From the Los Angeles Times

License plate readers help police and Border Patrol, but worry privacy advocates

The high-tech cameras can scan 1,800 plates a minute and run them through crime databases. Some fear the government will use the technology to track innocent people.

By Jordan Steffen, Washington Bureau

December 26, 2010

Reporting from Washington

Just after midnight on Oct. 26, the stolen Jeep Cherokee of a university professor who was slain the previous morning passed a camera mounted on a pole. It took the automatic camera less than a second to scan and process the license plate number, discover it in a database and send out an alert to police cruisers.

A detective spotted the vehicle and gave chase, leading to the arrest near downtown Washington of the 18-year-old driver, who is being held in nearby Montgomery County, Md., on auto theft charges and is considered "a person of interest" in the homicide, police said.

The technology used in this case has recently swept the country. Long used in Europe, it is now employed in all 50 states and is also helping to combat the flow of drugs, illegal currency and weapons across the U.S.- Mexico border.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded a contract in October worth as much as $350 million to increase its use along the border, where thousands of license plates are processed by the system every day.

But the technique, which, unlike speed cameras, snaps pictures of all vehicles passing by, worries privacy advocates. Wary of its ability to pinpoint and store the location of vehicles, they worry that innocent people may become easy targets for tracking.

"It's like being forced to walk around with a bar code that a scanner can pick up — except that it's your car," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which advocates for consumer and privacy rights. "This is one of those privacy places where the rubber really meets the road."

The relatively simple technology consists of cameras, either mounted on police cars or at a stationary location, capable of capturing and processing more than 100,000 license plate images an hour. Plate numbers are automatically run against "hot list" databases of stolen, suspicious or crime-related vehicles, said Capt. Kevin Reardon of the Arlington, Va., Police Department.

Before, officers who had the time manually entered plate numbers. The new technology processes every plate captured by the camera and alerts police when there is a hit from one of the hot lists.

"It's quick and efficient," Reardon said. "Officers can do their jobs better and catch more bad guys."

In Arlington, license plate readers lead to at least one arrest a day, Reardon said. There are 200 mobile cameras in the capital region, and a number of stationary cameras in Washington and Maryland.

One stationary system costs about $15,000 and a mobile system about $20,000, said Nate Maloney, vice president of marketing and communication at ELSAG North America, which manufactured the systems used in the capital. The basis of the technology, which can scan 1,800 plates a minute, was developed from the same optical character recognition systems used to read ZIP Codes in sorting mail.

Customs and Border Protection started using it in 2009. Nearly 500 cameras were installed on inbound lanes at the 39 busiest land ports along borders with Canada and Mexico.

"What we really require to do our job more effectively is real-time, actionable information. To know who is a bad guy and who is not," said Colleen Manaher, an official in the agency's office of field operations.

As vehicles approach checkpoints, stationary cameras take images of the front and rear license plates, a driver image and a color picture of the car, said Christopher Milowic of the agency's office of information and technology. Those images are then run through a database.

Cameras can also read and process enhanced travel documents, Milowic said. Enhanced documents are embedded with radio frequencies and can be processed simply by holding them in the direction of the camera.

In October, Unisys Corp., which manufactured the hardware and software installed in 2009, received an additional contract from Customs and Border Protection worth as much as $350 million over the next five years. Under the contract, new systems will be installed at busy pedestrian crossings, and existing systems will be replaced with technology that is 15% more accurate.

But the same technology that makes it easier and faster to peg suspicious vehicles also makes it easier to track innocent people, said Tien, the Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer.

Every time a scan runs through the system, the location of the vehicle and the date the image was taken are stored in a database — even if it does not trigger an alert. Individual agencies determine how long that information is stored, Arlington Police Capt. Reardon said. Some agencies store the data for a couple of days, others for six months. Arlington clears its database once a month.

That much information in one place makes it easy to "connect the dots" and track where a vehicle has been, revealing whether it stopped "at the opera or a strip club," Tien said.

A number of concerns surrounding the technology could be eliminated by immediately erasing scans that do not trigger an alert, said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

"You can always misuse a technology," Calabrese said. "But a widespread misuse is going to be pretty limited if you're not saving the records of innocent people."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-license-reader-20101226,0,2246727,print.story

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In L.A., many ways to help the needy this holiday season

On any given day in Los Angeles County, more than 48,000 people are homeless. Hundreds of them are members of families, like the Longs, who are experiencing homelessness for the first time. The Union Rescue Mission alone has assisted more than 900 families -- including some 1,900 children -- since October 2008.

"How do you weather a storm that lasts this long?" asked the Rev. Andy Bales, who heads the mission.

