Website and automated forms processes, Copyright
2007, Matthew August LeFande.
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rights reserved. No claim to original government forms
Website and automated forms processes, Copyright
2007, Matthew August LeFande.
All
rights reserved. No claim to original government forms
Bill O'Rights Arrested On Drug Charges
Police in Sanford assisted Maine drug enforcement agents in arresting a man on drug charges.
A joint investigation led the officers to execute a search warrant at 177 Lebanon St. Thursday. They found 50 pounds. of marijuana, guns and more than $80,000 in cash.
Investigators arrested Billie Bonsall – also known as William O’Rights – who is being held at the York County Jail.
http://www.wmtw.com/news/4062860/detail.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:59 AM
matt@lefande.com
Guns would mark ID on shells
Hoping to find shooting suspects more quickly, California may become the first state to require semiautomatic pistols to stamp their make, model and serial number onto every cartridge they fire.
Proposed legislation would require semiautomatic models produced after January 2007 to carry the innovative microstamping technology.
When peace officers find empty cartridges shell casings at crime scenes, the identifying stamp could help determine what gun fired them and, through an existing database, who purchased the weapon.
"We expect that it will be a very valuable tool and will help solve hundreds of additional crimes, if it's implemented,' said Assemblyman Paul Koretz, a West Hollywood Democrat who proposed the bill.
But critics claim AB 352 would raise the price of handguns without having much practical effect, because criminals could simply buy old guns, replace firing pins, or alter firing pins to erase identifying markers.
Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California, denounced Koretz's bill as the latest in a series of legislative bids to discourage gun ownership by raising costs, expanding registration requirements or making production more difficult.
http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21474~2723208,00.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:02 AM
matt@lefande.com
Nude Man Steals, Wrecks Philly Police Car
Police chased a naked man through the city's slushy streets early Monday after he allegedly stripped off his bathrobe, bit an officer, then stole a police cruiser in an attempt to escape.
The man was captured after he smashed the cruiser into several parked cars, abandoned the vehicle and tried to get away in his bare feet.
The episode unfolded at around 1:30 a.m. when police were called to a block in North Philadelphia to investigate complaints about a person screaming in the street. Officers arriving on the scene said they found a man running about in his bathrobe in the freshly fallen snow.
The officers gave chase. The man shed his robe, then allegedly bit a female officer on the arm, climbed into her patrol car and hit the gas. He drove only a few blocks before crashing, police said.
Police did not immediately release the suspect's name. He faces charges including car theft and assault.
http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=129803
I told you Frank only winged him.
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:54 AM
matt@lefande.com
Crime sleuths cope with 'CSI' Effect
It takes less than a minute for Glory to locate the human remains hidden amid a roomful of journalists — but there are some things even Glory, an Australian shepherd dog that’s been searching through crime scenes for years, can’t do.
"The expectations for cadaver search dogs, for absolute perfection, have drastically gone up," said Jane Servais, Glory's owner and president of the Mid-Atlantic D.O.G.S., a canine search-and-rescue group.
Glory and her human counterparts in crime scene investigation are all having to cope with an age of heightened expectations, brought on by the gee-whiz science seen in TV shows such as “CSI.” During presentations here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, forensic experts noted that the surge of attention even had a prime-time name: the “CSI” Effect.
Not that the attention is all bad: More and more students are enrolling in crime-lab classes, said Max Houck, director of the Forensic Science Initiative at West Virginia University. At a news briefing Sunday, Houck noted that the forensic program had just four graduates in 1999. Today it's the largest major program on campus, with about 400 undergraduate students.
But once those students start working in the field, they face pressures from the families of crime victims and others who expect test results to come as easily and infallibly as they do on television. The popularity of high-tech crime analysis has led law enforcement agencies to submit increasing numbers of samples for testing, resulting in a backlog of 200,000 to 300,000 DNA samples alone, Houck said.
The “CSI” Effect has affected other parts of the legal system as well.
"Prosecutors tend to fear the 'CSI' Effect on juries, because juries now have an unrealistic expectation of what the laboratory will do. They wonder why wasn't everything tested, when in fact not everything needs to be tested," Houck said. "Defense attorneys now worry about the 'CSI' Effect as well, because they think that the jurors come in and have this view of science as this juggernaut, this infallible objective method that is always right and spells doom for their client."
