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Domestic spying far outpaces terrorism prosecutions The number of Americans being secretly wiretapped or having their financial and other records reviewed by the government has continued to increase as officials aggressively use powers approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the number of terrorism prosecutions ending up in court -- one measure of the effectiveness of such sleuthing -- has continued to decline, in some cases precipitously. The trends, visible in new government data and a private analysis of Justice Department records, are worrisome to civil liberties groups and some legal scholars. They say it is further evidence that the government has compromised the privacy rights of ordinary citizens without much to show for it. A recent study showed that the number of terrorism and national security cases initiated by the Justice Department in 2007 was more than 50% below 2002 levels. The nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which obtained the data under the Freedom of Information Act, found that the number of cases brought declined 19% in the last year alone, dropping to 505 in 2007 from 624 in 2006. By contrast, the Justice Department reported last month that the nation's spy court had granted 2,370 warrant requests by the department to search or eavesdrop on suspected terrorists and spies in the U.S. last year -- 9% more than in 2006. The number of such warrants approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has more than doubled since the 2001 terrorist attacks. The department also reported a sharp rise in the use of national security letters by the FBI -- from 9,254 in 2005 to 12,583 in 2006, the latest data available. The letters seek customer information from banks, Internet providers and phone companies. They have caused a stir because consumers do not have a right to know that their information is being disclosed and the letters are issued without court oversight....
DHS Wants to Spy on Americans, Dems Charge The Department of Homeland Security wants to set up a new program to illegally spy on Americans, two senior Democratic lawmakers charged Thursday in a letter urging colleagues to deny funds for the program. In a letter to three colleagues obtained by ABC News, House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson, Miss., and Rep. Jane Harman, Calif., voiced objections to a new office DHS wants to create that would share the detailed surveillance capabilities of military intelligence satellites and other monitoring technology with state and local law enforcement. The size of the National Applications Office, as DHS has named it, and its proposed budget, remain classified. The department has said the office would not traffic in eavesdropped conversations. It would primarily be used to share data from military assets for disaster response, monitoring climate change and other purposes, according to DHS. Noting that the Pentagon is already cleared and capable of sharing satellite imagery on a legal and limited basis to aid authorities protecting major events or responding to natural disasters, Thompson and Harman said the purpose of expanding the program and placing it in a classified office could only be to surveil U.S. residents illegally. "We are left to conclude that the only reason to stand up a new office would be to gather domestic intelligence outside the rigorous protections of the law -- and, ultimately, to share this intelligence with local law enforcement outside of constitutional parameters," Thompson and Harman wrote. The two urged their colleagues to bar funding for the program, which they said would likely violate long-standing laws prohibiting military involvement in peacetime law enforcement....
Gag on 2nd Amendment Is City's Aim in Guns Suit Lawyers for Mayor Bloomberg are asking a judge to ban any reference to the Second Amendment during the upcoming trial of a gun shop owner who was sued by the city. While trials are often tightly choreographed, with lawyers routinely instructed to not tell certain facts to a jury, a gag order on a section of the Constitution would be an oddity. "Apparently Mayor Bloomberg has a problem with both the First and the Second amendments," Lawrence Keane, the general counsel of a firearms industry association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said. The trial, set to begin May 27, involves a Georgia gun shop, Adventure Outdoors, which the city alleges is responsible for a disproportionate number of the firearms recovered from criminals in New York City. The gun store's owner, Jay Wallace, says his store abides by Georgia and federal regulations and takes steps to avoid selling firearms to gun traffickers. Mr. Wallace's store is one of 27 out-of-state gun shops sued by New York City, and the first to go to trial....
Who's the real criminal - Gun owner or BATFE? David Olofson, a Wisconsin gun owner, was convicted for transferring a machine gun. In actuality, Mr. Olofson owns a perfectly legal, AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. He loaned it to a friend to use at a local shooting range. The gun had fired over 800 rounds of ammunition before misfiring. Upon misfire, it fired two shots in a row and jammed on the third. This is commonly known as a "hammer follow." The misfire happened twice. Another party at the range heard the multiple round burst and notified police. The S.W.A.T. team, local police, Sheriff's Department, and BATFE subsequently conducted a no-knock raid of Mr. Olofson's house. The S.W.A.T. team kicked down Mr. Olofson's front door, entered wearing full body armor, then seized all of his guns, gun manuals, and his computer. Mr. Olofson, family man and Army veteran, was arrested. The BATFE conducted a field test on the alleged machine gun, but was unable to recreate the multiple round burst. Not liking the negative results of the test, the field agent ordered the gun retested using a cheaper form of ammunition which is easier to cause multiple firings if you have a malfunction. Upon retesting, the gun did malfunction which was enough to get Mr. Olofson convicted of transferring a machine gun. Mr. Olofson is now facing somewhere between 18 months and just over six years in prison along with a possible fine of $250,000....Also see How You Can Become A “Gun Felon”
Real ID Defeated In Minnesota The House and Senate have approved a bill that would bar state driver's license authorities from implementing the federal Real ID regulations. Governor Pawlenty vetoed an earlier attempt to require that conditions be met before the state could change licenses to meet federal rules. But both chambers passed the bill by veto-proof margins: 50-16 in the Senate and 103-30 in the House. The Real ID mandate would require every citizen to carry a U.S. government-approved card to board a plane or enter a federal facility. Critics say it will be costly to implement and that too much of people's personal information will be added to a national database. Supporters argue that a more secure identification card will help in homeland security and immigration control efforts.
