iePolitics: San Bernardino County to major U.S. Corporation (Google): Go away!

The news of this unbelievable episode was presented to me a couple weeks ago and I wasn’t able to gather more details until this weekend.

It looks like a major U.S. corporation recently embarked on a mission to San Bernardino County.

That mission? Establish a campus in the Victor Valley region of the county. A part of the sprawling First Supervisorial District.

The corporation? Google.

Some details are still sketchy, but it appears the internet advertising and search engine giant was rebuffed in almost a three stooges fashion.

Sources tell iePolitics about a meeting held with San Bernardino County officials, which included Economic Development Agency Director Mark Dowling, the master architect of the following disaster.

Let’s get right down to it.

Mexico ‘opens arms’ to immigrants

DODEA wants answers to students’ declining performance on SATs

SAT math scores for students at Department of Defense schools are falling further below the national average.

For the third straight year, Department of Defense Education Activity students have seen their math scores dip, from 512 in 2006 to 498 in 2009. A perfect score is 800.

In 2006, DODEA’s math scores were six points below the national average. Now, they are 17 points below, according to test results released recently.

“We’re not happy with the scores. They’re not where we want them to be,” Sheridan Pearce, DODEA mathematics coordinator, said in a recent phone interview from Arlington, Va.

“We’re concerned by the trend.”

The SAT is divided into three categories: mathematics, critical reading, and — since 2006 — writing.

In critical reading and writing, DODEA seniors in 2009 compared more favorably to their peers across the nation, but those scores either were unchanged or dropped from last year.

DODEA’s average score in critical reading was 505, down four points from 2008, but four points above the national mean score of 501.

In writing, DODEA averaged 492, the same as last year, and one point below the national mean score of 493.

The stagnating and declining scores “are big enough to warrant some action,” said Steve Schrankel, DODEA chief of assessment and accountability.

Even so, DODEA’s SAT results follow a national trend of unchanged or declining scores over the last several years, he said.

“We don’t know why that is,” Schrankel said.

DODEA officials say they’re already addressing the math deficiency. But measurable progress will likely take time, they warn.

US Humanism Campaign Sparks Debate

The legendary Kalashnikov

Russia’s Izhmash Concern, the maker of the renowned Kalashnikov assault rifle, will unveil a new gun next year. The gun is said to replace the legendary AK-47 system designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov Pravda.Ru reports.

Vladimir Grodetsky, the general director of the enterprise, said at the round-table discussion devoted to the ninetieth anniversary of the legendary engineer that the specification of the new gun would make it 40 or 50 percent more efficient than its predecessor.

The AK-47 gun is nearly 60 years old. It is put into service in over 55 countries of the world. About 75 million units of this gun have been made in the world today; 40 million of that amount have been made in Russia.

***Great!*** – Prohibition in England

Government adviser fired for saying alcohol is more dangerous than drugs

Professor David Nutt, the government’s chief drug adviser, has been sacked a day after claiming that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.

Nutt incurred the wrath of the government when he claimed in a paper that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than many illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The home secretary has asked Professor Nutt to resign as chair of the ACMD [Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs].

“In a letter he [Alan Johnson] expressed surprise and disappointment over Professor Nutt’s comments which damage efforts to give the public clear messages about the dangers of drugs.

“We remain determined to crack down on all illegal substances and minimize their harm to health and society as a whole.”

Nutt had criticized politicians for “distorting” and “devaluing” the research evidence in the debate over illicit drugs.

Arguing that some “top” scientific journals had published “horrific examples” of poor quality research on the alleged harm caused by some illicit drugs, the Imperial College professor called for a new way of classifying the harm caused by both legal and illegal drugs.

“Alcohol ranks as the fifth most harmful drug after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco is ranked ninth,” he wrote in the paper from the centre for crime and justice studies at King’s College, London, published yesterday.

“Cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, while harmful, are ranked lower at 11, 14 and 18 respectively.”

Implementing Checkpoint Screening Technology

Aviation Security: DHS and TSA Have Researched, Developed, and Begun Deploying Passenger Checkpoint Screening Technologies, but Continue to Face Challenges

A recent report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) indicates that the Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration are having difficulties implementing a plan to deploy checkpoint baggage screening technologies. These findings have raised serious concerns in many officials such as Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), who stated that “a comprehensive and sensible strategic plan is critical to ensure that the government minimizes waste while securing the flying public.”

 

British nuclear expert’s 17th floor UN death plunge ‘was not suicide’

A British nuclear expert who fell from the 17th floor of a United Nations building did not commit suicide and may have been hurled to his death, says a doctor who carried out a second post-mortem examination.

