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From the Los Angeles Times

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Drill Instructor Juan Garcia, 25, keeps his recruits in line on the first day of boot camp in San Diego. The sergeant is an Iraq veteran and former motor transport operator.

A long wait for an intense experience Most people wouldn't look forward to boot camp. But an increasing number of Marine recruits are spending six to nine months on a wait list, anticipating the day they'll become 'something bigger than themselves.' by Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times October 23, 2010 Reporting from San Diego They arrived from places throughout the western United States, and now several hundred of them are waiting nervously in the USO lounge attached to the Lindbergh Field international airport. Soon they will take a short bus ride to a place where ferociously fit men with bellowing voices will shadow their every step and yell orders at them. Their heads will be shaved and they will be stripped of all privacy and individuality.

A break in Congo

The arrest of a rebel leader and activities by Western groups may help stop widespread atrocities in the country.

October 23, 2010

For more than a decade, rebel soldiers from Rwanda have committed atrocities in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo with almost complete impunity. They kidnap children, murder men and are conducting a strategic campaign of raping and torturing women. In August, the United Nations confirmed that members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, and another militia were responsible for hundreds of rapes in the Walekali region — and rape is a tepid word for the brutal attacks. Victims were mutilated with broken bottles, tree branches and bayonets, and shot in the genitals.

That is why the recent arrest in Paris of Callixte Mbarushimana, the executive secretary of the FDLR, on a warrant from the International Criminal Court charging him with war crimes is momentous. It comes after 18 months of international cooperation by governments that tracked his movements through France, Germany, Congo, Rwanda and other countries. It also comes amid increasing pressure from aid organizations, human rights activists, philanthropists, religious groups and artists to stop the violence and, in particular, the rapes.

Human Rights Watch, the Enough Project, Women for Women International and many other groups, working with Africa-based organizations such as Friends of the Congo, have sustained awareness of a crisis that otherwise would be remote and unseen by much of the world. In Los Angeles, that mission is largely undertaken by Jewish World Watch, founded by Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis and Janice Kamenir-Reznik. What started with a few dozen area synagogues has grown into a global coalition including churches, schools and community organizations. The group has partnered with African and Israeli organizations to underwrite the training of Congolese doctors to repair the mutilations of rape victims, create a burn center in eastern Congo and fund a program to teach vocational skills to survivors of the violence.

Increasingly, activism and art have become partners. This month, the group honored Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage before a performance of her searing drama "Ruined," about three Congolese rape survivors living in a brothel. In New York, a series of Congo-related films recently kicked off Congo Week.

The arrest and indictment of one FDLR leader will not halt years of conflict, although State Department officials rightly hope that Mbarushimana's capture will inspire other rebels to lay down their guns. Nor can one play, a handful of films or the work of several charities bring peace to Congo. But taken together, they offer hope.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-rape-20101023,0,4093291,print.story

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From the New York Times

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WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety

LONDON — Julian Assange moves like a hunted man. In a noisy Ethiopian restaurant in London's rundown Paddington district, he pitches his voice barely above a whisper to foil the Western intelligence agencies he fears.

He demands that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted cellphones and swaps his own as other men change shirts. He checks into hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends.

“By being determined to be on this path, and not to compromise, I've wound up in an extraordinary situation,” Mr. Assange said over lunch last Sunday, when he arrived sporting a woolen beanie and a wispy stubble and trailing a youthful entourage that included a filmmaker assigned to document any unpleasant surprises.

In his remarkable journey to notoriety, Mr. Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks whistle-blowers' Web site, sees the next few weeks as his most hazardous. Now he is making his most brazen disclosure yet: 391,832 secret documents on the Iraqi war. He held a news conference in London on Saturday, saying that the release “constituted the most comprehensive and detailed account of any war ever to have entered the public record.”

Twelve weeks ago, he posted on his organization's Web site some 77,000 classified Pentagon documents on the Afghan conflict.

Much has changed since 2006, when Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, used years of computer hacking and what friends call a near genius I.Q. to establish WikiLeaks, redefining whistle-blowing by gathering secrets in bulk, storing them beyond the reach of governments and others determined to retrieve them, then releasing them instantly, and globally.

Now it is not just governments that denounce him: some of his own comrades are abandoning him for what they see as erratic and imperious behavior, and a nearly delusional grandeur unmatched by an awareness that the digital secrets he reveals can have a price in flesh and blood.

Several WikiLeaks colleagues say he alone decided to release the Afghan documents without removing the names of Afghan intelligence sources for NATO troops. “We were very, very upset with that, and with the way he spoke about it afterwards,” said Birgitta Jonsdottir, a core WikiLeaks volunteer and a member of Iceland's Parliament. “If he could just focus on the important things he does, it would be better.”

He is also being investigated in connection with accusations of rape and molestation involving two Swedish women. Mr. Assange has denied the allegations, saying the relations were consensual. But prosecutors in Sweden have yet to formally approve charges or dismiss the case eight weeks after the complaints against Mr. Assange were filed, damaging his quest for a secure base for himself and WikiLeaks. Though he characterizes the claims as “a smear campaign,” the scandal has compounded the pressures of his cloaked life.

“When it comes to the point where you occasionally look forward to being in prison on the basis that you might be able to spend a day reading a book, the realization dawns that perhaps the situation has become a little more stressful than you would like,” he said over the London lunch.

Exposing Secrets

Mr. Assange has come a long way from an unsettled childhood in Australia as a self-acknowledged social misfit who narrowly avoided prison after being convicted on 25 charges of computer hacking in 1995. History is punctuated by spies, defectors and others who revealed the most inflammatory secrets of their age. Mr. Assange has become that figure for the Internet era, with as yet unreckoned consequences for himself and for the keepers of the world's secrets.

“I've been waiting 40 years for someone to disclose information on a scale that might really make a difference,” said Daniel Ellsberg, who exposed a 1,000-page secret study of the Vietnam War in 1971 that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

Mr. Ellsberg said he saw kindred spirits in Mr. Assange and Pfc. Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old former Army intelligence operative under detention in Quantico, Va., suspected of leaking the Iraq and Afghan documents.

