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From the Los Angeles Times

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Two Fullerton police officers charged in homeless man's death

One is charged with second-degree murder and another is accused of involuntary manslaughter in the slaying of Kelly Thomas, who suffered from schizophrenia.

by Abby Sewell, Richard Winton and Scott Gold

September 22, 2011

Orange County prosecutors charged two veteran Fullerton police officers in the death of a mentally ill homeless man, accusing them of a callous cascade of violence against Kelly Thomas as he begged for his life.

Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas on Wednesday said what began as routine questioning by police devolved into a "beating at the hands of an angry police officer," with other officers eventually joining in. He stressed that Thomas did not provoke the attack and that all of his movements were purely defensive.

"This never had to happen," Rackauckas said. "And it never should have happened."

Photos: Kelly Thomas case

Rackauckas, a former paratrooper and judge, was unusually animated as he announced the charges, at one point raising his fists like a bar brawler to mimic the alleged actions of one officer.

His account of Thomas' death was vivid and chilling, and inside his office, onlookers choked back tears and gasped at the details as he spoke. Outside, dozens of supporters of Thomas' family watched on television monitors and erupted in an audible cheer as the charges were announced.

Officer Manuel Ramos, 37, a 10-year veteran, was charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in the beating death of Thomas, 37, at a bus depot. If convicted, Ramos could face a life prison term. He remained in jail Wednesday, with his bail set at $1 million, after his arraignment was delayed Wednesday.

It is extremely rare for an officer to face murder charges for actions on duty, and Rackauckas said he could not think of another such case in Orange County.

Rackauckas took the unusual step of attending Ramos' first court appearance. At one point during the hearing, he invited Ron Thomas, who has led a crusade for justice for his son, to address the judge. After the hearing, the father expressed satisfaction that Ramos was facing serious criminal charges.

"He's wearing handcuffs right now — which is great — for the murder of my son," he said. "I hope the man is hurting, hurting inside.… I'm completely torn up, but I'm satisfied to an extent."

A second officer, Cpl. Jay Cicinelli, 39, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and using excessive force; Cicinelli faces a maximum prison term of four years. He pleaded not guilty, posted bail of $25,000 and was scheduled to be released from custody late Wednesday.

All told, six police officers with a combined 72 years on the force participated in the July 5 physical altercation at the Fullerton bus depot. Ramos was the first; according to Rackauckas' account. Ramos stood over a frightened and disoriented Thomas and made a show of snapping on latex gloves.

"See my fists?" Ramos asked Thomas.

"Yeah," Thomas replied. "What about them?"

"They are getting ready to f— you up."

"Start punching, dude," Thomas replied.

In the next nine minutes and 40 seconds, Thomas was tackled, hit with a baton, pinned to the ground, punched repeatedly in the ribs, kneed in the head, Tasered four times and then struck in the face with the Taser device eight times, Rackauckas said.

Any response from Thomas was "in self-defense, in pain and in panic," Rackauckas said.

According to an 11-week investigation, Thomas initially struggled, his screams echoing across the parking lot: "I can't breathe!" "I'm sorry, dude!" "OK, OK!" "Please!" "Dad, help me." But, Rackauckas said, the beating continued even after Thomas stopped struggling and screaming, even after blood began pooling around his body.

Hospital records showed that Thomas suffered brain injuries, a shattered nose, a smashed cheekbone, broken ribs and internal bleeding. The cause of death, Rackauckas said, was "mechanical compression of the thorax," basically being crushed and unable to breath. There were no traces of drugs or alcohol in his body. He died five days later after he was taken off life support.

Much of the evidence came from a recording device attached to Ramos' uniform, which all Fullerton officers wear. The investigation also included 151 witness interviews, seven surveillance videos and two videos recorded by witnesses on their cellphones.

Ramos' attorney, John D. Barnett, said the officer was doing his job under difficult conditions.

"Officer Ramos was confronted that evening with a non-compliant suspect with a history of violence," said Barnett, who represented one of the Los Angeles police officers accused of beating Rodney King in 1991. "Officer Ramos had the responsibility and the duty to detain, restrain and arrest him.… This was an attempt to use less force, not more."

Barnett contended that the charges would have a chilling effect on policing.

"Police officers who risk their lives daily … now have to be concerned with being charged in the courtroom for simply performing their duties," Barnett said.

Cicinelli's attorney did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Rackauckas was deliberate in pointing out that the case should not be viewed as a broad indictment of police in Orange County.

"In Orange County, we generally trust our law enforcement — and with good reason," Rackauckas said. "I believe the law enforcement we have in Orange County is second to none."

But he added that authorities must work to protect the covenant between the community and law enforcement — "including prosecuting police officers if they violate the law."

Rackauckas cited numerous aspects of the case that made criminal charges inevitable. Thomas, who suffered from schizophrenia, was a well-known character in downtown Fullerton — indeed, Rackauckas said, Ramos knew Thomas from his patrols in the city.

The district attorney also said Thomas was clearly unarmed, non-combative and appeared confused by his interaction with police, who had been summoned to the depot to investigate reports of a man peering into car windows and pulling on the handles of parked cars.

Ramos repeatedly ordered Thomas to sit upright on a curb with his legs out straight and his hands on his knees. "I can't do both," Thomas told Ramos.

"Well, you're going to have to learn real quick," Ramos replied.

"It would be obvious to any reasonable observer that Kelly Thomas had cognitive issues and difficulty in following Ramos' instructions," Rackauckas said.

Rackauckas said the turning point in the confrontation came when Ramos threatened Thomas.

"He was going to hurt him for no apparent reason," Rackauckas said.

The turning point for Cicinelli, the district attorney said, came when the officer — after using his Taser four times on Thomas, once near Thomas' heart — began beating Thomas in the face with the device itself. Rackauckas called that behavior "gratuitous and unnecessary," and noted that the investigation showed that Thomas offered no response to those blows, indicating that he was "down and seriously injured."

"That is not 'protecting and serving,' " the district attorney said.

Rackauckas said the four other officers were not charged largely because they did not witness the exchange between Ramos and Thomas and were unaware that Ramos had issued threats.

Document: Read the district attorney's report

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kelly-thomas-20110922,0,3012540,print.story

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Convicting an officer is a tough challenge, experts say

Jurors are usually sympathetic toward police officers and even when prosecutors get a conviction, the sentence may be reduced.

by Jack Leonard, Times Staff Writer

September 22, 2011

Murder charges against on-duty police officers — such as the one announced by Orange County prosecutors in the Fullerton beating case — are rarely filed, and successful prosecutions in such cases are almost unheard of in California.

