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From the Los Angeles Times

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Military consultant under 3 presidents found dead in landfill; helped get Vietnam wall built

by RANDALL CHASE

(Video on site)

Associated Press

January 4, 2011

DOVER, Del. (AP) — A military expert who served three Republican presidents and helped get the Vietnam Veterans Memorial built as part of his dedication to those who fought in that war was found dead in a landfill, and authorities are trying to piece together when he was last seen alive.

The body of John Wheeler III, 66, was uncovered Friday when a garbage truck emptied its contents at the Cherry Island landfill in Wilmington. The truck had collected the trash from about 10 commercial disposal bins in Newark, several miles from Wheeler's home in the historic district of New Castle, but police said they aren't sure which container his body came from.

Friends say they traded e-mails with Wheeler — who had not been reported missing — around Christmas. Wheeler also had been scheduled to take an Amtrak train from Washington to Wilmington on Dec. 28, but it's not clear if he ever made the trip, said investigators, who have labeled Wheeler's death a homicide.

Family members may not have reported him missing because they were out of town, Newark police spokesman Lt. Mark Farrall said.

Efforts by The Associated Press to contact his wife, Katherine Klyce, were unsuccessful, but his family issued a statement through the police department.

"As you must appreciate, this is a tragic time for the family. We are grieving our loss. Please understand that the family has no further comment at this time. We trust that everyone will respect the family's privacy."

Wheeler followed in his decorated father's footsteps and attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. After graduating in 1966, in the midst of the Vietnam War, he served five years in the Army, including as a staff officer at the Pentagon, and retired from the military in 1971.

In later years, Wheeler, as special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon during the George W. Bush administration, helped develop the Air Force Cyber Command. A citation for his service in 2008 said Wheeler recognized that the military needed to combat the growing vulnerability of U.S. weapon systems to cyber intrusions, according to his biography.

Longtime friend and fellow West Point graduate Richard Radez said that in an e-mail the day after Christmas, Wheeler wrote he believed the nation wasn't sufficiently prepared for cyber warfare.

"This was something that had preoccupied him over the last couple of years," Radez said.

Wheeler's house in New Castle was dark Monday night and no one answered the door. Yellow police evidence tape was stretched across two wooden chairs in the kitchen, where several wooden floorboards were missing.

According to The News Journal of Wilmington, Ron Roark, who has lived next door to Wheeler for seven months, said Monday he had met Wheeler only once and rarely saw him. But for four days around Christmas, he said he and his family heard a loud television in Wheeler's home that was constantly on, but no one appeared to be home.

"It was so loud, we could hear it through the walls, and we found that strange," Roark told the newspaper.

Though the police have searched the home, it was not considered a crime scene, Farrall said.

"We don't have a crime scene at this point," said Farrall.

In New York City, a doorman at the building where Wheeler and Klyce shared a condominium, said he hadn't seen Klyce in two weeks and a package for her had been at the front desk for days. He said two detectives were at the condo in the Harlem section of the city.

New York City police said they couldn't immediately confirm that they were involved in the investigation. Telephone messages left for Klyce at the New Castle home were not immediately returned.

Wheeler spent much of his post-Army career in Washington, D.C. For eight years from 1978 to 1986, he was special counsel to the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

During those years, he also created the Vietnam Veterans Leadership Program for President Ronald Reagan and was chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund that helped get the wall built. It is one of the most popular monuments in Washington, D.C.

Fund founder and president Jan Scruggs said Wheeler dedicated himself to ensuring that service members were given respect.

"I know how passionate he was about honoring all who serve their nation, and especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice," Scruggs said in a statement.

In a forward for the book, "Reflections On The Wall: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial," Wheeler wrote that the beauty of the wall photos in the book comes from the black granite's reflective quality.

"Before construction of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, those of us working on the project knew the wall would be shiny and reflective," he wrote. "But no one anticipated the sharp, true, and expansive mirror quality of the wall. The high polish of the black granite surface reflects blue sky, green trees, the Washington Monument, the Capitol Dome, the Lincoln Memorial, and the expressive faces of visitors who approach the Wall."

James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, says he had known Wheeler since the early 1980s, and wrote on the magazine's website that Wheeler spent much of his life trying to address "what he called the '40-year open wound' of Vietnam-era soldiers being spurned by the society that sent them to war."

Wheeler also spent some time self-employed and recently was a consultant for The Mitre Corporation, a nonprofit based in Bedford, Mass., and McLean, Va., that operates federally funded research and development centers.

