FLE

Oregon man cleared of petroglyph theft says 'my life was trashed'

One of two men whose federal conviction for stealing American Indian artwork was overturned says the pair simply wanted to protect the ancient petroglyphs from encroaching development. Carroll Mizell, who served 10 months in prison after being found guilty in June 2004 of stealing the rock art, said "we wanted to save the property. "My whole intent was to free these things so they wouldn't be destroyed," Mizell told The Associated Press on Wednesday from Redmond, Ore. "We didn't do this because we wanted to put them on e-Bay," he said. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department failed to prove the rock art taken from a national forest on the edge of Reno had a market value of more than $1,000, a requirement for a felony conviction of government theft. Mizell and John Ligon of Reno admitted during their federal court trial in Reno that they took three boulders with etchings of an archer and bighorn sheep from the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest....

Supreme Court Backs Searches in Some Cases

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police cannot always search a home when one resident says to come in but another objects, and the court's new leader complained that the ruling could hamper investigations of domestic abuse. Justices, in a 5-3 decision, said that police did not have the authority to enter and search the home of a small town Georgia lawyer even though the man's wife invited them in. The officers, who did not have a search warrant, found evidence of illegal drugs. The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the Constitution's ban on unreasonable searches covers a scenario when one home occupant wants to allow a search and another occupant does not. The ruling by Justice David H. Souter stopped short of fully answering that question - saying only that in the Georgia case it was clear that Scott Fitz Randolph denied the officers entry. In his first written dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts said that "the end result is a complete lack of practical guidance for the police in the field, let alone for the lower courts." The case fractured a court that has shown surprising unanimity in the five months since Roberts became chief justice. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas filed separate dissents, and Justice John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer wrote their own opinions to explain their votes in favor of the man whose home was searched....

New Scrutiny for Law on Detaining Witnesses

A 22-year-old federal law that allows people to be held without charges if they have information about others' crimes is coming under fresh scrutiny in the courts, in Congress and within the Justice Department after reports that it has been abused in terrorism investigations. The law allows so-called material witnesses to be held long enough to secure their testimony if there is reason to think they will flee. But lawyers for people detained as material witnesses say the law has been used to hold people who the government fears will commit terrorist acts in the future but whom it lacks probable cause to charge with a crime. Concerns about how the law has been used have prompted calls from across the political spectrum for a reassessment. That debate has also ignited a broader one: whether the United States should join the several Western nations that have straightforward preventive detention laws. A bill introduced by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, would curtail the use of the material witness law to hold people suspected of plotting terrorist acts. Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said he would introduce similar legislation in the House. "It's being stretched beyond its original purpose," Mr. Flake said of the material witness law. "Individuals are being indefinitely detained who might be suspects. If that's the case, they need to be charged." But Mr. Flake added that he might be receptive to arguments that federal prosecutors need tools to hold some people they consider dangerous. "If you need something else," he said, "come to us." Recent prosecutions, lawsuits and internal investigations by the government have all focused attention on the potential misuse of the material witness law in terrorism investigations. The Justice Department, for instance, recently opened an inquiry into 21 instances of possible misuses of the law, its Office of the Inspector General said. A Justice Department spokesman would not elaborate on the inquiry, by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or name the detainees involved....

F.B.I. Agent Testifies Superiors Didn't Pursue Moussaoui Case

The F.B.I. agent who arrested and interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui just weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks told a jury on Monday how he had tried repeatedly to get his superiors in Washington to help confirm his certainty that Mr. Moussaoui was involved in an imminent terrorist airline hijacking plot. But, said the agent, Harry Samit, he was regularly thwarted by senior bureau officials whose obstructionism he later described to Justice Department investigators as "criminally negligent" and who were, he believed, motivated principally by a need to protect their careers. Mr. Samit's testimony added a wealth of detail to the notion that officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation played down, ignored and purposely mischaracterized the increasingly dire warnings from field agents in the Minneapolis office that they had a terrorist on their hands in Mr. Moussaoui. "I accused the people in F.B.I. headquarters of criminal negligence" in an interview after Sept. 11, Mr. Samit acknowledged under intense questioning by Edward B. MacMahon Jr., Mr. Moussaoui's chief court-appointed lawyer. Mr. Samit confirmed that he had told Justice Department investigators that the senior agents in Washington "took a calculated risk not to advance the investigation" by refusing to seek search warrants for Mr. Moussaoui's belongings and computer. He testified that he had come to believe that "the wager was a national tragedy." Mr. Samit was a witness for the prosecution, which is trying to have Mr. Moussaoui executed for the deaths that occurred on Sept. 11. In his direct testimony more than a week ago, he bolstered the prosecutors' case by saying that had Mr. Moussaoui answered his questions honestly when he arrested him for immigration violations, it would have set off a chain of inquiries that could have foiled the Sept. 11 plot. But under Mr. MacMahon's questions, Mr. Samit provided much new evidence and testimony suggesting strongly that the more significant factors in the failure to learn of the plot from Mr. Moussaoui involved the decisions of senior F.B.I. officials....

