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February 27, 2011

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L.A. County jails

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is warning the public of a telephone scam being run out of county jail facilities by inmates.

The scam allows inmates to charge collect calls to unsuspecting consumers through the use of call forwarding, according to Deputy Robert Boese, and involves the use of the *72 function on telephones.

Here's how the ruse works: A person receives a telephone call from a person claiming to work for a public safety agency or hospital. The caller will claim that a relative of the recipient has been jailed or hurt in an accident, and then instructs him or her to call a telephone number that starts with the prefix *72 for more information.

The prefix activates the victim's call forwarding feature (if he or she is a subscriber). The victim's incoming calls are then forwarded to the telephone number that was provided by the scammer -- usually the number for a friend or relative of the inmate. "So if I'm an inmate, all I have to do is make a collect call to your number, which is forwarded to the other number," Boese said. "The person on the other line accepts the collect call and the fee goes to your phone bill."

The Sheriff's Department discovered the scam when deputies began receiving an increasing number of phone calls from people complaining of calls from the jail that appeared on their phone bills, authorities said.

The Sheriff's Department and the California Public Utilities Commission say the scam is not confined to L.A. County jails. They say con artists on the outside are also cheating telephone service subscribers.

Consumers can turn off the call forwarding feature by dialing prefix *73. Authorities also suggest that people call their phone companies and ask if they have call forwarding features. People who have been victims of the scam are asked to report it to the California Public Utilities Commission's consumer hotline at (800) 649-7570 .

Los Angeles Times

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Passenger on flight from Baltimore to San Diego was infected with measles, officials warn

Passengers aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Baltimore to Denver and San Diego on Feb. 22 are in danger of contracting measles because one of the passengers was infected with the virus, San Diego County health officials said Saturday. Passengers are being contacted by health workers and warned that if they have not had an anti-measles vaccination that they should be on the lookout for early symptoms: a rash, red eyes, a runny nose or a cough.

The infectious passenger left the flight in Denver. But even those unvaccinated passengers who boarded in Denver for San Diego are at risk because the measles virus can hang in the air and live on surfaces for up to two hours, officials said. When the flight arrived in San Diego, there were 138 passengers.

Dr. Wilma Wooten, the San Diego County public health officer, advised passengers to call their doctors in advance of spotting any symptoms so that exposure to others can be limited.

While there is a vaccine to prevent measles, there is no cure once the virus takes hold. Bed rest, fluids and fever-control are the best treatments, officials said.

The measles virus can quickly infect people who have not been vaccinated. There are documented cases of people being infected who did not get within 100 feet of an infected person, Wooten said. "Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected."

By law, a case of measles must be reported to health officials. That's how officials discovered that a person with the virus was on the flight.

Los Angeles Times

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Then and Now: Taking the measure of a criminal

The long arm of the law once checked feet, fingers and heads to identify repeat criminals. And then along came fingerprints.

Long before "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," there was (drum roll, please):

BAI: Bertillon Anthropometric Identification!

Well, maybe the title wouldn't have been catchy enough for a TV show.

But the Los Angeles Police Department's adoption of the Bertillon system in 1898 began a short, colorful chapter in the struggle to single out habitual lawbreakers.

Until then, a lack of accurate records prompted many judges to treat career bad guys as first-time offenders, leading to their early release.

Fingerprinting was still about a decade away and DNA analysis almost a century off.

French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon's system measured dozens of parts of the body whose size couldn't be altered — for instance, the lengths of the head, the forearm, the foot and the middle finger (yes, flashing a middle finger was once an official part of the processing of prisoners).

The length of the head, from the bottom of the chin to the crown, was broken into small, medium and large categories, with medium ranging from about 7.4 to 7.6 inches.

The files were cross-indexed according to measurements, along with name, sex, race, birthmarks and scars.

Los Angeles Times

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Suddenly, a Rise in Piracy's Price

At some point, Thomas Jefferson realized, you just can't do business with pirates any more.

For years, the infant American government, along with many others, had accepted the humiliating practice of paying tribute — essentially mob-style protection fees — to a handful of rulers in the Barbary states so that American ships crossing the Mediterranean would not get hijacked. But in 1801, Tripoli's pasha, Yusuf Karamanli, tried to jack up his prices. Jefferson said no. And when the strongman turned his pirates loose on American ships, Jefferson sent in the Navy to bombard Tripoli, starting a war that eventually brought the Barbary states to their knees. Rampant piracy went to sleep for nearly 200 years.

The question now is: Are we nearing another enough-is-enough moment with pirates?

On Tuesday, Somali pirates shot and killed four American hostages. A single hostage intentionally killed by these pirates had been almost unheard of; four dead was unprecedented. Until now, the first thing that came to mind about Somalia's buccaneers was that they were brash and mercurial. Just a few weeks ago they let go some Sri Lankan fishermen after they essentially said, “You're poor, like us.” They were seen as a nuisance, albeit an expensive one, but not a lethal threat.

Exactly what happened Tuesday is still murky. Pirates in the Arabian Sea had hijacked a sailboat skippered by a retired couple from California, and when the American Navy closed in, the pirates got twitchy. Navy Seals rushed aboard but it was too late. It's still not clear why the pirates would want to kill the hostages when their business model, which has raked in more than $100 million in the past few years, is based on ransoming captives alive.

“Of course, I do not know what the U.S. will do in response to this latest atrocity,” said Frank Lambert, a professor at Purdue who is an expert on the Barbary pirates. But, he said, “Jefferson advocated an armed response and eventually war against Tripoli for far less provocation.”

New York Times

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Lawmakers Debate Effect of Weapons on Campus

PHOENIX — Along with the meaning of life and the origin of the universe, college students across the country have another existential question to ponder: the wisdom of allowing guns in class.

In Arizona, known for its gun-friendly ways, state lawmakers are pushing three bills this year focused on arming professors and others over the age of 21 on Arizona campuses. Sponsors talk of how professors and students are now sitting ducks for the next deranged gunman to charge through the classroom door. Some gun rights advocates go so far as to say that grade school teachers ought to be armed as well, although even this state is not ready for that proposition.

About a dozen legislatures nationwide, concerned about the potential for campus shootings, are considering arming their academies. Gun control advocates say Texas is probably the most likely to pass such a measure, with Arizona also in the mix.

Arizona's proposals to loosen restrictions on campus weaponry, coming so soon after the shooting rampage in Tucson that left six dead and 13 wounded, have prompted a fierce debate at the state's public universities, with significant brain power focusing on the issue of firepower. Administrators and campus police chiefs at Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona have all expressed opposition to allowing guns. Faculty members are circulating petitions against guns as well. Most, but not all, students also appear opposed.

Still, the state's powerful gun lobby, with allies galore in the Legislature, is pushing hard. The notion has been floated in previous legislative sessions, but this year proponents believe they may have the momentum to get it done.

“We can't rest on our laurels,” said Todd Rathner, who runs the Rathner & Associates lobbying firm and is working to have Colt named the state's official firearm. “We're making inroads, but I've been in politics long enough to know that the pendulum swings and there is no way to know if the pendulum won't swing in the other direction.”

New York Times

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Immunity prevents Arizona lawmaker's arrest after freeway fight

(CNN) -- Police say they did not detain an Arizona state senator who was involved in a domestic violence incident over the weekend because state law gives him immunity from arrest while the legislature is in session.

Officers responding to the scene of a reported altercation on a Phoenix-area highway Friday night found state Sen. Scott Bundgaard and his girlfriend, Aubry Ballard.

Both had marks on them indicating they had been involved in a physical dispute -- constituting an act of domestic violence on the part of both individuals, Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Tommy Thompson said.

Ballard was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault. Bundgaard was not, but could later face charges from the city attorney's office, Thompson said.

Bundgaard, a Republican and the state senate majority leader, said the dispute began on the way home from a charity "Dancing with the Stars" fundraiser, after Ballard accused him of "inappropriately touching" his dance partner.

"She proceeded to throw my clothes and other things out of my car on a freeway as I took her home," Bundgaard said in a statement.

The senator said he tried to stop his girlfriend from punching him, which resulted in marks on her knees.

CNN

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February 26, 2011

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China's disabled exploited as slaves

In an economy where manual labor is in demand, ruthless recruiters often prey on the mentally disabled. One man, held at a brick kiln, is one of countless slaves who endured torture and deplorable living conditions.

At 30, Liu Xiaoping is more boy than man, with soft doe eyes that affix visitors with the unabashed stare of the very young and glisten with reluctant tears when his bandages are changed.

It takes effort not to show the pain of the wounds that read up and down his body as a testament to the 10 months he was held captive at brick factories in the Chinese countryside.

His hands are as red as freshly boiled lobster from handling hot bricks from a kiln without proper protective gloves. On the backs of his legs, third-degree burns trace the rectangular shape of bricks, a factory foreman's punishment for not working fast enough. Around his wrists, ligature marks tell of the chains used to keep him from running away at night.

Liu was found wandering in the small town of Gaoling, north of Xian, on Dec. 22, 10 months after his family reported him missing. He was wearing the same clothing as when he'd disappeared in February, but the trousers were glued to the festering wounds on his legs and the gangrene of his frostbitten feet stank through the gaping holes in his shoes.

Despite his injuries and an intellectual impairment, he was able to tell how he'd been tricked by a woman who bought him a bowl of soup and promised him the equivalent of $10 per day, good wages for manual work in rural China.

Instead, he became a slave.

"They took advantage of my brother because he has a mental disability," said his 26-year-old brother, Liu Xiaowei. "They forced him to work, beat him, tortured him, and then when he was too weak to take it anymore, they threw him out on the street."

