Via:CNN

U.S. authorities have discovered about 30 tons of marijuana that were part of a smuggling operation using a tunnel under the California-Mexico border, officials said Wednesday.

The 600-yard tunnel -- which features a rail system, lighting and ventilation -- connects a warehouse in Tijuana with one in the Otay Mesa industrial area of San Diego, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack.

About 26 tons of marijuana had been transported through the tunnel to San Diego, and 10 of those tons were intercepted Tuesday by authorities as a tractor trailer was transporting the load from the Otay Mesa warehouse, officials said. About five tons were found by the Mexican military inside the Tijuana warehouse and the tunnel, officials said.

Drug cartels on the border have become so powerful and sophisticated in recent years that many Mexican communities and areas along the border are patches of uncontrollable violence, experts have said.

"It's not a good day for the cartels," said ICE director John Morton. "They now can't move that size of drugs without digging a tunnel for 600 yards. It backfired on them.

"Obviously this is a cartel and organized drug smuggling of the highest order," Morton added. Authorities weren't able to identify Wednesday which cartel was behind the tunnel operation, he said.

The smuggling was active for about a month until this week's seizure. The tunnel was rather small, and an individual can't stand up in it, Morton said. He described the railway as "crude."

The seizure was also unusual because authorities made their bust while the smuggling was active, Morton said.

"We caught them in the act," Morton said. "We find these tunnels and they're usually abandoned."

The seizure was also one of the largest on the California-Mexican border, officials said.

"What's unusual about this one is the amount of marijuana found as part of this investigation," Mack said.

The 30 tons is considered significant by U.S. and Mexican authorities even though Mexican authorities seized 105 tons of marijuana in Tijuana last month, the largest Mexican bust in recent years, Mack said.

"So there's been some pretty big drug busts," she said. "We're not letting our guard down."

In the past four years, 75 smuggling tunnels have been discovered on the U.S.-Mexican border, most of them in California and Arizona, authorities said. In all, about 125 tunnels have been found since the early 1990s, when authorities began keeping count, with just one of them on the U.S.-Canadian border, Mack said.

Authorities will be investigating the owners of the Tijuana and San Diego warehouses, officials said.

A special U.S. border tunnel task force hunts for underground smuggling operations in and around San Diego. The task force consists of agents from ICE, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Border Patrol, and they also work with Mexican authorities, Mack said.

In its surveillance of the Otay Mesa warehouse, the task force noticed suspicious activity Tuesday when they saw a tractor-trailer leave the facility. Agents followed the truck to a Border Patrol checkpoint at Temecula, California, and authorities found 10 tons of marijuana hidden in cardboard boxes on pallets, said ICE director John Morton.

A married couple driving the truck was arrested, he said.

The task force became the first of its kind in 2003, when it was assembled to deal with a growing number of underground smuggling routes on the California-Mexico border. The unit was also assembled as part of a post-September 11 security concerns, Mack said.

The longest tunnel discovered, found in 2006, had a length of seven football fields. That tunnel also connected warehouses in Otay Mesa and Tijuana.

The task force uses robots to scout out a newly discovered tunnel before agents are sent into it. Federal agents are trained like miners on how to negotiate confined spaces, and the San Diego-Mexico region is even used to test the latest ground-penetrating technology to detect tunnels, including by the U.S. military, Mack said.

The sophisticated tunnels -- with lighting, oxygen pumps and rail lines -- are typically used to ferry drugs from Mexico to the United States. The more rudimentary tunnels are just big enough to smuggle people into the country, Mack said.

"We've also been enjoying an unprecedented cooperation with Mexican law enforcement in recent years," Mack said. "So we get a lot of information from the Mexicans, and vice versa."

Via:Wired

WikiLeaks is currently in the news because its Afghan War logs comprise one of the largest and most controversial intelligence leaks to date. But while WikiLeaks is relatively new to the public, it is actually a product of a long-established culture. That culture has already had a banner-bearer; a quintessential exemplification of its values — The Pirate Bay. WikiLeaks is akin to The Pirate Bay, but for another purpose.
 

