Sunday, November 16, 2014

BAUAW NEWSLETTER: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2014

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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

B. ARTICLES IN FULL



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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS



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COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org/
  • EU's top court rules favorably for André Shepherd, resister in Germany
  • Tomas Young (1979-2014), Iraq War veteran and anti-war hero
  • Objector Sara Beining trial set for Dec. 9th at Ft Carson, Colorado
  • Armistice Day statement from Veterans for Peace

André Shepherd gets favorable ruling from EU's top court prior to asylum hearing!

shepherdNovember 11, 2014. By Connection e.V.and Courage to Resist
In the legal case of U.S. AWOL soldier André Shepherd, the European Court of Justice Advocate General, Eleanor Sharpton, ruled that those endangered by prosecution or punishment for refusal to perform military service involving an illegal war or committal of war crimes, should be protected by the European Union. This is a best-case situation for André heading into his asylum hearing.
Rudi Friedrich of Connection e.V. (Germany) stated, "Should the European Union Court of Justice respect the Advocate General's final opinion, the position in asylum cases of military service refusers and deserters will be significantly reinforced.
André Shepherd, upon reading Sharpton's decision, "The final opinion gives me new reason for optimism, both in my own case, and for the rights of other deserters."

Tomas Young (1979-2014)

tomas youngNovember 11, 2014. Excerpts from CommonDreams obituary
Iraq war veteran and outspoken Iraq war critic Tomas Young has died at the age of 34.
Tomas Young enlisted in the Army following the September 11 attacks, volunteering to go to Afghanistan. He was sent to Iraq in 2004, and was left paralyzed by a bullet on the fifth day of his deployment. In 2008, he explained that "many of us volunteered with patriotic feelings in our heart, only to see them subverted and bastardized by the administration and sent into the wrong country."
Young was the subject of the award-wining documentary Body of War by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro.
Last year, Tomas read a letter to Bush and Cheney which read in part: "You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans — my fellow veterans — whose future you stole."
Photo by Jeff Paterson. Tomas Young traveled to Crawford, Texas in an attempt to challenge President Bush on the Iraq War. August 29, 2005.

War resister Sara Beining court martial set for Dec. 9 at Fort Carson, Colorado

sara beiningClick here to contribute to Sara Beining’s legal defense and prison fund
November 11, 2014. Courage to Resist and the Nuclear Resister
Facing a lengthy prison sentence, Army war resister Sara Beining is scheduled to be court martialed at Fort Carson, Colorado at 9am, December 9th, on two counts of desertion.
Supporters are encouraged to attend the trial, contribute to her legal and prison fund, and send her letters letter of support to: Sara Beining, A0305918 / Criminal Justice Center / 2739 E. Las Vegas St / Colorado Springs, CO 80906
Sara is a single mother and Iraq war veteran. She is being held in the civilian county jail prior to her military trial. Sara went AWOL a second time last summer after a nearly year-long delay in resolving the original charge that resulted when she left her unit at Ft. Hood in January, 2007.
Just over one year ago, September 14, 2013, Beining was stopped for a traffic offense and held on an outstanding military warrant, more than six years after she and her newlywed husband had together walked away from war service. She was briefly jailed, then given a plane ticket and orders to report back to Fort Carson, Colorado, where, she said, “I tried for another year to play the game” and be quietly processed out of the army as many other recent military refusers have been. But in her absence without leave, Beining had given birth to a daughter in September, 2008 and become an outspoken opponent of war.


Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
 Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org

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Rasmea Defense Committee statement

Without a full and fair trial,
Rasmea found guilty

In a travesty of justice, Rasmea Odeh today was found guilty of one count of Unlawful Procurement of Naturalization. For over a year, Rasmea, her supporters, and her legal team have been battling this unjust government prosecution, saying from the start that the immigration charge was nothing but a pretext to attack this icon of the Palestine liberation movement. And although there is real anger and disappointment in the jury’s verdict, it was known as early as October 27th that she would not get a full and fair trial.

On that day, Judge Gershwin Drain made a number of rulings that made her defense virtually impossible. The government’s indictment stated that she had unlawfully gained U.S. citizenship because she had allegedly answered a number of questions falsely on her visa application in 1995 and her naturalization application in 2004. She had been in this country as a lawful permanent resident for almost 20 years, and a citizen for over nine, when she was arrested on October 22nd, 2013.

The main basis for the arrest a year ago was that she had allegedly falsely answered “No” to a question asking whether she had ever been arrested or imprisoned. The government claimed that she failed to disclose that she had been convicted by the Israelis of participating in bombings in 1969. This conviction in a military court was the result of a false confession made after she was viciously tortured and raped by Israeli military authorities for weeks. There is no due process in Israeli military courts, which “convict” over 99% of Palestinians who come before them, and “evidence” from these should not be accepted in a court in the U.S.

But Judge Drain did allow the conviction in Israel to be entered into evidence; and even though he suggested that Rasmea’s assertion that she faced torture and sexual abuse at the hands of her Israeli captors was “credible,” he still ruled that it could not be brought up in the course of her trial. So her attorneys had to scrap plans to call to the stand an expert witness, clinical psychologist Dr. Mary Fabri, who has decades of experience working with torture survivors, to testify that the allegedly false answers on the immigration forms were the result of Rasmea’s chronic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The judge also rejected Rasmea’s selective prosecution motion, even though it was clear that the case against her grew out of the investigation of 23 anti-war and Palestinian community organizers in Chicago and Minneapolis, who were subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in 2010. Make no mistake. Rasmea came under attack by the U.S. government because she is Palestinian, and because for decades, she has organized for Palestinian liberation and self-determination, the Right of Return, and an end to U.S. funding of Israeli occupation. Palestine support work, especially the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement, has made a number of recent gains, and the long arm of federal law enforcement has attempted to crack down on it, like it has on all effective and impactful movements for social justice in the history of this country. The crackdown reached Rasmea.

More than 200 people from across the Midwest, especially from Chicago, traveled to stand with her throughout the trial. They bore silent witness to her incredible testimony, for despite the judge’s rulings, she and her defense team did put the crimes of Israel on record. Her story of being exiled from the village of her birth, Lifta, in 1948; of being exiled again during the 1967 war; of experiencing the death of her sister after the raid on her home in 1969; and of being a political prisoner, one of the most famous in the history of the Palestine liberation movement—all these are stories of the crimes of apartheid Israel, crimes that continue today in the racist settler and military assaults we have seen in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, 1948 Palestine, and the West Bank. Israel’s terrorism, and the U.S. government’s complicity, were exposed for all the world to see.

Rasmea’s honesty in the face of cross-examination from Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel was thoroughly convincing as well. She said clearly that she thought the questions on the immigration forms were being asked about her time in the U.S., because she said she had nothing to hide and did not need to lie. She had testified about her torture at the United Nations when she was released in 1979, and as her lead attorney, Michael Deutsch, said, “It was well known that she was convicted, and traded [in a prisoner exchange]. The U.S. Embassy knew it, the State Department knew it, and Immigration should have known it.” So although the government had to prove that she “knowingly lied,” it never met that burden, regardless of what the verdict says.

For over a year, the Rasmea Defense Committee has been organizing educational events, rallies, protests, and call-in days to demand that U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade and Tukel drop the charges against her. We now have more work ahead of us. Rasmea’s brilliant legal team—Deutsch, Jim Fennerty, Bill Goodman, and Dennis Cunningham—will undoubtedly file an appeal, and have strong grounds to do so, based on Judge Drain’s unjust decisions. And we will continue to support their work with our political organizing and mobilizations.

Just like our people in Palestine and across the world will never rest until every inch of historical Palestine is free, we will never rest in our defense and support of Rasmea as she moves forward to challenge this conviction. As Deutsch said in his closing statement to the jury, “It has been one of the great privileges of my long legal career to represent this extraordinary woman of great passion and dignity.” Rasmea’s story is the story of millions of Palestinians, and of millions of freedom-loving defenders of justice everywhere. Her eventual victory will be a victory for Palestine and for all the people’s movements across the world.

Today, we thank everyone who stood with Rasmea this past year, and ask you to continue fighting with us until we achieve that victory.

www.uspcn.org and www.stopfbi.net
Donate to Rasmea! today

http://www.stopfbi.net/events/11-10-14/be-detroit-nov-10-rasmea-odeh-and-final-verdict

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Copyright © 2014 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414



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First Amendment Lawsuit

"Abu-Jamal v. Kane" filed 11/10 in Federal Court!

Dear Friends,

Today the Abolitionist Law Center, Amistad Law Project, and the
Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center are filing a historic lawsuit in Federal Court on behalf of Prison Radio, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Educators for Mumia, and other plaintiffs. We seek to overturn a new PA Law designed to allow the state to silence targeted prisoners by preventing their speech.

What is at stake is your right to hear Mumia and other prisoners, journalists right to record, and prisoners right to speak.  As a puppet for the agenda of the Fraternal Order of Police, and to add to his poll numbers, PA Governor Tom Corbett signed SB508 into law on 10/21, (effective immediately), and specifically targeting Mumia Abu-Jamal's right to free speech.

The law puts Prison Radio, our correspondents, and our listeners in jeopardy. So in response we have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in the middle district of PA (Harrisburg).

We will win this lawsuit.
We will continue to record Mumia.
We can uphold all prisoners’ rights to speak their truth.
But we need your help to do it.

DONATE:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protect-freedom-of-speech-keep-mumia-on-the-air


Defeat Pennsylvania’s Prisoner Gag Law!

Free Speech Under Threat from Police & Politicians!

Mumia is the Immediate Target, but We’re All in the Cross-Hairs!

How You Can Help… see below…

07 November 2014 — An outrageous new law threatening the free speech of convicts has been passed in Pennsylvania in a lightning fast process. The chief target of this law?  Innocent political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, and others like him. The perpetrators of this law?  The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), and their lap-dog friends in the state legislature and governor’s mansion of PA. The victims of this law? Convicts like Mumia; non-profits that distribute the writings and speech of convicts; and ultimately the working class and all who oppose this racist, capitalist system.

The new law, the “Re-victimization Relief Act,” enables crime victims—as well as local authorities and the state, using taxpayer funds—to sue any imprisoned convict whose conduct “perpetuates the continuing effect of the crime on the victim,” ie, causes “mental anguish.” This broad and subjective definition could mean anything!

PA Governor: Convicts Have No Rights

This law was hashed together, and quickly passed and signed in reaction to a pre-recorded commencement address to a Goddard College graduating class by Mumia Abu-Jamal, himself a graduate of Goddard College.  Mumia’s inspiring address at Goddard said absolutely nothing about his case, yet cops protested at the college entrance; and days later the law was signed by PA Governor Corbett in a ceremony at 13th and Locust in Philadelphia, the spot where Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot to death—by someone other than Mumia—in 1981. Corbett said that “convicted felons in prison have abused and surrendered their rights,” a blatantly false assertion.

Protestors shouted “free Mumia,” and “one-term Tom” at the Governor, which is what he turned out to be after losing his seat in the recent mid-term elections. But the threatening law he signed continues to menace convicts.

“Mumia Bill” Designed to “Shut Him Up”

This new law is just the latest manifestation of the blatant targeting of Mumia, by the very cops, courts and politicians who put him away for a crime he didn’t commit in the first place. Called the “Mumia Bill,” this act was designed to “shut him up” (Philly.com, 07.Oct.2014). It follows a long line of “Mumia rules,” in which courts have literally changed precedent when considering Mumia’s case, only to change back again on other cases later. Will this blatantly unconstitutional law get overturned, or will it be allowed to stand as yet another “Mumia rule,” in defiance of all precedent? We cannot take that chance!

