Cultural training needed for FBI

Cultural training needed for FBI
Originally printed at http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/editorials/67340687.html


Federal Bureau of Investigation agents don’t receive cultural awareness or language training when assigned to serve Indian reservations. Many tribal communities don’t believe non-tribal court personnel and non-tribal police are culturally sensitive.

Nevertheless, FBI agents have an extensive range of language and cultural sensitivity training courses available to them when serving in foreign nations. In recent years, FBI headquarters established a Language Services Translation Center, capable of translating in 100 languages, and has developed language training and cultural awareness materials available to FBI employees in 32 different languages. Most of the FBI’s linguistic and cultural training is focused on monitoring terrorist activities in foreign countries. None of the language or cultural awareness training offered to FBI employees includes support for FBI agents assigned to tribal communities.

In Indian country, FBI agents are responsible for investigating the various serious crimes listed in the Major Crimes Act including murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, assaults, arson, burglary, robbery and various felonies. County or state police are responsible for investigating major crimes on reservations in Public Law 280 states.

The method of revolving police assignments limits the ability of FBI agents to gain cumulative knowledge and experience, and get to know how to better serve tribal communities.

However, most FBI agents do not have experience with investigating most crimes on the Major Crimes Act list. FBI investigation priorities include counterterrorism, counterintelligence, cyber crime, public corruption, civil rights violations, organized crime, white-collar crime, and major thefts or violent crimes. Indian country crimes are listed under major thefts or violent crimes. Since Major Crimes Act violations are federal offenses, FBI agents are assigned to investigate major crimes in non-Public Law 280 Indian reservations.

For most FBI agents, investigating crime on Indian reservations is a low priority assignment. Few agents apply for the service to spend their careers investigating crime on Indian reservations. They tend to move between assignments as they work through their careers and often agents serve a particular group of Indian reservations for limited times. Hence non-tribal federal police officers have limited opportunities to learn and understand a tribal community before they are reassigned to new postings or other types of activities. The method of revolving police assignments limits the ability of FBI agents to gain cumulative knowledge and experience, and get to know how to better serve tribal communities.

Tribal community members are concerned about the absence of cultural understanding and awareness expressed by FBI agents. The agents are not trained in American Indian cultures, histories, languages, or contemporary policies or law. FBI agents are assigned to several tribal communities at the same time, further inhibiting the possibility that they will get to know any one reservation community well enough to conduct effective interviews, elicit cooperation, and gain trust from the tribal communities.

In recent years, the FBI has found that it must increase its commitment to train agents in language and cultural awareness to effectively operate in foreign countries. Reservations are communities with distinct cultures, languages, community relations, histories, legal and policy relations, and FBI agents could more effectively serve tribal communities if they had more cultural training and sustained interactions with tribal communities.

More direct contact and cultural understanding by FBI agents will build trust, cooperation, and greatly facilitate more effective crime investigations and crime solving on Indian reservations. Tribal communities need to know that FBI agents will carry out their duties with respect for tribal community, goals and values. Without greater cultural understanding from FBI agents, community supported justice will be hard to achieve on federal Indian reservations.

Loosening of F.B.I. Rules Stirs Privacy Concerns

October 29, 2009
Loosening of F.B.I. Rules Stirs Privacy Concerns
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/us/29manual.html
By CHARLIE SAVAGE, NY Times


WASHINGTON — After a Somali-American teenager from Minneapolis committed a suicide bombing in Africa in October 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating whether a Somali Islamist group had recruited him on United States soil.

Instead of collecting information only on people about whom they had a tip or links to the teenager, agents fanned out to scrutinize Somali communities, including in Seattle and Columbus, Ohio. The operation unfolded as the Bush administration was relaxing some domestic intelligence-gathering rules.

The F.B.I.’s interpretation of those rules was recently made public when it released, in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit, its “Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide.”; The disclosure of the manual has opened the widest window yet onto how agents have been given greater power in the post-Sept. 11 era.

In seeking the revised rules, the bureau said it needed greater flexibility to hunt for would-be terrorists inside the United States. But the manual’s details have alarmed privacy advocates.

One section lays out a low threshold to start investigating a person or group as a potential security threat. Another allows agents to use ethnicity or religion as a factor — as long as it is not the only one — when selecting subjects for scrutiny.

“It raises fundamental questions about whether a domestic intelligence agency can protect civil liberties if they feel they have a right to collect broad personal information about people they don’t even suspect of wrongdoing,” said Mike German, a former F.B.I. agent who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union.

But Valerie Caproni, the F.B.I.’s general counsel, said the bureau has adequate safeguards to protect civil liberties as it looks for people who could pose a threat.

“Those who say the F.B.I. should not collect information on a person or group unless there is a specific reason to suspect that the target is up to no good seriously miss the mark,” Ms. Caproni said. “The F.B.I. has been told that we need to determine who poses a threat to the national security — not simply to investigate persons who have come onto our radar screen.”

The manual authorizes agents to open an “assessment” to “proactively” seek information about whether people or organizations are involved in national security threats.

Agents may begin such assessments against a target without a particular factual justification. The basis for such an inquiry “cannot be arbitrary or groundless speculation,” the manual says, but the standard is “difficult to define.”

Assessments permit agents to use potentially intrusive techniques, like sending confidential informants to infiltrate organizations and following and photographing targets in public.

F.B.I. agents previously had similar powers when looking for potential criminal activity. But until the recent changes, greater justification was required to use the powers in national security investigations because they receive less judicial oversight.

