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From the Los Angeles Times

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U.S. effort to slow flow of guns into Mexico failing

An inspector general's review finds that a once-praised federal program is too narrowly focused, fails to share information with law enforcement agencies and does not adequately trace U.S. guns in Mexico.

By Richard A. Serrano, Tribune Washington Bureau

November 10, 2010

Reporting from Washington

A much-touted federal effort to keep U.S. firearms out of the Mexican drug wars is unwieldy, mismanaged and fraught with "significant weaknesses" that could doom gun smuggling enforcement on the border to failure, an internal Justice Department review concluded Tuesday.

Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives focus only on small gun sales and do not share information with law enforcement officials on both sides of the border, the review said. Even the cornerstone effort of tracing U.S. guns in Mexico too often comes up short because of missing data and the lack of U.S. training for Mexican police, it found.

The investigation by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine is the first to find systemic problems in a once highly praised project, and it mirrors concerns of many on the border that weapons from the U.S. are helping the violence spiral out of control.

About 30,000 people have been killed in Mexican cartel violence since President Felipe Calderon started deploying troops to take on the drug and gun traffickers in December 2006. Nearly 70,000 U.S.-originated firearms were recovered in Mexico between 2007 and 2009.

About 7,000 licensed U.S. gun dealers operate near the 2,000-mile border, and cartel leaders often hire straw buyers to purchase firearms and pay others to transport the weapons into Mexico. Just as the drugs flow steadily north, the guns reach Mexico secreted under truck beds or stashed in car trunks, sometimes even hidden in clothing.

ATF officials defended their marquee program, named Project Gunrunner, saying it has gone a long way in combating the illegal flow of U.S. firearms into Mexico since it was started in Texas in 2005 and expanded nationwide a year later.

Kenneth E. Melson, the ATF's deputy director, said in a lengthy rebuttal letter to the inspector general's report that there had been "significant accomplishments," with gun investigations up by 109% and prosecutions up by 54% under the project.

But he said a reduction in funds had limited some gun-tracing operations and had stalled attempts by the ATF to place more U.S. agents in Mexican police stations to work on joint investigations.

He said funding last year covered only seven of the 23 agents needed to expand intelligence operations and that funding for the remaining 16 was not authorized this fiscal year.

Fine acknowledged the budget restraints but said he was concerned that the ATF was not using its current manpower wisely. He said the ATF "does not systematically and consistently exchange intelligence with its Mexican and some U.S. partner agencies," including the Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

As examples, Fine said that "ATF and ICE do not regularly conduct joint investigations of firearms trafficking to Mexico, do not consistently notify each other of their firearms trafficking cases, and do not consistently coordinate their investigative work with each other."

U.S. and Mexican officials estimate that more than 90% of the guns seized at the border or taken after raids and shootouts in Mexico originated in the United States, with California and Texas the largest providers.

And just as the U.S. is pushing Mexico to do more to stop the drugs, Mexico wants the American guns halted at the border. When President Obama visited Mexico last year, Calderon appealed for him to do more. The Mexican leader reiterated his position last week. "We do not want them to continue sending to Mexico, illegally, dirty money and weapons," he said.

Mexican Sen. Sebastian Calderon Centeno accused the U.S. of "doublespeak" by demanding the drugs stop while the guns keep pouring south. "The U.S. government does nothing to stop it," he said.

Thomas Mangan, a career ATF agent in Phoenix, acknowledged Tuesday that the agency was fighting an uphill battle. "We've got a couple of things coming up, some wiretaps on some gun trafficking operations, some really good stuff coming up," he said. "But has the violence slowed down in Mexico? No, it hasn't."

An ATF supervisor in south Texas, who asked not to be identified, was equally frustrated. "Mexican officials don't have the training to correctly trace the guns, and we don't have enough agents to go down there and train them," he said.

He said there were more Border Patrol agents in tiny Nogales, Ariz., "than we have in our whole agency." There are only 2,500 ATF agents in the country, and the Border Patrol has about 3,300 agents in the Tucson Sector, which patrols Nogales. And he and other agents worry that ATF funds will be cut even further when Republicans take control of the House next year and the National Rifle Assn. steps up its Capitol Hill lobbying efforts.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mexico-guns-20101110,0,2511275,print.story

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Suspect arrested in slaying of Riverside police officer

Riverside police announced that they have arrested  Earl Ellis Green, 44, of Rubidoux in connection with the killing of Officer Ryan Bonaminio.

He is being held on suspicion of murder and parole violation.

Police and FBI agents arrested Green  in the Target shopping complex in the 3300 block of Arlington Avenue, Riverside, on Tuesday night.

"We like this guy, but there's still a lot of work to do," Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz told the Riverside Press-Enterprise earlier.

A reward of $385,000 has been offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer. The city and county of Riverside, the county district attorney's office, local and federal police agencies and the Morongo Indian tribe contributed to the reward.

Bonaminio, a 27-year-old Iraq war veteran who had been with the police department since 2006, was on routine patrol about 9:45 p.m. Sunday when he tried to pull over a stolen semi truck believed to have been involved in a hit-and-run collision near the 60 Freeway.

The driver of the trailerless cab sped south on Market Street before pulling over in front of Riverside's Fairmount Park and running down a grassy field. Bonaminio was running after the suspect when he was shot.

