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From the Los Angeles Times

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Obama to seek $250 payment to Social Security recipients

After officials announce there will be no cost-of-living increase for the second consecutive year, the White House says Obama will ask Congress to authorize the one-time payment. A key Republican says long-term funding for Social Security must be addressed.

By Jordan Steffen and Christi Parsons, Tribune Washington Bureau

1:55 PM PDT, October 15, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Obama will press Congress to send a one-time payment of $250 to senior citizens to help them get through another year without an increase in their Social Security benefits, White House officials said Friday.

The renewed call for those payments came shortly after the Social Security Administration announced that millions of retirees and disabled workers will see no cost-of-living adjustments for the second year in a row, a result of the low U.S. inflation rate.

Yet seniors are struggling through the current economic downturn, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday, and they can't rely on their savings because of poor investment earnings.

The $250 Economic Recovery Payment would be akin to a similar benefit paid out by the federal government last year. That payment helped offset last year's static Social Security rate for about 50 million recipients, according to the White House.

The idea met with support from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said the House will vote in November on a measure to provide the payments to Social Security recipients. News about the Social Security rate is just the latest piece of bad economic news — not just for seniors but for Obama and fellow Democrats trying to keep their majorities in the fall congressional elections.

But the plan faces opposition in the Senate, which defeated a similar measure last year, and among Republicans concerned about long-term funding of the Social Security system.

"It will be difficult for many seniors to deal with the lack of a COLA [cost of living allowance] for a second year in a row, but that will pale in comparison to the actual hardships future Social Security recipients will experience if Congress continues to ignore the program's underlying financial problems," said Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee. "We must put Social Security on a path to long-term solvency and the sooner we do so, the better it will be for both taxpayers and beneficiaries alike."

Every year, the government automatically adjusts Social Security payments based on the nation's inflation rate. For an increase in payments to occur, consumer prices must be higher than when the last increase was awarded, according to the Social Security Administration.

On average, retired workers currently receive nearly $1,200 a month. More than 58 million Americans receive monthly Social Security payments.

This is the second consecutive year an adjustment has not been awarded, unprecedented in the 35-year history of automatically adjusted payments.

Shortly before the SSA made its announcement Friday morning, the Labor Department released its most recent figures for the consumer price index. The figures showed that consumer prices were up 1.1% compared to last year but remained below what they were in 2008.

As Obama made his way to Delaware to campaign for Democratic candidates, aides said he would push for the recovery payments when Congress returns to town.

"We're grateful that Speaker Pelosi has indicated she will bring the new Economic Recovery Payment to a vote," Gibbs said, "and we urge members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to support our seniors, veterans and others with disabilities who depend on these benefits."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sc-dc-1016-social-security-20101015,0,2667199,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Rescuing Young Women From Traffickers' Hands

CONSTANTA, Romania

THE 15-year-old had been “trained” in prostitution in a nightclub in the southern Romanian city of Calarasi. Now, the sex traffickers were getting ready to sell her off to a Turkish brothel for $2,800.

Iana Matei, Romania 's leading advocate for the victims of trafficking, had made contact with the girl and offered to wait outside the nightclub in her car, ready to take the teenager away if she could get out on the street for a cigarette break. But the girl had tried to escape before, and had been beaten severely. Ms. Matei was not sure she would have the courage to try again.

Then she appeared, bolting for the car and scrambling into the back seat. The hitch came a few minutes later.

As Ms. Matei gunned the engine and raced down unfamiliar streets, worried that the traffickers would follow, she got totally lost.

“I kept shouting at her to tell me where to go,” Ms. Matei said. “And she was not being very helpful, and I was not being very nice to her. And finally, I stopped the car and looked back and the face I saw...

“I realized it was me who was being dumb. She was so scared, there was no way she could help me.”

For more than 10 years, Ms. Matei, a psychologist by training, has been pulling young women out of the hands of traffickers, sometimes by staging “kidnappings,” sometimes just by offering them a place to stay, heal and rebuild their lives.

Time has not dulled her indignation. Until a few years ago, Ms. Matei's shelter here was the only one in Romania for victims of traffickers, though the country has been a center for the trade in young girls for decades. Too often, she said, Romanians see the young women as nothing more than prostitutes.

“They are victims,” she said recently. “They are too young to be anything else.”

Almost always from poor, abusive families, the girls are sometimes sold into the trade by their own parents. Some are lured to foreign countries with promises of jobs or marriage. But once out of the country, they are sold to gangs and locked up in brothels or forced to work the streets.

MS. Matei does little to disguise her disgust with legal systems around the world that fail to take trafficking seriously enough.

“When these guys get caught, they get what? Six years? Maybe. They destroy 300 lives and they get six years. You traffic drugs, you get 20 years. There is something not right.”