Although a lot of people are feeling stretched for cash this season, advocates for the homeless say there are other ways to help. Many organizations welcome donations of new or gently used clothing and blankets, as well as toiletries and food. And though volunteers come out in numbers during the holiday season, homeless service organizations need help throughout the year.

"What people really need in these hard times is a human touch, a kind word," Bales said. "Even just ... serving some coffee, hearing a person's story and sharing some love."

The Times' Alexandra Zavis has compiled a list of agencies in need of help during the holiday season.

Newborn baby handed to L.A. firefighters on Christmas Eve

A six-hour-old baby girl was nicknamed "Noel" by Los Angeles firefighters after she was handed to them by her mother on Christmas Eve.

The baby's mother brought the child to Los Angeles Fire Department Station 46 near the Coliseum about 3 p.m. Friday under a state law that allows new mothers to relinquish babies without facing abandonment charges, according to department spokesman Erik Scott.

The baby and mother were examined at the station and found to be in good health, he said. "The baby did not appear to be abused or neglected," he said, adding that the firefighters "affectionately nicknamed the baby girl Noel."

After wrapping "Noel" in a blanket, the firefighters took her to a local hospital for postnatal care. She is now under the custody of the county's Department of Child Services and will be cared for by a foster parent until she is placed for adoption or returned to a family member. The mother and child were given matching identification bracelets in case the mother changes her mind.

Firefighters, said Scott, often see sadder cases of infants who are neglected or abandoned and left to die. "So they were delighted this had an happy outcome," he said.

California's 10-year-old Safe Surrender law allows a baby to be surrendered to a hospital, designated fire station or other special site within 72 hours of birth. The Christmas Eve surrender was thought to be the sixth in Los Angeles County this year, officials said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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From the New York Times

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Nigerian Villages and Churches Are Struck in Deadly Attacks

JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) — Explosions in Nigeria's central region killed 32 people on Friday, and six people died in attacks on two churches in the northeast of the country, officials said Saturday.

On Friday night, a series of bombs were detonated during Christmas Eve celebrations in villages near the central city of Jos, killing at least 32 people, the state police commissioner said; more than 50 were wounded in the attacks.

Nigeria's army chief, Azubuike Ihejirika, described “a series of bomb blasts” that he said did not seem related to the religious clashes that flare up sporadically between the country's Muslim and Christian populations, roughly equal in size.

“That is terrorism,” Mr. Ihejirika said. “It's a very unfortunate incident.”

At the start of the year, hundreds of people died in religious and ethnic clashes in Nigeria's central region, where the mostly Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south.

The attacks come at a difficult time for President Goodluck Jonathan, who is running a controversial campaign ahead of his governing party's primaries on Jan. 13.

The internal rules for his bloc, the People's Democratic Party, dictate that the party leadership rotate between northern and southern factions every two terms. Mr. Jonathan is a southerner who inherited office when President Umaru Yar'Adua, a northerner, died during his first term this year, and some northern factions in the governing party are opposed to his candidacy.

Mr. Jonathan faces a challenge from former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for the party's nomination to run for president, and some fear any unrest in Nigeria will be exploited by rivals during campaigning.

In the attacks on two churches, which appeared to be religiously motivated, at least six people were killed in the northeastern city of Maiduguri.

Attackers threw gasoline bombs late Friday at a church in the city, killing five people, including a Baptist pastor. A security guard at a nearby church died in a similar assault.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/world/africa/26nigeria.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Dutch Arrest 12 Somalis in Terror Plot

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) — The Dutch police have arrested 12 Somalis suspected of plotting a terrorist attack in the Netherlands, prosecutors said Saturday.

The 12 men, ranging from 19 to 48 years old, were arrested late Friday after a message was received from the Dutch intelligence and security service, the Dutch prosecutors said in a statement.

The message reported “that a number of Somalis wanted to make a terrorist attack in the Netherlands in the short term,” the prosecutors said.

A telephone shop and four houses in the port city of Rotterdam were searched, as well as two motel rooms in Gilze-Rijen, a village in the south of the country, they said.

No weapons or explosives were found, and the prosecutors did not identify an intended target.

Six of the suspects lived in Rotterdam, five did not have a permanent home address and one was from Denmark, according to the prosecutors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/world/europe/26dutch.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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OPINION

The Big (Military) Taboo

This is the one area where elections scarcely matter. President Obama, a Democrat who symbolized new directions, requested about 6 percent more for the military this year than at the peak of the Bush administration.

“Republicans think banging the war drums wins them votes, and Democrats think if they don't chime in, they'll lose votes,” said Andrew Bacevich, an ex-military officer who now is a historian at Boston University. He is author of a thoughtful recent book, “Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War.”

