Dr. Frank Kardasz (Ed.D)

By Alison Hoover, The Washington Times, June 28, 2006

Roy Cooper, attorney general of North Carolina, calls them "the new mall." Adam Thierer of the Center for Digital Media Freedom calls them "digital town squares." Social networking sites such as MySpace.com have sprouted up all over the Internet. MySpace alone has 85 million profiles, with 54 million unique users, making it the most trafficked of the social networks.MySpace users can share personal information, interact with other users, keep an online public journal and listen to new music.

A typical MySpace profile consists of at least one picture, the user's account name, information about the user's location, likes and dislikes, messages from other users and links to various other Web sites, including Web logs. Members can join groups to raise awareness and money for government and political groups, nonprofit and philanthropic activities, and religious organizations.

But critics see danger in cases such as that of 16-year-old Katherine Lester. The Michigan teen was described by her father as "a good girl" with whom he "never had a problem." That was before she met Abdullah Jimzawi, 20, on MySpace and tried to visit him in Israel. She was found in Jordan and sent back to the U.S.    

At the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's (NCMEC) Dialogue on Social Networking Web Sites, Arnold E. Bell, the unit chief of the FBI's Innocent Images unit described the harm that teenagers can cause each other through MySpace. Last week, a Texas woman and her 14-year-old daughter filed a lawsuit, Jane and Julie Doe v. MySpace and Pete Solis. Mr. Solis, 19, was charged with sexually assaulting the girl after meeting her on MySpace and arranging a meeting. The $30 million lawsuit says MySpace didn't do enough to verify its users' ages.

But Laura Gelman, associate director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University, says that although MySpace is liable for what occurs when users are on the site, the company cannot necessarily be blamed for what users do offline.     In response to complaints about the lack of security on MySpace, its parent company, Fox Interactive Media, has taken steps to increase safety. In May, the company hired Hemanshu Nigam, formerly an online security executive at Microsoft, as its chief security officer.

MySpace has changed several policies governing minors' use of the site. Minors can now block their profile so that other users cannot see it unless they know that user. Users older than 18 cannot contact users ages 14 to 15 unless they know that user's full name or e-mail address, information that's not supposed to be provided in user profiles.

Despite enhanced safety measures, MySpace is not completely safe from predators. Frank Kardasz of the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force said at the NCMEC conference that the current "challenge comes from trying to filter out the criminals who use the services with evil intent." Mr. Kardasz said he reminds users that "while most people who use the social networking sites are probably friendly and law-abiding, it is difficult for anyone to immediately tell the good people from the bad." He likened the Internet to Halloween, because "people are not always who they appear to be." Many at the NCMEC conference suggested age verification as a tool to make MySpace more safe.

However, John Cardillo, chief executive officer of online security firm Sentry, said that with current technology, it is impossible to verify the age of anyone younger than 18, because the type of records used to complete this process for adults don't exist for teenagers. Most teenagers don't pay taxes, own homes or make other major purchases in their own names, he pointed out.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told the NCMEC conference that "if we have systems of restriction that depend on age, there needs to be age verification."    

MySpace requires users to be 14 to become registered members, but it relies on users to be honest in reporting their age. MySpace does have an outlet for reporting underage users, but the company still must attempt to verify users' ages before deleting their accounts.

NCMEC panelists said a key problem that parents have in dealing with their children's MySpace use is that teenagers will not always do as they are told. Stephen Carrick-Davies, chief executive officer of Childnet International, reminded the NCMEC conference of Crane's Rule: "There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it." Others at the NCMEC event suggested that if teens aren't allowed on MySpace or the other big social networking sites, they will find ways to meet online through other, less secure venues. Some parents are taking a proactive approach to the perceived MySpace problem, using technology to monitor their teens' Internet use. There is software that can show parents which sites their teens have visited and others that can track individual MySpace profiles.

But Tim Lordan, the executive director and counsel of the Internet Education Foundation, asked attendees at the NCMEC conference: "What kind of relationship do you set with your teens once you start spying on them?" Mr. Nigam took a different approach, saying that "what's really important is that parents engage in a dialogue with their teens," regardless of the method they use.

Mr. Nigam also said that MySpace is developing pamphlets for parents and user manuals for law-enforcement officials, so that older generations can understand the best approach to keeping children safe. But some noted the importance of old-fashioned communication. Ernie Allen, the president and CEO of NCMEC, closed last week's conference by saying: "If parents aren't telling their kids they love them, someone on the Internet will."

Retrieved June 28, 2006 from http://washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20060627-112252-7534r

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:46 AM | Permalink

February 27, 2006

Offender: Jerry Dean Huff, a.k.a. "HollywoodASU992000" age 35. Occupation: Engineer

On April 12, 2005, Jerry D. Huff, a 35 year old married engineer for a major computer chip manufacturer, was arrested and charged with luring a minor for sexual exploitation. The arrest occurred in the parking lot of a business in west Phoenix. Huff came to the attention of law enforcement in April 2005, when he used the Internet to solicit sex acts with a minor.  During Internet chat conversations, Huff arranged the illicit tryst.

While using the screen name: “HollywoodASU992000” he made sexually explicit statements including (expletives deleted):

"You like to talk dirty?"
"You like older guys?"
"Do you have boobs yet?"
"Do you like to touch them?"
"Do you like talking sexy?"
"I'd like you to take your hand and put it between my legs and feel (deleted)."
"My (deleted) is hard now."
"Im not talking about cyber, Im talking about getting together for real."
"Would you like to (j___) me off today?"
"Would you let me lick your (n______)?"
"Do you know what a (b___  j__) is?"
"Where should I meet you?"
"You're not going to get me in trouble are you?"
"You know we shouldnt do this right?"
"It'll be our secret?"
"Because I could get in a lot of trouble for this."
"See you in an hour -- gotta go finish getting ready."

Huff drove his Mitsubishi Diamante 27 miles from Mesa to west Phoenix, intent upon meeting a minor for sex. Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force members arrested him without incident and he made admissions about the crime. A search warrant was served at his residence and evidence was seized.

On February 27, 2006, Huff waived his right to trial and plead guilty before Judge Andrew G. Klein of the Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona. Judge Klein sentenced Huff to 8 years probation and a suspended jail sentence. If he violates probation he could serve six months jail - on work furlough.

Huff must register as a sex offender and he is restricted from using computers in his home without the prior written permission of his probation officer.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 09:11 PM | Permalink

-Chinese Epigram

Retrieved June 27 2006 from http:/www.beliefnet.com

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:52 AM | Permalink

Arrest date: Friday June 23, 2006
Arrested person: Michael Richard Olson, w/m, age 37, married
Arrest location: Parking lot of a business in west Phoenix, Arizona
Suspect's residence/search warrant: residential dwelling in Mesa, AZ
Agencies: Arizona ICAC: Phoenix P.D.
Offense: Luring a minor for sexual exploitation

On Friday, June 23, 2006 Michael Olson, a 37 year old wine distributor, was arrested and charged with luring a minor for sexual exploitation. The arrest occurred in the parking lot of a business in west Phoenix. Olson came to the attention of law enforcement when he used the Internet to solicit sexual conduct with a minor.

During his chats, Olson arranged the illicit tryst then drove his Ford Taurus thirty nine miles from Mesa to west Phoenix, intent upon meeting a minor for sex. Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force members arrested him without incident. A search warrant was served at his residence and evidence was seized.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 05:27 PM | Permalink

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

-Robert Frost

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:10 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz: In the following news report, the idea that Internet service providers (ISP) should simply preserve data is mischaracterized as "snooping". I support legislation that requires ISP's to preserve data. The data would remain secure with the ISP and not subject to inspection by law enforcement except upon issuance of legal process in the form of a subpoena for subscriber information or a search warrant for content information. Subpoenas and search warrants are not "snooping", they are part of lawful investigative processes.

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Congress may make ISPs snoop on you

By Declan McCullagh, 05/16/06, Cnetnews.com

A prominent Republican on Capitol Hill has prepared legislation that would rewrite Internet privacy rules by requiring that logs of Americans' online activities be stored, CNET News.com has learned. The proposal comes just weeks after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Internet service providers should retain records of user activities for a "reasonable amount of time," a move that represented a dramatic shift in the Bush administration's views on privacy.

Wisconsin Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is proposing that ISPs be required to record information about Americans' online activities so that police can more easily "conduct criminal investigations." Executives at companies that fail to comply would be fined and imprisoned for up to one year.

In addition, Sensenbrenner's legislation--expected to be announced as early as this week--also would create a federal felony targeted at bloggers, search engines, e-mail service providers and many other Web sites. It's aimed at any site that might have "reason to believe" it facilitates access to child pornography--through hyperlinks or a discussion forum, for instance.

Speaking to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children last month, Gonzales warned of the dangers of pedophiles using the Internet anonymously and called for new laws from Congress. "At the most basic level, the Internet is used as a tool for sending and receiving large amounts of child pornography on a relatively anonymous basis," Gonzales said.

Until Gonzales' speech, the Bush administration had explicitly opposed laws requiring data retention, saying it had "serious reservations" (click here for PDF) about them. But after the European Parliament last December approved such a requirement for Internet, telephone and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers, top administration officials began talking about it more favorably.

The drafting of the data-retention proposal comes as Republicans are trying to do more to please their conservative supporters before the November election. One bill announced last week targets MySpace.com and other social networking sites. At a meeting last weekend, social conservatives called on the Bush administration to step up action against pornography, according to a New York Times report.

Sensenbrenner's proposal is likely to be controversial. It would substantially alter U.S. laws dealing with privacy protection of Americans' Web surfing habits and is sure to alarm Internet businesses that could be at risk for linking to illicit Web sites.

A spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee said the aide who drafted the legislation was not immediately available for an interview on Monday.

U.S. Justice Department spokesman Drew Wade said the agency generally doesn't comment on legislation, though it may "issue a letter of opinion" at a later date.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, called Sensenbrenner's measure an "open-ended obligation to collect information about all customers for all purposes. It opens the door to government fishing expeditions and unbounded data mining."

The National Security Agency has engaged in extensive data-mining about Americans' phone calling habits, USA Today reported last week, a revelation that could complicate Republicans' efforts to enact laws relating to mandatory data retention and data mining. Sen. John Sununu, a New Hampshire Republican, for instance, took a swipe at the program on Monday, and Democrats have been calling for a formal investigation.

Worries for Internet providers
One unusual aspect of Sensenbrenner's legislation--called the Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act--or Internet Safety Act--is that it's relatively vague.

Instead of describing exactly what information Internet providers would be required to retain about their users, the Internet Safety Act gives the attorney general broad discretion in drafting regulations. At minimum, the proposal says, user names, physical addresses, Internet Protocol addresses and subscribers' phone numbers must be retained.

That generous wording could permit Gonzales to order Internet providers to retain records of e-mail orrespondents, Web pages visited, and even the contents of communications.

"In the absence of clear privacy safeguards, Congress would be wise to remove this provision," Rotenberg said.

Sonia Arrison, director of technology studies at the free-market Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, said the Internet Safety Act "follows in a long line of bad laws that are written in the name of protecting children."

Complicating the outlook for the Internet Safety Act is the uncertain political terrain of Capitol Hill. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, announced legislation (click for PDF) last month--which could be appended to a telecommunications bill--that would require Internet providers to store records that would permit police to identify each user.

The head of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, has expressed support for DeGette's plan. That could lead to a renewal of a turf battle between the two committees, one of which has jurisdiction over Internet providers, while the other is responsible for federal criminal law.

"We're still evaluating things," said Terry Lane, a spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "We haven't really laid out exactly yet what kind of proposals we would support and what kind of proposals would be necessary."

New Internet felonies proposed
Following are excerpts from Rep. Sensenbrenner's Internet Safety Act:

"Whoever, being an Internet content hosting provider or email service provider, knowingly engages in any conduct the provider knows or has reason to believe facilitates access to, or the possession of, child pornography shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.

"'Internet content hosting provider' means a service that (A) stores, through electromagnetic or other means, electronic data, including the content of web pages, electronic mail, documents, images, audio and video files, online discussion boards, and weblogs; and (B) makes such data available via the Internet"

"Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this section, the Attorney General shall issue regulations governing the retention of records by Internet Service Providers. Such regulations shall, at a minimum, require retention of records, such as the name and address of the subscriber or registered user (and what) user identification or telephone number was assigned..."
Federal politicians also are being lobbied by state law enforcement agencies, which say strict data retention laws will help them investigate crimes that have taken place a while ago.

Sgt. Frank Kardasz, head of Arizona's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, surveyed his colleagues in other states earlier this year asking them what new law would help them do their jobs. "The most frequent response involved data retention by Internet service providers," or ISPs, Kardasz told News.com last month.

"Preservation" vs. "Retention"
At the moment, ISPs typically discard any log file that's no longer required for business reasons such as network monitoring, fraud prevention or billing disputes. Companies do, however, alter that general rule when contacted by police performing an investigation--a practice called data preservation.

A 1996 federal law called the Electronic Communication Transactional Records Act regulates data preservation. It requires Internet providers to retain any "record" in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity."

Because Internet addresses remain a relatively scarce commodity, ISPs tend to allocate them to customers from a pool based on whether a computer is in use at the time. (Two standard techniques used are the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet.)

In addition, ISPs are required by another federal law to report child pornography sightings to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is in turn charged with forwarding that report to the appropriate police agency.

When adopting its data retention rules, the European Parliament approved U.K.-backed requirements saying that communications providers in its 25 member countries--several of which had enacted their own data retention laws already--must retain customer data for a minimum of six months and a maximum of two years.

The Europe-wide requirement applies to a wide variety of "traffic" and "location" data, including the identities of the customers' correspondents; the date, time and duration of phone calls, voice over Internet Protocol calls, or e-mail messages; and the location of the device used for the communications. But the "content" of the communications is not supposed to be retained. The rules are expected to take effect in 2008.

According to a memo accompanying the proposed rules (click here for PDF), European politicians approved the rules because not all operators of Internet and communications services were storing information about citizens' activities to the extent necessary for law enforcement and national security.

In addition to mandating data retention for ISPs and liability for Web site operators, Sensenbrenner's Internet Safety Act also would:

• Make it a crime for financial institutions to "facilitate access" to child pornography, for instance by processing credit card payments.

• Increase penalties for registered sex offenders who commit another felony involving a child.

•  Create an Office on Sexual Violence and Crimes against Children inside the Justice Department.

Retrieved June 24, 2006 from http://news.com.com/2102-1028_3-6072601.html?tag=st.util.print

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 02:21 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz: The story below discusses part of a conference held in Washington D.C. on June 22 2006. Conference attendees discussed Internet safety issues involving social networking sites. The conference was a good start towards what is hoped to be continuing efforts to improve Internet safety for all who use social networking sites.

One of my comments is taken out of context in the following story. Here is the complete portion of my statement that is referred to in the following story.
 

THE LAW ENFORCEMENT ENVIRONMENT
Law enforcement cannot do as much in this area (Internet crimes against children) as it would like to. Law enforcement resources are often absorbed by those crimes for which there is a public outcry. Overall, there is less of a public outcry for the enforcement of Internet crimes against children than there is for many other crimes. In recent years Federal resources are drawn to terrorism, drug enforcement and border control, all of which have great national importance. Local resources are drawn to homicides, gangs, drugs, burglaries, and other offenses of great local importance. Consequently, we who fight Internet crime are often understaffed. That’s also partly because children are often marginalized by society.  They have no voice. Very young children, those whose tortured images we see when we investigate child pornography incidents, cannot call 911. They cannot call the news media, they cannot write to an elected official. They cannot vote.

My entire statement from the conference can be found at: http://kardasz.org/blog/2006/06/dialogue_on_social_networking.html

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Law enforcers want help from social networking sites

GovExec.com, June 23, 2006

By Winter Casey, National Journal's Technology Daily

Efforts to prosecute crimes related to online social-networking sites would be aided if Internet protocol numbers could be accessed once investigations begin, an official said Thursday.

"Companies that operate social Web sites have a responsibility" to prevent the improper use of their sites, Steven Del Negro from the Massachusetts Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force said during a conference on such sites.

When law enforcement needs to track children immediately based on information discovered on sites like Facebook and MySpace, "we need to talk to companies immediately and not go through 'press 1, press 2, press 3' and then be told they are closed for the day," Del Negro said at an event hosted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

But he noted that "I truly believe that the legitimate companies really want to do the right thing, and most of the time they do."

Law enforcers and child advocates are concerned by the way young people use social-networking sites to post photographs and personal information. They said pedophiles have turned to the sites to pose as innocuous friends or teenagers in order to attract attention via sexual or other inappropriate material.

Del Negro said that once pictures get posted on the Internet, law enforcement has little ability to remove them.

"The challenge of these sites is to capture the Internet protocol number," he said. However, even if the number is retained, it is only held for a short amount of time and is difficult to track. "Generally by the time we get called to investigate, the information is gone," Del Negro said.

Frank Kardasz, project director of the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, said investigators always hope the data from Internet service providers is available by the time investigations ensue.

A 1996 federal law requires ISPs to retain records in their possession for 90 days if requested by the government. ISPs also must report sightings of child pornography.

The Justice Department reportedly has been considering mandating that ISPs retain data for a set period. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., has spoken in favor of forcing ISPs to keep records. But a representative from the Progress and Freedom Foundation said the group opposes government-mandated data retention.

"Most ISPs will be willing to retain data on a potential bad guy for as long as the government wants if they go through the traditional procedures," PFF senior fellow Adam Thierer said. "But there is a world of difference between that and requiring ISPs to record all information for all users for an extended amount of time."

Kardasz said one problem is that overall there appears to be less public outcry about Internet crimes targeting children than about homeland security. Further, Internet crime-fighters often are understaffed, and children are frequently marginalized in society, he said.

Arnold Bell, chief of the FBI's innocent images unit, said the goal is to make social-networking sites as safe as possible. He called for cooperation between law enforcement and industry.

Retrieved June 24, 2006 from http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0606/062306tdpm1.htm

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 02:03 PM | Permalink

Parents, if you use the Internet as a babysitter you are placing your child at risk. By analogy, think of the Internet like a big city street. Imagine that you are walking down the street with your child. On one side of the street are libraries, games, legitimate businesses and kind, friendly people. On the other side of the street are illegal enterprises, child molesters, identity thieves pornographers and bullies. Would you let your child tour that street alone? Probably not. If you fail to closely supervise your childs Internet use, his or her natural curiosity and lack of street smarts may take them to that wrong side of the Internet street.

Dr. Kardasz 

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:29 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz: "Lamplighting" also known as "Whistleblowing" is one of the most difficult things a law enforcement officer can do. Reporting the misconduct of peers can be a trying experience. The following story describes the brave work of an honest cop.

