Thursday, May 9th, 2013 — Good Morning, Stay Safe
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Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson poised for endorsement from law enforcement unions: sources
On Monday, Thompson had a second interview with the leaders of the United Uniformed Workers of New York, a coalition of law enforcement unions representing 120,000.
By Rocco Parascandola AND Jonathan Lemire — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The New York Daily News'
Mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson is close to landing the endorsement of a potent coalition of law enforcement unions, sources said Wednesday.
The backing of the United Uniformed Workers of New York, a group of unions representing 120,000 active and retired members, is "Thompson's to lose," a source close to the process said.
On Monday, Thompson went before the group's leaders for a second interview — a courtesy not extended to two top Democratic hopefuls, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, said Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association.
Two other Democrats, city Controller John Liu and former City Councilman Sal Albanese, are scheduled to have a second interview Thursday.
Sources said Thompson's plan to create an inspector general within the NYPD – which critics say defangs the position – was a hit with the police unions. Quinn and de Blasio support creating an independent investigator; Liu opposes the plan.
The union coalition was created this year to give its members – which includes the Port Authority cops, court officers, and NYPD officers – increased clout. The larger rank-and-file police and fire unions are not part of the coalition.
Two Republican candidates, former MTA chairman Joe Lhota and billionaire John Catsimaditis, were also only invited for one interview, sources said.
A Democratic operative unaffiliated with a campaign suggested that it was risky for Thompson, the race's lone African-American candidate, to closely link himself with police unions that staunchly support the police tactic known as stop-and-frisk.
Thompson wants to reform, but not eliminate, the controversial practice which largely targets minorities and is a flashpoint in black and Latino neighborhoods.
"This move looks good now but could backfire for him," said the operative. "Is he taking black and Latino voters for granted?"
The ex-Controller's campaign, which has recently been rolling out endorsements from minority leaders, declined comment.
Palladino would not confirm that Thompson was his group's likely choice but said his group could "live with" the Controller's position on stop-and-frisk.
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NYPD Lack of Compliance with the Freedom of Information Law
Secrets of the NYPD
Here's how a massive, taxpayer-funded public agency routinely ignores transparency laws
By CJ Ciaramella — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013; 'Salon Magazine' / New York, NY
The New York Police Department has come under fire for the potentially unconstitutional execution of its stop-and-frisk policy, and surveillance of Muslims. But if you think that the taxpayer-funded agency should be accountable to the public and forthcoming about what it's doing, the story gets worse: It regularly flouts transparency laws, in an effort to make the records of how it perform its duties and the crimes it responds to next to impossible for the average citizen to obtain.
The NYPD's roughly 34,500 officers serve a population of 8.2 million people, but multiple interviews with reporters who cover the police department, as well as organizations dedicated to transparency, reveal a police department stunning in its disregard for the information requests of citizens, advocacy groups and news organizations.
The city's Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who is running for mayor, recently released a report asserting that a third of all Freedom of Information records requests to the police department were ignored. The numbers are no surprise to journalists who cover the department, such as Leonard Levitt, a veteran cops reporter who now writes at NYPD Confidential.
"All I can tell you is that the NYPD does whatever it wants to regarding FOI requests," Levitt said. "Which means they never turn anything over, at least not to me. The only time they did respond was after I got the NY Civil Liberties Union involved."
The civil liberties group filed suit on behalf of Levitt to obtain Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly's daily calendar. The department said the commissioner's whereabouts were secret for security reasons, which is a novel line of argument, given that President Barack Obama's daily schedule is public.
In the past several years, the NYCLU has also sued the department to get data on the notorious stop-and-frisk program, as well as details on the race of people shot by officers. The NYCLU, currently wrapped up in a court case against the city's stop-and-frisk program, was not available for comment.
Remapping the Debate, a public policy organization, filed a lawsuit against the NYPD in late April for withholding documents on protest permits. The group waited 11 months with no response before filing the suit.
"The documents sought are important to facilitating public understanding of how New York City has treated those seeking to exercise their First Amendment rights," Christopher Dunn, the associate director of the NYCLU, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, Remapping Debate's experience of having received no documents more than 10 months after the requests were made is all too typical of how the NYPD violates its Freedom of Information Law obligations."
The New York Times sued the department in 2010 seeking records on pistol permits, bias incident data, the department's crime incident database and its FOIL logs.
"We started down this path because in our view the NYPD really had a practice of not complying with FOIL no matter what the request was," New York Times assistant general counsel David McCraw said. "By and large, there is a disregard of the concept of openness and transparency. They do the minimal amount, they delay unnecessarily, and they fight over exemptions that reasonable people wouldn't fight over."
The Times' suit has ping-ponged back and forth between the state's trial and appellate courts with various degrees of success. Its request for gun permit data was denied, but the NYPD settled out of court to release the FOIL logs.
"The FOIL system is broken," McCraw said.
The result is many journalists on the crime beat in New York City don't even bother filing records requests. Reporters have to cultivate friendly sources within the department who will slip them documents. Not terribly unusual or burdensome for good reporters, but it effectively locks out everyone else.
"It's certainly become very difficult to even get routine records via FOIL from the Police Department," Village Voice reporter Graham Rayman said. "Requests are denied almost as a matter of course, and then news organizations face the issue of whether it's worth the money necessary to sue."
In 2010, Rayman wrote a five-part series for the Village Voice about an NYPD officer who faced retaliation from the department after blowing the whistle on extensive efforts by his superiors to juke the stats.
The Village Voice spent the next two years trying to obtain a report commissioned by Chief Kelly on the officer's claims. Its request was blocked, even though the report had been completed and was public record, according to state freedom of information law.
Back in October 2012, this reporter submitted a public records request for the discharge reports filed by NYPD officers over the previous year.
The impetus was the Empire State Building shooting, where it was reported that NYPD officers had wounded nine bystanders in a hail of gunfire intended to take down one gunman. (One of those bystanders, whose hip socket was crushed by an errant NYPD bullet, filed suit against the department earlier this year.)
I filed the public records request on Oct. 1. And then waited. On Jan. 11, I received this response:
In regard to your request, for all weapons discharge reports filled [sic] by officers between January 1, 2012 and September 26, 2012, I must deny access to these records on the basis of Public Officers Law section 87 (2)(g) and 87 (2)(e) as such records/information, if disclosed would reveal criminal investigative techniques or procedures, and or are intra-agency materials. Furthermore, these records are also exempt from disclosure as these records on the basis of Public Officers Law section 87 (2)(e) and Public Officers Law 87 (2)(a) in that such records consist of personnel records of a Police Officer and are therefore exempt from disclosure under the provisions of Civil Rights Law section 50-a.
Now, stop and consider this for a second. The NYPD said the public interest of how, when and why its officers use deadly force against the citizens it's sworn to protect is outweighed by the need to protect the privacy of those same officers. Not only that, the public interest was outweighed by the need to protect its investigative techniques.
