Religious War on Brink in Haiti

Haiti's supreme voodoo leader vowed "war" on Wednesday after Evangelicals attacked a ceremony organized by his religion honoring those killed in last month's massive earthquake.

The attack on Tuesday in the capital's sprawling Cite Soleil slum came with religious tensions rising, as Protestant Evangelicals and other denominations recruit in the wake of the earthquake that killed more than 200,000.

"It will be war -- open war," Max Beauvoir, supreme head of Haitian voodoo, told AFP in an interview at his home and temple outside the capital.

"It's unfortunate that at this moment where everybody's suffering that they have to go into war. But if that is what they need, I think that is what they'll get."

The quake also left more than a million homeless and left much of the capital and surrounding areas, in this Caribbean nation of more than nine million, in ruins.

Police said a pastor urged followers to attack the ceremony, resulting in a crowd of people throwing rocks at the voodoo followers.

Rosemond Aristide, police inspector in Cite Soleil, said he has since spoken with the pastor, who agreed to allow voodoo ceremonies to take place there.

However, Aristide could not explain why no arrests were made nor provide further details.

Beauvoir claimed hundreds of Protestant Evangelicals along with other people they hired attacked the ceremony, causing a number of injuries.

About half of Haiti's population is believed to practice voodoo in some form, though many are thought to also follow other religious beliefs at the same time.

The religion -- whose practitioners often use the vodou spelling as opposed to the Westernized version -- is deeply rooted in Haitian culture.

A voodoo priest named Boukman has been credited with setting off the country's slave rebellion in the late 18th century.

Court Considers Terror Law and Free Speech Case

WASHINGTON — In the first test of its kind since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Supreme Court will consider today whether a federal law that bars support to designated terrorist groups violates First Amendment rights of free speech and association.
The crux of the case, which pits First Amendment values against government anti-terrorist efforts, is whether the law that traces to 1996 and was amended by the 2001 USA Patriot Act is so poorly defined that it criminalizes pure speech.

Among those challenging the "material support" prohibition are the Humanitarian Law Project and its president, longtime civil rights advocate Ralph Fertig, who was a Freedom Rider trying to integrate the South in the 1960s and is a professor of social work at the University of Southern California.

The challengers argue that the law barring not only financial support to designated groups but also "training" and "expert advice and assistance" impinges humanitarian and peace-building efforts.

The Humanitarian Law Project says it wants to support non-violent activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a militant separatist organization in Turkey known as the PKK, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist group in Sri Lanka. The secretary of State's designation of those groups as "foreign terrorist organizations," dating to 1997, is not in dispute in the case, which was filed in 1998 and gained relevance in the post-Sept. 11 atmosphere.

"I want to help the Kurdish people develop non-violent means of resolving their conflicts and have their case be heard by the world's community," Fertig, 79, said in an interview. He said his lawyers have advised him to stop his efforts, which included showing Kurds how to bring human-rights complaints to the United Nations, because they could come under the rubric of "training" prohibited by the law.

Former president Jimmy Carter, founder of the Carter Center at Emory University, one of many groups that have entered the case, said in a statement Tuesday, "Our work to end violence sometimes requires interacting directly with groups that have engaged in it. Unfortunately, efforts like ours … are hindered by the extremely vague 'material support' law that leaves us guessing whether our work to encourage peace could actually be considered illegal."

U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan says the law's terms "rest on simple distinctions that are readily understood by people of ordinary intelligence." In her brief, Kagan contends that any support the Humanitarian Law Project or other organization gives to a terrorist group allows the group to put more of its own resources into violent activities.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, ruled that sections of the law making it a crime — subject to 15 years in prison — to provide "service," "training" and "expert advice or assistance" fail to make clear what is prohibited and are unconstitutionally vague. The appeals court said congressional amendments intended to clarify the law in 2004 were not sufficient.

In the Justice Department's appeal, Kagan said that since 2001, 150 people have been charged with violations of the material-support ban; about 75 have been convicted. She says "several of those prosecutions" have been under the disputed provisions.

The case has drawn an array of outside groups on both sides. Among those backing Fertig and other challengers are individuals "blacklisted" during the McCarthy era. They argue that the contested law recalls government attempts in the 1940s and '50s during the "Red Scare" to root out anyone associated with communism.

Siding with the Justice Department are groups that include retired military officers and the Anti-Defamation League. A brief from four retired military officers, including major general John Altenburg, says they have "firsthand knowledge of the grave threat to national security posed by foreign terrorist organizations." The brief urges the high court not to "second-guess" Congress.

The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors groups such as the PKK, contends that once resources of any kind "are put into the hands of foreign terrorist organizations, how those resources are used is out of the control of even a high-minded, well-intentioned benefactor."

Religion in the Workplace

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 24 -- The San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) announced today that it has filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint against Abercrombie & Fitch on behalf of a Muslim employee who was allegedly fired because she refused to remove her Islamic head scarf, or hijab.

The Muslim employee reported to CAIR-SFBA that she was hired as a stockroom worker in October of last year at the Hollister outlet in San Mateo, Calif. She says she was told at that time that she could wear her scarf if it was in a color that matched the company's brand identity.

[Hollister Co. is a division of Abercrombie & Fitch. Ohio-based Abercrombie & Fitch operates more than 1100 stores worldwide.]

Recently, a district manager visited the store and noticed that the Muslim employee was wearing a head scarf. The district manager then reportedly initiated a conference call with the company's human resources department during which the Muslim worker was told that scarves and hats are not allowed in the "look" policy. Despite informing company managers that she wears her scarf for religious reasons, the Muslim employee was sent home immediately.

This week, she was told she must remove her scarf during work hours. When she refused to violate her religious beliefs by removing her scarf in public, she was fired.

"This unconscionable and apparently illegal action by company managers violates not only federal civil rights law as it relates to religious accommodation in the workplace, but also violates Abercrombie & Fitch's own stated commitments to diversity, inclusion and ethical business practices," said CAIR-SFBA Programs and Outreach Director Zahra Billoo. "We urge Abercrombie & Fitch customers who value diversity and inclusion to contact the company to express their concerns about this violation of religious freedom."

She said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals because of their religion in hiring, firing and other terms and conditions of employment. The act also requires employers to reasonably accommodate the religious practices of an employee, unless doing so would create an "undue hardship" for the employer.

In 2008, the EEOC issued new guidelines on accommodating religious beliefs and practices in the workplace. The guidelines offer protection for workers who wear religious attire such as hijab.

Billoo said CAIR's Oklahoma chapter filed a similar complaint against Abercrombie & Fitch in 2008 on behalf of a Muslim applicant in that state who was denied a job because of her hijab. In September of 2009, the EEOC filed a discrimination suit against the company on behalf of the Muslim applicant.

