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From Los Angeles Times

Bill would let counties opt out of U.S. immigration enforcement program

Assembly Democrats say the Secure Communities program, which sends fingerprints of local arrestees to the ICE, ensnares low-level offenders. Republicans say the action would undermine federal law.

by Michael J. Mishak, Los Angeles Times

May 31, 2011

Reporting from Sacramento

California lawmakers have taken steps to opt out of a controversial federal immigration enforcement program, joining a growing number of states that say it harms public safety and undermines local law enforcement.

Under the Secure Communities program, fingerprints of all arrestees booked into local jails and cross-checked with the FBI's criminal database are forwarded to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for screening. Officials said the system, launched in 2008, is intended to identify and deport illegal immigrants convicted of serious crimes such as murder, rape and kidnapping.

Some state lawmakers say the reality has been far different. Citing ICE data, Democrats say that many of those ensnared in the program have never been convicted of crimes or are low-level offenders. The result, they say, has been a chilling effect on immigrant crime victims and witnesses, who stay silent for fear of deportation.

Republicans are opposed to opting out, saying it would undermine federal law.

From the program's inception through March of this year, 55% of those flagged for deportation nationwide had committed misdemeanors and infractions or were arrested but not convicted of crimes, ICE data show. About 30% of those flagged for deportation had been convicted of serious crimes.

ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley defended the program, saying that it had netted 78,000 "deportable aliens" in California, more than 48% of whom had previous felony convictions or at least three misdemeanors. She said the agency is developing a policy to protect crime victims and witnesses.

In a heated debate on the state Assembly floor Thursday, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) called Secure Communities a "farce" as he lobbied his colleagues to support legislation that would require California's Department of Justice to renegotiate its agreement with the federal government.

The bill would allow counties to opt out of the federal program and ensure that the participants enact protective measures for victims of domestic violence and juveniles. And it would require those counties to develop safeguards against racial profiling and share only the fingerprints of convicted felons.

"There is no shame in protecting people who are vulnerable," Ammiano said.

Republicans argue that allowing some counties to opt out of the program would give violent criminals free rein across the state.

"People will go where they will not get caught," said Assemblyman Stephen Knight (R-Palmdale).

The bill passed the Assembly on a party-line vote, 47 to 26, and moves to the Senate.

Gov. Jerry Brown declined to comment on the legislation. But he supported Secure Communities when he was California's attorney general, a fact that Republicans used in their arguments Thursday. Last year, then-Atty. Gen. Brown denied a request by San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey to opt out of the program.

In a letter to Hennessey, Brown said Secure Communities "serves both public safety and the interest of justice."

"This is not simply a local issue," he said. "Many of the people booked in local jails end up in state prison or go on to commit crimes in other counties or states."

Ammiano and others said Brown and the state were misled by federal officials. They cited a planned investigation of Secure Communities by the Department of Homeland Security's office of the inspector general.

Among other issues, the review will examine how federal officials portrayed the program to states and counties, which say they were initially told they could opt out but were later informed that participation has always been mandatory.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immigration-20110531,0,411799,print.story

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Pentagon seeks mini-weapons for new age of warfare

In an effort to cut costs and avoid civilian casualties, manufacturers are developing small 'smart bombs,' drones that resemble model planes and microscopic crystals to tag enemy targets.

by W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times

May 30, 2011

Under mounting pressure to keep its massive budget in check, the Pentagon is looking to cheaper, smaller weapons to wage war in the 21st century.

A new generation of weaponry is being readied in clandestine laboratories across the nation that puts a priority on pintsized technology that would be more precise in warfare and less likely to cause civilian casualties. Increasingly, the Pentagon is being forced to discard expensive, hulking, Cold War-era armaments that exact a heavy toll on property and human lives.

At L-3 Interstate Electronics Corp. in Anaheim, technicians work in secure rooms developing a GPS guidance system for a 13-pound "smart bomb" that would be attached to small, low-flying drone.

Engineers in Simi Valley at AeroVironment Inc. are developing a mini-cruise missile designed to fit into a soldier's rucksack, be fired from a mortar and scour the battlefield for enemy targets.

And in suburban Portland, Ore. Voxtel Inc. is concocting an invisible mist to be sprayed on enemy fighters and make them shine brightly in night-vision goggles.