This wouldn't have been too surprising, if the denial didn't contradict previous court rulings on those same records. A New York judge ruled two years ago — in response to a NYCLU lawsuit, naturally — that discharge reports are subject to disclosure, do not violate officers' privacy and do not compromise the department's investigative techniques.
Earlier this year, NYPD officers shot 16-year-old Kimani Gray seven times — four in the front and three in the back — so I filed another request. Even though I used identical language as the previous one, the NYPD said I had not reasonably described the records and denied my request.
Robert Freeman, the executive director of the New York State Commission on Open Government, said he's seen a downward trend in the police department's compliance with public records law over the years.
"I've been here since 1974," Freeman said. "The track record of the police department, particularly in the last decade, indicates in so many instances a failure to give effect to the spirit and letter of the freedom of information law."
"I look back at various mayoral administrations, and my feeling is that there was more of an intent to comply with the law in the era of Mayor [Ed] Koch than there has been since," Freeman continued. "My sense has been that the downward slope began in Giuliani's administration."
There is little hope of reform from inside the police department or the Bloomberg administration. (For two years, the Bloomberg administration fought like a cornered raccoon to block a Village Voice intern's routine public records request.)
The department's Internal Affairs Bureau only investigates individual officer misconduct, not department-wide problems, and the mayor's Commission to Combat Police Corruption doesn't have power to subpoena police officers.
There are positive developments, however. The New York City Council recently passed a law requiring the NYPD to fork over its crime data, so the city can make interactive crime maps. Such maps are common in other cities.
"The reason I like it is because when you have crime data up, you know where to put your resources," New York City Councilwoman Gale Brewer said. "You have a sense of what's going on in the neighborhood, not just the police department, but human services and the community."
The measure sprang to life after journalists at Bronx newspaper the Norwood News complained that the local police precinct had abruptly stopped supplying crime statistics. The reporters had to file records requests for the stats, which of course were delayed or sometimes just ignored.
But is there any justification for the NYPD's poor performance when it comes to public records? Even open government advocates say the department's one FOIL office is dealing with a huge amount of requests, which coupled with a huge jurisdiction and bureaucracy, make any form of efficiency a formidable task.
"There is a degree of sympathy," Freeman said. "The requests all go through the FOIL office at 1 Police Plaza," Freeman said. "I can understand why in some instances it would be difficult to locate records in Staten Island or the Bronx. But I think the implementation could be improved by providing individuals at the precinct level the ability to make basic judgments."
Improving digitization and electronic filing at the NYPD would help, too, Brewer and Freeman said. The NYPD was one of 18 city agencies in 2012 still using more than 1,000 typewriters, and not just as a hipster fashion statement.
"Typewriters," Brewer said, exasperated. "We about had a heart attack."
As one might have guessed, the NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.
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NYPD Stop, Question and Frisk Search
Mayor Bloomberg: Stop-and-frisk is lowering NYC crime, need for searches
Mike Bloomberg defends his controversial policy as officers testify in the ongoing federal trial: 'If you think you're going to get stopped, you don't carry a gun ... The crime goes down, the number of stop-and-frisks ... goes down.'
By Erin Durkin And Joe Kemp — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The New York Daily News'
Mayor Bloomberg credited the plunge in the number of people stopped and questioned by cops to the dropping crime rate in the city.
"That's the results of this," Bloomberg told reporters Tuesday. "If you think you're going to get stopped, you don't carry a gun ... The crime goes down, the number of stop-and-frisks ... goes down."
Police stats released Friday show cops made 99,788 stops in the first three months of the year — less than half of the 203,500 reported during the same period last year.
The number of killings has also plummeted, according to police stats published Monday. There were 97 murders this year, about 27 percent less than the 133 homicides investigated at the same time last year, the stats show.
Bloomberg's remarks came as a Brooklyn cop, who logged one of the highest numbers of stops in 2009, testified during the ongoing stop and frisk federal trial.
The officer, Kha Dang, recorded a whopping 127 stops during a three-month period. None of the people he stopped in the 88th Precinct were white and all but 12 were black.
Plaintiff lawyers contend the numbers show Dang was conducting stops based on race, but the anti-crime cop said they were partly due to a crime surge in his command.
"We had a spike in crime," he said. "Burglaries, robberies, shootings spiked in and around Fort Greene Park."
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Homi Trial in the Murder of 75 Pct. Hero Peter Figoski
Figoski-slay trial opens
By JOSH SAUL — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The New York Post'
A trial got under way yesterday for the man accused of masterminding the East New York burglary that led to the shooting death of NYPD Detective Peter Figoski.
Prosecutors laid out the case against Nelson Morales, 28, telling jurors he recruited a crew of thugs to stick up a low-level drug dealer who lived in his uncle's basement.
Figoski's parents, Frank and Mary Ann, and brother, Robert, watched from the Brooklyn Supreme Court gallery, with about two dozen detectives and uniformed cops sitting around them.
"It's hard for them. They're strong people, but it's hard," said John Giangrasso, a cop and PBA trustee who worked with Figoski in the 75th Precinct.
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Alleged Robbery Mastermind On Trial In NYPD Officer's Murder
Nelson Morales Allegedly Planned Robbery Of Drug Dealer
By Unnamed Author(s) (CBS News - New York) — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013; 8:21 p.m. EDT
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Jurors heard opening statements Wednesday in the trial of Nelson Morales, a suspect setting the wheels in motion for a robbery that ended with the fatal shooting of NYPD Officer Peter Figoski.
As 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reported, police officers crowded the courtroom for the trial of Morales, 28, who not fire the fatal shot, but allegedly planned the armed robbery of a marijuana dealer who lived in his uncle's basement.
He is charged with murder.
Figoski responded to a 911 call as part of a backup team, and was shot in the face when he came down the narrow basement steps.
Prosecutors told jurors that even in the chaos, Morales was one cool customer, claiming he was a victim of the crime.
The gunman who killed Figoski, Lamont Pride, was sentenced to 45 years to life in prison back in February.
Prosecutors said Pride and four others plotted to rob the drug dealer who lived in the basement apartment in Brooklyn, but were interrupted by police.
As Pride tried to escape, he came face-to-face with Figoski, who was shot once in the head. Figoski died later at a hospital.
Prosecutors said Figoski, who was undercover, never even drew his own weapon. Pride was caught by Figoski's partner.
Pride's alleged getaway driver, Michael Velez, was found not guilty of first- and second-degree burglary.
Another man, Kevin Santos, 32, is also charged in the murder and was set to go on trial this week. A fifth suspect, Ariel Tejada, testified against the others as part of a plea deal that gave him a lesser sentence.
More than 15,000 mourners turned out at Figoski's funeral in December. Mayor Michael Bloomberg promoted Figoski to detective posthumously.