For more information on this subject see:  http://www.kardasz.org/Whistle_Blowing.html

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By Erin Rickert, The Daily Reflector, June 24, 2006

(North Carolina) As a rookie cop just two months out of basic law enforcement training, Winterville Police Officer Katie Russell said she never guessed she would be involved in an undercover operation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

But for nearly 18-months, the 23-year-old Oak Island native served as an FBI informant after witnessing the illegal activities of Fayetteville Police Officer Jared Parsek in the latter part of 2004.

During these months amid her daily patrol work in Winterville, Russell met with FBI agents to record phone conversations and assist in the recovery of weapons she said Parsek discarded.

"It takes a great amount of courage to do any kind of undercover work," Winterville Police Chief Billy Wilkes said in a news release about Russell. "The fact that she undertook this assignment with only four months of police experience under her belt against a crooked cop for 18 months speaks volumes about her integrity and guts."

Russell said she developed a friendship with Parsek in September 2004 at a drug enforcement training program in Wilson. At an outing in the mountains a month later Russell said she noticed something out of the ordinary.

"He was in a room with a bag of guns taking off the serial numbers and sawing them off," Russell said by phone Wednesday from her parents home in Oak Island.

Russell said she subsequently was in a car with Parsek watching him throw the metal pieces of the guns off the side of a mountain in Watauga County.

"The whole time, I just remember I was thinking about who I was going to tell," Russell remembered.

Russell turned to a former professor at Pitt Community College to discuss her information.

"He told me I needed to call the FBI," Russell said. "He got them on the phone and I sat there (in his office), and told them everything I knew."

Russell said it was during this conversation she discovered the FBI was already investigating Parsek's activities.

She said some of the guns were used in robberies of homes in Fayetteville, Raleigh and Beech Mountain Parsek was directing men to rob. Parsek had learned through police duties the homes were unoccupied, she said.

To help the FBI secure evidence against Parsek, Russell agreed to continue exchanging e-mails and phone calls with him, which agents reviewed during the 18-months. Russell said she even took FBI agents to the mountain to help locate the gun parts Parsek threw over the mountain.

"The whole thing is hard to believe, but I am glad they finally did get him," Russell said. "They told me without coming forward it would have taken a lot longer."

Parsek pleaded guilty in federal court in March. He is scheduled to be sentenced next month.

At an informal ceremony at the Winterville Police Department this week, FBI Supervisory Special Agent T. Flynn presented Russell with a certificate of recognition for "outstanding cooperation and assistance in connection with an investigation of great importance."

Russell — who has been with the Winterville Police Department for about two years — said the experience has inspired her to return to school to obtain a four-year degree in criminal justice to better prepare her for the investigative police work she plans to do.

"We are fortunate to have officers of her caliber in the department," Wilkes said. "She's a real go getter with a long and successful career ahead of her."

Retrieved June 24, 206 from http://www.reflector.com/news/content/news/stories/2006/06/24/S_P_Russell.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=9

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 09:06 PM | Permalink

Thursday , June 22, 2006
 
WASHINGTON — New ways of meeting people and chatting on the Internet have given sexual predators of children an advantage over law enforcement, and police are asking for help to keep one step ahead of the criminals.

Web sites like MySpace, Facebook and Xanga are revolutionizing ideas about how the Internet can be used as a social networking venue, giving registrants the opportunity to get in touch with more people than ever before, and to share ideas, stories and facts. But also emerging are an increasing number of stories about the dark side of the endless new ways of interconnecting.

So-called "social networking" sites, such as MySpace and Xanga make it easier than ever for predators to cloak their identities online — even more so than previous types of online communication like chat rooms and forums.

"It really helps the predator to find the victim more quickly ... than they used to find them," Sgt. Frank Kardasz told FOXNews.com. Kardasz runs the federal Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in Arizona and works in the family crimes unit of the Phoenix Police Department. "You used to picture the child molester who would stand out in school yards. Now you've got a child molester [who] can find all kinds of possibilities ...with a few clicks of the mouse," he added.

Kardasz and others were among dozens of law enforcement officers, Internet security officers, lawyers, crime prevention advocates and public officials who attended a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children conference Thursday in Washington. The conference was the first ever held by the center on the topic.

Nancy Willard, the director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use in Eugene, Ore., pointed out that predators can now be more bold; instead of going out in public to, say a mall, they can contact their victims online, lie about their identities, and trick their victims into thinking they're friends. Once the predators have finally made physical contact with their victims, it's often too late to prevent a crime. "We have to educate kids about those techniques," Willard said.

Michelle Collins, who directs the Exploited Child Unit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the center's Internet tip line, cybertipline.com, received a total of 4,500 tips in its first year, 1998. Now it receives tips on 1,500 alleged child sexual exploitation cases per week, including many that are so-called "online enticement" cases in which a predator has used the Internet to get children to perform sex acts.

As new innovations appear on the Internet, predators also continue to exploit its speed, law enforcement officials and others said. The early concerns of the Internet have nearly been blown away; the fear that children could access online pornography has been replaced with that of them unknowingly making themselves victims of violent crimes.

Federal and state police said they need more cooperation from businesses and improved data collection about Web site users so they can find suspects easier once they're alerted to a possible crime. The officials said they also need more officers to fight cyber sex crime, and better training for the ones who already are working the beat.

'The Bad Guys Don't Care'

But even if these law enforcement needs are met, it might not solve all the problems posed by these sites. There are privacy concerns in the Internet industry over keeping and sharing data. John Cardillo, CEO of the Miami-based technology consulting firm Sentry, said there are also problems trying to verify people are who they say they are online, especially teens who don't necessarily have driver's licenses or credit cards. Other information, like Social Security numbers, birth and death certificates, and health information are shielded under privacy laws. And, while law enforcement might be able to get a suspect's credit-card information after a crime has been committed, that 42-year-old suspect could have presented himself as a 14-year-old peer. "We cannot, as an industry, verify the age of teenagers," Cardillo said.

Two specific things police want most from social networking companies was for them to keep registrant's data longer, and they want site managers to require a credit card. If the data is kept as long as possible — two years, preferably — they said they can better track who was online and when, and use that information as evidence in cases.

Arnold Bell, chief of the FBI's Innocent Images Unit, said the credit-card requirement helps in contacting the suspect, but also it's a prevention matter; kids will more likely need their parent's permission to get online. Another problem, Bell said, is the hodgepodge of state laws relating to cyber sex crimes, some strong, some weak. Federal law sometimes fills in the gaps. Also, there is no national registry of sex offenders, only state registries.

All these things are needed, Bell said, because "the bad guys don't care" about state borders or laws against cyber sex crime.

'Giant Strides' Needed

Internet companies are taking steps to come work with law enforcement. MySpace.com, which was sued for $30 million in damages by a 14-year-old girl who claimed she was molested because of MySpace's lax policies, announced new policies this week that no 14 or 15 year olds can be contacted by anyone older than 18 unless the adult knows the teen's name or e-mail address. The company also now allows anyone to shield their information from unknown parties.

MySpace is also no longer placing advertisements designed for older viewers — such as dating site advertisements — on pages for people whose ages are listed as younger than 18.

Others companies are working on authentication methods and internal policing methods, as well as with law enforcement to improve their systems, company officials said Thursday.

MySpace security director Hemanshu Nigam said the site is dedicated to working with law enforcement and balancing that with protecting users' privacy. "The house of MySpace has to be built on the solid foundation of safety and security," Nigam said.

But Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal called the steps outlined by MySpace and others "baby steps." "What we need are giant strides," Blumenthal said. His office has asked MySpace to do a number of things, including raise its age requirements to 16 years old, from its current 14 years old.

He said there are a number of problems presented to the companies, including financial and administrative, "but it can be done."

But one thing law enforcement has always and will always struggle with is preventing the crime altogether. Arizona's Kardasz says it's a parent's job to guide their children through the Internet. He said parents should consider the Internet like a street. On one side of the street, there are educational, inspirational and safe stores. On the other side of the street are pornographic and otherwise unsafe stores. "Are you going to let your child walk down that street alone?"

MySpace.com is owned by News Corp, the parent company of FOXNews.com.

Retrieved June 23,2006 from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200675,00.html

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:38 AM | Permalink

June 22, 2006

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Dialogue on Social Networking Web Sites
Washington D.C.

Statement of Dr. Frank Kardasz, Project Director
Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force

BACKGROUND
Thank you for inviting me today. I have spent the last six of my 27 years in law enforcement doing some of the most important police work possible. It is the work of protecting children and teens from Internet sexual predators and traffickers of child pornography.

This type of police work is still in its relative infancy. Some cops are still computer novices. Some of us think that a social networking site is the local Fraternal Order of Police Lodge. So we cops are working to catch up. Getting our law enforcement arms around the growing problem of Internet crime is a momentous task. By way of analogy, some days I feel like we are trying to restrain King Kong with a tiny rubber band. But thanks to the DOJ Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, we continue to improve.

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
With regards to social networking sites, they provide users with a lawful service. They provide an attractive method of communication. Owners of the sites sometimes profit from advertisers who know that the popularity of the sites provide important venues for attracting people to their products. There is nothing inherently evil about either of those motives. The challenge comes from trying to filter out the criminals who use the services with evil intent.

THE LAW ENFORCEMENT ENVIRONMENT
Law enforcement cannot do as much in this area as it would like to. Law enforcement resources are often absorbed by those crimes for which there is a public outcry. Overall, there is less of a public outcry for the enforcement of Internet crimes against children than there is for many other crimes. In recent years Federal resources are drawn to terrorism, drug enforcement and border control, all of which have great national importance. Local resources are drawn to homicides, gangs, drugs, burglaries, and other offenses of great local importance. Consequently, we who fight Internet crime are often understaffed. That’s also partly because children are often marginalized by society.  They have no voice. Very young children, those whose tortured images we see when we investigate child pornography incidents, cannot call 911. They cannot call the news media, they cannot write to an elected official. They cannot vote.

Sometimes the crimes are so devastatingly surreal that we cannot wrap our logical minds around the possibility that anyone would do such things to a child. Some of the most hardened and cynical cops I know cannot work Internet crimes against children because they cannot endure the attendant emotional hardship that comes with witnessing the inhumane suffering of innocent children.

So I am pleased to see all of you here today and see that we are working on these tough issues.

CASE STUDIES
Now I would like to show two case studies from the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force involving social networking sites.

The first case involves a man who called himself “Danny” on his web page. We learned about Danny because an alert parent was monitoring her childs Internet use and personally knew of Danny because he lived in the same neighborhood as the woman. She also knew that he is a registered sex offender. We learned that Danny (not his real name) was also registered sex offender in Arizona. There is no mention of his sex offender status on his web page and he advertises himself as a lover of poetry who is looking for a girlfriend. Although his original web page is no longer available, Danny is not subject to any computer restrictions and is free to continue advertising himself if he so chooses.

The second case involves a man who advertised himself on his web page as “International man of adventure.” A parent in Louisiana installed monitoring software on her daughters computer and found that the minor was communicating with a man from Arizona. The incident was reported to the Louisiana ICAC Task Force, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Arizona ICAC Task Force. Detectives from my Arizona Task Force learned the mans true identity and discovered that he was wanted on a felony sexual assault warrant in Arizona. He is now in custody awaiting trial for the sex assault charge.

OFFENDERS
Unlike spectacular and riveting crimes and events involving crashes, explosions, shootings and widespread newsworthy bloodletting, the evil crimes against children are committed in dark and private places by offenders who sometimes psychologically groom and control their victims into silence. In cases involving predators who use social networking sites, the psychological grooming and control process begins with the offenders carefully constructed web page. They may pose as friendly adults, or as other children of the same age, or they may just browse and search and stalk the millions of web pages until they find just the right target and gather just enough information to permit them to locate and capture a victim.

Once we learn of the offense, law enforcement investigators must scramble to issue subpoenas and hope that the Internet service provider retained the data so we can find the offender.

VICTIMS
I’m convinced that that the quiet crimes committed when an adult sexual predator meets a curious unsupervised teenager to engage in sex acts are often unreported. Often the minor returns home without his or her parents ever finding out. We learned of one such case in Arizona when an undercover officer from my task force was posing as a child and subsequently arrested a predator. We learned that the offender had met and victimized two girls to whom he had also given sexually transmitted diseases. In their shame, the girls had never notified anyone of the crimes. The distraught parents only learned of the offenses when my detectives informed them of the suspect’s confessions.

SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM
Some will say, it’s not that big a problem; the crime statistics are not large. And that will seem to be true because these crimes are underreported. Defenders of free speech and privacy will demand numbers and statistics to justify change. How many incidents?  How many sexual assaults? How many children? How many deaths? But ask yourselves; what is an acceptable number of children lost to Internet sexual predators and child pornography traffickers? For me, the answer is none.

I hope we will find some common ground that allows continued social networking while controlling the criminals who abuse the privilege.

I trust that we will not mentally disassociate ourselves from the victims for the sake of financial gain or a misguided sense of freedom of expression or protection of privacy. I know that the proprietors of social networking sites are responsible individuals who share our respect for the rights of children to grow up happy and innocent.

My Massachusetts ICAC Task Force colleague, Sgt. Steve DelNegro, will talk some more in a few minutes about the other kinds of cases we are seeing and provide some recommendations for your consideration.

I will be happy to take questions later.
Thank you

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 01:41 AM | Permalink

June 22, 2006

A Spartanburg, South Carolina man who had eluded capture for three months pleaded guilty Thursday to soliciting sexual contact on the Internet, and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Attorney General Henry McMaster said David Charles Brown, 55, of 237 New Cut Road in Spartanburg, pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal solicitation of a minor. McMaster said Brown solicited sexual contact using the Internet from an individual he believed to be a 14-year-old girl. In reality, he was soliciting sex from an undercover investigator of the Westminster Police Department, a member of the Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force.

Authorities searched Brown's home on Jan. 27, seizing computer equipment, videotapes, and various other items. Brown was a fugitive until his arrest on April 26. He has been in custody at the Oconee County Detention Center since his arrest.

The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Department and the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), also members of the Attorney General’s ICAC Task Force, assisted in the effort to locate Brown and deliver him to Oconee County. The Attorney General’s Office prosecuted the case.

Judge Cordell Maddox, Jr., presiding over the General Sessions Court of Anderson County, sentenced Brown to 10 years in prison, suspended to five years and five years probation on each count concurrently.

Retrieved June 22, 2006 from http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060622/NEWS/60622001/1051/NEWS01

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:40 AM | Permalink

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:32 PM | Permalink

By Dr. Frank Kardasz

Social networking sites are very popular among people who wish to meet and communicate with others. They are also the venues for some unlawful activity. The following suggestions would make social networking sites somewhat safer for users and more law-enforcement friendly.

1. On every social networking site web page, display a link to information that describes to users how they can report misconduct. 

2. Require that all new users enter verifiable credit card information when first subscribing.

3. Require that all subscribers pay a nominal fee.

4. For new users of social networking sites, make the default settings for viewing and sharing all account information ‘private’. This means that new accounts would be automatically set to exclude others and to not share information. The new subscriber would have to actively choose to share account information by checking the appropriate boxes in the account settings section.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 06:32 PM | Permalink

June 13, 2006 Tacoma, Washington

- Two students were arrested after an alleged assault of an Emerald Ridge High School student was videotaped and posted on MySpace.com. The video showed two high school students attacking a classmate while another student video taped the fight with a night vision lens.

Investigators say the assault was in retaliation for an earlier fight that was also video taped and posted on MySpace.com. After the second fight a 17-year-old, now under arrest, brags to the camera then shows a shotgun. “Hey, any of you all want to play with me? We'll play,” he says while racking the shotgun.

Investigators said that the 17-year-old later took the gun to school, where he was arrested and the video was discovered in his car. Both teens involved are scheduled for arraignment on assault charges Tuesday afternoon.

KIROTV.com. Retrieved June 19, 2006 from http://www.kirotv.com/news/9359520/detail.html

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:01 PM | Permalink

Fools, their wisdom weak,
are their own enemies
as they go through life,
doing evil
that bears
bitter fruit.

-Dhammapada, 66, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Retrieved June 17, 2006 from http://www.beliefnet.com

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:45 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:
1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

---------------------------------------------------------

June 15, 2006, John Caher, New York Law Journal

A New York Court of Appeals removed Queens Supreme Court Justice Laura D. Blackburne for helping a robbery suspect evade arrest.
The ruling marked a rare case where the court decided that a judge who had no prior disciplinary record, and had committed misconduct that did not involve personal profit, venality, a breach of trust or moral turpitude, is unfit for the bench.

Blackburne's removal is rooted in an incident two years ago, when she was presiding over the Queens Treatment Court where defendant Derek Sterling appeared. Sterling was undergoing court-ordered treatment at a residential drug treatment program.

That morning, New York City Detective Leonard Devlin appeared at Blackburne's court and advised the court officer that he wanted to question Sterling in connection with a robbery. Devlin waited outside the courtroom and made no attempt to accost the suspect in the courtroom. He waited for the proceeding before Blackburne to conclude.

Meanwhile, the court officer, Sergeant Richard Peterson, informed the judge that Devlin was present and wanted to question Sterling. Blackburne later realized that the detective sought not only to question Sterling, but to arrest him.

Outraged at what she viewed as a "ruse," Blackburne directed Peterson to show Sterling out a secure rear exit to evade the police officer.

Peterson, worried that he would get in trouble if he disregarded Blackburne's directive and fearing that he would be guilty of obstructing justice if he did what she told him, consulted with an assistant district attorney. The prosecutor, Sharon Scott Brooking, agreed it would be inappropriate to help the suspect evade arrest, and so advised both Peterson and Blackburne.

But Blackburne insisted and said that if Peterson did not take Sterling out the back stairwell, she would do so herself.

The court officer, concerned at that point for the judge's safety, reluctantly showed Sterling out.

Sterling was arrested the next day at his drug treatment program and charged with assault and robbery, charges that were ultimately dismissed.

The New York City tabloids had a field day with the incident, denouncing Blackburne as "Let -'Em-Go-Laura" and "Loony Laura" and describing her as a "judicial jerk." She also was harshly criticized by local and state political leaders.

The Police Benevolent Association, the Detectives Endowment Association and Mayor Bloomberg, through Deputy Mayor for Legal Affairs Carol Robles-Roman, complained to the Commission on Judicial Conduct, which initiated an investigation.

GUILTY OF MISCONDUCT

Following that investigation and a hearing before a referee, former Appellate Division Justice Ernst H. Rosenberger, Blackburne was found guilty of misconduct. The commission then voted 8-2 for removal, with the dissenters contending that censure is a more appropriate penalty for a first-time offense.

On appeal, the sole issue was whether the misconduct in this case was so serious as to warrant the harshest available penalty. For the majority, it seemingly was not a close call.

The majority described Blackburne's conduct as "rash and reckless," and said the judge showed no concern and no respect for the public safety, or, for that matter, for the potential legal predicament in which she was placing Peterson. It said the fact that Sterling returned peacefully to the drug program and apparently did not commit the robbery/assault is of no relevance.

