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From the Los Angeles Times

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Alleged gunman in Carlsbad school shooting is ID'd

Authorities late Friday identified the alleged gunman in a Carlsbad, Calif., school shooting that left two young girls with minor injuries as Brendan L. O'Rourke, 41, thought to be a transient.

O'Rourke was booked on six counts of attempted murder and numerous weapons violations, police said. He is being held at the San Diego County jail in Vista.

His arrest came after he was tackled by construction workers after allegedly ranting incoherently  and then firing on the playground at Kelly Elementary School at lunchtime Friday.

The injured girls, both second-graders, suffered graze wounds to the arm, possibly from shrapnel, authorities said. They were airlifted to Rady Children's Hospital in nearby San Diego. Witnesses who saw them taken to the aircraft said they did not appear to be seriously injured and that one girl even waved to onlookers.

Ed Willins, an eyewitness to the shooting, said he saw the workers tackle, punch and kick the gunman. "They were on him immediately," he said. "They administered a little street justice on him before the cops got there."

Construction worker Carlos Partida, who was remodeling the school kitchen in the beachside community 30 miles north of San Diego, said he saw a man jump over the school fence and start firing a gun at children. He said the gunman appeared to be reloading and trying to leave the scene when Partida jumped in his truck and rammed the man, knocking him down.

"My reaction was to get him. Get him away from the kids," he said. Partida, 30, of Chula Vista, said he and two other construction workers held the gunman down and kept the weapon away until police arrived.

Partida said the gunman, who was wearing a black, hooded sweatshirt and black pants, had been screaming incoherently. Authorities later discredited initial reports that the gunman was ranting about President Obama.

Some witnesses said the gunman was carrying a gasoline can and others said it seemed to be gasoline can decorated like a Halloween jack-o'-lantern. The bomb squad was called to examine a propane tank found in the gunman's car.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/10/authorities-identify-alleged-gunman-in-carlsbad-elementary-school-shooting.html

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Amber Alert canceled in alleged abduction of 2 boys

Authorities on Friday afternoon canceled an Amber Alert for two young  Anaheim boys allegedly abducted in a family dispute after the vehicle involved in the incident, a silver Dodge Caravan, was located, a police spokesman said.

However, the search continues for the children and for their father and grandfather, who are suspected of nabbing the youngsters in front of their mother's house on West Orange Avenue, police said.

Sgt. Rick Martinez, an Anaheim Police Department spokesman, said the Amber Alert was dropped once the vehicle was discovered since such widespread alerts are tied for to specific vehicles. Because of the investigation, he declined to say where the minivan was discovered but said that authorities believe it is a rental vehicle.

Justin Quinones, 2, and Jacob Quinones, 4, allegedly were taken by the boys' biological father and grandfather late Thursday but Martinez said there is no reason to believe the children are in imminent danger. "There is nothing to indicate that," he said.

Police think that the father, Abraham Fernandez, 23, and grandfather, Louis Mendoza Fernandez, 52, who are from Houston, remain somewhere in Southern California with the children.

Martinez warned that anyone who helps to hide them could face felony charges.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/10/amber-alert-canceled.html#more

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OPINION

Unraveling the torture knot

President Obama pledged a return to constitutionality, but the case of Faisal Shahzad shows how difficult that will be and how ambivalent the Obama administration seems to be.

Tim Rutten

October 9, 2010

It has been clear for years that the Bush administration's decision to torture captured Al Qaeda terrorists leaves the United States in a wretched position when it comes to determining the prisoners' ultimate fate.

No American court ever is going to allow the admission of confessions or evidence obtained by torture. Thus, despite the federal judiciary's flawless record of dealing firmly and equitably with cases of domestic and foreign terrorism, the Bush/Cheney White House made sure that trying these criminals would be hideously difficult. That's why it cobbled together a dubious system of "military commissions," simply ignoring the fact that the verdicts of such tribunals were unlikely ever to enjoy the international legitimacy crucial in these cases.

President Obama came to office promising to end torture, close down the secret prisons in which it occurred and send the Al Qaeda terrorists — including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind and boastful murderer of journalist Daniel Pearl — into federal court, where they belong. This week, we saw just how difficult that process will be and, more disturbing, how ambivalent the Obama administration really is about the process.

Early in the week, federal officials were congratulating themselves over the life sentence imposed on Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-born American citizen who pleaded guilty to 10 terrorism and weapons charges stemming from his failed attempt to explode a car bomb in Times Square. But on Wednesday, those same officials seemed stunned when U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan barred testimony by a key government witness in the case of another accused terrorist, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who allegedly organized the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people. Ghailani was apprehended in Pakistan in 2004 and then — for five years — held in secret CIA prisons, where he was tortured. Kaplan ruled that a man who says he sold Ghailani the explosives cannot be called to testify because the government learned about him from interrogating Ghailani, and the government is known to have "coerced" testimony from Ghailani.

Kaplan wrote that although he was "acutely aware of the perilous nature of the world in which we live … the Constitution is the rock upon which our nation rests. We must follow it not only when it is convenient, but when fear and danger beckon in a different direction." It's a handsome sentiment, but Kaplan then went on in an apparent — and probably fruitless — attempt to inoculate himself against criticism that even if Ghailani is acquitted, his status as an "enemy combatant" will allow the government to hold him in military custody forever.

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. previously expressed a similar belief about the Shaikh Mohammed case.

There are names for trials with predetermined outcomes, and none of them is pretty.

Jack Goldsmith, the conservative legal scholar who so courageously braved the displeasure of the Bush/Cheney White House when he served as head of its Office of Legal Counsel, wrote that all this makes him "wonder why the government is bothering to try Ghailani.... It can hardly bring the hoped-for legitimacy benefits if the government and the judge publicly agree that the defendant, if acquitted, will remain behind bars indefinitely."

Former federal terrorism prosecutor Anthony S. Barkow, now a professor of law at New York University, told an interviewer that Kaplan's ruling and Holder's position on it "create a suggestion of a kind of show trial as opposed to a true adjudication of the issues."

In his most recent book, "Obama's Wars," Bob Woodward recounts a conversation that occurred between outgoing CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and Leon Panetta, his successor.

" 'I've read some of your writings while you've been out of government,' Hayden said. 'Don't ever use the words CIA and torture in the same paragraph again.... Torture is a felony, Leon. Say you don't like it. Say it offends you. I don't care. But just don't say it's torture. It's a felony.' The Justice Department had approved what the CIA did in long, detailed memos, so — legally — the CIA had not tortured anyone."

It would be a tragedy if the Obama administration steps back through that looking glass. It cannot have things both ways when it comes to the rule of law and national security. It cannot have the legitimacy constitutionalism confers and the illusionary certainty that Bush's delusional authoritarianism seemed to create.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rutten-terrorism-trials-20101009,0,6254637,print.column

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From the New York Times

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Killing of Doctor Part of Taliban War on Educated

MARDAN, Pakistan — Farooq Khan, doctor to the poor, scholar of Islam and friend of America, represented everything the Islamist extremists hated.

A week ago, two Taliban hit men, disguised in casual clothes and with stubble on their chins instead of beards, climbed the stairs to Dr. Khan's second-floor office and, as he had lunch between streams of patients, shot him at close range.

The assassination of Dr. Khan, cool and quick, was the latest in what appears to be a sustained campaign by the Taliban to wipe out, or at least silence, educated Muslims in Pakistan who speak out against the militants, their use of suicide bombings and their cry of worldwide jihad.

At least six Muslim intellectuals and university professors have been killed or kidnapped in the past year in Pakistan, each death met with momentary notice in the media, promises of inquiries by the government and then a frightened quiet.

The pattern has become almost familiar, so much so that Dr. Khan's death was called unsurprising by many moderate Muslims, who complain that the government has become powerless in the face of the extremists.

