FLE

Port of entry

How would you feel if, in the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. government had decided to contract out airport security to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the country where most of the operational planning and financing of the attacks occurred? My guess is you, like most Americans, would think it a lunatic idea, one that could clear the way for still more terror in this country. You probably would want to know who on earth approved such a plan — and be determined to prevent it from happening. Of course, no such thing occurred after September 11, 2001. In fact, the job of keeping our planes and the flying public secure was deemed to be so important that the government itself took it over from private contractors seen as insufficiently rigorous in executing that responsibility. Now, however, four-and-a-half years later, a secretive government committee has decided to turn over the management of six of the Nation's most important ports — in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans — to Dubai Ports World following the UAE company's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which previously had the contract. Thanks to the secrecy with which CFIUS operates, it is not clear at this writing whether any such objection was heard with respect to the idea of contracting out management of six of our country's most important ports to a UAE company. There would certainly appear to be a number of grounds for rejecting this initiative, however: America's seaports have long been recognized by homeland security experts as among our most vulnerable targets. Huge quantities of cargo move through them every day, much of it of uncertain character and provenance, nearly all of it inadequately monitored. Matters can only be made worse by port managers who might conspire to bring in dangerous containers, or simply look the other way when they arrive. Entrusting information about key U.S. ports — including, presumably, government-approved plans for securing them, to say nothing of the responsibility for controlling physical access to these facilities, to a country known to have been penetrated by terrorists is not just irresponsible. It is recklessly so....

Expert Details Scope of Border Drug Flow

One of the leading experts on Mexico and Mexican border issues in the US says illegal drug shipments from Mexico into the US is now a $20 billion a year business for the Mexican economy, making it the country's third largest source of income, behind oil and money sent home by Mexican citizens living legally, and illegally, in the United States. Dr. John Mason Hart, a professor at the University of Houston and the author of several books on US Mexico relations, told a San Antonio business group that is a powerful incentive for the Mexican government not only not to stop illegal drug trafficking, but to actively support it by sponsoring military incursions into the US to support drug smuggling, something the Mexican government has repeatedly denied. "The Mexican economy would collapse if vigorous action were taken, or at least there would be a very serious crisis, if you would cut off one fourth of their foreign earnings," Hart told Downtown Rotary Club. Hart says to feed the habits of 17 million US drug users, the two rival drug export cartels now fighting for control of the lucrative smuggling route through Nuevo Laredo provide 90% of the marijuana smoked in the US, in addition to 90% of the between 180 and 320 metric tons of cocaine consumed in the US. About 53% of methamphetamine, a drug formerly referred to as 'hillbilly heroin' because it was made in bathtubs and basement buckets, now is imported into the US from Mexico, as is about 50% of the heroin used in the US, now comes from Mexico. He says $14 billion of the $20 billion in drugs imported from or through Mexico into the US comes through Nuevo Laredo, explaining the level of violence currently seen as the two rival cartels, the Gulf Cartel from Reynosa and the Sinaloa Cartel, also known as the "Federation," which Hart says now encompasses the notorious Arellano Felix organization, which introduced crack cocaine into the US in the eighties, struggle to control that community. Hart says the Zetas, former Mexican army special forces soldiers, act as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel, and the MS-13, the infamous Salvadoran gang, provides muscle for the Sinaloans....

Rising tide of border crime and violence

First came an armed standoff between Texas lawmen and drug smugglers disguised as Mexican soldiers. Next, federal officials seized a stockpile of heavy-duty weaponry - assault rifles, hand grenades, and improvised explosive devices - along the Rio Grande. Then a Mexican police reporter was critically wounded after intruders fired more than 60 rounds into the newspaper's offices. These three incidents in as many weeks dramatize the rising violence along the US-Mexico border. Drug traffickers are becoming more brazen and expanding their operations to include smuggling people. Even as President Bush proposes to beef up border security, these attacks are renewing the debate over how best to keep criminals - perhaps even terrorists - from crossing into the United States. "As long as our law-enforcement resources at the border are primarily occupied with millions of laborers, it will be impossible to intercept the thousands of criminals who are also exploiting our borders," T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told a US House subcommittee last week. Part of the rise in violence stems from increased US law enforcement at the border, which is creating a more desperate drug smuggler, many experts say. But it also is rising because these drug smugglers are becoming heavily involved in the lucrative people-smuggling business and are using the same violent tactics to evade law enforcement, Mr. Bonner says. Some observers also worry that these criminal smugglers could team up with terrorists wanting to infiltrate the US....

Is A War Going On In Texas?