When other officers arrived, they found Bonaminio on the ground. He was taken to Riverside Community Hospital, where he died of his injuries.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/11/suspect-arrested-in-slaying-of-riverside-police-officer.html

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Riverside officer's gun may have killed him

Witnesses saw the policeman fighting in a park with the driver of a stolen big rig before shots were fired. The weapon has not been recovered. A potential suspect has been arrested.

By Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times

November 10, 2010

The Riverside police officer killed Sunday night may have been shot with his own gun after he chased down the driver of a stolen big rig and fought with him in a city park, authorities said Tuesday.

Witnesses told detectives they saw the officer and driver in an altercation in Fairmount Park seconds before shots were fired. The man fled the scene in the semi-truck, escaping about a minute before other officers arrived to find Officer Ryan P. Bonaminio lying mortally wounded on the grass.

Bonaminio's gun was not recovered, and investigators said it was unclear if he fired his weapon. Det. Ron Sanfilippo said it's "very possible" that the suspect was able to get Bonaminio's gun and shot him with it.

"We're looking into that," he said, "but we don't know for sure."

Late Tuesday, police arrested a potential suspect in the officer's slaying at a Target store on Arlington Boulevard in Riverside. A store employee said at least a dozen heavily armed officers swarmed the parking lot about 8:20 p.m. but said little else under orders by the store manager.

"We like this guy, but there's still a lot of work to do," Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz told the Press-Enterprise in the store parking lot.

An emotionally spent Joseph Bonaminio, the officer's father, earlier urged the suspect to turn himself in to "let justice do its job." He said his son, a 27-year-old Army veteran who returned from his second tour in Iraq just a year ago, deserved nothing less.

"He's been home one year. He gave his life on our soil, and we want to know why," Joseph Bonaminio said, standing before the media with his wife and daughter. "I just wish this person would just come forward. Those people out there, if you know this individual, make him come forward…. Let's put an end to this. I'm just looking for justice, that's all."

Diaz announced that $390,000 in reward money had been raised for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the suspect. On Monday investigators released a photograph of the suspect, and on Tuesday they released a seven-second video of the man jumping into the big rig and fleeing, images captured by the camera in Bonaminio's squad car.

"We think that people who know this person have recognized him from the photo already. We think this almost $400,000 in reward money that's been offered will loosen some tongues. It's a lot of money to forgo for protecting a criminal like this," Diaz said.

The chief expressed "every confidence" that the officer's killer would be captured swiftly and said the FBI and multiple state and local law enforcement agencies were assisting with the investigation.

Detectives believe the man is a "graduate of the state prison system who knows how to operate a truck," which will greatly narrow the pool of suspects, Diaz said.

Bonaminio, who had been with the Police Department since 2006, was on routine patrol about 9:40 p.m. Sunday when he tried to pull over a stolen semi-truck believed to have been involved in a hit-and-run collision near the 60 Freeway.

The driver of the trailerless cab sped south on Market Street before pulling over in front of Fairmount Park and running into a field. Bonaminio called in his location to the police dispatch center and ran after the driver.

Sanfilippo said witnesses in the park, affiliated with a local church, saw the deadly encounter and have "assisted us." He declined to provide more detail, saying it could impede the investigation.

The truck had been stolen from a rental lot just outside city limits; the man returned the rig to the same lot after the shooting. Sanfilippo said analysts are processing the vehicle for fingerprints and other possible evidence.

While the incident will be reviewed thoroughly, the police chief said that Bonaminio appeared to have followed proper procedure in trying to apprehend the suspect, and that there was no evidence he knew the man had a gun.

In cases in which suspects are believed to be armed, officers are instructed to wait for backup, Diaz said.

"I certainly don't blame Officer Bonaminio for any of the decisions he made on that fateful night, and there's nothing that jumps out at me as a mistake made," Diaz said.

"Officers put themselves in the face of danger, in the way of danger, all the time.... That's police work. That's what we do," he said.

Police described the suspect as a black male in his mid-30s to mid-40s, about 6 feet 1 or 6 feet 2, with a slender build and possible facial hair.

He was last seen wearing dark clothing and a light-colored baseball cap. Authorities have received a number of tips about possible suspects, but thus far none has emerged as a person of interest, Sanfilippo said.

On Tuesday, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, Riverside City Council and Riverside County district attorney's office each approved $100,000 in reward money.

The U.S. Marshals Service, FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives combined to add $55,000; the Riverside Police Officers Assn. contributed $25,000; and the Morongo Band of Mission Indians contributed $10,000 to the reward fund and $10,000 to a family memorial fund.

Supervisor John Tavaglione, whose son served with Bonaminio on the police force, said the board authorized the reward to ensure there was "quick justice to bring this despicable coward who took Ryan's life … to justice and put him away — not for life, but to death. And I hope that happens very quickly."

Bonaminio was a Riverside native who joined the Army after graduating from Ramona High School in 2000. He served two tours in Iraq as a military police officer.

Army Spc. Brian J. Roy remembers serving in Mosul, Iraq, with Bonaminio in 2008-09.

