CIR: All Investigations

False profits

Sarah Terry-Cobo — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:56:18 -0700

Knowing they will face climate legislation sometime in the future, a number of U.S. corporations have already begun to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. The utility giant American Electric and Power is buying forest projects in Brazil and the disposal company Waste Management is recovering methane from landfills to use in its trash trucks in California. But a preliminary report commissioned by the United Nations has found that the cost of environmental damages could erase at least one third of the profits major corporations make around the world, if they had to pay for these damages. The study looked at 3,000 of the world's top publicly traded companies, and calculated that their environmental impact amounted to at least $2.2 trillion in 2008. More than half of the damage was caused by greenhouse gas emissions. The full report, due out this summer and first reported by the Guardian in February, was conducted by the British consultancy firm Trucost, and commissioned by the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment. Trucost's CEO, Richard Mattison, told the Guardian that industries are facing a completely new paradigm: "Externalities of this scale and nature pose a major risk to the global economy and markets are not fully aware of these risks, nor do they know how to deal with them," he said. What economists call externalities, are industry byproducts such as air pollution, soil erosion, and water pollution. These costs to the environment (and the surrounding communities) are not included in the price of producing energy, timber or food, for example, but are "paid for" by those who suffer from the effects. The Guardian reported that the $2.2 trillion figure could be much higher, since the study only included the impact from major corporations, and not the business and consumer practices of governments or the general population. The authors of the study hope it will be used by growing numbers of institutional investors who want to back companies with a good track record in environmental, social and corporate governance, and drive home to business leaders and policy makers that environmental costs will increasingly be part of a corporation's bottom line. The Securities and Exchange Commission delivered a similar message in January, when it released guidelines on what public companies should disclose as potential material risks from climate change. The four main areas included the economic costs of meeting international emissions treaties and other pending regulations, staying competitive as consumer and business trends shift to adapt to climate change, and mitigating the potential physical challenges of a changing climate, such as water scarcity and soil degradation. Whether these risks are caused by "increased competition or severe weather," said SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, companies must disclose to their shareholders "the significant risks they face." James Salo, the head of research and strategy at Trucost's U.S. office, told Carbon Watch that the guidelines "put the onus on companies to understand those risks in those four key areas and manage them." In a recent editorial, Pavan Sukhdev, a former Deutsche Bank executive, who is now working with the U.N. to develop new economic models to protect biodiversity, argued that a value has to be placed on nature for businesses to change the way they produce goods and services. "We cannot manage what we do not measure and we are not measuring either the value of nature's benefits or the costs of their loss," he said. Here is Sukhdev describing the role "natural capital" can play in the global economy. Under Sukhdev's leadership, the U.N. is expected to release another influential report later this year that will lay the economic foundations for putting a price on environmental impact and offer a broad set of solutions to reduce it.

Want a free iPod Touch? Wow us with your commenting skills

Sarah McHie — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:14:04 -0800

We have iPod Touches just lying around in unopened boxes.

When we equipped our staff with new Macs, Apple threw in a bunch of free iPods. We’ve been talking about how we could put them to good use. And we think we have an answer.

California Watch is announcing a debate championship and you could win a free iPod Touch.

Over each of the next six months, our staff will select the best comments entered on our site during the previous calendar month in response to stories, blog posts, data and other content we publish.

The selected comments will be entered into a drawing – and one lucky winner will be chosen each month. Comments posted in the month of March will be eligible for a drawing held the first week in April. Same goes for April, May, June and so on.

You don’t have to agree with our content to be eligible. You just have to be thoughtful, focused and articulate in making your argument. Comments will be judged also on clarity of thinking and persuasiveness. And we could be swayed by clever humor. The judging is totally subjective. But we all know a good comment when we see one. Oh, and you can’t be related to any of us to win – or have worked or interned here during the past five years.

Once your e-mail address gets entered into our shoebox, fishbowl or whatever we end up using, we’ll draw out a single winner. Since we no longer allow any anonymous commenting, we’ll notify the winner based on the e-mail address given to us when they registered. If it bounces back, or we don’t hear from the winner within 72 hours, we’ll draw another name.

The more terrific comments you post during a month, the more chances you’ll have of being nominated for the drawing.

Good luck.

California Watch is a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting and is now the largest investigative reporting team operating in the state. Visit the Web site at www.californiawatch.org for in-depth coverage of K-12 schools, higher education, money and politics, health and welfare, public safety and the environment.

More than half of CBP applicants who take lie-detector tests 'unsuitable'

Andrew Becker — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:53:25 -0800

By Andrew Becker Many of the thousands of new border agents hired in recent years as part of a push to block drug traffickers and other safety threats from entering the country might actually pose security risks themselves, a Homeland Security official testified today. Speaking at a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on corruption of federal law enforcement officers, James Tomsheck, the assistant commissioner for internal affairs at Customs and Border Protection, testified that drug-trafficking organizations have infiltrated the nation's largest federal law enforcement agency. "There is a concerted effort on the part of transnational criminal organizations to infiltrate through hiring initiatives and to compromise our existing agents and officers," he said. Despite efforts to combat corruption, which include lie-detector tests for applicants and background checks for new hires and veteran employees, Tomsheck said he worries that the problem may be too big for his agency and others to wipe out even when they work together harmoniously. Since 2004, more than 100 CBP agents and officers have been arrested or indicted, officials said. Tomsheck said when he took over the internal affairs office in 2006 the vast majority of corrupted employees had worked with the agency for 10 years or more, but now an increasing number of younger agents and officers have become corrupted. CBP has expanded rapidly in recent years, nearly doubling the number of Border Patrol agents to 20,000, which has pushed its ranks to about 58,000 employees. Tomsheck, who appeared with top officials from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, said that his agency has a backlog of 10,000 regularly scheduled background investigations, which could almost double by the end of the year. Nearly 100 contractors, among them retired FBI, DEA and other federal agents who conduct the checks, were recently laid off because of budget woes. Funding shortfalls have also limited polygraph examiners to administer lie-detector tests to 10 to 15 percent of applicants, Tomsheck said, although the goal is to test all potential hires. But 60 percent of those who take the test are deemed "unsuitable" to work as Border Patrol agents or customs inspectors, Tomsheck said. When asked if the 60 percent failure rate could apply to the other 85-90 percent of possible hires who are not tested, Tomsheck said officials had reached that conclusion. They suspect that many of those hired during the hiring push would be found not suitable to work for CBP if subjected to the test, Tomsheck said. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who called the hearing and is the chair of the subcommittee, said the percentage is "alarming." "We're on very dangerous ground here with corruption inside federal law enforcement," Pryor said. Kevin Perkins, the assistant director of the FBI's criminal investigative division, did not give a specific number on how pervasive the problem is, but offered the case of customs inspector Margarita Crispin as an example of how valuable a corrupt official is to traffickers. Agents suspect that Crispin joined CBP in 2003 with the intent of working with drug smugglers. She was sentenced in 2008 to 20 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $5 million in bribes she was paid to allow thousands of pounds of marijuana to be smuggled through her inspection lane in El Paso. Based on the amount of bribe money Perkins said he seems the problem of corruption is "significantly pervasive." The FBI has expanded the number of its anti-corruption units, which draw from other state and federal agencies, to attack corruption, he said. But corruption in the Homeland Security Department isn't limited to Border Patrol agents and customs inspectors. Agents and officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which both runs immigration detention and is Homeland Security's investigative arm, and employees of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that issues green cards and other immigration benefits, have also been corrupted. Tom Frost, the assistant inspector general for investigations at DHS, said his office has even greater concern about the risk of corruption within CIS. "Immigration benefits are such a valuable commodity to drug-trafficking organizations or other persons that would do us harm," he said. "Immigration benefits are even more lasting and profound" because they allow drug traffickers to operate within the United States. Pryor said that changes in the law might address the problem. “These cartels in Mexico are very powerful,” he said. “We should not underestimate their ability to corrupt law enforcement authorities.”

Recent ICE memo explains how officials should address detained U.S. citizens

Andrew Becker — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:27:22 -0800

On the heels of several reports documenting U.S. citizens who have been detained or even deported by federal immigration officers, a top Homeland Security Department official in November issued a memo that aims to guide his agency on what to do when a person suspected of being illegally in the country claims to be a citizen. (The memo can be seen here.) John Morton, Homeland Security's assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sent the memo, which instructs ICE employees that "In all cases, any uncertainty about whether the evidence is probative of U.S. Citizenship should weigh against detention." (The memo supersedes a memo from November 2008, which superseded another memo from July 2008, which superseded a memo from May 2008.) Aside from going deeper into the issue than previous guidance, the other differences are who issued the memo and to whom it's addressed. The memos from November and July 2008 were issued by James T. Hayes Jr., the then-director of ICE's Office of Detention and Removal Operations, and sent to DRO's field office directors. Morton's note didn't just go to the deportation officers and enforcement agents assigned to DRO. The recipients include special agents (through the 26 special agents in charge) and ICE attorneys (through the 26 chief counsels' offices). With it comes a sense of urgency and prioritization of such citizenship claims. Morton's directive also instructs agents and officers to work with the local U.S. attorney's office to prosecute a person who lies about their citizenship claim. (The government has shown its serious about prosecuting false claims, including asylum seekers.) That the memo comes from Morton gives extra heft, and follows various media reports highlighting the issue. CIR, in separate collaborations with the Los Angeles Times and Mother Jones, reported that numerous detainees with valid or possible claims to U.S. citizenship have been detained and even deported in recent years. (Other reporting on the issue can be found here, here and here.) ICE's new "Secure Communities" program that targets criminal aliens for deportation has also mistakenly identified thousands of U.S. citizens initially believed to be potentially subject to deportation. More details on how ICE determines citizenship could become public through a lawsuit filed by one such U.S. citizen detained for seven months. Vern Castillo, a native of Belize, became a naturalized U.S. citizen while he was in the U.S. Army. A few years after Castillo was honorably discharged from the military he ended up serving a short jail sentence following a domestic dispute with a girlfriend. Instead of being released once his jail time was up, Castillo was detained by immigration officials who thought he was in the country illegally. An immigration judge didn't believe Castillo's protests that he was a citizen, and ordered the man deported. It was only after an appeals panel reviewed the case that immigration officials realized a mistake had been made in his file, and he was released. Castillo filed suit in November 2008 against the agents. A federal judge in Tacoma recently ruled the case could move forward in part. The U.S. government has appealed that ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Settlement discussions are ongoing. According to court records, Castillo (or his legal team) wants a lesson in how ICE agents and officers go about their business of determining whether someone in their custody is a U.S. citizen or not. They want to videotape a qualified operator showing them how database searches are conducted. Among the things that could come to light are the policies, procedures and practices in determining, documenting and investigating citizenship and claims of citizenship. Castillo also wants to see the agency's logs, training materials and manuals on the topic, court records show.

Texas Tribune adds searchable online database

G.W. Schulz — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:37:29 -0800

Following up an in-depth March 8 story examining federal homeland security grants, the nonprofit Texas Tribune has posted a searchable database online that allows visitors to see how cities and counties in the Lone Star State have used anti-terrorism and preparedness grants since 2003. The Center for Investigative Reporting made the records available to the Austin-based news organization after obtaining them from the Texas Department of Public Safety using open-government laws. Tribune data guru Matt Stiles built the easy-to-use application that enables visitors to compare grant spending per capita, from tiny Loving County ($1,144 for every resident) to the county surrounding the Texas capital (about $1 for each resident). The database can also be used to search by community for a detailed list in each of actual purchases totaling more than 25,000 expenditures statewide. In Bexar County where San Antonio is located, for example, authorities spent $350,000 on an armored-response vehicle. In the sample box here you can see a $68,000 "WMD kit," i.e. weapons of mass destruction. Reporter Brandi Grissom's main story pointed out that big cities weren't the only ones to indulge in such high-priced items. A small county southeast of Dallas with fewer than 8,000 people also scooped up a fortified military-style truck. Grissom's reporting showed that the city of Houston paid professional filmmakers $194,000 for a 22-minute movie on disaster preparedness. Read the story for much more.

Court trial of accused drug smugglers offers insights into Mexican trafficking

Andrew Becker — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:18:26 -0800

An ongoing drug trial in U.S. District Court in El Paso, Texas, provides an uncommon glimpse into the violent battle for Juarez, just across the U.S.-Mexico border. The trial has had as many twists and turns as the Rio Grande, which splits these New Wild West towns into something like Heaven and Hell. For more than a week in El Paso, witnesses have taken the stand and testified about the world of Mexican drug traffickers. The El Paso Times has reported that their testimony has flashed light on the players and strategies in a vicious turf fight between rival traffickers vying for control of the lucrative smuggling corridor. The testimony has also skimmed the murkiness of drug enforcement on both sides of the border. At least one witness and even the main defendant have been outed as sources for Immigration and Customs Enforcement who were later arrested by the Drug Enforcement Administration for running drugs. The testimony comes in the trial of two accused drug smugglers, Fernando Ontiveros-Arámbula, whom an ICE agent today said was an informant for the agency, and Manuel Chávez-Betancourt, who refused to cooperate with the government out of fear for his family's safety, according to court records. (For safety concerns, the federal judge, David Briones, ordered that jurors have lunch brought in to them each day.) Witnesses have testified that Ontiveros-Aråmbula worked directly under Mexico's most wanted drug trafficker, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, who leads the Sinaloa drug syndicate, the El Paso Times reports. The trial has a motley array of characters, from a rooster breeder who stored caches of marijuana in his New Mexico barn to a female trafficker who allegedly survived being shot 15 times to a former Juarez police captain who said all law enforcement in the city and elsewhere in the Mexican state of Chihuahua are on the take, including himself. Among them are several witnesses who have also been indicted or convicted of drug smuggling charges in El Paso and elsewhere and were flipped by the U.S. government to testify against the smugglers. Among the more intriguing witnesses so far is the former Juarez police captain. Jesus Fierro-Mendez was a 10-year police veteran who ran a counter-narcotics unit, the EPT reports. He left the police department in April 2007 under suspicious circumstances, sources say. Federal agents arrested him at his El Paso home in Oct. 2008. He was sentenced in January to 27 years in prison by a federal judge in Indianapolis. A quick aside: this former police captain got 324 months for smuggling cocaine into the United States. Most U.S. law enforcement busted for corruption typically get far less prison time. A Pennsylvania Congressman, however, introduced last month a bill that includes stiffer penalties for agents who accept bribes. By comparison, Osiel Cardenas, the notorious former head of the Gulf Cartel, was recently sentenced to 25 years after pleading guilty to drug dealing, money laundering and the attempted murder and assault of federal agents, according to news reports. The counter-narcotics unit, known as Puma, consisted of young officers fresh out of the police academy who were supposed to be incorruptible, sources say. Little did the rookie cops apparently know that their boss was himself involved in the drug trade. But Fierro-Mendez's testimony comes with a twist — he was also an ICE informant who, he said, was authorized by the infamous "El Chapo" of the Sinaloa gang to give U.S. law enforcement information about the rival Juarez cartel. ICE agents in El Paso have walked down this path before, and not just with today's news that the defendant was passing information to the U.S. at the same time he was trying to pass loads of drugs. A law enforcement source said it is not uncommon for traffickers to offer information about competitors. Another ICE informant was implicated in at least a dozen murders in Juarez around 2003. That informant, Guillermo Ramirez-Peyro, known as Lalo, awaits his fate in an immigration detention center in New York. Last May, a high-ranking member of the Juarez cartel, who was also an ICE informant, was gunned down outside of his El Paso home. Among the hitmen was another member of the Juarez cartel who was also, allegedly, an ICE informant. After federal prosecutors rested their case today, defense attorney began their questioning. Explosions expected to follow.

CIR aids Texas Tribune in homeland security grants story

G.W. Schulz — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:21:31 -0800

"The City of Corpus Christi hasn't used the $188,000 video screen it bought with homeland security funding in 2008," begins Texas Tribune reporter Brandi Grissom in a March 8 story about federal preparedness and anti-terrorism grants. "But when a hurricane strikes, city officials will be ready to watch footage from surveillance cameras around the area -- if the storm doesn't knock them out, of course." The Tribune examined thousands of transactions made with federal homeland security grants that were contained in a database turned over by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The Center for Investigative Reporting made the data available to the Tribune after obtaining the records through an open-government request. Doing so is part of the center's ongoing effort to collaborate with other investigative journalism organizations focused on the public interest. It's also an essential component of our more than year-long push to report on post-Sept. 11 security spending in the United States. You can see the nationwide map we recently unveiled using similar records from around the country here. The Center for Public Integrity partnered with us in constructing the map. The Texas Tribune and Grissom found among other things that the city of Houston purchased a $1.3 million five-man helicopter and paid $194,000 to a professional filmmaking company for a 22-minute movie on disaster preparedness. A small county 80 miles southwest of Dallas with fewer than 8,000 people acquired a $180,000 military-style armored truck. Image: Texas Tribune

CIR responds to FBI decision to close unsolved civil rights cases

CIR Staff — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:25:18 -0800

Over the past 20 years, every unsolved civil rights murder case that has been reopened and successfully prosecuted in the South was the direct result of an investigation initiated by a journalist. So the FBI’s decision to close, without prosecution or further disclosure, all but a few of the 108 unsolved murder cases it began re-examining three years ago, only highlights the vital need for investigative reporting that can find the truth, tell the stories and fill in the gaps in our nation’s history. The Civil Rights Cold Case Project (www.coldcases.org), a team of investigative reporters, documentary filmmakers and interactive media producers, is digging into unsolved civil rights murders in the South. Led by the Center for Investigative Reporting and Paperny Films, the project -- which includes Clarion Ledger reporter and recent MacArthur Genius award winner Jerry Mitchell, and Pulitzer Prize winner Hank Klibanoff -- has been focused for more than two years on race murders and crimes primarily in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. “These cases are not cold when it comes to the relatives and friends of the victims,” said Robert J. Rosenthal, executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting. “Our reporting has found that these cases resonate powerfully today. Too many Americans are unaware of the terror of that era and how it has affected our country in terms of race and reconciliation.” In a Washington Post story, the FBI said that it was discontinuing its pursuit of all but a handful of the cases it believed had great potential for prosecution when the initiative was announced in 2007. Cynthia Deitle, head of the FBI’s civil rights unit, told the Post that agents and prosecutors concluded that almost a fifth of the cases were not racially motivated. In other cases, agents hit dead ends or dead perpetrators. It continues to investigate a few cases. “While we welcomed FBI involvement in these cases,” said Hank Klibanoff, managing editor of the Civil Rights Cold Case Project, “we always felt that our goals – deep reporting, story-telling and racial healing – had significance and value regardless of whether federal agents and prosecutors felt they could win a conviction. So while the FBI might pass on cases because the killers have died, we remain intensely interested because these stories are compelling and worth telling. There are family members of victims and perpetrators who deserve to know what happened, and there are history books and classrooms that are incomplete without this information.” The Civil Rights Cold Case Project also urged the FBI to make all the files of the closed cases available to the public without redactions and without the long and difficult processes demanded by the federal Freedom of Information Act. “There’s no reason now for this history to remain hidden,” Klibanoff said. “And there are compelling reasons for the records to be opened. A perpetrator of a racial murder should not be given special protection from disclosure and scrutiny simply because he had the misfortune of dying before he could be prosecuted.” The Project also urged Congress to pass legislation that would ease public access to government-held records from the modern civil rights era. Working with Northeastern University Law Professor Margaret Burnham and her Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, Klibanoff has helped develop ideas for legislation that would create an independent review board to examine all those government-held civil rights records and release as many as possible, as soon as possible. The Civil Rights Cold Case Project supports this effort. Congress acted in a similar manner twice before, both in the 1990s, when it created independent review boards to examine the John F. Kennedy Assassination Papers and the Nazi/Japanese War Crimes Papers; in both cases, Congress declared that the federal Freedom of Information Act had fallen short of its purpose – a situation the Civil Rights Cold Case Project believe exists today with civil rights records. Sen. John Kerry recently introduced legislation that would create such a board to examine and release papers related to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Kerry’s office has said the senator would favor broadening the bill to include records of all civil rights murders. The Project’s aim is to secure adequate funding to bring on additional reporters to join the existing team and produce ongoing reporting for newspapers and websites; a series of short and long-form documentaries for public television, in partnership with WNET.org in New York; reporting for National Public Radio; and a groundbreaking website and educational outreach effort that would engage victims’ families and communities in the investigative process. Klibanoff noted that at least two of the handful of cases the FBI is still pursuing were prompted by Civil Rights Cold Case Project reporters. Reporting by John Fleming of The Anniston Star led to federal criminal charges against a former Alabama state trooper for the 1965 shooting death of Jimmie Lee Jackson in Marion, Alabama, an act that helped trigger the historic Selma to Montgomery March. The trooper awaits trial. In Ferriday, Louisiana, weekly newspaper editor Stanley Nelson’s extraordinary reporting on the 1964 murder of black shopkeeper Frank Morris led to a current FBI and local investigation, the posting of a reward and the possibility a grand jury will be empanelled. Nelson, working with thousands of pages of government documents that took nearly two years to obtain and aided by the children of former Klansmen, also has revealed important new information about a violent Klan offshoot, the Silver Dollar group, and its involvement in two other murders: Wharlest Jackson in 1967 and Joe Ed Edwards in 1964. Significant work has been done on those cases by two allies of the cold case project, law professors Paula C. Johnson and Janis L. McDonald, who run the Cold Case Justice Initiative at Syracuse University. Jerry Mitchell of the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi has been responsible since the late 1980s for prosecutions and convictions in some of the nation’s highest profile civil rights cases, including the assassination of Medgar Evers, the Birmingham church bombing, and the “Mississippi Burning” murders of civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman in Philadelphia, MS. Mitchell continues to find stories in the 40,000 pages of “Mississippi Burning” documents. Two other team members, Canadian filmmaker David Ridgen and Thomas Moore, the brother of a young black man abducted and murdered in Meadville, Mississippi, produced documentary reporting that led to the federal prosecution and conviction of a Klansman for the murder – and a public apology by another Klansman. Project reporter Ben Greenberg continues to break new ground on the 1964 murder of Clifton Walker, who was driving home from work in Woodville, Mississippi, when he was shot multiple times on a lonely road. Greenberg has found witnesses who were long ago believed to have died or disappeared. “Investigative reporting takes enormous time and resources, and it’s even more challenging at a time when reporters are being called on to help their newsrooms by covering an ever-changing array of topics and stories,” Klibanoff said. “It is our hope that we can attract the resources to free up those reporters and many others who want to join us as we dig out and tell these hidden stories from our difficult past.”

California Watch site now features enhanced commenting

Sarah McHie — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:57:04 -0800

Almost immediately after launching our California Watch Web site in early January, we went to work on changes for our “Phase 2.”

The first results of that work relate to our commenting. And the changes just went live.

It is now dramatically easier to register on our site. That means instead of filling out a longer form, we now are requiring only a few simple steps before registered users can comment on our stories, blog posts and databases.

The flipside is that we have eliminated anonymous commenting. We believe this change adds greater credibility and accountability to the online discussion surrounding our work. We recognize that we might lose some comments. But we think the tradeoff is worth it.

It’s also going to be a lot easier to respond to other comments by simply hitting “reply.” Your comment will appear underneath the comment you're responding to.

Expect other refinements on our commenting area in the near future. We really want to add a rating system, allowing readers to weigh in on other comments. It’s another step we can take to encourage responsible commenting.

In the next few days we are going to announce a special contest/promotion on our site that we hope will be fun and will help elevate the debate. It will work like this: At the end of every month through this summer, our staff will choose the most reasoned, incisive comments that appear on our site. There will be no limit to the number we select. It could be one. It could be 100. It could be any number in between. Comments will be judged on clarity of thinking and persuasiveness. The authors will then be entered into a drawing to win a free iPod Touch. You don’t have to agree with our content to be entered into the drawing. You just have to be thoughtful, focused and articulate in making your argument. We think it’s a fun way to encourage a healthy debate and discussion. Watch for more details soon.

In the meantime, I hope you try out our new commenting system. What do you think about our story this weekend that detailed how state workers are walking away from their government jobs with massive vacation payouts? Or how about our story about DUI checkpoints where police are more likely to seize cars from sober, unlicensed drivers? Our staff is also generating several blog items a day on our California Watchblog, And now a better forum for discussion awaits.

Conventions tie state officials to drug makers, raise conflict concerns

Sarah McHie — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:21:24 -0800

Three California officials that are responsible for millions of dollars in Medi-Cal prescription drug spending are said to not be disclosing important travel perks such as free meals, flights and hotel rooms. The three officials’ travel was paid for by several nonprofit business groups that solely exist to fund conferences. These nonprofit groups are funded by drugmakers who benefit greatly from the power of these officials.