Figoski is survived by daughters Christine, Caitlyn, Caroline and Corrine. More than $600,000 was raised for a scholarship fund to help pay for their education.
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Opening Statements Heard For Two Men Charged In NYPD Officer's Death
By: Dean Meminger — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013; 9:26 p.m. 'NY 1 News'
Opening arguments were heard for two more defendants charged in the shooting death of a NYPD officer in Brooklyn, including the so-called ringleader. NY1's Dean Meminger filed the following report.
The Brooklyn District Attorney's Office says Nelson Morales started the chain of events that led to the death of Officer Peter Figoski.
Figoski was part of the backup team when police responded to a burglary call on Pine Street in December 2011. He was shot and killed just after he arrived.
Although Morales didn't pull the trigger, prosecutor Kenneth Taub said he is just as responsible for the officer's death because he put the crew together to commit the robbery.
"They live in Ozone Park, Queens, just a mile or two away, and that's where this plan was hatched," Taub said.
Prosecutors say Morales took four buddies to his uncle's house to ambush a marijuana dealer who lived in the basement. They are expected to play parts of Morales' interrogation video. In it, they say he pretended to be a victim of the robbery and fingered Lamont Pride, who was found guilty in February of killing Figoski.
"He pulls out the gun on me again," Morales said in the video. "The black kid. He pulled out the gun. He put it to my head. He pulled me by my collar inside the house."
When Wayne Bodden, the attorney for Morales, got up to speak to the jury, he was quick, only taking about two minutes to lay out his defense.
"You will not hear evidence that Mr. Morales killed anyone," Bodden said. "You will not hear evidence that Mr. Morales burglarized anyone."
Another defendant, Ariel Tejada cut a deal with prosecutors to testify against the others.
A jury found alleged getaway driver Michael Velez not guilty of murder and burglary.
A fifth defendant, Kevin Santos, is on trial alongside Morales.
Figoski's family is expected to sit through the second trial and hear lots of the heartbreaking details about the officer's death all over again.
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Det. Thomas Weiner Pancreatic Cancer Death
Widow of NYPD detective killed by cancer fighting for 9/11 benefits
Linda Weiner says her husband NYPD Det. Thomas Weiner contracted pancreatic cancer because of the 60 hours he worked on toxic Pile following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Doctors refute claims.
By John Marzulli — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The New York Daily News'
Ten years after cancer-stricken NYPD Det. Thomas Weiner received a promotion on his deathbed from Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, his family is still fighting for recognition that he died from working at Ground Zero.
The NYPD pension board Wednesday punted on an application to grant Weiner's widow a line-of-duty pension back to a panel of doctors that previously ruled his pancreatic cancer existed before Sept. 11, 2001.
"My brother lived for the job and he gave his life for the job," said Delores Weiner, a retired NYPD detective.
His widow Linda filed for the more lucrative pension after the state's highest court ruled that 9/11 first-responders are presumed to have contracted cancer from working rescue and cleanup duties as long as they meet certain criteria for hours worked, which Weiner does.
Weiner was an 18-year veteran of the force when his retirement became official before he died on May 3, 2003. So his wife collects a pension of only 30% of his base salary. A line-of-duty death designation is 75% of his pay, tax-free.
On 9/11, Weiner, a member of the storied crime-fighting team "Tom and Jerry" with partner Jerry Dassaro, raced from his home in Orange County to the horrific scene of the World Trade Center attack.
He served more than 60 hours exposed to toxins and debris in the Pile.
In April 2003, Weiner was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer and died less than a month later at the age of 43. The police medical board concluded that Weiner must have had the cancer before 9/11 because studies show it takes six years to metastasize.
But lawyer Jeffrey Goldberg, who represents Weiner's widow, said there's "not a shred of medical evidence" showing that the detective had cancer before the World Trade Center attack.
Weiner had undergone bariatric surgery in 2002 and follow-up endoscopies and blood tests with no evidence of cancer, Goldberg noted.
If the medical board disapproves the request again, Weiner's family's only recourse would be to sue. Other families of 9/11 first responders have successfully sued for a line-of-duty pension.
There wasn't a dry eye among the cops and family in Weiner's room at Mount Sinai Hospital when Kelly arrived with the plaque and promoted him.
"'I had to die to get promoted,'" Weiner later quipped, recalled Dassaro.
"It would give our family closure," Delores Weiner said. "I'm very honored that Commissioner Kelly came and (promoted him). My brother died a horrible, horrible death and he really was a hero."
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S.B.A. Prez Ed Mullin Tours Time Square
Times Square: How safe is New York's 'Crossroads of the World'?
Times Square is a high-profile target for terrorists, including the alleged Boston Marathon bombers. But a huge investment in counterterrorism has helped keep New York's No. 1 tourist attraction relatively safe.
By Ron Scherer — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The Christian Science Monitor' / Boston, MA
As he stands in Times Square, tourists streaming past, Sgt. Ed Mullins of the New York Police Department points to vendors selling drinks and T-shirts out of plastic bins.
"Are we paying attention to them? Are we really paying attention to these boxes and what's in them?" questions Sergeant Mullins, who is also president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, the second largest police union in the city.
During a walking tour of the area, he turns to some new solar-powered trash containers, which have the ability to compress trash but are not transparent.
"Look, no one is paying attention to that. You can put a Pepsi can in there but what else goes in there? We don't know," he says.
The sergeant's questions are not necessarily rhetorical.
The Times Square "bow tie," which encompasses about 13 blocks of tourist attractions, theaters, and office towers, has been a destination for potential terrorists as well as millions of tourists. In 2010, Faisal Shahzad, an immigrant, tried but failed to detonate explosives packed into an SUV parked in the crowded area. And, before they were stopped, the alleged Boston Marathon bombers are reported to have decided to drive to New York to try to set off their deadly explosives in Times Square.
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So, just how safe is the city's No. 1 tourist attraction?
The truth is that city officials are not sure.
Shortly after Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been killed and his brother, Dzhokhar, had been wounded and captured, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, "We don't know that we would have been able to stop the terrorists, had they arrived here from Boston. We're just thankful we didn't have to find out."
On Tuesday, New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, speaking at The Atlantic magazine's New York Ideas Forum, said, "There is a constant stream of individuals trying to come here and kill us."
Mr. Kelly credited "sheer luck" as well as the city's huge investment in counterterrorism with helping to keep the city relatively safe. "Our camerawork is very important," said Kelly.
Indeed, Mullins points to a light pole at Seventh Avenue and 44th Street that has multiple cameras mounted on it. Only a block away, another pole has air monitors that can detect chemical exposure as well as radiation levels. Security cameras belonging to private companies keep track of foot traffic moving past their entrances.
Mullins says some of the cameras use sophisticated "facial recognition" software that makes it harder for a "wanted" individual to just blend in with the crowd. According to Kelly, some of the cameras have technology to quickly spot a package that is left unattended in a crowded area.