Houck said there was a crying need for more basic research, particularly into methods other than DNA testing, such as fingerprint analysis. DNA testing is "the more attractive younger sibling and it got more attention, and some of the older siblings were ignored," he said.
He said the federal government provided just $12 million to $15 million annually for forensic science research, through the National Institute of Justice.
"There is more money spent in this country on holistic medicine every year than there is on forensic science research, and I find that appalling for any number of reasons," Houck said.
Despite the grumbling, the experts conceded that the real-life routine of a crime investigator probably wouldn't get the kinds of TV ratings "CSI" and "Law and Order" do.
"As I tell my students, it's less about wearing leather pants and driving Hummers than it is about wearing a Tyvek jumpsuit and crawling under somebody's porch and looking for body parts," Houck said. "That's the reality of it."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7003715
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:44 AM
matt@lefande.com
Hatred chic
Since 9/11, America has been aware of and concerned about the amount of anti-Americanism inside and outside its borders. Some of this has been caricatured, some of it earnestly analyzed. Interest goes right to the top. "Why do they hate us?" President George W. Bush asked Congress two weeks after 9/11. His administration splashes out $68 million (U.S.) per annum on "Al-hurra," an Arabic satellite station that aims to tell "the truth about the values of the policies of the United States" to middle-eastern couch potatoes. It was Bush who hired the legendary Madison Avenue advertising guru Charlotte Beers to market his nation to the Muslim world. She quit after 18 months.
Some of this is understandable. It's also understandable that "Why do they hate us?" has limits. In a recent Newsweek article, Fareed Zakaria expressed concern that, with his lofty second inaugural address, Bush had ripened the opportunity for America's critics to charge his nation with hypocrisy for the cavernous gap between its high ideals and its not-so-pure actions. But when Bush declared "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one," he was also telling the world how the charge of American hypocrisy might lose legitimacy. The speech combined time-honoured American idealism with a smidgen of "put up or shut up." Two birds with one stone. "Will you give us a break?" the president was saying. "We're doing our best here. Cut us some slack, why don't you?"
Quite right. It would be futile for America to respond in a soul-searching manner to the trash talk of its detractors. Why? Because most of the time, it's not America's fault the world so condemns it. It's not that America does everything right. If America makes a bonehead move — something it does as well as any of us — we should jeer and blow raspberries. But this is not what we do. The industry of anti-American sentiment is just that — an industry. It should not be mistaken for legitimate and considered concern. "I hate America" is the world's default position. Knocking America is a form of displacement. It helps non-Americans avoid focusing on their own big problems. In fact, strip it of its lacy hosiery and the world's relationship with America is disgustingly Freudian.
Anti-Americanism that breeds terrorism and tyranny is a major problem for us all and one the United States of America must fully address; anti-Americanism that doesn't result in suicide missions is not America's problem, it's the problem of its moron perpetrators. Non-Americans that find comfort in blaming America for all the world's ills — poverty, war, environmental destruction, the death of high culture, their own pitiful inadequacies — suffer for such fatuous bunkum. Their own houses rot as they drone on at dinner parties and terrorist camps about American "crimes against humanity."
America can and should ignore the dinner guests. They pose no threat. Especially not an intellectual one. The philosophy of "damn you if you do, damn you if you don't" is not worthy of serious contemplation. Insularly isolationist or intensely imperial, America is castigated for both, often by the same people. "The illogicality at base consists in reproaching the United States for some shortcoming, and then for its opposite," writes Jean-Francois Revel in his aptly titled book Anti-Americanism. "Here is a convincing sign that we are in the presence, not of rational analysis, but of obsession."
Many of those who say America does not live up to its own ideals and rhetoric would surely be the first to protest if it did. If America invades and "liberates" Iraq, they say, it should also invade and liberate North Korea, Burma, China, Zimbabwe, etc. I'd love to see their reaction if America took up the challenge. Yes, America talks a good game — but this should be celebrated, and, yes, held to account. As it stands, though, whether the "indispensable nation," the "universal country," the "global policeman," the "lone superduperpower," the "empire in denial" or Jefferson's "empire of liberty," the U.S. plays the traditional lead role of the world's whipping-boy.