In an adrenaline-paced economy with a chronic shortage of manual laborers, ruthless recruiters often prey on China's mentally disabled. The worst offenders work with the brick kilns that are feeding a seemingly insatiable appetite for the new apartment complexes and malls cropping up around the countryside.

Los Angeles Times

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Killings Jolt a Family in Mexico

MEXICO CITY — When Josefina Reyes Salazar was murdered in the border state of Chihuahua last year, not long after she accused the military of playing a role in the killing of her son, protests brought attention to the family's plight.

But its torment did not end there. On Friday, the police in Chihuahua found the bodies of Ms. Reyes Salazar's brother, sister and a sister-in-law along a road near Ciudad Juárez, the country's most violent city.

They had been abducted by armed men on Feb. 7 outside a gas station near Ciudad Juárez, which sits along the border with Texas. A month earlier a house belonging to Ms. Reyes Salazar's mother had been set ablaze, and last summer, a brother of Ms. Reyes Salazar was killed.

In all, six members of the family have been killed, one of the more glaring examples of the threat that human rights activists like Ms. Reyes Salazar face in Mexico.

In December, in a case that shocked a country long inured to sensational murders, another grieving mother, Marisela Escobedo, was shot to death in front of Chihuahua's capitol as she demanded justice for the killing of her daughter. Other activists have been killed or received death threats in the past few years as Mexico has waged a battle against organized crime.

Reyes Salazar family members lashed out at the state and federal governments on Friday; Ms. Reyes Salazar's two sisters promised to keep protesting with a hunger strike.

State officials had said the family members might have had links to organized crime, but a spokesman for the family said that assertion was an attempt to sully the family's name. No arrests have been made in any of the killings.

Two weeks ago, Amnesty International warned that the family had received threats and urged state and federal officials to protect it, but it was unclear if any such aid was offered or rejected.

The family is “clearly being targeted in the most brutal way,” said Susan Lee, the Americas director for Amnesty International. “The Mexican authorities' top priority must be to ensure the safety of other relatives.”

New York Times

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Abuse Suspects, Your Calls Are Taped. Speak Up.

The men charged with beating, stabbing or burning their wives or girlfriends have plenty to say. Lately, their words have been used against them in New York courts as never before.

“I need you to prepare the kids to start lying,” one man said to his girlfriend. He had been charged with burning her face with a hot iron as she knelt in view of their children.

Another cooed “baby” to the girlfriend he was charged with grabbing by the hair and scratching with keys. “Whatever you do,” he directed, “do not speak to the D.A.”

A third insisted to his brother that he was surprised at all the blood after he used a kitchen knife on the woman he had been with since they were teenagers. “I just stuck her like a little,” he said.

Since last year, every prisoner telephone call at every New York City jail, except calls to doctors and lawyers, has been recorded. And prosecutors have been mining the trove in all kinds of cases — they asked for copies of the recordings 8,200 times last year, city officials said. But there is one area where the tapes are beginning to play a central role: cases of domestic violence.

The reason is simple. Once those accused in domestic violence crimes get on the jailhouse telephone, it turns out, many of them cannot seem to stop themselves from sweet-talking, confessing to, berating and threatening those on the other end of the line, more often than not the women they were charged with abusing.

The tapes overcome one of the biggest hurdles prosecutors face in such cases: that 75 percent of the time, the women who were victimized stop helping prosecutors, often after speaking to the men accused of abusing them.

Scott E. Kessler, the domestic violence bureau chief in the Queens district attorney's office, said the recordings “revolutionized the way we're able to proceed.”

New York Times

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Georgia school teacher arrested for distributing child pornography

ROME, Ga. - Raymond "Robin" Watts, 55, of Kingston, Ga., appeared in federal court Thursday after being arrested for distribution and possession of child pornography by special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations. (HSI)

Watts is a teacher at Mill Creek Middle School in Woodstock, Ga.

During the course of ICE HSI's ongoing child pornography investigation, special agents discovered that Watts might possess sexually explicit images of children, in particular, minor boys.

In early 2011, an undercover ICE HSI special agent made contact with Watts, which led to in-person meetings between Watts and the undercover agent. During one of their meetings, Watts provided numerous images of child pornography to the agent. After a search warrant was executed, Watts was found to have hundreds of sexually explicit images of children on his home computer.

"The sexual exploitation of children is a despicable crime, and it is especially alarming when it is perpetrated by someone in a position of trust," said Brock Nicholson, acting special agent in charge of ICE HSI in Atlanta. "Identifying and investigating those who victimize innocent children is one of our most important responsibilities."

Watts is scheduled to have his arraignment and bond hearing before a U.S. Magistrate Judge on Tuesday at 2:30 p.m.

U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, "The children in our community must be protected from those who would victimize them in child pornography. Although all child pornography cases are tragic because of their victims, this case was even more troubling because the defendant taught in a middle school where he had daily interaction with children. Our investigation into this matter is ongoing and we would encourage anyone with information to contact ICE or their local police."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill E. Steinberg is prosecuting the case.

The investigation was part of Operation Predator, a nationwide ICE initiative to identify, investigate and arrest those who prey on children, including human traffickers, international sex tourists, Internet pornographers, and foreign-national predators whose crimes make them deportable.

ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE . This hotline is staffed around the clock by investigators.

Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at 1-800-843-5678 or http://www.cybertipline.com .

ICE

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Former high school swim coach pleads guilty to child pornography

BOSTON - A North Attleboro, Mass., man, a former swim coach for the Attleboro YMCA and North Attleboro High School, has pleaded guilty in federal court of receipt and possession of child pornography following an investigation conducted jointly with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Timothy S. Kelly, 40, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns to four counts of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.

At the plea hearing, the prosecutor told the court that if the case proceeded to trial, the government's evidence would have proven that Kelly used an online chat program to communicate with others and transmit pictures to them in real time. In chats from 2007 and 2008, Kelly received images of child pornography and discussed his sexual interest in girls between the ages of 8 and 13. During the execution of a federal search warrant at his residence, Kelly admitted to collecting and trading child pornography since 2003.

The images he received and possessed included prepubescent children engaged in multiple acts of sexually explicit conduct.

Judge Stearns scheduled sentencing for May 18, 2011. Kelly faces up to 20 years imprisonment for each count of receipt of child pornography and up to 10 years imprisonment for possession of child pornography, to be followed by up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.

U. S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, Bruce M. Foucart, special agent in charge of ICE HSI in Boston, and Chief Michael P. Gould Sr. of the North Attleboro Police Department made the announcement.

This investigation was part of Operation Predator, a nationwide ICE initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders and child sex traffickers. Since Operation Predator was launched in July 2003, ICE agents have arrested more than 12,800 individuals.

ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE . This hotline is staffed around the clock by investigators. Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at 1-800-843-5678 or http://www.cybertipline.com

In coordination with the Bristol County District Attorney's Office, this case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Yoon of Ortiz's Major Crimes Unit and Trial Attorney Bonnie Kane of the Department of Justice's Child Exploitation & Obscenity Section.

ICE

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ICE operation in South Florida targeting at-large convicted criminal aliens nets 24 arrests

MIAMI - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers arrested 24 foreign nationals during a six-day enforcement action in South Florida targeting convicted criminal aliens identified in violation of U.S. immigration law.

The enforcement operation, which began Feb. 15 and ended on Thursday, Feb. 24, targeted at-large criminal aliens with convictions for drug trafficking, violent crimes and sex offenses.

Nineteen of the individuals had criminal records, including murder and drug trafficking, four were ICE fugitives with final orders of deportation and one had been previously deported.

"Arresting convicted criminals and immigration fugitives is a top priority for ICE ERO," said Marc Moore, field office director for ICE ERO in Miami. "Those who come to the United States to prey upon our neighbors and communities will be prosecuted for their crimes and ultimately returned to their home countries. The results of this and last week's operation demonstrate ICE's commitment to making our communities safer for everyone."

All 24 were arrested administratively for being in violation of immigration law, and all are being held in ICE custody pending immigration removal proceedings or removal from the United States.

The 24 alien arrests include 10 arrests in Miami-Dade County, four arrests in Broward County and 10 arrests in Monroe County. The overall criminal alien arrests include 20 men and four women, representing six different nations, including countries in Latin America, Asia, Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

ICE

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Alleged Supporter of Terrorist Group Extradited from Paraguay

PHILADELPHIA—Moussa Ali Hamdan, 38, a dual citizen of the United States and Lebanon and a former resident of Brooklyn, New York, made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia today after being extradited from Paraguay. He is being held pending a detention hearing. Hamdan is among several defendants charged in a conspiracy to provide material support to Hizballah, a designated foreign terrorist organization. He was indicted November 24, 2009, along with nine co-defendants. Hamdan was taken into U.S. custody in Asuncion, Paraguay, on Thursday, by U.S. Marshals who escorted him to Washington, D.C., where members of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force took him into custody.

At the time of the indictment, Hamdan had left the United States. On June 15, 2010, Paraguayan authorities arrested him in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Paraguay for the crime of material support of terrorism.

Hamdan is charged in 28 of the 31 counts in the indictment, including conspiring to provide material support to Hizballah in the form of proceeds from the sale of counterfeit money, stolen (genuine) money, and fraudulent passports. According to the indictment, Hamdan and several other defendants were also charged with several counts of transporting stolen goods, trafficking in counterfeit goods, and making false statements to government officials.

According to a related criminal complaint Hamdan began purchasing purportedly stolen cellular telephones from a cooperating witness acting as an agent of the government and participated in the purchase and transportation of purportedly stolen goods on numerous occasions. These stolen goods included cellular telephones, laptop computers, Sony Play Station 2 systems, and automobiles, which the conspirators caused to be transported to destinations outside Pennsylvania, including overseas destinations such as Lebanon and Benin (Africa).

