want to attack the homeland," said Leiter.

"Key to this trend has been the development of a U.S.-specific narrative that motivates individuals to violence. This narrative - a blend of al-Qaeda inspiration, perceived victimization and glorification of past plotting - has become increasingly accessible through the Internet, and English-language Web sites are tailored to address the unique concerns of U.S.-based extremists."

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said it is troubling, and a challenge for investigators, that homegrown extremists have increasingly diverse backgrounds.

"During the past year, the threat from radicalization has evolved," he said. "A number of disruptions occurred involving extremists from a diverse set of backgrounds, geographic locations, life experiences and motivating factors that propelled them along their separate radicalization pathways.

"Beyond the sheer number of disruptions and arrests that have come to light, homegrown extremists are increasingly more savvy, harder to detect and able to connect with other extremists overseas."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/22/AR2010092205322_pf.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

El Dorado grand jury indictment may speed up Garrido trial

Prosecutors in the Jaycee Lee Dugard case apparently have used the El Dorado County grand jury to indict Phillip and Nancy Garrido in a bid to speed up the trial.

Nancy Garrido's attorney, Stephen Tapson, said he was told unofficially that the pair had been indicted either Tuesday or Wednesday in the kidnapping and rape case, but that he would not receive confirmation until a transcript of the proceedings is completed.

El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson's office said it would have no comment. Susan Gellman, Phillip Garrido's attorney, did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Grand jury proceedings are secret and an indictment would not be unsealed until the defendants are arraigned, which is required within 10 days of the grand jury acting, a court official said.

Tapson said the move would result in the pending charges against the couple being dismissed at the next scheduled hearing on Oct. 1 and replaced by the indictment.

An indictment would preclude the need for a preliminary hearing that had been set to begin Oct. 7. The new charges would be sent directly to a trial court, possibly speeding up proceedings that already have dragged on for 13 months.

The Garridos have both pleaded not guilty to charges that they kidnapped Dugard in 1991, when she was 11, and kept her hidden until she was found alive in August 2009. During her captivity, she was forced to have two daughters with Phillip Garrido, a convicted kidnapper and rapist who was on parole at the time of the kidnapping.

Dugard has since gone into seclusion with her mother and daughters and received a $20 million settlement from the state for failures by Garrido's parole agents to realize she was being hidden in his Antioch-area home for many years.

A move to the grand jury provides numerous benefits to the prosecution, legal experts said, including the ability to shield Dugard and her family from questioning by defense attorneys until the case gets to trial.

"I was wondering why they didn't do this before," said veteran Sacramento defense attorney Don Heller. "The preliminary hearing could have gone on for some time, several weeks.

"This way, you eliminate the potential for a circus if the media wants to be there."

Court officials have been working for months with local media and national networks to deal with the intense interest the case has garnered. The preliminary hearing was to have been televised live on a national cable network.

Legal experts said it is possible – but it would not have been required – that Dugard appeared before the grand jury. Her testimony would have been in a closed session, with a prosecutor leading her through non-confrontational questioning.

"Vern Pierson's a good DA," Heller said. "He would have made sure every 't' was crossed and every 'i' was dotted."

Tapson said the grand jury process deprives the defense of an opportunity to question witnesses.

"We'd like to have seen some live witnesses we can question," Tapson said. "This way we don't see anyone, just a transcript of what they said."

The move to the grand jury also may have been prompted by El Dorado Superior Court Judge Douglas C. Phimister's announcement at a hearing last month that Phillip Garrido's mental state has been called into question.

Gellman, Phillip Garrido's public defender, has previously raised the issue, filing court papers last February citing "signs of serious mental illness" in her client and claiming that he has "been hearing the voices of angels for years."

She could have sought a mental examination of her 59-year-old client, a move that could have further delayed the preliminary hearing.

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/23/v-print/3049960/el-dorado-grand-jury-indictment.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Department of Homeland Security

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Statement of Secretary Janet Napolitano before the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:

"Nine Years After 9/11: Confronting the Terrorist Threat to the Homeland"

September 22, 2010

Washington, D.C.
(Statement for the Record)

Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, and members of the Committee: Thank you for this opportunity to testify on the continuing and evolving terrorist threat to the United States.