"At least part of the Western left — or rather the Western far left — is now so anti-American, or so anti-Bush, that it actually prefers authoritarian or totalitarian leaders to any government that would be friendly to the United States," writes Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post. "Many of the same people who would refuse to condemn a dictator who is anti-American cannot bring themselves to admire democrats who admire, or at least don't hate, the United States."
Applebaum is on to something. To some, democratic movements are only legitimate if also anti-American. Ukrainians in Independence Square were pro-American, not pro-Castro. Must've been a CIA plot.
Anti-Americanism, when not perpetrated by true haters, is often a stale mockery of America, born of our own fascination. This is our (the world's) problem, not America's. Jean-Francois Revel suggests that we "project our faults onto America so as to absolve ourselves." As he says of his native France, and Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin say of the last 400 years, some of this "hating America" is born of fear, some of plain old weakness, some of outright jealousy. The left, in particular, is green with envy. Twentieth-century Communism only served to augment belief in the American Dream. "The success of America was thus a devastating blow to the Left," writes Michael Ledeen. "It wasn't supposed to happen. And American success was particularly galling because it came at the expense of Europe itself, and of the embodiment of the Left's most utopian dream: the Soviet Union."
After the fascistic and communistic horrors of the 20th century, we are bloody lucky to live in a world led by the United States in which the central geopolitical questions are, "Should we spread liberty and democracy? And if so, how far?" We should ride our luck a little, before we run it out. "(America's) interaction with the rest of the world must be a conversation, not a monologue," says the new U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. That goes both ways. The rest of the world should swallow a spoonful of this medicine. When President Bush declares how, "In a world moving towards liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty," we should let him get on with it and try dusting off our own promises.
America is not the panacea, nor is it the devil. Our problems are generally our problems. The world would do well to be a little more like America, a tad more insular, self-involved.
Non-Americans love to quote John Kennedy's famous call, "And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Why? It is the second part of Kennedy's couplet we should heed and let roll off our tongues: "My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." This still stands. And freedom, like charity, discipline and intelligence, begins at home.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1108768212216&call_pageid=970599119419
posted by Matthew LeFande 5:52 PM
matt@lefande.com
Armed Citizen of the Week
Barry Fixler was back at work in his jewelry store in Bardonia, NY Tuesday, a day after he managed to draw his own gun and shoot a robber who was aiming a revolver at his head.
The suspect was in serious condition Tuesday after surgery at Nyack Hospital but was expected to survive, police said. Two alleged confederates who fled after the shooting were arrested within 12 hours, one in Nanuet and one in Danbury, Conn.
Fixler said that while the incident was not "memorable," he feels he did what he had to.
"I'd be dead," he said in a phone interview. "My life was going to be over. That's what I thought about."
Detective Lt. Charles Delo of the Clarkstown police force, which covers Bardonia, said a review of the shooting on a surveillance videotape showed it to be justified. Fixler had a permit for his .38-caliber handgun.
Fixler, a 57-year-old ex-Marine, had to sidle along his counter with the robber's gun in his face to get to the spot where his handgun was hidden, he said.
"What Barry did may have been very brave, but he could have been very easily killed," Delo said.
Fixler told police two of the men came into his store, Barry's Estate Jewelry on Route 304, asked about engagement rings and then pulled their guns, one of them aiming his weapon at Fixler's head.
Police said the man who was shot has not been positively identified. A second suspect, Michael Duran, 18, of Queens, was found shortly after the robbery in Nanuet and was charged with attempted robbery.
A third suspect was arrested Monday night by police in Danbury who were alerted by Clarkstown police. He was identified as Mathew Ross, 21, of Danbury, and was charged with carrying a gun without a permit. Clarkstown police said he would also face charges in the robbery.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/4200758/detail.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:21 AM
matt@lefande.com
Prince George's Officer Is Acquitted of Assault
A Prince George's County police officer who used his metal baton to hit a handcuffed suspect was acquitted of assault yesterday by jurors who watched a videotape of the incident and decided that the use of force was justified.
After deliberating for about six hours over two days, the Circuit Court jury rejected the prosecution's argument that Cpl. Brian K. Addis, 31, committed second-degree assault in his Oct. 5, 2003, encounter with suspect Vernon S. Bullock. Addis was also acquitted of filing a false report; both charges are misdemeanors.
