Starting Points

Dec 30, 2009

Can Facebook, Capitol Hill be friends? Lawmakers learn social networking.

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By Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 30, 2009; C01

Inside the headquarters of the National Republican Congressional Committee, 25-year-old Adam Conner -- registered Facebook lobbyist, poster of multiple Obama attaboys and a guy whose Facebook photo is a grizzly bear wielding two chain saws -- sits to teach a course. The subject: How to use Facebook better. His student: Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.).

"If we're going to improve our presence on Facebook and really maximize it, what would you recommend as tangible steps?" Roskam asks, thumbing his BlackBerry.

"It looks like you're very comfortable with your BlackBerry," Conner replies earnestly. "Maybe commit to a status message a day? A photo a week? Dive deeper. You'll be surprised at how things that seem routine to you as a congressman are so interesting and cool to constituents."

Conner is Facebook's evangelist in Washington, a social-networking pro summoned by elected officials and bureaucrats alike to teach them, free of charge, how to leverage Facebook -- within strict government rules and security guidelines. The mere existence of Conner's hand-holding lessons illustrates the cultural gulf between Washington and Silicon Valley, and spotlights the complex web of congressional rules that limit social networking among federal workers.

Conner is certainly grateful for his job as associate manager of Facebook's privacy and public-policy division. Compared with many of his highly educated but underemployed peers in Washington, Conner is doing just fine financially, earning about $75,000 a year, with equity to boot. (He declined to give specifics on his salary or stock options.)

But striver that he is, Conner, a 2006 George Washington alumnus who worked on Democrat Mark Warner's exploratory presidential campaign in 2006, chafes at his mechanic's role and the clash of cultures between Facebook's open-book attitude and Washington's need-to-know boundaries.

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He's impatient for a time when he no longer receives as many as 20 help requests a day from government officials. "Everyone really wants to talk on the phone in D.C., and it's often not a polite request," says Conner, who is considering graduate school and entering politics one day. "It's often, 'Call me today.' Yeah, we have a 'Help' section on Facebook. It's very helpful. At the bottom of the page, it says 'Help.' "

On his own public Facebook page -- boasting 2,500 "friends," including many government officials -- Conner stays true to the transparency-is-king credo of the Internet.

One of his status updates earlier this month was this re-tweet -- the re-posting of another person's Twitter post: "RT @cjoh: Go outside. Feel that hail? That's God being pissed off at Joe Lieberman." Or, some days later: "Not a politics party till people start referring to previous hookups present by campaign cycle, like 'She was New Hampshire Primary 07.' "

His day job requires him to seek inroads with security-conscious government agencies and uptight lawmakers -- some of whom are looking into limiting Facebook's running room on privacy issues. But off the clock, Conner's Facebook page is unmoored from the Beltway ethic of caution.

Nor does Conner hold back on his partisan positions, a fact that does not seem to poison his relations with those on the right. Last week, Conner posted a link to a Web site devoted to mocking Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, adding as preface: "this one is legendary."

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"He'll be sitting in my office and I'll ask him, 'Is your skin burning?' " said John Randall, the National Republican Congressional Committee's e-campaign director, who has requested Conner's help for two "campaign schools" this year designed to help Republican candidates improve their Facebook pages. "He just comes back and says, 'Hey, I am a businessman. I think you guys are wrong on a bunch of stuff, and other things not so much.' But I understand what he does. Facebook is a business and there are people who want to spend money on Facebook who are Republicans."

For a stronger democracy

Conner, who two years ago launched Facebook's Washington office out of his apartment and is now one of three employees in the company's Dupont Circle office, doesn't believe he's aiding the enemy. Conner believes that the savvier politicians become with social networking, the stronger democracy will be. "It would make no sense to cut out 50 percent of the country," he said. "It's better for us to have as many points of view. Facebook is not a partisan platform."

Yet, the company has political battles of its own to fight. Facebook recently hired Tim Sparapani, a former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, as its public policy director. Sparapani said Facebook's challenges in Washington are convincing some federal agencies that the site is secure, and overcoming allegations that Facebook is cavalier about its users' privacy. "Our mission in this office is helping Washington understand this new phenomena of social networking and translating Washington back to Silicon Valley," he said. "Adam's been a big part of that.

Sparapani says Conner's pro bono teaching will help if and when the company needs help dealing with federal regulators. "It is better to talk to people when you don't need them than to show up when you're in trouble," Sparapani said.

One of the trickier parts of Conner's job is helping members of Congress and their staffers figure out how to use Facebook without breaking ethics rules set by the House Committee on Administration. Members of Congress and staffers, for instance, may not use a member's "campaign" Facebook page at the office, and must instead use a second Facebook page meant for official government use. To the average person, these pages are nearly indistinguishable.

Despite his affection for transparency, Conner has learned that some aspects of Washington life require discretion. Asked about White House restrictions on using Facebook, he says: "I can't go into details, but we're helping them solve some issues there."

Conner sometimes gets emergency calls. At around 9 one night earlier this month, Lt. Col. Kevin Arata, the Army's director of online and social media, discovered that someone was trying to impersonate him on Facebook with a fake account and was friending his wife and son. "I immediately got on Facebook to write Adam," Arata recalls. "He writes back within three minutes and then all the other pages were taken down."

A cautious response

But perhaps the hardest part of Conner's job is persuading cautious congressmen to reveal the oddball minutiae of their lives.