Wheeler's military career included serving in the office of the Secretary of Defense and writing a manual on the effectiveness of biological and chemical weapons. He recommended that the U.S. not use biological weapons. Wheeler earned a master's at Harvard Business School and a law degree from Yale, according to his biography.

He also was the second chairman and chief executive officer of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

"He was just not the sort of person who would wind up in a landfill," said Bayard Marin, an attorney who was representing Wheeler and Klyce in a legal dispute with a couple wanting to build a home near theirs in the historic district.

"He was a very aggressive kind of guy, but nevertheless kind of ingratiating, and he had a good sense of humor," Marin said.

Fallows told The Associated Press that in e-mails over Christmas, Wheeler also was concerned about getting ROTC programs restored at prestigious universities such as Harvard and Stanford. Schools dropped the programs as a result of Vietnam.

Robert Meadus, 85, who lives near Wheeler's New Castle home, described the death as "exceedingly weird."

"The more you think about it, the more implausible it becomes. ... It's a Perry Mason thing for sure."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-federal-official-landfill,0,4744231.story

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Out of prison and into mortal danger in Mexico

Female kidnapping suspect 'The Redhead' was found tortured and hanging from an overpass after being sprung from prison. Observers wonder if it was a gang hit or even vigilante 'justice.'

by Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

January 4, 2011

Reporting from Mexico City

They called her La Pelirroja , The Redhead.

After languishing in jail on kidnapping charges for more than a year, she was abruptly sprung from custody two days after Christmas, during what may have been a bogus medical transfer.

But instead of being freed, Gabriela Muniz was within days found hanging by the neck from a pedestrian overpass in Mexico's wealthiest city, Monterrey — a brutally rare fate for a woman, even amid this nation's depraved and escalating drug violence.

Was it score-settling among gangs? Or was this an even more sinister example of vigilante justice by affluent private parties determined to restore what they see as law and order to their enclave?

"Since there are no rules — the big businessmen have no rules, the narcos have no rules — it is difficult to know what this was," Samuel Gonzalez, former head of organized crime investigations for the federal government, said in a telephone interview Monday. "But if it is a case of private 'justice,' then this is really a terrible, terrible phenomenon."

The body of Muniz, in her early 30s, was discovered over the holiday weekend. It was found naked from the waist up, and letters that may have formed a man's name were painted onto her back. Although she showed signs of having been beaten, forensic specialists said the hanging appeared to have been what killed her.

While it has become disturbingly common for the mutilated bodies of men to be strung from bridges and overpasses, this is the first time in recent memory that a woman received the same punishment.

Muniz's torture and slaying served as something of an exclamation point to the deadliest year on record in Mexico's drug war, which has claimed more than 30,000 lives since December 2006.

Muniz had been in prison since July 2009, accused of leading a band of kidnappers and extortionists whose victims included wealthy ranchers, truckers and restaurateurs.

As Mexico's industrial and commercial hub, Monterrey had long been immune to the drug-trafficking warfare plaguing much of the country. This last year, however, as two cartels battled for dominance of Monterrey, it too suffered the same sort of broad-daylight shootouts, kidnappings and abuse by traffickers, who seized control of parts of the city. The murder rate rose more than tenfold from 2009 to 2010.

But unlike parts of the country abandoned to the violence, influential businessmen have fought back, hiring private security firms and consultants and taking out full-page newspaper advertisements demanding action by the government and its security forces.

Among some business and political leaders, however, there is an ominous undercurrent that the government forces cannot be trusted. Mauricio Fernandez, the mayor of Monterrey's exclusive suburb San Pedro Garza Garcia, boasted in late 2009 that he was forming private "intelligence squads" to "cleanse" his jurisdiction of undesirables who included notorious kidnappers.

Fernandez eventually had to back down amid an intense, if tardy, flurry of criticism. But the episode raised the notion of sanctioned vigilantism that many experts say is a product of the generalized feeling of insecurity and government impotence in the face of powerful traffickers and aggressive kidnappers.

So far, the investigation into The Redhead's escape from custody and her subsequent demise has focused on official corruption. On the night of Dec. 27, a prison doctor ordered Muniz, rumored to have been romantically involved with a cartel leader, transferred from the jail to a hospital, supposedly for a stomach ailment. Three guards were escorting her when intercepted by gunmen who took her away.