WikiLeaks disregards the letter of the law and grants political analysts and citizens new information, then defends that choice with an argument for a higher virtue: Freedom of information and knowledge. The founding figures behind WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay each claim to place that value above all others — that, and a little bit of anti-establishment zeal.

At this point, its name is merely symbolic — a statement of philosophical association. WikiLeaks is not a wiki, but shares the same culture, along with The Pirate Bay, Linux, and the open-source movement. For decades, the members of this “hacker” community have espoused the free flow of information in a world without borders, where no institution, neither corporation nor government, could hinder independent thought and the democratization of knowledge.

The connections between WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay are not merely conceptual. There are also more direct correlations. Both WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay have been hosted by Swedish Internet service provider PRQ, which also hosted the website of insurgents in Chechnya who sought a publishing platform that would not represent any established state. It’s the Swiss bank of Internet providers, and a bastion of 21st century hacker values and individualism.

In The New Yorker’s detailed profile of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, it’s clear that he belongs to this tradition. He began his adult life as a computer hacker with no formal education. Though he did eventually attend college, he had nothing good to say of the experience. This was in part because his mother discouraged him from traditional education, fearing it might rob him of his individualism and will to learn. Today, it seems almost as if Assange is trying to live out the radical philosophies of Ayn Rand.

We all know the stories of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs — computer whizzes who dropped out of college because they had technological revolutions to tend to. Assange is in some ways cut from the same cloth, though his choice has not yet earned him dramatic wealth, and his commitment to openness is more radical.

But through his project, the tradition has reached the world stage in a whole new way. Computer hackers with this Internet-born, fundamentalist philosophy of information and individual entrepreneurship are not just dictating the terms of technology and digital entertainment, but of journalism, political discourse and military engagement.

WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay are also similar in this regard: You can say what you will of the ethics of it all, but you have to admit it’s remarkable.

Via:CNN

He has relatives across the border, but he hasn't been to family gatherings in Mexico for three years. It's too risky -- an American police officer fetches a high price for cartel kidnappings.

"I've always tried to be careful," he says. "I never underestimate the cartels in Mexico. I take it very serious. I keep a low profile."

The cartel hit men are ruthless and he says some were trained by U.S. Special Forces to help Mexico fight the drug war, until they went to the other side. "That is what we're up against."

The recent death threats -- the first ever by Mexican cartels on the police here -- came after two recent busts by off-duty officers. In the first case, two officers were riding horseback when they intercepted a van full of marijuana.

A few days later, the same officers were roping cattle with a crowd of cowboys when they spotted a vehicle with bundles of pot being tossed into the trunk and backseat. The off-duty officers detained two men and called in support. "That was gutsy," says Morales.

The busts netted about $600,000 in marijuana -- relatively small potatoes in the underworld of drug trafficking.

Yet the cartels responded swiftly with a message for Nogales police: When you're not in uniform, you better look the other way or you'll be targeted. The message was relayed to police through an informant.

"They named the Nogales police department officers that were in that area off duty," says police chief Jeffrey Kirkham. "They are not happy and they are desperate to get that across."

"We're not going to be intimidated," adds Kirkham, the police chief for the last six months. "We're going to continue with our operations. In fact, we're going to step up our operations."

Nogales, population 24,000, is the largest border town in this region. Its downtown is a vibrant community with a Latino feel. Mexican and American flags hang outside storefronts. A quaint plaza is filled with children and parents alike. Outside of town, homes are built just a few feet from the fence dividing the two nations. Mexican neighbors live directly on the other side.

And while the region is a major drug corridor, Nogales has an extremely low crime rate. There has only been one murder in the last three years. By contrast, the police chief says, just across the border there have already been 126 drug-related murders this year.

Police say the cartels are being squeezed at the border and the drug lords are angry their profits are being cut into. Already more than $10 million in drugs have been confiscated in Santa Cruz County this year. And last year, the town of Nogales captured headlines when U.S. Border Patrol agents found a sophisticated drug-smuggling tunnel that went under the border fence.

The 60-member Nogales police force has now been told to keep weapons on them at all times. They're even encouraged to wear body armor when off duty. The officers remain in constant communication so their whereabouts are known.