Abercrombie & Fitch's position on "Diversity & Inclusion" states: "...we are committed to increasing and leveraging the diversity of our associates and management across the organization. Those differences will be supported by a culture of inclusion, so that we better understand our customers, enhance our organizational effectiveness, capitalize on the talents of our workforce and represent the communities in which we do business."

Its corporate "Code of Business Conduct and Ethics" states: "The Company will adhere to its employment policies of non-discrimination as it relates to race, color, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation or handicap and will ensure compliance with all legal and other regulations governing employment."

CAIR offers a booklet called "An Employer's Guide to Islamic Religious Practices" to help corporate managers gain a better understanding of Islam and Muslims.

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

Texas Hispanics Shift to Right

AUSTIN – A bent to conservatism and family makes Hispanics a promising pool of votes for Republicans, but the party's targeting of illegal immigrants has withered its attraction.

Regardless, Gov. Rick Perry has fared relatively well, perhaps because of his anti-Washington rhetoric and his careful immigration stance, a recent poll indicates.

It shows more than half of Texas Hispanics call themselves conservative, and a surprising 23 percent say they might participate in Tuesday's GOP primary. Among those, Perry leads Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison by 2 to 1, according to the poll, commissioned by an Austin consultant for a national group of Hispanic legislative leaders.

Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said the poll hints at a little-noticed facet of Perry's political persona: He doesn't frighten Hispanics because he often visits their communities, and he distances himself from immigration hard-liners in the GOP.

"He thought the border wall was a little ridiculous and didn't think it was going to help," said Van de Putte, Democrats' leader in the Senate and a co-chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention in Denver two years ago. "What he wanted to keep out were those people that are smuggling drugs and people."

Van de Putte said Perry tilts more to the right than his predecessor, George W. Bush, and can't match Bush's high level of support among Hispanics. But she said many Hispanics remember that Perry signed a 2001 bill that let illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition at public colleges. He has defended the bill, saying affected students have studied hard in Texas schools and will be good citizens.

"That kind of inoculated him a little bit," she said. She added: "Rick Perry is a tremendous retail campaigner."

Some political demographers remain skeptical that more than a smattering of Hispanics will cast GOP ballots next week or that Perry will capture much beyond token support among Latinos in the primary or November's election.

Lydia Camarillo, vice president of the nonpartisan Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, said exit polls in recent governor's races show Perry captured far less of the Hispanic vote than the 39 percent that Bush grabbed in 1998 against Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, a Democrat.

Perry attracted only 13 percent of Hispanic votes cast in his 2002 general election showdown with Laredo banker Tony Sanchez, according to exit polls by the William C. Velasquez Institute, a think tank affiliated with Camarillo's group.

Four years ago, Perry won just 14 percent of Hispanic votes cast, compared with 40 percent for Democrat Chris Bell and 29 percent for independent Carole Keeton Strayhorn, exit polls showed.

With both Perry and Hutchison stressing a lean state government and low taxes, Camarillo said, it's hard to see many Hispanics breaking for the GOP nominee this year.


Differing definitions

The poll found that only 18 percent of Texas Hispanics say they're liberal or progressive, while 54 percent say they're conservative, moderate conservative or religiously conservative.

But Camarillo said many Hispanics who identify themselves as conservative aren't talking about "less taxes, less government," the way white conservatives would.

"When a Latino says that he or she is conservative, they're thinking about how they are raising the kids and ... the family," she said. "It's more about work ethic, and that when you give your word, you give your word. Those kinds of things are what they're thinking of. It's a different frame of mind, and pollsters have yet to define it."

Demographer Dan Weiser pointed to voter turnout in recent Dallas County elections and said that despite the poll's findings, Perry can hope for relatively little Hispanic support.

In the hotly contested 2008 presidential primary in Dallas County, 91 percent of Hispanics who participated cast a Democratic ballot, he said. Weiser, a longtime student of Dallas politics, projects countywide turnout among minorities by studying key precincts dominated by blacks or Hispanics.

He said that while almost 300,000 voters participated in Dallas County's presidential primary two years ago, only 12 percent were Hispanics. Of about 92,000 voters in the county's last GOP presidential primary, only 4 percent were Hispanics, Weiser said.

"Each time you think there will be a real increase in Hispanic votes, I don't find it," he said.

Frank Santos, the Austin lobbyist and consultant who commissioned the poll, conceded it's only a first attempt to grasp Hispanics' complex leanings.

The Board of Hispanic Caucus Chairs, a group of Hispanic legislative leaders from 32 states, paid for the poll. It was supervised by Cristina Garcia, a California-based researcher who studies Hispanic civic engagement. There were telephone interviews with 502 registered Hispanic voters, conducted Jan. 27-31, in either English or Spanish, at the choice of the voter surveyed. The poll has an error margin of 4.4 percent, meaning results can vary by that much in either direction.


A wakeup call

"It's really a wakeup call for both parties," said Santos, the group's executive director. "Either [Hispanics] are being taken for granted by the Democratic Party or they're being ignored by the Republican Party."

He said that of about 3 million new people added to Texas' population between 2000 and 2008, 63 percent were Hispanic.

A majority said they're conservative, but a bigger share, 63 percent, said they identify most with the Democratic Party. And 70 percent approve of the job that President Barack Obama is doing. Meanwhile, 54 percent approve of Perry's performance as governor; and 58 percent, of Hutchison's as senator.

"What does that say?" Santos said. "It says they're a growing, developing and evolving electorate."

Libertarian Wins Conservative Straw Poll

(CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a stalwart foe of government spending, won a blowout victory Saturday in the annual Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll.

With participants naming "reducing the size of federal government" as their top issue, the 74-year old libertarian hero captured 31 percent of the 2,400 votes cast in the annual contest, usually seen as a barometer of how the GOP's conservative wing regards their potential presidential candidates.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney finished second with 22 percent of the vote, ending a three-year winning streak at CPAC. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin finished third with 7 percent of the vote, followed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 6 percent and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence at 5 percent.

They were followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who tied at 4 percent. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour rounded out the results.

Five percent of participants voted for "Other" and 6 percent was undecided.

The announcement of Paul's win, a surprise victory unlikely to have a major impact on the 2012 presidential contest, drew a volley of loud boos from the CPAC audience.

That discontent could be seen in the poll results: A majority of participants said they wished the Republican Party had a better field of candidates to choose from.

But Paul's victory might be seen, in part, as a result of his support among anti-establishment Tea Party activists -- who turned out in force at this year's conference and expressed some frustration with the Republican Party.

Reflecting the college atmosphere of the annual event, young people dominated the voting: 54 percent of participants were between the ages of 18 and 25.

The poll also contained a bit of bad news for Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who made an under-the-radar appearance at CPAC late Friday.

Participants were asked to rate their opinions of several top political figures, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner, both of whom received a majority favorable rating.

But Steele was the only Republican to garner an upside-down rating, with 44 percent giving him an unfavorable rating and 42 percent rating him favorably.

