Daily Report: Public Safety

Oversight & Government Reform Committee Security-screening equipment in storage in Texas.

An estimated $184 million worth of security-screening equipment purchased by the federal government is gathering dust in storage rather than keeping Americans safe, according to the results of a congressional investigation [PDF] published May 9.

Staffers leading a joint probe that involved two committees found thousands of pieces of equipment sitting idle in a Dallas warehouse used by the Transportation Security Administration, an agency created after the Sept. 11 hijackings to keep terrorists off of commercial airliners.

The chairman for one of those committees responsible for oversight and government reform – California Congressman Darrell Issa, R-Vista – has become a thorn in the side of the Obama White House as he seeks to unearth evidence of waste, fraud and abuse. Issa in early May threatened to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for allegedly hiding information about a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms operation that went awry when guns wound up in the hands of suspected drug traffickers...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

A pair of defense firms based in California that specialize in manufacturing pilotless aircraft, also known as drones, are considered rising stars among contractors for the Department of Homeland Security, according to an annual list compiled by trade publishers.

San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has already supplied nine pricey Predator drones to the Department of Homeland Security, but a fleet totaling 24 “unmanned aerial vehicles” is in the works.

The company has now built 530 overall, said a company official, many of them used abroad by the U.S. military as part of the global war on terror. Congress in February ordered federal regulators to move faster in establishing guidelines for the broader use of drones over U.S. skies, and clearer rules are required by the year 2015. Public debate over their usefulness and privacy implications has been occurring ever since...

videodet/istockphoto.com

Staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs' Oakland office regularly made incorrect decisions when evaluating disability claims and failed to inform veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan that they are entitled to free mental health care, according to a report released today [PDF] by the agency’s inspector general.

The report also found that the office, which handles all disability claims for veterans who live from Bakersfield to the Oregon border, had failed to close claims that, at the time of an inspection last December, had languished for up to eight and a half years.

“Processing delays occurred because of unclear guidance,” the inspector general wrote. “As a result, veterans did not receive timely benefit payments.”

The inspector general also found several instances of veterans' mail being misplaced, which the report said further contributed to delays and mistakes in deciding disability claims.

The report comes at a time of increasing scrutiny for the VA, which has seen the backlog of disability claims increase to 864,000 nationally under the Obama administration...

A critical Supreme Court ruling at the intersection of modern technology and privacy leaves open whether police can still track the car or cell phone of a suspect without threatening their constitutional rights, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service.

Monica Lam/California Watch The Office of Protective Services employs about 90 police officers at five developmental centers.

State officials working to upgrade patient abuse investigations at California’s board-and-care institutions for the developmentally disabled aim to overhaul the in-house police force while also directing the most serious cases to outside agencies.

The first part – implementing new law enforcement policies and retraining the developmental center force, called the Office of Protective Services – is moving at a deliberate pace.

Joe Brann, the independent overseer of the in-house force and former Hayward police chief, said he is still considering how to address officers’ and detectives’ shortcomings. Retraining might not start for months.

“It isn’t going to make any sense to move forward on training until those policies are truly in the form that they need to be,” said Brann, who was appointed overseer by Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration in March. He declined to name what policy areas are being addressed...

Michael Montgomery/California Watch

With its only retail outlet due to close today, Berkeley Patients Group is set to become the biggest casualty so far in a bold and controversial legal offensive by federal prosecutors against California’s pot industry.

The group sent an e-mail to customers earlier today announcing the pending closure.

While dozens of other medical marijuana dispensaries around the state have been forced to shut down since California’s four U.S. attorneys launched the crackdown in October, none is as large or commands the same local political support as Berkeley Patients Group. 

Late last year, Melinda Haag, U.S. attorney for Northern California, warned the group’s landlord, David Mayeri, that the government would seize his assets if marijuana continued to be distributed at the property. The letter cited violations of federal law and the outlet’s 1,000-foot proximity to two schools. 

“Marijuana dispensaries are full of cash and they’re full of marijuana, and everybody knows that,” Haag said in an interview in March. “They are at risk of being robbed, and many of them are robbed.”

Haag said another dispensary being targeted for closure was located next to a preschool in Santa Cruz....

Jim Greenhill/Flickr A U.S. Army National Guard soldier watches the U.S.-Mexico border near Nogales, Ariz. 

The threats of terrorism and spillover violence from the Mexican drug war are largely overblown, according to a new report.

The report [PDF] found that those threats have led to an increased enforcement presence and a confusing patchwork of federal agencies responsible for border security. The buildup has pushed migrants into more dangerous travel routes, but has done little to reduce drug trafficking, according to the report. 

"We were really surprised by the breadth of what had been done in the last 10 years in terms of growing our presence on the border," said Adam Isacson, a researcher at the Washington Office on Latin America, which published the study. "We quickly came to the conclusion that given the threat that we were finding, the U.S. had overbuilt...

Carlos Puma/California Watch A caregiver at Lanterman Developmental Center in Pomona assists a patient.

State lawmakers have introduced two bills to increase the number of agencies alerted about injuries and alleged crimes against patients at California’s institutions for the developmentally disabled.

The law now requires developmental center officials to report patient deaths and serious unexplained injuries to law enforcement. But often, the centers’ in-house police force, the Office of Protective Services, is the only criminal justice agency involved in potential patient abuse cases.

Under SB 1051, the reports also would go to outside law enforcement and a patient advocacy organization, Disability Rights California. Sen. Carol Liu, D-Glendale, and Sen. Bill Emmerson, R-Riverside, are sponsoring the measure...

fcl1971/stock.xchng

Three California residents are among 15 plaintiffs preparing a renewed challenge to the nation’s secretive no-fly list, created after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings to keep suspected terrorists off commercial airliners. 

Maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center and overseen by the FBI, the no-fly list reportedly contains some 20,000 names, among them about 500 U.S. citizens. As many as 800 changes, such as removing or adding names, are made to the list each day.

A much larger terrorism watchlist of a half-million people across the globe that contains the names of those barred from flying also includes individuals subjected to heightened security screenings. Because the no-fly list is classified, no one can be sure whether he or she will be prevented from flying until after arriving at the airport with a purchased ticket.

The plaintiffs say they’ve been unfairly denied the convenience of air travel and must spend days on trains and in cars in order to cross the country. Civil libertarians argue that the list withholds the due process rights of travelers. There’s no meaningful way to dispute one’s inclusion on the list and determine if the status is based on mistakes or flawed intelligence...