FBI

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February 25, 2011

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Recruits for Police in Sudan Are Abused

JUBA, Sudan — The medic said patients started coming in by the dozens, and never stopped.

The symptoms were similar, he said — acute stomach pains, bloody noses, diarrhea, high fevers, bruising. One came in shot in the leg. Many healed, but many others died. Two he remembers vividly. They had come in a few days before, complaining of nagging pains, but otherwise in decent spirits.

“I saw them through the window when they were being carried away,” the medic said, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals.

The stream of patients he saw at Juba Teaching Hospital, the primary hospital in southern Sudan, were not everyday civilian cases. They were police recruits. And they were not coming from battle. They were coming from initiation.

Diplomats, researchers and recruits recount cases of sexual assaults and torture, including a campuswide punishment last year that lasted for days, sending many to the hospital.

Over the course of the training, as many as 100 recruits may have died from severe punishment and harsh conditions, recruits and international observers say, prompting a United Nations investigation and a diplomatic scramble by donor nations.

New York Times

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Drug Raids Across U.S. Net Hundreds of Suspects

WASHINGTON — A little more than a week after an American law enforcement agent was shot to death by gunmen suspected of being drug traffickers in Mexico, federal authorities struck back Thursday with raids across the United States that rounded up more than 450 people believed to have ties to criminal organizations south of the border.

The authorities said sweeps were conducted in nearly every major American city; involved more than 3,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agents; and resulted in the seizure of an estimated 300 kilograms of cocaine, 150,000 pounds of marijuana and 190 weapons. Derek Maltz, a special agent at the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the sweeps were part of a multinational investigation that could lead to more arrests and seizures in the United States, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil.

Mr. Maltz said that the message the authorities hoped to send with the sweeps was as important as the suspects being brought in. The operation came eight days after Jaime Zapata, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, was gunned down on a Mexican highway. Mr. Maltz said the planning for the operation had begun before Mr. Zapata's shooting, but he acknowledged that the United States hoped to show it would not tolerate attacks against its agents.

Louie Garcia, a deputy special immigration and customs agent involved with the sweeps, echoed that thought in an interview with The Associated Press. “This is personal,” he said. “We lost an agent. We lost a good agent. And we have to respond.”

While thousands of Mexican law enforcement agents have been killed in the drug violence that has plagued Mexico since 2007, Mr. Zapata was the first American official to be killed in the line of duty there in more than 25 years. Obama administration officials called the attack a “game-changer,” hinting to Mexico that more needed to be done to quash the cartels.

New York Times

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Enlisting Prison Labor to Close Budget Gaps

JAY, Fla. — Before he went to jail, Danny Ivey had barely seen a backyard garden.

But here he was, two years left on his sentence for grand theft, bent over in a field, snapping wide, green collard leaves from their stems. For the rest of the week, Mr. Ivey and his fellow inmates would be eating the greens he picked, and the State of Florida would be saving most of the $2.29 a day it allots for their meals.

Prison labor — making license plates, picking up litter — is nothing new, and nearly all states have such programs. But these days, officials are expanding the practice to combat cuts in federal financing and dwindling tax revenue, using prisoners to paint vehicles, clean courthouses, sweep campsites and perform many other services done before the recession by private contractors or government employees.

In New Jersey, inmates on roadkill patrol clean deer carcasses from highways. Georgia inmates tend municipal graveyards. In Ohio, they paint their own cells. In California, prison officials hope to expand existing programs, including one in which wet-suit-clad inmates repair leaky public water tanks. There are no figures on how many prisoners have been enrolled in new or expanded programs nationwide, but experts in criminal justice have taken note of the increase.

“There's special urgency in prisons these days,” said Martin F. Horn, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction. “As state budgets get constricted, the public is looking for ways to offset the cost of imprisonment.”

Although inmate labor is helping budgets in many corners of state government, the savings are the largest in corrections departments themselves, which have cut billions of dollars in recent years and are under constant pressure to reduce the roughly $29,000 a year that it costs to incarcerate the average inmate in the United States.

New York Times

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Internet Crime Trends

The Latest Report

Non-delivery of payment or merchandise. Scams impersonating the FBI. Identity theft.

These were the top three most common complaints made to the joint FBI/National White Collar Crime Center's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) last year, according to its just-released 2010 Internet Crime Report. The report also includes a state-by-state breakdown of complaints.

In May 2010, the IC3 marked its 10th anniversary, and by November , it had received its two millionth complaint since opening for business.

Last year, the IC3 received more than 300,000 complaints , averaging just over 25,000 a month. About 170,000 complaints that met specific investigative criteria—

such as certain financial thresholds—were referred to the appropriate local, state, or federal law enforcement agencies. But even the complaints not referred to law enforcement, including those where no financial losses had occurred, were valuable pieces of information analyzed and used for intelligence reports and to help identify emerging fraud trends.

So even if you think an Internet scammer was targeting you and you didn't fall for it, file a complaint with the IC3. Whether or not it's referred to law enforcement, your information is vital in helping the IC3 paint a fuller picture of Internet crime.

FBI

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Virginia Man Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Providing Material Support and Encouraging Violent Jihadists to Kill U.S. Citizens

WASHINGTON—Zachary Adam Chesser, 21, of Fairfax County, Virginia, was sentenced today to 25 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for communicating threats against the writers of the South Park television show, soliciting violent jihadists to desensitize law enforcement, and attempting to provide material support to al Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

The sentencing was announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division; Neil H. MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; and James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office.

"Zachary Chesser attempted to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and used the Internet to incite violence," said Assistant Attorney General Kris. "Today he is being held accountable for his actions. I applaud the many agents, prosecutors, and analysts who worked tirelessly to bring this man to justice."

"Zachary Chesser will spend 25 years in prison for advocating the murder of U.S. citizens for engaging in free speech about his religion," said U.S. Attorney MacBride. "His actions caused people throughout the country to fear speaking out—even in jest—to avoid being labeled as enemies who deserved to be killed. The fact that a young man from Northern Virginia could support such violence and terror is a sobering reminder of the serious threat that homegrown jihadists pose to this country."

"Zachary Chesser encouraged violent jihad," said James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office. "The FBI is concerned about U.S. citizens traveling overseas to join al Shabaab, and we are vigilant in working to disrupt potential plots where U.S. citizens become further indoctrinated and return with actual terrorism experience and training."

FBI

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Texas Resident Arrested on Charge of Attempted Use of Weapon of Mass Destruction

Suspect Allegedly Purchased Bomb Materials and Researched U.S. Targets

WASHINGTON—Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20, a citizen of Saudi Arabia and resident of Lubbock, Texas, was arrested late yesterday by FBI agents in Texas on a federal charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction in connection with his alleged purchase of chemicals and equipment necessary to make an improvised explosive device (IED) and his research of potential U.S. targets.

The arrest and the criminal complaint, which was unsealed in the Northern District of Texas, were announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; James T. Jacks, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas; and Robert E. Casey Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Dallas Field Division.

Aldawsari is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court in Lubbock at 9:00 a.m. on Friday morning. Aldawsari, who was lawfully admitted into the United States in 2008 on a student visa and is enrolled at South Plains College near Lubbock, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

According to the affidavit filed in support of the complaint, Aldawsari has been researching online how to construct an IED using several chemicals as ingredients. He has also acquired or taken a substantial step toward acquiring most of the ingredients and equipment necessary to construct an IED and he has conducted online research of several potential U.S. targets, the affidavit alleges. In addition, he has allegedly described his desire for violent jihad and martyrdom in blog postings and a personal journal.

"As alleged in the complaint, Aldawsari purchased ingredients to construct an explosive device and was actively researching potential targets in the United States. Thanks to the efforts of many agents, analysts, and prosecutors, this plot was thwarted before it could advance further," said Assistant Attorney General Kris. "This case serves as another reminder of the need for continued vigilance both at home and abroad."

FBI

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Cities and states in which the fraudulent document trafficking ring was active

22 alleged members of sophisticated, violent fraudulent document ring indicted RICHMOND, Va. - A federal grand jury in Richmond has indicted 22 members of an allegedly highly sophisticated and violent fraudulent document trafficking organization based in Mexico with cells in 19 cities and 11 states, including three cells in Virginia. Discovered through an ongoing investigation dubbed "Operation Phalanx," the organization is accused of kidnapping, beating and - at least on one occasion - murdering competitors and using violence to discipline its own members. The indictment is the result of an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). ICE Director John Morton, along with U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride, made the announcement after a superseding indictment was made public. "Document fraud doesn't just involve paperwork. The business of document fraud, which can be ugly and involve violence and the use of deadly weapons warrants the attention of Homeland Security Investigations," said Director Morton. "Fraudulent documents give people the appearance of lawful status and provide them a ticket to access and opportunities to which they are not entitled."

ICE

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February 24, 2011

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EDITORIAL

The scourge of Somalia

A military approach alone won't end piracy. The country needs a functioning government.

Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey lived a life many would envy, until it was cut short Tuesday by a band of Somali pirates. On their yacht, Quest, they had spent most of the last decade sailing to exotic locales and were on a trip from Thailand to the Mediterranean with another couple, Phyllis Macay and Robert Riggle of Seattle, when their boat was intercepted off the coast of Oman. All four were shot to death Tuesday by their captors after negotiations with U.S. naval officials for their release apparently broke down.

Pirates plying the seas off Somalia have been a scourge of international shipping for years, but this week's slayings mark the deadliest incident yet involving Americans. In response, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on foreign governments to contribute more toward the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia. Solutions to that country's piracy and governance problems are elusive, but the peacekeeping effort backed by Clinton isn't working, and U.S. policy toward Somalia could stand another look.