If you don't have access to Texas newspapers or the internet, you may not have heard the sensational news about the enormous cache of weapons just seized in Laredo, Texas. U.S. authorities grabbed two completed Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), materials for making 33 more, military-style grenades, 26 grenade triggers, large quantities of AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, silencers, machine gun assembly kits, 300 primers, bullet-proof vests, police scanners, sniper scopes, narcotics, and cash. That sounds like a war is going on in Texas! If bomb-making factories and firearms assembly plants are ordinary day-to-day business in the drug war along our southern border, the American people need to know more about it. The Val Verde County chief deputy warned that drug traffickers are helping terrorists with possible al Quaeda ties to cross the Texas-Mexico border into the United States. A government spokesman in Houston said "at this point there is no connection with anything in Iraq." We are not so easily reassured. We wonder what our government is doing to fulfill its duty to "protect each of them [the states] against invasion," as called for in the U.S. Constitution, Article IV. The Department of Homeland Security now admits that there have been 231 documented incursions by Mexican military or police, or drug or people smugglers dressed in military uniforms, during the last ten years, including 63 in Arizona, and several Border Patrol agents have been wounded in these encounters. This admission comes after years of pretending that such incursions were just "accidents."....

Alleged drug smuggler sues Border Patrol

The alleged drug smuggler who was shot in the buttocks by two Border Patrol agents last year is suing the Border Patrol for negligence, possibly undermining his credibility as a witness in the upcoming criminal trial of the agents. Osvaldo Aldrete Davila filed a claim with the agency - the first step in a lawsuit against the U.S. government - in March 2005, about a month after the shooting occurred. The claim says the agency was negligent in the shooting and asks for $5 million in damages. Aldrete's El Paso lawyer, Walter Boyaki, said the damage amount is arbitrary because he hasn't reviewed all the costs the shooting victim incurred, including thousands of dollars in medical bills from Beaumont Army Medical Center that were not paid by the U.S. government. Boyaki said he believed a jury would understand why Aldrete, a poor truck driver in Mexico, is suing and not hold it against him as a witness....

Judge will decide mentions of border cases in agents' trial

Lawyers in the case of two Border Patrol agents accused of illegally shooting a suspected drug smuggler and covering it up must ask a judge before they can mention other border incidents, including a recent armed standoff that gained international attention. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean have been charged in the shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, a Mexican national, during a scuffle last February in Fabens. Jury selection begins Friday. The trial, scheduled to start Tuesday, will come three weeks after U.S. authorities chased suspected drug smugglers to the border, where men carrying weapons and wearing Mexican military-style uniforms helped the suspected smugglers escape to Mexico. No shots were fired. Prosecutors last week asked federal Judge Kathleen Cardone to exclude mentions of the Jan. 23 confrontation and incidents of border violence. In a ruling this week, Cardone said lawyers would need to ask her before any such mentions could be made in open court. According to a federal indictment issued last year, after Ramos and Compean shot Aldrete, Compean "collected and disposed of spent casings," and neither man reported the shooting. Aldrete, who was shot in the buttocks, fled on foot back to Mexico after being wounded....

Suit blames border agents in immigrant drownings

It began as a routine nocturnal encounter between the U.S. Border Patrol and a group of Mexicans illegally crossing the Rio Grande. It ended with the deaths of three immigrants amid allegations of misconduct by the American agents. A federal wrongful death lawsuit filed last year accuses the agents of contributing to the drownings of the two women and teenager early Sept. 24, 2004, near Eagle Pass. "These agents threw rocks ... and used profanities in an effort to make them return to Mexico by swimming across the Rio Grande," reads the lawsuit, which claims the agents should have taken the group into custody. The lawsuit also accuses the five agents of ignoring the cries for help of the Mexicans who did not know how to swim. The lawsuit seeks $240 million and is set for trial next year here. In depositions taken last month, the agents denied forcing the group to swim back to Mexico or throwing rocks at them. They also said they heard no cries for help. And they said the six immigrants were given the choice of surrendering or returning to Mexico....

Border Patrol Agent Shoots Himself in Foot During Training

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent was taken to a hospital Wednesday after he accidentally shot himself in the foot, authorities said. The unidentified agent was listed in stable condition at a local hospital after he discharged his weapon at a facility near Brownsville's Gateway International Bridge. The bullet grazed his right foot and injured one of his toes. Rick Pauza, a spokesman for the agency, told The Brownsville Herald for its Thursday edition that the agent was "attempting to make his gun safe" when the mishap occurred. The accidental shooting happened after a training exercise, but Pauza did not say what type of training was being held.

