TSA loses hard drive with personal info

TSA loses hard drive with personal info

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The Transportation Security Administration has lost a computer hard drive containing
Social Security' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Social Security numbers, bank data and payroll information for about 100,000 employees.

Authorities realized Thursday the hard drive was missing from a controlled area at
TSA' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> TSA headquarters. TSA Administrator Kip Hawley sent a letter to employees Friday apologizing for the lost data and promising to pay for one year of credit monitoring services.
"TSA has no evidence that an unauthorized individual is using your personal information, but we bring this incident to your attention so that you can be alert to signs of any possible misuse of your identity," Hawley wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press. "We profoundly apologize for any inconvenience and concern that this incident has caused you."
The agency said it did not know whether the device is still within headquarters or was stolen.
TSA said it has asked the
FBI' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> FBI and
Secret Service' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Secret Service to investigate and said it would fire anyone discovered to have violated the agency's data-protection policies.
In a statement released Friday night, the agency said the external — or portable — hard drive contained information on employees who worked for the
Homeland Security' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Homeland Security agency from January 2002 until August 2005.
TSA, a division of the Homeland Security Department, employs about 50,000 people and is responsible for security of the nation's transportation systems, including airports and train stations.
"It's seems like there's a problem with security inside Homeland Security and that makes no sense," said James Slade, a TSA screener and the executive vice president of the National Treasury Employees Union chapter at John F. Kennedy International Airport. "That's scary. That's my identity. And now who has a hold of it? So many things go on in your mind."
The agency added a section to its Web site Friday night addressing the data security breach and directing people to information about identity theft.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (news, bio, voting record), D-Texas, whose Homeland Security subcommittee oversees the TSA, promised to hold hearings on the security breach. She said Homeland Security buildings are part of the critical infrastructure the agency is charged with protecting.
"We should expect it to be secure," she said.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., called the security breach "a terrible and unfortunate blow" for an agency he said already suffered from low morale.
It's the latest mishap for the government involving computer data. Last year, a laptop with information for more than 26.5 million military personnel, was stolen from a Veterans Affairs Department employee's home. Law enforcement officials recovered the laptop, and the FBI said Social Security numbers and other personal data had not been copied.
___
Associated Press writer Ted Bridis contributed to this report.

Lapses found in battlefield ethics study

Lapses found in battlefield ethics study

By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer 59 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - In a survey of U.S. troops in combat in
Iraq' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Iraq, less than half of Marines and a little more than half of Army soldiers said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian.

