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Christian Group Files Request for Pictures of Border Patrol Agent's Beating A Christian group has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to have the photographs of the beating of Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos released to the public. As Cybercast News Service reported, Ramos and fellow Border Patrol Agent Jose Compean were sentenced to 11 and 12 years, respectively, for shooting a suspected drug smuggler. "I believe once the photographs of this disgusting event are released, the anger that is growing among the American people about this case will reach a boiling point," said Rev. Don Swarthout, president of Christians Reviving America's Values (CRAVE). "And President Bush will have no choice but to pardon Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean," Swarthout added. Ramos was severely beaten while sleeping in his Mississippi prison as several illegal aliens reportedly shouted, "Kill the Border Patrol agent."....
FBI Director Mueller Defends Bureau's War on Terror Performance to Senate Panel FBI Director Robert Mueller labored Tuesday to persuade skeptical senators that the FBI can properly use its terrorism-era authority to gather telephone, e-mail and financial records of Americans and foreigners while pursuing terrorists. "We're going to be re-examining the broad authorities we granted the FBI in the Patriot Act," Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told Mueller. Citing the inspector general report on national security letters and his previous reports criticizing FBI reporting of terrorist cases, of weapons and laptops losses, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said, "Every time we turn around there is another enormous failure by the bureau." "There's another headline virtually on a daily basis," Specter added, citing a Washington Post report Tuesday that agents had submitted inaccurate data to a court that issues warrants for foreign intelligence surveillance. "The question arises as to whether any director can handle this job and whether the bureau itself can handle the job," Specter said, proposing that the panel give serious consideration to establishing a separate domestic intelligence agency like Britain's MI-5. In 1986, Congress first authorized FBI agents to obtain electronic records without approval from a judge, using national security letters. The letters can be used to acquire e-mails, telephone, travel records and financial information, like credit and bank transactions. They can be sent to telephone and Internet access companies, universities, public interest organizations, nearly all libraries, financial and credit companies. In 2001, the Patriot Act eliminated any requirement that the records belong to someone under suspicion. Now an innocent person's records can be obtained if FBI field agents consider them relevant to an ongoing terrorism or spying investigation....
FBI chief blames computers for privacy flap FBI Director Robert Mueller on Tuesday said secret "national security letters" are invaluable in unearthing telephone and e-mail logs and blamed computer snafus for deceiving Congress about how often the technique is used. This is not the first time the FBI's aging computers have become the subject of controversy. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft once blamed neglected, incompatible systems for hindering agents' ability to gather and share intelligence on terrorists. Internal audits have subsequently shown that the bureau has wasted over $100 million on computer upgrades that never worked....
DOJ Controversy Undermines FBI's Efforts The political fallout over Justice Department missteps has sidetracked fledgling discussions aimed at helping the FBI establish itself as a pre-eminent domestic intelligence agency. A classified FBI report said last year that existing laws on electronic surveillance are inadequate to investigate homegrown Islamic extremists. In little-noticed testimony, FBI Director Robert Mueller raised the issue before the Senate several months ago. Proposing a dramatic departure from current practice, Mueller said he would like to explore using the process set up under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to obtain secret warrants for searches and wiretaps for suspects who do not meet the law's current requirements but still present that type of intelligence threat. Civil liberties advocates say the Justice Department and FBI already have plenty of power to investigate intelligence cases. Kate Martin, head of the Center for National Security Studies, noted that the Justice Department has prosecuted a number of people who haven't done anything yet but have been in the early stage of planning attacks. "That is evidence that the FBI has the tools they need," she said....
FBI's 'misleading' wiretap suppressed In mid-2004, based on information from a confidential informant, FBI agent Scott Wenther submitted a 42-page sworn affidavit asking a federal magistrate judge for a wiretap of Rice's mobile phone. Wenther's request was approved. There was just one problem with some of the information in Wenther's affidavit: it was not true. Spurred by repeated requests by the defense attorneys, U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell eventually took a critical look at Wenther's claims. Russell ruled: • Wenther claimed that "physical investigation of the subjects of this investigation has been conducted." But Wenther later acknowledged in a subsequent hearing that Rice had never been the subject of physical surveillance and they didn't even know where he was. • Wenther claimed that "members of this criminal organization with known violent histories routinely carry firearms and wear bullet-resistant vests." But in reality, the FBI did not know whether Rice carried a gun. • Wenther claimed that "physical surveillance has also corroborated information provided by" an FBI informant. But that was a misleading reference to an entirely different suspect, not Rice himself. The sworn affidavit submitted by the FBI, in other words, was designed to fool the courts into approving surveillance of Rice based in part on misdirection and fabrications. Russell, the judge, took a dim view of Wenther's creativity....