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Ms. Matei was staying in a small hotel on the outskirts of Constanta, making sure that two young residents in her shelter in Pitesti, Romania, were available for their bit parts in a movie on trafficking being made by the Romanian director Cristian Mungiu. Mr. Mungiu won critical acclaim three years ago for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” a film about abortion in the waning days of Communism.

As she waited for the girls, Ms. Matei chain-smoked, occasionally darting off to tend the 3-year-old twins she adopted recently. The twins were born to a victim of trafficking, who abandoned them.

“Some people say to me that they are very lucky to have me,” Ms. Matei said, “but really, I am the lucky one. They are my joy.”

At 52, Ms. Matei seems to have the energy of a teenager, and is just as irreverent.

“They offer 10 days for ‘reintegration,' ” she said of one of the Romanian government's newer efforts to provide shelters for victims of trafficking. “That's very nice, don't you think? Ten days.”

Most of the young women who arrive at her shelter, where they can stay for up to a year, are in a terrible state, she said.

“They no longer feel normal, and even getting dressed is difficult,” she said. “They can't choose their clothes. They want to know if they will fit in. They try on all sorts of things because they think it shows what has happened to them.” A few times traffickers have showed up at Ms. Matei's shelter — a spare house in a residential neighborhood surrounded by a high fence — trying to get the girls back. Once, Ms. Matei said, she confronted them in the narrow street outside, using her car to block their vehicle.

“Afterwards, I wondered what they must have been thinking,” Ms. Matei said. “Here I was, short, blond, old and yelling my head off. I was very lucky the security showed up within a minute.”

MS. Matei started out life thinking she would be a graphic designer. She married, had a child and then divorced.

In 1990, as Romania was emerging from Communism, she participated in daily street protests. But one day when the police arrived, she dropped her handbag in the mayhem. When she called home the next morning, the police had been there already.

She decided to flee the country, walking alone along the banks of a river leading into the former Yugoslavia, making progress at night and sleeping during the day. She eventually arranged for her son to join her and was resettled in Australia. There, she earned a degree in psychology and worked with street children.

But in 1998, after bringing her son to Romania on a holiday, she decided to move back and began working with street children here. Soon, the police called asking a favor. Would she take three young prostitutes they had just rounded up to a doctor? Afterward, she was just supposed to release them.

“I was annoyed until I got there and saw these girls,” Ms. Matei said. “The mascara was running all over their faces. They had been crying so hard. Journalists had been there and made them pose. And they were minors. They were 14, 15 and 16. But no one cared.”

One of the girls was pregnant. All three would be in the hospital for two weeks. But afterward, Ms. Matei said, child welfare services would have nothing to do with them.

“Eventually, I got an apartment for them, and more girls kept coming,” she said. “That's how it started.”

Over the years, she has cobbled together all sorts of financing, pleading with various embassies. Right now, the shelter is supported by an American ministry dedicated to combating human trafficking, Make Way Partners in Birmingham, Ala. But Ms. Matei would like to see it become self-sustaining. She has an idea for a hotel where the young women could get job training.

In the meantime, she makes do. More than 400 girls have stayed in the shelter, and most of them are still in touch, she said. All three of the teenagers at the police station are now married and have children.

Ms. Matei says she admires the girls for the strength it takes to pick up their lives. “When they are back in school and all the boys are offering them money for oral sex because they know, that's not easy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/world/europe/16romania.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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On Marijuana, Californians May Ignore Leaders' Views

LOS ANGELES — The Department of Justice says it intends to prosecute marijuana laws in California aggressively even if state voters approve an initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot to legalize the drug.

The announcement by Eric H. Holder Jr., the attorney general, was the latest reminder of how much of the establishment has lined up against the popular initiative: dozens of editorial boards, candidates for office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other public officials.

Still, despite this opposition — or perhaps, to some extent, because of it — the measure, Proposition 19, appears to have at least a decent chance of winning, so far drawing considerable support in polls from a coalition of Democrats, independents, younger voters and men as Election Day nears. Should that happen, it could cement a cultural shift in California, where medical marijuana has been legal since 1996 and where the drug has been celebrated in popular culture at least since the 1960s.

But it could also plunge the nation's most populous state into a murky and unsettling conflict with the federal government that opponents of the proposition said should make California voters wary of supporting it.

Washington has generally looked the other way as a growing medical marijuana industry has prospered here and in 14 other states and the District of Columbia, but Mr. Holder's position — revealed in a letter this week to nine former chiefs of the Drug Enforcement Administration that was made public on Friday — made explicit that legalizing marijuana for recreational use would bring a whole new level of scrutiny from Washington.

Mr. Holder did not fully spell out the reasons for the decision, but he did allude to the reluctance of the federal government to enforce drug laws differently in different states. “If passed, this legislation will greatly complicate federal drug enforcement efforts to the detriment of our citizens,” he wrote.

