Surveillance

The modest junior hockey arena in this small eastern Washington agricultural hub is an ideal gathering place for local families. It's also a crucial front in the Department of Homeland Security's war against suicide bombers. During the tests of crowd surveillance technology, an array of surveillance cameras, infrared cameras, and millimeter-wave radar is used to scan fans of the Western Hockey League's Tri-City Americans, who play at the town's 6,000-seat Toyota Center.

Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to sentence former Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano to nearly 16 years in prison for 78 convictions that include wiretapping, racketeering and wire fraud. The U.S. attorney's office filed court documents Thursday stating that Pellicano deserved a lengthy sentence because the convictions represent only a fraction of his criminal conduct. The 64-year-old investigator, who was known for his high-profile clients, earned millions of dollars through use of illegal means to perform his job, prosecutors said.

A judge has ordered the Justice Department to produce White House memos that provide the legal basis for the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 warrantless wiretapping program. U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. signed an order Friday requiring the department to produce the memos by the White House legal counsel's office by Nov. 17.

After months of debate, Germany's lower house of Parliament passed anti-terrorism legislation granting federal police the capacity to spy on computer use and wiretap conversations. Those powers have been held only by Germany's foreign intelligence service. The measure is expected to easily pass the upper house and take effect before the end of the year. The bill has been sharply criticized as infringing on the privacy rights guaranteed by the constitution. Members of the opposition Free Democratic Party have said they will challenge it in the constitutional court.

State fish and game wardens have arrested four scuba divers on suspicion of stealing lobsters from commercial traps off the coast of Laguna Beach. Department of Fish and Game Warden Patrick Foy said a patrol boat led two all-night surveillance operations over the weekend. Foy said one of the four men took 11 3/4 pounds of lobster from commercial traps, worth more than $120 on the market. He said the man could be charged with a felony. During the nighttime surveillance operation, the boat's crew also rescued a man from drowning and arrested his friend on suspicion of having illegally harvested scallops.

In their cocoons of leather upholstery, soothing high-tech sound systems and automatically activated personal seat settings, drivers have come to regard their car interiors as mobile extensions of the homes that are their private refuges. The courts have tended to disagree.

A federal judge who earlier rejected Bush administration claims that it was exempt from laws governing domestic surveillance was asked Tuesday to strike down an act of Congress that grants retroactive immunity for illegal wiretapping. In a separate challenge of presidential power over national security affairs, lawyers for the now-defunct Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation asked the same judge in San Francisco to allow them to sue for illegal monitoring by the National Security Agency. U.S.

To friends in the protest movement, Lucy was an eager 20-something who attended their events and sent encouraging e-mails to support their causes. Only one thing seemed strange. "At one demonstration, I remember her showing up with a laptop computer and typing away," said Mike Stark, who helped lead the anti-death-penalty march in Baltimore that day. "We all thought that was odd." Not really.

The Pentagon has been requesting information from financial institutions and telecommunications companies to investigate people within the United States suspected of spying or terrorism, the Defense Department said Saturday. The little-known practice could raise questions on Capitol Hill about the military conducting domestic investigations, which are traditionally reserved for the FBI. The American Civil Liberties Union said Saturday that the Pentagon activity raised concerns.

The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal court Friday to unseal secret documents filed by the Bush administration in support of its warrantless domestic surveillance program. The administration announced last week that it was suspending the electronic surveillance program and says the ACLU case challenging its constitutionality should therefore be dismissed. It has filed some of its arguments under seal, preventing the ACLU from seeing them.