Operation Bright Eyes

Bright House Networks is launching a new neighborhood watch initiative Thursday.

Operation Bright Eyes is designed to maximize the eyes and ears of Bright House Networks field service representatives and other employees to easily identify suspicious behavior and to quickly report criminal activities to police.

Bright House says each of its 3,000 employees, including hundreds who regularly drive through and become familiar with residents and activities in neighborhoods, will receive crime-watch training designed by Central Florida Crimeline. Employees will also be equipped with a comprehensive list of emergency numbers to call. Current and new employees will receive the training. “Were committing our people, including hundreds of folks intimately familiar with the routes they drive, to helping law enforcement keep our neighborhoods safe. This is all about using the resources already at our disposal to do the right thing for our community,” said J. Christian Fenger, president of Bright House Networks Central Florida division in a written release.

Bright House Networks is the 6th largest multiple cable system operator in the United States with 2.4 million customers in several large cities including Tampa Bay and Orlando, Florida; Bakersfield, California; Indianapolis, Indiana; Detroit, Michigan; and Birmingham, Alabama; along with several other smaller regions in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. (7.22.2009) http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/money/072209operation_bright_eyes

Terror watch uses local eyes 181 TRAINED IN COLO.

Privacy advocates worry that officers' snooping will entangle innocent people.

Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as "Terrorism Liaison Officers" in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for "suspicious activity" — and are reporting their findings into secret government databases.

It's a tactic intended to feed better data into terrorism early-warning systems and uncover intelligence that could help fight anti-U.S. forces. But the vague nature of the TLOs' mission, and their focus on reporting both legal and illegal activity, has generated objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians.

"Suspicious activity" is broadly defined in TLO training as behavior that could lead to terrorism: taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements or notes, espousing extremist beliefs or conversing in code, according to a draft Department of Justice/Major Cities Chiefs Association document.

All this is anathema to opponents of domestic surveillance.

Yet U.S. intelligence and homeland security officials say they support the widening use of TLOs — state-run under federal agreements — as part of a necessary integrated network for preventing attacks.

"We're simply providing information on crime-related issues or suspicious circumstances," said Denver police Lt. Tony Lopez, commander of Denver's intelligence unit and one of 181 individual TLOs deployed across Colorado.

"We don't snoop into private citizens' lives. We aren't living in a communist state."

Local watchdogs

Among recent activities the Colorado contingent detailed:

• Thefts of copper that could be used in bomb-making.

• Civilians impersonating police officers and stopping vehicles — of particular concern with the pending Democratic National Convention in Denver.

• Graffiti showing a man holding an AK-47 rifle.

• Men filming the Dillon dam that holds Denver's water.

• Overheard threats.

• Widespread thefts of up to 20 propane gas tanks.

Future terrorism "is going to be noticed earliest at the most local level," said Robert Riegle, director of state and local programs for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Washington.

Civil liberties watchdogs warn of unprecedented new threats to privacy.

"The problem is, you're drafting individuals whose job isn't law enforcement to spy on ordinary Americans and report their activities to the government," said John Verdi, director of the open-government project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

In Colorado, TLOs report not only illegal but legal activity, such as bulk purchases along Colorado's Front Range of up to 150 disposable cellphones. TLO supervisors said these bulk buys were suspicious because similar phones are used as remote detonators for bombs overseas and can be re-sold to fund terrorism.

Taking photos or videos can be deemed suspicious because "surveillance is a precursor to terrorist activity," said Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Steve Garcia, an analyst in Colorado's intelligence fusion center south of Denver, which handles TLO-supplied information.

Colorado, California and Arizona are among the first to deploy TLOs after establishing robust state-run fusion centers, which initially relied on tips from private citizens. Federal security agents now sit in 25 of those centers, including Colorado's.

Florida, Illinois, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C., also have deployed TLOs, and authorities in dozens of states are preparing to do so, said Norm Beasley, a retired Arizona trooper who has popularized the practice.

181 in Colorado

In Colorado, TLO training began last year, with FBI assistance. A three-day seminar presented material on how to recognize and stop suicide bombers and included discussion of civil liberties.

State officials declined to release the course syllabus or say specifically how far TLOs are allowed to go in search of information without a warrant.

The 181 TLOs in Colorado were deployed without any announcement over the past year and are posted widely from Durango in the mountains to metro Denver to La Junta on the eastern prairie.

"The thing that's surprising is how much stuff is out there," said Denver West Metro Fire Capt. Mike Kirkpatrick, who declined to specify observations he has submitted, saying some led to investigations.

