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From the Los Angeles Times

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IRAQ: U.S. offers $10-million reward for Al Qaeda in Iraq leader

It has offered a $10-million reward for information that helps authorities capture or kill Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali Badri, also known as Abu Dua, the leader of the group Al Qaeda in Iraq.

If the bounty is any measure, finding Abu Dua is now a top priority. Only the chief of the global Al Qaeda organization, Ayman Zawahiri, merits a larger reward: $25 million. That's also what the State Department offered for Osama bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan in May.

The department long has offered $10 million for Mullah Omar, the Taliban commander who sheltered Bin Laden in Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The U.S. also has posted a $5-million bounty for Sirajuddin Haqqani, a leader of a network of Pakistan-based militants that U.S. officials say has attacked American forces in Afghanistan.

Three days after Navy SEALs killed Bin Laden, Abu Dua claimed responsibility for an attack in Hillah, Iraq, that killed 24 police officers and wounded 72 others. His group also claimed responsibility for 23 attacks south of Baghdad in March and April, the State Department said.

On Aug. 15, Abu Dua's followers launched a wave of suicide attacks that killed more than 70 people, the State Department said. Soon after, the group pledged on its website to carry out 100 attacks across Iraq in retaliation for Bin Laden's death. The statement claimed the campaign would include raids, suicide attacks, roadside bombs and small-arms assaults in cities and rural areas.

The State Department move against Abu Dua allows Treasury Department officials to freeze his assets, if any can be found. It comes three months before the last 30,000 U.S. combat troops are scheduled to withdraw from Iraq. Negotiations are underway with the Iraqi government to allow a small U.S. force to remain.

Iraqi security forces have taken the lead in security and counterinsurgency efforts against Al Qaeda in Iraq and allied militant groups, as well as against remaining Sunni and Shiite insurgent groups.

Al Qaeda in Iraq suffered significant losses after the U.S. military switched strategies in 2007 and, working with Iraqi troops, tackled the terror groups more directly.Today, it is able to conduct sporadic high-profile terror attacks but no longer controls vast areas of the country.

The militant group has been severely weakened by financial constraints, internal squabbling and Iraqi security operations to interdict foreign recruits as they enter Iraq from Syria, Maj. Gen. David Perkins, commander U.S. forces in northern Iraq, told reporters recently.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/10/iraq-us-al-qaeda-reward.html

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White House issues executive order in wake of WikiLeaks reports

Those two values -- protecting secrets and distributing them to people who need them across separate agencies -- can sometimes conflict, particularly if the government is reckless. In the aforementioned incident, the State Department put its entire database of secret cables on a classified military network that was available to tens of thousands of people. The military lacked safeguards preventing users from downloading information from the secure network onto DVDs.

That was allegedly how Manning, an intelligence analyst in Iraq, was able to walk off with a huge cache of material, including military reports from Afghanistan and Iraq, a video of a helicopter attack -- and the diplomatic cables, which laid bare many facets of U.S. diplomacy that American officials never wished to be made public.

Even before Friday, the White House said, the government had toughened restrictions on using “removable media” such as thumb drives or discs when accessing classified information. Agencies also installed software designed to detect unauthorized behavior from “insiders” in their networks.

Friday's order requires agencies to designate a senior official to oversee classified information sharing and safeguarding; implement an insider-threat detection and prevention program; and perform self-assessments of compliance with policy and standards, the White House says.

The order also establishes a special government committee that must report to the president within 90 days, and then at least once a year after that, examining federal performance in protecting classified information on computer networks.

The directive comes a few days after the Government Accountability Office said in a report that “weaknesses in information security policies and practices at 24 major federal agencies continue to place the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive information and information systems at risk.”

Information security incidents at federal agencies have risen 650% since fiscal year 2006, said the report, which focused on unclassified networks. Agencies have failed to implement the majority of the “hundreds” of recommendations GAO has made to shore up computer security.

The White House also released a fact sheet on the executive order. It offers these "guiding principles" in the review of the policies and practices surrounding the handling of classified information:

• Reinforce the importance of responsible information sharing and not undo all of the significant and important progress we've made in interagency information sharing since 9/11;
  
  
• Ensure that policies, processes, technical security solutions, oversight, and organizational cultures evolve to match our information sharing and safeguarding requirements;
  
  
• Emphasize that effective and consistent guidance and implementation must be coordinated across the entire Federal government. We are only as strong as our weakest link and this is a shared risk with shared responsibility; and;
  
  
• Continue to respect the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of the American people.

