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House Border Agents Bill Lacks Support in Senate The incarceration to two ex-Border Patrol agents for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler in the rear sparked bipartisan outrage, but a congressional initiative to free the two men may not achieve bicameral results. The House approved last week a Justice Department appropriations bill with a provision to prohibit the use of federal funds to enforce the prison sentences imposed on Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. The Senate version of the Justice Department funding bill doesn't have the de-funding measure for the Bureau of Prisons relating to Ramos and Compean. Even the Senate's two leading advocates for the jailed ex-border agents are opposed to adding such a provision.Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) "I do have a problem with de-funding incarceration for these two agents," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters and bloggers in a teleconference Monday. "I just think that's not an appropriate thing for Congress to do, and I worry that it could be a precedent for future instances that may tend to undermine the criminal justice process."....
Border Agents Treated Worse Than Terror Suspects, Congressmen Say Calling the treatment of two imprisoned border agents worse than the treatment of suspected terrorists, several House Republicans demanded that Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey pledge to review the case when he takes office. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday will begin the confirmation hearing for Mukasey, nominated last month by President George W. Bush to be the next attorney general. His nomination follows the departure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales after months of turmoil in the Justice Department. "If this new attorney general is unwilling to look into this, he doesn't deserve to be attorney general," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said. Rohrabacher was joined by four other House Republicans who have been vocal advocates of ex-Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, sentenced to 11 and 12 years, respectively, for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler in the buttocks as he fled back to Mexico....
Report: Mexico drug violence could spill into U.S. Drug-gang violence that plagues Mexico is worsening and could spill over into the United States, according to a new report by a consultant on Gov. Rick Perry's Texas Border Security Council. While Mexican President Felipe Calderon has deployed as many as 20,000 troops and federal police to battle the country's powerful drug cartels, gangsters are fighting among themselves for dominance as the flow of drugs continues into America. The 17-page document to be released Wednesday said that more than 2,100 people were killed in drug-related violence since Jan. 1, making 2007 the deadliest year yet. The U.S. side of the border is vulnerable because, the report asserted, law enforcement is poorly coordinated, undersupplied and sometimes corrupt. But drug violence, which has become a part of daily life in many Mexican border communities, has not materialized to a significant extent in American sister cities....
U.S., Mexico working on counter-drug plan The Bush administration will propose providing Mexico with about $1.5 billion to help Mexico combat rampant drug trafficking over several years, with Mexico expected to contribute another $7 billion to the plan, a top Pentagon official said Tuesday. The U.S. aid will include helicopters and other equipment plus training for Mexican security forces, but no U.S. troops will be deployed to Mexico said Stephen Johnson, deputy assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere at the Department of Defense. This is the first time U.S. officials have shed some light on one of the Bush administration's signature initiatives for Latin America, a program somewhat similar to the multibillion-dollar effort known as Plan Colombia in that South American nation. The Miami Herald first reported the proposal on July 28. Johnson said the program, which he called a ''historic'' effort to bring the United States closer to its neighbor, includes Washington supplying helicopters and other equipment. ''With some 2,000 execution-style murders this year on the part of drug mafias, Mexico is under siege,'' Johnson told the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think-tank. ``This is an historic opportunity for the United States to cement closer ties with its closest Latin American neighbor and encourage a sea change in law enforcement capabilities.''....
Immigrant's family detained after daughter speaks out Three days after a 24-year-old college graduate spoke out on her immigration plight in USA TODAY, U.S. agents arrested her family — including her father, a Vietnamese man who once was confined to a "re-education" camp in his home country for anti-communist activities. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who chairs the House immigration subcommittee, on Tuesday accused federal officials of "witness intimidation" for staging a pre-dawn raid on the home of Tuan Ngoc Tran. The agents arrested Tran, his wife and son, charging them with being fugitives from justice even though the family's attorneys said the Trans have been reporting to immigration officials annually to obtain work permits. Lofgren said she believes the family was targeted because Tran's eldest child, Tam Tran, testified before Lofgren's panel earlier this spring in support of legislation that would help the children of illegal immigrants. On Oct. 8, Tam Tran was quoted in USA TODAY. Her parents and brother were taken into custody Thursday. The family was released to house arrest after Lofgren intervened....
On Trial, Ex-F.B.I. Agent Faces Years of Scrutiny Over Mob Killings The rumor was explosive, hard to believe: Gregory Scarpa Sr., a ruthless Colombo crime family capo known as the Grim Reaper, was receiving tips from a mysterious source inside law enforcement, a man he called “the girlfriend.” The confirmation was devastating: Prosecutors working to cripple the family in the mid-1990s said that the source was their own Roy Lindley DeVecchio, a Federal Bureau of Investigation supervisor, the man assigned to lead the Colombo investigation. More than a decade later, Mr. DeVecchio arrived in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn yesterday for a trial on murder charges. By the account of state prosecutors, he traded information with Mr. Scarpa from 1980 through 1993, directly causing four Mafia killings and failing to stop several others. Mr. DeVecchio tried several legal maneuvers — including claiming immunity from prosecution as a federal agent — but each failed, and he appeared in court yesterday in a drab gray suit, ragged crew cut and crinkled features, watched from the gallery by rows of agents dressed nearly identically. Prosecutors say Mr. DeVecchio accepted cash, wine, the services of a prostitute and jewelry stolen from bank safe deposit boxes. They say he billed the federal government for more than $66,000 in payments to Mr. Scarpa, then kept the money himself. But his greatest rewards were the least tangible, prosecutors say: Through years of handling his prized mole, Mr. DeVecchio grew his legend in the annals of law enforcement. After helping supervise the famed Commission Case in the 1980s, when top leaders of the city’s five crime families were jailed, Mr. DeVecchio was honored by the Police Department and called to lecture at training academies....