The costs of excessive reliance on military force are not just financial, of course, as Professor Bacevich knows well. His son, Andrew Jr., an Army first lieutenant, was killed in Iraq in 2007.

Let me be clear: I'm a believer in a robust military, which is essential for backing up diplomacy. But the implication is that we need a balanced tool chest of diplomatic and military tools alike. Instead, we have a billionaire military and a pauper diplomacy. The U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service — and that's preposterous.

What's more, if you're carrying an armload of hammers, every problem looks like a nail. The truth is that military power often isn't very effective at solving modern problems, like a nuclear North Korea or an Iran that is on the nuclear path. Indeed, in an age of nationalism, our military force is often counterproductive.

After the first gulf war, the United States retained bases in Saudi Arabia on the assumption that they would enhance American security. Instead, they appear to have provoked fundamentalists like Osama bin Laden into attacking the U.S. In other words, hugely expensive bases undermined American security (and we later closed them anyway). Wouldn't our money have been better spent helping American kids get a college education?

Paradoxically, it's often people with experience in the military who lead the way in warning against overinvestment in arms. It was President Dwight Eisenhower who gave the strongest warning: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” And in the Obama administration, it is Defense Secretary Robert Gates who has argued that military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny; it is Secretary Gates who has argued most eloquently for more investment in diplomacy and development aid.

American troops in Afghanistan are among the strongest advocates of investing more in schools there because they see firsthand that education fights extremism far more effectively than bombs. And here's the trade-off: For the cost of one American soldier in Afghanistan for one year, you could build about 20 schools.

There are a few signs of hope in the air. The Simpson-Bowles deficit commission proposes cutting money for armaments, along with other spending. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled a signature project, the quadrennial diplomacy and development review, which calls for more emphasis on aid and diplomacy in foreign policy.

“Leading through civilian power saves lives and money,” Mrs. Clinton noted, and she's exactly right. The review is a great document, but we'll see if it can be implemented — especially because House Republicans are proposing cuts in the State Department budget.

They should remind themselves that in the 21st century, our government can protect its citizens in many ways: financing research against disease, providing early childhood programs that reduce crime later, boosting support for community colleges, investing in diplomacy that prevents costly wars.

As we cut budgets, let's remember that these steps would, on balance, do far more for the security of Americans than a military base in Germany.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26kristof.html?ref=opinion

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From Google News

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Police kill shotgun-toting man near Mormon temple

(AP) – December 26, 2010

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah (AP) — Police shot and killed a man after he refused to drop his shotgun and headed toward a group of people on a Christmas Day stroll outside a Utah Mormon Temple, authorities said.

The man had been in an altercation Saturday afternoon in the parking lot outside the Oquirrh Mountain Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, South Jordan police Lt. Dan Starks said.

"The adult male armed with a shotgun had become involved with at least one other person on the temple grounds," Starks told The Associated Press.

He said police arrived shortly afterward and repeatedly ordered the shotgun-toting man to drop the weapon.

"While carrying the shotgun, he fled from the officers toward where there were other people," he said.

Starks said an officer fired just once, killing the man.

He said officers feared for both their safety and for people on the grounds enjoying the weather and the views from the temple.

Officers found numerous weapons, including guns, swords and ammunition, inside the dead man's car, Starks said.

The man was described as white and middle-aged, but Starks said police were withholding his name until family could be notified.

Starks said the officer has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation and a review by the Salt Lake County district attorney's office.

Police did not release any other details, including how the altercation began.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h3Azev1v38Znape37pCUucCFO9yQ?docId=4fe4233318f9423db63595f0c535a2da

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More body scanners are coming to an airport near you

The full-body scanners in use at 78 U.S. airports can detect small amounts of contraband and hidden weapons, all while producing controversial images of travelers.

The "good catches," federal officials say, have largely gone unnoticed amid the criticism that erupted over the ghostly X-rays and "enhanced" pat-downs. The Transportation Security Administration, which intensified airport screening last month, points to several successes: small amounts of marijuana wrapped in baggies, other drugs stitched inside underwear, ceramic knives concealed in shirt pockets.

But the machines could miss something far more deadly: explosive material taped to someone's abdomen or hidden inside a cavity. Researchers and security experts question the technology's ability to detect chemical explosives that are odorless, far smaller than previous incarnations, and easily molded to fool machines and security screeners into thinking they are part of the human body.

Government testing, which has been mostly classified because of security concerns, has also raised concerns about the effectiveness of the full-body scanners.

