FLE

Where U.S.-Mexico border fence is tall, it works U.S. border patrol agent Michael Bernacke guns his SUV down the wide desert-sand road that lines the U.S.-Mexican border through urban San Luis, Ariz. To his right stands a steel wall, 20 feet high and reinforced by cement-filled steel piping. To his left another tall fence of steel mesh. Ten yards beyond, a shorter cyclone fence is topped with jagged concertina wire. Visible to the north, through the gauze of fencing are the homes and businesses of this growing Southwest suburbia of 22,000 people. "This wall works," Bernacke said. "A lot of people have the misconception that it is a waste of time and money, but the numbers of apprehensions show that it works." The triple-and double-layered fence here in Yuma is the kind of barrier that U.S. lawmakers - and most Americans - imagined when the Secure Fence Act was enacted in 2006. The law instructed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to secure about one-third of the 1,950-mile border between U.S. and Mexico with 700 miles of double-layered fencing - and additionally through cameras, motion sensors, and other types of barriers - by the end of the year to stem illegal immigration. Bankrolled by a separate $1.2 billion homeland security bill, the Secure Fence Act would, President Bush said in 2006, "make our borders more secure." By most recent estimates, nearly half a million unauthorized immigrants cross the border each year....
Nearly 50 illegal immigrants working as security guards arrested A task force led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested nearly 50 illegal immigrants in weekend raids of mostly Latino night clubs in Dallas, officials said Sunday. Authorities raided 26 businesses, including night clubs, restaurants and pool halls. They were targeting employees working as security guards for two security companies, which officials declined to identify. Law enforcement teams of local, state and federal officials simultaneously hit the 26 businesses around 11 p.m. Saturday and arrested 49 people. They recovered four pistols. Those arrested will faces charges of being in the United States illegally. Federal law also prohibits illegal immigrants from possessing weapons. Four people arrested were from El Salvador and the rest were from Mexico, officials said....
Mexican drug cartels move into human smuggling As U.S. border security has tightened, Mexican drug cartels have moved in on coyotes, human smugglers who are paid to bring illegal immigrants into the United States. The traffickers now use their expertise in gathering intelligence on border patrols, logistics and communication devices to get around ever tighter controls. They are slowly gaining control of much of the illegal passage of immigrants from Mexico to the United States, U.S. border officials say. "This used to be a family business. The coyote and the migrant were from the same town; they were connected," said Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez, chair of the department of transborder Chicana/o and Latina/o studies at Arizona State University. "Now, because of the so-called security needs of the border, what's been created is this structure of smuggling in the hands of really nasty people who only treat the migrant as a commodity." U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Special Agent Joe Romero and other law enforcement officials say the Mexican drug cartels have even merged human smuggling with drug trafficking, forcing immigrants to act as "mules" in transporting drugs as the price of passage. "The drug cartels have determined this is big business," Romero said as he overlooked a narrow strip of desert between El Paso, Texas, and the nearby Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez. Drug cartels "control these corridors. Just like we're watching them here, they're watching us. ... It used to be, 'Get across the fence and run.' Now it's a lot more organized." Moreover, crimes committed by drug gangs that have become common in Mexico are now crossing the border, police officials say. Phoenix Police Cmdr. Joe Klima notes that 350 kidnappings were recorded in the city last year, a crime he describes as previously nonexistent....
Critics call Border Patrol standards lax As the U.S. Border Patrol expands into one of the nation's largest federal law enforcement agencies, critics say it should establish minimum educational requirements and end a long-standing policy of accepting recruits without a high school diploma or GED. Concerns about Border Patrol's hiring efforts come as the agency races to satisfy a Bush administration mandate to have 18,319 agents on the job by December. In the last year, the agency has been criticized for taking too many shortcuts, such as cutting its academy training schedule, as part of the biggest recruitment campaign in its history. Recruiting standards are higher at most other federal law enforcement agencies. For example, a college degree and three years of professional experience are required by FBI agent recruits. The Houston Police Department and Harris County Sheriff's Office require not only high school, but two years of college. ''Since that has not been a requirement since our inception, it stands to reason that we would have had agents who did not have a high school education or GED, however few those may be," said Lloyd Easterling, a Border Patrol assistant chief for security operations....