Mumia’s case is just the immediate pretext for this legal atrocity. The danger here is that this blatantly unconstitutional law could have far-reaching effects, even if it does eventually get overturned. What about radio stations such as the Pacifica Network, and non-profit organizations such as Prison Radio, which promote the defense cases, and distribute the writings of Mumia and other convicts, wrongfully convicted or otherwise?  They all have the right of free speech!

Lawyers with the Abolitionist Law Center and the Amistad Law Project have joined with Prison Radio (publishers of Mumia’s commentaries) to mount an aggressive defense against this vindictive, so-called “legal” challenge to the right of free speech. These folks need you help!

— Donate Now To Defeat PA’s Prisoner Gag Law —

Go to: http://bit.ly/defendfreespeech

Mumia has been definitively shown to be innocent of the 1981 crime for which he was convicted. He was the victim of an orchestrated frame-up by cops and prosecutors, who were not only targeting a known leftist and former Black Panther, and not only covering up their own rampant corruption in Philadelphia’s inner city; but they were also covering their probable complicity in the execution of one of their own, who was talking to the Feds about the corruption at the time.

The system has chickened out of trying to execute Mumia, since the evidence of his innocence is so overwhelming. But they’ve confined him to state prison for life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). Our job remains unchanged: Mumia is Innocent! For labor action to free Mumia!

Defeat Pennsylvania’s Prisoner Gag Law!

http://bit.ly/defendfreespeech

This message brought to you by:

The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

PO Box 16222, Oakland CA 94610 • www.laboractionmumia.org • 510.762.2347

November 2014



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Support Prison Radio

$35 is the yearly membership.

$50 will get you a beautiful tote bag (you can special order a yoga mat bag, just call us).

$100 will get the DVD "Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary"

$300 will bring one essay to the airwaves.

$1000 (or $88.83 per month) will make you a member of our Prison Radio Freedom Circle. Take a moment and Support Prison Radio

Luchando por la justicia y la libertad,

Noelle Hanrahan, Director, Prison Radio

PRISON RADIO

P.O. Box 411074 San Francisco, CA 94141

www.prisonradio.org
info@prisonradio.org 415-706-5222

Pennsylvania legislators are trying to stop prisoners from speaking about their ideas and experiences. Last week, PA Representative Mike Vereb introduced a bill (HB2533) called the “Revictimization Relief Act,” which would allow victims, District Attorneys, and the Attorney General to sue people who have been convicted of “personal injury” crimes for speaking out publicly if it causes the victim of the crime “mental anguish.”

The bill was written in response to political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal’s commencement speech at Goddard College, and is a clear attempt to silence Mumia and other prisoners and formerly incarcerated people. We believe that this legislation is not actually an attempt to help victims, but a cynical move by legislators to stop people in prison from speaking out against an unjust system.

While to us this seems like a clear violation of the first amendment, unfortunately the PA General Assembly doesn’t appear to agree, and they have fast-tracked the bill for approval and amended another bill (SB508) to include the same language. The legislation could be voted on as early as Wednesday.

If this bill passes, it will be a huge blow to the movement against mass incarceration. People inside prisons play a leading role in these struggles, and their perspectives, analysis, and strategies are essential to our work. Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people who write books, contribute to newspapers, or even write for our Voices from the Inside section would run the risk of legal consequences just for sharing their ideas.

That’s why we are asking you to take action TUESDAY OCTOBER 14 by calling Pennsylvania lawmakers to tell them that prisoners should not be denied the right to speak.

Please call your legislators and demand that they vote NO on HB2533 and SB508. You can look up contact information at http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/.

We are also asking folks to call the following Senate leaders and ask them to stop the bill from moving forward:

Senate Majority Whip Pat Browne  (717) 787-1349

Senate Minority Whip Anthony Williams  (717) 787-5970

Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi  (717) 787-4712

Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (717) 787-7683

Not sure what to say on the phone? Click here for a sample call script.

Want to write a letter to your legislators, or looking for more talking points? Click here for more info!

- See more at: http://decarceratepa.info/freespeech#sthash.TtdN3AkI.dpuf


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 Medical Care Needed for Chelsea Manning!

 ACLU files lawsuit against Army demanding medical care for Manning

 By the Chelsea Manning Support Network

Yesterday, the ACLU and Chelsea Manning filed a lawsuit against the Army demanding the necessary medical treatment for Manning’s previously diagnosed gender dysphoria.

By continuing to deny Manning treatment, the Army is directly violating Chelsea’s constitutional rights under the 8th amendment. Chase Strangio, attorney in the ACLU Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender project and co-counsel on Ms. Manning’s case, notes “such clear disregard of well-established medical protocols constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”

Due to a full year of neglecting Manning’s medical care, the ACLU had previously announced a Sept 4th deadline for the Army to provide treatment. After continued failure to provide treatment, the ACLU filed a lawsuit yesterday and released the following statement:

ACLU Demands Government Provide Chelsea Manning Necessary Medical Care

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 23, 2014

CONTACT: Crystal Cooper, ACLU National, 212-549-2666; media@aclu.org

WASHINGTON—Today, Chelsea Manning filed a lawsuit in federal court in the District of Columbia against Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and other Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of the Army officials for their failure to provide necessary medical treatment for her gender dysphoria, a condition with which she was originally diagnosed by Army doctors more than four years ago.

The complaint is accompanied by a motion for preliminary injunction demanding that Ms. Manning be provided hormone therapy, permission to follow female grooming standards, and access to treatment by a medical provider qualified to treat her condition. Ms. Manning is currently serving a thirty-five year prison sentence at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth Kansas, and though the military recognizes that she has gender dysphoria requiring treatment, critical care has been withheld without any medical basis.

“The government continues to deny Ms. Manning’s access to necessary medical treatment for gender dysphoria, without which she will continue to suffer severe psychological harms,” said Chase Strangio, attorney in the ACLU Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender project and co-counsel on Ms. Manning’s case. “Such clear disregard of well-established medical protocols constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”

Ms. Manning is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital, the ACLU of Kansas and civilian defense counsel David E. Coombs. Last month, Ms. Manning’s legal team sent a letter to the DOD and Army officials demanding that she receive treatment for gender dysphoria in accordance with medical standards of care, including hormone therapy and permission to follow female grooming standards. Her treatment needs have continued to be unmet and her distress has escalated.

“I am proud to be standing with the ACLU behind Chelsea on this very important issue.” said David E. Coombs, “It is my hope that through this action, Chelsea will receive the medical care that she needs without having to suffer any further anguish.”

Gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition that requires hormone therapy and changes to gender expression, like growing hair, to live consistently with one’s gender identity as part of accepted standards of care.

Without necessary treatment, gender dysphoria can cause severe psychological distress, anxiety, and suicidality. For this reason, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and the American Psychological Association have issued policy statements that support providing treatment to prisoners diagnosed with the condition in accordance with established standards of care, as the Federal Bureau of Prisons and many state corrections agencies are already doing.

A copy of the complaint is available at:

aclu.org/lgbt-rights-prisoners-rights/manning-v-hagel-et-al-complaint-declaratory-and-injunctive-relief

The motion for preliminary injunction is available at:

aclu.org/lgbt-rights-prisoners-rights/manning-v-hagel-et-al-plaintiffs-motion-preliminary-injunction

This press release is available at:

aclu.org/lgbt-rights-prisoners-rights/aclu-demands-government-provide-chelsea-manning-necessary-medical-care

—Free Chelsea Manning, September 24, 2014

http://www.chelseamanning.org/press/aclu-files-lawsuit-against-army-demands-medical-care-for-manning

Write to Chelsea Manning:

Mail must be addressed exactly as follows:

CHELSEA E. MANNING     89289

1300 NORTH WAREHOUSE ROAD

FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS 66027-2304



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 B. ARTICLES IN FULL




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1) Brazil: Police Killed 11,000 People Over Five-Year Period, Report Says
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS





2) Mexico: Protesters Burn Party Office
By PAULINA VILLEGAS




3) Missouri Governor Says National Guard Is Still Option in Ferguson
By ELI YOKLEY and




4) U.S. to Revise Bush Policy on Treatment of Prisoners
By




5) A Claim of Innocence Is No Longer a Roadblock to Parole
“'Parole commissioners, like the rest of society, have come to recognize that there are far more innocent people in prison than we had ever imagined, so they’re more receptive to that argument,' said Ron Kuby, a civil rights lawyer who represents Mr. Moses."
By





6) Brushing Off a French Stigma That Doggie Bags Are for Beggars
By AURELIEN BREEDEN




7) Decades of Neglect Show Starkly as Indian Schools Cry Out for Repairs
By




8) Psychologists to Review Role in Detainee Interrogations
By




9) Ex-Executive Donald Blankenship Is Indicted in Disaster at Coal Mine
By




10) Pathologist Is Witness in Ferguson Death Inquiry
By




11) Shift on Marijuana Policy Was a Long Time Coming, and Too Late for One Man
By





12) Fatal Encounter in Ferguson Took Less Than 90 Seconds, Police Communications Reveal
By
13) A Familiar Anger Begins to Boil Again in Mexico
By




14) More Federal Agencies Are Using Undercover Operations
By and WILLIAM M. ARKIN




15) Cold Numbers on G.M. Crisis: A Peek Inside
By HILARY STOUT




16) Another Widening Gap: The Haves vs. the Have-Mores
By ROBERT FRANK










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1) Brazil: Police Killed 11,000 People Over Five-Year Period, Report Says
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS



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2) Mexico: Protesters Burn Party Office
By PAULINA VILLEGAS




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3) Missouri Governor Says National Guard Is Still Option in Ferguson
By ELI YOKLEY and

WELDON SPRING, Mo. — Gov. Jay Nixon said Tuesday that the Missouri National Guard was part of a multiforce contingency plan by law enforcement authorities to avert violence as the region around St. Louis awaited a grand jury’s return in the death of Michael Brown three months ago.

“The Guard will be available when we determine it is necessary to support local law enforcement,” Mr. Nixon announced in a news conference at a state highway patrol headquarters here, standing beside law enforcement leaders from the St. Louis area. “Quite simply, we must and will be fully prepared.”In August, Mr. Nixon called up the National Guard in the sometimes violent protests that followed the death of Mr. Brown, an unarmed black teenager fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis. The role of the Guard then was limited to protecting a police command post, but it drew harsh criticism from demonstrators who said it was more a sign of a military-style approach by the authorities. On Tuesday, some demonstrators criticized Mr. Nixon’s newest plan — and the possibility that he would call up the Guard again — as an overreaction that might only heighten potential anger.

Yet as the St. Louis area braces for a grand jury decision expected later this month on whether the officer, Darren Wilson, will be indicted in the killing, Mr. Nixon struck a firm, unapologetic tone about police plans. “As governor, the most important part of my job is keeping the people of Missouri safe,” Mr. Nixon said, ticking down a list of incidents that had occurred in August, and drawing a distinction between types of protesters — peaceful and not.