The Los Angeles County sheriff, Lee Baca, who has been one of the leading opponents of the measure, quickly embraced the Justice Department's stance. He said that the initiative was unconstitutional and vowed to continue enforcing marijuana laws, no matter what voters do in November.

Supporters of the initiative have portrayed support for it as another example in an anti-incumbent year of voters rejecting authority.

“Bring on the establishment,” said Chris Lehane, a senior consultant to the campaign pushing for passage of the initiative. “This campaign, and the energy driving it, is predicated on the common understanding that the establishment's prohibition approach has been a complete and utter failure, as proven by the point that today it is easier for a kid to get access to pot than it is to buy a beer or a cigarette.”

But Roger Salazar, a political consultant who has been directing the effort to defeat the proposal, said that Mr. Holder's statement should reinforce deep concerns about the initiative, including the way it was drafted and what he called inflated claims by its backers of what legalization might do.

“This is sort of a shot across the bow from the federal government: They're saying that, ‘If this thing moves the way we think it is, we're going to come after you guys,' ” he said. “That gives California voters one more reason to take a deep breath.”

California's becoming the first state to legalize marijuana for recreational use would provide a real-life test of theories that proponents of legalization have long pressed: That it would provide a new stream of revenues for government, cut down on drug-related violence and end a modern-day prohibition that effectively turns many citizens into lawbreakers.

As it is, no matter what voters or Mr. Holder do, marijuana use in California these days appears, for all practical purposes, all but legal.

Mr. Schwarzenegger signed legislation last month that made possession of an ounce of marijuana an infraction — it had previously been a misdemeanor — punishable by a $100 fine. Medical marijuana dispensaries are common in many parts of the state, and getting a prescription is hardly challenging. Baby boomers who had not smoked marijuana since college now speak openly at dinner parties of their “medical” experimentation with the drug. The smell of marijuana is hardly unusual at outdoor concerts at places like the Hollywood Bowl.

A Field Poll last month found that 50 percent of respondents said that marijuana should be legalized; that is up from 13 percent when the organization first asked the question in 1969. And 47 percent said they had smoked marijuana at least once, compared with 28 percent when the question was asked in 1975.

“This is the first generation of high school students where a majority of their parents have smoked marijuana,” said Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which has been pushing for passage of the initiative.

The presence of the initiative on the ballot has encouraged Democrats, who argue it will lead to increased turnout among younger voters.

Notably, none of the major statewide candidates have endorsed the measure. But perhaps just as notably, none have made the proposition a campaign issue.

The state Republican Party has officially come out against Proposition 19 and plans to urge people to vote no, said Ron Nehring, the party chairman. He called repeal a “big mistake” and mocked the notion that placing the proposition on the ballot would help Democrats.

“We call that their Hail Mary Jane strategy,” he said.

John Burton, the chairman of the California Democratic Party, said his party had decided to stay neutral on this issue. Asked if he supported it, Mr. Burton responded: “I already voted for it. Why not? Brings some money into the state. Helps the deficit. Better than selling off state buildings to some developer.”

Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California, noted that polls showed the measure breaking 50 percent, but said that given the history of initiatives in the state, that meant its passage was far from assured.

Opposition has come from a number of fronts, ranging from Mr. Baca and other law enforcement officials to the Chamber of Commerce, which has warned that it would create workplace health issues.

Still, the breadth of supporters of the proposition — including law enforcement officials and major unions, like the Service Employees International Union -- signal how mainstream this movement is becoming.

“I think we consume far more dangerous drugs that are legal: cigarette smoking, nicotine and alcohol,” said Joycelyn Elders, the former surgeon general and a supporter of the measure. “I feel they cause much more devastating effects physically. We need to lift the prohibition on marijuana.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/us/16pot.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Immigrants Find Voting Can Come At a Cost

The way Joseph E. Joseph tells it, he was just doing his civic duty.

On his way home from work one evening in 1992, he came across a group of volunteers in Brooklyn registering people to vote. Mr. Joseph, a legal permanent resident who had immigrated from St. Kitts eight years earlier, decided it was time to sign up. He cast a ballot in that year's presidential election, he said, and in every one since.

His participation in American democracy came at a steep cost: The government is now trying to deport him.

In the United States, only citizens are allowed to vote in national and statewide elections. And while immigrants who are granted permanent residency — a green card — enjoy an array of privileges, including the right to work, they can lose them all and be expelled from the country if the authorities discover that they have even registered to vote.

Uncovering an immigrant's voting history is not always hard. Many proudly acknowledge having voted when applying for American citizenship.

“I thought that was expected of me,” said Mr. Joseph, who volunteered the information on his citizenship application in 2008 and during his naturalization interview in 2009. “I felt like I was part of the democracy.”

Officials with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes immigrants' visas and naturalization petitions, say the agency does not keep records of how many noncitizens have been caught violating voting laws. Many election law experts said there was no evidence that the violations happened frequently — or at least enough to skew election results.