"Things might easily have turned out otherwise," the majority said. "In impeding the legitimate operation of law enforcement by helping a wanted robbery suspect avoid arrest, petitioner placed herself above the law she was sworn to administer, thereby bringing the judiciary into disrepute and undermining public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of her court. [P]etitioner's dangerous actions exceeded all measure of acceptable judicial conduct."

The majority said Blackburne "abandoned her role as a neutral arbiter, and instead became an adversary of the police," a position "completely incompatible with the proper role of an impartial judge."

Michael Marr, a spokesman for the governor, said the administration "is pleased that the Court of Appeals has recognized that a judge who assists a suspected felon in avoiding a lawful arrest exceeds all bounds of acceptable judicial conduct and must be removed from office."

The ruling has no impact on Blackburne's pension, except to the extent that she will have fewer years of service. She was within two years of retirement. She had been suspended with pay pending the court's consideration of her case.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 01:30 PM | Permalink

To trust a stranger without investigation invites troubles
so endless that even descendants must endure them.

Without investigation, trust no one. Having investigated,
entrust a man with matters for which he is trustworthy.

To trust a man who has not been tested and to suspect a man
who has proven trustworthy lead alike to endless ills.

-Tirukkural 51: 508-510
Excerpted from the Tirukkural, translated by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Himalayan Academy Publications, www.himalayanacademy.com. Retrieved June 18. 2006 from http://www.beliefnet.com

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 09:56 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz: For some, ethics is based upon spiritual beliefs about right and wrong. The belief in a supreme being or beings and the scriptual writings from those being(s) can be very important in shaping ethics.

The web site, beliefnet.com has an interesting quiz that may help you to examine some of your beliefs and determine which religion(s) most closely associate with your beliefs.

Take the quiz at:
http://beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 03:46 PM | Permalink

We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
- Plato

A candle loses none of its light by lighting another candle.
- Unknown

Retrieved June 16, 2006 from http://www.josephsoninstitute.org/

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 03:15 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz: Clicking the hyperlink below will open a PDF file containing a research publication of the Department of Justice entitled: Child Pornography on the Internet. The document may be useful to law enforcement administrators. 

Protecting Children From Sexual Exploitation

"Child Pornography on the Internet" (NCJ 214562) (102 pp.) describes the problem and reviews the factors that increase the risks of Internet child pornography. It then identifies a series of questions that may assist in the analysis of the problem and reviews responses based on evaluative research and police practice. (COPS)
 
http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/mime/open.pdf?Item=1729

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:39 AM | Permalink

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

-Hymn, "It Is Well With My Soul"

Retrieved June 16, 2006 from http://www.beliefnet.com

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:27 AM | Permalink

The finest of the believers conduct themselves with honorable bearing. And the finest of the finest are those who treat their mates with affection.

-The Prophet Muhammad, as reported by Abu Hurairah
From "The Bounty of Allah." Hadith translated by Aneela Khalid Arshed.
Retrieved June 16, 2006 from http//:www.beliefnet.com

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:10 AM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:
1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

---------------------------------------------------------

Mike Steele, WorldNow and KLFY TV 10, Eyewitness News,June 15, 2006

Lafayette police chief Randy Hundley, along with three other officers, have been indicted by a grand jury. Chief Hundley must report to jail after a grand jury indicted him on three counts of illegal electronic surveillance.

Arrest warrants will also be issued for three other officers as part of the same case. Police Chief Randy Hundley wrapped up his testimony around 4:00. By 5:00, a grand jury returned three counts against the chief.

Chief Hundley is at the heart of an investigation in which he is accused of placing a bug under his secretary's desk. Hundley's attorney, Jason Robideaux confirmed the fact that it was originally placed as part of an internal affairs case.

But, police sources say it was left there as a way to find out who in the department was loyal to the chief. Robideaux says there are other major elements that will be presented in trial. Only Major Casey Fowler left the courthouse without an indictment.

Captain Michael Lavergne, Sgt. Brian Butler and Cpl. Shannon Hundley also face charges in the case. At least one of the detectives involved in a state police investigation of the department was at the courthouse.

Information from that report prompted the district attorney's office to send the case to the grand jury. Prosecutors say they're confident the charges fit the crime.

Retrieved June 16, 2006 from http://www.klfy.com/global/story.asp?s=5038609&ClientType=Printable 

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:04 AM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:
1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

---------------------------------------------------------

Allegations Are Basis Of Case Being Brought Against Brymer As Termination Hearing Approaches

By Josh Kovner, Courant Staff Writer, June 14 2006

Middletown, Connecticut - Police Chief J. Edward Brymer edited a letter ridiculing a police officer who had arrested then-Mayor Domenique Thornton on a drunken driving charge, failed to stop distribution of the letter and concealed his knowledge of it from an internal investigator and city officials, the city says.

The allegations, conveyed to the chief and his lawyer in a notification letter dated Monday, form the basis of the city's disciplinary case against Brymer, 64. The chief, placed on paid leave May 16 by Mayor Sebastian Giuliano, faces a termination hearing June 22. Giuliano will preside.

Officer Glenn Morron in September 2005 charged Thornton with driving under the influence of alcohol after he allegedly spotted her driving erratically and she subsequently failed a field sobriety test. The charge was dropped in court after Thornton passed two urine tests. In dismissing the case, Superior Court Judge Patricia L. Harleston in Middletown said "the court in no way believes there was not probable cause for the arrest."

After the arrest, an anonymous letter titled "Officer Glen [sic] Morron's Autobiography" was circulated to common council members, political candidates, newspaper reporters and others. The letter portrays Morron as immoral, vindictive and bent on bringing down the police department. The paragraphs in the letter are numbered 1 to 11.

In its letter to Brymer, signed by Personnel Director Debra A. Milardo, the city alleges Brymer "authored handwritten additions and/or changes" to an earlier version of the letter "including an 11th numbered paragraph containing additional personal attacks on Officer Morron as well as ... the then-president and vice president of the police union."

"You then forwarded your additions and/or changes to the author of the document, or negligently allowed them to fall into the hands of the author, or incorporated them yourself into the document," states the letter, which The Courant obtained through the state Freedom of Information Act. The notification does not identify the original author. Brymer's lawyer, Jeffrey Ment of Hartford, declined to comment on the allegations. He questioned whether Giuliano could be an impartial hearing officer.

"My plan is to send the city a letter this afternoon pointing out that the mayor has relevant information bearing on this case and is a witness. I don't see how he can possibly be the authority making the decision," Ment said Tuesday. "The mayor has in no shape or form prejudged the outcome," said Geen Thazhampallath, Giuliano's aide. "He has stayed out of the strategy sessions and did not have a hand in the notification letter."

Brian Clemow, a private attorney, is expected to prosecute the city's case against Brymer. The chief will be defended by Ment. The 102-member police department, with an annual budget of $9.3 million, has been distracted by infighting over the past several years. Five federal lawsuits by current and former police officers and a former director of the 911 dispatch center name Brymer as a defendant. The lawsuits allege favoritism, selective discipline and other purported misconduct against the chief, and seek monetary damages.

The city in its letter to Brymer says the chief's alleged involvement with the anonymous Morron letter only added to the internal strife. The alleged efforts to undermine Morron in the days after he arrested Thornton "occurred at a time [of] interpersonal conflicts between and among members of the police department. ... Substantial resources were being diverted from the regular business of the department and the city in order to investigate, respond to and defend against claims resulting ... from these conflicts, " the letter states.

The chief also failed to disclose his alleged knowledge of the two versions of the letter to Capt. Gregory Sneed, who was conducting an internal investigation, the letter states. "Finally, in a meeting with Mayor Giuliano and other city officials and representatives on May 8, 2006 ... you admitted obtaining or coming into possession of both documents. ... Despite this admission, you failed or refused to disclose, in response to direct questions from the mayor, from whom you had obtained [the original draft], or to whom you had disclosed ... your handwritten additions and/or changes."

Morron is involved in one of the lawsuits naming Brymer and other police and city officials. His original November 2005 complaint alleges Thornton defamed him and fellow Officer William Hertler in public comments after her arrest. That lawsuit does not mention the anonymous letter. An amended complaint, filed in February, does.

Brymer became chief in 1998. He is under contract with Middletown until early 2008. He had enough accumulated sick and vacation time to leave this fall and still qualify for a city pension. But Giuliano placed him on leave before he reached that point. At Brymer's hearing, the city must show "just cause" to remove him. If he is fired, Brymer can appeal to Superior Court.

The letter alleges Brymer broke a series of city personnel rules, breached a law enforcement code of ethics, committed conduct unbecoming an officer and malfeasance, and violated city work rules barring unwarranted criticism and "malicious gossip."

Hartford Courant
Retrieved June 14, 2006 from http://www.courant.com/news/local/mr/hc-midbrymer0614.artjun14,0,1053506,print.story

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:50 AM | Permalink

Those whose hearts are drawn toward compassion
Will never be drawn into the dark and woeful world.

Evil deeds dreaded by the soul will not afflict
The compassionate who foster and protect all life.

-Tirukkural 25: 243-244
Retrieved June 15 2006 from http://www.beliefnet.com

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:14 AM | Permalink

June 9, 2006, By KOMO Staff

Lakewood, WA - Students at Clover Park High School were told to stay home Friday after dozens of students received a message on their MySpace.com account that someone was going to attack the school.

One student called 911 after receiving the threat around 9:30 p.m. Thursday. He said the message claimed students would die Friday and that "no one would ever treat me bad again."

The student who received the message says he didn't know who sent it, but Lakewood police say they believe it was sent to about 25 student accounts.

Police are working with Internet providers to identify the people that received the message, as well as identify the suspect.

It's not the first time they've had threats at that school. Just last month, students there were sent home because a threat was found at another school that singled out Clover Park.
 
Retrieved June 14, 2006 from http://www.komotv.com/news/printstory.asp?id=43832

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:05 PM | Permalink

February 1, 2006
Contact Henry Cabbage (850) 528-1755

The Shikar–Safari Club International has honored Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Officer Grant Burton as its Law Enforcement Officer of the Year for 2005.

The annual award from the conservation-based organization honors the officer whose efforts during the previous year show outstanding performance and achievement among the state agency’s 700-plus sworn law enforcement personnel. His selection by the Shikar-Safari Club is for his dedication, professionalism, effectiveness and personal demeanor with the public and his coworkers.

Burton patrols Manatee and Sarasota counties.

“Officer Burton’s exemplary leadership skills underscore the traits our agency prides in its officers,” said Lt. Rob Gerkin, an FWC law enforcement supervisor and Burton’s boss in Sarasota County.

Since becoming an FWC officer in December 2001, Burton has distinguished himself by becoming a select member of the FWC’s Special Operations Group. In addition to regular duties, members of the elite force train for specialized search-and-rescue operations and homeland security details. Burton is also a field-training officer, responsible for training and evaluating new officers.

The officer has earned recognition for life-saving efforts involving boaters, law enforcement officers from other agencies and even a movie theater customer. The five-year agency veteran spends the majority of his time on the water, and has made a number of significant illegal netting cases during his tenure. Because of his ingenuity, skill and perseverance in working net limitation details, his supervisors credit Burton with fostering a high compliance rate among the area’s commercial net fishermen.

Retrieved June 13, 2006 http://www.floridaconservation.org/whatsnew/06/statewide/shikar-burton.html

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:56 AM | Permalink

FBI continues probe into local girl's Middle East trip
Family will talk about the case Monday afternoon

By Jeff Piechowski, Tuscola County (MI) (WJRT) - (06/12/06)--

We should soon know more about a Tuscola County teenager who secretly flew to the Middle East to meet a man she met online.

Authorities found 16-year-old Katherine Lester in Amman, Jordan last Thursday, after her family told police she ran away. The Gilford Township girl returned home to Michigan Friday night, but the family has been quiet since. That is expected to change later this afternoon, when the family is scheduled to hold a news conference.

That news conference is scheduled for three this afternoon at the Tuscola County Courthouse. Katherine's family will be accompanied by their attorney Renee Wood.

Authorities say Katherine tricked her parents into getting her a passport for a trip to Canada. However, she used that passport to fly to the Middle East to meet a 25-year-old man in Israel whom she'd met on myspace.com.

U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded the Akron-Fairgrove  honor student to  head back home instead of going to the West Bank to meet the man whose screen name is Abdullah Psycho. The family computer was confiscated and taken to the FBI's Bay City office, where agents continue to look at e-mail and other documents to determine if any crimes were committed.

A source close to the investigation says that as of right now, this remains the case of the Tuscola County Sheriff's Department. Tuscola County Sheriff Thomas Kern says any investigation into Abdullah Psycho would have to be through the FBI, because the Sheriff's Department does not have the resources.

Sheriff Kern says he will speak more on the status of the investigation at this afternoon's news conference.

Retrieved June 12, 2006 from http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=local&id=4262085&ft=print

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 05:49 PM | Permalink

By Dr. Kardasz 

Phoenix, Arizona

In September 2005, Timothy Christopher Rondina, a 34 year old unmarried high school baseball coach, used the identities, az_baseballcoach, and coach2368@msn.com during Internet chat conversations. His intent was to meet a minor for sex.
 
During on-line chat conversations Rondina made statements including:

"u wanna try makin out with a cute older guy"

"are you a virgin?"

"ok if i come get you..do u wanna try sex?"

"if you get a really big guy it can hurt the first time"

"but then the second and third..it feels good"

"u ever give a guy a b___ j__?" (expletive deleted) "

"i just really hope you are not the police or anything...."

"this is kind of illegal ya know..i want to make sure u are  not like the police or anything"

"im the one that can get caught and go to jail"

Despite his own well-founded misgivings, Rondina's urges overcame his better judgement and he arranged to meet the intended victim. He then drove 28 miles from his Scottsdale apartment to west Phoenix for the encounter but was instead arrested by members of the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

On May 2, 2006 Rondina plead guilty before Hon. Andrew G. Klein of the Maricopa County (AZ) Superior Court to the Arizona crime of luring a minor for sexual exploitation, a class 3 felony carrying a theoretical maximum sentence of seven years prison.  

Judge Klein sentenced Rondina to 8 years probation & sex offender registration, with six months of jail suspended. 

Maricopa County Case number case CR2005-128508-001

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:16 PM | Permalink

By Dr. Kardasz, May 2006

Morton Robert Berger - Child Pornography - AZ State Prisoner #174827

BACKGROUND

In Spring 2000, The US Postal Inspection Service and the Dallas Texas Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force initiated and led the investigation that uncovered the Arizona defendant in this case, Morton Berger.

Berger, a 51 year old high school history teacher was identified as a possible possessor of child pornography. In 2002 investigators of the Arizona ICAC, including a Phoenix Police detective and an FBI agent approached Berger’s home and conducted a “knock-and-talk”. The investigation led to a massive collection of child pornography.

In Arizona, the mandatory sentencing range for one image of child pornography is from 10 to 17 years. The Maricopa County (Arizona) Prosecutors offered Berger a plea of 17 years prison which he declined.

TRIAL

In 2003, Berger was charged with 20 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor (child pornography) and was found guilty at a jury trial. Berger received the mandatory minimum sentence, ten years prison for each of the twenty images. That’s 200 years as a guest of the Arizona State Department of Corrections.

The 200 year sentence caused the case to receive brief nationwide attention, including a short spot on TV’s O'Reily factor.

APPEALS

Berger appealed the sentence based on arguments of equal protection under the law and cruel and unusual punishment. In December 2004, the sentence was upheld by the Arizona Court of Appeals (Division One). The majority opinion included the following statements (citations omitted):

It is evident beyond the need for elaboration that a State's interest in safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of a minor is compelling.

…the victimization of a child continues when that act is memorialized in an image. The materials produced are a permanent record of the children's participation and the harm to the child is exacerbated by their circulation. Unfortunately, the victimization of the children involved does not end when the pornographer's camera is put away.

The legislative judgment…is that the use of children as subjects of pornographic materials is harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the child.

…the possession of child pornography drives that industry and…the production of child pornography will decrease if those who possess the product are punished equally with those who produce it.

…it (the law) will decrease the production of child pornography if it penalizes those who possess and view the product, thereby decreasing demand.

…the possession of child pornography inflames the desires of child molesters, pedophiles and child pornographers.

The State has more than a passing interest in forestalling the damage caused by child pornography: preventing harm to children is, without cavil, one of its most important interests.  …we cannot fault the State for attempting to stamp out this vice at all levels in the distribution chain.

Berger downloaded images from the Internet, and every time he visited a website, he demonstrated to the producers and sellers of child pornography that there was a demand for their product. Berger's demand served to drive the industry; there need not have been a direct monetary exchange.

Berger maintains also that, because his possession of the pornographic images was passive and because he did not use threats or violence in the commission of his crimes, his sentence is grossly disproportionate. This logic is abstruse. As was described by this court in Hazlett, 205 Ariz. at 527 p 11, 73 P.3d at 1262, and as is evident from the violent pornographic images in this case, child pornography is a form of child abuse. 

The materials produced are a permanent record of the children's participation and the harm to the child is exacerbated by their circulation.

Berger's attorneys, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court. (State of Arizona v. Morton Robert Berger No. CR-05-0101-PR). In May 2006 the justices upheld the sentence saying (in part),

In light of the legislature’s intent to deter and punish those who participate in the child pornography industry, and Berger’s commission of twenty separate offenses, we hold that the twenty consecutive ten-year sentences are not grossly disproportionate to his crimes.

Berger's attorneys now have the option of appealing to the United States Supreme Court.

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Morton Berger is scheduled for release on June 22, 2175. 
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Read the AZ Division One Court of Appeals ruling at:
http://www.cofad1.state.az.us/opinionfiles/cridx.htm

Visit Bergers State-sponsored web pages at the Arizona Department of Corrections:
http://www.azcorrections.gov/cgi-bin/ISentence.cgi/136249220049041219

Link to Maricopa County Arizona Superior Court documents
http://www.superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/docket/criminal/caseSearch.asp
Case # CR2002013657

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:54 PM | Permalink

By Dr. Kardasz 

05-18-06 / 1030 hours, Phoenix, AZ
Offense: Sexual Exploitation of a Minor (child pornography)
Arrested: Ray Sanchez, H/M age 24, unmarried, no children, occupation-driver.
Agencies: AZ ICAC / Phoenix P.D. / Phoenix FBI

In April 2006, detectives of the Arizona ICAC and initiated an investigation that led to a computer in Phoenix believed to contain felony images of child pornography. On April 14, 2006 a subpoena requesting subscriber information about the suspect computer was sent to the Internet service provider, Cox Communications. When there was no response to the subpoena, second subpoena was sent. On May 15, 2006, Cox Communications responded and provided information leading to the offender.            