More than 40 percent support the idea of torture in some cases, and 10 percent reported personally abusing Iraqi civilians, the
Pentagon' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Pentagon said Friday in what it called its first ethics study of troops at the war front. Units exposed to the most combat were chosen for the study, officials said.
"It is disappointing," said analyst John Pike of the Globalsecurity.org think tank. "But anybody who is surprised by it doesn't understand war. ... This is about combat stress."
The military has seen a number of high-profile incidents of alleged abuse in the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Afghanistan, including the killings of 24 civilians by Marines, the rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl and the slaying of her family and the sexual humiliation of detainees at
Abu Ghraib' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Abu Ghraib prison.
"I don't want to, for a minute, second-guess the behavior of any person in the military — look at the kind of moral dilemma you are putting people in," Christopher Preble of the libertarian Cato Institute think tank, said of the mission in Iraq. "There's a real tension between using too much force, which generally means using force to protect yourself, and using too little and therefore exposing yourself to greater risk."
The overall study was the fourth in a series done by a special mental health advisory team since 2003 aimed at assessing the well-being of forces serving in Iraq.
Officials said the teams visited Iraq last August to October, talking to troops, health care providers and chaplains.
The study team also found that long and repeated deployments were increasing troop mental health problems.
But Maj. Gen. Gale Pollock, the Army's acting surgeon general, said the team's "most critical" findings were on ethics.
"They looked under every rock, and what they found was not always easy to look at," said Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health.
Findings included:
_Sixty-two percent of soldiers and 66 percent of Marines said that they knew someone seriously injured or killed, or that a member of their team had become a casualty.
_The 2006 adjusted rate of suicides per 100,000 soldiers was 17.3 soldiers, lower than the 19.9 rate reported in 2005.
_Only 47 percent of the soldiers and 38 percent of Marines said noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.
_About a third of troops said they had insulted or cursed at civilians in their presence.
_About 10 percent of soldiers and Marines reported mistreating civilians or damaging property when it was not necessary. Mistreatment includes hitting or kicking a civilian.
_Forty-four percent of Marines and 41 percent of soldiers said torture should be allowed to save the life of a soldier or Marine.
_Thirty-nine percent of Marines and 36 percent of soldiers said torture should be allowed to gather important information from insurgents.
Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Marine Corps spokesman, said officials were looking closely at the ethics results, taken from a questionnaire survey of 1,320 soldiers and 447 Marines.
"The Marine Corps takes this issue of battlefield ethics very seriously," he said. "We are examining the study and its recommendations and we'll find ways to improve our approach."
Pollock said officials concluded from the overall study that "there's a robust system in place to provide mental health care, but issues continue with the stress of a combat deployment."
Based on the findings, officials have revised training programs to focus more on Army values, suicide prevention, battlefield ethics and behavioral health awareness, Pollock said.
The study team said shorter deployments or longer intervals between deployments would give soldiers and Marines a better chance "to reset mentally" before returning to combat. The Pentagon last month announced a policy that extends tours of duty for all active duty Army troops from a year to 15 months. Pollock acknowledged that was "going to be a stress" on troops.
Marine tours are seven months, one likely reason that soldier morale was lower than Marine morale, she said.
Pike contrasted Iraq's campaign to World War I, saying: "The trenches were pretty stressful, but a unit would only be up at the front for a few months and then get rotated to the rear. There's no rear in Iraq; you're subject to combat stress for your entire tour."
___
On the Net: The redacted report is at http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/news/mhat/mhat.html

Bush promises to veto abortion measures

Bush promises to veto abortion measures

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer 46 minutes ago
WASHINGTON -
President Bush' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> President Bush is warning Democratic leaders that any attempt to weaken federal policies that restrict abortion will be met with a veto.

White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said Friday that the warning, issued in letters to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), was intended to stop abortion amendments from being added to spending bills and other legislation that Congress will be considering in the coming weeks.
"There's nothing specific pending right now," Fratto said.
The Republicans who held power in past sessions of Congress ensured that spending bills included language prohibiting federal funding for abortion except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest, and restricting funding for international family planning groups that might give advice on or provide abortions.
Now in the minority, House and Senate Republicans recently wrote the president urging him to make clear that any weakening of those restrictions would be unacceptable.
"The standing pattern is that appropriate conscience protections must be in place for health care entities, and that taxpayer dollars may not be used in coercive or involuntary family planning programs," Bush said in letters dated Thursday.
"I will veto any legislation that weakens current federal policies and laws on abortion, or that encourages the destruction of human life at any stage," he wrote.
Bush has already threatened to veto legislation, passed by the House and Senate in different forms this year, that would ease restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem cell research. He killed a similar stem cell bill last year in the first veto of his presidency.
Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley, said that "if the president is serious about finding common ground on this divisive issue, he should support Sen. Reid's efforts to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies in this country." Reid and others are sponsoring legislation that would improve family planning services, require insurance companies to pay for birth control and provide effective sex education for young people.
The letter was hailed by anti-abortion leaders such as Douglas Johnson of the
National Right to Life Committee' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> National Right to Life Committee, who said his group appreciates "that the president is drawing a bright line."
"President Bush is not the first man to occupy the Oval Office who talked about valuing preborn life, but no administration has backed up those words with as much consistent policy support as his has," said Dr. James Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family Action.
On the other side, Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said Bush had essentially told the new Congress "that he wants to continue denying millions of women access to essential medical services, including family planning and safe, legal abortion, even if it means jeopardizing their health."