"I always had to hand it to him; he always looked after us," Roy wrote in an e-mail. "He was a great mentor to all of us. He was always easy to talk to whenever we had problems…. Sgt. Bonaminio was a great friend and a great brother to us all."

The funeral for Bonaminio is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Grove Community Church in Riverside. He will be interred at Riverside National Cemetery.

Donations may be made to the Officer and Family Assistance Fund via the Riverside Police Officers Assn., 1965 Chicago Ave., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92507; phone (951) 784-1034 or http://www.rpoa.org

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1110-riverside-officer-20101110,0,3754040,print.story

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Ex-Marines allegedly sold assault rifles to L.A. gang members

The suspects allegedly sold $6,000 worth of weapons, including AK-47s. It is illegal to possess an AK-47 without U.S. government permits. More arrests may be made, authorities say.

By Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

November 10, 2010

Three former U.S. Marines and two others were arrested on suspicion of selling illegal assault weapons to Los Angeles gang members, federal officials announced Tuesday.

The arrests capped a yearlong investigation into an elaborate scheme to transfer heavy weapons, including AK-47s, to San Fernando Valley-based gang members. Earlier this month, officials from several law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, raided the San Clemente home of former Marine Adam Andrew Gitschlag, 28. He was arrested, and authorities confiscated boxes of automatic weapons and rifles.

Authorities allege that on June 23 the suspects sold $6,000 worth of weapons to a person they thought was connected to the street gang. The sale took place at an L.A.-area post office parking lot, where one of the suspects worked. One of those involved in the sale was a law-enforcement informant.

The five men are charged with five counts each of having unlawful assault weapons, including four AK-47s and an AR-15 assault rifle.

Officials have not said where the Marines had been based or how many weapons they allegedly sold. They said the investigation is continuing and that more arrests may be made.

"We are pleased with the outcome of this case," said John A. Torres, special agent in charge of the ATF's Los Angeles field division, in a statement. "These arrests show that there are people still illegally trafficking in firearms to gang members for profit. ATF will continue with our mission in keeping the public safe by investigating all firearm-related violent crimes and arresting those that place the public in danger."

In addition to Gitschlag, officials on Monday arrested two other ex-Marines, Jose Smith Pacheco, 31, of Montebello and Miguel A. Ortiz, 49, of Northridge. Two other suspects were also arrested: Edwin Cano, 33, of Northridge and Christopher John Thomas, 32, of Van Nuys. Cano faces two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon. Prosecutors say Thomas, Ortiz and Pacheco have pleaded not guilty. Gitschlag and Cano are expected to be arraigned at a later date.

If convicted, each defendant could get up to 20 years in state prison.

The arrests come a week after a Navy SEAL from Coronado and two other men were charged with selling prohibited firearms, including AK-47 assault rifles from Iraq and Afghanistan, to undercover federal agents.

The three suspects allegedly sold 18 AK-47s and 14 other firearms to undercover ATF agents. The Russian-designed AK-47 can fetch a high price on the illicit market, officials said. The weapons were smuggled into the U.S. from Iraq and Afghanistan by U.S. military personnel, according to federal documents.

It is illegal to possess an AK-47 without a permit from the U.S. government. It is also illegal to engage in firearms dealing without a license.

In the case of the Marines, it's unclear exactly how the suspects obtained the cache of firearms. A photo taken by the San Clemente Times on Nov. 2, when officials served search warrants at Gitschlag's home, shows ATF officials hauling out loads of weapons and placing them in boxes.

Most of the defendants could not be reached for comment. In an interview with the Associated Press, Gitschlag denied any wrongdoing and said the weapons were part of his private collection.

"I did not sell any gang members any weapons," he said. "I love my country with all my heart. I would never expect my government to do this."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-marines-guns-20101110,0,6818217,print.story

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EDITORIAL

Targeting an American

Anwar Awlaki's hatred of the U.S. is clear. But can the government legally assassinate him?

November 10, 2010

Anyone who is still not sure whether Anwar Awlaki is a bitter, fulminating, implacable enemy of the United States should check out the video posted online Monday. In it, the U.S.-born radical Islamic cleric urges his followers to kill Americans even when there is no religious fatwa in place calling on them to do so.

"Don't consult with anybody in killing the Americans," Awlaki says. "Fighting the devil doesn't require consultation or prayers seeking divine guidance."

Not only is he repugnant, but he's dangerous too, according to U.S. officials. Born in New Mexico but now hiding in Yemen, Awlaki is believed to be an increasingly important leader of the organization Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and is said to have played an "operational" role in several terrorist plots, including the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit last year.

We have no reason to doubt the government's assertions. But the question facing Americans today is not whether Awlaki is a bad guy — it is how far the United States government is entitled to go in its efforts to stop him.

Indeed, on the same day the Awlaki video went public, U.S. officials were appearing in federal court in Washington to defend the widely reported decision to put Awlaki's name on a "targeted killings" list. By most accounts, that list authorizes the CIA or the military to track down Awlaki and kill him at any time without any judicial review, despite the fact that he is an American citizen apparently residing far outside of a war zone.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, acting on behalf of Awlaki's father, have challenged the notion that the government can kill anyone anywhere. They reminded the court of the Constitution's guarantee that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. "If the 4th and 5th Amendments mean anything at all, surely they mean there are limits to the government's power to use force against its own citizens," argued the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer. Judge John D. Bates questioned why the government is required to obtain a court warrant to eavesdrop on an American overseas but not to kill one.