Initially, the escape was chalked up to the same sort of inside jobs that have freed scores of violent prisoners from jail in the last year. Later, the doctor told authorities that he had been threatened with death if he didn't order Muniz's transfer. The doctor, the three guards and a prison warden are being held for questioning. An additional 55 guards were questioned and released.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-redhead-20110104,0,5046376,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Georgia: N.A.A.C.P. Says Guards Beat Prisoners

The N.A.A.C.P. says three prisoners were beaten by guards in retaliation for a strike, but the prison leadership denies wrongdoing. The N.A.A.C.P. and the inmates' families said Monday that they planned to file a lawsuit or a complaint with the federal government after receiving photographs showing the men's injuries. The group says that the men were handcuffed and beaten, including with a hammer, and that one man now needs a wheelchair and another apparently has brain damage. “We are a law enforcement agency and do everything possible to uphold, not break, laws,” the Georgia Department of Corrections said. Inmates in several Georgia prisons went on strike last month, seeking more food and better living conditions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us/04brfs-NAACPSAYSGUA_BRF.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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DNA Evidence Clears Man After 30 Years

Thirty years after Cornelius Dupree Jr. was imprisoned for rape and robbery, prosecutors in Dallas declared him innocent on Monday in light of new DNA evidence. Mr. Dupree, 51, has served more years in a Texas prison for a crime he did not commit than any of the other 41 people exonerated in the state in recent years. In 1980, Mr. Dupree was convicted along with a second man, Anthony Massingill, of robbing a couple and then kidnapping and raping the woman. But DNA tests completed last year on traces of semen showed that neither man committed the rape. Mr. Dupree was released on parole last summer, weeks before the DNA tests were done. Mr. Massingill, who was convicted in another sexual assault, remains in prison.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/us/04brfs-DNAEVIDENCEC_BRF.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Anonymity and the Dark Side of the Internet

In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995) the Supreme Court overturned a statute requiring any person who prints a notice or flyer promoting a candidate or an issue to identify the communication's author by name. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, grounded his opinion in an account of meaning he takes from an earlier case (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti): “The inherent worth of . . . speech in terms of its capacity for informing the public does not depend upon the identity of its source, whether corporation, association, union, or individual.” Or, in other words, a writing or utterance says what it says independently of who happens to say it; the information conveyed does not vary with the identification of the speaker.

There are at least two problems with this reasoning. First, it is not true that a text's meaning is the same whether or not its source is known. Suppose I receive an anonymous note asserting that I have been betrayed by a friend. I will not know what to make of it — is it a cruel joke, a slander, a warning, a test? But if I manage to identify the note's author — it's a friend or an enemy or a known gossip — I will be able to reason about its meaning because I will know what kind of person composed it and what motives that person might have had.

In the same way, if I am the recipient of a campaign message supporting a candidate or a policy, my assessment of what I am reading or hearing will depend on my knowledge of the sender. Is he, she or it an industry representative, a lobbyist, the A.C.L.U., the Club for Growth? The identity of the speaker is part of the information and is therefore part — a large part — of the meaning. (“Consider the source” is not only commonplace advice; it is a theory of interpretation.)

The practice of withholding the identity of the speaker is strategic, and one purpose of the strategy (this is the second problem with anonymity) is to avoid responsibility and accountability for what one is saying. Anonymity, Martha Nussbaum, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago observes, allows Internet bloggers “to create for themselves a shame-free zone in which they can inflict shame on others.” The power of the bloggers, she continues, “depends on their ability to insulate their Internet selves from responsibility in the real world, while ensuring real-world consequences” for those they injure.

Nussbaum is writing as a co-editor of, and contributor to, a new set of essays on the dark side of the Internet titled “The Offensive Internet.” The question that drives the volume is “what can be done about irresponsible information” spread by the Internet, a medium that allows slander to “be done with a few keystrokes, with complete anonymity, and . . . with no fear that the Internet provider on whose website the slur is found will somehow be held responsible for incorrect . . . or defamatory statements”? In the course of the volume the Internet is characterized as a cesspool, a porn store, a form of pinkeye, a raunchy fraternity, a graffiti–filled bathroom wall, a haven for sociopaths, and the breeder of online mobs who are no better than “masked Klan members” in their determination to “interfere with victims' basic rights.”

The authors make these charges against the background of the standard honorific description of the Internet: it is the ultimate realization of “the marketplace of ideas,” that non-physical space dedicated “to the emergence of truth.” Cass Sunstein invokes this hoary metaphor only to call it into question. Rumors cascade, Sunstein explains, when someone relies on what someone else has said and then spreads a falsehood as truth. The Internet multiplies the effect exponentially: an “initial blunder . . . can start a process by which a number of people participate in creating serious mistakes.” Rather then producing truth, the free and open marketplace of the Internet “will lead many people to accept damaging and destructive falsehoods,” and unless there is “some kind of chilling effect on false statements,” the “proper functioning of democracy itself” may be endangered.