Today I would like to highlight the main ways in which the terrorist threat to our country is changing - ways that increasingly challenge law enforcement and the intelligence community. I would also like to highlight some specific - though not exhaustive - ways that the Department of Homeland Security is moving to address this evolving threat.

The Evolving Terrorist Threat to the Homeland

The terrorist threat changes quickly, and we have observed important changes in the threat even since this Committee convened a similar hearing last year. The threat is evolving in several ways that make it more difficult for law enforcement or the intelligence community to detect and disrupt plots.

One overarching theme of this evolution is the diversification of the terrorist threat on many levels. These include the sources of the threat, the methods that terrorists use, and the targets that they seek to attack.

Sources of the threat

It is clear that the threat of al Qaeda-style terrorism is not limited to the al-Qaeda core group, or organizations that have close operational links to al Qaeda. While al Qaeda continues to threaten America directly, it also inspires its affiliates and other groups and individuals who share its violent ideology and seek to attack the United States claiming it is in the name of Islam - a claim that is widely rejected.

Some of these affiliates, like al-Shabaab in Somalia, have not yet attempted to attack the homeland, though al-Shabaab has committed acts of terrorism elsewhere and some al-Shabaab leaders have espoused violent, anti-American beliefs. Other al-Qaeda affiliates have actually attempted to attack the homeland in recent months. These include Tehrik-e Taliban (TTP) and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) - which, until their respective claims of responsibility for the attempted Times Square and Christmas Day terrorist attacks, had only conducted attacks in their regions.

Homegrown terrorists represent a new and changing facet of the terrorist threat. To be clear, by "homegrown," I mean terrorist operatives who are U.S. persons and who were radicalized in the United States and learned terrorist tactics either here or in training camps in places such as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Terrorist organizations are increasingly seeking operatives who are familiar with the United States or the West. In their roles as terrorist planners, operational facilitators, and operatives, these individuals improve the terrorist groups' knowledge of Western and American culture and security practces, which can increase the likelihood that an attempted attack could be successful. In recent attacks, we have also seen the influence of violent extremist messages and propaganda spread by U.S.-born, English-speaking individuals operating from abroad, including the U.S.-born, Yemen-based Anwar al-Awlaki. 1 Skillfully contrived publications, persuasive messages in idiomatic English, and skillful use of the Internet may be helping to increase the number of homegrown violent extremists.

Diversified tactics

Terrorist tactics continue to evolve and diversify. Recent attempted terrorist attacks have proceeded quickly, with less extensive pre-operational planning than previous attempts and with fewer linkages to international terrorist organizations. They have been executed on a smaller scale than the catastrophic attacks of 9/11.

There is a rising threat from attacks that use improvised explosives devices (IEDs), other explosives, and small arms. This type of attack has been common in hotspots around the world for some time, but we have now experienced such attempted attacks in the United States. Other countries, from Afghanistan to Somalia to Russia, have also experienced attacks where small teams of operatives storm a facility using small arms. Unlike large-scale, coordinated, catastrophic attacks, executing smaller-scale attacks requires less planning and fewer preoperational steps. Accordingly, there are fewer opportunities to detect such an attack before it occurs.

Potential targets

Last, let me address targets. We must recognize that virtually anything is a potential target. Consequently, our thinking needs to be "outside the box" while we simultaneously focus our planning on targets that intelligence forecasts to be most at risk. Many of the targets that terrorists seek to strike are familiar - especially commercial aviation, which continues to be a favored target. Most public places and critical infrastructure face some risk of attack in today's environment. Potential targets include mass transit and passenger rail, which serve thousands of people every day, operate on predictable schedules, and have many access points, all of which are appealing characteristics to terrorists. We also see a threat to the kinds of places that are easily accessible to the public. Among these kinds of targets, hotels were notably attacked during the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008. There also continues to be a general risk to our critical infrastructure such as ports and chemical facilities.

The increasing number of terrorism sources, terrorist tactics, and terrorist targets make it more difficult for law enforcement or the intelligence community to detect and disrupt plots. The threats come from a broader array of groups and regions. It comes from a wider variety of harder-to-detect tactics. And it is aimed at harder-to-secure places than before.