Legal experts said jurors who are naturally sympathetic toward law enforcement are not easily persuaded that an officer has committed the ultimate crime, even after seeing video of the death.

Ira Salzman, who has represented police officers, said defense attorneys in Orange County will have the added benefit of jurors who look favorably toward law enforcement and can make a forceful argument that police had the legal right to use force against a non-complying suspect.

Photos: Kelly Thomas case

Investigators interviewed more than 150 witnesses, analyzed video and reviewed stacks of documents as part of an intensive 11-week investigation leading up to the decision to charge Officer Manuel Ramos with second-degree murder in the July 10 death of a mentally ill homeless man.

But to obtain a murder conviction, Orange County prosecutors will have to convince jurors that Ramos intended to kill Kelly Thomas or acted with a conscious disregard for life.

Over the last two decades, prosecutors from Los Angeles, Alameda and Riverside counties have tried a handful of similar murder cases with mixed results. Last year, a Los Angeles jury rejected a murder charge against a Bay Area transit officer who shot an unarmed man on a train station platform, but found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

Johannes Mehserle testified that the shooting was an accident when he mistakenly drew his pistol instead of a Taser. Mehserle was sentenced to two years in prison and served about a year behind bars.

Previous murder cases against police officers have gone nowhere: In 1993, Ramos' attorney, John Barnett, successfully defended LAPD Officer Douglas J. Iversen on a murder charge in the shooting of an unarmed tow truck driver who was driving away from a southwest Los Angeles gas station. Two separate juries deadlocked on the charges before a judge dismissed the case.

Even when prosecutors are able to win a murder conviction, the outcome may not be to their liking:

In 1983, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Robert Armstrong was charged with shooting a pregnant woman and her fetus during an illegal raid. She survived but her fetus did not.

A jury convicted him of second-degree murder, but a judge reduced the conviction, and — despite the fact that Armstrong had disguised his identity as a police officer and set up the confrontation with a false call to police — sentenced him to a year in jail. An appeals court later reinstated the murder verdict, but allowed the one-year sentence to stand.

At other times, however, juries have shown willingness to convict law enforcement officers of manslaughter charges while rejecting murder. Ramos is also charged with involuntary manslaughter, as is Cpl. Jay Cicinelli, who arrived later to help Ramos.

To prove involuntary manslaughter, prosecutors must show that the officers acted with criminal negligence.

In 2003, a Riverside County case dealt with a local district attorney's investigator who was trying to detain a woman whose young children were declared wards of the court. He fired into a truck, killing the driver. A prosecutor argued for murder but got an involuntary manslaughter conviction instead, and the investigator was sentenced to seven years in prison.

In the Fullerton case, "if they get a conviction on a murder charge, that would be extraordinary," said Laurie Levenson, professor of law at Loyola Law School and a former federal prosecutor. Jurors and the public tend to give police "the benefit of the doubt, especially where you have a fast-developing scenario," she said.

But Salzman said Ramos' alleged threat against Thomas — "Now see my fists? They are getting ready to f— you up" — could give the defense problems.

Police are allowed to use threats in an effort to gain cooperation from a suspect and avoid using force, but jurors could be offended by the profanity, said Salzman, who regularly represents police officers in court.

The defense will probably have to call on Ramos to testify in order to explain what he was thinking when he made the threat, Salzman said — a risky strategy.

"In most cases you want to avoid calling your client to the stand unless it's absolutely necessary," he said. "There's an old phrase: 'The case was going great until the client testified.'"

In announcing the charges Wednesday, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said Ramos "set in motion the events" that led to the death of Thomas, 37. He said Ramos had threatened Thomas, showing "a conscious disregard" for his life. "A reasonable officer would know that acting the way Ramos did would create such a risk," Rackauckas said.

Second-degree murder carries a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Involuntary manslaughter carries up to four years in prison.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kelly-thomas-legal-20110922,0,3669027,print.story

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Kelly Thomas: Councilwoman calls for police oversight panel

Fullerton Councilwoman Sharon Quirk-Silva said Wednesday she will seek to create a police oversight board after prosecutors charged two city police officers in the fatal beating of a mentally ill homeless man.

In the wake of the beating death in July of Kelly Thomas, Quirk-Silva said, city leaders need to examine and reform Fullerton Police Department policies and procedures “that are lacking.”

The oversight board Quirk-Silver is proposing could be either a citizens advisory group or a panel of people with law enforcement and legal expertise, similar to the Los Angeles Police Commission, the councilwoman said.

Photos: Kelly Thomas' death

“I'm open to researching how things operate in other cities and how it would best work here,” Quirk-Silva said. “I don't want add another level of government and hinder the police department. But I want it [the panel] to be productive, a board that goes both ways, working for the public and for the police.”

The proposal will be introduced at the next council meeting, she said.

The Orange County district attorney's office on Wednesday charged two officers, Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli, in Thomas' death.

Quirk-Silva praised D.A. Tony Rackauckas for his actions and said his presentation outlining the charges were "more disturbing and more revealing than I even expected."

Particularly disturbing, she said, was the D.A.'s account of how Ramos allegedly escalated the incident, including allegedly telling Thomas he intended to beat him, and an allegation that Thomas was smashed in the face repeatedly with a Taser.

"That part -- that was horrifying and devastating. ... That was the turning point for me. I had no idea that had even occurred," Quirk-Silva said. "That was so wrong, the opposite of what we expect from police officers. You expect police officers to protect the public and that they have cause for arrest or to hold somebody. But this seemed like a very deliberate attempt to hurt somebody and was beyond what I imagined."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/09/fullerton-councilwoman-to-ask-for-police-oversight-board.html

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Kelly Thomas and justice in Fullerton

The Orange County district attorney's decision to file murder charges against an officer in the beating death of a homeless man is welcome. But the public deserves more answers.

September 22, 2011

Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas fulfilled the highest standards of his office by conducting a thorough yet timely investigation into a homeless man's death at the hands of Fullerton police officers. The unusual nature of the charges he has filed — it is rare for a police officer to be charged with murder in the execution of his job, as one of them was — indicates the deep level of consideration that prosecutors gave the case of Kelly Thomas, who was beaten by police in July during an altercation outside a Fullerton bus depot.

Whatever the outcome of the criminal charges, though, they don't bring resolution to the case. Rather, they pave the way for other official actions that should be undertaken by the city of Fullerton.