More Juarez residents fleeing Mexican drug violence

Andrew Becker — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:59:07 -0800

Almost a half-million people have sought refuge from the drug violence racking the Mexican border metropolis of Juarez, according to a newspaper estimate. The El Paso Times reported this week that the city of Juarez's planning department have found that 110,000 houses have been abandoned from 2005 to the beginning of 2009. The paper extrapolates that "based on average family size, about 420,000 people, or 30 percent of the city's residents, have moved out of Juárez, either to other parts of Mexico or to the United States." Although numbers may be squishy, the paper said local police, real estate agents and demographers "detect an increase in refugees from Mexico living in El Paso." Some of the "refugees" could be tied to the economy as about 75,000 people have lost their jobs since Dec. 2007, the paper reports. The maquiladora industry, which manufactures or assembles products for international distribution, shed most of those positions. But another extraordinary statistic the paper reports is that more than 10,000 businesses — about 40 percent of the city's total — have closed out of fear of extortion and assault, according to the Mexican chamber of commerce. CIR, reporting for The Nation, wrote last year that "Officials on both sides of the border acknowledge these new immigrants but decline to make estimates of how many have fled." What's interesting about the El Paso Times story is the effort to go beyond the local body count — more than 4,600 killed since 2008 — to quantify the economic and social damage that the violence has had in Juarez. While the U.S. has pledged $1.4 billion in aid to Mexico and Central American countries to combat the drug trade, there has been little public discussion between the U.S. and Mexico about the social fallout from the related violence, and possible refugees from the drug war. Elsewhere in Texas, the former head of the infamous Gulf cartel was sentenced behind closed doors in Houston to 25 years in federal prison and ordered to forfeit $50 million, the Houston Chronicle reported. Here is the press release from the U.S. attorney's office.

Calculating the value of carbon in trees

Carrie Ching — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:44:26 -0800

The fate of the world's tropical forests is a contentious issue as the U.S. debates a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. American companies want the ability to meet limits by purchasing forests and agreeing not to cut them down. In a two-part series on the public radio show Marketplace, CIR explores what a forest offset looks like on the ground, in Brazil's Atlantic Forest, and the impact of a forest offset on the people who live there. Part one aired on Thursday, February 25; part two aired on Friday, February 26. These stories are produced as part of a collaborative project from CIR and FRONTLINE/World called Carbon Watch. >> Listen to part one: "Calculating the value of carbon in trees" >> Listen to part two: "Conservation projects displace locals" >> Watch the video version of this story on FRONTLINE/World: "Brazil: The Money Tree" >> Read a related story by CIR's Mark Schapiro that ran in Mother Jones: "GM's Money Trees"

Chauncey Bailey Project reporters win McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage

Sarah McHie — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:15:00 -0800

Four reporters associated with the Chauncey Bailey Project will be awarded the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage on Wednesday, March 24, at the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The reporters are Thomas Peele, Josh Richman, Mary Fricker and Bob Butler. The four wrote more than 100 stories about the group, the murder, and the police investigation. Chauncey Bailey was editor of the Oakland Post, who was murdered in 2007 while investigating members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, headquartered in Oakland, California. The four reporters continued to tell the story despite obvious dangers. The award is named after Ralph McGill who was regarded by many as "the conscience of the South" for his editorials challenging racial segregation. Richman and Butler said they were honored and humbled by the award. Peele said, "To win an award that memorializes the work of Ralph McGill is a high honor."

Re-airing of CIR doc reveals Justice Kennedy's concerns about campaign cash

Dan Noyes — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:34:48 -0800

CIR’s television documentary Justice for Sale, a 1999 co-production with Frontline and Bill Moyers as correspondent, receives a timely rebroadcast on the February 19, 2010 edition of Bill Moyers’ Journal (in an edited version revised to fit the Bill Moyers’ Journal format). It is timely because Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently cast the key swing vote in a Supreme Court decision freeing up business and special interest contributions to political campaigns. In the 1999 Justice for Sale broadcast, Kennedy told Moyers of his deep concern about the negative effect of contributions in state judicial elections and warned they can cause the perception or reality that judicial independence is undermined. Clearly Justice Kennedy’s concerns for judicial elections do not bridge the divide between his warning on that issue and his free-swinging approach to political campaign contributions as shown in his opinion announced last month in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which erased two of the court's precedents and decades of legislative restrictions on corporate and special interest spending in political campaigns. Now it’s up to the legislative branch to go back to the drawing board and attempt to design new campaign finance laws that will create the public perception or political reality that Congress and the President are not the captives of special interests and the highest bidder. Justice for Sale is one example in a long line of CIR work that examines the influence of special interests and campaign cash on public affairs. Award-winning Frontline documentaries The Best Campaign Money Can Buy (1992) and So You Want to Buy a President? (1996) examined presidential campaigns. A series of stories in Salon.com in 2004 and 2005 examined the influence of corporate and special interests on the federal judicial nomination process: "Courting Big Business," "Big Biz Battles for Bush's Bench," "The Moneyed Scales of Justice," and "Harriet Miers Is All Business." Other stories have looked at issues ranging from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R.Ky) fundraising methods to how local real estate contributions affect zoning and health and safety issues. Perhaps the one sure bet to come out of the Supreme Court decision to free up special interest money in political campaigns: CIR reporters and others will have their hands full trying to keep up with the resulting stories. Dan Noyes was executive producer for CIR for Justice for Sale. He is a co-founder of CIR and for 30 years was on CIR's staff as a reporter, then editor, and served three stints as executive director or acting executive director.

California's media in crisis

Louis Freedberg — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:47:55 -0800

At precisely the time California newsrooms are shrinking, the state is experiencing its worst budget and governance crisis in decades.

Come meet members of the California Watch leadership team and other media professionals this Friday at noon at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco as they consider the implications of these simultaneous realities.

Quality journalism is still being done around the state, but in a less sustained way than a decade ago. This is certainly the case nationally as a number of reports have asserted. The downsizing of the news media raises troubling questions about how Californians will be informed about what is happening in the state -- in both public and private institutions that affect their lives in fundamental ways.

I'll be moderating the panel, which will consist of Sandy Close, executive director of New America Media; Stuart Drown, executive director of the Little Hoover Commission; Mark Katches, California Watch's editorial director; Martin Reynolds, editor of the Oakland Tribune; and David Lauter, assistant managing editor/California, Los Angeles Times.

For more information, or to buy a ticket, check out this listing on the Commonwealth Club Web site.

A diary of one crazy week inside California Watch

Mark Katches — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:12:40 -0800

Every Monday it feels like our entire staff gets shot out of a cannon.

In the past few weeks we’ve produced a story examining an unusual, and lucrative, stimulus contract; a story detailing the alarming increase in maternal death rates in California; and a story this past weekend revealing how police at sobriety checkpoints are far more likely to seize cars from unlicensed motorists than take drunks off the road.

Sunday’s DUI checkpoint story served as a good example of our hectic, intense workflow. Here’s a day-by-day breakdown of how our collaboration with the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, KQED Radio and other news outlets came together last week:

Monday: We started contacting news partners about the checkpoint story, first giving them a several paragraph “budget line.” It pretty closely mirrored the top of the story as written:

California police departments are increasingly turning sobriety checkpoints into profitable operations that are far more likely to seize cars from unlicensed minority motorists than catch drunken drivers on the state’s roadways.
Many of the drivers losing their cars at checkpoints are illegal immigrants, an examination by the University of California, Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program in collaboration with California Watch has found.
These unlicensed motorists rarely challenge the impounds, or have the cash to recover their cars.
Impounds at checkpoints in 2009 generated tens of millions of dollars in towing fees and police fines. Additionally, police officers collected checks for about more than $25 million in overtime pay for the DUI crackdowns, funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety.
In the course of its examination, The Investigative Reporting Program reviewed hundreds of pages of city financial records and police reports, and analyzed data documenting the results from checkpoints the past two years. Other findings include:
• Sobriety checkpoints frequently screen traffic within, or near, Hispanic neighborhoods.
• The seizures appear to defy a 2005 federal appellate court ruling that determined police cannot impound cars solely because the driver is unlicensed.
• Departments frequently overstaff checkpoints with officers, all earning overtime pay.

Every day in newsrooms across the country, editors and reporters try to capture the interest of their bosses with tantalizing budget lines. Our situation is unique. We pitch our work to multiple outlets at the same time. Will they want our story? And if so, how will they play it?

Robert Rosenthal, the executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting, and Louis Freedberg, the California Watch director who oversees our distribution efforts, began drumming up interest. They sent the budget line to numerous news organizations and followed up with e-mails and phone calls.

In the meantime, our copy editor William Cooley was looking over the story. Copy editors are a rare breed. The best ones are pains in the behind. And they consider it the highest possible compliment to be labeled as such. That’s what I love about Cooley. He is a talented intern from San Jose State. But he carries himself like a veteran.

He has not shied away from asking major prize-winning veteran reporters and editors to explain their methods or their premise. He asks uncomfortable but important questions. And he’s made some outstanding catches that have saved us from potentially embarrassing moments.

Tuesday: The reporter on the project, Ryan Gabrielson, sat down to go over Cooley’s comments and final questions from Rosenthal and me. Gabrielson is a fellow at the UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program. He won both the Pulitzer Prize and George Polk Award in 2009.

Last summer, he was offered a fellowship at UC Berkeley under the direction of the legendary Lowell Bergman. Soon after arriving in California, he began working on the checkpoint story. Bergman and Gabrielson started talking to us about it late last year and a first draft was submitted in January. I started editing it during our “Open Newsroom” on January 21.

We went back and forth on several drafts and were feeling really good about it. But there was work to do. Cooley had thought we needed more attribution and additional context. Gabrielson and I agreed. I also asked to have his methodology reviewed, so Gabrielson sent it to Steve Doig, a Pulitzer-winning journalism professor at Arizona State University and former board member at Investigative Reporters and Editors.

In the meantime, Data analyst Agustin Armendariz and multimedia producer Lisa Pickoff-White polished a snazzy interactive map of all the cities that got federal funding for checkpoints in 2008 and 2009. They built the map with data Gabrielson had gathered during his reporting.

Wednesday: Time to cut the story. The full-length version of Gabrielson’s draft was about 4,500 words – well over 150 inches. No daily newspaper in California would likely print a story of that length. We trimmed it to about 3,800 words – an appropriate length for the California Watch Web site.

Once that was done, the hard work began. I cut the story again – this time by more than half – to about 1,800 words. At that length it could fit in the news pages of our newspaper partners.

I showed it to Gabrielson, and he didn’t have a heart attack. A good sign. Rosenthal and Freedberg continued to work the phones to find media partners and to keep editors informed about our progress.

Based on our budget line, the Sacramento Bee seemed interested. So did the Orange County Register. The Bakersfield Californian and Stockton Record soon came on board. In addition to showing our methodology to an expert in computer-assisted reporting and statistical analysis, such as Doig, Rosenthal thought we needed to write about our methodology so that readers could understand how the reporting process evolved. Gabrielson banged that out.

He also wrote the text for two data pieces that Armendariz helped put together – one focusing on overtime costs and another looking at the UC Berkeley program that helps administer DUI checkpoint money.

Working with Gabrielson was a pleasure. It's comforting to an editor when a reporter can quickly answer every question you toss their way. Gabrielson had great command of the subject, and he worked quickly and efficiently to turn around all of our requests. By midday, we were ready to distribute both versions of the story.

Even though we didn't expect any newsroom to publish the full-length story, we made it available in case editors saw things in the longer draft that they wanted in the condensed version. Once the drafts are dispatched to news outlets, we await questions from editors. Because we're almost always dealing with multiple partners, we end up fielding lots of inquiries from copy editors, project editors and managing editors as the week progresses.

When we launched California Watch last fall, I worried that it might be a little overwhelming to have so many layers of editors. We all know what it’s like to have too many cooks trying to season the soup. So far, knock on wood, it has actually worked. And we saw a perfect example of that just a few hours later. Sacramento Bee Projects Editor Amy Pyle suggested tweaking the first paragraph of our story. It made the top better and tighter. We made a couple of other adjustments and added a new fourth paragraph.

This was the new start (You can see how it differs slightly from the budget line):
Sobriety checkpoints in California are increasingly turning into profitable operations for local police departments that are far more likely to seize cars from unlicensed motorists than catch drunken drivers.

And this was the added fourth paragraph:
In dozens of interviews over the past three months, law enforcement officials and tow truck operators say that vehicles are predominantly taken from minority motorists – often illegal immigrants.

Doig, the Arizona State professor, got back to us and said he was comfortable with our methods. In the meantime, Gabrielson was going through an entirely different editing process with the New York Times. Bergman, who had won a Pulitzer Prize working with the Times, had gotten the newspaper's new Bay Area edition and PBS NewsHour interested months ago.

Gabrielson tailored a tightly focused draft for the Times that contained mostly information about Bay Area checkpoints. And he was going back and forth with editors there about changes to the story. He also prepped for a KQED Radio interview with Michael Montgomery and reviewed final video.

Thursday: La Opinion had begun to translate the story into Spanish. Web production assistant Sarah McHie made sure all our articles and pieces were coming together for our Web site. Pickoff-White produced a cool graphic showing the cities with the highest impound rates. She did this even though she had been laid up in a hospital for two days over the weekend. Now she had been ordered by her doctors to rest at home because she had what appeared to be swine flu. But a little H1N1 wasn't going to stop her.

Gabrielson, meanwhile, headed over to KQED Radio in the morning to tape his radio interview. Later, he watched the NewsHour piece one last time before it got shipped to New York. He also went over the story line-by-line with the New York Times to make more changes to their draft.

Friday: We prepared a Word document with final fixes – just two revised paragraphs that added context in response to a question from Orange County Register Investigative Editor Chris Knap and another from the Sacramento Bee. Through this editing process, the story kept getting stronger.

Some news organizations were still weighing whether to run it. The Modesto Bee told us they would publish the story the following week. The Fresno Bee said they also would like to run it later. Freedberg got back the translated version from La Opinion.

One more time, we all looked over the final pieces that McHie had loaded into our content management system. We rewrote one headline on a graphic, but otherwise everything looked ready. Just as we were leaving the office, we received word that three more Southern California newspapers were interested.

Saturday: Logging in from home, Pickoff-White made sure everything went live at the right time. We posted the stories, charts, graphics and interactive map around 6 p.m.

Our California Watch News Alert went out shortly after, and we started sending out our “tweets” announcing the story. We also posted a link on Facebook. As a small startup, these social media tools are especially important to help spread the word about our work.

The New York Times posted their version early Saturday evening. In the meantime, around the state, several newspaper staffs were getting ready to put the story on their front pages for Sunday. KQED Radio would broadcast an interview with Gabrielson on Monday and the PBS NewsHour would devote a segment to the story Monday night.

Sunday: Finally, an opportunity to exhale – but not all of us. Sarah Terry-Cobo, a freelance journalist who also helps with distribution, scoured the Web for newspaper front pages for our own archives. We also kept pushing the story on Twitter and Facebook. Huffington Post picked up the story, driving thousands of new readers to our site. By the time the day was over, we had shattered our record for the most traffic on californiawatch.org in a single day.

Monday: The cannon goes off again.

CIR's Andrew Becker to speak on effects of Mexican drug war

CIR Staff — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:00:00 -0800

Mexico’s brutal drug war has rattled that country’s sense of security, deepened its economic crisis and shifted attention from other pressing concerns. Leading journalists and scholars explore the roots of the violence, what its lasting impact may be, and how the drug war might be resolved. They examine ways that the narco-violence is affecting – and affected by – the United States. And they discuss how the U.S. press is covering the issue and what stories about Mexico we might be missing. A panel of journalists who have covered Mexico discuss their work and their observations. They will be joined by the director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Latin American Studies to go behind the headlines and talk about the political and economic forces shaping Mexico today. The event is jointly sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies and the Graduate School of Journalism, both at UC Berkeley. Reporting on Mexico: Drugs, Violence and the Prospects for a Nation’s Future Andrew Becker, Center for Investigative Reporting Steve Fainaru, Washington Post Susan Ferriss, Sacramento Bee Prof. Harley Shaiken, UC Berkeley Center for Latin American Studies Moderated by Tyche Hendricks, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism North Gate Hall Library Wednesday, February 17, 2010 5:30 p.m.

Car seizures at DUI checkpoints prove profitable for cities, raise legal questions

Sarah McHie — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:04:27 -0800

Law enforcement agencies are more likely to seize cars from sober, unlicensed drivers than take drunks off the road at the state's sobriety checkpoints, investigation finds.

CIR and NPR collaborate on three-part series on confidential informants

CIR Staff — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:13:03 -0800

National Public Radio, in collaboration with the Center for Investigative Reporting, will broadcast tonight the first in a three-part series on foreigners who work as confidential informants. CIR reporter Andrew Becker along with Michael Montgomery, a producer with CIR’s California Watch project, produced the third story in the series about an informant who went public with his case last summer after immigration officials tried to deport him. The story will air Saturday, Feb. 13 on NPR’S Weekend Edition program. The Los Angeles Times will run a separate story on the treatment of such informants. CIR’s 10-month investigation on the treatment of informants who do not have legal immigrant status in the United States found several instances of informants who say they have been wronged by drug agents and immigration officials. >> Visit CIR's complete reporting project on immigration courts in the U.S.

Going Undercover with a Confidential Informant

Carrie Ching — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:31:31 -0800

Retired narcotics agent Tom Padukiewicz worked undercover with confidential informant Ernesto Gamboa for thirteen years—busting drug dealers across Washington State. In separate interviews with the Center for Investigative Reporting, the two describe a meth deal that almost went wrong.

Confidential Informants in Limbo

Carrie Ching — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:22:32 -0800

After confidential informant Ernesto Gamboa helped federal prosecutors secure nearly 100 convictions, ICE moved to deport him. In this episode of "The Investigators," CIR reporter Andrew Becker describes the predicament that some foreigners face while working for the U.S. government. Part 1: Confidential Informants in Limbo Part 2: The Case of Ernesto Gamboa

Informants can greatly aid U.S. authorities but still face deportation

Carrie Ching — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:57:17 -0800

Confidential informants who don't have legal immigrant status have been led to believe that federal agencies would help them get U.S. residency in exchange for their assistance in undercover investigations, only to have the implied or explicit promises broken. CIR's Andrew Becker reports for the Los Angeles Times. >> Read the full story in the Los Angeles Times.

Retired Drug Informant Says He Was Burned

Carrie Ching — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:52:42 -0800

Ernesto Gamboa, a native of El Salvador, spent more than a decade as an undercover informant for narcotics police, helping U.S. federal prosecutors secure nearly 100 convictions. Last summer, days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced a major bust it made with Gamboa's help, agents moved to deport him. >> Listen to the full story on NPR.org on Saturday, February 13, 2010.

Adapting to the news cycle

Louis Freedberg — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:42:37 -0800

As California Watch ramps up distribution of its work, we are experimenting with different ways to reach the California public.

Our goal is to distribute our stories as widely as possible, in as many media formats as possible – in the hope that we will be able to spark a conversation on critically important issues affecting many Californians.

Typically, we like to give media outlets interested in running a story a heads up of a week or two – or more – so they will have an opportunity to supplement our reports with their own local reporting. They may even collaborate with us in the reporting.

This week, however, we had to shorten our distribution time frame considerably on a story Nathanael Johnson had been working on for weeks – the near tripling of maternal mortality rates in California over the past decade.

Nathanael discovered that California's Department of Public Health had been sitting on a report written in 2008 detailing this trend.

On January 26, a nonprofit health organization published an alert pointing to similar distressing trends nationwide. The alert was beginning to attract press attention. A story could break at any time that would take the wind out of all the work Nathanael had already done. So we felt that we should release our story quickly to provide a strong California perspective on a breaking national story.

We knew we could put the story on our Web site and hope that it would go "viral." We considered that as an option but decided even with late notice, we would reach out to other news organizations.

Imagine trying to coordinate publication of a major story with a dozen news outlets, encompassing print, broadcast and online media. With just a day's notice, several media partners responded rapidly, and ran the story on their front pages, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, Bakersfield Californian, Santa Rosa Press Democrat and Orange County Register.

Michael Montgomery, who works jointly for California Watch and KQED, prepared a report for KQED's the California Report, which aired on 28 public radio stations around the state. KGO-TV in San Francisco aired a report on its 11 p.m. newscast. New America Media distributed the story to ethnic media outlets. The issue was the subject of a one-hour discussion on KQED's Forum, hosted by Michael Krasny. Alternet also carried the story.

This heartbreaking issue is likely to get even wider attention in the days ahead, as it should. While we would far prefer to give our media partners adequate time to localize our stories, there will be times that we will have to throw out preconceived timetables, and we will have no choice but to move rapidly to get a story into circulation. Being nimble is the name of today's game.

Homeland Security: Boom and Bust

Sarah McHie — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:05:11 -0800

Starting in the fall of 2008, the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Center for Public Integrity fielded a team of reporters to examine how effectively governments at all levels had managed money and programs dedicated to homeland security. The result was a series of stories – and an interactive map – that have been combined into a single collaborative website. >> View the project here. >> A state-by-state look at security spending. Led by G.W. Schulz at CIR and Sarah Laskow at CPI, our team embarked on a broad search for documentation of homeland security spending and management, much of which had never been seriously scrutinized by journalists. Using open-records laws, we approached every state and Washington, D.C., requesting information that would show how and where officials had invested anti-terrorism and preparedness funding, placing a premium on computer files such as spreadsheets that listed individual grant transactions. In many cases, we received detailed electronic records and other material describing types of equipment, who purchased it, how much it cost, when it was acquired and other specifics. Some states simply refused our requests, while others released material only after extensive negotiation. Similar requests were made of federal officials, especially at the Department of Homeland Security – again, with mixed results. We also reviewed thousands of pages of official government documents – some hunted down on the Web and others secured through official requests. Among them were dozens of reports from state auditors and overseers, public-interest groups, the federal Government Accountability Office, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, the Congressional Research Service and congressional committees with public safety responsibilities. Our team augmented that research with more than 100 interviews – of current and former government officials, homeland security and preparedness experts, lobbyists and other experts at think tanks, universities and private companies. We also made use of lobbying and campaign contribution records. Support for this partnership project of the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Investigative Reporting is provided by the Open Society Institute and the Fund for Constitutional Government.

ICE "Industry Day" on detention reform attracts familiar faces

Andrew Becker — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:39:56 -0800

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last fall held an "Industry Day" on detention reform as a way to get feedback from current and potential contractors and other interested parties. The event was closed to the news media. ICE provided to the Center for Investigative Reporting a list of the companies represented, but would not disclose who the attendees were. The event was held at the Julie Myers Conference room at ICE headquarters. The companies in attendance range from builders to current jailers to the Royal Bank of Canada. Several already have detention-related contracts or are staffed with former ICE or the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officials. Here's the list of the companies, as provided by ICE (with light editing): 1. K4 Solutions, Inc. (past DHS contractors) 2. McConnell International, LLC (an executive was formerly with INS.) 3. The Dozoretz Group, LLC (Nina Dozoretz, formerly with the Division of Immigration Health Service; recently returned to the government to work with ICE on detainee health care.) 4. PSA-Dewberry, Inc. (architects) 5. Proteus On Demand Facilities (builders) 6. Kelly, Anderson & Associates (The company has several former high-ranking Homeland Security officials on its staff, including a former chief of the Border Patrol.) 7. Arc Aspicio, LLC 8. Stanley Associates 9. Pike County Corrections Facility (currently holds detainees) 10. Pike County Commissioners Office 11. Northrop Grumman Corporation 12. Worchester County Jail (currently holds detainees) 13. LCS Corrections (ICE contractor) 14. CACI, Inc. (ICE contractor) 15. Emerald Companies (ICE contractor) 16. Nortel Government Solutions (DHS contractor) 17. Youth Services International 18. Capgemini Government Solutions (DHS contractor) 19. USIS (DHS contractor, background investigations) 20. MGT of America (ICE contractor) 21. The CMC Group (builders) 22. Ernst & Young 23. KeyPoint Government Solutions (Former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff on board of directors, DHS contractors) 24. The Forest Group, Inc. 25. Community Education Centers, Inc. 26. CCA (ICE contractor) 27. Unique Comp Inc. (CBP contractor) 28. Office of Federal Detention Trustee 29. Management & Training Corporation (ICE contractor) 30. Strategic Business Alliance 31. Health Insurance LLC 32. JJ DeLuca Company, Inc. (construction) 33. NetStar 1 (ICE/DHS contractor, data management) 34. GEO Group (ICE contractor) 35. Global Integrated Security 36. iSECUREtrac 37. Oldcastle Precast Modular & Security (builder) 38. Sundt Construction 39. KIMBALL furniture 40. Royal Bank of Canada 41. Frederick County Adult Detention (ICE contractor) 42. Argyle Corrections Group 43. ManTech (DHS contractor) 44. GEO Transportation (ICE contractor) 45. Volunteers of America 46. Price Waterhouse Coopers (DHS contractor) 47. Correctional Eye Care Services 48. STG International (DIHS contractor) 49. Dun & Bradstreet Gov. Solutions 50. Cornell Companies (ICE contractor) 51. Loredo Lomas Properties (real estate) 52. IBM 53. RTR Technologies engineering 54. Immigration Centers of America (ICE contractor) 55. Nabholtz Construction Corporation 56. Accenture (DHS contractor)

More women dying from pregnancy complications; state holds on to report

Sarah McHie — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:17:07 -0800

Investigators confirm the most significant spike in pregnancy-related deaths since the 1930s.