“In the days immediately following Michael Brown’s death, peaceful protests were marred by senseless acts of violence and destruction,” he said. “Vandals smashed the windows of small businesses. Criminals looted and set fire to stores. Gunshots and Molotov cocktails endangered citizens exercising their First Amendment rights and law enforcement attempting to maintain peace. That ugliness was not representative of Missouri, and it cannot be repeated.”

Mr. Brown’s death led to months of demonstrations and made Ferguson the focus of a national debate about race and police procedures. Among some in Ferguson, there is an expectation that the officer will not face serious charges. Mr. Nixon emphasized that, whatever the finding of the grand jury, he was not convinced that violence would occur but was obliged to prepare for the possibility.

To that end, three large police agencies in the area — the St. Louis County police, the St. Louis city police and the Missouri State Highway patrol — will operate under a unified command system. Leaders from all of them appeared beside the governor on Tuesday afternoon, though police officers from the beleaguered Ferguson department were not seen there, nor was their role in the handling of possible protests mentioned.

Some of the larger departments have purchased new riot gear, undergone thousands of hours of additional training and met with community, schools and religious leaders. State officials have provided the three departments with new communications equipment so they can coordinate their responses. And the officers were prepared to work extended hours and cancel vacations.

Mr. Nixon, a Democrat and a former state attorney general, is in his second term as governor and barred by term limits from seeking re-election. He drew sharp criticism by some for the shift of authority in the handling of events in Ferguson in the days after Mr. Brown’s death Aug. 9.

On Tuesday, he said that the state would operate this time on two core principles: “keeping the public safe while allowing people to speak.”

“This is America,” Mr. Nixon said. “People have a right to express their views and grievances. But they do not have the right to put their fellow citizens or their property at risk.”

Eli Yokley reported from Weldon Spring, and Monica Davey from Chicago.



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4) U.S. to Revise Bush Policy on Treatment of Prisoners
By

WASHINGTON — A treaty ban on cruel treatment will restrict how the United States may treat prisoners in certain places abroad, the Obama administration is expected to tell the United Nations on Wednesday, according to officials.

That interpretation would change a disputed Bush administration theory that the cruelty ban does not apply abroad. But the Obama administration also stopped short of an unequivocal acceptance that the ban imposes legal obligations everywhere that American officials have a prisoner in their custody or control, as human rights advocates had urged it to say.

An American delegation will unveil the administration’s position in Geneva on Wednesday in a presentation before the United Nations Committee Against Torture. The panel, which monitors compliance with the United Nations Convention Against Torture, has asked whether the United States still takes the Bush-era view.

Most of the torture treaty contains no geographic limitations. But its ban on “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” that falls short of torture is one of several provisions that apply to a state’s conduct “in any territory under its jurisdiction.” That phrase is ambiguous, and the administration of President George W. Bush took the view that the ban did not apply beyond domestic soil.

The Obama administration, after an internal debate that has drawn global scrutiny, is taking the view that the cruelty ban applies wherever the United States exercises governmental authority, according to officials familiar with the deliberations. That definition, they said, includes the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and American-flagged ships and aircraft in international waters and airspace.

But the administration’s definition still appears to exclude places like the former “black site” prisons where the C.I.A. tortured terrorism suspects during the Bush years, as well as American military detention camps in Afghanistan and Iraq during the wars there. Those prisons were on the sovereign territory of other governments; the government of Cuba exercises no control over Guantánamo.

The latest debate began about five weeks ago, when State Department lawyers sent a roughly 70-page memo to the interagency lawyers group proposing that the administration take a broader view of the treaty. But military and intelligence lawyers said that they needed more time to examine whether changing the interpretation of the treaty would affect operations.

Officials emphasized that the debate was not about whether to use torture or “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” that falls short of torture. The abuse of prisoners is already barred by domestic statutes and by the Geneva Conventions.

Rather, they said, the debate was a technical matter of interpretation, underlined by concerns that changing the jurisdictional scope could have unintended consequences, like increasing the risk of lawsuits by overseas detainees or making it harder to say that unrelated treaties with similar jurisdictional language did not apply in the same places.

Still, the debate has been fraught with symbolic overtones. After The New York Times reported that the administration was considering whether to accept or reject the Bush-era interpretation, several human rights groups, a group of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, and Harold Koh, the top State Department lawyer in Mr. Obama’s first term, publicly urged rejection of the Bush-era view.

And a group of Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein, Patrick J. Leahy and Richard J. Durbin, wrote in a joint letter, “It is crucial that the United States signals to the world that we have to put the dark chapter of the Bush administration’s torture program behind us, and are not seen as attempting to leave open the possibility of using so-called enhanced interrogation techniques ever again.”

The administration is also taking a nuanced approach to the related question of whether the Convention Against Torture is displaced by the laws of war in armed conflicts. Its theory, developed for the presentation this week in Geneva, says that both bodies of law apply at the same time to wartime prisons, but if a situation arose in which they clashed, the laws of war would trump because they are more specialized for that situation.

Still, the Geneva Conventions separately require wartime prisoners to be treated humanely.

The Bush administration unveiled its narrow geographic interpretation of the treaty’s cruelty ban in 2005, amid the fallout from the Abu Ghraib scandal and the leaking of memos permitting the C.I.A. to use waterboarding and other torture techniques. It dovetailed with others ways the Bush legal team interpreted anti-torture laws narrowly and also claimed that a president’s wartime powers could trump them.

The disclosure prompted bipartisan outrage, and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, proposed a bill to close the legal loophole and make clear that the cruelty ban applied everywhere. During the debate over that legislation in 2005, Barack Obama, a senator at the time, endorsed the view that Mr. McCain’s bill merely echoed “existing obligations” under the treaty.


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5) A Claim of Innocence Is No Longer a Roadblock to Parole
“'Parole commissioners, like the rest of society, have come to recognize that there are far more innocent people in prison than we had ever imagined, so they’re more receptive to that argument,' said Ron Kuby, a civil rights lawyer who represents Mr. Moses."
By

BEACON, N.Y. — After 28 years in prison, Freddie Cox emerged from the Fishkill Correctional Facility, not quite a free man, but free enough.

A sister had cued up Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” on her car’s CD player, and, after hugs, Mr. Cox put his two small bags and his typewriter in the car and squeezed in alongside the others, heading away from prison, windows down.

Mr. Cox had been imprisoned for a 1986 murder in Coney Island, Brooklyn. He said then and he says now that he is innocent — and he has maintained that position at four parole hearings.

Three times, the parole board rejected Mr. Cox, even though a co-defendant — who admitted to the murder, and has said Mr. Cox was innocent — was granted parole three years ago.

The predicament that had confronted Mr. Cox is known as the parole paradox: Admitting guilt has historically given inmates a better shot at parole. “Claiming to be innocent was, in the past, considered to be denial,” said Daniel S. Medwed, a professor at Northeastern School of Law.

But now, as New York and other states confront a growing number of wrongful-conviction claims, lawyers, inmates and parole experts say the beginnings of a change are occurring.

On his fourth try, Mr. Cox’s request was granted. Lawyers from the Exoneration Initiative successfully petitioned this summer that there was enough evidence to cast Mr. Cox’s guilt in question, and that his claim of innocence should not be held against him.

Rebecca E. Freedman, one of his lawyers, said they would soon ask a review unit created by the Brooklyn district attorney to review his case.

At least three other men, convicted in Brooklyn courts, have won their freedom despite not admitting guilt: Derrick Hamilton, charged with a 1991 Bedford-Stuyvesant murder, got parole after 20 years in prison; Sundhe Moses, who was convicted in a 1995 shooting that killed a 4-year-old child, was granted parole last year; and Robert Hill, who was convicted of a 1988 murder, was granted parole in May.

“They’re considering actual innocence,” said Tom Grant, a New York State parole board member from 2004 to 2010. With DNA evidence and news media coverage of wrongful convictions, he added, “you can justify a release now.”

On the West Coast, men in California and Alaska who maintained their innocence were granted parole this fall; lawyers in those states said such decisions were exceedingly rare.

“Parole commissioners, like the rest of society, have come to recognize that there are far more innocent people in prison than we had ever imagined, so they’re more receptive to that argument,” said Ron Kuby, a civil rights lawyer who represents Mr. Moses.

In 2011, Mr. Moses made his first appearance before the parole board. He said he had lied and said he was guilty, and he expressed remorse in the hopes of gaining his freedom. Parole was denied.

In his second appearance, Mr. Moses gave the board various evidentiary problems with his conviction, and proclaimed his innocence. Parole was granted.

The parole board’s adjustment on Mr. Cox’s case is notable because his is not clear-cut: There is no new DNA evidence, and there is still not a consistent take on the events that led to Mr. Cox’s conviction — and a man’s death.

At about 6 a.m. on New Year’s Day 1986, a 37-year-old man, Cornelius Davis, was shot to death in an elevator in Coney Island. There was one witness: Gloria Mack, a neighbor of his. She initially told the police she had seen Mr. Cox, along with two others, Kelvin Green and Henry James, at the murder scene, with Mr. Cox holding a gun and standing over the victim.

The three were known to the police — they had committed a robbery together in 1985. Mr. Cox pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and said he spent a few months in jail.

When questioned by the police about Mr. Davis, Mr. Cox, then 19, had an alibi: He said he had celebrated New Year’s Eve with his girlfriend in Times Square, where they watched “Rocky IV” and a ninja movie. They ended up at her home around 4 a.m., and slept until 10 or 11 a.m.

Mr. Green and Mr. James were soon arrested. They told similar stories: The three had intended to rob Mr. Davis, but after things went awry, Mr. Cox shot the victim. Mr. James would later testify, though, that he was pressured to identify Mr. Cox.

“All I want is Freddie Cox’s name,” Mr. James recalled a housing police officer saying.

By trial, Ms. Mack, the sole witness, who had severe psychiatric problems and was a self-described alcoholic, had changed key elements of her story. She said she recalled four assailants, not three, and one was her own son.

Then there was the presumed murder weapon, recovered from the home of Mr. Cox’s girlfriend. It matched Ms. Mack’s description of a long-barreled silver gun.

But the gun had no fingerprints, and the ballistics expert at trial was not certain that it was the murder weapon. Other physical evidence found at the scene — a hat, a knife — also could not be linked to Mr. Cox.

“Gloria Mack is, in essence, this case,” Kenneth Taub, the prosecutor, told the jurors.

The jury convicted Mr. Cox of second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon and robbery. He was sentenced to 25 years to life.

Mr. Cox’s girlfriend at the time, Chantay Burnell, did not testify at the trial. Reached in Pennsylvania, Ms. Burnell remembered the details of that New Year’s night well: the movies, the sunrise, the B36 bus she and Mr. Cox took back to Coney Island.

According to police reports, Ms. Burnell had told detectives that Mr. Cox owned a gun. Mr. James and Mr. Green came by on New Year’s Day morning to drop it off, she told the police. She brought the police to her home and told them where the gun was.

When informed of the police account, Ms. Burnell was incredulous.

“No. No, no, no, no, no,” she said. “That is not what happened.”

She said she had never seen Mr. Cox with a gun.

She recalled that detectives at the precinct station house told her they had a search warrant for her house, and that she had to go with them.

She remembered standing downstairs in her townhouse during the three-hour police search, punctuated by an officer’s shout of “Bingo” after he said he found the gun.

Ms. Burnell said she always felt terrible about Mr. Cox’s conviction.

“I’ve always wondered, How did they convict him?” she said. “Now I see.”