The Obama administration, for its part, did its best at Monday's hearing to have the case dismissed on procedural grounds, and it may well succeed. Justice Department lawyers argued, for example, that Awlaki's father didn't have legal standing to sue on behalf of his son. The lawyers also argued that the case involves such sensitive national security secrets that the proceedings should not be allowed to go forward. More substantively, they argued that terrorist activities in Yemen do, in fact, fall within the war on terror's combat zone, and that targeted killings are covered by the congressional authorization for the use of force approved after 9/11. They also argued that there is no basis in "law, logic or history" for permitting courts to issue binding directives to the president before military action is taken in a case involving "complex and time-sensitive determinations" about terrorism.

Maybe so. It is certainly true that presidents need to be allowed to fight wars without having their hands tied unreasonably. Nevertheless, the government owes its citizens answers to some deeply troubling underlying questions. The Obama administration should explain why it needs to draw up what are, in effect, death lists, and why it needs to authorize extrajudicial assassinations of the sort Americans have always considered a grave violation of human rights when undertaken by other countries. International law says that lethal force may be used in peacetime only to counter an imminent attack and only as a last resort; have those standards been met in this case? If the war zone is really going to be extended all the way to Yemen, what will be the consequences of such a loose interpretation? What are the government's arguments against judicial review?

There is absolutely no moral equivalence to be drawn between an alleged terrorist such as Awlaki and the U.S. government as it engages in its ongoing war against terrorism; to claim otherwise would be a perversion of logic and reason. But still, it was hard not to see a strange symmetry between Awlaki's videotaped argument that killing is acceptable even in the absence of a religious fatwa , and the U.S. government's argument that killing is acceptable without oversight or due process.

One obvious difference between the United States and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is that in this country, we live under the rule of law, and we must hold ourselves to the standards we have set even when it is inconvenient, difficult or dangerous to do so.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-awlaki-20101110,0,4733716,print.story

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A law we don't need

Oklahoma's amendment prohibiting courts from considering Islam's Sharia law in decisions is the product of fear-mongering.

By Michael A. Helfand

November 10, 2010

Oklahomans have a plan to save the country. It doesn't address the reverberations of the financial crisis or outline a way to pay for social services on a limited budget. Instead, they've fashioned a "preemptive strike" against Islamic law in the United States. Last week, 70% of Oklahoma's electorate approved this amendment to the state's Constitution: "The [Oklahoma] Courts … when exercising their judicial authority … shall not consider international law or Sharia Law."

Oklahoma isn't alone. Arizona is considering a bill that would prohibit state judges from "rely[ing] on any body of religious sectarian law or foreign law," and a similar bill has just been introduced in the South Carolina Legislature. Whether more states will hop on the bandwagon may depend on the outcome of a lawsuit filed in Oklahoma federal district court that contends that the amendment violates the 1st Amendment. But the amendment is not just of dubious constitutionality; it's dangerous and unnecessary on the merits.

Rex Duncan, a Republican state representative in Oklahoma and a sponsor of the amendment, has explained that part of its purpose is to ban religious forms of arbitration: "Parties would come to the courts and say we want to be bound by Islamic law and then ask the courts to enforce those agreements. That is a backdoor way to get Sharia law into courts. There ... have been some efforts, I believe, to explore bringing that to America, and it's dangerous."

In reality, such arbitration is well established. For nearly half a century, Jewish, Christian and Muslim tribunals have operated in the United States in concert with government courts. These tribunals preside over matters of religious ritual and also apply religious law to a wide range of disputes between individuals and even commercial entities. Parties, in keeping with shared beliefs and values, can voluntarily agree to submit employment, divorce, contractual and various other types of disputes for resolution. State and federal courts currently treat such religious tribunals as they do all other arbitration panels that litigants can seek out as an alternative to going to court. And, as long as the tribunal and its decisions meet certain standards, government courts routinely "confirm" them — that is, render them legally enforceable.

To some, the prospect that the "Save Our State" amendment could challenge this process would be a positive development. In fact, if we were to buy into some of the characterizations propounded by some pundits and politicians, we might think that religious arbitration could force U.S. courts to allow dismemberment or stoning as a form of punishment. But if the awards of religious tribunals are to be enforced in court, the hearings must comply with various procedural requirements, the arbitration agreements cannot be unconscionable, and the awards cannot contravene state and federal laws. Indeed, under the aptly titled "public policy exception," courts cannot enforce any arbitration award, including one issued by a religious tribunal, that undermines U.S. public policies.

For example, parties before a religious tribunal have a right to an attorney that cannot be waived. The tribunal must give notice to the parties regarding all hearings. And it must accept all relevant evidence and allow parties to cross-examine witnesses.

When it comes to the decisions themselves, just as a court cannot enforce a contract to hire a hit man, a court cannot enforce an arbitration award that requires something such as stoning or caning. Nor could a court confirm a religious tribunal's child custody decision without making its own independent determination as to what was in the best interests of the child. In the words of a New York court, "An arbitration award that deprives a party of a constitutional right to seek redress or protection in a civil or criminal matter is against public policy."