Last year, Maulana Sarfaraz Naeemi, a moderate preacher, was killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the school where Mr. Naeemi had spoken out against jihadist ideology. Another popular moderate preacher, Maulana Hassan Jan, was killed in Peshawar in 2007 after he denounced suicide bombings.

Public figures associated with the secular Awami National Party, the main political group in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, have been kidnapped and killed. Ajmal Khan, a university official and a prominent personality in Peshawar, was kidnapped last month, most likely by the Taliban, and has not been heard from since, the police said.

The extinction of enlightened religious thought is one more element, the moderates say, in a long-term campaign by the Taliban — aided by Al Qaeda -- to undermine the state.

“The government doesn't have the will or capacity to do much. It's unrealistic to expect them to do anything,” said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist and longtime friend of Dr. Khan. The doctor, like others who have been assassinated by extremists, had received threats, he said. “This is not the first and the last of these kinds of killings,” Mr. Yusufzai said. “People are already scared of discussing the issues. Now they will be more scared.”

There were many strands to Dr. Khan's energetic life that the Taliban would have found objectionable. In the past year, Dr. Khan, 56, who was trained as a psychiatrist in Vienna, taught what he called a “worldly” Islam to 150 young boys who had been corralled by the Taliban and then freed by the Pakistani Army in the Swat Valley. “He said: ‘This is my passion,' ” his wife, Dr. Rizwana Farooq, a gynecologist, recalled of her husband's weekly sessions at a vocational school, called New Dawn. The school was established by the Pakistani military with financing from international aid organizations.

In recent years, Dr. Khan grew intrigued by American democracy. He visited the United States as a guest of the government in 2002, he met Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her first visit to Pakistan last year, and he was among those chosen to attend a farewell lunch for the departing United States ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, last month. “Dr. Khan has been a longstanding and valuable contact, a strong and central voice in denouncing extremism,” said Elizabeth Rood, the consul general in Peshawar.

But perhaps most challenging to the Taliban was his position as the vice chancellor of a new, liberal university in Swat, whose inauguration was scheduled a few days after Dr. Khan was killed. The Taliban effectively governed Swat, an area of scenic beauty within easy drive of the nation's capital, for several months in 2009 before being driven out in a major military offensive.

The university had been a sore point with the Taliban for some time, partly because the government originally decided the campus would be built on land where the Taliban ran their biggest mosque and school. That site was later abandoned for a more neutral location on the edge of Mingora, the capital of Swat, and over the last year Dr. Khan had taken charge of hiring the faculty, shaping a curriculum devoted to the social sciences and recruiting a student body, said the rector of the university, Sher Alam Khan.

Of 280 students selected on merit, 50 were women, Mr. Khan said. Three of the 20 faculty members were women, he added.

The father of four children ages 22 to 27, all of whom are professionals, Dr. Khan may have been particularly irritating to the Taliban because his roots were in the rough and tumble of the nation's right-wing religious parties, not the elite academies and mainstream parties.

He had been a member of Jamaat-e-Islami, the anti-American religious party devoted to turning Pakistan into an Islamic state. Dr. Khan broke with that group and joined another anti-American party, Tehrik-e-Insafi, led by the former cricketer, Imran Khan. From there he staked out more independent positions, and in the last few years participated in international conferences on women, democracy, and improving relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Soon after his death last Saturday, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Abdullah Azzam Brigade, claimed responsibility for his killing, saying he had misinterpreted jihad and Islam.

While numerous Muslim scholars and professionals have been killed in recent years by the Taliban, the death of Dr. Khan seemed to cut deeper than the others. The News, a daily English-language newspaper that is critical of the government, denounced in an editorial the “dismal record” of the authorities in capturing suspects in such killings. “But merely because the murderers roam free, should they also be allowed to win?” the paper asked.

In the soft fall air in Swat on Thursday, a memorial service was held for Dr. Khan at the campus of the new university. Government officials were not invited, because of security concerns and emotions, said Mr. Khan, the university's rector. “We are all his imams, we will stand silent in his memory,” he said. “That is a true form of prayer.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/world/asia/09pstan.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Suspect Is Friend of Man Convicted in 9/11 Attacks, Officials Say

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — The suspected Islamic militant whose disclosures to American investigators in Afghanistan set off concerns about possible terrorism plots in Europe is an old friend of a man convicted in the Sept. 11 attacks, intelligence officials said.

When those attacks were being planned, the suspected militant, Ahmed Sidiqi, 36, attended the same mosque in Hamburg where the Sept. 11 plotters often met, the officials said.

In August, security officials in Hamburg shuttered the Masjid Taiba mosque, which had been known until two years ago as Al Quds, because of fears that it had become a magnet for Islamic extremists with German citizenship who, unlike foreigners, could not be expelled from the country.

Mr. Sidiqi, a German of Afghan descent, was captured in July by the United States military in Afghanistan. He has emerged as the latest link between Germany and Al Qaeda. He is believed to have been part of the Hamburg militant scene that also included the core of militants who plotted the Sept. 11 attacks.

Intelligence officials said he was a friend of Mounir el-Motassadeq, who was convicted by a German court in 2006 of being an accessory to the murder of the 246 passengers and crew on the four jetliners used in the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Motassadeq also frequented the Quds mosque.

Mr. Motassadeq was found guilty of having aided several of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah, by helping them maintain the pose of being ordinary university students, paying for their tuition and rent, though it was never established whether he knew of the planned timing, scale or targets of the attacks.

“Sidiqi is a long-term member who has been a friend of Motassadeq since 1997,” said a senior intelligence official, referring to the mosque. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue.

American officials said that Mr. Sidiqi had provided details on efforts by Al Qaeda to train militants for attacks against civilians in major European cities, which prompted the United States to issue a travel alert for Europe last weekend.

The suspected plot is thought to have involved plans for coordinated Mumbai-style attacks in European capitals, and it prompted the authorities to increase surveillance at iconic sites like Buckingham Palace in London or the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière and other German officials warned people not to become “alarmist,” and they emphasized that there were no concrete indications of an imminent attack.

Mr. Sidiqi left Hamburg in March 2009 with a group of 10 other militants, who were known to German intelligence officials as “the tourist group,” to seek paramilitary training at a terror camp in Pakistan's lawless region near the border with Afghanistan, the German authorities said.

The group, which included two women, met in the Quds mosque before deciding to leave for Pakistan and Afghanistan, the officials said. The mosque had served as a gathering place for some of the Sept. 11 attackers before they moved to the United States to attend flight schools in 2000, the authorities say. Mr. Atta, Mr. al-Shehhi and Mr. Jarrah attended it when they lived and studied in Hamburg.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/world/europe/09germany.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Arizona Is a Haven for Refugees

PHOENIX — Here in Arizona, illegal immigrants get the boot. But refugees get the welcome mat.

Even as officials rage at what they have called the “invasion” of illegal immigrants, mostly Mexicans, Arizona has welcomed thousands of legal immigrants from such grief-torn lands as Somalia, Myanmar and Iraq, and is known for treating them unusually well.

Indeed, the scorched expanse of the Phoenix valley can seem like a giant resettlement lab. Bosnians trim the watered lawns of the Arizona Biltmore, and Karenni speakers have their own prenatal class at St. Joseph's hospital. A Sudanese goat farmer is thriving in a desert slaughterhouse built with a micro-enterprise loan. (He is glad to demonstrate his skill in turning goats to goat meat.)

Hai Doo, a laundry worker from Myanmar, got grants to buy his first home. Yasoda Bhattarai, a new mother from Bhutan, credits 10 weeks of free hospital care for saving her daughter, who was born with tuberculosis. “Whenever people ask me about Phoenix, I tell them it is the best place,” she said.