If agents turn up something specific to suggest wrongdoing, they can begin a “preliminary” or “full” investigation and use additional techniques, like wiretapping. But even if agents find nothing, the personal information they collect during assessments can be retained in F.B.I. databases, the manual says.

When selecting targets, agents are permitted to consider political speech or religion as one criterion. The manual tells agents not to engage in racial profiling, but it authorizes them to take into account “specific and relevant ethnic behavior” and to “identify locations of concentrated ethnic communities.”

Farhana Khera, president of Muslim Advocates, said the F.B.I. was harassing Muslim-Americans by singling them out for scrutiny. Her group was among those that sued the bureau to release the manual.

“We have seen even in recent months the revelation of the F.B.I. going into mosques — not where they have a specific reason to believe there is criminal activity, but as ‘agent provocateurs’ who are trying to incite young individuals to join a purported terror plot,” Ms. Khera said. “We think the F.B.I. should be focused on following actual leads rather than putting entire communities under the microscope.”

Ms. Caproni, the F.B.I. lawyer, denied that the bureau engages in racial profiling. She cited the search for signs of the Somali group, Al Shabaab, linked to the Minneapolis teenager to illustrate why the manual allows agents to consider ethnicity when deciding where to look. In that case, the bureau worried that other such teenagers might return from Somalia to carry out domestic operations.

Agents are trained to ignore ethnicity when looking for groups that have no ethnic tie, like environmental extremists, she said, but “if you are looking for Al Shabaab, you are looking for Somalis.”

Among the manual’s safeguards, agents must use the “least intrusive investigative method that effectively accomplishes the operational objective.” When infiltrating an organization, agents cannot sabotage its “legitimate social or political agenda,” nor lead it “into criminal activity that otherwise probably would not have occurred.”

Portions of the manual were redacted, including pages about “undisclosed participation” in an organization’s activities by agents or informants, “requesting information without revealing F.B.I. affiliation or the true purpose of a request,” and using “ethnic/racial demographics.”

The attorney general guidelines for F.B.I. operations date back to 1976, when a Congressional investigation by the so-called Church Committee uncovered decades of illegal domestic spying by the bureau on groups perceived to be subversive — including civil rights, women’s rights and antiwar groups — under the bureau’s longtime former director, J. Edgar Hoover, who died in 1972.

The Church Committee proposed that rules for the F.B.I.’s domestic security investigations be written into federal law. To forestall legislation, the attorney general in the Ford administration, Edward Levi, issued his own guidelines that established such limits internally.

Since then, administrations of both parties have repeatedly adjusted the guidelines.

In September 2008, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey signed the new F.B.I. guidelines that expanded changes begun under his predecessor, John Ashcroft, after the Sept. 11 attacks. The guidelines went into effect and the F.B.I. completed the manual putting them into place last December.

There are no signs that the current attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., plans to roll back the changes. A spokeswoman said Mr. Holder was monitoring them “to see how well they work” and would make refinements if necessary.

The F.B.I., however, is revising the manual. Ms. Caproni said she was taking part in weekly high-level meetings to evaluate suggestions from agents and expected about 20 changes.

Many proposals have been requests for greater flexibility. For example, some agents said requirements that they record in F.B.I. computers every assessment, no matter how minor, were too time consuming. But Ms. Caproni said the rule aided oversight and would not be changed.

She also said that the F.B.I. takes seriously its duty to protect freedom while preventing terrorist attacks. “I don’t like to think of us as a spy agency because that makes me really nervous,” she said. “We don’t want to live in an environment where people in the United States think the government is spying on them. That’s an oppressive environment to live in and we don’t want to live that way.”

What the public should understand, she continued, is that the F.B.I. is seeking to become a more intelligence-driven agency that can figure out how best to deploy its agents to get ahead of potential threats.

“And to do that,” she said, “you need information.”

The Case of the Biodevastation 7: What the Police Won't Apologize For

http://www.counterpunch.org/fitz09042009.html

September 4-6, 2009


The Case of the Biodevastation 7
What the Police Won't Apologize For
By DON FITZ

I n early September, St. Louis police will send an apology for their illegal arrest of biodiversity activists. Be assured that it will not mention their role in destroying public dialogue on dangers of genetically contaminated food.

On August 24, 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Eastern Missouri announced that the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners would pay $13,500 to each of four anti-genetic engineering activists for violating their first and fourth amendment rights and would apologize to them for police actions in May, 2003. [1] That was when several hundred people gathered to protest the World Agricultural Forum [WAF] and hold the 7th Biodevastation Gathering to expose the racist use of genetic engineering in agriculture.

But the letter of apology is highly unlikely to address the most serious aspects of the repression. Do not expect the letter to say anything about helping to consolidate control of world agriculture and throwing 1 billion people off of small farms. Don’t look for the letter to mention the role of police in attempts to force genetically contaminated food on Africans with immuno-compromised health. And don’t be surprised if the letter contains not a word about St. Louis police entering into a conspiracy with Monsanto, the FBI and corporate media to eliminate public discussion of the potential threats of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

St. Louis police were not stand-alone players. As Daniel (digger) Romano wrote in the August 31 St. Louis Post-Dispatch “…Allied Intelligence [is] the private security agency hired by the WAF and its principle player, Monsanto, the biotech giant. Allied Intelligence told police ‘50,000 anarchists’ were coming to St. Louis to riot and wreak havoc on the city.” [2]

The police apology will certainly misdirect attention onto its own illegal and repulsive behavior of May, 2003: warrantless entry into a home where a woman was subjected to “an unlawful and humiliating strip search,” a second warrantless entry under the false claim of the building being condemned, and arresting several activists for “riding a bicycle without a license,” a crime which did not exist. [1]

Under the FBI Eye

Preparations for the Biodevastation 7 Gathering started in 2002 when Jim Scheff, an organizer for the Missouri Forest Alliance, called to tell me that the WAF would be meeting in St. Louis the upcoming year. He suggested that Biodevastation, which had been held in five cities after beginning in St. Louis in 1998, return to Monsanto’s home town so that people coming to WAF could hear a different view of biotechnology.

