Saturday, July 5, 2008
American Muslim community is alarmed at the proposed Justice Department policy change that would allow the FBI to investigate Americans without evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims and Arabs.
Under the new guidelines, which are expected to be implemented later this summer, the FBI would be permitted to consider race and ethnicity when opening an investigation, according to an Associated Press report.
Agents would also be allowed to ask open-ended questions about the activities of American Muslims and Arab-Americans, and could initiate an investigation if a person's employment or background is labeled as "suspect" by government analysts looking at public records and other information.
Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons — like evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated — to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials said, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.
The policy changes would allow FBI agents to ask open-ended questions about activities of Muslim- or Arab-Americans, or investigate them if their jobs and backgrounds match trends that analysts deem suspect.
Among the factors that could make someone subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person's race or ethnicity.
American Muslim organizations and civil right groups have expressed deep concern over the proposed policy changes.
American Muslim Voice (AMV) founding Executive Director, Samina Faheem Sundas, while expressing concern over the proposed policy, said that the seven-million strong American Muslim community has seen erosion of its civil rights in the post-9/11 America and profiling of Muslims has now become institutionalized.
“Official profiling of Muslims and Arabs began with the Attorney General Ashcroft’s announcement in November 2001 to target about 5,000 young men of Middle Eastern and South Asian heritage who entered the country in the last two years on non-immigrant visas but who were not suspected of any criminal activity for questioning by the federal government,” she said.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) National Executive Director Kareem Shora urged Americans not tolerate in any way profiling based on race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin. “We will continue to address this issue until we can confirm that these new guidelines do not violate our constitutional principles of justice, freedom, due process, and equality under the rule of law,” he added.
The Arab American Institute (AAI) President Dr. James Zogby said that millions of Americans who, under the reported new parameters, could become subject to arbitrary and subjective ethnic and religious profiling.
“This will compromise basic civil liberties and constitutional protections, having a negative impact not only on the affected communities, but on the United States' overall effort to combat terrorism.”
The National Legislative Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Corey Saylor, said "Initiating criminal investigations based on racial or religious profiling is both unconstitutional and un-American." He said any new Justice Department guidelines must preserve the presumption of innocence that is the basis of our entire legal system.
“These guidelines seem to be emanating from the DOJ’s criminal division, which has failed to meet with our groups,” said Salam Al-Marayati, Executive Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). “If implemented as described in media reports, these new guidelines will make suspects out of our communities and strike a blow to more than seven years of constructive engagement with law enforcement officials.”
The FBI will be allowed to begin investigations simply "by assuming that everyone's a suspect, and then you weed out the innocent," said Caroline Fredrickson of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Arab, Muslim and other civil rights organizations contacted John Miller, FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs, to raise alarm and opposition to any form of racial or religious profiling which violate Constitutional principles of equal protection under the law.
Miller said that the Department of Justice is still in the process of drafting the guidelines. “Any review and change to the guidelines will reflect our traditional concerns for civil liberties, the First Amendment, and our emphasis on using the least intrusive instigative tools possible,” he added.
He urged the civil rights group against jumping to conclusions, especially those based on conjecture by people who have not seen the new guidelines, since a final draft is not complete.
According to the AP report, Attorney General Michael Mukasey acknowledged the overhaul was under way in early June, saying the guidelines sought to ensure regulations for FBI terror investigations don't conflict with ones governing criminal probes. He would not give any details. "It's necessary to put in place regulations that will allow the FBI to transform itself ... into an intelligence gathering organization in addition to just a crime solving organization," Mukasey told reporters.
The Associated Press said although the guidelines do not require congressional approval, House members recently sought to limit such profiling by rejecting an $11 million request for the FBI's security assessment center. Lawmakers wrote it that was unclear how the FBI could compile suspect profiles "in such a way as to avoid needless intrusions into the privacy of innocent citizens" and without wasting time and money chasing down false leads.