“They were willing to go to prison for life, or be executed, to put out this information,” Mr. Ellsberg said.

Underlying Mr. Assange's anxieties is deep uncertainty about what the United States and its allies may do next. Pentagon and Justice department officials have said they are weighing his actions under the 1917 Espionage Act. They have demanded that Mr. Assange “return” all government documents in his possession, undertake not to publish any new ones and not “solicit” further American materials.

Mr. Assange has responded by going on the run, but has found no refuge. Amid the Afghan documents controversy, he flew to Sweden, seeking a residence permit and protection under that country's broad press freedoms. His initial welcome was euphoric.

“They called me the James Bond of journalism,” he recalled wryly. “It got me a lot of fans, and some of them ended up causing me a bit of trouble.”

Within days, his liaisons with two Swedish women led to an arrest warrant on charges of rape and molestation. Karin Rosander, a spokesperson for the prosecutor, said last week that the police were continuing to investigate.

In late September, he left Stockholm for Berlin. A bag he checked on the almost empty flight disappeared, with three encrypted laptops. It has not resurfaced; Mr. Assange suspects it was intercepted. From Germany, he traveled to London, wary at being detained on arrival. Under British law, his Australian passport entitles him to remain for six months. Iceland, another country with generous press freedoms and a strong WikiLeaks following, has also lost its appeal, with Mr. Assange concluding that its government, like Britain's, is too easily influenced by Washington. In his native Australia, ministers have signaled their willingness to cooperate with the United States if it opens a prosecution. Mr. Assange said a senior Australian official told him, “You play outside the rules, and you will be dealt with outside the rules.”

He faces attack from within, too.

After the Sweden scandal, strains within WikiLeaks reached a breaking point, with some of Mr. Assange's closest collaborators publicly defecting. The New York Times spoke with dozens of people who have worked with and supported him in Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Britain and the United States. What emerged was a picture of the founder of WikiLeaks as its prime innovator and charismatic force but as someone whose growing celebrity has been matched by an increasingly dictatorial, eccentric and capricious style.

Internal Turmoil

Effectively, as Mr. Assange pursues his fugitive's life, his leadership is enforced over the Internet. Even remotely, his style is imperious. In an online exchange with one volunteer, a transcript of which was obtained by The Times, he warned that WikiLeaks would disintegrate without him. “We've been in a Unity or Death situation for a few months now,” he said.

When Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old political activist in Iceland, questioned Mr. Assange's judgment over a number of issues in an online exchange last month, Mr. Assange was uncompromising. “I don't like your tone,” he said, according to a transcript. “If it continues, you're out.”

Mr. Assange cast himself as indispensable. “I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest,” he said. “If you have a problem with me,” he told Mr. Snorrason, using an expletive, he should quit.

In an interview about the exchange, Mr. Snorrason's conclusion was stark. “He is not in his right mind,” he said. In London, Mr. Assange was dismissive of all those who have criticized him. “These are not consequential people,” he said.

“About a dozen” disillusioned volunteers have left recently, said Smari McCarthy, an Icelandic volunteer who has distanced himself in the recent turmoil. In late summer, Mr. Assange suspended Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a German who had been the WikiLeaks spokesman under the pseudonym Daniel Schmitt, accusing him of unspecified “bad behavior.” Many more activists, Mr. McCarthy said, are likely to follow.

Mr. Assange denied that any important volunteers had quit, apart from Mr. Domscheit-Berg. But further defections could paralyze an organization that Mr. Assange says has 40 core volunteers and about 800 mostly unpaid followers to maintain a diffuse web of computer servers and to secure the system against attack — to guard against the kind of infiltration that WikiLeaks itself has used to generate its revelations.

Mr. Assange's detractors also accuse him of pursuing a vendetta against the United States. In London, Mr. Assange said America was an increasingly militarized society and a threat to democracy. Moreover, he said, “we have been attacked by the United States, so we are forced into a position where we must defend ourselves.”

Even among those challenging Mr. Assange's leadership style, there is recognition that the intricate computer and financial architecture WikiLeaks uses to shield it against its enemies has depended on its founder. “He's very unique and extremely capable,” said Ms. Jonsdottir, the Icelandic lawmaker.

A Rash of Scoops

Before posting the documents on Afghanistan and Iraq, WikiLeaks enjoyed a string of coups.

Supporters were thrilled when the organization posted documents on the Guantánamo Bay detention operation, the contents of Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo email account, reports of extrajudicial killings in Kenya and East Timor, the membership rolls of the neo-Nazi British National Party and a combat video showing American Apache helicopters in Baghdad in 2007 gunning down at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists.

But now, WikiLeaks has been met with new doubts. Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have joined the Pentagon in criticizing the organization for risking people's lives by publishing war logs identifying Afghans working for the Americans or acting as informers.

A Taliban spokesman in Afghanistan using the pseudonym Zabiullah Mujahid said in a telephone interview that the Taliban had formed a nine-member “commission” after the Afghan documents were posted “to find about people who are spying.” He said the Taliban had a “wanted” list of 1,800 Afghans and was comparing that with names WikiLeaks provided.

“After the process is completed, our Taliban court will decide about such people,” he said.

Mr. Assange defended posting unredacted documents, saying he balanced his decision “with the knowledge of the tremendous good and prevention of harm that is caused” by putting the information into the public domain. “There are no easy choices on the table for this organization,” he said.

But if Mr. Assange is sustained by his sense of mission, faith is fading among his fellow conspirators. His mood was caught vividly in an exchange on Sept. 20 with another senior WikiLeaks figure. In an encrypted online chat, a transcript of which was passed to The Times, Mr. Assange was dismissive of his colleagues. He described them as “a confederacy of fools,” and asked his interlocutor, “Am I dealing with a complete retard?”

In London, Mr. Assange was angered when asked about the rifts. He responded testily to questions about WikiLeaks's opaque finances, Private Manning's fate and WikiLeaks's apparent lack of accountability to anybody but himself, calling the questions “cretinous,” “facile” and reminiscent of “kindergarten.”

Mr. Assange has been equivocal about Private Manning, talking in late summer as though the soldier was unavoidable collateral damage, much like the Afghans named as informers in the secret Pentagon documents.