Throughout his prison term, Mr. Green continued to insist that he had killed Mr. Davis and that Mr. Cox was not there. (Mr. James, for his part, said as recently as 2012 that Mr. Cox was the gunman.)

Even at his trial, Mr. Green told the judge that “they already convicted Freddie Cox for it; but he didn’t do it — it was me.”

“He was there, wasn’t he?” the judge said.

“No. Nowhere around,” Mr. Green said.

Mr. Cox’s first chance at parole came in 2010.

“Do you take responsibility for these crimes?” a commissioner, Joseph P. Crangle, asked.

When Mr. Cox said he was innocent, Mr. Crangle replied, “You were found guilty, and we go on the facts that we have.” The commissioners denied parole, and denied it two subsequent times.

Mr. Cox said he never considered saying he was guilty because the murdered man had children. “I don’t want anybody to think that I’m responsible for taking away their parent,” he said.

Mr. Cox’s own parents, as well as a brother and two sisters, died while he was in prison. He attended their funerals in shackles and handcuffs, accompanied by prison guards.

Mr. Cox tried to use his time productively. When he entered prison, he said he could barely read and write. Over the years, he earned a high school certificate and a college degree, studied Islam and counseled prisoners about gun violence.

At Mr. Cox’s parole hearing this August, the mood had changed, as he discussed his innocence claim.

“I believe in justice and want to do what’s right,” a commissioner, Ellen Alexander, told him.

Parole was granted. The release was set for Oct. 15.

That day, just after 10 a.m., Mr. Cox emerged from the Fishkill prison.

He is now 48 years old. He had not used a straw or chewed a piece of gum in 28 years. He had never operated automatic car windows, or a smartphone, or heard a computerized voice give driving directions. When the group that had come to greet him stopped at a diner, he was amazed by the luster of the plates, by the vibrancy of the salads, by the fact that a waiter cleared away dirty items.

He was exuberant. But parole is not freedom; parole is curfew. There are limitations to where he can go, and a felony remains on his record.

Mr. Cox was primarily concerned with the victim’s family. Once they know he is innocent, he said, “that’s where my freedom really begins.”

As they rode back to the city, Sam Cooke was still playing. Mr. Cox looked out the window, distracted, as his sisters discussed a welcome-home party.

“It’s been a long, long time coming,” Mr. Cooke sang. As the greens and reds and auburns of the autumn Hudson Valley leaves streamed by the window, Mr. Cox’s head fell forward into his hands and he cried, silently, his shoulders shaking.



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6) Brushing Off a French Stigma That Doggie Bags Are for Beggars
By AURELIEN BREEDEN

LYON, France — Fabrice Moya, a chef with a boyish grin who opened a restaurant by the same name here 12 years ago, has no problems with doggie bags.

“We’ve always been used to letting people take what they haven’t finished,” he said on a recent morning in his kitchen, where several of his cooks were chopping carrots and filling buckets with chickpeas for the day’s lunch service.

But it rarely happens — one doggie bag per week at most, out of 500 customers, he estimated. They were much more likely to take home what was left in their bottle of wine.

“What’s important is to cook well,” Mr. Moya emphasized, and an empty plate will follow. “If you do it with passion, people will eat.”

That is not to say nothing is ever left behind. Though the French remain resistant to taking leftovers home, a small movement is afoot to change attitudes. It has been encouraged by difficult economic times, rising consciousness about food waste, and an environmentally minded younger generation that is more familiar with takeout culture.

As part of a wider drive to cut down on food waste, the authorities in the south-central region that includes Lyon started a campaign last month to promote the use of doggie bags in local restaurants.

Though Lyon is not the only city in France to try such a campaign, its reputation as a culinary capital gives the drive a special resonance.

“Our consumer study showed that while most consumers — a large majority — favor encouraging this custom, most really hesitate to ask because they are afraid of looking stingy,” said Elisabeth Manzon, who directs food projects at the government agency running the campaign in the Rhône-Alpes region. “They are ashamed.”

The agency formed a partnership with restaurants like Mr. Moya’s, as well as with companies and unions in the food and waste industries, providing free fliers and stickers for download on a devoted website.

In an attempt to rebrand the doggie bag in a more positive light, it is using the term “gourmet bag” instead, with the tagline: “It’s so good, I’ll finish it at home!”

One flier shows a sketch of a man raising his hand in a restaurant to ask for a doggie bag. The caption reads: “Who said I was a cheapskate? No, I’m just an eco-gastronomist!”

Still, there is a long way to go to overcome French prejudices about taking home leftovers, rooted in history and culture.

Jean-Pierre Corbeau, a sociologist and professor emeritus at the University of Tours who specializes in food, said both upper and lower classes traditionally shunned the idea.

For the working classes, leaving food on one’s plate was a waste; for the bourgeoisie, it was a sign that you were wealthy enough not to scarf everything down.

But for some, the French are merely turning their noses up at something they used to do much more often.

Jean Terlon, vice president of the food branch of the Union of Hospitality Trades and Industries, France’s main union in the food and service industry, and a promoter of the gourmet bag campaign, said the custom used to be more common in the mid-20th century.

“They didn’t hesitate to ask for leftovers from an unfinished dish,” he said of people in his childhood. “It was something that used to be done, and now the French are struck by snobbery, and they don’t ask anymore.”

But Mr. Corbeau, the sociologist, said this early version of the doggie bag was often used in a family setting, and was sometimes geared toward poorer segments of society, a context that helps explain the negative connotations.

“You might be perceived and stigmatized as a poor person looking for a handout,” he said, recalling how people would ring at the door for a small donation of food when his grandmother organized big meals. “It was a premature doggie bag, for beggars.”

Even today, taking leftovers home conflicts with France’s attitude toward eating out, and the general impression that the doggie bag is more of an American phenomenon — a result of supersize portions.

“Contrary to the image we have of France, the country of gastronomy, where people supposedly spend all their time at the restaurant, people don’t eat out that often,” said Anne Lhuissier, a sociologist at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research who has studied eating habits and food consumption in France.

She noted that the French spent more time than their European neighbors on preparing and eating their own meals. “And when they do eat out,” Ms. Lhuissier said, “they relish it.”

Dining out is thus a rare experience, to be enjoyed in situ, not bundled up in plastic foam containers and reheated in the microwave.“If you are dealing with finer things, things that are tastier, then maybe you have more appetite, and more pleasure in finishing your plate,” said Thibault Narmand, who owns a cozy bistro with his wife, Faten, in Lyon.

Other chefs, including Mr. Moya, seemed to agree. Few opposed the idea of the doggie bag in principle, but they emphasized that if portions were well sized, if the dishes were tasty and if the dining experience was enjoyable, then there should be no need to take anything back home.

“If all your tables are leaving with doggie bags, you have a quantity problem in your plates,” said Wilfried Champin, the headwaiter at Tapeo, a Spanish-influenced restaurant that overlooks the Saône River in a sleek new mall in Lyon.

As a customer in other restaurants, Mr. Champin is sometimes taken aback by how foreign the concept seems to his colleagues in the catering industry. “Once a restaurant owner looked at me and asked, ‘Why on earth would I do a doggie bag?’ ” he said.

Some chefs mistakenly fear that they will be legally responsible for food poisoning from a spoiled doggie bag, a worry the campaign wants to dispel.

Others insisted that the doggie bag was a solution to a problem that barely existed here. If the authorities really want to tackle the problem of food waste, they should look elsewhere, they said.

Households and manufacturers account for a much larger portion of food waste, which the European Parliament voted two years ago to halve by 2025. The European Commission estimates that while 100 million tons of food is wasted annually in the European Union, only 14 percent of that is from the catering sector.

Even Ms. Manzon admitted that the end goal of her agency’s campaign is to reduce waste altogether, not to promote the doggie bag, per se. “Certainly we want to encourage the gourmet bag, but the main message we want to convey is that, if the plate can be finished, it’s better,” she said.

Indeed, finishing one’s plate is something of a French institution. In Lyon, at La Tête de Lard, a traditional “bouchon” restaurant that serves regional dishes like potato or macaroni gratin, the chef and owner, Yoann Blanc, said he jokingly chides his customers that if they don’t finish their main dish, they won’t get any dessert.

In many ways, the doggie bag was much better in theory than in practice, and certainly remained alien to some.

Outside Brasserie Georges, a stalwart of traditional French cuisine in Lyon, 21-year-old Arthur Pascal lighted a cigarette after an afternoon meal with his family. He knew all about doggie bags, and liked the idea.

“But I rarely ask for one,” he admitted, because it just is not something you do. The only time his family did ask, they returned home with meat bones — not for them, but for their dogs.
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7) Decades of Neglect Show Starkly as Indian Schools Cry Out for Repairs
By

BENA, Minn. — When temperatures drop and snow falls, students bundle themselves in heavy coats inside Marlene Stately’s classroom. Winter comes early and bites hard on this Indian reservation in northern Minnesota, and the pole barn that houses part of the Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School offers limited protection from the elements.

“I think we need a new school,” Ms. Stately said last month after her upper-grade students had practiced introducing themselves in the Ojibwe language. “It’s cold here in the wintertime. They’re not comfortable. And how can you learn when you’re freezing?”In the federal Bureau of Indian Education system, the dreadful facilities of Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig — named for a late member of the tribe — are far from unique. The network of about 185 congressionally funded schools in 23 states is in the midst of a broad overhaul, but decades of neglect have left reservations with schools where students struggle to meet academic standards, turnover among educators is high and the buildings are often in decay.

Students at Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig speak highly of their teachers — the school is “like a family,” said Terrance Warner, a senior who plans to join the Army after graduation — and administrators work to ingrain Ojibwe culture in the curriculum. Still, school leaders say, there is a toll taken by the chilly classrooms and the poorly ventilated science lab where students cannot conduct experiments.

“If the kids are going into a school with a leaky roof and a bad smell, that’s a value thing, that nobody cares,” said Crystal Redgrave, the superintendent of Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig, who said she suspected the condition of the building had contributed to a steep drop in enrollment, which is now about 200 students. “But if they go to a well-equipped school, they’d see people really do care.”

Officials at the United States Department of the Interior, which oversees the bureau, say they are working to improve schools like Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig. But with limited funding and a huge backlog of repairs — the government estimates that it would cost $1.3 billion to restore all buildings to good condition — some administrators and students wonder when they will see the fruits of those policies.

“I think everyone agrees that our children deserve better, but these are tough budget times and it’s difficult,” said Charles Roessel, the director of the Indian education bureau. “It’s a priority for us.”

The bureau’s challenges extend far beyond bricks and mortar.

On a national reading assessment in 2011, fourth graders at the bureau’s schools scored 22 points lower on a 500-point scale than their Native American peers in other public schools, a scathing review from the federal Government Accountability Office found. In addition to consistently poor test scores, the report highlighted a subpar graduation rate and confusing layers of bureaucracy that create a disconnect between national policy and classrooms.

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell has ordered a restructuring that seeks to shift the federal role from creating curriculum and directly administering far-flung schools to providing support and funding to local leaders who would call the shots. The hope, she said, is to shore up facilities and give the schools the means to teach culturally relevant lessons and improve their academics.

That tribe-first approach is vital to turning around the schools, said William Mendoza, who is leading a White House initiative to improve education of Native Americans. “We’ve tried just about everything in education except enlist the tribes to affect their own school systems in a more positive way,” said Mr. Mendoza, who is Oglala-Sicangu Lakota and attended bureau schools as a child in South Dakota, then taught in them. “That’s the important component.”