Top FBI Official Unaware of Moussaoui Terror Ties

The FBI official in charge of international terrorism before September 11 said on Tuesday he did not know an agent had warned three weeks before the hijackings that he suspected Zacarias Moussaoui was plotting a terrorist act. Michael Rolince, the chief of the FBI's international terrorism operation section in 2001, testified at Moussaoui's sentencing trial that he was unaware of a long report written by the FBI agent spelling out his theories. Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui three weeks before the deadly airliner hijackings that killed 3,000 people, testified on Monday that agency superiors repeatedly blocked his efforts to warn of a possible terror attack. Moussaoui, an admitted al Qaeda member, has pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy in connection with the September 11 attacks. The trial -- the only one in the United States in connection with the attacks -- will determine if he is sentenced to death. Samit said after questioning Moussaoui he knew the Frenchman of Moroccan descent had ``radical Islamic fundamentalist beliefs'' and thought he was part of a bigger plot to attack the United States. In a message to his superiors on August 18, 2001, Samit said he believed Moussaoui was ''conspiring to commit a terrorist act.'' But Rolince said although he knew of Moussaoui's arrest, he did not know about the contents of a long message that Samit had sent to FBI headquarters....

FBI, police spying is rising, groups allege

Political activists from New York to Colorado to California report that they believe police and FBI surveillance of their activities has increased markedly since the terror attacks 4-1/2 years ago since Congress approved the USA Patriot Act loosening some of the strictures on law enforcement. They include environmental groups like Time's UP!, peace activists in Pittsburgh, and even a police union protesting for higher wages in New York City. To try to find out if law officers are spying on them, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed Freedom of Information requests for more than 150 groups and individuals in more than 20 states who believe their first amendment rights are being violated. Time's UP! is one of the groups that says the alleged surveillance is aimed at intimidating them. They acknowledge public events can be watched by anyone but they're concerned police have crossed the line into inappropriate spying to discourage people's from publicly criticizing government policies. Local police and the FBI insist that none of their activities is aimed at chilling political speech. All investigations are conducted under strict guidelines put in place after abuses were documented during the Civil Rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Before any investigation of a political group proceeds, law officers require reasonable suspicion or information that an individual or a group is involved in criminal or terrorist-related activities....

Disarming the Law-Abiding

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ residents got an idea of what life is like without the rule of law. They had no telephones, no way to call 911. Even if they had, the police who reported for duty were busy with rescue missions, not fighting crime. Citizens had to protect themselves. This was made rather difficult by the city’s confiscation of guns, even from law-abiding citizens. After five months of denial in federal district court, the city last week made an embarrassing admission: in the aftermath of the hurricane, the severely overworked police apparently had the time to confiscate thousands of guns from law-abiding citizens. Numerous media stories have shown how useful guns were to the ordinary citizens of New Orleans who weren’t forcibly disarmed. Fox News reported several defensive gun uses. One city resident, John Carolan, was taking care of many family members, including his three-year-old granddaughter, when three men came to his house asking about his generator, threatening him with a machete. Carolan showed them his gun and they left. Another resident, Finis Shelnutt, recounts a similar story that the gangs left him alone after seeing “I have a very large gun.” Signs painted on boarded up windows in various parts of town warned criminals in advance not to try: the owner had shotguns inside. Last September 8, a little more than a week after the hurricane, New Orleans’ police superintendent, Eddie Compass announced: “No one will be able to be armed. Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns.” Even legally registered firearms were seized, though exceptions were made for select businesses and for some wealthy individuals to hire guards. Undoubtedly, selected businesses and well-connected wealthy individuals had good reason to want protection, but so did others without the same political pull. One mother saw the need for a gun after she and her two children (ages 9 and 12) saw someone killed in New Orleans after the hurricane. The mother said: “I was a card-carrying, anti-gun liberal – not anymore.” John C. Guidos was successfully guarding his tavern on St. Claude Ave on September 7, when police took his shotgun and pistol; indeed, it was the only time that he saw any cops. Soon afterwards robbers looted the tavern....