Only three states accepted more refugees on a per capita basis over the past six years. Arizona took nearly twice as many refugees per capita as its liberal neighbor, California, and more than twice as many per capita as New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

“In the degree of welcome and receptivity we see, I would certainly put Arizona at the top,” said Robert Carey, a vice president at the International Rescue Committee, which resettles refugees in a dozen states.

The work contrasts with the state's renown as the scourge of illegal immigrants, whom critics blame for driving up crime, stealing jobs and burdening hospitals and schools.

“We're not anti-immigrant — never have been,” said State Senator Russell Pearce, a Republican who is a leading critic of illegal immigration. “But we expect people to follow the law.”

Mr. Pearce sponsored a new law that would give the police greater power to question people about their immigration status. The Obama administration has sued, arguing the law usurps federal power and encourages racial profiling.

Numerically, the groups do not compare; Arizona took in about 4,700 refugees last year, but is thought to have about 375,000 illegal immigrants. Refugees are not economic migrants but survivors of war and persecution whom the United States admits for humanitarian and foreign policy reasons. In fleeing violence, many refugees themselves illegally crossed borders overseas.

Refugee groups in Arizona sometimes feel caught in the political crossfire, wanting to emphasize that their clients are legal immigrants without taking sides in the larger war.

“We don't want to be in the position of saying one group is good and another is bad,” said Robin Dunn Marcos, who runs the rescue group's Phoenix office.

Arizona first drew refugees because the cost of living is low, and until the recession the state had lots of entry-level jobs open to non-English speakers, like housekeeping and lawn care. Early success, with Bosnians and Kosovars in the late 1990s and later with war orphans from Sudan, helped build local support.

Efforts intensified after the hiring in 2002 of a new state coordinator, Charles Shipman, who is married to a former Cambodian refugee and known for his advocacy. In recent years, Arizona has taken more than three times as many refugees as it did when he arrived.

Mr. Shipman quickly spotted a shortage of interpreters for a population ever more ethnically diverse. He commissioned a study that found language barriers “quite troubling.” The rescue group then used it to win a private grant to start an interpreting service. It now operates in 14 languages, including Kirundi (Burundi), Tigrinya (Ethiopia) and Hakka (China).

As the recession took hold, Mr. Shipman led a charge to prevent homelessness among newly arrived refugees. In part at his prompting, the federal government let Arizona shift some federal money into rent relief and urged other states to follow.

That benefited Harith Khalid Aziz, an Iraqi refugee with a master's degree, who was earning little as a part-time clerk in a grocery. With a wife and a young son, he said it was “a horrible feeling” to fear eviction.

A few months' aid sustained him until he found a better job. In Arizona, even “if you are not from the same race, they welcome you,” he said. “The U.S. is built on this.”

Last year, the federal government admitted about 75,000 refugees, out of 10.5 million worldwide, and it covers most resettlement costs. State officials administer the money and help decide how many refugees they can take; private agencies do the casework, helping find housing and jobs.

The Biltmore not only hired refugees but donated used furniture to them. The private Tesseract School (tuition: $19,000 a year), established a scholarship just for refugees. When the rescue group encouraged clients to farm, Hickman's Eggs donated 60 tons of chicken manure.

Hai Doo, the laundry worker from the former Burma, thought the home ownership program was too good to be true. Matching grants converted his $5,000 in savings into a $24,000 down payment on a house. Most of the money came from the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, which is required to spend some of its profits on housing aid.

“I never thought I would get help like this,” he said.

The flip side of the Arizona story includes the Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who courts a national following by advertising his toughness toward illegal immigrants. (“The rumor is I could run for president,” he said in a recent interview.)

Mr. Arpaio conducts frequent raids on immigrant neighborhoods, stopping people for minor infractions and reviewing their immigration status. He says these raids have netted hundreds of illegal immigrants. Critics say they spread fear and harass legal residents.

Victor Acevedo, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, said he was stopped in January after failing to use his turn signal and was found with a small amount of marijuana. He is now awaiting deportation in one of Mr. Arpaio's famed prison tents, dressed in the standard outfit: black stripes and pink underwear.

In a tent-side interview in 107-degree heat, Mr. Acevedo, 29, said he came nine years ago for a “better livelihood,” found a landscaping job, married an American and had two American-born sons. He was deported in 2008 but returned a year later to be with his family.

“We're here illegally, but we're still human beings,” he said.

Refugees seem slow to sympathize. The two groups often compete for jobs or housing, and some refugees say Latino gangs have preyed on them.

The United States “stands for law and order,” said Wissam Salman, 35, a hotel housekeeper from Iraq. “If they don't look for these people it will be a disaster.”

Ibrahim Swara-Dahab, the Sudanese goat farmer, agrees.

“I have some problems with the Mexican people; they stole my goats,” he said. “If they don't have documents, they should go back to their country.”

Mr. Swara-Dahab acknowledged that he, too, crossed a border illegally when he fled to Kenya but called that a matter of life and death. “Here, the situation is different,” he said. “You need documents.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/us/09refugees.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Voting Test Falls Victim to Hackers

Hackers infiltrated the District of Columbia's online voting system last week. They changed all votes for mayor to Master Control Pro and elected HAL 9000 the council chairman. The blaring University of Michigan fight song played whenever a new ballot was successfully cast.

The hackers, a team of computer scientists from Ann Arbor, Mich., were capable of damage far less sophomoric. When the District's Board of Elections and Ethics issued an open invitation for hackers to find vulnerabilities in a pilot system to allow overseas and military voters to cast ballots over the Web, it took about 36 hours for J. Alex Halderman and his students to break in. They found a document containing the names and 16-digit passwords of all 937 voters who were invited to use the system during the real election on Nov. 2.

The team could have used the data to “vote in the name of every real voter and keep the real voters from voting,” Professor Halderman told the Council of the District of Columbia on Friday.

He said he also saw signs that computer users in Iran and China were trying to crack the system's master password — which his team obtained from an equipment manual. (Network administrators had never changed the four-character default password.) He said that the foreign hackers were probably not specifically trying to break into the District's voting system, but that they represented a threat nonetheless.

It took the elections board two days to notice the pranks.

“A real attack might be completely invisible and could've gone on undetected for much, much longer,” Professor Halderman said. He testified with other members of a coalition that contends that security technology might never be adequate for voting by secret ballot.

“The next set of people who test it will find a whole new set of problems,” Jeremy Epstein, a computer scientist at the policy group SRI International who was also critical of the voting system, said Friday during an interview.

Since the test, the elections board has scaled back the Web voting plan, though voters may still print out a ballot and mail it in.

But Paul Stenbjorn, the board's director of information services, said there were no plans to abandon the project. “The lesson learned is not to be more timid, but more aggressive about solving the problem,” he responded.

“The computer science community needs to understand that this toothpaste is already out of the tube, and no volume of warnings can put it back,” he said.

Mr. Epstein said that computer voting has been tried in Estonia and in some recent primaries in America, but added that the ballots had not been anonymous. Currently, several West Virginia counties are participating in a pilot project to use online voting next month for Americans overseas and in the military.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/us/politics/09vote.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Localities Warned on Fingerprinting

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Local governments cannot opt out of a federal program that checks the fingerprints of people who are arrested against a database to determine if they are illegal immigrants, the head of the immigration enforcement agency said Friday.

That is because the agreement is between the federal and state governments — not the local governments.

Officials in Arlington County, Va., Santa Clara County, Calif., and Washington, D.C., have voted to opt out of the Secure Communities program, saying participation could lead to racial profiling. San Francisco officials have tried to get out of the program, and several communities are debating whether they want to participate.

On Friday, John T. Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency would meet with the localities, but in the end the agreement was with the state.

Suspects who are arrested for any offense from a traffic violation to a violent crime have long been fingerprinted, and those fingerprints are run through a federal criminal-background database maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With Secure Communities, those fingerprints are automatically checked against immigration records to identify those who might be in the country illegally.