Bullock stole a van at gunpoint and led police on a high-speed chase that ended when the van crashed in the Bowie area. A camera in Addis's patrol car recorded Addis repeatedly kicking Bullock and striking him with the baton as other officers tried to handcuff him. The tape shows Addis hitting Bullock with the baton and kneeing him after he was handcuffed and on the ground.
Addis testified that he used force after Bullock was handcuffed because Bullock claimed to have a gun and was reaching for his waistband, as if to grab a weapon.
Addis "clearly did not know" whether Bullock was armed, juror Ed Oblas, 47, of Bowie, said outside the courthouse. And although Bullock was handcuffed, Oblas said, "he was not under control."
Another juror, Bob Holbrook, 46, of Landover Hills, said he believed Addis's testimony that Bullock was a threat. He said he thought the videotape showed Bullock to be out of control. "We were just concerned with what happened on the tape," he said.
In his closing argument Wednesday, Deputy State's Attorney Robert L. Dean told jurors that Addis took the law into his hands. "The law protects people like Vernon Bullock, just like it protects you and me," Dean said. "We don't leave it to the police to punish."
Percy Alston, president of the union that represents most police officers in the county, said he thinks the jury realized that Addis was only doing his job when he used force against Bullock, now 22, who is serving a seven-year prison term for the carjacking.
"It shows the citizens of Prince George's County are not going to tolerate violent crime," Alston said. "They're not going to handcuff . . . officers so they can't do their job."
State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said he was surprised and disappointed.
"I think the tape speaks for itself," he said. "The jury had a different view of it than I did. People have to look at the tape and draw their own conclusions."
Defense attorney Michael J. Belsky said Addis, who joined the force in 1997, is a good police officer who should not have been prosecuted. Addis, standing with Belsky outside the courthouse after the verdicts, had little to say.
"I'm happy," he told reporters.
The case against Addis was the first prosecution of a police officer for alleged on-duty misconduct since Ivey took office in late 2002. His predecessor, Jack B. Johnson, who is now county executive, prosecuted 11 officers for alleged on-duty misconduct in seven cases during his eight years as state's attorney, but he gained no convictions.
The Addis prosecution was closely watched by police officials, community leaders and legal professionals. County police signed an agreement last year with the Justice Department under which the police department agreed to make extensive changes in training and procedures to reduce instances of excessive force and other misconduct.
Addis has been on leave with pay since he was indicted in the case last year. The department normally waits for a criminal prosecution to be completed before beginning an internal investigation to determine whether any department rules were violated.
It is unclear whether Addis will be allowed to return to work while the internal investigation is conducted. Police Chief Melvin C. High said that in light of the acquittal, he will review Addis's job status, according to a police spokeswoman.
Belsky, the defense attorney, said in his closing argument Wednesday that Addis's actions were in keeping with police procedure. "Had he intended to hurt Mr. Bullock, he would have," Belsky said. "Everything he did was perfect police training."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33391-2005Feb17.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:13 AM
matt@lefande.com
Injured Pentagon Police Officer Dies
A speeding car headed the wrong way peeled into the Pentagon's south parking lot early one morning last month, and Pentagon police officer James M. Feltis did what he always did: He tried to stop the driver and offer help.
The driver, fleeing Alexandria police in a suspected carjacking, did not slow, police said. Instead, he slammed into Feltis, then crashed the vehicle into a guardrail.
Feltis, critically injured, was taken to a hospital, where he never regained consciousness. He died from his injuries shortly after noon yesterday, more than a month after the incident at the Pentagon, the Department of Defense said.
The suspect, Ossie Larode, 22, was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday on charges that include carjacking and attempted murder. He is being held by the U.S. Marshals Service in Alexandria.
Pentagon police officials did not return a phone call yesterday. Last month, colleagues told The Washington Post that Feltis was a reliable, attentive officer who regularly spotted and assisted drivers who found themselves lost in the Pentagon's massive parking lot.
That's probably what Feltis, 41, thought he was dealing with Jan. 11 when he saw a black Cadillac race the wrong direction down a one-way street on Pentagon property, then head toward the traffic booth he was manning, Pentagon Police Chief Richard S. Keevill said last month.