Governor signs 'castle doctrine' deadly force bill Gov. Rick Perry signed into law Tuesday a bill that gives Texans a stronger legal right to defend themselves with deadly force in their homes, cars and workplaces. Both chambers of the Legislature overwhelmingly approved the measure earlier this month. The bill, backed by the National Rifle Association, states that a person has no duty to retreat from an intruder before using deadly force. The building or vehicle must be occupied at the time for the deadly force provision to apply, and the person using force cannot provoke the attacker or be involved in criminal activity at the time. Some refer to the measure as the "castle doctrine," drawing from the idea that a man's home is his castle and that he should have the right to defend it. Fifteen other states have passed similar laws. Texas is the first state to pass such a law this year, said Rep. Joe Driver, a Garland Republican who sponsored the measure....
N. Myrtle Beach gun shop settles NYC suit over sales Three more U.S. gun shops have settled a lawsuit accusing them of selling too many firearms that later fell into the hands of New York criminals. The shops, in Marietta, Ga., Youngstown, Ohio, and North Myrtle Beach were among 27 gun dealers sued by the city of New York last year as part of its unorthodox legal battle against the firearms industry. Twelve of the sued dealers have settled. Each of those shops agreed to allow a city-appointed inspector to monitor its future sales and provide extra training to store personnel. Managers and owners at the shops said financial considerations prompted their decision to settle....
Judge pulls gun in Florida court A Jacksonville, Fla., judge drew his handgun when an accused child molester was attacked by an alleged victim's father in court. "I didn't know if he was going after me or the bailiffs or the defendant," Circuit Judge John Merrett told The (Jacksonville, Fla.) Times-Union. The father, who had not seen the defendant before the court appearance, hurdled a railing and landed several punches on the handcuffed and shackled man before bailiffs restored order. Merrett said that once he saw the situation was under control, he handed his gun to the court clerk and asked her to lock it in a drawer. Merrett has a concealed weapon permit and said he'd do the same thing again, the newspaper reported. But Duval County Public Defender Bill White said the incident was frightening. He plans to talk to the chief judge about whether judges should be armed in court....
Understanding the Realities of REAL ID The proposed regulations issued by the Department of Homeland Security on March 9th "punted" on REAL ID’s most important technology, security, and privacy problems. At the same time, the Department’s own analysis helps reveal that REAL ID is a loser -- it would cost more to implement than it would add to our country’s protections. Of utmost importance, the DHS proposal lays the groundwork for systematic tracking of Americans based on their race. The bar code system standard that DHS calls for in the regulation includes machine-readable information about race and ethnicity. This is deeply concerning and unwise. Federal law and regulation should not promote a nationalID system that can track people by race. History has too many devastating examples of identification systems used to divide people based on religion, tribe, and race...Though many states have already voted to refuse the REAL ID Act, some have been waiting to see what they would find in the regulations issued by the Department of Homeland Security. Now that the regulations are out, it is clear that the states have been left holding the bag. Were they to comply with the REAL ID Act, states would have to cross a mine-field of complicated and expensive technology decisions. They would face enormous, possibly insurmountable privacy and data security challenges. But the Department of Homeland Security avoided these issues by carefully observing the constraints of federalism even though the REAL ID law was crafted specifically to destroy the distinctions between state and federal responsibilities...The privacy and data security consequences arising from REAL ID are immense, increasingly well understood, and probably insurmountable. The increased data collection and data retention required of states is concerning. Requiring states to maintain databases of foundational identity documents will create an incredibly attractive target to criminal organizations, hackers, and other wrongdoers. The breach of a state’s entire database, containing copies of birth certificates and various other documents and information, could topple the identity system we use in the United States today. The best data security is not creating large databases of sensitive and valuable information in the first place. The requirement that states transfer information from their databases to each other is concerning. This exposes the security weaknesses of each state to the security weaknesses of all the others. There are ways to limit the consequences of having a logical national database of driver information, but there is no way to ameliorate all the consequences of the REAL ID Act requirement that information about every American driver be made available to every other state....