~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Los Angeles Times

Mexico's 'boy killer' sentenced to three years in prison

Edgar Jimenez Lugo, alias 'El Ponchis,' was 14 when he was arrested and then admitted that he began killing at age 11.

by Daniel Hernandez, Los Angeles Times

July 27, 2011

Reporting from Mexico City

The "boy killer" who for many became a symbol of the lawlessness and social deterioration of Mexican society because of the nation's drug war was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison for killing four people in Morelos state.

Edgar Jimenez Lugo, alias "El Ponchis," was 14 when he was arrested by the Mexican army in December. The teenager admitted before news cameras at the time that he began killing at age 11 and that a cartel paid him $200 a week to do it. He claimed to have beheaded four of his victims.

Three years is the maximum sentence for underage criminals in Morelos state, said Juan Carlos Castro, a Juvenile Court spokesman. However, because of time served, Jimenez will spend two years and five months behind bars, Castro said.

Jimenez was arrested Dec. 2 while attempting to board a flight to Tijuana from the city of Cuernavaca, presumably planning to escape to the U.S. after details of his alleged exploits began appearing in Mexican newspapers. He was born in San Diego but grew up in Jiutepec, a small town near Cuernavaca where he was "kind of forgotten," his father, David Jimenez, told The Times last year.

The case shook Mexico. Good schools and good jobs remain out of reach for many young people, leaving up to a million youths drawn to the easy money and dubious street glory of the drug trade, university studies have shown.

The tale of "El Ponchis" was especially chilling. Jimenez was charged with four cartel-related executions — "I cut their throats," he said at the time — as well as carrying illegal weapons and trafficking in cocaine.

The teenager appeared remorseless after his arrest. Even as Jimenez's father attempted to defend his son before reporters last year, the boy responded to a question about his parents by saying, "They're dead."

Jimenez's sentencing came on a day when violent incidents roiled Mexico amid President Felipe Calderon's 4 1/2-year assault on organized crime.

On Tuesday morning, the body of a missing journalist was found decapitated near the port city of Veracruz, the latest in a growing number of attacks on journalists in Mexico.

Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz, a police reporter, worked at the same newspaper that employed Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, a columnist who criticized local politicians. He was killed in an ambush at his home in late June, along with two members of his family.

Veracruz state authorities made an early denial Tuesday that Ordaz was killed for her "journalistic work," hinting at "links to organized crime" but not elaborating.

Also on Tuesday, in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, 17 people were reported killed after a riot in the municipal prison.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-teen-20110727,0,7403481,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thousands of post offices might close

The U.S. Postal Service releases a list of 3,700 post offices — 100 in California — that might go the way of the Pony Express.

by Sam Quinones, Los Angeles Times

July 26, 2011

The U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday released a list of 3,700 post offices it is considering closing as the federal agency revamps the way it does business.

Of the post offices being studied for closure, more than 100 are in California — from Honeydew in Northern California to an office at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, according to a Postal Service statement.

The list includes several post offices in Los Angeles, as well as offices in Long Beach, Beverly Hills, South Gate, Bell, Cudahy, La Puente, Inglewood, Compton, San Bernardino, Ontario, Orange, Huntington Beach, Laguna Woods and Santa Barbara, among others.

The Postal Service, funded entirely by revenue from its retail sales, has seen revenue decline because of the public's use of the Internet. Thus it is shifting away from traditional offices to smaller shops in supermarkets, drugstores and office supply chains, as well as selling its products online.

The Postal Service has 32,000 postal retail offices and more than 70,000 third-party retailers.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0727-post-offices-20110727,0,60980,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rutten: The maniac challenge

The Norway attacks illustrate once again the danger posed by hate-laced propaganda.

by Tim Rutten

July 27, 2011

Sixteen years ago, I was one of The Times writers assigned to cover the Oklahoma City bombing. It was one of those wrenching stories that stand out in a reportorial memory that now extends back more than four decades, partly because my assignment was to each day write about the children killed in the day-care center beneath which Timothy McVeigh exploded his powerful car bomb.

One of the things I recall with particular clarity was the numbing realization that, by week's end, I'd simply run out of adjectives to use in describing broken little bodies. The other was the creeping horror several of us in the newsroom felt as we realized we knew the source of McVeigh's inspiration for the atrocity. Shortly before the bombing occurred, we'd discussed a story on a vile novel popular on the far right and within the militia movement then flourishing. It's called "The Turner Diaries," and it was written by the leader of one of the white nationalist factions into which the American neo-Nazi movement had splintered.

