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From the Los Angeles Times

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Predator drones do domestic duty

In recent months, the unmanned spy planes have been put to work fighting fires and flooding. Privacy watchdogs are uneasy.

by Brian Bennett, Reporting from Washington

September 12, 2011

Most days, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer David Gasho sends three unmanned spy planes into the skies over the rugged Sonora Desert to hunt for drug smugglers crossing into southern Arizona from Mexico.

But in mid-June, as the largest wildfire in Arizona history raged, Gasho sent one of the Predator B drones soaring over residential neighborhoods in search of another threat — rogue brush fires. Working from an air-conditioned trailer, his crew aimed an airborne infrared camera through thick smoke and spotted a smoldering blaze.

Using coordinates fed from the drone, airborne firefighters then doused the hot spot from helicopters and watched over a secure Internet feed as the heat signature of the flames cooled.

It was the latest example of once-secret military hardware finding routine civilian uses. Seven surveillance drones are chiefly used to help patrol America's northern and southern borders. But in recent months, they also have helped state and local authorities fight deadly fires, survey damage from floods and tornadoes, and inspect dams and levees.

"People are constantly coming up and wanting a piece of that Predator pie," said Gasho, a former commercial pilot who heads the Customs and Border Protection air operations in Sierra Vista, Ariz., standing beside one of the drones at Libby Army Airfield.

Between March and July, for example, dozens of drone missions were flown between Grand Forks, N.D., and Columbia, Mo. The Predators provided first responders and engineers with live video and radar images of widespread flooding along the Soris, Red and Missouri rivers.

During the summer, drones flew along the Louisiana Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi River to inspect flood damage and the integrity of levees.

Operators studying the drone feeds look for signs that a levee is bulging from pressure of floodwaters, and advise where a swollen river may first overflow its banks. Local officials can then order evacuations and direct help to vulnerable neighborhoods.

In addition to three Predators in Arizona, Customs and Border Protection crews operate two drone aircraft out of Grand Forks, N.D., one from Corpus Christi, Texas, and another in Cocoa Beach, Fla. Plans call for adding three more drones later this year.

But some see dangers as well as benefits in the arrival of the drones.

Privacy experts warn that few guidelines restrict eye-in-the-sky coverage. Jay Stanley, a senior analyst on privacy and technology at the American Civil Liberties Union, says the unregulated use of drone aircraft "leaves the gates wide open for a dramatic increase in surveillance of American life." The drones can detect all manner of activities: from its usual altitude of 20,000 feet, a drone camera can tell if a hiker eight miles away is carrying a backpack.

And aviation security experts worry that pilots operating drones from distant locations may not be able to see and avoid other aircraft in busy air corridors.

"The problem is safety [and] how to share airspace with manned aircraft," said Michael Barr, who teaches aviation safety at USC.

The Homeland Security Department's first drone crashed in 2006. When a console froze during the flight, the ground-based pilot accidentally switched off the fuel line to the engine.

"This was one of these instances where he would have been better off not touching it," said Gasho. "He just panicked. Hit the button and threw away a $7-million airplane."

The crash missed a residential area by 1,000 feet and brought additional scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration. It established a special board to approve airspace for use by unmanned aerial vehicles.

In emergencies, like floods and fires, the FAA will fast-track the approval process, said FAA spokesman Les Dorr.

"But that doesn't short-circuit any of the safety concerns," Dorr said. "We still evaluate it to make sure it can fly safely without danger to people on the ground or pilots in the air."

Indeed, the FAA has yet to approve a request to authorize use of a Customs and Border Protection drone to help firefighters in Texas battle fierce wildfires there last week.

The ability to sense and avoid other aircraft is the "big bugaboo with unmanned aircraft that has prevented them from meeting federal regulations to fly," said Bill English, senior air safety investigator at the National Transportation Safety Board. The FAA requires drone pilots to have direct eye contact with the plane during takeoff and landing to avoid collisions with other aircraft.

Yet because no pilots are on board and the planes can stay aloft for 20 hours at a time, the drones are well suited for dirty, dull and dangerous work.

In April, when ice piled up under bridges and caused the Red River to overflow its banks, a Customs and Border Protection drone flew out of Grand Forks to survey the river around Oslo, Minn. Watching the live footage from the unmanned plane, officials were able to spot a clay levee that appeared about to break and quickly shored it up.

Without the live footage, engineers and rescue teams might not have reached the right place in time, officials said.