An unconstrained marketplace of ideas is often said to facilitate informed decision-making by providing all the information, even erroneous information, that is out there. But how, asks Brian Leiter in a powerful essay, is the process of deliberation helped by the anonymous poster who reports falsely “that Jane Doe has herpes” and announces “that he would like to sodomize her?” The Internet and the real world, Leiter concludes, “would both be better places” if Internet providers were held accountable for the scurrilous and harmful material they disseminate.

How might that be managed? The answer given by the authors in this volume involves the repeal or modification of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says that no provider of an Internet service shall be treated as the publisher of information provided by another. That is, the provider is not liable for what others have said, and courts have interpreted that section as immunizing providers even when they “have knowledge that [a statement] is defamatory or invasive of privacy.”

Saul Levmore (Nussbaum's co-editor) suggests that immunity might be conditioned on the willingness of a provider either to take down a message after notice of its falsity or defamatory character has been given, or “to enforce non-anonymity” and thus open the way for an injured party to seek redress. The law, writes Anupam Chander, “should allow the individual to find information to lead her to the person who committed the privacy invasion.” As it is now, with an expansive reading of Section 230, “the law no longer puts any obstacles in the way of the Sociopath” who, traveling on the Internet, can go anywhere and spray venom that lasts forever. (Leiter)

But, as Geoffrey Stone reminds us in his essay, putting obstacles in the way of anyone's speech (even the speech of sociopaths or perverts or subversives ) has been frowned on by the Supreme Court ever since New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), which holds that, at least as regards public officials, debate should be uninhibited and wide open even if it is “vehement” and “caustic” and contains both “factual error” and “defamatory content.” In subsequent decisions, the category of “public officials” was widened first to include “public persons” and then to include persons who wander into the ambit of a public event, in short, almost everyone.

The idea (which goes back at least as far as Milton's Areopagitica) is that false and defamatory speech openly published will provoke counter speech and lead to correction; the truth will ultimately prevail. (Justice Louis Brandeis: “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.”) But however likely that happy outcome may be in the world of books and newspapers (and I have always thought it extremely unlikely), the special conditions and powers of the Internet conspire against it and the more likely outcome is the one prophesied by Alexander Pope in the final lines of “The Dunciad”: “Light dies before thy uncreating word . . . / And universal darkness buries all.”

What is remarkable about this volume is that the legal academics who make the arguments I have rehearsed are by and large strong free-speech advocates. Yet faced with the problems posed by the Internet, they start talking about “low value” speech (a concept strong first-amendment doctrine rejects) and saying things like “autonomy resides not in free choice per se but in choosing wisely” and “society needs not an absence of ‘chill,' but an optimal level.”(In short, let's figure out which forms of speech we should discourage.)

Perhaps the most amazing statement is made by Daniel J. Solove when he declares that “the law is hampered because it overprotects free speech.” The conventional first-amendment wisdom is that free speech cannot be overprotected, but that wisdom is put on trial by these thinkers. Some years ago, I wrote a book titled “There's No Such Thing as Free Speech and It's a Good Thing, Too.” This book could be titled “There is Such a Thing as the Free Unregulated Internet and It's a Bad Thing, Too.”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/anonymity-and-the-dark-side-of-the-internet/?pagemode=print

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OPINION

A Clear Danger to Free Speech

Chicago

THE so-called Shield bill, which was recently introduced in both houses of Congress in response to the WikiLeaks disclosures, would amend the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it a crime for any person knowingly and willfully to disseminate, “in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States,” any classified information “concerning the human intelligence activities of the United States.”

Although this proposed law may be constitutional as applied to government employees who unlawfully leak such material to people who are unauthorized to receive it, it would plainly violate the First Amendment to punish anyone who might publish or otherwise circulate the information after it has been leaked. At the very least, the act must be expressly limited to situations in which the spread of the classified information poses a clear and imminent danger of grave harm to the nation.

The clear and present danger standard has been a central element of our First Amendment jurisprudence ever since Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s 1919 opinion in Schenk v. United States. In the 90 years since, the precise meaning of “clear and present danger” has evolved, but the animating principle was stated brilliantly by Justice Louis D. Brandeis in his 1927 concurring opinion in Whitney v. California. The founders “did not exalt order at the cost of liberty,” wrote Brandeis; on the contrary, they understood that “only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom. Such ... is the command of the Constitution. It is, therefore, always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it.”

