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From the Los Angeles Times

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Workers at Northrop Grumman's Antelope Valley Manufacturing Center in Palmdale work on assembling the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft.

The changing face of aerial reconnaissance Aerial spying is 'now the centerpiece of our global war on terrorism.' And that has meant a growing and potentially huge business even as the Pentagon looks at cutting back on big-ticket items. by W.J. Hennigan Los Angeles Times November 11, 2010 A Global Hawk robotic plane, hovering more than 11 miles above Afghanistan, can snap images of Taliban hide-outs so crystal clear that U.S. intelligence officials can make out the pickup trucks parked nearby — and how long they've been there. Halfway around the globe in a underground laboratory in El Segundo, Raytheon Co. engineers who helped develop the cameras and sensors for the pilotless spy plane are now working on even more powerful devices that are revolutionizing the way the military gathers intelligence.

Persistent backlog in L.A. County child abuse probes has led to a crisis, report says

Four in 10 open inquiries are stretching beyond the two-month deadline, the review by the county chief executive's office says. The backlog, the study says, appears to contribute to 'poor outcomes.'

By Garrett Therolf, Times Staff Writer

November 11, 2010

A persistent backlog of child abuse investigations in Los Angeles County has led to a "crisis," with four in 10 open inquiries stretching beyond the state's two-month deadline, according to the county chief executive's office.

In a further indication of the problems faced by the county's Department of Children and Family Services, Chief Executive William T Fujioka said in a report released this week that shifting workers to combat the delays "appears to be slowly creating a back-end crisis," depleting resources for other critical tasks. Among the duties handled by back-end workers in the department are foster care placements and home visits.

The assessment by the county chief executive's office is the most detailed analysis to date by county officials of the backlog of cases—which involve more than 10,000 children according to recent figures—in the troubled department. The findings contradict department Director Trish Ploehn's statement earlier this year that the longer inquiries have resulted in higher quality child abuse investigations. The report, distributed to county supervisors last month, was not released until The Times appealed to County Counsel Andrea Ordin.

"The county's high [child abuse investigations] backlog appears to be contributing to poor outcomes in the [child abuse investigations] unit," the chief executive's report said.

The 21-page report is intended to "set the stage" for an independent audit of the department that was ordered in August by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, one of a number of pending requests by the board to better assess problems in the department.

Elizabeth Brennan, spokeswoman for Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents the county's social workers, said in a recent interview that the sizable backlog in open cases was fueled in large part by what she called an "out-of-control policy machine." Among the department's 370 procedural guides, she said, 140 have been created or revised in the last year. The main procedural guide for child abuse investigations has been changed 39 times.

The union was one of the first entities to raise the alarm about the backlog in a March letter to Ploehn. At that time, cases involving more than 15,000 children had not been fully investigated within the 30-day deadline then in effect.

Since then, state officials, citing the county's efforts to improve standards by interviewing more witnesses, better reviewing the family's history with other county departments and requiring more managerial review, granted Los Angeles County a waiver of the 30-day deadline. Even with double the time allowed elsewhere in the state, the department has struggled to complete inquiries within 60 days, although the report calls current figures a "significant reduction" from a peak this summer.

Since 2007, children found by the department to be victims of abuse who were left in their homes have increasingly experienced abuse again within a year, according to a researcher hired by the state. The increase was 19%.

Additionally, more than 67 children have died of abuse or neglect since the beginning of 2008 after being referred to the department, according to county statistics. The rate of such deaths has increased over that period, and county officials have acknowledged that many involved case management errors.

Throughout the county, the 7,300-person department handles 170,000 child abuse hotline calls a year.

Michelle Dominguez, of Lakewood, said she was frustrated by the department's response when she called on behalf of her daughter's 12-year-old friend. Dominguez said she was stunned by the squalor she found in the girl's home when she dropped the girl off in September.

"I was in tears and ran out of there. I felt something walking up my legs. I was covered in roaches from my knees down," Dominguez said, recounting conditions also described by the girl's father, who lives elsewhere.

The girl's mother, Dominguez said, was a hoarder. The home was covered with trash, dog feces and pests. The kitchen had little food, and the girl and her three siblings appeared malnourished, she said.

When she called to report the case to the Department of Children and Family Services, Dominguez said, she learned that alleged abuse and neglect had already been reported by police on Sept. 8.

Two months later, Dominguez said the investigation remains open. Although her daughter's friend and another sibling have since gone to live with their father — a decision unrelated to department action — two other children remain in the home, Dominguez said.

Department officials did not respond to questions about the case and are barred by confidentiality laws from commenting on it. Ploehn also declined The Times' requests for an interview regarding the backlog.

Earlier this year, however, Ploehn said she needed additional personnel to resolve the backlog. More recently, her staff emphasized that although cases remain unresolved, social workers make first contact with the child's family within days of the hotline call and are required to pull the child out of situations as soon as they verify substantial danger.

But county officials also acknowledge that critical assessments following initial contact with the child might take weeks longer.

Evidence of abuse or neglect might diminish by the time social workers look for it. In Dominguez's case, she said she provided food and housing for her daughter's friend, and the girl gained more than a dozen pounds by the time social workers assessed her health.

Brennan, the SEIU spokeswoman, said the standards for investigation are applied unevenly in the department's 18 offices, and social workers on temporary assignment have little training in this type of work as they move from one office to the next in efforts to ease the backlog. The county chief executive's report found that the offices with the largest backlogs generally have the most inexperienced workers.

Fujioka, who oversees Ploehn, referred questions about the backlog to a deputy, Antonia Jiménez.

Jiménez said she was trying to develop a "sustainable" staffing plan that would address the issue. She also said some of the investigation standards imposed over the past year — such as more interviews of key witnesses and managerial review — might be "streamlined."

"Do you need all these safety enhancements for 100% of the cases or is there a way to triage them?" she asked.

The report, which Jiménez spearheaded, found some department policies "duplicative or contradictory," making it difficult for social workers to comply. The report also cited problems with newly implemented e-mail alerts designed to signal social workers when they missed deadlines for visiting children and writing reports.

"The problem is that the social workers are receiving so many alerts that people start to ignore them," she said.

Middle managers spend too much time out of the office at community meetings, the report found. When they are in the office, much of their remaining energy is dedicated to dealing with problem employees requiring discipline, the report said.

The report did not directly assess the effectiveness of the department's senior management team.

Meanwhile, many of the actions ordered in recent months by the Board of Supervisors, which has ultimate responsibility for setting policy for the department, have been placed on hold.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a persistent department critic, said the board has ordered seven studies of the department since August, "most of which have not been acted on."

Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, a board member since 1980 who pushed for many of the studies, said: "You need a little historical reference point … so you're going in the right direction and not repeating the failures of the past."

Antonovich said in a recent interview that he is waiting until an outside auditor reviews the department's management before deciding whether to continue his support of Ploehn.

The audit was ordered in August as an emergency measure, but so far, no one has been hired to do it.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dcfs-backlog-20101103,0,1424684,print.story

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Report to urge reexamination of residency restrictions for sex offenders

The report ordered by the California Department of Corrections follows an L.A. County judge's ruling that such restrictions are unconstitutional.

By Corina Knoll, Los Angeles Times

November 12, 2010

The state Department of Corrections plans to release a report as early as next week that will recommend a reexamination of residency restrictions for sex offenders.

Written by a panel that included law enforcement personnel, forensics experts and victims advocates, the report follows a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge's ruling that such restrictions are unconstitutional.

California voters overwhelmingly passed Jessica's Law in 2006; it prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools and parks. Civil rights attorneys have argued that the law is an impossible fit for densely populated cities, and Los Angeles officials have noted the lack of places that meet its requirements.

Earlier this year, Matthew Cate, secretary of the Department of Corrections, ordered a report on sex offender management from a multiagency task force. The Associated Press reported Thursday that a draft of the report recommends that voters repeal the residency restriction altogether.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections said one of the draft's nine recommendations does discuss the residency restriction, but did not believe voters were mentioned.

State corrections officials have already stopped enforcing portions of the law in Los Angeles County after Judge Peter Espinoza ruled last week that it forced some sex offenders into homelessness or jail. Sex offenders who become transients are extremely difficult to monitor, authorities say.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-jessicas-law-20101112,0,7155082,print.story

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Immigration rights group says LAPD violated policy in vice raid on 'hostess club'

Los Angeles police are defending their handling of a raid at a downtown hostess club -- an operation that resulted in dozens of arrests of illegal immigrant workers -- after an advocacy group charged that the vice operation violated Special Order 40, a policy governing how officers interact with immigrants.

Advocates from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles said the LAPD officers violated that policy in arresting 81 women and seven men Friday at the 907 Club on Hill Street. The advocacy group said most of those arrested were "honest, hard-working immigrants" who might themselves have been victims of abuse.

"The LAPD has acted rashly by arresting those it claims to protect and in the process endanger the delicate balance between local policing and immigration enforcement," CHIRLA director Angelica Salas said in a statement.

Special Order 40 prohibits LAPD officers from initiating contact with someone solely to determine whether they are in the country legally. But in a statement released Wednesday, the LAPD said the four-month probe was only related to alleged criminal conduct and was not an immigration investigation.

"It is strictly an investigation into labor code violations, human trafficking concerns, prostitution, possession of fraudulent California identification cards, gambling and violation of a conditional use permit," the department said.

Club 907, like similar "hostess club" establishments, is regulated by the Los Angeles Police Commission. Patrons pay women who work at the clubs for time and companionship that includes talking, buying non-alcoholic drinks or dancing. The club charges $30 per hour, with discounts on certain days of the week.

The Police Commission permit prohibits hostess clubs from serving alcohol and does not allow nudity or other adult entertainment. But the LAPD said that during a four-month investigation their officers witnessed or found evidence of prostitution, lewd conduct, gambling and the use of counterfeit identification.

Police said that on the day of the arrests, they found more than 400 people inside the 907 Club, which had a maximum capacity of 250 patrons.

Officers said they found dozens of female dancers employed by the club with false identification for purposes of employment and found evidence that most were engaging in prostitution. Some 88 people were arrested -- 81 of them women. Only three were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit prostitution: a club manager, and two women who were brought in to dance in bikinis and were allowed to be groped by patrons, police said.

Of the others, 59 were arrested on suspicion of possession of fraudulent California identification, 18 for willfully obtaining personal information, four for gambling violations, two for misdemeanor warrants, one for interfering with police operations and one for violating the club's conditional use permits.

A 17-year-old girl who had been reported missing was found inside and was also arrested on suspicion of possessing false identification. Police also seized two bags of cocaine, over $100,000 in cash, condoms, and liquor.

A 29-year-old club worker who was out on bail Wednesday after her arrest on suspicion of possessing fraudulent identification said that while the women were detained inside the club, officers asked those with “good ID” to step forward and separated them from the others. She believed that officers were trying to determine the workers' immigration status.

The worker, who asked that her name not be used, said that she obtained false documents at the request of club management, who would direct workers to go to MacArthur Park to get identification.

LAPD officials said that during the operation, officers separated those who were patrons from those determined to be employees and management of the club.  The patrons were released.  The employees and management were taken to the LAPD's Central Area station. 

Police said the detainees were separated because those possessing fraudulent identification had committed a crime and would be arrested. They said it had nothing to do with immigration. 

All employees who had valid identification were detained and released after booking, the LAPD said.  Those who had fraudulent or no identification were subject to questioning by the LAPD and agents with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE agents were already conducting their own investigation into the potential federal violations involving the creation and use of fraudulent identifications to gain employment status, the LAPD said.

Immigration officials later determined that 75 of the arrestees were in the country illegally. ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley said Wednesday that none of them were in ICE custody.

But immigration rights advocates pointed to the arrests for false documentation or identity theft as evidence that the LAPD was most interested in the immigration status of the suspects.

CHIRLA spokesman Jorge-Mario Cabrera said the approximately 20 club workers the organization had spoken to typically worked 10 hours a day six or seven days a week. They were required to pay money out of pocket to the club if they worked less than 20 hours a week and forced to buy drinking water from the club while on shift.

"The potential victims were instead charged with a serious crime, a felony, and were turned over to immigration," Cabrera said.

According to a statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, federal agents were not part of the raid at the club, but became involved to investigate whether federal crimes had been committed, including victimization of female employees. State labor investigators were also involved in the operation, according to police.

Officials said they have found no evidence of human trafficking at the club to date. Immigration attorney Jessica Dominguez, who is representing many of the club workers, said some may be eligible for a U visa, which gives temporary legal status to victims of crimes who cooperate with authorities in prosecuting the crime.

Roger Jon Diamond, an attorney representing Goliath Inc., the corporation that owns the club, said he was not aware of any allegations that management had asked employees to obtain false documents. The owners are currently investigating whether there was any wrongdoing by mid-level management employees, he said.