Since 2008, the program has been expanded to more than 650 jurisdictions in 32 states, with plans to incorporate every jurisdiction by 2013.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/us/09prints.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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OPINION

Don't Try Terrorists, Lock Them Up

Cambridge, Mass.

THE Obama administration wants to show that federal courts can handle trials of Guantánamo Bay detainees, and had therefore placed high hopes in the prosecution of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, accused in the 1998 bombings of American embassies in East Africa. On Wednesday a federal judge, Lewis Kaplan of the United States District Court in Manhattan, made the government's case much harder when he excluded the testimony of the government's central witness because the government learned about the witness through interrogating Mr. Ghailani at a secret overseas prison run by the C.I.A.

Some, mostly liberals and civil libertarians, applauded the ruling, saying it showed that the rule of law is being restored. But many conservatives denounced it as proof that high-level terrorists cannot reliably be prosecuted in civilian courts and should instead be tried by military commissions.

The real lesson of the ruling, however, is that prosecution in either criminal court or a tribunal is the wrong approach. The administration should instead embrace what has been the main mechanism for terrorist incapacitation since 9/11: military detention without charge or trial.

Military detention was once legally controversial but now is not. District and appellate judges have repeatedly ruled — most recently on Thursday -- that Congress, in its September 2001 authorization of force, empowered the president to detain members of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces until the end of the military conflict.

Because the enemy in this indefinite war wears no uniform, courts have rightly insisted on high legal and evidentiary standards — much higher than what the Geneva Conventions require — to justify detention. And many detainees in cases that did not meet these standards have been released.

Still, while it is more difficult than ever to keep someone like Mr. Ghailani in military detention, it is far easier to detain him than to convict him in a civilian trial or a military commission. Military detention proceedings have relatively forgiving evidence rules and aren't constrained by constitutional trial rules like the right to a jury and to confront witnesses. There is little doubt that Mr. Ghailani could be held in military detention until the conflict with Al Qaeda ends.

Why, then, does the Obama administration seek to prosecute him in federal court? One answer might be that trials permit punishment, including the death penalty. But the Justice Department is not seeking the death penalty against Mr. Ghailani. Another answer is that trials “give vent to the outrage” over attacks on civilians, as Judge Kaplan has put it. This justification for the trial is diminished, however, by the passage of 12 years since the crimes were committed.

The final answer, and the one that largely motivates the Obama administration, is that trials are perceived to be more legitimate than detention, especially among civil libertarians and foreign allies.

Military commissions have secured frustratingly few convictions. The only high-profile commission trial now underway — that of Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was 15 at the time he was detained — has been delayed for months. Commissions do not work because they raise scores of unresolved legal issues like the proper rules of evidence and whether material support and conspiracy, usually the main charges, can be brought in a tribunal since they may not be law-of-war violations.

Civilian trials in federal court, by contrast, often do work. Hundreds of terrorism-related cases in federal court have resulted in convictions since 9/11; this week, the would-be Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad , was sentenced to life in prison after a guilty plea.

But Mr. Ghailani and his fellow detainees at Guantánamo Bay are a different matter. The Ghailani case shows why the administration has been so hesitant to pursue criminal trials for them: the demanding standards of civilian justice make it very hard to convict when the defendant contests the charges and the government must rely on classified information and evidence produced by aggressive interrogations.

A further problem with high-stakes terrorism trials is that the government cannot afford to let the defendant go. Attorney General Eric Holder has made clear that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 plotter, would be held indefinitely in military detention even if acquitted at trial. Judge Kaplan said more or less the same about Mr. Ghailani this week. A conviction in a trial publicly guaranteed not to result in the defendant's release will not be seen as a beacon of legitimacy.

The government's reliance on detention as a backstop to trials shows that it is the foundation for incapacitating high-level terrorists in this war. The administration would save money and time, avoid political headaches and better preserve intelligence sources and methods if it simply dropped its attempts to prosecute high-level terrorists and relied exclusively on military detention instead.

Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, is a professor at Harvard Law School and a member of the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/opinion/09goldsmith.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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OPINION

High Cost of Crime

When times get hard and talk turns to spending and budgets, there is one area that gets short shrift: the cost of crime and our enormous criminal justice system. For instance, how much do you think a single murder costs society? According to researchers at Iowa State University, it is a whopping $17.25 million.

Those researchers analyzed 2003 data from cases in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas and calculated the figure based on “victim costs, criminal justice system costs, lost productivity estimates for both the victim and the criminal, and estimates on the public's resulting willingness to pay to prevent future violence.” That willingness to prevent future violence includes collateral costs like expenditures for security measures, insurance and government welfare programs. It's hard to believe that they could calculate the collateral costs with any real degree of accuracy, but I understand the concept.

(They also calculated that each rape costs $448,532, each robbery $335,733, each aggravated assault $145,379 and each burglary $41,288.)

By their estimates, more than 18,000 homicides that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded in 2007 alone will cost us roughly $300 billion. That's about as much as we've spent over nine years fighting the war in Afghanistan. That's more than the 2010 federal budget for the Departments of Education, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Labor and Homeland Security combined. Does anyone else see a problem here?

Although the annual murder rate in the U.S. has fallen to historic lows, it is still at least twice as high as that of any of the other rich countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In fact, it's even higher than in countries like Rwanda, Angola and Mozambique. And there are troubling signs this year as big cities around the country — New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit -- are seeing sharp rises in murder rates.

Our approach to this crime problem for more than two decades has been the mass incarceration of millions of Americans and the industrializing of our criminal justice system. Over the last 25 years, the prison population has quadrupled. This is a race to the bottom and a waste of human capital. A prosperous country cannot remain so by following this path.

Many crimes could have been prevented if the offenders had had the benefit of a competent educational system and a more expansive, better-financed social service system. Sure, some criminals are just bad people, but more are people who took a wrong turn, got lost and ended up on the wrong path. Those we can save.

We have a choice to make: pay a little now or a lot later. Seems like a clear choice to me. But I'm not in Washington where they view clarity as an affliction of the weak.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/opinion/09blow.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the Chicago Sun Times

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Lynwood cop charged in deadly shooting spree  

October 9, 2010

BY MARK J. KONKOL, DAN ROZEK AND SUSAN DEMAR LAFFERTY

Four hours after a shooting spree in rural towns south of Chicago left a man dead and two men wounded, an update was posted on the Facebook page of Lynwood Police Officer Brian Dorian.

"Holy crap!! I got pulled over in Schererville and ordered out at gunpoint because I matched this lunatic's description. I definately (sic) don't like being on the other side of gun barrels being pointed at me!"

On Friday, authorities alleged Dorian was that "lunatic."

The 37-year-old cop, on medical leave for the last year, was charged with one count of first-degree murder for allegedly gunning down Rolando Alonso, 45, a father of 10, near Beecher in rural Will County.

He was not immediately charged with wounding Joshua Garza, 19, who also took a bullet in the Beecher shooting and remains in critical condition. Nor was he charged with wounding farmer Keith Dahl, 63, an hour later near Lowell, Ind., but more charges were expected, authorities said.

Dahl, who was in fair condition Friday, was shot after a man approached him, apparently at random, and asked him about putting beehives on his farm.

That shooting -- about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday -- happened about 15 miles south of Schererville, Ind., where police confirmed Dorian was pulled over on Tuesday -- only to be released. Dorian's Facebook posting was timestamped at 3:29 p.m. Tuesday. It included a link to a news story about the shootings.

Following the violence, officers in the area stopped every pickup truck that matched the description of the shooter's. Although no arrest was made Tuesday, Lake County (Ind.) Police Chief Marco Kuyachich said it was a traffic stop that led to the break in the case.

"At each stop that we made, we identified the individuals who were occupying the vehicles," he said. "It led us to further look into it."