The three-day meeting Saturday that has featured speeches by Republican leaders, training sessions for local political activists and a renewed purpose to stand firm behind their principles heading into the midterm elections.

Terrorism Defined

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- When a man fueled by rage against the U.S. government and its tax code crashes his airplane into a building housing offices of the Internal Revenue Service, is it a criminal act or an act of terrorism?

For police in Austin, it's a question tied to the potential for public alarm: The building set ablaze by Joseph Stack's suicide flight was still burning Thursday afternoon when officials confidently stood before reporters and said the crash wasn't terrorism.

But others, including those in the Muslim community, look at Stack's actions and fail to understand how he differs from foreign perpetrators of political violence who are routinely labeled terrorists.

''The position of many individuals and institutions seems to be that no act of violence can be labeled 'terrorism' unless it is carried out by a Muslim,'' said Nihad Awad, director of the Washington-based Council on Islamic-American Relations.

Within hours of Thursday's crash, which several witnesses said stirred memories of the Sept. 11 attacks, both federal and local law enforcement officials, along with the White House, said it did not appear to be an act of terror. A widely quoted statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security also said officials had ''no reason to believe there is a nexus to terrorist activity.''

Yet at the same time, Stack's motives for flying his single-engine plane into a seven-story office building after apparently setting his house on fire were becoming clear as detectives, reporters and others found a rambling manifesto on the Web in which he described a long-smoldering dispute with the IRS and a hatred of the government.

In the note, Stack said he longs for a big ''body count'' and expresses the hope that ''American zombies wake up and revolt.''

''To keep the government from getting money, he burned his house. To keep them from getting money he crashed his airplane,'' said Ken Hunter, whose father Vernon, a longtime IRS employee, was the only person killed by Stack's attack. ''That's not the act of a patriot. That's the act of a terrorist, and that's what he is.''

Stratfor, an Austin-based global intelligence firm specializing in international risk management, said the rhetoric in Stack's rant clearly matches the USA Patriot Act's definition of terrorism: a criminal act that is intended to ''intimidate or coerce a civilian population to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.''

''When you fly an airplane into a federal building to kill people, that's how you define terrorism,'' said Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican whose district includes Austin. ''It sounds like it to me.''

It doesn't to Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo, who instead sees an isolated, criminal attack carried out by a lone individual. He said branding the crash as terrorism so soon after the plane's impact could have provoked unnecessary panic and prompted residents of Austin and beyond to erroneously conclude that other attacks might be imminent.

''I did not want to use it because I didn't want people that have children in school and loved ones at work to be panicking, thinking that, 'Oh my God, is there going to be 10 more little planes around the country crashing into buildings?''' Acevedo said. ''I knew that this appeared to be one guy in one city in one event.''

Other experts agree. Ami Pedahzur, a professor of government at the University of Texas and author of the book ''Suicide Terrorism,'' said that while Stack's actions might be viewed as a copycat version of 9/11 attacks, they fall short of terrorism.

Pedahuzur said there is no evidence that Stack was involved in a highly planned conspiracy, and descriptions of Stack's state of mind in the days before the crash suggest the software engineer ''snapped'' after suffering an emotional breakdown. His manifesto was filled with rants that were just as personal as they were political, such as his complaint that corrupt politicians are not ''the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.''

Pedahuzur compared the incident to the criminal rampage depicted by Michael Douglas in the 1993 movie ''Falling Down,'' in which an unemployed defense worker angry at society's flaws goes on a rampage.

''(Stack) seems to be trying to cover up a personal crisis with some type of political agenda,'' Pedahzur said. ''It looks like terrorism, but basically it's a story of a person whose anger was building up. It's more of a personal issue than a large movement.''

School Spies on Students at Home

A Lower Merion family has set off a furor among students, parents, and civil liberties groups by alleging that Harriton High School officials used a webcam on a school-issued laptop to spy on their 15-year-old son at home.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court, the family said the school's assistant principal had confronted their son, told him he had "engaged in improper behavior in [his] home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in [his] personal laptop issued by the school district."

The suit contends the Lower Merion School District, one of the most prosperous and highest-achieving in the state, had the ability to turn on students' webcams and illegally invade their privacy.

While declining to comment on the specifics of the suit, spokesman Douglas Young said the district was investigating. "We're taking it very seriously," he said last night.

The district's Apple MacBook laptops have a built-in webcam with a "security feature" that can snap a picture of the operator and the screen if the computer is reported lost or stolen, Young said.

But he said "the district would never utilize that security feature for any other reason." The district said that the security system was "deactivated" yesterday, and that it would review when the system had been used.

Widener University law professor Stephen Henderson said using a laptop camera for home surveillance would violate wiretap laws, even if done to catch a thief.

A statement on the district Web site said the lawsuit's allegations "are counter to everything that we stand for as a school and a community."

The suit says that in November, assistant principal Lynn Matsko called in sophomore Blake Robbins and told him that he had "engaged in improper behavior in his home," and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam in his school-issued laptop.

Matsko later told Robbins' father, Michael, that the district "could remotely activate the webcam contained in a student's personal laptop . . . at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam" without the knowledge or approval of the laptop's users, the suit says.

It does not say what improper activity Robbins was accused of or what, if any, discipline resulted. Reached at home yesterday, his mother, Holly, said she could not comment on advice of the family's lawyers.

Blake Robbins, answering the door at his home, said he, too, could not comment. With a mop of brown hair and clad in a black T-shirt and jeans, he smiled when told the suit had earned him a Wikipedia page and other Internet notoriety.

Mark Haltzman, a lawyer with the Trevose firm of Lamm Rubenstone, which represents the Robbins family, did not return calls seeking comment. Matsko's husband said the assistant principal could not comment.

Fueled with state grants, the Lower Merion district issued laptops to all 2,300 high school students, starting last school year at Harriton and later at Lower Merion High, to promote more "engaged and active learning and enhanced student achievement," Superintendent Christopher W. McGinley said in a statement.

McGinley and Lower Merion School Board President David Ebby did not respond to requests for comment.

Families in the 6,900-student district reacted with shock. Parent Candace Chacona said she was "flabbergasted" by the allegations.

"My first thought was that my daughter has her computer open almost around the clock in her bedroom. Has she been spied on?"

Victoria Zuzelo, a senior at Harriton, said she and other students had been told about the security feature, and knew the district had the right to search computer hard drives at school.

Some students had taken to covering webcams in school with paper because they thought they might be watched, she said. "But . . . they would never think the school would be watching them at home. I'm not sure who to believe, but I'm hoping it is not true because if it was, it would really be outrageous."

Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy watchdog group in Washington, said she had not heard of any other case in which school officials were accused of monitoring student behavior at home via a computer. If the allegations are true, she said, "this is an outrageous invasion of individual privacy."

Witold J. Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, told the Associated Press: "School officials cannot, any more than police, enter into the home either electronically or physically without an invitation or a warrant."