Documents obtained by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that the FBI was deeply involved in scrutinizing many documents that I wrote for the event, including emails from my computer. The ACLU judged the FBI reports to be some “of the most troubling documents we received.” [3]

A November 2005 cover letter from the FBI refers to “Subject: GATEWAY GREEN ALLIANCE/01012000 TO PRESENT,” indicating that we had been in FBI sights for years. [4] Its first memo on “Counterterrorism” asserted that “The WAF was created to provide a continuing, neutral arena for the discussion of world agriculture…” Counterposed to the “neutral” WAF, the memo warned of “issue-specific terrorist groups…which oppose…the bio-engineering of plants and animals.” [5]

What particularly worried authors of the memo was that “organizers from the Gateway Green Alliance, a local affiliate of the Green Party USA, have joined with member of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis and are attempting to label the WAF as a ‘forum on environmental racism’ in an attempt to lure African-American groups.” [5] (The authors probably meant to say “Biodevastation” rather than “WAF.”)

The memo observed that “no specific threats of violence or unlawful protest have been received.” But its authors were disturbed that “protest organizers” might be “able to successfully promote a racial element to the forum…” [5]

Other FBI counterterrorism documents listed frightening people who hoped to speak at St. Louis, including Vandana Shiva, Percy Schmeiser, Mae-Wan Ho, Brian Tokar, Ignacio Chapela and Michael Hansen. [6] Any defender of the Public Order must have been horrified to read in the captured documents of the threat to national security posed by the Caravan Across the Continent held in conjunction with Biodevastation: “The Caravan will be a month-long bicycle spectacle covering over 1000 puppet shows, presentations, speak-outs, freak-outs, clown acts, and music…” It invited “citizens, clowns, puppeteers, bike riders, messengers, farmers” and urged everyone “to bring a bicycle and join the ride!” [7]

The FBI was most traumatized by information that “The May 2003 Biodevastation Gathering will be the cutting edge event defining links between racism and the biotechnology industry.” Documents monitored by its sleuths uncovered plans for the event to “focus attention on efforts” to use “Food Aide as a weapon of narrow economic interests and to force genetically contaminated food on Africa.” [5]

Luckily, the FBI did not stand alone in efforts to protect good citizens. FOIA reports confirm that the FBI had “been working with local police agencies to collect intelligence related to the WAF.” [7] Not content to rely on local police, the FBI proudly documented collaboration with the private sector:

Corporate officials from Monsanto who monitor the Biodev website (www.biodev.org) allege that the speakers at the Biodev conference are against genetic engineering of any type, that they are outspoken critics of Monsanto and are extreme in their views. [7]

A Public Dialogue Cut Short

During weeks prior to Biodevastation 7, there were a few stories about the dangers of GMOs, but St. Louis media focused on police preparation for 50,000 anarchists to invade downtown. They warned business owners to protect their property.

Then, on the opening day of Biodevastation 7, the Mother of All Horrors occurred: There was an actual public debate on genetic engineering! The only St. Louis daily paper, the Post-Dispatch, carried a front page story, “Focus on the future of agriculture.” It had an article describing the corporate view of the WAF on one side and another article reporting on Biodevastation on the other.

Not to worry. St. Louis police, with backup from the FBI and Monsanto, had worked overtime to ensure that reporting would take a sharp turn. Shortly after I got to the Gathering site and prepared to coordinate presentations, phone calls began pouring in that demonstrators were being arrested all over town.

Members of the Flying Rutabaga Bicycle Circus were arrested for the fictitious crime of “riding a bicycle without a license.” About the same time, a building inspector nailed a “condemned” sign on a St. Louis home just before police pushed through the door and arrested those who had been planning to take part in weekend protests. They were charged with “inhabiting a condemned building.”

Two hours later, police raided the Community Arts and Media Project (CAMP) building, which housed the St. Louis Independent Media Center, Green Party of St. Louis and several other groups, taking more to jail. Sarah Bantz, organizer for Missouri Resistance Against Genetic Engineering (MoRAGE), which was coordinating the demonstration planned at the WAF, was pulled over while driving to give a talk at the Gathering. Her vitamin A was seized as a possible illegal drug and she was taken to jail for not wearing a seatbelt.

As I tried to make sure that speakers (minus Sarah Bantz) were there, that panels could start on time, and that lunches were on their way, I was called by one reporter after another. With the lurid drama rivaled only by stories of a US politician whose weenie went where it wasn’t supposed to go, corporate media had turned on a dime. Dangers of genetic engineering were far from their minds as reporters drooled at the prospect of a story on demonstrator violence.

Police Chief Mokwa egged on the frenzy. He held a press conference to display the “weapons” seized during the raids: rocks, roofing nails, torches and Molotov cocktails.