Tempting as it is to call for more naval involvement, it's clear that a purely military approach won't cut it. To avoid the U.S. 5th Fleet and other international warships plying the waters near Somalia, pirates are simply ranging farther afield; the seas between Somalia and India are too vast to be effectively patrolled. Meanwhile, every effort by the United States to intervene in Somali affairs since 1993, when the Clinton administration's attempts to subdue Mogadishu's warlords ended in the catastrophe chronicled in the film "Black Hawk Down," has backfired spectacularly.

The latest failed initiative is the so-called Transitional Federal Government, a United Nations fiction that controls a few square blocks in Mogadishu. The United States has invested millions of dollars arming a peacekeeping force to protect the TFG, which has little public support and is widely viewed by Somalis as an invading foreign force. Bronwyn E. Bruton, an Africa scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations, argues convincingly that the TFG is not only failing to spread democracy and the rule of law, it is actually strengthening radical Islamist movements by prompting quarrelsome extremist groups to unite against a common enemy.

Bronwyn's proposed solution is "constructive disengagement," in which the U.S. stops backing a failed U.N. experiment and vows to engage with any government that emerges, including an Islamist one, as long as it renounces international terrorism and agrees not to interfere with humanitarian relief workers. A government with a measure of legitimacy is far likelier to stabilize Somalia than the current puppet regime, even if it's not as secular as we'd like.

Los Angeles Times

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Seizing of Pirate Chiefs Is Questioned in Killings

WASHINGTON — When the two pirates boarded the U.S.S. Sterett off the coast of Somalia on Monday, American officials thought they were headed for a breakthrough in the four-day standoff with a gang that had seized four Americans vacationing on their 58-foot yacht.

But an F.B.I. hostage-rescue negotiator aboard the Sterett came to believe the two Somalis were not serious. So the Americans took them into custody and told the pirates back on the yacht to send over someone they could do business with.

What happened next is sharply contested and raises questions about the crucial decision to detain the pirate leaders.

American officials said the pirates on the yacht, called the Quest, seemed relieved — even “exceptionally calm” — when told their senior commander was cooling his heels in a Navy brig.

But hours later, panic ensued among young pirates. Some Americans theorized that a fight had broken out among the gang members, suddenly leaderless, and fearing they were about to be overtaken by the four Navy warships that surrounded them. One person who has talked to associates of the pirates said their leader had told them that if he did not return, they should kill the hostages, though American officials say they do not know that to be the case.

The death of the four Americans — the yacht's owners, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif., and two crew members, Phyllis Macay and Robert A. Riggle of Seattle — is certain to add momentum to a wide-ranging review the Obama administration is conducting on how to combat the growing threat from bands of Somali pirates. The episode began last Friday, when the Quest sent out a distress signal 275 miles from the coast of Oman, in open waters between Mumbai and Djibouti. A Yemeni fishing vessel that served as a mother ship for the pirates was seen near the yacht when it was hijacked by pirates in a smaller craft, maritime officials said, but it disappeared once the American warships drew near.

New York Times

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Mexico: Suspect Detained in Shooting of U.S. Agent

The Mexican Army said Wednesday that it had detained a man suspected in the shooting death of a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and the wounding of another on a Mexican highway last week.

The detained man was identified as Julián Zapata Espinosa, known as El Piolín, a leader of the Zetas gang in San Luis Potosí.

The agents were ambushed and fired on as they drove from San Luis Potosí State to Mexico City.

The motive was not clear but speculation has focused on a possible carjacking.

New York Times

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Arizona Lawmakers Push New Round of Immigration Restrictions

PHOENIX — Arizona lawmakers are proposing a sweeping package of immigration restrictions that might make the controversial measures the state approved last year, which the Obama administration went to court to block, look mild.

Illegal immigrants would be barred from driving in the state, enrolling in school or receiving most public benefits. Their children would receive special birth certificates that would make clear that the state does not consider them Arizona citizens.

Some of the bills, like those restricting immigrants' access to schooling and right to state citizenship, flout current federal law and are being put forward to draw legal challenges in hopes that the Supreme Court might rule in the state's favor.

Arizona drew considerable scorn last year when it passed legislation compelling police officers to inquire about the immigration status of those they stopped whom they suspected were in the country illegally. Critics said the law would lead to racial profiling of Latinos, and a federal judge agreed that portions of the law, known as Senate Bill 1070, were unconstitutional.

Similar legal challenges are likely to come in response to the latest round of legislation, some of which cleared a key Senate committee early Wednesday after a long debate that drew hundreds of protesters, some for and some against the crackdown.

“This bill is miles beyond S.B. 1070 in terms of its potential to roll back the rights and fundamental freedoms of both citizens and noncitizens alike,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Arizona. She said the measures would create “a ‘papers, please' society” and that a new crime — “driving while undocumented” — would be added to the books.

New York Times

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Agents Raid Florida Clinics in Drug Crackdown

MIAMI — Drug Enforcement Administration agents and other law enforcement officials on Wednesday raided six South Florida pain clinics accused of illegally dispensing potent prescription drugs across the United States. Twenty-two people, including five doctors, were arrested on state and federal drug trafficking charges.

The one-year undercover inquiry, dubbed Operation Pill Nation, focused on storefront clinics in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties that the authorities say have become a national clearinghouse for illegal prescription drugs and highly addictive painkillers like oxycodone. Investigators described the operation as the federal government's most aggressive effort to shut down the so-called pill mills they say have contributed to sharp increases in overdoses and addiction.

South Florida has long been a place where prescription drugs could be obtained easily and cheaply. In recent years, such pill mills have flourished in strip malls from Miami to Palm Beach Gardens, with the highest concentration of rogue clinics in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, officials said.

“This is a completely profit-driven operation that has no medical regard for anyone,” Mark R. Trouville, the special agent in charge of the Miami field office for the D.E.A., said in an interview. “These clinics have nothing to do with the welfare of the community.”

Mr. Trouville said that since the operation began a year ago, a task force had taken action against 66 doctors at 83 locations and seized more than $25 million worth of property.

Wednesday's raids came several weeks after Gov. Rick Scott announced his intention to halt a planned state database for tracking the sale of prescription drugs. Mr. Scott, a Republican, has said the database is an invasion of privacy and a waste of money, drawing criticism in Florida, even from some fellow Republicans, and from two Democratic senators, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.

New York Times

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Judge will hear Internet suicide case

ST. PAUL, Minn., Feb. 24 (UPI) -- A Minnesota judge will determine if a former nurse charged with helping two people commit suicide over the Internet is guilty of aiding suicide, officials said.

William Melchert-Dinkel has agreed to let a judge determine if he violated a Minnesota law against aiding suicide, Minnesota Public Radio reported Thursday.

The law applies to those who "intentionally advises, encourages or assists" suicide and provides for a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine.

Melchert-Dinkel, 48, allegedly helped two people commit suicide -- one a Canadian citizen, the other lived in England. His attorney has argued free-speech rights protected his client's actions.

Attorney Terry Watkins also questioned whether courts have jurisdiction over the case because the suicides happened in other countries.

A judge has denied Watkins motions for dismissal based on both pre-trial arguments. The judge has 20 days to issue a ruling. The trial starts Thursday in Rice County.

United Press International

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Museum launches online timeline of 9/11 attacks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An interactive timeline chronicling the September 11, 2001 attacks hour-by-hour went online on Wednesday, with a fast-forward button to skip any video or audio accounts too disturbing for the visitor.

The virtual exhibit was organized by the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, which is building a structure at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan to honor almost 3,000 victims killed in the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Until the building opens in September 2011, anyone interested in how that historic day unfolded can find out here.

"This timeline is a real attempt to organize what was an incredibly chaotic day into a format that's accessible for people to learn from," said Joe Daniels, the president of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.

The timeline begins at 5:45 a.m. with video showing hijackers Mohammed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari passing through security in Boston's Logan Airport just prior to boarding American Airlines Flight 11, the first to slam into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

The timeline ends with then-President George W. Bush's address to the nation at 8:30 p.m. that night.

REUTERS

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U.S. Urban Search & Rescue Team Deploying to New Zealand

At the request of the New Zealand government, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is deploying a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), a team that includes the Los Angeles County Fire Department Urban Search and Rescue team (US&R), also known as California Task Force 2 (CA-TF2), to assist with the search and rescue efforts.

You may remember the LA County US&R team from this YouTube video that was taken in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake in early 2010.

You often hear US&R and FEMA in the same sentence, and the reason is because FEMA has developed disaster response agreements with 28 urban search and rescue teams located in various cities throughout the United States. The teams are locally managed but FEMA provides funding and program development support for the teams.

Two of these teams are classified under United Nations Guidelines for international response. The two USAID-sponsored international classified teams are USA-TF2 (CA-TF2) and USA-TF1 (Virginia Task Force 1, VA-TF1) from the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. These “international teams” have direct agreements with USAID, and it is under this agreement and the direction of USAID that CA-TF2 is being deployed to New Zealand.

The 28 National US&R Task Forces, made up of teams of state and local first responders, can be activated for major disasters to assist in rescuing victims of structural collapse incidents or to assist in other search and rescue missions.

FEMA

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Readout of Secretary Napolitano's Visit to Coast Guard Sector Key West

Key West, Fla.—Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano today visited U.S. Coast Guard Sector Key West to tour operations, meet with Coast Guard personnel, and receive a briefing on maritime security operations at the Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF)-South—the U.S. Southern Command entity that coordinates integrated interagency counter drug operations.

“Maritime security is critical to interdicting drugs and other threats before they reach our shores,” said Secretary Napolitano. “The men and women of the Coast Guard play a vital role in preventing illegal maritime migration, combating illegal drug trafficking and protecting our nation's maritime borders.”

