The Washington Post 20100403

A2

Politics & The Nation

In Race to the Top, it helps to wear the union label .............................A3 Group mails demand that governors quit .............................................A3 Army Corps of Engineers unit tightens contract standards ................A3

The World

Hostilities intensify between Gaza, Israel .............................................A5 Obama hopeful of broad support for further U.N. sanctions on Iran.A5 Karzai clarifies remarks in phone call to Clinton .................................A6 Iraqi Shiite cleric’s backers could pose problems for Maliki ...............A6 One Moscow suicide bomber was widow of Islamist rebel leader ....A12

Foreign Digest

Pakistan’s attorney general quits amid graft dispute .........................A5

Economy & Business

New program to help homeowners with short sales ............................A7 What should Tim Geithner say to Indian officials during his two-day trip? ..........................................................................A7 Steelmakers, dependent on iron ore, seek mining industry probe.....A8

Business Digest

U.S. easing rules for foreclosure program............................................A7

Market summary......................................................................................A8

Opinion

Editorial: Race to the Top sends mixed messages ..............................A10 Editorial: Presidents shouldn’t have to make recess appointments.A10 Editorial: A judge rightly upholds the District’s gun laws.................A10 Colbert I. King: Another city failure in the Southeast killings............A11 Ruth Marcus: No one is happy with President Obama.......................A11

Michael O’ Hanlon and Hassina Sherjan: The United States

needs to stop lecturing Hamid Karzai ..................................................A11

on washingtonpost.com

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CORRECTIONS

 A March 28 Page One article about a reform school in Pakistan incorrectly said that the school is in the Swat Valley. The school is near the Swat Valley. The article also misstated the number of stu- dents at the school. It is 86, not 84.

A March 27 A-section article about doctors’ reactions to the health-care legislation mis- spelled the last name of one of the physicians quoted, Arthur Kel- lermann, a Rand Corp. research- er previously affiliated with Emo- ry University School of Medicine and Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.

 An opera listing in the March 19 Weekend section misspelled the first name of “Master Class” playwright Terrence McNally.

 The Value Added column on the March 15 Washington Busi- ness page, about Todd Hahn, a Washington area commercial musician, misspelled the name of Denison University. The column also referred to MIDI (musical in- strument digital interface) as software. MIDI is an industry

corrections@washpost.com.

standard protocol that is used with compatible software.

A March 7 A-section article about Romel Joseph, a Haitian violinist who was injured in the January earthquake, said that af- ter graduating from college, Jo- seph studied piano tuning at Tan- glewood, which the article said is the home of the Boston Sympho- ny Orchestra. Tanglewood, in Lenox, Mass., is the orchestra’s summer home. Its home is Sym- phony Hall in Boston.

 A Jan. 9 Economy & Business article about a lawsuit filed by Kentucky Fried Chicken franchi- sees against the chain’s parent company, Yum Brands, which challenges a recent emphasis in KFC advertising on the new grilled chicken, incorrectly iden- tified Jim Cocolin as second vice president of the Association of Kentucky Fried Chicken Franchi- sees. Cocolin, a franchise owner who was quoted as saying that fried chicken makes up 80 per- cent of his business, resigned from the position shortly before he was interviewed for the arti- cle.

The Washington Post is committed to correcting errors that appear in the newspaper. Those interested in contacting the paper for that purpose can:

Call 202-334-6000, and ask to be connected to the desk involved — National,

ombudsman@washpost.com.

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SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 2010

Cautious praise for travel screening change

Groups applaud less

emphasis on nationality, but want more specifics

by Spencer S. Hsu

Lawmakers, civil liberties groups and security experts cau- tiously praised the Obama ad- ministration’s decision to aban- don using nationality alone as a basis for deciding which U.S.- bound international air travelers to subject to additional screen- ing, but they warned that too lit- tle is known to conclude that the revised policy will be effective and not discriminatory. Homeland Security Secretary

Janet Napolitano announced Fri- day that the Transportation Secu- rity Administration will select passengers for extra screening based on matches with intelli- gence, including physical de- scriptions or travel patterns. Sen- ior administration officials, speaking on the condition of ano- nymity, had described the new policy a day earlier. The new rules, to take effect this month, replace a policy that singled out U.S.-bound passen- gers from or traveling through 14 countries for secondary searches, including pat-downs and added baggage checks. That policy was hastily imposed after an attempt-

ed Christmas Day bombing of a transatlantic jetliner over De- troit. “These new measures utilize real-time, threat-based intelli- gence along with multiple, ran- dom layers of security, both seen and unseen, to more effectively mitigate evolving terrorist threats,” Napolitano said. The move was hailed as a sig-

nificant first step by groups often critical of U.S. security practices, including American Muslim or- ganizations, the American Civil Liberties Union, airline and trav- el industries. Some of these groups had warned that the 14- country rule would lead to racial profiling and delays in the busy summer travel season. But the same groups noted

that Obama aides have provided virtually no public information about who would carry out the new screening procedures, which are classified, or precisely how information about travelers would be used. “We’d hate to see a system

that’s overtly discriminates re- placed by a system that covertly discriminates,” said Michael Ger- man, national security policy counsel with the ACLU Washing- ton Legislative Office and a for- mer FBI agent. “That’s why in- creased transparency into what’s actually happening is necessary.” Susan Collins (Maine), ranking Republican on the Senate home-

land security committee, called the change “a more effective se- curity strategy.” But she added: “Intelligence-based targeting sys- tems are only as effective as the intelligence they are based upon.” In addition to passengers from

or traveling through countries listed as state sponsors of terror- ism — Cuba, Syria, Iran and Su- dan — the initial policy required extra scrutiny for people from Af- ghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Lib- ya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen. The failure of U.S. officials to

stop Christmas Day bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmu- tallab from boarding Northwest Airlines Flight 253, where he al- legedly tried to ignite explosives hidden in his underwear, ex- posed gaps in the government’s ability to identify potential threats.