 "There have been no accusations of wrongdoing [against the owner], no charges, nothing has been filed, and we ask the public to wait for the investigation to be concluded," he said. "And if anybody wants to dance with a hostess, they're free to go to the club and dance."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/11/immigration-rights-group-says-lapd-violated-policy-in-vice-raid-on-hostess-club.html

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EDITORIAL

Amazon's muddy reasoning

The bookseller's decision to carry, and then drop, a guide on pedophilia highlights the difference between free speech rights and any obligation to publish offensive material.

November 12, 2010

There is a world of difference between a right to speak and an obligation to publish. That distinction became an issue this week when Amazon.com, the world's largest online book distributor, succumbed to pressure and pulled an electronic book on pedophilia.

The book is the work of one Philip R. Greaves II, a self-evidently disturbed Colorado man who catalogued various perversions and inanities in "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure." Greaves is entitled to his shameful views — though certainly not to act on them — and the 1st Amendment affords him broad latitude to share those ideas by talking about them or even writing a book about them. Were the government to seize Greaves' book, it almost certainly would be violating his rights.

But Amazon is not the government. It has no more obligation to distribute offensive material than a publishing house has to print it. Amazon may refuse to sell work that it considers stupid or trite or that it finds objectionable. Like most publishers or distributors, Amazon opts not to interpose its politics or predilections on its inventory. As it said in a statement this week, the company "believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is offensive." Some people object to "Lolita" or "Lady Chatterley's Lover," but Amazon would be foolish and narrow-minded to let squeamish responses to great literature stand in the way of its distribution.

That hands-off approach is generally admirable. Still, it's worth remembering that Amazon can impose any rules it chooses. It can refuse to distribute a book with instructions on how to make a bomb or assassinate an official. And it can refuse to carry a guidebook for pedophiles without damage to the 1st Amendment. What to publish or sell is a business decision, not a constitutional one. (If, by contrast, the government were to order Amazon not to carry certain types of books, that would violate the Constitution.)

Amazon made a bit of a hash of this issue, first by carrying the book, then by dropping it under pressure, all while giving precious little insight into how it was making its decisions. Child welfare advocates howled when they first learned that the book was being offered; misguided free speech advocates complained when it was pulled. Indeed, Amazon's other offerings suggest that a certain muddiness remains. The ever-popular "How to Kill" is still listed on the site.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-amazon-20101112,0,4316378,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Assertive Chinese Held in Mental Wards

LOUHE, China — Xu Lindong, a poor village farmer with close-cropped hair and a fourth-grade education, knew nothing but decades of backbreaking labor. Even at age 50, the rope of muscles on his arms bespoke a lifetime of hard plowing and harvesting in the fields of his native Henan Province.

But after four years locked up in Zhumadian Psychiatric Hospital, he was barely recognizable to his siblings. Emaciated, barefoot, clad in tattered striped pajamas, Mr. Xu spoke haltingly. His face was etched with exhaustion.

“I was so heartbroken when I saw him I cannot describe it,” said his elder brother, Xu Linfu, recalling his first visit there, in 2007. “My brother was a strong as a bull. Now he looked like a hospital patient.”

Xu Lindong's confinement in a locked mental ward was all the more notable, his brother says, for one extraordinary fact: he was not the least bit deranged. Angered by a dispute over land, he had merely filed a series of complaints against the local government. The government's response was to draw up an order to commit him to a mental hospital — and then to forge his brother's name on the signature line.

He was finally released in April, after six and a half years in Zhumadian and a second mental institution. In an interview, he said he had endured 54 electric-shock treatments, was repeatedly roped to his bed and was routinely injected with drugs powerful enough to make him swoon. Fearing he would be left permanently disabled, he said, he attempted suicide three times.

Mr. Xu's ordeal exemplifies far broader problems in China's psychiatric system: a gaping lack of legal protections against psychiatric abuses, shaky standards of medical ethics and poorly trained psychiatrists and hospital administrators who sometimes feel obliged to accept anyone — sane or not — who is escorted by a government official.

No one knows how often cases like Mr. Xu's occur. But human rights activists say confinements in mental hospitals appear to be on the rise because the local authorities are under intense pressure to nip social unrest in the bud, but at the same time are less free than they once were to jail people they consider troublemakers.

“The police know that to arbitrarily detain someone is illegal. They have to worry about that now,” said Huang Xuetao, a lawyer in Shenzhen, in Guangdong Province, who specializes in mental health law. “But officials have discovered this big hole in the psychiatric system, and they are increasingly taking advantage of it.”

Worse, Ms. Huang said, the government squanders its meager health care resources confining harmless petitioners like Mr. Xu while neglecting people desperately in need of help.

She and a colleague recently analyzed 300 news reports involving people who had been hospitalized for mental illness and others who had not. “Those who needed to be treated were not and those who should not have been treated were treated and guarded,” their study concluded.

Liu Feiyue, the founder of Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, a Chinese human-rights organization, said his group had compiled a database of more than 200 Chinese citizens who were wrongly committed to mental hospitals in the past decade after they filed grievances — called petitions in China — against the government.

He said he suspected that the real number was much higher because his organization's list was compiled mostly from accounts on the Internet.

“The government has no place to put these people,” he said.

China no longer discloses how many petitioners seek redress, but the government estimated in 2004 that more than 10 million people write or visit the government with petitions each year. Only two in a thousand complaints are resolved, according to research cited in a study this year by Tsinghua University in Beijing.

In annual performance reviews of local government officials, reducing the number of petitioners is considered a measure of good governance. Allowing them to band together, and possibly stir up broader unrest, is an significant black mark that can lead to demotion.

Classified as Crazy

The most dogged petitioners are often classified as crazy. In an interview last year, Sun Dongdong, chief of forensic psychiatry at prestigious Peking University, said, “I have no doubt that at least 99 percent of China's pigheaded, persistent ‘professional petitioners' are mentally ill.” He later apologized for what he said was an “inappropriate” remark.

Yan Jun, who heads the Ministry of Health's mental health bureau, declined repeated requests for an interview on whether petitioners were wrongly confined and other issues with the mental health system.

Yu Xin, a director of Peking University's Institute of Mental Health and an advocate of mental health reforms, said he did not believe that the confinement of petitioners was a widespread problem.

But he criticized the absence of safeguards, saying China badly needed a national mental health law, national guidelines for involuntary commitment and better ethics training for psychiatrists. Given the current legal vacuum, he said, “Mental health professionals must be very careful not to be used by local officials.”

A decade ago, Human Rights Watch accused China of locking up dissidents and members of the Falun Gong spiritual group in a cluster of Chinese mental hospitals run by the Public Security Bureau. The World Psychiatric Association requested access to the hospitals, but China refused, and the controversy died down.