Like about two-thirds of bureau schools, Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig is operated by a local school board authorized by the tribe, known as the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. Ms. Jewell’s order calls for shifting the remaining 60 or so schools to tribal oversight, and providing more efficient funding and support for the entire system. For schools that are already administered locally, the changes could lead to more resources like expanded teacher training or broadband installation.

Skepticism of Washington reformers permeates many reservations, where the federal government’s fraught history of educating Native American children has left a painful legacy. For decades, national policy sought to strip the children of their culture and language in an effort to “Westernize” them. Those efforts were disavowed long ago, but many federally run Indian schools have continued to struggle. Ms. Jewell, who visited Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig in August, said that in an effort to build trust, she listens closely but does not offer guarantees when meeting with tribal leaders.

“What I told them is ‘I’m not going to promise you anything because I don’t control the budget,’ ” said Ms. Jewell, who pledged to use what she saw and heard in Minnesota to prod Congress for more funds. Historically, the reservation schools have not been a top priority for lawmakers.

“It’s not like going to a school board,” said Don Yu, a special adviser to the education secretary who is working with the Interior Department on improving Indian schools. “We have to go to senators and congressmen and ask them for this funding. Getting funding for new major infrastructure problems has been extremely challenging.”

At Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig, students and staff members talk excitedly about the prospect of a new building. About three years ago, school officials and tribal elders worked with architects to create a plan for a new high school, complete with a culture room and gymnasium, that could cost about $25 million.

John Parmeter, a longtime teacher at Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig who now oversees security and other administrative duties, said the need for a new high school becomes especially apparent when snow piles up on the roof, requiring heavy equipment for repairs, or when it melts and trash cans must be stationed throughout the building to catch water dripping from the ceiling.

The building is not safe, Mr. Parmeter said, and the situation is not fair. Still, he documents every hazard and maintenance problem, hoping to eventually persuade federal officials to do more. “They just keep patching something that’s beyond patching,” Mr. Parmeter said.



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8) Psychologists to Review Role in Detainee Interrogations
By

WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest organization of psychologists will conduct an independent review into whether it colluded with or supported the government’s use of torture in the interrogation of prisoners during the Bush administration.

The American Psychological Association said in a statement released late Wednesday that its board had named David H. Hoffman, a Chicago lawyer, to conduct the review.

For years, questions about the role of American psychologists and behavioral scientists in the development and implementation of the Bush-era interrogation program have been raised by human rights advocates as well as by critics within the psychological profession itself. Psychologists were involved in developing the enhanced interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency. Later, a number of psychologists, in the military and in the intelligence community, were involved in carrying out and monitoring interrogations.In an interview, Mr. Hoffman, a former federal prosecutor and onetime inspector general of the city of Chicago, emphasized the independence of his investigation. “We will go wherever the evidence leads,” he said.

Some longtime critics praised the move by the group. “The A.P.A.’s action is a long-needed step toward an independent review of their post-9/11 activities,” said Stephen Soldz, a professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. “It is vital that this review be fully independent and comprehensive in nature.”

Critics like Mr. Soldz have said that the participation of psychologists allowed the Bush administration to argue that the interrogations did not constitute torture because they and other behavioral scientists were monitoring the interrogations to make sure they remained “safe, legal and effective.” Psychiatrists were not as willing to cooperate with the interrogation programs.

In particular, the critics have cited the association’s 2002 decision to modify its ethics rules that in effect gave greater professional cover to psychologists who had been helping to monitor and oversee interrogations.

The most important change was a new guideline that made it clear that if a psychologist faced a conflict between the A.P.A.’s ethics code and a lawful order, the psychologist could follow the law. Critics say this introduced the Nuremberg defense into American psychology — following orders was an acceptable reason to violate professional ethics.

“It’s sad that the A.P.A., rather than protecting its members from engaging in interrogation activities, bent its rules to allow their participation in those interrogations,” Mr. Soldz said.

The association has long defended the profession’s activities as well as itself against critics who have questioned whether the organization helped make it easier for psychologists to remain involved with the government’s interrogation program, even after the Abu Ghraib scandal set off a public debate about the program.

In its statement, the association said that its decision to appoint an independent reviewer was prompted by questions raised about the relationship between the psychological profession and the government agencies involved in the torture program in the new book, “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War,” by this reporter.

The book uses the email archive of Scott Gerwehr, a behavioral researcher with ties to the C.I.A. and other agencies who died in 2008, to provide a glimpse at the network of psychologists, academic researchers, contractors and intelligence and Pentagon officials who formed the behavioral science infrastructure that grew up after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to support the Bush administration’s war on terror.

Most notable, the emails reveal that after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in 2004, the association was eager to get out in front of the controversy by developing new professional guidelines for psychologists involved in interrogations. The group created a committee to study the matter, and in 2005 issued a report that, in effect, enabled psychologists involved in the Bush interrogation program to continue. A number of psychologists and human rights advocates have been critical of the work of that committee, known as the PENS Task Force, ever since.

Mr. Gerwehr’s emails show for the first time the degree to which behavioral science experts from within the government’s national security apparatus played roles in shaping the outcome of the A.P.A. task force. The emails show that in July 2004, just months after the graphic photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib were publicly disclosed, association officials convened a private meeting of psychologists who worked at the C.I.A., the Pentagon and other national security agencies to provide input on how the association should deal with the “unique ethical issues” raised for psychologists in the wake of the Abu Ghraib disclosures.

After the A.P.A. task force effectively endorsed the continued involvement of psychologists in the interrogation program, one association official wrote, in an email on which Mr. Gerwehr was copied, that he wanted to thank an intelligence official for helping to influence the outcome of the task force. “Your views were well represented by very carefully selected task force members,” the A.P.A. official wrote.

The association’s statement suggested, however, that Mr. Hoffman’s investigation would range far more widely than the relatively narrow questions raised by Mr. Gerwehr’s emails detailed in the book.


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9) Ex-Executive Donald Blankenship Is Indicted in Disaster at Coal Mine
By

The former chief executive of the company involved in the nation’s worst coal mine disaster in 40 years, in which 29 men died in West Virginia in 2010, was charged on Thursday with widespread violations of safety rules and deceiving federal inspectors.

Donald L. Blankenship, who formerly ran the Massey Energy Company, was indicted on four criminal counts by a federal grand jury in the Upper Big Branch disaster near Montcoal, W.Va.

Mr. Blankenship was accused of looking away from hundreds of safety violations “in order to produce more coal, avoid the costs of following safety laws, and make more money.”

The 43-page indictment handed up in Charleston, W.Va., the state capital, details how laws about ventilating coal dust and methane gas at the mine were ignored, staffing and tasks needed to improve safety were slashed, and officials responded to surprise visits by safety inspectors by tipping off miners underground using code words.A powerful explosion at the mine on April 5, 2010, which killed the men working 1,200 feet below the surface, was the result of safety violations that allowed coal dust and methane to ignite, according to a 2011 report by the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

The disaster, the deadliest in the nation since 1970, has left painful scars even in a state that has long accepted mining’s toll on life and health, and which celebrates coal as part of its identity. As recently as the elections last week, candidates in House and Senate races boasted of how quickly they had rushed to the Upper Big Branch site four years ago.

Mr. Blankenship, who retired about eight months after the disaster, is well known in the state, where he has donated to conservative political candidates, even as victims’ families have called for his prosecution. Through a lawyer, he maintained his innocence. “Don Blankenship has been a tireless advocate for mine safety,” the lawyer, William W. Taylor III, said in a statement. “His outspoken criticism of powerful bureaucrats has earned this indictment. He will not yield to their effort to silence him.”

Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia had an unusually sharp reaction. “As he goes to trial, he will be treated far fairer and with more dignity than he ever treated the miners he employed,” he said. “And, frankly, it’s more than he deserves.”

Several investigations have found that Massey routinely ignored safety violations at the mine. The 2011 federal investigation by the mine safety agency concluded that the explosion was preventable and issued 369 citations. Alpha Natural Resources, which bought Massey in 2011, paid $209 million in criminal penalties to settle with the Department of Justice. Two subordinates of Mr. Blankenship, including a former superintendent of the Upper Big Branch mine, have pleaded guilty in criminal cases. Mr. Blankenship faces a maximum of 31 years’ imprisonment.

The charges hold him personally responsible for the hundreds of safety violations in 28 months leading up to the explosion. They included failing to ventilate coal dust and methane, which are highly explosive, and failing to water down equipment to prevent sparks that could ignite an explosion.

According to the indictment, Mr. Blankenship’s aggressive enforcement of mining quotas left workers no time to build ventilation systems “because constructing them diverted time from coal production.” He denied a request to build an air shaft in a mine where airflow was below the legal minimum, the indictment said. He also cut the number of miners focusing on safety in order to make the operation more profitable.

Mr. Blankenship was charged with authorizing a “scheme” of warnings to miners underground when federal safety inspectors made surprise visits. By using “code words and phrases,” word was passed by telephone from a guardhouse to a mine office to supervisors deep underground, who ordered miners “to quickly cover up violations” before inspectors arrived, the indictment said.

Besides charges of conspiracy to violate safety laws and defrauding the federal government, the four-count indictment included a charge of securities fraud and a charge of making false statements to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

The president of the United Mine Workers of America, Cecil E. Roberts, hailed the indictment. “The carnage that was a recurring nightmare at Massey mines during Blankenship’s tenure at the head of that company was unmatched,” he said.


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10) Pathologist Is Witness in Ferguson Death Inquiry
By
CLAYTON, Mo. — The forensic pathologist hired by the family of Michael Brown testified before a St. Louis County grand jury on Thursday, an indication that the proceedings might be nearing their final stages, the family’s lawyers said.

The lawyers said they believed that grand jurors had asked to hear from the pathologist, Dr. Michael M. Baden, during a process that the family and its supporters have criticized as lacking the transparency needed to engender confidence in the system.

Mr. Brown, 18, who was black, was shot and killed three months ago by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in nearby Ferguson. Mr. Brown was unarmed, and some witnesses said he had his arms up in surrender at the time. The shooting incited days of sometimes violent protest. The grand jury is expected to decide soon whether to indict Officer Wilson.

The Brown family lawyers, Benjamin Crump and Anthony D. Gray, would not go into the details of Dr. Baden’s testimony. But they did disclose that the pathologist had reclassified a wound to Mr. Brown’s chest as an entry wound. The significance of that change was unclear, and the lawyers declined to elaborate.

Speaking to reporters in front of the county justice center here, Mr. Gray said that regardless of whether the grand jury decides to indict Mr. Wilson, the Brown family wanted to reiterate Gov. Jay Nixon’s “denouncement of violence, looting and rioting in the name of Michael Brown.”

“We want to encourage all of those that support the justice for Mike Brown to remain vigilant, yet peaceful, calm and dignified as we await and after we receive the announcement of the grand jury decision,” Mr. Gray added.

But the lawyers went farther than the governor, also admonishing law enforcement officers to allow protesters to exercise their rights.

“History is clear,” Mr. Gray said. “Prior to many uncivilized reactions by demonstrators, they were simply exercising their First Amendment right, during which time they became victims of assault rifles being pointed in their face, being manhandled, being tear gassed, hit by rubber bullets, falsely arrested. Law enforcement should have been equally condemned by the governor for this conduct at the same time he was admonishing the demonstrators.”