Rackauckas brought charges against two of the officers involved — the second officer was charged with involuntary manslaughter and use of excessive force — but determined that four other officers had committed no crime. That does not mean their actions met police standards, and the Police Department should be investigating to determine whether administrative action is warranted.

Beyond that, the troubling circumstances surrounding the beating — what Rackauckas described as the threat by one officer, Thomas' pleas that he couldn't breathe and cries for his father, as well as the original lackluster response of the police chief to Thomas' death — indicate that a more systematic examination of the Fullerton Police Department is in order. A commission that is independent of the department should examine whether the officers involved had histories of excessive-force complaints, whether a relatively few officers are responsible for the bulk of complaints and whether the department has investigated such complaints properly.

Now that his investigation is over, Rackauckas should release the surveillance video of the beating, the coroner's report, the police officers' digital recordings of the altercation and other key investigative information the public has been clamoring for. Though the district attorney's inclination will understandably be to avoid prejudicing future jurors so that the eventual verdict in the case will stand, there are other ways to accomplish that, such as carefully screening the jury pool. Meanwhile, the residents of Fullerton, and the public at large, have been waiting more than two months for answers that should be forthcoming now.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-fullerton-20110922,0,1553563,print.story

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Georgia puts convict to death despite protest

Supporters of Troy Davis maintain his innocence in off-duty officer's '89 killing.

by Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times

September 21, 2011

Reporting from Jackson, Ga.

Despite his claims of innocence and a roster of high-powered supporters, Troy Davis was executed late Wednesday night for the 1989 murder of an off-duty Savannah, Ga., police officer.

Strapped to a gurney in the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison about four hours after his scheduled 7 p.m. execution, Davis, 42, lifted his head and used some of his last words to deny his guilt to the family of the victim, Mark MacPhail.

The incident that night 22 years ago was not his fault, he said, according to media witnesses. He said he did not even have a gun.

"I personally did not kill your son, father and brother," he said. "I am innocent."

He was pronounced dead at 11:08 p.m., and a coroner's van hauled away his body.

It was the end of a drama that was followed by thousands of death penalty opponents and others around the world. It began on an August night in downtown Savannah, when MacPhail, an off-duty officer working as a security guard, was gunned down in a bus station parking lot as he came to the aid of a homeless man. Davis, whose nickname, according to court documents, was RAH, for "Rough as Hell," was convicted two years later in a jury trial and sentenced to death.

But beginning in 2000, several witnesses whose testimony was crucial to his conviction began recanting their statements. Davis would ultimately face four execution dates as he fought for his life in the courts.

On orders of the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal district court judge heard the new evidence in 2010 but determined that much of it was "largely smoke and mirrors," with the recantations unreliable, partial or unbelievable.

This week, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to grant Davis clemency. Outcry continued on the streets of Atlanta and in front of U.S. embassies around the world. During the legal odyssey, Davis picked up support from former President Carter, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pope Benedict XVI, former FBI Director William Sessions and former Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.).

On Wednesday, Davis' attorneys tried several last-ditch measures to win a reprieve or clemency, including petitioning the Georgia Supreme Court, the pardons and paroles board and, finally, the Supreme Court.

The high court held onto his attorneys' two-page petition for more than four hours, but ultimately refused to intervene. The justices issued no comment and no dissent, just a one-sentence order:

"The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the court is denied."

Justice Clarence Thomas is the justice for the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Georgia, Florida and Alabama. Although emergency appeals are sent first to the justice who oversees the circuit, all nine justices decide the issue.

On Wednesday afternoon, Davis' supporters began descending on Jackson, a small town 45 minutes south of Atlanta. They included Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP, and Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

Across the street from the prison, supporters held a rally and news conference at the Towaliga County Line Missionary Baptist Church. A crowd filled the pews, some with shirts that read, "I am Troy Davis."

"Make no mistakes," Edward DuBose, head of the Georgia NAACP, told them. "They call it an execution; we call it a murder."

The Rev. Al Sharpton called Davis the victim of a "criminal justice system that will not listen to reason or right."

Martina Davis-Correia, Davis' sister, took the stage, thin and in a wheelchair, surrounded by fellow family members. She said she had been battling cancer for 10 years. "His life hangs in the balance," she said. "And he knows he's an innocent man."

Inside the prison grounds, a few hundred Davis supporters chanted, prayed and sang.

Fewer than a dozen counter-protesters stood in a separate roped-off area. Their T-shirts included the likeness of MacPhail and this tribute: "He answered the call and gave us his all."

Dawn Dalton, a friend of the MacPhail family from Columbus, Ga., said the execution had been fully vetted by the court system.

"I'm here to support Mark, and I'm here for justice for Mark," she said.

After the high court refused to intercede, the NAACP's Jealous went on live TV. "It's a sad day for our country," he said.

An Amnesty International member passed out a statement from Cox: "The state of Georgia has proven that the death penalty is too great a power to give to the government."

Cox said the protesters and activists would recommit to try to overturn the death penalty in the U.S.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-0922-troy-davis-20110922,0,4329960,print.story

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Texas executes man in 1998 dragging death

One of three people convicted in the 1998 dragging death of a black man in Jasper, Texas, was executed Wednesday night for his part in the slaying, the Associated Press has reported.

The racially motivated killing of James Byrd Jr. stunned the nation, sparking protests, inspiring the movie "Jasper, Texas," and leading to state and federal hate-crime legislation.

One of Byrd's sisters planned to be in Huntsville, Texas, for the execution; another planned to hold a prayer vigil in Jasper, according to the Beaumont Enterprise.

The night he was killed, Byrd had accepted a ride home from a white man he knew, Shawn Berry, then 24, and two of Berry's friends -- John King, then 23, and Lawrence Brewer, then 31. King and Brewer were later identified as white supremacists.

Brewer, now 44, was the one scheduled for execution.

Instead of taking Byrd home, the men drove him down a remote county road, beat him unconscious, urinated on his body, chained him by his ankles to the truck and dragged him for three miles. When the truck made a hard turn at a bend in the road, Byrd's head struck a cement culvert and he was decapitated. The three men then dumped his remains in front of an African American cemetery and went to a barbecue.

The three were later tried and convicted of Byrd's murder. Brewer and King received the death penalty, while Berry was sentenced to life in prison. King is appealing his sentence, but Brewer had no appeals pending late Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general's office told The Times.

In a July interview with Beaumont's KFDM-TV, the first Brewer has granted since he was convicted in 1999, he admitted driving the truck but said he was not responsible for killing Byrd.