In his meeting with Roskam, Conner tries to motivate his student with the example set by actor Vin Diesel of "Fast and Furious" fame. "The most popular page on Facebook is the actor Vin Diesel," Conner says. "It used to be Obama. How did an actor become more popular than the president? The answer is that he spends a lot of time putting up personal posts. He'll put up pictures from his travels and answer questions about his movies."

Roskam, who updates his campaign and official Facebook pages along with his staffers, isn't so sure about following Conner's advice and posting items about his mundane doings. " 'I am going to the dry cleaners' -- that's not interesting," the congressman says. "I am trying to think of what is interesting from a personal connection. 'Going over to the Ways and Means Committee'? You're sensing a little caution in my voice, because you really don't want to be that guy."

What about responding to people's comments on your Facebook wall? "That is running, whereas I am more at the creeping stage," says Roskam, who as of late Tuesday had not updated his pages' walls with his own messages since early December.

As his meeting with Conner wraps up, Roskam and his chief of staff, Steven Moore, recall how Facebook helped secure younger voters in the 2008 election. "We spent $60,000 on radio ads, and about $3,000 on the Internet," Moore says. "If I had known that information going in, I would have doubled down."

"Well, feel free to spread the word to other campaign managers," Conner says.

Roskam likes what he sees in the Facebook pitchman, even though Conner is a Democrat. "There you go!" he says, extending his hand to Conner. "What a closer."

Failed attack on jet renews concerns over lack of TSA chief

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By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 30, 2009; A11

The failed terrorist attack on a packed airliner on Christmas has renewed concerns about the lack of stable leadership at the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. agency on the front lines in preventing exactly that kind of incident.

The TSA has been operating without a permanent top official for almost a year, a result of months of delay by the Obama administration and a political power play by a Republican senator opposed to collective bargaining by government workers.

The result, according to some transportation and security analysts, is an agency unable to muster the political will to make the alterations necessary to adapt to changing international threats.

"What doesn't get done as well is leadership and confident direction-setting," said Stewart A. Baker, who was a top official at the Department of Homeland Security in the Bush administration. "There are plenty of competent people at TSA. But when you are not a political appointee, you have to walk on eggshells a little."

Baker and others say they do not think the security failure of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 would have been avoided if President Obama's nominee -- former FBI agent and police detective Erroll Southers -- had been on the job Friday.

But they say they doubt that Acting Administrator Gale D. Rossides, a Bush appointee, has the political connections within the Obama White House and the Democratic Congress to reinvent the agency in ways that get ahead of terrorists.

"She's competent and knows the system well," said one transportation expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he regularly works with TSA officials. "But she doesn't want to rock the boat. She's basically there to keep the trains on the tracks."

Several analysts said Tuesday that the events of the past week highlight the need for a permanent TSA administrator to move quickly in a number of areas. They say the TSA must find the resources -- financial and otherwise -- to design a "checkpoint of the future" that anticipates emerging threats and to phase out metal-detector technology that dates to the early 1980s.

The agency also needs to design better ways to share and interpret the mountain of passenger data collected by U.S. and foreign agencies, they said. The suspect in Friday's incident, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, would not have been allowed to board the flight if warning signs about him had been properly shared, Obama said Tuesday.

And some experts say the new TSA administrator must be deeply knowledgeable about security and terrorism, and more willing to be aggressive in shaking up a seven-year-old bureaucracy that does not respond nimbly to current threats.

"It's critical," said Michael Boyd, an airline consultant based in Colorado. "We need an [H. Norman] Schwarzkopf type there who's going say, 'I'm going to start thinking like a terrorist.' We don't have that."

A spokesman for the TSA declined to comment on the critique.

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer defended Rossides on Tuesday but reiterated the administration's demand that Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) stop blocking Southers's nomination.

"The acting TSA administrator is very able, and we have a solid team of professionals at TSA," Pfeiffer said. "But Senator DeMint and others should put their short-term political interests aside and allow the Senate vote on the confirmation of the president's nominee to head the agency."

Obama nominated Southers on Sept. 11, nearly eight months after taking office, a delay that White House officials say was necessary to identify "the appropriate candidate" for the job.

In the wake of Friday's incident, Republicans have criticized the TSA and the Obama administration. But one of their own has single-handedly prevented new leadership at the agency. DeMint has refused to allow a vote on the nomination as long as Obama insists on permitting TSA workers to participate in collective bargaining negotiations, as other unionized government workers do.

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In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," DeMint accused the administration of being intent on "unionizing and submitting our airport security to union bosses [and] collective bargaining."

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) criticized Republicans on Tuesday, accusing them of "playing politics with national security" by stalling the nomination.

"Despite his qualifications and being reported out by two Senate committees earlier this year, Republicans have decided to play politics with this nomination by blocking final confirmation," Reid said in a statement. "Not only is this a failed strategy, but a dangerous one as well with serious potential consequences for our country."

Reid vowed to force the nomination to a vote next month. But until that happens, or DeMint relents, the top TSA post will go unfilled.

In addition, the Senate has yet to decide when it will vote on Obama's choice to head the Customs and Border Protection agency, another key post in the fight against terrorism.

Longtime observers of airport security say the TSA vacancy will complicate efforts to implement effective procedures against efforts by terrorists to breach the system.

"During a time when security is so important and we need to think about the strategy going forward, we need to push politics aside," said Steve Lott, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association.