Timothy Hampton, 47, a scientist involved in monitoring nuclear activity, was found dead last week at the bottom of a stairwell in Vienna.

An initial autopsy concluded that there were ‘no suspicious circumstances’. But it is understood that Mr Hampton’s widow Olena Gryshcuk and her family were deeply unhappy with that verdict.

Now a doctor who undertook a second post-mortem examination on behalf of the family believes she has found evidence that Mr Hampton did not die by his own hands.

Professor Kathrin Yen, of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institut in Graz, Austria, which specializes in traumatology research, said she had more tests to complete on Mr Hampton, who had a three-year-old son with Ms Gryshcuk.

But she said one possible theory was that Mr Hampton was carried to the 17th floor from his workplace on the sixth floor and thrown to his death.

Professor Yen used new forensic techniques to detect internal bruising caused by strangulation which would not be visible to the eye.

She said: ‘In my opinion, it does not look like suicide. My example is that somebody took him up to the top floor and took him down.

‘At the moment I don’t have the police reports. We did a CT scan. From the external exam, I saw injuries on the neck but these were not due to strangulation.’

It is expected to take three weeks for blood test results to come back. Austrian police said they believe Mr Hampton committed suicide.

He had been working for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) at the UN building.

Fairchild instructor charged with rape

A former soldier who teaches at the US Air Force Survival School at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., is accused of taking a date into the school and raping her, choking her unconscious at one point.

Michael W. Fassbender, 32, of Spokane faces one count of first-degree rape in the alleged Oct. 19 incident. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

The woman is a civilian whom Fassbender met through an online dating service, according to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, which handled the complaint with the help of base security officials and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Fassbender was arrested and released on $20,000 bond. He was to be arraigned Nov. 3 in Spokane County Superior Court, according to the sheriff’s office. Fassbender’s attorney, Christian J. Phelps, did not return calls to his cell phone or office seeking comment.

Occupiers involved in drug trade: Afghan minister

The Afghan minister of counter narcotics says foreign troops are earning money from drug production in Afghanistan.

General Khodaidad Khodaidad said the majority of drugs are stockpiled in two provinces controlled by troops from the US, the UK, and Canada, Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Saturday.

He went on to say that North Atlantic Treaty Organizaton forces are taxing the production of opium in the regions under their control.

Afghanistan is the world’s biggest supplier of opium.

Drug production in the Central Asian country has increased dramatically since the US-led invasion eight years ago.

A recent report by the United Nations states that Afghan opium is having a devastating impact on the world, killing thousands in consumer countries.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Ahmed Wali Karzai, a brother of the Afghan president, is involved in the opium trade, meets with Taliban leaders, and is also a Central Intelligence Agency operative.

The opium trade is the major source of Taliban financing.

Cannon airman faces new child porn charges

CLOVIS, N.M. — The Curry County sheriff’s department has again arrested a Cannon Air Force Base airman on 100 additional counts of manufacturing child pornography.

Senior Airman Zebulon Benne was charged in August with 50 counts of sexual exploitation of children and 10 of manufacturing child pornography.

Sheriff’s investigators say a preliminary scan of the 24-year-old airman’s computer revealed 50 images of children engaged in sexual acts. The computer was seized and more images were found during a complete forensic scan.

Benne is being held at the Curry County Adult Detention Center in lieu of $100,000 bond.

FBI Demands Tattoo Shops Rat On Customers

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, in league with the Bureau of Justice Assistance (part of the Department of Justice), has launched a program that harks back to East Germany’s Stasi.

In Philadelphia, the FBI has instructed tattoo shops to rat out their customers if they demand privacy, insist on paying with cash, engage in “suspicious behavior,” make “anti-US” comments, or request tattoos that are “extremist symbols.”

According to the Missouri Information Analysis Center report, the Gadsden flag is a “militia symbol.” The Department of Homeland Security’s Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment report characterizes militias as “white supremacists,” domestic terrorists and a threat to the president. MIAC is part of the federal “fusion” effort now underway around the country.

It is not merely “extremist symbols.” In addition, the FBI literature instructs tattoo shops to be on the look-out for people who change hair color, style of dress, or shave beards between visits. Suspicious people also include those with missing fingers or hands, chemical burns, strange orders or bright colored stains on clothing.

Read the handout below for more absurd “extremist” indicators according to the FBI.

University of Akron to employees: Hand over your DNA!

In a new expansion of the total surveillance state, the University of Akron is now reserving the right to demand DNA samples from all new employees, CBS News reports:

But the University of Akron has taken this to a surprising new level.