In a recent interview, Levent Kuey, the association's secretary general, said that the organization had not taken further action because it had concluded that it was better to help China to improve its mental health system than to ostracize it.

Mr. Liu's database suggests that petitioners are today's most frequent victims of psychiatric abuse, outnumbering political dissidents and Falun Gong members combined.

Wu Yuzhu, a hospital administrator in the eastern province of Shandong, said in 2008 that local officials had delivered many obviously sane petitioners to him for confinement.

He admitted them, he said, because public security officers accompanied them and because his own staff felt powerless to challenge the diagnoses of government-hired psychiatrists. He added that his hospital, the Xintai Mental Health Center, was cash-strapped and welcomed government-subsidized patients.

Indeed, hospital officials sometimes cite petitioning as the sole reason for a patient's confinement. Commitment papers for one 44-year-old man, hospitalized for two months in 2008 in Hubei Province, stated simply: “The patient was hospitalized because of years of petitioning.”

A Mental Health ‘Mess'

According to legal experts, relatives, legal guardians or local public security bureaus, which among other duties are charged with tamping down dissent, can involuntarily commit a psychiatric patient. But Ms. Huang, the mental health lawyer, described existing regulations and procedures as “a mess.”

Only 6 of China's 283 cities have a local mental health ordinance. “There is no way for patients who are committed for treatment to complain, appeal or prosecute,” Ms. Huang's report states. The report says that hospitals tend to grant releases only with the agreement of whoever committed the patient, although they also release patients who need continued treatment but whose bills go unpaid.

Chen Miaocheng discovered the system's blind alleys in 1995, when his employer, with his brother's permission, forcibly committed him to Huilongguan Hospital in Beijing.

According to medical records, doctors there diagnosed Mr. Chen as paranoid schizophrenic. After six months of treatment and medication, they decided that he no longer suffered from hallucinations and was able to care for himself, the records show.

But he was never released. After 13 years, Mr. Chen, who had repeatedly pleaded to be let out, died in the hospital of pneumonia.

This past June, a Beijing district court ruled that the company, China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, did not violate Mr. Chen's rights by hospitalizing him and that his death was not related to his confinement. Li Renbing, who represented Mr. Chen's family, says that the court never addressed the issue of why Mr. Chen was not released.

“There should never be a situation where once you are sent to a mental hospital, you are left to rot there forever,” he said.

Mr. Li says Mr. Chen's is an extreme case of wrongful confinement. But petitioners who end up in mental hospitals often find themselves similarly powerless.

Consider 36-year-old Jin Hanyan, who decided in 2008 after six years of failed petitions to complain directly to Beijing officials that she had been unfairly denied a government job.

On her arrival last September, she said, she and her younger sister were handcuffed, stripped of their cellphones and documents, and driven to their hometown in Hubei Province by men who described themselves as public security officers.

Four days later, Ms. Jin's sister was committed to the city's psychiatric hospital. Ms. Jin was confined to the psychiatric ward of the Shiyan City Red Cross Hospital — an institution with no affiliation to the International Red Cross — nine miles away.

Xue Huanying, a nurse, was not happy to see her. In a conversation secretly taped by Ms. Jin's father, the nurse said that the government was forced to confine Ms. Jin at a cost of 5,000 renminbi, or about $735 a month, merely to stop her useless petitions.

She said petitioners were repeatedly hospitalized for that reason. “Lots of people like this! Lots!” she shouted.

“I've seen so many petitioners. I have never seen one who has been caught for no reason,” she continued. “I mean, you are just an average person. Just how far do you think you're going to get by going up against the government? Right, exactly what can you do as an average citizen, a farmer working the land? Can you afford to anger those above you?”

Ms. Jin said she was forced to swallow three pills a day, given injections that made her so dizzy she could barely walk, tied to her bed and beaten.

When she complained, she said, the head of the psychiatric ward told her: “We will treat you the way officials tell us to.”

She was released seven months later after relatives hired a lawyer. “What they are trying to do is completely destroy your mind and weaken your body to the point where you go crazy,” she said. “That's when you will stop petitioning, they hope.”

The hospital declined to comment on her case.

Petitions Produce Nightmare

The travails of Xu Lindong, imprisoned for six and a half years in two mental hospitals, began when he tried to help his illiterate neighbor, Zhang Guizhi, pursue a claim for a four-foot-wide strip of land next to her home. The two lived a stone's throw apart in a village of about 2,000 people, surrounded by cornfields. Mrs. Zhang, who is handicapped from polio, claimed that officials had wrongly given her property to a rich neighbor.

After losing her claim in court, Mrs. Zhang and Mr. Xu began hauling a cardboard box full of documents from petition office to petition office, hoping to find a sympathetic ear higher up the bureaucratic ladder. In September 2003, Mr. Xu said, he was picked up by public security officers in Beijing. Instead of hauling him home as usual, he was driven to Zhumadian Psychiatric Hospital. He said a doctor asked him exactly two questions before admitting him: his name and address.

Mr. Xu said he spent most of the time locked in his room, lying on a thin green mattress on a iron bed. He was allowed outside only two or three times a year, he said. Hospital staff sometimes covered his head in blankets so he could not breathe, he said, and invited other patients to beat him up.

During one electric- shock treatment, he said, he bit his tongue so badly that for weeks afterward he could eat only by putting bits of food on the tip of a finger and pushing them down his throat.

Mr. Xu's brother said in an interview that it took him four years to discover his brother's whereabouts. He tried to hire a lawyer, he said, but lawyers shunned the case for fear of drawing the local government's wrath.

Finally, news of the case reached journalists at a local newspaper and China Youth Daily, a national publication, which published articles about his case. Two days later, Mr. Xu was released. Four local officials were fired, including the man who served as the county Communist Party secretary when Mr. Xu was committed.

Mr. Xu is now ensconced back in his simple concrete and brick house, furnished with a broken-down wooden dresser and bed. “I hope by exposing this, society will progress,” he said, sitting on a low stool, feet clad in blue plastic sandals.

Some villagers are upset that he is talking about his experience. Spotting him on a dirt road recently, one neighbor turned her back in a grand gesture, fanning herself furiously and shouting curses over her shoulder.

“Fine, fine, you are right,” he replied, unruffled.

Local officials, on the other hand, are showering him with visits and gifts: a case of canned soft drinks, new metal-rimmed eyeglasses, an electricity hook-up to his house and about $300 in compensation for his seven years of confinement and torture.

“If the hospital's doctors had not diagnosed him as mentally ill, this whole situation would not have happened,” said Zhang Weili, the district government's vice director of propaganda. “I don't want you to think this is a government that intentionally harms its citizens.”