Federal stimulus program pours $54 million into Wine Train project

Sarah McHie — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:54:47 -0800

NAPA – The corporate shareholders live in tribal villages in the outback of western Alaska.

The CEO is in South Carolina, where his prior multimillion-dollar venture – a dot-com for sail boaters – collapsed in bankruptcy.

But the main action today is in Napa, where, without competitive bidding, this unusual construction company won a $54 million federal contract to build a new railroad bridge and other structures for the famed Napa Valley Wine Train tourist attraction.

This is the world of Anchorage-based Suulutaaq Inc. Because the company was founded by Alaska natives, it enjoys special access to federal contracts.

That’s how it obtained one of the biggest federal stimulus contracts in California – a key segment of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ flood-control project on the Napa River.

Army and Napa city officials say they’re pleased with Suulutaaq’s work on what they describe as an environmentally friendly project to curtail devastating winter flooding. It’s an ideal stimulus project, says Napa Mayor Jill Techel: “shovel-ready, green, and it provides jobs.”

But in December, U.S. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., issued a report listing the Wine Train among 100 stimulus projects that they derided as “silly and shortsighted” and a waste of money.

The lawmakers also suggested the project wasn’t doing much for the economy. According to a report submitted by Suulutaaq late last year, the $54 million project had so far created 12 jobs. Officials involved with the project say that more recently roughly 40 workers have been on the scene, and they hope the project will ultimately create up to 200 jobs.

A Walnut Creek construction executive whose firm built a prior phase of the flood-control project said the government likely overspent by millions when it negotiated a contract with Suulutaaq rather than seeking competitive bids.

Meanwhile, investors aggrieved over the bankruptcy of the South Carolina dot-com called Sailnet said they were surprised to learn of former CEO Samuel Boyle’s new job as CEO of Suulutaaq. Boyle did not mention having construction experience or ties to Alaska tribes, they told California Watch. Some said Boyle’s involvement in Suulutaaq boded ill for the Alaska firm.

“My comment to anybody connected to this thing – if Sam Boyle is involved, watch out,” said Arizona venture capitalist Kent Mueller, who said he lost more than $1 million in Sailnet. Based on that experience, “I would not invest a nickel with this guy,” Mueller said.

Suulutaaq officials declined to be interviewed. In response to written questions, the company issued a statement saying that taxpayers were getting a “fair and reasonable” price on the project. The statement said that although Boyle lacked “specific construction experience,” he had “invaluable business experience” to make the Napa project a success.

But the company declined to answer most questions about the project, saying the information was confidential. It rebuffed a query about whether Suulutaaq employed lobbyists by asserting that the question “has potential undertones of a race-based presumption.”

Boyle also declined to be interviewed. In a statement, he wrote that the dot-com’s bankruptcy was “a tragedy” for which he was not responsible because he had left the company by the time it occurred.

Emerging players

Suulutaaq is one of dozens of Alaska Native corporations that have emerged as players in federal contracting via measures crafted in the 1980s and 1990s by former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, a powerful lawmaker whose career ended with a contracting scandal.

For decades, the U.S. Small Business Administration has run a preferential contracting program to aid disadvantaged businesses. Qualifying firms can get federal contracts worth up to $5.5 million by negotiation, rather than competitive bidding.

The Stevens measures gave corporations that were set up by Alaska Natives special access to the program – with no cap on the size of contracts they can obtain. The share of federal contracts going toward Alaska Native corporations has grown rapidly. It was $508 million in 2000 and $5.2 billion in 2008, records show.

Advocates say the program has provided crucial economic development for impoverished Alaskan tribes. It’s a way of redressing centuries of grievous wrongs against them, they say.

But critics have complained that the no-bid contracts provide relatively few jobs and little investment income to the tribes while costing taxpayers a fortune.

“Alaska Native corporations don’t have to prove that they’re socially or economically disadvantaged,” U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said at a 2009 hearing. “They don’t have to be small businesses. And they can receive no-bid contracts worth billions of dollars.”

The companies employ few Alaska natives and “rely heavily on non-native managers,” McCaskill claimed. Thus the firms create relatively few jobs for the people they are supposed to benefit, she argued.

McCaskill also contended that some of the companies “may also be passing through work to their subcontractors.” In those cases, the companies were collecting a profit simply because they had special access to federal contracts, not because they were performing actual work, she said.

McCaskill proposed putting a cap on the no-bid contracts, but the measure stalled in the face of intense lobbying by tribal corporations.

West of Anchorage

Suulutaaq is a subsidiary of the Kuskokwim Corp., also called TKC, which was formed in 1977 by Yupik Eskimos and Athabaskan Indians on the remote Kuskokwim River, 350 miles west of Anchorage.

Suulutaaq is a Yupik word for gold, and the company was initially formed to develop a nearby goldfield.

Hoping to ease “poverty in the isolated and rural villages of its region,” the company said it began competing for federal contracts. Suulutaaq wouldn’t describe how that came about. Experts say tribal corporations often get into federal contracting by hiring consultants in the lower 48 states who have connections with contracting officers.

Many federal agencies find it simpler and faster to negotiate a contract with a single vendor rather than put a contract out to bid. But sole-source contracts are generally more costly to taxpayers, experts say.

In April 2006, Suulutaaq negotiated a federal contract: $68,000 to replace a sewage pump at McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento.

Four months later, it obtained a $14.1 million, no-bid contract to rebuild meat lockers in Honolulu for the U.S. Defense Commissary Agency, which runs supermarkets on military bases. Since then, the tribal company has built a headquarters building for the Department of Homeland Security in Arizona and repaired meat lockers on military bases in California, Nevada and Japan.

Before it won the job in 2008, Suulutaaq had negotiated about $45 million in federal contracts, records show. Most of the projects were outside Alaska.

Two other TKC subsidiaries have also sought federal contracts. In 2007 and 2008, API Inc. won a series of no-bid contracts for army uniforms that totaled $94.7 million. The uniforms were sewn at plants in Puerto Rico, records show.

In 2007, a subsidiary called TKC Aerospace, with an office on Daniel Island, S.C., began obtaining no-bid contracts from the Air Force. Its CEO was Boyle, the former CEO of Sailnet.

In his statement to California Watch, Boyle described himself as a former consultant for government agencies, and said he lived in Alaska for four years in the early 1980s. In a handout for potential dot-com investors, Boyle said he was a marketing expert with a background in Air Force logistics. He told investors he began selling sailing gear on the Internet when he lived in Detroit in the 1990s, and moved the business to South Carolina to be near the sea.

Under Boyle, Sailnet burned through more than $13 million in venture capital, company documents show, but it never made a profit. Boyle was terminated in 2004, according to a former director and published reports.

The company went bankrupt the following year. Investor Larry French said he thought Boyle had gone on to run another sailing dot-com.

“He was a good talker, but a lousy businessman,” French said. “This is the first time I have heard about him and Alaska.”

In his statement, Boyle said hundreds of start-ups failed when the dot-com bubble burst, with many “burning through millions more in venture capital than Sailnet ultimately did.” After leaving Sailnet, Boyle wrote that he was hired as a consultant at TKC Aerospace and in 2005 became CEO.

In all, TKC Aerospace has obtained $117 million in contracts. In 2009, the U.S. Department of State paid the company $9 million to retrofit light-wing aircraft for use in the war in Afghanistan.

By then, Boyle also was working as the CEO of Suulutaaq.

A history of flooding

For decades, the Napa River has been prone to disastrous flooding. In the 1980s, the corps of engineers proposed forcing the river into a concrete channel to control floods, but the idea met local resistance.

Then, in 1998, environmentalists proposed what they called a “living river” project to manage floods. Floodwater would be absorbed and diverted through a system of wetlands and a bypass channel. Napa County voters agreed to tax themselves $6 million per year for 20 years to help pay for the project.

The rest is being paid with federal funds. The total price has ballooned from $250 million to more than $400 million.

The price tag might have been significantly lower but for the Wine Train, a private rail line established by the late Vincent DeDomenico, the wealthy creator of Rice-A-Roni pasta.

Sixteen times each week, according to the Wine Train’s Web site, the train transports tourists from Napa to St. Helena aboard restored dining cars. A champagne dinner on the Vista Dome car costs $129 per person. About 125,000 people ride the train each year.

The train’s rail bridge in downtown Napa was too narrow for the wider river channel proposed, so it’s being replaced. A new floodwall will also be built to protect the train’s Napa station. Tracks are being relocated as well.

The added expense of accommodating the Wine Train was politically necessary, said Chris Malan, manager of the Living Rivers Council environmental group and a proponent of the tax measure. Without the support of the politically influential DeDomenico, the tax measure would never have passed, she said.

“He came out right from the beginning, saying, ‘If you do not take care of me, I will campaign against you,’” she recalled.

The corps of engineers solicited bids for the early phases of the project. In 2005, a Walnut Creek engineering firm, R&L Brosamer Inc., won a $25 million contract to build floodwalls and a promenade in Napa. Brosamer’s work was honored by the American Public Works Association as Northern California “project of the year.”

President Robert G. Brosamer planned to bid on the job as well. But in 2008, he said he learned that no bids were being sought. The project “was a done deal with an ANC,” as he put it, using contractors’ jargon for an Alaska Native corporation.

“It was very frustrating,” he said. “Particularly because the job we did was a tough thing, and the community loved us – and then we didn’t even get a shot.”

In September 2008 the corps of engineers awarded a $6.2 million contract to Suulutaaq to begin work on the Wine Train segment. The flood control project was already years behind schedule, said Bert Brown, the corps’ project manager.

“One of the mechanisms to expedite (a project) is to use qualified firms and go to them and negotiate a price,” he said.

Brown, who said he was not yet involved in the project, said he doesn’t know who contacted Suulutaaq on behalf of the corps of engineers.

A corps official said that someone on the project design team had recommended the company. But this official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said that no one could recall who made the recommendation. California Watch sought documents on this point via the Freedom of Information Act, but the corps said the information was exempt from disclosure.

A few months after Suulutaaq got its contract, the federal stimulus program was announced. The corps recommended the project, hoping to further speed its completion. With the support of U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, $54 million in stimulus funds also went to Suulutaaq. That puts the company in the top 10 of largest stimulus contract recipients in California, records show.

Brosamer, the Walnut Creek contractor, said the public was paying a premium for the project, saying, “It would have been a hell of a lot cheaper if they had put it out to bid.”

But the quality of the construction is first rate, Brosamer said, because Suulutaaq subcontracted much of the job to the giant Peter W. Kiewit & Co. engineering firm, which is also a contractor on the Bay Bridge.

“The reality is, Suulutaaq isn’t doing much,” Brosamer said, “They’ve got some staff on the job, and they’re running some subs, but Kiewit is doing the work.”

Federal records show that Suulutaaq is paying Kiewit $28.1 million – 53 percent of the total stimulus contract. Suulutaaq is keeping about $20.4 million, or 38 percent of the total. The rest, about $4.7 million, goes to other subcontractors, all from the lower 48 states.

In its statement, Suulutaaq said the company was complying with federal law regarding hiring subcontractors.

“Obviously, there cannot be any sort of guaranteed profit” built into the contract, the statement said.

The company said Boyle was a “transitional” CEO, and would soon be replaced by an Alaska native CEO.

California Watch reporter Agustin Armendariz contributed to this report.

Dirty Business: "Clean Coal" and the Battle for Our Energy Future (Trailer)

Carrie Ching — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:27:44 -0800

In the digital age, half our electricity still comes from coal. DIRTY BUSINESS: "Clean Coal" and the Battle for Our Energy Future is a documentary that reveals the true social and environmental costs of coal power and tells the stories of innovators who are pointing the way to an alternative energy future. Guided by Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell, the film examines what it means to remain dependent on a 19th century technology that is the largest single source of greenhouse gases. Can coal really be made clean? Can renewables and efficiency be produced on a scale large enough replace coal? The film seeks answers in a series of stories shot in China, Saskatchewan, Kansas, West Virginia, Nevada and New York. COMING SOON.

ICE turning toward old hands for new detention practices?

Andrew Becker — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:00:00 -0800

While immigration reform advocates wait for Congress to fix the nation's broken immigration system, the Department of Homeland Security says it’s committed to its pledge to overhaul immigration detention. But the department needs help. And officials are looking for ideas. The agencies that run immigration detention and detainee health care are turning, in some cases, to the same people, consultants and companies that have been advising or working with those agencies for years. For example, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the department’s investigative arm and jailers to some 30,000 immigrant detainees on any given day, in the fall hosted an “Industry Day” event, where agency officials outlined to an audience of mostly government contractors their plans and goals to re-make detention. ICE officials told attendees that reform is badly needed, and acknowledged shortcomings, some of which have been outlined in a report issued by DHS in early October. The thrust of the three-hour gathering — which attracted representatives from nearly 60 companies, consultants and detention watchers but was closed to news media — was “to begin a dialogue with current or prospective detention service providers for the purpose of sharing the basic premises of our reform efforts, secure feedback and begin to expand our market research,” according to the event posting on the government contracting Web site FedBizOpps.gov. Attendees included various former immigration officials now in the private sector, defense contractors, the Royal Bank of Canada, IBM and a host of efficiency experts, builders and other consultants, including a company that has former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff on its board of directors. "This is a pivotal moment right now in terms of immigration, in terms of detention reform," said attendee Nina Dozoretz who until recently ran a health-care related consulting firm. "I’m optimistic – there's a big commitment from ICE to move this forward." Dozoretz retired in August 2004 as the associate director of the Division of Immigration Health Services after spending 20 years as a public health service official. In November — shortly after the event and days after she spoke to CIR — Dozoretz returned to ICE to oversee the health-care overhaul for the Office of Detention and Removal Operations. She said that the reform efforts were what brought her back to ICE. Dozoretz, who also worked as vice president for the detention monitor and ICE contractor Nakamoto Group, recently appeared in a New York Times article on the issue of detainee deaths. Homeland Security Department officials have outlined the intended overhaul, including more oversight, centralizing contracts and a custody classification system. The pledged reforms are part of a shift from a broad-based, one-size-fits-all, lock-up system toward a more civil approach. Mike Magee, a Homeland Security consultant who formerly ran ICE’s criminal alien program for state and local prisons and jails, said civil detention is a good idea, but will be difficult to implement. The goal is to spend wiser and use alternatives to detention, such as ankle-bracelet monitors when detention isn’t appropriate or necessary. On Monday, John Morton, the assistant secretary for ICE, spoke about the ongoing reform effort, including a forthcoming detainee locator system, at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. But the big money – and big challenges – remain in detaining immigrants, attendees say. ICE has signed several new contracts to build or expand immigration detention facilities in the past year. The agency’s push to track down more immigrants with criminal charges or convictions may also increase the need for detention bed space. Known as Secure Communities, the ICE program helps local law enforcement agencies screen people in custody for their immigration status. In a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, GEO Group Inc., one of the government’s biggest contractors for immigration detention, pointed toward anticipated growth of federal detention, particularly immigrants. That means more money. From GEO's third-quarter report:

"We believe ICE will continue to emphasize the detention and removal of criminal aliens throughout the country. ICE has been allocated approximately $1.4 billion for this purpose. We believe that this federal initiative to target, detain, and deport criminal aliens throughout the country will continue to drive the need for immigration detention beds over the next several years."

For years, ICE has said that deporting criminal aliens has been its top priority, but in practice immigration agents New York Times grabbed whomever they could. This new Secure Communities program claims to re-focus its priority. ICE has plans to roll out the program across the country by 2013, making its database available to every law enforcement agency nationwide. In the first year of its existence, ICE identified more than 111,000 criminal immigrants in 11 states. But there’s no more money in this year’s budget for major reform, attendees were told. Senior agency officials, among them Phyllis Coven, the director of the Office of Detention Planning and Policy, and David Venturella, the director of Detention and Removal Operations, intimated that ICE will request proposals to build new detention facilities. Plans were announced for a 2,200-bed “low-custody” detention facility in Los Angeles, but the date to submit proposals has been delayed more than a month. “I believe these people are all very sincere and have good intentions,” said Peter Michel, CEO of iSECUREtrac, a Nebraska-based company that provides ankle-monitoring technology. “It sounds like they have a pretty big mountain to climb.”

Conning the climate: Inside the carbon-trading shell game

Sarah McHie — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:52:24 -0800

Mark Schapiro's cover story in Harper's Magazine is an investigative journey into the heart of the fastest growing commodity market on earth: carbon. He reveals the critical challenges of measuring a commodity based on a promise of future greenhouse gas emissions, and the implications for the cap and trade system likely to be voted on soon by Congress. Schapiro recently spoke on Marketplace and NPR's Fresh Air.

Special Mexico adviser to top ICE official on meteoric rise

Andrew Becker — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:34:00 -0800

Who is Tracey Bardorf? John Morton, the assistant secretary for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, last summer brought on the relatively young former federal prosecutor to be his special adviser for Mexico and border matters. Before joining ICE, Bardorf oversaw the Justice Department’s Mérida Initiative projects and implementation of the Global Trafficking in Persons program, according to her ICE Web site bio. Now 10 years out of law school — she graduated from Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law in 2000 — including a few years of corporate litigation before she joined the government, she now, presumably, has the country's top immigration and customs enforcement official’s ear. Or not. She spent about four years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Arizona, where she handled firearms, immigration, trafficking in persons and violent crime prosecutions, according to her bio. A search of a federal courts database shows she was involved in about 400 cases before she was detailed to Mexico as the Department of Justice resident legal adviser in Mexico City. Among her notable cases were convictions of child sex traffickers in 2008, a 2007 guilty plea from a Mexican national on aggravated identity theft and illegally re-entering the country after deportation and separate 2006 convictions of coyotes whose misguided border crossings resulted in the deaths of illegal immigrants. In recent months, Bardorf, 35, has popped up on an American Bar Association panel in Washington D.C. in November, speaking about narco-violence along the border and emerging national security law issues, and then again late last year for a meeting between Mexican and U.S. officials in Mexico City. Other than that, there isn't a lot of reliable information about her. So, who is Tracey Bardorf? Bardorf is a Republican and a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. She sat on — and eventually was voted chairwoman of — Arizona’s Clean Elections panel, which monitors the state’s system for public financing of candidates, according to the commission's 2005 annual report. (She resigned in 2006 after serving two years of a five-year term when the Justice Department raised a conflict of interest objection, according to a news report.) She is a graduate of St. Anselm College, a Catholic liberal arts college in New Hampshire, and she attended Phillips Exeter Academy. She is fluent in Spanish, German and French, and is proficient in Italian, according to the annual report. Other than that, based on an unscientific, informal, quick survey of a handful of people, not much else is known about her. Some people had heard of her. Others hadn’t. As far as her efforts with the $1.4 billion anti-narcotics aid package dubbed the Mérida Initiative, which has drawn criticism for being Mexico’s version of Plan Colombia and because of alleged human rights abuses by the Mexican military, there isn’t much public information. (For more information on Mérida, see the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute). A Government Accountability Office report released in December found that the release of funds for the Mérida Initiative was dragging, but that “a broad range of training, exchange, and technical assistance programs have been completed or initiated with the aim of strengthening the capacity of law enforcement and justice sector institutions.” How much of that relates to the Justice Department or even Bardorf's involvement? Good question. A Congressional Research Service report last year states that “many predict that it is likely to take much longer than three years for Mérida to help partner governments make real headway in achieving that goal" but U.S. officials "maintain that some of the most important results of Mérida thus far may be impossible to quantify, such as the increase in communication and cooperation that has developed as a result of the Initiative among U.S., Mexican, and Central American law enforcement and security officials." Maybe that's where Bardorf comes in. But how she became one of Morton's top advisers is a question that remains unanswered. Any ideas? abecker (at) cironline (dot) org

Throwing out the old rule books and starting fresh

Mark Katches — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:52:10 -0800

We really had no institutional baggage to overcome when we built our California Watch team from scratch. No voices telling us, “You can’t do that.” Or, “That’s not the way we do it here.” We weren’t weighted down by the kind of intractable culture that has made it hard for lots of newsrooms across America to adjust and adapt quickly enough to a fast-changing world.

We have pretty much thrown out the old rule books. Here editors will write and report and – gasp – reporters will edit. And even crazier than that: investigative journalists are blogging – a ton. Our hard-working staff has generated close to 100 blog posts in a little more than three weeks, on top of some kick-ass stories, terrific multimedia and nearly two dozen searchable databases. If you missed it, be sure to check out the video by Mark S. Luckie about our team and mission.

In our first few months of operation, the staff of California Watch has begun to mold its own way of doing things – one that stresses innovation, ideas, and a can-do spirit. We will try new things, and we will occasionally miss the mark, but you can’t move forward without throwing out antiquated, obsolete rules and challenging the way journalists have operated. It’s one of the endearing things in our little newsroom that makes this an absolutely thrilling place to be.

Immigration judge misconduct gives asylee another day in court

Andrew Becker — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:03:43 -0800

A Justice Department investigation of an immigration judge's misconduct in Florida gives a Bahamian asylum seeker another day in court. The National Law Journal reports that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility found that Bruce Solow, an immigration judge in Miami, "engaged in professional misconduct when he acted in reckless disregard of his obligation to be fair and impartial." In a 2005 asylum hearing Solow mocked Roscoe Campbell, who said he fled his native Bahamas for fear for his life after reporting to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration corrupt officials engaging in drug-trafficking, according to the article. Solow ordered Campbell and his family deported. The federal appellate courts have excoriated some immigration judges for their conduct, including Anna Ho, a Los Angeles-based immigration judge. The fact that the Justice Department's internal affairs office took a look at the judge's behavior is extraordinary, Nadine Wettstein of the American Immigration Legal Council, told the legal newspaper. Still, there isn't a lot known about the larger issue of judicial misconduct and how the court leadership - and, by extension, the Justice Department - handles complaints. The NLJ writes:

The lack of transparency irritates attorneys and judges alike. The American Immigration Council's Wettstein and other immigration lawyers said complaints against immigration judges to the Executive Office seem to go into a "black hole," and, they added, getting notice of findings made by OPR also seems rare.

Immigration attorneys have also been reluctant, in some cases, to file complaints against certain judges because they may have to argue before the judge again. As the NLJ article points out, the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the immigration court system, has its own procedure for taking complaints against immigration judges and private attorneys. The agency would not release information on the number of complaints received nor would it make public its disciplinary actions, citing privacy concerns, according to the story. The story also makes the point that the Justice Department's process for investigating complaints against immigration judges is "neither swift nor transparent and because of that, it can be unfair -- to aliens, attorneys and immigration judges." We're interested in learning more about the immigration courts. If you have ideas to share, please contact abecker (at) cironline (dot) org.

Clearing the air on carbon credits

Sarah McHie — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:58:56 -0800

Reporter Mark Schapiro was interviewed by Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace on January 20th about his piece in Harper's Magazine outlining how corporations have found loopholes in the carbon cap and trade system, and how to verify those carbon credits. In the interview, Schapiro explains there are companies that go over their emission caps every month, and know exactly by how much. They need to buy carbon credits in order to not go over their cap. The companies then turn to a developing country such as Brazil, which sells the companies the extra credits they need. All the while, the companies are doing nothing to actually reduce the amount of carbon they are emitting. Schapiro writes about the people who measure carbon emissions and the reliability of the measurements. What is the United States going to do when we step in?

Center for Investigative Reporting and Paperny Films Announce Launch of the Civil Rights Cold Case Project

CIR Staff — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:08:12 -0800

Berkeley, CA and Vancouver, British Columbia – Today, the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and Paperny Films announced the launch of the Civil Rights Cold Case Project (www.coldcases.org), a multimedia investigation of unsolved civil rights murders that took place in the South decades ago. The project is an unprecedented collaboration, bringing together the power of award-winning investigative reporting, narrative writing, documentary filmmaking and interactive multimedia production to reveal the long-neglected truth behind the murders and the untold stories of victims of racial injustice. The Project’s reporters, including John Fleming, Ben Greenberg, Jerry Mitchell, Stanley Nelson, and Melvin Claxton, are well known for their investigative news reports, some of which prosecutors have used to build criminal cases against killers and conspirators who had walked free for more than 40 years. To date, every civil rights murder case that has been reopened and successfully prosecuted was the direct result of an investigation initiated by a journalist. “Investigative journalism has always played an important role in our democracy, and the Cold Case Project is no exception,” said Robert Rosenthal, executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting. “These investigations will reopen unsolved murders that still cause pain to families and divide our communities. By seeking truth and justice, these investigative journalists and all of the partners involved will have real impact by moving our country closer to its goal of leaving racial conflict behind.” The project is led by the Center for Investigative Reporting, Paperny Films and public television station WNET.org in New York, and also involves the National Security Archive, National Public Radio and leading law and journalism schools. Plans for the multimedia investigations, to be distributed in the coming years, include extensive print reporting, a television series, radio reports and rich new media to reach the broadest possible audience. Support for the Cold Case Project to date has been provided by Atlantic Philanthropies, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, Open Society Institute, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. About Paperny Films Paperny Films (www.papernyfilms.com) is an independent, Vancouver-based production company founded by David Paperny. In 1994 his HBO documentary The Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter was nominated for an Academy Award for its groundbreaking portrait of a doctor diagnosed with AIDS. Since then Paperny Films has tackled a broad spectrum of documentary and factual projects for a range of broadcasters including PBS, Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, MTV/LOGO, and Planet Green. The company has created over 300 hours of television which has been seen in 36 countries worldwide and is consistently ranked in Realscreen Magazine's Global 100, a list of top international factual producers. About the Center for Investigative Reporting Founded in 1977, the Center for Investigative Reporting is the nation's oldest nonprofit investigative news organization. Its mission is to produce and distribute multimedia reporting that reveals injustice and abuse of power, has an impact, and is relevant to people's lives. CIR reports reach the public through television, print, radio and the web, appearing in outlets such as 60 Minutes, PBS Frontline, NPR, The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Politico and U.S. News & World Report. CIR stories have received numerous journalism awards including the Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Silver Baton, George Polk Award, Emmy Award, Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, and National Magazine Award for Reporting Excellence. More importantly, its reports have sparked congressional hearings and legislation, United Nations resolutions, public interest lawsuits and change in corporate policies.