Obama's apparent low-key approach to Kashmir disappoints some in disputed region

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By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 30, 2009; A06

SRINAGAR, INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR -- Every day, Irfan Ansari sorts through dozens of résumés from young Kashmiris seeking jobs at his call center, seen by many here as a haven from the turmoil caused by militant Islamist forces seeking to uproot the government of Indian-administered Kashmir.

"Many young Kashmiris today just want a good life," said Ansari, who has 300 employees. "I have more than 10,000 résumés on my desk. I wish I could hire them all."

A new generation of Kashmiris is weary of five decades of tensions over the future of this Himalayan region, which has been a flash point for India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers that claim Kashmir as their own.

But Kashmiris have been caught in the diplomatic dilemma facing the Obama administration as it tries to persuade Pakistan to take on a stronger role fighting Islamist extremists and simultaneously seeks to improve relations with India, Pakistan's arch foe.

Many Kashmiris celebrated when President Obama took office nearly a year ago, because he seemed to favor a more robust approach to bring stability to Kashmir, where human rights groups estimate that as many as 100,000 people have died in violence and dozens of Pakistan-backed militant groups have sprung up. At one point, the Obama administration contemplated appointing former president Bill Clinton as a special envoy to the region.

But now residents say they are disappointed, complaining that Obama has not engaged on Kashmir other that to say recently that the region's fate is in the hands of India and Pakistan alone.

"When Obama came, there was so much hope to reclaim those happy times in Kashmir. But when it comes to human rights, we feel really let down. It's been nothing more than election rhetoric," said Pervez Imroz, a Kashmiri lawyer and head of a coalition of civil society groups.

Low-key approach

But analysts say Obama is working behind the scenes, treading a careful diplomatic path.

The Obama administration is supporting the Indian government's talks, or what it calls "quiet diplomacy," with Kashmiri separatists groups to discuss options such as greater autonomy and demilitarization of the region. The talks are seen in India's capital and in Kashmir as a key development, with dialogue about the future of the region continuing even though attacks in Mumbai last year have derailed talks between India and Pakistan.

"Washington fears that any overt American interference in Kashmir could backfire and set back warming relations between India and the U.S.," said Howard B. Schaffer, a retired Foreign Service official who is an expert on South Asia and author of "The Limits of Influence: America's Role in Kashmir." Any mention of appointing a special envoy for Kashmir, he said, is "viewed as toxic waste in India."

The Obama administration's apparent low-key approach to Kashmir belies the region's importance to the U.S. campaign against terrorism. The population here -- 10 million, as of the 2001 census -- is predominantly Muslim, and Islamist militants have tried to recruit followers in the region. But in recent years, most Kashmiris have said they just want a return to peace.

Even more important for U.S. interests, though, is calming the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan over the region so that the Pakistani military can turn more of its attention to helping root out al-Qaeda members and other militants who have used isolated regions of Pakistan as a base for operations against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Easing tensions would also allow Pakistan to move more forcefully against Lashkar-i-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant group implicated in the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai, India's financial capital, which killed 165 people. India says the group is also smuggling fighters into Kashmir.

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But some Kashmiris want more from Washington.

'U.S. has to engage'

"The Obama administration and India can't hide behind Mumbai. The U.S. has to engage with both India and Pakistan," said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyet Conference, a separatist coalition. "If this opportunity is missed, all the ingredients are there for the cycle of violence to start again."

Human rights groups accuse India's government of killing civilians in its crackdown on militants.

"We want Washington to speak out against these tragedies," Imroz, the lawyer, said. "There has only been silence."

In recent years, violence between militants and the Indian army has largely decreased. A new generation of Kashmiris has said it is committed to a nonviolent freedom movement.

But Kashmiris still grow angry at perceived wrongs. Protesters filled the streets this month after India's top investigating agency ruled that two young village women thought to have been raped and killed in the summer had drowned in a mountain stream.

Many here view the findings as a cover-up to protect the Kashmiri officers working for Indian security forces. Others say the initial investigation was fabricated to frame security forces.

Such incidents highlight the fragility of Kashmir's peace and scare off potential investors in projects such as Ansari's call center that could provide a sense of normalcy for many.

He and others here worry that without a political solution soon, the region's youths will grow restless and turn once again to militancy.

"We need to divert young minds from this conflict," Ansari said, sitting in a cafe where rock music mixed with the hiss of a cappuccino machine. "But our problem in Kashmir is that conflict keeps Kashmir Valley from turning into a Silicon Valley. Our talent pool is great. People are scared to invest here. We want them to come to Kashmir with an open heart."

Former Guantanamo detainees fuel growing al-Qaeda cell

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By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 30, 2009; A03

SANAA, YEMEN -- Former detainees of the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have led and fueled the growing assertiveness of the al-Qaeda branch that claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airliner, potentially complicating the Obama administration's efforts to shut down the facility.

They include two Saudi nationals: the deputy leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Said Ali al-Shihri, and the group's chief theological adviser, Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish. Months after their release to Saudi Arabia, both crossed the kingdom's porous border into Yemen and rejoined the terrorist network.

Shihri and Rubaish were released under the Bush administration, as was a Yemeni man killed in a government raid this month while allegedly plotting an attack on the British Embassy. A Yemeni official said Tuesday that the government thinks he is the first Yemeni to have joined al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula after being released from Guantanamo.

That a group partially led by former Guantanamo detainees may have equipped and trained Nigerian bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is likely to raise more questions about plans to repatriate those prisoners to Yemen. Six were released last week; 80 Yemenis are now left at Guantanamo, nearly half the remaining detainee population. Many are heavily radicalized, with strong ties to extremist individuals or groups in Yemen, said U.S. officials and terrorism analysts.