But in London, he took a more sympathetic view, describing Private Manning as a “political prisoner” facing a jail term of up to 52 years, without confirming that he was the source of the disclosed war logs. “We have a duty to assist Mr. Manning and other people who are facing legal and other consequences,” he said.

Mr. Assange's own fate seems as imperiled as Private Manning's. Last Monday, the Swedish Migration Board said Mr. Assange's bid for a residence permit had been rejected. His British visa will expire early next year. When he left the London restaurant at twilight, heading into the shadows, he declined to say where he was going. The man who has put some of the world's most powerful institutions on his watch list was, once more, on the move.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/24assange.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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13 Are Killed as Gunmen Storm House in Mexico

MEXICO CITY — A different weekend in Ciudad Juárez, a different party and again a massacre.

Gunmen burst into a small concrete house in a working-class Ciudad Juárez neighborhood where a family was celebrating a son's 14th birthday and opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding 20, state officials said Saturday.

A 13-year-old girl was the youngest of the dead, which included several older teenagers. A 9-year-old boy was wounded.

Ciudad Juárez has become one of the most violent cities in the world since the Mexican government began its crackdown on drug cartels four years ago, and murder fueled by the drug trade has become so routine in Ciudad Juárez that residents are not easily shocked. But the massacre on Friday night marked one of several moments in the city this year when the killing crossed a line that everyone from Juárenses to President Felipe Calderón could not bear.

Mr. Calderón sent a message on Saturday via Twitter, saying, “With sadness and profound indignation, the federal government expresses its most energetic repudiation of the murder of various young people in Ciudad Juárez.”

Friday's killings bore striking similarities to another mass killing in January in another working class neighborhood of Ciudad Juárez, where gunmen killed 15 people, mostly teenagers, at a party inside a house. Most of those partygoers were students, the children of working-class parents intent on giving them an education and keeping them out of the city's gangs.

The Ciudad Juárez police would not say if they thought Friday's killings were drug-related, but Mr. Calderón's response was markedly different from his offhand comment after the January deaths, when he said that the killings then appeared to be the work of rival gangs settling scores.

When it emerged that those victims appeared to have no link to drug cartels and the gangs that act as their enforcers, Mr. Calderón had to backtrack. His blunder highlighted a truth that public officials are reluctant to admit — that a growing number of innocent victims are being caught up in Mr. Calderón's war against drug cartels. Since then, the government has laid out a plan to invest in social programs in Ciudad Juárez, in the hope that new high schools and renovated sports facilities might offer alternatives to the young people who are the drug gangs' recruits.

The house where Friday's killings took place had been rented by Francisco López to hold a birthday party for his son, also Francisco, who was turning 14.

Mr. López and his son survived, but Mr. López's wife, Martina Arteaga, 30, was shot dead. The couple's 3-month-old baby, in a stroller next to her mother, was unharmed.

Mr. López told El Diario de Juárez, a local newspaper: “I feel so much pain and rage. I am sure they will never catch the people who did this.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/americas/24mexico.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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‘Interested Parties' Await Outcome of a Marijuana Measure

Leslie Hennessy, owner of Hennessy's Wines & Specialty Foods in San Francisco, waved his hand over a glass case that sits next to his cash register, across from the deli section where he sells cheeses, gourmet salads and olives.

Inside the case were colorful boxes of Macanudo and Romeo y Julieta cigars. But Mr. Hennessy imagines that the case will soon contain another smokable product — marijuana, packaged attractively because “a rolled up joint in a baggy isn't going to do it,” he said.

“It would be very similar to the way we sell cigars, where it's humidity controlled, where it's under lock and key and there are certain times when it would be sold,” said Mr. Hennessy, 63, who markets his own wine and once led the California Retail Liquor Dealers Association.

Mr. Hennessy said that he had even begun to negotiate prices with marijuana suppliers.

A week before Californians vote on Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana for recreational use, businesses are preparing to enter what is expected to be a robust retail market if the measure passes. The activity is particularly intense in the Bay Area, where cities like Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley and Richmond are positioning themselves to take advantage of the burgeoning industry.

In Oakland, nearly 300 individuals and businesses have listed themselves as “interested parties” to obtain business permits to sell or grow marijuana. The city's largest medical marijuana dispensary is considering a 7,000-square-foot expansion if it is allowed to sell to recreational users.

Cafe owners are exploring plans for Amsterdam-like coffee shops where marijuana could be sold and consumed. The California State Package Store and Tavern Owners Association, which represents black liquor store owners, is holding discussions about how to position itself if the measure passes.

“We want to be in the ballgame if it's going to happen,” said Andre Isler, the owner of Isler's Liquors in Oakland and a long-time member of the association.

A state report puts the value of California's marijuana crop at $14 billion, dwarfing even the wine industry. Robert Jacob, who operates the Peace in Medicine medical marijuana dispensary in Sebastopol, said that entrepreneurs of all types were jostling to get a piece of the action.

“So many people want to get into the business, and even aside from actually selling it you have packaging needs, management needs, bookkeeping needs,” Mr. Jacob said. “You have every single industry gearing up for the next dot-com boom.”

However, even if Proposition 19 passes — polls show that the vote will be close — it will take a while to gauge the full impact of the law. The measure would allow Californians 21 and older to grow up to 25 square feet of marijuana and possess up to an ounce for personal use. How and where it would be sold commercially would be left up to individual cities and counties.

At the same time, Tom Ammiano, a Democratic state assemblyman from San Francisco, is sponsoring a bill that would place California's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control in charge of regulating marijuana. Mr. Ammiano's bill would also allow any store to sell marijuana as long as it has liquor license. That would include liquor stores, most convenience stores and even supermarkets.

Complicating matters is last week's announcement by Eric H. Holder Jr., the United States attorney general, that the Justice Department will “vigorously enforce” federal drug laws even if Proposition 19 passes. That legal uncertainty appears to be making many businesses cautious.

“There are lots of people that say this will be in the courts for a long time,” said Libba Letton, a spokeswoman for Whole Foods Market, which has several Bay Area stores. “It's not something we're interested in getting into now.”

Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley are waiting until after the election to adopt rules for retail sales, officials in those cities said. In interviews this week, the officials said they were inclined to allow existing medical marijuana dispensaries or similar types of businesses to sell to recreational users if Proposition 19 passed. Customers who are not buying marijuana for medical reasons would be required to present a California identification card instead of a medical cannabis card to be admitted, and they would be permitted to buy only fixed quantities of marijuana.

“I think we would want to stick with the dispensary idea,” said Laurie Capitelli, a Berkeley City Council member. “I can't imagine the beer guy driving around with all that marijuana in his Miller High Life truck.”

Oakland's Harborside Health Center, clean and well-lighted, could be mistaken for a retail outlet — except for the significant presence of private security and the abundance of marijuana sold from behind a long glass counter. The dispensary, off Interstate 880, has more than 58,000 patients, and it sold more than $21 million worth of marijuana last year, according to Stephen DeAngelo, Harborside's executive director.

Mr. DeAngelo said that his operation would be a good candidate for retail sales.

“My hope is that they would look to the existing licensees to handle this new activity,” Mr. DeAngelo said. He calculated that Harborside would need to rent an additional 7,000 feet of adjacent office space to accommodate the new business.

The man behind Proposition 19, Richard Lee, founded Oaksterdam University and operates Coffeeshop Blue Sky, which doubles as a medical marijuana dispensary, in downtown Oakland. Mr. Lee said he envisioned marijuana cafes flourishing if the measure passed, although the state's tough antismoking laws would be difficult to get around.

Mr. Capitelli, the Berkeley City Council member, said that the existing dispensaries had an obvious financial interest in controlling the retail market. But he added that their expertise, especially on security matters, could be helpful as cities transition from medical to recreational sales.

Jane Brunner, president of the Oakland City Council, said her city would most likely look to the dispensaries for retail sales if Proposition 19 passed — not liquor stores. “We have enough problems with those stores as it is,” Ms. Brunner said. “With the dispensaries we have a lot of control. They pay fees, they allow us in to do inspections.”

But other business interests, backed by legislators, are likely to push for opportunities to sell marijuana — many already are. Mr. Ammiano, who is sponsoring the bill to put marijuana sales under the control of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Department, said in an interview that liquor stores would be a good option.

“Depending on the community and the location, why not?” he said.

Mr. Hennessy, the owner of the wine and specialty foods store in San Francisco, said he intended to proceed very carefully given the legal uncertainty. But he agreed that liquor store owners like him have the most experience to handle the new market.

“We've always hoped that the bill would pass and give us another tool to make money,” Mr. Hennessy said. “We've all been fingerprinted; we have city and state licensing. We've just become real experts in dispensing controlled substances.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/us/24bcmarijuana.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the Chicago Sun Times

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Remains possibly of missing NIU student found in park

October 24, 2010

BY MICHAEL LANSU

Human remains and items possibly belonging to a missing Northern Illinois University student have been found in a DeKalb park, police announced Saturday.

Investigators from the DeKalb County Major Case Squad recovered the human remains and "items consistent with property belonging to" Antinette "Toni" Keller in Prairie Park south of Illinois 38, according to a DeKalb police release.

DeKalb Police Chief Bill Feithen said the remains have not been positively identified, but police have reclassified Keller's disappearance as a death investigation. Her family was notified Saturday evening, police said.

Keller's cousin Mary Tarling said the family was saddened and shocked by the discovery of the remains.

"We're holding each other up," she said. "The comments from the public and the media have been very helpful, and we're grateful."

A portion of the park remains cordoned off as officers continue the investigation, police said.

"Investigators are actively pursuing leads in the case and are seeking information about any suspicious activity or persons in Prairie Park on or about the time of Keller's disappearance," the release said.

Keller, 18, a Plainfield resident and graduate of Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, was last seen Oct. 14. She told friends she was going for a walk near West Lincoln Highway by the Junction Center retail complex near the NIU campus, according to an Oct. 18 alert from the school.

A spokeswoman for the DeKalb County coroner's office confirmed that the coroner had been out to the scene where the remains had been found, but referred other questions to DeKalb police.

Anyone with information related to the case should call DeKalb police at (815) 748-8407; the county's tip line at (815) 753-8477, or Crime Stoppers at (815) 895-3272.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2830340,remains-found-niu-missing-student-search-102310.article

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One of the computers belonging to Arthur Williams III contained photos of him posing with his finished counterfeit bills, according to federal authorities.

Son of 'King of Counterfeit' blames dad for life of crime October 24, 2010 BY FRANK MAIN The son of the "King of Counterfeit" is begging for leniency from a federal judge. That's after following in his father's footsteps and getting busted for making bogus bills -- twice in the last two years. Arthur Williams III, 20, was arrested last year on charges he sold $6,400 in counterfeit bills to a government informant. A Secret Service agent said he manufactured at least $248,000 in fake bills, based on counterfeit currency recovered across the country. Williams' dad, Art Williams Jr., has been dubbed the "King of Counterfeit" for his career of making funny money.

After finishing a three-year prison term for making fake bills in Alaska, he was featured in a profile by Rolling Stone magazine in 2005. The next year, the Bridgeport native was busted again in Chicago for counterfeiting.

His son has gravitated to the same line of work -- even though his mother is a Chicago cop, according to court records. Prosecutors said the younger Williams gloried in his status as a counterfeiter, even recording a song called "Mr. Counterfeit" with these lyrics:

In an Oct. 8 letter to U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve, the son said he was just 10 years old when he first saw his father making counterfeit currency. He said he started taking drugs and was 14 when he helped his dad with counterfeiting.

"One year later, my father would once again get arrested due to me throwing $1,400 in counterfeit at a Chicago Police officer," he told the judge. "I don't know if it was a cry for help or if it was the amount of stress I was under."

After he was charged with counterfeiting in July 2009, the younger Williams was released on bail to the custody of his mother, court records show.