Virginia DiMedio, who as the Lower Merion district's technology director until she retired last summer helped launch the laptop initiative, said yesterday: "If there was a report that a computer was stolen, the next time a person opened it up, it would take their picture and give us their IP [Internet protocol] address - the location of where it was coming from."

She said that the feature had been used several times to trace stolen laptops, but that there had been no discussion of using it to monitor students' behavior. "I can't imagine anyone in the district did anything other than track stolen computers," she said.

DiMedio said the district did not widely publicize the feature "for obvious reasons. It involved computer security, and that is all it was being used for."

She added: "People ask you all the time, 'Can you do this? Can you do this?' . . . But you have to be conscious of students' rights. I would not have walked into that swamp. . . . You want kids to use the technology. You want them to feel safe, to feel trusted."

The laptop initiative, she said, is "a wonderful program. There were kids in some of the poorer areas that had none of the resources that the other students had. That was what the initiative was for - to give kids a chance."

In a published policy statement, the district warns that laptop users "should not expect that files stored on district resources will be private," and says the network administrator "may review files and communication to . . . ensure that students are using the system responsibly."

China Warns U.S. Over Dalai Lama Meeting

Raising issues sure to stoke China's ire, Obama used his first presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama to press Beijing, which has faced international criticism for its Tibet policies, to preserve Tibet's identity and protect its people's human rights.

Obama sat down with the Dalai Lama, reviled by Beijing as a dangerous separatist but admired by millions around the world as a man of peace, in the face of wider tensions over U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan, Beijing's currency policies and Chinese Internet security.

"The president commended the Dalai Lama's ... commitment to nonviolence and his pursuit of dialogue with the Chinese government," the White House said in a written statement after the nearly hour-long meeting.

Obama encouraged China and the Dalai Lama's envoys to keep up efforts to resolve their differences through negotiations, despite recent talks having yielded little progress.

The White House said Obama and the Dalai Lama also "agreed on the importance of a positive and cooperative relationship between the United States and China."

While defying Chinese demands to scrap the talks, the White House took pains to keep the encounter low-key, barring media coverage of the meeting itself, in an apparent bid to placate Beijing.

But after the talks the Dalai Lama, clad in sandals and burgundy robes, spoke to reporters on the White House driveway, saying he had expressed to Obama his admiration for the United States as a "champion of democracy, freedom, human values."

With the two giant economies so deeply intertwined, tensions are considered unlikely to escalate into outright confrontation. The White House expects only limited fallout.

But the Dalai Lama's visit could complicate Obama's efforts to secure China's help on key issues such as imposing tougher sanctions on Iran, resolving the North Korean nuclear standoff and forging a new global accord on climate change.

By going ahead with the meeting over Chinese objections, Obama may be trying to show his resolve against an increasingly assertive Beijing after facing criticism at home for being too soft with China's leaders on his trip there in November.

On the eve of the Dalai Lama's visit, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs insisted the United States and China -- the world's largest and third-biggest economies -- have a "mature relationship" capable of withstanding disagreements.

Massive Computer Hack Originated in China

More than 75,000 computer systems at nearly 2,500 companies in the United States and around the world have been hacked in what appears to be one of the largest and most sophisticated attacks by cyber criminals discovered to date, according to a northern Virginia security firm.

The attack, which began in late 2008 and was discovered last month, targeted proprietary corporate data, e-mails, credit-card transaction data and login credentials at companies in the health and technology industries in 196 countries, according to Herndon-based NetWitness.

News of the attack follows reports last month that the computer networks at Google and more than 30 other large financial, energy, defense, technology and media firms had been compromised. Google said the attack on its system originated in China.

This latest attack does not appear to be linked to the Google intrusion, said Amit Yoran, NetWitness's chief executive. But it is significant, he said, in its scale and in its apparent demonstration that the criminal groups' sophistication in cyberattacks is approaching that of nation states such as China and Russia.

The attack also highlights the inability of the private sector -- including industries that would be expected to employ the most sophisticated cyber defenses -- to protect itself.

"The traditional security approaches of intrusion-detection systems and anti-virus software are by definition inadequate for these types of sophisticated threats," Yoran said. "The things that we -- industry -- have been doing for the past 20 years are ineffective with attacks like this. That's the story."

The intrusion, first reported on the Wall Street Journal's Web site, was detected Jan. 26 by NetWitness engineer Alex Cox. He discovered the intrusion, dubbed the Kneber bot, being run by a ring based in Eastern Europe operating through at least 20 command and control servers worldwide.

The hackers lured unsuspecting employees at targeted firms to download infected software from sites controlled by the hackers, or baited them into opening e-mails containing the infected attachments, Yoran said. The malicious software, or "bots," enabled the attackers to commandeer users' computers, scrape them for log-in credentials and passwords -- including to online banking and social networking sites -- and then exploit that data to hack into the systems of other users, Yoran said. The number of penetrated systems grew exponentially, he said.

"Because they're using multiple bots and very sophisticated command and control methods, once they're in the system, even if you whack the command and control servers, it's difficult to rid them of the ability to control the users' computers," Yoran said.

The malware had the ability to target any information the attackers wanted, including file-sharing sites for sensitive corporate documents, according to NetWitness.

Login credentials have monetary value in the criminal underground, experts said. A damage assessment for the firms is underway, Yoran said. NetWitness has been working with firms to help them mitigate the damage.

Among the companies hit were Cardinal Health, located in Dublin, Ohio, and Merck, according to the Wall Street Journal. A spokesman for Cardinal said the firm removed the infected computers as soon as the breach was found.

Also affected were educational institutions, energy firms, financial companies and Internet service providers. Ten government agencies were penetrated, none in the national security area, NetWitness said.

The systems penetrated were mostly in the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Mexico, the firm said.

Israeli Spies Involved in Hamas Assassination

Dubai investigators are nearly "100 percent" certain that Israel's Mossad spy agency was behind the hit squad slaying of a Hamas commander, the police chief said as the number of suspects rose Thursday to 18.

The comments by Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, which appeared on a government-owned newspaper Web Site, came as international pressure mounted for Israel to answer allegations about possible links to last month's slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas' military wing.

The investigation also widened to the United States with Emirates authorities saying the alleged killers used fraudulent passports to open credit cards accounts through U.S. banks, an official said.

"Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of al-Mabhouh. It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent, that Mossad is standing behind the murder," Tamim was quoted as saying by The National newspaper, which is owned by the government of Abu Dhabi.

Tamim and other Dubai police officials could not be immediately reached for further comment.

The international fallout from the murder in a Dubai hotel room showed no signs of easing, with Britain and Ireland summoning their Israeli ambassadors Thursday for talks about the case following allegations that European passports were used in the scheme.

Britain has said it will investigate how some suspects in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh came to have British passports - and how they might have been forged.