Republicans have in recent months urged the Obama administration to rethink sending detainees to Yemen. They have cited al-Qaeda's growing footprint in the country, its instability and the case of Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, who is charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., after exchanging e-mails with a radical Yemeni American cleric.

"This is a very dangerous policy that threatens the safety and security of the U.S. people," said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.).

A senior Obama administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said al-Qaeda has used the prison "as a rallying cry and recruiting tool." Closing the facility, the official said, "is a national security imperative."

A second administration official said the government had little choice with the six detainees released last week. A federal judge had already ordered one to be released. The officials said the government concluded it did not have enough evidence to win against the remaining five in hearings in which the detainees had challenged their imprisonment under the doctrine of habeas corpus. The prospect of losing in federal court is likely to trigger other releases, the official said.

"We do not want a situation where the executive is defying the courts," the official said. "That's a recipe for a constitutional crisis."

Wolf, who did not object when the Bush administration repatriated 14 Yemeni detainees to their homeland, said that "conditions in Yemen have dramatically changed" with the emergence of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Wolf added that he had access to classified biographies of the six Yemenis sent back last week.

"Did they read the bios? They are dangerous people," Wolf said.

A third administration official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Yemenis sent back had been carefully screened to assess their potential for being recruited by al-Qaeda upon their return. He also expressed confidence in the Yemeni government's ability to handle their reintegration: "We have been exceptionally pleased with the dialogue and cooperation with Yemen over the last 11 months."

The Yemeni former Guantanamo detainee who joined al-Qaeda was among four suspects killed by Yemeni forces in a Dec. 17 raid north of the capital, according to a Yemeni official and a human rights activist. Hani Abdo Shaalan, who was released from the U.S. facility in June 2007, and three other suspected militants were planning to bomb the British Embassy and other Western sites, said a Yemeni official who was briefed on the operation.

Shaalan, 30, had traveled to Afghanistan by way of Pakistan in July 2001. He was searching for work, according to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. He eventually found work as a chef's assistant in a Taliban camp and was at Tora Bora during the U.S. air campaign there. Pakistani forces captured him in their country, near the Afghan border.

Human rights lawyer Ahmed Amran, who assists the repatriated detainees, said Shaalan's family reported his disappearance last year.

After their release from Guantanamo, Shihri and Rubaish, both of whom trained and fought with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, were sent to a Saudi rehabilitation program that uses dialogue and art therapy to reform militants. In February, the Saudi government released a list of 85 most wanted Saudi terrorists. At least 11 were graduates of the program, including Shihri and Rubaish.

Shihri, now 36, became al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's deputy leader after the Yemeni and Saudi Arabian branches of al-Qaeda merged in January. Rubaish, now 30, is the branch's mufti, or Islamic scholar, responsible for religious guidance and theological justification for committing violence.

Another former Guantanamo detainee, Mohammed al-Awfi, was one of the merged group's key field commanders for months. He, too, had gone through the Saudi rehabilitation program, then fled to Yemen along with Shihri. In January, he appeared on a video by the group announcing that he had joined al-Qaeda. But a month later, his relatives in Saudi Arabia persuaded him to surrender to Saudi authorities.

Yemen has struggled with its handling of former militants.

A prison-based rehabilitation program was widely considered a failure. Graduates had no follow-up support, and many later traveled to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some were thought to have taken part in a September 2008 al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen that killed 16, including six assailants.

Other suspects became radicalized inside Yemeni prisons and joined al-Qaeda, according to human rights activists. All the surviving suspected al-Qaeda militants involved in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the southern city of Aden, which killed 17 American sailors, have either been released by Yemen's government or escaped in a 2006 jailbreak from a maximum-security prison. Among those who escaped was Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the current leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Yemeni officials say they are capable of rehabilitating detainees but lack the resources.

Amran, the human rights lawyer, said that he does not know why Shaalan joined al-Qaeda but that the government needs to improve its reintegration programs. "The Yemen government doesn't assist detainees. No employer wants to hire them without a guarantee," said Amran, who works for the Yemeni group Hood. "If there's no help for the detainees, they will join al-Qaeda."

Staff writer Peter Finn and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Many airport security improvements would require more intrusion, oversight

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By Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 30, 2009; A03

Aviation security could be improved with the use of databases containing passengers' personal information, technology such as body scans and better information-sharing. But the changes would require greater tolerance of intrusions and far more effective government oversight, security specialists say.

Passengers probably would have to become accustomed to the feeling that authorities know a lot more about them, their families and their associates, and that they are being looked at by machines in intimate ways that once were unthinkable.

While the aviation security system can never be rendered inviolable, experts say, the lapses that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board his flight for Detroit on Christmas Day, allegedly packing enough plastic explosives to blow a hole in the plane, confirm repeated warnings about the chronic, costly shortcomings of government efforts to create better systems to screen travelers for bombs, weapons and other threats.

And since the failed attack, the debate about how to plug security gaps has provided new evidence of the tension between the desire to improve security and concerns about personal privacy.

Some security advocates say that, given the close call Friday, now is the time to redouble efforts to combine data systems, intelligence and high-tech scanning technology to improve screening. Terrorists won't be stopped by machines alone, the specialists say.

"They're not stupid. They know what we're looking for," said Stewart Baker, a former general counsel at the National Security Agency and a former assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security. "We need to begin looking more carefully and in a more nuanced way for terrorists, not just weapons. . . . That means we're going to have to end up getting used to the idea that the people who do the screening will know more about you."