Dorian was arrested early Friday at his Crete Township home, where he lived with four pit bulls. He is being held on $2.5 million bail at the Will County Jail.

"It's always law enforcement's worst nightmare when someone within the law enforcement community chooses to break the law," Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow said at a news conference.

Sheriff Paul Kaupas said investigators were eager to arrest Dorian, regardless of his job as a cop. "You cross the line, there ain't no camaraderie," Kaupas said.

Lynwood Mayor Eugene Williams said he was "truly disappointed and surprised because I know Brian, and I've always thought of him as a nice kid."

Dorian's family said Will County authorities have the wrong man.

"No interview if they don't have the shooter," his father, John Dorian, yelled at reporters outside his home near Lynwood. "They should be looking for the shooter. My son would never do this."

A man at John Dorian's house who said he was Brian's brother but declined to give his name said, "My brother is a level-headed guy. He's a cop. He's not disgruntled. When this clears in a matter of hours, you will see Will County screwed up again. It's sick that they are putting us through this."

Dorian was hired as a Lynwood cop in 1998 and worked there until 2003 when he took a patrol job with the Lansing Police Department. In 2005, he returned to Lynwood.

Dorian has been on medical leave since October 2009, when he suffered a shoulder injury in the line of duty. He had surgery in November 2009 and a second round on Sept. 3. He said several times in Facebook posts that his recovery was more painful than after previous surgeries and that he was taking Vicodin for pain. He had started physical therapy this month.

"Started shoulder therapy again today," Dorian wrote in an Oct. 4 Facebook post. "Feels like groundhog day."

Friday's arrest followed an extensive manhunt in Illinois and Indiana. Authorities released multiple sketches of the shooter, who authorities repeatedly described as "unstable" before the arrest.

On Friday, authorities had little to say about Dorian's mental state or motivation.

Though Dorian allegedly had talked about honey bees with his alleged victims, investigators found no signs at his home that Dorian was interested in raising bees. "I don't think they even found a jar of honey in his house," Kaupas said.

Witnesses said the gunman was driving a pickup, possibly a 1995 to 1998 Chevy Cheyenne that was white or light gray.

Dorian owned a 1992 Chevy pickup, according to state records. Police said it's light blue -- and was found at an undisclosed place in Lynwood Friday.

Dorian grew up in Lynwood and played baseball at Thornton Fractional South High School, where he graduated in 1991. As a junior, he helped the Rebels get to the state quarterfinals, where they lost to Simeon. Dorian went on to pitch for Southwestern Community College in Creston, Iowa, and then Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Mo.

Dorian's Facebook page talked about his current interests.

"When I actually get some time off I am usually out on my Harley. I still play baseball in Lansing in the summertime. I bought a boat last year, so I've been trying to find the time to get out on the water," according to his Facebook bio.

On Wednesday, his Facebook page hinted at his future plans. "In two short days goin' back to Creston. I can't believe how long it's been."

Dorian was briefly married in 2004, tying the knot on Valentine's Day in Hawaii. But his divorce was finalized a little more than a year later.

Jerome Citron, the attorney for his ex-wife, said the couple cited irreconcilable differences. There were no allegations that Dorian was violent or abusive, Citron said. They had no children.

"Everything was amicable," Citron said.

Dorian was involved in a civil lawsuit stemming from the July 20, 2006, car crash on I-394 that killed 17-year-old Dylan Drapeau, then a senior at Crete-Monee High School.

Dorian was off duty and driving a pickup when he hit the teen's car, according to records. Dorian was charged with speeding, but Drapeau's family and friends had pushed for a reckless homicide charge. Prosecutors said Illinois law did not allow for speeding to be the sole factor in a reckless homicide charge.

A State Police crash reconstruction report concluded Dorian was traveling between 83 mph and 100 mph -- well above the 55-mph speed limit -- at the time his GMC truck crashed into Dylan's Ford Focus.

The case was settled for $300,000 -- the limit of Dorian's insurance, said attorney Nicholas Motherway, who represented the teen's family.

On Friday, Dorian's pals wrote words of encouragement and prayers on his Facebook page, saying they hoped it was a huge misunderstanding.

"I know that outside of work you are a huge teddy bear with a heart full of love," one friend wrote.

Dorian's sister, Tara, thanked friends for their support and jabbed at her brother's doubters.

"I want to thank everyone who is praying for us my brother is completely innocent and the evidence will prove it . . . To all u so called friends that are having doubts about his innocence and feel the need to post it I hope u never have to go threw this yourself."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2784068,will-county-shooter-arrested-100810.article

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Raid on elderly couple's home brings back nightmares

Elderly S.W. Side couple suffered WW II persecution  

October 9, 2010

BY FRANK MAIN

When they were teens, Andrij and Anna Jakymec were whisked from their homes in the Soviet Union and put to work digging trenches as slaves of Hitler during World War II, their son said.

So when their front and back doors were bashed in and armed men rushed into their one-story ranch house on the Southwest Side late Thursday, the elderly couple suffered a terrible flashback. The raid was carried out by Cook County sheriff's police officers. And they targeted the wrong house.

Andrij Jakymec, 89, was asleep and his wife, Anna, 84, was preparing for bed when the house was raided about 11:30 p.m.

"My mother thought it was a home invasion by gang-bangers," said their son Andrew Jakymec, 60. "She was terrified."

Sheriff's officers announced they were police and confined Anna Jakymec in a bathroom while they searched the home, her son said.

"They tore down the clotheslines in the basement and pulled out drawers," Andrew Jakymec said Friday.

The mistake was the fault of an informant who pointed out the wrong house to the officers. The sheriff's office cultivated the informant while he was in the jail, but he's no longer behind bars, a source said.

On Thursday night, the sheriff's office obtained a search warrant listing the home in the 5600 block of South Kilbourn. The warrant named a 23-year-old man as the suspect and said the officers were looking for cocaine, methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. Andrew Jakymec said he and his parents never heard of the suspect.

"They should have done their homework," he said. "My parents don't have alcohol in the house. They don't have cigarettes. The most potent drug is aspirin."

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's office released a statement saying: "As soon as we entered the home, we knew this couple was not involved in the activity alleged. . . . Over the last four years, our gang and narcotics unit has served over 500 search warrants, and it is incredibly rare that those searches have resulted in this sort of outcome. We are now working with the family to address the property damage incurred during this incident."

Andrew Jakymec had said he was hoping for an apology from the sheriff's office as well as compensation for the damage, which he estimated at several thousand dollars. The sheriff's office did call the family to apologize late Friday.

Andrew Jakymec's father was a tailor who retired at 75 and is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and cancer. His mother was an elevator operator for Peoples Gas Co. and retired at 71. Since the 1960s, they've lived in the house just east of Midway Airport and stayed out of trouble.

"They believe in the American dream," their son said. "I am kind of saddened."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2786338,CST-NWS-badraid09.article

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Freed 8 years after wrongful conviction

Accused of murder, Patterson says his faith never wavered

October 9, 2010

BY ART GOLAB

Before he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder, Maurice Patterson told the judge he was innocent -- and then asked, if he eventually was cleared of the crime, "Are you going to be here to apologize to me?"

On Friday, eight years later, Patterson was back in court -- and ordered released after DNA evidence indeed cleared him in the murder.

But he got no apology.

The DNA evidence was taken from a knife that the prosecution originally claimed had no connection to the crime, said Rob Warden of the Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions.

But years later, it turns out the knife had the victim's blood on it with the blood of another man, a convicted offender.

After that came to light, Judge David Linn ordered a new trial last November. Friday, the Cook County state's attorney's office dropped all charges and Linn ordered Patterson, 44, released.

Patterson walked out of Cook County Jail Friday evening into the arms of his joyful family.

"I thought you'd be way taller than this," said his teenage brother, Samuel.