But for those who do register to vote and get caught, the penalties can be severe. Lawyers at the Legal Aid Society, a nonprofit group for low-income New Yorkers, said that they had handled at least eight cases in the past few years involving permanent residents who faced deportation because they had registered to vote. Noncitizens who are convicted in criminal court of having made a false claim of citizenship for the purpose of registering to vote in a federal election can be fined and imprisoned for up to a year, then deported.

Advocates for immigrants said that in most cases, those who violated the voting law did so unwittingly.

“It really annoys me that they're just trying to do their civic duty for no pecuniary gain at all, yet they wind up in removal proceedings,” said Jeffrey N. Brauwerman, a lawyer in Coral Gables, Fla., and a former immigration judge, who has represented four immigrants that the government tried to deport for registering to vote.

Some groups, including the Heritage Foundation, contend that illegal voting by immigrants may be more widespread than anyone realizes. They say it disenfranchises legal voters and warrants tougher enforcement.

In a 2008 report, Hans A. von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the foundation, wrote: “Lax enforcement of election laws permits individuals who have not entered the American social compact or made a commitment to the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and the U.S. cultural and political heritage to participate in elections and potentially change the outcome of closely contested races.”

No group appears to have made the issue a central cause this election season, Mr. von Spakovsky said, but that could change if some results in crucial races are close. “That's when people will potentially pay attention," he said.

William G. Wright, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the agency did not provide “specific information on voting rights” when granting green cards. But he pointed out that voter registration forms explain that an applicant must be an American citizen.

Immigrants and their advocates, however, say there is widespread confusion, even among native-born Americans, about who is allowed to vote. Volunteers, whether working for political parties or nonpartisan causes, sometimes give incorrect advice when registering new voters.

Confusing matters, permanent residents are permitted to vote in some municipalities, though not in New York City. And elections officials around the country do not customarily verify the citizenship of newly registered voters. Arizona is the only state that requires proof of citizenship; Georgia passed a similar law, which has not taken effect.

Mr. Joseph, 53, said that when he encountered the registration volunteers in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, in 1992, he told them he had a green card. “They said that if I'm paying taxes, I have a right to vote,” he said.

He mailed his application to the city's Board of Elections and soon received a voter registration card.

“I assume that every application should be checked out, and I assumed that if there was something wrong, then I'd get a call,” said Mr. Joseph, a welder at a New Jersey construction company who has five children, three of them American citizens by birth.

Under Citizenship and Immigration Services guidelines, a noncitizen's vote does not always scuttle a bid for citizenship. The agency's officers are required to evaluate the circumstances of the violation, as well as the “moral character” of the applicant, and decide whether the law has been intentionally violated.

In Mr. Joseph's case, the agency said that intent was irrelevant — and rejected his application. “Whether or not making false claim of U.S. citizen was intentional or not, you nonetheless voted in an election in violation of” the law, his rejection letter said. “Therefore you failed to satisfy the good moral character requirement under the law.”

The case was sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings, which Mr. Joseph is trying to stop.

His lawyer, Olivia Cassin, said she saw nothing in the agency's case file that suggested officials had fully evaluated his character. “He's a desirable person, paid taxes, supported his children, committed zero crimes,” said Ms. Cassin, a staff lawyer with the Legal Aid Society.

Officials with Citizenship and Immigration Services said they were not permitted to discuss the details of individual cases. “Each case is complex, and the decision in that case is based on our adjudicators looking at all the evidence provided,” said Chris Bentley, a spokesman with the agency.

But Ms. Cassin and other immigrant advocates said the agency was being too strict. The advocates pointed out that, in some cases, immigration judges had relied upon the same evidence to rule against deportation that immigration officials had used to deny citizenship.

In eight New York cases that Ms. Cassin recalled, none of the immigrants were deported, and all were able to maintain their permanent residency. In one, she said, the client's application for naturalization was reopened and eventually approved.

Mr. Joseph was supposed to have an immigration hearing last month, but the judge postponed it until early next year. He said he now regrets signing that registration form 18 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/nyregion/17voting.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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The Mississippi Pardons

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi has to decide whether to show mercy to two sisters, Jamie and Gladys Scott, who are each serving double consecutive life sentences in state prison for a robbery in which no one was injured and only $11 was taken.

This should be an easy call for a law-and-order governor who has, nevertheless, displayed a willingness to set free individuals convicted of far more serious crimes. Mr. Barbour has already pardoned four killers and suspended the life sentence of a fifth.

The Scott sisters have been in prison for 16 years. Jamie, now 38, is seriously ill. Both of her kidneys have failed. Keeping the two of them locked up any longer is unconscionable, grotesquely inhumane.