Stalled efforts

Specialists say much is already known about how to improve security, pointing to the profile-intensive approach used in Israel, as well as information projects undertaken soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Those projects included an effort to build vast networks of supercomputers to instantly probe every passenger's background for clues about violent intentions.

But those efforts repeatedly foundered because of management missteps at the Department of Homeland Security and a backlash from privacy advocates and citizens who were wary of placing so much surveillance power in the hands of the government, according to government reports. The once-secret program known as CAPPS II, for example, was designed to use passengers' travel reservations, housing information, family ties, credit reports and other personal data to identify potential threats. But the program was sharply limited after protests against a Bush administration proposal that it be used to catch criminals as well as terrorists.

Privacy advocates said that if the government decides to embrace such a system more widely, it can be done only under exceedingly tight oversight and strict rules that mandate severe punishment for misuse.

"There has to be some evidence it will work," said James X. Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington. "And then there has to be accountability when it's abused."

Explaining the delays

Homeland security officials acknowledge the setbacks but say they are committed to overcoming them. They say mandates to minimize the impact of security on the aviation industry, the infrastructure challenges of installing equipment in airports and persistent concerns about privacy have contributed to delays. At the same time, officials point out, improvements have been put in place over the past eight years, including a cohesive workforce of screeners, better detection equipment for baggage and a relatively quick screening process.

"Since 9/11, DHS and TSA have made significant improvements to aviation security technology. We are driven by the ever-evolving threat environment to have adaptable, flexible technology that can address multiple threats," said Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa. "We are committed to working through the inherent challenges we face in deploying new technology that meets all of these needs, to ensure the safety and security of the traveling public."

After the 2001 attacks, federal officials also pledged to create machines to automatically detect explosives, sense whether passengers are lying and scan materials for threats. The Department of Homeland Security and intelligence agencies have spent billions to develop information-sharing networks and other security systems, including spending more than $795 million for development of high-tech checkpoint screening equipment.

But according to government reports, the mismanagement of research, concerns about privacy and cost, and opposition from industry and Congress have hindered the widespread deployment of the systems at airports in the United States and abroad.

Also, a plan to help focus the development of better screening technology and procedures -- including a risk-based assessment of aviation threats -- is almost two years overdue, according to a report this fall by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

"TSA cannot ensure that it is targeting the highest priority security needs at checkpoints; measure the extent to which deployed technologies reduce the risk of terrorist attacks; or make needed adjustments to its [Passenger Screening Program] strategy," the GAO report said.

Checkpoint machines

At least 10 checkpoint-screening technology projects have been in development by Homeland Security's science and technology office, none of which has been widely deployed. Those projects include an "explosives trace portal" that uses puffs of air to dislodge bits of explosive materials to be analyzed by sensors.

The Bush administration rushed the machines into airports in 2006, even though "TSA officials were aware that tests conducted during 2004 and 2005 on earlier ETP models suggested they did not demonstrate reliable performance in an airport environment," the GAO found. The TSA halted the deployment later that year "due to performance problems and high installation costs." Much of the equipment was later sent to warehouses.

Another machine, called a "whole body imager," was designed to peer underneath passengers' clothing to find threatening objects or materials. But critics complained about the intrusiveness of the machines, which have not been deployed as widely as planned.

Dec 29, 2009

Iran Lashes Out at West Over Protests

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By ROBERT F. WORTH

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Iranian authorities continued arresting hundreds of opposition members and accused the United States and Britain on Tuesday of orchestrating the violent demonstrations that rocked the capital and other cities on Sunday.

The sister of Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi was detained on Monday night, according to opposition Web sites quoted by news agencies.

A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said countries including the United States and Britain had miscalculated in criticizing the government’s response to the demonstrations, which the government said left at least eight people dead in Tehran. The opposition counted five more deaths in other cities.

“Some Western countries are supporting this sort of activities,” said the spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, according to The Associated Press. “This is intervention in our internal affairs. We strongly condemn it.”

He said the British ambassador to Iran would be summoned for discussions.

The British government said its ambassador, Simon Gass, would respond “robustly” to any criticism and would reiterate calls for Iran to respect the rights of its citizens.

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The speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Ali Larijani, rebuked American and British officials for their “disgraceful comments” about the demonstrations, according to the state-run PressTV. The criticisms of Iran’s action were “disgustingly vivid that they clarify where this movement stands when it comes to destroying religious and revolutionary values,” he said.

Iranian authorities arrested at least a dozen opposition figures on Monday, including former Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi, the human rights activist Emad Baghi and three top aides to the former presidential candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi, Iranian news sites reported.

All told, more than 1,500 people have been arrested nationwide since Sunday, including 1,110 in Tehran and 400 in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, the pro-opposition Jaras Web site reported.

In Hawaii, where he is on vacation, Mr. Obama condemned the violence against protesters and called for the release of those “unjustly detained.”

“For months, the Iranian people have sought nothing more than to exercise their universal rights,” Mr. Obama told reporters. “Each time they have done so, they have been met with the iron fist of brutality, even on solemn occasions and holy days.”

He added that the protests in Iran had nothing to do with the United States or other foreign countries. “It’s about the Iranian people, and their aspirations for justice, and a better life for themselves,” he said. “And the decision of Iran’s leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.”