FISA Failed Soldiers, Former Intel Chairman Says With Congress reviewing changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which sets rules for how electronic surveillance may be conducted, a lead Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said the proposed changes will put American soldiers in harm's way and may have already contributed to the death of three U.S. soldiers. FISA was created in 1978 along with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to grant warrants for wiretapping Americans for intelligence purposes. The law has been changed several times since it was enacted and since 9/11 to address current security threats. Most recently, FISA was changed in August with the Protect America Act, which expanded the White House's ability to conduct surveillance. Democrats are now trying to change the law to roll back some portions of the August act. They're calling their new bill the RESTORE Act. "Yet again, the Bush administration and its allies are making allegations that have no basis in fact," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). He said the Democrats' RESTORE Act would solve the problems involving the missing soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq. "Specifically, the bill would clarify that individualized warrants are not required to spy on foreign terrorists and foreign terrorist organizations outside the United States in places like Iraq," Nadler said. "Judicial approval is only required when Americans, and people in the United States, are targeted."....
U.N. to debate worldwide halt to executions The United States will find itself in the minority in the U.N. General Assembly when the European Union introduces a nonbinding resolution next week calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty. Italy and Portugal, acting on behalf of the EU, will introduce the resolution, arguing that capital punishment violates human rights regardless of how carefully it is carried out. "A United Nations resolution against the death penalty will prove that human beings today are better than they were yesterday ... in moral terms," Italian President Romano Prodi said during a U.N. debate last month. He said a death-penalty moratorium would herald "a more just future, and a society that has at last freed itself from the spiral of revenge." U.S. officials have already said they would vote against the resolution, criticizing it as an unwarranted intrusion on national sovereignty....
Schwarzenegger Sides With Gun Control Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the Crime Gun Identification Act over the weekend, and that means gun sellers by 2010 - if there are any left in the state by that time -- will have to use "microstamping" technology on every semiautomatic pistol they sell. The new law, AB 1471, requires information about a gun's make, model and identification number to be laser engraved onto the gun's firing pin. Theoretically, the information would transfer itself onto the bullet cartridge when the pistol is fired, allowing police to match bullet casings found at crime scenes with the gun that fired the bullet. Gun control groups say the new law will help police solve crimes. But critics say the bill is back-door gun control. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association of the firearms industry, accused Gov. Schwarzenegger of betraying law-abiding gun owners, retailers and hunters by signing the bill. First of all the "microstamping" technology is "flawed," as indicated by multiple studies, the NSSF said in a news release. Criminals will be able to remove the laser engraving in moments, using common household tools, the group said. And it would be easy for criminals to scatter microstamped cartridges from other guns at crime scenes to confuse police, critics say. Some say the new law will dry up gun sales in California - and that may be the point....
Verizon Says It Turned Over Data Without Court Orders Verizon Communications, the nation's second-largest telecom company, told congressional investigators that it has provided customers' telephone records to federal authorities in emergency cases without court orders hundreds of times since 2005. The company said it does not determine the requests' legality or necessity because to do so would slow efforts to save lives in criminal investigations. In an Oct. 12 letter replying to Democratic lawmakers, Verizon offered a rare glimpse into the way telecommunications companies cooperate with government requests for information on U.S. citizens. Verizon also disclosed that the FBI, using administrative subpoenas, sought information identifying not just a person making a call, but all the people that customer called, as well as the people those people called. Verizon does not keep data on this "two-generation community of interest" for customers, but the request highlights the broad reach of the government's quest for data. The disclosures, in a letter from Verizon to three Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee investigating the carriers' participation in government surveillance programs, demonstrated the willingness of telecom companies to comply with government requests for data, even, at times, without traditional legal supporting documents. From January 2005 to September 2007, Verizon provided data to federal authorities on an emergency basis 720 times, it said in the letter. The records included Internet protocol addresses as well as phone data. In that period, Verizon turned over information a total of 94,000 times to federal authorities armed with a subpoena or court order, the letter said....
For one company, FISA wiretaps carry a $1K pricetag Although the scope of surveillance conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act remains shrouded in secrecy, newly disclosed documents show the costs one company charges the government to eavesdrop on customers. Comcast, which is among the nation's largest telecommunication companies, charges $1,000 to install a FISA wiretap and $750 for each additional month authorities want to keep an eye on suspects, according to the company's Handbook for Law Enforcement. Secrecy News obtained the document and published it Monday. "I was actually surprised that this was such a routine transaction that it would have a set fee," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy. The Comcast handbook says the company will comply with legal requests from federal, state and local authorities to monitor the communications of criminal suspects, and the company notes legal ambiguity surrounding some of the more controversial tools that have emerged since Sept. 11, 2001....