By the next day, it became apparent that the rocks were paperweights; the roofing nails were to repair a leaky roof; and the torches were flaming batons of the Bicycle Circus. When the St. Louis Independent Media Center website posted an eyewitness report of a cop putting toilet paper or a rag in a beer bottle, all press reports of “Molotov cocktails” disappeared ­ as if they had never been mentioned. The “weapons” charges were the first charges dropped against those arrested.

Of course, throughout the events, the only potential violence discussed was that of demonstrators. When reporters asked me about potential violence, I never hesitated to point out that “There is a real threat of lawlessness when the WAF is controlled by Monsanto, a company that lawlessly trespasses on the land of farmers like Percy Schmeiser, criminally steals samples of crops and violently drops pesticide bombs on their fields to test if their crops are Roundup-resistant.”

Reporters would tell me that that was not what was meant. They wanted to know if there was a threat of violence during the demonstration set for May 18. I always responded “Yes, there is a real threat of violence. When public safety is put in the hands of a police chief who has condoned the police murder of over a dozen black youth in recent years, the city should be concerned.”

Predictably, the press had zero interest in reporting on corporate or state violence. Their prewritten script was to interview one side predicting that demonstrators would be violent and “balance” it with a few seconds of an organizer denying the charge.

Police Attacks

Police attacks on protestors were illegal, traumatic and disruptive to planned events. Kelley Meister wrote in detail of her ordeal. The night before her home was invaded, “police had been circling our house relentlessly, following my friends home, and harassing them on the street, and I had feared waking up to the police knocking down my door.” [8] After breakfast the next morning, a police car pulled up.

Two police officers pushed past me to enter the house, and I asked if they had a warrant. When they said, “No,” I stated that I did not give them permission to enter my house, and I again asked for a warrant. The officers told me that a warrant was not necessary because this was a condemned building. [8]

After being arrested and put in a police van, Meister

…watched many cops enter and exit our house, most notably, an officer carrying a piece of art ripped down off the wall from my room. The cops also stole many other people’s personal items such as journals, posters, props for the circus and puppet shows, welding tools, roofing nails, and all of our bicycles that were in the building. The bicycles were eventually returned with slashed tires, but most of the other stuff that was stolen is either “missing” or being held as evidence. [8]

When allowed to return home several days later, she found

The house was trashed. In my bedroom, shelves had been disassembled or knocked over, boxes of oil paints and other art supplies dumped out, my large reading chair was on its side and in the middle of the room, personal items were smashed, and a pile of my clothes that had been dumped from a small cabinet… [8]

Meister and a housemate found “their clothes were drenched in urine,” compliments of St. Louis police. [9] When it apologizes for “well-intentioned mistakes,” the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners should explain how urinating on clothes is both well-intentioned and a mistake.

What Corporate Media Didn’t Report

By the second day of Biodevastation 7, the mania had died down. The Post-Dispatch was even mildly critical of what it called “pre-emptive” arrests. But the press never returned to a discussion of how genetic engineering threatens human health, pollutes the environment, and prepares for agro-business domination of Africa. What remained was a debate of whether the police had “overreacted.”

Two photographs from the Fall 2003 Synthesis/Regeneration illustrate the bizarre unreality of the police/media fantasy. The back cover has a photo of the main post office in downtown St. Louis, which was boarded up to protect it from marauding anarchist hordes. On p. 2 is a photo of a security guard with so little to do at Biodevastation 7 that she is playing with the children of those listening to talks.

Though the PATRIOT Act made crackdowns at events like Biodevastation 7 easier, such actions existed long before 9-11. The hysteria generated by police departments is reminiscent of “red scares” of the 1920s and phobic reaction to black organizing that white Americans have felt through the centuries. When Jamala Rogers of the Organization for Black Struggle introduced the Environmental Racism panel at Biodevastation 7, the police raids were at the top of the news. She commented that “You are seeing what black people in St. Louis experience on a daily basis.”

One of the vitally important presentations that police raids knocked out of media attention was that by Mwananyanda Lewanika of Zambia’s National Institute for Scientific & Industrial Research. The previous year, US trade representatives had bitterly denounced Zambia for rejecting genetically engineered (GE) corn to feed its hungry. Lewanika traced the origin of hunger in Zambia to the Structural Adjustment Program of the 1990s that “stopped government involvement in agricultural production.” [10] With government assistance gone, small farmers in southern Zambia could not meet the food needs of their region. Since there was an abundance of food in the northern part of the country, the West could have helped Zambia improve the infrastructure of roads.

But that would have made Zambia more independent of the West rather than dependent on it. So the US offered to donate surplus GE corn. Zambian scientists replied that (a) GE corn might contain food toxins or allergens, (b) effects would be particularly serious in Zambia since corn comprised up to 80% of the diet, and (c) effects would be most severe on the most vulnerable ­ the young, old and immuno-compromised, which is a large population in southern Africa. Though plenty of non-GE corn was available and could have been donated, the US insisted on offering only the corn that was offensive to Zambians and then denounced them for not accepting it. [10]

Marching Onward

By shifting attention to a manufactured threat of terrorism, the hysteria ensured that discussion of efforts to force GE corn on Africa would not reach public awareness. This puts the six year old belated apology by the St. Louis Police Department (SLPD) in a different light.

The St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners claimed that the raids were a “mistake” even though police acted “with well intentions.” [9] The 2009 apology spins the myth that the SLPD acted on its own volition.