Open Newsroom: Bringing our team to a WiFi spot near you

Mark Katches — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:58:40 -0800

If you're sipping your mocha at a coffee shop somewhere in California on Thursday, keep an ear out for the furious tapping on the keyboard. It could be one of us blogging or tweeting, building multimedia packages or pounding out the next big story.

Members of the California Watch and Center for Investigative Reporting staffs will be fanning out around the state and working in coffee shops with WiFi access on Jan. 21 as part of our first "Open Newsroom."

Here's how the idea came about: For most of this week, our operations are being disrupted by an office move. We’re packing up and transporting the whole shebang from our existing location on Newbury Street to a beautifully remodeled landmark building on Center Street in downtown Berkeley. Our Internet connection went down Friday at our old location, and we don't have a place to sit in the new space. If you're trying to call right now, our phones are unattended, if they're plugged in at all. After the holiday today, we're mostly going to be working from home until Jan. 25 when the doors open at our new digs.

We figured we should turn this temporary inconvenience into an opportunity. So we decided to set up shop on Thursday at various WiFi hotspots.

The Open Newsroom concept is part of a goal to connect with readers and get out of the office. We’re hoping it will be a regular part of what we do. On Thursday, please stop by to say hello. We're looking forward to meeting you. And if you have any great story tips, we'll be there to listen.

The locations and hours to find us are on the map below.

The next phase of our Web site is already in the works

Mark Katches — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:29:16 -0800

We’ve gotten lots of feedback on our new California Watch site. People are commenting on the clean look and applauding the simple organization. Several readers have complemented us for the array of searchable databases on our Data Center.

I’ve also gotten some really great feedback about the way we’re making our staff more accessible to readers. Carrie Brown-Smith, a University of Memphis journalism professor, commended us for our bio pages, which include each staffer’s list of coverage priorities and some details about what they are working on – even the stories, journals or Web sites they’re reading.

We felt strongly that our reporters, multimedia producers and editors should let their personalities shine through on these pages and that it might help lift the veil on who we are and what we do.

“I just think that is incredibly smart and utilizes the research on credibility as well,” Brown-Smith wrote in an e-mail to me.

We’ve implemented other subtle innovations – including the way our reporters and a couple of other acclaimed investigative journalists have helped organize our Resources pages. Our resources are organized by topic. They serve as a guide for civic-minded citizens, students, bloggers and young journalists to conduct their own basic investigative reporting.

And we’ve also broken the traditional mold of story crediting by adding the names of our editors who work on each of our major stories. (One reader "tweeted" that it was her favorite thing about our new site.) We think it’s a way to increase accountability and credibility – and also to give props to the traditionally nameless and faceless journalists who partner with our reporters and multimedia producers on stories.

Since our site went live on Jan. 2, we've heard excellent criticisms as well. Some have worried that we’re allowing anonymous commenting, which can encourage the lunatics to dominate discussion boards (although that, thankfully, hasn't happened here). Others have expressed hope that we would allow some type of rating system of comments as a way to encourage responsible commenting. We couldn’t agree more, and we want to make this a top priority to add soon. We hoped to tackle that before our launch, but we set it aside. Too many other things needed to get done first.

We’ve also had readers tell us it's way too difficult to register to comment and to e-mail our staff. We agree. Our site was set up so that you have to be logged in as a registered user to connect with our reporting, editing and multimedia teams. We’re going to try to figure out a way to break down those barriers during the next phase of our site's development. And we're not wasting any time. We're planning to start moving ahead with a slate of enhancements and refinements in the coming weeks.

So if you would like to see changes on our site, now is a perfect time to share your thoughts.

California's top greenhouse gas polluters

Sarah McHie — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:03:37 -0800

The top 100 carbon dioxide-producing facilities in California generated 101,890,944 metric tons of CO2 in 2007, according to data recently released by the California Air Resources Board. We¹ve mapped that data to show where the 100 largest polluters are located. Power plants and oil refineries appear to be the largest culprits.

DISCLAIMER FROM AIR RESOURCES BOARD: This is the first year of reporting, and these numbers are self-reported and have not been verified. The air resources board has accredited the first batch of third-party verifiers and we will begin that process in 2010. Thus, these numbers are subject to change and could contain errors.The measurements reported here are CO2E, "carbon dioxide equivalent," as some greenhouse gas emissions might be other gases, like methane, which have different "global warming potentials." Almost all emissions reported are CO2.

CO2 conversions are from the EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.

Business group loses ‘green’ members in global-warming fight

Sarah McHie — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:32:09 -0800

An organization representing some of California’s biggest carbon polluters is working to alter the state’s global-warming law, while claiming to represent several “green” environmental companies that have since left the coalition after learning of its recent actions. >> Read the full story on California Watch.

Stimulus funds aiding companies fined for pollution, accused of fraud

Sarah McHie — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:47:22 -0800

Large corporations working in California have reaped tens of millions of dollars in new federal stimulus funds, despite previous pollution violations, criminal probes, and allegations of fraud, a California Watch investigation has found.

What Killed Sergeant Gray?

Carrie Ching — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:31:30 -0800

Sergeant Adam Gray made it home from Iraq only to die in his barracks. Investigating his death, American RadioWorks pieces together a story of soldiers suffering psychological scars – because they abused Iraqi prisoners. >> Listen to the story on American RadioWorks.

Multimedia takes investigative reporting to the next level

Mark S. Luckie — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:52:16 -0800

In my first job as a crime and legal affairs reporter for the Daytona Beach News-Journal, I spent many days searching through dusty records in courtrooms, police headquarters and the newsroom's library to create extensive news reports based on statistics and data. I hadn't yet heard of "multimedia journalism" and even though I was computer savvy, I didn't know how computers could be used to elevate my work. Fast forward a few years later and I am combining my love of online technology and software with my passion for hardcore news reporting.

There are many ways for investigative reporters to use multimedia and digital journalism tools to give the reader a better understanding of the story at hand. The web serves as an all-encompassing platform for publishing interactive maps, multimedia stories built in Flash or other software, video, audio and other forms of media besides text.

As this blog post from Journalism.co.uk about my transition to California Watch points out, news audiences digest stories in several different ways. If investigative reporters tell a single story using various media or use visual media to quickly convey information, the more readers and viewers the story is likely to attract.

My current position at California Watch allows me to help shape investigative reports using several forms of media and visualizations. The responsibility, however, requires the judgment to know which media is appropriate for a particular story. For example, interactive maps are great, but they aren't appropriate for every story.

At the very least, investigative reporters should be knowledgeable about the tools that can help elevate their reporting with web producers or other newsroom staff to create stories that have the greatest impact possible.

Expect to see a California Watch investigative story just about every week

Mark Katches — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:16:19 -0800

We’ve published more than 80 blog posts on our two blogs, and our new site isn’t even two weeks old. But one question I’ve been asked lately is how often we will be publishing big investigative stories on our site – stories that will also be distributed to news outlets throughout California.

Nailing down publication dates can be tricky. Years of managing investigative projects has taught me how wildly unpredictable these complex, high-stakes stories can be.

But our sincere hope is to have at least one strong enterprise or investigative story each week. We’ve hit that mark so far this month. Reporter Chase Davis analyzed contribution data for a story about local party committees that funnel campaign money to individual candidates in a way that sidesteps state campaign finance laws. It ran January 3 in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Sacramento Bee, the Modesto Bee, the Stockton Record, the Ventura County Star, the Voice of San Diego and the Bakersfield Californian. Last weekend, we distributed a story by freelancer and former Center for Investigative Reporting staffer Will Evans about stimulus grants going to large corporations despite records as environmental polluters and other problems. The Chronicle and Ventura County Star also took that story, as did the San Diego Union Tribune, the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Daily News and La Opinion, which translated the story into Spanish. We have an exciting environmental-themed story ready for this weekend. We're working now to shore up our distribution partners for that piece. We should have another strong story the week after that.

And the week after that.

Our philosophy is to distribute and publish stories when they are ready, and not to worry about trying so hard to hit a once-a-week target. Some stories will need more time to cook. When we collaborate with news partners on joint reporting projects, it adds a whole new set of moving parts to the machine. And we have to coordinate with our partners to make sure the machine is both well-oiled and moving in the right direction. It's not as easy as it might look.

But when I scan the list of our upcoming stories, I see a lot of machines humming along, nearing the end of the tunnel. So I feel pretty confident we'll be releasing a regular dose of the big story.

That’s on top of the aggressive daily blogging. Our target is to generate eight to 10 new blog posts each day. We'll be using the blog to break news. (We posted details and quotes from the governor's press conference on the budget last week before he had left the podium.) We'll also be updating readers on the status of our investigations, offering up nuggets from our notebooks and providing more insights on our two blogs – the California WatchBlog and the Inside the Newsroom blog.

Additionally, we’ll be adding searchable databases in our Data Center – many of them connected to stories we’re producing along our priority topic areas: money and politics, K-12 schools, higher education, health and welfare, public safety and the environment.

It all adds up to a site that will be active – a dynamic place we hope readers will want to visit multiple times a day.

US-UK Jet-Set Gets Tense

Mark Schapiro — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:56:03 -0800

You may have noticed over the past year that its become far easier to hop on a US airline to fly across the Atlantic to Europe–the result of an "open skies" agreement, implemented in 2008, that leveraged principles of free trade into the air. Now those open skies are looking pretty turbulent as three of the biggest US airlines–United, Continental and Delta, along with the US Air Transport Association–pursue a lawsuit attempting to block Britain's effort to impose emission limits on the airline industry. The UK is the first European country to begin executing a plan by the European Union to reduce emissions from aviation. Air travel contributes about three percent of Europe's total greenhouse gas emissions, but according to the European Commission that rate has risen rapidly, some 87% since 1990, as air travel gets cheaper without accounting for environmental costs. The EU estimates that one person flying from London to New York and back generates roughly the same level of emissions as the average European does by heating their home for a year. En route to Copenhagen, we wrote about the eye-opening experience of having an Air France pilot announcing our flight's carbon footprint. Now it turns out that announcement may have been a portent of much tension to come: The US airline industry has adamantly opposed establishing emission limits on aviation in this country, and is now attempting to staunch the growing gap between the US and Europe's approach to greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, Anglo-American divisions in the airline industry are emerging: British Airways has stated it could voluntarily reduce its emissions to half of 2005 levels over the next decade; and Virgin's Chairman, Richard Branson, has stated he is willing to pay a carbon tax on his aviation business, and has steered some $3 billion in company funds into research projects for non-fossil sources for jet fuels and other greenhouse gas reduction measures. The London lawsuit could be the first in a series of trans-continental legal battles to come, prompted by global industries facing very different approaches to climate change taken by Europe and the United States, where emission limits have thus far been stymied in Congress. Over the next year, FRONTLINE/World and CIR will report on key issues of climate change in a joint project–Carbon Watch–focusing on the multi-billion-dollar carbon trading market. We'll look at which proposals to reduce emissions by 2020 really add up; at the hidden interests behind these solutions; and the new industry players.

Enjoying a cup of coffee and seven Sunday morning papers

Mark Katches — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

One of my favorite things to do each morning is to go through the nonprofit Newseum site to check out front pages around the world. It’s especially fun to do when so many of the California papers carry our work. The combined daily circulation of newspapers that ran California Watch content today was in the neighborhood of 1.2 million.

We had two stories out there today. One by Will Evans about stimulus funds going to environmental polluters and other companies with legal woes ran on the front pages of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Orange County Register, the San Diego Union Tribune, Monterey Herald, Los Angeles Daily News and La Opinion.

Here are links to PDF versions of the front pages of the papers that carried our story today:

Los Angeles Daily News
La Opinion
San Diego Union Tribune
Orange County Register
San Francisco Chronicle
Monterey Herald

Meanwhile, the Stockton Record and Bakersfield Californian ran versions of our story released last week about party central committees routinely funneling campaign cash to candidates around the state in a way that sidesteps individual candidate contribution limits.

Check out the PDFs below:

Stockton Record
Bakersfield Californian

No better way to enjoy the morning coffee.

California Watch is a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting and is now the largest investigative reporting team operating in the state. Visit the Web site for in-depth coverage of K-12 schools, higher education, money and politics, health and welfare, public safety and the environment.

California Watch site tour: React and Act

Mark Katches — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:15:53 -0800

The best watchdog journalism exposes problems. But it can be frustrating for readers when investigative stories leave them feeling hopeless – like nothing can be done about a bad situation.

At California Watch, we hope that our stories will be the starting point – a catalyst for discussion debate and change. We want to facilitate that to the extent that we can by providing a venue or forum about the key topics we’re writing about. We want readers to feel engaged and empowered to be part of the solution. We’re going to try to make that as easy as possible with our React and Act features that will accompany most of our stories. You can find the feature on the right rail of our story pages.

We plan to give you the names, numbers and e-mail addresses of major stakeholders who can make a difference. We used React and Act on our story about stimulus funding going to companies with histories of environmental pollution and other legal woes. We also used React and Act for our story about party central committees sidestepping campaign limits. Check out the way we did it. I think it's pretty cool.

We’ll also be hosting chats with key players – a sort of "virtual round table" discussion set around important issues. After the chats are completed, I'd like our chat moderators to review the chat transcripts and develop talking points from those conversations that policy leaders can use as a roadmap for reform. We’ll also make it easy for you to track the changes that come as a result of our investigative reporting. And we’ll be exploring other ways to help readers engage.

As always, let us know how we’re doing. We’re going to count on feedback from our readers to make refinements and improvements.

The scoop on how California Watch finds its news partners

Mark Katches — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:10:54 -0800

More than 40 media partners have carried California Watch stories – a pretty extraordinary number given that we haven’t been around that long. You can see the names of all our partners if you scroll about half way down our About page.

Here’s the scoop on how we partner up with news organizations. First we look for geographic symmetry. If a story has a strong tie to say, Ventura County, it’s a no brainer for us to approach the Ventura County Star. That's just one example. Newsroom leaders up and down the state have told us they are especially interested in our content provided the stories have a strong local hook.

We also know that stories about statewide politics will appeal to the Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Chronicle. Other newsrooms have told us they like these stories too, but without a local connection, they probably won’t bite.

Some newsroom leaders have told us that environment and higher education top their lists of topics of interest. Others say public safety and health and welfare coverage matter most.

That works for us. We have plans to cover all of these topics.

Our goal is to reach as broad an audience as we can. But we also understand that individual stories we produce will not appeal to every news outlet in the state. We can live with that. The trick is to find the news outlets that do want the work we’re trying to place. We have a lot of balls in the air and couldn’t be happier with the response we’re receiving from newspapers, TV and radio and online outlets.

Collaboration can take many forms. In some cases, we will partner early with news organizations to tailor our project to regional interests. With the largest investigative team in California on our staff, more often we hope to develop stories that are ready to publish.We are also working in unique ways to partner with ethnic media outlets. So far, our stories have been translated into four languages.

In most ways, my job is no different than the last two places I worked and where I built investigative teams. I manage and edit projects and prepare them for publication. But where things change radically is toward the end of the process. That can mean editing multiple versions of a story and then working with my boss Robert Rosenthal and colleague Louis Freedberg to distribute the stories and find partners who want our work. Each stage of the process has its thrills and its frustrations. But it’s a new world we’ve embraced here at California Watch – a new world with enormous possibilities.

Coming Saturday night: another California Watch barnburner

Mark Katches — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:04:19 -0800

Freelance reporter and Center for Investigative Reporting veteran Will Evans came on board with California Watch in October to look specifically for a focused, compelling story having to do with the awarding of stimulus grants and contracts in California.

And he found a barnburner.

Evans combed through a database of stimulus funding in California, looking specifically at some of the biggest recipients. He also reviewed public records and other databases to find details about stimulus recipients that may surprise you.

Stay tuned. We’ll be posting our story on this site Saturday night by 10 p.m. Several newspapers – including the San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, Ventura County Star, the Orange County Register and La Opinion – are planning to run our story Sunday.

And if you want to check out our database on stimulus recipients to find your own nuggets, have at it. We have $18.5 billion in stimulus spending on our Data Center site, and we’ll be updating it every quarter.

No let up in the pace at California Watch

Robert Rosenthal — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:00:22 -0800

We're airborne, and this is a jamming little office here at California Watch. Jamming and cramming in our too small digs. Thankfully, we are moving in two weeks. Another disruption for us but our new home looks great, and we will have some breathing room. Meanwhile this week has been exhilarating for all of us here. There has been no let up in the pace. It has only intensified as our California Watch site went live. Our blogs and Data Center have been excellent, if I don't say so, and our next California Watch story about stimulus spending is set for a bunch of newspapers and other media partners across California this coming Sunday. We will have strong major investigative stories every week this month and more are in the pipeline. We spent a chunk of this week looking at the site and thinking of ways to make it more user-friendly and accessible. We will be tweaking, and we welcome feedback from you. The positive feedback we have seen from bloggers and media commentators has given us more fuel to go forward. Seeing editorial commentary off our story last weekend on both the Democrats and Republicans moving money around the state feels good, and the decision by the Fair Political Practices Commission to look into some of the money movements Chase Davis detailed is the type of scrutiny we hope to provoke regularly. And we're mostly having fun, which is what journalists in the day were also about. So there's something old, but something very new happening at California Watch.

California Watch site tour: Data Center

Mark Katches — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:27:34 -0800

The Data Center on the new California Watch website will be the place to go for searchable databases of interest in California.

We expect to build this site over time, mostly adding new databases in connection with our stories. Right now, we’re starting with an impressive array of searchable databases. Our list includes stimulus contracts, lobbying and campaign finance records, university fees, FBI crime statistics and California census statistics.

We have close to 20 searchable databases online right now. The steward of our Data Center will be Agustin Armendariz, our computer assisted reporting guru. Agustin has prepared most of the data sets available with lots of help from one of our contributors Sarah Terry-Cobo, California Watch multimedia producer Lisa Pickoff-White and Chase Davis, one of our two money and politics reporters.

If you have ideas for available electronic data that we ought to add, please drop Agustin a line.

Copenhagen Q & A

CIR Staff — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:22:08 -0800

A few weeks ago we asked you to send in your questions on climate change for our reporter Mark Schapiro while he was in Copenhagen covering the talks. Many of you did, sending them via webcam, email and from the summit itself. Questions came in from Tibetans, Russians, Pacific Islanders, Brazilians and many Americans. As soon as the Bella center shut up shop at the weekend, we found the festive if freezing King's Square in downtown Copenhagen to put your questions to Mark, and get his initial thoughts on what had been achieved there. The analysis of what did or should have happened at the summit is only just beginning to surface, and we'll be following the road from Copenhagen to Bonn and Mexico Ciity where the next crucial stages of these talks will take place in the coming months. Over the next year, FRONTLINE/World and CIR will report on key issues of climate change in a joint project—Carbon Watch—focusing on the multi-billion-dollar carbon trading market. We’ll look at which proposals to reduce emissions by 2020 really add up; at the hidden interests behind these solutions; and the new industry players.

Building a newsroom, not tearing it down

Robert Salladay — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:54:00 -0800

The gestation period, from the first conversations about creating California Watch, to its launch today, was nearly two years. It has been a long haul but well worth it.

We are excited and energized about where we are. For me on a personal level, it's a gift and huge source of inspiration to be building a newsroom and hiring journalists after too many years of working in environments where innovation and risk taking were not welcome, and, to be candid, the work of the journalists was devalued.

As a highly visible project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, California Watch is a turn in a new direction. For 32 years, CIR has done valuable investigative reporting, much of it with "Frontline" and "60 Minutes." But never before has CIR had a team of investigative journalists this large, and never before have we had the flexibility to pursue stories that focus on what arguably is the most important, most complicated, and most messed-up state in the nation.

CIR will continue to do stories of national and international importance. And all of the critical values – accuracy, credibility, operating with a non-partisan approach – will be part of California Watch's ethos.

A core belief and value of California Watch will be collaboration with other organizations. They will be media organizations, large and small, traditional and new, legacy and ethnic. We will partner with universities and research organizations, with content creators and distributors. We will use social networking as it exists, and as it evolves, to reach people and have them reach us. Getting information to communities at every level, through their interests and by geography, will be a core strategy.

But the real value will be our stories. We will reveal, disclose and get information into the sunlight that otherwise might stay hidden or inaccessible, and our goal is to tell stories in multiple platforms – in ways that people want to get them.

Through our publishing partners in print, radio, television, on Web sites and on hand-held devices, we will reach a wide range of audiences. We are going to experiment. We are going to have some big successes, and we will learn from what works and does not work. And we will share this information. We want to be a transparent organization that functions as a team, where we are all valued and where we also value those we serve, the public.

Public service journalism will be goal of California's largest investigative team

Mark S. Luckie — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:48:00 -0800

California Watch, a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, was created to investigate the issues that matter most to Californians. Find out more about the state's largest investigative team, our mission and our new Web site by watching this brief introductory video.

The lunacy of the last day

Mark Schapiro — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:44:00 -0800

Even on a normal day in the Bella Center, we suffered from information overload: there was the official daily program, press conferences, side events and presentations by the country delegations all competing for time. With 15,000 people buzzing through the complex, we seemed to bump into a story at every turn at the cafe, in the coat check line, or from an unlikely tap on the shoulder. In the midst of this, the media center became a refuge of relative calm, as hundreds of journalists quietly typed, edited and filed their reports, trying to make sense of all the activity. But just when we thought we knew what was going on, the whole dynamic changed on the last day. (See the video for that!) Now that the heads of state were in the building -- Jiabao, Obama, Lula, Chavez -- scheduled events were not just "subject to change," they seemed designed to deceive, sending journalists in one direction as VIPs headed in another. The media began roaming in packs. We didn't always know whom we were trying to capture; we just knew we didn't want to miss it. After all, Obama would be speaking -- although we didn't know when -- and finally the "Deal or No Deal" issue would be resolved. When he took the podium around midday, his speech created more questions than answers. The media center began to hum again and negotiators locked themselves behind closed doors. None of us would leave until well past midnight. Days later, and we're still trying to decode the deal in Copenhagen.

Following the money in Copenhagen

Mark Schapiro — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 14:00:00 -0800

I'm sure there will be a flood of reactions to the "agreement" reached today, which made things pretty quiet and tense in the press center. People were hunched over computers talking in multiple languages, first trying to interpret President Obama's speech -- "hugely disappointing" seemed to be the main reaction -- then following the last-minute back-room bargaining he was engaged in trying to salvage a deal. But I'm going to go against this wave and continue following the aggressive push here toward carbon markets and the debate over how to regulate them. This is where the only real money lies at this point, anyway. During these past two weeks, the Crowne Plaza hotel has been temporary home to the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), which represents global banks, brokerage firms, commodity traders and energy companies at the apex of moving billions of dollars through the global carbon markets. The buying and selling of so-called carbon "offsets" is now the fastest growing commodity market on earth. Worth practically zero in 2005, the market transacted $150 billion last year; and that number is expected to explode into the trillions once the U.S. passes its own emission limits next year. With genuine fears about the economic consequences of a market growing this big this fast, traders at a panel on Thursday were grappling with how much regulation was appropriate as carbon emerges as the epitome of the 21st century commodity. Not surprisingly, there was consensus among the panelists, which included a member of the IETA, an executive with EurEx, a German commodity exchange that opened a carbon trading facility in Chicago last year; and a policy expert with the investment bank, JP Morgan. Carbon is becoming much like any other commodity but with one key distinction: It is designed not to be delivered (like oil or gold) but to be eliminated, presenting an array of potential regulatory challenges. David Hunter, the IETA's director for U.S. policy said the group was firmly against a federal cap and trade bill introduced by Senators Collins (R-ME) and Stabenow (D-MI). Measures in the bill want to avoid some of the highly speculative investments that have driven Europe's carbon market, which is regulated under provisions of the Kyoto treaty. The U.S. bill proposes to cut out middlemen and to strictly limit trading activity between those industries that have emission credits and those industries that need them. Hunter disputes some of the biggest conerns the bill is designed to address -- chiefly that the market is growing so rapidly it could quickly devolve into the bubble-and-bust scenario that kicked off the global economic crisis two years ago, and that the market could be exposed to the same manipulations the electricity industry went through in the 1990s. "Nothing like that could happen in the carbon markets," Hunter told me, "because carbon [commodities] are just a piece of paper." He is right in the fact that, unlike other commodities, no physical commodity is ever actually delivered. Instead, it is an unorthodox financial instrument containing a promise not to emit greenhouse gases. Richard Folland, a senior climate change and energy adviser at J.P. Morgan, now one of the world's largest carbon trading firms after buying British carbon brokers Eco Securities last fall, argued that minimal regulations are necessary but that overly intrusive regulations could end up “diminishing liquidity.” And contrary to fears, he said, expanding the number of "market actors" would make the market more difficult to manipulate not less. Overall, the discussion provided a stark contrast to the main emissions negotiations at the Bella Center. No matter how today's non-binding agreement is received and changes things, the carbon markets will continue to grow at an exponential rate. Inside Bella there was abundant talk about the growing cataclysmic symptoms of global warming, and much dodging around money. At the Crowne Plaza, there was much talk about money, and barely a reference to reducing the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Over the next year, FRONTLINE/World and CIR will report on key issues of climate change in a joint project—Carbon Watch—focusing on the multi-billion-dollar carbon trading market. We’ll look at which proposals to reduce emissions by 2020 really add up; at the hidden interests behind these solutions; and the new industry players. This week, our reporters blog from the Copenhagen climate change summit.

