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From Los Angeles Times

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Data thieves target hotels and resorts

That could spell trouble for business travelers who submit credit card numbers and other personal information to hotel websites.

by Hugo Martín, Los Angeles Times

August 14, 2011

If you're a business traveler who books hotel rooms via the Internet, you may be at higher risk of being victimized by computer hackers and identity thieves. Insurance claims for data theft worldwide jumped 56% last year, with a bigger number of those attacks targeting the hospitality industry, according to a new report by Willis Group Holdings, a British insurance firm.

The report said the largest share of cyber attacks — 38% — were aimed at hotels, resorts and tour companies. That could spell trouble for business travelers who submit credit card numbers and other personal information to hotel websites, said Laurie Fraser, global markets leisure practice leader for Willis.

Fraser said large hotel chains are most vulnerable because hotel management companies may not be able to monitor how data is collected and stored at dozens or even hundreds of properties throughout the world. Independent contractors who work for individual hotels can also open the door to hackers and computer viruses, he said.

"There are various ways hackers can get into a hotel system," Fraser said.

Sherry Telford, a spokeswoman for InterContinental Hotels Group, one of the world's largest hotel companies, said InterContinental continually reviews its security measures. "For obvious reasons," Telford said, "we cannot expand further upon the security measures in place."

A tax windfall for airlines

It's not like the Internal Revenue Service to forgive and forget, especially when it comes to uncollected taxes. But that's what the federal tax collecting agency is doing about the two weeks when the Federal Aviation Administration stopped collecting taxes on airline tickets.

The FAA could not collect taxes from June 23 to Aug. 8 because its funding authority expired and feuding lawmakers in Washington could not agree on a new budget for the agency.

Congress finally adopted a temporary funding deal that took effect Aug. 8. The FAA collects 7.5% tax on the base ticket prices, plus $3.70 per person, for domestic flights.

It charges higher per-trip rates for international flights. Passengers who booked tickets before June 23 and flew on or after June 23 were charged federal taxes even though the FAA stopped collecting taxes.

In a statement, the IRS said those passengers are not entitled to a refund. As for those taxes that were not collected during the two-week tax holiday, the IRS said it won't ask airlines to pay the taxes retroactively. That's a big win for the airlines, because most carriers increased their airfares to match the drop in taxes, generating about $28.5 million per day in extra revenue, according to industry experts.

TSA gets very few complaints

The security breach was perpetrated by the hacker-activist group Anonymous, which launched cyber attacks Sunday against BART and the Fullerton Police Department in retaliation for deadly confrontations between police and homeless men.

The attack did not appear to be successful in Fullerton, but officials at the San Francisco-area mass transit authority were forced to shut down MyBART.org, a marketing website designed to encourage riders to use the system for travel to leisure events.

The group posted the names, addresses, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of thousands of Bay Area residents, but a BART spokesman said the website held no sensitive financial information.

"We are in the process of contacting our customers to offer advice and extend regrets that this has happened," said BART spokesman Jim Allison.

Allison said the FBI was investigating the breach, and experts from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were advising the agency during the crisis.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/hackers-breach-bart-website-and-obtain-personal-data.html

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More than 500 people march through Jackson to the motel where James C. Anderson was beaten and run over. Prosecutors say a group of white teenagers used racial slurs while they attacked him.

by Nicole Sperling, Los Angeles Times

August 15, 2011

Reporting from Jackson, Miss.

More than 500 people, including clergymen, elected officials and mothers pushing strollers, gathered here Sunday to denounce the killing of an African American auto plant employee in what authorities say was a racially motivated hate crime.

The slaying of James C. Anderson initially attracted little notice outside the immediate area, but since a security camera recording of the June 26 incident was broadcast nationally last week, the case has drawn coast-to-coast attention.

Anderson, 49, was beaten and run over in the parking lot of a motel. Prosecutors say the 5 a.m. attack was committed by a group of white teenagers from nearby Brandon, Miss. Two 18-year-olds have been charged in the case. Deryl Dedmon, the alleged driver of the green pickup that ran over Anderson, is charged with murder and remains jailed; bond was set at $800,000. John A. Rice, originally charged with murder, now faces a charge of simple assault. He was freed on $5,000 bail.

"There is a lot of general appall over what took place here," said Ronnie C. Crudup Sr., bishop of New Horizons Church near the motel where Anderson was attacked. "We wanted to get well-minded people, both black and white, together to do something to support this family and this country. This is not indicative of where Mississippi is today."

With a police escort, Sunday's diverse crowd marched from the church to the motel singing, "We Shall Overcome." As the sun set, occupants of the motel looked on as the group gathered and Rabbi Valerie Cohen of Beth Israel Congregation and Pastor Hosea Hines of Christ Tabernacle Church led the group in a moment of prayer.