But that alone isn't a reason to maintain the tradition of religious arbitration. This form of justice sometimes provides legal redress that the state and federal courts cannot.

Consider a case in which a pastor, imam or rabbi is given a lifetime contract (a relatively common practice) that allows his or her congregation to terminate his or her employment only for cause. Somewhere down the line, the congregation decides that its religious leader is no longer doing the job. Accordingly, the congregation terminates the contract. But the pastor, imam or rabbi might very well disagree that there was cause for the dismissal. Where does he or she go to bring that claim?

The answer is not in state or federal court. The establishment clause of the 1st Amendment prohibits government courts from rendering a view regarding religious doctrine. And deciding what the appropriate responsibilities of a pastor or imam or rabbi are, and whether they have been fulfilled, would generally amount to rendering such a view. As a result, the court could only dismiss the case. However, the pastor, imam or rabbi could turn to a religious tribunal, and a U.S. court could later confirm the decision and give it legal force.

Legislation banning religious arbitration is deeply misguided. The decisions of religious tribunals are unenforceable unless they comply with public policy. And we need them to address cases that constitutional doctrine prohibits from being litigated in government courts. In the end, allowing state and federal courts to "consider" the findings of religious tribunals for the purposes of "confirmation" doesn't violate cherished religious freedoms, it enhances them.

Laws like Oklahoma's "Save Our State" amendment pander to unfounded fears. Instead of saving the nation, they merely add to its list of problems.

Michael A. Helfand is an associate professor of law at Pepperdine University and associate director of the university's Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-helfand-oklahoma-20101110,0,7596524,print.story

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From the New York Times

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No Criminal Charges Sought Over C.I.A. Tapes

WASHINGTON — Central Intelligence Agency officials will not face criminal charges for the destruction of dozens of videotapes depicting the brutal interrogation of terrorism suspects, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

After a closely watched investigation of nearly three years, the decision by a special federal prosecutor is the latest example of Justice Department officials' declining to seek criminal penalties for some of the controversial episodes in the C.I.A.'s now defunct detention and interrogation program. The destruction of the tapes, in particular, was seen as so striking that the Bush administration itself launched the special investigation after the action was publicly disclosed.

Government officials said Tuesday that the special prosecutor, John H. Durham, could still decide to charge current and former C.I.A. officers and lawyers with making false statements to a grand jury over the course of the investigation, which began in January 2008.

In addition, the prosecutor has yet to close another aspect of his investigation, focused on the death or abuse of detainees in the hands of C.I.A. officers who used tactics that had not been approved by the Justice Department.

“The investigation is ongoing,” said Tom Carson, a spokesman for Mr. Durham.

Justice Department officials provided no details of Mr. Durham's decision. However, one impediment to the case was that the officials who destroyed the tapes claimed to have gotten approvals from C.I.A. lawyers. Similar claims have also posed obstacles to investigating the Bush administration's use of brutal interrogations and secret prisons in the years immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The key figure in the tape destruction incident was Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the former head of the agency's clandestine service. In November 2005, he ordered his staff to destroy tapes of the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the first two detainees held in secret overseas prisons. The tapes had been kept in a safe in the agency's station in Thailand, the country in which the interrogations were conducted in 2002.

According to current and former government officials, Mr. Rodriguez told his superiors that two lawyers inside the C.I.A.'s clandestine service, Robert Eatinger and Steven Hermes, had signed off on his order to destroy the tapes.

Internal C.I.A. e-mails, released earlier this year in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, showed that Mr. Rodriguez had argued that “the heat” agency officials would take over destroying the tapes “is nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes ever got into the public domain.”

Mr. Rodriguez told another top C.I.A. official that if the images were disclosed “out of context, they would make us look terrible; it would be ‘devastating' to us,” an e-mail said. The tapes showed hours of interrogation of the two detainees, including the infliction of a technique called waterboarding that simulates drowning.

The e-mails showed that the tapes were destroyed on the morning of Nov. 9, 2005. Officials announced the decision on Tuesday because the five-year statute of limitations for filing criminal charges relating to the tapes' destruction had expired.

The agency had withheld the fact that the tapes existed from both the federal courts and the Sept. 11 Commission, which had asked the agency for records of the interrogations. The existence and subsequent destruction of the tapes was first revealed by The New York Times in December 2007.

Robert S. Bennett, Mr. Rodriguez's attorney, said in an interview that he was pleased that the Justice Department “did the right thing.”

Mr. Rodriguez is “a hero and a patriot, who simply wanted to protect his people and his country,” Mr. Bennett said.

Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, said in a statement that the C.I.A. was “pleased with the decision” not to bring charges against agency officers involved in destroying the tapes, and that the agency would continue to cooperate with other aspects of the Justice Department's investigation. But Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, condemned Mr. Durham's failure to file charges for obstruction of justice. He noted that the tapes were pertinent to litigation pending at the time that the agency destroyed them, including an A.C.L.U. Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking documents and images related to interrogations.

Mr. Durham, a career federal prosecutor based in Connecticut, was appointed in January 2008 by Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate whether destroying the tapes was a crime. In August 2009, the new attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr. , expanded Mr. Durham's mandate to include looking into whether crimes had been committed in the interrogation program, an investigation that remains open.