A UAE official, who has close knowledge of the investigation, said at least 18 people - including two women - are now suspects in what Dubai police describe as a highly coordinated operation to follow and then kill al-Mabhouh.

The list includes 10 men and one woman identified by Dubai police Monday as members of an assassination team that traveled to Dubai on apparently fraudulent passports - six from Britain, three from Ireland and one each from Germany and France.

Also linked to the slaying are two Palestinians in Dubai custody and five others, including one woman who was caught on video surveillance at the luxury hotel where al-Mabhouh's body was found Jan. 20, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with standing policies.

The official gave no further details on the Palestinians or the five other suspects.

But the official said that some of the suspects used the false passports to open credit card accounts at U.S. banks, but also gave no additional information.

Although no definitive links have been found to the suspects, speculation increasingly pointed to Israel and the Mossad. Names released by Dubai matched seven people living in Israel.

"Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in Israel's first official comment on the affair on Wednesday, then added: "I don't know why we are assuming that Israel, or the Mossad, used those passports."

GOP Want Debate on Jobs

House Republicans are taking a page from the president's playbook by challenging Democrats to a televised debate about job creation.


The top two Republicans in the House sent a letter Wednesday daring their counterparts — Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — to engage in a public discussion over ways Congress can provide a boost to the economy.


Their call comes as Democrats struggle to find consensus on a job creation package and in advance of the Feb. 25 bipartisan health care summit.


"Clearly, we need a different approach to developing legislation that will get Americans back to work," Republican leader John Boehner and party Whip Eric Cantor wrote to Pelosi and Hoyer. "Therefore, in the interest of complete transparency on the single most important issue of the day for most Americans, we ask that you join us for an open discussion so that we can begin to change a process that has not only polarized this Capitol building but this country as well."


Their call for an open discussion echoes President Barack Obama's invitation to congressional leaders to hold a health care debate next week at Blair House. That event stems from a recent back and forth between Obama and House Republicans. The president earned praise from the left and the right for his lengthy, candid exchange with Republicans during their annual issues conference in Baltimore late last month.


The White House caught Republicans off guard by asking the GOP to open the normally closed-door question-and-answer session to television cameras and reporters who are normally ushered from the room after the president speaks.


The two parties have been at loggerheads over the economy — and everything else — since Obama took the oath of office, when Republicans refused to support his almost $800 billion economic stimulus package, arguing it was too expensive and would prove ineffective. On Wednesday — the anniversary of its enactment — Democrats and Republicans engaged in yet another public relations blitz about whether the massive package actually spurred job growth.


"There are no doubt significant differences between our respective approaches to create jobs, as was evident during the stimulus debate last year," Boehner and Cantor said in their letter.


"Though we had different philosophical approaches, it is unfortunate that there was neither a public discussion nor an opportunity for the American people — especially small-business owners — to become more engaged," the Republicans wrote. "Had there been such a discussion, perhaps Congress would have produced a bill that more directly addressed our nation’s economic problems."


House Democrats passed a $154 billion jobs bill in December that used $75 billion from the Wall Street bailout package to improve highways and help cash-strapped communities pay for teachers, police officers and firefighters. Republicans say that that package "continued the failed policies of the first stimulus" because it "was drafted without Republican input." As a result, every Republican voted against it, along with 38 Democrats.


Senate Democrats offered a competing measure last week, but Majority Leader Harry Reid immediately scaled it back, setting the stage for yet another policy fight between Democrats in the two chambers.


With the letter from Boehner and Cantor, House Republicans are trying to insert themselves into that debate.


The Republican leaders also took a veiled shot at members of the majority by reminding them that Obama held open debates with the House GOP and Senate Democrats but not the Democratic Caucus.


"As you are no doubt aware, President Obama has recently held public forums with both House Republicans and Senate Democrats," the leaders wrote. "Though House Democrats have yet to participate in such a forum, we write to ask that you follow this precedent and agree to participate in an open meeting focused on job creation and economic growth between leaders of both parties in the House."

Right to Privacy?

A privacy watchdog group complained to federal regulators on Tuesday about Google's new Buzz social networking service, saying it violates federal consumer protection law.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed its complaint with the Federal Trade Commission just days after Google Inc. altered the service to address mounting privacy concerns.

Since launching Google Buzz as part of Gmail a week ago, the search company has come under fire for automatically creating public circles of friends for users based on their most frequent Gmail contacts. Over the weekend, Google altered the service to merely suggest contacts for its users' social networks.

Despite the changes, EPIC argues that privacy violations remain because Google automatically signs up Gmail users for Buzz, rather than waiting for them to do so themselves, or "opt in" for the service. EPIC wants the FTC to require Google to make Buzz a "fully opt-in" service. It also wants the company barred from using Gmail address book contacts to compile social networking lists.

"This is a significant breach of consumers' expectations of privacy," EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg said in a statement. "Google should not be allowed to push users' personal information into a social network they never requested."

But Google insists that it gives users control because, even though it adds a "Buzz" link to all Gmail accounts, users must click on the link and agree to activate the service. Google also gives users the option to disable Buzz.

In response to the EPIC complaint, Google said it has already made some changes to Buzz based on user feedback and has "more improvements in the works."

"We look forward to hearing more suggestions and will continue to improve the Buzz experience with user transparency and control top of mind," the company said.

New Nuke Plants

The White House is optimistic about climate change legislation in Congress and hopes an announcement to jumpstart the nuclear power industry will appeal to Republican skeptics, a top adviser to President Barack Obama said.

The Obama administration will announce on Tuesday an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to help Southern Co. build two reactors, helping to invigorate the nuclear power industry after nearly three decades in which no new plants have been built.

Carol Browner, Obama's top energy and climate adviser, said she was hopeful about progress on energy and climate legislation that is currently stalled in the U.S. Senate.

"I'm always optimistic, as is the president," Browner told Reuters Insider in an interview.

"We're working hard, and we're encouraged by the conversations that are going on. Obviously this is very important legislation and we're going to do everything we can to make it happen," she said.

Browner noted that Republicans, many of whom oppose the climate bill, would take note of Obama's efforts to reach out on the issue of nuclear energy.

"We also hope that Republicans and others, supporters of nuclear (power), will take note that the administration is prepared to provide leadership on issues that are important to solving our energy future and creating a different energy future," she said.

Color Blind Justice?

A judge's race or gender makes for a dramatic difference in the outcome of cases they hear—at least for cases in which race and gender allegedly play a role in the conduct of the parties, according to two recent studies.

The results were the focus of a program about “Diversity on the Bench: Is the ‘Wise Latina’ a Myth?,” sponsored by the ABA Judicial Division at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Orlando on Saturday afternoon.

In federal racial harassment cases, one study (PDF) found that plaintiffs lost just 54 percent of the time when the judge handling the case was an African-American. Yet plaintiffs lost 81 percent of the time when the judge was Hispanic, 79 percent when the judge was white, and 67 percent of the time when the judge was Asian American.