Patterson held up two paperback books he said inspired him: John Grisham's The Innocent Man and Courtroom 302, a non-fiction book on the Cook County court system by Steve Bogira.

Patterson never gave up believing he would be cleared.

"I always [believed] through the grace of God. I spoke all this into existence. I proved my innocence."

Indeed, it was Patterson himself who set in motion the process that ultimately freed him. While imprisoned, he filed a Freedom of Information request for the lab report on the knife.

Later, after the Center on Wrongful Convictions had taken his case, the request came through.

The Cook County state's attorney's office said it prosecuted the case "in good faith based on eyewitness accounts and forensic evidence that was believed to be the totality of the evidence."

Of the police and prosecutors, he said Friday, "They're evil, but I forgive them through the grace of God."

What was the first thing he would do upon getting out? "I'm going to get some pizza."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2786532,CST-NWS-release09.article

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4 bullied teens take own lives at one Ohio school

Two years later, families fight back in lawsuits charging school with negligence  

October 9, 2010

BY MEGHAN BARR

MENTOR, Ohio -- Sladjana Vidovic's body lay in an open casket, dressed in the sparkly pink dress she had planned to wear to the prom. Days earlier, she had tied one end of a rope around her neck and the other around a bed post before jumping out her bedroom window.

The 16-year-old's last words, scribbled in English and her native Croatian, told of her daily torment at Mentor High School, where students mocked her accent, taunted her with insults like "Slutty Jana" and threw food at her.

It was the fourth time in little more than two years that a bullied high school student in this small Cleveland suburb on Lake Erie died by his or her own hand -- three suicides, one overdose of antidepressants. One was bullied for being gay, another for having a learning disability, another for being a boy who happened to like wearing pink.

Now two families -- including the Vidovics -- are suing the school district, claiming their children were bullied to death and the school did nothing to stop it. The lawsuits, filed in August, come after a national spate of high-profile suicides by gay teens and others, and during a time of national soul-searching about what can be done to stop it.

If there has been soul-searching among the bullies in Mentor -- a pleasant beachfront community that was voted one of the "100 Best Places to Live" by CNN and Money magazine this year -- Sladjana's family saw too little of it at her wake in October 2008.

Suzana Vidovic found her sister's body hanging over the front lawn. The family watched, she said, as the girls who had tormented Sladjana for months walked up to the casket -- and laughed.

"They were laughing at the way she looked," Suzana says, crying. "Even though she died."

• • 

Sladjana Vidovic, whose family had moved to northeast Ohio from Bosnia when she was a little girl, was pretty, vivacious and charming. She loved to dance. She would turn on the stereo and drag her father out of his chair, dance him in circles around the living room.

"Nonstop smile. Nonstop music," says her father, Dragan, who speaks only a little English.

At school, life was very different. She was ridiculed for her thick accent. Classmates tossed insults like "Slutty Jana" or "Slut-Jana-Vagina." A boy pushed her down the stairs. A girl smacked her in the face with a water bottle.

Phone callers in the dead of night would tell her to go back to Croatia, that she'd be dead in the morning, that they'd find her after school, says Suzana Vidovic.

"Sladjana did stand up for herself, but toward the end she just kind of stopped," says her best friend, Jelena Jandric. "Because she couldn't handle it. She didn't have enough strength."

Vidovic's parents say they begged the school to intervene many times. They say the school promised to take care of her.

She had already withdrawn from Mentor and enrolled in an online school about a week before she killed herself.

When the family tried to retrieve records about their reports of bullying, school officials told them the records were destroyed during a switch to computers. The family sued.

Two years after her death, Dragan Vidovic waves his hand over the family living room, where a vase of pink flowers stands next to a photograph of Sladjana.

"Today, no music," he says sadly. "No smile."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2786170,CST-NWS-bully09.article

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More girls charged with violent crimes

October 9, 2010

The number of girls charged with murder, robbery, assault and other violent crimes has more than tripled, federal officials say.

Such crimes went from 36,300 in 1985 to about 121,000 in 2007, the most recent figure available, according to the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Relationships with family, friends and boyfriends are very important to girls, so if they are damaged by abuse or trauma, some react with criminal behavior, says Bonnie Rose of the non-profit National Council on Crime and Delinquency's Center for Girls and Young Women.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2786710,CST-NWS-girls09.article

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From the Department of Justice

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Attorney General Holder Speaks at the European Offenders Employment Forum

Thank you, Laurie [Robinson]. I appreciate your kind words, and I'm especially grateful for the commitment you've made – and the leadership and expertise you're providing – to help build a stronger, smarter, and more effective criminal justice system.

Let me also thank Mike Stewart and the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion, as well as the National Transitional Jobs Network, for organizing and hosting this conference. This is an extraordinary, first-of-its-kind gathering of advocates, and I am proud to be a part of it.

Today, we have a unique, and critically important, opportunity – the chance to identify and to advance some of the world's most effective public safety and prisoner reentry strategies. I want to thank each of you for your engagement – and for everything that you are doing in the name of community safety and community healing. Your work changes lives. It strengthens families. And – across the United States, the European Union, and far beyond – it is helping to ensure that people who want to improve our society, as well as their own circumstances, have opportunities to grow, to learn, and to contribute.

Every person in this room – whether you work as an attorney or law enforcement officer, conduct research or develop policy – can agree that prisoner reentry is one of the most complex criminal-justice challenges of the 21 st century.

Today, corrections systems, worldwide, are under extraordinary stress. Capacity limitations and budget constraints have resulted in an acceleration of early release and have put prisoner education and employment training programs at risk. On both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, people transitioning out of prison now confront labor market conditions that we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

Despite these and other challenges, you are here – refusing to settle for the status quo and expanding your search for the solutions we need. Many of you are also proving that local problems often demand, and can be addressed best by, global solutions. But, to ensure that people who have committed crimes can become productive members of society and not public safety threats, we must take this work – and our partnerships – to the next level.

Here in the United States, more than 2 million people are behind bars – that's more than 1 in 100 American adults and, according to the World Prison Brief, more inmates than the top 35 European countries combined. At some point, 95 percent of those prisoners will be released. Each year, nearly three-quarters of a million people transition out of state and federal prisons. Millions more cycle through local jails.

Once those who commit crimes pay their societal debt, we have many expectations: that they will reenter our communities, ready to assume a productive role; that they will remain crime-free and sober; that they will get jobs. But, as all of you have seen, these expectations are not always met.

And while we know that stable employment is one of the keys to successful reintegration, we also know that it is one of the greatest challenges of reentry.

Many employers are not eager to hire former prisoners, and – in today's economic climate – these individuals often find themselves at the back of the line. A recent report from the Pew Charitable Trusts found that past incarceration reduced subsequent wages by more than 10 percent, cut annual employment by more than 2 months, and reduced yearly earnings by 40 percent. If having a job is central to successful reentry, then it is no wonder that half of all released prisoners will be reincarcerated within three years.

Those who commit crimes aren't the only ones who lose. In this country, 1 in 28 children has a parent behind bars. Studies show that these kids often struggle with anxiety, depression, learning problems, and aggression – undermining their own chances to succeed. In many cases, maintaining family relationships during incarceration can improve the lives of these children and reduce recidivism rates later on. And when quality, employment-centered programs are made available during and after incarceration, one demonstration showed they can cut recidivism rates in half.

There's a theme here: maintaining family connections and developing job skills during incarceration can improve public safety, reduce recidivism, and have lasting positive effects. It is time we started to think about reentry in this context. And it is critical that we turn to sound science and evidence-supported strategies to guide our work.

Today's Department of Justice is dedicated to being smart, not only tough, on crime – and our reentry efforts are no exception. For me, for President Obama, and for leaders across the administration, effective reentry is a top priority. This commitment is reflected in our work – done in partnership with state, local, tribal, and international governments – to develop comprehensive, evidence-based strategies tailored to meet specific community needs. It is also evident in our budget priorities.