"A lot of time, people get lost [in the parking lot], and he sets them in the right direction. He always pays attention," Lt. Zelma Owens said last month. She supervised Feltis for 10 years.
Last Tuesday, Feltis, a 12-year veteran of the Pentagon police force, was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal of Valor for suffering life-threatening injuries in the line of duty.
Authorities said the driver of the car had stolen the vehicle from a McDonald's restaurant in Alexandria after striking its owner, a 65-year-old Maryland man.
He then led Alexandria and Fairfax County police and Virginia state troopers on a high-speed chase on Interstate 395 to the Pentagon, where he plowed into Feltis and crashed the Cadillac before being wrestled down by law enforcement officers.
Keevill said last month that Feltis suffered a massive head wound, internal bleeding and a fractured leg from the blow.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24448-2005Feb14.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:28 AM
matt@lefande.com
Sorry about the snacks
Just think of all the ways a man might use a banana to offend a woman.
Then you may imagine why some people leaped to the wrong conclusion when a woman complained about a Columbus police officer eating a banana at the Civic Center as people gathered for a Jan. 15 civil rights march.
The woman was deeply offended, she told police. The police were deeply bewildered.
The offense was not what you might imagine it to be. I imagined the officer shoving the banana into his pants pocket to make others point at it and say, "Hey, is that a banana in your pocket or are you just glad to be here getting paid overtime?"
But that was not what offended the woman, who hung up on people who couldn't figure it out.
Then she called Mayor Bob Poydasheff. He said she just started berating him about the police. He told her he'd heard only compliments about how officers handled the weekend march in which the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other longtime civil rights activists led 8,000 people from the Civic Center to the Government Center.
"She said, 'No no no no, when the buses pulled into the Civic Center, I saw a policeman eating a banana.' And I didn't know what to say," Poydasheff recalled. "I was stunned. I said, 'What's wrong with that? Police were on their feet for eight hours. They had to get potassium in their system.'"
He said the woman told him the banana "was an affront to me and to others, including a former state senator." She wouldn't name the senator.
Why was she offended?
Well, it seems that in the context of the march, she took the officer's banana eating to imply an analogous racial slur relating black people to apes.
Such a comparison would not be uncommon in the parlance of racist propaganda, particularly in the old days. But these days that kind of talk is pretty rare -- and pretty obvious, too, when someone really means it.
So as racial slurs go, simply eating a banana now has to be considered rather subtle, for this particular area.
The mayor told the woman he'd check it out. And he did, and he learned that while police were working security at the march, the department sent around a snack van to give officers something to eat, and in fact bananas were among the snacks offered, and some officers did eat bananas.
So he called the woman back and explained all this, and added an apology. "I'm sorry you were offended, and let me apologize to you personally," he told her.
"Well, send it in writing," she told him.
So he did. Call it "The Banana Apology."
Dated Jan. 22, it says: "As I said in our telephone conversation, I am sorry you found Columbus police officers eating bananas on the street when you arrived in Columbus for the protest. Let me assure you there was no intent to offend. The officers needed some nutrition after standing long hours on the street and they particularly needed the potassium available in bananas and some other fruits."
Later the mayor writes: "There was no thought of insulting or offending anyone and perhaps this was thoughtless on our part. In any case, let me offer my sincere apology for anything our officers may have done that gave offense to you or anyone else."
Did this satisfy the woman?
"I haven't heard from her," Poydasheff said Thursday. "And quite candidly, I don't care. Our officers did no wrong."
Does the city plan to deny officers bananas during public events?
"Absolutely not," the mayor said. "They can eat all the bananas they want."
No doubt some hard-core racists still would use a fruit or a cracker to offend someone, if they got the chance.
But sometimes a banana is only a banana.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/columnists/tim_chitwood/10753448.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
posted by Matthew LeFande 2:10 PM
matt@lefande.com
Man Arrested for DUI... for the 34th Time?
A Rapid City, South Dakota man who may have been been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol as many as 30 times over several decades was arrested again Tuesday afternoon for DUI.
Even though he has a prior DUI charge pending and twice failed to show up for court on that charge, Jerry Raymond Zeller, 64, was released from Pennington County Jail on Wednesday morning after posting a $2,800 bond.