After further investigation, a search warrant was prepared and served at an apartment in Phoenix that was being leased by 24 year old Ray Sanchez. The thirty-day delay by Cox Communications in processing the subpoena almost proved fatal to the investigation as detectives found eviction paperwork in the apartment and very little furniture, indicating that the Sanchez was preparing to depart very soon.

Agents of the Phoenix FBI assisted in the search. Sanchez was not home at the time of the search but his computer was examined by a computer forensics expert of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and found to contain unlawful images. The computer and other items of evidence were seized.

Sanchez, who works as a driver for a transportation company, was located shortly thereafter and made admissions to the offense.

Sanchez was booked for ten counts of sexual exploitation of a minor (child pornography) and booked into the Maricopa County Jail. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office will lead the prosecution of the case.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:29 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz: The ABC Channel 15 affiliate in Phoenix, AZ conducted a cybervigilante case that did not have a favorable outcome in court.

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Court limits TV-sex-sting charges - Without teen victim, prosecutors face an added hurdle

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services, Tucson, Arizona, Published: 05-25-06

PHOENIX — Reporters pretending to be teens on the Internet to lure adults may be great television. But the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Wednesday it isn't enough to get their targets arrested.

In a unanimous decision, the justices concluded people lured to meet with what they think are teen girls can't be charged if it turns out the person doing the luring is not a minor, but in fact a TV reporter — or any other adult, for that matter. The court concluded charging someone with seeking out a minor for sexual purposes, by definition, requires an actual minor.

The only exception, they said, is if the person doing the luring is a police officer.

Wednesday's decision does not bar TV stations from what has become a popular tactic, especially during rating periods. In fact, news directors from two TV stations that have been involved in such reporting said they don't intend to abandon such efforts.

"It's not going to stunt, in any way, how we aggressively pursue stories we believe are important to our viewers," said Joe Hengemuehler. His station, KNXV-TV 15 in Phoenix, did the story that led to someone being arrested, and produced the case heard by the court.

Brad Stone, at KVOA-TV 4 in Tucson, said a story done by his station in conjunction with Perverted Justice, a volunteer organization dedicated to outing online predators, got one of the biggest reactions ever from parents who did not realize the kind of people their children could meet on the Internet.

"Parents were afraid of leaving their kids alone," he said.

Stone said his station's efforts involved a bit more than luring, with people also sending naked pictures of themselves to what they thought were teens.

But David Bodney, a media attorney, said the logic of Wednesday's ruling on luring statutes indicates the need for an actual minor as a victim probably would also apply to cases where people thought they were sending photos to teens. Without an actual teen as a victim, there is no crime, he said.

Barnett Lotstein, a special assistant Maricopa County attorney, said those TV "sting" operations may still have some use for prosecutors: Lotstein said his office will now charge the man whose indictment was tossed out by Wednesday's ruling with the crime of attempted luring — a crime the court decision suggests could be prosecuted without a real teenage victim.

The case against Jeremy Mejak stems from actions three years ago by a Phoenix television reporter who, pretending to be a 13-year-old girl, engaged in conversations in "chat rooms" as part of an investigation to show how the Internet can be used to seek out minors for sex.

According to court records, Mejak chatted online with the reporter, believing her to be a teen, and set up a meeting to have sex with her. When he showed up, though, he was greeted with video cameras.

Police were given copies of the tapes and transcripts of the online chat, resulting in the Maricopa County Attorney's Office taking the case to a grand jury and securing an indictment. When a trial judge refused to throw out the case, Mejak appealed.

Justice Michael Ryan, writing for the high court, pointed out that the law says it is illegal for someone to lure someone that the person knows or has reason to know is a minor.

"The use of the phrase 'is a minor' suggests that the crime cannot be committed without the luring of an actual minor," Ryan wrote.

He pointed out that lawmakers created only one exception. Someone can still be charged if the person being lured is "a peace officer posing as a minor."

The justices rejected arguments by prosecutors that Mejak's conduct fell under the provision which said he had "reason to know" the person with whom he was chatting was a minor, as based on his own belief.

"Although a person may subjectively believe something that is not true, as Mejak did, Ryan said it is entirely different to have knowledge or a reason to know a fact."

But Ryan also said given the facts of this situation, a person could legally be charged with attempted luring or attempted sexual conduct with a minor.

Michael Terribile, Mejak's lawyer, said he concurs with that legal conclusion but said he will still attempt to get any new charges against his client dismissed on other grounds.

Retrieved May 26, 2006 http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/pringDS/130701

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 05:52 PM | Permalink

The Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force needs your help locating this suspect wanted for luring a minor for sexual exploitation which occurred on 01-24-02, in Phoenix, Arizona.

• Sarvpreet Sing Thapar, I/M, age 31
• Suspect is wanted for luring a minor over the Internet and offering money in exchange for sexual intercourse.

If you have any information on this suspect please contact the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force at (602) 262-6151 or Silent Witness.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 05:28 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz: I find it interesting to see that the "explosive" idea to preserve data is mischaracterized as "Snooping" in the following article posted at ISPPortal.com.

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ISP snooping gaining support

by Mike on Fri 14 Apr 2006 08:41 AM PDT

The explosive idea of forcing Internet providers to record their customers' online activities for future police access is gaining ground in state capitols and in Washington, D.C. Top Bush administration officials have endorsed the concept, and some members of the U.S. Congress have said federal legislation is needed to aid law enforcement investigations into child pornography.

A bill is already pending in the Colorado State Senate. Mandatory data retention requirements worry privacy advocates because they permit police to obtain records of e-mail chatter, Web browsing or chat-room activity that normally would have been discarded after a few months. And some proposals would require providers to retain data that ordinarily never would have been kept at all. CNET News.com was the first to report last June that the U.S. Department of Justice was quietly shopping around the idea of legally required data retention.

But it was the European Parliament's vote in December for a data retention requirement that seems to have attracted broader interest inside the United States.

At a hearing last week, Rep. Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican who heads a House oversight and investigations subcommittee, suggested that data retention laws would be useful to police investigating crimes against children. "I absolutely think that that is an idea that is worth pursuing," an aide to Whitfield said in an interview on Thursday. "If those files were retained for a longer period of time, it would help in the uncovering and prosecution of these crimes."

Another hearing is planned for April 27. Internet providers generally offer three reasons why they are skeptical of mandatory data retention: first, it is not clear who will be able to access records of someone's online behavior; second, it's not clear who will pay for the data warehouses to be constructed; and third, it's not clear that police are hindered by current law as long as they move swiftly in investigations. "What we haven't seen is any evidence where the data would have been helpful, where the problem was not caused by law enforcement taking too long when they knew a problem existed," said Dave McClure, president of the U.S. Internet Industry Association, which represents small to midsize companies. McClure said that while data retention aficionados cite child pornography, the stored data would be open to any type of investigation--including, for instance, those focused on drug crimes, tax fraud, or terrorism prosecutions. "The agenda behind this doesn't appear to be legitimate," he said.

Proposals for mandatory data retention tend to adhere to one of two models: Address storage or some kind of content storage. In the first model, businesses must record only which Internet address is assigned to a customer at a specific time. In the second, which is closer to what Europe adopted, more types of information must be retained--including telephone numbers dialed, contents of Web pages visited, recipients of e-mail messages and so on.

Without saying what model he favored, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff broadly endorsed data retention at a meeting of a departmental privacy panel last month. In response to a question, Chertoff said that federal police should be permitted to run queries against data repositories created and maintained by businesses for a set time. "That might be a model for some kind of data retention issue," Chertoff said. "It might be one that would say the government, instead of holding the data itself, will allow it to remain in the private sector, provided the private sector retains it for a period of time so we can ping against it."

FBI Director Robert Mueller was more blunt. He was quoted by the Financial Times in January as saying: "There can be standardized regulations and rules relating to data retention and secondly a mechanism for the swift exchange of information." The remarks, made at the Davos economic forum, were part of Mueller's support of harmonizing national laws dealing with computer crime. Neither the FBI nor Homeland Security responded to a request for comment on Thursday.

Agitation by state investigators Federal politicians also are being lobbied by state law enforcement agencies, which say strict data retention laws will help them investigate crimes that have taken place a while ago.

Sgt. Frank Kardasz, head of Arizona's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, surveyed his colleagues in other states last month asking them what new law would help them do their jobs. "The most frequent response involved data retention by Internet service providers," or ISPs, Kardasz told News.com in an e-mail message on Thursday.

Because Internet addresses remain a relatively scarce commodity, ISPs tend to allocate them to customers from a pool based on when the connection is actually in use. (Two standard techniques used are the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet.) Police typically rely on subpoenas to find which customer was assigned which Internet address. "When subscriber information is not preserved by the ISPs the investigation dead-ends," said Kardasz, who has testified before Whitfield's subcommittee. "Ideally, we would like to have ISPs preserve subscriber information for one year."

Flint Waters, head of the Wyoming's Internet Crimes Against Children task force, also is pressing for federal data retention laws. He's interested in mandating records of who used what Internet address--not content such as chat conversations, e-mail messages, and so on. "Individuals will activate their Webcam when they're abusing a child and they'll record the sexual assault live, and it may be 45 days before law enforcement finally gets notified," Waters said. "We reach out to service providers and they say they don't maintain those records, so the child remains in that environment, and there's nothing we can do to help them."

Retrieved April 17, 2006 from http://www.isportal.com/

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 04:04 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz: One can only hope that the judge in the following case will come to his senses. Openly showing contraband child pornography to the entire gallery of citizens in open court is unconscionable. Restricting the viewing of child pornography to the jurors and officers of the court is the only reasonable thing to do. The prosecutor in this case will be in the very uncomfortable position of being ordered to display child pornography if the judge persists in this case.

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R. Kelly's Sex Tape Going Public - Coming soon to a courtroom near you: the R. Kelly sex tape

By Josh Grossberg, June 9, 2006

A Chicago judge agreed to allow the videotape, which prosecutors claim shows the R&B superstar having sex with a 13-year-old girl, to be screened in open court. The footage, which has been widely disseminated online, is the core piece of evidence in Kelly's child-pornography case that's scheduled to go to trial this summer.

At a hearing on Thursday, Cook County Criminal Court Judge Vincent Gaughan said the people's right to know the details that resulted in the "Trapped in the Closet" singer being charged with 14 counts of child pornography trumps his attorney's argument that showing the sexually explicit material could lead to Kelly not getting a fair trial.

"This is the whole crux and linchpin of the case. If there was no tape, we wouldn't have a case," the judge said, per the Chicago Tribune. "I find there is not an overarching interest for excluding the public and the press from the portion of the trial that is the linchpin."

R. Kelly's lead attorney, Ed Genson, declined to comment Friday on the judge's decision, as did a spokesman for the Cook County District Attorney's Office.

In court, another Kelly lawyer, Marc Martin, told Gaughan that airing the lewd video would compromise the 39-year-old Grammy winner's ability to get an impartial jury because of the hoopla that it would inevitably generate. Martin requested that the viewing be restricted to lawyers and jurors only.

"If this tape is disseminated to the public for the trial, it's going to be a circus. We want the jury to make decisions based on the case, not on headlines," the lawyer argued. "We are not talking about keeping the public out of the courtroom. We are talking about one piece of evidence. The press does not have a right to see it. They don't have a right to possess it."

Worried about the welfare of the girl, who's now 21, and the embarrassment the video's unveiling is likely to cause her, prosecutors were willing to bend when it came to restricting the public's need to know, but not with the media.

Offering a remedy, Assistant State's Attorney Shauna Boliker said her office specifically suggested having jurors and lawyers watch the video with headphones and turn the monitors away from spectators in the courtroom.

"This is for the protection of the victim," she told Gaughan.

But after Boliker revealed that prosecutors were not intending to have the victim testify in the trial, Gaughan ruled otherwise.

No word yet on a trial date. Kelly has pleaded innocent to the charges and another status hearing is scheduled for next Thursday.

Retrieved June 11, 2006 from http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20060609/en_music_eo/19234

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 03:18 PM | Permalink

Auburn corrections officer honored for exemplary bravery

The Citizen staff and wire reports

Randy Calhoun, of Auburn Correctional Facility, was one of four people honored Thursday for heroism by the state Department of Correctional Services.

Calhoun, who had been recognized locally as a Cayuga County Red Cross Great Hero, pulled a motorist out of a burning car after happening upon an accident on Route 34B in Genoa in March 2005.

On Thursday, Calhoun, 41, Carl Hillman, 47, and two other correctional services staffers were awarded the department's Medals of Merit, presented each year to employees who have displayed singular courage and outstanding service in the line of duty.

Hillman was on his rounds at the Elmira Correctional Facility last year when he grew suspicious because the door to a prison counselor's office had been closed during a meeting with an inmate.

When Hillman opened the door to check, he found the female counselor beaten unconscious by the inmate. He jumped over the desk, chased off the attacker and called for help that saved the victim from more serious injury.

Retrieved June 9, 2006 from http://www.auburnpub.com/articles/2006/06/08/news/breaking_news/break02.txt

Washington D.C.

photo by Dr. Kardasz

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:10 AM | Permalink

After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:44 AM | Permalink

Mayor vows action on police probe - Report recommends further investigation
By Stephanie V. Siek, Globe Staff, June 8, 2006

Waltham, Mass. After an independent probe found evidence of nepotism, preferential treatment, and other possible misconduct within the Waltham Police Department, Mayor Jeannette McCarthy vowed action against employees named in the investigator's report.

But McCarthy declined to spell out what those measures would be, nor would she reveal any names or how many employees were involved. She said she wanted to talk with Police Chief Edward Drew about the report's findings, with their meeting scheduled for yesterday.

The report did not suggest specific disciplinary action, but recommended further investigation in several cases.

``I have followed up with each of the 35 issues in the report. That's all I'm going to say," McCarthy said on Monday. She had ordered the probe in March in response to issues brought to her attention ``through personal conversations, anonymous letters, or other means," the letter accompanying the report states.

A copy of the report, dated May 16, was given to Globe West in response to a public records request; names and titles of personnel were blacked out.

In his report, investigator Warren J. Rutherford, with the Marstons Mills-based Rutherford Advisors Inc., stated that:

Eight matters should be referred to the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission for further investigation.

Five matters should be referred to the city's Personnel Department for further action.

Three allegations cannot be resolved without additional information, such as medical records, to which he was not allowed access.

Ten allegations were unsubstantiated or did not violate state law or department policy.

Two allegations should be resolved by the Waltham Retirement Board and/or the Patrolmen's Union. One matter involves a dispute over the number of compensatory hours credited to a retiring officer. The other involves whether the practice of allowing supervisory officers to take unmarked cars home should be viewed as a benefit and thus increase the amount of their retirement compensation.

Rutherford recommended that the State Ethics Commission look into whether a police official -- whose name was blacked out -- manipulated the civil service reserve list to appoint or promote a relative or someone else who presented a potential conflict of interest.

The report states that other appointments ``raise serious question " about whether another official also manipulated the reserve list.

The civil service reserve list consists of individuals who have passed the civil service test and meet the requirements to become a Waltham reserve police officer. If the department had used the regular civil service list, it would have been obligated to select from those who scored highest on the exam. The Globe has requested a copy of the reserve list, but it had not been turned over by Tuesday.

Rutherford recommended that the department rescind the practice of relying on the reserve list, which began under the administration of Chief Drew's predecessor, Stephen H. Unsworth .

In an interview Tuesday, Drew said he would comply with the recommendation. He said the reserve list had given the department the flexibility to hire officers quickly without having to call for a regular listing every time there was a vacancy.

In particular, Rutherford said, he suspected preferential treatment in three hirings, for a background investigator for civil service patrol officer appointments; a sergeant; and a detective.

In the case of the background investigator, an employee involved in the hiring process told Rutherford he was pressured to include the person who was eventually appointed. In the sergeant's case, another employee told Rutherford that he was pressured to call the appointing authority and ``tell her of the other candidates' shortcomings," according to the report, which indicated that the employee refused to do so.

Rutherford expressed concern that one top official did not disclose to the state in a timely fashion a potential conflict of interest . Rutherford suggested the city adopt a nepotism policy that establishes a written procedure for handling conflicts of interest within city departments.

Drew denied any wrongdoing in how he leads the department. The chief declined to say whether he or his relatives are among those referred to in the report.

``As part of my compliance with ethical standards, I've asked for opinions from the State Ethics Commission and law department and I've written letters to the present mayor and previous mayor," Drew said of his practice regarding potential conflicts of interest. ``I take great pains to take a hands-off policy regarding any of my relatives."

Drew confirmed that his daughter Danelle Hart , son-in-law Patrick Hart , and his son-in-law's brother, Daniel Hart, all work on the force. He also said he has a second daughter on the force.

Rutherford's report also states that an official showed favoritism in deciding whether certain employees were allowed to return from sick leave. In one case, an officer returning from an off-duty illness or injury was allowed to return to light duty without a required medical clearance. Another officer was allowed to take leave without supplying required medical information, the report said.

Drew said that in regards to the matters referred to the State Ethics Commission, he is confident he will be cleared of any violations.

``I view this as an opportunity to move forward with the business of the Police Department, to get this behind us and move forward," Drew said.

Stephanie V. Siek can be reached via e-mail at ssiek@globe.com . 
The New York Times Company
Retrieved June 9, 2006 from http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/06/08/mayor_vows_action_on_police_probe?mode=PF

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:40 AM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:
1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

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Former Kane County drug court judge to retire

By Adam Kovac, Daily Herald Staff Writer, June 08, 2006

Embattled Kane County (IL) Circuit Judge James T. Doyle has announced his retirement. He did so late Wednesday in a letter to Chief Judge Donald Hudson.

The former drug court czar did not state a reason for stepping down in his letter, instead citing his experience as a suburban police officer, public defender, prosecutor and judge in some of Kane County’s highest profile criminal cases.

“During my career I have had the opportunity to meet with jurors and campaign to citizens and I believe the citizens of Kane County represent the most knowledgeable and committed voters,” Doyle wrote in the letter dated May 30 and released this morning. “It truly has been my privilege and honor to serve the citizens of Kane County.”

Doyle has been off the bench and performing administrative duties for 15 months in the wake of an investigation by the state’s Judicial Inquiry Board into allegations of misconduct while he presided over the county’s vaunted drug court rehabilitation program.

In February 2005, a 20-count complaint said Doyle violated the constitutional rights of defendants through intimidation, ignored privacy laws, denied legal counsel and showed bias in his decisions. A state judicial ethics panel three months ago leveled more charges.

Even after he stepped down from drug court, Doyle meddled in the program and used court staff to help his defense against allegations of misconduct, according to an amended complaint from the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board.

He also failed to require some drug court participants to register with a DNA database, receive recommended mental health treatment or pay court fines and costs while he was on the bench, the complaint says.

Hudson called Doyle a close friend and colleague for a number of years and wished him well.

“He’s been a very dedicated as well as innovative judge whose heart has always been in the right place,” Hudson said in his chambers this morning.

Doyle will be eligible for a full pension, which means he will receive 85 percent of his salary.