"This is the first time Nogales police officers have ever been threatened by anyone in drug trafficking," says chief Kirkham. "I take a death threat any time against a police officer -- locally, federally or state -- as very serious."

At one point, while Morales is speaking with CNN, he turns down his radio for a few minutes. The department issues an all-points bulletin for him.

"It's very dangerous. You have to be very careful," he says.

The lifelong resident of Nogales then climbs back into his police car. Dust kicks up along the barren road. The patrols never stop.

 

Employee Sean Tippett works in an operations room at the headquarters of Cisco Systems, a leading provider of Internet network technology, in San Jose, Calif. Experts are debating the need for Internet traceability for security purposes -- and what that would mean for online anonymity and civil liberties in places such as China and Iran.

The old challenge of providing public safety while also protecting civil liberties has found a new manifestation in the cyber age.

Cybercrime and espionage are rising rapidly, and the United States and other governments are preparing for the possibility of cyberwar. At the same time, civil libertarians worry about preserving Internet freedom.

Security experts focus on the "attribution problem" — the challenge of identifying and tracking down the source of a cyberattack. Under current conditions, cybercrime, cyber-espionage, and cyberattacks can be directed remotely, with the perpetrator's identity and location a secret.

Privacy advocates fear the loss of anonymity for Internet users. For both sides, it's a conflict that needs to be resolved.

To bolster their case, cybersecurity experts point back to Cold War days. There was never a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, in large part because each country was deterred from attacking the other. Both sides knew that doing so would trigger a massive counterattack. The thought of mutually assured destruction actually kept the peace.

But deterrence worked only because a nuclear attack would have been immediately attributable.

"One side couldn't attack the other side without the side being attacked knowing who it is and from where it came," says retired Vice Adm. Mike McConnell, a former director of the National Security Agency and later the director of national intelligence.

McConnell argues that deterrence is needed to prevent countries today from waging cyberwar on each other. An attack on U.S. computer networks could knock out power grids, telecommunications, transportation and banking systems in a matter of seconds.

Such an attack could be deterred if the attacking country knew it would bring immediate retaliation. But first it would be necessary to attribute the attack to someone.

"Some level of confidence that you know from where a transaction originated is a requirement," McConnell says.

For Now, Transactions Largely Untraceable

McConnell highlighted the "attribution problem" in a recent interview with NPR. He advocates "re-engineering the Internet" to make more transactions there traceable.

"There is a need for investment in technology that would allow you to achieve a level of attribution," McConnell says, "[so you could know] who's engaged in this transaction."

The benefits are obvious. China, for example, would presumably be less inclined to launch a cyberattack against the U.S. if it knew the attack would immediately be traced back. Of course, the same goes for the United States.

"I would believe in a dialogue with China we probably could reach some accommodation with regard to how important it is for both our nations to have an information infrastructure in which there's attribution and confidence," McConnell says.

Industry experts, such as Cisco Systems' Donald Proctor, say it's technically possible.

"As we get smarter in our sensor networks and in the way we think about network events and correlation, we'll be able to define attribution with an increasing level of accuracy," says Proctor, a senior vice president and cybersecurity expert at Cisco, a leading provider of Internet network technology.

Do Benefits Outweigh Costs?

There is, after all, another view on the attribution problem. Maybe we don't want all Internet transactions traceable to someone. Think of the dissidents in countries like Iran who depend on anonymity in their Internet postings.

Robert Knake focuses on Internet governance at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"If what you want is an Internet where you can freely discuss human rights in a country in which doing so is not allowed, you don't want to see attribution improve," Knake says.

He has found that the Internet "attribution problem" prompts disagreement between privacy and human rights advocates on one side and cybersecurity experts on the other.

"In many ways, it's the crime fighters versus the freedom fighters," he says.

Some experts, such as Rebecca MacKinnon of Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy, argue that improving the attribution of Internet transactions may not produce sufficient security benefits to justify the cost to privacy.

"Criminals and militaries are most likely going to figure out ways to do what they need to do on the Internet and minimize their traceability," says MacKinnon. "The people who are really going to be hurt are dissidents in countries like China or Iran."