But authorities say the son went right back to making counterfeit currency. This year, an informant told federal agents he bought between $5,000 and $10,000 in counterfeit currency from Williams III. Authorities said they searched an apartment where he was staying and found more than 10 sheets of counterfeit $50 bills. He's accused of making at least $62,700 while he was on bail.

Williams usually charged customers $20 for every fake $100 bill, authorities say.

His bills, which he made with a commercial-grade Canon printer, appeared genuine when tested with commonly used counterfeit-detection pens. Still, the fake currency was not "good quality," said Derrick Golden, a Secret Service agent for 15 years who said he has never heard of a son learning the counterfeiting trade from his father.

Now, the U.S. attorney's office is seeking to boost the potential sentence for Arthur Williams III, who has pleaded guilty to counterfeiting. Under federal guidelines, he initially faced a sentence of 37 to 41 months in prison. But prosecutors say he now faces at least 63 months behind bars because of his continued criminal activity after he was freed on bail.

In his letter to the judge, the younger Williams asked for mercy, seeking a sentence in the lower range of 37 to 41 months, saying: "I went back to the only way I knew how to support myself."

But in a court filing, prosecutors countered: "Williams' father did not cause him to manufacture more counterfeit while on bond or to ignore this court's orders."

Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 4.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2829298,king-of-counterfeit-son-102310.article

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As tips slow, dozens of cops make little progress on spree killer case

October 24, 2010

BY DAN ROZEK AND JOE HOSEY Staff Reporters

The tips have slowed, but two dozen investigators in Will County and northwest Indiana continue to doggedly hunt for a killer.

Police have a vivid description of the gunman who killed 45-year-old Rolando Alonso on Oct. 5 and severely wounded two other men in two attacks 45 minutes apart.

Investigators also have three witnesses to help identify the burly gunman.

But the mistaken arrest of Lynwood Police Officer Brian Dorian on Oct. 8 sidetracked the investigation. He was charged with murdering Alonso, but then freed five days later after Will County authorities admitted they had arrested the wrong man.

Since then, despite sorting through hundreds of tips, authorities in Indiana and Illinois have little progress to show for their efforts.

"We're getting a few calls, but for the most part, things have quieted down," said Lessie Smith, deputy chief of the Lake County, Ind., sheriff's department.

The first shooting occurred about 10:30 a.m. as Alonso and two co-workers repaired a house near Beecher in rural Will County.

After pulling up in a 1990s-model light blue Chevrolet pickup truck, the gunman talked about bees and construction supplies, then pulled a revolver and began firing.

Alonso died of a gunshot wound in the head, while a co-worker, 19-year-old Joshua Garza, also suffered a head wound, but survived. He remains hospitalized, authorities said. Another co-worker escaped uninjured. He later provided police with a description of the gunman.

Police barely had time to react before another shooting about 45 minutes later near Lowell, Ind.

Farmer Keith Dahl was shot by a burly, ball-cap-wearing man in a pickup truck who stopped to chat before opening fire. Dahl, 63, was released from the hospital last week to continue recovering at his home, officials said.

Despite the descriptions, investigators haven't identified any potential suspects.

"There's nobody of interest yet," said Pat Barry, a spokesman for Will County Sheriff Paul Kaupas.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2830532,CST-NWS-spree24.article

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3 California beaches closed after deadly shark attack

October 24, 2010

ASSOCIATED PRESS

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A string of beaches on California's Central Coast were shut down Saturday and there was no word on when they would reopen after a deadly attack on a bodyboarder from what some scientists said was probably a great white shark, authorities said.

The three beaches north of Santa Barbara — including Surf Beach where the attack took place — would be closed at least through the weekend and officials on Monday would decide when to reopen them, said Jeremy Eggers, spokesman for Vandenberg Air Force Base, which owns the beach property.

Eggers said he expected base officials would reopen the beaches Monday, but there was too much uncertainty and confusion surrounding the attack to say for sure.

"There's a lot of fog and friction in these kinds of situations," said Eggers. He said his bosses determined the shutdown "was the right thing to do as a safety precaution."

Lucas Ransom, a 19-year-old student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was bodyboarding with friend Matthew Garcia off Surf Beach some 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles on Friday when the shark pulled him under the water. He resurfaced with his leg nearly severed amid what Garcia told The Associated Press was a wave of pure red.

Garcia said his friend already appeared dead.

Ransom had a severe wound to his left leg and died a short time later at Surf Beach, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

Federal and state Fish and Game officials were working to identify the type of shark that attacked Ransom. A shark expert told the Los Angeles Times, based on its behavior and Ransom's injury, it most likely was a great white.

"It takes a shark of massive size and jaw to inflict that kind of injury," Andrew Nosal of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography told the newspaper Saturday.

Authorities have issued several warnings this year after great white shark sightings up and down the California coast.

There have been nearly 100 shark attacks in California since the 1920s, including a dozen that were fatal, according to the California Department of Fish and Game. But attacks have remained relatively rare even as the population of swimmers, divers and surfers sharing the waters has soared.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2830714,shark-attack-death-california-beach-102410.article

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Questions about accuser surround sex slave case

October 24, 2010

ASSOCIATED PRESS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The allegations in the indictment were shocking: A young woman had been held captive for years as the sex slave of a Missouri couple. She had been locked in a cage and subjected to electrical shocks. Parts of her body had been nailed to wooden planks.

When announcing charges last month, U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips called the case one of "the most horrific ever prosecuted in this district."

Authorities said the woman was a mentally deficient runaway who was recruited by an older man at the age of 16 to live in his trailer. The situation came to light in early 2009, after the woman, then 23, landed in a hospital following what prosecutors said was a torture session.

But as more details have emerged, more questions have arisen about the accuser, including her involvement in violent sex practices, her posing for a pornographic magazine and her work as a strip-club dancer. Supporters of the defendant are speaking out, too, saying many of the acts described in the indictment are practiced every day between consenting adults.

Ed Bagley, 43, faces 11 federal charges, including conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, and forced labor trafficking. Four other men also are charged with various crimes.

A graphic 21-page federal indictment describes medieval-like sexual devices being used on the woman at Bagley's mobile home about six miles outside Lebanon, in southwest Missouri. Accusations of waterboarding, suffocation and beatings are mentioned throughout.