The denial of funding could limit the FBI's use of profiles, or "predictive models and patterns of behavior" as the government prefers to describe the data-mining results, but would not change the guidelines authorizing them. The guidelines would remain in effect until a new attorney general decided to change them.
by Abdus Sattar Ghazali
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's largest fireworks display exploded in a spectrum of color over the East River, temporarily stealing the spotlight from New York's world-famous skyline and helping to create a brilliant end to a day of July Fourth celebrations nationwide.
More than 3 million people had been expected to attend the New York display, though no crowd estimates were immediately given. It had been moved south along the river this year so onlookers could get a better view of the skyline.
Spectators thronged the riverfront in a light rain, some holding red, white and blue umbrellas.
Edwin Aleman staked out his viewing spot in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn hours before the show.
"These are million-dollar views," he told WNYW-TV. "This is what New York City is all about: the views, the skyline."
More than 35,000 shells sparkled, arched, spiked and fanned over the river during the half-hour show, launched from barges in two areas. It was televised on NBC to songs including "Give My Regards to Broadway," the "Tennessee Waltz" and, of course, "Yankee Doodle."
Organizers said this year's pyrotechnics included new nautical fireworks that floated on the water. Other new shells went through multiple transformations after they launched, providing four different effects.
It was such a large and potentially dangerous load of fireworks that the shipment got its own Fire Department escort from the moment it crossed the state line from New Jersey, officials said.
Near Cincinnati, a daredevil walked 2,000 feet across a cable suspended high off the ground in an amusement park. Rick Wallenda is the grandson of Karl Wallenda, patriarch of the "Flying Wallendas" high-wire act, who fell to his death trying to walk a cable in Puerto Rico in 1974.
Rick Wallenda, 53, completed the feat using a balancing pole and without a safety net or harness.
"I think my granddad would be proud," Wallenda said moments after the walk.
On the 232nd anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Boy Scouts in Hartford, Conn., rang a replica of the Liberty Bell, while organizers of the annual New York fireworks display promised the rockets' red glare would be better than ever.
Near Kissimmee, Fla., a wounded bald eagle, the national bird, was flying free after spending more than two months rehabilitating from a fight with another eagle. It was freed Thursday in Lake Tohopekaliga, the heart of Florida's eagle country.
In Boston, the 211-year-old USS Constitution, the Navy's oldest commissioned warship, was the backdrop Friday morning as two dozen people were sworn in as U.S. citizens.
Vice President Dick Cheney greeted the new Americans and later, in a second ceremony, administered the re-enlistment oath to a group of servicemen.
President Bush saluted new citizens at a naturalization ceremony in Charlottesville, Va., but was interrupted on several occasions by protesters calling for his impeachment.
In Fairmont, W.Va., gymnastics legend Mary Lou Retton was honored by her hometown with a parade and concert. She rode down streets in the cherry picker bucket of a fire truck, just as she did in 1984, when she was 16 and a new hometown hero.
A nearby wildfire prompted the cancellation of a fireworks display in Santa Barbara County, Calif. Communities across the parched state called off similar events because of fears that they could start fires.
Rain doused revelers on the National Mall in Washington ahead of Friday's celebrations. The musical bill included Huey Lewis and the News and Jerry Lee Lewis.
And it wouldn't be July Fourth without the annual hot-dog eating competition at Coney Island in New York. This year was another heartbreaker for longtime champion Takeru Kobayashi of Nagano, Japan.
He was trying to reclaim his title after a disappointing three-dog loss last year to Californian Joey Chestnut shattered his six-year winning streak. But it was not to be: Chestnut made it two wins in a row, beating Kobayashi in a tiebreaker.
By COLLEEN LONG
WASHINGTON — Jesse Helms, the former U.S. senator from North Carolina who for half a century infuriated liberals with his race-baiting campaign tactics and presidents of both parties with his use of senatorial privilege, died Friday. He was 86.