DHS is moving swiftly to address the current threat landscape. Through the state and major urban area fusion centers, we have been working closely with state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) law enforcement in our overall efforts to combat terrorism, because in an environment where operatives may not have close links to international terrorist organizations - and where they may, in fact, be based within this country - these levels of law enforcement may be the first to notice something suspicious. We have established programs that facilitate a strong, two-way flow of threat-related information, where SLTT officials communicate possible threat information to federal officials, and vice-versa. As discussed earlier, pre-operational activity - such as target selection, reconnaissance, and dry runs - may occur over a very short time period, or in open and crowded places. Informing federal authorities of suspicious activities allows this information to be compared with information in other law enforcement and intelligence databases and to be analyzed for trends, increasing the likelihood that an attack can be thwarted. This also allows federal authorities to better inform communities of the threats they face. The nation's fusion centers have been a hub of these efforts, combined with other initiatives DHS has instituted to better partner with SLTT law enforcement. Today I will focus on a few of these actions.

Providing Law Enforcement Personnel the Information and Resources They Need

Information sharing

In today's threat environment, preventing terrorist attacks means creating a unified effort across all levels of government, and ensuring that law enforcement officers on the front lines at all levels have everything necessary to do their jobs.

We are strengthening the networks and relationships necessary to get information where it should to be, when it should be there, and in the most useful format. At the heart of this effort are fusion centers, which serve as focal points for information sharing among federal and SLTT law enforcement. Starting with just a handful in 2006, there are 72 fusion centers today. They analyze information and identify trends in order to effectively share timely intelligence with local law enforcement and DHS. In turn, DHS shares this information with others within the Intelligence Community. By doing this, the Department facilitates two-way communication among our federal partners and state and local emergency management and public safety personnel, including the first responders on the ground.

My goal is to make every fusion center a center of analytic excellence that provides useful, actionable information about threats to SLTT law enforcement and first responders. To support this vision, we have deployed experienced DHS intelligence officers to fusion centers across the country. We have provided 64 personnel at last count and are committed to having an officer in each fusion center. We support fusion centers in our grants process and are looking for ways to support them through adding technology and personnel, including the deployment of highly trained experts in critical infrastructure protection. As fusion centers become fully operational, we deploy the Homeland Security Data Network so that fusion center personnel with appropriate federal security clearances have access to classified homeland security threat information.

Strengthening fusion centers is not the only way we are improving the flow and quality of information and getting it to where it needs to be. We are also working closely with the Department of Justice to expand the Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative into a national resource for SLTT law enforcement. As I mentioned earlier, today's diffuse threat landscape means that a police officer on the beat, rather than an intelligence analyst in Washington, D.C., may have the best opportunity to detect an attack or attack planning. The SAR Initiative creates a standard process for law enforcement in more than two dozen states and cities to identify and report suspicious incidents or behaviors associated with specific threats or terrorism. It makes first responders first preventers, as well. The system allows the information to be shared nationally so that it can be used to identify broader trends. We are working with our partners at DOJ to expand this program to every state to make it as comprehensive and effective as possible. By next month, the system will be implemented in an additional 17 locations in addition to the 12 operational, and will cover nearly 70 percent of the American population. We plan for it to be fully implemented on a national scale by the end of 2011.

Grants and grand guidance

Another important way we push tools and resources from Washington and into local hands is through grants. Currently, state and local governments across America are struggling to pay their bills and fund vital services. As a former two-term Governor, I know the hard budgetary choices they are facing. But it is critical to our national security that local communities maintain and continue to strengthen their public safety capabilities. To help ease the burden on state and local governments, we awarded $3.8 billion in grants this past year to states, cities, law enforcement, and first responders, and are helping localities stretch these dollars even further. We have eliminated red tape by streamlining the grant process. We have expanded grants to fund maintenance and sustainability, enabling local jurisdictions to support previous investments, rather than buying new equipment or technology each year. We have also bolstered first responders across the country by making it easier for fire grants to be put to work quickly and to enable fire departments to rehire laid-off firefighters and protect the jobs of veteran firefighters. Keeping experienced first responders on the job is critical to our ability to recognize threats and take action.