Democrats not backing down on Iraq Bill

Democrats not backing down on Iraq Bill

By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - House Democratic leaders are indicating they are not ready to back down in their confrontation with
President Bush' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> President Bush on
Iraq' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Iraq, even as pressure mounts to approve new funding for U.S. troops.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., and other party leaders are considering a bill that would fund the war as Bush wants, but only guarantee the money through July. After that, Congress could block additional money from being sent if the Iraqi government does not meet certain political and security goals.
The proposal, not yet endorsed or briefed to caucus members, would be a direct challenge to the president, who has demanded Congress fund the war with no strings attached. This week, Bush vetoed a $124.2 billion bill that would have provided money for operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Afghanistan while requiring troops to begin coming home by Oct. 1.
White House officials and Republicans have chastised Democrats for holding up the war spending bill, saying U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan need the money now. Because Democrats do not hold a two-thirds majority to override Bush's veto, Republicans say Democrats ultimately will have to drop their demands or risk hurting the troops.
Democrats say they will provide troops in combat the resources they need and will send Bush a bill by the end of the month. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has reported that the Army has enough bookkeeping flexibility to fund war operations until July.
In a closed-door leadership meeting Thursday, Rep. David Obey (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., suggested that the House guarantee funding of the war only through July. The bill would provide additional money after that point, but give Congress a chance to deny those funds be used if the Iraqi government does not meet certain benchmarks.
Under Obey's proposal, members would vote separately on whether to fund some of the domestic spending in the Iraq bill that Bush opposed, such as agricultural assistance.
The plan was described by Democratic aides who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plan. According to a senior Democratic leadership aide, the plan has not been endorsed by Pelosi or in the Senate.
The move likely would appease a large number of House Democrats who are reluctant to vote for a war spending bill unless it moves toward getting troops out of Iraq. Such a plan would signal to caucus members that the speaker was not willing to back down to Bush and, at the same time, support the troops.
While the House could narrowly pass the measure, it is unlikely to find similar backing in the Senate, where some leading Democrats say they want to fund the war through September.
One option for Pelosi would be to pass the bill only to agree to drop it later when it must be negotiated in the Senate.
Numerous other ideas are being floated in the Senate, most of which involve some combination of goals the Iraqi government must reach. The key impasse, however, is whether to require the withdrawal of U.S. troops if the benchmarks are not met.
Democratic Sens.
Hillary Rodham Clinton' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Robert Byrd (news, bio, voting record) of West Virginia proposed a measure to repeal the 2002 resolution authorizing force in Iraq. Under the bill, Bush would be required in October to seek Congress' blessing to continue operations in Iraq.
"If the president will not bring himself to accept reality, it is time for Congress to bring reality to him," said Clinton, a presidential contender for 2008.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino immediately shot down Clinton's proposal as a nonstarter, adding that such a bold suggestion was "troubling" in light of ongoing negotiations.
"Here we go again," Perino said in a statement. "The Senate is trying another way to put a surrender date on the calendar. Welcome to politics '08-style."
Several Republicans, including Sens. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record) of Maine and John Sununu (news, bio, voting record) of New Hampshire and Reps. Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record) of Missouri and Adam Putnam (news, bio, voting record) of Florida, have said they are open to restricting the more than $5 billion in aid for Iraq if the Baghdad government does not meet certain benchmarks.

Army officer killed in Cuba highjack bid

Army officer killed in Cuba highjack bid

By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Fri May 4, 3:43 AM ET
HAVANA - A pair of heavily armed Cuban soldiers seized a city bus, killed an army officer and triggered a gun battle in a foiled bid to hijack a charter flight bound for the United States.