In a news conference this week, Governor Nixon said he would mobilize all the law enforcement officers necessary to keep the peace, including the National Guard.

It remains unclear when the grand jury will reach its decision. The jurors have been hearing evidence for months. Robert P. McCulloch, the St. Louis County prosecutor, has said he expected a decision by mid- to late November. Meanwhile, many people in the St. Louis area have been on edge, fearing that the grand jury decision could reignite violence.

Mr. McCulloch has said that prosecutors were presenting all of the evidence to the grand jury. When Dr. Baden released his initial autopsy in August, he said that Mr. Brown had been shot at least six times, with none of the shots appearing to be from very close range. News reports of the autopsy performed by the St. Louis County medical examiner said that Mr. Brown had a wound on his thumb that could have come during an encounter with Officer Wilson at his car.

Regardless of what evidence is placed before the grand jury, Mr. Gray said, the fact that it was being done behind closed doors was problematic.

“What we’re missing would be how that information was presented,” he said. “What emphasis was placed on what piece of evidence.”




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11) Shift on Marijuana Policy Was a Long Time Coming, and Too Late for One Man
By

Anthony Welfare closely followed this week’s news that New York City no longer will bring criminal charges against people who are seen with small amounts of marijuana, as long as they are not smoking it in public.

“I find that funny,” Mr. Welfare, 28, said.

But not hah-hah funny.

Not LOL funny.

After seven years of steady work, Mr. Welfare automatically lost his job as a school bus driver in August when a police officer swore under oath that he saw a pipe in the center console of a car in which Mr. Welfare was a passenger. The pipe had a residue of marijuana, the officer said.

Therefore, everyone in the car — the driver and his passenger, Mr. Welfare — was openly displaying marijuana, a misdemeanor.Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton on Monday said police officers would no longer file misdemeanor charges against people who displayed small amounts of marijuana in public. Instead, the officers would charge them with merely possessing the pot, a violation, which is like getting a traffic ticket.

The difference is not trivial. The ticket would not have cost Mr. Welfare a job that paid him about $40,000 a year. He was arrested on Aug. 16, the first time he had ever had any trouble with the law. That was a Saturday. By Monday, the bus company he worked for had been notified, and he was fired on the spot. His experience was chronicled last month in this column. (At the time, Mr. Welfare asked that his last name not be revealed.) Since then, the charge against him has been dismissed and his record is once again clean. But he has not yet been able to regain his old job, and to date, he has lost nearly $10,000 in wages.

“Now the change goes into effect — after what I just been through,” Mr. Welfare said.

For the most part, the policy change won’t affect white pot users, who were not likely to be stopped and told to turn out their pockets, or to be accused of openly displaying marijuana — or its residue — in the center console of a car. Pot in someone’s pocket is mere possession, not a crime; having it in the open is a misdemeanor. Tricking people into displaying it was called manufacturing misdemeanors. For much of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration, such misdemeanor marijuana arrests took place at the rate of one every 12 minutes, or 50,000 a year. Overwhelmingly, those charged were black, like Mr. Welfare, or Latino. Most had never been in trouble with the law.

Mr. Bloomberg and his aides scoffed at the notion that the arrests were a big deal, saying most of those cases were dismissed and sealed. Indeed, that is what happened with Mr. Welfare’s case — after he was fired. A pot charge can cost people jobs that require clean criminal records, like security guards for city and state agencies, or home health care attendants. For immigrants, there can be other harrowing consequences: A Liberian man was held in an immigration jail for a year pending deportation on a marijuana case before the charge was downgraded, said Mitch Briskey, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society.

How did this go on so long? Part of it, Mr. Bratton said, is that a large number of public complaints come to the police about open pot dealing or smoking.

But there is more. During the stop-and-frisk era, police precincts set numerical goals for “activity” by officers, a standard management productivity tool in all lines of work. It was an article of faith that the stops would help drive down crime. But the numbers became an end unto themselves, a toxic force propelling a machine that devoured the people it was supposed to keep safe.

Millions of searches yielded only a tiny amount of criminality — and a majority of it was the spuriously manufactured public displays of marijuana. Now that the searches have been curtailed, crime has continued to drop.

The Bronx Defenders, which represents poor people, tried in 2012 to fight the marijuana arrests on the grounds that the searches were illegal. In 54 test cases, which lasted an average of eight months, not once were they able to get a hearing before the cases were dismissed anyway.

For Mr. Welfare, contesting the search would have kept the case open and delayed the possibility of his return to work, said his lawyer, Marquita Johnson of the Legal Aid Society.

No single rogue committed an overt act of bigotry to create a grotesque separate regimen of punishment for blacks and Latinos. The racism was mixed into the concrete that held up the system. It richly deserves the sledgehammer that Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Bratton are now swinging.


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12) Fatal Encounter in Ferguson Took Less Than 90 Seconds, Police Communications Reveal
By


FERGUSON, Mo. — Audio of police radio communications and video from surveillance cameras at the Ferguson Police Department offer new details from the day that Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot dead by a white police officer in August.

As the region waits tensely for a grand jury to decide whether to indict the officer, Darren Wilson, in the shooting, the new disclosures gave yet another glimpse of the complicated and unusually abundant information that the jurors may be sifting through.

The audio and video were published on Friday by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.The police radio communications, including remarks by Officer Wilson, reveal that the encounter with Mr. Brown on Aug. 9 was brief — less than 90 seconds from start to finish. Though the time was short, questions remain about the encounter: Were Mr. Brown’s hands raised in the air in a motion of surrender when he was shot, as some witnesses have said? Was Officer Wilson punched and scratched in a struggle with Mr. Brown, as he has told the authorities? Did Officer Wilson view Mr. Brown as a suspect in a theft that had just occurred at a store?


The newly published audio, which the newspaper said it obtained through the state’s public records law, makes it clear that Officer Wilson was aware that other officers were investigating a “stealing in progress” that had been reported at a local market before he came across Mr. Brown and a friend on Canfield Drive. But the radio dispatches do not clarify whether Officer Wilson, who had initially warned the two friends not to walk in the street, suspected Mr. Brown at that point in connection with the theft.

“Put me on Canfield with two,” Officer Wilson told a dispatcher at 12:02 p.m., moments before the shooting. “And send me another car.” Not long after the shooting, officials released video from the market, showing Mr. Brown pushing a store clerk and taking cigarillos a short time before his fatal confrontation with Officer Wilson.

The videotapes, according to the newspaper, came from later in the afternoon of Aug. 9 and show Officer Wilson walking out of the police department to go to the hospital and returning later. The video images do not reveal injuries on Officer Wilson, but they do not show his face clearly or close up.

On Saturday, lawyers for Mr. Brown’s family said the videotapes contradicted reports of the officer’s injuries. “Information was leaked from within the police department that Wilson was severely beaten and suffered an orbital eye socket ‘blowout,’ indicating that Michael Brown somehow deserved to die,” a statement from the lawyers said. “From the video released today it would appear the initial descriptions of his injuries were exaggerated.”


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13) A Familiar Anger Begins to Boil Again in Mexico
By

MEXICO CITY — The fate of 43 college students missing and presumed killed and burned to ashes in a mass abduction in September has bred ire and indignation in many corners of Mexico.

Spectators held up posters with the faces of the students at a soccer match last week between Mexico and the Netherlands.

Thousands of demonstrators, mostly teachers and students and young sympathizers, have poured into the streets of Mexico City and have blocked major intercity highways, while setting fires that damaged the door to the national palace in Mexico City and regional political party offices and the state congress building in Guerrero, where the students attended school.And social media has lit up with related hashtags, including #YaMeCansedelMiedo (“I am tired of fear”), a play on a remark by the attorney general who cut off a question at the end of an hourlong news conference on the students’ case by saying, “Ya me cansé” — “I’m tired now.” (He later defended the remark by saying that he was tired because he had not slept in over 40 hours.)

For the past week, President Enrique Peña Nieto was in China on a trade mission, even as the instability troubled the international business community he has aggressively courted. The question that awaited his return on Saturday night was: What now? Will the case prompt Mr. Peña Nieto to throw his weight behind efforts to address corruption, impunity and the rule of law with the same vigor he applied to his bold economic policies?

Mexico has seen these convulsions over sensational crimes before, with only modest changes in their wake. In 2011, galvanized by the kidnapping and murder of the son of a poet, Javier Sicilia, tens of thousands of protesters marched under the banner and hashtag #HastaLaMadre — roughly, “We have had it!” — and eventually Felipe Calderón, then the president, held a nationally televised meeting with relatives of the tens of thousands of people abducted and murdered during the drug war in his term.

That meeting gave rise to an underfunded office to address the needs of victims of violence but little else.

Andrew Selee, a Mexico scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, said isolated areas like Ciudad Juárez and Monterrey received more attention after mass killings, resulting in some drops in crime. But politicians have been unable to carry out effective anticorruption measures and a broad retooling of institutions.

“Politicians of all parties have a great opportunity to make transparency and fighting corruption a banner that they all want to march behind, but it is an open question if that will happen,” Mr. Selee said. “Historically, there is a lot of tolerance for corruption in all the parties; no one wants to offend an ally or friend. But the political class risks losing more credibility with citizens if they don’t come out clearly to do something.”

A general tolerance for corruption may explain the muted reaction from opposition parties to revelations about a private $7 million house Mr. Peña Nieto’s wife is buying on credit from a company whose owner won large government construction contracts from Mexico State when Mr. Peña Nieto was its governor.

The owner of the house also has a company that was a partner in a Chinese-led consortium for a bullet-train contract Mr. Peña Nieto abruptly canceled before his trip, bowing to complaints that the bidding process was not transparent.

“One of the consequences of this scandal is it undermines the legitimacy of the government right at a moment that requires strength and credibility,” said Luis Carlos Ugalde, director of Integralia, a political consulting firm, and the former president of Mexico’s election commission.

But the shocking reports about the students in Iguala, who the authorities said were swept up by the police on orders of a mayor, turned over to a drug gang and killed and incinerated, strike at the frustration and contempt many people hold toward corrupt politicians and the police.

The street protests, largely organized by students and teachers’ unions, may be written off as more of the same, with violent anarchist groups in the mix, but the public venting is spreading to some normally quiet sectors like the members of the Roman Catholic bishops conference and the chief justice of the Supreme Court, both of whom made statements last week calling for dialogue, transparency and concrete actions. “We think it is necessary to move from protests to proposals,” the bishops conference said in a statement.

Alfonso Zárate, a political analyst, said: “It seems encouraging to me that the voices of complaint are multiplying. Corruption was seen for a long time as a lubricant that humanized power. This cynical view allowed it to avoid being seen as truly a cancer. The problem is it has metastasized and strikes all sectors.”

So Mr. Peña Nieto returns home politically wounded and facing an angry citizenry demanding a bold response to corruption and impunity, as well as new warnings from financial analysts that the lawlessness could discourage the kind of investment he has been seeking.

“We are asking, What do we expect from the most senior officials in government?” said Juan Francisco Torres Landa, a leader of Mexico Unido Contra la Delincuencia (Mexicans United Against Crime), an anti-crime civic group that has organized marches in the past but is not doing so now. “We are beyond that,” he said. “We don’t want them to say, ‘O.K., the people are not happy,’ and then go on with their usual business. We want them to move into actual activity with specific results.”