What follows it the complete text of Doyle’s letter to Chief Judge Donald Hudson:
“Please be advised I have submitted my application for retirement as circuit judge for the 16th Judicial Circuit Court effective Aug. 2, 2006.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the citizens of Kane County for giving me the opportunity to serve in many different legal capacities during the past 30 years. As you are aware, I grew up in Cook County, attended university & law school there and served the citizens of Cook County as a suburban police officer. Upon completion of law school in 1976, I relocated to Kane County and joined the Kane County Public Defender’s office. I was well trained as a defense attorney, then joined the Kane County State’s Attorney’s office, where I was given the opportunity to serve Kane County as one of the top prosecutors. In 1981, I was given the opportunity to serve the citizens of the City of Aurora as the head of the legal department and later represented the citizens of Kane County in my private law practice. For the past 18 years the citizens of Kane County have given me the opportunity to administer justice for the 16th judicial circuit court. I have presided over thousands of major felony cases including nearly 100 homicide cases and over a dozen death penalty cases.

During my career I have had the opportunity to meet with jurors and campaign to citizens and I believe the citizens of Kane County represent the most knowledgeable and committed voters. It truly has been my privilege and honor to serve the citizens of Kane County.”

Retrieved June 9, 2006 from http://www.dailyherald.com/search/printstory.asp?id=197491

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:25 AM | Permalink

Kardasz: The following two-part story from The Detroit News is interesting because it demonstrates the dangers that children can find using social networking sites.

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MySpace teen put on tether
 
Harrison Twp. girl who lied about age faces pretrial hearing May 25; 25-year-old is released.

George Hunter and Steve Pardo / The Detroit News, May 12, 2006

MOUNT CLEMENS -- The mother of the 13-year-old Harrison Township girl who ran off with a man she met on the Internet was "relieved that her daughter was safe -- and furious about the decision she made," said the girl's attorney, Richard Halprin. 

"Her mother had the kind of reaction you often see parents have when their kids come home late: 'I'm glad you're safe; now I want to kill you,' " Halprin said. The girl was "dumbfounded" by the attention the case garnered, he said.

Halprin called his client "a typical 13-year-old. They don't usually think too many steps ahead, or consider the consequences of their actions. She didn't realize what she did would cause this kind of reaction."

A 25-year-old Indiana man was freed Thursday morning from the Macomb County Jail after officials decided he did not commit a crime by driving the girl across Michigan.

But the girl, who told the man she was 18 after they met through the popular Web site MySpace.com, has been placed on a tether, officials said. She was charged Wednesday in Macomb County Juvenile Court with "home truancy," which prosecutors say is akin to running away from home.

Home truancy is considered a "status offense," or an offense where a crime is not committed, but where behavior of a minor warrants court action. After the girl's appearance in juvenile court Wednesday, she was released to the custody of her mother. She will remain on a tether until her pretrial hearing, which is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. May 25.

Juvenile court officials set other conditions on the girl, including a ban on using the Internet, said John Ange, chief of the Macomb County Prosecutor's Office juvenile division. "They were the standard conditions that are usually put on a juvenile: to attend school, and abide by the rules of the home," Ange said. "Basically, they want to ensure we don't have a repeat of what just happened."

Status offenses "are really meant to assist a family so that kids can get their act together before they go out and commit a crime," Ange said. The Hammond, Ind., man was released from custody pending investigation of his computer, said Therese Tobin, chief trial attorney for the Macomb County Prosecutor's Office.

"As far as we can determine, no crime actually took place," Tobin said. If the man had sex with the girl, he would have been charged with statutory rape, regardless if he thought she was 18 years old. But that wasn't the case, Tobin said.

"During the interview, they both said they didn't have sex," Tobin said. "The man indicated that he thought she was 18, and the girl said that's what she told him." An Amber Alert was issued at 11:24 p.m. Tuesday, about two hours after the girl was reported missing by her mother. About two hours later, Kalamazoo County Sheriff's deputies stopped the car. The man's 14-year-old stepbrother was in the car, police said.

Police say the man drove from Hammond and picked up the girl at a shopping center near 16 Mile and Crocker around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. The girl was with a girlfriend and a former boyfriend when the man picked her up, police said.

The girl gave the man's cell phone number to her girlfriend, in case she wanted to get in touch with her, police said. The girlfriend became suspicious and called the 13-year-old's mother. The mother called police, who called the cell phone company.

The man's movements were tracked through his cell phone's GPS locator, and police stopped the man's car on Interstate 94.

The girl identifies herself as being 18 years old on her MySpace site. There are pictures on the site of her lounging on a couch in torn jeans and a low-cut shirt. The site contained Playboy bunny logos and vulgar language.

Officials for the L'Anse Creuse Public Schools wouldn't confirm or deny whether the girl attends school in the district. However, Michelle Irwin, a spokeswoman for the district, said it was sending a letter to parents today.

"It basically just reiterates the importance of Internet safety and gives parents some resources to use to help them with that," Irwin said. "It also says that parents need to monitor their children's use of the Internet."

You can reach George Hunter at (586) 468-7396 or ghunter@detnews.com.

Retrieved May 12, 2006 from http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060512/METRO/605120365/1001/rss21&template=printart

----------------------------------------------------------------------

13 or 18? Girl's age at issue in Web date

25-year-old met teen on MySpace, believed from her profile that she was an adult

Steve Pardo and George Hunter / The Detroit News, May 11, 2006

A rendezvous that began on the Internet between an Indiana man and a 13-year-old Macomb County girl who lied about her age has raised murky legal questions about what he could have done to verify her age and avoid being jailed.

The episode also has law enforcement officials wondering if a crime has been committed, and if so what it might be. They're trying to determine whether there was sexual contact between the two. In the meantime, the 25-year-old man is being held in Macomb County Jail.

"Under the statutory rape laws, if an adult has sex with someone under the age of 16 in Michigan, they're legally responsible," said Jeffery Cojocar, a Shelby Township attorney who deals with men's rights issues.

"I don't care if the minor showed a birth certificate that said they were older. It doesn't matter. Statutory rape is what is called a strict liability law, which means it doesn't matter whether the accused knew a crime was being committed or not."

In the Macomb case, authorities questioned the Hammond, Ind., man and the Harrison Township girl Wednesday. The man met the teen on the popular Internet site MySpace.com. The girl told him and had on her MySpace Web site that she was 18.

"We're working with both the federal agencies and the prosecutor's office to see what charges will be brought against him," said Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel, who said the man had a disorderly conduct and a drug charge in his past. It's unclear whether the man will face charges.

Authorities are particularly concerned about the four hours from the time the man picked up the girl Tuesday night until the time he was stopped by authorities in Jackson County. If there was sexual contact during that time, it's clear the man broke the law regardless of what the girl told him, according to authorities and attorneys.

An Amber Alert was issued in the case about 11:24 p.m. Tuesday, about two hours after the girl got into the car with the man. Two hours later, Kalamazoo County sheriff's deputies stopped the car. The man's 14-year-old stepbrother also was in the vehicle, Hackel said.

The man apparently drove from Hammond and picked up the girl from a shopping center in the 16 Mile and Crocker area around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. The girl was with two friends -- a girlfriend and a former boyfriend -- at the time she was picked up by the man. She gave the man's cell phone number to her girlfriend, saying, "If you need to get a hold of me, call this number," Hackel said.

The girlfriend got suspicious and called the 13-year-old's mother. The mother called deputies, who got in touch with the cell phone company and tracked the man's movements through his cell phone's GPS locator. They learned he was driving in the Jackson area and a Kalamazoo County sheriff's deputy stopped the car on Interstate 94.

Hackel called the girl's Web site "provocative" and "somewhat questionable." A check of the girl's site Wednesday shows she identifies herself as 18. Pictures show her lounging on a couch in torn jeans and a low-cut shirt. The site contained Playboy bunny logos and a vulgar expression.

But that's irrelevant, Hackel and legal experts pointed out; from their perspective, deputies were trying to find a 13-year-old girl traveling with an adult man she met on the Internet.

"Our goal was to find that car," Hackel said. "The primary issue is one of her safety. Did something sexual occur? We have to investigate that -- even if the girl said nothing happened." Macomb County authorities are also questioning the 14-year-old boy in the case.

"We still have 48 hours to decide what we're going to do, so we'll continue to interview him," Hackel said. "We'll probably determine (Thursday) morning what we're going to do. There may be federal charges, although I don't want to go into more detail than that."

The girl was transferred to the Juvenile Justice Center, but is at home with her family now, he said. Exactly what happened from the time the man picked her up and the time police stopped his vehicle remains under investigation. And that's where a gray area begins, Cojocar said.

"If there was no sex involved, and the girl just got in the car with him to go to Indiana, it would be more difficult to convict the man," he said. "Prosecutors would have to show criminal intent -- that he took her against her will. If she lied to him, and he didn't know she was a minor, then in this case, I don't think there would be criminal liability."

"It would be premature to say anything because the case is still under investigation," Therese Tobin, chief trial attorney for the Macomb County Prosecutor's Office, said. Mel Feit, director of the National Center for Men, an Old Bethpage, N.Y.-based men's advocacy group, said laws don't always reflect the reality of a potentially sexual situation between a man and an underage girl.

"The reality is, some teenagers look and act mature -- and some teenagers deceive men, and pretend they're older than what they are," Feit said. "The law needs to reflect the reality of the situation: that sometimes a man can honestly be deceived. It doesn't make sense to hold him to the same standards as a man who knows he's having sex with a minor.

"It's not about the truth -- it's about being deliberately punitive without regard to the truth. The system is not set up to look at who lied to whom. It's a very inhuman approach to solving these problems, which is to say, 'let's look at her age, and nothing else.' It's not justice. A just system would look at all the circumstances. Knowledge and intent should be important."

The girl's family had stopped the girl's Internet access at home and investigators are looking into how she continued online chats with the Indiana man.

You can reach Steve Pardo at (586) 468-3614 or spardo@ detnews.com.

Retrieved May 12, 2006 from http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060511/METRO/605110407/1001/rss21&template=printart

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 08:37 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:
1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

---------------------------------------------------------

By Jason Auslande,  The New Mexican, May 20, 2006
Santa Fe, New Mexico

A special prosecutor filed charges Friday in District Court accusing former Municipal Judge Frances Gallegos of 12 counts of felony records tampering.

According to the criminal-information document, Gallegos, 56, knowingly falsified the records of 12 Municipal Court defendants between June 2, 2004, and April 21, 2005. Each count is a fourth-degree felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison.

The charges were filed Friday afternoon in First Judicial District Court by Timothy Hasson, deputy district attorney for the Eighth Judicial District in Taos. Hasson is acting as special prosecutor for the First Judicial District, which asked the Taos office to prosecute the Gallegos case because of a conflict of interest.

Eighth Judicial District Attorney Donald Gallegos said earlier Friday that the filing of the criminal-information document means a preliminary hearing will be held in Santa Fe. The hearing had not been scheduled as of Friday afternoon.

At a preliminary hearing, prosecutors lay out their evidence against a defendant and call witnesses, who can be cross-examined by the defendant's attorney. A judge then decides whether the evidence supports the charge and either binds the matter over for trial or dismisses it.

Efforts to reach Frances Gallegos; her attorney, Jeffrey Jones; and Donald Gallegos were unsuccessful after the criminal-information document was filed late Friday afternoon. Donald Gallegos and Frances Gallegos are not related.

The New Mexico Supreme Court suspended Frances Gallegos for 90 days with pay in August while the state Judicial Standards Commission investigated two sets of misconduct allegations against her. The first set alleged she didn't let defendants not represented by an attorney plead not guilty, conducted summary trials and engaged in professional incompetence. The second set alleged she increased jail time on closed driving-while-intoxicated cases to enhance her standing with the public.

Gallegos resigned from the bench Nov. 3, the day a state police investigator filed three counts of felony records tampering against her in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court.

The charges filed Friday relate directly to the second set of misconduct allegations concerning altering the outcome of closed DWI cases. Three of the 12 counts were for the same three DWI cases cited by the state police investigator who filed the Magistrate Court charges in November.

Those three cases were first detailed in a supplemental petition from the Judicial Standards Commission asking that Gallegos be temporarily suspended, which was filed Aug. 23 in the Supreme Court.

In that filing, the commission said it felt the need to supplement its original petition asking that Gallegos be temporarily suspended because it had reviewed more of the approximately 950 cases she allegedly altered and had found "further and more serious code violations, as well as possible violations of New Mexico statutes." according to the document.

In the first case detailed by the commission -- which is also Count 1 of the charges filed Friday in District Court -- a Texas man was found not guilty of DWI in 1999 by Gallegos' pro tem judge, Gail Glasser, according to documents. But when Gallegos filed an undated amendment on the case with the Department of Motor Vehicles, she indicated Glasser had dismissed the case and imposed a 90-day jail sentence with two days served and 88 days suspended, the documents state.

In the second case detailed by the commission -- Count 2 of the charges filed Friday -- the 1995 DWI case against a Santa Fe woman was dismissed in November 1997 because the six-month time limit to prosecute it had passed, according to the documents.

However, Gallegos amended the case Dec. 17, 2004, to say that while the case had been dismissed, the defendant had been sentenced to 90 days in jail, credited with two days served and 88 days suspended, the documents state.

In the third case detailed by the commission -- Count 3 of the charges filed Friday -- then-Municipal Judge Tom Fiorina dismissed a 1995 DWI charge against a Santa Fe man on Sept. 7, 1995.

The amendment filed Dec. 16, 2004, by Gallegos indicated that while Fiorina dismissed the case, the defendant was given a 90-day jail sentence, credited with two days served and 88 days suspended.

According to the standards commission, all three actions by Gallegos constituted a "material change" to the case dispositions from "dismissed" to the imposition of jail time.

According to a statement by the standards commission's executive director, Jim Noel, in the supplemental petition:

"As discussed in the commission's original filing, it is alleged Judge Gallegos was substantively changing criminal-case dispositions, to wit, changing the number of days a defendant was sentenced in order to enhance her standing as 'tough' on DWI convictions. However, these new documents represent a much more serious violation of the code (and likely the law) in that Judge Gallegos amended dismissed case dispositions (some of which pre-date her election to office) to reflect the imposition of what appear to be fabricated sentences."

Contact Jason Auslander at 995-3877 or jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.

Retrieved June 11, 2006 from http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/43925.html#

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 01:03 PM | Permalink

NewScientist.com news service, Paul Marks 

New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology - specifically the forthcoming "semantic web" championed by the web standards organisation W3C - to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.

Americans are still reeling from last month's revelations that the NSA has been logging phone calls since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The Congressional Research Service, which advises the US legislature, says phone companies that surrendered call records may have acted illegally. However, the White House insists that the terrorist threat makes existing wire-tapping legislation out of date and is urging Congress not to investigate the NSA's action.

Meanwhile, the NSA is pursuing its plans to tap the web, since phone logs have limited scope. They can only be used to build a very basic picture of someone's contact network, a process sometimes called "connecting the dots". Clusters of people in highly connected groups become apparent, as do people with few connections who appear to be the intermediaries between such groups. The idea is to see by how many links or "degrees" separate people from, say, a member of a blacklisted organisation.

By adding online social networking data to its phone analyses, the NSA could connect people at deeper levels, through shared activities, such as taking flying lessons. Typically, online social networking sites ask members to enter details of their immediate and extended circles of friends, whose blogs they might follow. People often list other facets of their personality including political, sexual, entertainment, media and sporting preferences too. Some go much further, and a few have lost their jobs by publicly describing drinking and drug-taking exploits. Young people have even been barred from the orthodox religious colleges that they are enrolled in for revealing online that they are gay.

"You should always assume anything you write online is stapled to your resumé. People don't realise you get Googled just to get a job interview these days," says Callas.

Other data the NSA could combine with social networking details includes information on purchases, where we go (available from cellphone records, which cite the base station a call came from) and what major financial transactions we make, such as buying a house.

Right now this is difficult to do because today's web is stuffed with data in incompatible formats. Enter the semantic web, which aims to iron out these incompatibilities over the next few years via a common data structure called the Resource Description Framework (RDF). W3C hopes that one day every website will use RDF to give each type of data a unique, predefined, unambiguous tag.

"RDF turns the web into a kind of universal spreadsheet that is readable by computers as well as people," says David de Roure at the University of Southampton in the UK, who is an adviser to W3C. "It means that you will be able to ask a website questions you couldn't ask before, or perform calculations on the data it contains." In a health record, for instance, a heart attack will have the same semantic tag as its more technical description, a myocardial infarction. Previously, they would have looked like separate medical conditions. Each piece of numerical data, such as the rate of inflation or the number of people killed on the roads, will also get a tag.

The advantages for scientists, for instance, could be huge: they will have unprecedented access to each other's experimental datasets and will be able to perform their own analyses on them. Searching for products such as holidays will become easier as price and availability dates will have smart tags, allowing powerful searches across hundreds of sites.

On the downside, this ease of use will also make prying into people's lives a breeze. No plan to mine social networks via the semantic web has been announced by the NSA, but its interest in the technology is evident in a funding footnote to a research paper delivered at the W3C's WWW2006 conference in Edinburgh, UK, in late May.

That paper, entitled Semantic Analytics on Social Networks, by a research team led by Amit Sheth of the University of Georgia in Athens and Anupam Joshi of the University of Maryland in Baltimore reveals how data from online social networks and other databases can be combined to uncover facts about people. The footnote said the work was part-funded by an organisation called ARDA.

What is ARDA? It stands for Advanced Research Development Activity. According to a report entitled Data Mining and Homeland Security, published by the Congressional Research Service in January, ARDA's role is to spend NSA money on research that can "solve some of the most critical problems facing the US intelligence community". Chief among ARDA's aims is to make sense of the massive amounts of data the NSA collects - some of its sources grow by around 4 million gigabytes a month.

The ever-growing online social networks are part of the flood of internet information that could be mined: some of the top sites like MySpace now have more than 80 million members (see Graph).

The research ARDA funded was designed to see if the semantic web could be easily used to connect people. The research team chose to address a subject close to their academic hearts: detecting conflicts of interest in scientific peer review. Friends cannot peer review each other's research papers, nor can people who have previously co-authored work together.

So the team developed software that combined data from the RDF tags of online social network Friend of a Friend (www.foaf-project.org), where people simply outline who is in their circle of friends, and a semantically tagged commercial bibliographic database called DBLP, which lists the authors of computer science papers.

Joshi says their system found conflicts between potential reviewers and authors pitching papers for an internet conference. "It certainly made relationship finding between people much easier," Joshi says. "It picked up softer [non-obvious] conflicts we would not have seen before."

The technology will work in exactly the same way for intelligence and national security agencies and for financial dealings, such as detecting insider trading, the authors say. Linking "who knows who" with purchasing or bank records could highlight groups of terrorists, money launderers or blacklisted groups, says Sheth.