But the FBI documents paint a very different picture. They suggest that the most likely course of events was:


A. The Monsanto/WAF/Allied Intelligence troika contacted…


B. the FBI, which contacted…


C. the SLPD, which pumped fantasies to…


D. the St. Louis media, which eliminated a nascent dialogue on GMOs and focused exclusively on the illusory anarchist invasion.


Far from being the key culprit, the SLPD was targeted to take the rap. It was a pawn in a far bigger game of using genetic engineering to destroy small farmers across the globe.

Describing police activities during 2003 as “mistakes” continues the campaign of misinformation. Their attacks were no “mistake.” They were a vital element in shifting the public eye away from what agribusiness planned for Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Anyone who seriously believes actions by the SLPD were mistakes should let us know how often police departments invade offices such as Monsanto World Headquarters, piss on tuxedos of corporate executives, steal their electronic equipment, tell the press to print front page stories of corporate terrorists, and arrest corporate officers for possession of vitamin A.

If 100% of such police attacks are against those resisting corporate power and 0% of police violence is against corporations, then a reasonable person might conclude that the function of police is to protect corporate power. This is quite a bit different from accounts of the police being a neutral party that occasionally makes the “mistake” of “preemptive” attacks.

We should applaud each of the plaintiffs against the SLPD receiving $13,500. But rather than clearing the air, the police apology serves to further mystify the 2003 web of intrigues. For the corporations that move pawns around, the 2009 apology is merely a tiny step backward in their continuing march to subjugate world agriculture.

Don Fitz is editor of Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of Green Social Thought, which is published for members of The Greens/Green Party USA. If you know of where to find a horde of 50,000 anarchists, please contact him at fitzdon@aol.com

Notes

1. American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri. (August 24, 2009). ACLU applauds police apology to protestors. Press Release.

2. Daniel (digger) Romano. (August 31, 2009). Letter to the Editor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. A11.

3. American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri. (Janaury 27, 2006). Letter to Barbara Chicherio and Don Fitz.

4. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (November 15, 2005). Letter to Denise D. Lieberman, American Civil Liberties Union. FOIPA No. 1021258-000.

5. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (April 9, 2003). Counterterrorism memo. Case ID No: 300A-SL-188478.

6. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (May 8, 2003). Counterterrorism memo. Case ID No: 300A-SL-188478.

7. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (April 15, 2003). Counterterrorism memo. Case ID No: 300A-SL-188478.

8. Kelley Meister. (Fall, 2003). Report from the Bolozone. Synthesis/Regeneration, 32, pp. 5–7.

9. Patrick O’Connell. (August 25, 2009). City police apologize for raids in 2003. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, pp. A1, A9.

10. Mwananyanda Lewanika. (Fall, 2003). The real story behind the food crisis in Zambia. Synthesis/Regeneration, 32, pp. 12–14.

'Badly Fragmented' Forensic Science System Needs Overhaul

Date: Feb. 18, 2009

Contacts: Sara Frueh, Media Relations Officer
Luwam Yeibio, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


'Badly Fragmented' Forensic Science System Needs Overhaul;
Evidence to Support Reliability of Many Techniques Is Lacking


WASHINGTON -- A congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council finds serious deficiencies in the nation's forensic science system and calls for major reforms and new research. Rigorous and mandatory certification programs for forensic scientists are currently lacking, the report says, as are strong standards and protocols for analyzing and reporting on evidence. And there is a dearth of peer-reviewed, published studies establishing the scientific bases and reliability of many forensic methods. Moreover, many forensic science labs are underfunded, understaffed, and have no effective oversight.

Forensic evidence is often offered in criminal prosecutions and civil litigation to support conclusions about individualization -- in other words, to "match" a piece of evidence to a particular person, weapon, or other source. But with the exception of nuclear DNA analysis, the report says, no forensic method has been rigorously shown able to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source. Non-DNA forensic disciplines have important roles, but many need substantial research to validate basic premises and techniques, assess limitations, and discern the sources and magnitude of error, said the committee that wrote the report. Even methods that are too imprecise to identify a specific individual can provide valuable information and help narrow the range of possible suspects or sources.

"Reliable forensic evidence increases the ability of law enforcement officials to identify those who commit crimes, and it protects innocent people from being convicted of crimes they didn't commit," said committee co-chair Harry T. Edwards, senior circuit judge and chief judge emeritus of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "Because it is clear that judicial review alone will not cure the infirmities of the forensic science community, there is a tremendous need for the forensic science community to improve."

Strong leadership is needed to adopt and promote an aggressive, long-term agenda to strengthen forensic science, the report says. To achieve this end, the report strongly urges Congress to establish a new, independent National Institute of Forensic Science to lead research efforts, establish and enforce standards for forensic science professionals and laboratories, and oversee education standards. "Much research is needed not only to evaluate the reliability and accuracy of current forensic methods but also to innovate and develop them further," said committee co-chair Constantine Gatsonis, professor of biostatistics and director of the Center for Statistical Sciences at Brown University. "An organized and well-supported research enterprise is a key requirement for carrying this out."

To ensure the efficacy of the work done by forensic scientists and other practitioners in the field, public forensic science laboratories should be made independent from or autonomous within police departments and prosecutors' offices, the report says. This would allow labs to set their own budget priorities and resolve any cultural pressures caused by the differing missions of forensic science labs and law enforcement agencies.

The report offers no judgment about past convictions or pending cases, and it offers no view as to whether the courts should reassess cases that already have been tried. Rather, the report describes and analyzes the current situation in the forensic science community and makes recommendations for the future.