At the time, Mr. Holder cited a 2004 report by the C.I.A. inspector general that discussed several instances in which detainees died during interrogations by agency officials in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also documented the use of unauthorized techniques — like mock executions, threats to family members and inflicting waterboarding — more often than the department had approved.

When he expanded Mr. Durham's mandate, Mr. Holder also stressed that the Justice Department would “not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.”

Mr. Holder was referring to once secret Justice Department memorandums asserting that certain interrogation techniques, like stripping prisoners naked, keeping them awake for long periods, slamming them into walls and subjecting them to waterboarding, would not violate antitorture laws.

Many legal scholars have contended that the memorandums gave a false reading of the law, and other officials in the Bush-era Justice Department later rescinded the legal guidance. But because the Justice Department had initially signed off on the techniques, it is considered essentially impossible for the department to prosecute officials who relied on the memorandums.

In his newly released memoir, former President George W. Bush writes that he personally authorized the C.I.A. to use the techniques in 2002, after obtaining assurances from government lawyers that the interrogation program would be lawful.

“I have been troubled by the blowback against the intelligence community and Justice Department for their role in the surveillance and interrogation programs,” Mr. Bush wrote.

“Our intelligence officers carried out their orders with skill and courage, and they deserve our gratitude for protecting our nation. Legal officials in my administration did their best to resolve complex issues in a time of extraordinary danger to our country. Their successors are entitled to disagree with their conclusions. But criminalizing differences of legal opinion would set a terrible precedent for our democracy.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/world/10tapes.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Congo Republic Declares a Polio Emergency

An explosive outbreak of polio is taking place in the Congo Republic, with 201 cases of paralysis found in two weeks and 104 deaths, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

The government in Brazzaville, the nation's capital, has declared an emergency and announced plans to vaccinate the entire population with oral drops three times with help from the W.H.O., Unicef and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Pointe Noire, the port city where most of the cases are concentrated, “We've got two hospitals with hundreds of paralyzed people and many dead,” Dr. Bruce Aylward, the W.H.O.'s director of global polio eradication, said in an interview from Geneva. “And a couple of things about this outbreak are different and deeply disturbing.”

Polio normally strikes young boys and girls equally, killing no more than 20 percent of those it paralyzes; death ensues when paralysis moves up the spine to the nerves that control the breathing muscles. In Pointe Noire, 85 percent of the cases are in teenagers and adults, most victims are male, and the death rate is much higher.

However, Dr. Aylward said, as his team on its way there learns more, the outbreak could begin to look more typical, albeit still serious. “We've only heard about this in the last seven days,” he said. “This is very much under investigation.”

Pointe Noire is unusual in that rebel activity has so cut off its roads that the city is “almost like an island,” he said, with few outside children visiting. Routine polio vaccination in central Africa began only in the 1980s and focuses on children under age 5, so few adults are protected. Also, the weakened live virus in the vaccine spreads in the same way the disease virus does, shed in feces. Because mothers and sisters tend to change babies' diapers, they may have picked up that accidental form of protection.

Also, the hospitals are probably seeing only serious cases, making the death rate artificially high. “We're still dealing with the fog of war,” Dr. Aylward said. “We don't have exact data.”

In 1996, he noted, there was an adult outbreak in long-isolated Albania after a few years in which only children got the modern vaccine.

It will take a few weeks to see whether the intense central African vaccination campaigns of the last few years can fence off this outbreak, Dr. Aylward said. He called the situation in the Congo Republic an unexpected setback in what had otherwise been a great year in fighting polio.

Nigeria, long Africa's polio hot spot, had a 98 percent drop in cases since 2009, and 14 of the 15 countries with outbreaks of the Nigerian strain snuffed them out.

The Congo Republic outbreak is of an Indian strain that was first found in Angola in 2007 and is creeping north.

Meanwhile, in northern India, another polio epicenter, “it's the middle of the high season, and we've had no cases in five weeks,” Dr. Aylward said. The worldwide polio-eradication campaign has $800 million less than it estimates it needs to finish the job, he said, “and we'll never have an opportunity like this again.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/world/africa/10polio.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Driver Beware: Deer Collisions Peak in Mating Season

By ERIK ECKHOLM

These are fraught weeks for drivers, deer and the nation's car insurers: costly auto-deer collisions make a special jump during the mating season, usually October through December, and peak each November.

“The bucks throw caution to the wind as they chase does during the breeding season,” said Billy Higginbotham, a wildlife specialist at Texas A & M University. “If this happens to carry them across a roadway, they don't seem to care.”

State Farm Insurance estimates that deer collisions over the past two years reached 2.3 million, up 21 percent compared with five years ago, and still more encounters go unreported. The annual number of collisions may be as high as two million a year, according to Terry A. Messmer of Utah State University.

These crashes are usually most catastrophic for the animals, but they also account for billions of dollars in car repair and medical costs and hundreds of human deaths annually.

Collisions have risen with deer populations — mainly of white-tailed deer, which now number more than 30 million and have adapted well to suburban life — and with the spread of housing into woodlands and prairies.