Brazil tells U.S. don't bank on our forests

Mark Schapiro — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:06:04 -0800

Brazil and the United States, the two key players in the REDD negotiations, are now squaring off. Negotiations are down to the wire and one major division remains. Hold on as we head into U.N. speak. Here's what is at the heart of the dispute: Brazil, with the support of the European Union, is arguing that all deals on forests be conducted on a national basis -- so any market mechanisms involved have to be conducted and overseen by national authorities. The Brazilians argue this is the only way they can ensure that deforestation activities don't simply move from one state to another, and the only way to stop this problem is at the national level. The United States, with strong vocal support from Colombia, is arguing that such deals also be conducted on what they call a "sub-national" level -- meaning that individual states or regions, depending on the country, should be allowed to cut their own forest deals, irrespective of whether they fall in line with national policy. Brazil and the United States, the two key players in the REDD negotiations, are now squaring off. Negotiations are down to the wire and one major division remains. This sub-level deal making, say opponents, only encourages shifting the problem of "deforestation into another state." Earlier this week, we spoke with Eduardo Braga, governor of the powerful state of Amazonas in the heart of the Amazon jungle, about his position. Braga has gone through something of a transformation on the question of "states rights" in Brazil. Until recently he has been a strong supporter of Brazilian states being able to negotiate their own forest deals within their borders, which have become a primary revenue source for Amazonia and other heavily forested states. In fact, last year Braga signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the state of California to cooperate on forest preservation projects and alternative energy technologies. The hope on both sides was that the forests of Amazonas could be used to offset emissions by California state industries on the arrival of tighter emissions controls expected next year. This type of transaction may not be as simple now that Brazil's states and federal government are presenting a united front on preventing such unilateral deals from happening. Braga told us that any American partner approaching Brazil with a carbon offset project would have to do their homework first. "We are not going to support your emissions at the cost of the standard of living of our people." That's the difference now," he said. "If you do your homework and establish your target to reduce your emissions of greenhouse gases, then you can come to us to help mitigate further emissions," he told us. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has conceded that carbon markets may play a limited role in preserving Brazil's and other countries' forests. But to get there, the Brazilian negotiators have added an interesting obstacle course and are calling the shots. The REDD Ahead In the latest REDD negotiations, and echoing Braga's change of heart, Brazil has taken the position that if developed countries want to gain access to the countrys forests to offset their emissions, they must first demonstrate their own commitment to reducing greenhouse gases at home. Specifically, Brazil is asking that no more than 10 percent of a developed country's excess emissions can be written off against forest preservation schemes, and that this would only happen after those countries had already committed to reducing their emissions by 30 percent from 1990 levels. So doing the math, a country with a stated 30 percent reduction goal would have to reach 33 percent to receive the keys to the carbon-rich magic kingdom of the Amazon. According to Kate Dooley, a forest policy analyst for the UK-based NGO FERN (Forests and the European Union Resource Network), this offer is only on the table if developed countries stick to their commitments to continue negotiations on a binding global agreement under the Kyoto protocol. Few close to the REDD talks believe these conditions will be met. Over the next year, FRONTLINE/World and CIR will report on key issues of climate change in a joint project—Carbon Watch—focusing on the multi-billion-dollar carbon trading market. We’ll look at which proposals to reduce emissions by 2020 really add up; at the hidden interests behind these solutions; and the new industry players. This week, our reporters blog from the Copenhagen climate change summit.

Does saving trees = reducing emissions?

Sarah Terry-Cobo — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:09:39 -0800

Why is REDD on so many people’s lips at Copenhagen? Forests are a hot topic in the UN’s climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this week. Many experts are pointing to reduced deforestation projects (known as REDD projects) as an economically cheap way to help developed countries offset CO2 emissions, while preserving forests in developing nations. And while many tropical countries, such as Indonesia, Costa Rica, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Papua New Guinea, are often in favor of REDD proposals, if done incorrectly, these projects can cause a whole host of problems (As Mark Schapiro reported in an article in Mother Jones.) But the devil is in the details, unfortunately. And while delegates from around the world negotiate REDD provisions for carbon emission offsets in Copenhagen, the U.S. is also developing similar forestry proposals in its own climate bills. Global emissions from deforestation About one fifth of total global CO2 emissions come from the forest sector, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Some of these emissions are due to deforestation, which comes from agricultural activities, biofuel plantations and illegal logging for precious woods such as cedar and mahogany, according to research by Dr. Matthew Finer, an ecologist at Save America’s Forests. Some of these emissions are due to "degradation" which comes from accidental fires or controlled burns, and in some cases, from forest dwellers cutting trees—such as palm—for food. This is important, because in some developing countries, more carbon emissions come from deforestation than from energy generation, said Florence Daviet, a senior associate at the World Resources Institute’s climate and energy program, in a telephone interview from Copenhagen. In addition, forestry projects could have a "quite a large impact" on mitigating climate change, said Professor Daniel Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, in a telephone interview from Lisbon, Portugal. "Between 25 to 30 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions come from land-use change, so deforestation counts for significant amount of that change," he said. A renowned expert in energy policy and climate change issues, Kammen attended the conference in Denmark, blogging on Berkeley’s website about his involvement and observations. REDD details: biodiversity, additionality Some of the critical details about REDD programs are buried within hundreds of pages in the House and Senate versions of the climate bill, but experts note these details are vital to creating forestry projects that actually reduce emissions and do not produce negative unintended consequences. One is verifying that these carbon reductions are real—essentially that trees exist and are absorbing GHG emissions. This can be achieved through remote sensoring, said WRI’s Daviet, and in some cases is already being done. Another is called “additionality,” which is often referred to in laymen’s terms as “anyway credits.” Alexander Pfaff, an associate professor in Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy has studied REDD projects in Costa Rica and has seen instances in this country where farmers were paid not to cut down forests—even though they would not have cut them anyway. The issue at hand with additionality, “is that if you were going to clear [the forests and stopped], then I changed things. If you weren’t going to clear and I pay you, I’ve changed nothing,” he said in a telephone interview. Yet another issue that is sometimes a point of contention among environmentalists, Pfaff said, is called “co-benefits,” and is a part of both the House and Senate versions of the climate bill. The idea is that a project should reduce carbon from the atmosphere, but also have the co-benefit of protecting habitats for species, preserving water quality, and stabilizing soil. Attaching a value to somewhat intangible things, such as biodiversity, is important, because it helps ensure financial instruments include these services the ecosystem provides, rather than simply paying for sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. Irony: Many perils lurk within the details of REDD Groups concerned with biodiversity and indigenous autonomy are concerned with co-benefits, because a project without them can create perverse incentives. Kammen notes there are instances in China and Brazil in which landowners cleared the forests and reaped the financial benefits from the timber and wood products. They then planted monocultures—large plantations of a single species—and received credit for carbon offsets. “This could have huge negative effects on biodiversity,” he said. “There is the potential for projects [to be harmful] if they don’t reflect biodiversity and to hurt local communities.” Payments for so-called ecosystem services—for protecting water quality and species habitats, among other things—must be reflected in REDD projects, Kammen said. In the House version of the climate bill, projects that have co-benefits for biodiversity do receive more credit than ones that do not. What support is the US giving? There are benefits from REDD projects to US companies that might soon be facing greenhouse gas emission limits from a federal policy. “If you can reduce immediate emissions as a result of land-use change and tree cover change or degradation of forests, it will take immediate pressure off emissions reductions [goals] in the short term,” WRI’s Daviet said. In addition, Kammen said that forestry projects can be done “at a rate of a few dollars per ton of carbon,” which is much less expensive than many other options, especially for electrical utilities or oil refineries. Representative Henry Waxman, expressed his support for REDD provisions within the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the climate bill he co-authored with Representative Edward Markey. “The clearing and degradation of tropical forests is a major driver of global climate change. Forests cover about 30 percent of the Earth’s land surface and hold almost half of the world’s terrestrial carbon,” Rep. Waxman said in an email. “Deforestation is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries, amounting to roughly 20 percent of overall emissions globally. Reducing emissions from deforestation is highly cost-effective, compared to many other sources of emissions reductions.” Rep. Waxman is also the Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Ignorance could lead to unrealistic expectations Last week the US’s special envoy to the UN, Todd Stern said he would not use public funds to aid climate efforts in China, denying the idea developed nations owe developing countries “reparations” for pollution in the past. But the global demand for things such as cheap timber or biofuels can pressure developing countries to invest in projects that produce the most revenue, said Daviet. “The bigger picture is the demand that drives deforestation in developing countries,” she said, noting our expectations for reducing deforestation may not be realistic if the US continues to buy biofuels on the world market. Over the next year, FRONTLINE/World and CIR will report on key issues of climate change in a joint project—Carbon Watch—focusing on the multi-billion-dollar carbon trading market. We’ll look at which proposals to reduce emissions by 2020 really add up; at the hidden interests behind these solutions; and the new industry players. This week, our reporters blog from the Copenhagen climate change summit.

The U.S. ups ante on forests

Mark Schapiro — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:49:09 -0800

The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack shook up the negotiations on REDD Wednesday when he announced that the United States would release $1 billion over the next 3 years to help tropical countries slow the rate of deforestation. The move, he told us, was intended to signal a new American commitment to forests and climate change. "The United States and the Obama administration is very interested in sending a clear message that we are engaged aggressively in climate change," Vilsack said. We caught up with the secretary at a private dinner sponsored by Avoided Deforestation Partners, a consortium of business and environmental interests looking to the carbon market to finance forest preservation. The move came just as tensions were mounting in negotiations over who would provide the funds to "make forests worth more alive than dead," a phrase often used by forest advocates to highlight their aims. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) estimates that $25 billion will be needed over the next 5 years to significantly slow the rate of deforestation, which contributes as much as 20 percent of all greenhouse gases. Vilsack said that his actions also reflected a new commitment at the USDA to deal with climate change and to help stimulate a new green economy in U.S. agriculture. This includes a move toward more unorthodox carbon offsets such as as no-till farming -- a practice that releases less nitrogen into the atmosphere. It is one example, Vilsack said, of "revitalizing rural America." A former Iowa governor, Vilsack said the funding could not only help reduce forest clearing to plant crops such as soy, but could be an advantage to U.S farmers. "If we can avoid people deforesting acres and acres of forests to plant new crops,” he said, "then we avoid competition with our own agriculture." The administration's move is by far the most serious commitment the U.S. has made to preserve forests. The money is intended to spur the ability of countries like Indonesia, Brazil, Guyana and other tropical forest nations to develop alternative industries to forest degradation, and to do the measurements that are critical to determining how much carbon their forests contain. In the long run, these measurements are essential if forest-based credits are going to be used with any legitimacy by U.S. industries seeking to offset their emissions. Other tensions remain. Industry analysts Point Carbon called a recent draft of the REDD agreement "remarkably void of any references to tradable credits or offsets from forest-related activities." Indeed, the latest draft seems to rely heavily on government aid to fund projects, whereas the United States wants a more market-driven solution, whereby companies will ultimately pay for forest preservation schemes as an offset for exceeding their emissions limits at home. Vilsack's announcement suggests that the U.S. may use its $1 billion to change the power dynamic and push for more market-based approaches worldwide. Over the next year, FRONTLINE/World and CIR will report on key issues of climate change in a joint project—Carbon Watch—focusing on the multi-billion-dollar carbon trading market. We’ll look at which proposals to reduce emissions by 2020 really add up; at the hidden interests behind these solutions; and the new industry players. This week, our reporters blog from the Copenhagen climate change summit.

ICE to stop detaining asylum seekers

Andrew Becker — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:45:29 -0800

The government will generally no longer detain asylum seekers who arrive at U.S. border crossings, airports and other entry points who have a credible fear of persecution or torture in their home country as long as they meet certain requirements, immigration officials announced today. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Homeland Security Department's investigative arm and the agency responsible for immigration detention, will put the policy into place starting Jan. 4, according to an ICE press release. ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton said in a statement that the new policy, which changes the agency's stance on locking up people who ask for protection when they arrive at border crossings, is part of ongoing efforts to reform immigration detention. “These new parole procedures for asylum seekers will help ICE focus both on protecting against major threats to public safety and implementing common-sense detention policies,” he said. The new guidelines give the government authority to allow asylum seekers who have not been formally allowed into the country to remain out of immigration jail if they meet requirements determined by an asylum officer or an immigration judge. Normally foreign nationals who seek entrance into the United States but are without a visa or other valid travel documents are not permitted into the country. CIR previously reported with the Los Angeles Times on the detention of Mexican asylum seekers, including police officers, who fled the country because they were afraid for their lives. Arriving asylum seekers must establish their identity and show that they are not a danger to the country or a flight risk, and have a "credible" or valid fear of persecution or torture, as determined by an asylum officer or an immigration jduge. Such refugees must show that they are also eligible for asylum to be considered for release. The parole out of detention doesn't automatically mean that the asylum seeker will be granted protection. The new policy also instructs ICE agents to report monthly on parole rates and decision-making in order to ensure that paroled asylum seekers are complying with requirements. Foreign nationals who are already legally in the country when they ask for asylum are typically not subject to detention.

Native incentives

Andres Cediel — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:19:20 -0800

"Where there are forests, there are indigenous people. Where there are no forests, there are no indigenous people." Onel Masardule, a Kuna leader from Panama, smiled at the simplicity of his statement. You could read this as part fact, or depending on the results of the current negotiations, part prophecy. According to The World Bank, 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihood. If the forests perish, so do they. This fundamental principle has been built into their culture, which is why the most preserved forests on earth are on indigenous lands. Masardule described the forest as his hospital, his house and his supermarket. Joseph Onesimel, a Masai from Kenya, described taking care of the forest as a duty similar to taking care of children. To him, paying someone not to chop down trees makes no sense. "When you go to the bathroom to take a shower, that is your duty. Why should I pay you for that?" As the world's leaders argue about incentives for stopping deforestation, the indigenous leaders I've been talking to keep telling me that protecting the forests should be handed to them. Traditional knowledge has maintained biodiversity for centuries. "Preserving forests is not complicated,” Onesimel told me. But, REDD, the global agreement behind forest preservation, is. Many of the forests where indigenous people live have not been demarcated; property lines have not been drawn; and there are no titles. Before any offsets are sold, land rights are going to have to be settled, which makes Masardule and others wary. Dozens died in violent clashes between the Peruvian government and indigenous groups in the Amazon last summer. The dispute was over oil and gas development, not carbon, but for Masardule it's the most recent example of foreign money trumping indigenous sovereignty. "How can REDD help me if my rights aren't recognized?" Free, prior and informed consent is the basic right all indigenous people are asking for in Copenhagen. In other words, they demand that before any carbon projects are developed on their lands, they be given the right to examine the issue and decide for themselves whether they want to participate. The latest draft of the REDD agreement only mentions indigenous people in the preamble -- not in the legally binding body of the text. The New York Times reported today that a final text of the agreement will be given to ministers on Wednesday, and that all major points, including indigenous rights, have been worked out. Masardule says the agreement will allow industries to keep polluting, while credits are changing hands. "They want to get rich off the disgrace of the whole world,” he said. Over the next year, FRONTLINE/World and CIR will report on key issues of climate change in a joint project—Carbon Watch—focusing on the multi-billion-dollar carbon trading market. We’ll look at which proposals to reduce emissions by 2020 really add up; at the hidden interests behind these solutions; and the new industry players. This week, our reporters blog from the Copenhagen climate change summit.

Forest talks slow over corruption controls

Mark Schapiro — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:55:00 -0800

During the last 24 hours of negotiations, a bloc of countries led by Papua New Guinea, with support from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia, have resisted efforts to impose a package of safeguards to ensure the credibility of forest offsets. The three countries -- each with substantial amounts of uncut forests and a questionable ability to oversee them -- are objecting to three major provisions, according to Greg Picker, a former member of the Australian climate negotiating team and now a consultant on forest issues to the delegation. The first of these is the U.N.'s desire to "put boots on the ground” to ensure that trees are actually left standing -- in other words, allow inspectors to move freely within a country's borders to assess the veracity of preservation claims. The second is to clarify land titles and make sure that those paid for the carbon in the trees actually own the land on which the trees are growing. The third is a provision that will assess the "permanence" of these preservation efforts. Papua New Guinea agreed that safeguards were necessary but objected to the presence of international inspectors challenging its national sovereignty. The country has already been tarred by corruption in setting up early offset projects. In September, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on a $100 million carbon trading scandal involving fake carbon certificates in one of PNG's preservation deals.

The fate of trees

Mark Schapiro — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:00:00 -0800

Trees loom large over the proceedings in Copenhagen. Here in this sprawling, climate-controlled complex of low-slung metallic hangars where the negotiations are unfolding, the fate of the earth's forests may rest with decisions reached by the end of the week. The question is how to pay the estimated $15 to $25 billion it will cost over the next five years to start reducing deforestation by 50 percent by 2020 and eliminate it by 2030. These are the goals being set for any serious reductions on greenhouse gas emissions. The first signal of where these forest negotiations are headed came Saturday afternoon, when the Ecosystems Climate Alliance, a group representing a coalition of international and U.S. NGOs, claimed it had obtained a draft of what such a deal would look like. Called REDD, which stands for Reduced Emissions from Degradation and Deforestation, the agreement set no clear guidelines on whether public or private money would pay to protect forests -- a critical area of debate. The draft also downplayed another sensitive issue -- getting Prior Informed Consent from the indigenous people living in the forests. Environmental groups across the spectrum, including Global Witness and the Rainforest Action Network are particularly wary of forests being subjected to the forces of a carbon market. Even the Nature Conservancy, which has been pro-market in saving forests, is demanding that provisions for people living in them be a central part of any agreement. If and when private companies will be able to purchase forestlands to preserve them is at the heart of these negotiations. The United States is aligned with tropical nations like Indonesia, the Congo and Papua New Guinea, arguing that the best way to preserve forests is by permitting companies to protect them through offset funds. Meanwhile, the European Union is advocating for a multistage approach, which would begin with public support to prepare countries over the next several years to manage their forests sustainably before subjecting them to the market. Both sides have yet to agree on how much money will be committed, and from where. Rosalind Reeves, a forest campaign manager for the environmental and human rights group Global Witness, working in Kenya, is concerned that linking forest preservation directly to the carbon market could lead to a boom in government corruption, especially in countries that have large areas of tropical forest in tact -- like the Congo and Papua New Guinea. "A lot of people see [the REDD agreement] as a big opportunity to save the forests," Reeves said, "but there are lots of risks attached." If you get a deal that "doesn't protect the natural forests and the rights of the people who live in that forest, and doesn't promote strong governance or include effective monitoring, then you've got problems," she said. Reeves has gone from tracking the illegal wildlife trade to the illegal logging trade and is now trying to ensure that the market solution for preserving forests favored by the United States does not create an entirely new business in carbon crimes. Any agreement is in peril without the ability to properly enforce it. The Lusaka Agreement Task Force is one of the enforcement operations talking to delegates. The group was created under a joint agreement between several African nations and draws from enforcement agencies across West Africa. The group is helping advise on REDD guidelines so that accounting for fraud and other potential abuses are not overlooked. In many parts of the world, land titles are unclear; and the rules governing how to account for forestlands, even tax them, have yet to be written. "You have unclear rules, a whole economy being formed -- it's ripe for criminals," said Davyth Stewart, a former organized crime investigator in Australia's national police force. He's now a lawyer with Global Witness, and focusing on this new market for forests. Over the next year, FRONTLINE/World and CIR will report on key issues of climate change in a joint project—Carbon Watch—focusing on the multi-billion-dollar carbon trading market. We’ll look at which proposals to reduce emissions by 2020 really add up; at the hidden interests behind these solutions; and the new industry players. This week, our reporters blog from the Copenhagen climate change summit.

Editorial: Feinstein needs to balance interests

CIR Staff — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:33:25 -0800

California Watch’s story on corporate farmer Stewart Resnick and Dianne Feinstein sparked a Sac Bee editorial.

Dianne Feinstein was quick to respond in September when a big corporate farmer sought her help in challenging limits on the export of water out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Unfortunately, she's rarely shown that level of interest in representing the concerns of commercial salmon fishermen. They are arguably far more vulnerable to how those flows are regulated. An article by the investigative group California Watch, which appeared in last Monday's Bee, revealed some of Feinstein's priorities. ... It would behoove Feinstein, and the state she represents, if she spent as much personal time with dry-docked salmon fishermenas corporate farmers who have a fairly limited view on the subject of water. The salmon fishermen's claim on the water flows that course though the Delta is just as compelling as agriculture's.

Send your questions to Copenhagen via web-cam

CIR Staff — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:40:46 -0800

The world is watching Copenhagen. Here is your chance to be heard. Send your comments and questions about the climate change summit to CIR senior correspondent Mark Schapiro via FRONTLINE/World's new web-cam tool:

Whatever your concerns are about climate change and wherever you live in the world, we'd love to hear from you. For the next 10 days we have a team from FRONTLINE/World covering the U.N. Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen. As they report from this chaotic gathering and track down some of the major stakeholders, we wanted to invite our viewers to ask Mark Schapiro, our lead reporter there, your most pressing questions. You can do this by using a great new video record tool. It's simple and fun to use. Just click on the record button below, leave your message, and submit. We will then take a selection of your questions for an interview with Mark that we will post before the summit ends on December 18th.

>> Send your video message here.

Airborne accounting

Mark Schapiro — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:50:56 -0800

On route to Copenhagen, Mark Schapiro’s first blog post follows a surprising mid-air announcement. It was at 33,000 feet, on route from Paris, when I had my first welcome to the climate change talks in Copenhagen. We’d reached our cruising altitude and the captain of the Air France flight came on the public address system, greeting us in French with the usual, ‘Hope you are enjoying your flight," when he launched into this: “This flight amounts to a carbon footprint of 2 liters of fuel per person for every 100 kilometers of the 900 kilometer trip to Copenhagen." That’s the same fuel consumption per person, he told us, as it would take to drive from Paris to Copenhagen, but then came the pilot’s twist: “We’re carrying a lot more people,” he said. I looked around and we were in a packed Airbus 321, carrying almost 200 passengers. His statement got my attention. The stewardess, Fatya, told me it was the first time she’d heard such an announcement in her many trips across the continent. The man next to me, an engineer flying in from Bogota, whose business of recycling equipment to companies in Latin America is booming (a market U.S. manufacturers barely know exists), did some napkin calculations and assured me the pilot was right. This was a lot more carbon-efficient than driving the same route: our Airbus 321 carrying 200 passengers, the average car carrying perhaps four. Air France plans to reduce its average fuel consumption per passenger to 3.7 liters per 100 km by 2012, and the industry’s green-focused trade groups say the new generation of fleets are already more efficient per person per mile than the most modern compact cars. But that's another blog post. The message from Copenhagen, then, had made it into the turbulent, rain-soaked skies of Europe. When we landed, I had a quick word with Captain Gaetan Sroczysnki. He said it was his own decision to make the announcement -- not company policy -- and other pilot friends were doing the same. All of them were aware that airplanes are one of the largest guzzlers of fuel and thus emitters of greenhouse gases. These pilots wanted to acknowledge in their own way the necessity for reducing these levels. There were no such announcements on my flight from San Francisco to Paris. Nor, it turns out, does Captain Sroczysnki’s concern come out of thin air. Here in Europe, the skies are already a major focus of greenhouse gas reduction efforts: The European Union recently issued a list of proposals to limit the emissions from the aviation sector, which is estimated to produce about 3 percent of Europe’s greenhouse gases. All airlines flying in or out of European airports must begin to tally their fuel use and carbon emissions to create a baseline for limits that will be established in 2012. These actions have already prompted the Air Transport Association and major U.S. carriers like United, American Airlines and Continental to threaten a legal challenge to EU laws on the grounds that they violate free-trade provisions and air navigation treaties, some of which date back to 1944. While a new airline emissions limit is still being worked out, observers expect the cap will be around 20 million tons of CO2 for 2012, with a 5 percent reduction on that figure by the following year. Welcome to the friendly skies! During the next two weeks, CIR's Mark Schapiro will be blogging from the Copenhagen climate change summit for Carbon Watch, a joint project "tracking the new currencies of global warming" by the Center for Investigative Reporting and FRONTLINE/World.