The Ohio school now reserves the right to require any prospective faculty, staff, or contractor to submit a DNA sample, which genetic-testing experts say makes it the first employer in the nation to take such an extreme and potentially intrusive step.

The new policy, which says a “DNA sample for purpose of a federal criminal background check” may be collected, took the campus by surprise after it was announced last week. An adjunct faculty member has resigned in protest and is contemplating a lawsuit, and the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors says that genetic testing violates a collective bargaining agreement.

It is interesting and disturbing that a university is the site for launching this first-in-the-nation attack on our liberties. Universities resemble businesses more every day.

Closet Oinker Harrasses LEAP member

Song banned, band pulls out

Reporting from Mexico City – Los Tigres del Norte, Mexico’s superstar norteño band, abruptly canceled its participation Wednesday in a major awards show after it was barred from performing a song critical of the government’s campaign against drug cartels.

The band, best known for its corridos, or Spanish ballads, chronicling the legendary exploits of drug traffickers, had already traveled to Mexico City from homes in Los Angeles for Wednesday night’s event. Organizers of the show insisted the band refrain from playing its latest single, “La Granja” (“The Farm”), the group’s record label, Universal Music Group, said in a statement.

“They have to explain to us the reason for this censorship,” Tigres leader Jorge Hernandez said, referring to the organizers.

“We always sing what the people want to hear, and what the people are living,” added Hernandez, a vocalist who also plays the accordion that gives the Tigres their distinctive sound.

 

Prosecutors won’t charge LAPD officers in immigration march melee at MacArthur Park

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office announced today it would not file criminal charges against any LAPD officers for their actions during the 2007 May Day melee at MacArthur Park.

Prosecutors said in a statement that after a lengthy review, there was insufficient evidence to prove any officer violated the law when using force, although some might have used “questionable tactics.”

They described the incident as “unfortunate and preventable” but said that the office was “closing our file and will take no further action in this matter.”

Last year, Police Chief William J. Bratton said he planned to discipline 11 officers and called for the termination of four others for their roles in the melee in which police were accused of using excessive force to clear immigration rights demonstrators and journalists.

Los Angeles Police Department officers were videotaped wielding batons and shooting rubber bullets in an attempt to disperse a largely peaceful crowd. A scathing internal investigation into the incident blamed poor leadership and overly aggressive tactics by officers in the field.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles City Council agreed to pay nearly $13 million to people injured or mistreated in the melee.

Retired Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray testifies for marijuana legalization

‘Shake-and-Bake’ Meth Harder to Detect

These days, you don’t need a stove for shake-and-bake.

Or to cook methamphetamine.

The drug itself hasn’t changed, but the process of making it has, according to Chief Deputy Jack Campbell of the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office.  Meth stoves, or “labs” — often converted coolers — are being traded for plastic bottles with the newfound prevalence of what authorities have termed “shake-and-bake” methamphetamine.

“It’s basically self-contained,” Campbell said.  “Everything is put into a plastic jug or two-liter soda bottle, and when they shake it up, they don’t let it settle out.  They pour that liquid through a coffee filter.”

Epping officer suspended, alleges harassment

A local police officer who claims he has been targeted because of his involvement with a group that wants to legalize drugs has been suspended from the force.

Officer Bradley Jardis said he was told Monday that he was being suspended with pay pending an investigation.

Police Chief Gregory Dodge would not comment on the suspension, but Jardis said he believes it resulted from his decision to go public with disciplinary action taken against him in July and claims that he has been ridiculed by certain Epping police personnel because he’s a member of an international organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Noteworthy New Publications

Former Federation of American Scientists President Jeremy J. Stone has published a memoir of his efforts to promote constructive dialogue in several of the world’s most intractable conflicts through his own organization, Catalytic Diplomacy.  Remarkably, writes Morton H. Halperin in a Preface to the memoir, “The conflicts that Jeremy sought to mitigate — US-Russian nuclear relations, China’s relation with Taiwan, North Korea’s relations with its neighbors, and U.S.-Iranian relations — have all been affected for the better by his efforts.”

The susceptibility of anti-satellite weapons to the control of international law is considered in a new paper called “ASAT-isfaction: Customary International Law and the Regulation of Anti-Satellite Weapons” (pdf) by David A. Koplow, Michigan Journal of International Law, Vol. 30, No. 4, Summer 2009.  Mr. Koplow is now Special Counsel for Arms Control at the Department of Defense Office of the General Counsel.