It's an account of how racist guerrilla fighters overthrow the government and trigger a race war in which all blacks and Jews are exterminated, along with "race traitors," who are hanged from lampposts on "the day of the rope." One of the key events in this imaginary war is the protagonist's successful attack on FBI headquarters with a fertilizer-fueled car bomb of exactly the sort McVeigh constructed. The novel contains a detailed account of building such a bomb, and photocopied excerpts from the book were found in the terrorist's car when he was arrested. As we later learned, McVeigh slept with a copy of "The Turner Diaries" under his pillow.

All this comes forcefully to mind when considering the bombing and massacre carried out by Anders Behring Breivik, a right-wing Norwegian obsessed with hatred for Muslim immigrants. His bomb, the assault on government buildings and the killings of those Breivik regarded as traitors to a pure Norwegian identity could have been ripped from the pages of "The Turner Diaries," now available on the web.

We know from his own manifesto — whole paragraphs plagiarized from, of all people, the Unabomber — that Breivik read and admired anti-Muslim websites maintained by Americans Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. He drew inspiration from European sites that promote the so-called Eurabia conspiracy theory, which purports to expose a secret deal between European bureaucrats and Islamists to hand over Europe to Islam in exchange for oil.

Read a little more deeply in Breivik's ravings and you can catch echoes of even older hate propaganda, including the work of the American neo-fascist Francis Parker Yockey, whose 1949 "Proclamation of London" prefigures much of today's anti-Muslim rhetoric. His works are available on the Web, where hate has acquired the half-life of a radioactive isotope.

It ought to be clear by now that hate-laced propaganda poses a particular challenge to open societies in this new age, when their contagion can be spread by little more than the click of a mouse. This filth festers in the nether regions of the Web, a constant attraction to the disgruntled and the deluded. As Breivik's example shows, we're all just one megalomaniacal incident away from another Oslo — or Oklahoma City.

Censorship — the intellectual equivalent of preventive detention — is a constant temptation, but one that has to be resisted. There's little point in burning down the open society in order to save it.

But it's clear that our current notions of tolerance are dangerously flaccid. It no longer will do, as Isaiah Berlin once pointed out, to shrug and say: I believe in kindness and you believe in concentration camps, and let's leave it at that. That's not tolerance; it's indifference in which respect for free speech is less a value than an alibi.

If speech is important enough to protect, it deserves to be taken seriously, particularly when it is hateful. Wading through this garbage is like swimming in sewage and, nearly always, unbearably tedious. Oslo, however, reminds us that this propaganda can't be ignored. It needs to be identified, refuted and denounced. Those who attempt to launder these ideas into our civic conversations for their own advantage have to be confronted directly.

More than ever, it seems, the open society must be a watchful one.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0727-rutten-20110727,0,3883977,print.column

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Google News

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Canada

Community work pays off for diligent kids

by John Burman

July 27, 2011

Ten-year-old Rushel hugged the bicycle she “worked so hard to get.”

“I love my bike,” she said quietly.

She hasn't thought of a name for the shiny Raleigh, seven-speed, dual suspension two-wheeler she earned participating in Tim Hortons' Earn-a-Bike program during the past month, but she's sure she can think of a good one.

Rushel was one of 130 Hamilton children who worked through the program under the guidance of their local policing centres doing community service — cleaning and polishing various public places from Waterdown to Van Wagner's Beach and back again — to be rewarded with a bike, lock, proper helmet and water bottle.

Many of the grinning children have never had a bike before.

Those who didn't know how to ride walked theirs home.

The bikes were handed out with kudos and boxes of Timbits to scores of kids ages nine through 12 in the parking lot at The Centre on Barton Tuesday morning.

The program, initiated by Hamilton-Wentworth Police in 1996, is administered through Community Policing Centres, where officers and volunteers interview the kids and coach them while they are completing their community tasks.

Tim Hortons became the title sponsor in 1998 and there are now Earn-a-Bike programs in dozens of Ontario communities.

Co-ordinator Margaret Marshall from the Ottawa Street Community Policing Centre said the youngsters earn a bike by completing 30 hours of community service work that includes cleaning up parks and schools and helping community groups.

“You have worked hard and learned teamwork and accomplishment and we have all had a lot of fun,” Marshall told the youngsters.

Before she walked her bike home to show her mom, Rushel, a Hillcrest elementary student who worked with the Ottawa Street policing centre to get her bike, said she's going to tell her little brother to sign up next year.

“It is good for the community and earning something for what you did,” she said.