'Able Danger' Identified 9/11 Hijacker 13 times

The top-secret, military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger" identified Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, 13 times before the 2001 attacks, according to new information released Tuesday by U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon, (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees. Able Danger has been identified by Weldon and team member Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer as an elite group of approximately two dozen individuals tasked with identifying and targeting the links and relationships of al Qaeda worldwide. On June 27, 2005, Weldon said that Able Danger had offered in the year before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to share its intelligence with the FBI and to work with them to take down the New York City terrorist cell involving Mohammed Atta and two other 9/11 terrorists. Weldon said Clinton administration lawyers prevented the information from being shared with the FBI. According to Weldon, the lawyers told Able Danger members, " [Y]ou cannot pursue contact with the FBI against that cell. Mohamed Atta is in the U.S. on a green card and we are fearful of the fallout from the Waco incident," a reference to the FBI's raid on the David Koresh-led Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex., in April 1993. Media reports indicated that lawyers for Able Danger were concerned that sharing data with domestic law enforcement was illegal. Weldon on Tuesday said that despite testimony indicating that Able Danger's data had been destroyed, he has discovered data still available. "And I am in contact with people who are still able to [do] data mining runs on pre-9/11 data," Weldon said. "In those data runs that are now being done today, in spite of what DOD (Department of Defense) said I have 13 hits on Mohammed Atta ..."....

9/11 probe yields rare clash on intelligence

The Pentagon's top intelligence official clashed repeatedly Wednesday with former operatives of the clandestine Able Danger program over how much the government knew about al-Qaida before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and whether ringleader Mohamed Atta had been identified long before the tragedy. In a rare public display of bitter disputes within the close-knit military intelligence community, three members of a computer data-mining initiative code-named Able Danger told Congress that the 9/11 attacks might have been prevented if law enforcement agencies had acted on the information about al-Qaida that they had unearthed. "It shocked us how entrenched of a presence al-Qaida had in the United States," former Army Maj. Erik Kleinsmith told two subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee. Comparing the 9/11 attack to the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Kleinsmith said: "We were on the north coast of Hawaii, watching the (Japanese) fighters come in, and we were not able to do anything about it." J.D. Smith, a defense contractor who also worked on the Able Danger team, said he used Arab intermediaries in the Los Angeles area to buy a photograph of Atta. Smith said the photo was among about 40 photos of al-Qaida members on a large chart that he personally delivered to Pentagon officials in 2000....

Senate ends filibuster of Patriot Act

The Senate yesterday steamrolled opposition to the renewal of the USA Patriot Act, legislation originally passed in 2001 to combat terrorism. The 96-3 vote broke a filibuster of procedural floor action after last week's compromise that won over several key opponents of the bill. Voting to maintain the filibuster were Democratic Sens. Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin and Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Sen. James M. Jeffords, Vermont independent. Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, did not vote. "I will continue to oppose this flawed deal, insist that the Senate jump through every procedural hoop and demand the right to offer amendments to improve it," Mr. Feingold said. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist hailed the wide margin of victory and said the Senate will approve the measure March 1, nine days before the current law is now scheduled to expire. "Breaking the filibuster against the Patriot Act means that the critical law enforcement tools it provides won't lapse," Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said. "Our intelligence and law-enforcement officials should never again be left wondering whether the Congress will reauthorize the tools that protect our nation -- that is unacceptable." Last week, Republican Sens. John E. Sununu of New Hampshire, Larry E. Craig of Idaho, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, all dropped their opposition to the bill after modifications were made that they said appeased their concerns about protecting civil liberties....

U.S. Sen. Feingold: Statement on The Patriot Act Deal

While I greatly respect the Senators who negotiated this deal, I am gravely disappointed in the outcome. The White House would agree to only a few minor changes to the same Patriot Act conference report that could not get through the Senate back in December. These changes do not address the major problems with the Patriot Act that a bipartisan coalition has been trying to fix for the past several years. They are, quite frankly a fig leaf to allow those who were fighting hard to improve the Act to now step down, claim victory, and move on. What a hollow victory that would be, and what a complete reversal of the strong bipartisan consensus that we saw in this body just a couple months ago. What we are seeing is quite simply a capitulation to the intransigent and misleading rhetoric of a White House that sees any effort to protect civil liberties as a sign of weakness. Protecting American values is not weakness, Mr. President. Standing on principle is not weakness. And committing to fighting terrorism aggressively without compromising the rights and freedoms this country was founded upon – that’s not weakness either. We’ve come too far and fought too hard to agree to reauthorize the Patriot Act without fixing any of the major problems with the Act. A few insignificant, face-savings changes just don’t cut it. I cannot support this deal, and I strongly oppose proceeding to legislation that will implement it....

