FLE

Smuggled aliens to sue Texas deputy Two illegal aliens plan a multimillion-dollar civil rights lawsuit against a Texas deputy who was sentenced to prison over an April 2005 incident in which the lawman shot at an alien-smuggling vehicle that he said had just tried to run him down. Edwards County Deputy Sheriff Guillermo F. Hernandez, along with his boss, Sheriff Donald G. Letsinger, have been targeted in a pending lawsuit by Maricela Rodriguez-Garcia and Candido Garcia-Perez, two Mexicans who were being smuggled into the U.S. when they were injured by fragments of the lawman's bullets. Mrs. Rodriguez-Garcia, struck by bullet fragments in the cheek and mouth, and Mr. Garcia-Perez, injured when fragments hit him in the arm, will seek damages from the two lawmen when the lawsuit is filed in U.S. District Court in Del Rio, Texas. Court records show Mrs. Rodriguez-Garcia and Mr. Garcia-Perez told investigators that they paid $2,000 each to be taken across the Rio Grande from Acuna, Mexico. They said they later met the vehicle's driver and a guide, who were to take them to Austin and Dallas. Both Mexican nationals are thought to be in the U.S. and have filed notice that they intend to sue. A legally required mediation hearing, where disputing parties meet with a neutral third party to try to resolve a dispute without going to court, is scheduled for today in Austin....
Undercover agents slip bombs past DIA screeners Checkpoint security screeners at Denver International Airport last month failed to find liquid explosives packed in carry-on luggage and also improvised explosive devices, or IED's, worn by undercover agents sources told 9NEWS. "It really is concerning considering that we're paying millions of dollars out of our budget to be secure in the airline industry," said passenger Mark Butler who has had two Army Swiss knives confiscated by screeners in the past. "Yet, we're not any safer than we were before 9/11, in my opinion." The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners failed most of the covert tests because of human error, sources told 9NEWS. Alarms went off on the machines, but sources said screeners violated TSA standard operating procedures and did not hand-search suspicious luggage, wand, or pat down the undercover agents....
Chertoff to meet with border sheriffs Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will meet next month with members of the Southwestern Border Sheriff's Coalition, who have vigorously called on the federal government to include state and local law-enforcement authorities in efforts to secure the border. Representing 28 counties along the 1,951-mile border from Texas to California, the coalition has asked for federal help in combating rising illegal entry and drug smuggling, saying the federal government's failure to control the border has put the lives of border residents and law-enforcement officials at risk. Sheriff Ogden, whose 5,520-square-mile county has become a popular alien-smuggling corridor with more than a 50 percent jump in apprehensions last year, has argued that law-enforcement agencies along the border face not only immigration issues but border-security concerns. The coalition has urged the federal government to work with state and local law-enforcement authorities to address the issue of border security, saying that while federal officials have been "doing a lot of talking" about securing the nation's borders, the Southwest continues to be overrun by illegal aliens, illicit drugs and rising violence....
Papers show Census role in WWII camps The Census Bureau turned over confidential information including names and addresses to help the Justice Department, Secret Service and other agencies identify Japanese-Americans during World War II, according to government documents released today. Documents found by two historians in Commerce Department archives and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library confirm for the first time that the bureau shared details about individual Japanese-Americans after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The Census Bureau played a role in the confinement of more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent who were rounded up and held in internment camps, many until the war ended in 1945. In 1942, the Census turned over general statistics about where Japanese-Americans lived to the War Department. It was acting legally under the Second War Powers Act, which allowed the sharing of information for national security. The newly released documents show that in 1943, the Census complied with a request by the Treasury Department to turn over names of individuals of Japanese ancestry in the Washington, D.C., area because of an unspecified threat against President Franklin Roosevelt. The list contained names, addresses and data on the age, sex, citizenship status and occupation of Japanese-Americans in the area....
Bill Passes, Tennesseans Can Keep Guns In Emergencies Tennesseans will get to keep their weapons to defend themselves in future disasters and emergencies. Tennessee lawmakers shot down a standing law allowing the governor to confiscate guns. Republican Senator Mark Norris proposed the bill that bans local officials from taking weapons He said, “You can't complain about a vote of 32 to nothing, I’d say the state supports our Second Amendment rights, our right to bear arms, and that's important at all times, especially in times of a state emergency."....
You may already be a terrorist If your name -- or any monicker close to your name -- appears on a lengthy list of "specially designated nationals" maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, you may be unable to get a mortgage, buy insurance or purchase a car. That's because the federal government makes it illegal for businesses, under threat of both civil and criminal penalties, to have anything to do with individuals and organizations whose names appear on the list. Not surprisingly, many businesses choose to err on the side of caution rather than risk fines and jail time -- with civil penalties accruing for even inadvertent transgressions. The result is that innocent people have found themselves turned away for loans, purchases and insurance with little recourse except a drawn-out and potentially expensive effort to prove that they are not the same person as a sometimes vaguely identified terrorist on the watch list. It's not a theoretical problem. The report, compiled by Shirin Sinnar, contains chilling anecdotes about normal people with common names turned away by mortgage brokers, car dealers and name-brand businesses like Western Union and PayPal. In fact, the problem might be even worse except that many businesses aren't obeying the requirement that every potential customer be screened for terrorist connections. Many don't know about the law; others find the cost of compliance daunting, even in light of the penalties involved....