Homeland Security to train police to counter roadside bombs The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is holding a workshop in Fayetteville to teach local law enforcement agencies how to handle roadside bombs. The department's Office of Bombing Prevention will host Tuesday's workshop. Police, sheriff's deputies and other law enforcement agents will learn how to identify the bombs and how to protect against them. Roadside bombs are the leading killer of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although no roadside bomb attacks have been reported in the U.S., experts say they could be a future threat. The workshop is part of the IED 2008 Symposium and Expo, an annual meeting held near Fort Bragg to discuss ways to counter the bombs.
Violence in Mexico spills across US border Three Mexican police chiefs have requested political asylum in the U.S. as violence escalates in the Mexican drug wars and spills across the U.S. border, a top Homeland Security official told The Associated Press. In the past few months, the police officials have shown up at the U.S. border, fearing for their lives, according to Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. "They're basically abandoned by their police officers or police departments in many cases," Ahern told AP. Ahern said the Mexican officials — whom he didn't name — are being interviewed and their cases are under review for possible asylum. In the most recent high-level assassination, a top-ranking official on a local Mexican police force was shot more than 50 times and killed. Drug-related violence killed more than 2,500 people last year alone in Mexico. "It's almost like a military fight," Ahern said Tuesday. "I don't think that generally the American public has any sense of the level of violence that occurs on the border." As the cartels fight for territory, this carnage spills over to the U.S., Ahern said — from bullet-ridden people stumbling into U.S. territory, to rounds of ammunition coming across U.S. entry ports. U.S. humvees retrofitted with steel mesh over the glass windows patrol parts of the border to protect agents against guns shots and large rocks regularly thrown at them. At times agents are pinned down by sniper fire as people try to illegally cross into the U.S....
Border agent indicted An El Paso U.S. Border Patrol agent was indicted on charges that he laundered money and conspired with two people from Mexico to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the United States, officials announced Wednesday. The agent, Jesus M. Huizar, 28, was arrested Tuesday, along with Chihuahua residents Emeterio Sigala-Favela, 37, and Luis Carlos Chacon-Rubio, 32, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio. The federal indictment alleges the three suspects had conspired since January 2005 to smuggle more than 100 undocumented immigrants into the United States from Mexico. The indictment further seeks the forfeiture of a safe house Huizar reportedly owns in the 9000 block of Geranium in the Lower Valley, and a monetary judgment of $500,000, allegedly the proceeds from criminal activity....
Senators Ask FBI to Explain Flawed 'National Security Letter' to Internet Archive A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is asking FBI head Robert Mueller to explain why the feds sought records from the Internet Archive, a digital library, using a controversial administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter, which is intended for a communications service providers. The Internet Archive, a digital library of the web and media, beat the November 26 NSL with the help of attorneys at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union. In April, the FBI agreed to withdraw the request for records on a Internet Archive user and lift the gag order that typically attaches to such requests. The six senators sent Mueller a letter Thursday, asking him to explain what happened and to find out if the FBI reported the incident to an oversight board as a possible violation of federal law....
Report: Government's Cyber Security Plan Is Riddled With New Spying Programs Major elements of the Bush administration's proposed $17 billion "cyber security" initiative have little to do with protecting government networks, and a lot to do with spying, according to a budget report released by the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. The so-called National Cyber Security Initiative is also wrapped in unnecessary secrecy, and would spend billions on unproven, embryonic technology, and possibly illegal or ill-advised projects, according to the analysis -- which is part of a broad look at the proposed 2009 defense budget. While many of the specifics of the plan are classified, U.S. intelligence chief Michael McConnell told the New Yorker in January that he wants the National Security Agency to begin eavesdropping on the internet, and a McConnell aide said the spy agency was prepared to examine the content of e-mails, file transfers and Google searches without a warrant. The move includes putting the NSA in charge of monitoring and protecting civilian sites such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration. But according to the Armed Services Committee's analysis, there's a lot of spying being proposed under the guise of e-security. That confirms THREAT LEVEL's suspicions that the highly classified proposal could have far-ranging implications for the internet generally, especially as the government contemplates becoming the firewall for all Americans on the net....
End FBI-ATF Rift, Senators Urge Battles between the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives threaten national security and are reminiscent of the poor information-sharing that failed to detect the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, two U.S. senators said in a letter urging Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey to fix the problems. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the lead Republican on the committee, said they are "greatly disturbed" by FBI and ATF squabbling that has continued since the agencies were merged under the Justice Department five years ago to coordinate the fight against terrorism. The agencies have fought each other for control, wasting time and money and causing duplication of effort, according to law enforcement sources and internal documents. According to law enforcement sources and documents, the FBI and ATF have been battling for control of explosives, arson and tobacco investigations, a dispute that has contributed to a delay in a White House-ordered strategy to protect the nation from terrorist bombs. The problems have extended to some crime scenes, where agents have threatened to arrest one another and fought over jurisdiction and key evidence....
Homeland Security toy for children Product Description: Scan It Operation Checkpoint Airport Security Scanner Education Resource For Children. Scan It® is an educational and creative play toy that helps children become acclimated with airport and public spaces security. The device is both a fun toy and an educational tool. It detects metal objects and simulates an X-ray scan via a functioning conveyor belt that glides articles over its metal detector path. When metallic items are present the unit beeps and lights up. This unique toy/teaching aid provides ample amounts of healthy fun along with education and awareness of the security measures that people face in real life. A fun and educational booklet is also available upon request along with other online resources. Additional projects and education on airport and public spaces security is also available now.