Public awareness

As recent events have underscored, each and every person has a role to play in keeping our communities and country safe. For example, take the New York street vendor who tipped off a policeman about the bombing attempt in Times Square, or the group of passengers on Flight 253 who intervened to stop the bombing attempt on Christmas Day.

That is why we have taken an effective public awareness campaign with a familiar slogan - "If You See Something, Say Something" - developed by New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority with support from DHS, and are expanding it across the country, throughout various sectors. Over the summer, we launched this campaign in partnership with Amtrak, the general aviation community, and local and regional law enforcement in the National Capital Region and across the Southern states. We are also working with professional and collegiate sports leagues to launch this effort at stadiums across the country this fall.

The goal of the "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign is to raise awareness of potential indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats and emphasize the importance of reporting suspicious activity to law enforcement. We see this as a way both to empower Americans to take part in our nation's security and to build important relationships between citizens and SLTT law enforcement in order to ensure local authorities have the information they need to stop terrorist attacks.

Empowering Communities and Police to Combat Violence

We also are empowering local jurisdictions and communities to work together to address violent extremism. The potential threat of homegrown violent extremism is very clear. Some two dozen Americans have been arrested on terror charges since 2009. While it is not clear if this represents an actual increase in violent radicalization, versus a rise in the mobilization of previously radicalized individuals, it is nonetheless evident that over the past 12 months, efforts by violent extremist groups and movements to communicate with and recruit individuals within the United States have intensified. And the profiles of Americans who have been arrested on terror charges, or who we know are involved in terrorism overseas, indicate that there is no "typical" profile of a homegrown terrorist. While we work to address violent extremism, we must acknowledge that there is much we do not know about how individuals come to adopt violent extremist beliefs.

All of this was noted in a detailed report by the Bipartisan Policy Center's National Security Preparedness Group co-chaired by Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean. It is important to emphasize, though, the actions are currently underway to address the threat of homegrown violent extremism, including our regular consultations with international partners. We know that information-driven, community-oriented approaches led by local police departments in close partnership with community members have been very successful in reducing violence in many American communities. The Homeland Security Advisory Council's (HSAC) Countering Violent Extremism Working Group - comprised of security experts, elected officials, law enforcement leaders, community leaders, and first responders from around the country - has provided DHS with a number of recommendations on how to support local law enforcement and community-based efforts to identify and combat sources of violent extremism.

Based on the HSAC Working Group's recommendations, and in conjunction with the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Department of Justice, the Counter Terrorism Academy, and the Naval Postgraduate School, we are developing a curriculum for state and local law enforcement focused on community-oriented policing, to enable frontline personnel to identify activities that are indicators of criminal activity and violence. This training will be available through a number of venues, including regional community policing institutes and DHS' Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

We are producing a series of unclassified case studies that examine recent incidents involving terrorism. These will inform state and local law enforcement personnel, as well as members of communities, about common behaviors and indicators exhibited by the suspects in these cases. DHS is also creating a series of intelligence products for the fusion centers and law enforcement personnel that will discuss tactics, techniques and plans of terrorist organizations, including the recruitment and training of individuals living in the United States.

In addition, DHS is convening a series of regional summits with state and local law enforcement, government, and community leaders this fall to focus on best practices. These summits will allow all participants to provide and receive feedback on successful communityoriented policing and other programs aimed at preventing violence and crime. DHS will gather these case studies and best practices and share them with law enforcement nationwide, employing the widely used platforms that the Department has already established.

Finally, DHS continues to work with the Department of Justice to leverage grant programs to support training and technical assistance for SLTT law enforcement. The Department is working to incorporate community-oriented policing concepts into our broader preparedness efforts. And at the same time - because these new initiatives and policies are inherently relevant to DHS' local community partnerships - the Department is expanding the cultural training and engagement activities performed by the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. These activities will help both DHS personnel and SLTT law enforcement to better understand, identify, and mitigate threats to American communities.