Rims Barber, 75, a civil rights activist who first came to Jackson during the summer of 1964, said: "I'm not surprised [this happened] but I'm angry. I'm glad that this group, that looks the way it does — rich/poor, black/white, male/female, gay and straight — is here."

Winston Thompson III, a lawyer for the Anderson family, said the case remained under investigation and was scheduled to be presented to a grand jury in a couple of weeks. In all, Thompson said, seven teenagers were in the two vehicles involved in the attack, and "if the facts allow the district attorney to indict and prosecute everyone, he is going to do it. He's looking at everyone."

Hinds County Dist. Atty. Robert Shuler Smith has said racial slurs were used during the attack. "This was a crime of hate," he told CNN last week. "Dedmon murdered this man because he was black."

But an attorney for Dedmon said during a court hearing in July that he had seen nothing to back up the "racial allegations," the Associated Press has reported. And Rice's lawyer, Samuel Martin, suggested at a bond hearing last month that Rice had no knowledge of any plan to indiscriminately attack a black man.

Pastor Brian Richardson of Castlewoods Baptist Church attended Sunday's rally and said his son had attended high school with Dedmon. "The only difference between this group and the Ku Klux Klan is that the Klan used hoods of cloth," Richardson said. "This group used hoods of steel."

Leaders of Sunday's event urged attendees to talk to their children, their co-workers and their classmates to prevent further hate crimes in the city.

"If we don't tell what is right to our children, someone else will tell their version of the truth," Crudup said. "I challenge everyone to talk to somebody different every day for the rest of this month about this. We must not forget."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-jackson-vigil-20110815,0,4287656,print.story

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From Google News

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United Kingdom

CRIME in the Thames Valley area has fallen.

A total of 172,422 offences were committed in the year to March 31, 13,184 fewer than in the previous 12 months.

This represented a difference of seven per cent compared with a national average of four per cent.

The types of offence to record decreases included vehicle crime (21 per cent), antisocial behaviour (19 per cent), violence (10 per cent), burglary (eight per cent) and sexual offences (seven per cent). The figures were released as part of the British Crime Survey.

Police say the improvement is largely down to the introduction of neighbourhood policing teams.

Chief Constable Sara Thornton said: “This is a testament to the hard work of both our officers and staff who are dedicated to ensuring our communities are safe places to live and work in. We are always committed to improving our performance further.”

Sixty-three per cent of people in the Thames Valley thought the force was doing an “excellent or good job”, four per cent higher than the national average.

Meanwhile, Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators from across the Thames Valley met in Henley.

Sixty representatives from Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire came together at Christ Church Hall in Reading Road.

Inspector Mark Harling, the head of Henley police, spoke about the everyday incidents that his offices deal with, including burglary, domestic abuse, hate crime, antisocial behaviour and missing persons.

He emphasised that the average Henley resident was at very little risk of assault. Those at greatest risk were 18- to 26-year-old men coming out of pubs.

Insp Harling said police should be open to public scrutiny and apologised for officers who failed to acknowledge or give thanks for information they had received.

Neil Gunnell, Henley neighbourhood watch co-ordinator, said: “He explained that while Henley is policed around the clock, police officers may not always be present in the police station as they need to be out in the community.

“He also noted that the police don't just wish to reduce and resolve crime, they also want to work within the community.

“Groups such as Neighbourhood Watch make a big difference.”

http://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/news.php?id=962120

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Bratton's track record shows political as well as policing nous but senior UK officers express doubts

The more Bill Bratton talks about leadership and the ability of police not just to transform themselves but to lead change in society, it becomes clearer to see what attracted him to David Cameron . It is not just a change of policing culture he is advocating, it is also about the style of leadership and having political nous.

If a politician's mandate is that he has to improve policing within budgetary constraints, that is what William J Bratton will do. He says he has done it before, in Boston, New York and Los Angeles. If he has to build alliances with police critics in the community, he has done that as well.

But Bratton is not just idly boasting about being a "transformational leader". Given his track record in the United States turning around big city police departments from struggling entities to successful forces, he feels he could do the same in Britain, if he was allowed to.

The image of Bratton in Britain so far is of a zero-tolerance, tough-talking police leader, in keeping with an image that US police are gun toting and far more militaristic than their British equivalent. It's a Robocop model versus Dixon of Dock Green, seemingly. But Bratton's style and declared values suggest a more nuanced police leader. When he left the Los Angeles police department in 2009, after seven years at its helm, his passing was lamented by the once mortal enemy of police there, the American Civil Liberties Union. For years it had fought and sued the LAPD, but Bratton slashed the number of annual complaints.

Bratton is known for "broken window theory" policing, meaning even small infractions led to arrests because that gives a strident message crime will not be tolerated. But he insists a significant part in crime reduction was the "progressive" idea of community policing, which takes officers out of cars and to get to know their communities and their differing concerns, and stresses the need for partnerships.