"I know in my heart I participated in assaulting him, but I had nothing to do with the killing as far as dragging him or driving the truck or anything," Brewer said.

"I'm for the death penalty. I feel that if you take a life you should pay for it by taking your own life if you're actually guilty of taking a life," Brewer said.

He also said that for him, the death penalty will be a relief.

"This is a good out for me," he said. "I don't want a life sentence, period, with or without parole. I wouldn't be happy with that."

FBI joins forces with LAPD on gang slayings

The three-month Save Our Streets operation solved 32 deaths and led to 168 arrests in the gang-plagued South Bureau.

by Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

September 22, 2011

Kashmier James had spent most of Christmas Day 2010 with family before heading off in the evening to visit with high school friends in the Manchester Square neighborhood of South Los Angeles.

As she arrived at her destination in the 1700 block of 85th Street near Western Avenue, half a dozen people stood talking on the sidewalk.

With her 3-year-old daughter still strapped in her car seat, James got out of her vehicle. Within moments, she was hit with a fusillade of gunshots.

Interactive: Gang killing details

For months, the James killing and dozens of other gang-related slayings like it remained unsolved.

Taxed detectives finally got some assistance in July when the FBI joined forces with the Los Angeles Police Department's criminal gang homicide unit for a three-month operation called Save Our Streets.

The goal was to clear the backlog of unsolved gang killings in the LAPD's South Bureau and to put a crimp in ongoing gang violence in an era of shrinking resources.

"It's no longer an FBI strategy or an LAPD strategy," said Robert Clark, an FBI assistant special agent in charge of the bureau's anti-gang efforts in Los Angeles. "It's a collaborative strategy."

This year, detectives and agents teamed to solve 32 homicides, resulting in 168 related arrests, Clark said.

In comparison, the team solved 27 killings and made 28 arrests from July 1 to Sept. 30, 2010.

The concept has been emulated at the Milwaukee field office, which teamed up with police there to combat gang crime.

The slaying of James, 25, in front of her child was decried as a depraved act, but that wasn't enough to convince reluctant witnesses to come forward in area hit hard by ongoing gang feuds, authorities said.

A week after James was killed — and just two blocks away — 14-year-old Taburi Watson was fatally shot while riding his bicycle.

Complicating matters, the slayings came as budget cuts forced the LAPD to drastically limit overtime and, by extension, the number of hours dedicated to investigations.

The case clearance rate has jumped with the FBI presence, authorities said.

Normally, the average annual solve rate among South L.A. gang cases is around 50%, said veteran LAPD Det. Sal LaBarbera. The clearance number under Save Our Streets is above 70%.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gang-homicides-20110922,0,4043886,print.story

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Loughner ordered to appear in Ariz. court next week

Against his attorneys' wishes, Loughner wants to travel to his hometown of Tucson for the hearing. There, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns will consider whether it's possible he can be made mentally competent for trial and whether his stay at a prison facility in Springfield, Mo., will be extended, the Associated Press reported .

Loughner has been at the facility since May 27, after experts found him mentally unfit for trial. Experts have said that he suffers from schizophrenia.

Loughner has pleaded not guilty to 49 felony charges stemming from the January shooting in Tucson that killed six people and wounded 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

In a conference call between lawyers and the judge on Monday, Loughner's defense attorneys opposed a request by prosecutors that Loughner travel to next week's hearing. Defense attorney Judy Clarke argued that he would not be able to help them make a case against extending his prison stay and said she saw nothing in the law that required his presence, the Associated Press reported.

“He is on suicide watch. He has been described as gravely disabled. We think it's an unnecessary risk to bring him to a hearing,” Clarke said.

Prosecutors argued that the hearing could not take place without Loughner and cited a federal law that implies his right to attend.

Burns agreed with the prosecutors and ruled that he must attend the hearing on Sept. 28.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/

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From Google News

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NY police eyed US citizens in secret intelligence effort

Documents detailing surveillance program in Muslim communities undercut claim that officers only follow leads when investigating terrorism

The documents describe in extraordinary detail a secret program intended to catalog life inside Muslim neighborhoods as people immigrated, got jobs, became citizens and started businesses. The documents undercut the NYPD's claim that its officers only follow leads when investigating terrorism.

It started with one group, Moroccans, but the documents show police intended to build intelligence files on other ethnicities.

Undercover officers snapped photographs of restaurants frequented by Moroccans, including one that was noted for serving "religious Muslims." Police documented where Moroccans bought groceries, which hotels they visited and where they prayed. While visiting an apartment used by new Moroccan immigrants, an officer noted in his reports that he saw two Qurans and a calendar from a nearby mosque.

It was called the Moroccan Initiative.

The information was recorded in NIPPED computers, officials said, so that if police ever received a specific tip about a Moroccan terrorist, officers looking for him would have details about the entire community at their fingertips.

The documents show how New York's rich heritage as a place where immigrants traditionally have blended in and built their lives now clashes with today's New York, where police see blending in as one of the first priorities for would-be terrorists.

To prevent attacks, police monitored the path that generations of immigrants followed: getting an apartment, learning English, finding work, assimilating into the culture. Activities such as haircuts and gym workouts were transformed from mundane daily routines into police data points.

A U.S. citizen in Queens, for example, starts work each day at what police labeled "a known Moroccan barbershop."

Started under Bush

The AP previously revealed the secret operations of the NIPPED intelligence division as it mapped the Muslim community in and around New York, monitored life in ethnic neighborhoods and scrutinized mosques. The Moroccan Initiative was one of the division's projects.

Such programs began with help from the CIA under President George W. Bush and have continued with at least the tacit support of President Barack Obama, whose administration repeatedly has sidestepped questions about them. It is unclear whether Mayor Michael Bloomberg oversaw the programs. He has refused to comment directly about them.

In response to the AP's earlier stories, the CIA's inspector general is investigating whether its unusually close relationship with the NIPPED was unlawful.

NIPPED spokesman Paul Browne did not return messages seeking comment about the Moroccan Initiative. In an earlier email, he said the department was not involved in wholesale spying, but rather was trying to document the likely whereabouts of terrorists.

"The unit's personnel would try to establish, for example, what border crossing a terrorist entering New York would use, what flop house he'd use, what Internet cafe he'd frequent to communicate, etc.," he wrote.

It's unclear exactly when the initiative began and whether it continues in any form. Current and former officials told the AP that it started in response to the 2003 suicide bombings that killed 45 people in the Moroccan city of Casablanca and the 2005 train bombing in Madrid that was linked to Moroccan terrorists.