Community leaders play a vital role in countering violent extremism. Many have helped disrupt plots and have spoken out against violent extremism. They play a central role in addressing this issue, and we are committed to continuing to work closely with them.

Strengthening Specific Sectors

All of what I have described today helps to create a strong foundation for preventing acts of terrorism. But I would also like to talk about some steps we have taken to address terrorist threats to specific economic sectors. These are hardly the only sectors we are focused upon, but there are a few I would like to highlight for the purpose of this testimony.

Commercial aviation

Despite many improvements to aviation security since 9/11 that have made flying very safe, there are still vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. The attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Flight 253, bound to Detroit, on December 25, 2009, illustrated the global nature of the threat to aviation. That incident involved a U.S. plane flying into a U.S. city, but it endangered individuals from at least 17 foreign countries. The alleged attacker, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is a Nigerian citizen educated in the United Kingdom. He received training in terrorist tactics in Yemen, purchased his ticket in Ghana, and flew from Nigeria to Amsterdam before departing for Detroit. And as Canadian officials have pointed out, the plane was over Canadian airspace at the time of the incident.

After this attempted terrorist attack, the U.S. government moved quickly to do more to strengthen security. We took immediate steps to bolster passenger screening, while addressing larger systemic issues on a global scale. I personally traveled to numerous foreign capitals in the aftermath of the attack to work with our allies to ensure our international aviation security efforts were stronger, better coordinated, and redesigned to meet the current threat environment. Since January, we have worked closely with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations body responsible for air transport, on five regional aviation security summits that I have participated in along with elected leaders, security ministers, and airline officials. We have also worked closely with U.S. and international airline and airport trade associations and airline CEOs on a coordinated, international approach to enhancing aviation security.

Next week, at the ICAO General Assembly meeting, we expect the international community to ratify four key elements of global aviation security. These elements are: developing and deploying new security technologies that better detect dangerous materials; strengthening security measures and standards for airport inspections and cargo screening; enhancing information sharing about threats between countries within the international aviation system; and coordinating international technical assistance for the deployment of improved technologies. These reforms represent a historic advancement for the safety and security of air travel.

DHS has coupled these international efforts with significant advances in domestic aviation security. We have deployed additional behavior detection officers, air marshals, and explosives-detection canine teams, among other measures, to airports across the country. Through the President's fiscal year 2011 budget request and the Recovery Act, we accelerated the purchase of 1,000 Advanced Imaging Technology machines for deployment to airports around the country, and are purchasing and deploying more portable explosive detection machines, Advanced Technology x-ray systems, and bottled liquid scanners. The United States implemented new, enhanced security measures for all air carriers with international flights to the United States that use real-time, threat-based intelligence to better mitigate the evolving terrorist threats. In June, DHS achieved a major aviation security milestone called for in the 9/11 Commission Report by assuming responsibility for terrorist watchlist screening of all passengers on domestic and international flights on U.S. airlines.

Surface transportation

I would also like to discuss specific actions we have taken to strengthen security for surface transportation, such as passenger rail and mass transit. Many of the steps I have already described are especially important in that environment. We conducted the initial launch of the national "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign at Penn Station in New York, in conjunction with Amtrak. The SAR Initiative is also geared toward detecting signs of terrorism in public places like train stations, buses, or rail cars. This initiative includes the Amtrak Police Department as a law enforcement partner and allows Amtrak officers to use the upgraded reporting system to refer suspicious activity reports to DHS and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is in addition to the intelligence sharing that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) conducts with Amtrak on an ongoing basis, and the information-sharing work done by the Public Transportation Information Sharing Analysis Center. The expansion of the SAR Initiative will continue to work directly to secure rail transportation.

There are also a number of operational activities underway focused on surface transportation. We are continuing to augment local anti-terrorism efforts by deploying TSA officers at train stations to screen passengers with Amtrak police, and in New York subway stations to work alongside New York and MTA Police. TSA special operation teams, known as VIPR teams, work with local partners to support several thousand operations every year. We are moving forward on risk-based implementation plans for each of the 20 recommendations (of which DHS has the lead on 19) made in the Surface Transportation Security Assessment, released in April as part of an Administration-wide effort to address surface transportation security. We are also in the rulemaking process to require background checks and security training for public transit employees, and to require vulnerability assessments and security plans for high-risk public transportation agencies, railroads, and bus operators. All of these will help to address a landscape where the threats to these systems are distinct.