However, Mullins says it would be dangerous to just trust a bunch of cameras. "The technology will only be as good as the people monitoring it," he explains. "If there is a package here and I see it 10 minutes later and no one is around it, I should do something about that, you know."
There is no doubt the area is flooded with a large variety of police. On a sunny day, cops sitting on horses peer above the crowds. A K-9 team is watching people go by on the east side of Times Square. Every block or two, uniformed police are on patrol. Mullins, who is wearing a suit not a uniform, says there are plenty of plainclothes police roaming the area. The city's antiterror SWAT teams are often seen cradling automatic weapons as they move around the neighborhood.
Many of the police, although not all, work out of a police precinct called Midtown South, which Mullins says is the busiest in the world. "We have multiple roll calls every day, there are hundreds of cops," he says. "This is a 24/7 location and there are always cops up here."
All the police are in the area, even though it is far from a high crime district. Brooklyn and the Bronx have the highest murder rates, according to the city's crime statistics.
It hasn't always been that way. In the 1970s and '80s, Mullins recalls, the crime rate in the area was very high.
"It was full of violence, prostitution, and narcotics," he says. The whole area had a certain seedy character to it with pockets of adult bookstores. Today, almost all those elements are gone.
But, as it has been in the past, Times Square – named for the venerable newspaper – is a high profile part of New York. Between 350,000 and 450,000 people move through the district each day, according to a recent pedestrian survey conducted by the Times Square Alliance, which had no comment for this story. On New Year's Eve, some 1 million people will squeeze into the area to watch the ball get lowered from the top of One Times Square.
In order for those celebrators to get into the Times Square area, they get their backpacks and purses inspected at police checkpoints. Doing that on a daily basis would probably not be doable, says Mullins.
Instead, he says, "the greatest tool we have to combat terrorism is every individual citizen. The best thing that could happen is if we all agree to pay attention and say something if something does not seem right."
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Statue of Liberty security plan going ahead despite NYPD objections
Visitors will no longer go through screening stations at Battery Park or Liberty State Park in New Jersey before boarding ferries to Lady Liberty. They'll go directly to Ellis Island and be screened there.
By Ginger Adams Otis AND Thomas Tracy — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The New York Daily News'
The National Parks Service is sticking with plans for new security screening on Ellis Island when the Statue of Liberty reopens this July 4 — despite past NYPD objections.
Visitors to the statue will no longer go through screening stations at Battery Park or Liberty State Park in New Jersey before boarding the ferries to Lady Liberty.
Instead, they'll be brought directly to Ellis Island and screened there, according to the parks service — which announced Tuesday that tickets to visit the statue starting July 4, when it reopens, are now available online.
The NYPD didn't comment Wednesday, but NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne spoke out against the revised security arrangements when they were first unveiled March 22.
The change to Ellis Island screening was made against NYPD advice and "leaves unresolved the vulnerability to attack" on ferries to and from Liberty and Ellis Islands, Browne said then.
Later Browne said the NYPD would work with NPS "to devise a security protocol for the safety of passengers before they board ferries at the Battery."
It wasn't clear Tuesday if the security plans included changes recommended by the NYPD. The updated security plan includes "additional security measures in place at Battery Park, Liberty State Park and on board the ferries themselves," according to the parks service.
Private security guards will be hired to work each embarkation point, said NPS spokeswoman Linda Fair.
The revamped security plans will replace the old checkpoints at Battery Park and Liberty State Park that were damaged during Hurricane Sandy.
The new facilities on Ellis Island will use "modern screening and detection technology," the parks service said.
A second checkpoint is being set up inside Lady Liberty's base at Liberty Island.
Tickets to visit the Statue of Liberty from July 4 through Sept. 2 are now available at statuecruises.com or by calling (201) 604-2800. Tickets to the statue's crown are only available by reservation.
"We are delighted that Lady Liberty will once again be open to the public. We look forward to providing a safe and enjoyable experience to all of our visitors," said Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island Superintendent David Luchsinger.
Crews have spent the last eight months repairing and replacing docks, damaged buildings and structures and preparing security screening facilities on Liberty and Ellis Islands.
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Counterterrorism and Muslim Surveillance
Judge backs NYPD's refusal to detail its surveillance of Muslim community under Freedom of Information Law
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and Muslim Advocates had requested the information, arguing it appeared that targets were chosen because of ethnicity and religion.
By Barbara Ross — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The New York Daily News'
Reports detailing the NYPD's infiltration and surveillance of the Muslim community are not subject to public scrutiny under the Freedom of Information Law, a Manhattan judge ruled Wednesday.
Supreme Court Justice Alexander Hunter said the NYPD acted reasonably when it rejected a FOIL request on those activities by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and Muslim Advocates.
The groups sought records about what the police found in the city and tristate area, how they decided where to look, statistics they collected, and legal and policy guidelines that they followed, saying press reports have suggested the NYPD's targets were chosen because of ethnic and religious identity.
Hunter upheld the NYPD's decision to give the groups very little on the grounds that such information could jeopardize the safety of confidential informants, undercut pending investigations and jeopardize public safety.
The advocates said the department's refusal was a vaguely worded, blanket rejection illegal under FOIL. But the judge said the NYPD was explicit enough when it said it would not release raw, unevaluated field reports.
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NY / NJ Port Authority Police Dept.
Lhota Facing Anger After He Likens Port Authority Police to 'Mall Cops'
By MICHAEL BARBARO — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The New York Times'
It was a simple question about improving airport security, the kind that candidates for mayor field up to three times a day at campaign forums across New York City.
But a flippant reply from Joseph J. Lhota, a Republican, has unleashed an unusually angry and biting reaction from the region's police officers, inflaming a group that Mr. Lhota has long viewed as a natural political ally.
The episode was the first real blunder of his four-month-old campaign.
In his answer at a forum on Tuesday night, Mr. Lhota, a former chairman of New York's public transit agency, said he had long harbored reservations about the quality of the police officers for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who are responsible for securing the region's three major airports.
"Quite honestly, and I know I will get in trouble for saying this, they are nothing more than mall cops," Mr. Lhota said, to scattered applause from the audience at Pace University in Lower Manhattan.
He went on to complain that Port Authority officers, who police a number of high-profile facilities like the Port Authority Bus Terminal, earned higher pay than the city's police officers.
Mr. Lhota's prediction of fallout was correct: Twitter erupted over his tart assessment, and by Wednesday morning, unions representing police officers in much of the New York region, as well as Mr. Lhota's Republican rivals, roundly condemned his words as deeply insensitive and inaccurate.
"Mr. Lhota's remarks are an insult to every man and woman who put their lives on the line every day as a police officer," said James Carver, president of the Nassau County Police Benevolent Association.
The Port Authority police force lost 37 officers at the World Trade Center site on Sept. 11, 2001, a figure that many police union officials cited as they denounced Mr. Lhota's comments.