In early meetings, police were told there was no specific threat to New York from Moroccans, officials said, but they were instructed to gather intelligence on the Moroccan community because of concerns Moroccan terrorists might strike here too.

NIPPED intelligence chief David Cohen, a former senior CIA officer, oversaw the program, current and former officials said. Many of the documents obtained by the AP were prepared for Police Commissioner Ray Kelly but because of the volume of such documents his office receives, it's unclear whether he read them.

Unenforceable law?

New York City law prohibits police from using race, religion or ethnicity as "the determinative factor" for any law enforcement action. Civil liberties advocates have said that is so ambiguous it makes the law unenforceable. The NIPPED has said intelligence officers do not use racial profiling or troll ethnic neighborhoods for information.

The documents obtained by the AP, many of which were marked "secret," include a list of "Moroccan Locations," a virtual tour of the city's Moroccan neighborhoods. Photos of local businesses were accompanied by notes from plainclothes officers, known as rakers, who quietly kept tabs on ethnic neighborhoods and eavesdropped on conversations.

"A lot of these locations were innocent," said an official involved in the effort, who like many others interviewed by the AP spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive police operations. "They just happened to be in the community."

Sometimes the notes recorded in police files were detailed, such as the officer who reported that a local sandwich shop was close to a mosque and said the store was closed during Friday prayers.

"The restaurant serves only Halal meat," the document said. "The majority of the customers are religious Muslims."

Halal meat is prepared under religious rules similar to kosher food.

Other businesses were described with fewer details. But in every case, the officers noted the ethnicity of the owners.

"In America, you don't put people under suspicion without good reason," said Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who reviewed some of the documents obtained by the AP and has urged the Justice Department to investigate. "The idea that people in a group are suspect because of being members of a group is profiling, plain and simple."

Amusement then anger

Business owners in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, where many of the pictures were taken, at first expressed amusement at seeing themselves alongside their friends and neighbors in documents compiled by officers hunting for terrorists.

"Police come here for what? We cut hair all day," said Amine Darhbach, a U.S. citizen barber who charges $12 for a haircut and sends a portion of his earnings to his family in Morocco each month.

As they flipped through the documents, they said they grudgingly accepted the police attention. It is hardly news to them that, since the 2001 terrorist attacks, Muslims are under greater scrutiny by the public and law enforcement.

"We've been harassed for so long, it doesn't make any sense to complain," said Leo Santini, a cafe owner and U.S. citizen who changed his name from Mohamed Hussein because he thought he would be treated better without such an Arab name. His three American kids, he said, "don't look Arab, so they won't have any problems."

Finally, there was frustration and anger about being included in police documents.

"All I want is the best for my daughter and my community and to be treated like a new American citizen," said Sanaa Bergha, whose travel agency was among the businesses photographed in the intelligence files.

Like others, Bergha said that, if asked, she would talk to police about how she could help keep the city safe. But she's only spoken to the police twice, she said. Once was after she was burglarized. The second was when she reported customers she suspected of making fraudulent documents.

The documents on the Moroccan businesses were compiled by a secretive team called the Demographics Unit, which police originally denied existed. After the AP obtained police documents describing the unit as a team of 16 officers with a mission to map and monitor ethnic neighborhoods, the department said the Demographics Unit used to exist but actually never had more than eight officers.

Only followed leads?

Browne, the department's spokesman, has said the unit only followed leads. There is no indication in the documents, however, that police were only investigating criminal leads. Information about crimes was included in the Moroccan Initiative files, but these do not appear to be the program's focus.

"The Demographics Team was instructed by me to re-canvas the city for any new locations and they came across a newly identified hotel that is referred to Moroccan tourists," an unidentified supervisor wrote in an undated update on the initiative.

One police document, for example, lists taxi companies and Dunkin Donuts and Subway franchises known to hire Moroccans and other Arabs. A local gym and barber shop also are mentioned. The end of the document includes a section about criminal activity and identifies four businesses believed to be involved in marriage and document fraud and drug dealing.

Another document describes 14 restaurants, two travel agencies and a meat market catering to the Moroccan community. Another said the NIPPED produced a list of every Moroccan cab driver in the city. Officers tried to interview them, but many were unavailable to be questioned because they were out working 12- to 14-hour shifts, the document said.

Current and former officials said the information collected by the Demographics Unit was kept on a computer inside the squad's offices at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. It was not connected to the department's central intelligence database, they said.

When a Moroccan was arrested, according to the documents, a unit called the Citywide Debriefing Team would visit him in jail or at his home. Each was asked how someone coming to the United States from Morocco might keep a low profile. Officers had a list of 13 questions, including where such a person might live, obtain identification cards, eat, worship and learn English.

The questions helped police identify small apartments in Brooklyn where Moroccan immigrants shared rooms soon after arriving in New York. Police visited one apartment in 2007 to meet with someone who had been arrested the prior year, according to the files. The officer noted the number of bedrooms, the layout, the furnishings and a wall calendar from a nearby mosque.

"There was a small table as well as an entertainment center," the document said. "There were two Qurans. One on top of each speaker."

Enormous pressure?

Police officials said such detailed note-taking was the result of enormous pressure inside the department. Officers assigned to conduct interviews and visit homes were told by supervisors that, if the subject of their interviews one day turned violent, their reports would be scrutinized with an eye for what warning signs were missed, officials said.

It was intended to keep officers sharp and remind them of the seriousness of the job, but officials said it encouraged well-meaning officers to record even innocent details.

Unlike the information from the Demographics Unit, the information from debriefings and personal visits was reported back to headquarters and entered into the police department's central intelligence database, the Intelligence Data System, officials said.

Because of lawsuits by civil liberties groups, police lawyers have set stricter limits in recent years about information the NIPPED compiles about people not accused of any crime, current and former officials said. Lawyers review police reports and sometimes require officers to remove information or rewrite their reports. Some information on innocent behavior is removed. Other information is labeled "sealed," which means it can be seen only by very senior officials, the officials said.

Meanwhile, police received from the U.S. government regular updates on foreign visitors entering New York, according to documents and interviews. Police departments often receive information on visitors on a case-by-case basis. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which maintains the federal documents, declined to tell the AP whether such broad access to its immigration files by a city police department was unusual.

Using the documents, known as I-94s, New York police located and interviewed Moroccans and, when possible, the families they were visiting. Often, that would take them to the homes of U.S. citizens.

Police couldn't force people to talk to them or let them inside their homes, so officers often used a cover story about a crime in the neighborhood or a report of a missing child nearby, officials told the AP.