Bagley's wife, Marilyn, said she and her husband knew the girl because she had dated their son. That relationship had ended, Bagley's wife said, but the girl wanted to come live with the couple when relations with her adoptive parents soured. She said the girl moved in when she was 17, not 16, and never had sex with her husband until after she turned 18.

"She was not a runaway," Marilyn Bagley said. "We picked her up from her adopted dad and stepmom. They were right there and everything."

Marilyn Bagley said prosecutors have told her she also will be charged if she doesn't agree to testify against her husband. But she said she will not take the stand against him because she believes the two did nothing wrong.

Prosecutors said Ed Bagley posted videos and other images on the Internet showing the young woman engaged in sexual activities. He allegedly described her as his sex slave and advertised that she would perform sex acts and submit to torture for other people during encounters online or in person.

Bagley is accused of taking payments of cash, cigarettes, computer hard drives, even meat, to let other men come to his home and torture her.

Bagley and other defendants are also charged with transporting the woman to California in 2006 and 2007 for prostitution. She appeared on the cover of the July 2007 issue of Taboo, a publication owned by Larry Flynt's Hustler Magazine Group, and was the subject of a story and multipage photo spread inside.

Prosecutors said Ed Bagley also forced the girl to work as an exotic dancer and threatened to punish her if she was not a top earner at the clubs where she stripped.

But another dancer at the same Missouri strip club said the woman seemed to enjoy the attention she got when she danced, often showing off the issue of Taboo magazine that featured her on the cover.

"This girl was spoiled," said Katie Smothers, who said she spent time at Bagley's trailer when she needed a place to stay but never participated in bondage activities.

"She would take customers to show them her magazine, and she had a bucket of photos at the bar. She bragged about it."

Susan Dill, Bagley's Kansas City-based attorney, told reporters recently that the indictment tells only one side of the story. She said the defense will present evidence that the woman practiced BDSM — bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism — by choice.

Dill declined to go into detail, and attorneys for the other defendants turned down requests for comment.

The U.S. attorney's office in Kansas City also declined repeated requests to comment, saying the indictment speaks for itself.

Marilyn Bagley, who for years shared a bed with her husband and the woman, told The Associated Press the woman often left the Bagleys' home to go into the community.

She believes the woman's family coerced her to go to police after she was taken to a hospital suffering from cardiac arrest, which Bagley claims she suffered while getting ready for work — not during a torture session.

"She started seizing, and when she was done, she stopped breathing. Ed gave her CPR. I was on the phone to 911. We were freaking out. We didn't know what to do," she said.

Dr. Keely Kolmes, a San Francisco-based psychologist who sees patients who practice BDSM, said that many of the acts listed in the indictment can be part of consensual activities. But others might indicate Bagley was an abuser, such as allegations that he shot animals the woman cared about to prove he could kill her and that he refused to stop immediately when the woman used a "safe word."

"Consensual BDSM does not involve holding minors hostage against their will or causing physical or mental harm," Kolmes said in an e-mail to the AP. "That is a criminal behavior."

Susan Wright, spokeswoman for the Baltimore-based National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, said some of the things Bagley is accused of are clearly abuse, if true.

"Certainly in abusive relationships, sometimes it's hard to parse out what people do voluntarily and what things they are coerced to do," said Wright, who helped write a sadomasochism vs. abuse policy statement in the late 1990s that has been adopted by national BDSM groups.

At times, it all becomes "tangled up," she said. "And at that point, I don't think any consent you give is legitimate consent."

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2830712,sex-slave-case-102410.article

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From MSNBC

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The Eminonu New mosque in Istanbul.

Is It Islamic or Islamist? The West's confusion spells trouble. by Hayri Abaza and Soner Cagaptay October 22, 2010 Now that even the tolerant, liberal Swedes have elected an anti-Islam party to their Parliament, it's pretty clear that such controversies are mounting because both the left and the right are confused over the politics of Islam. The left is wrongly defending Islamism—an extremist and at times violent ideology—which it confuses with the common person's Islam, while the right is often wrongly attacking the Muslim faith, which it confuses with Islamism.

The right, on the other hand, often targets Islam while thinking that it is attacking Islamism. Banning the building of minarets, as Switzerland did, is exactly the wrong thing to do. The problem is not a mosque; the problem is a mosque used to promote violence, jihadism, and illiberal Islamism. The crimes of Al Qaeda, Hizbullah, and other groups are rooted in jihadist Islamism, which advocates violence to impose extremist dogma on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In response, right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders and other nativist politicians in Europe have suggested a ban on Islam itself by criminalizing the Islamic holy book, the Quran. Wilders should take note that not even Stalin was able to ban religion. It's hard to believe that a politician in liberal Europe can suggest outlawing a faith, but that is what the confusion over Islam has come to. What is more shocking is that Wilders's anti-Islam party emerged as the third-largest political force in the latest Dutch elections. The group has proposed responding to acts of Islamist terror by taxing Muslim women's headscarves. What a shame for the right, which is supposed to stand for religious freedom and should stand for freedom of Islam, even while targeting jihadist Islamist groups.

The confusion over Islam has real consequences. When was the last time you read a piece by a leftist intellectual criticizing how the AKP is trampling media freedoms in Turkey? Or the Muslim Brotherhood's refusal to recognize equal rights for women and Christians in Egypt? By defending Islamism, liberals are strengthening one of the biggest threats facing Muslims and Western liberalism alike. Meanwhile, by targeting the Muslim faith, the right is alienating potential allies in the Muslim community: conservative Muslims who want to practice their faith and despise Al Qaeda's vision. As they try to promote religious values in the secularized and quite often atheistic or agnostic West, right-wing politicians will find natural allies in conservative Muslims.

If Western intellectuals do not get rid of this confusion now, we are headed down a dangerous path. Common people in the West will start to bundle all Muslims with Islamists, picking a potentially losing battle with one quarter of humanity. This clash of civilizations is what Al Qaeda wanted to trigger with the attacks on September 11. The West and its intellectuals should be smarter than Al Qaeda.