Effective congressional oversight depends not only on the good intentions of the overseers, but also on their familiarity with the legislative, investigative and other tools they have at their disposal.  But the skillful use of those tools has been largely a matter of tacit knowledge, handed down through the generations of congressional staff.  To help preserve and propagate the techniques involved, the Project on Government Oversight has published a new handbook entitled “The Art of Congressional Oversight: A User’s Guide to Doing It Right.”

Q&A With FBI Director Mueller

As a result of polygraph testing, more than a thousand applications for employment at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been rejected or otherwise terminated in the last year alone, the FBI told Congress last month.  Polygraph testing has been the single largest reason for discontinuing an application, well ahead of administrative or medical issues, use or sale of illegal drugs, or other suitability or security issues. In Fiscal Year 2009, 339 special agent applicants were turned away on polygraph-related grounds, and 825 professional support applications were similarly discontinued.

These data were presented in responses to questions for the record (pdf) from a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing (pdf) last March, and were transmitted to Congress on behalf of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III on September 15, 2009.

Most of the congressional questions, on everything from Freedom of Information Act compliance to detainee interrogation, are focused and pointed.  Some of the answers are informative and occasionally even startling.

Each day between March 2008 and March 2009, Director Mueller told the Committee, “there were an average of more than 1,600 nominations for inclusion on the [Terrorist] watchlist,” as well as 4,800 proposed modifications of existing records, and 600 proposed removals.  “Each nomination for addition [to the watchlist] does not necessarily represent a new individual,” Mueller cautioned, “but may instead involve an alias or name variant for a previously watchlisted person.”

Is VOIP Now the Go-To Tool For Gov’t Spying?

There’s an interesting article this week about a new Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) report on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and some of the issues the Bureau faces in reviewing and processing evidence. One of the areas that is apparently singled out in the IG report is the review – or lack thereof – of audio recordings gathered as part of investigations.

It’s not clear what percentage of the audio recordings are telephone wiretaps, but it’s probably a fair percentage – and given that the total unreviewed audio runs to over a million hours, even a small percentage is, objectively, a lot of recordings.

What’s most interesting to me is an offhand comment at the bottom of the story:

“In some cases, the bureau explained, the technology that allows them to listen to phone calls means they create a new phone number, which telemarketers can then call, creating new recordings even after a warrant has expired.”

“[T]he technology that allows them to listen to phone calls means they create a new phone number” – to me, that sounds for all the world like a thinly-veiled description of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP – and VOIP through a commercial provider like Skype or Callcentric or Vonage, at that.

Hmmn…

Too bad the Bureau is so bad at reviewing the recordings, though; if they were more on-the-ball, they might be able to do something about the con artists and scammers who call cellphones and home phones and business lines and unlisted numbers over and over and over again. Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Spc. reaches plea deal in death of soldier

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — An Army paratrooper charged after he helped subdue a fellow soldier who later died has agreed to a plea bargain that could give him 30 days in jail and dock his pay.

Spc. Joseph Misuraca of Harper Woods, Mich., was the fourth soldier to make a deal in to charges following the death of Pfc. Luke Brown last year, The Fayetteville Observer reported Friday. Seven soldiers originally were charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Brown, 27, of Fredericksburg, Va., died after a night of drinking with men from his 82nd Airborne Division unit.

Witnesses said Brown ran wildly from the bar into nearby woods, where his fellow soldiers punched, kicked and choked him into submission. He died after returning to their Fort Bragg barracks.

Testimony starts in murder trial of Carson GI

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Testimony is set to begin Friday in the trial of a Fort Carson soldier accused of killing two people and wounding another in drive-by shootings.

Prosecutors say Iraq war veteran Jomar Falu-Vives called his assault rifle “his toy.”

During opening arguments, Deputy District Attorney Diana Kay May said Falu-Vives’ gun was traced to the shootings. But defense attorney Kent R. P Gray said there were other people besides Falu-Vives in the vehicles linked to the shootings.

Falu-Vives is accused of wounding Capt. Zachary Zsody outside a home May 26, 2008. Police say the same AK-47 was used just over a week later in fatal shootings of 20-year-old Cesar Ramirez-Ibanez and 18-year-old Amairany Cervantes as they put up signs for a garage sale.

Related reading

• Carson GI gets 12 years in double murder case

Leaked report reveals dozens of Congressmembers under investigation

Internal investigations into the conduct of several House members have been exposed in an extraordinary, Internet-era breach of security involving the secretive process by which the United States Congress polices lawmaker ethics.

Revelations of the mostly preliminary inquiries by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct — also known as the Ethics committee — shook the chamber as lawmakers were immersed in a series of scheduled votes Thursday.

The panel announced that it was probing two California Democrats — Reps. Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson — even as its embarrassed leaders took pains to explain that several other lawmakers also identified in the leaked confidential committee memo may have committed no wrongdoing.