The sisters were accused of luring two men to a spot outside the rural town of Forest, Miss., in 1993, where the men were robbed by three teenagers, one of whom had a shotgun. The Scott sisters knew the teens. The evidence of the sisters' involvement has always been ambiguous, at best. The teenagers pleaded guilty to the crime, served two years in prison and were released. All were obliged by the authorities, as part of their plea deals, to implicate the sisters.

No explanation has ever emerged as to why Jamie and Gladys Scott were treated so severely.

In contrast, Governor Barbour has been quite willing to hand get-out-of-jail-free cards to men who unquestionably committed shockingly brutal crimes. The Jackson Free Press, an alternative weekly, and Slate Magazine have catalogued these interventions by Mr. Barbour. Some Mississippi observers have characterized the governor's moves as acts of mercy; others have called them dangerous abuses of executive power.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections confirmed Governor Barbour's role in the five cases, noting that the specific orders were signed July 16, 2008:

Radley Balko, in an article for Slate, noted that none of the five men were given relief because of concerns that they had been unfairly treated by the criminal justice system. There were no questions about their guilt or the fairness of the proceedings against them. But they did have one thing in common. All, as Mr. Balko pointed out, had been enrolled in a special prison program “that had them doing odd jobs around the Mississippi governor's mansion.”

The idea that those men could be freed from prison and allowed to pursue whatever kind of lives they might wish while the Scott sisters are kept locked up, presumably for the rest of their lives, is beyond disturbing.

Supporters of the Scott sisters, including their attorney, Chokwe Lumumba, and Ben Jealous of the N.A.A.C.P., have asked Governor Barbour to intervene, to use his executive power to free the women from prison.

A spokeswoman for the governor told me he has referred the matter to the state's parole board. Under Mississippi law, the governor does not have to follow the recommendation of the board. He is free to act on his own. With Jamie Scott seriously ill (her sister and others have offered to donate a kidney for a transplant), the governor should move with dispatch.

The women's mother, Evelyn Rasco, told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss.: “I wish they would just hurry up and let them out. I hope that is where it is leading to. That would be the only justified thing to do.”

An affidavit submitted to the governor on behalf of the Scott sisters says: “Jamie and Gladys Scott respectfully pray that they each be granted a pardon or clemency of their sentences on the grounds that their sentences were too severe and they have been incarcerated for too long. If not released, Jamie Scott will probably die in prison.”

As they are both serving double life sentences, a refusal by the governor to intervene will most likely mean that both will die in prison.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/opinion/16herbert.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the Chicago Sun Times

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Runner wraps 4,425-mile journey for fallen troops

Army vet started trek on May Day, planted flags at 1-mile intervals

October 16, 2010

BY DAVID SHARP

ROCKLAND, Maine -- An Army veteran who pounded the pavement from coast to coast to honor the nation's fallen troops finished his grueling journey in rain and high winds on Friday in Maine.

Mike Ehredt of Hope, Idaho, placed a flag in the ground every mile along the way to honor military personnel killed in Iraq, and on Friday the final flag honored Marine Maj. Jay Aubin, a pilot from Waterville who died when his helicopter went down near the Iraq border.

The 49-year-old extreme runner kicked off his journey on May 1 in Astoria, Ore., averaged about 29 miles a day and took only four days off. All told, he ran 4,425 miles.

The operation ran with military precision. Ehredt kept to his schedule and stayed with a different family every night. He suffered no knee or hip problems, which often plague distance runners. He didn't even lose any weight. Each morning, he popped a couple of pain-killers, and hit the road.

"I never opened the door of doubt. You'd never get it shut again. So every day it was like, 'Let's get up and go," Ehredt said.

Ehredt hatched the idea for the coast-to-coast run three years ago. And it took three years of planning to pull it off. It took 4,424 small flags and 1,000 feet of yellow ribbon to create the tributes, each bearing the name of a service member, that he placed on the ground at 1-mile intervals.

Along the way, Ehredt went through 19 pairs of trail-running shoes, drank 40 gallons of chocolate milk and consumed 668 Aleve.

Though he didn't personally know any military personnel killed in Iraq, Ehredt said he felt a kinship that all former service members feel and wanted to honor the fallen. And many were moved by his gesture. A mother from Alabama drove 28 hours to Colorado to be there when he placed a flag honoring her son, he said.

"For whatever reason I can't explain, I just felt a connection to those young people and people my age from Iraq. And I just wanted to do a personal tribute," he said.

Maj. Gen. John Libby, adjutant general of the Maine National Guard, said soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen and women all appreciate Ehredt's efforts.

"What a remarkable feat. All us are just looking for some validation that people appreciate what we've done. But this validation is on the extreme edge," he said.

Ehredt is no stranger to pushing his body to its limits. He got the running bug at a young age, and as a soldier in Germany he won the Army Cross Country Championships.