Some cybersecurity advocates, including McConnell, say compromise may be possible. Internet transactions involving transportation networks or utilities, for example, could be made more traceable without necessarily ending anonymous Internet postings more generally. But crafting such a compromise won't be easy, says MacKinnon.

"We're at a very early stage right now of figuring out how do we keep the Internet as a space where individuals can be empowered, yet at the same time [make sure that] it doesn't turn into a place where people are just attacking each other and bringing down each other's systems," MacKinnon says. "We don't really have a clear road map."

Several influential entertainment industry trade groups, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America and the Screen Actors Guild, seem to think that the nation's security is at risk because of DVD and CD piracy.

In a plea to the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, the group pitched some seemingly odd ideas about how they think the government should prevent piracy. Among their proposals are calls for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to arrange preventative measures to combat piracy before major motion pictures are released.

"The planned release of a blockbuster motion picture should be acknowledged as an event that attracts the focused efforts of copyright thieves, who will seek to obtain and distribute pre-release versions and/or to undermine legitimate release by unauthorized distribution through other channels," the document says. "Enforcement agencies (notably within DOJ and DHS) should plan a similarly focused preventive and responsive strategy."

Keeping America Safe . . . From Pirates?

But does piracy really fall under the Department of Homeland Security's mission? The agency, founded in 2002, aims to "keep America safe," primarily by preventing terrorist attacks within the U.S. and assisting in the recovery from terrorist attacks "that occur within the United States." Based on its mission alone, one might assume that piracy falls under the domain of domestic law enforcement.

Not so, says Pat Reilly, spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a department within the Department of Homeland Security.

"We definitely go after pirates," Reilly says. "We're constantly picking up pirated CDs and DVDs. People often ask, 'Why are you picking up counterfeit t-shirts when you should be looking for terrorists?' But the Department of Homeland Security is made up of 22 components. Ours is the traditional customs service, and we're the largest investigative arm of the DHS."

Pirated DVD Sales and Terrorism

This isn't the first time the MPAA has tried to link film piracy with national security, though. In a 2009 study funded by the MPAA, the RAND group concluded that organized crime and terrorism are funded by pirated DVD sales. The report argued that countless mobsters around the world, from Russia to Malaysia, and in a variety of gangs including the Big Circle Boys in Canada and the Camorra Mafia in Italy, have relied upon pirated goods to fund illegal activities.

Critics argue that relying upon the Department of Homeland Security to organize pirated DVD busts is not the most efficient use of government funds. Among the most notable busts listed on the ICE site over the last two years, is a seizure of approximately 1,500 pirated DVDs at a convenience store in Bakersfield, Calif.

To be fair, that's only one of the most recent busts -- there certainly are bigger, more brag-worthy: Six years ago, for example, ICE seized 210,000 pirated DVDs in China as part of an ongoing investigation. And in 2007, ICE seized 90,000 pirated CDs and DVDs at a flea market in Puerto Rico.

Illegal Legal Tactics?

Still, there's a question of whether the MPAA and RIAA are hogging up government resources for their own interests. The RIAA, has filed thousands of lawsuits against John Does, which often amount to woefully tiny settlements, if the lawsuits aren't ignored altogether. Further, some question the legality of the RIAA's legal tactics. In one complaint filed against music labels Sony, Electra, BMG and Motown, Shahanda Noelle Moursy argued that the record companies are "abusing the federal court judicial system for the purpose of waging a public relations and public threat campaign targeting digital file sharing activities."

Her complaint argued that the damages sought by the labels -- at $750 per song -- are unconstitutional, representing roughly 974 times the actual damages, assuming the market value of each song is 99 cents, and the labels' profits on the sale of a single track are typically about 77 cents per song.

Americans do not often hear that someone has found a way to overcome U.S. defenses, but military and intelligence officials have been sounding downright alarmist lately with their warnings that the country is ill-prepared to deal with a cyberattack.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair opened his annual survey of security threats in February by advising Congress that "malicious cyberactivity is growing at an unprecedented rate," and that the country's efforts to defend against cyberattacks "are not strong enough."