The young army deserters were arrested before dawn Thursday on the tarmac of a terminal that handles special charter flights between Havana and Miami, as well as New York and other American cities.
The soldiers forced a city bus to head to Havana's Jose Marti International Airport at gunpoint and killed Army Lt. Col. Victor Ibo Acuna Velazquez aboard a plane that had no passengers or crew — apparently because there were no flights at the early hour. Both were apprehended.
An Interior Ministry statement suggested that Acuna Velazquez, who was unarmed, happened to be on the bus at the time it was commandeered and died "heroically" trying to thwart the hijacking. Other bus passengers were unharmed.
The government blamed anti-Cuba U.S. policy for the incident.
"The responsibility for these new crimes lies with the highest-ranking authorities of the United States, adding to the long list of terrorist acts that Cuba has been the victim of for nearly half a century," it said.
Havana says U.S. immigration policies giving most Cubans almost guaranteed residency encourages them to risk their lives to get to the United States, and says that American officials have long tolerated — even encouraged — violence against the communist-run country.
The incident comes amid an ongoing political campaign by Cuba's government accusing U.S. authorities of protecting its archenemy Luis Posada Carriles, a 79-year-old Cuban militant who it accuses of an airliner bombing three decades ago and a string of Havana hotel bombings in the late 1990s.
Thursday's was the first Cuban hijacking attempt reported since the spring of 2003, when an architect seized an airliner carrying passengers on a domestic flight from the Isle of Youth and diverted it to the United States by brandishing fake grenades. The hijacker was later sentenced to 20 years in prison in the United States.
The previous month, six hijackers forced a Cuban passenger plane to fly to the U.S. at knifepoint. U.S. Air Force fighter jets forced the aircraft to land in Key West.
Thursday's suspects were among three army soldiers on mandatory military service who fled their base with assault rifles Sunday after killing a fellow soldier and wounding another. The statement said the third escaped soldier was captured before the attempted hijacking but it did not say when.
Because they were active soldiers when the crimes occurred, the three almost certainly will face a lightening-quick trial by military tribunal. The death penalty is likely.
Before the attempted hijacking, the three escaped soldiers were the focus of a huge manhunt. The Defense Ministry over the weekend distributed circulars, describing the fugitive soldiers as armed and dangerous.
The men, all from the eastern province of Camaguey, were identified as Leandro Cerezo Sirut and Alain Forbus Lameru, both 19, and Yoan Torres Martinez, 21. It was unclear which two were involved in the attempted hijacking.
Caridad Carbonel, who has lived near Havana's airport for 34 years, said she was awakened by gunfire Thursday and saw a vehicle roll onto the tarmac through a side checkpoint.
"There was a terrible shootout," the 68-year-old said. "I feel awful because things shouldn't be this way. Young people need to live differently."
Within hours of the attempted hijacking, all was calm and running on-time at the airport, though the bus and plane involved sat on the tarmac for hours.

Jordan's queen launches new microcredit anti-poverty program

Jordan's queen launches new microcredit anti-poverty program

by Justin Cole Wed May 2, 9:17 PM ET
NEW YORK (AFP) - Jordan's Queen Rania and Hollywood actress Natalie Portman teamed up Wednesday to launch a major new microcredit program targeting global poverty that will focus initially on the Middle East.

The Jordanian queen and the US-Israeli actress both spoke at the launch of the Village Banking Campaign, which aims to bring banking services to one million of the world's poorest families.
As part of the Middle East effort, the queen said FINCA International (Foundation for International Community Assistance), a global microcredit group, plans to start its first operations in Jordan in July.
"I know that creating opportunity in my region is not an option; it is a necessity," the queen said as she unveiled the campaign at New York University at a luncheon attended by Golden Globe-winning Portman, FINCA staffers, business executives and students.
"To my mind, microfinance is both a sound and smart investment, not only in lifting the lives of the working poor, but in stitching together the fragile, fraying seams of our troubled world," Queen Rania said.
The planned Jordan microcredit project follows the 2004 launch of a FINCA program in
Afghanistan' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Afghanistan, an Islamic-compliant lending operation that claims to have over 34,000 "clients."
Microcredit, or microfinance, works by extending tiny loans, ranging from a few dollars to 1,000 dollars, to the poor without collateral so that budding entrepreneurs can expand a small business, such as a handicraft shop or a food stall.
The aim is to help the poor, who pay back the loans with interest, boost their livelihoods.
Portman urged people not to be "indifferent" to the plight of the world's poor, who number in the hundreds of millions. Experts say there are between 1.0 and 1.2 billion people around the world who survive on less than one dollar a day.
"My goal for this campaign is to galvanize my generation to support Village Banking, and take a leadership role in the fight against poverty," Portman said.
Another campaign goal is to get 100,000 microcredit village banks up and running by 2010 to serve people surviving on less than two dollars a day.
The Jordanian queen sits on FINCA's board, while Portman -- who has starred in Hollywood blockbusters including three Star Wars movies -- is an "Ambassador of Hope" for the poverty-busting group.
Portman stressed that it's barely possible to buy a cup of coffee in New York for two dollars, but that tiny micro loans of that amount and more can have a big impact on the poor, enabling them to buy seed packets and grow crops for example.
Microcredit programs exist across the Americas, Asia and Africa and are growing in the Middle East, in such places as Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
The sector has expanded to include savings and microinsurance programs, as well as gaining
United Nations' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> United Nations support.
Few people, except those toiling in the sector, had heard of microcredit until a few years ago, but it is riding a wave of publicity and acclaim and got a significant boost last year when microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize.
And the global banking industry, which critics charge had all but shunned the poor, appears to be taking note.
Top executives from insurance giant AIG and credit card behemoth VISA International attended Wednesday's luncheon. AIG, which has worked with microcredit groups in Uganda, said it would pledge 1.5 million dollars towards FINCA's new efforts.
US financial behemoth Citigroup is also vying to muscle into the action, declaring in a recent advertising campaign: "There's nothing MICRO about it."
FINCA, which is based in Washington, plans to self-finance its Jordan program