As an integral part of the Department of Homeland Security's Southern Border strategy, the Coast Guard continues to target maritime shipments to stop drugs before they reach overland routes and fuel drug trafficking crime—removing nearly 92 metric tons of cocaine in fiscal year 2010, and more than 10.3 metric tons of cocaine in 2011 as of Jan. 31.

During her visit, Secretary Napolitano was joined by Rear Admiral William Baumgartner, Seventh Coast Guard District Commander and Director of the Homeland Security Task Force Southeast, and Coast Guard Sector Key West Commander Captain Pat DeQuattro.

The Seventh Coast Guard District is responsible for all Coast Guard operations in South Carolina, Georgia, the Florida Peninsula and the entire Caribbean basin—including eight of the nation's largest container ports and the three largest multi-day cruise ports in the world.

During her briefing at the JIATF-South—which is responsible for the detection of suspected air and maritime drug activity in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and the eastern Pacific—Secretary Napolitano also met with JIATF-South Director, Coast Guard Rear Admiral Daniel Lloyd. In total, thirty eight DHS personnel—representing the Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—are currently deployed to the JIATF-South to collaborate with the Department of Defense and other federal partners in the collection, processing and dissemination of counter drug information to our interagency and international partners.

In Florida in 2010, the Coast Guard saved 555 lives; assisted 3,544 people; saved $10.5 million in property; and interdicted $930 million in illegal narcotics.

Dept of Homeland Security

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ICE arrests 58 during enforcement surge targeting criminal aliens and fugitives

JACKSON, Miss. - During a four-day targeted enforcement operation in and around Jackson that ended Monday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers arrested 58 individuals, including convicted criminal aliens, immigration fugitives and known gang members and affiliates.

Many of the criminal aliens taken into custody had prior convictions for serious or violent crimes, such as contributing to the delinquency of a minor, sexual assault, possessing and selling dangerous drugs, drunken driving, sexual contact and battery, and assault.

Eleven of the individuals ICE officers took into custody were immigration fugitives, aliens with outstanding orders of deportation who had failed to leave the country.

The arrests took place in the following Mississippi cities: Brandon, Pearl, Ridgeland, Canton, Carthage, Crystal Springs, Hazlehurst and Jackson.

The Ridgeland Police Department, Leake Sheriff Office and Pearl Police Department assisted ICE ERO officers with these arrests.

"This four-day ICE operation targeted criminal and fugitive aliens throughout Mississippi," said Scott L. Sutterfield, acting field office director for ICE ERO in New Orleans. "These surge operations, and our daily targeting of aliens with criminal convictions, are some of the many tools that ICE uses to effectively reduce crime at the street level in communities throughout the United States."

Of those arrested, there were 57 men and one woman. Forty are from Mexico, nine are from Guatemala, four are from Honduras, two are from Panama, one is from El Salvador, one is from Peru, and one is from Costa Rica. They range in age from 17 to 71.

ICE

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12 from Eastern Europe charged with criminal prostitution in central Florida

ORLANDO, Fla. - Twelve individuals from Moldova, Russia and Ukraine, were charged federally with a 27-count indictment alleging criminal prostitution Friday, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI), a local task force in Orlando.

ICE HSI and the MBI also arrested five of the individuals in the Orlando area on Friday.

The twelve individuals charged were: Roman Caraiman, 24, of Moldova; Tatiana Belinschi, 25, of Moldova; Alexandr Postica, 25, of Moldova; Saida Babaeva, 28, of Russia; Kateryna Krykovlyuk, 24, of Ukraine; Elena Shashurova, 24, of Russia; Vlada Blisciuc, 23, of Moldova; Elena Abushinova, 24, of Russia; Irina Luchina; 22, of Moldova; Aleksandra Liubina, 23, of Russia; Natalia Fedorova, 23, of Russia; and Alina Priadko, 24, of Ukraine.

On Feb. 11, Postica was arrested near Marietta, Ga., and Belinschi was arrested in the Orlando area. On Friday, ICE HSI and the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation (MBI), arrested Krykovlyuk, Shashurova, Luchina, Blisciuc, and Abushinova in the Orlando area.

Babaeva and Priadko are currently in custody in Ohio. Caraiman, Liubina and Fedorova are at-large fugitives.

According to the indictment, a number of the individuals worked together in a commercial sex business that sought to make money by providing sexual services for money. According to the indictment, among the activities in which the defendants engaged included setting up appointments, performing sexual acts for money, advertising massage services on the Internet, and interstate transportation of prostitutes in furtherance of their prostitution activities.

The indictment was returned by a federal grand jury on Feb. 9, which was unsealed on Feb. 14. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Ravenel.

ICE

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Texas Man Pleads Guilty to Federal Hate Crime in Connection with Mosque Arson in Arlington, Texas

WASHINGTON—Henry Clay Glaspell, of Arlington, Texas, pleaded guilty today to a hate crime charge stemming from the ethnically motivated arson of a children's playground at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center in Arlington in July 2010, the Justice Department announced today.

Glaspell, 34, pleaded guilty to damaging religious property in violation of federal hate crime laws before U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas. During the plea hearing, Glaspell admitted that he set fire to playground equipment at the mosque as part of a series of ethnically motivated acts directed at individuals of Arab or Middle Eastern descent associated with the mosque. Glaspell further admitted that he stole and damaged mosque property, threw used cat litter at the front door of the mosque, and shouted racial or ethnic slurs at individuals of Arab or Middle Eastern descent at the mosque on multiple occasions. This is the 50th prosecution of post-September 11, 2001 backlash against Arab and Muslim Americans.

“Arab-Americans are part of the American family, and the defendant today admitted that he targeted Arabs at a mosque where people worship peacefully and children play,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “Hate-fueled incidents of this kind will not be tolerated in our country. The Justice Department is committed to vigorously prosecuting hate crimes against all persons.”

“All members of our community must be free to live without fear that they will be targeted because of their ethnicity or religion. This office will vigorously prosecute those who commit such despicable acts of hatred,” said U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas James T. Jacks.

“The crime in this case underscores the importance of enforcing the nation's civil rights laws, and the FBI is firmly committed to that enforcement. One of our most important responsibilities is protecting the right to worship free from violence, fear, or intimidation,” said Robert E. Casey Jr., Special Agent in Charge, FBI, Dallas Division. “As this case indicates, the FBI, together with and our state and local law enforcement allies, will vigorously investigate and prosecute those who attack that right.”

Glaspell's sentencing has been set for July 11, 2011. Glaspell faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for using fire to damage religious property in violation of federal hate crimes laws.

This case was jointly investigated by Arlington Police Department and the FBI. The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Victor Boutros from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Lewis for the Northern District of Texas, with assistance from the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office.

FBI

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February 23, 2011

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Lawsuit contends FBI violated rights of hundreds of Muslim Americans

The FBI violated the 1st Amendment rights of hundreds of Muslims by using a paid informant to target and monitor several Southern California mosques based solely on religion, according to a federal class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Filed on behalf of three Muslim plaintiffs, the suit accuses the FBI and seven of its employees, including Director Robert Mueller, of paying Irvine resident Craig Monteilh to go undercover, infiltrate mosques and record conversations in order to root out potential terrorists.

Over the course of 14 months beginning in 2006, the FBI used Monteilh to “indiscriminately collect” personal information on hundreds or even thousands of Muslim Americans, the lawsuit alleges.

Through this “dragnet” operation, the agency “gathered hundreds of phone numbers, thousands of e-mail addresses, hundreds of hours of video recordings that captured the interiors of mosques, homes and businesses, and ... thousands of hours of audio recordings,” the lawsuit alleges.

Monteilh, who has served prison time for forgery, has previously told The Times that he was recruited by the FBI in 2004 to infiltrate drug-trafficking groups. In 2006, Monteilh said, he was asked to assume the identity of a Muslim convert and go undercover to identify extremists and gather intelligence.

The lawsuit comes a year after Monteilh filed suit personally against the FBI, accusing his law enforcement handlers of endangering his life and violating his civil rights. His claims of working for the FBI in some capacity were confirmed in 2009 when a West Covina judge unsealed court records that showed the agency intervened in 2007 to terminate Monteilh's parole on a theft charge early.

Los Angeles Times

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Egypt's women face growing sexual harassment

Some women in Egypt say they suffer catcalls, groping and other sexual harassment daily. For a time it seemed that the Tahrir Square protests might point to progress, but the attack on TV reporter Lara Logan and others showed otherwise.

On the night Hosni Mubarak fell from power, the crowds that rejoiced in Cairo's central square were so dense, so roiling and rowdy that Mohamed Assyouti couldn't push his way through when his girlfriend, Mariam Nekiwi, was assaulted several yards away.

"A group of men surrounded her from four directions and closed her off," he said.

First someone grabbed her groin, she said. Other hands groped the rest of her body, pinching hard and yanking at her clothes. She was shoved one way and then the other. The frenzy was so sudden, the crush so stifling, that she could barely see. She shouted, and then screamed. The reaction was swift.

"People started yelling at me to be quiet," recalled Nekiwi, a 24-year-old video editor, still shaken by the ordeal. "They said: 'Don't tarnish the revolution. Don't make a scene.' They said: 'We are men. We're sorry. Just go now.' "

Later that night, Feb. 11, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan came under what the network later described as a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating by a mob of unidentified men in another part of Tahrir Square.

Logan's clothes were ripped off and her body was covered with welts and bruises, sources here said, before soldiers came to her rescue, firing live rounds in the air to disperse the attackers. She was evacuated to the U.S. and hospitalized for several days.

Los Angeles Times

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Navy ship Sterett, named for pirate fighter, took lead in rescue attempt against Somali pirates

The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Sterett, which took the lead in the failed U.S. attempt to rescue Americans from Somali pirates, is on its first active-duty cruise.