The NSA recently changed ARDA's name to the Disruptive Technology Office. The DTO's interest in online social network analysis echoes the Pentagon's controversial post 9/11 Total Information Awareness (TIA) initiative. That programme, designed to collect, track and analyse online data trails, was suspended after a public furore over privacy in 2002. But elements of the TIA were incorporated into the Pentagon's classified programme in the September 2003 Defense Appropriations Act.

Privacy groups worry that "automated intelligence profiling" could sully people's reputations or even lead to miscarriages of justice - especially since the data from social networking sites may often be inaccurate, untrue or incomplete, De Roure warns.

But Tim Finin, a colleague of Joshi's, thinks the spread of such technology is unstoppable. "Information is getting easier to merge, fuse and draw inferences from. There is money to be made and control to be gained in doing so. And I don't see much that will stop it," he says.

Callas thinks people have to wise up to how much information about themselves they should divulge on public websites. It may sound obvious, he says, but being discreet is a big part of maintaining privacy. Time, perhaps, to hit the delete button.

Retrieved June 10, 2006 from http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025556.200?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19025556.200

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:38 PM | Permalink

By Terry Dillman Of the News-Times

Protecting children from as many risks as humanly possible is a paramount concern for parents.

One of their most prevalent and time-worn worries involves children accosted by a stranger with ill intentions - on the street, on playgrounds, in schoolyards, and other places outside the home where children and youth gather. Today such predators can invade what is usually the safest haven of all - the family home - by creeping through cyberspace and gaining entry through the computer screen, even when a child is tucked snugly away in his or her own nook, with Mom and Dad in the next room.

"It's very scary," Micah Persons, one of two criminal investigators on Oregon's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, told a gathering of parents, youngsters, and community leaders during a June 5 presentation at the Newport Church of the Nazarene.

Sponsored by the church, Lincoln County School District, Lincoln County Children's Advocacy Center, and local law enforcement agencies, the two-hour multimedia sojourn into the Internet ether aimed at providing the best safeguard against cyberspace predators - knowledge. Persons described the risks, discussed past and present cases and their ramifications, and offered tips to make Internet use as predator-proof as possible.

"Predators can find all the information they need by computer in 20 minutes," he said, offering a graphic demonstration of how it's done. "This also shows you the mentality and thought processes of some of the predators out there."

The amount of detail available for plucking in the virtual realm can lead someone right to the child's actual doorstep, along with a working knowledge of household schedules and when the child is most vulnerable. A predator can use every additional piece of information to glean more specific information and develop a more complete profile of the targeted youngster.

Giving and receiving information on the Internet is an anonymous dance with faceless partners, who can present themselves as whoever and whatever they want.

"Kids will tell the truth in online profiles," said Persons. "Adults usually lie, especially predators. People aren't always who they say they are."

For example, a 40-year-old male predator (99 percent are white males, most older than 25) can transform himself into a 19-year-old boy-of-her-dreams (complete with fake photo) for an unsuspecting teenage girl, enticing her to reveal too much information about herself, send compromising photographs of herself, or worst of all, agree to meet him in person somewhere.

"Once something is out there, it's gone," Persons noted. "Once you put something online, you can't control it. People can use it in ways you never meant."

Children are ideal targets, he said, because they're naturally curious, easily led by adults, crave attention and affection, and have an innate need to defy their parents. Persons said the most common online risks for children and teens are exposure to inappropriate material, sexual solicitation, harassment or bullying, and theft of personal information. Cyberbullying - the high-tech version of the familiar old schoolyard thuggery - involves the use of information and communication technology (e-mail, cell phone text message, instant message, defamatory personal web site, defamatory online personal poll, general website) to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group intended to harm others.

An inescapable fact is that children are growing up on the Internet and computers, and the already complex technology - with all of its points of entry (blogs, chat rooms, bulletin boards, newsgroups, websites, e-mails, Internet-capable cell phones, and more) - is always changing, merging, and morphing.

Yet of all improper Internet contacts made by predators, 70 percent occur "at home," another 22 percent "at someone else's home."

Persons said parents should look for these warning signs:
€ A child changes or minimizes the screen when a parent walks into the room.
€ A child suddenly spends substantially more time online.
€ A child starts getting strange phone calls from people the parents don't know.
€ A child has new clothes, CDs, and other items from unknown sources.
€ A child becomes overly upset if Internet access is restricted or unavailable for even a short time.
€ A child is unusually withdrawn.

Persons said parents can take an active role by becoming computer literate, including learning "chatroom lingo."

Then it's a matter of establishing - and sticking to - house rules for Internet use.

Rules should specify what websites they can visit, who they can talk to online, how long they can stay online, and where outside the home they can use a computer. The best protection is to keep home computers with Internet access in a common area of the home, such as a family room, not in a child's room.

"Otherwise, they can be inviting predators into the safest place they know (their own room), and they let their guard down," Persons said.

Consider installing safeguarding options, such as blocks and filters. Periodically review a child's e-mail account. Find out what websites they go to by checking the "history" folder in the Internet browser. Visit those sites, and find out the type of information on them. "This isn't a matter of trust," said Persons. "It's a matter of safety."

Report any incidents to www.cybertipline.com or call the 24-hour hotline of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678.

"Every tip we get will get processed and given at least an initial look," said Persons.

Oregon has one of 46 regional ICAC Task Forces, establishing the two-man team 18 months ago to follow what Attorney General Hardy Myers calls "a two-pronged approach to keep our kids safe" on the Oregon Department of Justice web site.

The stated mission of the ICAC Task Force is "to protect Oregon's children through community education and the identification, apprehension, and prosecution of those who commit Internet crimes against children."

Prevention through education - outreach to children, teens, parents, and teachers - is the top priority. In cooperation with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Task Force members conduct training and distribute training materials to other qualified trainers throughout Oregon. Myers said these interactive programs boost awareness of "the real dangers that exist on the Internet," and provide guidance to parents and educators for protecting children and youth.

Operation Black Ice is the enforcement aspect.

"We are seeking out, through lawful means, those who use the Internet to commit sexual crimes against children, and punishing them to the fullest extent of the law," stated Myers. "Like 'black ice,' they won't know we are there until it's too late."

For more about Internet safety and the Oregon program, visit www.doj.state.or.us/oricac/index.shtml.

Terry Dillman is a reporter for the News-Times. He can be reached at 265-8571, ext. 225, or terry.dillman@lee.net

Retrieved June 10, 2006 from http://www.newportnewstimes.com/articles/2006/06/09/news/news02.prt

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:33 PM | Permalink

Trading secrets - Our right to privacy is being shaped—right now
 
The Sundaypaper.com By Stephanie Ramage   

Agent Flint Waters is having a bad day. Three of his requests for the identities behind certain Internet addresses have been shrugged off by Internet service providers.
   
“Basically, they’re saying—” Waters pauses and there’s a sound of paper being smoothed out. “I can just read you the bottom part of this. They’re saying, ‘Unfortunately, as a result of our recent system overhaul, we cannot currently retain any such information.’”
   
Waters is co-chair of the technology committee for the Department of Justice’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC). He testified before Congress a couple of months ago about the need for IP address record retention. He is also, on a daily basis, an investigator with the attorney general’s office for the state of Wyoming.
   
He worked on the case made against child pornography traffickers who had acquired images from a Toccoa, Ga., man who pled guilty to state charges of rape and aggravated child molestation in 2002 and to federal charges of child sexual exploitation and pornography in 2003, according to federal appellate court documents. James F. Bidwell, 35, had videotaped himself sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl, then distributed the video, the documents state. The video was copied onto CD-Rom by at least one of Bidwell’s customers and eventually distributed worldwide via the Internet.
   
According to statements released by the office of the attorney general in New Jersey, it was Waters’ “innovative use of file-sifting technology” in 2005 that led police in that state to arrest 39 people who had traded, bartered, bought or sold Bidwell’s images, almost entirely on the Internet.
   
In the last two years, ICAC has identified more than 5 million transactions involving images of child sexual abuse that have been bandied about internationally through the Internet. Since the task force was organized in 1999, its work has culminated in the arrest of more than 8,000 people involved in child exploitation. In 2005 alone, ICAC assisted in 1,600 such arrests in the U.S.
   
“If people knew how much of this was going on and what it was actually about,” Waters says, “they would want us to have more power to stop it.”
   
Waters and other law enforcement officials are hoping that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller are successful in their efforts to require ISPs to retain their customers’ account information for two years and to make that information available to law enforcement in order to assist in child predator and terrorism investigations. Waters sees no difference between requesting such information and asking the power company for the identity of the person paying the bill at a certain address when a body is discovered there, which, he says, would be a routine procedure.
   
Because Waters is thinking of his own race against the clock to find an exploited child, he finds it inconceivable that national fear of a loss of privacy could have anything to do with some ISPs’ reluctance to retain and reveal the information.
   
“I don’t know why they won’t comply,” he says. “I don’t understand it. Maybe they say that it’s because of the NSA, but could that really be why? I don’t know.”
   
Evan Hendricks thinks it is. The National Security Agency’s admission earlier this yearthat it had collected the phone records of millions of Americans in an attempt to monitor calling patterns that could lead to terrorist cells sent a shiver through privacy watchdog groups, according to Hendricks, who is editor of the Privacy Times, a publication that started out with consumer credit protection as its mission and expanded into other areas, including electronic privacy issues.

Hendricks believes there should be some software developed that could distinguish the Internet traffic patterns of child pornographers. He would support that, but he is wary of expanding the Internet data collection capabilities of the government in general.
   
Already, he says, despite the child exploitation arrests, government agencies collect too much that produces too little in the way of convictions—especially now that the Department of Justice and the FBI have decided to use such data to pursue terrorists.
   
“This dragnet approach doesn’t work,” he says. “That’s the real problem with it. If it did we would have seen guys in perp walks and handcuffs for a couple of years now because the NSA started gathering phone information about five years ago.”
   
Hendricks is concerned that the issue of child safety has been calculated to make Americans hand over their personal information with barely a whimper. “This administration will choose the most disgusting, depraved examples for why we need to make this information available and we will do it,” he says.
   
He points out that unless people are acquainted with the history of totalitarian regimes, they might not realize that operating under a cloak of secrecy—and that, more specifically, giving up privacy in exchange for protection—is part of consolidating political control. 

AMERICANS DIVIDED OVER ISSUE

But public opinion polls show a populace that is apparently at least a little suspicious and deeply divided over whether the government should have access to certain private records—even without the issue of child safety being brought into play.
    
Since January, when the NSA story first hit, the number of Americans who support the Bush administration’s phone monitoring and those who do not are surprisingly close. In May alone, three separate polls showed the same narrow, almost 50-50 percentages: According to USA Today, 51 percent of respondents disapprove of the program to collect phone records.

According to a poll by Princeton Survey Research Associates published in Newsweek, 53 percent of respondents think the domestic surveillance program goes too far in invading people’s privacy—which means about 47 percent don’t necessarily feel that way.
And according to a poll by Opinion Dynamics released by Fox News, 52 percent
of respondents support data collection on domestic phone calls and looking at calling patterns of Americans without listening in on or recording the calls.
  
“I think the polls have been all over the map,” says Neil Kinkopf, who teaches constitutional law at Georgia State University.
   
“It depends on which part of this program the poll takers are asking about, whether they’re asking if it should be legal or if it is legal—any number of things. I’m not at all sure that people like such programs. My own thought is that Americans in particular seem to be more pragmatic than doctrinaire.”
   
As far as the law is concerned, Kinkopf says that it’s pretty clear that the government can’t just listen in on conversations at random without a defined purpose. But that is not what the NSA says it was doing. Instead, it was monitoring the numbers that Americans were calling and looking for calling patterns.
   
“If the government says, ‘We won’t listen in, but we need to know to where these phone calls are being made,’ there is some leeway there,” he says. “But is that really what’s going on with that information? Do we really trust the FBI not to use that information for other things like embarrassing political rivals?”
   
These are abstracts, of course, and, says Kinkopf, people don’t really confront policies in the abstract. Frank J. Vandall, who teaches tort law at Emory University, agrees that most people
need to see how something affects them before feeling obliged to act on it, but he also points out that the Constitution does not specifically guarantee a right to privacy. Instead, privacy issues have been decided in a piecemeal fashion, one lawsuit at a time. When the courts need an explicit right to lean on for the sake of privacy, they usually turn to the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unlawful search and seizure.
   
Even when Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren published “The Right to Privacy” in the Harvard Law Review in 1890, their privacy concerns centered on protecting one’s privacy from other citizens (as well as the “evil of invasion of privacy by the newspapers”), not on protecting citizens’ privacy from the government. But one sentence in particular in that more-than-100-year-old document resonates today: “Numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that ‘what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the house-tops.’” Vandall says we are at a turning point in the evolution of our country’s privacy laws.
   
“We’re living in an electronic age when there is so much information available— Googling people, for example, is a very popular activity,” he says. “Since the limits on how far the government can go are not defined, this is a critical time in shaping our interest in privacy. It will be shaped by what
the government is looking for, if it’s terrorists, so that we are all being looked at, or if it’s protecting children—about which we wouldn’t protest quite as much.”
   
Agent Waters feels the urgency of our era, as well. With increased technology, he says,
comes increased responsibility. This, for him, is not an abstract. He believes Congress will have to pass a law to compel ISPs to retain and reveal their customers’ identities.
   
Another denial of his request comes across the fax machine while he’s on the
phone with SP. This one is for an address with current exploitation activity, so he doesn’t need records going back two years.
   
“This last one we got in within 24 hours of the time that we found the abuse,” he says with obvious disgust. “Twenty-four hours and the ISP is telling me they can’t retain records. For 24 hours?

I think there should be safeguards to protect privacy. I’m a private guy myself, but what would people think if we said about any other crime, ‘If they can’t find your records within 30 days, you’re off the hook’? And this was for 24 hours!”

Retrieved June 10, 2006 from http://www.sundaypaper.com/NEWS/News/NewsArchives/tabid/202/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1523/061106-News.aspx

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:26 PM | Permalink

By: Andrew O'Reilly , The Evening Bulletin Staff Reporter 
 
Pennsylvania. Bryn Mawr - U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan along with members of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force gave a presentation Wednesday night at Sacred Heart Academy in Bryn Mawr on how to keep children safe while using the Internet.

"The best line of defense in keeping your kids safe is education," Meehan said. " Show them what you are doing and become partners with them on the Internet."

Today, 75% of homes in the U.S. have Internet connection and one-third of the children in the country have computers in their bedrooms. A computer in a child's bedroom makes the child much more susceptible to online predators, Meehan added.

"You would never in a million years allow someone to walk in your front door, up your stairs and into your bedroom without you knowing, but that is exactly what is going on with online predators," he said.

One out of every five children gets solicited online by a predator and one time out of the 35 the predator becomes aggressive. An aggressive predator is one who sends letters in the mail or calls the child's home, Meehan added. The big problem is that only one out of every four children actually tells their parents about the predator.

Another problem is when the children being solicited begin to form a relationship with the predator. The predators make the children feel like they don't judge them and that they understand the child, Meehan said. "This is the beginning of the process of manipulation and manipulation is what it is all about," he added.

Children believe that the longer they talk to a person the more they can trust that person. Predators find the weakness of a child and also match the child's likes and dislikes, said Lt. David Peifer of the ICAC. Children meet these predators in chat roo and now more importantly on websites like myspace.com. Myspace is a website that allows people to set up profiles of theelves and post messages on theirs and others profiles, Peifer said.

"Myspace is the flavor of the month with kids now but it has also become a place for predators to stalk kids," he said. Some proble that arise with websites such as Myspace is children putting pictures of theelves up on the sites and also the theft of personal information which many children post in their profiles, Peifer said.

Children give up a good deal of information on these sites including their name, address, age, Instant Messenger account name and school. Parents should not allow their children to put this information online because it poses a major threat to their children's safety, he said However, filtering a child's use off the Internet is not the answer to the problem. Many times sites that are filtered are ones that a child may need to use for a research project or a paper, Peifer said.

"Filters are not the answer, but good communication between parent and child is," he added. Along with the presentation, the ICAC set up a test to see if they could find any online predators while the presentation was going on. During the presentation an ICAC detective went into chat roo and posed as a young teen. In one chat room another person sent the detective pictures of young children in sexually explicit positions.

"We have seen pictures of children as young as six months old which is truly disgusting and wrong," Peifer said. As emphasized before the best way to protect children from online predators is to talk to them at a young age such as eleven, Meehan said.

"It is important to talk to the kids because they have to know that you are partners with them for their own safety," Meehan added.

The Evening Bulletin 2006 
Retrieved June 10, 2006 from http://www.theeveningbulletin.com/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=2737&dept_id=576361&newsid=16728019
Re

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:18 PM | Permalink

June 7, 2006, STNG wire reports

Illinois. The Attorney General's Internet Crimes Against Children task force and Winfield police apprehended a Schaumburg man for allegedly traveling to Winfield to have sex with a minor, according to a release.

Winfield police on Wednesday arrested William F. Murphy, 32, of Schaumburg, when he attempted to meet with a child at a park in Winfield with the intent of having sex with the child, whom he met in an Internet chat room, according to a release from the attorney general’s office.

Murphy was charged with one felony count of indecent solicitation of a child, and following the arrest, police and the task force executed a search warrant at his residence, where a computer was seized, the release said. A forensic search of the computer will be conducted.

In the 20 months since its creation, the Illinois ICAC task force has arrested more than 250 individuals on charges related to the exploitation of children, the release said.

Retrieved June 10, 2006 from http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/internet07.html

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:12 PM | Permalink

By Rebekah Kunz, 8 Jun 2006

The state of Utah is cracking down on crimes against children.

As the latest in a series of proposed regulations, Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy is pushing for a law that would punish adults who approach minors with the intent to do harm.

The law is modeled after a similar law in effect in Ohio.

"The goal seems good. We all want to protect children," said Ed Carter, a BYU assistant professor of communications, who is also a lawyer.

Carter said the law would be good for child protection but that it is tough to get inside someone's head and see what they were intending to do.

Carter expressed concern that the law, if not specifically worded, could, during its enforcement, catch innocent people doing things that wouldn't be considered harmful.

The Provo Police Department also said the enforceability of the law has everything to do with the words that are used in the law. Captain Rick Healy said some laws are difficult to enforce because they are too general.

Other measures are also being taken for child safety in Utah. There are laws currently used by law enforcement agencies that don't require physical contact with a minor in order for a perpetrator to be detained.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff is also involved in taking steps to prevent crimes against children from happening. He works with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force of Utah, a multi-jurisdictional task force involved in the investigation and prosecution of people who use the Internet to exploit children.

According to Sgt. Tadd Lowe, a member of the ICAC Task Force, Internet perpetrators aren't required to have physical contact with a minor, in order for the arrest to occur.