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/article/569625--community-work-pays-off-for-diligent-kids

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jamaican police seek crime-fighting cues, clues from Palm Bay

When top police administrators from Jamaica sought out a city after which they could model a successful community- policing program, they didn't just spin the globe.

They Googled.

At the top of the Web search results were a myriad crime-fighting programs offered by the Palm Bay Police Department, an agency far from the crowded streets of Kingston or the lush mountains of Ocho Rios.

"We're going through a modernization program and as we improve, we thought it would be necessary to engage and look at other organizations involved with community policing," said James Forbes, senior superintendent of the Jamaica Constabulary Force. "We do our research. What we found was that Palm Bay police have one of the most advanced programs for volunteer officers."

Forbes and four other high-ranking administrators from the nation's 10,000-officer police force visited Palm Bay last week to get a firsthand look at what the local 160-officer agency has to offer, from its volunteer officer program to air patrols and crime scene processing techniques.

The Jamaican law enforcement agents -- who spent five days in Palm Bay -- were treated to flights on the department's powered paraglider, airboat rides and a patrol in the skies above the city aboard the Brevard County Sheriff's Office helicopter.

Forbes, whose agency oversees crime-fighting efforts in the nation of 2.6 million people, and the others attended a reception with Palm Bay's growing Caribbean population, including many from Jamaica.

"They chose to visit us and we tried to make sure they had a first-class visit," Palm Bay Police Chief Doug Muldoon said. "They shared some of the challenges they have in Jamaica, some of the gangs they have along with other issues that make it tough for community policing."

Palm Bay gave a presentation on the department's V-COP, or Volunteer Citizens Observer Program, force made up of more than 100 retirees, including former police officers. The volunteers, who have worked more than 338,000 hours since the program began in 1995, provide neighborhood patrols, gather reports and work the front desk in the department lobby, said Dana Packard, who oversees V-COP.

"Our volunteers are extraordinary, and we're proud of the level of service they offer," Packard said.

The program is reported to have saved the city $6 million since its inception.

Forbes said he would like to implement a similar program in Jamaica.

"We're looking at what they're doing to attract the volunteers and how we can model that kind of program back in Jamaica," Forbes said.

Muldoon said the visit provided useful insight into both agencies.

"It also says a lot about what we have here," Muldoon said. "It was really good and we're glad they chose us to visit."

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110727/NEWS01/107270329/Jamaican-police-seek-crime-fighting-cues-clues

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Department of Homeland Security

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Secretary Napolitano Announces Stop.Think.Connect. ™ Campaign Partnership with D.A.R.E. America

July 26, 2011

WASHINGTON—The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Stop.Think.Connect. Campaign today announced a new partnership with Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) America — an initiative that will help protect millions of children from online threats by encouraging Internet safety.

"In today's world, Americans can use technology to engage with communities around the globe," said Secretary Napolitano. "Now, more than ever, it is important that all Americans — adults and children alike — learn to protect themselves online and do their part to ensure that cyberspace is a safe and secure environment for all Internet users."

Using the resources of the largest child safety program of its kind in the world, the Stop.Think.Connect. Campaign will train D.A.R.E. officers to talk to kids and parents in their communities about cybersecurity, and provide them with the Stop.Think.Connect. Community Outreach Toolkit – an all-inclusive resource with simple tips and tools they can use to stay safe while using the Internet.

"To stay current with child safety needs, D.A.R.E. has added programs in Internet Safety and Cybersecurity," said Charlie Parsons, CEO and President of D.A.R.E. America. "We look forward to continuing to work with the Department of Homeland Security on these important efforts to keep our children and America safe."

DHS remains committed to encouraging all Americans to take an active role in promoting online safety. The Stop.Think.Connect. Campaign recently announced the winners of its Public Service Announcement (PSA) Challenge, which called upon groups and individuals to create and submit PSAs educating their fellow citizens on Internet safety. To view the winning videos, click here . In the coming months, DHS will continue to expand the Stop.Think.Connect. Campaign to encourage Americans to keep themselves, their families, and their friends safe and secure online.

The D.A.R.E Program was established in 1983 in Los Angeles to address substance abuse. Since then, it has become the largest and most comprehensive children's safety program in the world, positively impacting millions of kindergarten through 12th grade students each year. D.A.R.E. is now taught in all 50 states and 45 countries around the world.

Stop.Think.Connect. is a national public awareness effort to guide the nation to a higher level of Internet safety and security by educating and empowering the American public to be more vigilant about practicing safe online habits. The campaign encourages Americans to view Internet safety and security as a shared responsibility — at home, in the workplace, and in our communities.