But it has pirate-hunting in its legacy. The ship is named for one of the Navy's heroes in the long-ago fight with Barbary Coast pirates.

As the U.S. Central Command sought to rescue four Americans held by Somali pirates this week, the Sterett was the closest of four Navy ships trailing the pirates.

Negotiators on the Sterett tried to talk the pirates into releasing the four. The two sides were reportedly at a stalemate over the pirates' demand for money. Then an argument apparently broke out among the pirates, leading to gunfire, in which two pirates were killed by other pirates.

The pirates fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the Sterett, which was about 600 yards away. The grenade missed its target, and U.S. personnel heard the gunshots aboard the hijacked yacht Quest.

Two boats of Navy SEALs launched toward the Quest and found the four hostages had been shot. Two were dead and two died minutes later despite medical intervention. The SEALs killed two pirates, one by gunfire, one in a knife fight.

The Sterett is named for Andrew Sterett, commander on the U.S. schooner Enterprise during the Barbary War of 1801 when the U.S. battled with pirates over their demand for tribute from ships on the Mediterranean.

Sterett's boldness in dealing with the pirates won him an honored spot in Navy history. The San Diego-based destroyer is the fourth Navy ship named for him.

Los Angeles Times

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Daughter and son-in-law of hostage slain by pirates thank Navy for attempted rescue

The daughter and son-in-law of Scott Adam, who was slain by Somali pirates, issued a statement late Tuesday thanking the U.S. Navy for the attempted rescue of the four hostages.

"We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the brave men and women of the Navy and other military branches who risked their lives trying to save them," said a statement issued through the FBI by Sem family of Escondido. Their first names were not revealed.

FBI agents were with the Sem family Tuesday as news of the killings was made public.

"Our loved ones were tragically taken from us and our hearts are broken," said the family statement, which asked for the media to respect their privacy.

Scott Adam and his wife Jean Adam, from Southern California, were killed by pirates as U.S. officials aboard the destroyer Sterett tried to negotiate their release. Also killed were Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle.

The four were aboard the 58-foot yacht Quest that was seized Friday by pirates.

Los Angeles Times

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Anarchist Ties Seen in '08 Bombing of Texas Governor's Mansion

HOUSTON — It has been two and a half years since an arsonist tossed a firebomb into the governor's mansion in Austin and slipped into the night, but the Texas Rangers say they are finally closing in on the person responsible.

Steven C. McCraw, the head of the Department of Public Safety, said on Friday that investigators had linked the arsonist to a group of anarchists known as Austin Affinity. He said two members of the same group had pleaded guilty to making and possessing gasoline bombs during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., three months later.

But one of the men who pleaded guilty in Minnesota said the anarchist group that the rangers are focusing on did not exist. The man, Bradley Crowder, said it was an ad hoc collection of young anarchists who had pooled resources to hire a van for the trip north.

“It was like an activist car pool,” said Mr. Crowder, who is 25 and served two years in prison for his role in making eight gasoline bombs in wine bottles, which were never used.

The rangers, however, see things differently. A break in the case came several months ago, they said, when a ranger who was helping review thousands of hours of surveillance tapes from 11 cameras around the Capitol and mansion spotted something strange.

Four days before the fire, three men in a white Jeep Cherokee stopped in front of the mansion about 2 a.m. and a person in the back seat snapped photos of the building. The ranger thought the men might have been casing the place.

New York Times

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To Catch a Fugitive

New Tools to Find FBI's Most Wanted

For more than 60 years, the FBI has created posters to enlist the public's help in capturing fugitives or finding missing persons. Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph, CIA shooter Mir Aimal Kansi, World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef—the captured fugitives were all on FBI wanted posters distributed and shared around the world.

Now, thanks to a recent redesign of the FBI.gov Most Wanted section, the public has more tools to help us close open cases of suspected murderers, terrorists, bank robbers, and kidnapped and missing individuals.

For the first time, web visitors can go beyond just scanning pages of mug shots—and use search criteria like location, gender, crime type, reward, and even ZIP Codes to help narrow and focus their searches. For example, you can search for fugitives wanted for murder in California. Bear in mind, we have about 600 open cases featured on the website, and cases are removed soon after they are solved.

“Tips and leads from the public are crucial in fugitive investigations,” said Special Agent Bradley Bryant, who works with local law enforcement agencies on cold cases through our Violent Crime Apprehension Program, or ViCAP. The program posts images, sketches, and profiles of individuals and their cases in hopes the public may be able to provide tips to aid investigations.

The web redesign also features a new blue profile box for each fugitive or missing person, which you can click through quickly for summaries, descriptions, aliases, photos, and more. Each profile also contains a link to the traditional poster that can be shared and printed—with printable pdfs now available for each poster.

The profiles are now organized into three main sections: wanted fugitives, missing persons, and seeking information. For the first time, the Wanted site also contains links to the fugitives of other federal agencies—such as the U.S. Secret Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

FBI

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February 22, 2011

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Graffiti on Santa Ana wall threatens governor and president

Graffiti threatening Gov. Jerry Brown and President Obama was discovered Monday on a wall on a busy Santa Ana street, the latest in a spate of similar acts targeting public officials and ethnic and religious groups.

The spray-painted messages were reported just after 7 a.m. in the 3200 block of Greenville Street, near Alton Avenue. Similar threats were scrawled nearby last month.

The messages included racial slurs and stated that both men will “soon die.”

The U.S. Secret Service was notified, as well as the California Highway Patrol, which provides security for the governor, said Santa Ana Police Cmdr. Tammy Franks. No suspects have been identified.

In January, death threats against Brown as well as swastikas and other racist messages targeting blacks, Mexicans and Asians were found on buildings and churches in Anaheim, Brea, Irvine and Santa Ana.

On Feb. 14, Anaheim police arrested Kim Rebar Henry, a 56-year-old Fullerton woman, on suspicion of spray-painting hateful graffiti in that city.

Authorities are trying to determine if any of the incidents are connected.

Los Angeles Times

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O.C. yachting couple among hundreds held by Somalia pirates, official says

The Orange County couple whose boat was hijacked off the coast of Oman are among hundreds of people being held against their will by Somali pirates.

A U.S. Navy spokesman told BBC Africa that Somali pirates currently have about 30 boats and 600 people being held. One pirate told reporters in Africa that the Orange County couple's yacht was headed for the coast of Somalia.

For nearly a decade, Scott and Jean Adam's home has been the 58-foot custom-made sloop.

Although they docked every so often in Marina del Rey to pick up mail and see friends, the couple spent most of their time sailing to far-flung locales such as the Galapagos Islands, Tahiti and New Zealand.

Posting photos and information on their website, they raved about their travels aboard the Quest. "We've decided to ... explore Fiji like petals on a flower," they wrote about their 2007 trip to the South Pacific.

Now, "This is all of our worst nightmares," said Scott Stolnitz, a friend of the couple.

Stolnitz, who with his wife also sails around the world, said he and Scott Adam had previously discussed the dangers of piracy when navigating the Arabian and Red seas.

Scott Adam, 70, had considered shipping the boat to avoid the dangers, a costly option, but decided instead to join a rally of yachts heading to the same place, Stolnitz said.

The couple, however, apparently decided to break off from the Blue Water Rally, which organized and supported the group of boats headed toward the Mediterranean.

Los Angeles Times

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Gun safety, Texas-style

A Texas lawmaker's contention that allowing college students and faculty to carry firearms would make them safer is a spectacularly bad idea.

When a 19-year-old sophomore named Colton Tooley opened fire with an assault rifle last fall near the UT Tower at the University of Texas, it seemed to some like a horrible rerun: In 1966, the tower was the site of what was then the worst campus shooting in U.S. history, when a sniper firing from the top of the structure killed 14 people. In some states, this kind of history might lead to government action to protect students from gun violence. But not in Texas.

Campuses are currently weapons-free zones in Texas. But the famously gun-friendly state, where many lawmakers carry concealed firearms inside the Capitol building, seems poised to pass a bill to let college students and professors do the same. The bill from Republican state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, which would allow the carrying of concealed weapons on college campuses by those with permits to do so, was passed by the Senate in 2009 but languished in the House. It has a far better chance this time around because more than half the members of the House have signed on as coauthors of a version of the bill.

It isn't very hard to get a concealed-weapons permit in Texas; anyone over 21 who passes a computerized background check and completes a 10-hour course is eligible. Wentworth thinks his bill would actually make college students and faculty safer, because armed students could return fire in the event a crazed gunman started shooting at them. Gun enthusiasts in Texas and other states believe that if students at Virginia Tech had been armed in 2007, they could have stopped Seung-hui Cho's rampage before it ended in the loss of 33 lives. They may even be right, but they're ignoring the other risks posed by gun proliferation.

A student firing back at a gunman in a crowded classroom might pose as much of a risk to his fellow students as the assailant. Police don't like liberal gun-carry laws because they endanger officers and create confusion: When a lot of people are waving guns around at a crime scene, it's impossible to tell the good guys from the bad guys. College students, many of whom are coming to terms with the pressures of romantic entanglements and academic expectations, also tend to abuse alcohol and drugs. Adding firearms to this volatile mix is a spectacularly bad idea; guns are indeed tools of self-defense, but they're also tools of suicide, accidental shootings, intimidation and murder.

Tooley's only victim was himself. Armed students wouldn't have produced a happier outcome, nor would they have been likely to stop 1966 sniper Charles Whitman. But they could do a lot of damage to themselves and their peers.

Los Angeles Times

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Talking terrorism

The House's hearing on Al Qaeda's recruitment of Americans must not become a political show.