"It might be something that they've found that the law isn't a catchall and this addresses some of the issues that other laws don't," Lowe said.

Since 2000, the ICAC has been actively involved in talking to about 35,000 Utahans about the best way to protect themselves and their children: prevention and Internet safety.

Other efforts to protect children, prevent child drug use and prevent gang involvement as well as the AMBER Alert program are all in place to protect the children of Utah.
 
Retrieved June 10, 2006 from http://newsnet.byu.edu/print/story.cfm/60029

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:08 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:
1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

State panel reprimands Schwartz for comments he made during a DUI arrest. The commission finds he asked police for preferential treatment.

By Lance Pugmire, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, June 9, 2006

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Bernard J. Schwartz was censured Thursday by the state Commission on Judicial Performance for statements he made to police during his arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol last year in Pismo Beach.

The director of the commission said censure was the panel's most serious punishment short of being removed from the bench.

Schwartz, 45, can continue to preside over criminal hearings. He is on vacation this week and was unavailable for comment Thursday, his secretary said.

On July 16, 2005, Schwartz had a blood-alcohol level of 0.18% — more than double the legal limit — when he was stopped by a Pismo Beach police officer and submitted to a breath test.

The commission found that Schwartz "repeatedly attempted to avoid being arrested … and to receive preferential treatment because he was a judge," according to an eight-page decision written by commission Chairman Marshall B. Grossman.

The arresting officer reported seeing Schwartz's vehicle swerving.

In taped conversations, Schwartz asked the officer if he could leave his car and return to his hotel room. He told police he had had "a couple glasses of wine," and asked, "Is this really necessary?" after informing the officer that he was a judge.

When told that he was under arrest, Schwartz responded, "You know what this is going to do? This will substantially impair my career."

Police repeatedly told Schwartz that they were required to act fair and unbiased and needed to treat him "like everybody else,"declining his requests to speak to a lieutenant, captain or on-call judge in San Luis Obispo County.

"There is no professional courtesy here anymore," Schwartz said at the police station, where his comments also were recorded. When an officer asked Schwartz to acknowledge he was seeking special treatment, the judge replied, "To some degree, I guess."

The commission found Schwartz had violated Code of Judicial Ethics canons by "failing to act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary" and by "lending prestige of judicial office to advance personal interests."

In censuring Schwartz, but declining to remove him from the Superior Court, the commission cited factors including the judge's absence of prior discipline, his general integrity and the likelihood he would not engage in future misconduct. But the commission said Schwartz's comments to police were "particularly offensive."

The judge reported his arrest two days later to the commission and expressed remorse, according to the decision.

Schwartz pleaded no contest to driving with a blood-alcohol level of more than 0.08% in September and served two days in a San Luis Obispo County jail in early December. He was fined $1,609, placed on three years' probation and completed a first-time offenders' DUI program, a court clerk said Thursday.

Victoria Henley, director of the commission, said the censure "has no influence on the judge's ability to preside, but it will be taken into account if there is subsequent misconduct."

Retrieved June 10, 2006 from http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-judge9jun09,1,6224003.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

Supreme Court Building, Washington D.C.

photo by Dr. Kardasz

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:56 AM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:
1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

---------------------------------------------------------

'They singled out this ordinary man'  Illegal arrest was all about racism, victim says
 
Max Harrold, The Gazette, Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Two Montreal police officers lied and covered up for each other after illegally arresting a man in the Cote des Neiges district in January 2003, Quebec's Police Ethics Committee has ruled.

Police officers Chantale Pronovost and Dominic Godbout went out of their way to harass Garvey Dottin during his arrest in front of several of his friends at a wedding reception, said Michele Cohen, the head of the committee. "It's a perfect example of what not to do," Cohen said. "They singled out this ordinary man." The committee is to issue a punishment to the officers within a few weeks.

Dottin, 41, was arrested about 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 19, 2003, as he was leaving a wedding reception in a church. The officers said they thought Dottin's car had hit a utility pole in the church's parking lot. The officers handcuffed him and put him in the back of a police car while they checked his identification. The police neglected to tell Dottin why he was being arrested, the ethics committee's report says.

After discovering Dottin's car had not struck a pole, they released Dottin but handed him a $411 ticket for obstructing a police officer in the course of his or her duties - something witnesses said he did not do. Dottin challenged the ticket and a judge subsequently dismissed the charge.

Dottin said yesterday he is pleased with some aspects of the ruling, but it ignores the officers' real motive for arresting him. "It's all about racism," he said. "They did it because I'm black." Both officers are white.

Dottin, who lives in Roxboro, said he is suing the city of Montreal, the officers' employer, for $80,000 in damages. "We'll see," he said. "Maybe they'll try to settle out of court."

Dottin said Montreal police should try to interact more closely with members of the city's black community. "They should try to get to know us more," he said. "Socialize with us. Play some sports."

A spokesperson for Montreal's police brotherhood was not available for comment last night. Fo Niemi, executive director of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, complained last night that Cote des Neiges has been the scene of police misconduct involving black people over the past two years.

mharrold@thegazette.canwest.com
The Gazette (Montreal) 2006
CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Retrieved June 8, 2006 from http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/montreal/story.html?id=477ac0d8-1f5c-41c0-b844-b6ffa7bc66bd&k=10139

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 10:21 AM | Permalink

Kardasz: To what extent should private individuals or business be permitted to purchase access to lawmakers?

Lawmakers took millions in free trips: study By Thomas Ferraro
June 2, 2006

Members of the U.S. Congress and their aides took free trips worth nearly $50 million paid for by corporations, trade associations and other private groups between January 2000 and June 2005, according to a study released on Monday.

Some of the 23,000 trips featured $500-a-night hotel rooms, $25,000 corporate jet rides and visits to popular spots such as Paris, Hawaii and Colorado ski resorts, said the study, by the Center for Public Integrity, American Public Media and Northwestern University's Medill News Service.

The study found that many of those who picked up the tabs were at the same time seeking to shape legislation on Capitol Hill or win federal contracts.

"In many instances, trip sponsors appeared to be buying access to elected officials or their advisors," the study said.

While most excursions seemed to be legitimate fact-finding missions, others appeared to have been little more than "pricey vacations ... wrapped around speeches or seminars" in which the lawmaker was often joined by family members, according to the study and researchers who conducted it.

The data emerged from a nine-month-long review of congressional travel disclosure forms and coincided with ongoing federal investigations of political corruption and efforts to clean up how Congress does business.

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to fraud charges in January and admitted he showered golf trips, sports tickets and other gifts on lawmakers in return for actions that would help his clients.

In response, the Senate and House of Representatives have voted to toughen ethics guidelines and require greater disclosure. But critics have charged more needs to be done.

Lawmakers and their aides can take trips financed by outside groups to help them learn about issues or to deliver speeches, such as commencement addresses. Lobbyists may not pay for congressional trips but can help to arrange them.

'INDIFFERENCE TO THE RULES'

The study was released at a news conference where its sponsors said they found more than 1,000 violations of congressional rules, many of them involving lawmakers who inadequately filed disclosure reports.

Other infractions included members taking more than the one permitted family member on a trip, accepting gifts worth more than the $49.99 limit and lobbyists picking up the travel tab.

"There's a remarked indifference to the rules shown by members of Congress," said Wendell Rawls of the Center for Public Integrity, adding "they are rarely, if ever, reprimanded."

"When confronted with a rules violation they simply ask for and receive a waiver from the House ethics committee or else they just submit an amended form," Rawls said.

Congressional trip sponsors, the study said, included Microsoft, Time Warner and The Walt Disney Co., along with the Association of American Railroads.

Tom White, an association spokesman, was quoted in the study as saying that such getaways "provide an opportunity for us to discuss our issues with members in an atmosphere where you are not time-constrained.

"If you try to talk to a member for any great length of time ... in Washington, they are simply too busy," White said.

Former House Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay and his staffers accepted about a half million dollars in trips during the period under review -- more than any other congressional office, the study said.

DeLay resigned as House Republican leader last year after he was indicted on charges of violating campaign finance laws in his home state of Texas.

2006 Reuters Limited
Retrieved June 6, 2006 from http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060605/pl_nm/usa_congress_travel_dc&printer=1;_ylt=AjFOdc74alL.dYkG6Xn1KZAb.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

photo by Dr. Kardasz

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 09:04 PM | Permalink

Fear is a state of darkness in which the soul wanders, bewildered, seeking help, and then comes hope as a ray of light, and grace prevails.

-Al-Sarraj, "Rabi'a the Mystic"
From "The Bounty of Allah." Translated by Aneela Khalid Arshed.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 03:20 PM | Permalink

Though you speak unkind words to a man's face,
Do not speak words behind his back heedless of consequent harm.

Though every word is full of kindly virtue,
A man's mean back-biting will betray his empty heart.

If a man spreads tales of others' faults,
His own worst faults will be exposed and spread.

-Tirukkural 19: 184-186
Excerpted from the Tirukkural, translated by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. www.himalayanacademy.com.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 04:49 PM | Permalink

Vain, boastful talk repels acts of kindness
and tears the branch of mercy from the trunk of the tree.
Speak honestly or else be silent,
and then behold grace and delight in it.

-Rumi, "Mathnawi" [III, 751-752]
From "Jewels of Remembrance," by Rumi, selected and translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 04:25 PM | Permalink

More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them.

-Harold J. Smith

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 03:15 PM | Permalink

A kind word of forgiveness is better than charity accompanied by insults.

-Qur'an, Al-Baqara, Surah 2:263
From "366 Readings From Islam," translated by Robert Van der Weyer.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 03:03 PM | Permalink

By Cassondra Kirby, Herald-Leader, 03/29/2006

Several Lexington police officers face disciplinary action for comments and photos they posted on the popular Web site MySpace.com, in which the officers discussed their jobs, commented on arrests they had made and used derogatory language about gays and the mentally disabled.

On one officer's site on MySpace.com, some Lexington officers openly discussed the recent arrest of country music star John Michael Montgomery, who was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol when he was pulled over by Officer Joshua Cromer in February.

Those comments appeared on Cromer's MySpace page, some of them congratulating Cromer for the arrest. His site also included an altered photograph -- posted there by another officer -- of Montgomery and a fan in which Cromer's face had been placed on the body of the fan. An attorney for Montgomery last night said he was "just appalled" at the web postings.

On other pages, all located on MySpace.com, officers say they work for the "snobby people of Lexington" or the "Lexington Fayette Urban Communist Government." They call each other gay and make fun of the mentally disabled. Many of the pages feature Lexington police badges, police cars or photos of the officers in uniform.

Police Chief Anthany Beatty said several officers were told last night that they will probably face internal administrative charges because of the MySpace postings. He would not say what the punishment might be, but said discipline can include anything from a written reprimand to suspension to termination.

Beatty shook his head yesterday as he flipped through printouts of four officers' sites on MySpace. The sites were created by Cromer, an officer since 2002; Richard Cole Sisk, an officer since 1999; Gene Haynes, an officer since 2001; and Aaron Richard Noel, who has been on the force for two years.

Beatty said the police department -- with the help of the Urban County Government law department -- immediately launched an internal investigation into the sites after officials were notified about two weeks ago of possible inappropriate content.

Beatty would not say how many officers are being investigated -- but he said there are "possibly more" than the four -- nor would he say which officers will be disciplined because the investigation is ongoing. He said part of the police disciplinary code "indicates that you should not, as police officers, do anything or say anything or act in any way that would reflect negatively on the agency.

"We assure the citizens that we are thoroughly investigating and will take appropriate action at the conclusion of the investigation, when all the facts are in," Beatty said. Although many of the officers' Web pages have been cleaned up or deactivated in recent days, there could be damaging effects.

Officials are particularly concerned about the effect of Cromer's site on the case against Montgomery, who is scheduled to be back in court in April on charges including DUI, carrying a concealed deadly weapon and possession of a controlled substance. The police department has notified judicial officials of the photo on Cromer's site, but no one could say yesterday what effect, if any, it might have on the case.

Montgomery's attorneys, Brent Caldwell and Jon Woodall, said yesterday that they had heard rumors about Cromer's site and the Montgomery photo. The attorneys are sending a subpoena to the operators of Myspace.com to obtain the photo since it is no longer on Cromer's site.

"We have had grave concerns from the first day of the arrest about the actions of this officer and the motivations in his arrest," Caldwell said. "We are frankly just appalled that a police officer would do something like that and just can't understand why he would do something like that." The attorneys spoke with Montgomery yesterday about the photo and Cromer's site. "Let's just say he wasn't very pleased about it," Woodall said. "There's so many good officers on the street, it is a shame that this officer is giving the department a black eye."

In addition to the Montgomery photo, Cromer's site included more general postings about his police work. In his biographical profile he identified himself as a Lexington police officer and said, "I love to lock a mother f----- up ..."
He also described an incident in which he wrote a ticket to a man who lives in his apartment complex because the man's car alarm woke him up. He then discovered the man had a warrant for unpaid tickets. "Sorry ... don't take it personal, pay your f------ tickets and you won't have warrants," Cromer wrote.

Other officers' pages include crude images and comments. At the top of Sisk's page, for example, he posted a photo of a mentally disabled child running in a race. "What's better than winning the special olympics?" the photo read. "Not being retarded."

Bruce Edwards, a spokesman for Mayor Teresa Isaac, said last night that the mayor is aware of the police investigation. "It is being handled internally, and appropriate disciplinary actions will be taken if necessary," he said.
There are no Lexington police department policies specifying what sort of material officers may post on sites such as MySpace.com.

Beatty said the department will look at creating such a policy in light of these recent cases. Still, officers know they must maintain a certain level of respect and professionalism, whether they're in public or on the Web, Beatty said. Specifically, they hear me say, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, economic status -- regardless of all the things that affect us in our lives -- the expectation is that everyone is treated with respect in every encounter that we have with them," Beatty said. "We preach that." Asked yesterday whether he was disappointed, Beatty placed a hand to his lower lip and glanced down. "Yes," he said softly.

Retrieved June 11, 2006 from http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/14210571.htm

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 02:59 PM | Permalink

May 24, 2006. LANSING, Mich., PRNewswire

Attorney General Mike Cox and Col. Tadarial J. Sturdivant, Director of the Michigan State Police, announced today that charges have been filed against Steven Michael Waclawski of St. Clair Shores. Waclawski was an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in Macomb County from March 1986 until July 1990; he is now an attorney in Birmingham. Waclawski is charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct and child sexually abusive material.

"This case reminds us again that Internet sexual predators can come at our children from all angles," said Cox. "My office will continue our aggressive efforts to protect Michigan's children."

Steven Michael Waclawski, age 52, of St. Clair Shores, is charged as a result of his being arrested in Illinois after traveling there to meet an undercover officer he thought was a minor for sex. The Michigan Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force, operated by the Michigan State Police, was assisting both the Ohio and the Illinois ICAC in the arrest of Waclawski in Illinois after he traveled there to have sex with a minor as part of an undercover investigation. The Michigan ICAC and MSP investigators obtained and executed search warrants on the defendant's home and office computers on March 20, 2006. In reviewing the materials seized from Waclawski's home, investigators discovered hundreds of images of male child pornography, including some three dozen images suspected to be manufactured by Waclawski. Several pictures appeared to be taken in his home.

"Internet predators do not recognize state boundaries so neither can investigations," said Col. Tadarial J. Sturdivant, Director of the Michigan State Police. "Thanks to cross-state cooperation and the support of the Michigan Attorney General's Office, we're sending a message that child predators will not be allowed to prey on our children, no matter who they are or where they come from."

Waclawski was charged in 40th District Court in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. Waclawski is charged with 3 counts of Criminal Sexual Conduct in the first degree, punishable by up to life in prison; two counts of Criminal Sexual Conduct in the second degree, punishable by up to 15 years; five counts of Using a Computer to Produce Child Sexually Abusive Material, punishable by up to 20 years in prison; and one count of Production of Child Sexually Abusive Material, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Waclawski is currently incarcerated in DuPage County, Illinois, on bond of $200,000 on charges there. Waclawski is expected to be arraigned on these Michigan charges once his Illinois case is resolved.

A criminal charge is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.

Since its restructuring, Cox's Child and Public Protection Unit has arrested 90 Internet sexual predators. Attorney General Cox encourages parents to visit http://www.michigan.gov/ag for tips on safe Internet usage for children.
Citizens can also report suspected Internet child predators via the Report Internet Abuses Against Children link, or by calling the Child and Public Protection Unit at (313) 456-0180.

Retrieved June 10, 2006 from http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060524/dew015.html?.v=53&printer=1

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:45 PM | Permalink

The best gifts to give:
To your friend, loyalty;
To your enemy, forgiveness;
To your boss, service;
To a child, a good example;
To your parents, gratitude and devotion;
To your mate, love and faithfulness;
To all men and women, charity.

-Oren Arnold

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 02:58 PM | Permalink

You must train yourselves, saying: 'We will become unsullied in our conduct, brilliant and pure. We will neither exalt ourselves nor look down on anyone else.'

-Digha Nikaya
From "The Pocket Buddha Reader," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000.

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 02:51 PM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:
1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

------------------------------------------------------------- 

Dr. Kardasz: Should a salaried employee be permitted to "phone it in" and not be at the workplace? Read the following story and decide.

Hearing suggests new police practices

Friday, June 02, 2006, By Michael Perlstein, Staff writer

The payroll fraud case against New Orleans Police Capt. Harry Mendoza goes far beyond the now well-known allegations that he spent working hours on the tennis court, the Police Department revealed Thursday. The investigation of the 30-year veteran captured Mendoza -- on video and other forms of surveillance -- working out in a gym, hanging out in restaurants and spending considerable time in Jefferson Parish, all on police time, Assistant Chief Marlon Defillo said at a Civil Service hearing.

But Mendoza and his attorney, Eric Hessler, said that whatever was discovered during the two-week surveillance doesn't matter because he isn't an hourly employee and, as such, isn't tethered to a time clock.

"Captains are not considered hourly wage workers. Whether they work five hours a week or 90 hours, they get the same pay. Their pay is based on performance, and Capt. Mendoza's performance has been exemplary," Hessler said.

While much of Thursday's hearing was spent hashing out technical issues, the underpinnings of the case revealed a lot about the emerging disciplinary policy of Superintendent Warren Riley, whose emergency promotion just three weeks after Hurricane Katrina now looks permanent with Mayor Ray Nagin's re-election.

In his announced effort to instill a higher level of professionalism to the police force, Riley appears to be cracking down on some of the unwritten, but long-standing, practices within the department, including the wide latitude granted to supervisors in how they command their units.

The Mendoza case is being viewed by many officers, who have privately commented about it, as a litmus test. Mendoza and his supporters point to his strong and lengthy track record as a supervisor, including a stint as commander of the elite Special Operations Division.

But Riley and others seem determined to change the culture of NOPD from a New Orleans-style laissez-faire approach to a more rigid chain of command practiced by other big-city police departments.