"I've had 9/11 widows call me this morning," said Paul Nunziato, president of the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association. "They are not pleased at all."
In a show of solidarity, even the head of the powerful union representing the New York Police Department's officers weighed in, disapprovingly.
"On 9/11 we searched together for 23 N.Y.P.D. officers and 37 P.A.P.D. officers who sacrificed their own lives while evacuating others to safety," Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said in a statement, referring to the two police forces.
"If that doesn't speak to professional policing, then I don't know what does," Mr. Lynch added.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Lhota issued an apology. "I regret my unfortunate characterization of the Port Authority Police Department," he said. "It was an inappropriate answer that does not accurately reflect the hard work of its officers."
It was an unexpected headache for Mr. Lhota, the son of a New York City police lieutenant and a longtime deputy in the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was a defender of the police throughout his tenure.
As deputy mayor for operations, Mr. Lhota himself raced to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Later, he said he had developed cancer from exposure to materials at ground zero.
In that sense, he would seem a friend of the region's police officers. But the fierce response to his statements at the forum suggested that he had squandered at least some of that good will.
His remarks left political analysts scratching their heads; appealing to police officers and their families has long figured into the political calculus of any Republican seeking to be mayor.
Mr. Lhota's chief Republican rival, John A. Catsimatidis, quickly pounced, issuing a personal jab at Mr. Lhota. "It's sad that the son of an N.Y.P.D. lieutenant would take verbal shots at the Port Authority police or any law enforcement organization," he said. "As mayor, I would support law enforcement, not knock it down."
George T. McDonald, another Republican candidate, went a step further, listing by name all 37 Port Authority police officers who died on Sept. 11 in an e-mail demanding that Mr. Lhota apologize.
Mr. Lhota's apology, forceful as it was, did not satisfy Mr. Nunziato, of the Port Authority police union.
"What is his apology worth to the children of these cops or the widows?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Mr. Nunziato said, his voice rising as he mocked Mr. Lhota. "I don't think he has a chance to be mayor of New York City and I would certainly be out there campaigning against him if he ever got close."
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Police unions 'mall' Lhota
By DAVID SEIFMAN and SALLY GOLDENBERG — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The New York Post'
A flip remark describing Port Authority police as "mall cops" sparked a furor yesterday in law-enforcement ranks and will cost GOP mayoral candidate Joe Lhota the endorsement of a key group of uniformed unions.
Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives Endowment Association and head of a coalition representing 65,000 uniformed workers, told The Post there's no chance the group will back Lhota now.
"I thought Joe Lhota's comments were an outrageous insult to the Port Authority Police and especially the families of those Port Authority cops who lost their lives on 9/11," Palladino said.
Lhota issued an apology for what he described as "insensitive remarks" made about the PA cops during a discussion of sex trafficking through JFK Airport at a mayoral forum this week."Those (PA) cops get paid more than NYPD cops and quite honestly — I know I'm going to get in trouble for saying this — they're nothing more than mall cops."
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New Jersey
Ret. NYPD Det. and Alleged Psycho Jerry Speziale
Jury finds retaliation against Passaic County sheriff's captain in whistle-blower suit
BY KIBRET MARKOS — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The Bergen Record' / Hackensack, N.J.
A jury in Hackensack found that former Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale and his department retaliated against a captain who blew the whistle on the improper issuance of police-type ID cards to civilians.
The jurors, however, awarded a mere $1,000 in compensatory damages to Capt. Lori Mambelli for her claim that she suffered emotional distress from the retaliation. The panel awarded no money in lost wages and pensions to Mambelli, who is still a captain in the department and earns $150,000 a year. It will continue deliberations on Friday to determine whether punitive damages should be awarded.
The jury also rejected Mambelli's claim that she did not receive a promotion because of gender discrimination.
"This has been a long and arduous process, but I am very pleased on behalf of Passaic County and the taxpayers of Passaic County for this very decisive verdict in our favor," said county Counsel William Pascrell III, whose office represented Speziale and the Sheriff's Department.
Mambelli's attorney, Charles Sciarra, meanwhile, stressed that the jury found the Passaic County Sheriff's Department to be a retaliator.
"They found that Lori Mambelli saw illegal conduct in the department and that she was retaliated against," Sciarra said.
He added that he was disappointed with the monetary award but said he will file motions to address the amount.
Mambelli said in her lawsuit that the department improperly issued police-type ID cards to civilians upon the order of Speziale, while she worked in the Bureau of Criminal Identification between 2002 and 2008.
She said that in retaliation, she was transferred to various departments after she clashed with her supervisors about the practice. Another form of retaliation was that the department filed a lawsuit against her shortly after she filed a lawsuit against the department, she said. The department's lawsuit against Mambelli was later dismissed.
Speziale, who testified at length during the trial, said he never gave out such an order. His attorney, Albert Buglione, argued that Mambelli turned against the sheriff only when she was turned down for a promotion to a chief's position. Buglione said Mambelli was a high-ranking officer who had been promoted twice while Speziale was sheriff, and that the decision not to promote her to the chief's position had nothing to do with her gender.
Speziale was first elected sheriff in 2001 and won two reelections before resigning in 2010. He is now a deputy superintendent at the Port Authority Police Department.
Mambelli's lawsuit was first filed in Passaic County but was later moved to Superior Court in Hackensack because the case is mired in Passaic County politics.
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Chicago, Illinois / Garry Francis McCarhty
Supt. Garry McCarthy shakes up top ranks of CPD
By MICHAEL SNEED — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The Chicago Sun-Times' / Chicago, IL
The McCarthy era . . .
Sneed is told Police Supt. Garry McCarthy is shaking up the police department by getting rid of "legacy" top brass.
◆ Translation: Top cop holdovers from Mayor Richard M. Daley's regime are retiring — through decision or force— and going bye bye.
◆ Job changes: Although Chief of Patrol Joe Patterson, whom McCarthy appointed, has opted to retire — Sneed is told Chief of the Bureau of Detectives Tom Byrne is leaving as well as Tina Skahill, chief of special functions. "Her job will not be filled," said a top source.
◆ Bottom line: This enables McCarthy, who has recently seen homicide stats drop dramatically, to stamp his signature on the Chicago Police Department by picking his own top cops.
◆ Backshot: Last December, the bell tolled at midnight for top cops toiling in the city's top shooting galleries and murder dens — when McCarthy named seven new police commanders.
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Oakland, California
California: Oakland Police Chief Quits
By MALIA WOLLAN — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The New York Times'
Amid a surge in violent crime, the Oakland police chief, Howard A. Jordan, resigned Wednesday, citing unspecified medical reasons. For years, the city's beleaguered Police Department has suffered from low staffing and management problems. Last year the city narrowly avoided becoming the first in the country to cede control of its police force to federal authorities. Gov. Jerry Brown had to deploy California Highway Patrol officers to help patrol city streets. Chief Jordan, who was appointed in 2011, made his announcement a short time before a police consultant, William Bratton, a former police commissioner for New York City and a former Los Angeles police chief, was to announce his recommendations for fighting crime.