Helms, who won election to the Senate five times before retiring in 2003, died early Friday at a nursing home in Raleigh, N.C., according to John Dodd, president of The Jesse Helms Center in Wingate, N.C. A cause of death was not given, but his family said in 2006 that he had been diagnosed with vascular dementia.
"Jesse Helms was a kind, decent, and humble man and a passionate defender of what he called 'the Miracle of America.' So it is fitting that this great patriot left us on the 4th of July," President George W. Bush said in a statement Friday.
Commentator Patrick Buchanan, speaking Friday on MSNBC, put Helms in the company of the late President Ronald Reagan, calling the former senator "the second most important conservative of the second half of the 20th Century."
A registered Democrat in the years before he ran for the Senate in 1972, Helms was not the only Southerner of his generation to defect to the GOP after his party championed the cause of civil rights and, as he put it, "veered so far to the left nationally." Nor was he, at his death, the only politician defending the traditional values of a rural South that had long since been suburbanized.
But Helms will be remembered as different from his contemporaries in that he was unyielding on issues that were important to him. Unlike other conservatives, such as Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott or former Georgia Rep. Newt Gingrich, who fought for their causes but found ways to reach accord with Democrats, Helms—who acquired the nickname Senator No—seldom gave in.
Unlike other symbols of segregation — such as Alabama Gov. George Wallace and longtime South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond, who recanted their opposition to racial integration — Helms held firm. He rarely reached out to black voters, who in the 2000 census represented nearly 25 percent of North Carolina's population.
The key to Helms' longevity was a political strategy that allowed him to win election without appealing to the mainstream. The use of direct mail to solicit campaign funds nationally was pioneered in the 1960s, but Helms perfected the approach. He sought campaign contributions from conservatives nationally, then used their money to air inflammatory ads that energized his conservative base at home.
Helms never won with more than 56 percent of the vote, but he maintained a devoted core constituency.
Often he was the lone voice of dissent in the Senate. He was the only senator to vote against confirming Henry Kissinger as secretary of state during the Nixon administration. And he was the only senator to vote against making Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a holiday.
And on any number of issues he pushed his conservative agenda in the Senate. He filibustered a bill setting national standards for education to try to force inclusion of a constitutional amendment encouraging prayer in schools. And he pushed for an amendment to the Americans with Disabilities Act that would have barred employees with AIDS from handling food at restaurants.
Helms attended Wake Forest University but did not graduate.
One of his first jobs after college was as a sportswriter for the Raleigh News & Observer. There he met Dorothy Coble, the society reporter. They married in 1942. They had two daughters and adopted a 9-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who had said in a newspaper article that he wished for a family.
Los Angeles Times
GOLETA, CALIF. -- A fast-moving wildfire that consumed some 6,600 acres rained smoke and ash from the mountains Friday, leaving residents here wondering whether a stiffer breeze would come up to sweep the blaze into their neighborhoods overnight.
About 800 firefighters, backed by 10 air tankers and six helicopters, continued their assault on the blaze. Although the evening brought temporary relief, erratic winds known as "sundowners" were expected at up to 20 mph between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m.
Because of the fire's proximity to populated areas, officials made it the state's top priority among the 335 wildfires burning across California, including a nearly 69,000-acre fire in the Big Sur area that continues to threaten homes and popular campgrounds.
Throughout the day, the Goleta blaze, called the Gap fire, left residents in the Santa Barbara County community hurriedly preparing to leave if necessary. Hundreds of smoke masks were distributed to residents.
After several unsettling nights in her Goleta neighborhood, Heather Wehnau, 27, decided to bunk with friends in Isla Vista, a community on the coast next to UC Santa Barbara. "Picture 'The Twilight Zone,' " she said. "The sky is orange. There's no power. Your neighbors are sitting on their porches with radios and flashlights. You can see the fire, you can smell it, you can't breathe -- but you don't know where it is."