These miniature weapons have one thing in common: They will be delivered with the help of small robotic planes. Drones have grown in importance as the Pentagon has seen them play a vital role in Iraq, Afghanistan and reportedly in the raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Now, engineers in Southern California and elsewhere are refining drone technology to deliver a powerful wallop with increasingly smaller robotic planes — many of which resemble model aircraft buzzing around local parks.

This work is aimed primarily at one buyer —the Pentagon, which is seeking a total of $671 billion for fiscal 2012. Of that, drones represent $4.8 billion, a small but growing segment of the defense budget — and that doesn't include spending on robotic weapons technology in the classified portion of the budget.

This comes at a time when expensive weapons programs, like Marine Corps amphibious assault vehicles and Navy cruisers, are being eyed for trims.

Although some mini-weapons may resemble toys, they represent a new wave of sophisticated technology in modern warfare, which has forced the military and weapons-makers to think small. And they are just a few under development that have been disclosed.

"There are a lot of weapons in the military's arsenal," said Lt. Col. Brad Beach, an official who coordinates the Marines' drone technology. "But what we don't have is something small."

The military is flush with multi-ton bunker-busting bombs designed to reduce fortified buildings into smoldering rubble.

But Marines on the front lines in Afghanistan say there is an urgent need for a weapon that is small and powerful enough to protect them from insurgents planting roadside bombs.

Marines already have small spy drones with high-powered cameras, but what they need is a way to destroy the enemies that their drones discover.

Looking to fill the need, the 13-pound "smart bomb" has been under development for three years. The 2-foot-long bomb is steered by a GPS-guided system made in Anaheim. The bomb is called Small Tactical Munition, or STM, and is under development by Raytheon Co.

"Soldiers are watching bad guys plant" roadside bombs and "can't do anything about it," said Cody Tretschok, who leads work on the program at Raytheon. "They have to call in an air strike, which can take 30 to 60 minutes. The time lapse is too great."

The idea is that the small bomb could be slung under the spy plane's wing, dropped to a specific point using GPS coordinates or a laser-guidance system, and blast apart "soft" targets, such as pickup trucks and individuals, located 15,000 feet below.

Raytheon does not yet have a contract for the bomb and is building it entirely with its own money.

"We're proactively anticipating the military's need," said Tretschok, who is testing the technology at the Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona.

In a similar fashion, drone-maker AeroVironment in Simi Valley didn't wait for the government when it started to build its Switchblade mini-cruise missile to seek and destroy nearby targets.

The little missile, which looks less harmless than many Fourth of July fireworks, is fired from a mortar, unfolds its wings as it goes, and begins sending live video and GPS coordinates to the soldier who launched it.

The 2-foot-long battery-powered drone would be tipped with a tiny warhead and remotely operated from a handheld controller. It is being designed to fly above a warzone for at least five minutes for more than a mile at a time.

"This technology gives the war fighter the ability to pinpoint where and when he strikes," said Steven Gitlin, an AeroVironment spokesman. "It's all about precision."

Critics say the technology may be too imprecise and hard to track, said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution.

But the weapons have sophisticated internal guidance systems, which is key because much of today's fighting takes place in crowded urban environments, such as targets located in or near population centers, he said.

"Weapons are sometimes only usable today if they're small. The bottom line is: You're not going to go around dropping 500-pound bombs everywhere," O'Hanlon added. "Collateral damage is unacceptable in modern warfare."

Knowing this, the military has embarked on using mini-drones for a "tagging, tracking and locating" initiative, which centers on secretly marking a target with invisible sprays and other identifiers so they don't get lost in crowds.

Companies like Beaverton, Ore.-based Voxtel have benefited from the millions of dollars that the government is handing to contractors for research. The small 30-person company, which makes tagging products to prevent the counterfeiting of bank notes, lottery tickets and other items, now believes its microscopic nanocrystals — which become part of an invisible spray — may be are exactly what the military needs.

Tagging, tracking and locating "is a hot topic in government work," said George Williams, company president. "It isn't easy tracking somebody in a crowded urban environment like what is seen in today's wars."

Indeed. Earlier this year, the Air Force asked for proposals on developing a way to "tag" targets with "clouds" of unseen materials sprayed from quiet, low-flying drones.