Cartels training recruits near U.S. The ranch near this border community is isolated, desolate and laced by arroyos - an ideal place, experts say, for training drug-cartel assassins. Mexican drug cartels have conducted military-style training camps in at least six such locations in northern Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon states, some within a few miles of the Texas border, according to U.S. and Mexican authorities and the printed testimony of five protected witnesses who were trained in the camps. The camps near the Texas border and at other locations in Mexico are used to train cartel recruits, ranging from Mexican army deserters to American teenagers, who then carry out killings and other cartel assignments on both sides of the border, authorities say. "Traffickers go to great lengths to prepare themselves for battle," said a senior U.S. anti-narcotics official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Part of that preparation is live firing ranges and combat training courses. ... And that's not something that we have seen before." Many of the camps are temporary, used for a time and then abandoned or used intermittently. Others are hidden on private land behind locked gates and have more permanent facilities, the officials said....
FBI: Eco-Terrorism Remains No. 1 Domestic Terror Threat For nearly seven years, the nation has turned its terror focus on Al Qaeda and the hunt for Usama bin Laden. But there is a domestic terror threat that federal officials still consider priority No. 1 — eco-terrorism. The torching of luxury homes in the swank Seattle suburb of Woodinville earlier this month served as a reminder that the decades-long war with militant environmentalists on American soil has not ended. "It remains what we would probably consider the No. 1 domestic terrorism threat, because they have successfully continued to conduct different types of attacks in and around the country," said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko. The FBI defines eco-terrorism "as the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature." For years, officials have battled against members of shadowy groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and its brother-in-arms, the Animal Liberation Front. Law enforcement has made strides prosecuting cells, but it's been unable to end the arsons that have plagued developments encroaching on rural lands in the West. FBI estimates place damages from these attacks at well over $100 million....
Supreme Court won't intervene in Jefferson case The Supreme Court Monday let stand an appeals court ruling that curtails the FBI's power to search congressional offices. The case arose out of the FBI's raid of the offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) in 2006. Jefferson, who is fighting federal corruption charges, sought the return of the seized materials, claiming they were protected by the constitutional privilege known as the Speech and Debate Clause. That clause is intended to ensure that legislative process is free from interference from the executive branch. Last year, in a setback for the government, the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. ruled that some of the materials grabbed by the FBI were likely protected by the privilege--even though agents had properly obtained a search warrant-- and should have been subject to Jefferson's review before they were handed over. The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which Monday declined to hear the case. That lets the appeals court decision stand. The court's ruling means that the Speech and Debate clause applies to searches by federal agents. The Justice Department complained that the decision would force it to give members of Congress advance notice before a raid is conducted, but the opinion doesn't say that. It simply requires that the member be given some opportunity to review and set aside materials related to the legislative process....
More than 10% of pilots allowed to fly armed More than one in 10 of the nation's airline pilots are cleared to carry a handgun while flying, and the number will continue to grow, according to a Transportation Security Administration projection. The TSA, which has declined to disclose the number of armed pilots, revealed in a recent budget document that 10.8% of airline crewmembers were authorized to carry guns. The Federal Air Marshal Service, a TSA agency that runs the armed-pilots program, reports that 85,000 to 90,000 pilots and crewmembers flying domestic passenger and cargo planes are eligible to carry a gun. That puts the number of armed pilots at about 9,500 — a figure Air Marshal spokesman Nelson Minerly did not dispute. The marshal service keeps the exact number confidential. The TSA projects the program to grow to 16.5% of eligible pilots by the year 2011....
Citizens’ group calls for independent investigation of in-flight mishap to prevent cover-up The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today is calling for an independent investigation of an in-flight discharge of a pistol carried by an armed U.S. Airways pilot to prevent any whitewashing, cover-up or scapegoating in the incident. CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said the incident is alarming because of allegations that the pilot may have been following strict Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rules when the mishap occurred. Those rules came under fire today from the Airline Pilots Security Alliance (APSA), which represents thousands of commercial airline pilots. “Today, we are calling for an independent investigation of this incident, to be conducted by a panel of civilian firearms instructors and gun safety experts,” Gottlieb stated. “This will eliminate any possibility or future assertion that the TSA whitewashed this incident and used the pilot as a scapegoat to preserve unsafe regulations. “Conversely,” he added, “such an investigation by non-government experts who are also not connected to APSA or the airlines could determine, without bias and free from any influence or coercion, whether the pilot was handling his firearm safely, or in an unsafe manner. We want the truth....