Ehredt said he didn't mind the bad weather on the final day of his run. He noted that it was a raw day on which he began in Oregon.

"After that first mile, and the first flag was planted, I turned around and there was a rainbow. It was an omen," he said.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2807842,CST-NWS-run16.article

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From the White House

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Open for Questions: Howard Schmidt on Cyber Security Awareness

As part of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, Howard Schmidt, Cybersecurity Coordinator and Special Assistant to the President, will be answering your questions about Awareness Month, the “Stop.Think.Connect” initiative to encourage safety online and the things that people and businesses can do to protect themselves in a live video chat on Wednesday, October 20th at 1:30 p.m. EDT.

“National Cybersecurity Awareness Month is the time of the year we need to stop and realize all the things we can do collectively to keep our selves cyber-educated, cyber-smart, and cyber-assured,” Schmidt wrote in a blog post kicking off the month .

Don't miss the live Open for Questions event with Howard Schmidt on  Wednesday, October 20 th at 1:30 p.m. EDT . Here's how you can participate:

• Ask your questions in advance on Facebook
  
  
• Watch the chat through WhiteHouse.gov/live
  
  
• Join the discussion live through the White House Facebook application

In a proclamation, President Obama reflected his continued commitment to cybersecurity as a national priority and “urge[d] all Americans to visit DHS.gov/Cyber and OnGuardOnline.gov for more information about practices that can enhance the security of our shared cyber networks.”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/10/15/open-questions-howard-schmidt-cyber-security-awareness

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Inviting Husbands, Fathers and Sons to Help End Domestic Violence

When he proclaimed October to be National Domestic Violence Awareness Month , President Obama said, “Ending domestic violence requires a collaborative effort involving every part of our society.”  He couldn't be more right.

I remember a time when domestic violence wasn't discussed much in public, and when it was perfectly acceptable to joke about it.  In those days, if there was a serious public conversation about abuse, only women were inclined to join it. 

Today, I am so proud that men work alongside us, in every facet of our work.  This October, the men who run sports teams, businesses, media outlets, foundations and community centers are just as likely as the women who run them to be taking part in National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

The inclusion of men is also evidence of our steadfast focus on prevention.  To end abuse we must teach the next generation that violence is always wrong.  Boys listen to their role models, so we all need to encourage men to teach boys to reject violence against girls and women in all its forms. There are tools to do that here .  Today, any man who wants to help stop domestic violence is welcomed and supported.

October is an important month for those of us who work to end domestic and sexual violence.  People are paying attention to the issue.  At a time when four women are murdered each day in this country by current or former husbands or boyfriends, when rape and sexual assault plague college campuses, when teen girls think his jealous rage is a form of love, when adolescents think violence is a normal part of dating, we have a lot of work still to do. 

We are so proud to be able to do that work with an Administration that is truly committed to stopping domestic violence and to know that, as we go forward, we will have millions of men with an unwavering dedication to this cause at our side.

For information and resources about domestic and sexual violence, please visit www.womenshealth.gov/violence .  For more information about the Violence Against Women Act, please visit www.usdoj.gov/ovw .

Esta Soler is the President of the Family Violence Prevention Fund

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/10/15/inviting-husbands-fathers-and-sons-help-end-domestic-violence

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From ICE

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IPR Center participates in third annual worldwide scan of international mail for illicit pharmaceuticals sold on the Web

WASHINGTON - More than 40 countries have taken part in an international week of action targeting the online sale of counterfeit and illegal medicines to raise awareness of the associated health risks, resulting in arrests across the globe and the seizure of thousands of potentially harmful medicines.

Focusing on websites supplying illegal and dangerous medicines, Operation Pangea III is the largest Internet-based action of its kind coordinated by INTERPOL, the World Customs Organization (WCO), Permanent Forum of International Pharmaceutical crime (PFIPC), Heads of Medicines Agencies Working Group of Enforcement Officers (HMA WGEO), the pharmaceutical industry and online payment systems providers in support of International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT).

The global operation was carried out between Oct. 5 and 12 , and involved police, customs and regulatory agencies. It targeted the three main components of this illegal Web trade - the Internet Service Provider (ISP), payment systems and the delivery services.

Operation Pangea III increased participating countries over last year's operation from 24 to 45.

The U.S. operation, managed by the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, included U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Operations were conducted at mail facilities in Chicago, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Memphis, Tenn., and Louisville, Ky.

With 31 countries reporting their results to date, Internet monitoring revealed 694 websites engaged in illegal activity, including offering controlled or prescription-only drugs, 290 websites have now been taken down. In addition, more than 267,855 packages were inspected by regulators and customs, 10,916 packages were seized as containing counterfeits and more than 1,014,043 illicit and counterfeit pills - including antidepressants, antibiotics, steroids, arthritis medicine, lifestyle drugs and diet pills - were confiscated. Seized pharmaceuticals are estimated to be worth $2,598,163. During the operation, 76 individuals were arrested and are under investigation for a range of offenses, including illegally selling and supplying unlicensed or prescription-only medicines. Some 98 search warrants were executed.