American counter-terrorism officials are increasingly, and rightly, concerned about Americans joining groups like Al Qaeda. According to a Congressional Research Service report, between Sept. 11, 2001, and May 2009, authorities made arrests in 21 jihadi-related terrorism plots involving people radicalized in the United States. Between May 2009 and November 2010 there were 22 such plots, resulting in two attacks, including the 2009 one at Ft. Hood, Texas. Considering the numbers, it is unsurprising and appropriate that Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, plans to hold hearings in early March on Al Qaeda's recruitment of Americans.

The challenge now is to design a serious hearing that advances Congress' understanding of the threat, provides a basis for more effective counter-terrorism policy and establishes a narrative to counter Al Qaeda's propaganda. Unfortunately, early indications suggest that the hearing is instead shaping up to be a politicized circus. Conservative activists and civil libertarians have jumped to long-established fighting positions — respectively, that there is widespread support for jihadis among American Muslims and that hearings on domestic radicalization are necessarily a McCarthy-like witch hunt.

At this point, the most likely outcome of this hearing is that it will be a pointless political show. The worst-case scenario is that the hearing will actually play into the hands of Al Qaeda recruiters.

No one knows exactly why some people become radicalized and others do not. But charismatic leaders such as American-born Islamic cleric Anwar Awlaki — the most effective Al Qaeda recruiter of Americans — are a consistent theme. The uncomfortable reality is that jihadis use the fear and anger generated by a range of controversial current events to promote their virulent ideological concepts. One issue that Awlaki, based in Yemen, exploits is the specter of a government crackdown on Muslim Americans.

In a March 2010 statement titled "A Call to Jihad," Awlaki argued darkly that "yesterday America was a land of slavery, segregation, lynching and Ku Klux Klan, and tomorrow it will be a land of religious discrimination and concentration camps. Don't be deceived by the promises of preserving your rights from a government that is right now killing your own brothers and sisters.… The West will eventually turn against its Muslim citizens!"

Los Angeles Times

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A Risky Trip Leads to Stardom and Sanctuary

A Honduran teenager gained fame as the star of a documentary film that showed the dangers faced by children who ride across Mexico atop freight trains to cross illegally to the United States. But the boy, Kevin Casasola, rode the trains again, and now he has been granted asylum in the United States, his lawyer said on Monday.

The documentary, “Which Way Home,” directed by Rebecca Cammisa, won an Emmy award for HBO last year and was nominated for an Oscar. Ms. Cammisa took her cameras onto the lurching trains, filming a cohort of children riding north as they dodged tunnels, trees and criminal predators, fighting loneliness and hunger. It tells of several children who died or disappeared along the way.

Kevin, who was 14 in the film, was its most appealing protagonist, with his daring clowning on freight car roofs and his determination to make it to the United States to find work so he could send money back to his mother. During the filming he was detained by American border agents and deported to Honduras. The documentary showed the desolation and need that drove him to leave his home village in the first place.

The documentary drew an outpouring of concern for the children to its Facebook page. Some Americans offered to adopt Kevin, although his mother figured prominently in the film and in his motives for riding the trains.

In Mexico, the impact was even greater, and Kevin became something of a legend. Ms. Cammisa sent the film to rural villages as a warning to restless teenagers that they should not attempt a similar trip. The country's first lady, Margarita Zavala, helped distribute it, and during a state visit to Washington last May, she said that Mexican babies were being named Kevin as a result of its popularity.

Ms. Cammisa said she tried to persuade Kevin to stay in Honduras, using donations raised by the film to pay for him to take a course in mobile phone repair.

New York Times

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OPINION

A Families-First Approach to Foster Care

It's difficult to change systems even when they are widely acknowledged to be broken. That's the situation facing the nation's foster care system. According to the government's most recent estimate, there were roughly 424,000 young people in foster care as of Sept. 30, 2009. Each year, about 30,000 of them turn 18 (or 21 in some states) and “age out” of foster care. What happens to them?

The results are not encouraging, according to a major study published in 2010. Although there are many wonderful foster parents and many foster care alumni who overcome tough odds, most struggle to live successfully as adults. By age 23 or 24, fewer than half of the former foster care youths in the study were working. Close to a quarter had no high school diploma or equivalency degree and only 6 percent had completed a two- or four-year post-secondary degree. Nearly 60 percent of males had been convicted of a crime and 77 percent of females had been pregnant.

When you are dealing with complicated social, emotional and mental health problems, there are no easy answers. But today there is a promising alternative to foster care that is gaining traction — although it faces an uphill battle because it represents a departure from long-held assumptions in our child welfare system. The idea is to help youths return to their original families wherever it is possible to do so safely by providing their parents, or in some cases other relatives, with an extensive array of in-home support services.

This approach may seem counterintuitive, given that child welfare agencies intervene when courts deem parents unfit to care for their children. However, evidence indicates that intensive in-home services can bring substantial changes in families — and produce more successful outcomes than out-of-home models like foster homes or institutional care. (The average foster care youth goes through more than three placement changes and 65 percent experience seven or more school changes (pdf). About a quarter suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, up to twice the rate for U.S. war veterans.)

One of the leading practitioners of the family-services approach is a Memphis-based organization called Youth Villages, which works in 11 states and the District of Columbia, focusing on kids who have serious emotional and behavioral problems. Youth Villages has provided more than 20,000 youths and their families with intensive in-home services to reunite families or prevent children from being placed in foster care. It works in tandem with child welfare, mental health and juvenile justice systems.

New York Times

Manhunt escalates for suspect in slaying, elderly couple's disappearance

COLERAIN TWP., Hamilton County — A week ago, Samuel Littleton II was a foundry worker with his own home and a longtime girlfriend. On Monday, he was the subject of a nationwide manhunt in the slaying of his girlfriend's daughter and the disappearance of an elderly couple.

A fractured portrait of Littleton, 37, continued to emerge Monday as authorities seeking possible clues to Littleton's and the couple's whereabouts dug through mounds of garbage at a Cincinnati-area landfill.

Littleton has been charged with the slaying of Tiffany L. Brown, 26, in Bellefontaine. He disappeared Wednesday, a day before Brown's partially clothed and stabbed body was found in the basement of the home he owns.

Wednesday is also when Richard Russell, 84, and his wife, Gladis Russell, 85, disappeared from their Logan County home, along with their car. Littleton knows the Russells, having purchased his home from them. Investigators found a piece of paper bearing Littleton's name and cell phone number inside their home.

Born in West Virginia, Littleton grew up in Logan County. He has a criminal record that includes drug and traffic violations, but nothing violent.

Littleton's ex-wife, Tammy Queen, told WHIO-TV that he had a violent streak and was obsessed with knives while they were married. She believes Littleton could be in a remote area of West Virginia where his father lives. Authorities are contacting Littleton's friends and relatives in West Virginia and Tennessee.

Dayton Daily News

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Stepmom charged in disabled girl's killing

HICKORY — More than four months after a 10-year-old disabled girl disappeared, her jailed stepmother was charged with murdering her with the indictment coming the same day authorities revealed that they haven't been able to find the dismembered girl's head.

Elisa Baker, 42, was charged with second-degree murder Monday and authorities said she desecrated Zahra Baker's remains to cover up the slaying. Zahra's death was caused by "undetermined homicidal violence," medical examiners said in documents.

An autopsy was done even though authorities haven't recovered many bones, most notably the girl's skull, months after she was reported missing. Several bones showed cutting tool marks consistent with dismemberment. The revelation of the missing skull came in documents released by the state's chief medical examiner shortly after officials in western North Carolina held a news conference about the charge against Baker.

Prosecutor James Gaither Jr. said at the news conference that there was no credible evidence to suggest anyone else was involved in Zahra's slaying. Hickory Police Chief Tom Adkins called the murder charge "a milestone of holding someone accountable that members of team Zahra have been working toward since the first words spoken on that 911 call."

Attorneys for Elisa Baker did not return calls seeking comment Monday.

Investigators would continue to pursue leads until the trial begins, Adkins said.

Documents show that police learned months ago that the girl was dismembered after she died. The lack of a head may help to explain the absence of an exact cause of death — and why it took four months for a charge.

Warrants in the case have indicated that Elisa Baker at one point was providing police information about what happened to Zahra's body. The warrants have never revealed how Zahra, who was reported missing Oct. 9 but was last seen weeks earlier, may have died.

JD News

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Zahra Baker case timeline

Oct. 9: Adam Baker calls 911 to report his daughter, Zahra, missing. Police issue Amber Alert to search for kidnappers.

Oct.10: Zahra's stepmother, Elisa Baker, is charged with obstruction of justice after police say she admitted writing a phony ransom note. The search for Zahra continues.

Oct. 25: Elisa Baker leads investigators to three sites where some of Zahra's body parts had been discarded, court documents say. Police go on to recover the gel liner from Zahra's prosthetic leg and some skeletal remains.

Nov. 12: Police announce that test results confirm a bone they recovered was Zahra's.

Feb. 21: Elisa Baker is charged with second-degree murder. Social services acknowledge investigating the Bakers previously on four complaints of mistreating Zahra but found no evidence and closed the cases. Zahra's autopsy is released and declares the cause of her death as "undetermined homicidal violence."

Pennsylvania Judge Convicted in Alleged 'Kids for Cash' Scheme

Judge Mark Ciavarella Could Face Over 10 Years in Prison for Racketeering

Prosecutors say former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella used children as pawns, locking them up unjustly in a plot to get rich. Ciavarella is accused of taking nearly $1 million in kickbacks from owners of private detention centers in exchange for placing juvenile defendants at their facilities, often for minor crimes. Ciavarella claims that the payment he received from a developer of the PA Child Care facility was legal and denies that he ever incarcerated kids for money.

"Absolutely never took a dime to send a kid anywhere," said Ciavarella.