State leads way on RFID privacy Washington state has passed some of the first laws in the country related to privacy and radio-frequency-identification (RFID) technology. Last week, Gov. Christine Gregoire signed into law two bills protecting consumer privacy by making it a felony to possess information gained from an RFID-enhanced driver's license, except when crossing international borders, or to maliciously scan someone's identification remotely without their knowledge and consent. As a state with many travelers who cross the border frequently, Washington has become a test bed for RFID. It's one of four states that have signed agreements with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to use RFID technology in optional-enhanced driver's licenses that became available in January. Critics say that is a precursor to establishing a national ID card. While the new technology "does simplify border crossings with neighboring countries, it also presents new and broad opportunities for identity theft and surveillance," said Rep. Deb Eddy, D-Kirkland, who sponsored HB 2729, which goes into effect in June. Because the data on the chip is not encrypted, its unique number can be captured from a distance, Eddy said. The licenses are shipped with a foil sleeve to prevent radio transmission. HB 2729 says personal information on identity cards may be released to law-enforcement agencies only for customs and border-protection purposes. Personally identifying information may be released to law-enforcement agencies for other purposes "only if accompanied by a court order," the law states....
States fight as REAL ID deadline nears Frustrated by unfunded federal mandates, a number of states are revolting. The latest case in point: stiff resistance to REAL ID, a controversial post-9/11 law that aims to make driver's licenses more secure. The Department of Homeland Security set Monday as the deadline for states to get an extension for implementing REAL ID. Miss this deadline, DHS warned resistant states, and come May, your residents won't be allowed to board planes with their current driver's licenses. Montana is one state that's been opposed to the DHS requirements. Rather than request an extension, it sent DHS a letter explaining what it's already doing to strengthen licenses. Still, DHS responded on March 21 by granting an extension. New Hampshire, another REAL ID holdout, took a similar path with DHS and also got an unasked-for extension last week. Beyond REAL ID, a series of federal moves in recent years have stepped on states' toes, including the No Child Left Behind Act and federal tort reforms, says David Davenport, professor of public policy at Pepperdine University in California. "The pendulum is swinging a little bit back towards states' rights now, and that's one context in which to see this REAL ID battle," he says. The law requires that states make it harder to tamper with driver's licenses, and it makes state motor-vehicle agencies more secure. It also tightens standards for how people may use documents to establish their identity. Many states balked at the measures. Seventeen, including Montana, passed legislation opposing REAL ID. With no states near compliance, most opted to request an extension, but Montana, New Hampshire, Maine, and South Carolina refused to do even that....
U.S. business interests at risk from domestic spying At what point does government snooping become a hindrance to commerce? That must be the question a lot of companies such as Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. must be asking themselves after a recent episode in Canada where a controversy over the use of online tools has emerged. It began with a Lakehead University switch from dedicated computer systems to using various Google services and tools that reside in the Internet cloud. While saving the school money and proving the unique viability of hosted software services, concerns over U.S. snooping resulted in a debate over privacy. While none of this discussion has swept into the U.S. media as yet, the implications are clear. In an article in the Globe and Mail this revealing trend was expressed: "Some other organizations are banning Google's innovative tools outright to avoid the prospect of U.S. spooks combing through their data," Simon Avery wrote. "Security experts say many firms are only just starting to realize the risks they assume by embracing Web-based collaborative tools hosted by a U.S. company, a problem even more acute in Canada where federal privacy rules are at odds with U.S. security measures." Eyes on our data So any company wanting to develop "software as a service," hosted services, Web-based email or any sort of initiative that involves remote databases that are accessed over the Internet, now has to deal with one big privacy question: Will the U.S. government be snooping in on our data? You must assume that the answer is yes. There goes the Software as a Service strategy from Microsoft and others -- down the drain....