The comprehensive study, by professors from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, examined a random assortment of 40 percent of all reported racial harassment cases from six federal circuits between 1981 and 2003.

A second study (PDF), looked at 556 federal appellate cases involving allegations of sexual harassment or sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The finding: plaintiffs were at least twice as likely to win if a female judge was on the appellate panel.

University of Pittsburgh School of Law Professor Pat K. Chew, who co-authored the racial harassment study, said she found “the rule of law is intact” in the cases she reviewed. Judges—no matter which side they ruled for—took the same procedural steps to reach their decisions, she said.

But judges of different races took different approaches “on how to interpret the facts of the cases,” she said.

Pressed on whether the rule of law could actually be considered intact when outcomes varied so much depending on the race of the judge, she replied: "It’s always made a difference who the judge was. We’ve long known, for instance, that a judge’s political affiliation makes a difference."

Judge Carol E. Jackson of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri said she was heartened that diversity has crept into the federal court system, where today 20 percent of judges are women and 15 percent are members of minority groups.

"It’s important that different voices are being heard," she said.

The program took its title from a much-debated comment made years ago by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor : “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

The participants never answered the question of whether a Latina judge reaches better conclusions, but at least in some cases, it appears likely that she would reach a different conclusion from a white male jurist hearing the same evidence.

Divide and Conquer

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has settled in on his election-year strategy: Identify issues that unite his caucus but divide the other party, then use them to drive a wedge between the White House and congressional Democrats. At the top of his list: the administration’s handling of terrorism cases. Replicating his pattern of relentless, blistering speeches against President Barack Obama’s health care proposal and his plan to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, McConnell has begun attacking Obama’s plan to try terrorism suspects in civilian courts — and he’s taking aim directly at Attorney General Eric Holder. “The core question is whether the attorney general of the United States ought to be in charge of the war on terror,” McConnell said. “And the answer is no.” McConnell hopes moderate Democrats will join Republicans in blocking funding for any civilian trials of terrorism suspects — a would-be GOP victory the party’s candidates could trumpet on the campaign trail throughout this election year.

The White House and its allies have pushed back hard against McConnell’s attacks, noting that the Bush administration took similar tacks with other terrorism suspects — and that neither McConnell nor his Republican colleagues offered much criticism at the time. “Those policies and practices, which were not criticized when employed by previous administrations, have been and remain extremely effective in protecting national security,” Holder said in a letter to McConnell last week. McConnell, 67 and in his fourth year as minority leader, is much more free to engage on the issues this year than he was in 2008, when he faced a tough reelection bid of his own.

Having won a fifth term, he’s liberated to attack wherever he thinks it will do his party the most good — as he did last year, when he decided early on that the Democrats’ health care bill deserved “bipartisan defeat.” Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said McConnell’s political instincts “are pretty close to flawless.”

Democrats blame McConnell for bottling up Senate business by throwing up an unprecedented number of procedural hurdles to stall action. Still, New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, head of the Senate Democratic campaign efforts, says that McConnell lacks the national name recognition needed to make him the foil for Democrats’ 2010 campaign. “I think there’s a real price to be paid for being obstructionists, and at the end of the day, it’s our challenge to make sure people know the difference and what that means in their lives,” Menendez said. Under McConnell, Menendez added, the Republicans are “pretty disciplined in just following whatever message they choose to adopt. However, some of the members of his caucus he just can’t control.

And they take him far afield from even where he wants to go.”

Indeed, last week several conservative Republicans introduced legislation to impose a one-year ban on the practice of earmarking money for pet projects as one way to restore trust in Washington and tackle what the GOP says is Capitol Hill’s out-of-control spending. Asked if the GOP leadership should endorse his proposal, South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said: “I think anyone who doesn’t sign up for it is in that group that doesn’t get it. And we’ll see who signs up for it.” But McConnell, an appropriator who pointed to pet projects he brought home as he campaigned for reelection in 2008, doesn’t seem to have much appetite for making that an issue for his party this year.

“I do fear that if we turn 100 percent of the authority over to the president, the money will be spent in Chicago,” McConnell said. “That may not be my constituents’ first choice.” Similarly, with his caucus divided over the fate of Ben Bernanke, who was nominated to a second term as Federal Reserve chairman, McConnell steadfastly refused to take a position, either publicly or in private meetings with his caucus — until it came time for a vote last month. He was a yes. “The one thing about leadership is that you never go against your troops, or you won’t be a leader very long,” said Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, McConnell’s No. 2. Last month, when the Senate rejected a commission to recommend ways to slash the national debt, McConnell — along with several other Republicans — reversed his position on the measure and opposed it, inviting fierce Democratic criticism that the Republican leader was playing political games.

“He was for it before he was against it,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota, one of the sponsors of the bipartisan bill. McConnell said that he wants such a commission structured so that it’s focused on cutting the rising level of government spending — not on raising taxes. But rather than fight every aspect of Obama’s domestic agenda, McConnell is selecting a handful of issues where he wants to engage in head-to-head combat with the White House. In part, that’s because he wants to create a clear us-versus-them contrast between the two parties, and in part it’s because he sees some areas as ripe for bipartisan progress — including offshore drilling, increased nuclear power and a renewed emphasis on trade agreements.

“We were not sent up here to just engage in political strategy; we ought to engage in what we think is right for the country,” McConnell said. “I’d be the last one to suggest that absolutely everything the administration does is incorrect. When we think that they’re on the right path, they’ll find Republican support.” But McConnell seems to sense that keeping his party united against controversial elements of the Democratic agenda could be his key to success this year — even if the political dynamic shifts in the next nine months. “Would I love to have the election tomorrow? I sure would,” McConnell said. “Early signs are that this could be a good year, but we have a long way to go.”

Ruling May Set Course for SCOTUS

WASHINGTON — As the Supreme Court nears the midpoint of its annual term and prepares to hear several momentous cases, one question looms: Will the justices' split decision reversing past rulings and allowing new corporate spending in political races set the tone for the term, or will Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission be an exception?

"Is this a turning point?" asks Pamela Harris, director of Georgetown Law's Supreme Court Institute. Harris notes that Chief Justice John Roberts' concurring opinion in the campaign-finance case defended reversing past rulings that have been, as Roberts wrote, "so hotly contested that (they) cannot reliably function as a basis for decision in future cases."

"That is an incredibly muscular vision of when you would overrule precedent," which usually guides justices in new cases, Harris says. "That makes it look like this is a court that's ready to go."

Several pending cases — some that already have been argued, some that will be argued in upcoming weeks — are likely to show the reach of the Roberts Court and its boldness.
Temple University law professor David Kairys expects the Citizens United to distinguish the Roberts Court for years. "I think it will actually define more than this particular term," he says. "It might define the Roberts Court."