Last year, through the Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs, we awarded close to 70 grants to support reentry activities under the banner of the Second Chance Act. Today, our commitment continues.

This morning, I'm pleased to announce that $100 million in Second Chance Act funding will be awarded to support 178 reentry grants nationwide. The grants will be distributed to government agencies and nonprofit organizations to provide a wide range of services – employment assistance, substance abuse treatment, housing, family programming, mentoring, and others – that can help reduce recidivism.

Before administering this year's grants, the Justice Department received and reviewed 975 applications. That's right, 975 – a number that reflects a transformation in our national attitude toward reentry. A decade ago, few programs focused on prisoner reintegration. Today, coalitions of government organizations and community groups in every corner of our country are working together to improve reentry outcomes.

This evolution mirrors a fundamental shift in our criminal justice and our social services systems. More and more corrections departments now consider reentry planning to be a part of their core functions. And agencies that tackle housing, health, and other issues have begun to see effective reentry as part of their larger mission.

To put it simply, reentry has moved from the margins to the mainstream.

I have no doubt that this year's Second Chance Act grants will build on these trends and advance the progress we're seeing. While most of these new investments will go to states, localities, and nonprofit organizations, we are also awarding funds to support the National Reentry Resource Center – a “one stop shop” for state-of-the-art information and assistance. Soon, the Center will include a “what works” library with searchable, up-to-date information about the most effective programs, policies, and practices for reducing recidivism, increasing employment, decreasing substance abuse, and producing other positive outcomes.

But there is still much to learn. That's why $10 million dollars will be invested in new and more rigorous research on the effectiveness and impact of reentry programs.

In addition to these new grants, I'm pleased to tell you all that the Justice Department is moving forward with a new initiative – known as Project Reentry – to strengthen our recidivism and reentry work. Project Reentry will focus on implementing recommendations that have been developed by the Sentencing and Corrections Policy Working Group that I convened last April. One key area of focus is forging and strengthening partnerships across and beyond our government.

For example, we plan to build on our existing collaboration with the Department of Labor to leverage federal resources on behalf of local reentry programs. And, later this year, I plan to convene an inter-agency group to address reentry issues and ensure that this work is a Cabinet-level priority.

As part of this new initiative, we're already taking steps to improve coordination between the Department's components, among our network of U.S. Attorneys' Offices, and with our Congressional partners, as well as our international counterparts. And I'm confident that the Project Reentry initiative will help us to identify and build on policies and strategies that are already in place at the federal level and showing positive results.

For example, the Fifth Circuit Judicial Council, representing Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, recently adopted ten mandatory minimum standards for reentry court programs – work that's bringing together judges, prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers, treatment professionals, workforce development specialists, and others. The standards emphasize evidence-based screening and assessment and call for ongoing judicial intervention. And this approach has the potential for great promise. Through Project Reentry, we will work to replicate this approach and other best practices.

As we do, I want to emphasize that our efforts to make the most of limited resources will continue. This is critical.

Here in the United States, the cost of housing state prisoners has quadrupled over the last two decades. In fact, state spending on corrections has grown at a faster rate than nearly any other state budget item. Last year, the price tag on state prisons topped $50 billion. The current pace of prison growth is – quite frankly – no longer economically sustainable. And from a cost-benefits perspective, it's simply indefensible. The same is true across Europe. In fact, as my U.K. counterpart, Kenneth Clarke, has pointed out, it now costs more to put someone in prison than it does to send a boy to Eton.

Of course, some violent offenders deserve lengthy prison terms – and society is better off having them behind bars. But – as we're seeing in states like Texas and Kansas – public safety can improve, and taxpayers can see significant savings, when people who commit crimes are served by high-quality community supervision and programs where services and sanctions work in unison.

In an effort to advance and replicate successful Justice Reinvestment strategies, the Department of Justice is awarding $10 million to expand these activities in states, counties, and tribal communities. We're also considering the implications of Justice Reinvestment strategies at the federal level. And I know that similar efforts are underway across Europe. We look forward to sharing our experiences with you – and to learning from yours.

Without question, we face a formidable challenge. I can't pretend that changing entrenched criminal justice policies, especially in the wake of an economic recession, is easy work. But, by joining together, I believe that we can realize our shared vision of safe, thriving communities.

By your presence here today, you are signaling your commitment to this work. I am grateful to each of you. And I will be counting on you all.

On behalf of the United States Justice Department, I look forward to strengthening our partnerships and ensuring that all of our fellow citizens have the chance to improve their lives, strengthen our society, and help build the future we all seek.

Thank you.

http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2010/ag-speech-101008.html

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From ICE

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ICE Director John Morton, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announce removal of 15 convicted criminal alien sex offenders

Operation also identifies 356 foreign national sex offenders in federal, state and local facilities who will be removed upon completion of incarceration

RICHMOND, Va. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and the Virginia Department of State Police today announced the results of a law enforcement operation to remove 15 foreign nationals convicted of sex offenses from the Commonwealth of Virginia and Washington, D.C. The enforcement surge was led by ICE with support from Virginia State Police and local law enforcement agencies.

Over the last five days, more than 60 law enforcement officers from ICE, Virginia State Police, Bedford County Sheriff's Office and Roanoke City Police Department participated in Operation SOAR (Sexual Offender Alien Removal), a targeted enforcement operation to identify people convicted of sex offenses in the Commonwealth and D.C. to determine if they are subject to removal from the United States. The 15 aliens arrested during Operation SOAR had convictions for sexual offenses including sexual battery of child, aggravated sexual battery and carnal knowledge of a child (13-14 years old).

During this operation 356 foreign national sex offenders were located in federal, state or local facilities and will be processed for removal from the United States upon the completion of their incarceration.

"Operation SOAR builds on our ongoing efforts with the Commonwealth of Virginia to ensure that we're bringing to bear the full weight of our state and local partnerships. Through operations like SOAR, we will continue to target criminal aliens and remove them from our communities," said ICE Director John Morton. "We remain committed to tough, sensible enforcement. Together, we are improving the safety of communities throughout Virginia, and the entire nation."

In 2006, as attorney general, Governor Bob McDonnell worked with the general assembly to improve Virginia's Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry. The following year he requested that Virginia State Police check the birthplace of each individual on the Registry and ensure compliance with regulations and investigate violations. That information was shared with ICE. ICE agents then ran the list against two federal databases, which led to what was at the time called "Operation Cold Play." In 2008, then Attorney General McDonnell announced that through this operation, the Virginia State Police and ICE removed 171 convicted criminal alien sex offenders from Virginia.

Speaking about this year's operation, Governor McDonnell commented, "We are committed to keeping Virginians safe and secure. No criminal alien sex offenders should be allowed to remain in our communities. Operation SOAR has identified and removed more criminal alien sex offenders. It builds on the success of our first operation which removed 171 convicted criminal alien sex offenders from the Commonwealth in 2008. This initiative is another example of how multi-agency collaboration safeguards our communities. We will remain diligent and determined in using all available resources to advance public safety in Virginia."

"While Virginia has its disagreements with the federal government on certain issues, Operation SOAR and programs related to it - such as Secure Communities - have emerged from a strong federal-state collaborative effort. Virginia called on ICE for its help in apprehending and deporting criminal alien sex offenders to get them out of our communities, and we could not have done this critical law enforcement initiative without the agency," said Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

The attorney general's office has served as the legal advisor to state government on issues related to the implementation of Operation SOAR, as well as Secure Communities, a program which now checks the immigration status of potential offenders the moment they are booked on criminal charges.

During Operation SOAR, fourteen men and one woman were arrested representing more than seven different nations, including countries in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia.