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/20110726-stop-think-connect-dare-partnership.shtm

Combating Transnational Organized Crime

• In November 2010, the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis established the Border Intelligence Fusion Section (BIFS)—in collaboration with the Departments of Justice and Defense, and the U.S. intelligence community— to provide law enforcement, border enforcement, and investigative agencies with multi-source intelligence to support investigations and operations conducted along the Southwest border.
  
  
• In support of this strategy, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is implementing a new "Illicit Pathways Attack Strategy," which will prioritize, and integrate its authorities and resources in a focused and comprehensive manner to attack criminal organizations along the entire pathway, or continuum of crime, both at home and abroad.

• Cybercrime—As a result of close collaboration with the private sector regarding developing technologies and trends in the financial payments industry, the U.S. Secret Service has apprehended individuals charged with committing some of the world's most advanced cybercrimes.
  
  
• Securing our borders—In 2006, ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) worked with other federal, state, local, and foreign partners to establish the BEST, in order to break down TOC networks that attempt to conduct illegal activities across and along our borders. Since the inception of this initiative, there are now 21 BESTs spread out along the Southwest and Northern borders as well as at major seaports. .

In addition to securing our nation's Southwest and Northern borders to disrupt drug trafficking, DHS has multiple maritime agreements with our international partners to facilitate cooperation in counterdrug operations in U.S. and foreign waters. Earlier this month, DHS unveiled an unprecedented cross-component Maritime Operations Coordination plan to enhance the Department's coordination capabilities, and the U.S. Coast Guard utilizes intelligence gathered across the federal government to intercept and apprehend traffickers before they reach the United States.

http://blog.dhs.gov/2011/07/combating-transnational-organized-crime.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the FBI

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WMD Central - Five Years and Building

07/26/11

Five years ago this week, the FBI established its first Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Directorate to centralize and coordinate all WMD-related investigative activities, intelligence analysis capabilities, and technical expertise from across the Bureau. Recently, FBI.gov spoke with Dr. Vahid Majidi—the head of the WMD Directorate since its launch—on his office's work over the past five years. Today, he talks about the current threat and specific focus of the directorate. Later this week, he'll discuss case examples, lessons learned, and the future of the directorate.

Q. Why was the directorate created?

Dr. Majidi: The FBI has been in the WMD business for quite some time, more formally since 1995 when we created a program in our Counterterrorism Division to address the WMD threat. But obviously, a lot has happened in recent years. And it became clear that our WMD response crossed operational lines and also involved our counterintelligence, criminal, and cyber programs—not to mention the response and forensics expertise in the FBI Laboratory and the render-safe capabilities of our Critical Incident Response Group. We needed a single force to coordinate all of our WMD activities. The directorate gives us that.

Q. What does the WMD threat look like today?

Dr. Majidi: The nature of the threat hasn't changed all that much over the past decade. International terrorist groups are still determined to get their hands on various forms of weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear. Organizations and nation states still want material and expertise for their own programs. And certain domestic groups are still trying to acquire materials needed for basic WMD applications—predominately chemical or biological in nature.

Q. What about all those white powder letters?

Dr. Majidi: Most turn out to be hoaxes, and they require a lot of investigative resources, but we have to investigate each and every incident. You never know when one of them will be real.

Q. Can you briefly explain how the WMD Directorate works?

Dr. Majidi: Absolutely. The main focus of our WMD Directorate—and the primary focus of our overall efforts—is prevention, to keep a WMD attack from ever taking place. To make that happen, we have several closely integrated activities that pull together resources from various parts of the FBI. Our countermeasures and preventions group includes a full spectrum of activities, from WMD training for domestic and international law enforcement partners…to outreach efforts to academia, industry, government, and retailers to help them spot indicators of potential WMD activity….to working with our government partners to formulate sound policies. The investigations and operations group addresses threatened or actual use of weapons of mass destruction, or the transfer of materials, knowledge, and technology needed to create a WMD. We also can and do collect evidence in contaminated areas, disarm hazardous devices, and provide command and control support in on-scene activities. Finally, our intelligence and analysis group serves as the foundation of our proactive approach to threats. Our analysts sort through data to identify relevant WMD information, and our agents work to identify sources of valuable intelligence. And because we are part of the intelligence community, we share information routinely with our partners. Through it all, we have a lot of activities and capabilities in play, and I think we're making a real difference.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/july/wmd_072611/wmd_072611

.