Certification and Accreditation Should Be Mandatory

Many professionals in the forensic science community and the medical examiner system have worked for years to achieve excellence in their fields, aiming to follow high ethical norms, develop sound professional standards, and ensure accurate results in their practice. But there are great disparities among existing forensic science operations in federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The disparities appear in funding, access to analytical instruments, and availability of skilled and well-trained personnel; and in certification, accreditation, and oversight. This has left the forensic science system fragmented and the quality of practice uneven. Except in a few states, forensic laboratories are not required to meet high standards for quality assurance, nor are practitioners required to be certified. These shortcomings pose a threat to the quality and credibility of forensic science practice and its service to the justice system, concluded the committee.

Certification should be mandatory for forensic science professionals, the report says. Among the steps required for certification should be written examinations, supervised practice, proficiency testing, and adherence to a code of ethics. Accreditation for laboratories should be required as well. Labs should establish quality-control procedures designed to ensure that best practices are followed, confirm the continued validity and reliability of procedures, and identify mistakes, fraud, and bias, the report says.

Setting standards for certification and accreditation should be one of the responsibilities of the new National Institute of Forensic Science recommended in the report. The institute should work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, government and private labs, Scientific Working Groups, and other partners to develop protocols and best practices for forensic analysis, which should inform the standards.

Existing data suggest that forensic laboratories are underfunded and understaffed, which contributes to case backlogs and makes it hard for laboratories to do as much as they could to inform investigations and avoid errors, the report says. Additional resources will be necessary to create a high-quality, self-correcting forensic science system.

Evidence Base Often Sparse, Varies Among Disciplines

Nuclear DNA analysis has been subjected to more scrutiny than any other forensic discipline, with extensive experimentation and validation performed prior to its use in investigations. This is not the case with most other forensic science methods, which have evolved piecemeal in response to law enforcement needs, and which have never been strongly supported by federal research or closely scrutinized by the scientific community.

As a result, there has been little rigorous research to investigate how accurately and reliably many forensic science disciplines can do what they purport to be able to do. In terms of a scientific basis, the disciplines based on biological or chemical analysis, such as toxicology and fiber analysis, generally hold an edge over fields based on subjective interpretation by experts, such as fingerprint and toolmark analysis. And there are variations within the latter group; for example, there is more available research and protocols for fingerprint analysis than for bitemarks.

Nuclear DNA analysis enjoys a pre-eminent position not only because the chances of a false positive are minuscule, but also because the likelihood of such errors is quantifiable, the report notes. Studies have been conducted on the amount of genetic variation among individuals, so an examiner can state in numerical terms the chances that a declared match is wrong. In contrast, for many other forensic disciplines -- such as fingerprint and toolmark analysis -- no studies have been conducted of large populations to determine how many sources might share the same or similar features. For every forensic science method, results should indicate the level of uncertainty in the measurements made, and studies should be conducted that enable these values to be estimated, the report says.

There is some evidence that fingerprints are unique to each person, and it is plausible that careful analysis could accurately discern whether two prints have a common source, the report says. However, claims that these analyses have zero-error rates are not plausible; uniqueness does not guarantee that two individuals' prints are always sufficiently different that they could not be confused, for example. Studies should accumulate data on how much a person's fingerprints vary from impression to impression, as well as the degree to which fingerprints vary across a population. With this kind of research, examiners could begin to attach confidence limits to conclusions about whether a print is linked to a particular person.

Disciplines that are too imprecise to identify an individual may still be able to provide accurate and useful information to help narrow the pool of possible suspects, weapons, or other sources, the report says. For example, the committee found no evidence that microscopic hair analysis can reliably associate a hair with a specific individual, but noted that the technique may provide information that either includes or excludes a subpopulation.

In addition to investigating the limits of the techniques themselves, studies should also examine sources and rates of human error, the report says. As part of this effort, more research should be done on "contextual bias," which occurs when the results of forensic analysis are influenced by an examiner's knowledge about the suspect's background or an investigator's knowledge of a case. One study found that fingerprint examiners did not always agree even with their own past conclusions when the same evidence was presented in a different context.

Court Testimony Should Be Grounded in Science, Acknowledge Uncertainties

The committee was not asked to determine whether analysis from particular forensic science methods should be admissible in court, and did not do so. However, it concluded that the courts cannot cure the ills of the forensic science community. "The partisan adversarial system used in the courts to determine the admissibility of forensic science evidence is often inadequate to the task," said Edwards. "And because the judicial system embodies a case-by-case adjudicatory approach, the courts are not well-suited to address the systemic problems in many of the forensic science disciplines."

The committee also concluded that two criteria should guide the law's admission of and reliance upon forensic evidence in criminal trials: the extent to which the forensic science discipline is founded on a reliable scientific methodology that lets it accurately analyze evidence and report findings; and the extent to which the discipline relies on human interpretation that could be tainted by error, bias, or the absence of sound procedures and performance standards.

The report points out the critical need to standardize and clarify the terms used by forensic science experts who testify in court about the results of investigations. The words commonly used -- such as "match," "consistent with," and "cannot be excluded as the source of" -- are not well-defined or used consistently, despite the great impact they have on how juries and judges perceive evidence.

In addition, any testimony stemming from forensic science laboratory reports must clearly describe the limits of the analysis; currently, failure to acknowledge uncertainty in findings is common. The simple reality is that interpretation of forensic evidence is not infallible -- quite the contrary, said the committee. Exonerations from DNA testing have shown the potential danger of giving undue weight to evidence and testimony derived from imperfect testing and analysis.