Some of those arrested during this operation include:

• A 40-year-old El Salvadoran national was arrested in Henrico County, Va., for administrative immigration violations. His previous criminal convictions include two counts of sexual battery of a minor. He is in ICE custody pending removal from the United States.
  
  
• A 31-year-old El Salvadoran national was arrested in Reston, Va., for immigration violations as well as a warrant from Virginia State Police for failing to register as a sex offender. His previous criminal conviction includes carnal knowledge of a child, 13 to 15 years old. He was turned over to the state police and, at the completion of any further criminal legal proceedings related to his failure to register, will be removed from the United States.
  
  
• A 40-year old Philippine national and lawful permanent resident was arrested in Virginia Beach, Va., for administrative immigration violations. His previous criminal conviction includes aggravated sexual battery. The victim of this crime was under the age of 13. He is in ICE custody and has been placed in removal proceedings.

This targeted enforcement action is a follow up to an operation ICE conducted with Virginia law enforcement officers from 2007-2008 known as Operation Cold Play. In that operation, hundreds of foreign national sex offenders were identified.

The foreign nationals apprehended during Operation SOAR will be processed administratively for removal from the United States. Those who have outstanding orders of deportation are subject to immediate removal from the country. Any alien with an outstanding warrant of arrest from a law enforcement agency has been turned over on the outstanding warrant for adjudication of their case. They will be transferred to ICE custody upon the resolution of their charges. The remaining aliens are in ICE custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending travel arrangements for removal in the near future.

This 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 - aliens who have ignored final orders of deportation handed down by the nation's immigration courts.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1010/101008richmond.htm

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DHS/ICE reveal highest immigration enforcement numbers on record in fiscal year 2010

In fiscal year (FY) 2010, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed more illegal aliens than in any other period in the history of our nation. ICE removed more than 392,000 illegal aliens-half of them, more than 195,000-were convicted of crimes, including murder, sex offenses and drug violations.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton announced the record-breaking numbers at a news conference on Oct. 6, 2010 held at ICE headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"Since the beginning of this administration, we have fundamentally changed the federal government's approach to immigration enforcement," said Napolitano.

Part of this approach includes implementing the ICE-led program, Secure Communities. The program is a partnership between ICE and state and local law enforcement agencies that uses biometric technology to identify aliens who have been booked into state and local jails. Once identified, these criminal aliens are processed for removal rather than released back into communities.

Napolitano attributed "a major part of the increase in criminal removals" to Secure Communities. More than 660 state and local partners now participate in Secure Communities nationwide. Napolitano said plans are to "expand this program to every law enforcement jurisdiction in the country by 2013."

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca; Harris County, Texas, Sheriff Adrian Garcia; and Fairfax County, Va., Sheriff Stan Barry who joined Napolitano and Morton at the conference vouched for the success of Secure Communities.

"It's clear that this program is working," said Baca. He cited several career criminals who had, prior to his agency's participation in Secure Communities, gone back and forth between incarceration and release. "It's one thing to have crime in America," said Baca. "It's another for an illegal alien to come to America for a career in crime." He predicted that the number of criminal aliens "will eventually go down" with the expansion of Secure Communities.

 "We use … Secure Communities to find out which inmates need to have their immigration status looked at by ICE as soon as their local criminal case is over," said Garcia. With the Harris County, Texas, agency as one of the first to participate in Secure Communities, "We're a national model of how the program works smoothly at high volume."

"Secure Communities is an excellent program," said Barry. "The program identifies individuals who are here in our country illegally and commit serious crimes…There's no additional workload for our staff and does not cost a dime to Fairfax County or to our residents."

ICE's worksite enforcement numbers also climbed to historic high numbers in FY 2010, with more audits of businesses than ever before, as well as increases in prosecutions of employers who repeatedly and egregiously hire illegal workers. Enforcing worksite laws not only promotes fairness in the workplace, but it also substantially reduces the incentive for aliens to enter the United States illegally.

In closing remarks, Morton said, "We will continue to enforce the law in a firm, sensible manner, and we will do it based on a rational set of priorities--priorities that focus on criminals, unscrupulous employers and those who game the system--priorities that promote public safety, border security and the integrity of our immigration system."

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1010/101008washingtondc.htm

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ICE deports Somali-born Canadian national with close ties to al-Qaeda

DETROIT - A Somali-born Canadian national - who received military training at an al-Qaeda terrorist camp, met with and attended lectures by Osama bin Laden, and provided security guard services and money to al-Qaeda - was deported to Canada on Friday by agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).

Mohammed Warsame, 37, was indicted in January 2004 in the District of Minnesota for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda, a designated terrorist organization, following an investigation by the Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force, which included agents from the ICE Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).  Warsame attended the Minneapolis Community and Technical College prior to his arrest in December 2003.

Warsame was charged with providing material support and resources to al-Qaeda, specifically that he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan between 2000 and 2001to attend al-Qaeda training camps. Court documents showed that al-Qaeda paid Warsame's travel expenses to return to Canada, that Warsame sent money back to an al-Qaeda associate as repayment, and that Warsame maintained contact with al-Qaeda after returning to Canada.

Warsame pleaded guilty on May 20, 2009 in the District of Minnesota to providing material support to al-Qaeda, and was sentenced to 92 months federal prison with credit for time served. On July 9, 2009, the District of Minnesota issued Warsame a judicial order of removal to Canada.

"There is no place in this country for anyone who advocates violence by associating, supporting or conspiring with terrorists," said ICE Director John Morton. "ICE will use every tool at our disposal to protect the American people and remove those who pose a threat to our national security."

According to court documents, in March 2000, Warsame traveled through the mountains from Pakistan to Afghanistan, where he attended an al-Qaeda training camp outside Kabul. For the next three to five months, Warsame received training in physical fitness, the use of weapons and martial arts. Warsame also traveled to the front lines with the Taliban and observed combat between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.

In the summer of 2000, he then traveled to the al Faruq training camp, where he received further military training and met Osama Bin Laden. Warsame described Bin Laden as "very inspirational." At this camp, Warsame was trained to use AK-47 rifles, Uzis and other weapons; he also received training in tactics and navigation. During this time, Warsame again fought for the Taliban and said he was exposed to heavy fighting.
Warsame returned to Pakistan, and while there, he was in contact via email with al-Qaeda associates he had met in Afghanistan. In one of those e-mails, Warsame described his time spent at the camps as "one of the greatest experiences of my life. I will be going back there very soon."

In another email dated Dec. 6, 2000, Warsame wrote, "If you have any news or important information please let me know, because I don't want to be late for the action, you know what I mean. We hear there might be an attack soon."

After a few months in Pakistan, Warsame returned to Afghanistan and to an al-Qaeda guesthouse. The guesthouse was used as a place of rest for people attending Bin Laden's camp. Warsame was assigned to guard the guesthouse and later met a variety of individuals who have been indicted and convicted of terrorism-related offenses in the United States, including Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid.

Warsame attended an Islamic institute near the guesthouse that taught radical Islam and preached jihad to students and said, according to court documents, the institute's leader was a high-ranking al-Qaeda member. Warsame admitted that he approached this individual for money in order to bring his family from Canada to Afghanistan.

Warsame admitted that in March 2001, he traveled from Pakistan via London to Canada and continued his email contacts with the al-Qaeda associates he had met in Afghanistan. In addition, he sent about $2,000 (Canadian) to one of his former training camp commanders. Warsame also provided information to an individual he met in Afghanistan about the process for entering Canada.

Warsame then relocated to Minneapolis. Throughout 2002 and 2003, he continued to exchange email messages with and provide information to several individuals associated with al-Qaeda.

Warsame was released about 6 a.m. on Oct. 8 from the Bureau of Prison's facility at the Terre Haute Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind.  He was immediately turned over to ICE.  He was transported under ICE escort to Canada and was turned over to officials from the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) at about 12:30 p.m. (EDT).

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1010/101008detroit.htm

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