The risk is greatest in West Virginia, where a driver's odds of hitting a deer over 12 months are 1 in 42, according to calculations by State Farm. Iowa is second, with a 1-in-67 chance, and Michigan is third, at 1 in 70. A driver in Hawaii, on the other hand, has only a 1-in-13,011 chance of hitting a deer — “roughly equivalent to the odds of finding a pearl in an oyster shell,” State Farm noted in a report last month.

In a typical fall sequence, a driver may spot a bounding doe and brake for it, then speed up only to hit the chasing buck.

Feral hogs are adding to the hazards of dusk-to-dawn driving in many states, including Texas, Florida and California. The collisions are surging with the unchecked spread of the animals, which breed prolifically and can weigh up to 300 pounds.

Many deer are saved by their physiology: their eyes brightly reflect a car's headlights, making them easier to spot in the darkness. Hog eyes do not reflect light that way, and the animals, low-slung and dark-hued, can be hard to spot on a cloudy night.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/us/10deer.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Confusion Over Program to Spot Illegal Immigrants

In 2008, the Bush administration announced an ambitious new program to help federal officials detain and deport illegal immigrants held on criminal charges by using fingerprints collected by local police departments.

But two years later, as the program is being put into effect state by state, confusion abounds in New York and elsewhere, among officials and immigrant advocates alike, about how it works and whether local participation is required.

Several counties around the nation have voted to opt out of the program, called Secure Communities, because of concerns that it could ensnare immigrants who have committed low-level offenses or chill crime-fighting cooperation between immigrants and the police.

As recently as last week, the spokesman for New York State's criminal justice agency maintained that the program was optional for local governments. But federal officials now say that participation was never voluntary. The program, they say, will be up and running nationwide by 2013.

The confusion appears to be largely the fault of federal immigration officials, who in recent months have issued vaguely worded or seemingly contradictory statements about the program.

“The Department of Homeland Security has done a horrible job of, one, explaining the policy; two, explaining the implementation process; and three, explaining the local jurisdictional role,” said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, who has urged the state not to join the program. “It doesn't inspire confidence.”

Under Secure Communities, the fingerprints of everyone booked into a local or county jail will automatically be sent to the Department of Homeland Security and compared with prints in the agency's databases. If officials discover that a suspect is in the country illegally, or is a noncitizen immigrant with a criminal record, they might seek to deport him or her.

More than 750 jurisdictions in 34 states have already joined the program, which has contributed to a surge in deportations over the last year. But resistance has arisen among some elected officials and immigrant advocates who contend that the program has caught up a disproportionate number of immigrants charged with low-level offenses, rather than the dangerous criminals it was primarily intended to snag.

Federal officials require states' permission to start the program, and states can refuse. In New York, where opposition surfaced early in immigrant-friendly cities, Gov. David A. Paterson signed an agreement in May to cooperate.

New York officials said that numerous written and spoken conversations with Homeland Security in the past several months left them with the understanding that participation at the local level was voluntary, as well.

On July 23, for instance, Dan Cadman, a regional coordinator for the Secure Communities program, sent an e-mail to the State Division of Criminal Justice Services. “No jurisdiction will be activated if they oppose it,” Mr. Cadman wrote. “There is no ambiguity on that point. We get it.”

He added, “We will do everything we can to work with a N.Y. law enforcement agency to satisfy its concerns but at the end of the day, if they are opposed, we won't go forward.”

In recent weeks, Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, has declared repeatedly that the program will be mandatory for the entire country by 2013.

Yet last Wednesday, officials in Albany said they had been assured by federal authorities that local jurisdictions could choose not to join the data-sharing network. “We have written and oral assurances that it is an opt-in, opt-out situation,” said John M. Caher, spokesman for the state's Division of Criminal Justice Services. “No local community would automatically be in.”

Two days later, however, after further discussion among state officials who continued to wrestle with the federal government's seemingly conflicting messages, Mr. Caher refined his message. “Apparently,” he said, “it is the position of the federal government that it can require participation.”

Homeland Security officials said that they never intended to imply that the program was optional. Rather, the only wiggle room available to local authorities is deciding when — not if — they will be added to the network.

“The deployment can be delayed and rescheduled, and we'll work to iron out issues related to the deployment,” a Homeland Security official said, asking that he not be identified because he did not want to “talk over” Ms. Napolitano's recent comments.

To participate in Secure Communities, police departments must install new fingerprinting equipment or make minor changes to existing technology, to allow fingerprint data to flow automatically to the Justice Department and Homeland Security.

No locality in New York State has signed up yet, but the entire state is scheduled to join in the next three years, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the arm of Homeland Security that is managing the program.

In New York City, where city leaders have energetically tried to keep local police out of immigration enforcement, Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez said he planned to introduce a resolution asking Governor Paterson to pull out of Secure Communities, saying that the new system might discourage immigrants from reporting crime or testifying in cases. The City Council plans a hearing Wednesday to discuss the relationship between the immigration agency and the city's Department of Correction.

A spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the city would join the federal program. “Our reading of the laws are that we have to comply, and we are,” said the spokesman, Jason Post. Elected leaders in several places — including Santa Clara County, Calif. and Arlington County, Va. — have voted not to share fingerprint information with immigration authorities, though they have since been told by federal authorities that they must do so as long as their states participate in Secure Communities.

Though states can refuse to cooperate, there is a cost: Any state that declines to share fingerprints with the Justice Department will in turn lose access to the criminal databases of other states and the federal government, seriously hampering crime-fighting efforts.