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The streets of Tehran were largely quiet on Monday and early Tuesday, as citizens absorbed the shock of Sunday’s violence. Thirteen people were reported to have been killed and many more wounded in street battles in cities across the country between security forces and protesters, who fought back more fiercely than ever before. The government said Monday that eight people had been killed in Tehran, and opposition Web sites catalogued five deaths in other cities.

The government said that it was holding the bodies of five protesters, including a nephew of Mr. Moussavi, the state-run IRNA news agency reported, in what appeared to be an attempt to prevent funerals that could turn into more demonstrations. The bodies were being held pending autopsies.

The authorities’ use of deadly force on the Ashura holiday drew a fierce rebuke on Monday from the opposition cleric and reformist candidate Mehdi Karroubi, who noted that even the shah had honored the holiday’s ban on violence.

“What has happened to this religious system that it orders the killing of innocent people during the holy day of Ashura?” Mr. Karroubi said in a statement, according to the Jaras Web site.

Mr. Karroubi, a fierce critic of the government, was attacked Sunday by plainclothes security officers, and other attackers later smashed the front windshield of his car, the Sahamnews Web site reported.

Government supporters blamed opposition members for the violence and called for their prosecution. The Revolutionary Guards issued a statement calling violence by the protesters a “horrible insult to Ashura” and called for “firm punishment of those behind this obvious insult,” the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

Large groups of police officers stood guard in several central Tehran squares on Monday morning, witnesses said. At least three subway stations were closed, apparently to prevent any further gatherings.

Still, there were reports of continuing scattered protests on Monday in Tehran’s Haft-e-Tir square and other areas, Jaras reported.

The police fired tear gas to disperse a group of mourners who gathered outside the Tehran hospital where the body of Mr. Moussavi’s nephew, Ali Moussavi, had been held, the Nowrooz Web site reported. A prominent opposition figure with ties to the Moussavi family said Ali Moussavi had been killed by assassins.

Family members said Mr. Moussavi’s body disappeared from the hospital overnight, and on Monday IRNA reported that his body and four others were being held while investigations were carried out.

A 27-year-old journalist who was reporting on the street clashes on Sunday was reported missing. The reporter, Redha al-Basha, who was working for Dubai TV, has not been heard from, according to a statement issued by Dubai TV. Mr. Basha was last seen surrounded by security forces in Tehran, witnesses said.

The group Human Rights Activists in Iran said that the 1,100 people arrested in Tehran were being held in Evin Prison, the Gooya Web site reported.

Among those arrested in Isfahan was the son of a senior cleric, Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri. Ayatollah Taheri is the former Isfahan representative of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his son Muhammad is married to the granddaughter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran’s 1979 revolution.

Ayatollah Taheri tried last week to lead a memorial service for the dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who died Dec. 20. The arrest of his son was viewed as an effort by the authorities to pressure the ayatollah.

Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Toronto, and Peter Baker from Honolulu.

Emerging Markets Keep Soaring Past Their Doubters

By HEATHER TIMMONS

Published: December 29, 2009

NEW DELHI — This was a lost decade for the American stock market. But for much of developing world, it was the Roaring ’00s — a period of soaring markets and breakneck investment that left even some bulls wondering if the good times can last.

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Rajanish Kakade/Associated Press

Onlookers reacted to the stock display at the Bombay Stock Exchange building last May, when the market rallied following the decisive victory of the Congress Party.

While the broad American market lost about a fifth of its value in the last 10 years, emerging markets like Brazil, Russia, China and India powered ahead with gains in the double or even triple digits.

The numbers are staggering. On the Ukraine’s PFTS Stock Exchange — a Wild East of investing that did not even exist until 1997 — shares soared more than 1,350 percent over the last decade. In Peru, stocks jumped more than 660 percent. Here in India, the Sensex index leaped more than 240 percent.

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To believers, those heady gains underscore profound shifts taking place in the global economy, where investment dollars, euros and yen whiz across borders and time zones with the stroke of a computer key. As many Americans wait for an economic recovery, money is pouring into the fast-growing economies of Asia and Latin America, as well as into oil-rich Russia and the former Soviet bloc.

“What we’re living through now is something of epic proportions,” said Allan Conway, the head of emerging markets equities at Schroders, the big money management company in London. He likened the economic rise of nations like Brazil, Russia, India and China — the so-called BRIC countries — to that of postwar Japan.

Amid all this euphoria, even some longtime bulls wonder if investors are getting a bit carried away. Emerging markets have a history of giddy booms and crushing busts dating back to the 19th century. They collapsed spectacularly in 1997, as a chain reaction of currency devaluations, bankruptcies and recessions rocked East Asia. In 1998, the Russian market plunged more than 80 percent after the country defaulted on its debts.

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More recently, emerging markets tanked with the rest of the world in 2008, after shell-shocked money managers pulled cash from anywhere that seemed risky. But they were a bright spot in 2009 — the MSCI Emerging Markets index increased 73 percent in 2009, compared with a 25 percent jump in the S.& P. 500 index.

Despite 2009’s gains, few predict a major setback today. Since the 1998 debacle, some developing countries have cleaned up their acts, balancing their budgets and improving their trade balances. As their economies grow, domestic investors have become big supporters of these countries’ stock markets. With interest rates low around the world, companies based in emerging markets, like their counterparts in the developed world, enjoy access to cheap money. High commodities prices have buoyed stock and bond markets in nations that are big exporters of commodities.