UN says US drone strikes may violate international law

US unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) strikes against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan could be breaking international laws against summary executions, the United Nations top investigator of such crimes said.

“The problem with the United States is that it is making an increased use of drones/Predators (which are) particularly prominently used now in relation to Pakistan and Afghanistan,” UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston told a press conference.

“My concern is that drones/Predators are being operated in a framework which may well violate international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” he said.

US strikes with remote-controlled aircraft against Al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan have often resulted in civilian deaths and drawn bitter criticism from local populations.

“The onus is really on the United States government to reveal more about the ways in which it makes sure that arbitrary extrajudicial executions aren’t in fact being carried out through the use of these weapons,” he added.

Alston said he presented a report on the matter to the UN General Assembly.

Arizona Supreme Court rules electronic data is public

The Arizona Supreme Court today ruled that metadata – information about the history, tracking and management of an electronic document – is subject to the state’s public records law.

Several national media organizations supported Phoenix Police Department officer David Lake’s challenge that the city improperly denied his 2006 public records request for the metadata about documents he had previously requested and received. The city refused Lake’s request, arguing the metadata did not fall within the state’s definition of public records, which a court established in 1952, long before the advent of electronic documents.

In a unanimous opinion released today, the state’s high court held, “If a public entity maintains a public record in an electronic format, then the electronic version, including any embedded metadata, is subject to disclosure.”

David J. Bodney, a lawyer who helped write a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of The Associated Press, Gannett Company, The E.W. Scripps, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the state Supreme Court decision is a victory for public access.

Kindergarten kids stabbed with ‘discipline syringe’

A 24-YEAR-OLD female kindergarten teacher has been detained in south-west China after allegedly stabbing more than 20 children with a syringe to discipline them.

The woman, Sun Qiqi, was taken into custody at the weekend in Yunnan province after angry parents complained to police about the alleged abuse at the unlicensed school in Jianshui County, the China Daily reported.

One mother, Zhou Limei, said her four-year-old daughter had been stabbed multiple times last week, on the back of her left hand and on her bottom.

It was not immediately clear if the alleged syringe contained any hazardous materials.

Children were given ultrasound examinations and HIV tests which were negative, the China Daily said.

“Although the blood test shows the children are HIV-negative, I hope the Government gives us proper compensation,” Zhou told the paper.

Experts discuss TASER’s new advisory

Following TASER International’s recent bulletin advising officers to avoid shooting a suspect in the chest, PoliceOne staff spoke with leading TASER experts and trainers about how this announcement affects training and deployment of TASERs in the field.

Full Story

 

All News Reports

Medical Research Update & Revised Warnings bulletin

FAQ about the advisory: Read TASER’s memo

Two ex-Georgia narcotics cops face criminal charges on unrelated crimes

Arrest warrants were sworn out Thursday for two former Gwinnett County narcotics investigators, one of whom is accused of using county funds to pay for a motel room and items at an adult novelty store.

Officer Vennie Harden and Maj. David Butler are charged with unrelated crimes, but their offenses came to light at about the same time earlier this year.

Butler, a 24-year veteran of the department who supervised the narcotics and vice units, turned himself in at the Gwinnett County Detention Center on Thursday. He is being held on $20,000 bond.

Investigators say Butler used a county credit card on Aug. 4, 2008, to purchase unspecified items at the Starship Enterprise adult novelty store in Suwanee and on Jan. 6 to pay for a motel room in Lawrenceville. The warrants also state that Butler stole $4,000 in “flash money” from a safe in the department’s Special Investigations Section. Officers show flash money to suspected drug dealers to establish credibility when setting up undercover drug buys, said Gwinnett police spokesman Cpl. David Schiralli, a Gwinnett police spokesman.

Yet another snitch exoneration

Yesterday’s New York Times, “Unyielding in His Innocence, Now a Free Man,” reports on the exoneration of Dewey Bozella. Mr. Bozella spent 26 years in prison for a murder charge that the state now says it has insufficient evidence to prove. From the Times:

The prosecution relied almost entirely on the testimony of two men with criminal histories, both of whom repeatedly changed their stories and both of whom got favorable treatment in their own cases in exchange for their testimony.

There was no physical evidence linking Mr. Bozella to the killing. Instead, there was the fingerprint of another man, Donald Wise, who was later convicted of committing a nearly identical murder of another elderly woman in the same neighborhood.

Mr. Bozella was eventually acquitted due in part to the efforts of the Innocence Project. On December 2, The Innocence Project will be co-sponsoring a discussion of my book in conjunction with Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.