During such interviews, the officer would make note of the surroundings: What was on television? How many people lived there? What kind of furniture? If possible, police would collect from residents their names, phone numbers and occupations.

Transformation

All this underscores the NYPD's transformation from a police department solving murders and muggings to a domestic intelligence agency. It's a transformation that Kelly, the police commissioner, makes no apologies for. He has credited intelligence efforts with thwarting terrorist attacks, and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan has called those efforts heroic.

No police department in the United States is known to employ programs like New York's. Police in Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest city, once considered a program that would have mapped the area's Muslim communities, but it was shut down after news coverage sparked wide criticism.

Other police departments, including those in cities with Moroccan populations, operate differently — whether for philosophical reasons, because they lack the NYPD's manpower or because their communities haven't been targeted repeatedly by terrorists like New York.

In Revere, Mass., police did not dispatch officers into its Moroccan community after the overseas attacks. Revere, a city north of Boston, has a small Moroccan enclave of about 800 people, but it ranks among the top 10 largest Moroccan communities in the country, according to the Census Bureau.

"We wouldn't just go and start interviewing people because of something that happened in another country," police Capt. James Guido said. "The guys here wouldn't even get involved in something like that."

New York sees things differently, not just because its Moroccan community is a population of about 9,000 and by far the nation's largest, but because Kelly has made it clear that the department will no longer wait for something to happen.

At the barber shop in Queens, Darhbach said he agrees police should keep the city safe but said that as an American citizen, his business shouldn't be listed in police files just for serving Moroccan customers. But like many of his neighbors, who grew up under the oppressive police forces of the Middle East and North Africa, Darhbach said things could be worse.

"In Morocco," he said, "police just come and take you away.”

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44621976/ns/us_news-security/#

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California

What happened to neighborhood watch?

Marysville used to have three officers, a sergeant and two crime analysts devoted to community policing. Yuba City had a full-time police officer devoted to schools and community outreach.

But state and federal grant funding for such things is long gone, and in Marysville, at least, so are most neighborhood watch groups.

"We had a big program until 2005," said Sgt. Chris Sachs, who has been with the Marysville Police Department since 2001.

In those days, neighborhood watch groups were thriving, he said, and Community Oriented Policing grants paid for programs to support them.

A couple of groups are still active, said Police Chief Wally Fullerton.

"But we're not able to give them the support they need," he said. "We are barely able now to handle calls for service."

"In times like this, it's next to impossible to retain personnel," said Yuba City Assistant Chief Jeff Webster of the economic and political climate of the past several years.

Yuba City has not felt the loss of funding for neighborhood watch programs and other community policing strategies as severely as Marysville, which was dependent on such funding for personnel.

An emphasis on neighborhoods is helpful to the business of protecting residents' safety, he said.

"It's a good way to get people interacting with police," Webster said.

The trend to foster neighborhood watch groups and to fund community policing efforts began nationwide in the 1970s and strengthened for the following two decades.

"There was a big push all around," Fullerton said.

At one time, he said, grant funding provided 25 percent of the Marysville Police Department's budget.

"The concept was that police need to be more active in taking preventative measures," he said. "That element is now gone. There's no direct assistance or support." In Yuba City, roughly 15 neighborhood watch groups are still active, as evidenced during a recent National Night Out.

The Police Department responds to requests for assistance in developing such groups and providing guidance, Webster said, but no formal relationship exists.

"Money drives a lot of things," he said.

"People get what they pay for," Fullerton said of the anti-tax movement. "You have to prioritize what you want."

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/marysville-110091-devoted-neighborhood.html

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From the Department of Justice

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Prepared Statement of Lisa Monaco, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, Before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism

Washington, D.C.

September 21, 2011

“Countering Terrorist Financing: Progress and Priorities”

Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Kyl, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify today regarding the Department of Justice's role in combating terrorist financing. The Department of Justice's efforts to combat terrorism are closely coordinated with those of our interagency partners, some of whom are testifying with me here today. Our common objective is to deploy the counter terrorist financing tools available to the United States in a coordinated, integrated fashion to effectively disrupt the flow of funds and other material support to terrorist organizations.

The Department of Justice's efforts in this regard fall generally into three categories, each of which I'll address briefly today: our capacity building and technical assistance efforts with foreign governments; our participation in and defense of terrorist financing laws, regulations, and processes; and our investigation and prosecution of the individuals and networks involved in financing and supporting terrorism.

Capacity Building and Technical Assistance

Like our interagency colleagues, we at DOJ recognize that to be truly effective our counter terrorist finance efforts must be reinforced by other countries around the world. We have worked hard to help foreign governments develop their laws and capability to implement these laws for investigating and prosecuting terrorist financing to ensure that no jurisdiction provides a safe haven for the financial networks that support terrorist organizations. DOJ currently has State Department funded Resident Legal Advisers in Bangladesh, Kenya, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates who are focused primarily on terrorist financing. In addition, DOJ's network of 55 RLAs in countries around the world regularly provide technical assistance to the host government on terrorist financing laws and prosecutions.

In addition, DOJ has provided bilateral technical assistance to a number of foreign countries drafting or updating their counter terrorist finance laws, including Indonesia, Turkey, and Nigeria. We have also supported or assisted in scores of terrorist financing trainings around the world, including in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and many other countries. The networks that finance and support terrorist organizations are international, and our efforts effectively to disrupt those networks and bring their members to justice therefore rely critically on cooperation with capable foreign partners.

Review and Defense of Terrorist Finance Designations

The Department of Justice also participates in the designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO); Specially Designated Terrorists (SDT); and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) and defends in litigation the laws and regulations that permit designation and outlaw the provision of financing and other forms of material support to terrorist organizations.

The terrorism-related designations process in the United States plays a critical role in our fight against terrorist financing and is an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities based on listing entities and individuals the government has identified as terrorists, terrorist organizations, or supporters of terrorism or terrorist organizations. There are three principal mechanisms through which the executive branch designates individuals, entities, or organizations as involved in terrorism: under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996; under Executive Order 12947, Prohibiting Transactions With Terrorists Who Threaten To Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process (Executive Order 12947), and under Executive Order 13224, Blocking Property And Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, Or Support Terrorism (Executive Order 13224). Executive Orders 12947 and 13224 were issued pursuant to the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA).