While the political parties have joined together to speed through a host of changes to revamp the economy and educational system, addressing domestic security issues has been more difficult.

The events in Iguala have discredited the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, known as the PRD, which is usually quick to condemn the corruption in Mr. Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party. Both the mayor of Iguala and the disgraced former governor of the state are PRD members.

On the right, the National Action Party has its own burden in dealing with the role of its standard-bearer, Mr. Calderón, in the drug war, as well as its share of corruption among current and former officials.

“The political parties are paralyzed,” said Ernesto López Portillo, director of Insyde, a security think tank in Mexico City, who has long advocated better training and accountability for local and state police forces. “Social frustration has grown, and this is expressed peacefully for the most part, but political power has not transformed.”


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14) More Federal Agencies Are Using Undercover Operations
By and WILLIAM M. ARKIN

WASHINGTON — The federal government has significantly expanded undercover operations in recent years, with officers from at least 40 agencies posing as business people, welfare recipients, political protesters and even doctors or ministers to ferret out wrongdoing, records and interviews show.

At the Supreme Court, small teams of undercover officers dress as students at large demonstrations outside the courthouse and join the protests to look for suspicious activity, according to officials familiar with the practice.

At the Internal Revenue Service, dozens of undercover agents chase suspected tax evaders worldwide, by posing as tax preparers, accountants drug dealers or yacht buyers and more, court records show.

At the Agriculture Department, more than 100 undercover agents pose as food stamp recipients at thousands of neighborhood stores to spot suspicious vendors and fraud, officials said.

Undercover work, inherently invasive and sometimes dangerous, was once largely the domain of the F.B.I. and a few other law enforcement agencies at the federal level. But outside public view, changes in policies and tactics over the last decade have resulted in undercover teams run by agencies in virtually every corner of the federal government, according to officials, former agents and documents.

Some agency officials say such operations give them a powerful new tool to gather evidence in ways that standard law enforcement methods do not offer, leading to more prosecutions. But the broadened scope of undercover work, which can target specific individuals or categories of possible suspects, also raises concerns about civil liberties abuses and entrapment of unwitting targets. It has also resulted in hidden problems, with money gone missing, investigations compromised and agents sometimes left largely on their own for months.

“Done right, undercover work can be a very effective law enforcement method, but it carries serious risks and should only be undertaken with proper training, supervision and oversight,” said Michael German, a former F.B.I. undercover agent who is a fellow at New York University’s law school. “Ultimately it is government deceitfulness and participation in criminal activity, which is only justifiable when it is used to resolve the most serious crimes.”

Some of the expanded undercover operations have resulted from heightened concern about domestic terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But many operations are not linked to terrorism. Instead, they reflect a more aggressive approach to growing criminal activities like identity theft, online solicitation and human trafficking, or a push from Congress to crack down on more traditional crimes.

At convenience stores, for example, undercover agents, sometimes using actual minors as decoys, look for illegal alcohol and cigarette sales, records show. At the Education Department, undercover agents of the Office of Inspector General infiltrate federally funded education programs looking for financial fraud. Medicare investigators sometimes pose as patients to gather evidence against health care providers. Officers at the Small Business Administration, NASA and the Smithsonian do undercover work as well, records show.

Part of the appeal of undercover operations, some officials say, is that they can be an efficient way to make a case.

“We’re getting the information directly from the bad guys — what more could you want?” said Thomas Hunker, a former police chief in Bal Harbour, Fla., whose department worked with federal customs and drug agents on hundreds of undercover money-laundering investigations in recent years.

Mr. Hunker said sending federal and local agents undercover to meet with suspected money launderers “is a more direct approach than getting a tip and going out and doing all the legwork and going into a court mode.”

“We don’t have to go back and interview witnesses and do search warrants and surveillance and all that,” he added.

But the undercover work also led federal auditors to criticize his department for loose record-keeping and financial lapses, and Mr. Hunker was fired last year amid concerns about the operations.

‘A Critical Tool’

Most undercover investigations never become public, but when they do, they can prove controversial. This month, James B. Comey, the director of the F.B.I., was forced to defend the bureau’s tactics after it was disclosed that an agent had posed as an Associated Press reporter in 2007 in trying to identify the source of bomb threats at a Lacey, Wash., high school. Responding to criticism from news media advocates, Mr. Comey wrote in a letter to The New York Times that “every undercover operation involves ‘deception,’ which has long been a critical tool in fighting crime.”

Just weeks before, the Drug Enforcement Administration stoked controversy after disclosures that an undercover agent had created a fake Facebook page from the photos of a young woman in Watertown, N.Y. — without her knowledge — to lure drug suspects.

And in what became a major political scandal for the Obama administration, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed guns to slip into Mexico in 2011 in an operation known as Fast and Furious that involved undercover operations.

In response to that episode, the Justice Department issued new guidelines to prosecutors last year designed to tighten oversight of undercover operations and other “sensitive” investigative techniques, officials said. Before prosecutors approve such tactics, the previously undisclosed guidelines require that they consider whether an operation identifies a “clearly defined” objective, whether it is truly necessary, whether it targets “significant criminal actors or entities,” and other factors, the officials said.

Peter Carr, a department spokesman, said that undercover operations are necessary in investigating crime but that agents and prosecutors must follow safeguards. “We encourage these operations even though they may involve some degree of risk,” he said.

Those guidelines apply only to the law enforcement agencies overseen by the Justice Department. Within the Treasury Department, undercover agents at the I.R.S., for example, appear to have far more latitude than do those at many other agencies. I.R.S. rules say that, with prior approval, “an undercover employee or cooperating private individual may pose as an attorney, physician, clergyman

An I.R.S. spokesman acknowledged that undercover investigators are allowed to pose in such roles with approval from senior officials. But the agency said in a statement that senior officials “are not aware of any investigations where special agents have ever posed as attorneys, physicians, members of the clergy or members of the press specifically to gain information from a privileged relationship.”

The agency declined to say whether I.R.S. undercover agents have posed in these roles in an effort to get information that was not considered “privileged,” meaning the type of confidential information someone shares with a lawyer or doctor.

José Marrero, a former I.R.S. supervisor in Miami, said he knew of situations in which tax investigators needed to assume the identity of doctors to gain the trust of a medical professional and develop evidence that is tightly held.

“It’s very rare that you do that, but it does happen,” Mr. Marrero, who has a consulting firm in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and continues to work with federal agents on undercover investigations, said in an interview. “These are very sensitive jobs, and they’re scrutinized more closely than others.”

Oversight, though, can be minimal. A special committee meant to oversee undercover investigations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, for instance, did not meet in nearly seven years, according to the Justice Department’s inspector general. That inquiry found that more than $127 million worth of cigarettes purchased by the bureau disappeared in a series of undercover investigations that were aimed at tracing the black-market smuggling of cigarettes.

In one investigation, the bureau paid an undercover informant from the tobacco industry nearly $5 million in “business expenses” for his help in the case. (The agency gained new authority in 2004 allowing it to take money seized in undercover investigations and “churn” it back into future operations, a source of millions in revenue.)

Financial oversight was found lacking in the I.R.S.’s undercover operations as well. Detailed reviews of the money spent in some of its undercover operations took as long as four and a half years to complete, according to a 2012 review by the Treasury Department’s inspector general.

Wires Crossed

Across the federal government, undercover work has become common enough that undercover agents sometimes find themselves investigating a supposed criminal who turns out to be someone from a different agency, law enforcement officials said. In a few situations, agents have even drawn their weapons on each other before realizing that both worked for the federal government.“There are all sorts of stories about undercover operations gone bad,” Jeff Silk, a longtime undercover agent and supervisor at the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in an interview. “People are always tripping and falling over each other’s cases.”

Mr. Silk, who retired this year, cited a case that he supervised in which the D.E.A. was wiretapping suspects in a drug ring in Atlanta, only to discover that undercover agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement were trying to infiltrate the same ring. The F.B.I. and the New York Police Department were involved in the case as well.

To avoid such problems, officials said, they have tightened “deconfliction” policies, which are designed to alert agencies about one another’s undercover operations. But problems have persisted, the officials said.

It is impossible to tell how effective the government’s operations are or evaluate whether the benefits outweigh the costs, since little information about them is publicly disclosed. Most federal agencies declined to discuss the number of undercover agents they employed or the types of investigations they handled. The numbers are considered confidential and are not listed in public budget documents, and even Justice Department officials say they are uncertain how many agents work undercover.

But current and former law enforcement officials said the number of federal agents doing such work appeared to total well into the thousands, with many agencies beefing up their ranks in recent years, or starting new undercover units. An intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters, said the agency alone spent $100 million annually on its undercover operations. With large numbers of undercover agents at the F.B.I. and elsewhere, the costs could reach hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

In a sampling of such workers, an analysis of publicly available résumés showed that since 2001 more than 1,100 current or former federal employees across 40 agencies listed undercover work inside the United States as part of their duties. More than half of all the work they described is in pursuit of the illicit drug trade. Money laundering, gangs and organized crime investigations make up the second-largest group of operations.

Significant growth in undercover work involves online activity, with agents taking to the Internet, posing as teenage girls to catch predators or intercepting emails and other messages, the documents noted. The F.B.I., Department of Homeland Security and Pentagon all have training programs for online undercover operations.

Defendants who are prosecuted in undercover investigations often raise a defense of “entrapment,” asserting that agents essentially lured them into a criminal act, whether it is buying drugs from an undercover agent or providing fraudulent government services.

But the entrapment defense rarely succeeds in court.

In terrorism cases — the area in which the F.B.I. has used undercover stings most aggressively — prosecutors have a perfect record in defeating claims of entrapment. “I challenge you to find one of those cases in which the defendant has been acquitted asserting that defense,” Robert S. Mueller III, a former F.B.I. director, said at an appearance this year.

The Times analysis showed that the military and its investigative agencies have almost as many undercover agents working inside the United States as does the F.B.I. While most of them are involved in internal policing of service members and defense contractors, a growing number are focused, in part, on the general public as part of joint federal task forces that combine military, intelligence and law enforcement specialists.

At the Supreme Court, all of the court’s more than 150 police officers are trained in undercover tactics, according to a federal law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity because it involved internal security measures. At large protests over issues like abortion, small teams of undercover officers mill about — usually behind the crowd — to look for potential disturbances.

The agents, often youthful looking, will typically “dress down” and wear backpacks to blend inconspicuously into the crowd, the official said.

At one recent protest, an undercover agent — rather than a uniformed officer — went into the center of a crowd of protesters to check out a report of a suspicious bag before determining there was no threat, the official said. The use of undercover officers is seen as a more effective way of monitoring large crowds.

A Supreme Court spokesman, citing a policy of not discussing security practices, declined to talk about the use of undercover officers. Mr. German, the former F.B.I. undercover agent, said he was troubled to learn that the Supreme Court routinely used undercover officers to pose as demonstrators and monitor large protests.

“There is a danger to democracy,” he said, “in having police infiltrate protests when there isn’t a reasonable basis to suspect criminality.”

Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.



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15) Cold Numbers on G.M. Crisis: A Peek Inside
By HILARY STOUT

WASHINGTON — If this Monday is like almost every other one this fall, the death toll from General Motors’ defective ignition switch will rise.