And Wednesday afternoon, Rapid City Police Detective Elias Diaz prepared a report asking the Pennington County state's attorney to charge Zeller's mother, Bonnie Zeller, 84, with allowing an unauthorized person to drive a vehicle registered in her name.
Police Chief Craig Tieszen said: "It's outrageous that Mr. Zeller is allowed to continue to flout the criminal justice system. ... Right now it's an interesting news story, but we will all be outraged when he kills somebody on (DUI) number 35."
The exact number of times Zeller has been arrested for DUI is hard to determine. Senior Police Officer Ron Bedard, who arrested Zeller on Tuesday, noted in his report that Zeller's criminal record "seems to indicate roughly 33 prior arrests for DUI."
However, Kara Wood, Pennington County deputy state's attorney, said some of the entries on the criminal record might be duplicates. By her count, Zeller has been arrested 16 times and convicted nine times since 1980, but she added, "I just don't have an accurate number."
Wood said Zeller's DUI arrest Tuesday was his second in five months.
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2005/02/10/news/local/top/news01.txt
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:01 AM
matt@lefande.com
Police Officer Guilty in Loaning Gun
A Minnesota police officer pleaded guilty to a felony Tuesday for loaning his service pistol to a Hmong cousin who allegedly used it in a drive-by shooting.
Tou Cha, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting terroristic threats. The 11-year veteran left the courthouse without commenting.
Ramsey County prosecutors said they would seek a 30-day jail term for Cha when he's sentenced April 27. Cha, a Hmong-American, was required to resign from the police department immediately.
Cha admitted he loaned his pistol to his cousin the day before shots were fired at the home of a man associated with a leader of CIA-funded resistance to Communists in Laos in the 1960s and '70s.
The Hmong sided with the United States as the Vietnam War extended into Laos, and many Hmong made their way to the United States after the war.
Cha said in court that he knew his weapon would be used as a scare tactic but said his cousin threatened him and his family if Cha did not give him the pistol. No one was hurt in the shooting.
Prosecutors said the April drive-by shooting remains under investigation. Several violent episodes in St. Paul's Hmong community are believed to center on whether the United States should normalize relations with communist Laos.
http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=104&sid=203487
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:51 AM
matt@lefande.com
The Rise of Internet Terror
Today, most experts agree that the Internet is not just a tool of terrorist organizations, but is central to their operations. Some say that al-Qaeda’s online presence has become more potent and pertinent than its actual physical presence since the September 11 attacks. “When we say al-Qaeda is a global ideology, this is where it exists—on the Internet,” says Michael Doran, a Near East scholar and terrorism expert at Princeton University. “That, in itself, I find absolutely amazing. Just a few years ago, an organization like this would have been more cultlike in nature. It wouldn’t be able to spread around the world the way it does with the Internet.”
The universe of terror-related websites extends far beyond al-Qaeda, ofcourse. According to Weimann, the number of such websites has leapt from only 12 in 1997 to around 4,300 today. (This ncludes sites operated by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and others in South America and other parts of the world.) These sites serve as a means to recruit members, solicit funds, and promote and spread ideology. “While the [common] perception is that [terrorists] are not well educated or very sophisticated about telecommunications or the Internet, we know that that isn’t true,” says Ronald Dick, a former FBI deputy assistant director who headed the FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center. “The individuals that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have arrested have engineering and telecommunications backgrounds; they have been trained in academic institutes as to what these capabilities are.” (Militant Islam, despite its roots in puritani cal Wahhabism, taps the well of Western liberal education: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal September 11 mastermind, was educated in the U.S. in mechanical engineering; Osama bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained in Egypt as a surgeon.)
The Web gives jihad a public face. But on a less visible level, the Internet provides the means for extremist groups to surreptitiously organize attacks and gather information. The September 11 hijackers used conventional tools like chat rooms and e-mail to communicate and used the Web to gather basic information on targets, says Philip Zelikow, a historian at the University of Virginia and the former executive director of the 9/11 Commission. “The conspirators used the Internet, usually with coded messages, as an important medium for international communication,” he says.