Abdulmutallab was listed in a master U.S. intelligence database of 550,000 suspected terrorists or associates. Officials have said, however, that even if all clues about him had been connected, it still would have been a judgment call whether to place him on much smaller watch lists of those barred from flying or selected for added screening, which include about 25,000 people. Rather than simply adding names to watch lists, the new screening system will seek to

match intelligence about threats against a wealth of passenger data to determine who should be subjecting to extra searches. U.S. Customs and Border Pro-

tection officers already use such an approach in selecting interna- tional travelers for added ques- tioning once they land at U.S. air- ports. Those agents tap several government databases and use an automated risk assessment system based on factors such as a passenger’s age, travel history, country of origin and informa- tion gleaned from intelligence sources or past investigations. In fact, CBP officials flagged Ab- dulmutallab for scrutiny while he was in flight — too late, it turned out. It is unclear whether under the

new program the TSA will simply use similar procedures to screen U.S.-bound international air trav- elers before they depart from for- eign airports, or whether the agency will go beyond existing domestic practices. Based on privacy and civil lib-

erties concerns, Congress has closely tracked two initiatives, TSA’s Secure Flight screening program and CBP’s Automated Targeting System. Congress has limited controversial practices such as engaging in predictive “data mining” — or sifting through databases to search for potential security threats.

hsus@washpost.com

Apparently, there was no short answer on health care

by Anne E. Kornblut

charlotte — Even by Presi- dent Obama’s loquacious stan- dards, an answer he gave here on health care Friday was a doozy. Toward the end of a question- and-answer session with workers at an advanced battery technol- ogy manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a “wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care” package. “We are overtaxed as it is,” Dor- is said bluntly. Obama started out feisty.

“Well, let’s talk about that, be- cause this is an area where there’s been just a whole lot of misinformation, and I’m going to have to work hard over the next several months to clean up a lot of the misapprehensions that people have,” the president said. He then spent the next 17 min- utes and 12 seconds lulling the crowd into a daze. His discursive answer — more than 2,500 words long — wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congres- sional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA cover- age, the Recovery Act and Feder- al Medical Assistance Percentag- es (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, “F- Map”). He talked about the no- tion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He in- voked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in flu- ent Washington lingo, as “FICA”).

President Obama, reflected in a teleprompter during a visit to Charlotte, took more than 17 minutes to respond to a question on health care. Then he

apologized — twice — for his longwinded reply.

KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS

Always fond of lists, Obama

ticked off his approach to health care — twice. “Number one is that we are the only — we have been, up until last week, the only advanced country that allows 50 million of its citizens to not have any health insurance,” he said. A few minutes later he got to

the next point, which seemed aw- fully similar to the first. “Number two, you don’t know who might end up being in that situation,” he said, then carried on explain- ing further still. “Point number three is that the

way insurance companies have been operating, even if you’ve got health insurance, you don’t al- ways know what you got, because what has been increasingly the

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practice is that if you’re not lucky enough to work for a big com- pany that is a big pool, that es- sentially is almost a self-insurer, then what’s happening is, is you’re going out on the market- place, you may be buying insur- ance, you think you’re covered, but then when you get sick they decide to drop the insurance right when you need it,” Obama continued, winding on with the answer. Halfway through, an audience member on the riser yawned. But Obama wasn’t finished. He had a “final point,” before start- ing again with another list — of three points. “What we said is, number one,

we’ll have the basic principle that everybody gets coverage,” he said, before launching into the next two points, for a grand total of seven. His wandering approach

might not matter if Obama we- ren’t being billed as the chief salesman of the health-care over- haul. Public opinion on the bill remains divided, and Democratic officials are planning to send Obama into the country to con- vince wary citizens that it will work for them in the long run. It was not evident that he

changed any minds at Friday’s event. The audience sat politely, but people in the back of the room began to wander off. Even Obama seemed to recog- nize that he had gone on too long. He apologized — in keeping with the spirit of the moment, not once, but twice. “Boy, that was a long answer. I’m sorry,” he said, drawing nervous laughter that sounded somewhat like re- lief as he wrapped up.

But, he said: “I hope I an- swered your question.”

kornbluta@washpost.com

2nd woman charged in ‘JihadJane’ case

Federal prosecutors filed ter- rorism charges Friday against a second American woman in the “JihadJane” case, accusing the pair of plotting online to attend a terrorist training camp. Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, was arrested in Philadelphia on Fri- day after arriving from Ireland. Last month, authorities in Ire- land detained Paulin-Ramirez, originally from Colorado, and six others while investigating an al- leged plot to kill a Swedish car-

toonist whose drawing had of- fended many Muslims. The suspects were linked to Colleen LaRose, a Pennsylvania woman who was arrested last fall. The new indictment charges that LaRose, 46, and Paulin-Ra- mirez separately traveled to Eu- rope to support violent jihad. Prosecutors alleged that La- Rose called herself “JihadJane” in Internet conversations. She has pleaded not guilty in the case.

— Associated Press Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9 | Page 10 | Page 11 | Page 12 | Page 13 | Page 14 | Page 15 | Page 16 | Page 17 | Page 18 | Page 19 | Page 20 | Page 21 | Page 22 | Page 23 | Page 24 | Page 25 | Page 26 | Page 27 | Page 28 | Page 29 | Page 30 | Page 31 | Page 32 | Page 33 | Page 34 | Page 35 | Page 36