Strong, Independent Leadership Needed

The existing forensic science enterprise lacks the necessary governance structure to move beyond its weaknesses, the report says. The recommended new National Institute of Forensic Science could take on its tasks in a manner that is as objective and free of bias as possible -- one with the authority and resources to implement a fresh agenda designed to address the problems found by the committee. The institute should have a full-time administrator and an advisory board with expertise in research and education, the forensic science disciplines, physical and life sciences, and measurements and standards, among other fields.

The committee carefully considered whether such a governing body could be established within an existing agency, and determined that it could not. There is little doubt that some existing federal entities are too wedded to the current forensic science community, which is deficient in too many respects. And existing agencies have failed to pursue a strong research agenda to confirm the evidentiary reliability of methodologies used in a number of forensic science disciplines.

The report was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice at the request of Congress. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council is the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

Copies of Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward are available from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above). In addition, a podcast of the public briefing held to release this report is available at http://national-academies.org/podcast.

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[ This news release and report are available at http://national-academies.org ]

Drinan: Lawmaker, priest, and target of FBI scrutiny

Drinan: Lawmaker, priest, and target of FBI scrutiny
By Michael Paulson, Bosto Globe, January 28, 2009

It remains one of the stranger episodes in the annals of congressional-FBI relations: In the winter of 1975, US Representative Robert F. Drinan was touring the FBI headquarters when he broke away and opened a drawer to find a set of index cards under his name.

A three-month battle ensued between the Massachusetts Democrat and the federal law enforcement agency over access to the file. When Drinan finally got a redacted copy of his own record, he pronounced it garbage, filled with news clippings in which the names of people already published in the newspapers were carefully blacked out by federal officials.

Now, on the second anniversary of his death, a copy of Drinan's FBI file, obtained by the Globe through a Freedom of Information Act request, provides a bookend to the story.

The file is unlikely to reshape history's view of the only Jesuit priest to serve in Congress, but it provides a backstage look at the dispute between the congressman and the agency and a reminder of how much the FBI changed over the second half of the 20th century.

In the 1970s and before, the FBI clearly viewed the congressman as potential trouble. At one point, when Drinan was quoted by a news service denouncing Attorney General John N. Mitchell as "the most dangerous attorney general that we have ever had," an FBI official scribbled on a document, "This fellow Drinan is like McGovern + Anderson - anything to get publicity."

The document does not make clear who McGovern and Anderson are, but the references seem likely to be to Senator George S. McGovern and either US Representative John B. Anderson or Jack Anderson, a syndicated newspaper columnist.

But by 1994, when the FBI was asked to do a background check on Drinan for a possible federal appointment, the tone was completely different. The file is packed with testimonials from Drinan's colleagues describing him in highly laudatory terms.

"Twenty-seven persons . . . were interviewed," the FBI reported. "They provided favorable comments concerning Father Drinan's character, associates, reputation, and loyalty."

Drinan, born in Boston in 1920, had served as a professor and dean at Boston College Law School from 1956 to 1971, when he began a decade in Congress after being elected in 1970 as an antiwar candidate. Drinan was an outspoken liberal, a critic of the Vietnam War, a forceful advocate of civil liberties, and, to the dismay of church officials, a supporter of abortion rights. He was also the first member of Congress to call for the impeachment of President Nixon.

Drinan announced he would not seek reelection in 1981 after Pope John Paul II decreed that priests should not serve in elective office. Drinan then taught at Georgetown Law School from 1981 until his death in 2007.

The file indicates that the FBI had run its first check on Drinan in 1960, a decade before his election to Congress; upon his election, a note indicates that the bureau's files "reflect that the Reverend Drinan has been active in civil rights matters."

In 1971, a suspicious nun wrote FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, saying, "I had doubted Father Drinan's authenticity as a Catholic priest because I had read of certain views he expressed that seemed to be un-American, as well as unorthodox, from a religious standpoint. If he is someone who has been 'planted' in the church, he could do great harm."

In 1975, the FBI investigated an anonymous death threat against several public figures, including Drinan, from someone purporting to represent "antiliberal and anti-Communist groups."

But the heart of the file is the history of the dispute that began in February 1975, when Drinan took a congressional tour of the FBI and discovered 20 to 30 3-by-5 cards with his name on them in a file. Drinan demanded to know how the FBI could justify collecting information on private citizens, and said, "I assure you I shall work to prevent the FBI from further engaging in the practice of attaching a stigma to persons whose political or social views may be at variance with the temporary majority of the nation."

"I have never at any time been involved in anything related to criminal prosecution," Drinan wrote to the FBI. "Consequently I was astonished and chagrined to discover the surveillance of a political nature."

The FBI accused Drinan of having ignored instructions and "delved into a file drawer containing index cards" and refused to honor Drinan's timeline for releasing his files, saying that would amount to special treatment for a congressman.

After considerable back-and-forth and for a fee of $8.10, the FBI released a redacted version of Drinan's file three months after his tour; he quickly made it public and denounced it.

"In his view, they had stepped across the line into violating the civil liberties of citizens by keeping track of what he was doing," said Arthur D. Wolf, a law professor at Western New England College School of Law in Springfield. Wolf was a special counsel to Drinan from 1973 to 1978. "He thought the FBI should concentrate on crime and not worry about people exercising their right to speech."

By the time the FBI next scrutinized Drinan, in 1994 with his consent, the tone had completely changed. The agency reported two minor issues: In 1975, there had been an unsubstantiated complaint that Drinan had improperly solicited disabled veterans for a campaign, and in 1985 he had been arrested for protesting apartheid in front of South Africa's embassy.