"Through a multi-sector operation involving law enforcement and health, INTERPOL's key objective in Operation Pangea III was to alert and protect members of the public by assisting our 188 member countries to shut down illegal pharmaceutical websites, chase money flows and backtrack to the sources behind these illicit pharmaceutical products which represent such a threat to the health of the public," said Secretary General Ronald K. Noble, pointing to the importance of key international partnerships involving INTERPOL and international bodies such as the World Health Organization and the World Customs Organization.

"Operations like this highlight why international partnerships are such an essential weapon in the fight against trafficking of counterfeit pharmaceuticals," said Director John Morton of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which leads the IPR Center in Arlington, Va. "People who purchase drugs should never have to be put at risk because the product is fake, unsafe or untested."

"Keeping unsafe products from entering the United States is a priority for U.S. Customs and Border Protection," said CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin. "I'm delighted to be a part of an international collaboration that is potentially protecting not just the U.S. but consumers from the 45 participating countries. This is a testament to what partnerships can accomplish."

Among the countries participating this year, in addition to the United States, were:

Angola, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium , Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, China, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovak Republlic, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Uruguay. Investigations are continuing, with the final results from Operation Pangea III to be released at the conclusion.

The U.S. coordinating body, the IPR Center, is one of the U.S. Government's key weapons in the fight against IP theft.  The IPR Center offers one-stop shopping for both law enforcement and the private sector to address the growing transnational threat of counterfeit merchandise.  The IPR Center coordinates outreach to U.S. rights holders and conducts domestic and international law enforcement training to stem the growing counterfeiting threat as well as coordinating and directing anti-counterfeiting investigations. To learn more about the IPR Center, read tips for holiday buying and see the Intellectual Property Rights Seizure Statistics for FY 2009, go to www.ice.gov

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1010/101015washington.htm

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Swift law enforcement response reunites smuggled children with mother

PHOENIX - Two Mexican children who were separated from their mother while being smuggled into the United States were reunited with her a short time later owing to the quick actions of federal, state and local law enforcement authorities here Wednesday afternoon.

The children's mother was encountered and arrested at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol checkpoint north of Sierra Vista, Ariz., Wednesday morning.  Authorities learned the woman's 8-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter were traveling in a separate vehicle that had already cleared the checkpoint. 

Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) immediately responded to the checkpoint.  HSI agents in other parts of Arizona were also notified and immediately began attempts to locate a white extended cab pick-up truck believed to be carrying the children.

HSI agents were able to determine the vehicle was in the area of Casa Grande, Ariz., traveling towards Phoenix.  HSI notified the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) and local police departments and requested assistance in finding the vehicle.

At 5:45 p.m.., DPS officers located the vehicle on Interstate 10 just south of Phoenix.  The children were found in the vehicle unharmed.

HSI agents responded and took the female pick-up truck driver and her male passenger into custody.  The two are expected to face federal charges at a later date.  The children were reunited with their mother hours later and were voluntarily returned to Mexico.

"The outcome of this case demonstrates HSI's commitment to enforcing the law and bringing to justice those who viciously exploit others for their personal gain," said Matt Allen, special agent in charge of ICE HSI in Arizona.  "The safety of the children and reuniting them with their mother was of paramount importance to all of the agents involved in this case."

The driver of the vehicle carrying the mother of the children faces federal charges for alien smuggling and fleeing an immigration checkpoint.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1010/101015phoenix.htm

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From the FBI

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Innocent Images National Initiative

Online Child Pornography/Child Sexual Exploitation Investigations

The History of the Innocent Images National Initiative

While investigating the disappearance of a juvenile in May 1993, FBI special agents and Prince George's County, Maryland, police detectives identified two suspects who had sexually exploited numerous juveniles over a 25-year period. Investigation into these activities determined that adults were routinely utilizing computers to transmit sexually explicit images to minors and in some instances to lure minors into engaging in illicit sexual activity. Further investigation and discussions with experts, both within the FBI and in the private sector, revealed that the utilization of computer telecommunications was rapidly becoming one of the most prevalent techniques by which some sex offenders shared pornographic images of minors and identified and recruited children into sexually illicit relationships. In 1995, based on information developed during this investigation, the Innocent Images National Initiative was started to address the illicit activities conducted by users of commercial and private online services and the Internet.

The IINI is managed by the Innocent Images Unit within the FBI's Cyber Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC. Innocent Images field supervisors and investigative personnel work closely with the Innocent Images Unit regarding all IINI investigative, administrative, policy, and training matters. The IINI provides a coordinated FBI response to this nationwide crime problem by collating and analyzing information obtained from all available sources.