After Mr. Xu's case came to light, he said, officials swept the county's records for similar instances and found none. Somehow, however, they missed Mrs. Zhang, the handicapped 65-year-old neighbor whose land dispute landed him in confinement to begin with.

Mrs. Zhang said she was forced into a different mental hospital and released a year later only after her daughter hired a lawyer. She not only never won back her small strip of land, she said, but was forced to abandon her village home for a squalid tenement to avoid harassment by her neighbors.

“I have always known that I would never win against the government,” she said. “But I am just so angry I can't get over it. If this is the last thing I do, I will keep fighting them.”

Mr. Xu's brother initially opposed his brother's efforts to help Mrs. Zhang, arguing it was not his family's business. Now he is also infuriated. “I just cannot swallow this injustice,” he said. “The government wants to protect its power. It is not here to protect its citizens.”

Still, he said, “Eventually the truth comes out.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/world/asia/12psych.html?_r=1&ref=world

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Defector Aided in Thwarting Russian Spies, Article Says

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

MOSCOW — A Russian newspaper reported Thursday that a senior official in Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service had provided the information that enabled the United States to break up a ring of Russian sleeper spies in June.

The turncoat official, identified only as Colonel Shcherbakov, was said to have defected to the United States just before the arrests and was now being tracked by a Russian assassination squad, according to the newspaper, Kommersant, considered one of Russia's most authoritative.

According to the article, Colonel Shcherbakov led the branch of the Foreign Intelligence Service that oversees longtime agents working without diplomatic cover in the United States, including those who were detained in June.

A spokeswoman for the C.I.A., Paula Weiss, said the agency had no comment on the Kommersant article. But a senior Russian lawmaker with close ties to the security services, Gennadi V. Gudkov, confirmed the thrust of the article.

“I had known this from my former colleagues long before today's article in Kommersant,” Mr. Gudkov said in an interview with the Interfax news agency.

“We can all reasonably say that Directorate S, whose U.S. division was led by Shcherbakov, has never known such a failure,” he said. “This directorate is the holy of holies in the intelligence business, and it works on producing deep-cover agents, whose training and legalization sometimes takes decades.”

The Foreign Intelligence Service declined to comment on the Kommersant article.

But the betrayal, if confirmed, would amount to a significant intelligence coup for the United States and an embarrassment for the Foreign Intelligence Service, which is led by Mikhail Y. Fradkov, who was prime minister when Vladimir V. Putin was president.

The article suggested that Russian officials had repeatedly failed to pick up on clues that Colonel Shcherbakov was working for the Americans. It said his son had resigned from a job with the Russian drug control agency and flown to the United States just before the spy ring was unmasked. The colonel was also said to have a daughter who is a long-term resident of the United States.

Some details in the Kommersant article may strike intelligence experts as implausible. For example, the newspaper said American interrogators were so harsh with the spy suspect known as Juan Lazaro, formerly Mikhail Vasenkov, that they broke three of his ribs and his leg. But neither Mr. Lazaro's American lawyer nor his wife, who was also arrested, reported that he had suffered such injuries while in custody.

The newspaper reported that the spies were arrested after American law enforcement officials feared that the Russians would realize that they had a collaborator in their midst.

The 10 spies included many who had been secretly working for years in the United States. They were returned to Russia in July in a swap that sent four Russians to the West.

After their arrest, Mr. Putin, now prime minister, assailed the “treachery” that led to their discovery, warning that “traitors always meet bad ends.”

Last month, President Dmitri A. Medvedev awarded the spies government honors in a private ceremony.

Kommersant said Russian agents were seeking Colonel Shcherbakov. “We know who he is and where he is,” a Kremlin official was quoted as saying. “Do not doubt that a Mercader has already been sent to get him.” That was a reference to Ramón Mercader, the Spanish Communist sent by Stalin to kill Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940.

“You would not envy the fate of such a person,” the Kremlin official said, indicating that such defectors spent the rest of their lives in fear of assassins.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/world/europe/12spies.html?ref=world

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EDITORIAL

Video Games and the First Amendment

If the Supreme Court renders justice in a case it heard this month, Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, it will strike down a California law barring the sale or rental of violent video games to anyone under 18. That would end a violation of free expression — but not prevent the states from finding other ways to support parents who do not want their children to play violent games.

Some of these games are grotesquely violent. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Postal 2, and Duke Nukem 3D graphically depict mutilation, torture, rape and murder. Players don't read about violence or just see it. They act it out. Parents worry that young people may engage in violent behavior or suffer psychological harm.

Restricting the content of games, however, would mean adding to the short list of expression excluded from the First Amendment's protection. Just last April, the court said the Constitution does not permit the government to impose a restriction “simply on the basis that some speech is not worth it.”

California argues that the Supreme Court allows them to prohibit the sale of explicit sexual material to minors. The state cited a 1968 holding in Ginsberg v. New York as the basis for arguing by extension that “extremely violent material can be obscene as to minors even without a sexual element.”

But in an opinion from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturning the California law, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski said that the 1968 ruling dealt with “a sub-category of obscenity — obscenity as to minors.” It “did not create an entirely new category of expression excepted from First Amendment protection.”

During an often electric oral argument, the justices left two impressions: California did not provide a convincing basis for a major change in First Amendment law; and the video game industry was haughtily dismissive about the scale of the problem.

The industry's lawyer ducked justices' repeated requests to help identify ways of regulating violent games that would pass muster. He contended that America has long presented violence to children in books, movies, comic books, and other forms, so violent video games fit a tradition. The rejoinder of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stunned the chamber.

“We do not have a tradition in this country of telling children they should watch people actively hitting schoolgirls over the head with a shovel so they'll beg for mercy,” he said. He concluded sternly, “We protect children from that.”

He is right, society can protect children from that. Narrowing the First Amendment is not the way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/opinion/12fri3.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the Washington Examiner

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D.C. Council wants city to hire ex-convicts

The D.C. Council wants to make it easier for the city government to hire ex-convicts.

A bill called the "Returning Citizen Employment Inclusion Act of 2010" would prohibit most District agencies from asking about the criminal records or histories of job applicants until after they've landed an interview. It's sponsored by Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. With six other council members co-sponsoring the bill, including Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry, who has criminal convictions on his record, and Council Chairman-elect Kwame Brown, it already has enough support to pass.

The bill's backers believe that not asking about criminal history on government job applications will make it easier for ex-convicts to get city jobs. They say hiring ex-offenders will keep them from returning to prison. Critics say the legislation will worsen problems

the city has with weeding out dangerous job applicants.