But the recent travails of Dubai, where a debt-driven bubble economy is now bursting, provide a powerful reminder that in up-and-coming economies, what goes up can come down — and fast. That these markets have gained so much, so quickly — with some white-knuckled drops along the way — gives some investment professionals pause.

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Mark Mobius, one of the deans of emerging market investing, said that while developing markets still have room to run, the first half of 2010 could be bumpy.

“We continue to see upside, but with substantial corrections along the way, which could be as much as 20 percent,” said Mr. Mobius, the executive chairman of Franklin Templeton Investments, which is based in San Mateo, Calif.

Some market specialists worry that asset bubbles akin to the one that inflated and burst in the American housing market might be growing in places like China and Hong Kong. Others fret over the risks posed by volatile commodities prices, as well as over the inevitable end of this period of ultralow interest rates.

Leon Goldfeld, the chief investment officer for HSBC Global Asset Management in Hong Kong, told reporters this month that HSBC had cut its exposure to Asian equities, anticipating a 10 percent to 15 percent decline in early 2010. After that, Mr. Goldfeld said, Asian stocks would represent a “good buying opportunity.”

As long-term investments go, emerging markets seem to have a lot going for them. On average, developing countries have less sovereign, corporate and household debt than developed countries. Their economies are also growing faster than industrialized ones. Merrill Lynch predicts that emerging market economies will grow 6.3 percent next year, while the global economy expands by 4.4 percent.

Emerging markets are eclipsing their developed peers in other ways as well. Imports to the BRIC nations are likely to surpass imports to the United States for the first time ever in 2009, according to Morgan Stanley.

For the moment, the developing world is the engine of global growth. Emerging markets accounted for virtually all of the year’s growth in global output, because developed economies shrank or were flat. Even if developed countries recover completely in 2010, emerging economies will account for 70 to 75 percent of the growth in global output “for the foreseeable future,” said Mr. Conway of Schroders.

Developing nations are also assuming a bigger role in the world economy. Morgan Stanley predicts that developing countries, including those in the Middle East, will account for 36 percent of total global gross domestic product in 2010, up from 21 percent in 1999.

All of this is a big lure to investors. Funds focused on equities in emerging markets attracted a record $75.4 billion this year, far surpassing their previous high of $54 billion in 2007, according to EPFR Global, which tracks fund flows.

Even after that influx, emerging markets still account for only a small fraction of investment portfolios in United States and Europe, the world’s money management centers. Less than 3 percent of assets managed by United States fund managers are invested in emerging markets. That number could double in the next five years, some investment experts say.

Even normally conservative investors might be tempted to jump into emerging markets, given the sluggish outlook in the United States and Europe. After a dismal decade for the American stock market, markets in the developing countries might seem attractive.

“Investors are starting to look at this asset class and realize that it is a pretty safe place,” said Kevin Daly, who manages $1.7 billion in emerging market debt at Aberdeen Asset Management.

Despite their volatile history, emerging markets strike some money managers as relatively secure places to invest. Of course, such hopes have been dashed before.

This holiday season, Web sales are retailers' biggest gift

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By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 29, 2009; A11

Consumers spent a little more than anticipated during the holiday season, according to a report out on Monday, and a significant e-tail threshold may have been crossed on Christmas Day at Amazon, the online bookseller.

For the first time ever, online sales of e-books on Christmas Day exceeded sales of physical books at Amazon, the company said on Monday.

Overall, retail spending from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24 rose 3.6 percent compared with the corresponding period last year, according to MasterCard's SpendingPulse survey, which tracks all retail spending, including cash transactions.

The increase was partly attributable to one extra shopping day in 2009. Even removing that day, retail spending still beat last year's performance, when recession-dampened sales slumped 2.3 percent compared with the 2007 period.

This year's results also bested expectations, which forecast a 1 percent slump in holiday spending across November and December, compared with last year's historically bad results.

"While up is good, it wasn't going to take much" to beat 2008 holiday spending, said Miller Tabak equity strategist Peter Boockvar. "Things are better but still sluggish, and consumers are still fervently looking for sales."

Boockvar pointed to reports Monday of people returning gifts in exchange for cash to buy necessities as "a sign that the labor market and people's pocketbooks are still very uncertain."

According to government data, consumer spending makes up about 70 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. The biggest jump in 2009 holiday retail spending happened online, where purchases rose 15.5 percent compared with last year, the survey said. They now account for about 10 percent of all retail sales.

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Contributing to the online surge were electronic book purchases from Amazon, meant for use on the company's Kindle reading device.

Amazon, however, does not release sales figures on Kindle sales, nor on e-books sold on Christmas Day.

Using built-in wireless technology and an electronic display, the Kindle lets users download digitized books, blogs, magazines and newspapers in almost any location and read them on the device's six-inch screen immediately.

Amazon introduced the Kindle in 2007. The peak in e-book purchases on Christmas Day indicates that a number of Kindles were given as Christmas presents and were used to buy books that day. In a release, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos called the Kindle, which sells for $259, the "most-gifted item ever in our history."

On a wider scale, the uptick in holiday spending came from electronics, jewelry and footwear, which combined to make up more than 16 percent of all sales, MasterCard said.

Sales at department stores dipped 2.3 percent, MasterCard said.

MasterCard's online sales report was backed up by data from comScore on Monday, showing that November online spending rose 10 percent measured against November last year. This year, consumers geared up for the holidays buying $12.3 billion worth of goods over the Internet.