Finally, terrorists are learning that they can distribute images of atrocities with the help of the Web. In 2002, the Web facilitated wide dissemination of videos showing the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, despite FBI requests that websites not post them. Then, in 2004, Zarqawi made the gruesome tactic a cornerstone of his terror strategy, starting with the murder of the American civilian contractor Nicholas Berg—which law enforcement agents believe was carried out by Zarqawi himself. From Zarqawi’s perspective, the campaign was a rousing success. Images of orange-clad hostages became a headline news staple around the world—and the full, raw videos of their murders spread rapidly around the Web. “The Internet allows a small group to publicize such horrific and gruesome acts in seconds, for very little or no cost, worldwide, to huge audiences, in the most powerful way,” says Weimann.
http://www.technologyreview.com/pdf/p_1104.pdf
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:19 AM
matt@lefande.com
Cops Accused Of Using Steroids To Bulk Up To Get An Edge
As a brand-new police officer, Chris Holden wanted to do everything he could to protect himself, especially after he heard about a highway patrolman who was shot to death in a struggle over his gun.
So he began bulking up with steroids.
Now Holden, 31, is out of work, one of four members of the Norman Police Department who were fired last fall after being accused of using bodybuilding steroids.
Police officers in Mississippi, Ohio, Connecticut, Hawaii, Colorado, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas and New York have also been accused of steroid-related offenses in recent years. In many cases, they were charged with using, possessing or dealing steroids.
Steroids are attractive to some officers who know that an intimidating physique can ward off conflict or give them the upper hand in a life-or-death struggle.
"The thinking is that big is better than small, tough is better than weak,'' said Gene Sanders, a former police officer who has worked for nearly 15 years as a police psychologist for several agencies in California. "There is sort of an underground, unspoken tradition among several departments that I've worked with that if you really want to bulk up, this is the best way to do it.''
But steroids can also lead to heart disease, liver damage and shrunken testicles, as well as uncontrolled aggression, or ``roid rage,'' which can be especially dangerous in a law officer.
"These substances can cause depression and despondency, and here is a person who has a weapon,'' said Dr. Linn Goldberg, head of Oregon Health & Science University's Division of Health Promotion and Sports Medicine.
Holden was an officer on the streets of Norman for barely two weeks when Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Nikky Green was shot to death on a rural road in 2003. Investigators say the killer wrestled Green's gun away from him and shot him with it.
"If I was making a traffic stop, on a disturbance call or a motorist assist, no matter what call I was going to, I thought about the trooper that was killed,'' Holden wrote in a letter published in The Norman Transcript in November.
"I wanted to physically prepare myself as much as I could and have the confidence to do my job,'' he said. "I took anabolic steroids so that I would be stronger. If I got into a fight, I felt I stood a better chance of surviving. I wanted to go home when my shift was over.''
Norman Police Chief Phil Cotten acknowledges the men were good officers, but said the violations of department policy were so serious that he was forced to take action.
"While people in other professions would normally be allowed a second chance, police officers are held to a higher standard,'' Cotten said. "You accept that when you put on the badge.''
Holden and fellow Norman officers Joshua Keith, 32, and Timothy Gibson, 33, were fired following an internal investigation. A fourth Norman officer - Kyle Ward Sherman, 35 - and Highway Patrolman Timothy Timmons, 36, are facing misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to possess steroids after a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation found that a Norman bodybuilder was allegedly supplying steroids to cops.
Timmons is on leave pending disciplinary action.
http://officer.com/article/article.jsp?id=21103&siteSection=1
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:45 PM
matt@lefande.com
Armed Citizen of the Week
A man died this morning after breaking into the Sarasota, Florida home of an elderly woman and fighting with her 79-year-old brother, who had a gun.
The intruder, George T. Jackson, wasn't shot, but was knocked in the head with butt of the weapon, police said.
Police said Jackson, 24, broke in through the bedroom window at the 24th Street home of Henrietta McCormick, 82, at about 2 a.m. today.
She called 911 and her brother, Julian Scott, 79, grabbed a gun to confront the burglar. That’s when a struggle for the gun broke out. A shot was fired into the ceiling.
Soon after, Scott hit the man in the head with the butt of the gun and held him down until police arrived.