Ciavarella, 61, was found guilty of 12 out of 39 charges on Friday, including racketeering, money laundering and conspiracy, in connection with the nearly $1 million payment from Robert Mericle, the developer of the PA Child Care center. He plans to appeal. Ciavarella was acquitted on charges of bribery and extortion in relation to additional payments from the center's builder and owner.

Families complain of Ciavarella's rapid-fire brand of justice and trials that lasted only minutes with even first-time offenders sent to detention centers.

In one reported case, Ciavarella sentenced a child to two years for joyriding in his mom's car. In another, he sentenced a college-bound high school girl to three months in juvenile detention for creating a website that made fun of her assistant principal. Some of the kids he ordered locked up were as young as 10.

ABC News

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February 21, 2011

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Assisted suicide or murder? Jury faces tough issues in grisly stabbing

The suspect in motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker's multiple-stabbing death says the victim asked him to 'commit a Kevorkian.' Prosecutors don't disagree but still call it murder.

Nobody disputes that Kenneth Minor held the knife that ripped into the chest of Jeffrey Locker in July 2009 as Locker, a motivational speaker, sat in his car with his hands tied behind his back.

Locker, 52, who appeared to have a good life — a loving wife, three children, a nice home in a comfortable suburb — died that night, slumped behind the wheel of his shiny black Dodge in what was thought to be a vicious murder and robbery. But jurors hearing the case that opened last week in New York must decide whether Minor was a coldblooded killer or a mere tool in an extraordinary plan by Locker to arrange his own murder — a claim that sounds outlandish, except that prosecutors have conceded much of it is true.

Nearly a year after Locker's death, they dropped first-degree murder and robbery charges against Minor, who says Locker used his motivational speaking talents to persuade him to do the unthinkable: tie his hands with a telephone cord and hold the knife steady as Locker repeatedly impaled himself on it. His alleged motivation: to ensure his family collected millions of dollars in life insurance that would not be paid if his death were ruled a suicide.

"To make his plan work, he had to put out a contract on his own life," said prosecutor Peter Casolaro. Minor now faces second-degree murder charges in a case that raises the question of whether it ever is acceptable to help someone who is not terminally ill to die, even if the person asks for it.

During three days of jury selection, many potential jurors were disqualified when they said they could not convict a person who helped another commit suicide. "I believe in euthanasia," said one. Another cited the "very, very long and painful death" of his father and said he wished it had been legal to help him die.

Los Angeles Times

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Gregory Rodriguez: Fundamental moral errors

Fanaticism led Shawna Forde, the Arizona anti-immigrant vigilante convicted of murder, to bypass morality.

Political fanaticism fosters moral relativism. That's the lesson we should all learn from the gruesome case of Shawna Forde, the Arizona anti-immigrant vigilante who was convicted last week of two counts of first-degree murder.

Prosecutors argued that Forde and two accomplices killed 29-year-old Raul Junior Flores and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia, in a botched robbery attempt meant to raise money to fund a splinter group of the anti-immigrant Minuteman movement.

Posing as border patrol and law enforcement officers, Forde and friends showed up at Flores' home after midnight and invaded it with tragic consequences. Prosecuters pointed to testimony that Forde had bragged about her plans to steal the money to finance her vigilantism just weeks before the assault. Evidently, Forde's political fixation overrode any belief in the injunction that "thou shalt not kill."

It'd be easy to dismiss the Forde case as a crazy one-off incident. And let's hope it isn't repeated. But her willingness to discard the most basic of moral standards for the sake of a political obsession is something we're all to familiar with in the 21st century.

The South Dakota Legislature's House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would have expanded the definition of justifiable homicide to include killing someone in the defense of an unborn child. The bill was shelved last week by cooler heads who feared it could provide legal cover for the killing of abortion providers.

During George W. Bush's administration, the issue of the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" had the U.S. government employing one well-establishd evil in an attempt to combat another. The primacy of the battle against terrorism allowed government lawyers to parse words and find loopholes in long-held legal standards protecting prisoners of war.

Los Angeles Times

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Supreme Court to Hear Material Witness Case

GRAND TERRACE, Calif. — When the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, gave Congress a progress report in early 2003 on the agency's success in “identifying and dismantling terrorist networks,” his first example was the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. His second was the arrest of Abdullah al-Kidd.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on March 2 in Mr. Kidd's lawsuit against John Ashcroft, who was President George W. Bush's first attorney general. It is this term's only major national security case, and it will give the court an opportunity to weigh in on an issue that has divided Western democracies: when may the government detain citizens it is unable to charge with a crime for fear they may engage in terrorism?

Australia, Britain and Germany, for instance, have laws allowing such preventive detention. After 9/11, Congress enacted a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allowed the detention of people suspected of terrorism — but it applied only to noncitizens and then only for seven days.

Mr. Kidd's suit contends that policies put in place by Mr. Ashcroft twisted the federal material witness law — which allows the government to arrest people with knowledge of others' crimes to make sure they are available to testify — into a preventive detention measure of the sort used abroad to hold and investigate citizens who are themselves suspected of terrorism.

In his testimony to a House subcommittee on March 27, 2003, Mr. Mueller said that Mr. Kidd was “a U.S. native and former University of Idaho football player.” Mr. Mueller added that Mr. Kidd “was arrested by the F.B.I. at Dulles International Airport en route to Saudi Arabia.” But he failed to say that Mr. Kidd was not arrested on criminal charges but as a material witness.

By the time Mr. Mueller testified, Mr. Kidd had been in custody for 11 days in three states under harsh conditions. “They were scrambling to make a case against me,” Mr. Kidd said last week in an interview at his father's home here.

New York Times

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Can You Frisk a Hard Drive?

If you stand with the Customs and Border Protection officers who staff the passport booths at Dulles airport near the nation's capital, their task seems daunting. As a huge crowd of weary travelers shuffle along in serpentine lines, inspectors make quick decisions by asking a few questions (often across language barriers) and watching computer displays that don't go much beyond name, date of birth and codes for a previous customs problem or an outstanding arrest warrant.

The officers are supposed to pick out the possible smugglers, terrorists or child pornographers and send them to secondary screening.

The chosen few — 6.1 million of the 293 million who entered the United States in the year ending Sept. 30, 2010 — get a big letter written on their declaration forms: A for an agriculture check on foodstuffs, B for an immigration issue, and C for a luggage inspection. Into the computer the passport officers type the reasons for the selection, a heads-up to their colleagues in the back room, where more thorough databases are accessible.

And there is where concerns have developed about invasions of privacy, for the most complete records on the travelers may be the ones they are carrying: their laptop computers full of professional and personal e-mail messages, photographs, diaries, legal documents, tax returns, browsing histories and other windows into their lives far beyond anything that could be, or would be, stuffed into a suitcase for a trip abroad. Those revealing digital portraits can be immensely useful to inspectors, who now hunt for criminal activity and security threats by searching and copying people's hard drives, cellphones and other electronic devices, which are sometimes held for weeks of analysis.

Digital inspections raise constitutional questions about how robust the Fourth Amendment's guarantee “against unreasonable searches and seizures” should be on the border, especially in a time of terrorism. A total of 6,671 travelers, 2,995 of them American citizens, had electronic gear searched from Oct. 1, 2008, through June 2, 2010, just a tiny percentage of arrivals.

New York Times

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Self-Harm Videos on YouTube: Dangerous or Therapeutic?

A New Study Documents the Rise in Self-Harm Videos on YouTube

YouTube provides easy access to videos of almost anything, but what is the impact on viewers, especially younger viewers, when "anything" includes hundreds of photos, video clips and montages of self-harming behaviors such as cutting and self-mutilation?

In a study that analyzed the videos, Canadian researchers found that the 100 most popular videos portraying self-harm on YouTube have been viewed more than 2 million times and selected as "favorite" more than 12,000 times, triggering concern over what kind of impact the sharing and viewing of these videos may be having on those at risk for self-injurious behavior.

"We found that very few videos actually encourage self-injury," says the lead author on the study, Stephen Lewis of the University of Guelph in Ontario. "Most were neutral or hopeful for overcoming this issue. But these findings also speak to the possibility of a few risks.

"Some videos may work to reinforce self-injury behavior or serve as a trigger for self-harm," Lewis adds. "It might foster communities where self-injury is more normal and [so is to] not always urge people to seek help."

In fact, concerned for the potential risks, YouTube contacted researchers and has since removed the videos they considered inappropriate content, Lewis says.

Self-injury behavior, which, in the videos, most often took the form of self-cutting, is known as non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) because while it involves the deliberate destruction of one's own body tissue, it is not necessarily driven by a desire for suicide. Often, self-harmers report that cutting is a form of coping with emotional pain and that the act of inflicting pain on themselves provides powerful momentary relief from mental distress, says Kim Gratz, director of personality disorders research at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

ABC News

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Texas To Allow Concealed Weapons on Campus

Texas is poised to give college students and teachers the right to pack heat on campus, reports AP.

More than half of the state's House of Representatives have signed onto the measure, which permits concealed weapons at universities. The senate, which backed a similar bill in 2009, is expected to support the House's legislation.

Sen. Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio said that at the moment, students are "sitting ducks" if someone opens fire in a classroom.

"The only option now is to hide behind their desks or play dead," said a spokesman for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.

The bill already has the support of Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who occasionally takes his pistol on his morning runs. Utah has already passed a similar law, while Colorado gives universities the option of allowing concealed handguns.

Victims of the Virginia Tech massacre have traveled to Texas to oppose the bill.

Colin Goddard, who survived the 2007 shooting spree by pretending he was dead, said: It was the craziest day of my life with one person walking around with two guns. I can't even imagine what it would have been like with multiple students and multiple guns."

The Slatest

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