"We would have lost a small town of 50 to 80 homes," said Kim Ketterhagen, the mutual aid coordinator for Minnesota's homeland security and emergency management department.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-domestic-drones-20110912,0,1245313,print.story

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Prison officials are set to let some female inmates out early

Women who have children and are convicted of 'non-serious, non-sexual' crimes could start going home as early as next week as the state seeks to relieve overcrowding.

by Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times

September 12, 2011

Reporting from Sacramento

Drastically redefining incarceration in California, prison officials are about to start releasing thousands of female inmates who have children to serve the remainder of their sentences at home.

The move, which could affect nearly half the women held in state facilities, will help California meet a court-imposed deadline to make space in its chronically overcrowded prisons. The policy could be extended to male inmates in the near future, administrators said Monday.

Mothers who were convicted of non-serious, non-sexual crimes — and have two years or less remaining on their sentences — could start going home as early as next week, prisons spokeswoman Dana Toyama said. The women would be required to wear GPS-enabled ankle bracelets and report to parole officers.

The program is "a step in breaking the intergenerational cycle of incarceration," state prisons Secretary Matthew Cate said, arguing that "family involvement is one of the biggest indicators of an inmate's rehabilitation."

But skeptics abound, including prosecutors and crime victims' advocates who opposed the idea as it worked its way through the Legislature last year.

"If they were such great mothers to begin with, they never would have committed the heinous crime that got them sent to state prison," said Harriet Salarno, founder of Sacramento-based Crime Victims United. In many cases, the children might be better off in foster care, Salarno said.

Reuniting families clearly was not the only consideration that led prison officials to opt for home incarceration. In May, the state lost a U.S. Supreme Court appeal of a ruling that had found California's prison overcrowding and the resulting lack of access to medical care amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Now state officials are struggling to meet a strict timeline that requires them to reduce the inmate population by more than 30,000 before July 2013. Gov. Jerry Brown's plan is to let thousands of low-level felons serving relatively short sentences do their time in county jails instead of state prisons.

If a significant number of the state's roughly 150,000 incarcerated men could qualify for the program as "primary caregivers" for their children, early release would go a long way toward easing overcrowding without putting additional strain on local lock-ups.

Prison officials Monday would not say how many male inmates they expected to qualify for home detention. But more than 4,000 of the state's roughly 9,500 female inmates could be eligible, Toyama said.

Since well over 90% of California inmates are men, it is easy to see why prison officials might want to expand the program, said Robert Oakes, legislative director for state Sen. Carol Liu (D-La Cañada Flintridge), who wrote the 2010 bill creating the policy. But that wasn't the original idea.

"In crafting the bill, her intent was to single out female inmates with children," Oakes said. But that could not be done because of a constitutional ban against gender-based discrimination. So the phrase "primary caregiver" was added to the bill.

Any conviction for a violent or sexual felony, or for any crime involving child abuse, would disqualify an inmate from taking part in the program. An escape attempt in the last 10 years, gang membership or an active restraining order also would rule an inmate out, state officials said.

The hope is that keeping kids with their parents, rather than in foster care, will "reduce the likelihood that inmates' children will embark on a life of crime," according to a 2010 memo from Liu's office. At the time the law was proposed, Liu's office said that about 19,000 children had mothers in California prisons in 2005, and that 79% of incarcerated mothers in the state never received visitors while they were behind bars.

While many of the inmates who win early release would serve their remaining sentences at home, others would go to drug treatment centers or halfway houses. All would be permitted to get jobs or go to school.

Corrections officials say they would notify victims and local law enforcement before sending inmates back to the community.

Brown has said that California would cover the costs of housing state inmates in county facilities. But local officials, many of whom already are struggling with crowded jails, worry that cash-strapped leaders in Sacramento might someday cut off the money.

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, who has predicted Brown's prisoner realignment proposal would lead to a spike in crime, said Monday that he had not heard about the plan to release some mothers from state custody.

"If properly supported, with the proper amount of supervision, it's not a bad idea," Cooley said, noting that female offenders tend to be less violent than men. But, he added, "do I have any confidence in state prison officials? Not a whole lot."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prison-home-20110913,0,701506,print.story

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More Mexico youths die from violence than car wrecks, report says

Government statistics reviewed by the newspaper show that in 2008 and 2009, the second and third complete years of Mexico's drug war, violent deaths of people between 15 and 29 shot up about 150%. The figures rose almost equally across various narrower age brackets within that group.