Bratton said: "Community policing was a significant catalyst in the turnaround in crime." This claim is supported by Fernando Guerra, director of the Leavey Centre for the Study of Los Angeles, who told the LA Times. "That to me is the ultimate in community policing, where the community is given the benefit of the doubt first, and the police had to justify their actions."

After leaving Los Angeles, Bratton became chair of the private security company Kroll. Speaking from New York, he told the Guardian that policing could do more than just make streets safer, it could lead societal change: "Nobody can change race relations, society and public fears faster than the police.

"You need to address these issues all at the same time, not piecemeal. Police need to be inclusive, transparent and available, not parochial, exclusive and nontransparent."

He makes no apologies for clamping down on crime, but insists he can do this and protect civil liberties. Bratton said: "I'm a progressive. I'm an advocate of gay and human rights, and of illegal immigrants being treated in humane ways. I'm issues focused. I believe the role of the police is critical to the protection and advocacy of human rights."

He can challenge existing police culture to make the service more open for minority groups, which in turn helps boost confidence in the police. Bratton said: "In New York and LAPD the promotion path was open for women and ethnic minorities. They became more representative of the minority composition of the city." He added that there was "no glass ceiling for anyone", including gay people and transvestites.

The British interest in him has reignited media interest in him across the Atlantic. Bratton points to a weekend New York Times piece which found that he helped change the racial makeup of the LAPD. The piece said: "In 1991, the year of the [Rodney] King beating, the department was 61% white and 87% male. As of last month, it was 36% white and 81% male."

The former Los Angeles mayor James Hahn told the newspaper Bratton made big promises, which he kept. Hahn recalled Bratton's claims in his interview to become LA's police chief. "He also said, 'I can bring crime down in your city by 25%, and if not I'll resign.' That was an offer I could not refuse."

Bratton says policing in the US failed in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, believing crime was so ingrained it could not be challenged: "The cause of crime is human behaviour. In a democratic society the police are charged with controlling human behaviour," Bratton said.

He said it must be done "constitutionally, compassionately and consistently", across all ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

Bratton said that British police are not alone in suffering budget cuts; other agencies which help tackle discontent will also suffer losses: "It's quite obvious that there will be reductions not just for policing but for social services that ameliorate dissatisfaction."

Bratton may have impressed civil liberties advocates in the US, but British police chiefs are considerably more sceptical. One told the Guardian: "He made a career going around the world to conferences, he only spent 20 months in New York." London mayor Boris Johnson told Sky News: "His particular success in tackling crime in New York was very much down to a huge ramp up in numbers, up from about 30,000 to 42,000 officers on the streets."

Bratton has been monitoring the row between the government and British police chiefs. He was ousted from leading the New York police after falling out with the city mayor, Rudy Giuliani. Bratton said: "It's a very interesting situation to watch where people can feel comfortable to speak their minds.

"British chiefs have more ability to speak out against government. In the US most police chiefs are appointed by a mayor, if they don't get along, the police chief will not last very long."

He said politicians have the right to "inquire and seek to encourage", but he believes in operational independence.

Having been thwarted in his attempts to clear the path for Bratton to apply for the commissionership of the Met, the prime minister has recruited him to advise on gangs . This again has irked British police chiefs who feel it denigrates their successes. A senior officer said British police had regularly gone to the US to plunder tactics to tackle gangs, and had been so successful that the US was now sending their officers over here to learn about Britain's successes.

That fact explains Sir Hugh Orde's frustration at Cameron bringing Bratton over. Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, told the Independent on Sunday: "I am not sure I want to learn about gangs from an area of America that has 400 of them. It seems to me, if you've got 400 gangs, then you're not being very effective. If you look at the style of policing in the states, and their levels of violence, they are fundamentally different from here."

Bratton says he is honoured to be asked to help and may be in London to meet the prime minister this week.

"I'm not coming in with the only bag of tricks in town," he says, adding that when it comes to gangs the US has many similarities with the UK – gangs "promote violence and fear, can destroy neighbourhoods", and will create "more violence unless forcefully challenged".

Bratton said a series of creative programmes led to success in Los Angeles: "It has to be a comprehensive set of initiatives, it can't be piecemeal." He also said police chiefs need to look the world over for ideas: "Anyone who looks only inwards is not going to be as successful as someone who looks outside, the world over. It's a big world out there."

Bratton said Britain was correctly dealing with the aftermath of the riots, using the criminal justice system to arrest and jail those responsible, and then maybe dealing with underlying issues: "The criminal behaviour, you have to focus on dealing with that first and it sounds like you are doing that. Violence can never be excused in a democratic society. When you engage in violence that is not democracy, that is anarchy."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/14/bill-bratton-police-track-record/print

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