On the other hand, the First Amendment does not compel government transparency. It leaves the government extraordinary autonomy to protect its own secrets. It does not accord anyone the right to have the government disclose information about its actions or policies, and it cedes to the government considerable authority to restrict the speech of its own employees. What it does not do, however, is allow the government to suppress the free speech of others when it has failed to keep its own secrets.

We might think of this like the attorney-client privilege. If a lawyer reveals his client's confidences to a reporter, he can be punished for violating that privilege — but the newspaper cannot constitutionally be punished for publishing the information.

There are very good reasons why it makes sense to give the government so little authority to punish the circulation of unlawfully leaked information.

First, the mere fact that such information might “prejudice the interests of the United States” does not mean that that harm outweighs the benefit of publication; in many circumstances, it may be extremely valuable to public understanding. Consider, for example, classified information about the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Second, the reasons that government officials want secrecy are many and varied. They range from the truly compelling to the patently illegitimate. As we have learned from our own history , it is often very tempting for government officials to overstate their need for secrecy, especially in times of national anxiety. A strict clear and present danger standard — rather than an unwieldy and unpredictable case-by-case balancing of harm against benefit — establishes a high bar to protect us against this danger.

And finally, a central principle of the First Amendment is that the suppression of free speech must be the government's last rather than its first resort in addressing a problem. The most obvious way for the government to prevent the danger posed by the circulation of classified material is by ensuring that information that must be kept secret is not leaked in the first place.

Indeed, the Supreme Court made this point quite clearly in its 2001 decision in Bartnicki v. Vopper, which held that when an individual receives information “from a source who obtained it unlawfully,” that individual may not be punished for publicly disseminating the information “absent a need ... of the highest order.”

The court explained that if the sanctions now attached to the underlying criminal act “do not provide sufficient deterrence,” then perhaps they should be “made more severe” — but “it would be quite remarkable to hold” that an individual can constitutionally be punished merely for publishing information because the government failed to “deter conduct by a non-law-abiding third party.” This is a sound solution.

If we grant the government too much power to punish those who disseminate information, then we risk too great a sacrifice of public deliberation; if we grant the government too little power to control confidentiality at the source, then we risk too great a sacrifice of secrecy. The answer is thus to reconcile the irreconcilable values of secrecy and accountability by guaranteeing both a strong authority of the government to prohibit leaks and an expansive right of others to disseminate information to the public.

Geoffrey R. Stone is a professor of law at the University of Chicago and the chairman of the board of the American Constitution Society.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/opinion/04stone.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Secretary Napolitano and Qatari Minister of State for Internal Affairs He Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nasser Bin Khalifa Al Thani Sign Letter of Intent on Bilateral Security Initiatives

January 2, 2011

Doha, Qatar—Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Qatari Minister of State for Interior Affairs HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani today signed a letter of intent to expand collaboration between the two nations on bilateral initiatives to enhance security for American and Qatari citizens.

“Homeland security does not begin at America's borders—it starts with our international partnerships to detect and deter terrorists and other individuals who pose a threat to citizens around the world,” said Secretary Napolitano. “This agreement will help us expand collaboration with Qatar in order to better protect the citizens of both nations against the evolving threats we face.”

The letter of intent signed today recognizes expanded coordination between the United States and Qatar, and outlines several areas for expanded collaboration—including:

• Strengthened information sharing about individuals with ties to terrorism and serious crime;
• Enhanced passenger screening at airports;
• Sharing of best practices for document screening, behavior detection capabilities and efforts to combat bulk cash smuggling and money laundering; and
• New partnerships to enhance international aviation security, cybersecurity, disaster response and emergency preparedness, and the protection of critical infrastructure and key resources.

The letter of intent builds on the Obama administration's historic coordination on homeland security issues with Middle East partners—leveraging the shared commitment of the United States and its allies abroad to work together to crack down on terrorism and serious crime while facilitating legitimate travel and commerce. Secretary Napolitano also discussed with the Minister the importance of effective intelligence and law enforcement action against al Qaeda and other global terrorist organizations.

Secretary Napolitano's visit to Qatar follows stops in Ireland and Afghanistan, where she met with top Afghan officials including President Karzai, Finance Minister Zakhiwal and Interior Minister Mohammadi to discuss progress being made in securing the region and America's commitment to working with Afghanistan to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in the region.