"It's about accountability," said Defillo, commander of the Public Integrity Bureau. "It's one thing to go to the dry cleaners or meet your wife for lunch, but this was out of hand. There is a limit."

Mendoza, formerly the commander of the traffic division, has been reassigned to the carpentry shop as the Public Integrity Bureau wraps up its investigation. Hessler and the city attorney's office agreed Thursday to allow PIB an additional 60 days to complete the probe, which was about to exhaust its original 60-day time limit.

Hessler agreed to the extension when Defillo indicated that his investigators needed more time to review Mendoza's side of story. Mendoza said he has cell phone records and other forms of documentation showing he was in constant communication with his squad, regardless of where he was or what he was doing.

"It's a 24-hour job," Mendoza said. "We always fulfilled all of our assignments, from providing escorts during presidential visits to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition march. Sometimes with almost no notice."

Hessler argued that captains don't have time sheets and aren't paid overtime. Instead, they are accountable to their ranking commanders based on their job performance. He said their is nothing in Civil Service or departmental rules that forces captains to maintain specific hours.

Despite those arguments, Defillo said he expects the Police Department to eventually bring formal disciplinary charges against Mendoza.

"We think we have a strong case," he said. "We think we can show that the public was not getting the service they deserved and paid for."

Defillo denied widespread rumors that the investigation was motivated by politics based on Mendoza's decades-long friendship with Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, whom Nagin beat in the mayoral runoff.

"The complaint came from an anonymous letter," Defillo said. "We're working another case right now (against a different officer) based on an anonymous letter from within the department. Hey, if people bring complaints to our attention, we're going to check them out."

Michael Perlstein can be reached at mperlstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3316.

Retrieved June 2, 2006 from http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-15/114925634845000.xml
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Kardasz: Should an employee be permitted to use sick time even when he or she is not sick? Read the following story and decide.

‘MASTER MANIPULATOR’: Brockton cop’s double-dipping led to record Plymouth County pension

Brockton Police Lt. Charles Lincoln works a paid police detail.

MAUREEN BOYLE, SouthofBoston.com

A former official in the Plymouth County sheriff’s department - who doubled as a Brockton police lieutenant to qualify for a $140,000-a-year public pension - misused sick time to pull off ‘‘one of the most significant abuses’’ of taxpayer dollars ever, a scathing report by the state inspector general says.

The state should cut the pension of Charles Lincoln of Middleboro, and Plymouth County and Brockton officials should take steps to recoup $42,000 in sick-day and vacation-day pay outs, Inspector General Gregory W. Sullivan said in a nine-page report released yesterday.

‘‘In summary, Charles Bradshaw Lincoln was a master manipulator,’’ the report stated. ‘‘He abused many aspects of each involved system for his personal gain at the ultimate expense of the taxpayers of the City of Brockton and Plymouth County.’’

Lincoln worked as a police lieutenant at night and as director of security for the Plymouth County sheriff’s office by day under Sheriff Joseph McDonough to earn the largest public pension in county history. Sheriff McDonough was defeated in the 2003 election.

Lincoln, who retired from both jobs in 2004, called in sick 148 times to his night job on the Brockton force - then wound up working the same day as director of security at the Plymouth County sheriff’s office, the inspector general’s report said.

Lincoln called in sick to the Plymouth job seven times and reported to work that same day in Brockton, the report found.

‘‘Lincoln’s use of sick leave during his dual employment in Plymouth county and Brockton is both shocking and alarming,’’ the report found.

Attempts to reach Lincoln for comment were unsuccessful.

The report spurred Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph McDonald to call on the state attorney general to see if any laws have been broken in the case.

‘‘This thing would stink at a skunk convention,’’ McDonald said.

Brockton Mayor James Harrington said he will look at what the city needs to do to recoup any sick-time money in the case and pledged to crack down on sick-time abuse in the future by any public workers.

‘‘Sick time is if you are sick,’’ he said. ‘‘This won’t happen again on my watch.’’

Former sheriff McDonough, who hired Lincoln after Lincoln spearheaded the campaign that ended with his election as sheriff, defended Lincoln’s work.

‘‘He showed up, he worked and he was an excellent employee,’’ McDonough said.

In addition to pointing out sick-time problems, the inspector general recommended that the Public Employment Retirement Administration Commission, or PERAC, recalculate and cut Lincoln’s pension by subtracting the amount of ‘‘fraudulently used sick days’’ from his salary at the time.

Joseph E. Connarton, executive director of PERAC, said the commission will review the report and ask the local retirement boards - who calculate the pensions - to examine the recommendation.

Paul Studenski, who was Brockton police chief at the time, said the department investigated allegations of sick-time abuse and had given Lincoln both verbal and written reprimands.

But the department was told by the city’s attorney there was nothing they could do to stop Lincoln from working two jobs, he said.

‘‘The solicitor told me we did not have a rule to stop it,’’ Studenski said.

McDonough said he wasn’t aware Lincoln was calling in sick at Brockton police and then coming into work at the sheriff’s office.

But the inspector general, in the report, said McDonough, as a former county commissioner who also served on the retirement board, should have been aware of all of the pension intricacies of the case but ignored them.

‘‘Sheriff McDonough apparently decided to reward Lincoln for his campaign assistance at the expense of the taxpayers of the city and the county,’’ the report found.

The inspector general’s report also found that Lincoln was given 69 vacation days during his three years at the Plymouth County sheriff’s office - as opposed to the 30 new employees would have received.

The report found that an assistant in the county administrator’s office approved the extra days without higher approval, costing taxpayers about $11,000.

‘‘Lincoln’s ability to achieve this result was only possible with the complicity of other public officials,’’ the report found.

Excerpts from the report of the inspector general on Charles Lincoln’s pension

... ‘‘It is the opinion of the Inspector General that the Lincoln pension and employment situation involves one of the most significant abuses in the expenditure of public funds and abuse of employment benefits in the history of the Commonwealth.’’

... ‘‘His ability to leave public service with a pension of almost $140,000 annually and $11,648.99 per month for the rest of his life amounts to an amazing and astonishing manipulation of the current pension system ... The taxpayers of Plymouth County should likewise find the Lincoln pension situation to be incredibly offensive.’’

... ‘‘Given his long term position on the Plymouth County Retirement Board, his other substantial elected and appointed positions with the County, and his admission that he know that Lincoln’s pension would be large due to combining salaries from two jobs, (Former Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph) McDonough’s claims that he never considered the impact that Lincoln’s pension would have on the County retirement system rings hollow.’’

... ‘‘Lincoln’s use of sick leave during his dual employment in Plymouth County and Brockton’s is both shocking and alarming ... Lincoln clearly placed his own personal interests above those of the public that he purported to serve.’’

... ‘‘Police officers must be held to a high standard with respect to honesty and integrity. It is our opinion that Charles Bradshaw Lincoln’s conduct falls far short of that mark.

... In summary, Charles Bradshaw Lincoln was a master manipulator. He abused many aspects of each involved system for his personal gain at the ultimate expense of the taxpayers of the City of Brockton and Plymouth County.

... ‘‘Sheriff McDonough breached his fiduciary duty to place the personal interests of Charles Bradshaw Lincoln above the interests of Plymouth County taxpayers...Sheriff McDonough apparently decided to reward Lincoln for his [2000] campaign assistance at the expense of the taxpayers of the City and the County.’’

Copyright 2006 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Friday, June 02, 2006
Retrieved June 6, 2006 from http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2006/06/02/news/news02.txt

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 12:52 AM | Permalink

Kardasz: More comments from Michael Josephson can be found at http://www.charactercounts.org

I Believe Ken Lay 464.1

Immediately after his conviction, Ken Lay, the genius behind the growth of Enron from a small pipeline company to the seventh-largest corporation in the nation, expressed shock. It "is not the outcome we expected," he said. "I firmly believe I am innocent of the charges against me."

I believe him.

I believe he was surprised the jury did not buy his defense that he was duped by underlings who concocted and carried out a massive fraud that resulted in bankruptcy that wiped out more than $60 billion in market value, $2 billion in pension plans and nearly 6,000 jobs. Although 16 other executives who worked for him had already admitted their guilt, I think Mr. Lay thought the government would be unable to prove he had criminal intent. I also believe he thought his extensive private and corporate philanthropy of more than $12 million a year would convince the jury he was too good a guy to be sent to prison.

And I believe he sincerely thinks he's innocent and his self-image remains high. He's not wracked with guilt. Instead, he feels victimized. Denial and self-delusion are common among people who achieve great stature and find their conscience and moral good sense have been disabled and distorted by walking with giants through cheering crowds of admirers.

But it's not the sincerity of Mr. Lay's self-delusions that matters. What matters is that our criminal system worked, and he and others responsible for the largest financial fraud in history will be held accountable. The final irony is that the judge set September 11th, one of the most infamous dates in U.S. history, as the day this symbol of corporate corruption will be sentenced to prison.

Retrieved June 2, 2006 from http://www.charactercounts.org

photo by Dr. Kardasz

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:45 AM | Permalink

Dr. Kardasz -

Read the following report and consider:
1. Which typology of unethical behavior was exhibited by the accused?
2. Which decision making process might have prevented the accused from making the wrong decision?

Typologies of unethical behavior - http://kardasz.org/CorruptionTypologies.html
Decision making processes - http://kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

---------------------------------------------------------

Ex-Boca police chief misused power in two cases, state ethics panel says

By Stephanie Slater, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer, Thursday, April 27, 2006

Former Boca Raton Police Chief Andrew Scott misused his power when he ordered officers to release a wealthy developer friend from jail last year, the state's Commission on Ethics said Wednesday.

Scott also "corruptly" used his position by ordering a probationary sergeant to pull over a Boca Raton contractor so a Miami TV reporter could spring an ambush interview, the commission ruled.

Report: Ethics report on Boca Raton police chief Andrew Scott

The nine-member panel, responding to two complaints regarding Scott's conduct, said the former chief violated a state law forbidding any public officer or employee from using his official position "to secure a special privilege, benefit, or exemption for himself, herself, or others."

Ethics Commission advocate James H. Peterson III of the state attorney general's office determined that Scott ignored department policy and state law to benefit developer Greg Talbott.

"There is evidence that (Scott) understood the wrongfulness of his favoritism, as two witnesses recall that (Scott) stated that his decision to release Mr. Talbott was probably a 'career ending decision,' " Peterson wrote in a recommendation to the commission.

Scott, who left office Feb. 1, faces two choices: Defend himself in a public hearing or negotiate a settlement that could cost him up to $10,000.

Scott did not return a call, but his attorney, Mark Herron, said they have not decided which route to take.

"I think the Ethics Commission didn't give proper consideration to the investigation previously done by the deputy city manager, which concluded that he acted within the discretion given to him as chief of police in both instances," Herron said.

Investigations by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Deputy City Manager George Brown cleared Scott of any wrongdoing in springing Talbott from a holding cell Sept. 24 after his arrest on charges that he battered his wife, a police officer and a restaurant manager in a drunken ruckus at Luna Pazza.

Brown also found that Scott acted within the scope of his authority when he ordered Sgt. Jeff Kelly to conduct a traffic stop on contractor Henk Schiffer so Julie Summers of WPLG-Channel 10 could interview him.

Brown did not return a call for comment. Mayor Steven Abrams deferred comment until Scott and the commission reach a settlement.

Ethics investigator Ronald Moalli revisited the incidents, speaking with most of the principals involved.

Scott maintained that he ordered that Talbott not be sent to the Palm Beach County Jail, despite being charged with felony battery on a police officer, because the police benefactor had a heart condition.

After his officers disagreed with him, Scott was overheard calling his decision a "potentially career-ending" move. He told Moalli "he does not recall having made the comment, and he still does not think he said it."

Scott did note, however, "I write the policies, I administer the policies, and I also have the authority to divert from the policies," according to Moalli's report.

In reference to Kelly's Aug. 30 traffic stop on Schiffer, Scott said it was necessary based on Summers' report of the contractor's erratic driving. He compared it with responding to a citizen's complaint of a driver's "blowing a stop sign and running red lights," Moalli wrote.

After the stop, Scott made a comment to Kelly about Summers' breasts and said, "She'll be thanking me over dinner," according to the report. Scott denied saying it.

Peterson, of the attorney general's office, determined that Scott "used his authority to benefit Ms. Summers in a manner not available to other citizens and that his actions appear to be inconsistent with the proper performance of his public duties."

Republican activist Jody Warmack-Tagaris filed the complaint about Scott's preferential treatment of Talbott.

"I can only hope he's punished for it," she said this week.

The complaint about the improper traffic stop on Schiffer was filed by former Deputy Police Chief Philip Sweeting, who sued Scott and the city in 2004, claiming he was slandered in job references Scott gave to a prospective employer.

"Why did it take filing a complaint before someone would publicly say Scott was wrong?" Sweeting said Wednesday. "The city, specifically the city manager, should take some responsibility."

Schiffer's attorney, Dan Moses, said he sent the city and WPLG-Channel 10 a letter Dec. 27 informing them of his client's intent to sue.

"This is going to help my claim," Moses said Wednesday, adding that he anticipates filing suit in June.

Scott, now chief executive officer for a Boca Raton disaster recovery firm, resigned as police chief Nov. 30. His release of Talbott sparked outrage from the police union, which almost unanimously rejected his leadership in a no-confidence vote.

Officers said Scott gave special treatment to friends, police benefactors and those he gave honorary police badges. They also said his management style was tyrannical and that he created a hostile work environment by calling female officers "sweetie" and "good-looking."

Talbott, 51, is expected in court next month on misdemeanor charges of domestic battery, battery, assault on a police officer, resisting an officer without violence and disorderly intoxication, state attorney's office spokesman Mike Edmondson said.

On Wednesday, officer Dave Skrabec, president of Boca Raton's police union, said officers are looking forward to working with a new police chief. City officials said they expect to hire someone by the end of May.

"We respect the commission's ruling, however, we have put this behind us," Skrabec said.

Retrieved June 1, 2006 from http://www.palmbeachpost.com/pbcsouth/content/local_news/epaper/2006/04/27/s1a_SCOTT_ETHICS_0427.html

photo by Dr. Kardasz

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 11:18 PM | Permalink

Feds put squeeze on Internet firms
Tracking pornography, terrorists cited as reasons for data retention
From Kevin Bohn, CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The attorney general and the FBI director have asked the nation's leading Internet service companies to keep a variety of customer information and other data for two years, much longer than the companies do now, the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.

Companies have varying policies regarding what information is kept and for how long.

One thing the Justice Department wants is some type of subscriber information, such as the Internet address assigned to a person when logging on to a service provider, according to two sources familiar with a meeting that was held last week between the government and the Internet companies.

The online industry is expected to strongly oppose any request to retain these types of records because of privacy concerns for their customers.

"It is a slippery slope," one of the sources said of the government's interest in the information. "It becomes a fishing expedition."

The Internet companies have said there are other ways to get the information without them having to hand it over and believe requests like this are burden to the industry, the sources said.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said government and private industry officials are continuing to discuss the privacy issues involved and some of the concerns raised by the companies at the meeting Friday at the Justice Department.

The meeting, first reported by CNET News.com, included representatives from Verizon, Comcast, AOL (which is owned by Time Warner, as is CNN.com), Microsoft, Google and the U.S. Internet Service Provider Association, the sources told CNN. Companies involved refused to comment on the meeting.

The original request for the record retention came as part of the Justice Department's efforts to fight child pornography. During a speech last month, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he would press the CEOs of Internet service providers about retaining records.

During last week's meeting, though, the FBI "made clear they wanted [information on subscribers] for other reasons as well. ... Terrorism was mentioned," one of the sources said.

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to secretly monitoring e-mail and phone calls to track people linked to terrorist activity.

Earlier this month USA Today reported three telecommunications giants provided the NSA, the nation's super secret spy agency, with records from billions of domestic phone calls after 9/11.

Another meeting of government and industry representatives is scheduled for Friday, according to an official of the Internet Service Provider Association.

CNN's Terry Frieden contributed to this story.

retrieved June 1, 2006 from http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/05/30/internet.records/index.html

photo by Dr. Kardasz

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 07:43 AM | Permalink

Kardasz: The following news story describes an interesting ethics situation.

Reid says he won't accept free tickets
By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer, Wed May 31, 11:05 PM ET

Reversing course, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid's office acknowledged Wednesday night he misstated the ethics rules governing his acceptance of free boxing tickets and has decided to avoid taking such gifts in the future.

The Nevada senator still believes it was "entirely permissible" for him to accept ringside seats for three professional boxing matches in 2004 and 2005 from the Nevada Athletic Commission but has nonetheless decided to avoid doing so in the future, his office said.

"In light of questions that have been raised about the practice, Senator Reid will not accept these kinds of credentials in the future in order to avoid even the faintest appearance of impropriety," spokesman Jim Manley said.

The announcement came after The Associated Press confronted Reid's office early Wednesday with conclusions from several ethics experts that the Senate leader misstated congressional ethics rules in trying to defend his actions.

The AP reported Monday that Reid accepted the free seats from the Nevada commission as it was trying to influence his support for legislation to create a federal boxing commission. The state agency feared the legislation would usurp its authority to regulate fights and wanted to convince Reid there was no need for a federal body.

Reid voted to set up a federal commission, but Congress never enacted the legislation.

Reid told Las Vegas reporters on Tuesday he would continue to accept such tickets and did not believe he did anything wrong even though fellow Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., who joined him for one of the fights, decided to reimburse $1,400 for his seat.

Reid said he believed it was appropriate to accept the free tickets because the gifts were from his home state and that McCain, R-Ariz., had to reimburse because he was from out of state.

Senate ethics rules generally allow senators to take gifts from any state, not just their home state. But they specifically warn against taking normally permissible gifts if the giver may be trying to influence official action.

Manley said Wednesday night that Reid "misspoke when he said the rule applies only to senators who represent the state agency." But he added he believes Reid still could ethically accept the tickets.

"It was therefore entirely permissible for Senator Reid — a senator from Nevada — to have attended a major Nevada sporting event as a guest of Nevada officials," Manley said.

Several ethics experts disagreed, criticizing Reid's rationale that he felt obligated to take the tickets to ensure boxing was being conducted properly in his home state.

"He is no more obligated to go to boxing matches than he is to a Celine Dion concert in Vegas," said Melanie Sloan, a former Justice Department prosecutor and head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Fred Wertheimer, a longtime ethics watchdog, agreed.

"The test under congressional ethics rules in these circumstances is not what state a member is from but whether the gift creates the appearance that the gift is motivated by a desire to influence the member or gain favorable official action," Wertheimer said. "If the gift creates such an appearance, it should not be accepted."

retrieved June 1, 2006 from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060601/ap_on_go_co/reid_ethics&printer=1;_ylt=AsdLFI8Tfk474u8qjIIligiMwfIE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

photo by Dr. Kardasz

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 07:14 AM | Permalink