But the file is overflowing with praise from Drinan's co-workers, supervisors, and fellow Jesuits, all of whom were asked about Drinan's loyalty to the United States, a standard question in background checks.

"No derogatory or negative information was revealed," the Newark office reported to FBI headquarters, while the Kansas City office said simply, "All made favorable comments regarding the candidate."

Source URL: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/01/28/drinan_lawmaker_priest_and_target_of_fbi_scrutiny?mode=PF

Domestic Surveillance: FBI Files

On this Martin Luther King holiday, it's appropriate to recall the controversial surveillance of the civil rights leader by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1960s. From 1963 to his death in 1968, the FBI wiretapped King and conducted a intensive campaign to discredit him. The Bureau amassed a huge amount of material on King and almost 17,000 pages of his file have been made public through the Freedom of Information Act.

The FBI's FOIA website displays only about 200 pages of information -- essentially a 1977 report on the government's surveillance of King and its suspected role in his assassination. (But you can find the complete file in the Internet Archive.) In addition to the King document, the site provides access to surveillance files on many other celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Cesar Chavez, Marilyn Monroe and Albert Einstein.

Ever wonder if the FBI has a file on you? Through FOIA, you can request a copy of your file or that of a deceased relative. The FBI's instructions are here. For help composing a FOIA request, try the Get My FBI File and Get Grandpa's FBI File web sites.

Rogue FBI agent breaks silence

Rogue FBI agent breaks silence
From Rich Phillips
CNN Senior Producer

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Former FBI agent John Connolly, whose fall from celebrated mob-buster to paid gangland flunky captivated a South Florida courtroom for weeks, broke his long silence... at his [December] sentencing hearing.

Connolly, 68, denied having any role in a 1982 mob hit, telling the family of slain businessman John Callahan: "It's heart breaking to hear what happened to your father, and to your husband ... My heart is broken when I hear what you say."

Later, under a spirited cross-examination, Connolly explained that rubbing elbows with killers and gangsters and winning their confidence was part of the job. His attorney argued, "He did what the FBI wanted him to do and now all of a sudden, he's responsible for all these heinous acts."

Connolly did not testify at his trial. The prosecutor, Michael Van Zamft, asked for a life sentence, saying the 30-year minimum sentence is too little because "Mr. Connolly abused his badge."

Judge Stanford Blake postponed the sentencing until January 15. He said he needed time to consider a defense motion challenging the second-degree murder conviction.

Connolly was convicted last month in the 1982 slaying of Callahan, an executive with World Jai-Alai. Callahan's bullet-pocked body was found in the trunk of a Cadillac parked at Miami International Airport.

Connolly's testimony followed that of several other witnesses, including Callahan's son and a former FBI agent.

Callahan's son, Patrick, read letters that he, his sister, and his mother wrote. He said that his mother considered his father "the love of my life" for 23 years.

Former FBI agent Billy Reagan told the judge: "John had nothing to do with these murders, your honor."

During the two-month trial, jurors heard that Connolly had told his mob connections that Callahan, 45, was a potential witness against them, setting him up for the gangland-style execution.

Connolly previewed his denials in a jailhouse interview published Thursday in The Boston Globe. He faces 30 years to life at his sentencing.

"I did not commit these crimes I was charged with," Connolly told the newspaper. "I never sold my badge. I never took anybody's money. I never caused anybody to be hurt, at least not knowingly, and I never would."

According to testimony at his trial, Connolly was co-opted by the very gangsters he was supposed to be pursuing -- members of South Boston's notorious Winter Hill gang. His story is said to be the inspiration for the character played by Matt Damon in the 2006 Martin Scorsese movie, "The Departed."

Connolly's sordid tale has been closely followed in New England, where he grew up in Boston's "Southie" neighborhood, the same area long dominated by the Winter Hill gang and its notorious leader, James" Whitey" Bulger. Sought in 19 slayings, Bulger is the FBI's second most-wanted fugitive.

During the first two decades of his FBI career, Connolly won kudos in the bureau's Boston office, cultivating informants against New England mobsters. Prosecutors said Connolly was corrupted by his two highest-ranking snitches: Bulger and Stephen ''The Rifleman'' Flemmi.

Connolly retired from the FBI in 1990 and later was indicted on federal racketeering and other charges stemming from his long relationship with Bulger and Flemmi. He was convicted of racketeering in 2002 and was serving a 10-year federal prison sentence when he was indicted in 2005 in the Callahan slaying.

During testimony, jurors heard that Connolly was on the mob payroll, collecting $235,000 from Bulger and Flemmi while shielding his mob pals from prosecution and leaking the identities of informants.

The prosecution's star witnesses at the Miami trial were Flemmi, who is now in prison, and mob hit man John Martorano, who has admitted to 20 murders, served 12 years in prison and is now free.

Callahan, who often socialized with gangsters, had asked the gang to execute Oklahoma businessman Roger Wheeler over a business dispute, according to testimony. Martorano killed Wheeler in 1981 on a golf course, shooting him once between the eyes, prosecutors said.

After Connolly told Bulger and Flemmi that Callahan was going to implicate them in the slaying, Martorano was sent to do away with Callahan, prosecutors said.

But one star witness did not testify -- the former FBI agent who inspired the 1997 film "Donnie Brasco." He refused to take the stand after the judge denied his request to testify anonymously.