Half of those homicides occurred in five states that include some of those worst hit by the current violence: Chihuahua, Baja California, Guerrero, Sinaloa and the state of Mexico, on the border with Mexico City. Violence is now the leading cause of death among Mexicans between the ages of 15 and 29, overtaking car accidents, the report said.

The federal government's database on deaths tied to organized crime shows 1,638 young people were killed in suspected drug-related attacks in 2008, a number that rose to 2,511 in 2009 and 3,741 in 2010 (graphic link in Spanish).

Poor education and job prospects often pull young Mexicans into the poorly paid informal economy or into organized crime. Citing a congressional report, El Universal reported in June that some 23,000 young people had been recruited into the ranks of Mexico's powerful drug cartels since President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels soon after taking office in 2006 (link in Spanish). The same report said the drug war has left at least 10,000 orphans.

Separately, Mexico's drug war appears be changing young people's attitudes toward security and penal measures.

A national survey on "constitutional culture" conducted by the National Autonomous University of Mexico and released in August found that the largest segment of the population that approves the use of torture and death penalty against suspected cartel criminals was between 15 and 19 years old (link in Spanish).

According to the report, that age group has the most hard-line views on security, approving of the killing of suspected drug traffickers without trial as well as the use of torture to gain information from drug suspects.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2011/09/youth-young-people-mexico-drug-war-homicide-accidents.html

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From Google News

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California

Redevelopment credited for Pittsburg's push against crime

by Rick Radin and Paul Burgarino
Contra Costa Times

While politicians and judges in the state capital decide the fate of redevelopment agencies, they only need look about 50 miles down the Sacramento River to see the massive changes redevelopment has brought to a blue-collar city that was once an East Bay crime hotbed.

A couple decades ago, the landscape of downtown Pittsburg was dotted with dilapidated buildings, parks filled with drug addicts and a pervasive fear among residents for their safety.

Today, after seven years of one of the most ambitious redevelopment efforts in the state, the blight and crime have largely disappeared from downtown, replaced with a new elementary school, several restaurants and specialty stores, townhouses -- and even a caviar shop.

"When I moved my business down here (in 2004), everyone thought I was nuts," said lifelong resident Marisa Belleci, who runs a multimedia marketing business in the same building her father owned when she was a child.

"Now, those same people say I was smart and made a good decision."

Pittsburg reported last year that its crime rate had fallen to a 50-year low. The per-capita crime rate, adjusted for a population of 100,000, fell nearly 47 percent from 1990 to 2010.

Pittsburg has not recorded a homicide this year, an astonishing accomplishment for a city in which they were once typical, according to Detective Chuck Blazer, a 17-year veteran of the force. Pittsburg has had at least two homicides each year since

Blazer patrols the city as part of the Neighborhood Improvement Team, a community policing unit that works with residents to oust criminals before they get a foothold.

"This old, rundown neighborhood has a new face," Blazer said. "Where before we might make several arrests in a day, now we often don't make any."

The extent to which the city's redevelopment efforts deserve most of the credit for the steady decline in crime is open to debate. However, many residents and city leaders say it has played a huge role.

"I remember hearing, 'My husband won't let me come down here.' Now, you look out and you see people coming here to the farmers market on Saturday, walking on the street with their dogs and strollers. It's just delightful," said Chris Lanzafame, owner of a 96-year-old family-run furniture business downtown.

Like many longtime residents, Lanzafame credits redevelopment for bringing new investors into the community and assisting the city's aggressive effort to uproot crime.

Redevelopment funds, which come from city-issued bonds and increases in area property tax, were used to purchase and rehabilitate troubled properties. Pittsburg, which has the fourth-largest redevelopment area in the Bay Area behind San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco, has put more than $100 million of redevelopment funds into the downtown; the money has gone toward new or remodeled buildings, adding sidewalks and streets, and removing troubled properties that police say are the root cause of many crime problems.

"Redevelopment has been a crucial piece. It's helped provide the money to allow us to take away those buildings and areas that attracted vandalism and theft," police Capt. Brian Addington said.

In 2007, Pittsburg worked with a local developer on a $3.25 million deal to purchase two motels on 10th Street with a troubled reputation, relocate the tenants and raze the structures.

The site of a card room where police regularly broke up fights has a new building that houses the offices of the Chamber of Commerce, Blazer said.

But with the future of redevelopment cloudy statewide, Pittsburg may be unable to do more.

