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National firearms ban 'reasonable'? A Second Amendment advocacy organization is asking the Bush administration to withdraw a legal brief that leaders fear could be used to support "any gun ban – no matter how sweeping," as long as some court somewhere determines it is "reasonable." The concern comes from Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, whose group is pleading with the Bush administration to withdraw an anti-gun brief filed by the U.S. Solicitor General in a Supreme Court case regarding a District of Columbia ban on handguns. The document from U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement noted since "unrestricted" private ownership of guns clearly threatens the public safety, the Second Amendment can be interpreted to allow a variety of gun restrictions. His brief suggests gun rights are limited and since they are subject to "reasonable regulation," all gun limits imposed by the federal government should be affirmed as constitutional. But Gun Owners of America, a grass-roots lobby representing more than 300,000 Americans, said the opinion creates a huge threat to the constitutional provision banning the "infringement" of the right to bear arms. "If the Supreme Court were to accept the Solicitor General's line of argument, D.C.'s categorical gun ban of virtually all self-defense firearms could well be found to be constitutional…" Pratt said. Worse, when the standard for evaluating gun bans becomes "reasonable," there is nothing else needed in order for a court somewhere to decide that all guns should be forbidden. "In contrast to other provisions in the Bill of Rights, which can only be trumped by 'compelling state interests,' the Second Amendment would be relegated to an inferior position at the lowest rung of the constitutional ladder, should the Justice Department prevail," said Pratt. He said the legal opinion could have been written by a gun limit lobby and it could be used in support of a ban on all guns by a government proclaiming "this is a reasonable regulation" even while affirming the "right" to bear arms....
Witness says ex-Mexican police commander was active in cartel A witness says a former Mexican police commander served as a tax collector for the Gulf cartel. Testimony continued today in McAllen in the federal trial of Carlos Landin Martinez. He is accused of running a drug smuggling operation for the Gulf drug cartel while also working as the state police commander in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Witness Daniel Zamorano is a Chilean restaurant manager who once smuggled marijuana and methamphetamine for the cartel. He says Landin collected pisos, or tolls, from smaller drug gangs crossing through the cartel's turf in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen. Landin has pleaded not guilty to ten counts of drug smuggling, conspiracy and money laundering going back to 2005....
Border Patrol agent killed by 'smugglers' A U.S. Border Patrol agent is dead in California after being struck by one of two vehicles fleeing toward the U.S.-Mexico border during a pursuit by law enforcement today. The officer, whose name has not yet been released, was laying spike strips across the road in the Imperial Sand Dunes recreation in the southeast portion of the state at about 9:30 a.m. when he was hit by a Hummer believed to have been driven by smugglers. The Hummer and a Black Ford F-150 pickup truck escaped into Mexico, Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Jeremy Schappell told the Yuma Sun. It is unknown whether the vehicles were carrying drugs or human contraband. "Right now our Mexican liaison unit has contact with the Mexican authorities ... try and track these individuals down," Schappell said....
Burglars strike home of Sierra Vista mayor, cars found in Mexico Burglars broke into the home of the mayor of Sierra Vista, stealing valuables and two cars from the garage. The cars were recovered in a ditch near Naco, Mexico on Thursday and returned to the U.S. "Probably waiting to be loaded up and driven back north, but they didn't get that far," Mayor Bob Strain said of the cars. Strain said he returned home from vacation on Sunday and found his home had been searched and a GMC Envoy sports utility vehicle and a Honda Element were missing from the garage....
A trafficker's vehicle of choice Houston entrepreneur Bill Christmann was shocked when thieves stole his souped-up black Ford F-250 pickup from his west Houston driveway one night last July. But shock turned to concern the next day after Christmann learned thieves had driven the 2001, heavy-duty, four-wheel-drive truck to Laredo, loaded it with illegal immigrants and drove it back from the border, roaring off-road through fenced ranch pastures. Police chased the truck south of San Antonio before the smugglers crashed the vehicle into a tree. The smugglers escaped, and the immigrants fled. Christmann is among hundreds of Houstonians who purchased one of Ford's two popular and expensive pickup models — the Super Duty F-250 and Super Duty F-350 — and have since learned that their rugged trucks are increasingly favored by gangs of auto thieves. Many of the trucks, police officials in Houston and border towns say, are being stolen for Mexican criminal cartels who use them as vehicles for narcotics and human trafficking. In 2006, thieves made off with 888 of the F-250s and F-350s from locations in Houston, according to Lt. Scott Dombrowski, of the Houston Police Department's auto theft division. In 2007, he said, thefts of the same models increased 40 percent, to 1,245....
FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft THE FBI has been accused of covering up a key case file detailing evidence against corrupt government officials and their dealings with a network stealing nuclear secrets. The assertion follows allegations made in The Sunday Times two weeks ago by Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistleblower, who worked on the agency’s investigation of the network. Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office. She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file. Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive....
Travelers returning by sea or land will have to show 'proof of citizenship' starting Jan. 31 Get ready to present more paperwork when traveling by boat or car back into the United States from nearby countries. Starting Jan. 31, adults and children who are U.S. citizens will be required to show "proof of citizenship," such as a birth certificate, naturalization certificate or a U.S. passport. Adults also will need to show government IDs, such as a driver's license. The new rule does not yet require passports. U.S. citizens eventually will need passports to return by land or sea from nearby countries but not until possibly next year, officials said. The date has not been set. But U.S. land crossings from Mexico and Canada are bracing for longer lines. At land borders, many people now enter "simply by saying, 'I'm an American citizen,'" Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said. Business groups worry that the new rule could disrupt commerce and travel across the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico borders. On Friday, the Travel Industry Association and Travel Business Roundtable asked the government to delay the "proof of citizenship" rule, calling it onerous to require citizens to carry a birth certificate "in the absence of robust, advanced outreach to travelers." The groups asked that U.S. citizens be required to show only a government-issued ID to re-enter by land or sea effective Jan. 31....
Futuristic Hi-Tech Profiling On January 14, Computerworld online revealed more cause for concern in an article called "Big Brother Really is Watching." It's about DHS "bankrolling futuristic profiling technology...." for its Project Hostile Intent. It, in turn, is part of a broader initiative called the Future Attribute Screening Technologies Mobile Module. It's to be a self-contained, automated screening system that's portable and easy to implement, and DHS hopes to test it at airports in 2010 and deploy it (if it works) by 2012 at airports, border checkpoints, other points of entry and other security-related areas. Here's the problem. If developed (reliable or not), these devices will use video, audio, laser and infrared sensors to feed real-time data into a computer using "specially developed algorithms" to identify "suspicious people." It would work (in theory) by interpreting gestures, facial expressions and speech variations as well as measure body temperature, heart and respiration rate, blood pressure, skin moisture, and other physiological characteristics. The idea would be detect deception and identify suspicious people for aggressive interrogation, searches and even arrest. But consider what's coming. If developed, the technology may be used anywhere by government or the private sector for airport or other checkpoint security, buildings, job interviews, employee screening, buying insurance or conducting any other type essential business....
Secret Service: Detailed Look at ’06 Turmoil The arrest of a man named Steven Howards in June 2006 after he approached Vice President Dick Cheney at a Colorado ski resort and denounced the war in Iraq might have seemed, at the time, no more than a blip on the vice president’s schedule. But now the blip has become a blowup, with Secret Service agents — under oath in court depositions — accusing one another of unethical and perhaps even illegal conduct in the handling of Mr. Howards’s arrest and the official accounting of it. The revelations arise from a lawsuit Mr. Howards filed against five Secret Service agents, accusing them of civil rights and free-speech violations. They offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Secret Service, which usually wears the standoffish, plainclothes cool of its mission like a cloak of invisibility. The agent who made the arrest, Virgil D. Reichle Jr., said in a deposition that he was left hanging with an untenable arrest because two agents assigned to the vice president had at first agreed with a Denver agent that there had been assault on Mr. Cheney by Mr. Howards, then changed their stories to say that no assault had occurred....