No guns in church? Gun-rights advocates challenge Georgia law

Some secular types don't like the fact that they are prohibited from buying beer at the grocery store on the Christian Sabbath.

And some gun-rights advocates are peeved that a state law prevents them from packing heat in the pews.

The long-standing "blue law" ban on alcohol, however, could be lifted soon -- at least in some parts of the state. And, if a gun-rights group has its way, so will the ban on bringing guns to church.

GeorgiaCarry.org's challenge of the state guns-in-church ban was before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Thursday, where lawyers for the gun-rights group and another plaintiff, the Baptist Tabernacle of Thomaston, Ga., argued that the law is unconstitutional because it violates religious freedoms, the Associated Press reports.

The three judges on the panel had technical issues with the lawsuit, and Circuit Judge Ed Carnes asked if there was a Bible passage that would justify allowing guns in church.

Plaintiff's attorney John Monroe was reportedly unable to quote any pertinent scripture.

Perhaps courtroom etiquette barred Monroe from calling upon the powers of Google -- for the Internet runneth over with Biblical justifications for gun rights.

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America ( "the only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington," according to Rep. Ron Paul of Texas), provides a detailed Christian defense of gun rights that starts with Cain's fratricide, noting that "the evil in Cain's heart was the cause of the murder, not the availability of the murder weapon."

"God's response was not to ban rocks or knives, or whatever, but to banish the murderer," Pratt contends.

He also quotes from Exodus: "If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed."

The court's ruling is not expected for a number of weeks.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/

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Gov. Brown should sign cellphone search law

This modest restraint on law enforcement is worthy of support.

October 8, 2011

Gov. Jerry Brown faces many tough decisions these days. Whether to sign SB 914, which would require police to obtain a warrant before searching a person's cellphone or other portable electronic device, isn't one of them. This is a sound bill, passed with broad bipartisan support and consistent with the U.S. Constitution. He should sign it.

SB 914 is the Legislature's response to a California Supreme Court ruling that allowed officers to search a suspect's cellphone because it was "incident to an arrest." But the Constitution speaks clearly to the protection from police abuse that all Americans enjoy: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." Surely, one's "effects" today include the contents of one's cellphone or laptop, where many store information just as sensitive or private as that which might be found in a desk drawer among one's "papers."

The bill would not prevent police from ever searching a phone or other electronic device; rather, it would require them to seek a warrant before rummaging around in a suspect's effects. It would not put police in danger or risk destruction of evidence; they could seize and hold a phone while seeking a warrant. That's why Republicans and Democrats have jointly backed the bill. Its only real opponents are police organizations, the same ones that once warned that the jails would be empty if police were required to read suspects their rights. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. The governor should approve this modest restraint on government snooping. Police will learn to live with it.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-cellphone-20111008,0,5709900,print.story

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From Google News

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San Francisco police chief calls on officers to 'find their Chi'

Community policing is all about engaging more with residents and San Francisco Police Department Chief Greg Suhr has implemented a defined community policing policy as part of the department's general order.

Suhr said most officers already are model community policing police officers but others have some work to do.

“There are an ocean of San Francisco officers … that conduct themselves exactly like this. And for them this is not a change on how they will do the day-to-day business,” Suhr said. “There are other officers who may be less engaging, or less gregarious than some other officers and this is going to have to make them try and find their Chi, if you will, to raise the bar.”

Suhr's comments came during Thursday's San Francisco Board of Supervisors Public Safety Committee hearing on legislation introduced by Supervisor David Campos that would have required the adoption of a community policing policy. Campos praised Suhr for adoption of the policy even before the legislation was adopted.

Community policing is often a buzz word thrown around, but hard to define. Campos explained that now that community policing has been defined and is a general order it “has to be followed and complied with by all the officers.” The policy includes such things as interaction with youth, communication with the community and walking foot beats.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/blogs/under-dome/2011/10/san-francisco-police-chief-calls-officers-find-their-chi

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