Abaza is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Cagaptay is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/22/is-it-islamic-or-islamist.html

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Mexico's ‘war next door' linked directly to United States

Federal authorities say traffickers are now entrenched in at least 270 American cities

In the nearly four years since Mexican President Felipe Calderon, firmly supported by the U.S. government, launched an unprecedented attack on Mexico's drug kingpins, nearly 30,000 people have been killed. The victims include thousands of police officers, soldiers, public officials, judges and journalists, as the traffickers fight back with powerful weapons, many of them purchased in the United States. Often Mexican police find themselves outmanned and outgunned by the criminals. 

Terrified Mexican officials have fled across the border seeking political asylum and some Mexican villages have become ghost towns after traffickers killed or pushed out the residents to clear the way for their smuggling operations.

The Mexican trafficking organizations have also crossed deeply into the United States, peddling tons of marijuana, methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine to American drug users, who reward the cartels with an estimated 19 to 39 billion dollars a year, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.  Federal authorities say Mexican traffickers are now entrenched in at least 270 American cities, running sophisticated and disciplined networks that not only bring the drugs in, but also ship truckloads of cash back to Mexico.

"Mexico and its government are looking as transnational drug trafficking as a national security threat.  We, too, have to look at it seriously in our country," said David Gaddis, the DEA's chief for global enforcement operations. "It is our country's number one organized crime threat."

Making al-Qaida ‘look tame'
A distinguishing feature of the Mexican drug war is the unspeakable violence played out daily on the streets and posted in graphic detail by newspapers and media websites. Large-scale gun battles, mass executions, corpses strewn in public, beheadings, torture and grenade attacks have become commonplace.  As of this writing, at least a dozen Mexican mayors have been killed in 2010 alone. A gubernatorial candidate was shot dead on a highway. After a Mexican marine was killed during a raid against a drug kingpin, gunmen massacred the young man's family after his funeral.

"I think they make al-Qaida look tame in terms of what they do. I can't explain how someone loses their humanity and resorts to these things," said Anthony Coulson, a recently retired DEA supervisor. Coulson ran the DEA's Tucson District Office, overseeing 255 miles of border between the U.S. and Mexico.  He argued that the violence, and the amounts of illicit drugs flowing from Mexico into the United States, has never been higher and that the traffickers have never been more powerful or in control of more territory than they are now.

"It's getting worse. I've never seen it at this level before," said Coulson.

Of particular concern is Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's fourth largest city with a population of 1.3 million people sitting right across the border from El Paso, Texas.  Two major drug cartels and local gangs have been engaged in a vicious battle there over turf and smuggling routes. Last year alone, 2,800 people were killed there and the death toll this year could be higher.  In two separate incidents within one week this October, gunmen stormed private parties in Juarez homes and opened fire.

In the first massacre, nine were killed. In the second, thirteen — ranging in age from 16 to 25 years old — died when gunmen stormed a birthday party and opened fire. The attackers escaped, but authorities suspect the rampage is somehow connected to the ongoing turf war over drugs. Several other mass killings have occurred in drug rehabilitation facilities.

Adding to the terror in Juarez, a remote-controlled car bomb aimed at police was detonated in the downtown area, killing three people and raising concerns over a heightened level of violence. To lure police to the scene, the bombers shot a man, dressed him in a police uniform, laid him on a street corner and then made an emergency call reporting an officer down.  When responders arrived, the bomb hidden in a brief case exploded .

A two-nation threat
Political and law enforcement leaders in both countries agree that American drug users fuel the Mexican trafficking cartels by purchasing their illicit products.  They insist that demand reduction is an important component for calming the violence. There also are arguments about whether drug legalization would help, although the predominant view is both countries is that such measures are unlikely to be implemented on a national scale.

Another debate is over who is over who is actually winning the fight between the Mexican government and the drug traffickers.

"I don't think it's a winnable war," said Tony Payan, a drug cartel expert who teaches at the University of Texas at El Paso.  "The reason I don't think it's winnable is that the United States is not addressing the consumption part.  It's not doing its part to reduce the market itself."

David Gaddis, of the DEA, agrees than demand reduction is crucial, but he also points to recent arrests of major traffickers, large drug seizures and increase cooperation and intelligence sharing between Mexican and U.S. authorities.  He argued that the extreme violence is the result of traffickers being threatened and cut off from their normal smuggling activities by the Mexican police and military.

"I see it as very positive, despite the violence that's ongoing throughout Mexico," Gaddis said.

"Desperation results in desperate acts, such as the brutality and the massacres that are ongoing.  So we would expect to see continued violence for some time.  But at some point, it will yield."

Others fear that Mexico is now in a long-term spiral toward more bloodshed as the brazen traffickers lash out and fight for control.  Mexico's next presidential election in 2012, they say, is critical, because it will determine whether the current level of pressure on the cartels will continue past President Calderon's administration.

Jose Reyes Ferriz, who just completed a term as mayor of Juarez, insists the United States must fully understand that the current drug war deeply affects both sides of the border and should do more to help.  "The same gangs that are in Mexico are the same gangs that distribute drugs in the United States," he said.  "It is a joint problem, and (solving) the problems of Mexico prevents the problem from jumping to the United States."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39812764/ns/world_news-americas/

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What the Internet Knows About You

Imagine that a company could use the Web to rate your health, your employability—even your dating appeal. Welcome to the credit score of the future.

In reality, only part of this is true: yes, I like a good bourbon. But drugs? That comes from my reporting projects—and one in particular that took me to a pot farm in California. The promiscuity? My boyfriend of five years (that's him above) would beg to differ on that, but I did once write a story about polyamory. I do spend hours on social-networking sites, but it's part of my job. And I'm not nearly as cheap to hire as the Web would have you believe. (Take note, future employers!)

