FLE

Illegals to sue imprisoned deputy sheriff In a case eerily reminiscent of the controversial jailing of Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos while the illegal-alien drug-smuggler they wounded went free, two illegal aliens are now suing imprisoned Texas Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez for injuries from shell fragments that struck them as the officer shot at the tires of a van in which they escaped from a routine traffic stop. Maricela Rodriguez-Garcia and Candido Garcia-Perez are preparing to file a civil lawsuit against Hernandez and Sheriff Don G. Letsinger, possibly seeking millions of dollars in damages for alleged violation of their civil rights. Jimmy Parks, defense attorney for Hernandez, told WND the lawsuit "has just become standard operating procedure down here on the border." WND has obtained a copy of a draft complaint to be filed in the U.S. District Court in Del Rio, Texas, against Hernandez and Letsinger, both individually and in their official capacities. Parks said he was not surprised by the lawsuit and expects "the illegal aliens are going to sue for millions in this case."....
Border Crossers Rarely Prosecuted Guidelines issued by U.S. attorneys in Texas showed that most illegal immigrants crossing into the state had to be arrested at least six times before federal authorities would prosecute them, according to an internal Justice Department memo. The disclosure provides a rare view of how federal authorities attempt to curb illegal immigration. The memo was released this week in response to a congressional investigation of the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys. It is unclear when the memo was written, but the Justice Department reviewed the guidelines sometime after a February 2005 performance review of Carol Lam, the top federal prosecutor in San Diego from 2002 until she was fired last month. Some Republican lawmakers had complained that Lam failed to aggressively prosecute immigration violations. The memo was written in response to Justice Department inquiries about immigration prosecutions by the five U.S. attorney offices that cover the 2,000-mile border - San Diego, Phoenix, San Antonio, Houston and Albuquerque, N.M. Guidelines vary by office, but migrants with no criminal records who have not been deported by an immigration judge will almost certainly be turned back to Mexico "numerous times" before getting prosecuted, according to another Justice Department memo dated Nov. 22, 2005. Those "voluntary returns" are booked on administrative, not criminal, violations. Parts of the other memo are blacked out, so it's unclear whether the document refers to U.S. attorneys in Houston or San Antonio. The memo says one Texas district prosecutes migrants if the Border Patrol catches them at least six to eight times. The other district prosecutes after someone is caught at least seven times....I wonder what the guidelines were in NM?
TSA Employees Accused of Thefts at LAX Misdemeanor theft cases are being filed against 10 employees and a transient suspected of pilfering the personal property of travelers at LAX, including hotel heiress Paris Hilton and singer Keyshia Cole, the City Attorney's Office announced today. Most of the alleged thieves are employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration, said Nick Velasquez of the City Attorney's Office. A news conference is planned at LAX tomorrow morning to discuss details of the investigation and charges. "We're a public law office, so whenever there's a significant announcement or a significant legal actions being taken, it's our duty and obligation to tell the public ... that we are working to ensure the safety and security of travelers at LAX," Velasquez said. Eight of the defendants are TSA employees who work at Los Angeles International Airport and two are employees of an LAX subcontractor, Velasquez said....
Congress Urged to Move Carefully on DC Gun Ban Attempts by "well-meaning members of Congress" to repeal the 1976 Washington, D.C., gun ban could backfire by keeping the case out of the U.S. Supreme Court, said attorneys representing six D.C. residents in a high-profile Second Amendment case. "We appreciate that the Second Amendment's many friends in Congress want to express themselves on the D.C. gun ban, and there are ways in which Congress can have a tremendously positive impact," said Alan Gura, lead counsel in Parker v. District of Columbia, which challenged the 1976 D.C. gun ban. But "Congress has to act very carefully," Gura told Cybercast News Service after a panel discussion of the case. "A congressional repeal of the D.C. gun ban right now could erase the recent court victory," he said, referring to the March 9 ruling by U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that said the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. "All of our hard work would be wasted," Gura warned. "We have to work with the members of Congress to make sure that if they want to express themselves legislatively on the D.C. gun ban, they can do so in a way that preserves the issue for litigation, Gura said. Second Amendment supporters have waited many years for the right case to bring before the U.S. Supreme Court. Their goal is for the highest court in the land to interpret the Second Amendment in a way that reinforces the constitutional right of individuals to own guns....
Terror Database Has Quadrupled In Four Years Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world -- field reports, captured documents, news from foreign allies and sometimes idle gossip -- arrive in a computer-filled office in McLean, where analysts feed them into the nation's central list of terrorists and terrorism suspects. Called TIDE, for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, the list is a storehouse for data about individuals that the intelligence community believes might harm the United States. It is the wellspring for watch lists distributed to airlines, law enforcement, border posts and U.S. consulates, created to close one of the key intelligence gaps revealed after Sept. 11, 2001: the failure of federal agencies to share what they knew about al-Qaeda operatives. But in addressing one problem, TIDE has spawned others. Ballooning from fewer than 100,000 files in 2003 to about 435,000, the growing database threatens to overwhelm the people who manage it. "The single biggest worry that I have is long-term quality control," said Russ Travers, in charge of TIDE at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean. "Where am I going to be, where is my successor going to be, five years down the road?" TIDE has also created concerns about secrecy, errors and privacy. The list marks the first time foreigners and U.S. citizens are combined in an intelligence database. The bar for inclusion is low, and once someone is on the list, it is virtually impossible to get off it. At any stage, the process can lead to "horror stories" of mixed-up names and unconfirmed information, Travers acknowledged....
My National Security Letter Gag Order The Justice Department's inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue "national security letters." It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision -- demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval -- to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me. Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled. Rather than turn over the information, I contacted lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, and in April 2004 I filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSL power. I never released the information the FBI sought, and last November the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn't abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with the law or the national security letter that was served on my company. In fact, the government will return to court in the next few weeks to defend the gag orders that are imposed on recipients of these letters. Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case -- including the mere fact that I received an NSL -- from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie. I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation....
City Police Spied Broadly Before G.O.P. Convention For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews. From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show. They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department’s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms. From these operations, run by the department’s “R.N.C. Intelligence Squad,” the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence. But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show....