CAMPAIGN SPENDING: New era

Among the most closely watched disputes: whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms covers regulation by states and cities; whether people who signed petitions for a ballot referendum against gay marriage have a First Amendment right to keep their names private; and whether a board set up to regulate public accounting firms after the Enron and Worldcom scandals violates the separation of powers and infringes on the executive branch.

That last case, Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, could challenge the legal consensus that Congress has the power to establish and set rules for certain independent agencies and their members within the executive branch. Some conservatives, including Justice Antonin Scalia, have argued in some situations that only the president can remove executive officials.

Big cases ahead

Citizens United reinforced the court's caustic ideological divide and may have signaled what's to come in the nearly 70 cases that await resolution through July.

The same acrimonious split was seen earlier in January when the five-justice conservative majority — Roberts, Scalia and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito— blocked broadcast of a federal trial in San Francisco on the constitutionality of California's ban on same-sex marriage.

Dissenting were the same four who protested in Citizens United: Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

ON THE DOCKET: Major cases facing the Supreme Court

The majority in the dispute over Proposition 8 — the 2008 voter initiative that banned gay marriage — said lower-court judges failed to follow procedures for notifying the public about the potential broadcasts, and it accepted arguments that the broadcasts could lead to the harassment of witnesses who had supported the same-sex marriage ban.

Dissenters countered that "the public interest weighs in favor of providing access to the courts" and accused the majority of "extraordinary intervention" in local affairs.

Kairys sees the current majority as the most conservative in decades. "It really is their time. They seem to have this undercurrent of, 'Let's do the things we want to do while we're in control.' "

President Obama appointed Sotomayor last year and may get another appointment or two. But the Democratic president's nominees would likely succeed liberals, who are among the older members of this bench. Stevens will turn 90 in April, Ginsburg 77 in March. Roberts, who is 55, and his fellow conservatives are generally the younger justices.

Accusations of activism

Of the 11 signed opinions the court has issued for the term, Citizens United was the most consequential.

Kairys argues that because of how money shapes politics, Citizens United marks "a change in the whole system of democracy."

Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett is among analysts who see it as having less of an impact.

"Citizens United did not really dramatically change the presence of 'corporate' money in politics," he says. "It was there before, and always will be, for better or worse."

Yet Garnett is watching pending constitutional cases.

In Stevens' dissent in Citizens United, he referred to the "majority's agenda" and strongly suggested the majority was not "serious about judicial restraint."

Roberts, who said during his confirmation hearings in 2005 that his job would be "to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat," defended himself against criticism of conservative activism.
The chief justice cited what he saw as flaws in past campaign-finance cases that needed to be addressed and wrote, "There is a difference between judicial restraint and judicial abdication."

When Science Meets Interrogations

An elite US interrogation unit will conduct "scientific research" to find better ways of questioning top suspected terrorists, US intelligence director Dennis Blair said Wednesday.

"It is going to do scientific research on that long-neglected area," Blair told the House Intelligence Committee, without elaborating on the nature of the techniques being tested.

A spokesman for Blair, Ross Feinstein, also declined to detail "specific research projects" but stressed that any such projects would follow US law, which forbids torture, and abide by internal review safeguards.

Blair said the task would fall to an interagency group of top US interrogators from across the intelligence community dubbed the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG).

"We've given it the responsibility of doing the scientific research to determine if there are better ways to get information from people that are consistent with our values," he said.

Blair said the HIG charter required it to abide by the US Army Field Manual, which forbids abusive interrogation techniques.

US interrogation tactics in the global war on terrorism have drawn heavy scrutiny in the United States and overseas because of the past use of techniques like waterboarding that meet international definitions of torture.

Obama formally abolished such methods shortly after taking office, drawing fire from former vice president Dick Cheney, who described them as critical to thwarting terrorist attacks in the wake of the September 11, 2001 strikes.

Asked to detail the research, Feinstein replied: "We are not going to discuss specific research projects, but Intelligence Community-sponsored research is performed in accordance with the law and institutional review board processes."

Or At Least Wants Your Emails

Anyone with an e-mail account likely knows that police can peek inside it if they have a paper search warrant.

But cybercrime investigators are frustrated by the speed of traditional methods of faxing, mailing, or e-mailing companies these documents. They're pushing for the creation of a national Web interface linking police computers with those of Internet and e-mail providers so requests can be sent and received electronically.

CNET has reviewed a survey scheduled to be released at a federal task force meeting on Thursday, which says that law enforcement agencies are virtually unanimous in calling for such an interface to be created. Eighty-nine percent of police surveyed, it says, want to be able to "exchange legal process requests and responses to legal process" through an encrypted, police-only "nationwide computer network."

The survey, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, is part of a broader push from law enforcement agencies to alter the ground rules of online investigations. Other components include renewed calls for laws requiring Internet companies to store data about their users for up to five years and increased pressure on companies to respond to police inquiries in hours instead of days.

But the most controversial element is probably the private Web interface, which raises novel security and privacy concerns, especially in the wake of a recent inspector general's report (PDF) from the Justice Department. The 289-page report detailed how the FBI obtained Americans' telephone records by citing nonexistent emergencies and simply asking for the data or writing phone numbers on a sticky note rather than following procedures required by law.

Some companies already have police-only Web interfaces. Sprint Nextel operates what it calls the L-Site, also known as the "legal compliance secure Web portal." The company even has offered a course that "will teach you how to create and track legal demands through L-site. Learn to navigate and securely download requested records." Cox Communications makes its price list for complying with police requests public; a 30-day wiretap is $3,500.

The police survey is not exactly unbiased: its author is Frank Kardasz, who is scheduled to present it at a meeting (PDF) of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group, organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Kardasz, a sergeant in the Phoenix police department and a project director of Arizona's Internet Crimes Against Children task force, said in an e-mail exchange on Tuesday that he is still revising the document and was unable to discuss it.

In an incendiary October 2009 essay, however, Kardasz wrote that Internet service providers that do not keep records long enough "are the unwitting facilitators of Internet crimes against children" and called for new laws to "mandate data preservation and reporting." He predicts that those companies will begin to face civil lawsuits because of their "lethargic investigative process."
"It sounds very dangerous," says Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, referring to the police-only Web interface. "Let's assume you set this sort of thing up. What does that mean in terms of what the law enforcement officer be able to do? Would they be able to fish through transactional information for anyone? I don't understand how you create a system like this without it."

What police see in ISPsKardasz's survey, based on questionnaires completed by 100 police investigators, says that 61 percent of them had their investigations harmed "because data was not retained" and only 40 percent were satisfied with the timeliness of responses from Internet providers.

It also says: "89 percent of investigators agreed that a nationwide computer network should be established for the purpose of linking ISPs with law enforcement agencies so that they may exchange legal process requests and responses to legal process. Authorized users would communicate through encrypted virtual private networks in order to maintain the security of the data."