"The opportunity for released prisoners to obtain employment when they return to the District is critical to breaking the vicious cycle of re-offending and being returned to prison," ACLU legislative counsel Stephen Block told the council during a hearing on the bill. He added, "Crime increases the cost of doing business in the District. It is in everyone's self-interest to support a meaningful prohibition on discrimination against ex-offenders in employment."

The District is home to about 60,000 ex-felons, nearly 10 percent of the population, the ACLU estimates.

The bill would not apply to city agencies that are legally required to run criminal background checks. The police and corrections departments and most agencies that deal with children, including the school system, could still inquire about criminal records on job applications.

Barry has introduced three bills since 2006 that have had the goal of making it illegal for any employer to discriminate against ex-convicts by including ex-offenders under the protections of the city's human rights act. That would put ex-convicts under the same umbrella as race, religion, gender and sexual identity. None of Barry's three bills has passed.

Although this latest bill is focused more narrowly, it would still put the public in danger, said D.C. police union chief Kristopher Baumann.

"There is already too little deterrence from committing crimes in the city's justice system," Baumann said. "This bill would take away a disincentive to commit crimes."

The city's background checks already fail to catch dangerous criminals, Baumann said.

Both the police department and the D.C. school system failed to detect a murder conviction in the background of a mentor hired to work at Springarn High School. In June, 51-year-old Barry Harrison was sentenced to six years in prison for the 2009 sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl at the Northeast school. Harrison had spent 22 years in prison and was released in 2006. The criminal history check only went back 10 years, so it didn't reveal his conviction in 1984.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/D_C_-Council-wants-city-to-hire-ex-convicts-1527853-107346693.html

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Heroin-in-dress-button scheme revealed at BWI

Drug dealers from around the world have tried to use a variety of ways to smuggle drugs through the international airports in Baltimore and Washington, including through juice boxes, soup and statues of the Virgin Mary.

Add buttons to the list.

Last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport intercepted a package from the Philippines that contained eight large dresses, according to federal charging documents.

The dresses were decorated with large buttons. Inside the buttons investigators found a tan, powdery substance wrapped in plastic that contained what turned out to be tens of thousands of dollars' worth of heroin, authorities said.

The agents turned the package to Department of Homeland Security officials to further investigate and to conduct a sting at the home of the intended recipient.

The investigators removed nearly a pound and a half from the buttons and left less than a quarter-ounce in a separate container to be used for the controlled delivery. The street value of the seized heroin is roughly $50,000, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

On Monday, an undercover agent disguised as a DHL delivery man knocked on the door of the Baltimore residence listed as the recipient, documents said. The person listed on the address was not at the home, and authorities said James Geter, 50, signed for the package. Federal agents were able to monitor the package from outside the building. Two hours later, Geter left the home and drove away. The package remained inside the home.

After nearly two more hours, law enforcement officials became concerned because they were not able to fully monitor the package, so they knocked on the door. A man identified as Michael Anderson, 54, answered and let the police enter.

Police found the package upstairs and it appeared unopened.

Under questioning, both men told investigators they were holding the package for a man they said was a known Baltimore drug dealer who went by the name of "Black," and who ran a " 'drug shop' around the corner," according to charging documents. Anderson said Black would pay him for receiving the package.

Anderson and Geter were charged with conspiracy to import a controlled substance.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Heroin-in-dress-button-scheme-revealed-at-BWI-1520687-107069128.html

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Garfield creator Jim Davis says timing of 'Stupid Day' strip on Veterans Day was coincidence

INDIANAPOLIS — Cartoonist Jim Davis apologized Thursday for a Garfield strip that some veterans may have found offensive.

The strip ran on Veterans Day in newspapers across the country. It shows a spider daring the pudgy orange cat to squash it. The spider tells Garfield that if he is killed, "they will hold an annual day of remembrance in my honor."

The final panel shows a spider-teacher asking its students if they know why spiders celebrate "National Stupid Day."

Davis, of Muncie, Ind., said in a statement posted on his website that he didn't know the strip would appear on Veterans Day. He said it was written nearly a year ago and called the publication Thursday "the worst timing ever."

"It absolutely, positively has nothing to do with this important day of remembrance," Davis said.

John Raughter, a spokesman for the Indianapolis-based American Legion, looked at the strip and Davis' statement after the cartoon was brought to his attention by a reporter. He said an apology wasn't necessary.

"We have no reason to doubt his explanation of what happened," Raughter said.

Davis said his brother served in Vietnam, and his son is a Marine who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said he is grateful for the service of veterans, and called any offense "unintentional and regrettable."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/lifestyle/garfield-creator-jim-davis-says-timing-of-stupid-day-strip-on-veterans-day-was-coincidence-107448103.html

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Sheriff: 4 missing from Ohio home, nearby college locked down after abandoned pickup found

HOWARD, OHIO — An Ohio sheriff says authorities are searching for a missing woman, her two children and a female friend in a case that has prompted an overnight lockdown at a nearby college.

Knox County Sheriff David Barber told WBNS-TV the boyfriend of one woman reported her missing on Wednesday, and that the woman's co-worker said she didn't show up for work on Thursday.

The co-worker went to the woman's home and noticed that things were out of place. The sheriff says police searched the house and found it in "an unusual condition," but he did not elaborate.

The woman's pickup truck was found abandoned Thursday on property owned by nearby Kenyon College. The college ordered a lockdown until 7 a.m. Friday of all students on the residential campus.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nation/ohio-sheriff-things-out-of-place-at-home-of-1-of-3-people-missing-area-campus-locked-down-107446658.html

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From the White House

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Remarks by the President Honoring Veterans Day in Seoul, South Korea

U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan

Seoul, South Korea

10:53 A.M. KST

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, Yongsan!

AUDIENCE:  Hoaa! (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT:  Oh, it is wonderful to be here.  Give another round of applause to Army Specialist Courtney Newby for the great introduction.  (Applause.)

A few other people that I want to just make mention of:  We are so proud and want to thank our outstanding representatives here in the Republic of Korea -- Ambassador Kathleen Stephens and General Skip Sharp.  Please give them a big round of applause. (Applause.)

A former colleague of mine in the Illinois state senate who is now a congressman from the great state of Illinois, Peter Roskam, is with us here today.  So give him a big round of applause.  Where's Peter?  Where is he?  There he is up there.  (Applause.)

And our great friend and ally from the Republic of Korea is here -- General Jung is here.  Give him a big round of applause  -- Deputy Commander Combined Forces. (Applause.)  A few other people I want to give thanks to:  Lieutenant General John Johnson.  (Applause.)  Command Sergeant Major Robert Winzenried. (Applause.)  