Police described Jackson as conscious, but incoherent. He was brought to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where he died about four hours later. While he was still alive, sheriff's deputies accused him of residential burglary and possession of cocaine and marijuana.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050118/NEWS/50118014
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:17 AM
matt@lefande.com
Volcker rips U.N. oil-for-food official
An independent panel headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker yesterday accused the former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program of "a grave and continuing conflict of interest" and said his actions had seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations.
U.N. Secretary-general Kofi Annan promptly announced that he
had taken disciplinary action against the retired official, Benon Sevan, and a current U.N. employee named in the report, Joseph Stephanides.
Reaction to the report from Capitol Hill to Baghdad was largely exasperation and disappointment.
"The report indicates that the United Nations was simply not up to the task of managing such a vast operation in a transparent manner," said Sen. Richard G. Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. "As this investigation moves forward, I expect that any individuals and companies identified as having participated in illegal activities will be brought to justice to the maximum extent possible, with the complete cooperation of their home governments."
Illinois Republican Rep. Henry J. Hyde, who heads the House International Relations Committee, said, "I am reluctant to conclude that the U.N. is damaged beyond repair, but these revelations certainly point in this direction."
Accusations about the $64 billion effort have drawn demands for Mr. Annan's resignation, and have clouded the integrity of the United Nations, most clearly in Washington.
The investigation report said Mr. Sevan solicited oil allocations from Saddam Hussein's regime on behalf of a trading company from 1998 to 2001, and it raised concerns that he might have received kickbacks for the help.
The report does not say how the former administrator profited, but it does say that he failed to account satisfactorily for $160,000 deposited into his bank account.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20050203-105651-3055r.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:26 AM
matt@lefande.com
AP Falls for action figure portrayed as American hostage.
Iraqi militants claimed in a Web statement Tuesday to have taken an American soldier hostage and threatened to behead him in 72 hours unless the Americans release Iraqi prisoners. The U.S. military said it was investigating, but the claim's authenticity could not be immediately confirmed.
The posting, on a Web site that frequently carried militants' statements, included a photo of a man purported to be an American soldier, wearing desert fatigues and seated on a concrete floor with his hands tied behind his back.
A gun barrel was pointed at his head, and behind him on the wall is a black banner emblazoned with the Islamic profession of faith, "There is no god but God and Muhammad is His prophet."
A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, Marine Sgt. Salju K. Thomas, said he had no information on the claim but "we are currently looking into it."
A statement posted with the picture suggested the group was holding other soldiers.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news%3Ftmpl%3Dstory%26u%3D/ap/20050201/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_soldier%26cid%3D540%26ncid%3D1480
posted by Matthew LeFande 2:50 PM
matt@lefande.com
A Fantastic Lesson in Democracy for Iraq
Sunni Arabs yesterday appeared shocked by the large turnout of Shi'ites and Kurds in Sunday's elections, with some anxiously looking for ways to bolster their representation in the new government that will emerge from them.
But many Shi'ites, triumphant after voting in high numbers in spite of terrorist threats, had a simple message for the Sunnis who stayed home: Tough luck.
"We carried our father three hours to get him to the polls," said Muthana Jaffar al-Tamimi, 30, a grocery store clerk and art school graduate in Baghdad's middle-class Shi'ite neighborhood of Karada.
The Sunni Arabs "could have made the process successful themselves," he said. "They could have gotten involved, but they didn't. We decided our destiny. They decided theirs."
He added, "It's their problem."
An American diplomat said the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had only preliminary figures on the turnout from various parts of the country.
"But we have good anecdotal information that Sunni participation was considerably lower than participation by other groups," the diplomat said, "especially in areas that have seen a good deal of violence and where intimidation is most easily carried out — not by major military actions but by neighborhood intimidation and threats."
The Sunni turnout was better in cities like Baqouba, which have a mixed population of Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs, he said. He attributed the low turnout in mainly Sunni cities like Tikrit to "intimidation, supplemented by boycott calls," and the absence of any obvious Sunni party or leader.
"But please remember that they had the chance to participate and purposely excluded themselves," the diplomat said.
He had harsh words for Sunnis who have tried to cling to power through a violent insurgency rather than by participating in the democratic political process.
"They consistently don't want to go to the ballot box; they want to get into the game at the point of a gun," the diplomat said. "I doubt that has changed."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20050201-122034-4418r.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:42 AM
matt@lefande.com