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Homeland Security
Top Boston cop to discuss bombings with Congress
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL and EILEEN SULLIVAN (The Associated Press) — Thursday, May 9th, 2013; 4:11 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Boston's police commissioner told lawmakers conducting the first congressional hearing on the Marathon bombings that government should tighten security around celebratory public events and consider using more undercover officers, special police units and technology, including surveillance cameras - but only in ways that don't run afoul of civil liberties.
"I do not endorse actions that move Boston and our nation into a police state mentality, with surveillance cameras attached to every light pole in the city," Commissioner Edward Davis said in prepared remarks for the House Homeland Security Committee. "We do not and cannot live in a protective enclosure because of the actions of extremists who seek to disrupt our way of life."
Investigators used surveillance video from a restaurant near one of the explosions to help identify Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a police shootout, and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, who survived, as the bombing suspects.
"Images from cameras do not lie. They do not forget," Davis said. "They can be viewed by a jury as evidence of what occurred. These efforts are not intended to chill or stifle free speech, but rather to protect the integrity and freedom of that speech and to protect the rights of victims and suspects alike."
The hearing on Capitol Hill comes less than three weeks after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's arrest. The committee chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said it will be the first in a series of hearings to review the government's initial response, what information authorities received about the brothers before the bombings and whether they handled it correctly. The FBI and CIA separately received vague warnings from Russia's government in 2011 that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother were religious militants.
"What we want to know is ... what happened that day, what mistakes may have been made and what we can do in the future to prevent another terrorist attack on American soil," McCaul told the AP.
No one from the federal government was expected to testify at Thursday's hearing.
Davis had harsh words for the bombing suspects, calling them "cowardly" and "reprehensible deviants."
The Massachusetts homeland security director, Kurt Schwartz, and former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut also were scheduled to testify.
Davis and Schwartz said in their prepared remarks that federal homeland security money spent since the 2001 terror attacks has benefited Boston, and they urged Congress not to reduce that spending.
In his written testimony, Lieberman said the "homeland defense system failed in Boston."
Lieberman, former chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, co-wrote the legislation that created the Homeland Security Department and overhauled the U.S. intelligence system after the 9/11 attacks. His committee held hearings examining the threat of radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the U.S. It also issued a report on the government's failure to prevent the deadly 2009 mass shootings at Fort Hood, Texas.
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Hearing on bombings expected to focus on US intelligence
By Matt Viser and John Ellement — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The Boston Globe' / Boston, MA
WASHINGTON — Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said he was satisfied so far with the flow of intelligence tips and terrorist watch list information about Tamerlan Tsarnaev before the Boston Marathon bombings, a topic that is likely to be a focus of a congressional hearing Thursday.
"There's a lot of information that still has to come out on this and I'm watching it closely," Davis said in an interview just before he boarded a plane to Washington. "But right now I don't have any problem."
He added, "From the looks of it now, there's no indication of a huge systematic issue."
Davis will be testifying at the first congressional hearing dedicated to examining the double bombing April 15 at the Boston Marathon finish line. Members of the House Committee on Homeland Security are expected to focus on a range of topics related to the Boston bombings, including whether the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, and counterterrorism agencies properly handled Russian warnings about the growing radicalization of Tsarnaev and his travel to Russia in 2012.
Police say Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother, Dzhokhar, placed two bombs at the Marathon finish line, killing three people and injuring more than 260.
'There's a lot of information that still has to come out on this. . . . But right now I don't have any problem.'
Based on interviews with a half-dozen members of the committee Wednesday, representatives plan to question whether better sharing of information among federal and local agencies could have prevented the attacks. Some have expressed concerns that the Department of Homeland Security — created in response to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 — is not functioning properly.
"Here we are — we had another terrorist attack," said Representative Jeff Duncan, a Republican from South Carolina. "We understand some signals were missed, and we want to make sure with this huge agency, with 225,000 employees and a $60 billion budget . . . is information-sharing."
In 2011, the FBI interviewed Tsarnaev, who died after a gun battle with police on April 19, four days after the bombings. The FBI's investigation did not reveal that he posed a threat. Officials examining his activity in retrospect have said his radicalization grew in 2012, once he returned to his home in Cambridge from Dagestan, Russia, an restive region that is home to militant Chechen groups.
"One of the questions is, 'Was there enough data-sharing? How did the brothers get through our law enforcement network?'" asked Representative Richard Hudson, a Republican from North Carolina.
He also wants to probe — with Davis, specifically — whether classified information collected by federal agencies is adequately shared with local officials.
"How much of that information is getting down to the patrol level?" he asked.
"Most of what I've seen is that there weren't cases of gross negligence," Hudson added. "The larger question is, 'Are the procedures working? Are there gaps? What are the issues that arose in this case that we never thought about or dealt with before?'"
In a press conference at Logan International Airport, Davis said he was confident his department was properly prepared for the Marathon.
"We would have liked to prevent this,'' said Davis. "Our job is to prevent these things. When something like this happens, you have to look at every single item of information that we have, everything we did, in preparation to ensure this doesn't happen again.''
He said wants to also make sure that lawmakers are given some insight into the four people who were allegedly murdered by the Tsarnaev brothers. "I want to spend some time talking about the victims here as well,'' Davis said. "Four people were killed in these attacks and hundreds wounded.''
Some Republicans plan to question whether the country's visa policies have contributed to the potential terror threats. Some Democrats plan to praise the use of police training and equipment — and question whether those tools will suffer under federal budget cuts.
"In this era of sequester, funding for these programs will be threatened," said Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, citing a training program that Boston emergency responders have utilized. "Next time, these coordinated efforts may be threatened . . . we may not be as ready."
In addition to Davis, Kurt N. Schwartz, the Massachusetts undersecretary for homeland security and emergency management, is scheduled to testify. Former senator Joseph Lieberman, who helped establish the homeland security framework a decade ago; and Erroll G. Southers, a counterterrorism expert and professor at the University of Southern California, also are expected to speak.
Southers, who has extensive experience in counterterrorism, said the lesson from the Boston bombings might be a tough one for the public to accept.
"The thing we have to come to grips with here is: these kinds of things — meaning homegrown terrorists — will happen," he said in an interview. "We should try to resist the urge, when these things happen, to fix something."
"This is a process of reducing risk," he added. "We will never be able to eliminate the threat."
Representative Bill Keating, a Democrat from Bourne who is the only member from Massachusetts on the Homeland Security Committee, said he is considering traveling to Russia to further investigate, following a fact-finding trip by two House staffers. The staffers are preparing a report for release this week.