Based partly on early successes, federal officials are planning to continue an unprecedented roll-out of the technology over the next year. By New Year's Day, about 500 machines will be in use across the country, including at the Washington area's three major airports. By the end of next year, 1,000 X-ray machines will be operational, accounting for roughly half of the nation's 2,000 lanes of security checkpoints.

Following the United States' lead, several nations have begun to test or install full-body scanners, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom. U.S. officials have also considered whether the machines could be used to enhance security at passenger rail stations.

Federal officials say the scanners represent the best technology that has passed both lab and field tests. But as with reading an X-ray, training is the most important factor in making sure that TSA officers can spot potentially dangerous items on passengers.

"The bottom line is that we are now able to detect all types of the most dangerous weapons - nonmetallic explosive devices," TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball said. "Even in small amounts, it can be picked up."

Window dressing?

Two types of scanning machines - backscatter and millimeter wave - have been installed at airports since 2007, when they were launched as part of a pilot program at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Both machines produce the same full-body images that attracted controversy; they work by bouncing X-rays or radio waves off skin or concealed objects.

They have been installed at a quicker rate since a failed Christmas Day terrorist attempt last year in which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab hid explosives in his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. The failed attack also prompted federal officials to use the scanners as a primary security technique at airports instead of a secondary, less frequent checkpoint feature.

Still, many security experts say the machines are expensive window dressing meant to put the traveling public at ease.

A recent paper published in the Journal of Transportation Security by two former University of California-San Francisco physicists said that images produced by the backscatter scanners would probably fail to show a large pancake-shaped object taped to the abdomen because it would be "easily confused with normal anatomy." As a result, a third of a kilo of PETN, a type of malleable explosive, which could be discovered by a pat-down, would be missed, the scientists said.

"It's not an explosives detector; it's an anomaly detector," said Clark Ervin, who runs the Homeland Security Program at the nonprofit Aspen Institute. "Someone has to notice that there's something out of order." Ervin was the first inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security.

PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, is hard to detect. Odorless and similar to a white crystal powder, it was used in both package bombs shipped to the United States in October and the Christmas airliner attempt last year. Those who plotted the cargo attack hid the explosive in toner cartridges and "clearly" tried to trick baggage screening technologies, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Brian Michael Jenkins, director of the Transportation Security Center at the Mineta Transportation Institute in San Jose, Calif., said he was unsure whether an advanced scanner would have discovered the explosives in Abdulmutallab's underwear. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has said it "remains unclear" whether he would have been caught by a full-body scanner. But a random assortment of security measures - and not the reliance on one technology or method - is key, Jenkins said.

"It's the mystery that drives our adversaries crazy," he said. "We need the unknown."

Drawbacks, advances

The Transportation Security Laboratory, a federal Homeland Security testing site created in 1992 at New Jersey's Atlantic City International Airport, began testing on full-body scanners in 2007. The detailed results of the testing performed in Atlantic City are classified because of security concerns, but interviews with more than a dozen former and current government officials and the limited release of its findings found:

"If you have someone who is rather fat or who has large breasts or buttocks, that's a factor, too," said Anthony Fainberg, a physicist and former program manager for explosives and radiation detection at Homeland Security.

Fainberg has lobbied for hand-held swabbing of hands and luggage for trace detection of explosives, especially on international flights.

"If you have something hidden behind flaps of flesh, it can be missed," he said. "I'm not worried about the safety of it at all, but I am concerned about what could be missed."

Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, said that the technology expands the TSA's security toolbox.

"It is not going to solve the problem, but it certainly comes a long way from where we were before," Cilluffo said.

'These things take time'

To address the litany of security and privacy concerns over the full-body scanners, federal officials are testing several new technologies that will probably make their way into airports in the coming months.

Homeland Security's research and design division, the Science and Technology Directorate, is testing a software patch being developed by the two companies behind the scanning technology - Rapiscan Systems and L-3 Communications - that would produce only a generic outline of a human body accompanied by a box or colored squares indicating a hidden anomaly or specific substance. An alarm might also be used to alert screeners to potential threats.

But TSA Administrator John S. Pistole said that the software, called automated target recognition, is not scoring well in lab tests, producing too many false-positive errors.

"It is a relatively complex math problem, but we're confident we're going to solve it and solve it soon," said Peter Kant, executive vice president of Rapiscan Systems. "But these things take time."

Meanwhile, federal researchers are testing systems that would scan passengers' shoes without having to take them off; a new generation of carry-on baggage equipment, such as conveyor systems; and smaller and faster baggage scanning machines, which could check 1,500 bags per hour, up from an average of 300 to 400 per hour. Technology developed at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory could identify liquids through opaque containers, such as a soda can or juice pouch.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/25/AR2010122502163.html

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