Blair's predecessor as intelligence chief, Mike McConnell, was even more candid in a Washington Post commentary later that month.

"The United States is fighting a cyberwar today," McConnell wrote, "and we are losing."

No country in the world is more dependent on its computers than the United States. Data networks now underlie the U.S. power grid, its military operations and the telecommunications, banking and transportation systems. That means the U.S. is uniquely vulnerable to sophisticated computer hackers.

'Explosion' Of Computer Attacks

The Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, released in February, reported that the department's computer networks "are infiltrated daily by myriad of sources, ranging from small groups of individuals to some of the largest countries in the world." A senior defense official who follows the cyberthreat closely tells NPR that in the past two years, the Pentagon has experienced an "explosion" of computer attacks, currently averaging about 5,000 each day.

One of the biggest was in 2007, when hackers targeted the Pentagon, NASA and the departments of Energy, Commerce and State. The origin of the attack was unknown, but U.S. officials suspect it came from China. Among the victims was Defense Secretary Robert Gates, whose unclassified e-mail account was penetrated.

James Lewis, a cyber-expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the 2007 hackers gained access to massive amounts of U.S. government data — some of it important, some of it worthless.

"In fact, I felt sorry [for them]," Lewis says. "Some guy, probably in Beijing, is having to sit there and translate state dinner menus from 1994. He's probably going nuts."

A 2003 computer attack so impressed the FBI that agents gave it a code name: Titan Rain. The hackers managed to penetrate a variety of military networks without being detected.

"There's still some debate about who did it and why they did it," says Richard Clarke, who was a top cybersecurity adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. "But it proved that it is possible to get into even well-defended networks and exfiltrate terabytes of information — and nothing can be done about it."

U.S. officials estimate that the 2007 attacks and Titan Rain each resulted in the loss of as much as 10 terabytes of data, an amount roughly comparable to the contents of the entire Library of Congress. There have been other large, and possibly related, attacks as well.

"Some people say there's really been only one event, ongoing for years, and it's just that we occasionally stumble on it," says Lewis, who served as the project director of the center's Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency.

A New Crime Category Emerging?

The cyberattacks are also becoming more sophisticated and harder to trace. Hackers in China, for example, are now able to take control of thousands of personal computers in the United States simultaneously, and remotely command them to send out bogus e-mails or viruses. Such robot computer networks, called Bot Nets, can do great damage when directed by malicious hackers.

"People who have computers and no [anti-virus] protection are susceptible to being captured, unknown to them," says Harry Raduege, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and former commander of the Pentagon's Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations. "They could then become part of a Bot Net army that could be used to attack an organization, a nation or an industry."

Up to now, most computer attacks have fallen under the category "cybercrime." There have not yet been any significant acts of cyberterrorism, though U.S. intelligence officials say al-Qaida and other terrorist groups are committed to developing a cyber capability.

Goals Change, Threat Stays The Same

Attacks traceable to foreign governments and corporations, according to cyber-experts, have largely been for espionage purposes — at least until now. The December 2009 attack on Google and other companies operating in China was apparently an effort to steal industrial secrets, according to U.S. and company officials.

Still, the danger of an all-out cyberwar remains pressing.

"The difference between cybercrime, cyber-espionage, and cyberwar is a couple of keystrokes," says Clarke, who authored a forthcoming book on cyberthreats. "The same technique that gets you in to steal money, patented blueprint information or chemical formulas is the same technique that a nation-state would use to get in and destroy things."

The big fear is that an adversary, in the heat of a cyberwar, might try to take down the U.S. power grid, telephone network or transportation system.

"My guess is that it's only a few advanced militaries that could damage the electrical grid or damage some other networks," Lewis says. "But they have that capability. They have probably done the reconnaissance necessary to use it, and if we got into a fight, we could expect some kind of cyberattack."

Covering A Vast Space

Asked about the U.S. capability to defend itself from such an attack, Lewis, the cyber-expert with CSIS, feigns a shocked look.

"I didn't realize we had defensive capabilities," he says.

He adds, laughing, "No, that's not fair. How can I say that?"