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On 2009's "Cyber Monday" -- the first business day after the Thanksgiving weekend, when a surge in online sales is typically expected -- spending rose 5 percent, with half of all sales coming from work computers, comScore said.

But on Black Friday -- the day after Thanksgiving, which is thought of as a big, brick-and-mortar retail spending day -- online spending actually rose 11 percent compared with November 2008, comScore said.

Online sales hit a one-day high of $913 million on Dec. 15, comScore reported, the first time they have topped the $900 million mark.

Monday's positive retail news pushed stocks modestly higher. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.26 percent to close at 10,547.08. The broader Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 0.12 percent to close at 1127.78 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index climbed 0.24 percent, reaching 2291.08.

With three days left in the trading year -- and decade -- the Dow is up 20 percent, the S&P 500 is up 25 percent and the Nasdaq is up 45 percent year-to-date.

U.S. concerned about new Japanese premier Hatoyama

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By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 29, 2009; A08

While most of the federal government was shut down by a snowstorm last week, there was one person in particular whom Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called in through the cold: Japanese Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki.

Once he arrived, Clinton told him in blunt, if diplomatic, terms that the United States remains adamant about moving a Marine base from one part of Okinawa to another. That she felt compelled to call the unusual meeting highlights what some U.S. and Asian officials say is an alarming turn in relations with Japan since Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama led an opposition party to victory in August elections, ending an almost uninterrupted five decades of rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.

Since the election, a series of canceled dinners, diplomatic demarches, and publicly and privately broken promises from the new government has vexed senior White House officials, causing new concern about the U.S. friendship with its closest Asian ally. The worry extends beyond U.S. officials to other leaders in Southeast Asia, who are nervous about anything that lessens the U.S. security role in the region.

A pledge of assertiveness

At the center of concern are Hatoyama and his Democratic Party of Japan. Hatoyama had campaigned on promises he would be more assertive than previous Japanese leaders in dealings with the United States. He and his coalition partners opposed parts of a $26 billion agreement between the two nations to move the Marine base to a less-populated part of Okinawa and to transfer 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam.

The United States has seen the moves as central to a new Asian security policy to assure Japan's defense and to counter the rise of China. But Hatoyama and his allies saw the agreement as the United States dictating terms, and wanted the base removed.

Increasingly, U.S. officials view Hatoyama as a mercurial leader. In interviews, the officials said he has twice urged President Obama to trust him on the base issue and promised to resolve it before year's end -- once during a meeting between the two in Tokyo last month and another in a letter he wrote Obama after the White House had privately expressed concerns about the Japanese leader's intentions.

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On Dec. 17, Hatoyama officially informed the Obama administration that he would not make a decision about the air base by the end of the year. He told Clinton the news in conversation at a dinner in Copenhagen at the conclusion of the United Nations climate-change summit.

After the dinner, Hatoyama told Japanese reporters that he had obtained Clinton's "full understanding" about Tokyo's need to delay. But that apparently was not the case. To make sure Japan understood that the U.S. position has not changed, Clinton called in the Japanese ambassador during last week's storm, apparently having some impact.

"This is a thing that rarely occurs, and I think we should take this [Clinton's action] into account," the ambassador told reporters as he left the State Department.

Hatoyama's moves have befuddled analysts in Washington. So far, most still think he and his party remain committed to the security relationship with the United States.

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They explain his behavior as that of a politician who is not accustomed to power, who needs to pay attention to his coalition partners -- one of which, the Social Democratic Party of Japan, is against any U.S. military presence in the country. They note that Hatoyama has put money aside for the base-relocation plan in Japan's budget and that other senior members of his party have told their U.S. counterparts they will honor the deal.

Shifting policy?

But some U.S. and Asian officials increasingly worry that Hatoyama and others in his party may be considering a significant policy shift -- away from the United States and toward a more independent foreign policy.

They point to recent events as a possible warnings: Hatoyama's call for an East Asian Community with China and South Korea, excluding the United States; the unusually warm welcome given to Xi Junping, China's vice president, on his trip to Japan this month, which included an audience with the emperor; and the friendly reception given to Saeed Jalili, the Iranian national security council secretary, during his visit to Japan last week.

Michael Green, senior director for Asia at the National Security Council during the Bush administration, said the concern is that senior officials in Hatoyama's party with great influence, such as Ichiro Ozawa, want to push Japan toward closer ties with China and less reliance on the United States. That would complicate the U.S. position not just in Japan but in South Korea and elsewhere.

"I think there are questions about what kind of role Ozawa is playing," Green said, adding that Ozawa has not been to the United States in a decade, has yet to meet the U.S. ambassador to Japan, John Roos, and only grudgingly met Clinton during an earlier trip to Japan.

"The prevailing view is that this is basically a populist, inexperienced government sorting out its foreign policy," he said, "but now there is a 10 to 20 percent chance that this is something more problematic."

U.S. allies in Singapore, Australia, South Korea and the Philippines -- and Vietnamese officials as well -- have all viewed the tussle between Washington and Tokyo with alarm, according to several senior Asian diplomats.

The reason, one diplomat said, is that the U.S.-Japan relationship is not simply an alliance that obligates the United States to defend Japan, but the foundation of a broader U.S. security commitment to all of Asia. As China rises, none of the countries in Asia wants the U.S. position weakened by problems with Japan.

Another senior Asian diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid, noted that recent public opinion polls show Hatoyama's approval rating slipping below 50 percent, while Obama remains popular.

"Let's hope Hatoyama gets the message that this is not the way to handle the United States," he said.