The staffers discovered — through unofficial, nongovernment sources — that Tamerlan Tsarnaev first came on the radar of the Russian security officials when they started questioning William Plotnikov, a Canadian boxer who was linked with extremist groups in Russia, Keating said.
The Russians then discovered that Tsarnaev was active on a jihadist website and listed his home in the United States. That caused the Russians to ask the FBI for more information.
"I wouldn't call it warning," Keating said. "I would call it just an inquiry. 'What do you know about this guy?'"
Tsarnaev later traveled to Dagestan and he met with both Plotnikov, as well as another extremist, Mansur Mukhamed Nidal, according to Keating's initial findings.
Plotnikov and Nidal were later killed in separate skirmishes with the Russians. Tsarnaev left Russia shortly after Plotnikov's death.
Nine months later, authorities say, he built and planted the bombs at the finish line at the Boston Marathon.
"We are now facing a new kind of enemy, these cockroaches," said Representative Candice Miller, a Republican from Michigan. "For these terrorists, their battle line was the finish line of the Boston Marathon. This is a reality we have. . . . We have to be right 100 percent of the time, terrorists just have to be right once.''
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Boston Bomb Inquiry Looks Closely at Russia Trip
By ELLEN BARRY — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The New York Times'
MAKHACHKALA, Russia — During a six-month visit to his Russian homeland last year, the parents of the Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev said, he spent his time reading novels and reconnecting with family, not venturing into the shadowy world of the region's militants.
But now, investigators are looking into a range of suspected contacts Mr. Tsarnaev might have made in Dagestan, from days he might have spent in a fundamentalist Salafi mosque in Makhachkala, the capital, to time spent outside the city with a relative who is a prominent Islamist leader recently taken into custody by Russian authorities.
The emerging details of his time here have not fundamentally altered a prevailing view among American and Russian investigators that he was radicalized before his visit. However, there have been reports that he sought out contact with Islamist extremists, and was flagged as a potential recruit for the region's Islamic insurgency.
It remains unclear to what degree his months in Russia, which were punctuated by volleys of punishing attacks between the police and insurgents, might have changed his plans. But an official here, who said he did not have enough information to confirm or deny reports of Mr. Tsarnaev's contacts, said he had concluded that Mr. Tsarnaev intended to link up with militant Islamists — but left frustrated, having failed.
"My presumed theory is that he evidently came here, he was looking for contacts, but he did not find serious contacts, and if he did, they didn't trust him," said Habib Magomedov, a member of Dagestan's antiterrorism commission.
Mr. Tsarnaev, 26, died after a shootout with the police four days after the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15. His brother, Dzhokhar, 19, also suspected in the bombings, remains in a prison medical facility in Massachusetts.
Investigators in Russia are also looking into Tamerlan Tsarnaev's interactions online, and exploring whether he and a Canadian-born militant, William Plotnikov, might have been part of a larger group of diaspora Russian speakers who mobilized online, under the auspices of an organization based in Europe, a law enforcement official said.
Unearthing what investigators have learned became more difficult two weeks ago when President Vladimir V. Putin told reporters that, "to our great regret," Russian security services did not have operative information on the Tsarnaev brothers that they could have shared with American officials. The police in Dagestan have said Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not under surveillance.
Since then an official from the Anti-Extremism Center, a federal agency under Russia's Interior Ministry, confirmed for The Associated Press that operatives had filmed Mr. Tsarnaev during visits to the Makhachkala mosque, whose worshipers adhere to a more radical strain of Islam, and scrambled to locate him when he disappeared from sight after Mr. Plotnikov was killed in a counterterrorism raid. An official from the same unit told the newspaper Novaya Gazeta that Mr. Tsarnaev had been spotted repeatedly with a suspected militant, Mahmoud Mansur Nidal, who was killed shortly thereafter in a counterterrorism raid.
What is certain, however, is that investigators are looking into the time Mr. Tsarnaev spent with a distant cousin, Magomed Kartashov, founder of a group called Union of the Just, a religious organization that promoted civic action, not violence. Mr. Kartashov, whose relationship with Mr. Tsarnaev was first reported in Time magazine, was detained 12 days ago by the police after taking part in a wedding procession that flew Islamic flags.
(At a checkpoint, police officers stopped the procession and demanded that the flags be removed; Mr. Kartashov protested, and is now facing charges of resisting the police.)
Agents from Russia's Federal Security Service visited Mr. Kartashov last Sunday in a detention center to question him about his relationship with Mr. Tsarnaev, focusing on whether the two had shared "extremist" beliefs, said Mr. Kartashov's lawyer, Patimat Abdullayeva.
Ms. Abdullayeva said that her client had discussed religious matters with Mr. Tsarnaev, but had been a moderating influence. "Magomed is a preacher, he has nothing to do with extremism," she said.
As head of the Union of the Just, Mr. Kartashov has led demonstrations protesting police counterterrorism tactics, which are often brutal here, and calling for the establishment of Islamic law, or Shariah, in the region. At a rally in February, he aligned himself with antigovernment forces in Syria, saying, "We do not want secularism, we do not want democracy, we want the law of Allah," according to the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
The time Mr. Tsarnaev spent with Mr. Kartashov may offer the first firm clues to his thinking during that period. Five men who spent time with both of them told Time that the Mr. Tsarnaev was apparently interested in radicalism well before he came to Russia, and that they tried to dissuade him from supporting local militant groups. Mr. Kartashov's group is mainly known for protests, including one focusing on the United States late last year, after the release of the film "Innocence of Muslims," that culminated in the burning of an American flag.
Shakrizat Suleimanova, Mr. Tsarnaev's aunt, said the men were third cousins, remembered each other from their childhood and regularly spent time together last summer. She added that Mr. Kartashov was "no kind of extremist, and spoke against any kind of killing."
Meeting with Salafi groups would not in itself signify extremist views, and in recent years Dagestani authorities have allowed a gradual expansion of Salafi organizations, like schools, Shariah law groups, even a Salafi soccer club. The authorities regularly scrutinize such organizations, however, in their attempt to identify militants.
Varvara Pakhomenko, who covers the North Caucasus for the International Crisis Group, said pressure on Islamic groups had been increasing, perhaps as "a new stage in the fight against the underground." She described the underground as intricately structured and decentralized, made up of small bands that are often aware of little beyond what is happening in nearby villages.
"If you want to find the door to the underground, it can be found," she said. "Part of the movement is in the mountains, in camps, and there is also an urban component. They visit their wives in Makhachkala, and in fact are often caught there in shootouts."
But Mr. Magomedov, the member of Dagestan's antiterrorism commission, said Mr. Tsarnaev might have failed to find that door because the fighters themselves did not trust him. "They refused," he said.
Andrew Roth contributed reporting.
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Lieberman critical of U.S. agencies for failure to stop Boston bombing
By Sari Horwitz — Thursday, May 9th, 2013 'The Washington Post' / Washington, DC
Former senator Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) criticized U.S. agencies Thursday for not sharing information and taking more steps to prevent the deadly bombing attack at the Boston Marathon.