Today the FBI's Innocent Images National Initiative focuses on:

• Online organizations, enterprises, and communities that exploit children for profit or personal gain.
  
  
• Major distributors of child pornography, such as those who appear to have transmitted a large volume of child pornography via an online computer on several occasions to several other people.
  
  
• Producers of child pornography.
  
  
• Individuals who travel, or indicate a willingness to travel, for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity with a minor.
  
  
• Possessors of child pornography.

The FBI and the Department of Justice review all files and select the most egregious subjects for prosecution. In addition, the IINI works to identify child victims and obtain appropriate services/assistance for them and to establish a law enforcement presence on the Internet that will act as a deterrent to those who seek to sexually exploit children.

The Growth of the Innocent Images National Initiative

Over the last several years, the FBI, local and state law enforcement, and the public have developed an increased awareness of the CP/CSE crime problem, and more incidents of online CP/CSE are being identified for investigation than ever before. In fact, more personnel resources are currently expended towards violations worked under the IINI than any other program within the FBI's Cyber Division. Between fiscal years 1996 and 2007, there was a 2062 percent increase in the number of IINI cases opened (113 to 2443) throughout the FBI. It is anticipated that the number of cases opened and the resources utilized to address the crime problem will continue to rise.

The increase in Innocent Images investigations demonstrated the need for a mechanism to track subject transactions and to correlate the seemingly unrelated activities of thousands of subjects in a cyberspace environment. As a result, the Innocent Images case management system was developed and has proven to be an effective system to archive and retrieve the information necessary to identify and target priority subjects. All relevant data obtained during an undercover session is loaded into the Innocent Images case management system where it is updated, reviewed, and analyzed on a daily basis to identify priority subjects.

Innocent Images National Initiative Investigations

IINI undercover operations are being conducted in many FBI field offices by task forces that combine the resources of the FBI with other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. Each of the FBI's 56 field offices has worked investigations developed by the IINI. International investigations are coordinated through the FBI's Legal Attaché program, which coordinates investigations with the appropriate foreign law enforcement. IINI investigations are also coordinated with Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces, which are funded by the Department of Justice. Furthermore, IINI training is provided to all law enforcement involved in these investigations, including federal, state, local, and foreign law enforcement agencies.

During the early stages of Innocent Images, a substantial amount of time was spent conducting investigations on commercial online service providers that provide numerous easily accessible “chat rooms” in which teenagers and pre-teens can meet and converse with each other. By using chat rooms, children can chat for hours with unknown individuals, often without the knowledge or approval of their parents. Investigation revealed that computer-sex offenders utilized the chat rooms to contact children, since children do not know whether they are chatting with a 14-year-old or a 40-year-old. Chat rooms offer the advantage of immediate communication around the world and provide the pedophile with an anonymous means of identifying and recruiting children into sexually illicit relationships.

Innocent Images has expanded to include investigations involving all areas of the Internet and online services including:

• Internet websites that post child pornography
  
  
• Internet News Groups
  
  
• Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Channels
  
  
• File Servers (“FServes”)
  
  
• Online Groups and Organizations (eGroups)
  
  
• Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing programs
  
  
• Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) and other online forums

FBI agents and task force officers go online undercover into predicated locations utilizing fictitious screen names and engaging in real-time chat or e-mail conversations with subjects to obtain evidence of criminal activity. Investigation of specific online locations can be initiated through:

• A citizen complaint
  
  
• A complaint by an online service provider
  
  
• A referral from a law enforcement agency
  
  
• The name of the online location (such as a chat room), which can suggest illicit activity

The Innocent Images International Task Force became operational on October 6, 2004 and includes law enforcement officers from the following countries: United Kingdom, Norway, Finland, Ukraine, Belarus, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, Croatia, Latvia, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada, Sweden, Fiji, Cyprus, Iceland, Denmark, Panama, and Europol. To date, more than 47 international officers have traveled to the United States and have worked side-by-side with special agents of the FBI at the Innocent Images Unit. The task force allows for the real-time transfer of information from and to the FBI and between task-force members and their countries. Task Force officers stay in the United States for several months and remain an integral part of the task force once they return to their home countries. The FBI's Innocent Images International Task Force successfully brings together law enforcement from around the world to address the global crime problem of online child exploitation.

The most common crimes investigated under the IINI are in violation of Title 18 United States Code (USC):

The FBI has taken the necessary steps to ensure that the Innocent Images National Initiative remains viable and productive through the use of new technology and sophisticated investigative techniques, coordination of the national investigative strategy, and a national liaison initiative with a significant number of commercial and independent online service providers. The Innocent Images National Initiative has been highly successful. It has proven to be a logical, efficient, and effective method to identify and investigate individuals who are using the Internet for the sole purpose of sexually exploiting children.

http://www2.fbi.gov/publications/innocent.htm

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