Conclusion

The terrorist threat against the United States continues to evolve in ways that present more complicated and dangerous challenges than we have faced in the past. We cannot guarantee that there will never be another terrorist attack, and we cannot seal our country under a glass dome. But we can do everything in our power to prevent attacks, confront the terrorist threat head-on, and secure our country.

The efforts that I have described today are only a small part of the work that the hundreds of thousands of men and women, at DHS and at law enforcement agencies across the country, do every day to secure our nation. And I want to emphasize that the Department is focused on many other threats, as well - in particular, the growing threat to our cyber networks and the threat from chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. In everything I have described today - and in everything we do to combat terrorism - DHS is focused on providing those on the front lines with the technology, training, and information they need to do their jobs and keep our country safe.

Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, and members of the Committee: Thank you for inviting me to testify today. I can now answer any questions you may have.

1 In addition to this role, Al-Awlaki has also taken on an operational role in attack planning.

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/testimony/testimony_1285168556484.shtm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Department of Justice

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Attorney General Holder Speaks at the Medal of Valor Ceremony

Thank you, Laurie, for your kind words and, more importantly, for your leadership of the Office of Justice Programs and your strong support for public safety officers across the country.

It's a privilege to join with you and Vice President Biden – and so many proud colleagues, friends, and family members – in recognizing the outstanding work, and inspiring contributions, of the fourteen public servants we've gathered to honor. I'm especially grateful for this opportunity to acknowledge and to personally thank each one of you – for the example you've set, the courage you've shown, and the difference you have made.

As Laurie noted, the Medal of Valor is the highest honor awarded to public safety officers in the country. And today's recipients are part of a select group.

Although you work alongside some of the nation's most talented and most effective public servants – police officers and firefighters; sheriffs and EMTs; rescue squads and highway patrols – each one of you has stood out. You've shown both fearlessness and selflessness. And you've distinguished yourselves through unwavering determination and a willingness to risk your own life to save others.

You've braved raging fires and storms, and battled armed and dangerous criminals. You've created life-saving rescue and escape plans, and sustained life-threatening wounds. Amid explosions and gunshots, you've dragged your colleagues to safety.

One of today's awardees dipped the helicopter he was piloting into treacherous waters to save drowning hurricane victims. Another jumped over a six-foot, barbed-wire fence to save an officer he'd never met. And all of you have gone above and beyond the call of duty.

The wife of a police officer who was rescued by one of the firefighters we honor today once asked, “How do you thank somebody for giving your husband his life and keeping your family a family?” Today, we try.

Of course, this award can not capture the full measure of our gratitude. And it can not heal the wounds of seeing colleagues suffer or, in some cases, make the ultimate sacrifice. But I hope that, for today's awardees, the Medal of Valor will serve as a reminder that your work strengthens our nation's finest traditions of public service and that the American people are, and always will be, in your debt.

Let me also say – on behalf of our nation's Department of Justice – that it's a privilege to count you all as partners. Your work is at the core of the Department's #1 mission: to protect the safety of the American people. You are on the front lines of this effort. And I assure you that – in addition to my deep appreciation – you also have, deserve, and can continue to expect my full support.

Now, even as we celebrate the contributions that define your work and have distinguished your careers, we must also be mindful of the challenges that remain before us. The threats we face are real. They are urgent. And they are increasingly complex. But we will overcome them. And I believe the very skill and commitment we honor today will drive our future success.

Because of you and your colleagues, I'm optimistic about what we can accomplish in the days ahead. And I'm proud of each one of you.

Congratulations, and thank you all.

And, now, I'd like to introduce a public servant whose record of leadership on behalf of public safety officers is unparalleled. He authored the largest – and one of the most important – crime bills in American history, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. And he has spent a lifetime supporting and advancing the work of public safety officers of every stripe. No one has done more.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice President of the United States – Joe Biden.

http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2010/ag-speech-100922.html

.