AEDPA and Executive Orders 12947 and 13224 each prescribe procedures whereby executive officials may make terrorism-related designations. AEDPA gives the Secretary of State the authority to designate FTOs. Executive Orders 12947 and 13224 give the Secretaries of State and of the Treasury the authority to designate SDTs and SDGTs, respectively. Under both, the lead agency (either the State Department or the Department of the Treasury) compiles a record of classified and unclassified information supporting the designation. Moreover, both AEDPA and the Executive Orders require the lead agencies to consult with DOJ on the basis of this record in making the designation.

Specifically, Department of Justice attorneys closely review the administrative record compiled for purposes of designating an entity as an FTO, or an individual or entity as an SDT or SDGT, to ensure that the record adequately supports the factual findings required by the applicable authority and to assess litigation risk in the event that a designation is subsequently challenged by the designated individual or entity.

Designation under the AEDPA or the Executive Orders introduces the possibility of a range of criminal and civil penalties as well as actions blocking and, potentially, confiscating the assets of the designee. Once an organization has been designated as an FTO under the AEDPA, knowingly providing material support or resources to that organization triggers criminal liability. It is also a criminal offense knowingly to receive military-type training from or on behalf of any organization designated as an FTO at the time the training takes place. FTO designation also has immigration consequences and financial repercussions, including blocking orders, forfeiture actions, and civil fines.

Designation pursuant to Executive Order 12947 or 13224 also blocks the property and interests in property of the SDTs or SDGTs, respectively, and prohibits U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with the designated individual or entity. Similarly, once an individual or entity has been designated an SDT or SDGT it is criminal to engage willfully in any transaction with such an individual or entity.

The Justice Department has defended a number of the components of this counter terrorist finance legal framework against constitutional and other challenges in litigation. Last year, in the Supreme Court case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Department of Justice successfully defended provisions of the material support statute against claims that it was unconstitutional. Although the statutory provisions constituting “material support” challenged in that litigation included the provision of “personnel,” “training,” “service,” and “expert advice and assistance,” as I know the Subcommittee is aware, this material support law also prohibits the provision of any property, currency, monetary instruments, or financial securities. The Court, in an opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts and joined by five other Justices, held that the material support statute was not unconstitutionally vague for purposes of the Due Process Clause and did not violate plaintiff's constitutional rights of free expression and association.

The Department has also prevailed against challenges in litigation to the provision of AEDPA that grants the Secretary of State authority to designate organizations as FTOs.

We have also defended against constitutional challenges designations as SDGTs and other actions taken by the Department of the Treasury under IEEPA and Executive Orders 12947 and 13224. Persons and entities designated under those Executive orders can challenge their designations under the Administrative Procedure Act in district courts. We have successfully defended cases involving the Global Relief Foundation, the Holy Land Foundation, and the Islamic American Relief Association. (We are currently litigating cases involving the Al Haramain Foundation and Kindhearts.)

In sum, the Justice Department, in close coordination with our interagency partners, both participates in the designation processes and defends against challenges in litigation to the counterterrorist finance legal framework that supports the government's authority to make such designations.

Investigation and Prosecution of Terrorist Financiers

At its heart, the government's counter terrorist finance efforts take aim at the monetary and material support terrorist groups need to sustain themselves and to plot and carry out attacks against innocent civilians. We must disrupt the networks that provide such support, often referred to as the lifeblood of international terrorist organizations, whether the support they provide comes in the form of currency, training, valuable equipment, or any of the other categories of material support proscribed by our criminal laws. As the Supreme Court noted in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, there is “persuasive evidence” that providing “material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization – even seemingly benign support – bolsters the terrorist activities of that organization.”

Acting Assistant Director Ralph Boelter mentioned in his testimony the 2011 guilty plea of Mohammad Younis, whose unlicensed money transmitting business was used to transfer money to Faisal Shahzad to fund his attempt to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, and of Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, who pled guilty to terrorist financing charges and was sentenced to 10 years for facilitating the transfer of more than $150,000 to support terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Let me mention a couple of other significant terrorist financing prosecutions.

• In October 2004, Abdurahman Alamoudi pled guilty and was sentenced to 23 years in prison for conduct that included facilitating the transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars to a group plotting the assassination of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.
  
  
• In May 2009, five leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development were sentenced to terms ranging from 15 to 65 years for providing financial and other material support to HAMAS. These cases are currently on appeal.
  
  
• There are currently a number of cases charged and pending in the United States regarding the alleged transfer of funds to Al Shabaab terrorists in Somalia.

We have also brought a number of cases under Section 960A of Title 21, the narco-terrorism statute, to disrupt individuals and networks attempting to use narcotics proceeds to finance terrorist organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or FARC), the Taliban, and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. And we have prosecuted individuals for trying to conceal the financial interest that SDGTs maintained in their companies, Infocom and PTech, thus cutting off a potential source of funding and money laundering for such SDGTs.

As the result of a close working relationship between our prosecutors and our partners in the law enforcement and intelligence communities, we have been able to disrupt these and other attempts to finance terrorism, gain valuable information as a result of the cooperation of the defendants, and bring the defendants to justice, ensuring that they are safely behind bars in American prisons, not continuing to finance terrorist attacks against America and our foreign partners.

Conclusion

As you have heard from all of my colleagues, United States Government efforts to counter terrorist financing have had some significant success over the past decade, but we have work yet to do. Terrorist organizations and their supporters continue to adapt and evolve their operations. To continue to be effective, we must continue to work with you to ensure that we have the authorities and capabilities necessary to effectively to counter terrorist financing. Thank you.

http://www.justice.gov/nsd/opa/pr/testimony/2011/nsd-testimony-110921.html

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From the FBI

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Ralph S. Boelter, Acting Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Statement Before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism

Washington, D.C.

September 21, 2011

Good morning Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Kyl, and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today regarding the efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to combat terrorist financing.

Introduction

As we commemorate the 10th anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we are reminded that the FBI's number one priority in its mission to protect and defend the United States continues to be the prevention of terrorist attacks against the United States. The mission of the Terrorism Financing Operations Section (TFOS) is twofold. First, to manage the FBI's investigative efforts in relation to individuals who provide funding to terrorists; and second, to ensure financial investigative techniques are used, where appropriate, in all counterterrorism investigations to enhance the investigations.

In coordination with our law enforcement and intelligence community partners, TFOS carries out this mission through the application of financial investigative techniques and the exploitation of financial intelligence. To improve its ability to detect and disrupt those with the intent and capability to conduct attacks against the United States, TFOS has undergone a significant shift in the way we address the threat of terrorism financing.