We are so proud to have with us U.S. and Republic of Korea vets of the Korean War who are here.  And we are greatly honored by their presence.  (Hoaa!)  (Applause.)

And I want to make special mention of one of them -- Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Hector Cafferata, Jr.  Please give him an extraordinary round of applause.  (Applause.)

It is an enormous honor to be here at Yongsan Garrison.  As President of the United States, I have no greater privilege than serving as Commander-in-Chief of the finest military that the world has ever known.  (Hoaa!)  And on this Veterans Day, there's no place I'd rather be than right here with U.S. Forces Korea.  (Hoaa!)

We've got the 8th Army in the house.  (Hoaa!)  We've got members of the 7th Air Force. (Hoaa!)  We've got U.S. Navy Forces Korea.  (Hoaa!) We've got just about every Marine in South Korea here today.  (Oorah!) (Laughter.)  Happy birthday, Marines, by the way.  (Oorah!)  And we've got a whole lot of DOD civilians, too.  So we are very proud of you.  (Applause.)

It's good to see some spouses and family members in the audience.  You bear the burden of your loved one's service in ways that are often immeasurable –- an empty chair at the dinner table or another holiday where mom and dad are someplace far away.  So I want you to know that this nation recognizes the sacrifices of families, as well.  And we are grateful for your service, as well.  

Now, on this day, we honor every man and woman who has ever worn the uniform of the United States of America.  We salute fallen heroes, and keep in our prayers those who are still in harm's way -– like the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  (Hoaa!)

We recall acts of uncommon bravery and selflessness.  But we also remember that honoring those who've served is about more than the words we say on Veterans Day or Memorial Day.  It's about how we treat our veterans every single day of the year.  It's about making sure they have the care they need and the benefits that they've earned when they come home.  It's about serving all of you as well as you've served the United States of America.    

This has been one of my highest priorities since taking office.  It's why I asked for one of the largest increases in the VA budget in the past 30 years.  It's why we've dramatically increased funding for veterans' health care.  It's why we're improving care for wounded warriors, especially those with Post-Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury.  It's why we're working to eliminate the backlog at the VA and reforming the entire process with electronic claims and medical records.  It's why there are fewer homeless veterans on the streets than there were two years ago.  (Hoaa!)

That's why there are nearly 400,000 veterans and their families who are going to college because of the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill.  (Hoaa!)  (Applause.)

So I want all of you to know when you come home your country is going to be there for you.  That is the commitment I make to you as Commander-in-Chief.  That is the sacred trust between the United States of America and all who defend its ideals.  

It's a trust that's been forged in places far from our shores:  from the beaches of Europe to the jungles of Vietnam, from the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to the peninsula where we stand today.

Sixty years have come and gone since the communist armies first crossed the 38th Parallel.  Within three days, they'd captured Seoul.  By the end of the next month, they had driven the Korean army all the way south, to Pusan.  And from where things stood in the summer of 1950, it didn't appear that the Republic of Korea would survive much longer.  

At the time, many Americans had probably never heard of Korea.  It had only been five years since we had finished fighting the last war.  But we knew that if we allowed the unprovoked invasion of a free nation, then all free nations would be threatened.  And so, for the first time since its creation, the United Nations voted to use armed forces to repel the attack from North Korea.  

And so on September 15, 1950, American forces landed at Inchon.  The conditions they fought under were some of the worst that Americans had ever experienced.  The temperature reached more than 30 below zero in the winter, over 100 degrees in the summer.  In many places, Americans and our Korean allies were outgunned and outmanned, sometimes by as much as 20 to 1.  At one point, they were hit with 24,000 artillery shells a day.  By the end, the fighting had sometimes devolved into trench warfare, waged on hands and knees in the middle of the night.  

And yet, our soldiers fought on.  Nearly 37,000 Americans would give their lives in Korea -- 37,000.  But after three years of fighting, our forces finally succeeded in driving the invading armies back over the 38th Parallel.  (Hoaa!) One war historian said that while he believed Korea was “the greatest of all trials” for American troops, their performance was “nothing short of miraculous.”    

Many of the men responsible for this miracle were only teenagers.  Others had just finished fighting in the Second World War.  Most would go home to raise their families and live out their lives.  And sixty-two veterans of the Korean War have returned to be with us here today.  (Hoaa!) (Applause.)       

Gentlemen, we are honored by your presence.  We are grateful for your service.  The world is better off because of what you did here.  And for those who can, I would ask that, again, you receive the thanks of a grateful nation.  If any -- actually, they're all standing now so it looks like they're doing great.  (Hoaa!)  But please give them a big round of applause. (Applause.)  

I also want to recognize the Korean soldiers who battled side by side with our own.  These men fought bravely and sacrificed greatly for their country, and some of them have joined us here as well.  So, thank you, friends.  (Applause.)   Katchi Kapshida.  (Hoaa!)  We go together. (Applause.)    

The veterans who have traveled here today saw battle at the Inchon landing and the Pusan Perimeter.  They survived the bloodshed at Heartbreak Ridge and the ambush at Chosin Reservoir. At one point in that battle, the enemy tossed a grenade into a trench where multiple Marines lay wounded.  And that is where Private Hector Cafferata ran into that trench, picked up that grenade and threw it back.  It detonated in his hand and severely injured his arm.  But because of what he did, Private Cafferata served the lives of his fellow Marines. (Applause.)  He received the Medal of Honor for his heroism.  He is here today.  Again, please give him an incredible -- (applause.)

Each of these men served their nation with incredible courage and commitment.  They left their homes and their families and risked their lives in what's often been called “the forgotten war.”  So today, we all want you to know this:  We remember.  We remember your courage.  We remember your sacrifice.  And the legacy of your service lives on in a free and prosperous Republic of Korea.   

Real change comes slowly. Many people don't live to see the difference they've made in the lives of others.  But for the men and women who have served on this peninsula, all you have to do is look around.  Whether you're a veteran who landed in 1950 or one of the Yongsan troops today, the security you've provided has made possible one of the great success stories of our time.

There are Koreans who can still remember when this country was little more than rice paddies and villages that would flood during monsoon season.  Not two generations later, highways and skyscrapers line the horizon of one of the most prosperous, fastest-growing democracies in all of the world.  That progress has transformed the lives of millions of people.

And you should know, one of these people is a man who went from grinding poverty to the presidency of this country.   When I visited last year, I had lunch with President Lee, who I'll be seeing later today, and he shared with me his story of what it was like growing up poor as a child in Korea.  And he said, “I hope the American people understand how grateful we are for what you've done, because we would not be the strong, prosperous nation we are were it not for the sacrifices made by the men and women of the United States military.”  That's from the President of this country.