At a hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Lieberman said that FBI and Homeland Security officials have many questions to answer about their efforts to investigate bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev before the Boston attacks.
"To put it bluntly, our homeland defense system failed in Boston," Lieberman said in his prepared opening statement. As a senator, Lieberman introduced legislation that led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), the committee's chairman, called for the hearing to investigate the Boston bombing and review what U.S. agencies knew about the two suspects before the attacks. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during a confrontation with police four days after the bombing. His brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is recovering from gunshot wounds in a Massachusetts prison medical facility.
"Two weeks ago, our country was attacked by radical Islamist terrorists," McCaul said in a statement. "Four lives were lost and hundreds of others were forever changed. As our nation recovers, it is imperative that we understand what happened, what signs may have been missed and what we can improve."
Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis III, speaking after Lieberman, highlighted the valuable role that video surveillance cameras played in the identification and capture of the Boston bombing suspects.
"I strongly support the enhanced ability to monitor public places," Davis said in a statement submitted before the hearing. "This monitoring . . . violates no constitutionally protected rights but gives police the ability to investigate and effectively prosecute. Images from cameras do not lie. They do not forget."
But the need for surveillance cameras needs to be balanced against privacy interests, Davis said. "I do not endorse actions that move Boston and our nation into a police-state mentality, with surveillance cameras attached to every light pole in the city," he said in his statement.
In his prepared remarks, Lieberman urged the panel to demand answers about whether the FBI's interviews and surveillance of Tamerlan Tsarnaev at the request of Russia's security service in 2011 were adequate. He also questioned whether the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force enlisted the help of the local Muslim community in assessing Tamerlan Tsarnaev's likelihood to be radicalized. And he questioned the extent of intelligence sharing by government agencies.
"Why didn't the [Department of Homeland Security] notify the FBI and the Boston JTTF when its system 'pinged' that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had left America for Russia on his way to Dagestan?" Lieberman asked.
Some of Lieberman's questions have already been raised by other government officials and are the focus of a multi-agency review.
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United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
US Secret Surveillance Court Approves All Domestic Spying Requests For A Second Year In A Row
By Tim Cushing (Techdirt.Com) — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013; 3:05 p.m. EDT
For the second year running, all snooping-on-citizens requests have been granted by our nation's most secret court, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
A secretive federal court last year approved all of the 1,856 requests to search or electronically surveil people within the United States "for foreign intelligence purposes," the Justice Department reported this week.
The 2012 figures represent a 5 percent bump from the prior year, when no requests were denied either.
This surveillance was supposed to be limited to American citizens in contact with entities outside of the United States, but requesters found that adding the words "Al Qaeda" into the mix allowed eavesdropping on email and phone calls that never leave the country. This being a secret court, one running without oversight and immune from lawsuits, it seems operatives can request pretty much anything and have it approved. It's the ultimate rubber stamp process and one that can be asked for after the fact. Even a still-theoretical rejection can't slow down the spying.
The legislation does not require the government to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request to the secret court, and the surveillance can continue during the appeals process if, in a rare case, the spy court rejects the surveillance application.
On the bright less oppressively gloomy side, there has been a slight reduction in National Security Letters, those wonderful sheets of paper law enforcement and security agencies use to compel pretty much any business (ISPs, banks, credit agencies, etc.) to hand over as much data on the named citizen as possible.
The same Justice Department report this week said the government issued 15,229 National Security Letters last year, down from 16,511 in 2011.
We'll have to see how much this number tails off in 2013 considering a federal judge ruled these letters unconstitutional in March. There's no reason to stop writing these letters quite yet, though. The ruling has been stayed for 90 days pending the administration's appeal. Given the track record of this administration (and the last), one would expect these letters to live a full, healthy (and unconstitutional) life, perhaps revived by an Executive Order or some sort of "national safety/security" exemption.
On top of the usual concerns about increased surveillance of American citizens is the fact that this 2-page "report" gives us no useful information about whether all of this spying is actually having any impact in the War on Terror.
As an instrument of public oversight, the annual reports on FISA are only minimally informative. They register gross levels of activity, but they provide no measures of quality, performance or significance. Neither counterintelligence successes nor failures can be discerned from the reports. Nor can one conclude from the data presented that the FISA process is functioning as intended, or that it needs to be curbed or refined.
The less data there is available, the fewer questions there are to answer. Right now, there's plenty of questions, but until the courts force the issue (a route that doesn't look terribly promising, despite the recent decision on National Security Letters), these questions can be safely ignored.
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How Cash-Strapped Cities Will Handle Terrorism
By Eric Jaffe — Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 'The Atlantic Cities' / Washington, DC
The marathon bombings in Boston have cities across the country asking how they can prevent similar tragedies. For NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, when it comes to preparing for an attack in New York, "the new normal is the old normal." Kelly established a massive anti-terrorism unit after 9/11, and he credits it with stopping 16 criminal acts to date.
"There's a whole array of threats out there and we don't see a diminishment of the threat," Kelly told an audience today at New York Ideas, hosted by The Atlantic and the Aspen Ideas Institute.
But one thing certainly has changed: according to Kelly, the NYPD has 6,000 fewer officers than it did a decade or so ago. Most of those personnel cuts have come as the result of shrinking city budgets — another familiar tune for cities across the country. So how does a cash-strapped city keep up with terrorism in times of fiscal difficulty?
The short answer is public surveillance cameras. The long answer is smarter public surveillance cameras.
It's no secret that Manhattan is filled with cameras. Lower Manhattan, in particular, is blanketed with an intricate system of cameras and license-plate readers monitored by both public officials and the private sector. Kelly said the N.Y.P.D. has plans to move that same program up to midtown — specifically 30th to 60th streets — and to other vulnerable parts of the city as well.
Part of what makes this strategy so efficient, despite a reduction in the size of the police force, is that cameras are handling more of the workload on their own. Analytics enable the cameras to see something and say something, if you will: they can determine if a package has been left in a particular spot for a long period of time, for instance, and track back through files to find a person wearing a certain color shirt.
"Technology has been a major factor is allowing us to operate with 6,000 fewer officers," Kelly said.
At the same time, Kelly recognizes that cities will have to develop unique counter-terrorism measures, since the NUPD model won't work for everyone. Nor should it, according to Kelly's logic, since New York remains the most appealing target for terrorists in the United States. Instead, he says, cities must decide on approaches based on their individual cultures and levels of threat.
"They have to make their own decisions," he said.
Earlier in the day, speaking about technology in general, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said that different places will develop their own answers to "the core privacy question of the rights of the public versus individuals." Schmidt said he thought that, after Boston, American cities will become even more comfortable with the idea of cameras. Just like New York did years ago.
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Mike Bosak
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