In its request, the Air Force said "one method of distribution would be 'crop-dusting' from a sufficiently high altitude (to avoid detection) and letting the dust-cloud fall on a target or in front of it if it is moving."

Other methods suggested to covertly mark the targets were to "pneumatically blow a cloud" or "burst above" them.

As the military moves into miniaturizing its weapon stockpile, contractors believe applications such as these may be crucial to the overall effort. "What we do is just one part of a complex system," Voxtel President Williams said. "We play a small role."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mini-drones-20110531,0,4286415,print.story

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Video: Kindergarten teacher leads children in song during shootout in Mexico

In the video, the frightened but determined voice of a schoolteacher is heard as she attempts to maintain calm among a group of kindergartners lying on the floor before her, asking them to join her in a singalong as gunfire shatters the air outside.

The teacher refers to the children as "my love," "precious" and "little ones" during the stirring clip filmed last week in the city of Monterrey, in northern Mexico. It's gone viral, igniting once more a public debate over the government's campaign against drug gangs and earning accolades for maestra Martha Rivera Alanis, reports the Associated Press.

The Nuevo Leon state government honored Rivera for "outstanding civic courage" in a ceremony today.

The 33-year-old mother of two said she was frightened, but that her "only thought was to take their minds off that noise." The song she chose during the ordeal is a Spanish-language version of a tune popularized by the children's TV program "Barney and Friends," and makes reference to chocolate droplets falling from the sky.

Rivera filmed the video during a gunfight Friday in which five people were killed at a taxi stand in La Estanzuela, a district in south Monterrey. According to a local news site, Regioblogs, the teacher posted the video to her Facebook account and then was asked permission to have it reproduced on YouTube and linked to the site. So far the original clip has garnered more than 714,000 views.

"We do drills constantly, because the area where we are is a high-risk zone," Rivera said, according to reports. The children, she added, "behaved in the way we had practiced."

Monterrey, a prosperous industrial hub, has seen a wave of drug-related violence as the Gulf and Zeta cartels battle over human- and drug-smuggling routes into the United States. The turf war has led to daylight shootouts on busy streets, attacks on bars and nightclubs, and "narco blockades" that have left residents terrified.

Shortly after the shootout, Rivera posted on Twitter: "It was very bad, my little ones in the kindergarten were very scared, and I was too! ENOUGH OF THIS!"

Other posters on blogs and social-networking sites have pointed to the clip as another example of the drug war's traumatizing effects on ordinary citizens. One man said on Twitter: "Regarding the prize for the teacher, I think that's good, but I am left asking: How many anonymous heroes do we have who are not filmed on video?"

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2011/05/mexico-video-kindergarten-shootout-teacher-drug-war.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LaPlaza+%28La+Plaza%29

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From Google News

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US 'to view major cyber attacks as acts of war'

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has adopted a new strategy that will classify major cyber attacks as acts of war, paving the way for possible military retaliation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said the Pentagon plans to unveil its first-ever strategy regarding cyber warfare next month, in part as a warning to foes that may try to sabotage the country's electricity grid, subways or pipelines.

"If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," it quoted a military official as saying.

The newspaper, citing three officials who had seen the document, said the the strategy would maintain that the existing international rules of armed conflict -- embodied in treaties and customs -- would apply in cyberspace.

It said the Pentagon would likely decide whether to respond militarily to cyber attacks based on the notion of "equivalence" -- whether the attack was comparable in damage to a conventional military strike.

Such a decision would also depend on whether the precise source of the attack could be determined.

The decision to formalize the rules of cyber war comes after the Stuxnet attack last year ravaged Iran's nuclear program. That attack was blamed on the United States and Israel, both of which declined to comment on it.

It also follows a major cyber attack on the US military in 2008 that served as a wake-up call and prompted major changes in how the Pentagon handles digital threats, including the formation of a new cyber military command.

Over the weekend Lockheed Martin, one of the world's largest defense contractors, said it was investigating the source of a "significant and tenacious" cyber attack against its information network one week ago.

President Barack Obama was briefed about the attack.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hMZ4N5VICZJ9yuCSowyGaiJKMBJA?docId=CNG.1fd0708a234708869809ecba5fc0c618.371

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