Report from Copenhagen

Jackie Bennion — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:56:23 -0800

A lot of conflicting agendas are converging on the U.N. Climate Change Summit this week in Copenhagen, and reporter Mark Schapiro and producer Andres Cediel will be in the thick of the action. Throughout the next two weeks, they will be talking to diplomats, industry leaders, activists, economists, and many others with a stake in how the world proceeds from here. Their coverage of this mother of all gatherings, which will set the course for new global emissions standards once the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012, is part of "Carbon Watch," a joint reporting project of the Center for Investigative Reporting and FRONTLINE. We will be tracking the new currencies of global warming, in particular the multi-billion-dollar carbon market and all it entails. What are the mechanisms behind this new economy, which the French finance minister calls "a regulatory vacuum," and who stands to gain and lose as carbon’s currency rises? Plus what are the hidden agendas already at work among the world’s largest polluters? We began the series with a video report from Brazil, home to the world’s largest carbon sink and an intricate player in a controversial plan by rich nations to pay poorer ones not to cut down their remaining forests. It’s a critical issue on the table at Copenhagen as deforestation is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. This being the international story of our time, our team will be posting regular updates and uploading video interviews throughout the summit and beyond. So stay with us.

Class size report reaches diverse communities

CIR Staff — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:43:11 -0800

California Watch, a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, is implementing a new distribution model to reach diverse California communities in multimedia formats. On November 19, California Watch published an in-depth report, which found that class sizes in K-3 grades in California are reverting in some districts to levels not seen for over a decade, despite more than $20 billion spent on a program to reduce class size. Since then, the story has been distributed in five languages, through a variety of media outlets – web, broadcast, and print – highlighting California Watch’s approach of focusing on important statewide issues with local appeal and collaborating with media outlets to customize the content and engage local communities. The combined daily print circulation was close to 1,000,000. Many more Californians had access to the story through television, radio and Web-based media. Distribution outlets included the following:

Through a new collaboration with New America Media, Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese translations of the story were distributed to ethnic media around the state. The story ran in The Cali Today (Vietnamese), La Opinion (Spanish), Nguoi Viet (Vietnamese), Sing Tao Daily (Chinese), sina.com (Chinese), Sun-Reporter (African-American), TheLoop21 (African-American), Viet Tribune (Vietnamese), IndyBayArea and topix.com. New America Media also supplemented California Watch’s coverage, with essays by young people from the Central Valley about how crowded classrooms impact their learning experience, and with a report on how class sizes affect African-American students.
The Los Angeles Daily News, San Diego Union Tribune, Modesto Bee and Oakland Tribune published the story on their front pages. The Contra Costa Times, San Mateo County Times, Tri-Valley Herald, Fremont Argus and Hayward Daily Review also carried the story.
KGO-TV (San Francisco) and KCRA-TV (Sacramento) produced television news reports to supplement the California Watch story. (KCRA is a new media partner for California Watch.)
As part of a newly formed partnership with KQED FM, a 6 ½ minute radio report on class size, produced by Michael Montgomery, hired jointly by KQED and California Watch, was broadcast on KQED’s The California Report, airing on 28 public radio stations around the state. KQED’s call-in talk show Forum dedicated an hour to the subject, including participation by the story’s co-author, Louis Freedberg.
The story appeared on more than a dozen Web sites, including truthdig.com, newamericamedia.org, educatedguess.org, and those of all the media partners. It was made available to Associated Press subscribers around the state through AP’s Marketplace feature.

The story was accompanied by a set of interactive tools produced by California Watch including a state-by-state comparison of teacher-student ratios, a Web video featuring interviews with teachers from Plummer Elementary School in Los Angeles, and an interactive map with detailed information on class sizes in the state’s 30 largest school districts. The full report, plus related multimedia material, can be viewed at www.californiawatch.org. About The Investigation California Watch reporters Louis Freedberg and Hugo Cabrera took an in-depth look at a class-size reduction program initiated in 1996 that provided generous subsidies to schools that limited K-3 classrooms to 20 students per teacher. Since then, the state has invested over $20 billion to keep classes at or close to that level. Today, most of California's largest school districts are increasing class sizes – some to as many as 30 students -- eroding the most expensive education reform in the state’s history. The shift has parents and teachers concerned that the academic performance of millions of children will suffer. California’s K-12 teacher-student ratios already rank 48th in the nation. The overall project was coordinated and edited by editorial director Mark Katches. About California Watch and The Center for Investigative Reporting California Watch, the largest investigative team operating in the state, was launched in 2009 by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). Priority areas of coverage include education, health and welfare, public safety, the environment and the influence of money on the political and regulatory process. The goal is to expose hidden truths, prompt debate and spark change. California Watch receives funding from The James Irvine Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Founded in 1977, the Center for Investigative Reporting is the nation's oldest nonprofit investigative news organization. CIR reports have reached the public through television, print, radio and the web, appearing in outlets such as 60 Minutes, PBS Frontline, NPR, The Los Angeles Times<, Washington Post, Politico and U.S. News & World Report. CIR stories have received numerous journalism awards including the Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Silver Baton, George Polk Award, Emmy Award, Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, and National Magazine Award for Reporting Excellence. More importantly, its reports have sparked congressional hearings and legislation, United Nations resolutions, public interest lawsuits and change in corporate policies. CIR founded California Watch to help create a new model for regional investigative and other high-impact reporting.

The document trail

Sarah McHie — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:21:58 -0800

See letters tracking how Stewart Resnick asked for help, and got it.

Spreading the money around

Sarah McHie — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:18:05 -0800

Explore major contributions made to candidates and political committees by Stewart Resnick, his wife, and executives of his companies.

Corporate farmer calls upon political allies to influence delta dispute

Lisa Pickoff-White — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:21:27 -0800

Wealthy corporate farmer Stewart Resnick has written check after check to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s political campaigns. He’s hosted a party in her honor at his Beverly Hills mansion, and he’s entertained her at his second home in Aspen. And in September, when Resnick asked Feinstein to weigh in on the side of agribusiness in a drought-fueled environmental dispute over the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, this wealthy grower and political donor got quick results, documents show. On Sept. 4, Resnick wrote to Feinstein, complaining that the latest federal plan to rescue the Delta’s endangered salmon and smelt fisheries was “exacerbating the state’s severe drought” because it cut back on water available to irrigate crops. “Sloppy science” by federal wildlife agencies had led to “regulatory-induced water shortages,” he claimed. “I really appreciate your involvement in this issue,” he wrote to Feinstein. One week later, Feinstein forwarded Resnick’s letter to two U.S. Cabinet secretaries. In her own letter, she urged the administration to spend $750,000 for a sweeping re-examination of the science behind the entire Delta environmental protection plan. The Obama administration quickly agreed, authorizing another review of whether restrictions on pumping irrigation water were necessary to save the Delta’s fish. The results could delay or change the course of the protection effort. To environmentalists concerned with protecting the Delta, it was a dispiriting display of the political clout wielded by Resnick, who is among California’s biggest growers and among its biggest political donors. Resnick’s Paramount Farms owns 118,000 acres of heavily irrigated California orchards. And since he began buying farmland 25 years ago, Resnick, his wife, and executives of his companies have donated $3.97 million to candidates and political committees, mostly in the Golden State, a California Watch review of public records shows. They have given $29,000 to Feinstein and $246,000 more to Democratic political committees during years when she has sought re-election. “It is very disappointing that one person can make this kind of request, and all of a sudden he has a senator on the phone, calling up (U.S. Interior Secretary Ken) Salazar,” says Jim Metropulos, senior advocate for the Sierra Club. Feinstein’s letter was “based on what she believes to be the best policy for California and the nation,” spokesman Gil Duran said in a statement. “No other factors play a role in her decisions.” With the Valley’s economy battered by recession and drought, Feinstein believed it was important to reconsider the restrictions on pumping Delta water for irrigation, he said. Many farmers have urged such a review, he added. In an interview, Resnick said he didn’t leverage his relationship with Feinstein to persuade her to intervene. “Honestly, I’m not saying we could not have done that, but I don’t think that’s the way it happened,” he said. Feinstein long has had an interest in water issues, and “she just wanted to get to the bottom of this,” Resnick said. A Troubled Estuary The Delta provides drinking water for 20 million people and irrigation for the state’s vast agriculture industry. But after decades of water diversions, Delta fish populations are in catastrophic decline, scientists say. Prodded by lawsuits from environmentalists, federal wildlife agencies commissioned scientific studies of the Delta’s ecological crisis. Based on the studies, the agencies launched a restoration program that curtailed pumping for irrigation and increased water flows for migrating fish. Meanwhile three years of drought have forced big cuts in water allotments for farmers, and swaths of valley farmland lie fallow. The recession pushed the unemployment rate in some valley towns to 40 percent. As a result, the restrictions on pumping Delta water became the target of a series of noisy protests that played out over the summer. Farmers and politicians blamed “radical environmentalists” – and the Obama administration – for ignoring the drought’s impact on the valley’s economy. “The government decided that the farmers come second and the delta smelt come first,” as Sean Hannity of Fox News put it on a visit to Fresno. Farm groups filed 13 different lawsuits to overturn the restoration plans, arguing that climate change, urbanization, and discharges from sewers and factories are causing the Delta’s problems. One suit was filed in August by the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, a non-profit founded by three executives of Resnick’s Paramount Farms. Resnick said he is “on the periphery” of the non-profit. People familiar with Resnick’s political operation say Feinstein’s letter is a reminder of the power he can wield on water issues. “Paramount Farms is a huge player,” says Gerald Meral, former director of the Planning and Conservation League environmental lobby. “They are just way different from the average farmer – far more strategic” in their thinking, Meral says. Wealth and Philanthropy In Los Angeles, Resnick, 72, is known as one of the city’s wealthiest men and among its most generous philanthropists. He’s given $55 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, millions more for a psychiatric hospital at UCLA and an energy institute at Cal Tech. His wife and business partner, Lynda Resnick, is an entrepreneur, socialite and writer. Her 2008 marketing book, “Rubies in the Orchard,” had blurbs from Martha Stewart and Rupert Murdoch, and her “Ruby Tuesday” blog is sometimes featured on huffingtonpost.com. The couple live in a Beverly Hills mansion that writer Amy Wilentz called “Little Versailles.” It’s the scene of parties for celebrities, charities and politicians – governors, senators and presidential candidates. Resnick said he worked his way through UCLA “washing windows,” and made his first million running a burglar alarm service. Since then, the couple’s Roll International holding company has profitably operated a long list of businesses: Teleflora florist wire service; POM Wonderful pomegranate juice; Franklin Mint, a mail-order collectibles firm; and FIJI bottled water, imported from the South Seas. Underpinning their fortune is agribusiness – 70,000 acres of pistachios and almonds, 48,000 acres of citrus and pomegranates – most of it in Kern County at the south end of the San Joaquin Valley, and all requiring irrigation to survive. Resnick said he makes political donations “without much real strategy,” other than to give to centrists from both parties. Water issues aren’t a major factor, he said. Records show Resnick often contributes to politicians with power over the bureaucracies that make decisions affecting farming’s financial bottom line. Since 1993, the Resnicks have given $1.6 million to California governors, key players in determining state water policy. Their donation pattern seems non-partisan, with the money following who’s in power. In the 1990s, they gave $238,000 to Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, records show, although Resnick says he doesn’t recall giving to Wilson and doesn’t think he ever met him. The Resnicks also backed the Democrat who replaced Wilson, Gray Davis. They gave Davis $643,000 and $91,500 more to oppose Davis’ recall in 2003. With Davis gone, Resnick began donating to Arnold Schwarzenegger — $221,000, records show — plus $50,000 to a foundation that pays for the governor’s foreign travel. Other big donations include $776,000 to Democratic political committees; $134,000 to agribusiness political committees and initiatives; and $59,000 to Republican committees. Hedging Bets The Resnicks have developed easy access to some of the politicians to whom they donate. Schwarzenegger has called them “some of my dearest, dearest friends,” and like Feinstein, he has urged a review of the science behind the Delta restoration plan. Davis appointed Resnick co-chair to a special state committee on water and agriculture. A more enduring benefit came during Wilson’s administration, when Paramount Farms gained part ownership of what was to have been a state-owned storage bank for surplus water. As recounted in a report by the advocacy group Public Citizen, in the 1980s state water officials devised a plan to ease the impact of future droughts by collecting excess water during rainy years and storing it underground. The water was to be pumped south via the California Aqueduct, then put into a vast aquifer in Kern County that could hold a year’s water supply for one million homes. The state spent about $75 million to buy a 20,000-acre site and to design the water bank. But in 1994, state water officials transferred the water bank site to the local Kern County Water Agency in exchange for significant water rights, Resnick said. The water agency developed the water bank in partnership with four other public agencies and one private business — a subsidiary of Paramount Farms. Paramount wound up controlling a 48 percent share of the bank. Resnick said the state had been unable to develop the water bank and gave up on the project. The local agencies and his company spent about $50 million to engineer the project and make the bank a success, he said. Paramount’s control of the bank continues to infuriate some environmentalists. In recent dry years, the bank sold some of its stored water back to the state at a premium, Public Citizen reported. “Resnick likes to call himself a farmer, but he is in the business of selling public water, with none of the profits returned to the taxpayers,” says Walter Shubin, a director of the Revive the San Joaquin environmental group in Fresno. A supportive community When she first emerged as a statewide candidate in the 1990 governor’s race, Feinstein made little headway in the Central Valley, and she was defeated by Wilson. After she was elected to the Senate two years later, Feinstein set out to befriend farmers. Her attention to agriculture and water issues has paid off, says Dan Schnur, director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and a former Wilson aide “That community has been very supportive of her, much more for her than for most statewide Democrats,” Schnur says. The Resnicks contributed $4,000 to Feinstein’s 1994 re-election campaign. When she ran again in 2000, they gave her $7,000. Resnick also donated $225,000 to Democratic political committees that were active in key Democratic races. Resnick said he first got to know Feinstein personally 10 or 12 years ago because the senator also has a second home in Aspen. In August 2000, when the Democratic National convention was in Los Angeles, the Resnicks hosted a cocktail party for Feinstein in their home. Among the guests were the singer Nancy Sinatra, then-Gov. Davis and former President Jimmy Carter, the Los Angeles Times reported. In 2007, they gave $10,000 to the Fund for the Majority, Feinstein’s political action committee. In June, another committee to which Resnick has contributed, the California Citrus Mutual PAC, spent $2,500 to host a fundraiser for Feinstein, records show. Feinstein also socializes with the Resnicks. Arianna Huffington, the blog editor and former candidate for governor, told the New York Observer in 2006 that she had spent New Year’s with Feinstein at the Resnicks’ home in Aspen. “We wore silly hats and had lots of streamers and everything,” she said of the party. On Aug. 26, Feinstein met with growers and water agency officials in Coalinga, Fresno County. While there, she told the Fresno Bee that she wanted the U.S. Interior Department to reconsider the biological opinions underlying the Delta protection plan. The following week, she received the letter from Resnick, which was first reported by the Contra Costa Times. She then sent her own letters to Interior Secretary Salazar and U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. Days later, the administration agreed to pay $750,000 to have the National Academy of Sciences re-study the scientific issues underlying the Delta protection plan. Last month, state lawmakers enacted a package of measures aimed at reforming the state’s outmoded water allocation system. The centerpiece – an $11 billion bond to build new dams and canals – must be approved by voters.

California Watch is a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting with offices in the Bay Area and Sacramento.
This story was edited by Mark Katches and copy edited by William Cooley at California Watch

Backstory: "The Intelligence Factory"

Sarah McHie — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:43:23 -0800

Aafia Siddiqui was missing for five years and reappeared in Afghanistan in 2008.

In May 2009, Petra Bartosiewicz received the first H.D. Lloyd Investigative Fund grant for her report on the case of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who vanished from her hometown of Karachi in 2003 along with her three children. At the time Siddiqui went missing, she was suspected by U.S. law enforcement of being an Al Qaeda operative, and the prevailing belief, at least among Pakistanis, was that she was "disappeared" by the U.S. in connection with the global war on terrorism. Then in August 2008 Siddiqui reappeared in Afghanistan, and her story grew stranger still. "The Intelligence Factory: How America Makes Its Enemies Disappear," Bartosiewicz's investigation of Siddiqui's case and the phenomenon in which hundreds of individuals who have gone missing in Pakistan since the attacks of September 11, 2001, appears in the November 2009 issue of Harper's Magazine. Her reporting on the Siddiqui case will be part of her forthcoming book on terrorism trials in the U.S., "The Best Terrorists We Could Find," to be published by Nation Books in 2010. This began as an essay about "how I got the story" of Aafia Siddiqui, but despite many months of reporting, I never really did "get" the story. I have no definitive answer as to where Siddiqui was during her five missing years, or who, if anyone, picked her up, or who held her, or how she ended up in Afghanistan, where she was finally captured. But I realized along the way there was another story to tell. "The Intelligence Factory" examines how our system for apprehending terrorists has created an infinite demand for "intelligence," which comes largely from detainees like Siddiqui. While the United States has devoted great energy to apprehending and interrogating these detainees, there are few mechanisms to determine the veracity of the intelligence being generated. The role of "intelligence" goes to the heart of a fundamental dilemma in tracking terrorism in that in almost every case the crime hasn't happened yet. Law enforcement is looking for someone who hasn't done the deed—they haven't blown up a building, they haven't hijacked a commercial airliner, they haven't killed anyone. The danger then is that what the criminal justice system must deal with is not the subject's alleged actions, but their suspected intentions. I've covered terrorism trials in the U.S. for the past five years and Siddiqui's case, like so many others, is at first glance a straightforward crime story. She is charged with attempted murder for shooting at a group of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents while in custody in Afghanistan. But the criminal charges elide more daunting questions. Where was she during her five missing years? Where were her children? Is she the fearsome extremist portrayed in much of the media—the Al Qaeda mom—or a woman caught in a series of far more complicated but ultimately less nefarious circumstances? The answers make all the difference in understanding her intentions and thereby framing the criminal case in which she is now embroiled. Mind-reading, needless to say, is not supposed to be the purview of our courts. From the start I knew there was almost no chance I would interview Siddiqui herself, even though by the time I began my reporting she'd been transported to the U.S. to face indictment in a New York federal court. The Justice Department rarely allows journalists to interview defendants before trial, but even if they had, I doubt Siddiqui would have spoken with me. In the weeks after her arrival in New York she was disoriented and in pain from a gunshot wound she'd received in Afghanistan. She didn't want to speak to her defense attorneys, let alone a reporter, she didn't want to appear in court, and she was deteriorating mentally, seeing apparitions in her jail cell. So the mystery I tried to solve was why Siddiqui went missing in the first place, and this is how I came to investigate the business of intelligence gathering. In Siddiqui's case, as in so many others, getting to the root of the evidence against a defendant is additionally hindered, if not made impossible, by the fact that most former and current intelligence officials will only speak to reporters off the record or on background. Unnamed sources, by virtue of shielding their identity, can feed a reporter spin and misinformation with greater impunity, and in stories involving "intelligence information," there is a greater chance this information will land unvetted in the public sphere, and readers will not know whether they are reading the truth or whether some hidden agenda is being played out. The use of unnamed sources is a bad trend in journalism in general, one that has been exacerbated by journalists themselves, who, generally for expediency, acquiesce to it. There is a small circle of former intelligence officers willing to speak openly to the press, who are invoked repeatedly and liberally by the media (I challenge anyone to find a major national security related book in which ex-CIA officer Vince Cannistraro is not cited), and while these individuals certainly have expertise worth sharing, the pool of information about the inner workings of the intelligence community is inevitably far shallower than the coterie of talkative ex-intel officers would make it appear. Moreover, it's become standard that government officials, including, bizarrely, those who work in the public affairs offices of the various law enforcement and intelligence branches, insist their interviews are off the record or on background. The CIA press officer I spoke to for the Siddiqui story, George Little, was actually startled when in the middle of our one brief conversation, after we covered a series of entirely benign factchecking questions, he asked me if we were on the record. When I said yes, he quickly ended the phone call. It was against this backdrop that I had to weigh the government's initial assertions about Siddiqui—that she was an Al Qaeda operative, that she was a potential suicide bomber, that she'd been on the run for five years, that she'd married Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew. To try to get some sense of context for Siddiqui's life, I traveled to Pakistan this spring to meet with her family, who after years of being questioned by intelligence and law enforcement officials were understandably paranoid about speaking with a journalist. Siddiqui's sister was convinced from the start I was employed by the CIA, and I don't believe I was ever able to persuade her otherwise. But over six weeks of reporting in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, I came to see that no matter what Siddiqui might have done, her life at the time she vanished was in turmoil and could not have helped but influence her actions. In the space of a single year she went through a bitter divorce, witnessed the death of her father, and gave birth to her third child—alone. I did not leave Pakistan with all the answers I sought, but the trip made apparent the greater political context in which her disappearance played out. As I expected, Pakistan on the ground is far different than the mostly violent images that dominate the U.S. media, in part because the heightened risk is commonplace enough that it has become an accepted fact of life. While I was in Lahore the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team was ambushed by a team of masked gunman in the middle of the workday, but by sunset traffic had resumed to its normal flow at the shooting site. The one place I wanted to travel to but was unable was Ghazni, Afghanistan, the scene of Siddiqui's arrest in August 2008. Ghazni is about 150 miles south of Kabul, and the highway joining the two cities is among the most dangerous stretches in Afghanistan. Journalists braver than I have made it to Ghazni by land, but the only marginally safe way is by air, which would have required hitching a ride with a United Nations transport during one of its regular runs. There had been a number of kidnappings of foreign journalists around the time I wanted to travel, so I hired a local reporter in Ghazni to conduct a series of video interviews with police officials and residents who witnessed Siddiqui's arrest. But as with so many other aspects of this story, the completely divergent accounts, in this case from individuals who were actual witnesses to the event, brought little clarity. The best chance for definitive answers about what transpired in Ghazni will likely come at Siddiqui's trial, now scheduled for January 2010. It is unlikely, however, that the bigger mysteries surrounding her disappearance will be resolved to any satisfaction. Nor will the trial address one of the most troubling aspects of Siddiqui's story—the two youngest of her three children, Mariam and Suleiman, remain missing. Suleiman, born in Karachi and just six months old when he vanished with his mother, is suspected to be dead. Mariam, now eleven years old, was born in the U.S., making her both a citizen and a minor, and meriting an investigation by our government. When I asked the State Department to comment on whether any effort was being made to locate her, the response was "no comment." Then, because of Siddiqui's pending trial I was referred to the Justice Department. When I called the Justice Department to ask about Mariam, I was informed that her disappearance has nothing to do with the criminal case and that they would have no comment either. It's likely that much more than the whereabouts of a child will remain a mystery. Petra Bartosiewicz is a journalist living in Brooklyn, New York. You can reach her at www.petrabart.com. Her original article was published in Harper's Magazine in November: "The Intelligence Factory: How America Makes its Enemies Disappear." Bartosiewicz also wrote an opinion piece that appeared in the LA Times.

On the ground in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley

Carrie Ching — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:24:22 -0800

Today, President Obama addresses the nation to reveal a new plan for winning, and ending, the war in Afghanistan—many expect a substantial increase in U.S. troops deployed to the area. Last week, FRONTLINE/World posted an iWitness interview with journalist Elizabeth Rubin, who was embedded with American soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, a remote area close to the Pakistan border, for two months in 2007. She returned to the valley nine months later to see how the situation had progressed. Her experiences shed some light on the realities American soldiers face on the ground there. Watch the interview here:
>> Watch additional uncut scenes shot by Rubin in Afghanistan on FRONTLINE/World's iWitness website. Elizabeth Rubin's reporting in Afghanistan was supported in part by CIR's Dick Goldensohn Fund.