Wehnau packed her cat, her dog, jewelry, documents, a Dr. Seuss book -- "Oh, the Places You'll Go" -- that was inscribed for her by her parents when she graduated from high school. Lacking electricity, she and some friends wore headlamps, lighted candles and threw a piece of tri-tip on the barbecue.
The flame front stayed about a mile north of Goleta's rustic neighborhoods Friday. Residents of more than 1,800 homes were ordered to evacuate and those in an additional 1,400 were told to start packing up their valuables in case an evacuation order came. No homes have burned since the fire started Tuesday. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to visit with Santa Barbara County officials today.
The "sundowners" are a quirk of Santa Barbara's mountainous east-west coastline, bringing stiff, Santa Ana-like winds around sunset. They were expected to weaken over the weekend but remained a serious threat Friday.
Firefighters hoped the irrigated lemon and avocado groves north of Cathedral Oaks Road would slow any run the fire might take down the canyons. But the winds have caught them off guard before.
For residents of Goleta, Isla Vista and Santa Barbara, information about the fire became a precious commodity. Sheriff's deputies at each corner in the evacuation zones provided the best, most up-to-date news. Neighbors who seldom talked to each other offered up whatever they knew.
"We should print bumper stickers," said Wehnau, a grower at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. " 'It takes a fire to build a community.' "
Some residents ignored evacuation orders -- law enforcement cannot force people to leave their homes. It's a tricky public policy issue.
During last year's blazes in Southern California, firefighters conceded that untold numbers of homeowners who defied evacuation orders saved their homes. The threat to most houses is not a wall of flames, but embers that blow through windows, attic vents and gaps in roof tile -- and can be doused if they are spotted in time.
Eddie Marciniak, 42, had no qualms about leaving his log cabin in the area known as Trout Club. He saw what sundowner-driven flames can do when the Painted Cave fire of 1990 burned it to the ground. He didn't want to be there if it happened again.
On Friday night, he loaded his car with clothing and paintings. "I saw the tips of the flames coming over the ridge toward our house," said Marciniak, a construction worker and abstract painter who took shelter with friends in Santa Barbara. "It felt like it was less than 100 yards away."
Heavily wooded, the Trout Club neighborhood was built as a second-home refuge for Santa Barbarans in the 1940s. A creek running through it was stocked with trout. But the idyllic spot could be dangerous when flames swept through.
Marciniak came to the area about eight years ago from Big Sur, where friends have lost their homes to the big fire raging there.
On that stretch of coast, more than 68,000 acres have burned, 20 structures have been destroyed and about 1,300 are threatened. But while the fire continued to inch downhill toward the Big Sur community Thursday night, it moved at a slow enough pace that firefighters had time to cut brush and trees to protect buildings. Almost 1,800 firefighters are battling the blaze.
"Fire behavior was considered minimal, which was good," said Leanne Langeberg, a spokeswoman for the multi-agency team fighting the blaze.
Firefighters are focusing on the Palo Colorado Canyon area, where the fire is still some distance from a hamlet of 250 homes, and on the southwest edge of the fire near the Esalen Institute, Langeberg said. The red flag warning issued Thursday has been lifted, with moderate winds expected today.
The Fourth of July weekend is normally one of the busiest along Highway 1. A cavalcade of cars and campers snakes along the scenic ribbon of pavement, clinging to precipitous cliffs and dipping into redwood glens. But Friday there was a strange tranquillity as parking lots sat empty beneath a thick plume of smoke.
Kurt Mayer, 53, owner of the rustic Big Sur Center deli and gift shop, spent the night on the floor of his store. He had cleared brush, built a perimeter and smeared the weathered wood building with white fire-retardant gel.
He said the fire would cause a big revenue loss for merchants. But he seemed unfazed by it all.
"Lots of stuff happens," he said. "Floods. Mudslides. Blah, blah, blah. The usual stuff. You just do what you can do and try to take care of yourself."