White House Agrees to Spy Law Change

Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts said he has worked out an agreement with the White House to change U.S. law regarding the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program and provide more information about it to Congress. "We are trying to get some movement, and we have a clear indication of that movement," Roberts, R-Kan., said. Without offering specifics, Roberts said the agreement with the White House provides "a fix" to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and offers more briefings to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The deal comes as the committee was set to have a meeting Thursday about whether to open an investigation into the hotly disputed program. Roberts indicated the deal may eliminate the need for such an inquiry. Democrats have been demanding an investigation but some Republicans don't want to tangle the panel in a testy election-year probe. "Whether or not an investigation is the right thing to do at this particular time, I am not sure," Roberts told reporters while heading into the meeting....

Senate Rejects Wiretapping Probe

The Bush administration helped derail a Senate bid to investigate a warrantless eavesdropping program yesterday after signaling it would reject Congress's request to have former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and other officials testify about the program's legality. The actions underscored a dramatic and possibly permanent drop in momentum for a congressional inquiry, which had seemed likely two months ago. Senate Democrats said the Republican-led Congress was abdicating its obligations to oversee a controversial program in which the National Security Agency has monitored perhaps thousands of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents and foreign parties without obtaining warrants from a secret court that handles such matters. "It is more than apparent to me that the White House has applied heavy pressure in recent days, in recent weeks, to prevent the committee from doing its job," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), vice chairman of the intelligence committee, said after the panel voted along party lines not to consider his motion for an investigation. Before yesterday's closed-door meeting of the intelligence panel began, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the NSA program does not require "congressional authorization" but that the administration is "open to ideas regarding legislation." Committee sources said such comments -- characterized as meaningful by Republicans but empty by Democrats -- apparently persuaded GOP moderates to back away from earlier calls for a congressional investigation into the program....

U.S. must release domestic spying documents

A federal judge Thursday ordered the Justice Department to respond within 20 days to requests by a civil liberties group for documents about President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program. The ruling was a victory for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which sued the department under the Freedom of Information Act in seeking the release of the documents. U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy ruled that the department must finish processing the group’s requests and produce or identify all records within 20 days. “Given the great public and media attention that the government’s warrantless surveillance program has garnered and the recent hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the public interest is particularly well served by the timely release of the requested documents,” he said. Kennedy also ordered the department to give the group a document index and declaration stating its justification for withholding any documents within 30 days. The Washington-based center sought the documents from four Justice Department offices, including the office of the attorney general, after the New York Times first reported the eavesdropping program’s existence Dec. 16....

325,000 Names on Terrorism List

The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials. The list kept by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) -- created in 2004 to be the primary U.S. terrorism intelligence agency -- contains a far greater number of international terrorism suspects and associated names in a single government database than has previously been disclosed. Because the same person may appear under different spellings or aliases, the true number of people is estimated to be more than 200,000, according to NCTC officials. U.S. citizens make up "only a very, very small fraction" of that number, said an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his agency's policies. "The vast majority are non-U.S. persons and do not live in the U.S.," he added. An NCTC official refused to say how many on the list -- put together from reports supplied by the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and other agencies -- are U.S. citizens. The NSA is a key provider of information for the NCTC database, although officials refused to say how many names on the list are linked to the agency's controversial domestic eavesdropping effort. Under the program, the NSA has conducted wiretaps on an unknown number of U.S. citizens without warrants....

Wiretaps not issue in case, U.S. says

Prosecutors said they have no reason to believe that the government's eavesdropping program tainted the conviction of a Virginia man in an alleged plot to assassinate President Bush. Attorneys for Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 24, of Falls Church, asked a federal judge last week to delay their client's sentencing hearing on Friday to allow an investigation of whether Abu Ali was a subject of the National Security Agency's post-Sept. 11 warrantless eavesdropping. Yesterday, prosecutors opposed any delay, saying Abu Ali's attorneys have no evidence to suggest their client was wronged. "The prosecution team in this case is unaware of any discoverable information that has not been disclosed to the defendant," prosecutor David Laufman wrote. "Nor is the prosecution team aware of any evidence admitted at trial that was illegally obtained or derived from evidence that was illegally obtained." Yesterday's filing is the first substantive response by prosecutors to accusations made in several cases by defendants who suspect their clients were subject to the surveillance program, secretly initiated shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Lawyers for Ali al-Timimi, a Northern Virginia Islamic scholar sentenced to life in prison for soliciting treason, and Iyman Faris, an Ohio truck driver sentenced to 20 years for admitting a conspiracy with al-Qaida that sought to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, also have asked for a review of their cases on suspicion that evidence was obtained illegally against them through the wiretap program....