Airline screeners fail government bomb tests

Imagine an explosion strong enough to blow a car's trunk apart, caused by a bomb inside a passenger plane. Government sources tell NBC News that federal investigators recently were able to carry materials needed to make a similar homemade bomb through security screening at 21 airports. In all 21 airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials. NBC News briefed former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean, chairman of the 9/11 commission, on the results. "I'm appalled," he said. "I'm dismayed and, yes, to a degree, it does surprise me. Because I thought the Department of Homeland Security was making some progress on this, and evidently they're not." Investigators for the Government Accountability Office conducted the tests between October and January, at the request of Congress. The goal was to determine how vulnerable U.S. airlines are to a suicide bomber using cheap, readily available materials....

Death raises concern at police tactics The recent killing of an unarmed Virginia doctor has raised concerns about what some say is an explosion in the use of military-style police Swat teams in the United States. Armed with assault rifles, stun grenades - even armoured personnel carriers - units once used only in highly volatile situations are increasingly being deployed on more routine police missions. Dr Salvatore Culosi Jr had come out of his townhouse to meet an undercover policeman when he was shot through the chest by a Special Weapons and Tactics force. The 37-year-old optometrist was unarmed, he had no history of violence and displayed no threatening behaviour. But he had been under investigation for illegal gambling and in line with a local police policy on "organised crime" raids, the heavily armed team was there to serve a search warrant. As officers approached with their weapons drawn, tragedy struck. A handgun was accidentally discharged, fatally wounding Dr Culosi. Two months on, investigations into the incident are still continuing, a delay which Dr Culosi's family says is compounding the "horror and burden of it all". Peter Kraska, an expert on police militarisation from Eastern Kentucky University, says that in the 1980s there were about 3,000 Swat team deployments annually across the US, but says now there are at least 40,000 per year....

N.Y.C.'s crime fight to get more eyes

The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city - and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a "ring of steel" that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday. The police cameras will constantly keep watch over neighborhoods plagued by crime and monitor potential terror targets as the city moves to put another 1,200 cops on the street, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. The exact locations of the cameras were not revealed, but the electronic eyes will be set up in 253 spots, including many Operation Impact zones - high-crime areas already targeted by teams of cops. "They'll serve to reinforce safety already stabilized by Operation Impact, and serve as a high-visibility deterrent and investigative tool in other outdoor, public places," Kelly said. Recording high-quality images, the electronic sentinels will help the city's Finest track down criminals and terrorists as well as provide valuable evidence to convict them. Most of the cameras will be clearly marked so crooks know that their every move is being recorded by the cops....

Pulled over in Kansas? Get ready to show your license, registration — and fingerprints

If you are stopped by police in Kansas, don’t be surprised if the officer pulls out a little black box and takes your fingerprints. The gadget allows officers to identify people by fingerprints without hauling them to the police station. Over the next year the Kansas Bureau of Investigation will test 60 of the devices with law enforcement agencies around the state. State officials said similar tests are being planned for New York, Milwaukee and Hawaii. “This is definitely new,” said Gary Page, Overland Park Police Department crime lab. “It’s been talked about, but as far as I know they are not in use anywhere in the metro.” The tests in Kansas are part of a bigger $3.6 million upgrade to the KBI’s statewide fingerprint database, unveiled Tuesday by the KBI and Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. Called the Automatic Fingerprint Identification System, it is a statewide database of more than 10 million fingerprints taken from people arrested in Kansas. The Missouri Highway Patrol maintains a similar database. Both systems link to the FBI fingerprint database....