Caribbean murder rates hurting growth: World Bank

Caribbean murder rates hurting growth: World Bank


By Michael Christie Thu May 3, 5:11 PM ET
MIAMI (Reuters) - The tourism-dependent Caribbean may now have the world's highest murder rate as a region, severely affecting potential economic growth, the
World Bank' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> World Bank and a U.N. agency said in a report on Thursday.

Blaming most of the violent crime in countries like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago on the trafficking of Colombian cocaine to Europe and the United States, the report said the region's homicide rate of 30 per 100,000 inhabitants a year was higher even than troubled southern and western Africa.
It acknowledged that murder statistics in small countries were often problematic because a relatively small number of incidents can result in high rates but said it was clear that homicides were a growing problem in the Caribbean.
"While levels of crime and associated circumstances vary by country, the strongest explanation for the relatively high rates of crime and violence in the region -- and their apparent rise in recent years -- is narcotics trafficking," said the report, jointly prepared by the World Bank and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
The authors cited studies that indicated Haiti, the poorest and most unstable country in the Americas, could raise annual economic growth by 5.4 percent if it cut its murder rate to the same level as Costa Rica in Central America.
Jamaica, the verdant and mountainous home to reggae and a major marijuana producer, could boost gross domestic product growth by the same amount if it did likewise, while the Dominican Republic and Guyana could add 1.8 percent and 1.7 percent respectively to annual
GDP' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> GDP expansion.
The report said an estimated 10 tonnes of cocaine were trafficked through Jamaica and 20 tonnes through Haiti and the Dominican Republic in 2005.
But the signs were that the flow of narcotics through the Caribbean was diminishing as Mexican cartels took over from Colombian organizations in distributing drugs in the United States and shifted trafficking routes to Central America.
The World Bank and U.N. agency called on the region to modernize police forces, improve crime statistics, invest in crime-reduction programs like rehabilitating slums and consider novel methods to counter drug trafficking.
It cited the example of a Dutch program to halt drug couriers flying into Schiphol airport, in Amsterdam, from the Netherlands Antilles islands of Curacao, Bonaire and Aruba.
Under a program called "100 percent Control," all planes and their crews and passengers flying in from the Dutch Caribbean, Suriname or Venezuela are extensively searched. Couriers found with less than 3 kg (6.6 lb) of cocaine are not detained but are deported and added to a blacklist.
"Rather than attempting to scare off potential smugglers with the threat of incarceration, the Dutch approach was based on increasing the rate of interdiction to the point that smuggling becomes unprofitable," the report said.
The number of couriers passing through Schiphol dropped from an estimated 80 to 100 per day in 2003 to around 10 a month in 2005, the report added.