The irony, of course, is that if this were a real job search, none of this would matter—I'd have already lost the job. But this is the kind of information surmisable to anybody with a Web connection and a bit of background data, who wants to take the time to compile it all. For this particular experiment, we asked ReputationDefender, a company that works to keep information like this private, to do a scrub of the Web, with nothing but my (very common) name and e-mail address to go on. Three Silicon Valley engineers, several decades of experience, and access to publicly available databases like Spokeo, Facebook, and LinkedIn (no, they didn't do any hacking)—and voilà . Within 30 minutes, the company had my Social Security number; in two hours, they knew where I lived, my body type, my hometown, and my health status. (Note: this isn't part of ReputationDefender's service; they did the search—and accompanying graphic— exclusively for NEWSWEEK, to show how much about a person is out there for the taking.)

It's scary stuff, but scarier when you realize it's the kind of information that credit-card companies and data aggregators are already selling, for pennies, to advertisers every day. Or that it's the kind of data, as The Wall Street Journal revealed last week, that's being blasted to third parties when you download certain apps on Facebook. (Under close watch by Congress, Facebook has said it's working to “dramatically limit” its users' personal exposure.) “Most people are still under the illusion that when they go online, they're anonymous,” says Nicholas Carr, the author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. But in reality, “every move they make is being collected into a database.”

This, say tech experts, is the credit score of the future—a kind of aggregated ranking for every aspect of your life. It's an assessment that goes beyond the limits of targeted advertising—you know, those pesky shoe banners that follow a visit to Zappos, made possible by tracking devices we know as “cookies”—by making use of the data in ways that are more personal and, potentially, damaging. Think HMOs, loan applications, romantic partners. Let's say you've been hitting up a burger joint twice a week, and you happen to joke, in a post on Twitter, how all the meat must be wreaking havoc on your cholesterol. Suddenly your health-insurance premiums go up. Now imagine your job is listed on Salary.com; your vacation preferences linked to Orbitz. Think how this could affect your social standing, or your ability to negotiate a raise or apply for a loan. Finally, what if you could know, based on Web history and location tracking, that a prospective mate had a communicable disease. Wouldn't you pay to find out? “Most of us just don't realize the potential consequences of this,” says Lorrie Cranor, a Web-privacy expert at Carnegie Mellon University.

Think it sounds shady? It's perfectly legal—and happening already. In 2009, a Quebec woman who was receiving sick leave for depression had her disability benefits revoked after her insurance company discovered photos on Facebook—her profile was public—where she looked like she was having fun. At the time, a spokesperson for the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association told reporters that such information is fair game. Credit-card companies use social media to determine what kind of offers might work the best on your social group—or to get insight on whether you'd default on a loan. Ultimately, it's safe to assume that every Web site you visit -- yep, that means NEWSWEEK, too -- reserves the right to install tracking technology on your computer, eating up information about your tastes, guilty pleasures, and everything in between. Each company can then decide where that trove of data ultimately ends up—and, for data gold mines like Facebook, there's very little incentive to keep it to themselves. “It's not only Global 2000 and Fortune 2000 companies who want this information,” says Michael Fertik, the founder and CEO of ReputationDefender. “Eventually, it's going to be every person in your life.” The ultimate paradox? It doesn't matter if the information is wrong—or, in my case, comically incomplete.

Related: 10 Ways to Protect Your Privacy Online » (EDITOR'S NOTE: See next article, posted below)

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/22/forget-privacy-what-the-internet-knows-about-you.html

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10 Ways to Protect Your Privacy Online

Up until a couple of years ago, I used to say that the average person could protect his or her privacy on the Web. Even as the founder of an online reputation-management company, ReputationDefender, I believed it was possible—so long as you were willing to commit some time to doing it. Today, I tell people this: the landscape of personal data mining and exploitation is shifting faster than ever; trying to protect your online privacy alone is like trying to build your own antivirus software—really, really difficult. But whether or not you have the time (or money) to invest in the pros, there are a few simple steps we can all take to reduce the risk to our private data.

1. Block cookies on your Web browser.

When you surf, hundreds of data points are being collected by the sites you visit. These data get mashed together to form an integral part of your “digital profile,” which is then sold without your consent to companies around the world. By blocking cookies, you'll prevent some of the data collection about you. Yes, you'll have to enter passwords more often, but it's a smarter way to surf.

2. Don't put your full birth date on your social-networking profiles.

Identity thieves use birth dates as cornerstones of their craft. If you want your friends to know your birthday, try just the month and day, and leave off the year.

3. Don't download Facebook apps from outside the United States.

Apps on social networks can access huge amounts of personal information. Some unscrupulous or careless entities collect lots of data and then lose, abuse, or sell them. If the app maker is in the U.S., it's probably safer, and at least you have recourse if something should ever go wrong.

4. Use multiple usernames and passwords.

Keep your usernames and passwords for social networks, online banking, e-mail, and online shopping all separate. Having distinct passwords is not enough nowadays: if you have the same username across different Web sites, your entire romantic, personal, professional, and e-commerce life can be mapped and re-created with some simple algorithms. It's happened before.

Most people aren't even aware of how much information can be found about them with a few clicks. Check out this free service to get a quick read on some of the information that can be found about you and your family.

6. Be really cautious about geo-location services.

Smart phones, apps, and Web services are frequently tagging your location as you move through life. We don't yet know the full privacy implications of these services, and we may not know for some time. For now, be thoughtful about how you use “I just checked in at Restaurant XYZ” features. And if you don't know what geo-location is, turn it off on your phone right away. As a first rule, we usually shouldn't let third parties collect info about us without our even knowing what kind of info is being collected or how.

7. Shred.

If you're going to throw away credit-card offers, bank statements, or anything else that might come in hard copy to your house, rip them up into tiny bits first.

8. Opt out of “people search” sites.

There are many sites across the Web where our personal data are stored, copied, aggregated, and resold. Remove yourself from as many as you can.

9. Max out your privacy settings on social networks.

Privacy settings are getting harder to fix all the time. Stay on top of them. For Facebook, here's a free service that will fix your privacy settings in two clicks.

10. Close old accounts.

If you no longer use Friendster or MySpace, shut down your old account. Doing a digital data wipe from time to time is a good way to reduce the amount of old info floating around in the ether. Reducing your digital footprint will reduce the risk that your digital profile is being built, catalogued, and exploited.

Michael Fertik is the CEO and founder of ReputationDefender.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/22/10-ways-to-protect-your-privacy-online.html

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