Inception of TFOS

Immediately after the terrorist attacks on September 11, the FBI established the Terrorism Financing Operations Section within the Counterterrorism Division. In recognition of the importance of tracking the financial underpinnings of terrorist activity, TFOS was established to serve as a comprehensive, centralized unit to provide broad support for counterterrorism investigations by analyzing and exploiting all available financial intelligence (FININT).

TFOS Organization

Consistent with the FBI's continuing transformation into an intelligence-led national security organization, in early 2011, the Counterterrorism Division implemented changes to TFOS. These changes enhance TFOS' ability to carry out its mission through a threat-based, intelligence-led approach. Rather than collecting information to solve a particular case, this new approach prioritizes the collection and utilization of intelligence to develop a comprehensive threat picture, enabling strategic disruptions of terrorist financing operations.

Targeting Unit

The TFOS Targeting Unit utilizes all source intelligence from the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities to identify currently unknown fundraisers and their associates. This unit focuses on identifying unknown or previously unidentified financiers within terrorist networks. As our targeting efforts identify these individuals, TFOS works directly with each of the FBI's 56 field offices to open assessments or investigations and lead those investigations through TFOS's two operational units.

Strategic Intelligence Units

The TFOS Strategic Intelligence Unit monitors threats and financial trends to identify trends and methodologies which are key to identifying possible terrorist financing transactions at their earliest point. This intelligence is disseminated to the U.S. intelligence community, as well as federal, state, local, tribal, and foreign law enforcement partners, as appropriate. In addition, TFOS has been successful in augmenting relationships and establishing channels for sharing information with elements of the financial industry which routinely report on suspicious financial activity occurring in the private sector.

In addition to carrying out targeting and strategic intelligence functions, TFOS personnel are embedded within the Counterterrorism Division's International Terrorism Operations Section and threat cells, which manage the priority threats and investigations. This cadre of special agents, intelligence analysts, and forensic accountants ensure the FININT in priority threat investigations is fully exploited to support those investigations. FININT is critical in these investigations as the FBI does not just focus on the total dollar amount of a financial transaction, but also gleans valuable intelligence from the financial activity. Further, TFOS conducts analysis of other critical intelligence collected during transactions. Thus, the TFOS exploitation of FININT not only seeks to identify the scope and breadth of terrorist financing, but also the members of the terrorist network to enhance indicators and tripwires and create actionable intelligence to identify and prevent terrorist attacks.

Outreach, Training and Education

In partnership with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the FBI conducts ongoing outreach and education with our financial industry counterparts. The financial industry's efforts and resources dedicated to detecting and reporting suspicious financial activities through suspicious activity reports (SARs) have been important components in our efforts to identify terrorist financing. SAR reporting is a critical tripwire to detect possible terrorist financiers as well as to identify associates of known terrorists. The analysis of SAR information aids in the development of an overall terrorist financing threat picture and can assist TFOS in identifying trends or patterns of suspicious activity around the country. This information can also identify previously unknown associates of terrorism subjects.

In conjunction with the Treasury Department, TFOS conducts an annual training session with the New York Federal Reserve to provide the financial industry with updated trend information regarding terrorist financing. This year's conference included over 300 attendees from the financial sector interested in learning how to maximize their resources to more effectively identify and report suspicious financial activity. These outreach efforts provide an opportunity for the financial sector to receive the latest terrorist financing threat and trend information, as well as share in best practices for the rapid identification and reporting of suspicious financial activity.

International Efforts

Coordinated efforts with our foreign intelligence and law enforcement partners are key elements to the FBI's success in counterterrorism investigations. Through the FBI's 62 legal attaché offices TFOS jointly investigates terrorist financing matters with our foreign counterparts. In addition, TFOS personnel are embedded within key legal attaché offices to provide expertise and resources dedicated to terrorist financing. These relationships and global efforts in the sharing of intelligence are key to the FBI's efforts to stem the flow of financial support to terrorists and protect the United States from terrorist attacks. TFOS also participates jointly with the Treasury Department and other United States government agencies in international forums to support international efforts in relation to terrorist financing.

TFOS conducts international training to convey the latest financial exploitation techniques and share best practices and investigative strategies to support the joint investigation of terrorist financing matters. In coordination with the Department of State, over the past two years, TFOS has conducted over 20 international training courses in 17 different countries. This training enhances our foreign counterparts' awareness and capabilities and promotes financial exploitation in all counterterrorism investigations.

Recent Successes

The FBI's terrorist financing efforts have resulted in numerous successes which have resulted in the disruption and arrest of terrorist financiers.

In August 2011, Mohammad Younis pled guilty in New York to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, received money from Younis, which he used to fund his preparations for the attempted bombing. Younis received the money through his unlicensed money transmitting business from a co-conspirator in Pakistan. Shahzad advised that the funding was arranged in Pakistan by associates of the Tehrik-e-Taliban.

In May, 2011, Hor and Amera Akl pled guilty in Ohio to conspiracy to provide material support to Hizballa. Hor and Amera Akl told an FBI informant they would be willing to send money to Hizballah for him. The informant gave them $200,000 to send to Hizballah, and they were arrested as they attempted to conceal the money in a vehicle that would be shipped overseas.

In September, 2009, Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari pled guilty in New York to charges of terrorism financing. Alishtari facilitated the transfer of $152,000, with the understanding that the money would be used to fund training for terrorists.

In the last year, the FBI has conducted terrorist financing investigations which led to the indictment of individuals for providing funding to the Pakistani Taliban, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al Shabaab. The al Shabaab indictments involved a network which used teleconferences to raise funds and then remitted the money to al Shabaab terrorists in Somalia.

Conclusion

The efforts of TFOS—in close coordination with our federal, state, and local partners; the financial industry; and our international partners—have established an increasingly difficult environment within which terrorist financiers can operate undetected. We believe that these efforts have reduced the funding available for terrorist operations and have made the concealment and transfer of terrorism related funds more difficult.

As the terrorists adapt their methods to raise and transfer funds, the FBI has also adapted its efforts to detect and disrupt these financial networks. The FBI TFOS is better able to systematically track intelligence, identify networks and currently unknown subjects, and oversee the FBI's terrorist financing investigations related to those networks. TFOS' cooperative efforts with our government and private sector partners ensures an ongoing and coordinated approach to terrorist financing to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States.

Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Kyl, and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to come before you today and share the work that the FBI is doing to address terrorist financing and counterterrorism in this country and around the globe. I am happy to answer any questions.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/countering-terrorist-financing-progress-and-priorities

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