Southwest border corruption cases continue to rise

Andrew Becker — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:12:02 -0800

Corruption-related investigations of federal immigration and border agents in the Southwest has increased for the third year in a row, according to records obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting through a Freedom of Information Act request. More than 80 investigations were opened last year by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General in the four Southwest border states against employees of Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agencies that police the border and immigration. The Inspector General, which is the lead Homeland Security agency to investigate criminal corruption cases, had more than 170 open cases, some dating to 2003, at the end of last fiscal year. That figure does not include cases being investigated by the FBI or the internal affairs offices of CBP or ICE. CBP has significantly increased its ranks in recent years, while also hiring more internal affairs agents to combat the threat of corruption. The latest case of an allegedly corrupt customs inspector was announced yesterday by federal officials in El Paso. Martha Alicia Garnica, 43, was arrested and indicted on charges of conspiracy to smuggle undocumented aliens, two counts of bribery and one count of importation of a controlled substance, according to a press release. CBP spokesman Roger Maier said in an email statement that Garnica was hired as customs inspector in February 1997 and became a CBP officer when DHS formed in 2003. Since March 2008 she had been a technician assigned to the El Paso border crossing. "Corruption is an issue CBP takes extremely seriously," Maier said. "Corruption by employees tarnishes our badge and our reputation, brings dishonor to our service and most importantly jeopardizes our border security." An El Paso police spokesman said an officer by the same name worked for the department from 1990 to 1997, but could not confirm it was the same person. November has been a busy time for corruption cases. Two CBP officers have been sentenced, two more will be sentenced later this month, and another this weekpleaded guilty to charges . In South Texas, Raul Montano, 34, pleaded guilty Monday to bribery, cocaine trafficking and illegal immigrant smuggling charges. The former CBP officer will be sentenced in February. Earlier this month, Sergio Lopez Hernandez, a 41-year-old former CBP officer, was sentenced in Federal District Court to more than 11 years in prison for human smuggling, bribery and cocaine possession. The former officer, who worked in Brownsville, Texas, admitted to taking more than $15,000 in bribes when he pleaded guilty in April. In San Diego, John Paul Yanez-Camacho, a former CBP officer at the Otay Mesa border crossing, was sentenced to three years probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized access to a government computer. From January 2005 through November 2006 Yanez-Camacho accessed a government database containing confidential information more than 250 times to check on the status of himself, family members, and drug traffickers who he knew from a previous job he held at Tequila Frogs restaurant in Juarez, Mexico, according to court documents. Yanez-Camacho was hired in 2003 by the federal government. Jesus Velasco Esparza, a former CBP officer at the Calexico, Calif., border crossing, will be sentenced for corruption-related charges next week.

Update: Velasco Esparza's sentencing has been postponed until next year. Also, CBP Officer Henry Gauani, 41, of Yuma, Ariz., and his wife were sentenced Nov. 23 to a little more than three years in prison on bribery and drug trafficking charges. They were arrested in January and pleaded guilty in June. Raquel Esquivel, a Border Patrol agent in Texas who was convicted in April by a federal jury of drug-trafficking charges, will be sentenced today.

All told, the Inspector General opened in fiscal year 2009 more than 400 investigations in the four Southwest border states, ranging from misconduct to criminal corruption cases. That number represents the most investigations in any year since the advent of the department in 2003. Overall, the Inspector General has 725 open investigations. Other recent cases: • Yamilkar Fierros, a former Border Patrol agent in Arizona, was arrested Oct. 30 and indicted on charges of accepting bribes. • Former CBP Officer Rudy Trace Soliz III, 43, of Brownsville, was arrested Oct. 29 and charged with human smuggling • Elliott R. Hernandez, 44, of Houston, a Citizenship and Immigration Services officer was arrested Oct. 22 on charges of bribery, fraud in connection with a computer and receiving something of value in exchange for performing an official act to which he is not entitled. • Former CBP Officer Jose Carmelo Magana, 46, of Yuma, Arizona, pleaded guilty on Oct. 21 of charges of bribery and human smuggling. He will be sentenced in January. • Retired CBP Officer Tony Alan Barker, 58, of Sahuarita, Ariz., was detained Oct. 7 on child pornography charges. Barker, a retired Customs and Border Protection officer of 35 years out of Georgia, was indicted in September 2009 by a federal grand jury in Tucson for Attempted Distribution of Child Pornography and Possession of Child Pornography. • Former CBP Officer Javier Cavazos, 50, of Los Fresnos, Texas, was arrested on Sept. 29 and charged with bribery in connection with human smuggling.

"Banished" screening and conversation with Marco Williams

Christa Scharfenberg — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:05:30 -0800

Join Facing History and CIR for a screening and discussion of Banished, our 2007 documentary produced with Marco Williams of Two Tone Productions. At the turn of the last century, in communities across the U.S., white residents forced thousands of black families to flee their homes. Many of these towns remain almost entirely white to this day. Banished tells the story of three of these communities and their black descendants, who return to learn their shocking histories. The event on December 3rd will include excerpts of the film, followed by a conversation with director Marco Williams. A member of the faculty at NYU, Williams is a documentary and fiction film director. His films have been broadcast on cable and public television and have been screened at film festivals throughout the world. As part of Facing History and Ourselves' national series of Community Conversations, this event is free and open to the public. Reservations are recommended. Click here to RSVP. For more information about the event, contact Karen Foster at 510-786-2500 x226 or karen_foster@facing.org.

Talk about increasing class sizes on KQED's Forum

CIR Staff — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:36:23 -0800

California Watch's report on class size increasing in kindergarten through third grade—also carried in broadcast form on KQED’s The California Report—is generating wide interest across the state. As a follow up to the report, KQED’s Forum live call-in program will devote an hour to the topic tomorrow (Friday November 20) beginning at 10 a.m. The programs are a product of a new, innovative arrangement between KQED and the Center for Investigative Reporting, in which the two organizations will collaborate on multiple reporting projects during the year. California Watch director Louis Freedberg, co-author of the report, will participate as a guest on in the program. Other guests will be Norton Grubb, UC Berkeley professor Norton Grubb, Sheila Jordan, Alameda County Superintendent of Schools, and Camille Haroldsen, a third grade teacher from Watsonville. For more details, go to http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/forum. Tune in at 88.5 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area, and 89.3 FM in the Sacramento area.

FAQ: How class-size reduction works in California

Mark S. Luckie — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:39:07 -0800

Get the answers to your questions about California's class-size reduction program as well as who to contact How did the program start? The program was initiated in 1996, to reduce average class sizes in K-3 grades to 20 students to every teacher. At the time, K-3 class sizes in California averaged 28.6 students, among the highest teacher-student ratios in the nation. It was motivated by research in Tennessee that showed that students in classes from 13 to 17 students did better academically. Do school districts have to participate? No. The program is voluntary. School districts don't have to participate, but the financial incentives – along with the program's popularity among parents and teachers – have resulted in almost every school district participating. Roughly 1.85 million K-3 students benefit from the program, at an annual cost of $1.8 billion to the state, according to 2007-08 figures. How does the subsidy work? School districts are required to monitor how many students are in a class, and report attendance figures to the state. To qualify for the full subsidy – currently $1,071 per student – school districts have to have average enrollment of 20.4-students-per teacher or fewer. The 20-to-1 ratio is an average of the daily attendance counts for each of a school's classes. School districts qualify for half of the subsidy if they limit class size to 20 students or fewer just during the time they receive instruction in math and reading, not for the entire school day. Can California still afford the program? Because of its popularity, the Legislature has preserved funding for class-size reduction, making it one of the few education programs to survive the budget axe. But because Sacramento does not cover the full costs, the Legislature has made it easier for school districts to raise class sizes. Until recently, schools lost their entire subsidy if the average reached 21.9 students. Now they will lose 20 percent of the subsidy if K-3 class size reach 24 students and 30 percent if class sizes go to 25 or more. How does California class size compare with other states? In 1996, California's K-3 class sizes were an average of 28.6 children – among the largest in the nation. The class-size reduction program brought California's K-3 class sizes in line with those in many other states. However, when looking across all 12 grades, California still lags far behind most states on another standard measure, teacher-student ratios. In 2007-08 California still had a higher teacher-student ratio than all other states except Utah and Arizona. Recent teacher layoffs, along with increases in class sizes, threaten to push California even further behind other states. (The ratios are reached by dividing student enrollments by the total number of full-time equivalent teachers, even though not all are classroom teachers.) Who do I contact about the program? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger 916.445.2841 gov.ca.gov/interact#email The governor is the major single decision-maker in how education dollars are spent.
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento 916.651.4006 senator.steinberg@senate.ca.gov The Senate leader is often considered the second most powerful politician in the state – behind only Schwarzenegger. He can shape and influence budget and policy decisions coming out of the Legislature.
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles 916.319.2047 speaker.bass@assembly.ca.gov Bass' office was instrumental in providing school districts more flexibility in how they spend class-size reduction funds. She has influence over all education policy coming out of the Legislature.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell 916.319.0800 superintendent@cde.ca.gov The state's highest-ranking education official was a major backer of class-size reduction and helps set policy for the state.

Rising Class Sizes: Where the story appeared

Mark S. Luckie — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:46:04 -0800

California Watch’s report on class size appeared in various media, including several newspapers including the Los Angeles Daily News, Modesto Bee and the San Diego Union-Tribune. As a part of our collaboration with KQED Radio, the class size story also aired on KQED's The California Report. The program was also heard on more than two dozen other public radio stations around California. California Watch Director Louis Freedberg will appear on KQED's Forum to discuss the class size issue.
Bay Area television station KGO (Channel 7) also carried a report by investigative reporter Dan Noyes on the class size issue.

In a new collaboration, KCRA, the #1 station in the Sacramento market, will also carry a story on California's class size issue. We thank all partners for being a part of this important story.

Are California class sizes increasing?

Sarah McHie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:19:50 -0800

A California Watch survey of the state's 30 largest, K-12 school districts found that class sizes in kindergarten through third grade are increasing beyond 20 in many districts. In general, the figures in this map refer to teacher-student ratios set by the district for the 2009-10 school year. Actual class size may vary at individual schools depending on enrollments and attendance. District officials provided all responses.

How do California student-teacher ratios compare?

Sarah McHie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:09:06 -0800

Select any state on the left to see how it compares to California in terms of student-to-teacher ration for public, K-12 schools. Source: National Education Association (NEA) Rankings and Estimates 2006–07. Figures refer to the ratio between students and all full-time, credentialed teaching staff in a school during the 2006-2007 school year. This is the most recent year for which figures are available.

VIDEO: How are larger class sizes affecting California teachers?

Sarah McHie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:42:57 -0800

Teachers and administrators at Plummer Elementary in California's San Fernando Valley discuss how large class sizes affect their instruction.

What does large class size mean for teachers? (Part 1) How do teachers manage their classrooms with more students? (Part 2) What does larger class size mean for teachers? (Part 3)

Despite state subsidies, class sizes begin to rise again in California schools

Sarah McHie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:12:40 -0800

Most of California's largest school districts are increasing class sizes in kindergarten through third grade, eroding the most expensive education reform in the state’s history.   California Watch surveyed the 30 largest K-12 school districts in the state and found that many schools are pushing class sizes to 24 in some or all of the early grades. Other districts have raised class sizes to 30 students – reverting to levels not seen in more than a decade. The changes at more than two-thirds of the districts surveyed have parents and teachers concerned that the academic performance of millions of children will suffer. California already ranks 48th in the nation in terms of student to teacher ratios. And new measures are in place that will allow districts statewide to raise class sizes even higher and still receive more than $1 billion in state aid — money that was originally intended to reward schools that kept class sizes low. The class-size reduction program was adopted 13 years ago with much fanfare. Its goal was to bring the state’s overcrowded K-3 classrooms down to a maximum of 20 students for every teacher in the lower grades. As an incentive to participate, Sacramento gave school districts a generous annual subsidy for every child – now $1,071 per child. Carol Kocivar, California PTA’s president-elect, said that adding just four students more than the base level of 20 represents a significant increase. “When you start inching up above 20, kids don’t get the individual attention they need,” she said. The state has invested about $22 billion in direct subsidies into reducing class size, including $1.8 billion this school year. This is on top of billions more that individual school districts have had to pay to cover the full costs. The program was rooted in research from other states that showed students in smaller classrooms were more successful academically. Even though the state never implemented measurements to track the academic impact of class-size reduction, the program has been enormously popular among parents and teachers. Yet because of the state’s budget crisis, school officials are finding it harder than ever to sustain. That’s the case in both the Mount Diablo Unified School District, in Contra Costa County, and the San Jose Unified School District. In Orange County’s Capistrano Unified School District, second and third grade classes have grown to an average of 30.5 students. In Los Angeles, which enrolls 10 percent of California’s students, K-3 class sizes are creeping up to 24 in many schools. “In better times it is something that should be protected, but in the times we are in, it is not something we can afford to continue,” said Don Iglesias, San Jose’s superintendent, noting that raising class sizes to 30 will save his district $4 million this year alone. At Oliveira Elementary School, in a quiet residential neighborhood of Fremont, kindergarten teacher Cheryl Accurso is adjusting to a 30-student classroom for the first time in her 11-year career. “My worry is that with 30 kids in the class, I won’t be able to reach out and touch, and get to every child in my classroom,” she said. “When they come in the morning, I make sure I tap them on the shoulder or pat them on the head, and say their names, so that there is at least one time when I know I can get to all the children.” California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, who authored the class-size-reduction legislation when he was a state senator, said that it is no accident that elementary school students in recent years have achieved significant academic gains. “That is now in jeopardy because we have so many school districts walking away from class-size reduction,” he said. For most of the program’s existence, schools lost the entire subsidy if the average class size hit 21. That has proved to be a powerful incentive for schools to participate. All but about a dozen of the state’s 883 eligible districts have done so. The state Legislature has designated lower class sizes as a top priority for education spending. The program was one of a handful that escaped the budget axe this year. At the same time, however, lawmakers acted earlier this year to make it easier for schools to abandon the program. The move allows school districts to raise K-3 classes to as high as 31 students on average — at least for the next three years. Schools that raise the class size above 25 can still receive 70 percent of the subsidies they have received in the past. In past years, K-3 classes of 22 or more students would have been denied state funding through the program. In theory, school districts could spend more than $1.2 billion of the $1.8 billion set aside for the program on classes with 25 or more students. Rick Simpson, deputy chief of staff to Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, and her chief adviser on education policy, said lawmakers are hoping the popularity of the program will force school districts to keep class sizes small, despite reducing the penalties for exceeding the 20-student cap. He said the goal was to give school districts more flexibility in how they spend class-size reduction funds, something they have sought for years. But former Gov. Pete Wilson, who initiated class-size reduction when the state enjoyed a budget surplus in 1996, said the recent changes “totally defeat the purpose of the program. If you get 70 percent of the funds for doing nothing, where is that money going? It is not accomplishing the purpose for which the program was devised.” One purpose was to bring California’s class sizes down — to get them in line with those of other states. That did happen in the elementary grades. But by 2007, California had larger student-teacher ratios than every state except Utah and Arizona across all 12 grades. Larger K-3 class sizes now threaten to push California even further behind. “Having the largest class size in America is a crime and a shame,” said Delaine Eastin, the former superintendent of public instruction who oversaw the implementation of the class-size-reduction initiative until 2002. It is not only poor districts that are affected. In fact, in some cases, districts serving large numbers of low-income and minority students have benefited from the additional $1.25 billion in Title 1 stimulus funds California receives from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. And nearly 500 of the state’s lowest-performing schools are still receiving funds from the Quality Education Investment Act, passed by the Legislature in 2007. These funds have allowed school districts like Los Angeles to maintain some of their K-3 class sizes at previous levels. The Fremont Unified School District has so far been able to keep class sizes to 20 in the first, second and third grades. But in kindergarten, enrollments have risen to 30. This year, at Oliveira Elementary, Accurso has her students sitting in groups of six, at five tables, instead of groups of four, at five tables, as in previous years. Across the yard, one of the bungalows brought to the school when the class-size reduction program began in 1996, now stands empty. But Accurso isn’t nostalgic about the smaller class sizes. “My focus is on the 30 kids I have in front of me and what I can do for each of them,” she said. “I can’t be thinking about what might have been. I can’t go there.” She says she is managing with the extra kids – in part because she gets help from another teacher for about two hours, as well as parent volunteers. “We’re just worried that we won’t be able to get them where they need to be at the end of the year,” she said. In Los Angeles, each of the district’s 524 elementary schools could choose between retaining all their teachers and keeping class sizes low – or laying off teachers and keeping support staff such as school nurses, math coaches and “intervention coordinators.” At Plummer Elementary in the San Fernando Valley, principal Angel Barrett, made the painful choice to let go seven of the school’s first and second year teachers, out of a teaching staff of 45. As in many schools across Los Angeles, her classrooms are more crowded this year. “You guys are doing a great job at listening,” Norma Plascencia, a teacher with 22 years of classroom experience, told her 24 second-graders on a recent morning, before launching into a lesson about family trees. “It doesn’t make it impossible to teach, it just makes it harder,” she said. Plascencia said she and other teachers are doing much more advance planning to take into account the extra students. “We are not mass-producing items; we’re not making shoes or pizza. We are dealing with human beings — so four extra bodies are not just four extra bodies — it is everything that comes with them, or doesn’t come with them.” Will it affect how her students will do this year? “It better not,” she said. “You have to assume they can reach for the stars. Are some going to fall by the wayside? We’ll find out this year. Is there a possibility? Yes, I think there is.’’ Her comment points to the controversy that has so far been waged mostly in academic circles – whether class-size reduction makes a difference in boosting student performance. Dominic Brewer, a USC professor, said there is no compelling research showing that class-size reduction results in improved academic performance in California. What research does exist has typically been done in other states and in classrooms with even smaller enrollments than in California. “A class of 20 may be terrible for an ineffective teacher,” he said. “And a great teacher can do great things with 30.” Some education leaders who have been lukewarm about the program are now making the case that the funds could be better used. “I don’t think 20-to-1 is sacred,” said L.A. schools Superintendent Ramon Cortines. More important, he said, “is the kind of quality time you spend with your students, and how you divide your time in the classroom.” To tackle high drop-out rates, he believes the real need is for smaller classes in middle and high schools, where class sizes in his district have soared to 40 and higher in some schools. San Jose’s Iglesias said that even if the state’s economy rebounds, he’s not sure he’d put money back into the class-size-reduction program. “I’d put it into longer school days or Saturday classes rather than this,” he said. But California superintendent O’Connell doesn’t share any of these concerns. He said his experience as a teacher in Ventura County convinced him of the merits of smaller classes. The same goes for Doug Wheeler, a veteran kindergarten teacher in San Pablo, just north of Richmond, who said that the larger the class, the more difficult it is for teachers to “deliver the goods.” This year he volunteered to take more students into his bilingual class rather than having some of them be cut from the program. He now has 27 students. “Teaching is not just standing in front of the class and delivering a lesson,” he said. “It’s about working with kids who are in danger of falling far behind. To get really good results, it has to be one on two, or even one on one.” This story was edited by Editorial Director Mark Katches and copy edited by William Cooley.

Putting a price on trees

Mark Schapiro — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:07:56 -0800

The first time I heard there was a $150 billion market in carbon I thought I’d misheard the letter “b.” That was about a year ago. I quickly discovered that, indeed, it was “billion,” not million. But how could you spend $150 billion on something that barely anyone—in the U.S. anyway—understands? The number is the value of carbon offsets that have been traded on the international carbon market. The market was created in 2005 by the cap-and-trade system established in countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol (every developed country has ratified the treaty except the United States). In other words, “cap,” meaning government-mandated emission limits, and “trade,” meaning you can buy your way out of those limits through investments that reduce emissions elsewhere. Roll forward five years, and carbon is now the fastest-growing commodity in the world, with companies buying and selling carbon credits much like pork bellies or silver. Once the U.S. establishes its own set of emission limits—and offsets to meet them—the market for carbon is expected to explode into a multitrillion-dollar business. Finding out what lies behind those numbers led the Center for Investigative Reporting and FRONTLINE/World to launch our Carbon Watch series. Our first step in this ongoing investigation took us far from negotiations in Washington deep into the forests of Brazil. Three major U.S. companies, each with their own huge carbon footprint, invested in 50,000 acres of forestland on Brazil’s southeast coast. By agreeing not to cut down the trees, and thus sequestering the carbon dioxide rather than releasing it into the atmosphere, they’re hoping to obtain offset credits. It’s something we’re likely to see more of: Every major bill now being considered by the U.S. Congress includes the potential for American companies to invest in forests like this one and use them as credits to either offset their own emissions or sell on the market. While most Americans are not aware of what this market is, people in Brazil certainly are. While we visited the carbon reserve in Parana state, my colleague Andres Cediel, the producer of this segment, filmed a high school class in the port town of Antonina, on the edge of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, one of the most bio-diverse regions on earth. The teacher turned the blackboard over to her star student and asked her to present the basic principles behind how a Brazilian forest could be turned into an offset. It was a scene I would not forget: You can watch it for yourself in the clip above. If a student in Brazil could explain to her peers how the forests in her backyard are being turned into an offset by American companies thousands of miles away, then we should start trying to figure this out. The resulting FRONTLINE/World video and companion print story in the November/December issue of Mother Jones begin the first chapter. We’ll be headed to Washington shortly and next month to Copenhagen where all the key political and financial players will be hammering out a new global climate deal. Stay with us as we investigate the financial, geopolitical and environmental forces at work in this new economy of global warming.

ICE moving forward with new Los Angeles-area immigration lock-up

Andrew Becker — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:46:13 -0800

The federal agency that oversees immigration detention will solicit bids next month for a new 2,200-bed detention center in the Los Angeles area. Update: As of Dec. 14 ICE has delayed its bid solicitation date.

"The Government anticipates release of the solicitation during the first quarter of 2010. The response date will be changed based on the date of release," according to the fedbizopps.gov.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, posted an online notice this week stating that it intends to open bids on Dec. 15 for a contractor to own and operate a low-custody detention facility for men. The facility would be one of the largest immigration lock-ups in the country. Continuing a policy pushed under the Bush administration, the Obama team has moved to deport more criminal aliens, which has also driven a need for more bed space. Los Angeles County is one of the first counties in California to participate in ICE’s Secure Communities program, which screens the immigration status of all booked inmates. Several dozen counties, mostly along the Southwest border, participate in the program, which will be rolled out nationwide over the next few years. Update: ICE announced today that its Secure Communities initiative identified more than 111,000 criminal aliens in local custody during its first year. From the press release:

Since its inception in October 2008, Secure Communities has identified more than 11,000 aliens charged or convicted with Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping—1,900 of which have already been removed from the United States—and more than 100,000 aliens convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes. -snip- Currently, DHS prioritizes the deployment of Secure Communities to jurisdictions with the highest volume of dangerous criminal aliens.

Homeland Security officials have said they want to reform immigration detention, including increased use of alternatives to detention such as ankle bracelet monitoring. Immigration advocates have said that the reforms are a good start, but don’t go far enough to address human rights concerns. Officials have also indicated that they aim to shift toward more civil rather than prison-like detention centers. In announcing a number of initiatives, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE chief John Morton last month said ICE has begun the creation of a custody classification system to assign detainees to appropriate facilities based on risk assessment. According to the pre-solicitation notice posted on the federal contracting Web site fedbizopps.gov, the facility will generally house men convicted of non-violent offenses, “non-convicted criminals” and “fugitive aliens and immigration recidivists.” No more than 10 percent of the detainees will be violent criminals. ICE also wants immigration courtrooms at the detention center, which will have two main housing areas of no more than 1,000 detainees each, subdivided into units of approximately 60 beds. The notice also calls for a 200-bed unit for administrative and disciplinary segregation and a 100-bed health care facility with medical, dental, and mental health services. The five-year base contract is expected to be awarded in July. The response deadline is Feb. 22. ICE closed a detention center on Terminal Island in San Pedro about two years ago because of needed repairs. More than 400 detainees were transferred to other facilities in California, Arizona, Texas and Washington, according to the Los Angeles Times.

CIR's Mark Schapiro discusses Carbon Watch project on Boston radio

Sarah McHie — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:22:35 -0800

This morning, CIR's Mark Schapiro was interviewed about his latest project, Carbon Watch, on Boston public radio station WBUR's "Here and Now." Carbon Watch is a joint project of CIR and FRONTLINE/World investigating the carbon offsets industry. Schapiro's first stories take a closer look at one "avoided deforestation" project in Brazil. Schapiro's work was also mentioned by the REDD-Monitor, an online journal that discusses carbon credit projects categorized as REDD—"reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation."

California Watch and KQED announce editorial collaboration

CIR Staff — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:42:27 -0800

California Watch, a division of the Center for Investigative Reporting, and KQED Public Radio today announced a new editorial collaboration that will expand the exposure of investigative and other high-impact stories produced by California Watch, for the benefit of listeners statewide. The new collaboration will result in reports airing on KQED Public Radio’s The California Report, which is distributed to 28 stations throughout the California region, reaching 620,000 listeners per week. The collaboration will include the production of interactive multimedia tools that will be featured on the websites of both organizations; in-depth radio reports produced exclusively for KQED; radio and television appearances by California Watch journalists on KQED programs; and the pooling of editorial resources. Veteran investigative journalist Michael Montgomery will produce the California Watch reports that will air on KQED. In addition, California Watch’s Sacramento-based reporters will share office space with KQED’s Capitol Bureau. “Public radio is a critical distribution outlet and this opportunity to reach large numbers of public radio listeners in California fits right into our strategy of maximizing the impact of our stories by using multiple media platforms,” said Robert Rosenthal, executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting. “KQED has been a long-time partner of the CIR and we are excited about expanding the relationship even further -- in a way that benefits both of our organizations and most importantly, serves Californians.” “This collaboration is groundbreaking, and we are excited to be a part of it,” said Jo Anne Wallace, KQED vice president and general manager. “KQED is always looking for new ways to inform, educate, and engage our audiences. California Watch plans to produce exactly the kind of high quality journalism along with innovative interactive multimedia tools that our audiences want.” The editorial collaboration between KQED and California Watch began earlier in November. Michael Montgomery, who will be based at CIR, and who has reported extensively on the criminal justice system in California, will produce original radio reports for KQED. In addition, he will work with other California Watch journalists on radio releases of their stories that will air on KQED. Montgomery comes to California Watch from American RadioWorks, where he has been a correspondent and producer since 1999. In addition to statewide broadcasts, KQED will seek to distribute California Watch stories nationally and internationally. California Watch broadcasts will also be available for download at www.kqed.org. For more information, contact Scott Walton at KQED, swalton@kqed.org/415-553-2145, or Lisa Cohen at California Watch, 310-395-2544.