National intelligence chiefs who coordinate the CIA and 15 other agencies launched an initiative this month to define "suspicious activity" for TLOs and develop a process for handling TLO information so that basic freedoms and privacy are protected, said John Cohen, information-sharing spokesman in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Training is crucial "because what we don't want is just people documenting innocent activities. We don't want police officers focusing on people because of their ethnicity and religion," Cohen said.

"What we're advocating for is developing a standardized process that can be put in place across the country so that frontline police officers (and others) are trained to recognize behaviors associated with certain activities related to terrorism," he said.

Major city police chiefs are participating.

"You can't profile. So you have to have behavior-based indicators of criminal activity where it's terrorism or activity that supports terrorism," said Tom Frazier, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

Civil libertarians questioned why firefighters, paramedics and corporate employees — such as Xcel Energy and railroad officials in Colorado — are drafted into the effort. They say public trust in emergency responders will suffer.

The emerging TLO system "empowers the police officer to poke his nose into your business when you're doing absolutely nothing wrong. It moves the police officer away from his core function, to enforce the law, into being an intelligence officer gathering information about people," said Mike German, a 16-year FBI agent now advising the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Where are we going to draw the line?" (The Denver Post, 6.29.2008, Bruce Finley, Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com) http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_9725077

Indy to enlist citizens in terrorist watch program

A store clerk’s curiosity about why Najibullah Zazi was buying large quantities of beauty supply products is an example of the kind of vigilance that can combat terrorism, a police commander said Saturday.

Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Joan McNamara cited this summer’s incident as police chiefs meeting in Denver adopted a model for a nationwide community watch program that teaches people what behavior is truly suspicious and encourages them to report it to police.

Michael Spears, chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, attended the meeting and discussed implementing the program in Indianapolis, where it would be called “Indy Watch,” said department spokesman Lt. Jeffrey Duhamell. It’s not clear when the program will begin because much of the planning is in the beginning stages, Duhamell added.

Federal authorities allege Zazi, 24, tried to make an explosive using ingredients from beauty supplies purchased at Denver-area stores. He has been jailed in New York on charges of conspiracy to detonate a weapon of mass destruction in a plot that may have targeted New York City. Zazi has denied the charges.

Zazi reportedly told an inquisitive clerk he needed a large amount of cosmetic chemicals because he had lots of girlfriends. Although his purchases weren’t reported to authorities because suppliers often buy large quantities, the police chiefs hope a coordinated publicity effort will make people think differently about such encounters.

Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, who developed the iWatch program with McNamara, called it the 21st century version of Neighborhood Watch.

iWatch would have provided an easy way for that Colorado store clerk and others to report suspicious activity so police could have launched investigations earlier, McNamara said.

“That clerk had a gut instinct that something wasn’t right,” she said.

Using brochures, public service announcements and meetings with community groups, iWatch is designed to deliver concrete advice on how the public can follow the oft-repeated post-Sept. 11 recommendation, “If you see something, say something.”

Program materials list nine types of suspicious behavior that should compel people to call police — and 12 kinds of places to look for it.

The program also is designed to ease reporting by providing a toll-free number and Web page the public can use to alert authorities.

“It’s really just commonsense types of things,” Bratton said, adding that his department is providing technical assistance to other agencies that want to adopt the program.

But American Civil Liberties Union policy counsel Mike German, a former FBI agent who worked on terrorism cases, said the indicators are all relatively common behaviors. He suspects people will fall back on personal biases and stereotypes of what a terrorist looks like when deciding to report someone to the police.

“That just plays into the negative elements of society and doesn’t really help the situation.”

An Indiana Civil Liberties Union official agreed.

Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, said he was concerned about whether participants in the program would be adequately trained.

He said he feared a focus on preconceived notions of what a terrorist suspect is supposed to look like and “not on what an intelligence person who is highly trained would view as a terrorist suspect.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration proposed enlisting postal carriers, gas and electric company workers, telephone repair people and other workers with access to private homes in a program to report suspicious behavior to the FBI. Privacy advocates condemned this as too intrusive, and the plan was dropped.

Bratton and McNamara said privacy and civil liberties protections are built into this program.

“We’re not asking people to spy on their neighbors,” McNamara said.

If someone reports something based on race or ethnicity, the police will not accept the report, and someone will explain to the caller why that is not an indicator of suspicious behavior, McNamara said.

The iWatch program isn’t the first to list possible indicators of suspicious behavior. Some cities, such as Miami, have offered a public list of seven signs of possible terrorism. Federal agencies also have put out various lists.