Secretary Napolitano will continue to Israel on Jan. 3-5 and Belgium on Jan. 5-6 to meet with her counterparts and discuss international efforts to ensure the security of our global aviation and supply chain systems against threats of terrorism.

For more information, visit www.dhs.gov

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1294090212152.shtm

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Readout of Secretary Napolitano's Meetings With Israeli President Shimon Peres, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy Dan Meridor, and Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz

January 3, 2011

Jerusalem—Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today traveled to Israel, meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy Dan Meridor, and Minister of Transport Yisrael Katz to discuss threats from terrorism and the ongoing security partnership between the United States and Israel.

“Protecting against terrorism relies on close cooperation and information sharing with our international partners,” said Secretary Napolitano. “The continued collaboration between the United States and Israel is critical to ensuring our shared security in the face of new and evolving threats.”

In her meetings with President Peres, Deputy Prime Minister Meridor, and Minister Katz, Secretary Napolitano reiterated her commitment to promoting enhanced international aviation security and sharing information and best practices with Israeli aviation authorities in order to counter threats of terrorism. Secretary Napolitano also discussed the continued collaboration between the two countries on global supply chain security, emergency management, science and technology, and intelligence analysis and sharing.

Secretary Napolitano also visited the historic Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City as well as the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, where she delivered brief remarks on the significance of the memorial and laid a wreath with a ribbon that read “U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”

Tomorrow, Secretary Napolitano will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials and visit the Ben Gurion International Airport to meet with airport officials.

Secretary Napolitano's visit to Israel follows stops in Ireland, Afghanistan and Qatar. She will continue to Belgium on Jan. 5-6 to meet with European Union and World Customs Organization officials to discuss international efforts to ensure the security of our global aviation and supply chain systems against threats of terrorism.

For more information, visit www.dhs.gov

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1294089703618.shtm

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From the FBI

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Organized Retail Theft

A $30 Billion-a-Year Industry

01/03/11

It's a telling case: a few years ago, members of two criminal organizations in California were charged for their role in a large-scale fencing operation to buy and sell over-the-counter health and beauty products—as well as other items like camera film, batteries, and infant formula—that had been stolen from major retail chain stores. The merchandise was then passed off to crooked out-of-state wholesale distributors, who just sold it back to unsuspecting retailers.

Industry experts say organized retail crimes like these cost the U.S. about $30 billion a year. While that estimate includes other crimes like credit card fraud, gift card fraud, and price tag switching, the FBI's Organized Retail Theft program—according to Special Agent Eric Ives of our Violent Crimes/Major Offenders Unit in Washington, D.C.—“specifically focuses on the most significant retail theft cases involving the interstate transportation of stolen property.” Organized retail theft, says Ives, is a “gateway crime that often leads us to major crime rings that use the illicit proceeds to fund other crimes—such as organized crime activities, health care fraud, money laundering, and potentially even terrorism.“

Targets and thieves. The stores targeted for theft run the gamut—from grocery and major department stores to drug stores and specialty shops. The organizations responsible for much of this crime include South American theft groups, Mexican criminal groups, Cuban criminal groups from South Florida, and Asian street gangs from California.

Fighting back. According to Ives, the FBI uses many of the same investigative techniques against organized retail theft groups that we do against any criminal enterprise or terror network, especially undercover operations. Organized retail theft cases also present some valuable opportunities for us to enlist confidential human sources—the best sources of intelligence information—in order to dismantle entire operations. We recruit from the ranks of those who steal the merchandise (to a lesser degree) and mid-level fences and individuals higher up in the chain of command (to a greater degree).

Importance of collaboration. We don't do it alone, though. We partner with law enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels, sharing intelligence and working together operationally on seven major theft task forces located in five cities around the country—Miami, El Paso, Memphis, New York, and Chicago.

We also work closely with the retail industry. Most recently, we assisted in the development of the non-profit Law Enforcement Retail Partnership Network (or LERPnet), a secure national database used by retailers to report and share with one another incidents of retail theft and other serious retail crimes. The database, which has helped reveal patterns of organized theft, is now available to law enforcement agencies around the country.

Overall impact of organized retail theft. For one thing, it means higher prices for American consumers and less sales tax revenue for state and local governments. There is also a health and safety aspect—in many cases, stolen food products, pharmaceuticals, and other consumables aren't maintained under proper conditions or labeled properly, so when they do finally make their way back to unsuspecting consumers, they may be ineffective or may even make people sick.

All good reasons for the FBI and its partners to continue their collective fight against organized retail theft.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/january/retail_010311/retail_010311

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