Raduege, who is now directing the Deloitte Center for Cyber Innovation, argues that some attacks on the Pentagon have been countered relatively well, such as the 2007 incident that resulted in the penetration of Gates' personal e-mail account.

"When the secretary was attacked, of course someone got in. But somebody also noticed it right away, was able to isolate those attackers, clean up the system, and then put the users back online immediately," Raduege says. "So I think that's a real tribute to the people who are really fighting the network, as we say. It's a real battle space."

The problem for U.S. cyberwarriors is that the "battle space" is so vast.

"The government has its hands full defending the Defense Department and the intelligence community," says Clarke. "And, really, about the only parts of the U.S. government that are moderately well-defended [are] the Pentagon and the CIA."

Improving Overall Quality

Cyberdefense efforts at other government departments are spotty at best. The Treasury Department is doing "a relatively good job," Lewis says. But he adds that other agencies are doing "a relatively dreadful job."

"They may as well just change their passwords to 'Welcome, Chinese Friends,' " he says.

As for the critical civilian infrastructure, including the power, telecommunication and transportation grids, it is largely in private hands, meaning the U.S. military is not authorized to protect it.

In recognition of the country's vulnerability to computer attacks, the Pentagon has established a new U.S. Cyber Command, due to be directed by a four-star general, and the Obama administration has designated a cybersecurity coordinator, with responsibilities that extend across all U.S. government agencies. Still, critics say more must be done.

"Right now, the government is saying that Cyber Command will defend the military and the intelligence community. Homeland Security Department will defend the rest of the federal government," says Clarke. "The rest of us are on our own."

The Department of Homeland Security's plan to build a virtual fence across the U.S.-Mexico border has come to a crashing halt just days before the release of a report expected to slam the system.

Homeland chief Janet Napolitano beat the Government Accountability Office report to the punch when she announced Tuesday that she's freezing funding for the Secure Border Initiative Network.

Homeland Security hired The Boeing Co. 3 1/2 years ago to build a string of towers along the 2,000-mile border. The towers were to integrate off-the-shelf products — cameras, radar, connections to ground sensors — so that Border Patrol agents could see who and what was coming across in real time.

Boeing made big promises about SBInet's capabilities.

"Ninety to 100 percent of all illegal crossers, this camera system was going to identify and characterize this threat," said Rich Stana, who wrote a report on the project last year for the GAO.

Boeing built a 28-mile test section in the Southern Arizona desert. It didn't work. The company regrouped, redesigned and redeployed one set of towers near the first set. It is building another section right now. The entire border was supposed to be covered a year ago, but after three years — and $1.4 billion — the system is still full of bugs.

"Well, it sort of works," Stana said.

A new GAO report obtained by NPR says the bugs are coming faster than the fixes.

"It's not a matter of, you know, do you look at the screen and see things?" Stana said. "Yes, you're going to see some things. The question is: Are you going to see things over time? Is it a quality image and is it a reliable image?"

So far, the answer is no. The new report even says some tests have been rigged to guarantee success.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said DHS is to blame for letting things go this far.

"The department could've been far more vigilant in its oversight," the Mississippi Democrat said. "But I can tell you there's no energy or stomach on this committee for this project continuing in its present form."

An executive from Boeing, which referred questions to Homeland Security, is set to appear before the House Committee on Thursday. Although fence funds have been frozen, DHS spokesman Matt Chandler said $50 million will be diverted to buy things such as mobile cameras, ultralight aircraft and more radios for the Border Patrol. "This is going to immediately improve our ability to secure the U.S.-Mexico border by redirecting these funds to proven solutions that meet the urgent needs that exist right now," Chandler said.

For years, a majority of lawmakers in Congress have said the border needs to be secure before they will consider immigration reform. So will the failures of SBInet serve as more justification to delay it? Former Immigration and Naturalization Service director Doris Meissner said that would be a mistake.

Virtual fencing or real fencing, she said, will help. But it will not stop people from trying to cross the border for jobs.

"The border is not the single answer to the problem of illegal immigration," Meissner said.

The virtual fence may have had a stake driven through its heart, but it's not dead yet. Homeland Security says it needs to complete a review of the program before deciding how or whether to continue the program.