Some of the responses to other questions: "AT&T is very prompt." "Cox Communications seems to be the worst." "Places like Yahoo can take a month for basic subscriber info which is also a problem." "AT&T Mobility does not keep a log at all." "MySpace give (sic) me the quickest response and they have been very pro-police."

Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said in an interview with CNET on Tuesday that: "You can be very supportive of law enforcement investigations and at the same time be very cognizant and supportive of the privacy rights of our users. Every time a legal process comes in, whether it's a subpoena or a search order, we do a legal review to make sure it's appropriate."

Nigam said that MySpace accepts law enforcement requests through e-mail, fax, and postal mail, and that it has a 24-hour operations center that tries to respond to requests soon after they've been reviewed to make sure state and federal laws are being followed. MySpace does not have a police-only Web interface, he said.

Creating a national police-only network would be problematic, Nigam said. "I wish I knew the number of local police agencies in the country, or even police officers in the country," he said. "Right there that would tell you how difficult it would be to implement, even though ideally it would be a good thing."

Another obstacle to creating a nation-wide Web interface for cops--one wag has dubbed it "DragNet," and another "Porknet"--is that some of its thousands of users could be infected by viruses and other malware. Once an infected computer is hooked up to the national network, it could leak confidential information about ongoing investigations.

Jim Harper, a policy analyst at the free-market Cato Institute, says that he welcomes the idea of a police-only Web interface as long as it's designed carefully. "A system like this should have strong logins, should require that the request be documented fully, and should produce statistical information so there can be strong oversight," he says. "I think that's a good thing to have."

Pentagon: Nuke Threat to US Increasing

North Korea is expected to deploy a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching parts of the United States in the next decade, despite two long-range missile flight-test failures, according to the Pentagon's ballistic-missile defense review.

The review report, made public this week, concluded that missile threats from several states, including Iran, Syria, China and Russia, are growing "quantitatively and qualitatively," and it outlined Pentagon plans for silo-based and mobile anti-missile systems to counter them.

On North Korea, the report disclosed for the first time the U.S. intelligence estimate of when Pyongyang will be able to reach the technically challenging threshold of producing a nuclear device small enough to be carried on a missile.

"We must assume that sooner or later, North Korea will have a successful test of its Taepodong-2 and, if there are no major changes in its national security strategy in the next decade, it will be able to mate a nuclear warhead to a proven delivery system," the report said.

U.S. intelligence officials said North Korea was one of at least three states — along with Libya and Iran — that benefited from the spread of nuclear technology provided by the network of suppliers headed by Pakistani technician A.Q. Khan. Included with that assistance and discovered when Libya gave up its Khan-supplied nuclear goods were Chinese-language documents on how to make a warhead for a missile, the officials have said.

U.S. intelligence agencies suspect but have not confirmed that North Korea also obtained the warhead-design documents from Mr. Khan.

North Korea's two underground nuclear tests and its development of long-range missiles is a major worry, the report said, noting that Iran also is developing long-range missiles.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in Senate testimony this week that the Pentagon is seeking $8.4 billion for missile defenses under what he described as a phased plan to shift the focus from larger ground-based long-range interceptors to shorter-range missile defenses, like the Navy's SM-3 ship-based missile interceptor.

"We have deployed ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely [in Alaska]. We have a very aggressive test program that has been successful. We believe that those interceptors give us the capability to deal with launches from either Iran or North Korea, a small-scale threat," Mr. Gates said.

Chuck Downs, a former Pentagon official and specialist on North Korea, said the North Korean drive for a long-range nuclear missile is part of Pyongyang's objective of being able to threaten the United States.

"They are a regime that has already relied on coercive threats, with their own people, with their neighbors and with the United States," he said.

Developing a nuclear-tipped Taepodong will be "the high point of their military development program," said Mr. Downs, head of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. "It should come as no surprise that they are seeking to develop this missile."

A defense official said the Defense Intelligence Agency told Congress last year that North Korea may be able to mate a nuclear warhead to a ballistic missile, noting that the Taepodong would be nuclear-capable. Additionally, DIA has stated that "North Korea could have several nuclear warheads capable of delivery by ballistic missiles."

"We have publicly stated that North Korea has a theoretical capability to produce a warhead and mate it with a missile, but we have no information to suggest they have done so," the official said.
Five years ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a U.S. senator from New York, made headlines when she asked DIA director Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby during a hearing whether North Korea had a nuclear warhead small enough to be carried on a missile. Adm. Jacoby said yes, but a Pentagon spokesman said later that officials did not know whether Pyongyang has a nuclear missile warhead capability.

The report said it was difficult to predict when the missile threat to the U.S. homeland will evolve, "but it is certain that it will do so."

Iran, meanwhile, announced Wednesday that it had conducted a rocket launch to place a satellite into orbit, a move that the White House called provocative.

North Korea's April 2009 Taepodong test failed to orbit a small communications satellites, but showed that Pyongyang has developed "many technologies associated with an [intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)]," the report said.

The missile-defense report outlines the Obama administration's plan for stepping up the deployment of short- and medium-range missile defenses, specifically to counter Iranian missiles.

"North Korea and Iran have shown contempt for international norms, pursued illicit weapons programs in defiance of the international community, and have been highly provocative in both their actions and statements," the report said. "They have exploited the capabilities available to them to threaten others."

Regional neighbors of both states may be limited in their actions and pursuit of interests because of the missile threat.

"Deterrence is a powerful tool, and the United States is seeking to strengthen deterrence against these new challenges," the report said. "But deterrence by threat of a strong offensive response may not be effective against these states in a time of political-military crisis. Risk-taking leaders may conclude that they can engage the United States in a confrontation if they can raise the stakes high enough by demonstrating the potential to do further harm with their missiles. Thus, U.S. missile defenses are critical to strengthening regional deterrence."

Iran has not stated its plan to build ICBMs, but the report said it continues to "pursue long-range ballistic missiles," including the Safir space launcher that was used in August 2008 and February 2009 to launch satellites.

Current U.S. missile-defense systems include 30 ground-based long-range interceptors in Alaska and California, ground-based mobile Patriot and Theater High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems and the Navy's SM-3 anti-missile interceptor, based on Aegis warships.

In the next several years, the Pentagon plans to develop and deploy several advanced variants of the SM-3 missile, including a ground-based version in Poland.

The report said the most advanced SM-3 will have some capability to knock out long-range missile warheads and will be ready for use in "the 2020 time frame."

The Obama administration canceled a plan to deploy long-range interceptors in Poland after Russia opposed the interceptor base and a related radar planned for the Czech Republic.

Instead, the administration will use ships deployed in waters closer to Iran to counter Iranian medium-range missiles, as well as interceptors in Poland to protect the Continent.

Critics of the scaled-back missile-defense plan say abandoning the proposal for stationing long-range missile interceptors in Europe will increase the U.S. vulnerability to a future Iranian missile strike on the United States.