Inside a hushed suite of law offices here, 500 miles away from the automaker’s Detroit headquarters, the victim-compensation team led by Kenneth R. Feinberg will post its weekly update of the number of death and injury claims it has found to be eligible for payment by the automaker. G.M. is Mr. Feinberg’s client, paying him for his work, and weighing in behind the scenes on dozens of cases. But Mr. Feinberg has already identified well more than twice as many deaths from the defective switch than the company did — 32 instead of 13 — and is on pace to pinpoint many more.The review process is confidential, but recently, Mr. Feinberg and his deputy, Camille Biros, agreed to provide The New York Times with a glimpse of how they evaluate claims. They answered questions, allowed a reporter into the windowless conference room of Mr. Feinberg’s law offices where they make the final decisions and showed a handful of claims, with names and additional details concealed to protect claimants’ identities.

G.M. declined to make anyone available for interviews but agreed to answer questions about the same process in writing.

The program stipulates that the company cannot overrule Mr. Feinberg but it is entitled to be heard. Interviews show that during the review stages over the last three months, G.M. has participated in conference calls with Mr. Feinberg’s team, submitted documents and presented its own engineers’ analysis of certain cases.

But rarely, say Mr. Feinberg and G.M., has the automaker’s feedback changed Mr. Feinberg’s mind.

“Ken Feinberg ultimately decides who is eligible and we support his determinations,” G.M. said.

Mr. Feinberg said the company has never questioned the amount of an award, many of which are in the millions of dollars. “It has nothing to do with dollars,” he said. “G.M.’s focus is exclusively eligibility.”

His last experience developing a victim compensation plan for a corporate client — BP after the 2010 Gulf oil spill — was fraught. The company complained that he was awarding too much money to too many businesses claiming economic loss, even as business owners and plaintiffs’ lawyers said he was too slow and not generous enough.

No such public uproar has surrounded the G.M. effort. But G.M. keeps close tabs on the claims coming to Mr. Feinberg. Every name and vehicle identification number is submitted to the company as it arrives.

So far, G.M. has “asked to talk to us” about 72 cases, Ms. Biros said. “They give us whatever information they want us to hear,” she said.

Mr. Feinberg’s reputation as the country’s most renowned victim compensation expert — a man who has been called on to devise programs in disasters like the Virginia Tech shootings, the World Trade Center attacks and the Boston Marathon bombings — has been valuable to G.M.’s effort to restore public trust as it faces multiple investigations and mounting lawsuits over its long delay in addressing the safety issue and recalling the cars with the defective switch.

But his determinations have wrested control of the death count from the company and have effectively become the official record of the human toll. Week after week, G.M. has been rendered a bystander as the number of death claims accepted by the Feinberg program edges up.

The automaker has already made its first payments to families under the program, though it has not publicly announced it.

Ms. Biros said the discussion with the company usually takes place during a conference call, with engineers who are familiar with the cases and other administrative employees. One may be a lawyer, she said, but usually the engineers dominate. Often documents are submitted, including correspondence from customer service files or records from reviews of claims filed against the company. Sometimes, the engineers provide their own analysis of so-called E.D.R. (commonly referred to as black box) data or circumstances of the crash.

“We listen and sometimes, we pick up a bit of information that we didn’t previously know,” she said. “But I would say it rarely changes our determination if we’ve already made one on the claim.”

G.M. explained: “We provide the documentation G.M. has, if any, on claims previously filed with G.M., namely information provided to G.M. by the claimant, to help ensure Ken Feinberg has all of the information available to assist with his determination.”

Ms. Barra, the chief executive, “receives regular updates on the program and had initial communication with Mr. Feinberg before the program began,” G.M. said.

The program never announces when it makes payment offers or how much those offers are. But when asked, Mr. Feinberg and Ms. Biros said they had made 40 official offers so far. Twenty-eight families have accepted, thus waiving their right to sue G.M. No one has yet declined. G.M. has already sent checks to 15 families, a company spokesman said.

Mr. Feinberg’s formula for deaths starts at $1 million and can run into several million after adding a lifetime’s projected lost earnings and $300,000 each for surviving dependents and spouse. Payments to cover life-care plans for certain catastrophic injuries can run into the double-digit millions.

(Neither Mr. Feinberg nor G.M. has disclosed his compensation, saying only that his law firm is being paid, as it was by BP. His work on the funds for the Boston Marathon, 9/11 and other noncorporate clients was done for the public good without charge.)

Mr. Feinberg and Ms. Biros have years of experience putting cold numbers to human tragedy, and in this case, they are giving claimants the benefit of the doubt at every turn. Most claims they have reviewed so far are deficient, but rather than denying them on the spot, they offer more time and guidance in locating acceptable documentation.

Of the 2,036 claims that had been filed to the program as of last week, 1,095 had been submitted with no documentation — just names, vehicle identification numbers and basic information. Many of those were filed in bulk by a handful of lawyers representing large numbers of plaintiffs and Mr. Feinberg said he suspected the lawyers were simply trying to get in the queue.

Mr. Feinberg acknowledges that his threshold of proof is more lenient than that used by G.M. in determining what accidents are connected to the defect.

“It is, for all intents and purposes, circumstantial evidence,” he said. “May we infer the ignition switch failure as the proximate cause of the accident? It is right out of Torts 1 in law school.”

The faulty switch can cause a moving car to suddenly turn off, making it difficult to control and deactivating the airbag system. While G.M. relied on hard data from black boxes retrieved from the wrecked vehicles in making its estimate of 13 victims, Mr. Feinberg said that in many cases, it was impossible to find such definitive proof because the accidents happened so long ago. The cars, and the black boxes, are long gone.

And so they will accept a wide net for evidence that indicates airbags did not deploy or the car suddenly stalled, including police reports, photographs, insurance claims, contemporaneous witness accounts, hospital records and warranty and maintenance records that show similar problems in the past.

Asked whether it thought the program should use stricter criteria, G.M. replied: “We support the protocol developed by Mr. Feinberg.”

In one claim his team recently reviewed, photographs from the accident scene showed the twisted, charred metal of a Saturn Ion. An enlarged detail provided a critical piece of evidence: the key in the ignition was nearly vertical, indicating that the vehicle’s power had shifted off before the crash. The victim suffered permanent brain damage.

“ELIGIBLE,” read the cover of the spiral-bound claim in bright green letters.

One death claim that The Times viewed was denied because a photo indicated that side airbags had gone off even though the police report said there was no frontal deployment. If the power had cut out, the side airbags would not have been able to deploy, the team concluded.

“INELIGIBLE” was written in bright red letters.

Final determinations are made in the fourth stage of review, during a grueling four- or five-hour meeting around an oval conference table over what Ms. Biros calls a “massive spreadsheet.” Economists and statisticians are available by phone, for calculating awards, and two other lawyers from the firm are in the room.

Slides of mangled cars flash on a screen and discussions can be long, precise and serious.

G.M. is not involved.

John Schwartz contributed reporting from New York.



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16) Another Widening Gap: The Haves vs. the Have-Mores
By ROBERT FRANK

Philip Rushton has been selling private jets to the global rich for more than three decades. In just about every economic cycle, sales of small jets and big jets tended to move together — rising and falling with financial markets and fortunes of the wealthy.

Now, however, the jet market is splitting in two. Sales of the largest, most expensive private jets — including private jumbo jets — are soaring, with higher prices and long waiting lists. Smaller, cheaper jets, however, are piling up on the nation’s private-jet tarmacs with big discounts and few buyers.

“The real demand is at the very top,” said Mr. Rushton, the president of Aviatrade, a private-jet brokerage and advisory company. “The big guys, the billionaires, have plenty of money, and they’re buying. But the middle and lower end has been much slower to recover from the crisis.”

The wealthy now have a wealth gap of their own, as economic gains become more highly concentrated at the very top. As the top one-hundredth of the 1 percent pulls away from the rest of that group, the superrich are leaving the merely very rich behind. That has created two markets in the upper reaches of the economy: one for the haves and one for the have-mores.

Whether the product is yachts, diamonds, art, wine or even handbags, the strongest growth and biggest profits are now coming from billionaires and nine-figure millionaires, rather than mere millionaires.

“The very wealthy are often the ones pulling the trigger right now, and they have a very big trigger,” said Jim Taylor, a wealth specialist and managing partner of YouGov, the marketing research and survey firm.

Of course, the lesser 1 percenters are still doing just fine. But a closer look at the divergence at the very top rungs of the ladder offers a more detailed view of the drivers of inequality today. And the divide is reshaping the luxury end of the consumer economy.

According to a recent paper by the economists Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, and Gabriel Zucman of the London School of Economics, almost all of the increase in American inequality over the last 30 years is attributable to the “rise of the share of wealth owned by the 0.1 percent richest families.” And much of that rise is driven by the top 0.01 percent.

The wealth of the top 1 percent grew an average of 3.9 percent a year from 1986 to 2012, though the top one-hundredth of that 1 percent saw its wealth grow about twice as fast. The 16,000 families in that tiptop category — those with fortunes of at least $111 million — have seen their share of national wealth nearly double since 2002, to 11.2 percent.

“Wealth is getting more concentrated in the United States,” the authors wrote. “But this phenomenon largely owes to the spectacular dynamics of fortunes of dozens and hundreds of million dollars, and much less to the growth in fortunes of a few million dollars.”

Dr. Saez and Dr. Zucman wrote that a “snowballing effect” was creating extravagant wealth at the very top. Outsize incomes — fueled in part by stock — are put into savings and investments, which generate more income, which creates even more wealth.

Mr. Rushton, the jet broker, has seen that snowball up close. During the financial crisis in 2009, the market for virtually all private jets collapsed. Yet, in a contrast to earlier recoveries, the demand for new, large-cabin jets has staged a much stronger comeback while the supply of new and used smaller and midsize jets is piling up.

According a jet market report from Citi Private Bank, deliveries of new so-called light jets — the smaller, cheaper models — were down 17 percent last year from 2012 and 67 percent from their 2008 peak. But deliveries of the biggest new private jets jumped 18 percent last year.

Demand for billionaires’ most coveted jet, the $65 million G650 from Gulfstream, is so strong that some G650 owners are now flipping their planes for millions of dollars in profit just months after buying them. Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One auto-racing promoter and billionaire, flipped his for about $72 million last fall — just weeks after he received it.

Sales of personal, V.I.P. jetliners are also strong. Boeing has received several orders from individuals for its 777-300ER (which normally carries 400 passengers) and its even bigger 747-800.

“The really top guys are insulated from fluctuations in the economy,” Mr. Rushton said. “They’ve always got money, and they have even more today.”

For decades, a rising tide lifted all yachts. Now, it is mainly lifting megayachts. Sales and orders of boats longer than 300 feet are at or near a record high, according to brokers and yacht builders. But prices for boats 100 to 150 feet long are down 30 to 50 percent from their peak.

Henk de Vries, chief executive of Feadship, the yacht builder, says the strongest market in yachting today is for boats more than 250 feet long. The company is about to deliver its largest boat — a 330-footer that sells for more than $250 million — and it recently expanded its shipyard to make ever-bigger hulls. (The largest yacht is now the 590-foot Azzam, owned by the president of the United Arab Emirates.)

Jonathan Beckett, the chief executive of Burgess, the yacht broker and advisory company, put it this way: “The folks at the top feel like they’ve come through the crisis intact.” He added, “They’re a fairly confident group, and they’re saying, ‘If I’m going to build a boat, I want to do it right.’ ”

ROBERT FRANK is CNBC wealth editor and the author of “Richistan.”



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