Because the Korean War ended where it began geographically, some ended up using the phrase “Die for a Tie” to describe the sacrifices of those who fought here.  But as we look around in this thriving democracy and its grateful, hopeful citizens, one thing is clear:  This was no tie.  This was victory. (Hoaa!)  (Applause.)  

This was a victory then, and it is a victory today.  And 60 years later, a friendship that was forged in a war has become an alliance that has led to greater security and untold progress -- not only in the Republic of Korea, but throughout Asia.  That is something that everyone here can be extraordinarily proud of.

Now, it's also a reminder of what still lies on the other side of the 38th Parallel.  Today, the Korean Peninsula provides the world's clearest contrast between a society that is open and a society that is closed; between a nation that is dynamic and growing, and a government that would rather starve its people than change.  It's a contrast that's so stark you can see it from space, as the brilliant lights of Seoul give way to the utter darkness of the North.

This is not an accident of history. This is a direct result of the path that's been taken by North Korea -- a path of confrontation and provocation; one that includes the pursuit of nuclear weapons and the attack on the Cheonan last March.  

And in the wake of this aggression, Pyongyang should not be mistaken:  The United States will never waver in our commitment to the security of the Republic of Korea.  We will not waver.  (Huaa!)  (Applause.)  

The alliance between our two nations has never been stronger, and along with the rest of the world, we've made it clear that the North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons will only lead to more isolation and less security for them.

There is another path available to North Korea.  If they choose to fulfill their international obligations and commitments to the international community, they will have the chance to offer their people lives of growing opportunity instead of crushing poverty -- a future of greater security and greater respect; a future that includes the prosperity and opportunity available to citizens on this end of the Korean Peninsula.

Until that day comes, the world can take comfort in knowing that the men and women of the United States armed forces are standing watch on freedom's frontier.  (Hoaa!)  In doing so, you carry on the legacy of service and sacrifice that we saw from those who landed here all those years ago.  It's a legacy we honor and cherish on this Veterans Day.

At the Korean War Memorial in Washington, there's a plaque right near the inscription that lists the number of Americans who were killed, wounded, missing in action, and held as prisoners of war.  And it says:  “Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met.”

A country they never knew and a people they never met.  I know of no better words to capture the selflessness and generosity of every man or woman who has ever worn the uniform of the United States of America.  At a time when it has never been more tempting or accepted to pursue narrow self-interest and personal ambition, all of you here remind us that there are few things that are more fundamentally American than doing what we can to make a difference in the lives of others.

And that's why you'll always be the best that America has to offer the world.  And that is why people who never met you, who never knew you, will always be grateful to the friend and ally they found in the United States of America.  

So thank you for your service.  May God bless you.  And may God bless the United States of America.  Thank you. 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/10/remarks-president-honoring-veterans-day-seoul-south-korea

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Seventy-two service members from 24 countries were sworn in as new U.S. Citizens during the 7th Annual All-Military Veterans Day ceremony aboard the USS Midway Museum in San Diego.

Standing Proud With Our Newest Citizens, Honoring Our Veterans by Alejandro Mayorkas November 11, 2010 Today is Veterans Day, a day reserved to express our solemn and immeasurable appreciation for the men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. We recognize the sacrifices that service members make each and every day for our great nation, sacrifices that are to be forever honored. That in America volunteers enlist in service of our country is a unique source of pride. The principles of freedom, justice, and equality form the foundation of our nation. Immigrants not yet citizens have joined our military and served with distinction alongside citizens in defense of these principles.

USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas presented new U.S. citizens with their Certificates of Naturalization as part of the 7th Annual All-Military Veterans Day ceremony aboard the USS Midway Museum in San Diego.

Their brave acts, and those of more than 20,000 active duty service members who have become citizens since 2009, demonstrate an extraordinary commitment to America. We are enriched by their decision to serve our nation and to join us as United States citizens. As our nation's immigration agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) makes every effort to provide members of the military and their families with exceptional access, regardless of where they serve.  In partnership with the Department of Defense, we have streamlined the process for Army and Navy recruits by bringing naturalization to basic training.  We also engage in extensive outreach and our officers regularly conduct educational seminars on citizenship and naturalization at military installations.  The USCIS website also has a military section specifically designed to inform members of the military and their families about immigration services and benefits.

A Commitment to Reach Out to Veterans - Wherever They Are

Lately it seems like everyone has jumped on the social networking bandwagon, or at least have claimed to do so.  One can find buttons for Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and others on the front pages of most Federal agencies, including VA.  However, social networking sites are more than just a fad to join in order to boost an organization's hipness.  At VA, we've found the internet to be one of the most powerful tools in our mission to reach out to our nation's Veterans across the country. 

While many people equate social media with a younger generation of users, as it turns out, Vietnam and Vietnam-era Veterans represent VA's fastest growing population of online users.  Both VA's website and our social media pages have allowed VA to reach out to Veterans who have traditionally been geographically isolated, as well as those who live far away from large cities or major military installations.  The majority of our Veterans live in rural communities and small towns across this great nation -- to include places like Native American tribal lands and Pacific Islands like American Samoa and Guam.  In the past, these Vets would have had to make the trek into a VA facility to get information, submit paperwork, or receive care.  That is changing.  They can now access our online resources to fill out applications, download information and even access care.  VA now provides both telemedicine to monitor medical conditions and online mental health counseling via chat rooms.  In the past year, we've added over 180 Veteran-centric videos to VA's YouTube channel, which have now been viewed over 250,000 times.

This time last year I had just created the Office of New Media at VA in order to pursue the President and Secretary Shinseki's mission to increase access to VA.  Since fall 2009, we have made a concerted effort to reach and converse with today's Veterans through the use of a number of new media tools, to include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and blogs.  In doing so, we have had considerable success.  When we started, VA's primary Facebook page had 879 subscribers.  Now we have over 71,000 -- more than any other cabinet-level agency.  In fact, we now estimate that VA reaches more Veterans through social media each day than through the VA website.  And just in time for Veterans Day, VA has launched its official blog, called VAntage Point.  This new platform will allow Veterans to receive timely and useful information straight from the source.  It's something we're very excited about.  Anyone wanting to voice their concerns over Veterans issues can submit a guest post for publication -- and we're hoping they will.

So as we all take a day to celebrate and honor our nation's Veterans, I ask all Americans to help spread the word.  Get on your Facebook pages and send out links to VA's resources, sign on as a follower to VA's or my Twitter feed, then check out VAntage Point.  Let's serve those who have served us and let them know of their benefits.  The added bonus is you get to be hip while doing it.

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