Other efforts encourage the public and law enforcement to report such signs through dozens of state-run centers across the country. One such center, the Colorado Information Analysis Center, has a form on its Web site to report suspicious activity.

Bratton hopes the iWatch program becomes as successful and as well known as the Smokey Bear campaign to prevent wildfires.

“There he is with his Smokey the Bear hat. Similarly here, we hope that this program, even though it’s in its birthing stages right now, in a few years will become that well known to the American public. (Indy.com, 10.04.2009) http://www.indy.com/posts/indy-to-enlist-citizens-in-terrorist-watch-program

On the Net:

Major chiefs: http://www.majorcitieschiefs.org

Los Angeles Police Department: http://www.lapdonline.org

Los Angeles iWatch Web site: http://www.iWatchLA.org

Police chiefs endorse anti-terror community watch

DENVER – A store clerk's curiosity about why Najibullah Zazi was buying large quantities of beauty supply products indicated that something about the transaction wasn't quite right — and it's an example of the kind of citizen vigilance that can combat terror, a police commander said Saturday.

Los Angeles police Cmdr. Joan McNamara cited this summer's incident as police chiefs meeting in Denver adopted a model for a nationwide community watch program that teaches people what behavior is truly suspicious and encourages them to report it to police.

Federal authorities allege Zazi, 24, tried to make a homemade explosive using ingredients from beauty supplies purchased at Denver-area stores. He has been jailed in New York on charges of conspiracy to detonate a weapon of mass destruction in a plot that may have targeted New York City. Zazi has denied the charges.

Zazi reportedly told an inquisitive clerk he needed a large amount of cosmetic chemicals because he had "lots of girlfriends." While his purchases weren't reported to authorities because suppliers often buy large quantities, the police chiefs hope a coordinated publicity effort will make people think differently about such encounters.

Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton, who developed the iWatch program with McNamara, called it the 21st century version of Neighborhood Watch.

The Major Cities Chiefs Association, headed by Bratton and composed of the chiefs of the 63 largest police departments in the U.S. and Canada, endorsed iWatch at the group's conference Saturday.

iWatch would have provided an easy way for that Colorado store clerk and others to report suspicious activity so police could launch investigations earlier, McNamara said.

"That clerk had a gut instinct that something wasn't right," she said.

Program materials list nine types of suspicious behavior that should compel people to call police, and 12 kinds of places to look for it. Among the indicators:

_If you smell chemicals or other fumes.

_If you see someone wearing clothes that are too big and too heavy for the season.

_If you see strangers asking about building security.

_If you see someone purchasing supplies or equipment that could be used to make bombs.

The important places to watch include government buildings, mass gatherings, schools and public transportation.

The program also is designed to ease reporting by providing a toll-free number and Web page the public can use to alert authorities. Los Angeles put up its Web site this weekend.

"It's really just commonsense types of things," Bratton said, adding that his department is providing technical assistance to other agencies that want to adopt the program.

"That just plays into the negative elements of society and doesn't really help the situation," German said.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration proposed enlisting postal carriers, gas and electric company workers, telephone repairmen and other workers with access to private homes in a program to report suspicious behavior to the FBI. Privacy advocates condemned this as too intrusive, and the plan was dropped.

Bratton and McNamara said privacy and civil liberties protections are built into this program.

"We're not asking people to spy on their neighbors," McNamara said.

The iWatch program isn't the first to list possible indicators of suspicious behavior. Some cities, like Miami, have offered a public list of seven signs of possible terrorism. Federal agencies also have put out various lists.

Other efforts encourage the public and law enforcement to report such signs through dozens of state-run "fusion centers" across the country. One such center, the Colorado Information Analysis Center, has a form on its Web site to report suspicious activity.

Bratton hopes the iWatch program becomes as successful and as well known as the Smokey Bear campaign to prevent wildfires.

"There he is with his Smokey the Bear hat, similarly here, we hope that this program, even though it's in its birthing stages right now, in a few years will become that well known to the American public."

Associated Press Writer Eileen Sullivan reported from Washington, D.C. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091003/ap_on_re_us/us_community_watch_terror;_ylt=AhC5aVIxyDVdd29hpTU8jhxBXYh4;_ylu=X3oDMTJzdWZ2NW8xBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMDAzL3VzX2NvbW11bml0eV93YXRjaF90ZXJyb3IEY3BvcwMxBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDYmlncG9saWNlZGVw

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