Under a new policy introduced by Gov. Jerry Brown that is being challenged in the state Supreme Court, cities and counties can maintain their redevelopment agencies by paying a fee. Pittsburg's fee in the first year would be $6.5 million, a lot of cash for a city with a $30 million annual budget.

Redevelopment was not the only tool Pittsburg used to curb crime. It was complemented by a major emphasis on better police work, according to many residents.

"There's been a concentration of police presence downtown, where a lot of the redevelopment money has been spent," said Frank Gordon, a 31-year resident of the city and a former planning commissioner. "The downtown was pretty much the Wild, Wild West back in the '80s."

Before Will Casey, the city's current mayor, became police chief in 1993, officers were often slow to respond to calls, and criminals would be long gone before they arrived, Lanzafame said.

He remembers a time in the late '70s when his business was burglarized nine times in 15 days, usually after the suspects broke through his plate-glass windows.

"A lot of people thought we were crazy, having 11-foot-high windows," he said.

Casey, with the help of current police Chief Aaron Baker, beefed up patrols and focused on drug dealers.

"The downtown became unattractive to drug dealers because they got taken on by the police immediately," Casey said.

Redevelopment money funded some of the closed-circuit cameras that continuously monitor certain spots of downtown.

However, UC Berkeley law professor Frank Zimring cautioned against attributing all of Pittsburg's decline in crime to redevelopment and better policing.

Crime rates were at a high nationwide in the early '90s and fell dramatically in lock-step with Pittsburg's decline, said Zimring, author of "The Great American Crime Decline."

"I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions that the crime rate can be reliably contained by police," he said. "However, a careful and cautious accounting might well conclude that police-activated changes are responsible for part of the good news."

Pittsburg's use of redevelopment money to remove unkempt homes with absent landlords also helped disperse crime, according to police.

"I'm sure when Pittsburg redeveloped and got rid of some of their housing, those committing crimes were displaced all over the county," Antioch police Chief Allan Cantando said. "I'm sure we got some, but I'm sure Bay Point did, I'm sure Oakley did, I'm sure even Brentwood did."

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18879656

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Secretary Napolitano Announces "If You See Something, Say Something™" Campaign Partnerships

Release Date: September 12, 2011

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

WASHINGTON—Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced new partnerships between the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) "If You See Something, Say Something™" public awareness campaign and several sports organizations and collegiate universities. Partnerships include National Football League (NFL) teams, Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, the U.S. Open Tennis Championships (USTA), Ohio State University, and the University of Oklahoma.

"Every citizen plays a critical role in identifying and reporting suspicious activities and threats," said Secretary Napolitano. "By expanding the ‘If You See Something, Say Something™" campaign we are working together to ensure the safety and security of fans, players, employees, and students."

The "If You See Something, Say Something™" campaign -- originally implemented by New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority and now licensed to DHS for a nationwide campaign -- is a simple and effective program to engage the public and key frontline employees to identify and report indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats to the proper transportation and law enforcement authorities.

Over the past year, DHS has collaborated closely with federal, state, local and private sector partners, as well as the Department of Justice, to expand the "If You See Something, Say Something™" campaign and the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) Initiative—an administration effort to train state and local law enforcement to recognize behaviors and indicators related to terrorism, crime and other threats; standardize how those observations are documented and analyzed; and ensure the sharing of those reports with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) led Joint Terrorism Task Forces for further investigation.

The "If You See Something, Say Something™" campaign originally partnered with the NFL in January 2011 during the Super Bowl XLVI, and is now expanding the campaign to the Arizona Cardinals, Baltimore Ravens, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, and San Diego Chargers with digital and video materials displayed at each stadium. Similarly, the "If You See Something, Say Something™" campaign partnerships with MLB began last season and has now expanded to the Chicago White Sox and the Baltimore Orioles. The USTA has announced their partnership with the "If You See Something, Say Something™" campaign for a second year, and have displayed digital and print materials during all matches.

Other partnerships with the "If You See Something, Say Something™" campaign have been recently launched by the states of Florida and Maryland, the cities of Baltimore and Newark, the Inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix, and state and major urban area fusion centers across the country.

DHS will continue to expand the "If You See Something, Say Something™" campaign nationally to help America's business, communities and citizens remain vigilant and play an active role in keeping the country safe.

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/20110912-napolitano-announces-see-something-say-something-partnerships.shtm

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