The only latitude local authorities have under the program, officials said, is to decide whether to look at the immigration information that Homeland Security sends back in response to the fingerprint data. But regardless of the local jurisdiction's posture, officials said, immigration authorities can still act on the information — and move to deport the suspects.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/nyregion/10secure.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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USCIS Naturalizes Largest Number of Service Members Since 1955

Agency Continues Outreach to Members of the Military and Their Families

WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced that in fiscal year 2010 it granted citizenship to 11,146 members of the U.S. armed forces at ceremonies in the United States and 22 countries abroad. This figure represents the highest number of service members naturalized in any year since 1955. This number is a 6 percent increase from the 10,505 naturalizations in fiscal year 2009 and a significant increase from the 7,865 naturalizations in fiscal year 2008. Since September 2001, USCIS has naturalized nearly 65,000 service men and women, including those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“As our nation's immigration agency, USCIS makes every effort to provide members of the military and their families with exceptional access to our services,” said USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas. “We are proud to partner with the Department of Defense in these efforts.”

USCIS has implemented outreach tailored to reach members of the military and their family. Military liaison officers at USCIS field offices in the United States and abroad conduct educational seminars on nearby military installations. Military lawyers, personnel officers and spouses are invited to learn about the naturalization process and other family-based immigration services. There is often an increase in applications for naturalization from the military community after these sessions. 

The Naturalization at Basic Training Initiative has also contributed to an increase in the number of military personnel becoming naturalized citizens. Under this initiative, USCIS conducts all naturalization processing -- including the capture of biometrics, the naturalization interview, and administration of the Oath of Allegiance -- on the military base so that, in most cases, the recruit is able to be a U.S. citizen when he or she graduates from basic training.

“Many of our service members have risked their lives across the globe before becoming citizens here at home. Their brave acts, and those of more than 65,000 service members who have become citizens since 2001, demonstrate an extraordinary commitment to America,” said Director Mayorkas. “We are enriched by their decision to serve our nation and to join us as United States citizens.

USCIS has established several information services exclusively for members of the military and their families to find information about citizenship and other immigration benefits. They may go online to http://www.uscis.gov/military; call the USCIS toll-free help line, 1-877-CIS-4MIL , 1-877-247-4645 ; or send an e-mail to militaryinfo.nsc@dhs.gov

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid ..

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From the FBI

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Sad But True Crime

Scam Targeted Holocaust Survivors' Fund

11/09/10

For nearly six decades, a not-for-profit corporation known as The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany—or the Claims Conference—has been overseeing German government funds that assist Holocaust survivors.

So you can imagine our surprise and concern when we uncovered evidence that it had been the victim of fraud.

This afternoon at a New York City press conference, we announced that six corrupt Claims Conference employees in its Manhattan office—along with 11 other conspirators—have been charged in a decade-long scheme to defraud the organization and legitimate Holocaust victims out of more than $42 million.

The Claims Conference supervises several funds and processes thousands of applications a year. The two funds allegedly targeted for fraud were:

• The Article 2 Fund , which makes monthly payments of $411 to survivors of Nazi persecution who make less than $16,000 a year and who either lived in hiding or a Jewish ghetto for 18 months or were incarcerated for at least six months in a concentration or forced labor camp; and
  
  
• The Hardship Fund , which makes a one-time payment of approximately $3,600 to survivors forced to evacuate their hometowns and become refugees.

Applications by persons living in the U.S. are made to the Claims Conference's office in Manhattan, usually by mail. The applicants provide identification documents, along with information about their family and experiences escaping Nazi persecution. Caseworkers with the Claims Conference verify an applicant's history, often by checking external databases and archives, and sometimes through a personal interview. If approved for payment, a check is mailed to the applicant or electronically deposited into a bank account.

Claims Conference officials became suspicious of possible fraudulent activity within their organization in December 2009 and immediately contacted law enforcement. Our New York office began an investigation, with the full cooperation of the Claims Conference.

According to the criminal complaint filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, here's how the scheme generally worked:

• Driven by crooked Claims Conference employees, former employees and other conspirators would recruit people—some unwitting—who weren't eligible for the program (mostly individuals of the Jewish faith in the Russian immigrant community) to take part in the fraud.
  
  
• To make it appear that applicants were eligible, identification documents were often altered (for example, a birth date was changed to make it appear that applicants were born during or before World War II) and fake Nazi persecution stories were often made up.
  
  
• Fraudulent applications were reviewed and approved by corrupt Claims Conference employees.
  
  
• Once the applicants received their money, they kept a portion but were instructed to pay certain “fees” using the rest—which of course ended up in the pockets of the conspirators. These “fees” were usually paid in the form of cash or money order.

Among those charged in the scheme are the former director of the Article 2 and Hardship Funds, other past and present Claims Conference employees, two law firm employees, a notary/document forger, and several other middlemen.

New York Assistant Director in Charge Janice Fedarcyk said that the victims of this scheme were “those who had already suffered at the hands of Nazi persecution only to have their experiences exploited again—this brazen miscarriage of the compensation program is, in its own way, a kind of crime against humanity.”

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/november/holocaust_110910/holocaust_110910

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