CIR's Mark Schapiro talks about visit to carbon offset project in Brazil on Democracy Now

CIR Staff — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:12:51 -0800

On Democracy Now!, CIR's Mark Schapiro discusses his reporting trip into the heart of the carbon offsets market on the Atlantic coast of Brazil–where a tree owned by General Motors is given an offset value of $1. Schapiro's report is part of a joint project between CIR and FRONTLINE/World that launched this week: "Carbon Watch: Tracking the New Currencies of Global Warming" In a FRONTLINE/World video series, and accompanying Mother Jones article, Schapiro speaks with people who were displaced from a preserve where they've lived for generations—a forest now owned by General Motors. The forest was purchased by GM in partnership with the Nature Conservancy as part of an initiative to preserve biodiversity. What does GM get out of the deal? "The potentially lucrative rights to the carbon sequestered in the trees," Schapiro explains in his article. And unfortunately for the Guarani Indians and subsistence farmers who live in and near the forest, the new designation of the land as nature preserve and carbon offset project means they are no longer welcome. "I heard numerous stories of people being harassed, arrested, and shot at while looking for food, wood, or reeds," Schapiro writes. He notes this has dire consequences for the community:

By excluding villagers from the forests, says Jutta Kill, a researcher with the Forests and the European Union Resource Network who has spent months interviewing locals about the project, the reserves are pulling out the communities' lifeline. "In this area," she says, "everyone is cash poor but no one goes hungry. If you take the forest away, you take away everything. The preservation projects here are designed to generate offsets for the largest polluters, and they're doing it by cutting off people from the land." Few of the people here have motors on their boats, she notes; even fewer own cars. People with some of the smallest carbon footprints on Earth are being displaced by companies with some of the biggest.

World leaders prepare for climate change talks in Copenhagen; fossil fuel industry prepares multinational backlash

Carrie Ching — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:24:01 -0800

As the Kyoto Protocol runs out, world leaders plan to reconvene in Copenhagen, Denmark this December to discuss provisions for a new multinational treaty to reduce carbon emissions and prevent climate change. At the same time, fossil fuel industries and other heavy carbon emitters are preparing a global campaign to influence negotiations at the conference and protect their interests. Reporters from the Center for Public Integrity in D.C. have joined a team of journalists from eight countries "deemed essential to a successful treaty"— Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Japan, the United States, and European Union—to investigate this multinational lobbying campaign. The report, "The Global Climate Change Lobby," was released by CPI this week. It includes an interactive map showing current levels of greenhouse gas emissions by country. The CPI report coincided with the launch of CIR's collaborative project with FRONTLINE/World to investigate the trillion-dollar carbon trading market: "Carbon Watch." From the CPI report:

Relying on more than 200 interviews, lobbying and campaign contribution records in a half-dozen countries, and on-the-ground reporting from Beijing to Brussels, our team pieced together the story of a far-reaching, multinational backlash by fossil fuel industries and other heavy carbon emitters aimed at slowing progress on control of greenhouse gas emissions. Employing thousands of lobbyists, millions in political contributions, and widespread fear tactics, entrenched interests worldwide are thwarting the steps that scientists say are needed to stave off a looming environmental calamity, the investigation found. Among our findings: • Both developed and developing countries are under heavy pressure by fossil fuel industries and other carbon-intensive businesses to slow progress on negotiations and weaken government commitments. The clash cannot simply be framed as one between richer and poorer nations. • China’s moves to hasten development of renewable energy, Brazil’s pledges to curb Amazon deforestation, and other steps to address climate change in the developing world have prompted a strong pushback from domestic in-country interests determined to maintain the status quo. • Instead of a broad frontal assault on the climate science that marked the pre-Kyoto battles, lobbyists seeking to dilute the Copenhagen treaty have changed strategy, acknowledging there is a problem while focusing on slowing or easing national commitments. • The intensity of the lobbying can be seen most clearly in developed countries, where official registers reveal that thousands of industry representatives have attempted to influence climate legislation. In the United States, there are now about 2,810 climate lobbyists — five lobbyists for every member of Congress — a 400 percent jump from six years earlier. And in Australia, Canada, and the European Union, hundreds more lobbyists are at work attempting to block or water down strict limits on carbon emissions. • Powerful corporations are fielding multinational efforts to influence the debate, such as Peabody Coal, the world’s largest coal company, in Australia and the United States; and oil giant Exxon Mobil in Canada, the European Union, and the United States. Although largely operating at a national level, opponents of a strong climate change treaty are employing similar fear tactics worldwide, including threats of massive blackouts and job losses. • The voices of scores of business advocates for stronger climate change policy, including alternative energy companies and would-be players in the carbon market, can barely be heard above the clamor of the older, well-capitalized, and deeply entrenched industries that have been lobbying on climate change for more than 20 years. • As a result of the forces arrayed against stricter emissions limits, no developed nation has made a firm pledge for the kind of emissions cut scientists say will be needed within the next decade to stave off catastrophic climate change.

CIR and FRONTLINE/World launch "Carbon Watch"

CIR Staff — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Today, the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and FRONTLINE/World launched "Carbon Watch," an investigative collaboration that will track the evolving, soon-to-be trillion-dollar global carbon market. The project will take an ongoing, in-depth look at the often hidden interests behind the proposed solutions to the climate change crisis. This investigation will be presented on multiple platforms – print, radio, television and online – all aggregated on Carbon Watch. The Web site, produced by CIR and FRONTLINE/World, will provide the public with extensive ongoing reporting on the markets created by cap and trade, from original stories to background information, blogs and dispatches from reporters around the world. "Climate change is one of the key issues of our time," said Robert Rosenthal, Executive Director of CIR. "Through this unique collaboration with FRONTLINE/World, our goal is to make it possible for the world to experience what is happening in real-time through blogs, videos and in-depth reporting. ‘Carbon Watch’ provides the public with a compelling multimedia platform and a central place to learn about these critical decisions that will affect our environment, the global economy and the balance of power for years to come." The project is being led by CIR’s award-winning Senior Correspondent Mark Schapiro. "Carbon Watch" launches today with Schapiro’s first story, "The Money Tree," a video report from Brazil. The video, produced in association with Mother Jones magazine – which features a print version of the story in its November/ December issue – follows the trail of a carbon offset project launched in a Brazilian forest by three U.S. companies: General Motors, Chevron and American Electric Power. Schapiro is also the correspondent for a two-part radio series on this topic scheduled to air on American Public Media’s Marketplace in November. His ongoing coverage will include video and blog reports from the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. Further stories will be released in multiple outlets and on this Web site in the months to come. "With 'Carbon Watch,' we've created a groundbreaking joint project in online investigative reporting that allows us to engage a worldwide audience on a complex and unfolding global story," said Sharon Tiller, Series Executive Director, FRONTLINE/World. "This multimedia initiative brings together the best of in-depth reporting and innovative storytelling to create a unique evergreen web destination that covers the business of climate change in a way that goes far beyond current media coverage." For more information on Carbon Watch, visit pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/.

GM's Money Trees

Mark Schapiro — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:10:01 -0700

On Brazil's Atlantic coast, people with some of the world's lowest carbon footprints are being displaced—so their forests can become offsets for US corporations. CIR's Mark Schapiro reports for Mother Jones. >> Read the full article on MotherJones.com.

Investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell breaking ground in Civil Rights-era cold cases

Carrie Ching — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:28:19 -0700

Today in the American South, scores of civil rights murders remain unsolved, uninvestigated, unprosecuted, and untold. Those two legacies of violence and silence still haunt the region and continue to damage race relations in the United States. Investigative journalist Jerry Mitchell has been re-opening many of these "cold cases" while reporting at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. His work has resulted in convictions in four cases, and has revealed evidence in several others. Last month, Mitchell was awarded the MacArthur Foundation's "Genius Grant"—a $500,000 award. He talks about his work in an article published today by Editor & Publisher: "Aiding Justice in Civil Rights-era Murder Cases." Mitchell is joined by several other reporters doing similar investigations on unsolved Civil Rights-era murder cases in a collaborative project that will launch next month by the Center for Investigative Reporting, Paperny Films, and WNET in New York. Stay tuned.

Brazil: The Money Tree

Mark Schapiro — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:53:15 -0700

In the new economy created by global warming, forests are turning into a valuable commodity. Promising not to cut them down is one of the most popular ways companies would like to offset their emissions. Correspondent Mark Schapiro follows the trail of one of those offset projects deep into Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. This multimedia feature is a joint project between CIR and FRONTLINE/World.

Obama administration preparing for immigration reform ... or shuffling the deck?

Andrew Becker — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:54:01 -0700

In another sign that the Obama administration is preparing for — or at least thinking about — sweeping reforms of the nation's broken immigration system, the agency that polices the nation's immigration laws has created a new position to work on issues related to possible new legislation. John W. Salter, who previously ran the Los Angeles legal office for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was recently named to the newly created post of ICE Special Counsel for Legal Affairs, ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley confirmed in an email to the Center for Investigative Reporting. Salter's other responsibilities include "working with ICE's Headquarters legal division to prepare legal guidance on complex areas of immigration law, monitoring the development of case law and analyzing the impact of these changes on ICE's litigation strategy and working on issues related to comprehensive immigration reform," Haley wrote. The Obama administration has said that fixing the nation's immigration system will have to wait until next year. In the interim, the Department of Homeland Security, which has been tasked with planning for the legislative push, is drafting language for a possible bill, sources say. Earlier the month, Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, told The New York Times that his agency is preparing for the possibility of giving "legal status to millions of illegal immigrants" as part of a legislative package. Salter assumed his new duties on Sept. 28. He reports to the director of field legal operations. Salter had been the chief counsel in Los Angeles for ICE and the former INS since 1991, according to Haley. The Los Angeles chief counsel's office made big news over the summer with the ICE crackdown on illegal immigrants employed by LA-based clothier American Apparel. The new ICE chief counsel in Los Angeles, the agency's largest field office, is James S. Stolley. From Haley:

Stolley oversees a staff of approximately 100 attorneys and 33 support personnel. During the course of his federal career, Mr. Stolley has held a variety of key legal positions. Most recently, he served as the Chief of Staff to ICE’s Principal Legal Advisor in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, he was the Deputy Chief Counsel for ICE in San Francisco, a position he assumed in 2002. Mr. Stolley received his law degree from the University of Maine School of Law. He began his government career as a trial attorney for the former INS in 1994 in San Francisco.

Let's break this down, abilities, credentials, and degrees aside: ICE's principal legal advisor (top attorney) — whom Mr. Stolley served as chief of staff — is Peter Vincent (bio here). After graduating from the University of Virginia law school in 1995 (he took an bachelor of arts degree with high honors in political science from the University of California, Berkeley), he worked for about seven years in the legal department as a litigator for the multi-national engineering firm Bechtel Corporation before he joined the former INS in July 2002. His first INS job was in the San Francisco chief counsel's office, where Stolley was deputy chief counsel. John T. Morton, assistant secretary for ICE (bio here), graduated from the University of Virginia law school a year before Vincent. He joined the federal government in 1994, first in New York as an INS trial attorney through the Justice Department honors program. He went on to become special assistant to INS general counsel David A. Martin, who took a leave of absence as a law professor at the University of Virginia from 1995 to 1998, to serve in that position. Martin (brief bio here) is now the principal deputy general counsel of the Department of Homeand Security. Quick question: Why would Salter leave a post he held for 18 years?

Mexican human rights activist released by U.S. immigration

Andrew Becker — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:32:58 -0700

Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, a human-rights investigator in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, was released last Wednesday after being held for about a week. The El Paso Times has the story here.

Second immigration official leaves new federal office

Andrew Becker — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:00:00 -0700

A second high-ranking official in a two-month-old federal office that oversees immigration detention policy and planning has left the government, sources say. Cree Zischke, tasked with addressing detainee health care issues for Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of Detention Policy and Planning, departed just weeks after her boss, Dr. Dora Schriro, left ICE in late September to become commissioner of New York City's jails. “I am no longer with the ICE Office of Detention Planning and Policy (sic),” she wrote in an out-of-office auto-reply received on Oct. 14 by the Center for Investigative Reporting. Sources this week confirmed that Zischke is no longer with ICE, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, and has returned to the private sector. Calls seeking comment from Zischke were not returned. Zischke came to ICE from the Arizona Department of Corrections, where she directed a program that addressed health and mental health services, among other concerns, according to her resume posted on LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking Web site. She followed Schriro, her former boss in Arizona, to Washington, D.C., leaving her prison post in March. Before directing the ICE detention policy and planning office, Schriro had advised Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on immigration detention. Before that, she ran Arizona's prisons when Napolitano was governor of the state. The New York Times reported in September that Schriro left DHS because of “the needs of a sick family member in New York, not any policy disagreements with the administration.” Schriro left the position a little more than a month into her job as the director of the new ICE office, which was unveiled in early August. Phyllis A. Coven, who has spent 17 years in federal government, most recently with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, replaced Schriro as the office's acting director. The decision — and timing — of both departures surprised advocates, Congressional staffers and other government employees, and left many speculating about the reasons. Megan Bremer, managing attorney of the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center, which offers legal services to detained immigrants in York, Penn., said advocacy groups like hers were optimistic about discussions over reform with Schriro and Zischke, and hoped the same efforts would continue. “Folks in the Department of Homeland Security, like Cree, were really reaching out to advocates, sitting down across the table from us and listening,” she said. “PIRC is very disappointed that the kind of people who have the ability to create partnerships are leaving the government during this critical period of reform." Immigration advocates had put stock in Schriro to overhaul the nation’s immigration detention system, first as a special advisor to Secretary Napolitano, then as the new office’s first director. After Schriro left advocates hoped that Zischke would continue what her former boss had started. In early October Schriro released a 35-page report that outlined recommendations and potential reforms to the immigration detention system, which uses more than 300 facilities around the country to hold more than 30,000 detainees on any given day. Among the announced reforms are new classification systems for detainees, including those with special medical needs, greater oversight of detention facilities and contracts, and an expansion of alternatives to detention.

Canada denying asylum to Mexican police officers

Andrew Becker — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:55:52 -0700

The United States isn't the only country denying asylum to Mexican police officers, despite widely reported drug violence south of the border and allegations that the Mexican government cannot protect its own. The Toronto Globe and Mail last week highlighted what it called a “model” Juarez police officer who unsuccessfully sought protection in his own country before fleeing to Canada. According to the paper, Gustavo Gutierrez Masareno fled Juarez after he confronted the army on civil-rights abuses and began receiving death threats. The Chihuahua Attorney-General's office advised him to go into hiding because it couldn't protect him, he said. The paper also reported that other former Mexican police officers have had their asylum claims rejected by the Canadian government. The New York Times followed a few days later with a long, front-page story on the risks investigators – police and journalists among them – have doing their jobs. In collaboration with the Los Angeles Times, CIR reported in June on the difficulties that Mexican police officers have winning asylum in U.S. immigration courts. The immigration cases of those officers profiled in the article remain in limbo. One is awaiting his court date later this year, another had his asylum application rejected and awaits a judge to decide his fate and the last one expects to file his asylum application shortly. But not all investigators are seeking asylum. As reported earlier this week, a Mexican human rights activist who has temporarily fled his country is fighting to get released from immigration detention because although he is afraid for his life in Mexico, he doesn’t want asylum in the United States. Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, 63, directed the Juarez office of the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission, across the border from El Paso. He had documented 170 incidents of abuse by the Mexican military, and because of this had his life threatened. He had been moving back and forth across the border when he was arrested last week by Customs and Border Protection as he tried to enter the country on a visa. De la Rosa was later transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in El Paso. Both agencies are part of the Department of Homeland Security. His attorney, Carlos Spector, said that as of today de la Rosa was no longer in ICE custody, but he hadn't been released with his visa.

Detective Longmire cleared of misconduct in Chauncey Bailey case

CIR Staff — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:26:48 -0700

The San Francisco Chronicle reported today that Sgt. Derwin Longmire, the Oakland police sergeant who led the investigation into the 2007 slaying of journalist Chauncey Bailey, "has been cleared of internal charges that he compromised the probe to keep the leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery from being implicated." Longmire has been on paid leave for six months as an internal investigation looked into the state attorney general's conclusion that he had mishandled the probe of the Aug. 2, 2007, Bailey slaying. State investigators had found "Longmire's inquiry was 'inexcusably lacking' for allegedly failing to look into bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV's possible role in the killing," the Chronicle reports. Oakland police officials apparently disagreed, and Police Chief Howard Jordan has ordered that he return to duty. Upon returning, he will serve a five-day suspension for minor problems with other homicide cases, the Chronicle reports. Longmire's attorney Michael Rains told the Chronicle that Longmire "always believed that Bey had orchestrated Bailey's killing ... and did nothing to keep him from being charged. Any problems in the case were, at worst, caused by Longmire being 'sloppy and inattentive to detail.'" Reporters at The Chauncey Bailey Project have reported extensively on the ties between Sergeant Longmire and the Bey family, some of whom were suspects in the murder case. An investigation by Thomas Peele, Bob Butler, and Mary Fricker last October found Longmire ignored evidence of Yusuf Bey IV's possible involvement in the Bailey slaying, and that he interfered on behalf of Bey IV in two other felony cases. See the CIR timeline of Longmire's ties to the Bey family and the mounting evidence connecting Bey IV to the Bailey murder here: According to the Chronicle article:

Longmire and Bey IV had known each other for two years before the Bailey killing. Several police investigators interviewed as part of the state probe cited that friendship in faulting the decision to put Longmire on the case. In a memo to [Police Chief Howard] Jordan, acting Capt. Sean Whent, head of the police internal affairs unit, said the state findings showed Longmire "deliberately did an inadequate investigation ... most likely due to a relationship" with Bey. Even Jordan told state investigators in February that given Longmire's friendship with the bakery leader, "I don't see how you can form the conclusion that it's not affecting his ability to investigate the case thoroughly."

Mexican human rights activist detained by U.S. immigration officials

Andrew Becker — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:01:42 -0700

A Mexican human rights investigator who has said his life has been threatened because of his efforts to document alleged abuses by the Mexican military is being detained by U.S. immigration officials after he tried to enter the country through an El Paso border crossing, his attorney said Friday. Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, who directed the Juarez office of the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission in northern Mexico, has documented about 170 incidents of abuse by the Mexican military, ranging from homicide to reckless driving, his attorney said. De la Rosa, 63, last month fled his home near Juarez, which has been racked with drug-related violence the past two years, including nearly 2,000 killings since January. He has been in exile in El Paso since receiving a death threat, which he believes came from the military, as he drove home from work. De La Rosa, however, doesn’t want asylum in the United States, his El Paso-based attorney, Carlos Spector, said. “He doesn’t want to leave his country and abandon his life-long commitment. He wants to continue investigating” allegations of human rights abuses by the military, Spector said. “He doesn’t want to stay in any one place each night.“ The investigator was returning to El Paso on Thursday night around 6 p.m. when he was asked by a Customs and Border Protection officer if he was afraid for his life in his country. De la Rosa, who has a special visa for border residents that allows him to be in the United States for up to 30 days at a time, answered that he was afraid, but he had no intention of asking for asylum, Spector said. He was then arrested. He is now being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in El Paso, ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa confirmed today, but declined further comment. Roger Maier, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection in El Paso, said that if a person expresses fear of returning to their home country an asylum officer must conduct an interview to determine if asylum is appropriate. U.S. officials said they had detained de la Rosa for his protection, according to Spector. “There is absolutely no reason why they should be detaining him. He hasn’t been in the country for more than 30 days,” Spector said. “He has every right to be in this country.” Spector suggested that the U.S. government is trying to compel de la Rosa to seek asylum so it can deny it, even though his case appears winnable. “The United States government doesn’t force anyone to file (an asylum application) who doesn’t want to file an application,” said Maria Garcia-Upson, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Service, which adjudicates asylum claims. Asylum officers give a detainee 48 hours to contact a family member or an attorney before a credible fear interview. Most credible fear interviews are conducted and decided upon within two weeks, she said. The activist was in his car waiting at a stoplight on Sept. 4 when another car pulled up beside him, Spector said. The driver rolled down his window, pointed his finger and pretended to shoot him, saying "Quiet down or we are going to kill you." The Mexican military has denied any involvement in the threat on his life. De la Rosa, who still occasionally travels into Juarez for meetings, has been negotiating with Mexican officials to receive protection and security measures so he can continue his work, Spector said. The investigator was told that he would be out of a job if he didn’t report back to work by Oct. 6, according to Amnesty International, which has called on the Mexican government to investigate the alleged threat and to provide protection for the investigator and his family. Calls for comment to the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., and the Mexican consulate in El Paso were not returned.

Retired border agent sentenced

Andrew Becker — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:23:07 -0700

A retired Customs and Border Protection officer was sentenced today in San Diego by a federal judge to three years probation for allowing an illegal immigrant to be smuggled through his inspection lane, according to court records. Alonso Vasquez, 64, was arrested in May 2008 at his home in Escondido following an investigation by the FBI-led Border Corruption Task Force in San Diego, federal agents said. A former marine who served two combat tours in Vietnam and was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries sustained there in 1967, Vasquez worked as an inspector for nearly 30 years, his attorney, Daniel Smith, said. He last worked at the San Ysidro border crossing, the nation's busiest. Vasquez, who retired in 2007, pleaded guilty in March to one count of encouraging and inducing illegal aliens to come to and enter the United States, and aiding and abetting. His retirement came several months after allowing illegal immigrants with false documents to enter the country in February 2007, Smith said. He was indicted in May 2008 on 18 counts, including charges of bringing in illegal aliens for financial gain and conspiracy. The other charges were dropped.

The Chauncey Bailey Project wins two ONA awards

CIR Staff — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:34:56 -0700

The Chauncey Bailey Project won two awards at the 2009 Online Journalism Awards event in San Francisco over the weekend. The Project, a collaboration of two dozen news organization that fielded reporters, photographers, journalism students and editors to investigate the 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, won the Knight Award for Public Service and the Investigative Journalism Award in the Small Site Category. “We were all extremely proud to be a part of the Chauncey Bailey Project,” said Robert J. Rosenthal, who served as the Project’s executive editor and is executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). “It’s especially meaningful to be honored by your peers, and we are proud to be part of the team that investigated this story. We want to thank the Online News Association for shining a light on the importance of quality investigative journalism in America and congratulate everyone who worked so hard to deliver a story with such impact.” The collaboration that grew out of Chauncey Bailey’s tragic death is an example of what a diverse group of journalists can do when they agree to collaborate. Soon after Bailey’s murder, Sandy Close of New America Media, Dori Maynard of the Maynard Institute and Linda Jue of the Society of Professional Journalists gathered the many journalists and media outlets that became the Chauncey Bailey Project. Their collective reporting appeared in more than 20 news outlets throughout the Bay Area over the course of two years and led to multiple charges of conspiracy to kill Bailey, investigations of the Oakland Police Departments handling of the homicide, and the suspension of the lead detective on the case. The judges who awarded The Knight Award for Public Service noted that, “The reporting is good and relentless under what were obviously and literally dangerous circumstances,” and that, “The reporters didn't shy away from exposing both criminals and police. The Chauncey Bailey Project is absolutely exemplary -- a type of investigation that we wish more organizations could pursue. Its role is necessary, the reporting great.” In addition to The Knight Award for Public Service, the Project received a $5,000 cash prize from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. When explaining the best Investigative Journalism, Small Site award, judges stated that the Project was, “A tenacious and precise investigation of an institutional scandal that focuses on the murder of a journalist but explains much more about the community that created the conditions for his death.” The review continues, “…an exceptionally written and presented package….Strong photojournalism and timeline storytelling techniques… Outstanding ongoing effort two years hence.” Lisa Pickoff-White, who joined CIR’s California Watch project in August 2009 as a multimedia producer, won a separate award for her student work at the Graduate School of Journalism at U.C. Berkeley. Pickoff-White won the Student Journalism, Small Team award for It Happens at Midnight. The judges stated, “It's fun, it's entertaining, it's creative… It as a fine example of how to tell an online story in multiple components.” Pickoff-White was also one of more than two dozen U.C. Berkeley Journalism students who worked on the Chauncey Bailey Project. The organizations that took part in the Chauncey Bailey Project were:

The Online Journalism Awards were launched in May 2000. They are administered by the Online News Association, in partnership with the University of Miami's School of Communication. Download